Shanghai Farce is a traditional comic performance style that has left audiences in east China belly laughing for generations. Now, the theatergoers are in Beijing, but the laughter is just as loud.  A newly created farcical play titled "A Fu's Arrival in Shanghai" was staged at Beijing's Nationality Theatre last weekend.

Still of "A Fu's Arrival in Shanghai" [CCTV.com]

Set in the 1940's, the Shanghai farce play tells about A Fu, a female communist, who was appointed to travel to Shanghai to buy medicine for the New Fourth Army. Her job proved dangerous as Shanghai was under Japanese control. A Fu had to use all her wits and courage to overcome the enemy and fulfill her duty.

This play features the first cooperation between farce performers and Shanghai Opera artists. Lead actor Wang Rugang was a national inheritor of Shanghai Farce.

Wang Rugang, Shanghai Farce artist, said, "The basic skills a farce actor should master include story telling, speaking various dialects and singing different folk songs. An assortment of folk art has been merged into Shanghai Farce."

Shanghai Farce took shape in the 1930s. It evolved from local monodrama that extensively absorbed features from other regional operas and western comedies. The satirical lyrics and overacting that characterizes Shanghai Farce keeps audiences rolling in the aisles.

(CCTV.com August 11, 2009)