Drama featuring Chinese anti-opium hero to return to Beijing

A drama featuring Lin Zexu, a Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) official who led the fight against opium smuggling, will be restaged at the Beijing-based National Center for the Performing Arts (NCPA) between Dec 11 and Dec 22.

The play Lin Zexu, co-produced by the NCPA and Guangzhou Drama Art Center, was first staged in 2019 to mark the 180th anniversary of Lin destroying opium at Humen in South China's Guangdong province in 1839.

Lin ordered the destruction of smuggled opium confiscated from British dealers at Humen.

Directed by Wang Xiaodi, the drama looks back at the history and portrays a group of people in the upheavals of a crumbling empire. It features renowned actor Pu Cunxin and actress Xu Fan as Lin and his wife, Zheng Shuqing, respectively.