茶館 TEA HOUSE（中英對照）

Set in an old teahouse in Beijing, the play is one of Lao She’s finest works, sketching a panorama of Chinese history and culture during the transformative period from tradition to modernity. Teahouse spans fifty years of Chinese history, from the collapse of the Qing dynasty and the Republican Revolution to the birth of the People’s Republic, weaving together the tales of over sixty characters from various walks of life. Noted for its vibrant characters and lively use of the Beijing dialect, perhaps the work’s most enduring value lies in Lao She’s vision of history, prophetic in terms of later political movements and their disastrous impact on the Chinese people. Teahouse is a rare masterpiece of contemporary Chinese theatre that has been performed through-out Japan, Europe, and North America, and translated into numerous foreign languages.

《茶館》是老舍戲劇藝術的典型代表。該劇以北京一座老茶館為背景，全景地展現了從傳統到現代的轉型期內，中國的歷史和文化的變遷。《茶館》一劇跨越中國現代史五十年之久，從清王朝的垮台到國民革命再到中華人民共和國的誕生；戲中塑造了六十多個人物形象，代表了社會動盪時期的芸芸眾生。該劇以生動的人物塑造和活潑的北京方言見稱，但最重要的仍是老舍的歷史視野──他在該劇中預見了後來的政治運動以及這些運動給老百姓帶來的災難。《茶館》是中國現代戲劇史上罕見的傑作，曾在日本、歐洲和北美上演，並被譯成多種外國文字。

老舍（1899-1966），中國現代著名文學大家，以幽默和諷刺見知於世。譯者霍華是加拿大人，《中國日報》的編輯。導讀作者譚國根為香港中文大學英文系教授。