China CITIC Bank International brings you "The Top Restaurant"

The many tastes of life served up in a veritable feast
Playwright-Director-Actor Dream Team: He Jiping, Roy Szeto and Tse Kwan Ho
Reviving a classic that chronicles the rise and fall of a century-old dining establishment
 China CITIC Bank International brings you The Top Restaurant

 
【HKRep】Throughout a century, Beijing’s renowned Fujude restaurant has been lauded for its roast ducks, exemplary of the perfect combination of colour, fragrance and succulence. The family business was built step by step through hard work, moving from a street stall to an indoor restaurant, later into a new building, bearing witness to generations of dedication. Yet keeping the restaurant competitive has not been easy, as the people involved are embroiled in petty fights and internal strife. With the changing times, who can take the hold of destiny? Written by former HKRep Resident Playwright He Jiping, this 1988 play won the Ministry of Culture’s Wenhua Prize and Cao Yu Theatre Award and is now a treasured repertory in the Beijing People’s Art Theatre, having appeared on stage nearly 600 times, proving itself a contemporary classic for the ages. In 2022, tickets for the 10 performances of the HKRep Cantonese adaptation of this Beijing-flavoured classic were all sold out; soon after, it garnered Best Director, Best Leading Actor and Best Supporting Actor at the Chinese Theatre Awards. For this production run, Roy Szeto again applies his signature modern approach, reuniting with former HKRep principal and Golden Horse “Best Leading Actor” Tse Kwan Ho to join Yu Hon Ting, Chris Sun, Mercy Wong, Chow Chi Fai, Lau Shau Ching, Eddy Au Yeung, Chan Wing Cheun, Ko Hon Man and Poon Tai Ming, among others. This production begins its China tour in December, gracing the stages in Shenzhen, Foshan, Suzhou, Beijing and Shanghai, with Hong Kong as its final stop. The Top Restaurant will be presented at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre Grand Theatre from 18^th to 26^th January, 2025. Tickets are available now from URBTIX outlets.
 
The Top Restaurant: After the owner Fujude—the most renowned duck restaurant in Beijing—retires from ill-health, his two lacklustre sons run the business to the ground. In comes Lu Mengshi who turns the establishment around. When the brothers witness the rising tide, they vow to fight Lu in regaining their rightful share!
 
Playwright He Jiping shares her creative concept: “In this play you can witness how people relish food and wine, you can learn about kitchen secrets in the making of Peking duck and other delicacies, and how a century-old restaurant is managed, as well as how people strive to succeed and build a career. It is also an elegy on life and how people challenge fate. I don’t intend for the audience to see anything specific, but I look forward to what they discover in the process. For this new Cantonese production revival, I’ve added an extra scene focussing on Luoying and Lu Mengshi, hoping the audience will find resonance.” 
 
To Director Roy Szeto, “on the surface this play is about a family, with all of the plot points centering on how the Fujude restaurant faces change. Digging deeper, the audience will find a much larger world beyond Fujude’s doors, with the restaurant’s affairs reflecting the passing of time. As a Hong Kong director interpreting an epic tale about a Peking duck restaurant in the nation’s capital, I already see colliding cultures. Adding a southern twist to northern taste, we present all that’s bitter and sweet in life, along with joy, sorrow, anger and hope that is our humanity.”
 
About Playwright He Jiping
He Jiping is a graduate of the Central Academy of Drama’s Department of Theatrology. Her play The Top Restaurant has been praised as a classic of contemporary realism, having appeared on stage for nearly 600 performances and toured more than a dozen countries in Europe, America and Southeast Asia and regions. The Top Restaurant, along with Teahouse and Thunderstorm, are widely recognised as iconic plays of the Beijing People’s Art Theatre.
 
As Resident Playwright of the HKRep, He Jiping wrote such works as Deling and Cixi, Secret of Resurrection, We Are One Family and Grand Opening of a Medical Clinic. She also penned A Red Boat in Misty Rain (Emperor Group Production) and the musical Sweet & Sour Hong Kong combining the performing forces of the HKRep, Hong Kong Dance Company and the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra. 
 
Among He’s film screenplays are New Dragon Gate, The Great Conqueror’s Concubine, Huang Feihong, The Warlords, The Flying Swords of Dragon Gate, Our Time Will Come, Hidden Man and Mao Zedong 1949. Her television screenplays include Bai Suzhen, Hong Kong Story, Floral Princess, Chor Lau-Heung, The Feng Shui Master, The Top Restaurant and The Cowherd and the Weaver. She has also written Dawn at the Forbidden City and Youthful Bloom for the China National Peking Opera Company.
 
He Jiping’s scripts have been published in several volumes. She also adapted her own celebrated play The Top Restaurant into a novel. Her works have been included in such collections as Chinese Contemporary Literary Works and 100 Best Plays. The Top Restaurant was selected as part of the Chinese language curriculum of the Ministry of Education. Deling and Cixi is among supplementary materials for the Ministry of Education and is part of Hong Kong’s secondary school theatre curriculum. 
 
He Jiping’s numerous accolades include the inaugural Wenhua Literary Prize, the Central Academy of Drama’s inaugural Academic Prize in Literature, the Cao Yu Award, the Beijing Municipal Excellent Play Award and the October Literary Prize. She was the top winner in the All-China TV Drama Popularity Chart, recipient of the Beijing City Excellent TV Drama Award, “Golden Lion” Best Playwright and Best Original Play as well as the Beijing City Literary Art Award. She was nominated for Best Script at the Hong Kong Film Awards and the Taiwan Golden Horse Awards; she has won Best Script at the Hong Kong Critics Association and Hong Kong Drama Awards, along with Most Popular Production from the latter. The Ministry of Culture and Tourism bestowed upon her an Excellent Playwright award, and she won the Excellent Play Award at 12th Chinese Drama Festival. Among her other honours are Best Script at the Shanghai One Drama Awards, 2019 Best Playwright for China-Taiwan-Hong Kong-Macao, 2020 Huading Award for Top Ten TV Scriptwriters and 2020 Hong Kong-Macao Best Script Award. She is a six-time winner at the 2021 Chinese Theatre Awards, including Best Script and Best Production. He Jiping was named a Model Worker by the Beijing municipal government, Outstanding Female “Six Arts” Artist by the Hong Kong Federation of Women and Phoenix TV’s Outstanding Figure in Chinese Culture.
 
He Jiping serves as advisor to the China Theatre Association, member of the China Writers Association and national committee member of the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles. She is an honorary playwright of the Beijing People’s Art Theatre, doctoral advisor, honorary director of the China Overseas Friendship Association, consultant and examiner at the Hong Kong Arts Development Council, member of the Hong Kong Screenwriters’ Guild, final jury member of the Beijing International Film Festival and a member of the professional jury of the Hong Kong Film Awards and member of the Friends of Hong Kong Association.
 
About Director Roy Szeto
Roy Szeto received an MFA in Directing from the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts’ School of Drama in 1990 and joined Tsui Hark’s Film Workshop, later working in television. He has also founded companies in the fields of animation and film production. Between 2006 and 2012, Szeto served as the HKRep’s Resident Director. His creative experience and contributions in film and television production make him one of the most versatile directors on Hong Kong’s dramatic stage. He had also held the positions of Associate Professor and Head of Directing at the HKAPA’s School of Drama. To date, he has participated in numerous popular large-scale productions, among them Snow Wolf Lake, The Legend, Freemen Show 2, War of the Genders and Deling and Cixi. He has directed more than 100 productions, most recently Proof (2022), his 101^st production The Top Restaurant (2022) and Skylight (2023). In 2024, Journey to the West—which he helmed at the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre—won Best New Play at the 8^th Chinese Theatre Awards; he also directed the HKAPA’s A Journey of Sanshiro (2024), inspired by Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo.
 
Many of Szeto’s HKRep productions have been selected among the Hong Kong Drama Awards’ Top Ten Popular Productions. He was nominated Best Director nine times, winning in that category for Le Dieu du carnage (Comedy/Farce) (2010), Shed Skin (Comedy/Farce) (2012), the latter was made into a film in 2017 with original music by Leon Ko. In 2014, Szeto won Best Director (Tragedy/Drama) for The Emperor, his Mom, a Eunuch and a Man. In the past decade, Szeto’s work received much international attention. In 2016, he directed Twelfth Night (HKAPA), which won two awards—Best Ensemble Acting (Fusion) Award and Audience Award—at the Istropolitana International Drama Schools’ Festival in Bratislava. In 2017, Hu Xueyan, my Dear garnered four Hong Kong Drama Awards, also winning Best Director at the Shanghai Jing’an Modern Drama Valley One Drama Awards. In 2019, the new version of Hu Xueyan, my Dear won six awards at the 2^nd Chinese Theatre Awards, among them Best Director and Best Production. Szeto was also named Director of the Year at the IATC(HK) Critics Awards. In 2021, his mainland China production of Deling and Cixi won him Best Director at both the 4^th Chinese Theatre Awards and the inaugural International Theatre Academy Award (Directing Award). In 2023, The Top Restaurant won him Best Director at the 7^th Chinese Theatre Awards, his third win in that illustrious category.

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