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Gecko Theater gives Gogol's The Overcoat new life with a blend of bold physicality, beautiful imagery and evocative music. Richard Haughton / For China Daily

The Gogol play returns for the China Shanghai International Arts Festival, Zhang Kun reports.

The physical theater adaptation of Gogol's The Overcoat is among the most anticipated projects of this year's China Shanghai International Arts Festival (CSIAF).

The play by Britain's Gecko Theater will be staged at the Shanghai Theater Academy on Oct 28 and 29. The Overcoat has won acclaim after its premiere at the 2009 Edingburgh Fringe Festival and its world tour, which brought it to Beijing twice last year.

The China tour's success won critics' praise. Pu Cunxin, an acclaimed actor and vice-director of the Beijing People's Art Theater, says on his Sina Weibo micro blog that it demonstrates "the infinite possibilities of stage expression".

Actress Tang Wei says she hopes to do volunteer work for the play.

Written by Russian author Nicolai Gogol in 1842, The Overcoat tells the story of low-ranking government clerk Akakki's futile struggles in life. Akakki is frequently teased about his old coat and saves for a new jacket. His peers praise him when he gets a new one but trouble comes when it is stolen and he enlists the help of a prominent person to retrieve it.

Gecko Theater's artistic director Amit Lahav reinvents the story through a blend of bold physicality, beautiful imagery and evocative music. Lahav's other creations for Gecko include The Arab and the Jew, Missing and The Race.

Gecko was formed in 2001 by Lahav and Al Nedjari, who say they set out to transform the theater experience and produce works that inspire imagination, awaken senses and fill them with energy and vitality.

"Theater is all about communication between the stage and the audience," Lahav says.

"We are enormously affected by the audience, and the show has been affected by audiences all over the world. It will change and move as it gets infected by the hearts and minds of the Shanghai audience."

He compares the creation of Gecko productions to "making an abstract painting ... You start with a feeling for what the painting might be. As you begin to paint, you realize that you are attracted to different ideas and aspects ... So it starts to change, and you must follow this process, always keeping in mind the original feelings that inspired you in the first place."

He says he was attracted to The Overcoat by the plight faced by Akakki.

"But I needed to find a journey that was meaningful to me and a journey that would challenge me, that connected to my ideas, challenges, passions, fears and desires," he says.

In Lahav's adaptation, Akakki's longing and suffering spins around his passionate love for a colleague named Natalia and the determination to change his position in the world of his office.

The original music combines various styles, including some from China, with creative lighting design to infuse it with color and imagery.

The story has gone through diverse re-interpretations since it was first published. Lahav says he hopes to present different meanings to each audience member. They might perceive the paper flying around the hero as representing wind, moths or flame, and the mysterious tempter of Akakki as Satan, God or whatever being the portrayal appears as in viewers' minds.

"It is important that everyone sees what they need to see for themselves and their lives," Lahav says.

"I never tell the audience what they should see, or what the show should mean."