Fight the Landlord (Do Di Zhu)

CHINA'S economic development and growing middle class make it easy to assume the nation's art forms are able to reflect the country's latest concerns in new shows for their audiences.

But there are few independent theatre companies in China, which makes the contemporary show, Fight the Landlord, which opens at the Arts Centre on Thursday, an unusual experiment.

It is the result of a collaboration between the Beijing Square Moon company and the Irish director, Gavin Quinn, who was in Melbourne last year with the Hamlet adaptation, The Rehearsal, Playing the Dane, produced by his company, Pan Pan Theatre.

He commissioned the writer Sun Yue to write the play after he worked with her on Pan Pan's Beijing production of the Irish classic, Playboy of the Western World, six years ago.

''She is incredibly smart and able to communicate her views about contemporary life,'' he says in a phone call from Dublin. ''She translated Playboy, which was produced with an all-Chinese cast that later toured to Ireland.''

Yue is one of three actors in Fighting the Landlord, named after a popular card game that grew out of the class struggles during the Cultural Revolution.

It premiered at the Irish Pavilion at Shanghai's World Expo in 2010 and later was produced in Beijing and Sichuan's capital, Chengdu.

''The play is telling contemporary stories about such things as the pressures caused by the inflationary property market,'' Quinn says. ''There are not many independent theatre companies in China, although there are very well established acting academies for traditional theatres and musicals.''

He says the play's success demonstrates people are keen for shows reflecting contemporary concerns. This has already been demonstrated by another contemporary show, Rhinoceros in Love, which also travelled to last year's Melbourne Festival.

''China is hurtling forward into extreme capitalism and there is a need for a new language that deals with concerns of today,'' he says. ''We had to send the text to the Ministry of Culture but it did not cause any censorship problems because it is about cultural rather than political issues.''

He says the booming property price has caused suicides among the younger generation locked out of the market by rises of as much as 15 per cent a year. But he describes the play as gentle and humorous, being staged in China with audiences sitting in circles surrounding the performers.

The Fairfax Studio also offers audience members the option of sitting on stage as part of the action, or in the auditorium.

''China is still a mystery to many people and this offers people a chance to get an insight into the country,'' Quinn says. ''Sitting on stage with the performers provides an interesting dynamic that is different and intimate.''

He found it easy to direct the production after the more traumatic experience developing the earlier Playboy production, which took a long time to develop.

''That was a big initial investment but it resulted in several friendships and was a great way to get to know China,'' he says.

He worked with an interpreter in directing Landlord but because he already knew the actors - Yue, Bai Shuo and Wang Jinglei - from the earlier show he quickly forgot the mediator was there.

''We are all from the theatre and we know what's good and what isn't,'' he says. ''We were all concentrating on the common project.''

He is encouraged the show is in Australia, opening at the Darwin Festival before Melbourne. ''It is an interesting experiment because it is not an expensive show but it does provide real insights into the country.''

Fight the Landlord opens at the Fairfax Studio at 7.30pm on Thursday until Saturday.