When we get something, we lose something. Very often, people consciously or unconsciously sacrifice something they have in order to win something they do not have.

Four young performers interpret the truth through a three-act play New York Kite which is running at the small theater of Beijing People's Art Theater until August 6.

The play focuses on the story of Wang Bo, an ambitious young man who shows great interest in making movies and aims to win an Oscar.

By chance, he meets a famous Hollywood director and they hit it off as they talk about movies. Soon afterwards, they sign a contract to produce a movie. As Wang is looking forward to the success of the movie as well as the rise of his career, the Hollywood director dies in a car accident. Wang's dream crashes and he loses all the funds.

At the crossroad of his life, two women suggest two very different ways to proceed. Tingting, Wang's girl friend of seven years, wishes to marry him and live a normal life together, while Jenna, his English teacher who also loves Wang, encourages him to further his study of film in New York.

Wang chooses New York where he suffers culture shock and failure after failure before finally establishing himself as a successful director. To Tingting, Wang has been a kite without thread lost in the United States. She has to marry another man. Yet, Jenna still stays in China to wait for his return.

Written by Miu Kejin, who just graduated from Central Academy of Drama this summer, the story is somehow a cliche and not dramatic enough to really catch the audience.

The first act of the 100-minute play moves along very slowly.

It takes about 50 minutes to portray the development of Wang's ambition, his meeting with the director and the crash of his dream while Wang's failure and successes in Hollywood are shown quite simply. The curtain closes with an open-ended conclusion, leaving the audience wondering what will happen between Wang and Jenna.

Hou Kai, who plays Wang in the leading role, could not match the three actresses. Obviously nervous in the first act, he stumbled on quite a few lines.

Compared with Hou, the three actresses Chen Qiao, who played the soft and sweet Tingting, Emily Spear, who played the kind and wise Jenna and Cao Zhen, who played the snobbish Hollywood producer Lisa all did well.

Spear did especially well, considering she is a Beijing-born American girl who speaks very fluent Chinese.

The 18-year-old Spear, who is applying to the oil painting department of Tsinghua Fine Arts College, discovered the play needed a foreign actress on the Internet only two weeks ago. With some experience on two Chinese TV series and perfect oral Chinese, she passed the audition easily.

"At the beginning, they said I was too young for the role of Jenna, who is supposed to be 25 in the play. Thanks to the skill of the stylist Liu Min, I turn out as mature as the English teacher Jenna," Spear said.

"I enjoy the days rehearsing the play and like the role I play. Jenna is a nice American woman who loves Wang, loves China and knows Chinese culture well."

(China Daily July 27, 2006)