Twenty-five years ago, every time local stage actor Zhang Xianheng finished a performance as Billy Brown, the protagonist of American playwright Eugene O'Neill's The Great God Brown, he would always sink wearily into his chair backstage for at least half an hour, smoking a few cigarettes alone. 

"I had to ease up and recover from the character since I felt so tired both physically and mentally after playing him," Zhang told the Global Times.

A stage photo of the 1988 production of The Great God Brown

Every night for the past week, Shen Lei has had to do likewise playing the eponymous role in a local production of The Great God Brown currently showing at Xinguang Little Theater on Ningbo Road until September 14. Zhang is now serving as director.

"It really does make me feel exhausted, but at the same time, I have to say, I also get a kick out of performing it," Shen said.

The Great God Brown was published in 1926, a decade before O'Neill was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. The play, which is noted for its use of masks, follows two men, Billy Brown, a mediocre architect, and Dion Anthony, a talented but failed artist, who grew up together as the sons of business partners.

They both fall in love with the same woman, Margaret, who marries Dion because she falls for the cynical mask he hides behind. After Dion's death, Billy pretends to be Dion, using his mask to hide his identity. However, when the matter is nearly brought to light, Brown, who is on the verge of insanity, is accused of killing his "real" self. Only Cybel, a prostitute who knew both Brown and Dion well, recognizes the truth.

Zhang told the Global Times that in 1988, the local theater community in Shanghai held a festival to commemorate the centennial anniversary of O'Neill's birth. And as the opening play, the Shanghai Youth Drama Troupe, a major theater troupe which has since merged with the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre, decided to stage a Chinese version of The Great God Brown.

"Before this, we had produced O'Neill's Beyond the Horizon and Mourning Becomes Electra, but never The Great God Brown. That was the first time," Zhang, who was 52 at the time, recalled.

"In this play, the four main characters all wear masks on stage in order to show their dual personalities when they are facing different people. But Brown is the most complicated since he has to play two people," Zhang said.

Shen adds, "In fact, before and after Dion's death, Brown himself also changes a lot and has to play multiple personalities when he is pretending to be both Brown and Dion."

A stage photo of and a poster for the 2013 production of The Great God Brown Photos: Courtesy of Zhang Yu

Shen explained that as a businessman, Brown secured his personal gain flagrantly, even making use of Dion's talents for his own interests. And when a frustrated Dion turns to the prostitute Cybel for comfort, Brown makes every attempt to buy Cybel over and asks her not to be friends with Dion.

"However, at the very beginning, Brown conceals his envy of Dion all the time, even pretending to be very willing to help Dion when Margaret comes to visit him," Shen said, "until the moment when Dion is dying, Brown's inner hypocrisy is exposed in front of Dion. Therefore, when he starts to pretend to be Dion, he has become another 'Brown' also."

Zhang summarizes his perspective on the role as going from "to occupy crazily" to "become crazy after occupying."

Brown has a classic line near the end of the play: "Man is born broken. He lives by mending. The grace of God is glue!" Zhang told us that in the 1988 production, the director asked him to jump on a long bench, which he put in the middle of the stage, and then deliver the line.

"To be honest, the bench looked a little awkward there and I couldn't understand the director's intention at first," Zhang said.

"But thinking more carefully, since Brown is slightly out of his mind by then, such behavior is actually logical and reasonable."

In both Zhang and Shen's opinions, the character's complexity and contradictions reflect human beings' original sin and human nature itself.

"As Dion remembers it, Brown's original sin actually started as early as childhood," Shen told the Global Times.

In the play, Dion recalls an event from their boyhood. When Dion drew a picture in the sand that the 4-year-old Brown can't draw, Brown hit Dion on the head with a stick, destroyed his picture and laughed when Dion cried.

"It wasn't what he'd done that made me cry, but him! I had loved and trusted him and suddenly the good God was disproved in his person and the evil and injustice of Man was born!" Dion says in the play.

"And unlike Brown, for Dion, his inner struggle mainly focuses on himself and society, because of his unrecognized talents," Shen said.

In the 1920s, The Great God Brown was generally regarded as a reflection of the various faces of American people under the background of the highly prosperous American economy at the time. However, both Zhang and Shen believe that the reason why a classic becomes classic is its ability to fit any place and any time. "People like Brown and Dion can be found everywhere, including in today's China," Shen said.