Back in the heady days of the 1920s and 30s, Shanghai was commonly referred to as mo du or "the city of temptation."

At the same time in the West, the term "Shanghaied" was gaining popular currency, meaning somebody who had been duped into doing something against their will. (The term originates from the illegal coercion of men onto ships as sailors, many of which were headed for Shanghai).

"And we even have the term 'Shanghaied,' in Danish as well," Anders Nyborg told the Global Times. Nyborg is a playwright and the director of No Domain, a theater troupe based in Odense, Denmark.

Inevitable engagement

And for a new stage adaptation of The Seducer's Diary, (a novella by the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard and which is contained within his collection, Either/Or) Nyborg has chosen Shanghai as the background for the production.

According to Nyborg, The Seducer's Diary is a version of a typical "Shanghaied" story. Johannes, the leading man and seducer of the title, makes every attempt to befriend the family of his sweetheart Cordelia, and eventually asks her to marry him. However, it is Johannes who then breaks off the inevitable engagement after less than a year.

Nyborg has transplanted the action to 1930s Shanghai a place that was also widely known as "sin city" at the time because of its so-called licentiousness.

Nyborg told the Global Times that, "As well as Shanghai, the other two 'sin cities' at that time in the world were Berlin and Paris. We chose Shanghai because we thought it provided a context that was the most suited to the original story."

The director said that after he researched the history of Shanghai at the time, he came to the conclusion that many people in the city, whether they were locals or foreigners, were faced with an "either/or choice" as to whether to continue to stay in such a hard-living environment where extreme poverty uneasily co-existed alongside conspicuous excess. "The choice for them was 'either I get out of here now and do something with my life,' or 'I stay and try to survive and get the most fun out of it.' And this is the dilemma facing Johannes in my production."

Besides the new location, Nyborg has also added a musical element to the production in the form of London band, The Tiger Lillies.

"Staging this as conventional theater would be hard for me to deal with, because Kierkegaard was a great philosopher and there have been many intellectuals who have tried to rip him apart in research and debates," said Nyborg. "It's not my aim to speculate as to what Kierkegaard really thought or what he meant by the play. And I think music offers a great advantage in that it avoids the endless monotony of spoken words. Music has a direct way to reveal emotions and to create a certain atmosphere."

Since getting together in 1989, the members of The Tiger Lillies have steadily developed their "cabaret" style of music. Cabaret is a form of entertainment popularized in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s and which combines elements of music, comedy, song, dance, and drama. The usual performance venues for cabarets have traditionally been restaurants, bars and nightclubs.

Cabarets also became popular on the stages of nightclubs in Shanghai at roughly the same time.

Musical qualities

Martyn Jacques, founder of The Tiger Lillies, and who also composed all the music for The Seducer's Diary told the Global Times that he regards Kierkegaard as a philosopher who is "dry, playful, contradictory, guilt ridden and ambiguous." "It is quite easy to get these qualities going in songs, and therefore I think a musical is a good medium for expressing his work," said Jacques.

"And as the story is set in 1930s Shanghai, we also have film excerpts from the time, as well as sound effects of bombs going off. We also refer to the famous Russian cabaret singer Alexander Vertinsk, who performed in Shanghai during these years."

It is commonly believed that The Seducer's Diary is a semi-autobiographical account of Kierkegaard himself, who had a similar relationship with a woman called Regine Olsen.

"He was also inspired by Mozart's opera, 'Don Giovanni,'" added Nyborg. "We know he had a complicated relationship with Regine and I believe that Kierkegaard felt the character of Johannes could express what was in the philosopher's mind. He used his own experiences as a starting point. I think he liked the character."

Nyborg's The Seducer's Diary will be premiered at the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre (SDAC) from February 21 to March 3. The performers are from both Nyborg's theater troupe and the SDAC's stock company.