二人转
èrrénzhuàn · 'two people turning': Northeast China's song-and-dance stage art, two performers who sing, banter and spin handkerchiefs
Errenzhuan is the folk stage art of Northeast China: a man and a woman sing, joke and dance through a story, twirling handkerchiefs and fans. It can be bawdy and it can be heartbreaking; its tragic arias, such as Fan Zhonghua Bids His Mother Farewell, are famous weepers. In Small Town Remedy a performance in an errenzhuan theatre is what finally lets Liu Zhengliang cry for his mother.
Where it comes up
Small Town Remedy: How a Town Takes a Man Back
A boy sent south at eight comes home in his thirties to a Northeastern town he no longer knows. Small Town Remedy is less about whom its doctor cures than about how the town refuses to leave him alone, and about the actor who says he had never wanted a role this much.