Russian masterpiece gets a Mandarin translation

IN recent months, multiple-award-winning theatre director Nelson Chia has been picking up discarded objects off the streets - broken window panes, damaged furniture, empty wine bottles - and incorporating them into the set of his upcoming play The Lower Depths.

"My actors refer to me as the karang guni man," Chia says with amusement.

For three years now, Chia has been taking some of the greatest works of Western literature and translating them into Mandarin. His productions of Edward Albee's Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?, Reginald Rose's Twelve Angry Men and Yasmina Reza's Art garnered raves from critics and audiences alike, not to mention awards.