Imprisoned for three years in China, Australian Cheng Lei says she now feels like she’s being silenced again.
When Australian journalist Cheng Lei learnt that Melbourne’s Rising Festival had dropped her play about her wrongful imprisonment in China from its program, it felt unnervingly familiar.
Three years after she was freed from prison in China, as her show about her ordeal is about to premiere, Lei believes she is being silenced again.
“I feel like I am back in China,” Lei says.
Her show, 1154 Days, is going ahead regardless, opening at Arts House in North Melbourne on May 27.
Lei has accused Rising, Melbourne’s major winter cultural festival, of censorship and is urging its management and board to explain the decision.
She says a risk assessment was raised when the festival first notified her that her show had been removed from its line-up. But the festival has told this masthead that it was removed, along with some other shows, due to budget constraints.
“When they dropped us from Rising, they cited ‘risk and audit’,” Lei says. “I want to see what that looks like. How have you assessed the risk? What are you doing to mitigate the risk?”
In August 2020, the Beijing-based presenter for state-run TV network CGTN was lured to work by the Ministry of State Security. Its officers blindfolded her and drove her to a secret location, where she was detained for 1154 days. She was jailed on spurious espionage charges, cut off from all contact with her family, her two children and her friends – and simply disappeared.
It took years of lobbying by supporters, activists and the Australian government to secure her release.
Her play about her ordeal was pulled from the Rising program in February, The Australian first reported in March.
Commissioned by Arts House, the play is co-created, written and performed by Lei and co-directed by Emma Valente and Clyde White.
On hearing the show would no longer appear at Rising, Lei and Valente sent a letter to festival chair Simon Phemister, arguing the axing was an act of political censorship.
“We receive this cancellation as a form of soft censorship/shadow-banning of Cheng Lei’s story, and the story’s inherent critique of the Chinese government,” their letter reads.
“In the current environment, this revocation is a contribution to an alarming pattern in the arts, where corporatised boards would prefer to not program challenging and political works, rather than defend them.”
Lei was scared to publicise that she had the work in the pipeline, fearful the Chinese consulate would block the project.
“Because I didn’t want the [Chinese] consulate to try to stop it in the background. But I thought, we have Arts House support and we’re going to be in Rising, and Rising being Victoria’s premier arts festival should be a place where many voices are allowed.”
Lei is a journalist for Sky News now and advocates for others who have been wrongly imprisoned. She wants her work to stand on its own. “I feel I’m in a privileged position to tell not just that story, but of other oppression that’s taking place in China,” she says.
“It’s because I have lost almost everything, so I have broken free of that fear.
“China is very good at using punishment to instil fear. But where does this go? Ultimately, if you self-censor and you preemptively censor … then you’re kind of behaving like you’re in China.”
Rising said in a statement to this masthead the decision not to program 1154 Days was made on financial grounds.
“Following a review of the 2026 program against updated budget parameters and agreed KPIs, the Rising board, in consultation with the executive, determined that we could not proceed with a number of co-presentations, including 1154 Days, as part of this year’s festival,” it said. “While unfortunate, budget constraints are something the sector is currently facing more broadly.
“We have great respect for Cheng Lei and the significance of her work, and wish her every success with its continued presentation at Arts House.”
It said there was no separate risk or audit review into Lei’s work specifically, but that the decision was made following a review of the entire program.
Before the show’s premiere at Arts House next week, Lei and Valente are thrilled the independent North Melbourne-based independent theatre company is backing the show. “They didn’t flinch,” says Valente.
Making theatre is mind-blowing, says her collaborator, who has written a memoir about her experiences, Cheng Lei: A Memoir of Freedom. She says there is a power to theatre that reaches people in a way other mediums such as television or books can’t.
Lei is saddened that fewer people will see the show, which is a story in part about the extraordinary resilience she believes we all have.
The show will give people a better understanding of getting through life, she says.
“And if the state government thinks that’s scary or if the Chinese government thinks that’s scary, it’s quite ludicrous.”
For her part, Valente says hearing Lei’s voice and telling her story is vital. “Most Australians are unaware of the unique system of torture (residential surveillance at a designated location, or RSDL) that China has designed to get citizens to systematically confess to crimes they didn’t commit,” Valente says. “Lei was imprisoned in RSDL for around six months, and then a further 2½ years in a detention facility waiting for her sentencing.”
Valente argues Lei’s story is the sort of story we need right now.
“[It] isn’t just the story of a regime with unchecked power against its citizens,” Valente says. “It’s a story of the triumph of generosity, humour, creativity and kindness.
“One of the roles of the artist is to reimagine the world. To invite an audience to imagine transformation and change are possible. To promote hope when hope feels hopeless. This is a vital service. We need our artists right now, desperately. We’re under attack.”
She highlights the courageous creative leaders “who can weave understanding out of the chaos of current events”.
“But financial interests, eroded government funding, corporate style boards and political pressures are quietening these voices and proliferating safe, middle-of-the-road programming.”
1154 Days is at Arts House, North Melbourne Town Hall, from May 27-31. artshouse.com.au
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Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: www.smh.com.au
