George Orwell's classic anti-communist parody Animal Farm, the original version of which remains banned on the mainland, is showing as a play in Beijing.
The director, a 30-year-old China Central Drama Academy graduate, said his production was not aimed at communism, but at people's willingness to ignore the differences between a society's rights and wrongs.
He said China's Ministry of Culture gave permission for the production to take place.
'It's not to say Marx was wrong,' said Shang Chengjun. 'What I want to tell people is, don't be lazy thinkers. If you see something wrong by your side, go and oppose it directly.'
The two-hour play is showing six days a week at Beijing's China Central Drama Academy until December 19.
Over the first three days, 1,800 people attended, said promoter Han Jia, the director's wife. The audience watched animals overthrow their human owner, take over the farm in the name of socialist equality and gradually let their porcine leaders twist the farm into a pig-dominated totalitarian state.
On Saturday night most of the audience was in their early 20s. They laughed at comic moments, such as the hen chanting repetitions of 'an egg today is a chicken tomorrow', but left quietly at the end. Mr Shang said few people understood the drama because they had not read the book.
