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"LONDON \u2014 At a theatre here, the characters and elements of a serendipitous meeting came together: A play about a dissident Chinese artist starring a British-born Chinese man and reviewed by an American whose father defected from a repressive communist nation. Could there be a more fortuitous night? Oh, yes, I got lost on the way to the show.\nHoward Brenton's #aiww: The Arrest of Ai Weiwei debuted here Thursday, with the hashtag title an homage to Twitter's significance for the Chinese artist who uses the platform and his 200,000 followers to promote digital rights and avoid censorship from the Great Wall of communism. Mr. Ai uses social media as a tool for political dissent, challenging the state's control with acts like publishing the names of 5,335\u00A0student victims who died in the magnitude\u00A07.9 Sichuan earthquake\u00A0in 2008 (which he attributes to the collapse of poorly built government housing).\nFearing the use of the web to\u00A0mix art and politics, China closed down Ai's popular blog in 2009. But they couldn't stop him from tweeting. Twitter is where Ai soared. So high, in fact, that the government feared his ability to use social to spread censored news and incite and organize people in a nation of anti-expression. He was imprisoned for 81 days and placed under house arrest in 2011. Two years later, after a book and a film made him the face of digital freedom, the play's hashtag #aiww is both a title and a symbolic vehicle to connect live online dialogue about the artist and the issues trending about him.\nHowever, my own attendance of the show was looking less and less promising, already running 20 minutes late.\u00A0It wasn't an oppressive regime I battled, but my own lack of knowledge of my surroundings, in an unfamiliar city with little more than pocket change. I was on foot, in the rain, in front of the wrong theatre \u2014 at the Hempstead when I should have been at the Hampstead. I caught the 46 bus, thinking how much time I spent emailing Ai's art studio, the phone calls and the work to gain their trust. I got off, stumbling into the venue well past 8 p.m. when the show started. I'd have to wait until intermission to enter the theatre. As I waited, I watched a white-haired drunk harass the staff and get escorted away by a bored security guard. I thought about how this situation would be handled in China, before realizing none of this could be happening in China.\nThe doors to the show opened after what seemed like a lifetime. No pictures, ushers said. But in the never sorry spirit\u00A0of Ai, I snapped what I could as the actors took the stage, overhearing audience members mention the wobbly set that almost fell apart in the first half. Online, the play's #aiww tag was full of glowing comments. I wondered if Ai was monitoring the stream almost 4,000 miles away.\n\nThe start of the second half showed Benedict Wong, who played Ai, already imprisoned and at the mercy of Chinese guards, chained to a chair, facing constant interrogation, forced to ask permission to use the bathroom.\n\nThey berated him with inane questions about his crimes of using art and the web, notions that sound ridiculous to anyone who's grown up in the freedom of the West. I myself am the son of a\u00A0writer\u00A0who fled Communist Romania to practice his art in the freedom of America. Censorship is a notion I understand better than most, and I identified with the play's theme.\n\"Why?\" they kept asking, prodding him.\n\"What I care about is creating a new condition for art,\" Wong as Ai declared, rationalizing his behavior as a means to challenge the status quo and incite change. \"A classical view of art is limited.\"\nEventually, the Ai character's 81 days of incarceration takes as much toll on his captors as him. The two young soldiers\u00A0goose-stepping\u00A0around the stage crack under the pressure and open up, declaring: \"I'm as much a prisoner as you!\"\n\"What's your crime?\" the foot soldiers ask honestly.\n\"Art.\"\n\"Is art bad?\"\n\"Very often,\" he deadpans.\nLike theatrical waves, the heavy Chinese baddies come in to spell the lackeys, and a heated back and forth ensues over why Ai printed the names of the\u00A0Sichuan earthquake victims. He yells: \"It's the 'net, why shouldn't I write what I want?\"\nThe nonstop interrogation (more state party doublespeak and verbal torture) pushes Ai to the brink. The man is nearly broken. After yelling in defiance, justifying why he printed images like his \u201CStudy in Perspective\u201D series of middle fingers pointed at state monuments and an upskirt shot of his wife in Tianamen Square, he's physically and emotionally spent. They call him a pornographer. He responds he's an artist.\u00A0At wits end, his jailers tease him. It can all end if you confess.\n\"Confess to what?\"\nThe next scene shows members of the Communist party debating his fate while listening to the very unparty like Mozart. They decide not to jail him because of EU pressure and fears of inciting a Jasmine Revolution. \"Practice soft power, comrade,\" they say, slapping Ai with hefty legal fees and trumped-up tax charges. Ironically, they fear his image behind bars will do more for his cause of freedom and are fearful of inciting the people to buck the status quo.\nAi submits to the constant pressure and signs a confession that he indeed made art. Just like that, he's freed. Surprised, and battered, he returns home with nothing, facing a heavy fine and little money to pay it. Back home, Ai picks up a Han-era vase, a symbol of China. He remarks how beautiful it is, holding it, cradling it. Then in vintage Ai defiance, he drops the vase, smashing it into pieces. He's not broken. The lights go low, the performance is over.\nThe audience claps loudly, and judging by comments overheard in person and online, the premiere was well received. The show was based on\u00A0Barnaby Martin's\u00A0book Hanging Man: The Arrest of Ai Weiwei, which includes the\u00A0author's Beijing talks with\u00A0Ai after his release. I met Martin at the bar after the show. After mentioning Mashable's digital reach, Martin tells me how happy he is for the coverage, calling the play mesmerizing. I asked him if he would tweet about the show, but, surprisingly, he says he doesn't have a Twitter account.\u00A0After debating the merits of self-promotion online, Martin tells me I've won him over and gives me a signed copy of his book. Then he introduced me to Wong, who played the title character.\n\nBorn in the UK to Chinese parents, Wong has never been to his homeland, but in talking with him it was clear that he was both proud and torn up about its corruption and oppression  Then, in very British fashion, he compared the problem to opposing fans of soccer clubs, but paused and changed course, answering, to my mind, in a very Eastern tone: \"There's only a few rotten branches on the tree.\"\nWong poses next to an image of the real Ai Weiwei.\nIn a few weeks, the play will be freely livestreamed online for the world to see \u2014 another feather in the cap for the dissident, another jab at the communist dragon. As I departed the theatre, I smiled. And I was sure thousands of miles away, Ai was smiling, too.\nLead image via CRISTINA QUICLER/AFP/Getty Images; Images by Adam Popescu"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2013/04/12/arrest-of-ai-weiwei/>