A man practises tai chi in front of a statue of Karl Marx, left, and Frederick Engels, right, the founders of communism, on Dec. 6, 2006, in Shanghai, China. Chinese producers plan to bring a musical version of Das Kapital, Marx’s Communist treatise, to stage in 2010. (Eugene Hoshiko/Associated Press)

Chinese theatre producers are working to bring a dancing musical version of Das Kapital, the anti-capitalist tract by Karl Marx, to the stage.

Director He Nian says he will forge elements from Las Vegas stage shows, Broadway musicals and animation to create an interesting yet educational play on Marx's economic theories, which were first published in 1867.

The director plans to have a live band on stage as actors sing and dance as well as speak their lines.

He will also be basing the adaptation on a version of Marx's treatise from a bestselling manga — a term used to describe Japanese comics and print cartoons.

He Nian, who is being supported by the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre, said he will stay close to Marx's teachings

"Marx's theories cannot be distorted," he emphasized in an interview with Wen Hui Bao newspaper, published Monday.

To make sure that the production is close to the real thing, Zhang Jun, an economics professor at Shanghai's Fudan University, has been hired as a consultant.

The plot will be set in a company where workers realize their boss is exploiting them. The realization splits the workers, some of whom continue to toil as before while others rebel or employ collective bargaining.

The musical is set to launch in 2010 in Beijing.

While Marx's theories have been used as an underlying philosophy behind stories such as Oliver! by Charles Dickens and Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, Das Kapital is rarely seen as a work to be adapted so literally.

Three years ago, a German theatre troupe tried it — while also giving out a copies of Volume 23 of the Collected Works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels at their performances — but critics lambasted the production as boring.