The Paper's reporter Pan Yu
Chen Peisi and his son Chen Dayu sat side by side, and without saying a few words, they amused a room full of people. But they still have a calm expression, each expressing their thoughts, and occasionally "hating" each other. Everything seems very natural, and there are various comedy routines such as "Chen Peisi Father and Son" in their Douyin short video.
On November 18th, Chen Peisi's latest work of the "Stage Trilogy", "Frightening Dreams", will be staged at the Shanghai Grand Theatre as the opening play of the Shanghai International Comedy Festival. The premiere in Beijing was cancelled due to the epidemic, and four performances in Shanghai became the official premiere of the play. In the brief interval before the performance, the father and son sat side by side and were interviewed by reporters.
This is the first time that father and son have performed a play on the same stage. Although before that, Chen Dayu had followed Chen Peisi on the stage for nearly a decade after returning from studying abroad.
It has been exactly 20 years since the premiere of Chen Peisi's first stage play "Childcare", which he produced and starred in. Chen Peisi has become an indispensable and important figure in the Chinese comedy industry and stage drama field from the well-known Star of the Spring Festival Gala Sketch. But compared with when he first established "Avenue Culture" 20 years ago to devote himself to comedy, Chen Peisi seems to have become more calm and calm. This comedy star who brought joy to many people on the stage is a very serious person offstage, but now, perhaps because he is sitting next to his son, Chen Peisi, who is over sixty years old, always has a smile and gentleness on his face.
After "Childcare", "Relatives and Friends Good Accounting" and "Balcony", the first "Theater Stage" of Chen Peisi's "Theater Trilogy" has previously achieved great success, and this time the second "Frightening Dream", he still invited the screenwriter yu Yu of "Theater Stage" to cooperate, the stage beauty Liu Kedong and the lighting Xing Xin are the top celebrities in the theater industry, and the cast also invited Liu Tianchi, He Yu, Wu Gang and many other powerful drama bones.
This should be the largest production investment of Chen Peisi's "Avenue Culture" since its inception, but compared with the comedy art that chen Peisi has been diligently pursuing in the past few decades, Chen Peistan said that this time the play is very different from before. "Because of the nature of this story and the subject matter, we didn't deliberately make it a comedy." He even bluntly said, "The comedic effect of the play is average." But as a theatrical work, Chen Peisi has enough confidence, which is a good story that can impress the audience. After 20 years of acting and a lifetime of comedy, Chen Peisi finally stopped obsessing with "amusing the audience", and he began to seek to tell a good story and do what he wanted to do.
"This time, we may have crossed the line in comedy." The "crossing the line" in Chen Peisi's mouth has actually begun from Yizhuang Yihuan's "Drama Stage". Through the precipitation of time, he felt more and more that comedy and tragedy are actually just two sides of a ridge, and it is difficult to distinguish between each other.
The core of comedy is tragedy, and this time it goes to the other side
"This play is different from the plays I've created in the past. The times of the story are different, the styles are different, the structure is different, so the style of the final expression is also different. ”
"Frightening Dreams" is a work prepared by Chen Peisi for several years, and he said to himself that as a dramatist, he naturally had an interest in the story and history of the drama class. Although "Frightening Dream" and "Drama Stage" are both about the drama class, they do not have coherence, but choose the fate of the life and death of a Kunqu opera class and the Spring Society in the chaos of the war when the civil war between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party of China is about to end around 1949. The repeated seizure of an ancient city by the Kuomintang and the Communists provided an opportunity for several forces in the play to entangle and intertwine, and also laid the dramatic style of the story. The "Frightening Dream" of the title is the most classic fold of the Kunqu opera "Peony Pavilion", and it is also part of the play within a play. Kunqu opera is also an important element of the play.
Because the story of the script is more poetic and tragic, and the plot structure is virtual and real, Chen Peisi groped for a long time, and felt that he should tell the story well, he could not "laugh for the sake of laughter", "I want to find baggage for laughter, the story is gone.". In the end, he chose to follow the story, "squeezing between tragedy and joy."
"In fact, when we did the story of "Balcony", we found that comedy has a deep tragic connotation in it. It's something at the heart of comedy. Turning it over, tragedy must also have comedy in it, and without comedy conditions, tragedy cannot be formed. ”
In Chen Peisi's view, all the way to the pursuit of comedy, to the "Stage", has reached the ridge, comedy and tragedy, on both sides of the ridge, shaky, staggered. And he was dangling there. This time, directly over the mountain beam, to another world, the audience may see the other side of the comedy.
Father and son share the stage for the first time, and the rehearsal encounters the "artistic generation gap"
"Frightening Dreams" is the first time that Chen Peisi and Chen Dayu share the stage as father and son, but the two do not play much on the stage. Chen Dayu laughed and said that he was playing a "young master" in this play, or the screenwriter Yu Yu took his photo and put it aside to write. "Teacher Yu would come to my house for dinner and say I had to write a role for Da Yu." Regardless of whether the details are true or false, this character is indeed tailor-made for him. "It's a pity that I was wronged, that is, the lines are much less than before." He said it half-jokingly again.
In fact, in this play, one of Chen Dayu's more important jobs is to perform the director' work, to do various assistant jobs for the father who is a director. For this work, Chen Dayu smiled and said: "I am a specific errand runner, this crew is large and has many things, and the director asks how to do it, I will go to perform the operation." I shouldn't have too many thoughts, but I can't help it, and there are still often quarrels on the rehearsal floor. ”
"Do you father and son have an artistic generation gap?" Faced with this question, the father and son replied in unison: "Yes!" Serious generation gap. ”
"Where is the generation gap?"
Chen Peisi looked up and sighed and smiled, "All things."
Chen Dayu began to describe the aesthetic differences between the two without hesitation. For example, the form and method of performance, such as the rhythm of the story, such as the use of music, such as the intervention of technology. Chen Peisi also listened calmly, and then "corrected and refuted" one by one with his own views: "What you said is all movies, let's talk about dramas." ”
The aesthetic inconsistency does not prevent Chen Dayu from tirelessly accompanying his father to make a play. As a science student majoring in student sex, Chen Dayu returned from studying abroad ten years ago and began to learn comedy with Chen Peisi, he plunged into the crew, took over the role of his father on stage, and acted in "Balcony" and "Childcare". In the process of creating "Drama Stage", he began to participate in the work of the field reporter and director, witnessing the process of this play from scratch.
He had his own strong desire to express himself, and began to study on his own and try to write and direct. A few years ago, he wrote a comedy called "Spring Supper Defense War", thinking about "the age of entertainment to death, entertainment makes you die and you don't die". The script was scored 60 points by Chen Peisi and has not landed. Until this year, after various precipitations and modifications, this drama is about to be officially staged.
If a person learns all the categories of screenwriters, directors, and actors, should he be an all-round artist? Chen Dayu's answer was almost the same as his father's thoughts: "To be a comedian, you must learn to create, because it is too difficult to meet creators who understand comedy." ”
But Chen Dayu said that his most important task at present is to accompany the old man to do the play he wants to do. "I have to accompany you a lot, and I also give you filial piety." He smiled at Chen Peisi and made a joke, but the others listened, and it was indeed the truth.
Chen Peisi and Chen Dayu's daily "mutual hatred" is also reflected in their frequently updated Douyin videos. Although the videos are all comedies, they are full of human joy and warmth like the father-son relationship in life.
On the same stage with his son for the first time, Chen Peisi somewhat remembered the time when he and his father Chen Qiang acted together. "Anyway, I'm really uncomfortable acting with daddy." However, my father and I usually discuss creation less, and my father chases me to quickly get the next script, and hurry to get a movie or something. ”
"Yes, when I come to this, I am very conscious, chasing you to read the script, I have everything in this drama sitcom musical, it depends on which one you are willing to vote for." Rushing chen Peisi's honest words, Chen Dayu chased after another "self-deprecating" sentence, which caused a room full of laughter. Three generations of the family are engaged in performing arts, and the spirit of comedy has long been immersed in every day's life from the stage, becoming the daily communication between the two grandfathers.
After the performance of "Frightening Dreams," Chen Peisi is planning to publish a monograph on comedy theory that he has been writing for all these years. Chen Dayu, on the other hand, plans to work with his peers to create what he wants to do.
Although there are generation gaps and differences, different preferences and directions, it does not hinder the father and son working together to walk on the "avenue" of comedy art.
Editor-in-Charge: Liang Jia Photo Editor: Jin Jie
Proofreader: Shi Gong