After the opening performance of the Wuzhen Theatre Festival and the tour of several cities, Meng Jinghui's annual drama "The Red and the Black" was performed three times at the Shanghai Oriental Art Center this weekend, and the three performances were difficult to find, which also aroused heated discussion and response from the audience. On the afternoon of December 11, Meng Jinghui and the lead actors Mei Ting and Zhang Hancheng appeared at the audience meeting, and together with Liang Yong'an, professor of the Department of Chinese of Fudan University, and Lu Xiaoping, professor of the College of Letters of Nanjing University, two special guests, they held a dialogue and discussion on the century-old masterpiece and works of French writer Stendhal.
"Red and Black" East Art audience meeting scene
The Red and the Black was the first critical realist masterpiece of Nineteenth-century European literature, and since its publication in 1830, it has won the hearts of generations of readers and is still recognized today as one of the most brilliant and exquisite artistic jewels in the crown of European literature. The French writer Stendhal far exceeded the level of contemporaries in the excavation of psychological depth, and created a precedent for "stream-of-consciousness novels" and "psychological novels" in later generations. The image of the male protagonist Jullien in the work, as well as the love between him and Madame de Rainer and Mathilde, still arouses countless sighs and discussions.
Meng Jinghui confessed his feelings for the work "The Red and the Black", he also said, "Doing this work too early feels that my understanding is not deep enough, but if you do it later, a lot of energy and desire may disappear." Do it now, maybe just right. ”
In the creation, Meng Jinghui tried to rehearse according to the logic of Stendhal's play, the red scene, the black scene, and then the red and black battles were mixed. "But I think that's so shallow, red and black is not so simple." Therefore, Meng Jinghui chose to interpret this classic again from a more macro, universal and more basic perspective.
"Of course, to be faithful to the original work is not to be faithful to its plot, but to be faithful to its most important energy, value, and mental state, and to find the parts that interest modern people." Meng Jinghui said. "Today's young people don't have time to read, so I read it for them and then show it on stage to show everyone how beautiful it is."
Stills from "The Red and the Black"
On stage, everything is still very "Meng aesthetic". Visual artist Zhang Wu used a hundred giant steel brackets to build a three-story desire pavilion. Visual artist Wang Qi's lighting is constantly changing: cold and pure white, intense red like burning desire, deadly blue with melancholy... In the surreal space of the whole stage, light and shadow change, with multimedia, history and the present are connected, and the emotions of the characters are tossed and turned in this space of multiple emotions.
"Uneasy with the details of reality, Meng Jinghui must find a strong form of external expressionism." In Lu Xiaoping's view, in the play, Jullien and Madame de Rena bid farewell, and the rapid flashback of their previous love clips, as well as the use of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" lines in "The Red and the Black", "tightly sewn together, very wonderful".
The actors' performances also carry a deep "Meng drama" style. Big and big, playful, playful. The actors of the "Empty Flower Group" of Meng Jinghui's drama studio switch different identities on the stage of destiny: they are the people who explore the way forward, they are the dignitaries who are staggered, and they are the sentient beings of the times in the story. But Madame de Rainer, played by Mei Ting, has become a unique scenery in this warm human game. She uses her delicate but powerful performance to show the multiple and complex emotions of the characters.
Lu Xiaoping commented, "All of Meng Jinghui's performances are manic, but this play, perhaps because of Mei Ting, has become a little quiet. She was there silently, a quiet performance and a manic performance looking at each other, creating a great tension. A drop of oil is performed in a bucket of water, usually the situation destroys the performance, but it is the play "The Red and the Black", Madame De Reina is this drop of oil in a bucket of water in the whole French society, she came out of the monastery completely ignorant of the world. ”
Zhang Yicheng, who plays Yu Lian, has cooperated with Meng Jinghui for many years after graduation, starring in many works directed by Meng Jinghui, in his opinion, "'Red and Black' is the greatest kindness that Director Meng gives to the audience, he is very friendly to the audience, he rubs all his tenderness and all his inner softness in this play." ”
In the play, he plays Yu Lian with a large inner monologue and a large number of action scheduling, showing a soul struggling between self-esteem and inferiority, ambition and temptation, climbing and falling. And Zhang Yicheng understands that the Yulian of this drama does not have to look at it with the memory in the book. "Don't try to understand what we're talking about, just feel it."
Mei Ting has worked with Meng Jinghui since 1999 and has her own deep understanding of his director's aesthetics. "The stage directed by Meng Jinghui needs you to hold and release, you need to have a lot of energy to release, you must have this momentum." "To play Madame de Rainer is to accept the passion of her love, the burning of desire, the loss of not getting, the deep jealousy."
Returning to this stage again, Mei Ting said that she has always had a reverence and yearning for drama. Her accurate grasp of this role has also won a lot of applause. Most of the actors in the crew are members of the "empty flower group" who can sing and dance, and they injected a lot of energy into the show, and Mei Ting said that she got a "warm hug" from every actor in this crew. And she also agreed with Meng Jinghui that she would continue to cooperate on a longer version of "The Red and the Black" in the future.
Meng Jinghui said, "This play is a lot about love, but it is certainly not exactly love. It's abundant. You can't use a standard answer to what 'red' and 'black' each represent, and once you have a standard answer, your mind stagnates. So I'm willing to let this thing exist as an open window, 3 hours is not enough, we will do an 11-hour "Red and Black" in the future. ”