Whenever "Li Bai" is staged, the aura of the Capital Theater seems to be different from the past, such as wind and water, picturesque... On December 10, the performance of this play was fixed at 237 performances, and it is not yet known whether it will appear on stage again in the future.
On December 10, 1991, the first part of the "Literati Trilogy" of Renyi, "Li Bai", debuted on the stage, and now in addition to Pu Cunxin and Gong Lijun, the actors of other roles have almost changed three stubbles, the only constant is mellow wine, immortal poetry, and Li Bai's heart that cannot be settled. If 30 years is the reincarnation of an actor from prosperity to decline, then Pu Cunxin has completed a reverse parabola through Li Bai, not only sweeping away the obedient atmosphere in the poetry of heaven and earth, but also adding a vulgar and elegant atmosphere to the drama of "Li Bai" with the sea and sky weather and the clear wind and moon.
Nowadays, when we talk about traditional culture, we have made it much clearer
This year's performance of "Li Bai" has been five years since the death of his father Su Min, and a full three years have passed since the last performance. As soon as the intermission chant of "Where to Find the Soul of Poetry" came out, Pu Cunxin's feelings of life instantly poured in. "Poetry and song have become a marginal culture today, and when Wang Guowei was able to jump out, it was he who felt that the trend of traditional Chinese culture had gone, and actually used his life to martyr our traditional culture." Nowadays, when we talk about traditional culture, we have become much more superficial, and even if it is this play, we have only played Li Bai in a popular story for everyone. Although we can't replace the audience to chew, we still want to enlighten everyone is the 'truth' of being a person, whether right or wrong, we must be 'true'. In the first performance of this round, Gong Lijun said, 'You acted very well today', and I know that this 'truth' of mine is not every day. That day I heard my father chanting: Where to find the soul of poetry, he came together with this 'where', and every bit of that year came back. When my father rehearsed this play, he was not as old as I am now, and his life was short to this point, but fortunately, his voice was left behind, and as soon as that voice came out, it was an aesthetic height, telling me that you can't slack off, you can't replace the worldly life, and you have to travel through 1,000 years in an instant. It's been 5 years since he died, and I've seen him in the cemetery a few times, and he kept saying that he didn't want a cemetery, just hang it on the wall. This is all my life feelings at the moment I heard his voice, and this first sentence made me really have action on the stage. But no one knows what our next show will be like. ”
When I rowed "Li Bai", I didn't go home for three months, and as soon as I got home, I quarreled
Although a "Thunderstorm" has achieved a stage legend in which two generations of father and son play the same role, Pu Cunxin said that "Li Bai" is the content of his father's dream. "For many years he was recuperating at home, and he only had one book at hand, and the other books I bought him never read, this book is "Stage Art". I knew he was reminiscing, and even thinking about his own ideas, immersing himself in it. The last time my father watched the play was "Li Bai", at that time, I was afraid that his body could not persist, I said let him watch half of the show for two days, but I did not expect that he actually insisted on it one day. At the end of the curtain, the audience saluted him, he stood up in the first row with crutches, put the crutches on the stage, everyone thought he was going to go on stage, just to help, did not expect him to turn around and express his gratitude to the audience. And just as the summer was about to pass, Pu Cunxin said goodbye to his father. On the stage, Su Min is the proud son of freedom; the directing tube, he will be the inner yaxing and the world of the wine invitation to the world consciousness of Li Bai standing on the stage; can not enter, retreat is the core spirit of the whole play, in Su Min's view, the screenwriter Guo Qihong's clever place is that he wrote out Li Bai's great joy and great sorrow, which is also the highest realm of life.
In Pu Cunxin's eyes, the true father-son relationship is not monochromatic. "Not all words like love and filial piety are used in the family, and what we remember most is not necessarily the warm side." When I rowed "Li Bai", I didn't go home for three months, because as soon as I got home, I would quarrel, which may be rebellion, you think I can't do it, I think I can. Although it was inevitable that father and son would work together for the first time to create differences, but now looking back, Pu Cunxin said lightly, "It's okay, it's all over." "During rehearsals, he will say whether you have acted in too many TV dramas, you must enter the character situation, get out of the relaxed and natural life, and find the state of art." The state of Li Bai's character is actually a reinterpretation that we later reinterpreted when we performed in 2003, and I tried to simplify this character as much as possible, to find the pure heart of a child, which is a state of light boat passing, like a child doing a game. In the theater, people often say that Pu Cunxin is very similar to his father Su Min in many places, and some people even joke that your "false canon" is a bit like your father, and he does not dislike such a statement.
In the cultural downturn of the 1990s, the unsellished "Li Bai" did not have the opportunity to appear on stage for ten years
"Li Bai" was once considered to be a very "human art" play - the performance method of human art, the stage of human art, and the rhythm of human art. But Pu Cunxin once expressed this slow rhythm in 2003 when he first rearranged it, "When I first watched the performance video 12 years ago, the rhythm was even slower than it is now, which is indeed a big problem, so from this round of performances, I want to speed up my rhythm and lead the whole play forward." If the times have created Li Bai's pride, then naivety has created his talent, and this is exactly what Pu Cunxin strives to show. The absurdity of his drunken donkey ride, the wit of the world's snobbish villains with hooks and bait, are so natural and logical. Guo Qihong's Li Bai believes in all virtues, so he cannot sink with the world, or even reach the level of knowing his destiny, the so-called way of moderation is an insult to him, so he attacks what he considers to be unjust, and his unpretentious and undisguised poetry is undoubtedly the best embodiment of his true disposition.
Literati drama, and tied up a number of good actors, "Li Bai" was once considered to be a work of favorable times and places, but because that period coincided with the cold winter of the drama market, this play did not have the opportunity to appear on stage for 10 years. At that time, Pu Cunxin also asked the theater, and the reply was "no selling seats." "In the middle and late 90s, in fact, when the culture was relatively low, in 2003, "Li Bai" began to perform again, and then Guo Qihong wrote a lot of scripts, and gave me a "Qu Sheng Guan Hanqing" two days ago, I watched two weeks without calling back to Teacher Qi Hong, it is really difficult to have such a favorable opportunity as "Li Bai". The people who dig their hearts out to write plays, the kind of ethereal spirit when no one recognizes, I can understand, yes, Teacher Zhizhi and Teacher Su Min are gone, and there are fewer and fewer people who can talk to Teacher QiHong. ”
"Li Bai" is not tailor-made, it is a character on the leak "fishing"
Almost everyone thinks that "Li Bai" is a play tailored for Pu Cunxin, but in fact, in 1991, the 38-year-old Pu Cunxin was "fished" for the role of this "poetry immortal" because he and Weizi failed to star. At that time, Pu Cunxin, the bearded play had only played an old man in "Chen Yi Out of the Mountain" before, and Li Bai in the play was 57 to 62 years old, in Pu Cunxin's heart, "This play grew up with me, and the audience was the same." 30 years ago I still made a strong performance, but now the performance I still wonder how not to sweat, really don't have to work so hard, when I was young, I made a strong performance, and now I can say that it will come. Although I don't know when I can act, I will face a new audience in each scene, so that Li Bai and everyone can meet on and off the stage together through time and space, which I cherish. Three years ago, Pu Cunxin said meaningfully: "It's time to say goodbye to this character." But he has also revealed his attachment to the role of Li Bai more than once, "Li Bai and Hamlet have always been roles that I have not tired of even if I have played them a hundred times." "Nowadays, the simplicity of Li Bai's temperament and the extreme behavior of heaven and earth have been reconciled comfortably and calmly by Pu Cunxin, and when to say goodbye, he himself is still unfinished...
History overlaps on December 10, and these 30 years of life experience are not available for Pu Cunxin to spend money. Although this round of performances was interrupted due to the epidemic, the "Li Bai" 30 Years Sharing Meeting, which was originally planned to be completed in one go, was also a good thing, and finally held on December 5, and 60 favored members were also fortunate to participate in it. On that day, Pu Cunxin actually did not have the imagination of the difficult peace, he even revealed that he was a little resistant to this activity at first. "Continuous performances, it is not easy to maintain a good state, afternoon sharing meetings, evening performances, I am worried." But when he saw that in order to listen to the voice of the creator, some of them entered the theater for two consecutive days, and some of them rotated in the afternoon and evening, he was also relieved. "People are in the present, this theater was built in 1956, when we tightened our pants and belts and had no food to eat, and today people who love to watch theater enter the scene, people who love acting are on stage, there is traffic outside, how many people will care about such an event on the weekend afternoon." What is the play? Idle people's affairs, everyone comes to see the play is idle, the audience is not here to go to class, a play can make the audience present unforgettable, and even accompany them for thirty years, it is also a happy thing to be able to influence people's spiritual life in this way. ”
Now there is no need to paint a pleat, and I am older than Li Bai
This year's performance, every night before taking the stage, Pu Cunxin is a knee pad, patella belt, plaster, all through the operation. One day, he even went to ask the director Tang Ye if the moon on the stage had become bigger, because those few steps were already a little difficult for him. Today, the 68-year-old has surpassed Li Bai's age, and those who know him well will sweat for his large sword dance in the second half of the play. But in fact, in Pu Cunxin's view, the load on the body is far less than the worry about the state of the performance, "such a play, when it is really put into creation, is to be detached from the worldly life, the cooperation of everyone in this play has been fixed, can we still have a fresh feeling?" That is, that kind of improvisational state, 30 years of fixedness, it seems that there is already a little bit of a pull and a whole body. When we first came to the theater, we didn't understand that it was wrong for the play "Tea House" to have a sense of beat more than one step or one step less, and to this day, the play of "Li Bai" is almost the same as "Tea House". We ourselves know where the precision of the rhythm board eye is, and we have to go according to the board eye, but the sense of fun in creation can not be less. ”
In the play, Li Bai is dressed in a white coat, accompanied by a round of full moon alone to cover the picture, by many people called "moonshine poetry soul", if you still need to paint some folds on the face, deliberately to create that sense of vicissitudes, Pu Cunxin said, "Now a fold does not need to be painted, and now I am older than Li Bai, it is said that he died at the age of 62." It turned out that I still needed to work hard to hide my youth, to look for it, to chase after Li Bai, and now the feeling was that he was no longer there, leaving me alone. As for the picture of the moon alone, Pu Cunxin's understanding is, "There is no one to talk to him, only the moon, the great artists, the great writers, the great philosophers, the great scientists are usually very lonely, and Li Bai at that time was in such a lonely state." But we can't do this ourselves, we need to know that we should still have room for improvement. ”
【Creator Talk】
Gong Lijun: Zong Yan and Li Bai are not chai rice oil and salt, small love and small love, they are spiritual partners
The 87th class of Chinese opera people who just entered the theater after graduation participated in the performance of "Li Bai", and the only one who played the main role was Gong Lijun, and the husband and wife file with Pu Cunxin was 30 years. "In 1991, our whole class went to this play, all the boys stood on the big soldiers, (Chen) Xiaoyi was young, played Xiao Jigang, and I played the wife when I was older. Good drama nourishes actors and nourishes the audience, and "Li Bai" is such a play. But this play is not successful as soon as it is on the stage, and the actors need time to precipitate. When I first got the script, I was like a primary school student who had not graduated, and I couldn't understand it very well, and as time went on, I slowly opened the trick. Zong Yan and Li Bai are not chai rice oil and salt, small love and small love, they are spiritual partners. Zong Yan is Li Bai's confidante, Teacher Qi Hong wants to write ethereal and unwilling, I think it is perfect, Zong Yan wants to complete Li Bai, she also does not understand Li Bai, Li Bai has his own ambitions, but Zong Yan has her wisdom, she uses her wisdom to support Li Bai's ambitions. In the final poem, Li Bai's heart has been decided, but Zong Yan uses his understanding of life to fulfill him. Zong Yan is a wise woman, but also Qi Hong's praise for women, wrote a perfect image of a woman, it is difficult to find such a person in life. ”
He Bing: If Pu Ge no longer plays this role, then this role may have to lie on paper for a while
30 years is an insurmountable achievement, and the first big play I entered the theater to face the audience was "Li Bai". I experienced a lot of firsts in that play, experienced the painful struggle of Pu Ge, before he was the big brother in our hearts; the first time I saw a performance artist like Mr. Lu Qi, he had no difference from entering the rehearsal hall to the final performance, his character had been searched for before entering the rehearsal hall, I was eager to reach such a state; Mr. Su Min was my old mentor, yesterday he was still in class to give us an exam, and today he suddenly gave us a rehearsal in the rehearsal hall, and we changed from a teacher-student relationship to a colleague relationship. This is also very magical; Mr. Guo Qihong was still very young at that time, and he was also looking for it with us, which made me understand that this character is not a character in his world, in the world of the rehearsal hall and on the stage in the future, which requires a painful process; Su Min and Pu Cunxin are father and son, how to work together, these are very impressive to me...
Pu Ge and Li Bai nourished each other and grew up, and spent 30 years to complete a great role in their personal acting careers, and became a card of human art. How many audiences to experience in 30 years, with the memories of old audiences and the admiration of new audiences, must reach a fit and resonance with the audience in the theater. How many 30 years an actor has, I often wonder how I did not have such a play, which shows the importance of persistence. This role will inspire and warn the younger generations of the theater to see the process of an actor's creation, how a role accompanies an actor's increase in education, and the enrichment of the role. Pu Ge is a very warm person in life, he is not a person with a flamboyant personality, not a person with a particularly colorful mood, and a generous personality. And Li Bai is obviously not like this, when he takes the baggage and throws it backstage, and finally poetically goes to the stage, which he finds out a little bit on his own in the rehearsal hall. And he plays this role, so complicated and so simple, Li Bai is like a child, he can't handle this world, he is a poetry immortal, and he can't handle human affairs. This is also very similar to Pu Cunxin himself, who has been dealing with his relationship with the world in the simplest way, the purest feelings and the most innocent attitude for so many years.
Mr. QiHong has a line, in my own words, Li Bai knows the code of Chinese character arrangement, and Pu Ge also knows the spirituality of the line arrangement with one performance after another, and the lines from his mouth are so good and poetic, which has been done bit by bit in 30 years. There are still a lot of shapes in the play, we will be young, I will have a line, that is called a light province, more than ten o'clock to disperse the play, take a shower and go out to buy instant noodles, at that time Pu Brother lived in the air government compound, countless winter nights, I saw Pu Brother wearing a beanie hat and wearing a fleece coat, running around the theater, this scene I still remember.
He spent 30 years to create such a role, these nutrients and energy can continue to show in other plays, if Pu Ge no longer plays this role, then this role may have to lie on paper for a while, waiting for the next person to explain. For Pu Ge, mentally traveling with Li Bai for most of his life is a very fortunate thing for himself and the audience.
This edition of the article / reporter Guo Jia
Photo / Reporter Wang Xiaoxi Liu Chang