Watching the world premiere of "Frightening Dreams" at the Shanghai Grand Theatre once again experienced the feeling of "being amazed" by watching a play 16 years ago, that time watching "The Balcony" – a seamless combination of European screenwriting methods (farce laughs) and the character stories of contemporary Chinese migrant workers. At that time, I didn't know the film and television star Chen Peisi at all, and "Balcony" made me realize that he was still such an outstanding playwright and director. Now that I am very familiar with him, I have instructed doctoral students to thoroughly study his "Balcony" and "Drama Stage" and written a very distinctive doctoral dissertation; so his "Frightening Dream" this time really surprised me a little - this brand new play (also written by "Theater Stage" screenwriter Yu Yu) is much higher than "Balcony" and "Theater Stage"! The three or four story lines of the whole play are integrated, the comedy and tragedy are natural, the choreographers and choreographers are all pure fire, and there is no trace of "imported products".
Stills from "Frightening Dreams"
An even bigger surprise is that in this "play-within-a-play", we also saw the "comedic treatment" of "The White-Haired Girl". I remember in a lecture I hosted, Pace said that the eyes of an artist's comedy can see everything as comedy, including the most famous tragedies such as Hamlet, and also throw out a series of "little sad into joy" ideas. I deliberately used his father, Mr. Chen Qianglao's most famous work, to "take him into the army": what about your father's "White Haired Girl"? Can it also be seen or made into a "comedy"? Without blinking an eye, he said: "White Haired Girl"? It's so comedic! Yang Bailao, Xi'er, and Huang Shiren can all be comedic characters! Isn't Yang Bailao selling tofu... Several comedy strips popped out of his mouth, making the audience crowded with theater laugh so much that they almost overturned the roof. At the time, I thought that he had also had a mouth addiction, and "The White-Haired Girl" could not really become a comedy on stage. Who thinks that more than ten years later, there is really a "white-haired girl" in his "Frightening Dream". The Kunqu Opera Class and the Spring Society originally only performed traditional old plays such as "Peony Pavilion", but at the invitation of the People's Liberation Army, they immediately wanted to drive ducks to the shelves to perform modern dramas. Xi'er's green-clad Zhu Cuixing thought" Bitter-ah-?" Dachun "won the victory and returned to the dynasty", like a general who planted a flag? The horns on the stage were crying and laughing, and the audience laughed forward and backward. Of course, the actor finally put on the simple "fashion" sent by the head of the publicity section. During the act, the reaction of the soldiers was extremely hot, and the cheers were wave after wave, and Huang Shiren, played by Chen Peisi, was also shot - in fact, he did not hit, but he was still frightened and desperately looked for a gun hole in his robe. The head of the People's Liberation Army rushed to comfort him, saying that when he was watching "The White-Haired Girl" in Yan'an, Chen Qiang, who played Huang Shiren, was almost shot - hey! Do you look a bit like him? Chen Peisi, who resembled his father, stared at him and pretended to be stupid, seemingly not understanding what he was saying, which made the audience of the Grand Theater laugh and get angry -- everyone knows that Chen Dayu, the grandson of Chen Qiang, who has just left the scenes, is also playing behind the scenes.
This "White Haired Girl" also has a deeper comedic effect, which is completely unexpected. The commander of the Kuomintang army and the head of the People's Liberation Army studied at the Whampoa Military Academy that year, and happened to be a fan of the Spring Society, and they also voted for Kunqu opera and sang "Peony Pavilion" together. When his adjutants learned of this, they threw themselves into their favor and forced the drama class to play a drama labor army, but because they did not know anything about Kunqu opera, they promised to play the "White Haired Girl" that could best "boost the hearts of the army". In the middle of the performance, there were gunshots again, but this time it was the officer who asked for the guilt - he soon realized that he had been "teased" by the drama class! Yu Yu and Chen Peisi did not change the script and characters of "The White Haired Girl" without changing anything, but only cleverly "re-contextualized", this comedic reconstruction not only did not have the slightest contempt for the original work, but doubled the powerful proof of how magical the red classic of "White Haired Girl" has a magical charm!
"Frightening Dream" is a very peculiar play-in-play - not only cushioning the most classic and eternal "Peony Pavilion", but also supporting the most contemporary "White Haired Girl"; the three plays are all tragic and joyful, and they belong to completely different genres, which just happen to represent "the best of Chinese drama". At first glance, this drama looks a bit like "Mei Lanfang + "Tea House", but it is by no means a simple addition; "Frightening Dream" combines drama, opera and many of its social values into one, and after the epidemic, it should really go to the international stage to "show off" well - it is best to go with "Peony Pavilion" and "White Haired Girl".
My "second brush" was seen with The Director General of the International Drama Association, Tobias Bioncone, who also greatly appreciated it. "Frightening Dreams" has many plot lines, the story is more complicated, the low-pitched translation on the scene can only grasp the big and let go of the small, but unexpectedly he even appreciated the performance of some supporting roles that I did not care about the translation, such as the chief of the People's Liberation Army Propaganda Section (Dong Dou) - the insight of the "old mage" who watched the play also gave me a surprise. After thanking the curtain, we went backstage to meet the artists and congratulate the performance on its success. He told Chen Peisi that he was looking forward to the international tour of "Frightening Dreams".