After the first round of performances, the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center's drama "Dream of the Red Chamber" is not short of controversy: can the audience insist on watching it for six hours? There is no Zi Yan red, the background is all white, and the characters are also dressed in white, will it be too monotonous?
"Everyone has their own Dream of the Red Chamber in their hearts, and when we are determined to do this theme, we are mentally prepared, it is an adventure." Screenwriter Yu Rongjun said. After the first round of 28 performances, he found that the Douban score of the drama "Dream of the Red Chamber" continued to rise, and more and more audiences gave positive responses.
After three months of polishing, the drama "Dream of the Red Chamber" has been upgraded in terms of script, stage art, and costume details. On December 25th and 26th, the Chinese version of the musical "Romeo and Juliet" will be staged as one of the "year-end performance season" plays of SAIC Shanghai Culture Square.
Xue Baochao's role has changed more, making the actor Li Li feel that he has "acted in a new play". "After the performance, the five tastes are mixed, and the heart is exhausted." Chen Shan, who plays Jia Baoyu, said, "But it's good to sleep, like a dream." "Although it is 40 minutes shorter than the premiere version, the upcoming version is still nearly six hours long, which is a test for both the actors and the audience.
Dialogue with the audience, even confrontation
The drama "Dream of the Red Chamber" is composed of the upper part "The Prosperity of the Wind and Moon" and the lower part of "Eating all the Birds", which slowly unfolds the dream of the Red Chamber in the midst of prosperity, wealth and prosperity, and sadness and trepidation, leading the audience to "stand in mid-air and re-examine the classics".
Six hours, the emotional ups and downs of great joy and great sorrow made Wang Xifeng's actor Ding Meiting feel "very hurtful, but very enjoyable". She watched "Daiyu" tear up in the side curtain, and she felt "heartache" every time. When watching "Baoyu" part with his sister and sister, he turned his back on the audience, in fact, he was "blowing his nose".
Jia Mu's actor and director of the drama "Dream of the Red Chamber" told reporters that this work draws on the performance methods of Chinese opera, pays attention to the sense of ceremony and charm, and even if the actor exists as a background, the "qi" cannot be dropped. "The director told us that judging the quality of a play is never just about the protagonist, every supporting role is very important. This Dream of the Red Chamber has 30 actors, some people play two or three different roles, there are no 'small roles', all the roles form a closely connected whole. ”
Yu Rongjun told reporters that his original script was written for twelve hours, and it was cut in half to have a six-hour version. "It's an era where everything is fast, everyone is used to watching short videos, and the audience can't stand it for more than 15 seconds. But I think "Dream of the Red Chamber" is worth six hours. ”
He broke the timeline of the original work, based on the relationship between the characters, the relationship between people and family, politics, society, the relationship between dreams and reality, and restructured the play with the struggle between people and fate. In the play, there are well-known classic scenes of "Dream of the Red Chamber", and there are also new interpretations and expressions.
"This play has requirements for the audience, and they need to sink their hearts and establish a connection between the dream universe of the Red Chamber and the world of self." Yu Rongjun said, "We are a somewhat paranoid team with our own aesthetic pursuits. We are eager to 'talk' to the audience, or even 'confront', in the theater. I know there's a risk of losing a bunch of audiences by doing so, but I believe it's worth it, and the current theater is too lacking in that insistence. ”
A lot of white space gives enough room for imagination
At SAIC Shanghai Culture Square, many different versions of "Dream of the Red Chamber" have been staged. Director Lin Yihua's stage play "Dream of the Red Chamber" uses male actors to reverse the string of "Twelve Golden Nobiles"; dancer Zhao Liang's "Police Illusion" uses his body to construct the too illusory realm in "Dream of the Red Chamber"; and the dance drama version of "Dream of the Red Chamber" led by Li Xing and Li Yanchao, a dancer of "Dance Storm", tells the opening and withering of the "Twelve Golden Nobiles" through the perspective of "Baoyu".
"This is the cleanest, most extreme, and most complete version of Dream of the Red Chamber in my mind so far." After watching the first round of performances of "Dream of the Red Chamber" at the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center, one audience member said, "It's like a day's dream in the Grand View Garden." When the dream was finished, it was as if the body and mind were at peace. ”
There are three huge "white walls" on the stage of the drama "Dream of the Red Chamber", which are opened and closed with the plot, just like a book that is opened on three sides, which fits the mood of "the white expanse of the earth is really clean" in the book. The set on the stage is also minimalist, using a small number of elements such as exquisite wooden palanquins, carved tables and chairs, pavilions to hint at the Red Chamber, as well as hollow text from "Good Song", as well as the "falling red" flying in the sky, in addition to a large number of blank spaces. Stage design Liu Xinglin said: "On the stage, I mainly grasped the relationship between 'yes and no', 'good and good', 'prosperity and decline', with a large number of blank spaces to leave enough imagination space for the audience, if anything is presented, it will fall into old-fashioned and rigid, and will erase the tension of interaction and association." ”
The costumes of the characters in the play are also mainly white, and they are cut and designed in a modern and simple manner on the basis of classical Chinese costumes. Traditional Chinese fabrics such as silk and ramie are used extensively, supplemented by traditional Chinese pattern embroidery techniques. Costume design Yang Donglin said: "White seems simple, but it is all-encompassing - tea white, moon white, tooth white, silk color and so on. According to the identity, personality, and fate of the characters, supplemented by cinnabar, crimson, daisy, crow green and other colors, it is intended to construct a unique aesthetic world view of this version of the drama "Dream of the Red Chamber" and lead the audience to think. ”