From January 6 to 10, written by Zhang Chang, with Ye Jintian as the general director and visual director, and Starring Wan Qian and Song Yang, the stage play "Love in the City", based on Zhang Ailing's classic novel, became an extremely rare drama performed at the Opera House of the National Centre for the Performing Arts. On the one hand, because the box office of this famous director is too hot, even if the theater is big, it is still difficult to find a ticket for five performances. On the other hand, because the play is different from traditional drama, but through literature, film, drama, dance, music, costumes, lighting, multimedia, stage installations and other comprehensive artistic means, in a three-and-a-half-hour period, it mobilizes the audience's senses in an all-round way and immerses itself in an extraordinary new stage aesthetic.
Use "blank" and "breath" to present Zhang Ailing's original charm
The story in Zhang Ailing's original novel "Love in the Fallen City" is actually very simple: the white tassel is not tolerated by her brother and sister-in-law, in order to escape the decadent life of this ancient family, she uses her youth to bet desperately and launch a love game with Fan Liuyuan, a clumsy disciple. In the end, a war that shocked the world fulfilled them, becoming an ordinary and stable couple in a turbulent world.
However, adapting Zhang Ailing is extremely difficult, whether it is the desolate text she sees through the world, or the complex emotions of "unclear, difficult to describe, and unique" after those words, which both make readers obsessed and the adaptors panic. Zhang Chang, the screenwriter of "Zhang Fan", when adapting, kept the dialogue between Bai and Fan in the original novel as much as possible, and also deliberately tried not to write the language too densely, and found a kind of "old era air" between the speech conversations, he said: "'Breath' is Zhang Ailing's foundation, not to grasp it, but not to grasp it too tightly." ”
Director Ye Jintian uses a large number of blank spaces and breath created by the film's visual narrative to break the experience of drama viewing with dense lines in public perception, so that every cell of the audience is fully opened, and the rich texture of grandeur and subtlety, abstraction and concreteness, realism and illusion brought about by the integration of film lenses and theater auras can be fully perceived, so as to deeply appreciate the loneliness of human nature and the desolation of life.
There's a big artistic aesthetic and a little bit of detail
At the beginning of the performance, a 7-minute long black-and-white film silent film and a dance hall scene on the stage appeared at the same time, deliberately misplaced and interplayed, in the way of "silence is better than sound", explaining the scene of the first meeting between Bai Liusu and Fan Liuyuan that was not detailed in the original work, as well as the complex mentality of various characters around them, quickly bringing the audience into a special viewing atmosphere.
Immediately after, the large Y-shaped turntable that appeared on the stage divided the theatrical space into several areas, and with the design and transformation of the flowing clouds, the rotation stirred up time and space, sometimes it was a gloomy white house, sometimes it was a red and green dance hall, sometimes it was a dark Repulse Bay Hotel, plus the eternal moon, the uncertain tree shadow......... General Director Yip Kam Tim fully demonstrates the "post-drama theatre" brought by vision and space through multimedia film images, flowing stage installations, and gorgeous and colorful costumes.
Director Ye Jintian also interprets the history of white tassels and Fan Liuyuan with stream-of-consciousness black and white images: teenage white tassels look for their mother through countless strangers' self-made "glass covers" in the pouring rain, and Fan Liuyuan's british past of being alone in a foreign country has made a delicate preparation for the characters' insecure psychology and uncertain emotions. Du Yun, the original composer, is even more ingenious, so that the dramatic music sets off the development of the story, the characters' hearts and the tension of the drama, and makes great contributions to promoting the plot and rendering emotions.
"Allure of Love" not only has a "big" artistic aesthetic, but also a "small" pursuit of details. Each cheongsam designed by Ye Jintian himself is exquisitely carved, which not only perfectly reproduces the style of the 30s era, but also has a modern aesthetic. The props on the stage are as detailed as the dishes on the white family's table, the perfume bottles on the dresser, and even a few dollars in the hands of the characters, all of which are extremely exquisite.
Wan Qian Song Yang's delicate performance was praised
In order to express the unique "breath" of Zhang Ailing's novel, the two protagonists use a lot of body language and blank space to express the complex emotions and ambiguous relationships of the characters. For example, Bai Liusu snuggled up on the bed and sobbed after deciding to go to Hong Kong, and after seeing Fan Liuyuan and Princess Sahei making love, he drew his eyebrows alone in front of the dresser... All tastes are in silence. Especially when Bai Liusu finally got away from the decaying family in Shanghai as she wished, and lived in the house that Fan Liuyuan had prepared for her in Hong Kong, she searched aimlessly in this empty house, but in the end what she found was still endless nothingness. Wan Qian, who plays the white tassel, shows multi-layered emotions such as the satisfaction of getting her wish, the wandering of the future, and the doubt about self-choice through the change of various emotions.
Fan Liuyuan's character image also has a quite ingenious adaptation, which makes the character image more plump for his sloppy life abroad, the past of indulgence and joy, and the wandering and uncertain heart. Ye Jintian not only let Song Yang, who played Fan Liuyuan, first step onto the drama stage, but also made him show a different charm in the film lens. There are also the arrogant four grandmothers, the weak and calculating three grandmothers, and the cowardly and incompetent fourth grandmothers, who are also vividly expressed by actors such as Fu Miao, Jiang Bingjie, zhu Guanlin, etc., which makes people feel deeply depressed and suffocated by the White Mansion.
“...... There are legends everywhere, but there is not necessarily such a happy ending. Hu Qin was hoarse and hoarse, and in the night of ten thousand lights, he pulled over and pulled over, telling endless desolate stories - don't ask or ask! At the end of the play, the multimedia projected Zhang Ailing's original text on the stage, and it dissipated in time and space, bringing people unlimited memories with restrained expression.
Director Tian Qinxin, director of the National Theatre of China, who once brought Zhang Ailing's novel "Red Rose and White Rose" to the theater stage, was full of praise after watching "Love in the Fallen City", saying: "I have experienced the 'New Oriental Aesthetics' in Ye Shi's mind. Exquisite aesthetics, smooth vision, a 'living film' displayed on the stage, this is the exploration of Ye Shi's aesthetics, is a stage work with a strong Ye Shi's aesthetic concept, it is worth learning. Thank you to the actors Wan Qian and Song Yang for their wonderful performances! ”
Some media commented: "For Ye Jintian's stage sensory experiment, it is difficult to judge the success or failure, he has brought the theater audience a rare sensory innovation and thinking about time and space and reality in Chinese theaters, which has gone beyond the meaning of 'whether to be faithful to the original work' and 'whether to read Zhang Ailing'." ”