He is the obsessive "rock cat" Rum Tum Tugger, the embodiment of darkness and desire X-Black; he is the good and upright doctor Jack, who is also the demonic possessed Hyde; he is the real writer Osamu Dazai, and he is also the mirror of the Great Court Leaf Treasure... He is Liu Lingfei, a musical theater actor with ever-changing faces. Liu Lingfei shared his artistic story in the "Next Stop, Theater" series of cultural salons held at the Shanghai Grand Theatre on February 13. Musical theater lovers who came specifically for him sat in the audience, and the event scene sounded joyful laughter from time to time.
"I remember the first show I saw at the Grand Theatre, the New Year's Concert on January 1st, when I was very young. I didn't expect that one day, when I grew up, I could also perform in this theater, and my first play, "What Makes Sense of Love", was performed in the small theater of the Grand Theater. I also watched "Diary of a Madman" here, and it was more than 12 o'clock in the middle of the night after the show, which impressed me very much. Another very memorable thing, that is, last year I was in the Grand Theater rehearsing "Human Disqualification", there was a concert performance in the evening, I listened to it on the side stage, just heard Mr. Shi Yijie singing, I am his 'little fan', he sang too well, brought me a different audiovisual feeling. When it comes to the indissoluble relationship with the Grand Theater, Liu Lingfei gushes endlessly.
In order to perform "Human Disqualification", I directly "lived" in the dressing room of the Grand Theater
Musical "Cat", "Doctor Strange", "Dangerous Game", "Human Disqualification", "Rock and Roll Faust", drama "Long Hate Song"... The stage of the Shanghai Grand Theatre witnessed many highlight moments of Liu Lingfei's performance. And he also told the mental journey of participating in several important works. "Chinese version of Cats is a work that confirmed my career. This was the first time I came into contact with a very professional musical theater production and creative team after graduating from college. Everything at that time was done according to British standards. Liu Lingfei said that at that time, the work process and habits of the drama crew made him appreciate it very much, and it also had a profound impact on him, "Through these years of efforts, now domestic musical theaters have also learned from their desirable places and become more and more professional."
At the end of last year, the musical "Human Disqualification" received a double harvest at the box office and word of mouth. At that time, Liu Lingfei directly "lived" in the Shanghai Grand Theatre for a period of time. "From the synthesis to the premiere, because the rehearsal schedule of the crew was relatively tight, I slept directly in the powder room after working in the early morning, and continued to rehearse the next morning." According to his recollection, his premiere as Ye Zang was on Saturday afternoon. The night before, Liu Lingfei and Zhu Zi played the workers until 2:30 a.m., and then he took his part of the leaf and then down to 8:30 in the morning, "Then I went to the hotel near the Grand Theater to take a shower, slept for two hours and then returned to the Grand Theater to synthesize, fortunately, the facilities around the Grand Theater are very complete."
The hard work of this popular musical actor has not been in vain, and Liu Lingfei's performance in "Human Disqualification" has been recognized by many audiences. In the play, he needs to play the roles of Ye Zang and Dazai Osamu. "Dazai had a very serious tuberculosis, and in the last stage of his life, his body was very weak, so the crew prepared a blood packet for us very early, and I put the blood packet in my mouth during the performance, and then spit it out after biting it." Under the careful rehearsal of the actors, "Dazai Osamu vomiting blood" has become one of the "famous scenes" that the audience will never forget.
The reporter learned that in July this year, "Human Disqualification" will return to the Shanghai Grand Theatre for performance. Recalling the bits and pieces of rehearsing this work, Liu Lingfei was full of emotions. "Setting up the roles of Yezo and Dazai at the same time was very bold, and I needed to change the rotation to perform, and the workload increased exponentially." To control the relationship between these two people is a very headache. Fortunately, our creators have a variety of ideas, and they also inspire a lot of momentary inspiration. When everyone has feelings, it will come to fruition. Liu Lingfei said that the creative atmosphere of the crew of "Human Disqualification" is very open, "everyone has invested in this play, and all the actors and creators will pick a day to stay, saying where it is good and where it is bad, which part is unreasonable, sometimes the scene is very intense, just like the debate competition, everyone expresses their opinions, I like this creative environment."
Actors on stage are not replicated machines, and they have to learn to inspire the feeling of moments
Liu Lingfei once went to the United States to study in college. In 2007, his first musical on Broadway was Spring Awakening. "When I was in school in Shanghai, there were not many musical theater works performed here, so I could only contact musical theater works through video materials. When I came to New York, I not only watched the musicals "Cabaret Online" and "Mamma Mia! I also saw a lot of exhibitions, and for a while I went to the Metropolitan Museum every week. ”
In Liu Lingfei's words, musical theater is one of all the literary and artistic categories he has been exposed to, "I look at things more complicated, I will also contact a lot of fun people and things, I will put someone's action or a scene picture, stored in my mind, which brings me a lot of new inspiration." 」
"In my opinion, actors on stage are not replicating machines. No matter how many scenes I act in, I am most looking forward to the feeling of unexpected moments, and I am very much looking forward to creating with the feeling of moments. Liu Lingfei said so. He mentioned the word "instant" - in his masterpiece Chinese version of "Becoming a Strange Doctor", the lyrics of the singing section titled "Just at This Moment" sang, "At this moment, no longer wandering, hell or heaven, no one can stop me", the author has reason to believe that the "moment" in this song has long become an indelible part of Liu Lingfei's personal artistic concept.
Shanghai Grand Theatre· A+ Art Space Gallery, a beautiful stage train across time and space, for people to open a special theater tour around the world, at the end of the event, Liu Lingfei recommended a stage work he liked for theater lovers, Alexander Ekman's "Swan Lake". "The costumes, the choreography, the lighting are very imaginative and creative, and there are some elements of opera and installation art, full of imaginative performances, and there are very big changes in the second half, you can never imagine what will happen in the next second."
"It's a good event, it's easy, and you can chat with everyone." I hope that everyone is smooth and smooth, good health will always be the first, and we can see each other often. After participating in today's "Next Stop, Theater" series of cultural salon activities, Liu Lingfei said with a smile. Next, he will participate in the second round of the musical "Rock Faust" at the Shanghai Grand Theatre, and complete most of the makeup for himself, "I am not playing a realistic role, it is possible that this makeup will be heavier." What kind of makeup and performance will it be? Let's look forward to the musical actor's latest stage.
Image source: Shanghai Grand Theatre
Author: Jiang Fang
Editor: Wang Xiaoli