The Paper's reporter Pan Yu
On the modern and concise stage, a large mirror installation is across the side of the stage, Liu Mengmei, played by Zhang Jun, slowly steps onto the stage, and the people in the mirror and the people on the stage reflect each other, and the virtual and the real are inseparable. On the other side, the "Broken Well Decadent Wall" and the pavilions and pavilions slowly fall, and the stage is blank, which is the looming shadow of plum branches and willows. The reflection on the back of the pavilion in the mirror shows a bright and quaint color like in the Ming picture book, and the gray on the front contrasts, becoming a set of virtual and real devices. Du Liniang, played by Shan Wen, also floated on the stage at this time, she had her dreams, and Liu Mengmei also had Liu Mengmei's dreams. The whole stage space is also like the "Inception Space" completed by the creators, there are dreams in dreams, and there are real and illusions.
Rehearsal photo of "Peony Pavilion"
This is the scene of the rehearsal performance of the 2022 Shanghai Grand Theatre version of Kunqu Opera - "Peony Pavilion". With the official premiere on August 10, there are still five days to go, and the stage lights and costumes have all arrived. The actors are looking for feelings on this stage that is completely different from the traditional "Peony Pavilion", and the "frightening dreams" and "calling paintings" they perform are completely the appearance of traditional Kunqu opera, from the vocal cavity to the body, almost the most traditional appearance.
"This time, we just want to do a thing that 'sticks to the bottom line and breaks the boundaries.'" Director Ma Junfeng introduced and sighed at the stage, because the screenwriter Luo Zhou gave this play a different structure, and they also hoped to make a different way of expression from traditional Kun opera, especially in stage design and vision, hoping to produce a sense of folding, a layered structure similar to 'Inception Space'.
Rehearsal photo of "Peony Pavilion"
This idea is largely related to Luo Zhou's disassembly of the structure of the text of "Peony Pavilion", this version of the text is not sorted out in the order of Tang Xianzu's script, but takes Du Liniang's "resurrection from the dead" as the main body, relying on the original "Yan Huai", "Playing True", "Soul Tour", "Youjie", "Meditation Oath", "Rejuvenation" text, and integrating famous songs such as "Frightening Dream" and "Dream Hunting" into other folds, becoming a new dramatic structure and a "double dream" structure.
Therefore, the visual feeling of the whole stage is true and false, virtual and real. In addition to the oblique angle of the traditional Chinese wooden architectural scene, the effect of mirror mapping, there is also an irregular extension angle protruding from the front of the stage, and the installation on the stage together constitute a kind of naked-eye 3D picture. And this idea comes from the idea of director Ma Junfeng and stage designer Liu Kedong in the "Yunchuang Platoon" exchange.
Reunion of the "Peony Pavilion" poster
Liu Kedong, who served as the stage designer of "Reunion "Peony Pavilion", is a first-class stage design in China, and the dance drama "Awakening lion", "Five Stars out of the East", and the drama "Frightening Dream" are all his representative works. He said that many of the inspirations for the dance come from traditional Chinese paintings, including the elements of the "Peony Pavilion" picture book, "In fact, the ancient Chinese painting architecture is not completely flat, it is to present the effect of 15 degrees of overlook, in fact, it is a subtle setting Chinese the aesthetics of space, and it is quite interesting for us to apply this to the stage." The whole stage has multiple layers, of which the outer frame of the outermost stage is outlined by red lines, which also comes from the elements often used to outline paintings in Ming Dynasty picture books.
The lighting of the play Xing Xin is also a big name in the industry, and the visual of the whole drama has a sense of traditional meaning and contemporary sense under his lighting design. And he said that our overall idea this time is to present a different oriental aesthetic.
In addition to the stage lighting, the costumes of this edition of "Peony Pavilion" invited the well-known costume designer Lai Xuanwu, who was nominated for best styling design at the Asian Film Awards and the Hong Kong Film Awards for Best Costume Design, and was also designed by him for the Kunqu opera "Six Memories of Floating Life" produced by the Shanghai Grand Theatre.
Backstage photo of "Peony Pavilion"
In the background, more than a dozen sets of elegant colors and unique costumes have just been delivered, which are handmade Su embroidery and machine embroidery complement each other. Lai Xuanwu introduced while unfolding, this time the costume he put a lot of effort into the color of the pattern, especially many of the flower and bird patterns on the costume, and different from the traditional Kunqu opera costume, but all from the painting.
For example, Liu Mengmei has a costume embroidered with plum blossoms and a costume with embroidered willow branches, implying that "not in the plum edge but in the willow edge". In "Back to Life", he chose chrysanthemums as a floral pattern for Du Liniang, but did not want to use traditional chrysanthemums too much, and then. Turning to the "Deshan Zhai Chrysanthemum Spectrum" compiled by Zhu Youyi in the Ming Dynasty, there is a kind of chrysanthemum with white and red on the inside, which is particularly suitable for the theme of this fold, which is a strong sense of birth from death. The flowers on the fold costume of "Youxiao" are quite modern, and it seems to be the iris that often appears in Van Gogh's pen, but it is actually a calamus, which is in line with "Youxiao". He Lai Xuanwu said that our costumes this time hope to be based on deep traditions, and the costume shape system returns to the classics, but has the aesthetics of the times in terms of colors and patterns, and does not fall into the clichés.
Costume details
"We just want to make a "Peony Pavilion" that is different from other theater performances," Zhang Xiaoding, general manager of the Shanghai Grand Theatre, said again when watching the rehearsal offstage, from the previous "Six Memories of Floating Life" to the current "Peony Pavilion", the Shanghai Grand Theatre hopes to continue the consistent concept of the "Oriental Aesthetics Series" brand and produce works of "traditional production methods and contemporary aesthetics".
Editor-in-charge: Cheng Yu
Proofreader: Zhang Liangliang