On the evening of August 11, the Russian-language Shakespeare "Twelfth Night" produced by the Chekhov International Theatre Festival in Russia made a wonderful appearance at the National Centre for the Performing Arts. As the August "highlight" of the "Essence of the West" section of the 2017 National Centre for the Performing Arts International Drama Season, "Twelfth Night" has made a new interpretation and interpretation of Shakespeare's classics in the way of "all-boys class" and "all Russian", not only retaining the original humor and humor of Shakespeare's comedy, but also adding new highlights to the actors' performances and stage sets, so that today's audiences can find resonance and joy, understanding and thinking in this comedy of four hundred years ago.
On the stage that night,
Andrey Kuzichev, Eugenie Samarin, Ian Ilves and other outstanding actors from Russia recreate Shakespeare's viola, Olivia, Duke Osino and other classic characters. A shipwreck breaks up twin siblings Viola and Sebastian, and the younger sister Viola comes to Illyria, Italy, where "women dressed as men" become the attendants of the Duke of Ossino. Played by Viola is a young actress
Andrei Kuzichev, a graduate of the Russian Academy of Drama, has starred on stage in the drama masterpieces such as "West End Story" and "Three Sisters", and also played important roles in the film Doctor Zhivago (2006). Because Viola itself has a gender substitution of "women dressed as men" in the plot, letting a male actor play this role adds comedic color and irony. Andrei Kuzichev not only presents Viola's playful cuteness as a woman very well, but also delicately and naturally interprets the complex emotions of Viola transforming into a "male attendant" and accidentally hitting and being loved by a "love enemy". Some critics praised: "You can see the humorous satire of gender in Andre's performance, as a kind of plot arrangement, this interpretation both breeds love and hides love." (Four-star evaluation of the British "Times" newspaper) Just when this "love triangle" did not know how to develop, Viola's twin brother Sebastian suddenly appeared, and the unreasonable Miss Earl mistakenly thought that the two were the same person, so she eagerly expressed her love to her brother. At this time, the duke, who had been repeatedly frustrated, also accompanied by the "male" attendant, went to the mansion of his sweetheart in order to make a final attempt. Intricate emotional entanglement, when the four people are facing each other, the misunderstanding between each other is clarified, and the yin and yang have made two pairs of lovers. The actors on the stage freely express the happiness of their lovers, the jokes of fools and the gains and losses of falling into the love network, this interpretation is as natural as from the heart, and at the same time, it is mastered in proportion, and Zhang relaxed and completed the "second creation" of this classic comedy. The show's director, Declan Donnalen, said: "Twelfth Night is a comedy about personality and authenticity. It can be a romantic comedy in a movie, but Shakespeare is more 'rebellious'. He dresses the boy as a girl and the girl as a boy, and the gender is fluid here, but the plot mechanics are the same: who is in love with whom? Shakespeare is obsessed with human love, he often depicts ordinary people in special situations, we come to the theater to watch Shakespeare's characters fall in love, but also we can see the love we fear, yearn for, desire, reject, see that love may be our only truth. ”
Produced by the Chekhov International Theatre Festival in Russia, this edition of "Twelfth Night" integrates strong Elements of Russian culture, and the "All Russian" interpretation undoubtedly brings a cross-cultural perspective to the play. On the afternoon before the performance, the National Centre for the Performing Arts also held a dialogue activity on "Russian Drama in China" at the Foreign Research Bookstore of the University of Foreign Affairs of Beijing Chinese, which invited the famous actor Pu Cunxin and the famous director Cha Mingzhe to communicate with the main creator and star of "Twelfth Night", and was hosted by young director Yang Shen. Director Cha Mingzhe recalled his experience in Russia in the 1990s, and what was particularly profound was the Russian people's love for drama: "Theater is a place where people communicate with the soul, where the audience obtains the strength of life, and theater is connected with all the most beautiful beliefs, ideas, kindness, compassion, sympathy, love, peace and so on. The biggest gain was that I understood the relationship between drama and people, life and society, so after this I also felt that I should do more such plays, for the human heart, the portrayal of human soul, human nature, etc. These are all valuable things, and make our drama full of humanistic care, which is probably the deepest impression I got when I watched the drama in the Soviet Union, including Russia. Pu Cunxin introduced at the event site: "China now has two cultural systems, one is that we open our eyes to see the world, we have a platform for performing comprehensive arts like the National Centre for the Performing Arts, which can let the audience see the world's very excellent performances such as music, dance, drama, opera, etc.; at the same time, we also have a national culture that is very systematically integrated into our own blood like Russian art, and we also hope that the audience will walk into the theater to understand China's own traditional culture." In addition to learning from these excellent troupes in Russia and the world, we must also inherit and innovate our traditional culture, which is not a delay. Valery Shedlin, artistic director of the Chekhov International Theatre Festival in Russia, also looks forward to deeper exchanges and cooperation with outstanding Chinese dramatists in the future, bringing back China's excellent theatrical works back to Russia. For the performance, Yevgeny Pisarev, assistant director of "Twelfth Night", introduced: "When we first rehearsed, the director did not make any instructions and requirements for the actors, he let the actors try it themselves and interpret the play according to their own understanding. The actors are completely free when it comes to rehearsal, you can act as you want, and we try to explore the best state of the stage performance little by little in this way. Directors often tell the actors that you are not just an performer, you have to put yourself completely into the role, more like the common creator of the play. In this sense, the director is a very 'cunning' person, although he did not say anything, but he already had his own ideas for the play, he let us rehearse over and over again, in our completely free and relaxed rehearsal state to experience. It is reported that the play will continue to be staged until August 13, and the "Forbidden Game of Youth" directed by Cha Mingzhe and the "Uncle Vanya" starring Pu Cunxin will also be staged, presenting the wonderful performance of the "Oriental Charm" section of the 2017 National Centre for the Performing Arts International Drama Season.
2017 National Centre for the Performing Arts International Drama Season
Twelfth Night
Shows: August 11-13
Venue: National Centre for the Performing Arts, Theatre
"Youth Taboo Game"
Shows: August 16-20
Uncle Vanya
Shows: August 24-27