"You told me that you read a strange book, and the book starts and ends, and you know who the murderer is as soon as you open it. In the Chinese version of the drama "The Shawshank Redemption" that just ended at the Tianqiao Performing Arts Center in Beijing, the Canadian actor Dashan played by Rhett, who is familiar to Chinese audiences, has such a line. This feeling is also quite similar to the first feeling of many audiences who have watched the movie version of this drama when they see it: although they know the plot of the story from the beginning, it brings a bit of "strange" freshness because 11 foreign actors from eight countries interpret it in Chinese.
Many viewers have strong emotions for the classic film "The Shawshank Redemption", which is based on the novel of best-selling American author Stephen King. This film, which has long topped the Douban and IMDB charts, has become the favorite of generations of audiences around the world because of its excellent interpretation of various universal human themes such as faith, freedom, friendship, talent, perseverance, hope, miracle, and redemption. Ryoma Society and Chinese Dream bought the text copyright of this classic IP, and innovatively adopted the form of all foreign actors performing in Chinese for the first time, making the Chinese version of the drama "The Shawshank Redemption" a new case of "cross-cultural drama", which not only brings a richer aesthetic experience to the audience, but also promotes the communication and exchange of different cultures in the integration of local and world. 【In front of the stage】There are surprises, touches, regrets, and expectations On the stage, this group of "China Tong" foreigners from all over the world, although they are all acting in Chinese for the first time, and even many people have no performance experience before, but they can use fluent Chinese and various authentic sayings such as "riding a donkey to read the record book, waiting and seeing" to shape the characters vividly, which shows their hard work and the careful tuning of director Zhang Guoli, which also made many Chinese audiences get double surprises while revisiting the touch.
The play also has a lot to explore from an artistic point of view. The play cleverly retains the film's third-person narrative perspective with Red as the narrator, which not only evokes a sense of intimacy in the hearts of audiences who are familiar with the movie, but also makes it easier for audiences who have not seen the movie or the original book to understand the characters and plot, and also highlights the importance of the most well-known and capable actor among the actors, Daiyama, and the friendship between Red and Andy. Most importantly, this kind of performance, which jumps in and out between the character and the narrator, and faces the audience, is often used in both Eastern and Western theaters, which has the effect of leading the audience deeper into the hearts of the characters, and at the same time allowing the audience to temporarily jump out of the plot and stimulate people to keep thinking.
The play is also rendered as much as possible with exquisite stage lighting and original music, creating an overall dark atmosphere of "prison". However, in terms of excavating the core of the drama and the performance state of the actors, it is not enough to really strengthen the constraints and oppression brought by the cruel incarceration life full of tense and terrifying atmosphere, and it is impossible to truly highlight that "the whole world is like a Shawshank", making it difficult for people to deeply feel the eternal spiritual dilemma of human beings.
There are two particularly shocking episodes in the movie "The Shawshank Redemption", one is that Andy in prison tries to make the beautiful and moving Mozart music echo over the entire prison despite the serious consequences of severe punishment, and all the prisoners stop to listen, at that moment, all the walls disappear and all the prisoners' hearts are freed. The other is Andy's final prison break, where he crawls through long pipes full of foul-smelling sewage and finally regains his freedom in the baptism of thunder and lightning. These two scenes best highlight Andy's struggle against fate, his thirst for freedom, and his extraordinary wisdom, strength and action. However, since these two paragraphs are protected by film copyright and are not allowed to be performed in the drama version, it is inevitable that people will feel a little regretful. Instead, a giant drone butterfly, a symbol of freedom and dreams, flies from Andy's hands to the audience and hovers over the theater, which is a stunning original idea in the theatrical version, and also interprets the touching classic line from another angle: "Some birds are destined to be unstoppable, because their feathers radiate the light of freedom." ”
As a different form of artistic expression from novels and movies, drama has its own uniqueness, and if it only repeats the original storyline or reproduces the classic scenes of the movie, then it loses its unique charm. Creators can use their liveness, assumptions, and interactivity to empower classic stories and timeless themes, bringing audiences stronger feelings and deeper thoughts. Imagine if in the last scene, Rhett did not walk to the virtual beach scene created by multimedia in the depths of the stage to reunite with Andy, but walked through the "fourth wall", walked off the stage, walked into the audience, and found Andy waiting for him with a wine glass in the crowd with the lights on, and then the two strode out of the theater and walked towards freedom in the bright reunion, then would the shock and aftertaste brought to the audience be more direct and intense, and more "theatrical"?
Chinese The 11 actors in the drama "The Shawshank Redemption" are all foreigners, from Canada, the United States, Australia, Italy, Russia, Argentina, Finland, France and other 8 countries. Many of these foreign actors have lived in China for many years, and many even regard China as half of their hometown. Their pronunciation of authentic Chinese lines has also become the biggest highlight of the performance of the drama "The Shawshank Redemption".
In particular, Canadian actor Dashan, who was once a household name in China for speaking crosstalk in Chinese on the stage of CCTV's Spring Festival Gala, has also been spreading Chinese culture by reciting Chinese poetry for many years. He is the first actor identified by the crew of "The Shawshank Redemption", and plays the heaviest role in the play, Red, who has to play both the character and the narrator. Although the movie is in front of Zhuyu, his performance is still very touching. At the curtain call of the premiere, Dashan greeted the audience on behalf of all the actors, and a sentence with a Beijing accent of "It's good to be back in Beijing, it's so good to be home!" caused warm applause from the audience.
Before the performance, the crew also held a "Shawshank Men's Group" meeting. Many viewers who watched the live broadcast heard this group of foreigners communicating with each other easily in authentic Chinese, and also joked with each other and shared interesting stories in the rehearsal performance, and they were amazed by their Chinese level: "If you don't look at the screen, you can't imagine that it is a group of foreigners chatting!" Some viewers couldn't believe it, and thought that simultaneous interpretation had reached such a synchronous state. There are also some viewers who are ashamed of themselves and lament that the Chinese pronunciation of these foreigners is more standard than their own.
Although these foreigners have no problem communicating in Chinese on a daily basis, in order to perform Chinese dramas on a professional stage this time, they have undergone some rigorous training during rehearsals. The crew also formulated punishment regulations, and a QR code for receiving money was posted on the door of the rehearsal hall, which read, "Enter Shawshank! Must speak Mandarin!", and anyone who violates the rules will be fined 20 yuan for one word. Unexpectedly, the most punished was the rock "old Paoer" Andi, who grew up in Beijing, who usually spoke an authentic Beijing accent, but he couldn't help but pop out a few English words. On the stage of "The Shawshank Redemption", he played the villain Warden, which left a deep impression.
During rehearsals, in fact, the biggest headache for the director is not that the actors speak foreign languages, but the "foreign accents" they have because they have studied and lived in various parts of China. For example, Ivan, who graduated from the Chinese Department of Sichuan University, often brings out a Sichuan accent. And the Australian actor Ke Jacob, who starred Andy in the play, is a Tianjin son-in-law, so he also needs to constantly correct his Tianjin accent to standard Mandarin. Ke Yacob and Dashan, who have lived in Tianjin and Beijing for many years, have many rivalry scenes in the play. Ke Jacob said with a smile: "If the two of us speak Tianjin dialect and Beijing dialect, it will not be like a drama, but like Jingyouzi and Weizuizi talking about cross talk." ”
Dashan revealed that in order to make the pronunciation and tone of the actors' lines more standard, and to avoid translation, the crew specially invited Chen Zhe, a national first-class voice actor, to work with the crew for two months, so that everyone has made great progress. The Chinese proficiency of these actors and their sincere performances on stage have won everyone's love and respect. But most of them are not professional actors, and some are even acting in dramas for the first time.
As the president of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Jacob was chosen to play the protagonist Andy because the crew not only values his Chinese skills, but also because he has a business elite temperament. But when he first received a call from the crew producer, he thought he had encountered a liar, and immediately refused, until he saw a performance advertisement on the Internet, so he took the initiative to contact the crew because he didn't want to miss such a good opportunity. At that time, the other actors in the crew had been rehearsing for a month, and Ke Jacob, who was the latest to join the crew and had a very heavy task, could only catch up, reciting lines all the time, and even fell asleep on a plane once, saying that he was still reciting his lines in his sleep: "I didn't kill anyone!" As a result, the passengers and flight attendants next to him were startled.
Mo Lingfeng, who plays Rust in the play, is a violinist and composer, so he also took on the work of sounding the Chinese version of "The Shawshank Redemption". Every day, he has to rehearse and compose, although it is hard, but he enjoys it. His original music for the drama also added a lot to the performance and received unanimous praise.
This group of highly educated, good-looking, Chinese people, wearing "Shawshank prison vests" every day, and even eating Beijing roast duck instead of turkey on Thanksgiving, the foreign actors in the "Shawshank Men's Group" use Chinese to interpret world classics to tell everyone: culture has no boundaries, no matter where it comes from, you can establish a deep connection with everything around you through hard work and enthusiasm. As Yao Yi, the head of Ryoma Society, one of the producers of "The Shawshank Redemption", said: "This reflects the self-confidence of our culture. This unity and effort carries the unity and innovation of the world, and their stories are the epitome of hope and friendship. ”
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