Zhang Lu said that she was lucky.
Three years ago, Wong Kar-wai taught her how to play a swaying proprietress on the Yellow River Road, and three years later, on Niuzhuang Road, which is less than a few hundred meters away from the Yellow River Road, she waited for the "big heroine" drama that many actresses dreamed of - the drama "Meng Xiaodong", and the director Hu Zongqi is also a famous director in the industry.
If you push the time back to 20 years ago, Zhang Lu is already the heroine of the drama "Song of Long Hatred". In Zhang Lu's mind, whether it is Wang Qiyao in "Song of Long Hatred" or the "Generation of Winter Emperors" in "Meng Xiaodong", they can be called the female representatives of Shanghai on the art stage.
"It's worth it for an actor to do this. In an interview with a reporter from Huangpu Financial Media, Zhang Lu, an actor from the Shanghai Dramatic Art Center, said.
"Can you imagine that more than 70 years ago, when Meng Xiaodong appeared on stage as a woman, the crazy picture of the audience below?"
Having sat in the audience of the Grand Theatre of China several times to watch performances, Zhang Lu has never associated this century-old theater with the "Winter Emperor". It wasn't until she received the script of the drama "Meng Xiaodong" and saw the photos hanging on the historical wall of the theater that she began to be curious, on September 8, 1947, Meng Xiaodong completed the swan song of his stage career at the China Grand Theater...... I believe that these important people in her life will emerge one by one. ”
In the past, the love-hate relationship between Meng Xiaodong and Mei Lanfang is naturally the unavoidable focus of this drama. "The Emperor of Beard" Meng Xiaodong played a man on stage, and Mei Lanfang, the "King of Danjiao", played a woman on stage.
But what Zhang Lu values more is that Meng Xiaodong's love and dedication to skills are extremely strict with himself. When this unblessed relationship suffered a setback, Meng Xiaodong chose to cut off the love thread and regain his dream of Peking Opera. She worshipped Yu Shuyan as her teacher, changed sharply step by step, and finally became a grandmaster in the Peking Opera industry. "As an actress, that's what fascinated me to her. Zhang Lu said.
In fact, there are too many details worth pondering in this pear orchard past, "I don't want to simply play an 18-year-old Meng Xiaodong, if it is just a young state, it may be a little 'shallow', I hope to explore another possibility, showing the breath of Meng Xiaodong's love for a little woman at the beginning of her life." ”
In between rehearsals, in addition to scrutinizing the characters, Zhang Lu often thinks of the cooperation experience with Wong Kar-wai in the TV series "Flowers". ""Flowers" was filmed for two years, and the director made me sure that film and television performances and stage performances are in the same line. ”
At the filming site of "Flowers", Wong Kar-wai always asked the actors to go to the scene first, "It's like rehearsing a drama, everyone takes a book to play, where they don't adjust him in time, and when they are all scheduled, the actors go to rest, and he starts to set up the scenery and lay the track." It's all about filming a TV series in the form of a rehearsal stage play. This way of working makes Zhang Lu and the other actors enjoy it very much, and they are willing to create a good work together.
Wong Kar-wai taught Zhang Lu on the Yellow River Road, and now she has also "moved" to the rehearsal site of "Meng Xiaodong" on Niuzhuang Road. And the image of the "Generation of Winter Emperor" gradually became clear in Zhang Lu's heart: on the stage, she was the dashing emperor and general of the typhoon; after fading the heroic domineering on the stage, she was just a weak ordinary woman who fell in love.
After filming "Flowers", Zhang Lu has a big change, that is, he no longer looks for a camera. "Actors will habitually put their faces to the camera, but Wong Kar-wai doesn't allow it, because forgetting the camera is the way to tell a story. ”
But in fact, whether it is Wong Kar-wai or Hu Zongqi, the director of "Meng Xiaodong", they will tell the actors: The important thing is never you, but the character itself. "I'm so lucky to meet all the good directors. Zhang Lu sighed.
Returning to the stage, Zhang Lu "stared" at the lifelike Meng Xiaodong in his heart for a long time, "Such a shining 'Winter Emperor' is worthy of being seen by the audience." Just like Zhang Lu said to Hu Zongqi at the beginning of the script, "If there is this opportunity, I will take out all my skills to let the audience find the connection between myself and Meng Xiaodong from the perspective of an independent woman who is not bound by emotions and completes her dreams with love and perseverance."
Will this "link point" be found, and will the audience recognize it?
From the proprietress who competed for the "top of the wave" on the Yellow River Road to Meng Xiaodong, who left the Guangling swan song on Niuzhuang Road, Zhang Lu hopes to once again show the audience Shanghai's unique and colorful cultural heritage with this gorgeous turn.
Reporter / Liu Yi
Editor / Fan Lujia
Photo / Wu Chu Liyun China Grand Theatre
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