This spring, there are waves of beautiful small theater plays. Recently, the 2023 Nanjing Art Fund project "My Fathers and Me" was staged at Nanjing University of Media and Communication, and the touching father-son story made the audience deeply empathize. What is the story behind the scenes of this play? Listen to the director and screenwriter of the play.
Two people, forty years, father-son relationship
"My Father and Me" was co-created by teachers and students of the Performance Department of the School of Drama, Film and Television of Nanjing University of Media and Communication, and the four life fragments of a father and son connected the three unit stories "Accompanying", "Dedicated to Zhu Zhida" and "Ballads". In the time and space that spans 40 years, all kinds of plots are staged in turn, there are warmth, contradictions, laughter and tears, no matter how the times change, the deep love and care of the father has always been the same, and it can never be parted......
"The work comes from real life that we capture. Guo Yibing, the director of the play, said that along the way, maybe everyone failed to "waste" more time for their partners, children, and themselves, leaving something "unworthy" and "boring" that can be savored. Therefore, they packed up these fragments of memory, and through the epitome of the life of their parents in different eras, they showed their sincere attitude towards life and profound life wisdom formed over the years.
The four screenwriters of the play are all 21-level acting students of Nanjing University of Media and Communication, and the story is outlined little by little through a young perspective. "This story was inspired by my memories with my grandfather. Screenwriter Jia Yuchen said that when he was a child, his grandfather fanned a fan to drive away mosquitoes for him, split a big watermelon, and gave him the sweetest melon heart, and when he grew up, he suddenly realized that the time with his grandfather was getting less and less, and he didn't even know how to accompany the elderly, so he wanted to create a story with "companionship" as the theme to show the real mood of the old man and the meaning of companionship.
"The character prototype of the character Chief of Staff Zhu (Zhu Zhida) in the story is my grandfather. Screenwriter Peng Jiadong shared behind the scenes of creation, two years ago, by chance, he turned to an old diary of his grandfather, recording the details of his grandfather's life from the age of 18 to more than 50 years. After reading the diary, Peng Jiadong realized that his grandfather was not as serious and introverted as he looked, and his heart was kind and soft. So, the screenwriter decided to make the story of him and his grandfather into a play, to remember his grandfather in this way, and also hoped that through this story, the audience would cherish every deep love.
Truth is always moving, and colleges and universities are the garden of artistic creation
In the performance, the actors' interpretation of the texture of life led every audience to relive the story of their parents, and the audience sometimes laughed and sometimes silently wiped away tears, and those seemingly small lives recalled the long-lost touch.
After the performance, a number of expert leaders attended the post-performance seminar of "My Fathers and Me". Qian Shi, a national first-class director, expressed his appreciation for the tilt of the art fund towards colleges and universities. He believes that colleges and universities are an important soil for artistic creation, and the tilt of art funds to colleges and universities will help stimulate students' creative enthusiasm and imagination, and inject new vitality into the art creation garden.
At the meeting, Professor Zhou Anhua, Vice President of Nanjing University of Media and Communication and Dean of the School of Drama, Film and Television, pointed out that the campus is a hot land for drama, with very strong creativity, full of vitality, youth and imagination. This work is an excellent original work that integrates "life aesthetics", "emotional narrative" and "comedy tension", and it is also expected that more in-depth and warm works will emerge in the campus drama creation of Nanjing.
Rao Ze'an, Director of the Art Department of the Nanjing Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism and Director of the Nanjing Art Fund Management Office, expressed his appreciation for the play in his speech, emphasizing that the current artistic creation should pay attention to realistic themes, return to the art ontology, and pay attention to the authenticity of the characters and content. Finally, he recommended that the play be further commercially performed, and looked forward to the emergence of more excellent works in Nanchuan.
Chief director Yu Shengrui shared the creative process of the play. The original intention of the work is to guide students to put down their mobile phones, observe life, and find creative materials from real life. Through the series structure, the unit works that unify these themes finally form a complete theatrical work. "In the process of creation, we have gained a lot of emotion, which is not only from the plot itself, but also from the fact that we understand and recognize life more and more. ”
It is reported that on April 30, the original drama "My Fathers and Me" will be staged at the Zilu Yuhua Dream Theater, moving from the campus stage to the social stage, which will also be a successful example of art colleges and universities driving teaching with creation.
Modern Express/Modern + reporter Song Jingwei
(Photo courtesy of the show)