Since "Blue Horse" was staged at the Shanghai Theater in 2016, the bedside story told by dramatist Lai Shengchuan to his daughter has captured the hearts of many children and parents. During this year's Children's Day, the fantasy fairy tale parent-child drama "Whale Library" co-created by Lai Shengchuan and his daughter Lai Xianyun will appear in the theater again after 6 years, leading friends of all ages to start an adventure together.
"Whale Library" tells a story about knowledge and adventure, Mi'er, a little girl who loves to read, walks into the belly of a big whale and finds that it is actually a library, so she starts a journey to save the "Whale Library". The story is full of wild imagination, funny and funny cowardly birds, monkeys burning books and roasting bananas, and making up for lost books by returning stories...... The audience is in the belly of a whale full of ancient and modern Chinese and foreign books, and then it is spewed out of the whale's belly to the monkey kingdom.
Screenwriter Lai Shengchuan said with a smile that telling bedtime stories to children until their mouths are dry and their talents are exhausted, which is probably a nightmare for many parents, and he is no exception. "At the beginning, I didn't know the source of inspiration, and it might even have been 'broken', and then I improvised every day, told it night by night, level by level, and before I knew it, the story was told to the next generation of my daughter. ”
Rehearsal photo of the parent-child drama "Whale Library". Photo courtesy of the interviewee
This experience of improvising stories made Lai Shengchuan find that it is not easy to write scripts for children, "especially parent-child dramas, not only children want to like them, but also parents need to think about them, and a good parent-child drama should allow parents and children to have a common topic to discuss after watching the performance." So, in 2018, Lai Shengchuan put the bedside story of the Lai family on the stage for the first time.
This year's Children's Day will be a new production of "Whale Library" for the first time in 6 years. Lai Shengchuan invited young director Liu Xiaoyi to direct, "This is a story about courage, family affection, and friendship, not only is it innocent and fun, but more importantly, this work explores many profound issues in a simple way, which is worth revisiting repeatedly." ”
The main creative team of "Whale Library". Photo courtesy of the interviewee
According to Liu Xiaoyi, this version of "Whale Library" will have new creative adjustments in costumes, props, dance, music and other aspects. For example, in the design of costumes and props, it not only continues the cartoon style of the first version of "Whale Library", but also adds many modern fashion elements, taking the monkey characters of the "Monkey Kingdom" in the play as an example, they will appear in exaggerated and unique hip-hop style costumes, which not only conforms to the characteristics of the characters, but also is trendy and bold, which makes the audience's eyes shine.
Not only that, there is also a special link in the performance of "Whale Library", that is, "Little Actor Selection", where the main creative team will select some children who love drama to appear on the professional stage and participate in the performance of some scenes in the play. "We hope that through the creation of parent-child dramas, we can go deep into the inner world of children, inject nutrients into the next generation with drama, and nourish them with creative factors. ”
It is reported that from May 1st to 5th, Lai Shengchuan and Liu Xiaoyi will take the lead in bringing the newly produced parent-child drama "Whale Library" to Jiangxi Huichang Drama Town, and return to the theater from May 31st to June 2nd to embark on a fantasy journey on Children's Day with friends of all ages.
The header picture is the poster of "Whale Library". Photo courtesy of the interviewee