Published in the July 1934 issue of the "Literary Quarterly", "Thunderstorm", is about to usher in the 90th anniversary of the publication of the play, Mao Dun's sentence "Thunderstorm at sea that year" will now reappear in Shanghai, a combination of culture and education of the opera teacher's version of "Thunderstorm", will be performed as the 2024 Shanghai Jing'an Modern Drama Valley repertoire, under the direction of Pu Cunxin, chairman of the Chinese Drama Association, on May 10 to 12, on the stage of the Experimental Theater.
In 1979, the Shanghai Theatre Academy performed "Thunderstorm" with a neat lineup of a group of teachers who were teaching at the school at that time. In the 45 years since then, Shangju has performed seven different versions of "Thunderstorm", and even performed from the small theater of Shangju to the National Center for the Performing Arts. Pu Cunxin, the director of the 2024 drama version of "Thunderstorm", has acted in two generations of Zhou Mansion and directed a new interpretation of Beijing Renyi.
Pu Cunxin has a deep relationship with Shanghai Opera, three years ago, he directed the graduation drama "Hamlet" for the 2017 Tibetan class of the Department of Performance, and since March this year, he has once again entered Shanghai Opera, and once again chose the classics to show the art teaching style with the teachers and students of Shanghai Opera. Pu Cunxin, who is almost familiar with "Thunderstorm", personally revised the script, and for more than a year, he has read almost all the versions of "Thunderstorm" that he can find, purifying the essence of Cao Yu's earliest version, and highlighting "a young play written by a young man".
On March 4, Pu Cunxin came to the Shanghai Opera Campus and started a two-month rehearsal. There is less than half a month before the premiere, and just after the rehearsal ended, Pu Cunxin interpreted the problems recorded in the rehearsal one by one, and the original rehearsal time was extended by an hour. "My cooperation with Shangju is not based on time, but on a project-by-project basis, which is more free. Pu Cunxin said.
Pu Cunxin thinks it is very interesting for teachers who have been engaged in performance teaching to have the opportunity to experience performance again, "I am very willing to understand teaching in this way, and in the process, you will find that we still have space to continue to approach Mr. Cao Yu's works and touch things that have not been touched before." Therefore, the biggest difference in this version of "Thunderstorm" is that it strengthens the image of "moving", "The stage is full of furniture to be moved, and it has begun to be packed, Zhou Puyuan dismantled the sofa by himself and unpacked the old wardrobe by himself." Strengthen the theme of 'running away' in Mr. Cao Yu's four works, and it is also everyone's wish to run away from the predicament. The epilogue is also a little different, using Feng Mantian's music. ”
Regarding the director's words in the manual, Pu Cunxin changed and changed, "The 8 characters in Mr. Cao Yu's pen have a dilemma that we can empathize with, and we will interpret it and report to Mr. This time, he wants to make the plight of people sufficient, so that the audience can appreciate the situation after all their aspirations for the better have been shattered, which is more poetic than the original episodic organization. "We have to have our own attitude and reasons for doing any play, which is why classics are constantly being created and interpreted. ”
For these teachers, who have rehearsed "Thunderstorm" for their students countless times, it takes a process to break their usual perception of "Thunderstorm", and Pu Cunxin is no different: "Interpretations that were not completed when creating in Beijing are tried here, such as the positioning of Su Yi's character, we position her as a sister who asks for help, and her relationship with Zhou Ping can be reconstructed." In addition, we have strengthened Zhou Puyuan's sincerity, he will appear as soon as he comes up in the fourth act, not eavesdropping, but sitting on the top of the stairs, we will give him a beam of light, this is not made up by us, 'Don't think that you and Sifeng's mother think that your face is not good-looking, and you forget your human nature', this line is enough to show how he could be sleeping, but insight into everything that happened. Creation is to dig between the lines and form a kind of image reading. ”
Photo by Huang Zihan