On the evening of May 9, the major revolutionary historical drama "Knock" jointly produced by the Propaganda Department of the Shenzhen Municipal Party Committee, the Propaganda Department of the Ganzhou Municipal Party Committee, the Propaganda Department of the Longgang District Party Committee, and the Propaganda Department of the Xunwu County Party Committee was staged in the Grand Theater of Longgang Cultural Center. After the premiere, the audience burst into warm applause, and the theater experts and the audience received rave reviews, believing that the performance was very vivid and fast-paced, which was in line with the current audience's appreciation level and aesthetics, and was unexpectedly good!
The play is based on the historical fact that Comrade Mao Zedong carried out an investigation on the search for Wu in Ganzhou City, Jiangxi Province, and from the perspective of Comrade Mao Zedong's observation of the search for Wu, it focuses on the political wisdom and excellent insight of a generation of great men. The launch of the play on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China this year not only shows the common aspiration of Shenzhen and Jiangxi to present gifts to the motherland, but also a concrete demonstration of the achievements of deep search for support and cooperation, and it is also a new model for the creation of original literary and artistic masterpieces "produced in Shenzhen".
Focus on the search for Wu research, and focus on creating original literary and artistic products "produced in Shenzhen".
The creation of the drama "Knock" is a masterpiece created by Shenzhen and Ganzhou to implement the relevant work arrangements of the whole party's Daxing investigation and research. The play focuses on the investigation of the search for Wu, strives to restore the style of the search for Wu at that time, deeply excavates the historical significance and scientific value of the idea of seeking truth from facts, portrays the character of Comrade Mao Zedong, who was the former secretary of the Red Fourth Army at the time, reveals Comrade Mao Zedong's thinking on major issues of China's revolutionary struggle in the play, and shows his artistic image of adhering to the mass line and having the courage to embark on a new revolutionary road.
This year marks the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China and a crucial year for achieving the goals and tasks of the 14th Five-Year Plan. The launch of the drama "Knock" is another literary and artistic masterpiece jointly launched by Shenzhen after giving birth to the dance drama "Wing Chun" with "word-of-mouth box office double harvest" and "innovation chapter of going out of the circle and going to sea", the first artificial intelligence-themed dance drama "Deep AI You", and the Shenzhen version of the opera "Carmen" jointly created by the world's top force Hamburg State Opera, Germany, Shenzhen has joined hands to help regional literary and artistic resources jointly launch another literary and artistic masterpiece, which will also create a good cultural atmosphere for the 75th birthday of the motherland.
The creation and rehearsal of the play is constantly ingenious, and the prop setting, stage design, and music creation are quite stylish. In the play, the representative "door" is established as the overall image of the performance. The "doors" of different sizes and heights in the performance symbolize the doors of the workers and peasants knocked on by Comrade Mao Zedong when he conducted the investigation to find Wuwu, and they are also the doors of the people who have suffered in history. The director's ingenious conception is also reflected in the choreography and music. The stage design more realistically restores the local customs of Xunwu, making the audience feel as if they were in the search for Wu back then. In terms of music creation, most of the repertoire elements come from local folk songs in Jiangxi, and through re-writing and arrangement, a large number of symphonies related to the practice and struggle of the Soviet revolution are integrated and used, forming another new highlight in the creation of original drama stage art.
Deeply seek cooperation to create a new model of literary and artistic creation, and constantly stimulate the vitality of literary and artistic talents
The creation of the play lasted nearly one year, and the play brought together domestic first-class experts, scholars and dramatists to participate in the creation and rehearsal. Song Baozhen, director, researcher and doctoral supervisor of the Drama Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Arts, served as the literary consultant, Li Baoqun, a national first-class playwright, served as the script director, and Jiang Tao, the winner of the national "Five One Project" award and the drama "Golden Lion Director Award", served as the chief director. Tang Liao, a local playwright in Shenzhen, who has won many Chinese Theatre Awards and Chinese Theatre Culture Awards, serves as a screenwriter. In terms of casting, Zhao Xu, the actor of Mao Zedong, has played Mao Zedong in the award-winning play "From Xiangjiang to Zunyi" of the "Five One Project" of the General Political Drama Troupe, and won the 18th Plum Blossom Award for Chinese Theatre; Liu Zhiming, the special commissioner of the Yangtze River Bureau, is played by Fu Weifeng, an associate professor of the Performance Department of the Central Academy of Drama.
While actively introducing national first-class literary and artistic masters to participate in the creation and rehearsal of the play, the play also fully mobilized the local resources of Shenzhen and Ganzhou. Shenzhen Longgang Pioneer Troupe, Gannan Art Creation Research Institute, Xunwu County Tea Picking Song and Dance Troupe and other cultural and artistic teams from Shenzhen, Ganzhou and Xunwu all participated in the creation and performance, laying a solid foundation for the play to better take root in the local area and realize "localization" in the next step. At the same time, it gives full play to the exemplary and leading role of high-quality repertoire in cultivating literary and artistic talents, expanding literary and artistic troupes, and prospering local literary and artistic creation, which not only provides a stage for actors, but also builds a platform for cooperation between Shenzhen and Xunwu and domestic first-line drama creators, exploring new models, accumulating experience, and training teams for the creation of literary and artistic masterpieces in the two places.
Cultivate the fertile soil of literature and art, and jointly conserve the ecology of literature and art
In recent years, under the high-level overall leadership of the Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee, and with the attention and promotion of the Shenzhen Municipal Party Committee and Municipal Government, Shenzhen has provided support to the search for Ukraine in the fields of industry, culture and tourism, medical care, energy, transportation, etc., helping the economic and social development of the search for Ukraine to run at the "Shenzhen speed", and has embarked on a new path of support and cooperation in which "the special zone drives the old area, and the old area supports the special zone", and jointly promotes high-quality development.
The birth of the drama "Knock" is an important embodiment of the deep search for support and cooperation to enter a new stage and explore the innovative model of "cultural assistance". Through the creation of literary and artistic masterpieces, we will further enhance the soft power of culture, inherit and carry forward the red culture, nourish the fertile soil for literary and artistic creation in the two places, strengthen the literary and artistic creation teams of the two places, and cultivate the literary and artistic ecology of the two places. After this new exploration of the creation of the play between the two places, the two places will also actively cultivate the humanistic spirit and artistic spirit, promote the high-quality development of the culture of the two places, and jointly write a new chapter of support and cooperation between the two places.
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The main creator talks about creation:
Why was the title of the play "Knock"?
Because Chairman Mao did a very careful job when he was doing the investigation of the search for Wu, visiting and knocking on the doors of ordinary people from door to door, to find out how much a piece of tofu is, how to make and eat it, and how many kinds of shops there are, and write in great detail. It is precisely because of this spirit of seeking truth from facts that we can knock on the door of the victory of the Chinese revolution and the door of the Communist Party of China to explore the great road of Sinicizing Marxism.
We stayed in Xunwu for about three or four months, looking for all kinds of materials everywhere every day, visiting the marching routes of the Red Fourth Army in those years, including the trade routes and living conditions recorded in the Xunwu survey, and we all went through and saw them step by step.
The difficulty of the drama of the investigation is that it was a relatively stable period with no conflicts of events, but the drama is worth writing about. The 80,000-word investigation of the search for Wu can be said to cover all aspects of Chinese society around 1930, and the living conditions of the people hit my heart more than any historical material, and it is hard to imagine that so much has changed in the past 90 years, which moved me very much. The common people are using their personal history to explain why we have achieved today's achievements and why our party has won.
I was very touched by the fact that all the participants joined without asking about the remuneration conditions, and some resigned and came directly, and everyone put a lot of effort into this play and completed it in a tight time with an extremely hard working spirit.
- Screenwriter Tang Liao
This is a very tenable play.
There are a lot of ideas in this drama in terms of stage art, and we have designed a lot of doors, representing the doors of the toiling masses, the doors of farmers, workers, merchants, and the doors of all the people on the streets of Xunwu, and Mao Zedong knocked them one by one. The forms of doors are hanging, rotating, real-life doors, and doors on various streets on the canopy, and the image of the door runs through the whole play. By the end of the day, the sound of the door was echoing. Mao Zedong finally gave us an answer: no investigation, no right to speak. Through these doors, we are connected with our common people, embodying Mao Zedong Thought in one knock after another, hoping to knock on the doors of workers, peasants, and toiling masses, so as to rush to the door of a beautiful new world.
Since intervening in the play in February this year, the script has been in the fifth draft, and it has gone through three drafts, and it has been polished, and the time is very short. We did a lot of work in the early stage, went to Xunwu to interview, and did a lot of social research. In terms of music, the local tea-picking songs were also included, and the lyrics and music were re-composed. Re-following the path that Mao Zedong walked in Xunwu, the bamboo forests clustered together in the local area also became a source of inspiration and were used on the stage.
We have been adjusting, hoping to capture the hearts of the audience, there is a scene where Platoon Commander Sun sacrifices, and the scheduling has been adjusted many times, and finally presented in the form of a soul dialogue, which is also an innovation. The play sets up a negative image of Liu Zhiming, a follower Tang Anna, and there are some interesting stories in it, hoping that the audience will go into the theater to enjoy it.
- Director Yang Chao
Strictly speaking, this is the fourth time I have played Chairman Mao. This drama mainly talks about Chairman Mao's in-depth exchanges with the people during the investigation of the search for Ukraine, including learning from the people, understanding some basic ways of operation of urban commerce, and fighting against some representative characters in the play, which is obviously different from the Long March and the founding of the party.
The core of the characters in this play shows more of the spirit of seeking truth from facts, including in-depth investigation, without which there is no right to speak. For our current youth, party members and cadres, and the broad masses of the people, we can revisit this period of history and re-inspire everyone to forge ahead.
This script was very attractive and moved me, and after joining the crew, I learned that it was not easy to create, and screenwriter Tang Liao and director Jiang Tao had been preparing for a long time in the early stage. We kept revising and polishing during the rehearsals, and we were still adjusting during the rehearsals, and it was already the eighth draft. Two days before the performance, there were some adjustments to the lines of some of the mass passages. I've been in hundreds of performances, and after facing the audience, I still keep adjusting, which is a long-term job, and I think it's good.
Entering the rehearsal stage, the pace was very tight, and it took less than twenty days to enter the rehearsal. went to Shenzhen to rehearse intensively, and the whole crew, under the leadership of the director team, gave full play to the spirit of the Red Army, twisted into a rope, and the cohesion was particularly strong.
A very impressive part of the play is that when Platoon Commander Sun died, the chairman said that when he was a child, his family was poor, he worked for the landlord's family, the cattle trampled on the rice, and he was beaten by the landlord's family and was forced to join the Red Army...... This is a very representative group and represents a member of the tens of millions of toiling people. The chairman said with very simple feelings, what is our revolution for? It's to eradicate exploitation and keep everyone from being bullied...... I believe that the audience will have strong empathy after the performance. I think the main theme works should be vigorously promoted and encouraged, which is the positive energy of the times. The most important thing is to let the revolutionary spirit be passed on among the young people of the present and realize that it was not easy for the older generation to fight the country in the past.
The challenge for me personally is age and appearance. I'm trying to slim down to get closer to the image of the people at that time. Years of stage experience have made me pay more attention to the inner temperament and state of the characters, and get closer to the shape from the god-like.
- Mao Zedong actor Zhao Xu
I haven't been on stage for 10 years, and I've been teaching and directing. It was the first time I had been given the role of such a revolutionary, and it was a great challenge for me. The director, screenwriter and Mr. Zhao Xu have all helped me a lot. Let me understand that the spiritual world of this character is full of revolutionary passions and fantasies that support everything he does.
The character in the play came back from studying abroad, with advanced revolutionary experience and theories abroad, and passionately wanted to go to the revolution to realize his ideals, but he actually did not particularly understand the domestic situation at that time. Later, I gradually discovered that we had to combine the actual situation in China in order to get out of our own way. In the process, I encountered many difficulties, and even paid for my life in the end.
One of the very good things about the work is that for some people today, it is impossible to believe and imagine that the revolutionary martyrs at that time paid their lives for their ideals, but I want to say that everything is true. What this show inspires us is, what are we missing now?
- Liu Zhiming played by Fu Weifeng
I have participated in many revolutionary roles, but this time I am not playing a revolutionary image in the traditional sense. I play one of the few female students who have just graduated. She believed in Marxism-Leninism, saw the birth of the first sickle flag from books, and felt excited and yearning for revolution. After returning to Xunwu, she went from the cognition of books to the investigation in practice by Commissar Mao, and had a new understanding of the revolution, and her characters also grew.
During rehearsals, I was sometimes moved to tears. My feeling is that our life right now is really hard-won. We see in textbooks that characters feel virtual, but in fact, they are living people like us, and they have feelings and fears, but they also want to live. Through acting in this play, I am very grateful for that period of history and that period, I feel so happy to be able to live in such a peaceful and peaceful new China, and I hope that everyone will cherish life through this play.
I am from Shenzhen and grew up in Shenzhen. I'm really happy to be performing in my hometown this time. Shenzhen is a young city, compared with Beijing and Shanghai, the market is not so strong for drama consumption, in recent years, the theater atmosphere is getting better and better, more and more dramas, musicals and so on are staged in Shenzhen. The cultural atmosphere in Longgang is very good, and my grandmother lives in Longgang. As long as I come back, I will visit her every week. There is a metro station here, which is also very convenient.
- Tang Anna played by Zeng Yongdai
I play Cooper who should represent the majority. Commissioner Liu Zhiming represents a very firm idea, and Mao represents another faction and is also very firm in doing an investigation, and Cooper is in the middle.
At that time, when I took this scene, I was a little confused, I didn't know how to go specifically, but I didn't know how to solve it. Therefore, in the exploration and research, I am constantly influenced by Commissar Mao, and conquered by his personality charm and way of doing things.
There is a line in it, "After this period of research, I found that the truth is far more complex than I imagined." "In practice, the characters learn this method little by little, which is a kind of growth for most ordinary people.
The practical significance of this drama lies in the fact that we often make empirical mistakes and have inertial thinking, and Member Mao proposed that without investigation, there is no right to speak. This method is to keep thinking, keep investigating, and practice according to the real situation in order to get true knowledge.
The investigation is a very famous event. My dad was a soldier and knew about it. If I didn't rehearse this play, I wouldn't know. Obviously a very important and meaningful thing, it can be said that it is both popular and unpopular, and I hope to present it to more people.
In the final tenth scene, Cooper died at the age of 29. Member Mao gave an 8-character evaluation, "My friend Gu Bai, handsome and hardworking." And the line I want to say is, "It would be nice if I didn't die, I want to follow you to continue to do the revolution for the rest of my life, but unfortunately I have no ...... at the age of 29"
In 2017, when I was in Beijing Renyi, I often toured Shenzhen, including "Li Bai" and other plays. The audience here is very enthusiastic, very accommodating to the actors, and it is easy for people to "float". Later, I will also adjust my mentality and act seriously, constantly improve my business ability, and strive to perform better in the next scene. In the future, I would like to challenge villains, such as Professor Moriarty in "Sherlock".
- Cooper played by Leng Jiyuan
Expert Comments:
This main theme drama is unconventional, the rhythm is bright, and it is very young, which is very in line with the appreciation level and aesthetics of the current audience. In terms of characters, a group of very interesting little people are set up, highlighting the humanitarian spirit and humanistic care of Commissar Mao in the investigation of the search for Wu. It is presented through the perspective of ordinary people, sympathetic to each individual, and makes the viewer feel more intimate and resonant. The play also allows us to see the advocacy of equality between men and women, and Commissar Mao has made great contributions to the improvement of the status of women in China.
In the whole play, the director is skilled, the actors are in place, the script is successfully shaped, the stage design is creative, and the design rotates on both sides, which makes the audience resonate strongly.
If drama is a contest between darkness and light, this play allows us to see the light.
——National first-class screenwriter calmly
The compact structure of this drama, the vivid interpretation of the actors, and the audience's response are so good, it is really unexpected! In terms of stage design, the turntable is used for scenery switching, which absorbs the thinking of time and space changes in traditional dramas, and is different from the narrative scene presentation of ordinary dramas, and recombines time and space, which is very novel! In terms of music, it is a fusion of local folk songs and pianos, and it is not stiff at all, and the viewing is really unexpected! The performances of the actors reflect the national level, there is no taste of sketches, and it is very atmospheric!
——Xu Shilin, member of the Chinese Writers Association and vice chairman of the Shenzhen Literary and Art Critics Association
In this play, in addition to the joining of expert teachers and outstanding artists from Beijing, there are also some local actors from Shenzhen, who have profound skills and perform very well, and jointly present a very wonderful performance on the stage.
——Mu Rong, vice chairman and secretary general of Shenzhen Quyi Artists Association and research librarian
Audience's Voice:
The performance is very lively and not dogmatic. Cooper in the play, I think it's an example for us to learn.
Although the stage is not as large as the National Center for the Performing Arts, the design is very elaborate and the design of the rotation is very good.
In addition to Chairman Mao's role, there are several roles played by women who are also particularly touching.
——Cultural worker Xie Shaohua
This drama makes us realize the necessity of vigorously promoting the trend of investigation and research in the whole party, and that in order to take the Chinese road well, it must be combined with China's specific reality.
This drama not only knocks on the door of a shuttle to us more than a hundred years ago, but also knocks on the door of every household of the masses, and reminds us that party members and cadres must always face the masses and do everything for the masses.
This drama may knock on the hearts of many young people, allowing young people to turn red culture into popular culture.
——Party school worker Guo Hanqi
Source: Jingbao APP
Reporter: Li Hairuo
Editor: Chen Zhangwei