On July 5, Cha Wenhao, director of the revolutionary historical red drama "Tieliu Eastward", did a backstage visit at the National Theatre of China, showing the real scene of the rehearsal of the crew of "Tieliu Eastward".
After the rehearsal, Cha Wenhao led the screenwriter Cha Wenbai, the leading actors Tian Zheng, Wang Ting and other crew actors to share face-to-face with everyone.
Cha Wenbai shared: ""Iron Flow Eastward Advance" is a drama with no enemies and no women. If you want to see the beauty of masculinity, you must come to see what the hormones look like and what the patriotic fervor looks like in Taiwan. ”
The so-called brother who fought in the war, according to Cha Wenhao, Cha Wenbai was his cousin. The success of the drama "Iron Flow Eastward" was created by the two brothers, a screenwriter and a director.
Who is Cha Wenhao? Director and actor of the National Theatre of China.
Cha Wenhao's representative works as an actor include "The Awakening Age", "Glory and Dreams", "Youth Taboo Game", "Monument", "No Place to Die", "Chinese Soldier", "Flower Clown" and so on.
Cha Wenhao's representative works as a director include the drama "Let's Love! Chekhov", "Iron Flow Eastward", and also served as the theater director of the opening and closing ceremonies of the Beijing 2022 Winter Paralympics, and the theater director of the large-scale situational epic "The Great Journey" for the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China. He has won the Gold Award of the National Theatre Wenhua Award, the Outstanding Performance Award of the National Arts Troupe Performance Season, and was shortlisted for the Best Young Director Award of the first International Drama "Academy Award" (Director Award).
In addition, Cha Wenhao also has an identity, which is the son of Cha Cha Zhe, vice president of the National Theatre of China and a famous director.
ONE
From worry to affirmation of the Father
On April 14, 2021, Cha Wenhao's directorial debut "Let's Love! Chekhov premiered at the National Theatre with great success. Tian Qinxin, President of the National Theatre of China, spoke highly of it, "This is the first drama work of the National Theatre of China in 2021. This premiere of Mandarin marks the beginning of a new era in the art of directing at the National Theatre. ”
However, his father, known as the "cruel director", was still a little worried about his son's debut novel, "Before watching the play, what I was most worried about was that he kneaded Chekhov's three plays with some other novels and poems, a total of about five or six things, and I was afraid that the audience would have some obstacles when accepting it." ”
However, after watching the first performance, the old director was relieved. "My worries are unwarranted. In his own way, he uses parallel narration, as well as jump-off transitions and connections, as well as music, performances, lighting, including bells, and so on, to integrate several stories together, and each story is still clear in its own way. It can be said that it solves a big problem quite well, that is, the director's narrative problem on stage. ”
When "Iron Flow Eastward" was rehearsed, the old director's worries came online again, "How can a young director do a good job of the main theme?" Where to start with such a grand narrative? For such war themes and historical themes, there is no in-depth research and practical experience, no military dramas, and no soldiers have even been soldiers, why do you guide actors to become soldiers? ”
Regarding his father's worries, Cha Wenhao belongs to "reporting good news but not bad news, always bragging to him and saying it's okay." But the more I said that, the less my dad believed it. "Then be results-oriented, use data and awards to speak.
In April 2022, the first round of performances of "Iron Flow Eastward" was sold out in 9 seconds, with a Douban score of 8.8 points, nominated for the first International Drama "Academy Award" (Screenwriter Award), won the Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor and Best Newcomer at the 6th Chinese Drama Festival, and was shortlisted for the Best Actor of the Year at the 2023 One Drama Awards, becoming a box office word-of-mouth phenomenon in 2022......
With a series of positive feedback and honorary awards, the little inspector told the old inspector "please rest assured".
TWO
From questioning to becoming
Regarding the battle of drama, the little director and the old director really fought a lot.
Cha Wenhao, who grew up in theaters and rehearsal halls, can say that theater is a part of his life, and the stage is too close to him. "The theater and the stage are so close to me that I want to escape." Moreover, "I was very rebellious when I was a child, and at that time I thought that the director had to make hit TV series and movies to be famous, once I asked my dad unconvinced, people say that you are a famous director, but out of the alley of Di'anmen, who knows you?" In his sophomore year of high school, Cha Wenhao also made a bold statement to his father, "I want to act, I will be better than you!" ”
After being admitted to the Central Academy of Drama with the first place, Cha Wenhao can be said to have had a smooth life in the four years of college. In his sophomore year, he won three awards including the Outstanding Director Award with "Grandpa Became a Ghost", and in his junior year, he appeared at the Beijing International Youth Theatre Festival with his self-directed and self-starred one-man drama "Flower Heart Clown", and won five awards in the same year, including the gold medal for performance and the gold medal for repertoire at the National Drama Culture Awards. On the eve of graduation, he starred in the graduation plays "Self-Selected" and "Hamlet".
However, all the achievements of the student period were borrowed from his father's aura in the eyes of outsiders and were born in the "Rome" of drama. This kind of aura has been a kind of pressure and trouble for Cha Wenhao for a long time.
"I don't want to be told to be relying on my dad all the time." But when he ran into walls everywhere at work, Cha Wenhao finally realized that "it is not easy to enter the crew anywhere", "Director Cha Cha Zhe is willing to give me a chance, and I can only go all out as an actor and not embarrass him." Cha Wenhao has collaborated with the director's father many times, including "The Taboo Game of Youth", "Monument", "No Place to Die", and "Chinese Soldier".
Every time he collaborated with his father, Cha Wenhao said that he was "tormented and happy". "As an actor, he demands more from me than ordinary people. In "Monument", he plays Steko, a heavily neurotic war criminal, who is physically and mentally tortured every night, and when he comes home exhausted, he still can't get enough of criticizing me for not getting the details right." The two also had a lot of arguments in the rehearsal room, "We don't understand many things differently."
The directorial styles of the little director and the old director are also slightly different. The old director is known as a "cruel director", and his mentor Zakharov's concept of "theater is church" is engraved in his bones, and he wants to enlighten the audience and torture people's souls through theater. Director Xiao Cha is a "warm post-90s new generation director", he advocates equal dialogue and exchange, and hopes that the work will be presented warm, warm, and silent.
However, in terms of the director's methodology, Xiao Cha Dao has inherited the "success theory" of Lao Cha Dao, such as Lao Cha Dao's use of image seeds, the opera expression used in the process of creating dramas, and the need to make the play have artistic charm and artistic power.
The old and new generations also have the same views on theater and drama. The old director said that the theater is a place for people to communicate with the soul, a place for the audience to obtain the power of life, and the most fundamental value of drama is humanistic care and ultimate care. Director Xiao Cha said that the theater is a field of faith, and faith will be transmitted, and "Iron Flow Eastward Advance" is a story of faith igniting faith. Although the words used are different, the meaning is the same.
"I feel more and more like I'm just another him." In an interview with "Men's Clothing", when asked what he would write if he opened a column, Cha Wenhao said, "I want to talk about the story between father and son, between old men and young men." Why? The little man pretended to be dressed, but found that he was pretending to be his old man. ”
THREE
From "please sister get off the RV" to Deng Zhongxia
Everyone can't choose where they come from, and sometimes advantage is a dilemma. Cha Wenhao, who had a smooth ride in college, entered the National Theatre of China to participate in creation and performance after graduation, and at the same time was admitted to Beijing Film Academy to study for a master's degree in directing with the courage and pride of fresh challenges.
Unexpectedly, "as soon as I entered film school, all the little pride I used to have disappeared." Cinema is a completely new process, completely different from the way of drama production, from script creation to directing methods to various subversions of performance concepts, which made me very tormented and inferior in those years. Think about it, I have been directing acting for four years in my undergraduate degree, but I don't understand this or that, I don't understand photography, photography, fine arts, music, editing...... I felt like I was worthless, too weak. ”
The amount of knowledge required by film directors is huge, and Cha Wenhao was beaten back to the original point. He began to frantically absorb the nutrients of film knowledge, copying various schedules to attend lectures and lectures, and going into the library in his spare time, but he was still not so confident when he thought of shooting his own works. "What you get on paper is shallow, and you never know that you have to do it", Cha Wenhao wanted to learn professional knowledge in practice, so he began a hard journey to various film and television crews.
Cha Wenhao's first job in the film and television crew was to "ask my sister to get off the RV". At that time, the crew was stationed in the field, and the female No. 1 returned to her RV to rest and touch up her makeup after every shot. Because the RV was far away from the set, it was necessary to delay a lot of time and wait for the female number one to arrive, so the executive director sent Cha Wenhao to squat next to the RV with a walkie-talkie. Once he received the order, he had to trot all the way to the RV and say to the assistant of the female No. 1, "It's hard to ask my sister to get off the RV."
In this job, Cha Wenhao squatted for three weeks and didn't see the filming process. The second job finally entered the set, but he organized group performances on the periphery, was busy every day, and had to work with the group actors and aunts in the women's toilet. Because it was very cold at that time, the costumes of the group performers were very thin, so they ran to the thatched hut to keep warm. When it was time to shoot, Cha Wenhao needed to invite them out one by one.
Cha Wenhao, who won the gold medal of the National Drama Culture Award for performance with his self-directed and self-acted one-man drama "Flower Clown" in his junior year, had to squat next to the RV to "ask my sister to get off the RV" after joining the crew, and work with the group actors and aunts in the women's toilet.
It's better to be an actor to save the country, but I didn't expect this road to be more difficult to walk. Although many acquaintances before the old director worked in the film and television crew, "But that doesn't mean that I can easily go to the play, with such a head of the family, on the contrary, it has become a concern for many crews." It's normal to think about it now, it must be that I am not capable enough and not so suitable. ”
For a long time, Cha Wenhao didn't tell others his surname "Cha", and he relied on himself to find all his acting, and he was rejected, deceived, and bullied, and he also suffered bloody pain.
In 2015, Cha Wenhao received the role of a special soldier, getting up early every day and shooting in the Yellow Mountain. There is a shot that wants to hang Weiya from a high place and slide down the hemp rope, and the two inexperienced children who are responsible for operating Weiya are the two inexperienced children, but when Weiya is filmed, Cha Wenhao instinctively subconsciously grabbed the hemp rope in front of him, and when it slid to the ground, the meat in Cha Wenhao's palm was already grinding. Only a kind driver at the scene pulled him to drive for two hours to find the hospital for bandaging, and returned to work in the crew after the tetanus injection, enduring the pain and filming for more than ten hours a day in the high temperature of 40 °C, and persisted for half a month.
There is also a year of Spring Festival, the crew only has one day off, Cha Wenhao rushed from Hangzhou to Hengdian overnight, and the green train station ticket he bought at that time could only squat in the aisle at the junction of the carriage, and the biting cold wind came in through the crack in the carriage, and Cha Wenhao was still suffering from a severe cold at the time. Thinking of that night, Cha Wenhao frowned slightly, "People are embarrassed!" I envy the peasant brother next to me, he has a stack of newspapers underneath, I begged him to borrow some from me, and he really borrowed me one, a thin layer, and sat down on the ground. It was like this all night, and it was too cold halfway through, and I didn't block the gap, so I had to use a small paper ball to wipe my nose to plug the ......"
used to be the "second generation" in the eyes of others, but also struggled in unknown corners, and also had the same history of blood and tears as his peers. Before being interviewed by his senior brother, Cha Wenhao had never told the media, nor did he reveal it on his social accounts. "It's not easy to be a peer, what is my business? A lot of people haven't had a chance to say it yet! ”
There is no road in vain, every step counts. In 2018, Cha Wenhao ushered in the first important role in his film and television life - Deng Zhongxia in "The Awakening Age". Before going to the crew for an interview, Cha Wenhao wrote a biography of Deng Zhongxia's character "The First Glimpse of Zhong Lan's Discussion", which won him the opportunity to act, and studied for 192 days in this crew with a strong creative atmosphere, and his dream of learning professional knowledge in practice came true.
In 2021, "The Awakening Age" became a hit as soon as it was broadcast, becoming a popular and popular red drama, and Cha Wenhao gained more than 400,000 fans on Weibo. In the major revolutionary historical drama "Glory and Dreams" broadcast in the same year, Cha Wenhao played Yun Daiying. Deng Zhongxia and Yun Daiying founded "Chinese Youth" together, Deng Zhongxia inscribed the title of the journal, and Yun Daiying wrote the speech. The valuable experience of participating in the two main theme film and television dramas also laid the foundation for Cha Wenhao's red drama "Iron Flow Eastward".
Four
From an actor to a Mandarin director of two big dramas
The Mandarin rehearsal hall and the film and television crew are two completely different worlds, Cha Wenhao shuttled between them, and the film and television crew's courage gave him a new perspective and cognition of drama director and performance, and he also cherished his creation in the theater even more. "The rehearsals of the National Theatre are rigorous and standardized, and everyone's quest for theatrical art is reflected in every detail, and that kind of creative atmosphere is especially rare in this era."
Cha Wenhao was a director at the National Theatre, but his father, who was the vice president at the time, never let him rehearse the play independently. "Not once, actually. I followed him from the role to the main role, from the assistant director to the rehearsal director. This is scientific training, but also a kind of love, people can only do the work within the scope of their ability. ”
After eight years of experience in Mandarin, Cha Wenhao finally picked up the leak and got the opportunity to rehearse independently. "Because the director who had been scheduled to come couldn't come, the theater gave me several of Chekhov's one-act plays and asked me if I would like to try them, and I readily agreed, and I have been waiting for this opportunity for too many years."
This is "Let's Be in Love!" that will be brought to the Mandarin stage in 2021! Chekhov. Cha Wenhao said, "Chekhov's literature is like a garden, we are fortunate to be gardeners, picking a bouquet of flowers in this garden to present to more people, so that the audience can smell the fragrance of flowers." He hopes to use contemporary aesthetics and perspectives to allow more young people to enter the theater and like a work that is "lively, witty, humorous, relaxed, but without a lack of Chekhov's temperament".
On April 14, "Let's Be in Love! Chekhov" premiered, and Cha Wenhao waited for the audience's feedback with the apprehension of "handing in his homework". "I've done enough psychological construction, and people have to play next to each other."
Although his father and Dean Tian Qinxin both gave affirmation, "I know very well in my heart that compared with the wonderful works of the theater directors' predecessors in their youth, "Let's Love! Chekhov can only be regarded as a relatively complete study, and it is not qualified to be proud. So, around the same time, I began to brew another play, the novel "The Last Wave", which was later the main theme drama "Iron Flow Eastward", which was really a tough battle for me. ”
"It's even more difficult to make a successful original drama with a main theme." After more than 600 days of planning and preparation, "Iron Flow Eastward" went to the former site of the military headquarters of the New Fourth Army to collect wind on the spot, visited scholars of the Historical Research Society, invited radio experts to carry out teaching, participated in writing the lines of Sun Tzu's congratulatory message from the perspective of young audiences, and "ignited hope with hope" was refined into the image seed of this play, using innovative stage elements such as dialect, opera, and dance to poetically express the tenacious spirit, and presented a work that belonged to the silent heroes.
Many young audiences were empathetic after entering the theater, and those who walked into the theater for the little match actor Zhang Zhenyuan (Chen Qiaonian's actor in "The Awakening Age") said, "I came to see the first drama in my life for my idol, and I never expected to be shocked by such a theme, to remember those martyrs who sacrificed for New China, thank you to the artists of Mandarin for creating such a good play for us, I think I will often enter the theater in the future." ”
Tian Qinxin, director of the National Theatre of China, said, "Making the main theme look good is the mission and responsibility of the times that Mandarin must shoulder." I have led the young directors of the theater to make more than 30 excellent realistic works, and the young directors have been trained. This time, the theater used the young director Cha Wenhao, who rehearsed a big play for the first time, and my request to him was to make a good show with the main theme to watch, so that young people like it, and the result turned out to be the right way. ”
What Cha wants to do is to "convey the power of faith with warm expressions". With the encouragement and support of Dean Tian Qinxin, he successfully completed the creation of "Iron Flow Eastward". "I hope that through the charm of the stage, young audiences can empathize with the theater and connect the beliefs of the two generations."
Today, Cha Wenhao has many fans in the film and television industry, and he also has his director's masterpiece on the drama stage. Regarding today's achievements, Cha Wenhao modestly said, "I am the actor who has worked with director Cha Cha Zhe the most, and I have been fighting father and son soldiers for many years, and I have increasingly felt my father's dedication and love for drama, and his works are full of profound thoughts, and he is a real drama master." I'm still too far from it in comparison. ”