In the soothing music, the morning mist and cooking smoke of the villages on the banks of the Yellow River curl up, exuding a rustic atmosphere and wisps of nostalgia. Sun Guangming, the first secretary who graduated with a doctorate in agriculture, walked into Yuandi Village with dwarf stakes apple seedlings on his back, opening a new chapter of rural revitalization with science and technology to help upgrade the planting industry and lead Hao Fengxian, the village party secretary, and others to a better life. From September 7th to 10th, the drama "Warm Taste" premiered at the Central Opera House in Beijing. At the end of the performance every night, when the first secretary "Sun Guangming" played by Jin Dong and the village party secretary "Hao Fengxian" played by Liu Mintao hugged the curtain call, the audience would burst into warm applause and cheers. After the performance, the audience was pleasantly surprised to receive Shaanxi apples at the entrance of the theater, and the producer said: "Please take away an apple, take away the warm taste." ”
The drama "Warm Taste" is narrated against the backdrop of the historic "Yuandi Village" along the Yellow River. Forty years ago, in order to get rid of poverty, the villagers resolutely went to the plateau to open up the wasteland and planted the first apples on the edge of the Yellow River. Forty years later, the village of Yuandi had a failed apple harvest, and people gradually lost confidence in growing apples. The arrival of Sun Guangming, the first secretary, changed people's concepts and lives.
In the play, a dialogue between Sun Guangming and Pingping, a rural youth who graduated with a master's degree in agriculture, can be described as a point: "Why is the apple producing area at 37 degrees north latitude, instead of the equator, which has the most abundant sunshine?" Because the relationship between the sun and apples is like this - too close will burn, too far away and cold, only the right distance, the right amount of sunshine, is the real warm temperature. The same should be true between people, not too close and not too far - you should find your own temperature at the bottom of the hill. Therefore, this is not a simple realist rural theme work, but more like an "allegory" about "apples", using the growth cycle of apples as a time scale to measure the self-innovation, alternation of the old and the new, and the pace of continuous upgrading experienced by the village in the washing of time.
As the chief planner, artistic director and starring of the play, Jin Dong is undoubtedly the biggest attraction of the play, and as soon as he appeared on the stage, he won warm applause from the audience.
Affectionately known as the "old cadre" by everyone, he played Sun Guangming in "The Taste of Warmth", and is an image of a grassroots cadre full of wisdom and courage. is different from the image of cadres in traditional rural dramas, Sun Guangming, who has a scientific research background and urban life experience, is more bookish as an intellectual. When he first arrived in the countryside, he was faced with a new and challenging environment, and the rejection and questioning of him by the villagers made it difficult for him to move forward and he felt confused and confused. But in the face of difficulties, he was firm, persistent, patient and sincere in communicating with Secretary Hao and the villagers, and finally ushered in the dawn of hope. Jin Dong's own temperament is quite in line with such a character image, and his natural and simple performance also makes the character very affinity. The play also expresses Sun Guangming's dream, so that this character has a poetic feeling.
Secretary Hao played by Liu Mintao is vivid, complex and multifaceted. She had a bitter experience, married to the poorest and stupidest sixth child in the village at the bottom of the hill, and suffered the white eyes of the villagers, and the villagers handed over the drudgery of collecting agricultural taxes to her, and she became the village chief from then on. After becoming the village head, in order to win the trust and respect of the villagers, she devoted all her efforts and finally became the real leader of the village. But in the complex human feelings and various relationships in the countryside, she also has a lot of helplessness and compromise. Liu Mintao's slightly exaggerated but down-to-earth performance made this character stand on the stage.
There are a large number of group dramas in the play, through the different performances of the villagers, to face various problems in rural development, such as the difficulties of industrial upgrading, farmers' acceptance of new technologies, etc. This choice of themes that closely follow the pulse of the times makes the works have strong practical significance and value of the times. The director's second creation and the careful design of the choreography make the whole stage both realistic and freehand, high and low, varied, the huge loess slope that can be moved, combined and rotated exudes the smell of earth, and the flippable multimedia screen is very fashionable, the actors travel up and down inside and out, and the fate of the characters also experiences various ups and downs, conflicts and frictions, and everyone and every family has their own story. The image of a centenarian Li Auntie without lines has a certain symbolic meaning, which conveys people's attachment to their hometown.
"Now there are many young people who are actively returning to their hometowns to build a better beautiful countryside, which has brought us a lot of inspiration for our creation." Jin Dong, the chief planner, artistic director and leading actor, said, "In the final analysis, this drama is about the relationship between people and the land under their feet. What we want to show is not only a specific story, but also a dialogue about time, about the collision of the old and the new. ”
In the view of director Wang Yansong, the taste of warmth is the taste of people after all, accompanied by a long period of nostalgia, inheriting the desire of generations of Chinese in the evolution of ancient agricultural civilization, and a new life of "new rural aestheticism".
The drama "Warm Taste" is guided by the Propaganda Department of the Shaanxi Provincial Party Committee of the Communist Party of China, co-produced by the China Coal Mine Art Troupe, Shaanxi People's Art Theater Co., Ltd., and People's Daily Online Co., Ltd., and is exclusively operated by Beijing Xiken Piya International Cultural Development Co., Ltd. After the first round of performances in Beijing, they will be performed at the 23rd China Shanghai International Arts Festival, the 10th Silk Road International Arts Festival and the first Jiangsu Grand Theatre Drama Festival in 2024.