"What is the answer to love?
Love is a big mystery. ”
- Chekhov, "About Love"
Flying snow, silver sleighs, chess, Shostakovich's Second Circle Dance... "Love! After the successful premiere of "Chekhov" in April this year, with the "most Russian" painting style and extremely ingenious tandem narrative, both realistic and freehand, Chekhov's three one-act comedies "Stupid Bear", "Marriage Proposal" and "Wedding" stage mixed, at the same time, the play also integrated Chekhov's famous novels "Teasing", "The Man in the Set", "The Bride", "About Love" characters and stories, interspersed in the plot, forming a Chekhov literary love parallel universe, which is not only a new interpretation of Chekhov on the Chinese drama stage. It is also a sincere tribute by young Chinese theater artists to Chekhov, the "great man of eternal life".
From August 5th to 8th, the National Theatre of China "Love! Chekhov will take the stage at the National Centre for the Performing Arts, kicking off the 2021 International Theatre Season at the National Centre for the Performing Arts.
Cha Wenhao: "As a young director, being able to rehearse Chekhov's works is a very rare opportunity and an extremely difficult challenge. How to innovate while inheriting, finding the symbolic meaning of Chekhov's works, and finding the fit point of Chekhov's contemporaryization are the problems I focus on thinking about. This creation takes 'enigmatic love' as the starting point, integrates the details of the novel on the basis of Chekhov's plays, parallel cross-narratives, and constructs Chekhov's love parallel time and space. ”
"It's extremely difficult to write a good light comedy." The three one-act plays "Stupid Bear" (1888), "Proposal" (1888) and "Wedding" (1889) are different from the one-act plays on the Russian theater stage at that time that were simply for the purpose of amusing, Chekhov's one-act plays were short in form and relaxed in style, but in humorous humor, spicy and sharp irony and thinking could be seen everywhere. In "Love! In Chekhov, three one-act comedies are intertwined and parallel, the irony, absurdity, and laughter in the original work are recombined and quickly cut in a montage, and under the shroud of the "love" puzzle, a Chekhov work that is "yes but not completely" gives an open answer on the stage.
Hou Yansong single-handedly plays a multi-character without CP but throughout the play
Hou Yansong, the "strength faction" who won the Chinese Drama Plum Blossom Award for his superb performance in the drama "Fusheng", will play multiple roles in one person in the play, not only the "people in the play" in the three stories, but also the bystanders outside the story. Although not any of the three cp parties, these characters cleverly connect these stories, making the whole play more tightly paced and the transition more natural and smooth.
Stupid Bear CP:
I've never been so overwhelmed and unable to control myself
"Stupid Bear" tells the story of a man and a woman who involuntarily fall in love from being hostile to each other and feeling instead, humorously portraying the hero and heroine escaping and facing in the face of sudden tornado-like love. The heroine Popova died soon after, vowing to remain widowed for life to show her affection, the hero Smirnov is a landlord who came to collect debts and has many dissatisfaction with women, it is such a pair of opponents who cannot be prepared for a duel, but they fall in love in an instant, and the reversal is as fast as love itself.
Proposal CP:
At a certain stage in life, people should seize the love
"Marriage Proposal" is another popular comedy created by Chekhov after "Stupid Bear". It shows the ironic quarrel between the older leftover man who came to propose and the older leftover woman who was proposed, and finally the power of love overcame the difference. The hero Morof originally proposed to the neighbor's daughter Nadalia, one is a rude and selfish landlord, one is an older girl who hates to marry capable, the two quarreled over the grass and the hounds, so that Morof forgot his intentions, until Nadalia knew that this person was here for the marriage proposal, excited to keep the two long kisses, long kisses still do not forget to quarrel.
Wedding CP:
The bride and groom are united entirely out of love!
Compared to the absurd but sweet love in "Stupid Bear" and "Marriage Proposal", "Wedding" very soberly reveals another marriage situation. The story of "The Wedding" takes place at a wedding banquet for a middle-class family in Russia, and due to the dislocation of the characters' identities, it triggers a series of absurd chain reactions, satirizing the "profitable" concept of marriage and love. The bridegroom, Aprompov, and his mother-in-law Nastasia were preoccupied with the bride price at the beginning, and for the sake of vanity, the mother-in-law Nastasia paid for a retired lieutenant colonel pretending to be a general to attend the wedding. The whole wedding is full of mercenary, self-righteous people, but shouting "united by love", absurd and permeated with the author's ruthless ridicule.
Full of Chekhov elements waiting for you to dig
On the stage set, "Fall in Love!" The artists behind Chekhov are also very attentive, setting up three performance areas on the stage, each independent and related, the characters shuttle through various spaces, and the four shelves that carry Chekhov's memories are particularly minimalist. Some of the key "props" scattered in Chekhov's other masterpieces are also hidden on the stage of the play, and it is believed that audiences familiar with Chekhov will find more clues. In addition to the three one-act plays as the main plot series, you can also see the shadows of many other Chekhov masterpieces, such as the "set man" Belikov, who is very familiar with since high school, and also has a stunning appearance in the play.
2021 National Centre for the Performing Arts International Theatre Season:
National Theatre of China "Love! Chekhov
Performance time: 2021.8.5-8.8 19:30
Venue: National Centre for the Performing Arts, Theatre
Original: Anton Pavlovich Chekhov
Translator: Tong Ning
Adaptation and screenwriter: Cha Wenhao, Liu Jinni
Director: Cha Wenhao
Stage Design: Xu Haidong
Lighting design: Huang Yi
Music Design: Cheng Jiajia
Costume design: Zhao Yunan
Costume design: Ren Wei
Sound Design: Wang Zichun
Body Design: Yu Chenxi
Prop design: Tian Haoran
Stage Supervisor: Chen Lihua
Technical Management: Lin Yanhua
Creative Coordinator: Jinni Liu
Production coordinator: Yang Shuai
Publicity coordinator: Chun Xue, Wang Yingyuan
Actor Coordinator: Li Yuehao
Graphic Design: Liu Hang
Field Note: Yang Kun
Cast: Hou Yansong, Chang Yuhong, Jiang Jiaqi, Xi Wang, Zhang Jie, Zhou Chuanjie, Xue Fei, Zhang Jinhe, She Nannan, Yang Chen, Liu Bojun, Ying Yuchen, Guo Ertai, Wang Xihan, He Hongyu, Song Xianli, Zhu Qianmanyi, Zhu Jiapeng, Wang Jingjie, Wang Xun, Hu Shanshan
Click the applet above or the bottom left of the page to learn more about the show
Enter the official website of the National Centre for the Performing Arts to buy tickets
Copywriter: Fan Zhang
Stills: Ta Su, Wang Haochen
Edit: Gao Jian