In the memory of watching the play, I can't remember any other director who interpreted the same stage masterpiece in different versions in two years, let alone Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot". Perhaps, only Yi Liming would do this, with continuous understanding and present contemplation, and make a sound on the stage of infatuation.
From 2019 to 2021, the same spring, the same intermediate theater premiere. One complex and one simple, not stage fun, style play, or the latter overturning and correcting the previous version, more like the observation and display of different perspectives of cherished things, the biggest similarity is the repeated expression of the world's famous works.
In the opening statement of the premiere, the director hopes that the audience can let go of all the profundity and directly feel a simple tragicomedy. On stage, he shattered the usual dull segments of "Waiting for Godot", driving the audience from the unconscious into the conscious theater game, eliminating the aura of high depth and hardship. This is a very precious and active exploration of the presentness of the classic theater, although this treatment will be a double-edged sword, but for the theater art, the interpretation of the traditional classics not only makes the audience lively and dynamic to empathize, but also faithful to the original, which is extremely rare.
Yi Liming director 2021 version of "Waiting for Godot" stills photo Wang Li
If you are not on the scene, it is difficult to imagine that such a drama can burst out of various "laughing fruits" from time to time, even if a certain silent point may occasionally have sporadic laughter. "Laughing Fruit" strengthens the boring vulgar taste of the people in the play, pays attention to the direct perception of the prescribed situational behavior, and guides the gradual integration of emotions from the neural and psychological reactions aroused. The comedic elements here are not aimed at comedy.
Actively scheduling and borrowing current buzzwords, the dullness of previous versions has been broken. The actor's expression of life, going to the stage to get close to the audience, sitting in the same direction as the audience on the lips of the stage, sometimes simply playing, asking each other what kind of performance to be done on the stage. Repeatedly jumping out of the style of ridicule and self-deprecation, as if in the workplace to try their best to find a sense of presence of office workers, to cover up the lack of boredom and emptiness. After all kinds of "tossing", then intermittently walk back to the silence between paragraphs. The director deliberately fills the "waiting void" for the place, creates a gap, and puts forward quite high requirements for the control of the rhythm and measure of the performance, and in general, the actors basically completed the director's preset during the premiere.
The strengthening of the sense of reality complements the objective cognition and memory loss and confusion of Didi (Vladimir), Gogo (Esdragon), and Pozzo, and the implanted "fun" is the effort of the play to artificially break the boredom of waiting, which actually exacerbates the boredom. The audience is sometimes joyful and sometimes silent, intertwined with an inexplicable sense, gradually entering the director's set-up, feeling this superfluous "boredom" that cannot be shaken off and cannot be shaken off. From the cheerful to the restrained "dare not" laugh, aware of the irony of the laugh itself, the waiting of the spectators and the waiting of the people in the play have a chemical reaction, and the psychological gap adds to the sad taste of the waiting that follows.
The presentness of the theater is first manifested in its on-site significance, which is also the unique value of theatrical art. The on-site significance of the theater is based on ideals, and it requires the active and excellent performance of the second degree of presentation and performance. If you can't timely, effectively and accurately come up with good on-the-spot performances, or let go of tiredness and inertia in the performance, do not guarantee the quality of the scene, dogmatically and mechanically manually copy, "present sex" only physical time and space meaning, theater drama will certainly be difficult to compare with selected video drama (including film and television drama) - after all, the latter is the selection and retention of essence. At this point, director Yi Liming has a clear consciousness and initiative, so that the current sex is bright, simple, and flood-like, giving the audience a reason to enter the theater.
The performance on the stage stems from the excavation of the text, rather than the improvisation of the actors, which is very important, which can make the present more precise and fresh, and it is also a respect for the original text. Although there are a large number of realistic ridicule phrases such as "Putian system", "play mobile phone", "assistant", "refund", "entertainment website", "boring than opera, or boring drama", etc., they are all based on maintaining the original meaning, voice and context, adjusting the literal translation to make the audience more familiar, and the sense of language is more stage-hanging. The series of reality stems, the chaotic word order, successfully transforms the exquisite nonsense of the original work into the gibberish that seems to be open to the scene, and the feeling of "no clue" is more natural. The work is like being placed on the social platform of the circle of friends, and the audience enters the seat from time to time to activate the empathy with real life and theater scenes. What the present sex touches is not direct philosophical thinking, but by mobilizing the audience's perceptual identity, awakening the mind and unknowable dazedness, and colliding with dramatic expression.
If it is said that the significance of the scene is the commonality that theater works should have, then studying the "presentness" that has existed in the history of classic works and making them easy to perceive in the real theater is what Yi Liming values more in the practice of directing. He is not satisfied with the active intervention of the scene, but also takes the initiative to excavate, understand and restore the presentness of the original birth era, in the way of spiritual crossing, so that the audience can use the acquisition at this time to resonate with the former perception at that time, and vividly show the eternal enlightenment and immortal value revealed by the classic works.
In the 2019 edition, the glass, lenses, crosses and craggy white bones above the gravel are very eye-catching, the strict atmosphere and the nagging poverty, jumping in and out, the image of the longing and the unexpected entry and exit of the ground and the ground and the ground, etc., directly crochet the links of reality survival, fate and religion, and the possible uncertainties are relatively clearly pointed to the understanding path and the intrinsic elements that the creators of the second degree find.
Yi Liming directed the 2019 version of "Waiting for Godot" photography Ruan Xidong
The simplicity of the 2021 version is closer to the stage requirements specified in the original work. Simplicity leads to the expansion of physical space, combined with the flickering light and dark of stage expression and performance, extending the space of thinking, and the absurd texture and absurd meaning are more intense. The canvas of the tree supported by a simple shelf is used as a soft scene at the same time, but also like the combination of the curtains of the "outgoing general" and "into the phase" curtain on the opera stage, it is also like the curtain that covers the privacy of life, and has been dispatched many times as a temporary shelter and shelter.
The rehearsal of classic works is often easy to go to both sides. In order to emphasize realistic thinking, some mobilize a large number of contemporary means and greatly adjust the text and the original structure, resulting in the original work being only the basis for the creation of new works. Some emphasize that from the form to the content is completely faithful to the original, the pursuit of cultural relics protection of "faithful" although very valuable, but the passage of time will inevitably deform, it is easier for the audience to sigh that the classic is no longer available. Yi Liming's approach to directing has the meaning of a middle way, but it requires more immersion in the study of the original work and related history, and keen observation and judgment of the real world and aesthetics in which he is located.
There is no point in losing the "profundity" of understanding. Interpreting classic works by establishing the present is also expressed in a close connection with local culture and the current state of life. This version of "Waiting for Godot", in addition to the colloquialism and fashion of the translation, has found some slang, foul language, etc. abandoned in the previous version, and the identity and language texture and emotional expression of the characters are more clear, including the logic of trying to be self-consistent. Language and allusions based on Western culture have also been moderately downplayed.
The lucky ones were opened with a large line after "thought", and the adaptation was wonderful. Applying a similar concept of local culture also makes the performanceers more interesting. If performed according to the literal translation of the original text, the audience can feel the exaggerated jumping in form, but the psychological and conscious resonance of the content will not be as smooth as the adjusted version. The audience's understanding, while achieving rationality, has a deeper emotional identity, which is urgently needed for theater appreciation. (Editor-in-charge: Li Jing)