Stills from "Wild Ride". Picture of this article Liu Jiaqi
"Time flies, life leaps for 16 years." "Wild Ride" is rearranged at the Shanghai Theater Academy, and the passion and youth in it are all there. It's like people can grow old, just like the soul of art is immortal. ”
On the evening of May 5th, this version of the youth version of "Wild Ride", jointly produced by the National Theatre of China, the Shanghai Theater Academy and the Shanghai Jing'an Modern Drama Valley, was staged at the Shanghai Theater Academy, becoming the opening drama of this year's Drama Valley. Before the performance, director Tian Qinxin wrote this sentence.
Director Ms. Tian Qinxin, performing artist Jiao Huang and performing artist Xi Meijuan (from left to right) attended the opening ceremony of the 2017 Shanghai Jing'an Modern Drama Valley.
16 years ago, in 2001, the "May Fourth" Youth Day, young director Tian Qinxin led a group of young actors who had just walked out of school to stage a blood-boiling "Wild Ride" in the Centennial Lecture Hall of Peking University, leaving a strong mark on the Chinese drama scene ever since. 16 years later, the actors of that year, Xin Baiqing, Zhu Yuanyuan, Yuan Quan, Tao Hong, and Shi Chunling, have all become famous. And director Tian Qinxin, with another group of young theater students and a strong behind-the-scenes team, created a version of "Wild Ride" that is completely different in visual aesthetics. What remains unchanged in the meantime is the "passion and youth" in the "wild surge" of that year.
8 HD cameras instant projection of "semi-cinematic drama"
"Wild Ride" tells the life of Tian Han, a well-known "national lyricist" and a little-known genius artist, with his four poignant love as the main line, reviewing the development of early Chinese drama and bringing the audience back to the era of blood boiling.
For the title, Tian Qinxin once said, "The people who made efforts for Chinese drama in the early days were influenced by the May Fourth Movement, and they were also influenced by the Western era of wild surge. In the early and middle stages of his theatrical career, Tian Han once called himself 'Schiller' and called Guo Moruo 'Goethe'. Both Goethe and Schiller were representatives of the Age of Rush. And this group of people in the New Culture Movement have been affected by the period of wild soaring. 'Wild Rush' is also very much in line with the dramatists who reflect Tian Han and that generation. This year marks the 110th anniversary of Chinese drama, and we also hope that in today's China, in the face of such an era, we will have more ability to screen and learn from the West's innovation. ”
16 years ago, this "Wild Ride" shocked many audiences with its soaring creative posture and passionate stage appearance, and also became Tian Qinxin's representative work. After 16 years of rearrangement, Tian Qinxin believes that because he was too partial to the script he wrote, he appeared beautiful on the stage and was "half finished".
Therefore, this time, she is not satisfied with a simple rehearsal, but wants to try to do a stage experiment of "wild rush": using visual technology to show an exciting Republic of China and interact with a modern aesthetic.
Tian Qinxin's experiment was to make a "semi-cinematic drama". With the introduction of works such as "Miss Julie" of the German ShawBina Troupe, the real-time image projection on the stage that has emerged in Europe is increasingly understood by the Chinese people, and there has also been a trendy and inferior "abuse" on the domestic stage. But Tian Qinxin wants to be able to truly create a "film" texture through this technology in his own work, so that science and technology can be used by art and break through the form and boundary of the stage.
She called it an "exploration with a subject": "If this is done, even if there are flaws, but if this technology may appear on stage, the meaning of the play is different." ”
As a result, there are 6 spaces on the stage, two upper and lower floors, capturing the stage picture in real time and editing and presenting it instantly. 8 HD cameras projected onto 7 imaging surfaces. The cinematographer is also an actor. The creators carefully arranged the stage details, and finally presented in the black and white image of the film texture. The video and the stage performance are carried out simultaneously, and the image magnifies the stage performance, "from the hair to the hem, from the eyes to the soul", showing the rich emotions between Tian Han and several women. The time and space of the stage have also been infinitely expanded.
The script of "Wild Ride" is still the original appearance, with Tian Han's participation in the creation of "Nostalgia", "Salome", "Consistent", "Japanese Drama" and other works as a connection, setting up a structure of five "Republic of China dramas within a play", interspersing the emotional stories of Tian Han and his four wives, and condensing the life trajectory into the play, bringing out a history of the development of Chinese drama. However, these "plays within a play" have also been newly processed through multimedia, such as "Salome" being edited in real time into a black-and-white video theater performance.
"We may be different from Miss Julie, and that is that our Wild Ride will have an oriental freehand spirit." Tian Qinxin's words are also the most successful places in this version of "Wild Ride" in the dimension of multimedia image technology learning experiments.
The youth version of "Wild Ride" is an "exploration with a subject"
However, stage experiments dominated by multimedia images are difficult to achieve without technical support. It is said that due to the difficulty of operation and the short running-in time, before the presentation, director Tian Qinxin also pinched a sweat for it. However, the domestic first-class behind-the-scenes team still provides the possibility for this difficult technical realization, and also allows "Wild Ride" to complete the texture of "semi-film drama" to some extent.
In this drama, several main creators are indispensable. The visual director is Xiao Lihe, an old partner who has collaborated with director Tian Qinxin on works such as "Listening to Hongyi" and "Beijing Fayuan Temple". The costume director is Chen Gufang, who won the Golden Horse Award for Best Styling for "Kung Fu". Multimedia design is interactive media artist Zhang Xiaofan, who has made important explorations in the stage multimedia crossover in works such as "Three-Body Problem" and "Notes on the Tomb Robber". The stage design Shen Li and the lighting design Tan Hua are both drama teachers, which adds a lot to the visual presentation of this work.
The cast of "Wild Ride" still seems to be quite "blood boiling" today, in addition to Tian Han starring Xin Baiqing, "Yu" of Qingmei Bamboo Horse is played by Zhu Yuanyuan, "Lin" who married to commemorate Yu is played by Shi Chunling, the fiery third wife "WeiZhong" is played by Tao Hong, and the "An'e" who works with the elderly is played by Yuan Quan.
And this time in the youth version, except for Jin Shijia, who graduated from the drama because of "Love Apartment" for the audience to play Tian Han, the rest of the female roles are played by the acting students from the sophomore to the senior year of the opera. Although the young actors' performances are childish, the clean temperament and sincere performances are also in line with the characters in the play. The image also magnifies the beauty of these young people around 20 years old.
As a work led and produced by the Shanghai Theater Academy, the youth version of "Wild Ride" is not only an artistic experiment, but also an experiment on many topics. Huang Changyong, director of the opera, said that the rehearsal and performance of "Wild Ride" is a new attempt and new exploration of the school's education model. After four performances in Shanghai, the play will be performed four times in Beijing at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in mid-June.
"I believe that this experiment will bring new thinking to the future of school performances and graduation performances, and we especially hope that from next year, campus performances will no longer be limited to self-entertainment, but will be in line with the market, consciously accept inspections from society and the public, so as to force the cultivation of college talents."
Finally, a list of plays performed by famous plays is attached.