Carrying the camera, Li Yan has been shooting in the theater for more than thirty years, becoming a well-known theater photographer in the field of theater. Inadvertently, it has recorded the changes of Chinese theater and the growth of several generations of artists, and is a valuable witness to the development of Chinese theater. And a special opportunity also allowed him to walk from behind the scenes to the front of the stage, becoming the theater administrator of the classic version of Lai Shengchuan's work "Crush on Peach Blossom Garden", acting for 13 years. On June 30, Li Yan came to Lai Shengchuan's exclusive theater with the book "When Drama Has Become a Thing of the Past", which contains hundreds of precious photos, and shared with everyone at the "Ding Naizhu's Book Club" the people and things related to drama that had happened in his life in those years.
Li Yan and Lai Shengchuan and [performance workshop] the fate can be traced back to 2001, once the producer invited Li Yan to take a photographic record, to the scene Li Yan learned that it was to shoot Lai Shengchuan for the Chinese opera students to hold the improvisation workshop teaching live, the first time I met Lai Shengchuan, I was completely fascinated by this personable dramatist, he felt that Mr. Lai's works care about the purest things in people's hearts, not simply telling stories. He also did not expect that in the following years, he would be invited to shoot Lai Shengchuan's "Like a Dream", "Millennium Night, We Say Crosstalk", "Crush on Peach Blossom Garden", "Treasure Island A Village" and other classic works stills, and unexpectedly became a member of the classic version of "Crush on Peach Blossom Garden" starring Huang Lei and He Jiong.
Originally, Li Yan only went to shoot rehearsals and performance stills for the crew, but due to the temporary change of the actor who was originally scheduled to play the "theater administrator", Lai Shengchuan turned to find that Li Yan might be able to play this role. At the beginning of hearing this news, Li Yan, who had not yet reacted to which "theater administrator" was, had excitedly agreed, and this performance was 13 years. Li Yan said, "At the beginning of the 33 performances, I did not expect to act for 13 years, and now I am the original actor with Huang Lei, He Jiong and Jiao Yang. ”
Li Yan in "Crush on Peach Blossom Garden" plays a theater administrator
Librarian is his job, drama is an indispensable part of his life, and photography is another thing he loves in addition to literature and drama, which is also his connection with theater. 2016 is the 30th anniversary of "Crush on Peach Blossom Garden", as a member of the crew of the classic version of "Crush on Peach Blossom Garden", Li Yan, who has met everyone on this stage as an actor for many times, has long been an old friend of the theater.
Ding Naizhu and Li Yan
Lai Shengchuan once praised: "Li Yan's precise and delicate lens captures the precious moments behind the front desk. Huang Lei also said, "Li Yan is a legend, he is a 'living fossil' in the development of contemporary Chinese drama, and everything recorded by his lens can be called 'history' in the future." Since the age of 19, Li Yan has been carrying a camera through various large and small theaters with dramatic performances, from student debriefing performances, to original works by young screenwriters, to the introduction of foreign giant productions. His love for drama far exceeded that of most theater people, and he also tried to prepare for the Central Academy of Drama and the Shanghai Theater Academy, although he failed, but his other hobby after theater, photography, brought him closer to theater.
1994 Lin Zhaohua directed "Faust"
"I have had the privilege of watching Director Lin Zhaohua's "Absolute Signal", and it has been almost 30 years now." Li Yan said that the play marks the beginning of contemporary drama, a milestone from scratch. Drama has been introduced to China for 110 years, and before it was all modern drama, and since then there has been contemporary drama. In the 1980s, when China's experimental theater was just emerging, everything about theater was still being explored, and the theater market was not as mature as it is now, mostly performing in small theaters, and at that time he had begun to use his camera to capture the rehearsal moments of the budding of dramas. Friends always say that after work, he is either in the theater or on the way to the theater.
Rehearsal for "Wild Ride" in 2001
From the downturn and silence of Chinese drama to the rise and revival, and then to the vigorous development, he insisted on theater photography for more than thirty years because of that love and persistence, recording an era. But rather than being a "witness to contemporary Chinese theatre," he prefers to call himself "the closest audience to the theatre." In an era when cameras were still a "luxury," he volunteered to be a stills artist. Li Yan said that at that time, the camera was very poor, not a single reflex, just a small card machine, so the initial photo quality was not very good. "At that time, I didn't know the word investment, I just needed a better equipment, I bought the first set of SLR in 1986, when I earned more than 60 a month, and the SLR was more than 2,000, which can be regarded as how long I saved without eating or drinking."
Lai Shengchuan played basketball with Liu Ye, Zhai Xiaoxing, Tang Xu and other students in the Chinese Opera Playground
Cao Yu's conversation with the actors after watching the play, The unexpected encounter between Lu Yan and Zhu Lin, the jumping shot in which Lai Shengchuan and the Chinese opera students played together, the easy-going Lin Zhaohua at first sight, the talent of Tian Qinxin, and the slight drunkenness after Meng Jinghui's performance... There are also Gong Li, Jiang Wen, Chen Jianbin, etc., who are still unknown and young when they were students, and those precious pictures have been frozen in Li Yan's film and become an eternity in the history of drama.
Jin Shijie and others at the Beijing Tavern
Li Yan captures the development of Chinese drama in the past thirty years with the lens, writes the story behind the photos, writes down the innocence of the generation of dramatists and the calmness of the current years, and also shares the charm and past of drama in the upper theater through "Ding Naizhu's Reading Club". Li Yan said, "The reason why I can share with you here is not how well I shoot, I can do it because of my love for theater, I have insisted on it for so many years, and I have caught up with the good times, just in it, and recorded the era of great changes in theater art." ”
(Look at the news Knows reporter: Wang Linlin Editor: Xiao Zhen)