The Paper's reporter Wang Yi
According to the performance custom, the album introducing the content and basic information of the play will be placed on several cases at the entrance of the theater for the audience to look through before entering the venue. On August 14, at the Capital Theatre, audiences who received the album of the six-act drama "Du Fu" will find that this time it has not only been made into a slightly thick "four consecutive chapters", but even added a "comment" column with pinyin notes to list and analyze the cold nouns that appear in the play text.
For example, in addition to stating "here refers to the setback of the imperial examination and the unhappiness of the officialdom", "Shitu rub" is also marked in parentheses after the word "rubbing", the pinyin of (cèng) (dēng) is marked in parentheses. This is rare in the past performance scenes of Beijing Renren Art Drama, which more or less shows the threshold for watching this newly edited literati historical drama written and directed by the famous screenwriter Guo Qihong. You can turn over the public name of the Beijing Renyi Ticketing Center, and the "Du Fu" performed until the 25th of this month, the tickets for various stalls have long been sold out without suspense.
The audience is not afraid of difficulties, "bitter" as an actor - familiar with Guo Qihong's "literati trilogy" ("Li Bai", "The Proud Son of Heaven", "Du Fu") the audience is no stranger to the heavy cultural connotations carried in the author's script, compared to the other two works, "Du Fu" is more foreign in language carving, both full of poetry and retains the essence of ancient Chinese, many lines are like rhymes, so that the audience sounds aesthetically enjoyable. Such lines will of course put forward no small requirements for actors, requiring actors to have rich literary accumulation and control of lines.
Recall that when this play was first performed in 2019, the director and lead actor of the play, Feng Yuanzheng, had poured bitter water with the media, and on the word "rubbing", the correct pronunciation was pronounced and said plainly on the stage, which was completely different. Rao, Feng Yuanzheng, the current captain of the beijing renyi actor team, also had to concentrate and swim repeatedly before he could blurt out, "It's like what I said." ”
During this round of performances, sitting next to an eight-immortal table (the stage props of the drama "Sunrise") in the rehearsal hall of the renyi backstage, he was interviewed by the surging news reporter, mentioning Guo Qihong's "old man's home", Feng Yuanzheng first smiled, "When I received this book, I was only sure to play Du Fu. When I read the script, people are confused, this is too free to write, right? Similar to the movie script, it is written that (the characters) two people meet, two or three sentences, change the scene. I chatted with Dean Ren Ming, and he said to the point, 'Do as you please.' When Guo Lao wrote this play, he was already free, and he could write it as much as he wanted. ’”
Poster of "Du Fu"
Guo Qihong is currently a first-class screenwriter of the Beijing People's Art Theatre, vice chairman of the Beijing Federation of Literary and Art Circles, and chairman of the Beijing Dramatists Association. In the "Words of the Screenwriter" in the performance album of "Du Fu", he wrote, "This play was conceived at the beginning of this century, and the outline was completed nearly ten years later. The play is hard, or enjoy it. Chaos: Thousand Autumn Poetry Stud, independent of the sky. ”
A good one "independent from the sky". In the Analects of The Politics, the Son says, "Seventy and do as you please, and do not exceed the rules." "Extrapolating down, Guo Qihong really happened to be too old when he started writing. And see how he wrote about Du Fu's death? Guo Moruo's book "Li Bai and Du Fu" in his later years pointed out that Du Fu was addicted to alcohol and died of beef liquor. This is the same as the Tang Dynasty Zheng Chuyi's "Miscellaneous Records of the Ming Emperor": Du Fu "the water is fast, and it is forbidden to eat when wading in the end of the year"..." Ling (Nie Xian Ling) tasted the ox-burning liquor, (Du) drank too much, and died overnight. "Coincides, meaning death caused by eating." In the play, du fu was concocted as follows: Du Fu, who was hungry and displaced, finally ate meat and died, and the dead Du Fu's soul was out of his mind, looking at his body curled up on the ground, he felt embarrassed, "This person lying on the ground, it turned out to be me." Did this person die of support, or was he poisoned to death? Are not very decent, if posterity writes this male shape, how should it be written? ”
This is probably the most embarrassing death of Du Fu in the history of the Chinese stage. Guo Qihong obviously knew that most of the audience had heard of the various "legends" of Du Fu's death, so he simply let the "Du Fu" master after his death come to himself. "I will let the lonely poet get all that he deserves, and return him a noble and noble soul, otherwise, the genius is always sad, and it is always the sorrow of the nation." "Zimei didn't have Li Baixiao, no Gao Shi Xianda, no Su Zhuo, some just snubbed, rejected, and ridiculed, but even after he died, he definitely had a chance to laugh at the proud jianghu!" "A naked burial, with red stripes coming and going, is the highest courtesy on the rivers and lakes."
In the play, similar to the spring and autumn brushwork, the layout abounds. Throughout the play, Guo Qihong focused on writing two things around Du Fu's mind: one was to be an official, and the other was to compose poetry. And the poet has spent his life thinking about these two things, the former repeatedly rubbing, and the latter is not praised by the people of the time. Du Fu in the play is both snubbed and narcissistic, the screenwriter uses the synonym for depression in the English world "black dog" (Churchill) into it, and the poets who hallucinate on the stage often hear the big black dog behind them barking; and in the well-known section of "The Hut Is Broken by the Autumn Wind", the poet's previous work "The new pine hates is not high, and the evil bamboo should be cut off" graphically", on the stage Du Fu waved the "little man bamboo" like Don Quixote holding a spear, fighting the windmill in a trance, and rushing left and right in the array of nothingness. Is the poet mad? No, Guo Qihong's Du Fu also has a transcendent sobriety, in the face of his friends' falsehood and snake commission, Du Fu simply recited a poem by another poet of the Tang Dynasty, Ling Che, "When we meet and retire from the government, Lin Xia He once met a person."
This can't help but remind people that as early as 1988, Guo Qihong published his famous article "The Theory of Divine History drama" in the full text of the monthly magazine "Script". In the article, after reviewing the development process of historical dramas through historical dramas and photorealistic historical dramas (including scholarly historical dramas), the author boldly predicted that historical dramas will enter a new stage of "conveying the gods and historical dramas". He believes that "passing on the gods" has three meanings: the god of history, the god of characters, and the god of authors. "Conveying the spirit of historical drama will surely realize the three possibilities of historical drama creation, that is, the convergence of contemporary consciousness and traditional culture will become possible, the communication between subjective consciousness and historical accumulation will become possible, and the synchronous development and innovation of the content and form of theater art will become possible." He also proposed, "The place where the historical materials or records are flickering, ambiguous, and even vague is precisely the vast space where the imagination can gallop." Therefore, it is the 'privilege' of historians to put the research results of historians into imagination and give birth to imagination. ”
Director Feng Yuanzheng courtesy of Beijing Renyi
After two years, the re-polished "Du Fu" has set off again and has been adjusted in many details. "I will put down some heavy passion in some paragraphs, such as Du Fu's last big monologue, to alleviate the feeling of desolation and tragedy, to strengthen the feeling of freedom, and let the emotional flashpoint be in the back." I would also make this demand in other actors to make their rhythm and emotional expression more in line with the character. Director Feng Yuanzheng introduced, and every actor in the crew is using his own accumulation to enrich the characters. Although it is a costume play, the lines that are understood first and then expressed allow the audience to feel the rhythm of the ancients and the feelings of the present people.
Yang Mingxin, born in 1985, is the youngest actor among the friends who sang and sang with Feng Yuanzheng in this play. Yan Wu, played by him, is both a famous general and a poet, and at the same time, the Yan family and the Du family are also family friends, and there are many scenes with Du Fu's opponents. "After getting the script, who did you mention Yan Wu to, most of them had a reaction: Who is Yan Wu?" Yang Mingxin told the surging news reporter that this is a new play in which he plays an important role in the Capital Theater, and it was mostly "drilling pot" (jargon) before. Refers to the performance, the actor temporarily learns to play a role that he does not know) to be a firefighter. Rehearsing "Du Fu", I read the script for a month, "To be honest, the first time I didn't read the script at all, I could only sit together and talk to each other." The expedition director's requirement for us is not to write a biography of the character when we get the script, but to write a summary of the character after the performance. Because before you have read the script and eaten the characters thoroughly, it is subjective to write a biography of the characters, especially for such historical figures. ”
Yang Mingxin introduced that he wanted to read Du Fu's "Three Officials and Three Distinctions" in the play, "At the beginning, I always couldn't read it well, and it was the feeling of recitation when I got it. The expedition teacher pointed out to me that Yan Wu was a literati, and he wanted to read a sense of appreciation and bring out the meaning of touching the poetry. He introduced that the script's literary dictionary is one side, and reading the script will feel that Guo Qihong's book is free, "Daya vulgar, many of the words in it are very modern, such as 'the front is tight and the rear is tight, the civil war is foreign and the outside is foreign', for example, Li Bai can say 'go to the outside', Gao Shi can say 'nonsense', if they are not wearing Tang Dynasty costumes, wearing the current suit, today's people chatting together will also be this feeling." ”
In an exclusive interview with the surging news, Feng Yuanzheng recalled that the script of "Du Fu" "did not move word for word", but when rehearsing the play, he felt that Du Fu's death was a little less intense, and he made up a confession with Teacher Guo, so he had Du Fu, who was now a ghost on the stage, looking at his own body, a little embarrassed, and did not defend himself too much, and finally asked several questions:
"Emperor! Why are you reckless and venomous? After the soil! Why are you muddy and dirty? Why is there so little pure land in the world? Why was the poet of passion sent to be lonely? Why does a flat leaf boat sail into the faint smoke water? Why do tragic songs and poems fall into the valley? Why does the shallow smile on the face dissolve into the remnants of the forest? Why is there a haze and poisonous fog floating in the heart? Why do people suffer from different people but bear the same pain? Hungry food fell Ying Ah thirsty drink falling dew, eclipsed soul lost Ah Day Zhao Su? Where is my joy? Count the half-bed books of the hut! Where are my concerns? I screamed in the sky, looking for the destination of the soul! ”
Stills from the drama "Du Fu" Stills from this article by Li Chunguang
"In this play, we are looking at him (Du Fu)"
The Paper: Can you first introduce your understanding of this "poet saint" before starring in and directing "Du Fu"?
Feng Yuanzheng: I am ashamed to say that my previous understanding of Du Fu was only when I was a child, reciting his poems in the "Three Hundred Poems of Tang Dynasty", and later I went to understand him probably through the comparison of the names of "Poetry Immortal" Li Bai and "Poetry Saint" Du Fu. When I was a child, I probably liked Li Bai's poems more, because he was more free and ethereal, and his poems had a strong visual impact on reading. And when it comes to Du Fu, for example, when the teacher said "The Hut Is Broken by the Autumn Wind" when he was a child, it seems that Du Fu just had a vague impression in your mind, he is a white-bearded old man, he can't eat enough, he can't wear warm, and he is bullied by the naughty children in the village, guarding a broken thatched hut.
The Paper: I noticed that before the premiere of this play in 2019, you used a word "pedantic" when you talked about the character of Du Fu.
Feng Yuanzheng: It is also a kind of emotion, for example, there are several theories about his death, hungry for several days, suddenly received the county order to send wine and meat, a thrill to eat to death, and eat spoiled beef was poisoned. We all know that Du Fu is very ambitious and hopes to help the people's livelihood of the world by becoming an official, but due to his own personality reasons, he has never been a big official in his life, even if he is a small official every time he is not a long time. But I think that broad is not a pejorative meaning for him, it is a positive meaning, and if he has not always adhered to his own heart, he will not write those verses that have been recited through the ages. In this play, the audience will see the poet's upheaval and displacement, so hungry that he can't grab wild fruits with monkeys to eat. From this point of view, he was able to survive and insist on writing poetry, writing his feelings in poetry, I think these are precisely out of his love of life, which is supported by his fine observation of life and the infinite enthusiasm in his heart.
The Surging News: The play "Du Fu" is the final chapter of screenwriter Guo Qihong's "Literati Trilogy", compared to the audience who has watched "Li Bai" for many years, what do you think is different about this play?
Feng Yuanzheng: "Li Bai" we have been acting for thirty years, from the perspective of the play itself, it is relatively neat, and the historical nodes, the beginning and the end of the transition are relatively easy for people to grasp. But when I got the first draft of the script of "Du Fu", I was confused, and when I saw Teacher Guo, I still joked with him, and I said that you still have to close it up, otherwise how do we line up (laughs), at that time, I was just sure that I starred du Fu. Before that, I also acted in Guo Lao's "Confidant", which was about the sympathy of two poets, and I played Gu Zhenguan.
I think in the past people were looking up to Shi Sheng more, but in this play we are looking up at him. In this play, Elder Guo also wants to explore why Du Fu was able to write so many popular poems that reflect social reality. This inevitably depends on his experience, and the screenwriter does not write about how he became a poet, because this title was given to him by later generations, but to focus on portraying his experience in the world, which may be strange to people who watch the play. We do not render these sorrows on the stage, but show his bitter and happy attitude to life and open-mindedness. Our literary and artistic works are to convey the truth and hope in life.
"Read verses as words, not as poems"
The Paper: I noticed that the album of this performance even added a "commentary" column, and many Du Fu and Tang poems were also used in the play.
Feng Yuanzheng: We strive to create a poet's world on the stage, and there is also interaction and extension under the stage - in order to give the audience an immersive experience, from the fifteen minutes before the performance and during the intermission, the theater will play Du Fu's poems recited by Pu Ge (Pu Cunxin) and other actors, in order to evoke the audience's past memories, and to generate a new understanding of the stage and create an atmosphere.
The things that are presented on the stage are actually in the dialogue of the actors, so my request to the actors is to read these verses as words, not as poems. For example, some verses when two people meet are regarded as hello and greetings. When the ancients spoke the language, they were actually action-oriented and willing to dialogue, rather than the one-dimensional recitation we have now. For example, the audience is familiar with the "three officials and three parts", we use the way of white painting, remove all the rendering of the atmosphere, and objectively talk about a cruel reality. Let the audience recognize the misery of the world.
The Paper: As a director, can you talk about the characteristics of this stage presentation, I heard that you even dreamed of lighting processing at night, and got up overnight to send WeChat adjustments to the lighting design.
Feng Yuanzheng: After I first took over this play, I started to just play Du Fu, and I began to read the script step by step, and then I decided to let me be the director, and the script could not be read. Because from a different perspective, when you are a director, you will think about how the play will be presented on stage.
My habit of directing a play is that I don't set any kind of set for myself first, and if that would give the creators a framework, I wouldn't explain how the actors should act. I think that the stage design is also an independent work of art, although it is an auxiliary performance, it should also have a relatively independent appreciation function. The stage design of this play is Chang Jiang's teacher, he read the script after the design drawing, but also made a stage model, I read it and told him to think about it again, repeated communication several times. To be honest, it's quite difficult for Teacher Chang, we have also cooperated before, and he knows that I am not very satisfied with this "think again" (laughs). Later, he asked me what I really thought, and I didn't have a molding idea in my heart, so I told him that the choreography this time was first Chinese, then modern, to do a big opening, I don't like to pile up, I don't like the stage is particularly full, blocked panic, I hope to be transparent, the actors have enough performance space. The current stage effect, I think, is to do this.
The Paper: I hope that the stage is "transparent" is not related to your early experience of studying theater in Germany?
Feng Yuanzheng: Oh, there is a certain relationship. If you pay attention to drama, you will see that many foreign theaters are very simple, on the one hand, their ideas are relatively free, on the other hand, their funds are insufficient, foreign theater workers have no money (laughs), in addition to some commercial performances on Broadway and those big shows in Las Vegas, real foreign theater workers are also very financially constrained, so they must use the simplest way to present the stage effect. This in turn allows them to find a direction, many scenes seem simple, and a careful consideration has an aftertaste, and even rises to a philosophical speculation. I watched a lot of plays like this, and with my own stage preferences, I slowly formed my stage cognition through stage practice.
The Paper: It is said that in terms of performance form, you have also made adjustments to the structure of the play "Inception"?
Feng Yuanzheng: When Mr. Guo wrote this scene, it was Du Fu who had a dream. First dreamed of Su Zhuan, and then dreamed of Li Bai, Gao Shi and Yan Wu, in the process of filming, I think that when this period is performed, the audience always watches two people play, the stage form is somewhat single, and the expression is thin. Then one day, I had a sudden thought at home, since this is a dream, why not make a "dream within a dream" form according to the structure of the movie "Inception"? Later, after discussing with Guo Lao, the characters and lines remained unchanged, but the order and the form of dialogue were adjusted, and he said that you are casual (laughs).
The final stage presentation became what it is now: all the people mentioned above appeared, not first dreaming of you, then dreaming of him, one-on-one, but in addition to Du Fu and these people talking, if there is any problem between these people, or whether there is a grudge, they can also have a direct dialogue with each other. In addition to Du Fu's dreaming, the characters in the dream can talk even if they have no intersection in reality. Later, this scene was particularly enjoyed by many young audiences, because it was always interspersed with everyone's dialogue, and the scheduling on the stage was also very modern.
"Re-enacting Du Fu will incorporate some new experiences"
The Paper: Can you tell us about your status as a director? We all know that more than thirty years ago, under the teaching of Mr. Mersin, you systematically accepted Grotowski's school of performance.
Feng Yuanzheng: This rehearsal of "Du Fu" I did not use the teaching method of Teacher Mersin, and the "Sunrise" (this play is also directed by Feng Yuanzheng) rehearsed at the same time used it, because the latter are young actors, and there will be some problems in the limbs and lines, and I will arrange for them to do some exercises on the limbs including the voice of the lines every day from twelve o'clock to two o'clock in the afternoon.
The Paper: Give an example?
Feng Yuanzheng: We traditionally inspire actors to do what to do, an emotion will inspire actors for half a day, but if you are a mature actor, you will know that an actor cannot be 100% devoted to the stage scene, because there will be a lot of restrictions. The reactions and feedback from the audience, such as a cough, a laugh, you can't be unaffected. If you follow Steiney's traditional fully engaged acting method, you may be proud of being an actor when the audience laughs, but at this time you are no longer that character, and the reason why you are not seen by the audience is because you have your own acting skills.
Grotowski may not emphasize more psychological prompts, but as long as there are some simple emotional and physiological prompts, which for young actors, such as a crying scene, you do not need to lay out a large psychological process for him, acquaintance and love, and then break, sad and crying, but give a similar "hope plum quenching thirst" physiological, instinctive response prompts, instantly achieved this effect. When Mr. Su Min was watching Grotowski's teaching class, he once told me that on an expedition, your performance can be boiled from zero degrees to a hundred degrees at once, which Steiny can't do, as if there is no warm-up, it burns in an instant. In the TV series Don't Talk to Strangers, I used Grotowski's stuff.
The Paper: Can you comment on your performance in "Du Fu", will there be a so-called "out of control" state?
Feng Yuanzheng: This play seems to be under my control (laughs). At my current age, there is little chance of getting out of control on stage. The performance is like this, very engaged or tearful or something, in fact, these are under control, because the highest state of performance, I think, is control. For an actor like me, if you get out of control on the stage, it means that you have acted in vain over the years.
When I play Du Fu again this year, it will definitely be a little different from when I starred in 2019. Because there will be new feelings, not simply saying the words, the emotions are just performed, these are in a lot of details. For example, in a scene between me and Gao Shi (played by Yu Zhen), Tubo entered the Kou, the Tang Dynasty was defeated, and Gao Shi asked Du Fu to write a "two tables", a thank you table, and a congratulatory table. This time I understand it to a deeper level, why did Gao Shi let Du Fu write? One is that Du Fu does have literary talent, and the other is actually "throwing the pot", and the imperial court really lowered the guilt, which can be inferred that Du Fu wrote it. In the play, the two of you come and go have a conversation: Why should I (Du Fu) write? I (Gao Shi) am a horse, and my pen and ink are sparse. So if you lose the war, how to write a greeting table? It's not defeat, it's "return to the army"... We used to have a conversation on stage, and this time I added, oh, [showed] the action of sudden realization. It is not a big change or change, the script is everyone's work, it is so well written, we will integrate some new experiences in the process of repeated reading and rehearsal.
The Paper: For other actors in the play, what requirements will you make for them this time?
Feng Yuanzheng: This time, I hope that when they perform, they can bring a little drama. This is not to be emphasized for old actors, they carry it themselves, mainly for young actors. For example, when meeting, the Tang Dynasty's hand salute is a forked hand ceremony, which is different from the Han Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty. Including when turning around, because most of the characters in the play are wearing robes, reminding them that they can bring a little inconspicuous opera figure. In general, this play is still a modern technique, requiring a modern body, we do not require a completely Peking Opera figure, but if it is looming, we must bring a little opera body.
Editor-in-Charge: Chen Shihuai
Proofreader: Yan Zhang