"Although we died in the low tide of the revolution, our death is bound to be exchanged for a greater wave of revolution. "When Li Qiushi in 1931 traveled through time and space and shouted on the stage, the words struck people's hearts.
On the evening of May 17, in order to celebrate the centenary of the Communist Party of China and reproduce the story of the sacrifice of the five martyrs of the Chinese Left-Wing Writers' Union (hereinafter referred to as the "Left Alliance") in Shanghai Longhua, the stage play "Wave" was auditioned for the first time at the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center.
On February 7, 1931, five young left-wing revolutionary writers—Rou Shi, Hu Yepin, Li Qiushi (the only non-"Left League member"), Feng Hao, and Yin Fu—were secretly killed at the Longhua Garrison Headquarters. The oldest of them was 29 years old, the youngest was only 21 years old, and the younger ones used their pens as weapons to fight to the last moment for the emancipation of the people's minds.
"I feel very heavy that I have lost my very good friends, and China has lost very good young people." In order to commemorate the "Five Martyrs of the Left League", Lu Xun wrote the article "Remembrance for Forgetting" in 1933.
This year marks the centenary of the founding of the Party and the 90th anniversary of the sacrifice of the "Five Martyrs of the Left League." This unforgettable history was once again displayed in the form of a stage play on Anfu Road, and young audiences blushed. Before the performance, director He Nian and chief screenwriter Han Dani were interviewed by the Observer Network.
From "What do we die for?" The percussion asks, "What are we born for?" Reflecting on the reflection, "The Wave" is not a traditional revolutionary stage play, using the romantic approach of the souls of the five martyrs to meet in the world of consciousness, the combination of five parallel story lines and the ever-changing "water stage", the main creative team presented a touching and innovative audiovisual experience.
Five martyrs
The story is set for February 7, 1931, the night when the five martyrs were secretly killed at the Longhua Garrison Headquarters, and their souls met in the world of consciousness in the face of sudden death.
Five young men asked themselves why they died: Was it because of the soldiers who shot at us? Was it because of that meeting at the Oriental Hostel? Is it because of literature? Is it because of hatred? Or is it because of love?
When the souls of the five people are reunited, their memories of their lives are spread out in sections, and the narratives of their relatives, colleagues, and predecessors help them gradually see their choices and find the original intention of choosing revolution.
The five branch lines all make full use of design elements such as "water stage" and lifting hoverboard, with the superb acting skills and profound line skills of the actors, and the water dance blessing of the Beijing 9 Contemporary Dance Troupe and three dancers has brought great impact to the scene.
The warm picture in the five stories is also touching: when the simple and even a little "roundabout" soft stone, worried that Mr. Lu Xun was hit by a car or tram, and kept telling him to take a good look at the road; when Yin Fu said goodbye to xu Peigen, a brother who loved him deeply but chose a different brother and an officer of the Republic of China, he firmly left a message, "Farewell, brother, farewell, after that, each future, the chance of goodbye is when we have a war with the class to which you belong"; when Feng Hao's sister told her that women "want to live for themselves" When Hu Yepin's young wife sent her children back to her hometown after her husband's death for the sake of faith, and stayed alone in Shanghai to adhere to the revolutionary cause; when Li Qiushi shouted, "We must learn to use both guns and pens, so that we can be called revolutionaries with communist ideas of literature and martial arts"... The audience repeatedly wet their eyes.
From "What do we die for?" The doubts to "we live for ourselves" and "we live for freedom" are firm, and this story of a group of young people interpreted by a group of young people across historical time and space has touched many young audiences.
Director He Nian told the Observer Network that the reason why this stage play is called "Wave" is to regard "Wave" as an intention, symbolizing the superposition of the efforts of generations of people in order to have a good life today. The word "wave" has appeared many times in the poems of the "Five Martyrs of the Left League", and has also been mentioned many times by Mr. Lu Xun, the banner figure of the Left League, so this theme was set before the script was finalized.
For the current hot topic of casting for revolutionary martyrs, He Nian confidently introduced that the five actors who played the "Five Martyrs of the Left League" - Qian Fang (as Feng Hao), Wang Zi (as Roushi), Liu Xuanrui (as Li Qiushi), Chen Shan (as Yin Fu), and Cheng Ziming (as Hu Yipin) are the most powerful young actors in the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center, and they represent the highest strength of the young team of the Drama Art Center.
Qian Fang as Feng Hao
Chen Shan as Yin Fu
Cheng Ziming as Hu Yepin
In order to accurately portray the characters, the main creative team went through several screenings, and only after the real rehearsal was completed did it determine the lineup.
Liu Xuanrui as Li Qiushi
Wang Zi as Roushi
The main theme of the artwork, how to grasp the needs of young audiences? He Nian believes that the most important thing is the story and emotion.
The story is a manifestation of mainstream values, "let the youth of the time infect the youth of the present", the emotion is to use the story of the characters in the play to evoke the empathy of young people, let the young audience be moved, and let the young people of the moment experience and understand the choices of the characters in the play in the historical background at that time.
In this year, when gift films are frequent, He Nian is very open to whether stage plays can stand out, and he believes that art creators only need to take root and create sincerely. To say that the biggest highlight of "Wave", He Nian believes that it is "touching", this stage play aims to cause the audience to reflect and let everyone cherish today's hard-won good life.
The special design of adding "Water Stage" is also to echo the title "Wave", using water as a stage element, which is both romantic and in line with the story, hoping to bring the audience a poetic atmosphere.
To create such a large-scale stage play, to integrate five side stories into one, but also to construct a new story of soul gathering based on historical facts, the young screenwriters of "Wave" made a brave attempt.
Stills from "The Wave"
Led by the post-90s chief screenwriter Han Dani, Xiao Shiyao (chief screenwriter), Pan Yuxin (screenwriter), Song Wenqi (screenwriter), including the all-female team, this time provoked the girder of script creation.
Han Dani told the Observer Network that the theme of "Wave" has been preparing for two to three years, but their real participation in the creation was last November, from last winter to May this year, the script was constantly polished, until this year's Spring Festival, they were looking for the direction of the script, constantly overturning and restarting. It took seven to eight drafts to finalize the large structure of the gathering of the souls of the five martyrs, reflecting the combination of romanticism and virtual reality.
According to Han Dani, during the creation period, the screenwriting team consulted a large number of historical materials and excavated the images of the five martyrs from the historical facts to find the point of their inner struggle.
When it comes to the most impressive plot, Han Danni especially gave an example, and the creators borrowed the only woman among the five martyrs, Feng Hao, to "talk about the topic of women".
In this scene, Feng Hao's sister, the young girl feng hao helped and the runaway women, with mutual encouragement, saw the light from the darkness, they questioned the gender prejudices of the old society, they tried to break through the shackles imposed on women by the family and society, and their stories were desolate and brave, which was lamentable.
Interestingly, Han Dani observed that when Feng Hao rehearsed this scene, the female audience was deeply touched, and in the absence of sound and light cooperation in the performance, the female audience was still moved to tears. But male audiences see more of the "good skills" of directors, screenwriters and actors, but "can't get" emotional points, Han Dani laughed, this is "a natural barrier between men and women."
The Observer Network found that on the day of the audition, Feng Hao's play was the longest applause after the curtain was closed, and many audiences silently wiped their tears during the performance.
In fact, the stage play "Wave", which carries forward the revolutionary spirit of the "Five Martyrs of the Left League", not only infects the audience with emotions, but also helps many young audiences to make up a lesson and pass on the power of faith.
Between 1928 and 1929, revolutionary literary controversies spread Marxist literary and artistic theory and raised the ideological and theoretical level of revolutionary writers, and the weaknesses exposed in the development of the movement also attracted the attention of the Communist Party of China.
On March 2, 1930, under the leadership and promotion of the Communist Party of China, the Chinese Left-Wing Writers Union was established in Shanghai. At the inaugural meeting, Mr. Lu Xun delivered a speech entitled "Opinions on the Left-Wing Writers' Alliance", which for the first time put forward the direction in which literature and art should serve the "workers and peasants" and pointed out that left-wing writers and artists must come into contact with the actual social struggle.
The young writers Rou Shi, Hu Yepin, Li Qiushi (the only non-"zuolian member"), Feng Hao, and Yin Fu, who were known as the "Five Martyrs of the Left League", actively carried out literary activities while engaging in the actual revolutionary struggle, and created a number of excellent literary works with their different struggle experiences and personal feelings: "Bao'er Pagoda" (Yin Fu), "Hunan Aftermath Problem" (Li Qiushi), "For the Slave's Mother" (Rou Shi), "I See the Women's Movement" (Feng Hao) and "The Light Is Before Us" (Hu Yepin)...
As representatives of "revolutionary literature", they became a new cutting-edge force in the Chinese literary circles and played a positive role in the development of proletarian revolutionary literature in the early stage.
On February 7, 1931, they were simultaneously killed by Kuomintang reactionaries in Longhua, Shanghai.
Mr. Lu Xun, who was acquainted with Rou Shi and Yin Fu and had a relationship with Feng Hao and Hu Ye frequently, wrote "For the Remembrance of Forgetting" out of sorrow and indignation on the second anniversary of the sacrifice of the five martyrs, saying that "the night is long, the road is also long, I might as well forget it and not say it." But I know that even if it wasn't me, there would always be times when I remembered them and talked about them again..."
Ninety years later, young literary creators have not forgotten them. Drawing nourishment from the Memorial Hall of the Left Union Site on Duolun Road, the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center integrated the red gene into the creation of the stage play "Wave".
On the evening of the 17th, after the performance, the applause did not stop for a long time at the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center on Anfu Road.
The cast of "The Wave" came to the stage to close the curtain
From May 18th to May 23rd, the stage play "Wave" will be the first to be rehearsed at the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center and Art Theatre. Then, from July 1st to 3rd, as the "New Stage Exhibition Season Celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the Founding of the Communist Party of China", the stage play "Wave", jointly sponsored by Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center and SAIC Shanghai Culture Square, and specially acknowledged by the Party Branch of Investment Management Consulting (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., will be officially staged at SAIC Shanghai Culture Square to celebrate the party's birthday.
Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center celebrated the party's birthday press conference scene group photo