Stills from the first round of the 2020 National Centre for the Performing Arts drama "The Count of Monte Cristo" "The Count of Monte Cristo comes to the glittering Parisian high society to take revenge"
Hello everyone, I am director Wang Xiaoying. Prior to The Count of Monte Cristo, I directed the plays Jane Eyre and the opera Here The Dawn Is Quiet at the National Theatre. Today, as the director of "The Count of Monte Cristo", I will talk to you about this play.
How was the Count of Monte Cristo "reborn"?
"The Count of Monte Cristo" is a novel that everyone is very familiar with and loves, and now that we are going to adapt it into a play, the first question to consider is: What kind of things do we choose to convey to the audience? The drama stage is different from novels and movies, in addition to showing the storyline, it is possible to enter the character's deeper interpretation of their own hearts. We don't think we can simply play out the plot, let people see the plot and be satisfied; what we want is to show a kind of concern in the process of revenge: external is to show a kind of social concern, that is, when a person faces this social injustice, these things will actually give people a warning effect. There is another layer of inward attention. In the process of revenge, the Count of Monte Cristo reflected on the revenge itself. Even we can call it a kind of "self-redemption." In the process of revenge, he experienced pleasure, but in fact, he also felt pain. In the end, he did not end the grievances in his heart in a decisive way, and he had a process of self-reflection in it. How to convey this to the audience has to do with the way the play is told.
Cover of the first edition of the novel The Count of Monte Cristo in 1846
So screenwriter Yu Rongjun made such an idea: that is, to dismantle the character of Edmond Duntis and no longer tell the story along the timeline. He breaks down the protagonist into three, so that the young Duntis is a character recalled by Duntis in prison, allowing him to meet Father Faria and then become the Count of Monte Cristo. Then we can also understand this processing as different selves, which will produce a dialogue between different selves. I sometimes say that the most interesting part of this play is when Duntis meets and talks between different selves. However, from the beginning of this script to the later second half of revenge, this structure does not play too much role, in fact, it is basically the plot of the original novel. I repeatedly discussed with Yu Rongjun how to add some behavioral pauses and inner excavations to Dantis in the process of revenge. Where and how are these meetings between different selves added? And whether there are three actors to play these three stages, or two actors to play these three stages? These are all to enrich the effect of the protagonist's meeting between different selves and find some new angles.
Stills from the first round of the 2020 National Centre for the Performing Arts drama "The Count of Monte Cristo" "The Meeting Between two Different Selves of the Count of Monte Cristo and The Prisoner Dantis"
The process of our discussion lasted five years, and during this time I always had a tangled point in my mind: the story of "The Count of Monte Cristo" is equivalent to drawing a pie for the reader – but who can become the Count of Monte Cristo in life to complete revenge? It itself, as a plot novel of the year, is called "Shuangwen" in our words today, that is, the reader is happy after reading it. So how do we make the audience understand this story today? If it is only said that because the protagonist has a large amount of windfall and bought a knighthood, he is respected, powerful, and has social resources, then he carries out revenge and obtains justice. Then our ordinary audience will think after watching the play: "What am I going to do?" Am I going to make a windfall too? ”
So what exactly we want to communicate with the audience, I have always had a problem in my heart. Until the beginning of last year, I suddenly thought that Dantis had changed from a prisoner to the Count of Monte Cristo, a span that was too large and had a feeling of unreality in itself, so was it possible to treat it as a dream? So when the story ends, we say that this is not really what happened, but a dream fantasized in the mind of the prisoner, Duntis. And in reality, how should he face his situation, how should he insist on the hope in his heart, and how should he adhere to the belief in love and the pursuit of justice? I want to boil down to the theme of this play. Our final ending was rewritten and finalized.
In general, we hope that when a popular, episodic novel such as "The Count of Monte Cristo" is on the stage, there is more to explore about the emotions and ideas of the characters and the social sense.
Second, from Father Faria, how the director interprets the characters in depth
Illustrations in the first edition of the novel, The Count of Monte Cristo, 1846, depict Father Faria and Duntis in prison
Let's take the role of Father Faria and talk about how the director interprets the characters for the actors in rehearsals.
Father Faria is of course very important in this play. When our actors go to play him, they habitually play a more realistic character. The actor who plays Faria, Wang Wei Congress, first thought that he was an old prisoner who had served many years in prison, or even a "prison oiler". But in fact, Faria is not exactly like this, he has a very strong spiritual power, or he is also a symbol of a very strong spiritual power.
Of course, from the perspective of the novel itself, this character also has a strong religious and cultural background, and even a political background, and we do not pursue it too much in the play. I would prefer this character to give the audience the impression of shining a ray of humanity into the dark Prison of Château d'If. He brought a ray of humanity to Edmond Duntis's incomprehensible life encounters; he used the light of humanity to illuminate him. We need to see on the stage the wisdom, knowledge, humor, and of course, most importantly, his insight into people, of human nature.
Today' Château d'Iff, the city in the distant background is Marseille
I have said that Faria actually helped Edmond Duntis "solve the case", and he did not have any criminal investigation tools, and he did not have any evidence. He deduced exactly what had happened through Edmond Duntis's description, his insight into human nature. This actually shows faria's powerful inner strength. More powerful and meaningful than this is his conviction that he has his persistence and waiting for his future; and this waiting is not yet a passive, inactive wait, he is actively striving; and in the process to maintain his own human dignity. This is actually the most shining place in Faria.
This quality of his made Edmond Duntis grow up from a young man who knew almost nothing about society, about people, and about the world, let alone knowledge, and lacked humanistic accomplishment, and became a very powerful person.
Therefore, to let the actor perform Faria's character temperament, he cannot just play a vivid little character in real life. The actor has to realize that although he has been in prison for many years, he is noble in his heart, the patience in his character, and his wisdom. After determining these, it is the actor who wants to find out how to express these qualities of Faria in the dialogue expression of the character's lines, that is, to find the way to act the role. In this way, Wang Weiguo's strengths were brought into play, because his line expression ability was very strong.
We are engaged in the director to analyze the positioning of the character for the actor, to explain to the actor clearly how the lines should be said in order to better express the character of the character, the actor will be very good at mastering.
Stills from the first round of the 2020 National Centre for the Performing Arts drama "The Count of Monte Cristo" – "Dantis and Father Faria in Prison".
III. The Challenge of the Count of Monte Cristo
The presentation of "The Count of Monte Cristo" has four key words: "legend, romance, fantasy, reality" - of which "fantasy" refers to the performance style of the stage. In fact, the performance style of this play also has a process of thinking about changes.
Originally, he only wanted to use the perspective of prisoner Dantis to trace his own past as a more convenient means of narration. This kind of treatment on our drama stage that appears at the same time with different identities of the same character is actually not new. It wasn't until later that I realized that Edmond Duntis should actually appear as the Count of Monte Cristo, and finally it was like puncturing a balloon and letting the audience understand that it was a dream, as a director, I was reconsidering how I handled the second half: if I followed the logic of the original, it would be a very realistic style. The sense of proportion here is very important, and you can't come up and tell the audience that this is not true at all, which will destroy the audience's psychology of watching the play, because the audience's expectations are not like this. This burden should be shaken at the end, but you must have a foreshadowing in front of you.
So I thought the second half would be different from the last half. Although the first half is mainly reminiscent, the style of the first half shows a real sense of real life on the stage. I'm trying to convey the idea that Edmond Duntis's encounters abound in real life. When a wreck falls upon you, it may be someone —you know or don't know —because of one of his own interests, and then he wants to deprive you of it or frame you. You fall into a huge injustice that sometimes you don't even know yourself. This situation abounds in reality. So the sense of reality in the first half was a little stronger.
But the second half should be consciously pursued for a sense of unreality. This sense of unreality I want it to be a state of half-truth, half-falsehood, both true and illusory. Gradually, the audience feels that there is something wrong in the play, how it is getting more and more grotesque. For example, in the second half, the Count of Monte Cristo came down from the sky - the square box in our stage did not move in the first half, and in the second half it began to move up and down. The Appearance of the Count of Monte Cristo in this way gives people a sense of surprise.
Pictured is one of the scenes of the stage design model of "The Count of Monte Cristo"
In addition, this state is also reflected in the group dancers at the aristocratic dance. At first, the audience will feel that this is part of the luxurious atmosphere of Parisian high society. Gradually, they became more and more involved in the play, with an attitude, or with a somewhat grotesque, "detached" performance, such as a laugh with a strange feeling- not exactly according to the logic of life, and gradually brought a sense of grotesqueness to the second half. At the end of the story reversal, the audience will think: no wonder the front is getting more and more grotesque.
Later, I looked back and thought about doing this contrast in the first and second halves, and its internal mechanism was not far-fetched: from the protagonist in the first half or a "real" person like Dantis, to the second half becoming the Count of Monte Cristo, this change makes people feel that there is a very strong sense of unreality and legendary effect. The same is true of the atmosphere of life in the first half: a small fishing village in Marseille in the first half, and a high society for drunken fans in Paris in the second half. Therefore, the contrast in the first and second half, not only in the image modeling, but also in the artistic vocabulary, is possible, but it is necessary to grasp the measure.
This treatment in the second half was also the most challenging part of my process of directing The Count of Monte Cristo. When I think about how to deal with it, I'm excited on the one hand, and A little nervous on the other hand—I'm not sure how to handle them. For example, my musical treatment in drama has always been my proud strength, but this time I tried a new way of processing music: when the music comes out, it is often the opposite of the mood of the plot at that time. Generally, it should be used to vent with music along the mood of the plot, or when it is interrupted, it becomes another kind of music with a humorous flavor.
2020 National Centre for the Performing Arts production of the drama "The Count of Monte Cristo" First Round Performance Stills - "Fernan was Spurned by everyone"
The same is true of the presentation of the dance team, which does not follow the plot to show emotional emotions, which is also a bit challenging for me. Especially in the House of Nobles, the passage where the Count of Monte Cristo exposes Fernand. All the dancers began to perform, and finally there was a scene of Fernan blocking him, humiliating him to his face, laughing at him, laughing so much that he collapsed on the ground and sat all over the ground. But in this scene the Count of Monte Cristo sat motionless, and there was a great sadness in his heart: at the moment he did not experience the pleasure of really taking revenge on his enemies, and we can analyze many layers of reasons—Fernand was his former friend; or the husband of the man he loved; and then he had a very lovely son with whom he could be friends. When he killed Fernan in this way, it was even as if he had a feeling of pulling a wound on his body. He began to appreciate this more complex emotional meaning about the matter of revenge itself, and he might have more of this idea of breaking free from such a dead knot of hatred and revenge and completing self-redemption. So he sat there all the time and didn't move. At this time, let the dancers who began to laugh at Fernan on the ground stand up and look at him, let them feel the pain in the heart of the Count of Monte Cristo, and convey this pain to the audience with their group performances, and then the audience can feel the pain in the heart of the Count of Monte Cristo through the performances of these dancers. Something like this is very exciting in the creative process. I myself think it's a good way of expressing it, which is not the same as some of the common methods I used to create as directors in the past.
Finally, let's take a look at some of the drama clips of the "Count of Monte Cristo" just mentioned, I hope you like it!
In 2020, the National Centre for the Performing Arts produced a rehearsal photo of the drama "The Count of Monte Cristo", and director Wang Xiaoying was directing the actor Sun Li (as Mei Xi Tess) to rehearse
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Biography of the presenter Wang Xiaoying, Doctor of Directing, is a national first-class director. The state-level experts directly contacted by the central government, the "four batches" of talents preferred by the national propaganda and cultural system; the experts with special government allowances; and the titles of "Outstanding Drama Artists" and "Outstanding Directors in the New Century". Representative works of drama include: "King of Lanling", "Fusheng", "Richard III", "Deep Burn", "Jane Eyre", "Copenhagen", "The Witch of Salem" and so on. On the basis of the practice of stage creation, he also conducted research on the theory of directing art, and published theoretical monographs such as "From Hypothetical to Poetic Imagery". He has won many national awards such as "Five One Project Award", "Wenhua Award" Excellent Director Award, "Golden Lion Award" Excellent Director Award, "Cao Yu Drama Award" Excellent Director Award and Excellent Critics Award, China Drama Festival Excellent Director Award, China Small Theater Drama Festival Excellent Director Award, China Peking Opera Festival Gold Award, China Yue Opera Festival Gold Award, "China Literary and Art Criticism Award" and other national awards.
Ministry of Education/Planning for the Popularization of Arts at the National Centre for the Performing Arts
Wang Xiaoying/Narrator
Wang Chengyin/Finishing