A happy marriage, a lovely child, a loving husband, a friend who can talk to, will life be completed because of this? The news that her husband, Helmau, is about to be promoted to bank manager has finally brought a turnaround for the family, which has been overwhelmed by constraints. All of His wife Nala's dreams seemed to be just around the corner. But on the eve of this Christmas Eve, it was not Santa Claus who knocked on the door...
Produced by Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center, directed by Wang Huan, and co-starring Gong Yuhang, Shen Lei, Yang Ning, Wen Yang, Jiang Ke and Youmei, Ibsen's representative drama "Doll's House" will return to Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center Art Theatre tomorrow night.
The Doll's House was the first sensational play by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. At the beginning of publication, because for Europeans at that time, nothing could be more sacred than the contract of marriage, but the description of marriage in "Doll's House" caused great controversy. In 1879, just two weeks after the script was published, it was staged in Copenhagen, Denmark.
The Norwegian critic Eric Berg praised Ibsen's creativity and technical mastery: "There are no impassioned words, no exuberant theatrical acts, not a drop of blood, not even a single tear." Tickets for every show were sold out, and although Nala's run away from home was a deep departure from tradition, her "bang" closing the door resounded through the clouds in the history of human theater. In his 1905 book Breaking Tradition, the American writer James Hunek praised "the slamming of a closed door reverberating on the roof of the world." Since then, "Doll's House" has become a classic play staged by the world's major theaters.
During the May Fourth New Culture Movement, China also began to stage "Doll's House". In 1918, The New Youth also published a special "Ibsen Special" to let Chinese know that there was a woman named "Nala" in the West, who dared to resist sexism and bravely ran away from home, trying to get rid of the fate of "dolls". During this period, Lu Xun, Hu Shi and Mao Dun also interpreted and judged the "Doll's House" from their own different angles, reflecting their new thinking on women's emancipation at that time.
The version that was interpreted at the end of 2019 has a strong stage impact. The space carrying the contradictions of the drama is designed as a "home": there is no division between the living room, the bedroom and the study, and the six actors freely shuttle through it, the whole time present, and no one has really stepped out of this space. Furnishing elements such as walls, tables and chairs, fireplaces, and bookshelves are painted white, as if they could not contain any secrets. Everything seems to be everyday, but the details reveal danger and grotesqueness: the well-behaved tree grows out of the living room and seems to be overturning the roof in the next second; the atmosphere should be warm At the Christmas Ball, eerie electronic music is played, and the characters are dressed in animal head suits, dancing with their own shadows like dolls... And when the secret of the heroine Nala is revealed, the whole space begins to twist and deform under the action of the stage installation, the floor rises, the furniture falls, the actor is suspended in mid-air - the accessible door in Ibsen's original script becomes untouchable...
This is the third work directed by young director Wang Huan after "Love Letters" and "Desire StreetCar", he said that in the interpretation of this version of "Doll's House", what he most wants to explore is the secret of marriage - in the "most intimate relationship" he has established with his own hands, how can people see themselves in each other's eyes?
"Ibsen himself did not define 'The Doll's House' as just a feminist work, I think it is time to dust off the dust and look at the story that is still happening and spreading today, and my interpretation of the theme is towards the growth of marriage and the examination of self-control. This version of "Doll's House" will be Chinese and will be the present. Wang Huan said.
In 2020, the play returned to the small theater and moved to the large theater. This round of "Doll's House" performance, still by the young generation of "power little flower" Gong Yuhang, who has played the female lead in classic dramas such as "Mrs. School", "Telephone Murder", "Desire Street Car" and other classic plays, plays his wife Nala; Shen Lei, who plays the male protagonist in popular works such as "Half Life", "Pillow Man" and "Doubt", plays her husband Haiermao, bringing a lively opponent scene to the audience. As fellow performers from Shangjiao, the two have also had tacit cooperation in many drama works and dubbing works such as "Oriana" and "Step by Step". In addition, Dr. Ruan Ke, played by Yang Ning, former director of Jiangsu Provincial Drama Theatre, Kristen Lin Dan, played by Actor Wen Yang, Neil Krokstay, played by Jiang Ke, and Helen, played by Youmei, also won the hearts of the audience. It is reported that the play will continue to be staged until December 13, 2020.
Stills were provided by Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center
Author: Tong Weijing
Editor: Wu Yu