On the stage of the theater, a huge wheel hangs in the air, rolling forward, repeating itself. The audience entered the arena and sat down one after another, and some people talked about the big wheel in front of them, as if Shoko was bound by the fate of his life. In the front row, there were elementary school students who were watching the play collectively, and they all excitedly stretched out their heads to poke their heads and call out to their friends for the props on the stand.
The lights dimmed, and under the twilight city walls, in the rising smoke, Shoko and the coachmen ran to the sound of rattles and drums, and they ran and roared, from far to near, showing the vitality of the galloping ......This novel and special opening made the scene quiet.
On January 1, 2024, as the closing drama of the 7th Lao She Theater Festival, the drama of the same name, adapted from Mr. Lao She's classic work, "Camel Xiangzi", completed the first round of performances at Beijing Tianqiao Performing Arts Center. On the stage, Xiangzi in the old, middle and young periods is presented with cross-dialogue across time and space, and a complete interpretation of Xiangzi's spiritual history is deduced. The spiritual world of Xiangzi, who is like a "stuffy gourd", has been opened, and his inner entanglement and confusion between ideals and reality evoke the resonance of people today.
Rehearsals are like pickles, you can't soak them for many days, it's not like that.
In the past ten years, Fang Xu has systematically adapted six Lao She works. Only this year did Mr. Lao She's "Camel Xiangzi" be put on the stage. Fang Xu said frankly that at first, because there were too many artistic categories in the domestic adaptation of "Camel Xiangzi", he hesitated "whether to change it", "As far as I know, "Camel Xiangzi" seems to be a dance drama that has not been changed. "One of the most direct reasons for changing his mind is that in 2020, a platform will ask him to record a set of Lao She's audiobooks. The other party chose five works, the first of which is "Camel Xiangzi". Fang Xu asked why he put Xiangzi in the first partThe other party replied that big data shows that young people now love to listen to "Camel Xiangzi", and many young people compare themselves to Xiangzi. Fang Xu was particularly surprised when he heard it, he didn't expect young people to resonate so much with this work that seemed a little old, "Ouch, that may indeed be worth doing."
Later, just in time for the 125th anniversary of Mr. Lao She's birth, and there was an invitation from the Lao She Theater Festival, "In this way, the adaptation of the drama "Camel Xiangzi" was decided."
The script adaptation of "Camel Xiangzi" was polished for eight months. Fang Xu said: "If you change the script, you have to be willing to spend time and use effort to 'dip' with it." Because the original story is not strong, how to connect, how to choose, how to present ......It's really brain-burning. For example, I deleted many characters in the original book, such as Erqiangzi, Lao Ma, Xiaoshunzi, etc., but I didn't 'mess up' all of them, and I gave their words to a certain person in the group drama to varying degrees. When he couldn't change it, he read the original book repeatedly, "Maybe one day something will allow you to find your direction again." ”
In this adaptation, Fang Xu hopes that the focus of the stage will fall on the character of Xiangzi, "As for Hu Niu, Xiaofuzi, and Liu Siye, they are some of the characters around Xiangzi, and they are also a fragment of his life, but not all." I don't want to be set up like this: the play opens with the tiger girl, the tiger girl dies, and the whole play ends. I don't think this is so consistent with the original book. We tried to bring the focus back to Shoko, which is one of the most important ideas of the whole adaptation. ”
Presented as it is now, it still took a little twists and turns in the middle. Fang Xu bluntly said that at the beginning of the group rehearsal, it was just an old Xiangzi and a young Xiangzi talking, and the characters were also fragmentary. After arranging for nearly 20 days, one day he suddenly felt that he couldn't do it anymore: "If I continue to line up like this, I will collapse, because I can't stand this play." ”
Later, they took out nearly 10 days to rewrite the script and made subversive changes to the presentation of the whole play.
I just said let's fight, first of all, the original work of "Camel Xiangzi" is famous enough, if this play looks good, it can also become a word-of-mouth drama, in that case, everyone has worked hard in vain. The whole logic and organization of the book is expressed, and the rehearsal is smooth, "Everyone is tied to this matter every day, and they are tied to it, and they don't know who will suddenly come out of that energy one day." In fact, rehearsals are like pickles, if you don't soak for more than a few days, it's not like that. Fang Xu said with a smile.
On the day the play was composed, many people came to see it, and the general reaction was, "This play is not what we imagined." As soon as he heard this, Fang Xu was down-to-earth, "This matter is all right." His firm idea is, "A play looks first, if the appearance is wrong, you want to look good, if this scene can't jump out of everyone's imagination, I don't have the enthusiasm to row it." ”
As a result, the play has not yet been born, the tickets have already been sold out, and it is even more difficult to find a ticket for one more show. Fang Xu said with a smile, "On New Year's Day, I thought it would be a bad performance in the afternoon, but I didn't expect everyone on and off the stage to be very high. On stage, we only finished half of the play, and the other half was done by the audience friends. ”
Innovation is to focus more on the spiritual world of people.
Fang Xu's version of "Camel Xiangzi" completely presents Xiangzi's life: Xiangzi appeared young and strong when he appeared, and he wanted to live a better life with all his strength, but he was soon beaten by life - the car he spent three years to save money to buy was robbed by soldiers;Xiangzi didn't have a car, so he gave Mr. Cao's family a month, Mr. Cao was kind to Xiangzi, and Xiangzi ran happily on the street. But after an accident, the car broke down, and Shoko's ideals were shattered again. When Shoko hangs his head, a tiger girl who cares about him appears. Shoko started pulling the cart again, and he still wanted to earn money with his strength and live a good life. Unexpectedly, the tiger girl and the child died, and later Xiaofuzi also died, and the life creed of "people want face, be strong" that Xiangzi believed in completely collapsed, and Xiangzi began to mess around and completely degenerate.
What is refreshing is that this time "Camel Xiangzi" still continues the "all-male class" performance on the stage, with 15 actors playing both coachmen and group scenes and other roles, and the role reversal is often under the nose of the audience, even male to female. The "big change" on the stage amazed the audience. Fang Xu said frankly, "We have become a living person on stage, relying on clothing. This is really thanks to Mr. Kuan, a costume designer, who proposed the idea of changing clothes on stage, and he said yes, it can be realized. Because he has participated in many large-scale events, including the 'Double Olympics', he has a lot of experience, and he said that the method of large-scale events requiring live actors to change their clothes within ten seconds is the first time to use it on the drama stage. So everyone looks quite magical, as soon as the clothes are turned over, there is the women's clothes of the tiger girl, and when they turn back, they become the coachman again. ”
As for the "all-male class", Fang Xu bluntly said, "All-male is not a gimmick, and cross-gender performances make us more focused on the spiritual world of people." This time, the characters on the stage are turned on the spot, which is the logical need of the whole play, and it is combined with the logic of the characters, not to show it. In the end, 15 outstanding actors such as Liu Xinran, Xu Xingbo, Zhao Zhen, Sun Ning, Guo Xiao, Qin Feng, Ren Yuebin and other 15 outstanding actors portrayed the characters on the stage with sincere and vivid performances, which were applauded by the audience.
Fang Xu was very impressed, and one day when he went to the rehearsal room, he was directly stunned: "At that time, our assistant director Wang Lu was rehearsing instead of Liu Siye, the female director was very small, I went to take a look, she was 'fighting' with a group of men in the rehearsal room alone, and I was dumbfounded." Later, I told them, in fact, it doesn't matter if it's all male or not, you play this person, when you really put your emotions into it, whether the character is male or female on the outside, and even the outfit and so on don't matter at all, what moves everyone in the end is the real emotions in the character's heart. Moreover, when the actor excludes gender, he will really focus more on people's inner world, emotional world, and spiritual world, which is the most 'bumpy' with people. ”
As soon as the male version of "Tiger Niu and Xiaofuzi appears, they can always mobilize the enthusiasm of the audience. "When I was synthesizing, I found that a man on the field directly 'flipped' into a tiger girl, this one is particularly fierce, and this character came out at once. Fang Xu said with a smile. "A lot of viewers said, 'Tiger girl is really a tiger, Xiaofuzi is so beautiful'. I said this in the rehearsal room, and I said that you will definitely hear it in the future. In fact, at the beginning, the tiger girl was not played by Zhao Zhen, and later in a row, the tiger energy he originally carried came out, and to tell the truth, the original description of the tiger girl is old, ugly and powerful, the tiger girl is like a man, Zhao Zhen's tiger girl may be closer to the character written by Mr. Lao She. ”
Exploring the potential of the "all-male class" to create characters, Fang Xu seemed confident, "At first, Zhao Zhen felt that Hu Niu was a woman after all, and she spoke in a small voice. I said don't, the tiger girl will make the little voice finished. Think about it, we once saw a woman in a restaurant in Tianjin, with a hot head and a round waist, she was talking alone in the restaurant, and everyone's voice couldn't be heard. At that time, I wanted to take a picture of her with my phone, but I didn't dare. This is the tiger girl, you just follow this. ”
Zhao Zhen said with a smile, "I still have to play the coachman in front of me, so I always think about turning into a tiger girl, should I at least make a shape with the driver in front of me in terms of sound, and turn out the characters will unconsciously go in a sharp direction to find that voice." The director has been breaking me about this, and the director said, don't forget, you just talk normally. Later, as soon as he said that the eldest sister of cigarettes and alcohol we met at dinner, oops, I immediately found the feeling, that is, a live tiger girl, tall and fierce, and rough and atmospheric. "The characters of the tiger girl are strong and the most memorable, but Zhao Zhen bluntly said that the classic portrayal of the old artists of the predecessors is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, which makes him feel a lot of pressure, "I always wonder if the audience will recognize it." ”
Zhao Zhen has his own understanding of Hu Niu's tiger strength, "Hu Niu's tiger is talking about her character, and there are no shackles or cages framed by society in her, so she acts straightforwardly and happily, and dares to say and do." Many viewers like Tiger Girl, probably because she dares to love and hate, dare to express, feel really happy, and invest in Tiger Girl's emotional value. I think this is what the director and we have been talking about, when you really enter the inner world of the characters, the audience will not look at you differently because of gender issues. ”
When he played the first scene, Zhao Zhente was nervous, and it was not until the curtain call and hearing the audience's applause that he felt a little more steady. "Playing the tiger girl, I am stepping on the shoulders of the old artists of the predecessors to climb up, but when climbing this mountain, I also have my own ideas, I entered the drama school at the age of 13, and I have seen the behavior of many old gentlemen such as Fu Liancheng, this time on stage, such as crossing the waist, deliberately cutting the hair, etc., these actions are my own design. He bluntly said that opera actors have a very complete set of stylized movements, and this foundation that has been "smashed" since childhood may be on their bodies for a lifetime, "But on the stage, if you want to perform the stylized movements of opera very well, it takes years of accumulation, including the refinement of stage experience and life." I am especially grateful for my studies in drama school, Chinese opera, and later my experience in film and television, which are all lifelong benefits for me. ”
The freehand style of "Beijing flavor drama presents a "new impression" of Lao She.
Each of Fang Xu's works is self-directed and self-acted, and many of them are also screenwriters, which also makes his works show a personalized "freehand" style with unique vitality. Mr. Jiao Juyin's generation put forward a theatrical viewpoint at that time, the main idea of which was that the development of drama in China should be integrated with Chinese opera, Chinese opera, and China's local stage art forms. I think that Mr. Jiao's theatrical direction is in line with Chinese aesthetics, and in the final analysis, my 'freehand' is also the best in this. ”
In Fang Xu's view, the presentation of Chinese opera and quyi art is more freehand, such as a table and two chairs in opera, horseback riding and rowing, which is a way of expression slowly extracted from life, "I think this is a very interesting, distinctive, and accurate expression in Chinese culture." In fact, my 'freehand' is also a kind of extraction, which is to extract some elements with higher concentration and stronger colors from life, so as to make the imagery of expression more distinct, which I think is a very lovely point in the process of artistic creation. I don't like things that are too real, I like things that are imaginative, and they give me a sense of pleasure. So from the perspective of stage aesthetics, I like to leave some room for imagination, there are all kinds of changes on the stage, and people can imagine to their heart's content, and I especially like this feeling. ”
Fang Xu's version of "Camel Xiangzi" opened with the running of the coachman that made the audience unforgettable, "Originally, I wanted to play on the treadmill on stage this time, but the actor ran horizontally and vertically. But when we took the treadmill to operate, we found that it was not the state we originally imagined, because the acceleration and deceleration of the treadmill required a process, and this process interfered with the performance, so it was simply canceled. So he told the artist **, saying that he always kept the first shot of the opening of the old movie "Sand Gull" in his head, the song sounded, and the female volleyball players came up from the horizon in a row, this picture is particularly beautiful. "The artist said that I will make a platform with an inclined plane, people can run up, make iron mesh, transmit light and make up some smoke. I said this is good!”
Fang Xu bluntly said that he wanted this play to be as beautiful as a painting, and he didn't want to make it a dirty and broken group of coachmen and a Beijing city, "I want to make this play look very clean." Clothing too, can't be made dirty, our clothes look mottled, but it's not dirty, and there are no patches, including the tiger girl's clothes are also smudged, like paintings. ”
"Sewing" the work to this day I hope to find a way to dialogue with the contemporaries.
Fang Xu's version of the drama "Camel Xiangzi", which uses three hours to condense the life of Xiangzi fighting against fate. The ending is unexpected: Lao Xiangzi is no longer the stupid cute and distressing Xiangzi. For 60 yuan, Lao Xiangzi betrayed Ruan Ming, who led the coachman to strike. Ruan Ming was killed, and Lao Xiangzi did not blame himself at all.
When asked why he ended up like this, Fang Xu said frankly, "Actually, my last stroke is to 'sew' this work to this day, which is also my intention at the beginning of creation." What worries me the most about this play is the ending, the original ending is too sad, and the last sentence of the original book says Shoko: The end ghost of individualism!It's true that Xiangzi can't stand up to the world alone, but I'm afraid that this scene will end up soft and have no power. Now that this is the end, I am actually telling a story of Sisyphus - I know that this process is difficult and hopeless, but pessimism will not solve any problems, and I still have to live bravely. We hope to find a dialogue with today's young audience, which can provoke them to think about the individual life, the spiritual world of people, and the relationship between people and society. ”
At the end of the play, Sergeant Sun said that the day when the money was spent. Lao Xiangzi scolded him: People can't live forever. Sheriff Sun followed again, you understand the old thing. In the final scene, the newsboy sells newspapers on the street and shouts about the arrival of the tram, which brings fear to the coachman. Why are these information points given?"I'm still quite excited to hear you ask about this ending, because I'm sure someone will be able to understand a play. But to tell the truth, this is really not what Mr. Lao She wrote in the original text, I thought at the time, just bring you an information point. Because the significance of making a play is to inspire everyone to think about some issues, such as today's taxis and online car-hailing, today's people face artificial intelligence and AI, and this fear of 'being replaced' is not happening now?I just want to tell you that the alternation of the old and the new, the changes of the times, will keep repeating, and the fear cannot be resisted. If you can clearly understand this, you will not increase your troubles, but may live a little more freely. ”
Drama is only loved and wonderful, exploring between opera and drama.
Ten years ago, a friend kindly reminded Fang Xu: Your choice of Lao She means that you have given up business. Along the way, Fang Xu felt grateful and fortunate, "We have persevered for 12 years to get to today, relying on the charm of Mr. Lao She's literary classics and the love and support of the audience and friends. We will continue. Drama is only love and wonderful. ”
What are the new plans for the New Year?Fang Xu said frankly that in addition to taking "Camel Xiangzi" to Shanghai in mid-January, he may also cooperate with Chongqing Performance Company this year, "I originally changed Mr. Lao She's ** "Unproblematic Problem", maybe this work is not very well-known, but Mr. Lao She wrote very interestingly, it is a story about how a farm director squeezed a doctor who studied agriculture from abroad out of the farm on a farm in the suburbs of Chongqing. This scene should be a comedy with a bit of black humor. ”
With his love, dedication, and perseverance in drama, Fang Xu's dramas have attracted many "iron fans" to watch over the years. This also makes the people around him empathize, Zhao Zhen said: "I and Director Fang actually met in 2009, but by mistake, we didn't officially cooperate until "Niu Tianci". He has been looking for a way, that is, a relatively perfect combination of fiction and reality between drama and opera. He doesn't stick to any form of innovation, and I think he does a near-perfect job of combining Chinese opera and drama. And he just wants to take us people out of this road through his own efforts. For so many years, the audience has become accustomed to it, drama is to see the truth, opera is virtual, and it is not easy to cultivate some audiences. The director also has a concept, we want to do the drama in a down-to-earth manner, so that the audience can see that we are seriously presenting something to the audience with all our enthusiasm. ”
There are a lot of young people in our team, and following the director is to seek a process of learning and further study, and usually come here to see and listen to everything else, the atmosphere of our rehearsal is very good, everyone is rehearsing in laughter, especially harmonious. ”
*: Beijing Youth Daily.