Original Article: https://m.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_12542131
Original Author: 程辉剧场手记
The author published this in Pengpai News and shared on his Weibo Post on 6 May 2021.
Andante Cantabile, my most beloved music by Tchaikovsky, came from his String Quartet No. 1 in D major, every time it would painfully touch my heart, poet Xi Murong also used this to caption a melancholic poem. I thought, using it to sum up Lai Shengchuan’s representative work, “A Dream Like A Dream”, would be most apt.
“A Dream Like A Dream” lasts for 8 hours, this is something rare in Chinese theaters. Using the doctor as the first person, Patient No. 5 recalled and narrated in his narration, a surreal stage arrangement, emotions, life, fate, culture and societal upheaval, bringing tears to fog up your eyes. After 9 years of continued changes in the crew, Yanghua Theater brought in a new version with actors such as Xu Qing, Feng Xianzhen, Ge Xinyi, Xiao Zhan, Yan Nan, Zhang Liang, Huang Lu, Kong Wei, etc. The new version rivaled the quality of its predecessors, but yet bestowed a new presentation and expression.
A unique city was the backdrop for its first showing and the chance fate of the characters within the play allowed us to truly understand the nature of impermanence. In the play, there was an important term called “self-exchange”, which was said to come from an ancient practice from South Asia, by “breathing” with the others, so as to gift health and happiness, and remove his pain and misfortune. “A Dream Like A Dream” was a play that spoke of the search for the meaning of life, did it also deliberately “self-exchange” with the audience then? Once we understood the concept of “self-exchange”, we could also see that it was also a request to communicate with the reserved hearts of the contemporary person.
The fates of Gu Xianglan and Patient No. 5 were the two main timelines in “A Dream Like A Dream”, and the other timelines served to supplement or trigger the former. Patient No. 5’s motive came from “searching”, Gu Xianglan’s came from “chasing”. The chaser is the key to enlightening the searcher, the searcher became the resolution for the chaser, although they had different obsessions in their lives, they both came together in the end. Gu Xianglan’s deathbed confession to Patient No. 5 was not simply just an apology in her dazed state, but also her most unforgettable, wonderful and romantic memories of love; Patient No. 5, with his concern, consideration and inquiries, was like the listener from heaven, the guiding light to aid the soul in letting go of her regrets.
The 2021 Yanghua version of “A Dream Like A Dream” maintained its previous feature of multiple actors to one role, and multiple roles to one actor. Xu Qing, Feng Xianzhen, Ge Xinyi acted as after going abroad, old age and before going abroad versions of Gu Xianglan respectively. From the “peerless beauty” socialite of the brothels in Shanghai Beach, to the Baroness of a French Ambassador, to an artist, then to a maid, a sweeper of roads and alleys, to the lonely elderly in the hospital, she went through indescribable ups and downs.
Xu Qing had acted as Gu Xianglan since the play’s debut, and in the new version, her portrayal had already been exquisitely refined, the Gu Xianglan in her prime is lovely and graceful, but yet proud and wild, sensitive and emotional, as though Gu Xianglan’s soul had fully occupied her body. In addition to the true to form portrayal of the amorous nature of Gu Xianglan, her performance was exceptionally focused on the details of the silent scenes. When she and Xiao Zhan’s Patient No. 5 gazed at each other, when teary eyes met with clear eyes; from afar it seemed like she was looking at her younger self about to go onto a journey of no return, the resigned helplessness and the restless hope looked at each other; when realizing that the lost Baron had once returned, her astonished and sharp glares of anger; when Wang Debao found the tiny loft she stayed in by chance, her stealing glances were surprised and flustered… They were all full of the character’s aura and emotional tension, and the pain took the audiences by their hearts.
Senior actress Feng Xianzhen’s portrayal of the elderly version of Gu Xianglan was quite different from the version by the previous actress Lu Yan, which allowed the audiences to experience the wonder of plays due to different characterization. Lu Yan’s version was one that remained elegant and proud despite her tribulations, there was more calm and temperance, which would make the audiences respect the tenacity of this legendary lady. Feng Xianzhen’s version was a Gu Xianglan who went to France from Shanghai, and back to Shanghai from France, twice she found freedom and twice she fell. The cruelty of fate had ripped away all of the pretentiousness, the charm of her past had been lost, she was like every ordinary person. She would scheme cigarettes from strangers, curse as she liked with phrases such as “bastard”, “no good-doers in Taiwan”, mock those relatives who came to look after her as those who came for their inheritance. She fully portrayed the effects of her unfortunate life and her bitterness at the world, which made the audiences sigh in sadness.
Facing these two powerful actresses in portraying the same role, Ge Xinyi as the young Gu Xianglan, had a lot of pressure. Her performance was more inclined to a lonely beauty, the purity despite her circumstances, so as to provide a solid motive for the Baron and Wang Debao’s unrestrained infatuation. As a newcomer to the theater, her steady control was not an easy task, and should be praised for it. If she would be more open, layered and flavorful in her portrayal, the characterization would be better. After all, Gu Xianglan was the top courtesan within the midst of love and affairs, and the quiet and calm of a learned lady would be quite different from that.
Patient No. 5 was a journeyman of life. In the beginning, he suffered painful setbacks from the death of his child and the loss of his wife, and started a self-exiled wanderlust. His marriage came by mistake, almost like a replacement for his wife’s frustrating relationship. Fate caused him to lose his spirit, but he was unwilling to give up, hence he wanted to search for his wife, as though he wanted to search for himself. His encounter with Jiang Hong, was the wanderers’ sympathy for each other and to rely on each other. Only when he walked into the French castle and saw the tranquil and woeful eyes of Gu Xianglan, he seemed to see himself at the far coast of the lake, the cumulative rage and sorrow in both their hearts, their collective unwillingness to concede suddenly exploded, and he decisively dropped everything to find the lady in the painting. He did not know what question was ignited then, but he started his search for the dream of life.
In terms of the control of this character, Xiao Zhan and Yan Nan definitely put in a lot of efforts, they were highly immersive. What was even more rare was that, although their performances had different focuses, but they were both very united in terms of aura, body language, speech, pace and habitual actions, as though the two actors in the same stage were truly one character. For such a complete creation, you need not only tacit understanding.
Xiao Zhan’s performance exceeded my expectations. Despite it being his debut in a play, his performance was not even the least bit disjointed, and he was even able to merge his own personality characteristics with the role itself. His actions, pace and emotions gave a smooth interplay between tension and relaxation. The portrayal of innocent, naive, youthful, kind and fragile Patient No. 5, his unpreparedness in matters of love, was especially suitable as a youth who just joined society. It made the random encounter in the cinemas as the prelude of love more believable, and also gave a firm foundation to his actions later on, the multiple setbacks in later on, his wanderings, and his endless searching. With his wife and Jiang Hong, he had different relationships, the former was a budding first love, the latter came from empathy, Xiao Zhan had slightly different portrayal for the different phases of space and time, the cycle from simple to confusion, from searching to questioning, there was careful understanding and detailed handling. After discovering Gu Xianglan’s tracks, the clear longing that Xiao Zhan gave off collided with the layered longing from Xu Qing after her tribulations, was like the undercurrents under a calm lake, it drew in the rousing emotions, and became the strong force that pushed the story forward.
Xiao Zhan has the ability and the reason to achieve much better results in future theater stages. With time, if he could become even more at ease with the control of his body, if he could be even more accurate during the changes of character condition, I trust that he could achieve another breakthrough, and create even more challenging characters.
Reprising Patient No. 5 after many years, Yan Nan was obviously even more in-depth with his understanding of the script and character, and gifted the character a melancholy aura similar to those of an ancient poet, the quiet tones and deep glances became the key feature. The sense of accumulation of the vicissitudes, merged with Xiao Zhan’s portrayal, realized the continuation of the character’s fate. His performance on the hospital bed contrasted with Gu Xianglan on her hospital bed in a different time, and manifested Patient No. 5’s enlightenment after his miles of wandering, the person on the bed is awake, but those not were instead still dreaming. His calmness held the strings of every timeline together.
Zhang Liang’s portrayal of the Baron was the surprise of the show. If the old version’s Baron and Gu Xianglan was like the contest between eagle and the wild pigeon, the huge difference in power created the tragedy that made the audiences sad. The 2021 Yanghua version’s Baron and Gu Xianglan was like a pair of heavenly cranes, but they sang different notes as they flew to each other, and became a pair of lovebirds who hurt each other as they fell. The Baron became more romantic, more gentle and loving, but he remained prideful as he was still a noble beneath that amicable exterior, this was Zhang Liang’s new expression to the character, this also elevated Gu Xianglan’s difficulty in her choice, and even more so contrasted Gu Xianglan’s “evil” in her woeful revenge, and also left a branching point to the remaining love. His love for Gu Xianglan was true, it was not possession, but he loved the Oriental beauty, the caged Gu Xianglan, not the wild and free Gu Xianglan. Letting go and abandoning was his hopelessness for his lover, he felt that Gu Xianglan was letting herself go, she was betraying and depraving her beauty, he felt that his efforts were painfully wasted, it was not an attack on an escaped prey. This kind of portrayal made us wonder – love, was it to love a person, or was it to love an ideal? Love was to give or to receive? Was the ultimate goal of giving receiving?
The tragedy between Baron and Gu Xianglan became a tragedy of conflict between culture, social status and ideals. The difference between Baron and Gu Xianglan, did not merely exist on levels of culture and artistic ideals, but it was down to different life goals due to different cultural influences. It was hard for Baron to understand that his love only moved Gu Xianglan from a smaller cage to another bigger cage, even if he loved her deeply; Gu Xianglan who struggled for survival in a twisted environment, simply wanted to escape her cage, even if it meant poverty. This type of tragedy could not simply be explained with the character’s personality. The energy from repeated characterization is evident.
Huang Lu as Jiang Hong was a character that was rather difficult to grasp in “A Dream Like A Dream”. In her portrayal, Jiang Hong was an ordinary girl, who went through multiple troubles but was always chosen, besides her strong sense of survival, I almost could not see more personality. I remembered that I had brief flashes of a parallel universe while cooking eggs one morning, that was the state that she could not find herself or her position in life. She claimed herself as “the original Jiang Hong was dead, the Jiang Hong who arrived in Paris never existed” wanderer, her “relationship” with Patient No. 5 was merely a chance encounter in life, both of them were scared and questioning whether they should “fall into another relationship”. Huang Lu’s performance was very restrained, controlled, and tried hard to make herself not stand out, to do it to this extent was quite difficult. When she was talking about her stowaway escape, there was a point for emotional explosion, but yet she had to control it within the fine line between “surviving the calamity” and “unable to calm herself”. For this actress who was nominated multiple times for international awards and also won a national acting award, this was a rare stage experience.
Kong Wei, who just took off her costume in “Thunder Rain”, portrayed Shi Li Hong, the Mama-san of “Fairy Court”, in “A Dream Like A Dream”. Scheming and cunning in worldly matters, but yet she maintained her own sense of righteousness with Gu Xianglan and her sisters, fleshed out the character with even more emotions. Especially when the drunk professor professed his love for her, her teasing and forced calmness was mixed with surprise and shyness, as every emotion came at the same time, she managed them with ease, not only was the set brightly colored, there was also the sudden exposure of the character’s personality. Wang Peiyu who acted as the young Wang Debao, also showed the character’s clumsiness and stubbornness, his portrayal of passionate love was on point, which was just as brilliant.
There were many characters in “A Dream Like A Dream”, the group’s shared brilliance could not be forgotten, many actors who acted as multiple roles displayed exceeding energy. This came down to the Yanghua creativity production team, lead by Art Director Wang Keran, who had astute senses in actor selection as well as careful detailing in every part of the creation.
Luo Yongjuan, who portrayed a puppet in “Jewish City” and Li Zonglei, who had many important roles in many dramas and plays, both portrayed over 10 characters, and outstandingly completed the character creation for all of these different roles. Ruan Li, who portrayed the cousin, the dancer, the child, etc, also contributed multiple talents. Wang Weiqian, who portrayed Aunt Jin, the tourist, etc; Sun Zhongyi, who portrayed the professor, the old servant, etc, they all left deep impressions.
To display the characters but not to display themselves, this was the forefront of all theater actors, this was done by Xu Qing and Xiao Zhan, Zhang Liang and other stars, this was the respect they gave the play, the stage, the audience and themselves.
When the first kissing scene appeared for Xiao Zhan, part of the audiences were controlled but there were still some excessive “fan” reactions, but this did not interrupt his performance pace, this reminded me that Xu Qing and Hu Ge version also had the same situation many years ago. We could see that the actors were immersed, they prepared mental homework for every segment and detail, this was the hard work and the goal of both the production and the actors. Putting in efforts into acting and solely seeking the effects of celebrity, these are two totally different things after all.
When rehearsing or refreshing old classic plays, most of the time, methods such as subversion, recreation or simple replay were used. 2021 Yanghua’s version of “A Dream Like A Dream” is a case of production relying on the new cast to continuously discover deeper understandings, to recreate, and then to give audience a new icing on the cake while ensuring the quality of the play.
I was interviewed after the debut showing and said that this play was the Xiao Zhan’s starting point and not his ending point, and I also hoped that more capable actors would come to the theater stage, focus on the creation of art, and from that we could forge our own generation of quality “full celebrities”, such as Jin Shan, Shi Hui, Bai Yang, Zhang Ruifang, Shu Xiuwen, Laurence Olivier, Marlon Brando, Vivien Leigh, etc, of China. On the international theatrical stage, this is just commonplace.
