On the evening of March 21st, "Jizhou Suspense", directed by Zhang Xiao, was produced and performed by the National Theater of China and was selected as the first season selection of the "Young Directors Creative Support Program". This round of performances will last until the 24th of this month. At the same time, as an annual funding project of the Beijing Culture and Art Fund, the play also serves as the opening drama of the 9th China Original Drama Invitational Exhibition jointly sponsored by the National Theater of China and the Xicheng District People's Government, kicking off this invitational exhibition.
On the opening night of this round of performances, all the creators took a group photo with the audience.
"Suspicious Clouds in Jizhou" was created from "Water Margin" and has attracted much attention from all walks of life since the incubation of the first season of the "Young Directors Creative Support Program". In September last year, the play was upgraded from a small theater to a large theater version, gathering the young generation of outstanding creatives to completely upgrade the stage design, costumes, music, lighting and other audio-visual effects. After a new round of precipitation and polishing, two young actors Song Tianshuo and Zhong Chenyao have been added to this round of performances, while Zhang Ruochen, who plays Inspector Shi, will continue to be the leader, leading the audience into this game. Constantly empathize and doubt, look for the murderer in the smoke bomb, and work together to complete this race to find the truth.
"Suspicious Clouds in Jizhou" poster
Compared with the reinterpretation of many popular stories, the drama "Suspicious Clouds in Jizhou" chose a section of the novel "Water Margin" that is not well known to the public - a reference to "Yang Xiong" in Chapters 44 to 46 "Shi Xiu Goes to Liangshan" was adapted and reconstructed. Director Zhang Xiao started with the mysterious deaths of Toutuo and Monk, and turned Shi Naian, the author of "Water Margin", into a fictional character in the play, making him the "Sherlock Holmes" of Jizhou and starting a journey of investigation.
In Zhang Xiao's view, relatively unpopular themes will not make the audience know it at a glance, and then have preconceived ideas. "The space for our second creation will be greater, and each character will have more potential to tap. For example, when shaping Shi Xiu, I used psychoanalysis to explore the character's heart from the book "The Love of Shi Xiu" by Mr. Shi Zhecun. In addition to his inherent impression of being sensitive, alert, and highly skilled in martial arts, we explore his paranoid and weird personality traits and incorporate them into his creation."
Director Zhang Xiao
Young actor Li Muyi plays the "sick" Yang Xiong in the play. In his opinion, the presentation of "Jizhou Suspense" is a bit similar to the comic strips of the Four Great Classics when he was a child. "The director also deliberately restored the feeling of illustrations when creating and staging, and the actors also used many slightly exaggerated treatments in their performances. For example, the illustrations Yang Xiong in the movie is an image of a military commander with a raised eyebrow and a sword. When I appeared on the stage, I made a '666' gesture with my raised fist. In addition, the movie "Fengshen Part 1" made the "Business Yin Yu" ' has become a hot word on the Internet. This time, I deliberately used the word 'care' in the line 'Abolition of harm for the people, why bother' to express the feeling of English, and also enlivened the atmosphere of the theater."
Li Muyi (right ) plays Yang Xiong
Regarding the comedy elements in the play, director Zhang Xiao said that the current stage performances must conform to the aesthetics of young audiences in form. "To tell ancient stories in a serious and formal way, the current audience may not have the patience to sit down. We need to use some comedy baggage, body modeling, including live music to grab the audience's attention. During the performance, basically every few minutes I will make a small treatment that everyone likes to see. Of course, the rhythm of comedy is mainly reflected in the first half of the whole play. From the middle, the plot will develop in the direction of a relatively serious drama."
Stills of "Suspicious Clouds in Jizhou"
In the stage design In the design concept, in order to combine the aesthetic concepts of traditional Chinese culture with the aesthetics of contemporary art, the large theater version of "Jizhou Suspense" made the relatively empty stage space of the small theater version three-dimensional. In addition, a two-layer structure was added to the interpretation, and the color rendering and symmetrical beauty of the gauze curtain were incorporated to achieve an all-round aesthetic integration and upgrade.
Stills of "Jizhou Suspense"
At the same time, original music is also a highlight of the play.Composer Qi Boli combined traditional Chinese pentatonic modes and Western natural major and minor modes, and integrated musical instruments and musical elements from different regions and eras. At the same time, he drew inspiration from the actors' performances to create a song that is both fusion and sung. Original music, in the form of live electronic band performance, brings a beautiful audio-visual feast to the audience.
Stills of "Suspicious Clouds in Jizhou"
"Suspicious Clouds in Jizhou" interprets the characters and reshapes the classics. The female perspective and the male perspective confront each other, trying to see themselves in a more equal way. Behind all these designs is humanistic care from a modern perspective. "What are the historical facts and what is the ending? Maybe it doesn't matter. What matters is whether we can see our own hearts again in it." As director Zhang Xiao said, he does not force the audience to accept some ready-made definition, but hopes that Everyone returns to the original viewing relationship in the theater. "The audience is happy, the actors enjoy it, and they are immersed in the theater for two wonderful hours, and everything makes sense."
