took four years to polish. Yang Shipeng, 88, used the performance form of "readers theatre" to integrate Zhang Ailing's life and works to complete the drama "The Last Night of Zhang Ailing". The play is directed by Lai Shengchuan and stars seven powerful actors from two places. Among them, Liu Xuehua, the "Queen of Tear Eyes" from the Qiong Yao drama, will try to star in a drama for the first time, playing the role of the elderly Zhang Ailing in the play. Powerful Taiwanese theater actors Fan Guangyao, Qu Zhongheng and Zhang Jingzhi will also join this work. The play will be performed at the Shanghai Theater from May 17th to 26th.
The main creative staff of "The Last Night of Zhang Ailing"
Zhang Ailing's life trajectory is closely connected with Shanghai, but the end of her life is in an apartment in a foreign country. What happened at the end of her life became the origin of the creative idea of the play's screenwriter and director Yang Shipeng.
Yang Shipeng was the artistic director of the Hong Kong Repertory Theater and has been deeply involved in the American theater industry for many years. Regarding creating a new play this time and using this theme and form, he said: "The death of Zhang Ailing is a mystery in the literary and art circles. She was found lying on a camp bed, neatly wearing a cheongsam and leather shoes. As a director, I There is an idea that when Zhang Ailing was dying, many characters in her novels came to say goodbye to her, and some even performed some scenes of famous characters in her novels in front of her. I wrote based on these ideas. "
Yang Shipeng, Liu Xuehua
In the play, seven actors play more than twenty characters, detailing the works of Zhang Ailing's "Red Rose and White Rose", "Love in a Fallen City" and "The Story of the Golden Lock". The characters and fragments present a drama that spans the gap between reality and fiction. Zhang Ailing will start a spiritual dialogue with her characters. Through the dialogue between them, the audience is led into her labyrinth.
In the play, in the space of "Zhang Ailing's Apartment", how to interweave three works of Zhang Ailing and her personal emotional experience, under the director's concepts of "theatreism" and "minimalism", the designers used lighting , projection, etc. to divide the stage, and use the switching of scenery to achieve the transformation of time and space, achieving the effect of "simplification in realistic elements and richness in visual elements".
Liu Xuehua, who has played the affectionate heroine many times in Qiong Yao's works, is specially invited to join the performance of "The Last Night of Zhang Ailing", playing the role of Zhang Ailing in her later years. This is also her stage debut. As for choosing this drama to stand on the drama stage, Liu Xuehua admitted that she rarely comes into contact with dramas, so she is very anxious, nervous and under a lot of pressure. She is also vocal about her weaknesses. "I can't express my voice, and my limbs are relatively weak." But in the end, she saw the script Ding Naizhu gave her, and she was attracted. "Fortunately, I play a 75-year-old old lady. I am only 65 years old this year. I can have a smaller voice and fewer limbs, so I boldly accepted this challenge."
Liu Xuehua
She also said that she felt it in the script I feel so similar to the character. "When I saw the script for the first time, I suddenly thought: Why is this character so close to me? Because it has many parts, including her illness, her views on love, and her loneliness in her later years. It seems to be talking about me. Same for me. When it came time to act, I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to express her distress, sadness, or open-mindedness."
Among the seven actors from both places, there is also Dou, a theater actor. Jin, as well as Yang Yi and Niu Tingting, will co-star in many of Zhang Ailing's characters.
