Beijing News (Reporter Liu Zhen) On August 15, the drama "Father" produced by the Shanghai Dramatic Art Center, directed by Jiang Weiguo, starring Jin Shijie and Tian Shui, will open on the stage of the National Center for the Performing Arts and appear at the 2024 National Grand Theater. Theater International Drama Season "Seeing the World in Beijing" section. On the afternoon of August 14, the director of the drama "Father" Jiang Weiguo and the starring actors Jin Shijie and Tian Shui jointly accepted a group interview with the media and shared behind-the-scenes footage of this masterpiece of "strong empathy".
Poster for the drama "Father".
's drama "Father" tells the story of an old man suffering from Alzheimer's disease. In the process of getting along with his daughter, he constantly fell into the vortex of time and space where memory and reality intersect. By alternately showing the perspective of Alzheimer's disease patients and the perspective of patients' family members, a sense of chaos with a suspenseful effect is created. As the unreasonable plot gradually advances, people can't help but wonder whether all this was done by someone. Premeditated. Screenwriter Florian Zeller cleverly used "seeing is believing" to tell the story from the perspective of a person who cannot distinguish between reality and delusion. His novel narrative method has won him numerous awards.
"The Father" is a cruel work. It allows the audience to intuitively see that when a person falls into Alzheimer's disease, the passage of time and memory seems to become a countdown to his death. The father in the play is played by the famous performing artist Jin Shijie. At the sharing meeting, Jin Shijie said that some viewers said that after watching the play and leaving the theater, they walked down an alley on the road and stopped at an intersection and could not walk any further. , it seems that the climax of the play does not happen in the theater, but at this traffic light intersection. "For me, the feeling of acting in this play is like looking at a portrait of my father. I don't know what painting school it belongs to, but I know that it was painted by a master. I am slowly trying to outline this face. Come out, this scene is the nose, that scene is the eyes, the next scene is the ears, slowly the face gradually becomes clear, and finally I really like playing him. So far, I am full of fun looking at this painting. ”
The famous performing artist Jin Shijie shared his experience in character creation at the scene. Photography: Liu Fang
In Jin Shijie’s view, "Father" is like all scripts in the world. It starts from one point and ends at another point, with a journey and a line in the middle. "When I establish a character's emotional relationship, I focus on the feeling state, not the thinking state. Just like when a person is sick, each course of the disease has different manifestations. I just follow the thermometer. This is a very simple one. In the story, a father and daughter depend on each other, and they pull each other full of tension. Then a greater confusion in life is raised. My responsibility is to let everyone see the five features of this "portrait of father", and those about where life should go. , what kind of thinking state should I have, and whether to go home and hug my parents after watching this drama, or to stop at the next traffic light, are all left to the audience. "
Rather than crying, this work makes me cry. More people calmly fell into self-isolation, separated from reality with Andre, and lost control of time and space. while also empathizing with the plight of down-to-earth, troubled daughter Anna, who is trying to care for a loved one who cannot care for herself, and who is torn between doing the "right" thing for her father and living her own life. Tian Shui, a national first-class actor and actor at the Shanghai Dramatic Art Center, said at the sharing meeting, "Anna and I have similar experiences. My mother is an Alzheimer's patient. Too similar experiences will cause problems in performance." I was a great help, but it was also very painful. I had to go through those memories over and over again and control my emotions appropriately during the rehearsal. This was actually the first time for me to work with Teacher Jin. In each creative process, Teacher Jin will find something very distinctive that you may not even realize. From the moment he enters the rehearsal hall, Teacher Jin is basically thinking about the relationship between the characters, and he will continue to think about it. Think about it and find a more suitable and reasonable way. "
Stills from the drama "Father".Photography: yuuna wang
During the 125 minutes of "Father", the narrative logic is chaotic but true, using constantly reversing perspectives to put the audience in Andre's perspective. Jiang Weiguo, director of the drama "Father", believes that the clues of the entire drama seem to be confusing, but are actually pieced together bit by bit from the chronological order of different scenes. This is a play with a very special structure, and you have to use your brain to know whether it is true or false. The stage presentation of the entire play is just like Andre's line: My leaves are falling off one by one. The visual image changes with the character and promotes and enhances the actor's performance. Florian Zeller is both the original writer of "The Father" and the director of the adapted film "Father Trapped in Time." He has brought us a lot of creative inspiration. "This is a tragicomedy that will make the audience feel 'deceived.' The clever and sophisticated script structure advances layer by layer, and the actors' interesting performances are intertwined with the sad plot, making people curious to explore what is the protagonist's fantasy. It is reported that from August 15th to 18th, the drama "Father" will be presented to the theater fans at the National Center for the Performing Arts. A dramatic experience of cruelty and tenderness. As it approaches the end of the preset ending, we try to find the jigsaw puzzle of a lifetime of memories.
editor, Xu Meilin
proofreader, Wang Xin
