interface news reporter | Huang Wenbin
interface news editor | Jiang Yan
When Jacky Cheung's song "Stealing Heart" became a footnote to the emotional entanglement between Mr. Bao and Miss Wang on the Yellow River Road in the 1990s, British playwright Patrick Marber's play "Stealing Hearts" traveled across the ocean and completed the first round of performances of the new version on the stage of the National Theater of China.
The story of "Stealing Hearts" revolves around the emotional changes of obituary writer Dan An, homeless girl Alice, photographer Anna and doctor Larry. The love and destiny of the four people in four and a half years are presented in twelve acts. After the
performance, Han Jie, the director of the Interface Entertainment dialogue drama "Stealing Hearts" conducted an interview. Han Jie said that there is a common problem of "perfectionism" in the depiction of "love" in current film and television works. He believes that excessive beautification of "love" is a regression of realism and aesthetics. Fictional art also needs to face reality.
Stills from the play "Stealing Hearts"
The social significance of "confronting drama"
The first version of "Stealing Hearts" premiered in May 1997 at the Coty Roy Little Theater in the National Theater of England, which can only accommodate 300 audiences, and caused a strong response. Subsequently, the play was moved to a larger theater in London and exported to Broadway in New York in 1999. From the United Kingdom to the United States, to the Czech Republic, Russia, Australia, and Argentina, this play has been performed in more than fifty countries. In 2022, drama translator Hu Kaiqi re-translated the script of "Stealing Hearts", and China National Theater director Han Jie began rehearsing a new version of the play.
"Although "Stealing Heart" is a play written at the end of the last century, the contradiction between soul and body, truth and lies in love still exists in this century." Han Jie believes that this is the modernity of this classic play It is also the connection between a British drama created more than 30 years ago and the current Chinese audience. "Why does love survive when you lie, but die when you tell the truth? Today's public still needs to face these problems."
And the current film and television environment also requires sharper questioning and true expression. Han Jie told Jiemian Entertainment that the "love" and gender relations presented in current Chinese popular culture are full of illusions and distortions. Popular film and television dramas are all willing to create strong and loyal "heroes" or "heroines". They are morally flawless, and the twists and turns of their love are all caused by obstacles from the outside world. "This is not only a regression of realism, but also a regression of aesthetics. If we talk about love, we must face the weaknesses of men and women in love."
In Hu Kaiqi's view, Patrick Marber's "Stealing Hearts" is the most important work in the 19th century. The most important work of the 1900s that directly faced the relationship between men and women at the end of the century, it was also the most successful work. The question posed to the audience through the mouth of the character: "Why do we love each other? Why do we betray the people we love deeply? Why do we hurt the people we love deeply?" It is still worth pondering now.
Stills from the drama "Stealing Hearts"
"Stealing Hearts", which confronts the hypocrisy and weaknesses in love, is also one of the masterpieces of "confronting drama". "In-yer-face theatre" is an avant-garde theater genre that emerged in the UK in the 1990s. In the late 1980s, the British drama industry tended to produce low-cost, low-risk "soap operas." Playwrights such as Sarah Kane and Patrick Marber resisted the vulgarity of the market and described cruel and absurd scenes in their plays, forcing the audience to face the real existence of violent worship, spiritual poverty, etc. in the human world in a satirical way. disease. "Face-to-face drama" includes those plays that force the audience to think through their performance. They often force the audience to reflect on their own lives.
""Stealing Heart" emphasizes the conflict between the sexes from beginning to end. Underneath the elegant postures and aphoristic dialogues are cynical men and women, cowardly and humble behaviors, and pale and empty hearts." Hu Kaiqi believes that the naked presentation of gender in contemporary society The degradation and sinking of relationships force people to face this emotional and social dilemma head-on. This is the social meaning of "facing drama head-on".
"There is a difference between the entertainment of serious drama and other types of entertainment"
The film version of this work is more widely known than the play "Stealing Hearts". In 2004, director Mike Nichols, who had been nominated for the Golden Bear Award at the 51st Berlin International Film Festival for "Know My Heart", and Patrick Marber brought "Stealing Heart" from the stage to the screen. The movie "Stealing Hearts" starring Natalie Portman, Jude Law and others grossed US$115 million at the global box office and received multiple nominations at the 77th Academy Awards.
The movie "Stealing Hearts" is directed by Mike Nichols and stars Natalie Portman, Jude Law and others.
Compared with movies, drama is an extremely niche art. In 2023, the total box office of the national film market will be 54.915 billion yuan, and the number of moviegoers will reach 1.299 billion. According to Beacon Professional Edition data, the total box office of theatrical performances nationwide in 2023 is only 611 million yuan, and the number of theater performances watched is only 3.147 million.
Han Jie believes that the niche popularity of drama is partly due to the fact that its dissemination is restricted by the "face-to-face" performance form: "No matter how the drama is expanded, it is always a public performance. The actors must face the audience face to face. This is the fundamental meaning of the existence of drama. and value, without the live public performance, the drama is not a drama. Just like the popular high-definition screening room, it is only an internal material for communication. It is very good and valuable, but the actors are not directly faced on the scene. When the audience performs, it is no longer a real drama. Therefore, the niche of drama is determined by its essential characteristics. It cannot be spread like movies and TV series."
The avant-garde nature of the form and theme makes it difficult for the drama to be accepted by the public. . Han Jie told Jiemian Entertainment that real dramas often present sharp contradictions and raise profound questions. The audience needs to be involved and think when watching, and sometimes they will be offended. Therefore, drama does not immediately satisfy the public's entertainment needs like more accessible TV series and movies.
There is no insurmountable gap between niche theater art and popular film and television art: “The unique artistic posture and expression insisted on by niche art will provide intrinsic ideological and cultural nutrition to popular art, such as The French New Wave movement. The French New Wave is a relatively niche film trend, an aesthetic practice of 'auteur cinema', but it has also had a profound impact on Hollywood films. Hollywood has absorbed the nutrients of French New Wave films and has had a profound influence on 'auteur cinema'. Movies are more inclusive and have gradually formed new Hollywood movies."
However, Han Jie does not agree with using the same standards to judge niche art and popular art. "If popular aesthetics and concepts are used to influence the avant-garde experiments of niche art, and exploration, that is destined to be a disaster. Dramatic art should be proud and despise vulgar culture."
Whether it is niche art or popular art, the most intuitive value comes from the possibility of commercialization. But as a form of performance, niche theater art must face the problem of how to popularize it when it enters the market. In Han Jie’s view, the difficulty in popularizing drama is ultimately due to the lack of soil for theater art. “We have too few theaters, which are seriously insufficient on a material basis. In addition, serious drama cannot be further marketized, not because serious drama lacks entertainment. , but there is a difference between the entertainment of serious drama and other types of entertainment. One of the main characteristics of serious drama is that it is critical. The questions it raises are sometimes sharp, but to what extent can our society tolerate or tolerate it? How can we accept this kind of criticism?"
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