In the small waiting area of ​​Wuzhen Shenjia Theater, 22 audience members obediently followed the instructions, took off their shoes and socks, put on slippers, and stored their belongings. On a blank sheet of paper, they wrote their responses to the question "When do you feel m

In the small waiting area of ​​Wuzhen Shenjia Theater, 22 audience members obediently followed the instructions, took off their shoes and socks, put on slippers, and stored their belongings. On a blank sheet of paper, they wrote their responses to the question "When do you feel most alive?" This is preparation for lying down and watching a show for the next hour. The door opened, smoke flowed in the darkness, the actors rolled out the stretcher, and the audience lay down barefoot and were pushed into the empty theater.

In the opening meditation, the audience gradually understood that they were about to set off to the "Lying Star", and lying on the plain meant death. Actors randomly interviewed the audience, with real-time photography showing each person's face. The questions were limited to one minute, all surrounding death - "What do you want your funeral to be like?" "What preparations have you made for your own death?" Some people finished answering early. , staring awkwardly at the camera, waiting for the invisible countdown to come. Some people stopped talking before they finished speaking. The shot that freezes at the end of 60 seconds seems to be a record of the last moment of life. After a girl answered the question and saw that there was still time, she lowered her eyes and said she wanted to appear calmer, and she got her wish. Another audience member was making the V-sign towards the camera, but couldn't help but feel anxious because the countdown had not yet arrived. The final freeze-frame captured her head and head.

In "Lying Flat 2.0", the audience is being interviewed by the actors, which is part of the plot of the play. Photo courtesy of Wuzhen Theater Festival

During the performance watched by Southern Weekend reporters, most of the audience were young people, who frequently mentioned the hardship and fatigue of life. During the audience's answer to the epitaph, an audience member who looked to be in his twenties said, "Never again." Director Wang Chong was shocked, but he could understand it if he thought about it carefully. He had similar thoughts during those heavy academic days in high school. "I didn't expect it to come out through the audience's mouth." Wang Chong told Southern Weekend reporters.

In addition to the four human actors, there are two special "actors" in the theater. They are gpt-4o, who plays the role of guide on this journey, and suno, who is responsible for composing the music. The boundaries of artificial intelligence’s participation in artistic creation are expanding here.

The audience asked "Gao Bodhi" various questions about lying on the star. The small box representing thinking on the screen was activated. After a second or two, the answer from gpt-4o came. The Mandarin it spoke had the characteristics of the large model training Singaporean accent. Suno, who did not "appear" directly, quietly listened to the audience's epitaphs, and at the end gave everyone the exclusive "Epitaph Song" for this show.

Wang Chong wrote this play in response to his own death anxiety. During the epidemic, he went through a series of changes. He had his gallbladder removed, sold the "blackout booth" in his house, passed his 40th birthday, and officially entered middle age. The elderly in his family passed away, and news of the death of old friends in the same industry also came frequently. "The sum of these experiences makes me feel that life is impermanent." In 2021, he drove across provinces in China for the first time. He remembered that his family often scared him that there were many large trucks on the highway, which was very chaotic and could easily lead to death. Before setting off, he , make a will.

At the end of the performance, the audience needs to go through the final step towards death: erasing memory. The actors walked up to the second floor, read out everyone's answers on the admission questionnaire one by one, and then dropped them from the upstairs. As the paper fell, a large amount of foam also fell down, exploding on the face and body, making a slight sound. In the silence, someone stood up and walked toward the light outside the theater door. Everyone left quietly.

At the end of the drama "Lie Flat 2.0", bubbles fall from the sky. Photo courtesy of Wuzhen Theater Festival

Minimal Theater

In the play "Lie Flat 2.0", Wang Chong continues his recent exploration of physical presence and interaction with the audience. The position of the stretcher bed changed several times, dispersed and gathered together. The audience not only communicated with the actors, but also completed various interactions with other audience members lying nearby. When the audience stood side by side with their heads and feet facing each other, the actors issued instructions asking them to observe the feet of the people around them. The audience awkwardly used their feet to greet each other, and praised and applauded each other.

drama critic Xi ​​Muliang watched the play's first performance in Wuzhen. His feeling is that compared with "Lying Flat 2.0", Wang Chong's 2021 work "Existence and Time 2.0" can make the audience feel more physical The level of exclamation, "Appealing to rational things and physical feelings echo each other."The latter has one lead actor and seven extras, but only one audience per show.

When the curtain of "Existence and Time 2.0" opened, the audience standing on the stage saw a mountain of childhood memories in the auditorium. More than 300 childhood objects collected from society were placed on the seats in the auditorium, replacing the audience who would sit in the auditorium during ordinary performances. These touchable things stimulate the audience's own memory. The brick tape recorder reminds people of young people wearing bell-bottom pants, floral shirts, and toad glasses. The pink bubble gum is the most classic. The audience and the protagonist chatted and shared each other's childhood experiences. A group of people played games of throwing handkerchiefs and catching chickens. Xi Muliang told Southern Weekend reporters: "This process involves physical participation, which is relatively rare in domestic theaters."

Stills from "Existence and Time 2.0". Photo courtesy of Guangzhou Grand Theater

Wang Chong’s play "Where Have We Come From, Who Are We, Where Are We Going 2.0" brought to Wuzhen in 2019 also made the audience no longer able to hide in the auditorium. There are no actors in the traditional sense in this work. Four audience members play the four main roles - pig, mosquito, turtle, and Snowden. During the performance, the audience wears headphones throughout the whole process and completes the corresponding performance according to the instructions from the headphones.

Since "Teahouse 2.0" in 2017, the relationship between space and body has attracted Wang Chong's attention. This play was staged in a real classroom, with 44 actors who were all students, and 11 audience members. "You think, dozens of young bodies are chasing and fighting in front of you, and you are the only audience in a row, such a small one." Space." In the subsequent series of theatrical experiments, Wang Chong transformed the audience's passive viewing into active participation.

Stills from "Teahouse 2.0". Photo courtesy of Xinchuan Experimental Theater

Wang Chong, who uses real-time images on stage as his personal symbol, is a leading figure in Chinese experimental drama. In recent years, he has been performing in the country and turned to "minimum theater", which is related to his previous encounters with obstacles. In 2016, Wang Chong directed the drama "Mr. Big". This is a play about Lu Xun, written by Li Jing. The script won the Lao She Literary Award for Outstanding Drama Script, and a national fund was awarded during the rehearsal. The producer was also willing to let the creative staff go to Taiwan to learn puppetry. In Wang Chong's eyes, this play was "the right time, the right place and the right people", but it was stopped after 9 performances. The frontal attack on the grand theater hit the ceiling. Instead of hunching over and performing on the big stage, Wang Chong decided to retreat to another realm.

"Of course it is better to have more viewers than less, but if a small number can leave a deep impression on people, even for a period of time, it can become an unforgettable memory, and it may have a deeper impact on fewer people." Wang Chong replied The experiment of "minimum theater" is exactly contrary to the capital logic of pursuing box office. "If it is just for people, Number, what is your purpose? Where is your satisfaction? Maybe you will always be disillusioned. Compared with movies, dramas must be disillusioned. "

Online drama

Drama people were proud of" "On-the-spotness" has lost its usefulness, the entire industry is plagued by disasters, and drama seems to have become dispensable. Wang Chong launched China's first online drama - "Waiting for Godot" version 2.0 before the Wuhan lockdown ended. The play

is divided into two acts and will be performed on April 5 and 6, 2020. In "Waiting for Godot", homeless men Fever and Gang Gang become a middle-class couple separated during the epidemic, while Pozzo and Lucky become an Internet celebrity anchor and his oppressed assistant. The child in Godot's message was replaced with an artificial intelligence speaker. The wasteland in the work was replaced by cyberspace, and the four actors rehearsed in their homes in Beijing, Wuhan, and Datong. The "stage" with the actors' homes as the background was spliced ​​on the live broadcast screen through the virtual conference room of zoom. The number of viewers watching the first act online reached about 180,000. After the performance of

, Wang Chong issued the "Online Drama Manifesto". He said in it: "Drama is dispensable, because drama is no longer a public forum. It is neither public nor a forum. The online world is both public and a forum." In March 2021, Wang Chong Directed version 2.0 of " plague ".The play is based on Camus's masterpiece and follows the theatrical version adapted by British playwright Neil Barnett. It creates an online drama with actors from six countries including China, the United States, the United Kingdom, Brazil, South Africa, and Lebanon.

Xi Muliang believes that among all the online dramas, Wang Chong has gone further, "He has grasped the liveness, not in the philosophical sense, but at least the liveness in the topic level. He has grasped these." He is quite keen on the timing and angle of social issues, and he is a little ahead of his peers in China in this regard. "

But at the same time, the concept of online drama is far from mature, and after the epidemic subsides, the discussion around this topic will also remain. Basically ended. "What is the difference between it and a movie? I think more theoretical analysis is needed to support it, but no one is doing this anymore." Xi Muliang told a Southern Weekend reporter.

’s discussion of the “legitimacy” of online drama in the post-epidemic era cannot avoid the essential definition of drama: drama must be present and must take place in the same time and space. Wang Chong does not have a clear and conclusive answer to this point. In his early years, he used images on the stage, and in recent years, he has made cross-border films. Perhaps he has always had little baggage about this. He was once interested in making a drama that would be combined with the game "Animal Crossing: New Horizons". The drama would be staged on the island in the game, and the audience could watch it by logging in to the game. The workshop had already been carried out, but it was not completed in the end because of the cost of the script. Consider that the viewing port is too limited.

Although Wang Chong deliberately lived a life without electricity and mobile phones for several years, he was actually very concerned about the development of technology. Faced with the question "If the body dies, will he choose to upload his consciousness to become an electronic clone?", he did not hesitate, "definitely think so." In the past two years, he has focused his attention on artificial intelligence. In addition to drama, he also made a short film. In the future, he also wants to make more dramas and movies about artificial intelligence. This spring, on the occasion of the 15th anniversary of the Legacy Experimental Theater, he held an exhibition at the Goethe-Institut in Beijing. The exhibition imagined the future of performing arts using artificial intelligence and presented it through visual art. Most of the 15 drama ideas are connected to technology. The stills of 14 of the works were created by artificial intelligence. One of the plays was performed by humans for robots.

No one knows whether, with the development of technology and society, the boundaries between drama and other art categories will be further blurred in the future. As the "Online Theater Manifesto" says, "Human society will soon be filled with virtual reality, augmented reality, artificial intelligence and artificial creatures - and so will human art." Wang Chong's experiments continue.

"This drama has opened Pandora's box"

Southern Weekend: What was the process of creating the script for "Lie Flat 2.0" at that time, and what changes did it probably go through? What was your state like at that time?

Wang Chong: is open at the beginning. As long as it fits the format of lying down, any kind of story or theme is acceptable. It is best to have artificial intelligence, but it is not necessary. Because it is very difficult to watch a play while lying down. In order to satisfy this very difficult thing, there cannot be restrictions in other places, otherwise it will be difficult to do it. I started by lying down, experiencing it together with the actors, and then brainstormed, and soon we were exploring the direction of life and death.

During the creation process, (I) once wrote some scenes between astronauts, even emotional scenes. Two strangers met at the beginning of the journey, fell in love during the journey, and at the end of the journey, We have arrived at Lying Star, and we have to open the cabin door. The outside is unknown. It is equivalent to two people saying goodbye to their lives, which is a way close to a traditional emotional drama.As a result, I later discovered that this approach, which puts more emphasis on the sense of acting, characters and stories, is not consistent with our very open, post-theatrical, interactive (theatre) experience.

And the questions raised to the audience in the play are actually some of the questions I have been thinking and asking myself during the past few years of the epidemic, or even for many years. For example, didn’t I make a will? I’m also thinking about how to deal with the so-called inheritance of my small theater, such as the website of the Legacy Experimental Theater. How many years should I pay to let it go? able to run all the time. So I would ask the audience, what would you do to prepare for your own death. Also, I experienced the death of an elderly person in my family a few years ago, and now my grandmother is still left. I have watched them go to death step by step. This raises the question of what kind of death have you experienced in your life. Also, when I was a child, I was particularly afraid of death. I remember when I was in elementary school, I talked about this matter with a senior neighbor. He talked about death, laughed and talked about it very casually, but when I thought about death, I was scared to tears. . It was such a simple impression that I still remember until now. So it begs the question, when was the first time in your life that you seriously thought about death.

Wang Chong’s iconic real-time image elements in his previous creations also appear in his new work "Lie Flat 2.0". Picture courtesy of Wuzhen Theater Festival

The meditation part at the beginning is also about daily thoughts. It mentions Ukraine, Gaza, overtime, and many real-life anxieties. These are all related to recent years. The news hot spots of the year are related to social trends, so in the writing process, there are both personal memories and anxieties, as well as the subconscious of the times. Of course, there are also a lot of brainstorming and suggestions from actors.

Southern Weekly: Have you ever thought about using AI such as gpt to replace actors?

Wang Chong: I definitely want to, but the replacement you are talking about is actually a complete replacement. The first thing we do is a partial replacement. Of course the word substitute is very harsh to me and even a bit politically incorrect. Because it is essentially a game of capital. Even if it is a small-scale creation like ours, it also involves labor employment opportunities, copyright, teamwork, and whether art is made by humans or machines. This is a very sensitive issue in the United States. The reason why their actors and screenwriters union launched a round of strikes is to prevent artificial intelligence from replacing the labor force as a precaution. If artificial intelligence can replace labor, countless capitals will not hesitate to do this replacement. It is just that it is in the ascendant now and has not yet been achieved, but it will be within the scope of our lifetime.

The play "Lie Flat 2.0" has opened Pandora's box. We can find many problems with the music composition (completed by suno). But first of all, it uses the audience's epitaphs to compose music in real time. Wang Mian of "Talk Show Conference" does this. There are also such artists abroad. It is possible to do this, but it is difficult and very time-consuming. . The second is that based on the maturity of the composition of the current version of "Lie Flat 2.0", if I want (to ask humans) to make the music to this point, I don't think it can be done at three times the cost of the entire performance, and it will take a very long time. In terms of cost, it has greatly deprived composers and musicians of opportunities. So it's very scary. If you deprive actors and composers of their job opportunities today, what will happen to future directors and screenwriters? In fact, it's all a matter of time. Although directing may be a more complicated job that is coordinated behind the scenes, it is really not certain who will lose his job first, the director or the actor.

These are some of the issues we have considered during the creation process, but creation is creation. This thing itself is interesting and experimental, so it is necessary to push it to the extreme.I made an exhibition this year called "Memorandum for the Next 15 Years", which contained an imagination of "Animal Farm 2.0". There were no human actors, but animals and mechanical animals acted together. There is also a play where there are people on the stage and the audience below the stage are all artificial intelligence. It is equivalent to a customized play performed by humans for artificial intelligence, which is also in the imagination. Different imaginations can pull our minds as thought experiments, especially drama. It is a bit like handicrafts (Internet experts, famous for their creative and seemingly useless handicrafts), which combine the ideas of thought experiments. Things are realized as a challenge, as a kind of brainstorming, as a kind of stimulation. Drama, craftsmanship, and performance art are very closely connected.

"This absence accurately reflects the human condition"

Southern Weekend: You mentioned in past interviews that online drama must first be real-time and must take place in the online space. What are the conditions for the establishment of an online space?

Wang Chong: Our current communication is an online communication, and it exists in the online space. In reality, I also have a room, and you also have a room, but this room is just a material basis for our online communication. Just like this computer, it is only the basis and must be communicated with the network service provider and zoom. The company, links and other things are all connected together, so that we can form such a periodic and unique communication. This is a virtual existence.

Our current dialogue is across time zones, across national borders, and is far away. For example, if we both carry computers and sit on the same stage, we can still have this kind of conversation; even if there are 50 audience members sitting next to me, the uniqueness of this online space will be lost. Because the physical me is such a big existence, their attention is on me alone. I am the protagonist, or this space is the protagonist. There are many things you cannot see, such as the sunshine and blue sky outside. , and the sound of cars passing by on the street, these are all unique to my space.

Southern Weekend: In other words, the premise is that actors and actors, and actors and audiences cannot be in the same physical space?

Wang Chong: Yes, only in this way can we emphasize the existence of the virtual space itself, or in this sense, we are somewhat equal. We are not completely equal, because in the 2.0 version of "Waiting for Godot", the audience is still watching passively, and the audience cannot jump out and say, "I am also waiting for something." It does not have that attribute, because it is a completed script, this This is also a limitation of the 2.0 version of "Waiting for Godot", but the audience and we are all watching it in a virtual space.

Southern Weekend: Is it equivalent to erasing the body and emphasizing the presence of consciousness?

Wang Chong: Yes, but it also emphasizes life and the real situation of existence. Later, I made a version 2.0 of "Plague", which is similar to the 2.0 version of "Waiting for Godot". They both use the real space of the actors to create a kind of life, the epidemic, and the actors in the real space. Rather than something related to the character, for example, the actor uses his living space to perform. If virtuality is taken to the extreme, the background may be virtual, even the body may be virtual, and the voice may also be virtual. Then it will be purely a virtual reality work. There are such works, but they may not be available in China (yet).

Our experiment is indeed not that extreme, but I just think this situation is interesting because it changes life. Contemporary art has the concept of "readymades". Readymades have their own legitimacy and sense of high-end. Their legitimacy lies in their direct connection with life. For example, when Li Jialong was playing the 2.0 version of "Waiting for Godot", he was at his parents' house in Datong. We deliberately arranged that in his shot, he could see his parents watching TV and his younger brother playing games. This is life. It is also part of the reality of many people during the Spring Festival and this kind of waiting.The situation at that time was that after the Spring Festival, some people were still afraid to go back to big cities, or they were unable to go back to big cities. Both situations occurred. During that time, people are in this state of suspense. It is our background and at the same time our material and the result of a certain coincidence.

Southern Weekend: In drama, how important is physical presence or liveness to you?

Wang Chong: I can’t answer this question in one sentence. You have also realized how important the presence of the body is in "Lieping 2.0". One extreme is something like "Lie Flat 2.0", and the other extreme is online drama. These two things are of great interest to me, and I have spent so much effort to make them personally. I also Everyone is interested in continuing to extend it and discuss it.

You said that the 2.0 version of "Waiting for Godot" lacks liveness for the audience, or whether it is the absence of the body. I am also very skeptical, because while you were absent, you were also present in many things.

Southern Weekend: Online and offline not only affect viewing, it is a three-dimensional and various sensory difference.

Wang Chong: That’s right. It is true that version 2.0 of "Waiting for Godot" is closer to a live TV broadcast, but what we simulate is a state similar to that of the audience, which is different from a live TV broadcast. The state of the actor and the state of the audience are very similar. At the same time, the state of life is also in the same context. We actually serve as a mirror to show the audience’s living conditions to a certain extent. Although it is not the state of the audience watching, it is the state of the audience these days and the past one or two months. In this regard, Waiting for Godot 2.0 is accurate and entertaining. I don’t seem to have directly answered your question about physical presence or absence.

Southern Weekend: regards online drama as a drama category. At present, I still have doubts about this.

Wang Chong: The reasonableness and legality of is questionable. Let me change the angle. He is indeed not present at this time, but this absence is an accurate response to the human state. Or I would say it the other way around, the actor's performance state in the online drama "Waiting for Godot" you see must be different from his performance state on stage. Because he needs to be responsible for the camera and sound collection, actors often wear headphones, so they can express themselves very quietly. He can lie in bed and cry, and he can complete his work at home, especially during the epidemic. year, including a state of remote working after the epidemic. Online drama allows actors to work remotely, and you can also see his very different state. He is still nervous, but his tension is different from the tension on stage. I think this is the so-called new thing gained after the body is no longer present.

“You still have to do original plays”

Southern Weekend: What is the source of your motivation and sense of accomplishment in doing experimental dramas?

Wang Chong: comes from positive feedback, such as the audience’s breathing, you can feel it at this time. There was one scene when we were interviewing the audience. There were four of us actors, and both the leading actors cried. Because the audience is very emotional, and when it comes to witnessing the death of family members, the actors are relatively close and can empathize with the audience. This is also what the actors said. Our play is very much like watching a TV series. The audience performs it for us, which is what it means.

Another kind is the joy and success of exploring the unknown boundary, that is, you are a pioneer and you don't die, you come back alive. Generally speaking, the vanguard force will be eliminated and die easily, but we can always walk in front and make the experiment succeed every time. It is a kind of vitality and a kind of joy of betting on success, all mixed together. With. Looking back on these works of

now, we can see some shortcomings.For example, take online dramas. Neither of the two online dramas is interactive. For example, "Where Do We Come From 2.0" is more self-talking. It does arrange a lot of plots, but its emotional concentration or immersion The feeling may not be enough and needs time to settle.

But as a creation of that time and place, I don’t think I have any regrets. I only had so many abilities at that time and the situation was so urgent. For example, the 2.0 version of "Waiting for Godot" will be performed before the end of Wuhan's lockdown, so it will be at that time and place, and then it will flow smoothly and it can be done, that's it. If the online drama "Waiting for Godot" were to be performed now, the number of viewers would not be that large, and the response might not be that good. This is a presentity, which is not only in the two hours of the performance, but also in the present time. during this period of time in society as a whole. What’s the drama of the moment? One of the meanings is what Peter Brook said, which is the vividness of the here and now, in the performance time.

Stills from "Where We Come From, Who We Are, and Where We Go 2.0". Photo by davide pifferi de simoni

Southern Weekend: In recent years, on the domestic drama stage, especially on the big stage, there are basically no original plays. Everyone is adapting modern and contemporary or classical literary works. Do you feel this way? In your observation, what other changes have occurred in the atmosphere of the domestic drama industry?

Wang Chong: Actually, I really don’t know because I don’t watch much drama. I watched a French drama called "By the Sea" at the Beijing People's Art Theater last week. After watching it, I realized that I had not watched any new drama in Beijing for seven years. Sometimes I see news about theatrical performances, which seems to be exactly what you said. I think this is very interesting. When I first debuted, I gave myself some reasons not to do original dramas. Now I think about it, it was because of fear. It is because original dramas are difficult to do, and writing is even more difficult. If you do it, it is easy to fail. , so I did very little when I first debuted. Then there were adaptations, and I gradually got to know the screenwriter. Then the screenwriter had original content and made a few, such as "Mr. Big" and "Model Opera 2.0".

But in recent years, I have discovered a problem, that is, if you use unoriginal content, sometimes it cannot support your dramatic experiments. Although my ambition is in the art of directing, the old scripts were written based on the traditional performance framework. It is no longer usable and difficult to change. At this time, it is better to write a brand new one. It’s not just political correctness, it also has more freedom and more challenges. Like "Lie Down 2.0", if you create another Genet play and let the audience watch it lying down, it is theoretically feasible, but it will not be as transparent as our current performance form, because we have a huge The freedom to play with these things non-stop, it all points to the director's purpose. If that's the case, it's better to be original.

Southern Weekend: What are the characteristics of performing at the Wuzhen Theater Festival?

Wang Chong: A play like "Lie Down 2.0" is similar to that of Rimini (a German theater company that pioneered "new documentary drama") in that it is set in a large circuit. It is documentary style and very realistic. , very interactive, with very novel techniques, it should be said that it is a small mainstream in overseas art festivals. There must be one or two such things in every art festival, so now that Wuzhen has reached this point, it is really too open.

Wuzhen’s audience is very tolerant, which is also very beneficial. When you create with such a good environment and good tolerance, you will be braver.

In my eyes, drama is like "Waiting for Godot" version 2.0. Even if it is only performed once, it constitutes a fact in the history of theater performance. Even if there is only one performance and only one audience, it constitutes a fact. I think that what happened is particularly important for drama, so we need to let it be performed, even if it is only performed once, as long as it is complete, it is a success.

Southern Weekend reporter Zhu Yuan

Editor-in-chief Liu Youxiang