In 1998, Lin Zhaohua, a sickly director on his deathbed, had the idea of making a postmodern collage of the masterpieces of Chekhov and Beckett, The Three Sisters, and Waiting for Godot. As a result, this epoch-making experimental drama was born on stage, and is considered the pinnacle of Lin Zhaohua's theatrical experimentation.
But back then, the play met its "Waterloo" at the box office immediately after it was staged. The Capital Theater, which seats thousands of people, sold only a few dozen tickets for the least one show, and the original 30 shows were reduced to 12 shows. That year, Fukang just came out soon, a 180,000 yuan. Lin Zhaohua later always read, for this play, he and choreography Yi Liming, a person lost a Fukang.
Lin Zhaohua
In the theater environment of 20 years ago, a collage like Three Sisters - Waiting for Godot was undoubtedly faced with all kinds of controversy. In addition to a dismal box office, word of mouth in the industry was mixed, with incomprehensible voices abounding. A review in China Theater describes the play as "not being able to evoke an enthusiastic theater effect".
But there were many supporters. Yu Hua was one of them. After seeing the play, he wrote a lengthy essay praising Lin Zhaohua for "placing Chekhov's melancholy grace and Beckett's sad vulgarity on the same stage and at the same time, which is both surprising and delightful".
Wang Hui, the editor-in-chief of Readings, also planned a special issue of the play and organized an unprecedented symposium on the play. In the afterword, he wrote: "Lin Zhaohua seems to be telling us: those who are willing to wait stay, those who are not willing to wait, please leave".
After 20 years, Lin Zhaohua once again re-staged Three Sisters - Waiting for Godot. Back then, the main actors were Pu Cunxi and Chen Jianbin. Now, it has been replaced by Zhang Ruoyun, a popular young man, and Cui Yongping, who is known to the public as the winner of Super Speaker.
On December 14th and 15th, the revival of Three Sisters - Waiting for Godot will have its national premiere at the Poly Theatre in Shanghai, followed by performances in Chongqing, Wuhan, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Beijing, and many other cities.
The connection of two classics: a kind of "hope in the midst of hopelessness"
How will Chekhov's The Three Sisters and Beckett's Waiting for Godot be connected in a single production?
In Lin Zhaohua's The Three Sisters - Waiting for Godot, there is a theme of waiting. Three Sisters is about waiting for a better tomorrow, and Waiting for Godot is about waiting for the Godot who will come tomorrow.
Chekhov's three sisters are from a famous family, and they live in a small provincial town far away from Moscow, where they live a dead-end life. Every day, the three sisters look at their hometown of Moscow with sadness, dreaming of one day going to Moscow.
Beckett's Waiting for Godot, a masterpiece of absurdist theater, tells the story of two vagabonds who have been waiting for years for a man named Godot to arrive, and who pass the time in boredom while waiting. No one knows why they are waiting, and no one knows when they are waiting.
On stage, the three sisters' "home" is an island in the middle of the water. Beyond the island, under a tree, two vagabonds wait for Godot.
The protagonists of the two plays live in their own dramas, separated by water, with intertwined lines: when Irina, the youngest sister of the Three Sisters, cries out, "To Moscow! Go to Moscow! Go to Moscow!" Vladimir from Waiting for Godot immediately takes up the cry: "Stop wasting time with empty words! Do something with this opportunity!"
It's easy for people on the island to get out, and easy for people off the island to get in. They are far away from each other and mirror images of each other, illuminating the ten thousand things that modern people are most likely to fall into. They are both dreamers, waiting and waiting hopefully, but with no power to act.
Lin Zhaohua said that what Three Sisters - Waiting for Godot expresses is precisely this kind of "hope in the midst of hopelessness".
Three Sisters - Waiting for Godot
The handover of two generations of actors: Zhang Ruoyun took over two roles from Pu Cunxin
Three Sisters - Waiting for Godot
Three Sisters - Waiting for Godot
The old version of the movie brought together a number of strong actors. The three sisters in the big sister Olga played by Beijing RenYi's "big green" Gong Lijun, she is also Pu Cunxin's partner for many years; the second sister Masha's character Chen Jin, played in the movie "Tangshan Earthquake," Chen Daoming's wife; play the youngest sister Elena's Lin Cong, is Lin Zhaohua's daughter, she is better known as the identity of the "family" series of television series director. She is better known as the director of the series "Children of the Family". The "three sisters" in the new version are young actors from Lin Zhaohua's studio, played by Liu Yang, Zhou Shiyun and Chen Yadi respectively.
Pu Cunxin once said that Three Sisters - Waiting for Godot is "a bold and risky stage creation by Lin Zhaohua, who wants to test himself, test our actors, and of course test the audience".
It is said that Lin Zhaohua chose Zhang Ruoyun from a bunch of photos of actors. After meeting, both sides hit it off immediately. The director's initial assessment of Zhang Ruoyun was that he was quite handsome and had a good voice.
During the rehearsal process, the director was quite satisfied with Zhang Ruoyun: "This kid is quite good, he is a star, and he has no frame, his image and voice are fine. The company's main goal is to provide the best possible service to its customers.
Zhang Ruoyun
The following is an interview with Zhang Ruoyun at the rehearsal hall:
Reporters: How did you come to play a drama?
Zhang Ruoyun: When my team talked about this, they didn't think I would be particularly interested. Because two TV dramas had already been scheduled before, with more than two months in between. You can pick up commercial movies, TV shows, and there are good books and crews out there. The team would feel that I would be more interested in those.
I remember that day was after the close of work, we went to eat hot pot, talking about the drama, I have been asking at that meal, when will be scheduled, when will be performed, real or fake, reliable, fooled, right. I've been chasing them for a week since then. I've been asking them all week since then!
Reporter: Why are you so excited?
Zhang Ruoyun: At that time, when I heard that the director was looking for me, or rehearsing "Three Sisters - Waiting for Godot", I felt that this was the place for actors to really expand themselves.
In drama, this play is also the least commercial, I can completely remove all the baggage, just focus on the performance itself. The format of the play is one of the reasons.
The slot after the play is a heavier drama, which is more difficult. I wouldn't want to schedule another difficult drama in the middle, two difficult jobs together. Especially I think that making a TV series is a process of consuming more than accumulating, with less and less new things. We're here rehearsing every day, and every day there's something new. This process doesn't wear and tear and consume me, it makes me thrive.
Tiredness is all bearable, mainly because I'm afraid of being empty, afraid of being emptied out. Shooting film and television, at my age, it is impossible to be too slow and idle. But if it's full all the time, what am I going to do for theater? My life, where is my understanding?
In fact, I thought about such an arrangement last year. I took over the "Qing Yu Nian" at that time, five years to shoot three seasons, counting five years a year and a half in the shooting of this. I then joked with my friends that I didn't think an actor could get a five-year fixed meal ticket. But this is half of the meal ticket. It was like, the rest of the time if I could go to plays regularly, and then the rest of the time to see what scripts interested me, and just set off purely out of interest. I can't believe I thought of such a plan! But I don't think it's that much of a plan. As I was saying, this came up.
Reporter: Have you seen the director's plays before?
Zhang Ruoyun:
When I was in school, I saw the video of "Absolute Signal", which was shown to me by my teacher. I'm from the film school, and the instructors in my class seemed to favor pioneering plays, but realist plays were especially rare.
After watching it, I honestly didn't know much about it. When I came over to rehearsal, I understood a little more every day, and felt it in the process of acting. I feel that if I don't do this play, I may never understand it either.
For example, the first day I came here, I felt that the two men in Waiting for Godot were one "clueless" and the other "unhappy". Estragon (Cui Yongping) is just stupid, and Vladimir (Zhang Ruoyun) dislikes him all the time. Now I feel that these two are inseparable, they can't live without each other. Because people are so lonely living in the world, they are each other's pastime, and even more so, they rely on each other. This is what I think of now. Maybe it's not too accurate, but every day I feel something new.
Reporter: What's the difference in feeling compared to acting in a TV show?
Zhang Ruoyun: It's totally different! Now I'm here every day, I feel very happy. But the other day I was very sad, my mood changed very fast, maybe because the other day I was thinking about Three Sisters, and the next two days I was thinking about Godot. As an actor, it's all happiness. Although I haven't been on stage for many years, I'm a little bit rusty, and there are still difficult lines, but I've got a confirmation that I'm not out of the essence of acting.
Yesterday, the director complimented me, saying that my performance was particularly simple. I think it's just one thing to hear! But I think if you act in TV, it's easy to form a shell, thinking you can act, thinking you're acting, a patterned thing. Because there's so much the camera can do to help you, there's so many people helping you carry the sedan chair, it's possible to deceive the audience. But deceiving the audience doesn't mean you can deceive yourself, if you once you form yourself.
The joy that comes from rehearsing here is also from the essence. The first day I came, we started with games, first physical contact, so that the actors could get acquainted quickly. Everything starts in a very simple way, and I find new things in this simple process, not that people come and teach me stage tricks. Stage tricks and movie tricks are the same, they are shells, and the actor must always start from the actor himself, from what is in the performance itself.