介绍:
You are listening to Studio Plus. Constellations is an award-winning play created by British playwright Nick Payne. It debuted in London back in 2012. London's Evening Standard called it the best play of that year. It has also been put on stage in the US and Japan. Now its Mandarin version is coming to China.
Today we will talk with the translator and the director of its Mandarin counterpart - Wang Chong, who is also the founder and artistic director of Beijing-based performance group Theatre du Reve Experimental.
Wang founded the theater in 2008 and started the Chinese New Wave Theater Movement by presenting a series of new performances with innovative use of live video and sound. His works are now a leading force in Chinese experimental theater, and have been staged in 12 different countries. One of his signature approach is combining stage performance with live video on stage.
So what will this young,talented director bring us this time? Our reporter Lu Chang sat down with director Wang Chong.
Q：First let’s talk about your recent work Constellations. What is the story about? What do you expect the audiences to get from this piece?
A："It is about multiple universe and all the possibilities that one couple may have in different multiverse, meaning that we are going to see the same couple go through their relationship. On the development each stage of their relationship, we are going to see a lot of different versions of their fights, their love - infinite possibilities of the same couple in different times and spaces. What is so intriguing in this play is that we realized that love is based on probabilities. There are so many possibilities that one may only go through one possibility to continue to develop a relationship. Whereas the other possibilities let the relationship die. But we also show at the same time, so you will see different lives in one play."
Q: You translated it from the original work of British playwright Nick Payne, what is special of his script and what’s the most attracting part?
A： He is a genius. He has won a lot of nominations and awards in playwriting. For this play, what is especially fantastic is that he displays concise and detailed way of his understanding of love. As a young playwright, he has understood love from all sorts of aspects and perspectives. And he has understood love in its earlier stage and its development and he also understands the possibility that the couple is going to have this problem when one person cheats on the other and this reunion after years of their breakup. And there is also this proposal scene that is very touching. Eventually the woman's life is going to terminate and how the couple is going to deal with the situation. So he really examines the whole life of love."
Q: Started from 2011 in Central Park West, you began to use a comobination of visual display and stage performances. What is good about this approach and anything special in this piece?
A: I actually came up with the term of stage movie. It has become our signature approach internationally. We normally have multiple cameras on stage and the actors need to perform in front of the cameras. And there are editors editing everything together. At the same time of the shooting, acting and editing, we project the result, the output, the movie on the big screen above the stage. So you get to see the process of making that movie and the movie itself at the same. So it is really a fascinating two-layered process on the stage. There are lot of things to see and you do not want to miss anything. This is our way of dealing with contemporary world where we are all face multiple screens. At a certain time of the day, we focus on our screens on your smartphone, on your computer, in the cinema - this is really reflecting the contemporary life that is mediated by all sort of media and screens. What is so special about Constellations, the show we are producing now is that we are using 13 cameras on the stage. This is unprecedented. And 12 of them form a circle on the stage, resembling a 12 o'clock of a watch. So this really echoes with the theme of the play which is infinite possibilities in different times and spaces. And at the center of the stage, we have the 13th camera focusing on a mouse running in a wheel. And this mouse could be seen as a god of the whole universe who although is small, runs and governs the whole time and space in the universe, which is magical and unbelievable but is a really interesting way of putting the drama on the stage in a very visual and different way."
Q: Now Let’s talk about the science fiction elements in the play. In this work how do you showcase parallel world and multiple universe on stage?
A: There are 50 scenes in the play archive 50 possibilities. So the way we deal with it is that in front of the 12 cameras, we put each scene in one camera only, but you get to see 50 long takes. That means 50 different universes and 50 possibilities. So it is really clear that each time you see a cut, it means this time and space end here and we are going to show you another possibility of the same couple. You do not see any cameramen on the stage. You do not see any touching of camara by the actors. But you will see a movie magically gets produced and created on the stage."
Q: Of course these science fiction notions are intriguing, but the concepts of physics and sicence are somehow difficult for people to understand. So how do you keep the intellectual challenges but also make it less intimidating to those audiences?
A: There is nothing theoretical about the play per se, but there are lots of theoretical interpretations that could be done after you see the play if you are familiar with quanta physics and possibilities and everything. Having said that, it does not mean that you have to have certain knowledge of quanta physics in order to appreciate the play. You will definitely get all the relationship possibilities which I believe every audience has experienced a lot from what it is being enacted on the stage. So that is really a relatable love story. There are definitely different layers or levels to understand the play. You do not have to know everything. Certainly you get a comedy, you get a romance, that is important.
Q: Your previous works have been staged overseas for many times. So when you bring your works overseas, what major differences have you noticed when it comes to audience reaction?
A: I am not 100 percent happy with the Chinese audience here, because they have been protected by the censorship and they have been fed with conservative content provided by the theater institutions in China. So they have not really seen or experienced a lot of international theater scene, not the most exciting, not the most radical parts. What I am trying to do is to bring in the most radical ideas, the most radical plays and the best plays from all over the world to inspire our audience, to lead them into another world. I hope the audience can grow with us.
Q: Based on your observation, how long does Chinese theater art have to go if it wants to get what western already have?
A: We are just starting a conversation on international theater scene and this ongoing conversation has to be more open so we can learn what the contemporary theater is really about. It is not about the spoken words. It is not about realism. It is all about what are the world's problems and what are the sophisticated way in which we can understand our world. There is a long way to go but we work hard on that.
Q: Last question, how would you define your style of “New Wave Theatre” in general?
A: Anything that is not conservative we will do. That is how I define the new wave theater that I initiated in China. I think we definitely need to open our eyes and open up the possibilities of doing theater so we do not want to limit ourselves. Having said that, we usually take multimedia approach in an innovative way. We always want to do something new, something better than our previous works. We always try to come up with inspiring, sometimes surprising, interpretations of our world and theater pieces. This is what we do and what we are passionate about."
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