Martin McDonnell's trilogy first gathers in Shanghai, with Feng Xianzhen leading the theater of "The Beauty of Mount Linan" | Drama | Trilogy
Starting from July 19th, led by Feng Xianzhen, the play "The Beauty of Linan Mountain" appeared at Wanping Theater, and together with the popular plays "Pillow Man" and "Broken Hands City" from Gulou West, they formed the Martin McDonnell trilogy. They joined Wanping Theater and Changjiang Theater, where they performed in the small theater block play "Just like Fangfei Chanting Everywhere".
Playwright Martin McDonnell blends Irish tradition with black humor and tragic elements, and his films "Killer No Holiday" and "Three Billboards" have won numerous awards at major film festivals. He will serve as a judge at the 80th Venice Film Festival this year.
"The Beauty of Mount Lianan" is one of Martin McDonnell's representative works, winning heavyweight awards such as the Oliver Award and the Tony Award on Broadway, making him a highly regarded contemporary playwright. In this work, he cleverly blends the cruelty of reality with absurd humor, and his special emotions of loving and hating his hometown Ireland are also heart wrenching. Issues such as the family of origin, mother daughter relationship, and life choices have been integrated into one drama and thrown to the audience. Today, more than 20 years later, these important issues are still hot topics on various social media platforms.
The play "The Beauty of Mount Linan" is led by nearly seventy year old performing artist Feng Xianzhen, starring Li Mei, Tian Xiaowei, and Jiang Hao. Maggie's actor Feng Xianzhen is light hearted and doesn't show off, hiding the character's selfishness and stubbornness in the cracks of her bones, and turning it into a daily expression of her actions. The indoor scenery on the stage is made of thin metal, and the actors sway back and forth with even the slightest violent movement, ultimately rising into the sky.
From July to September, Martin McDonnell's three most representative plays, "The Beauty of Mount Lianan," "The Pillow Man," and "The City of Broken Hands," gathered in Shanghai for the first time in the form of a trilogy. The organizer stated that the Wanping Theater continues to bring excellent local and provincial drama works full of unknown, exploratory, and tense elements to young audiences in Shanghai, tilting user portraits towards the younger generation, especially towards the post-95s generation, benefiting from diverse theatrical attempts and diverse small theater spaces.
The invited plays "Do You Want Ice Cream" and Ding Yiteng's work "New West Wing" at the Anaya Drama Festival have accumulated a certain young fan base. The upcoming works of Drum Tower West will present Western black humor and extremely absurd satire to more literary and artistic young people. In December, the play "Report of an Ape" adapted from Kafka's novel "Report to a certain Academy of Sciences" focuses on the pressure and confusion that modern people face in society. "Non typical suspenseful and magical comedy" and "Very Suspense" make the audience laugh with tears, bringing them a suspenseful experience of "absurdity to the end, endless laughter".
