World premiere of "Toward Yan'an": Shanghai's red and the poetry of revolutionaries, Liu Zhiyang and Li Shihua submitted "answer sheets"
"Along the endless mountain ridges and rushing rivers, let's go to Yan'an!" The sonorous and powerful modern poem "Go to Yan'an" runs throughout the play, driving the plot to one after another. The bell tower in the center of the stage rotates again and again, and its destiny drifts. Only faith and conviction become the unchanging base standing on the land of China. On May 27, the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Shanghai, the Shanghai-style spy drama "Toward Yan'an" had its world premiere at the Shanghai Oriental Art Center. Before the performance, all tickets for the first 6 shows were sold out.
In the nearly three-hour four-act play, the audience experienced the poetic moments of revolutionaries blooming in the war years reproduced on the stage. When the curtain fell, this touching song of youth and poetry of life received warm applause from the audience.
As the second red drama produced by the Shanghai Oriental Art Center, "Towards Yan'an" is adapted from the novel of the same name by the writer Hai Fei, who won the "People's Literature Award·Biennial Novel Award". How to condense more than 300 pages of the original novel and a story spanning more than 20 years into a drama stage? Director Li Bonan said: "What we pursue is not to give the audience external plot stimulation and audio-visual impact, but to hope that this drama will have more human value and poetic character based on the spy war genre."
"Poeticity" permeates every aspect of dramatic expression. A magnificent and freehand bell tower is located in the center of the stage and becomes the main image of "Toward Yan'an". Stage designer Sang Qi said that the bell tower symbolizes the Yan'an that everyone yearns for. The specially designed "doors on all sides" form is a metaphor for "you can always reach Yan'an". With the cooperation of lighting and multimedia, the "Bell Tower" is like the annual rings of the times, allowing the scenes to flow and move, pushing the story to a climax. Taking Shanghai as the starting point and Yan'an as the theme, on the stage, the cries of "Gardenia, White Orchid" are mixed with the gunfire on the Bund, and the intertwined pop and classical soundtrack interprets the coexistence of modernity and pathos. The Shanghainese broadcasts linking the plots between each scene make people confirm its "very Shanghai" temperament, and also allow the audience to clearly perceive the "red" in Shanghai's city genes.
Liu Zhiyang, Li Chuanying, Han Xiuyi, Gu Xin, Jiang Jiaqi, Wang Nanjun and other academic actors from Beijing People's Art Theatre, National Theater, Shanghai Theater Academy, Shanghai Dramatic Art Center and Hong Kong actor Li Shiwei, host Liang Tian, young actor Xu Kaicheng Film and television actors and cross-border stars merge into one on the stage. In order to find out the chronology of the characters in the play, the crew dug deep into Shanghai's rich red resources and followed the red veins of this glorious city to understand the true history of spy wars. During the break between rehearsals, the actors re-took the red line of the Party's hidden front in Shanghai. They studied carefully and collected stories on the spot at the two memorial halls at the former site of the Special Section of the CPC Central Committee and the former site of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee, striving to reproduce the hardships and perseverance, glory and glory of the hidden front. Dream, pay tribute to the unsung heroes.
On the stage, the actors no longer come from all over the world, but live together in the war-torn Shanghai. The choice of road, the collision of family, friendship, and love, and the fearless sacrifice for faith resonated with the audience off the stage.
"Embracing the complexity of human nature and the uncertainty of fate, this is an alternative spy work that resonates with young hearts and allows the extraordinary lives of ordinary people to be seen." Some viewers said that "Toward Yan'an" has no slogans or symbolic elements. Heroes, but starting from specific people, explore what faith is, how it sprouts, how it takes root, and how it supports young lives through difficult and meaningful years. "This is a kind of 'red' of flesh and blood."
"Seventy-five years ago, the historical moment of Shanghai's liberation reappeared on the stage. Seeing the yellow "Liberation Daily" date on the screen, following the footsteps of our revolutionary ancestors, the path we have taken, history and the present seem to overlap. At that moment , I burst into tears," one viewer said.
"Shanghai is the city of the people, the city of heroes, and the city of glory. "To Yan'an" is a new stage work that celebrates the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China and the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Shanghai. It adheres to the people-centered creative orientation and is rich in red. Culture, Shanghai-style culture, Jiangnan culture.” Lei Wen, general manager of Shanghai Oriental Art Center, said, “This play is also Dongyi’s tribute to the city of Shanghai and the people of Shanghai.”
The drama "Towards Yan'an" is produced by the Propaganda Department of the Shanghai Pudong New Area Committee of the Communist Party of China, Shanghai Oriental Art Center Management Co., Ltd., and Beijing Poly Theater Management Co., Ltd., and is jointly produced by Liberation Daily, and will be held at the Shanghai Oriental Art Center from May 27th to 31st. After 6 performances in a row, she will go to Beijing to perform at the National Center for the Performing Arts at the end of June.
