Liu Tianchi: Healing is my definition of drama [Ending the performance of the musical "Born A Couple", changing identities and entering the "Frightening Dream" crew and wandering among teachers, directors and actors]
After finishing the performance of the musical "Born A Couple", Liu Tianchi immediately changed his identity and joined the crew of "A Dream". On August 18, this new stage work of Chen Peisi, which has been long-awaited, will be held at the National Centre for the Performing Arts for the first time with Beijing audience meet.
From the teacher of the Chinese Opera Performance Department to the performance director of popular variety shows, even if he is returning to creation, from director to actor, Liu Tianchi actually has a professional imprint that has never changed in more than 20 years - using the identity of a teacher as a director, with awe Mindset to be an actor.
Drama can aid in the treatment of modern anxiety
In Liu Tianchi's opinion, "Born in Love" is a work that "sees love and understands love better". As her first independent directed work, Liu Tianchi said that this musical coincides with her long-standing philosophy. .
"Drama has a healing function. Since I started working as a studio, I found that drama has moved from theater to the public as a means of life companionship, but it has not sown seeds in the soil, and campus drama and community drama have not been transformed into Apply drama to serve the public. Later, when we were doing this training, we were no longer just the audience, but a group of people who came with their own stories. Although the training methods were similar to those in academies, drama It has a different effect among ordinary people. They can express their emotions through drama. Modern people's anxiety cannot be cured by psychology alone, and drama can be used as an auxiliary treatment. Therefore, the cure is given to drama by myself. a definition."
In the rehearsal field of "Born A Couple", teacher director Liu Tianchi paid more attention to emotional healing.
She stipulated that actors do not call themselves directors, but call themselves Teacher Tianchi just like the official title at school.
"From being an actor to being a teacher, and switching between various identities in society, drama has also played a big role in my personal growth and life. I used to regard it as an unattainable art, and it was difficult The gesture of entering the ocean of art. But in fact, art gives you the ability to see yourself, and then return to your life with such a perspective. At this time, you are a complete person, and all the labels no longer exist on you. And you are with the crowd. Any rehearsal and performance is a healing process.”
Liu Tianchi in the rehearsal field did not express much of the so-called artistic technique of the director, and he did more of the work of the teacher.
"I hope that the actor will enter the assumed world from himself to complete a character, which must be a process from split to reorganization to fullness. Now many actors feel that they are about to complete a role that has nothing to do with themselves, and throw themselves away Outside of Haijiaotianya, I always feel that art is very high, and the stage is the most tempered actor. This kind of thinking actually fetters a living person. But in fact, the plot in the play will inevitably be brought into the actor's own life, and the actor is the character's emotion and self-emotion The stirring of the real and the fake is the expression of art. Therefore, I want to make a simple, real and interesting work for "Born A Couple"."
60 days of staring at the rehearsal field, nothing else matters
Therefore, this transplanted musical retains the child's innocence. Even Man Jiang, who walked into the rehearsal field with full of tension, also played an unusual father with a sense of simplicity and youth.
And let a person who has never been a father play his father, what Liu Tianchi first did was to chat with him about his past experiences, from his music creation to raising dogs and cats, from a small fresh meat to now he is no longer a traffic artist..." The point is to capture the possibility of his growth and to fit the character into him."
As a parent-child musical, Liu Tianchi also integrates his own experience and parent-child relationship into it, "In family emotional education, it is actually a two-way process, but the teacher who teaches you to be a parent is your child, and the role of the parent is your child. There is only one trainer. In this scene, adults can only be children, and children can be adults, so that there can be interesting chemistry.”
Because of the busy work, the producer began to think that Liu Tianchi would let the executive director stare at the rehearsal field, but he did not think so. Liu Tianchi not only appeared in the rehearsal field every day, but also arrived earlier than the actors and left later than them, for 60 days.
"I decided to do this, and everything else in the back will collapse, it doesn't matter."
It is said that Liu Tianchi is best at arousing the emotions of actors in the rehearsal field. She said, "Directors generally want results. Most directors and actors have a creative relationship. But today's young actors often have their hands on the third ring, legs and legs. In the second ring, the heart is in the fifth ring, a person is split in multiple places, you can feel that there is a very big mutual struggle with them. But my teaching for many years started from a blank sheet of paper, nearly After 30 years of teaching, I am very comfortable with how to train young actors." If other directors may be more accustomed to kneading actors to the shape of their characters, Liu Tianchi, who is a teacher, will knead actors and roles. come together.
Into "Dream" because of grandma's experience
Chen Peisi's stage comedy "The Stage" has dominated the stage for seven years, and the second part of "The Stage Trilogy", "A Dream", in addition to Chen's father and son, also invited Liu Tianchi to play, telling the audience about a Kunqu Opera troupe that decided China The story of a difficult survival in the decisive battle of fate.
Because Chen Peisi was deeply impressed by Liu Tianchi's performance in "Parents' Love", he had a motion to invite him to join.
The first time we met, Chen Peisi said, you are a good actor, why don't you act?
Liu Tianchi replied, I am a teacher, so I am not so obsessed with acting.
But in the end, in "A Dream", in addition to the invitation of childhood idols, the overlap between the characters in the play and the experience of grandma is an important factor.
"The script is about Kunban, but it's very similar to my grandmother's experience. She was born as a Pingju actress. After she left school at the age of 14, she went all the way north as a class leader. After staying in Shenyang for a period of time, she arrived in Jilin. After settling down, she founded Jilin. Opera is one of the founders of Ji Opera." Liu Tianchi heard his father, also an opera actor, talk about his grandmother's experience since he was a child, and he also knew a lot about the opera troupe.
"When I read the script, I kept thinking that it would be meaningful if I could pay tribute to my grandma on stage. I didn't have much contact with my grandmother. When I was 10 years old, my grandma left, but later I often thought about what to do with my grandmother. The way to create a connection with grandma. It happens that the role of the third sister in the script may be the best connection. Although it is a Kunban, but the music is different, and the living conditions are the same. The characters in the play fit so well, and for myself, it's a pleasure to get into the role."
Liu Tianchi said that she walked into the crew with selfishness, so every time she performed, she took pictures of her grandmother and father and posted them in the dressing room, and said to her grandmother in every performance: Grandma, today I am I'm going to play you.
"Mr. Pace also asked me whose picture this is, and I said it was my grandma. Only when I played her would I have a clue. My family said that I was most like my grandma. I kept crying at the entrance of the theater, saying she looked too much like your grandma."
Liu Tianchi, who grew up in the background, was very familiar with knives and guns, trunks, and trunks since he was a child, but his father did not let her learn opera.
Before the entrance exam, Liu Tianchi secretly taught himself a whole set of Xu Yulan's novels.
"If you don't have the conditions, just follow the recording and learn. At that time, I could sing the entire "Dream of Red Mansions"." A northerner, but he has a soft spot for southern dramas. Liu Tianchi also asked his father if his grandmother was a southerner before she entered Guandong.
"If I don't take the Chinese opera, I think I should take the Yue opera Xiaobaihua exam."
Text / reporter Guo Jia