Pu Cunxin: Advance and retreat after entering the age of 70

Pu Cunxin: Between advance and retreat

China Newsweek reporter/Ni Wei

Published in the 2023nd issue of China Newsweek magazine on May 5, 22

Pu Cunxin is seventy years old. He still regularly appears in the theater every year as Li Bai, Chang Siye, Zhou Puyuan, Lao She, etc., always full of air and personable. He also often recited poems and American texts on various occasions as a reader, demonstrating the inflection of Chinese with great vigor. But after walking off the stage, aging has gradually climbed up his body, his hair has thinned, and when listening to people face to face, he also needs to turn his head sideways, listen carefully with one ear, and then habitually think for a moment, freeze in the sideways movement, as if receiving the long aftersounds in the air.

"I'm seventy this year, and I know my good times are probably three or four years away." He said somewhat pessimistically. That afternoon, he was sitting in the empty hall outside the Cao Yu Theater of the People's Art Theater in Beijing, when the rain was falling outside the window, hitting the entire glass curtain wall.

A few hours later, the drama "Seagull" is about to be staged at the Cao Yu Theater. "Seagull" is a new play directed by Pu Cunxin, the script was written by Chekhov in 1896, this is the second version of "Seagull" in Beijing Renyi, starring the whole youth team. When he was still energetic, he took the play as his last gift to Beijing Renyi.

He said something similar once two years ago, when he directed the new version of "Thunderstorm", in which he also played the eldest patriarch Zhou Puyuan, which he said was a gift to Renyi before bidding farewell to the stage. During the epidemic, the entertainer was preparing to read the script of "The Seagull" online, he took out the book from the bookcase and re-read it, read something he had not read before, and decided to direct.

"Rereading the classics is a fun thing in life." He told China Newsweek, "You can read the unspeakable, read the unrevealed code, read the hidden clues, and suddenly find out how much space you have to read in Chekhov's script, and you have an impulse." ”

Pu Cunxin has only become a director in recent years, and at the same time continues to perform dozens of dramas every year, supporting those box-bottom dramas of Beijing Renyi. At the same moment, he has gradually stepped back, pushing the young man to the forefront. Between advances and retreats, he greets his old age.

Reread the classics

Chekhov's friend and painter Levitan's landscape is projected on a huge curtain, flowing with the change of seasons, and two huge withered trees stand on the left side of the stage. Suddenly, lightning and thunder roared, and the giant tree collapsed. This scene, which takes place at the end of the play, heralds the end of daily life in the manor and the end of the life of the ununderstood young Kostya. In Pu Cunxin's heart, this loud noise also indicates that the world may be destroyed.

When he was young, he saw love, a pair of dead and alive people in the manor, and by the age of seventy, he paid more and more attention to those metaphysical things. These connotations are hidden between the lines of Chekhov's words, which he did not understand at all when he was young, and only discovered when he re-read them.

As the giant tree fell, the background curtain also fell instantly, revealing the steel frame and dark void behind the stage of the Cao Yu Theater. "At the beginning, we wanted to type the planet in the back, and after billions of years, the reincarnation of human beings ended, and a new reincarnation began, and single cells were generated in the floating water of the sunset, and that single-celled life was attached to all the spirits of human beings. This is the scene that Kostya describes in the play within the play, so it echoes. Pu Cunxin looked into the distance.

A romantic, poetic temperament was infused in him. When he talks about something, he often looks at a point in the void, sometimes it seems to look at the past, sometimes it looks at some kind of sorrow. There was five points of concentration and five points of confusion in his eyes, as if any thing would make him fall into deep thought. Speaking of "Seagull" heroine Nina returned to the manor in the cold winter, outside her ex-boyfriend's door, she came in or not, Pu Cunxin remembered the days when she had been in Heilongjiang for seven and a half years, "I can imagine that weather, she finally wants to come in, it's too cold." ”

"We wanted to get all the characters on the stage to watch blockbusters when the lightning and thunder were blowing. The world has turned too many upside down, and the moment of human destruction, we are in a stable China, but we are looking at it so much, which is a cruel thing. Does the melting of the Arctic Ocean have anything to do with us? Do forest fires have anything to do with us? Does war have anything to do with us? Do the catastrophic things in the world have anything to do with us? In fact, when Kostya asked Nina to tell him about the destruction of mankind and how we face it, this play has a little metaphysical interpretation of the worldly life beyond love and hate. ”

His creativity is still exuberant. Until the age of 60, he was an actor and occasionally made a cameo appearance as a reciter. After the age of 60, he began to cross the border as a theater director, and has directed only three works: "Hamlet", "Thunderstorm" and "Seagull". "Hamlet" was directed for children in the Tibetan class of the Shanghai Theater Academy, and the other two were directed for their old club, Beijing Renyi.

In recent years, Beijing Renyi has faced the replacement of new and old actors. Pu Cunxin, Yang Lixin, Liang Guanhua, Feng Yuanzheng, Wu Gang, Xu Fan, He Bing and other famous actors of a generation have either retired or are close to retirement, and a new generation of actors is taking over. Many of the new plays arranged by Beijing Renyi in recent years are all young actors picking the lead. Director Pu Cunxin's new versions of "Thunderstorm" and "Seagull" also hope to help young actors get on the horse and send a ride.

"Thunderstorm" and "Seagull" are classics among Chinese and world theater classics, respectively, and no one dares to arrange new versions easily. Because the burden of history is too heavy, it is easy to be scolded if the change is too large, and it will be scolded if the change is too small. But Pu Cunxin is not willing to complete the task cautiously, he must invest his own ideas, "The plays I rehearse are all the plays I have not acted in before, or I have found a new space, I will be impulsive, and I will dare to try." ”

Zhao Miao, a theater director and founder of the "Three Tuoqi Troupe", was very surprised after watching "Thunderstorm" directed by Pu Cunxin. Pu Cunxin's version is based on a play written by Cao Yu in 1934, not a revised version by Beijing Renyi in the 50s. Zhao Miao feels that under Pu Cunxin's director, the characters have become fuller and more compassionate, showing new expressions. He felt that in the past five years, Pu Cunxin had entered a period of vigorous outbreak.

"Whether it is Molière or Shakespeare's plays in Europe, every once in a while there will be new expressions, new perspectives, and connections with the present, and there cannot be only one fixed pattern. Mr. Cao Yu's script is too modern, and the arrangement should be different every year. Zhao Miao told China Newsweek, "But the history of Beijing Renyi is too thick to turn around, and I think only he dares to take this step, otherwise it will be more troublesome for the young people behind to break through." Whether it's his courage, wisdom, or boldness, I think he's helping everyone knock off the iceberg. ”

At least, it's quite unusual to do Chekhov's play now. "The art troupe in the whole country, which one is still arranging Chekhov?" Zhao Miao said with a smile.

Pu Cunxin may not have thought so much, when it comes to why he made "Seagull" and how to make "Seagull", his answer is two words: intuition.

Make up for regrets

When he received this classic script, Pu Cunxin did not explain to them the metaphysical meaning of what he read, but directly entered the story, read the script, "directly went to the ground, to feel, present, trial and error, the director in repeated corrections, told us what he wanted this drama to look like." ”

Pu Cunxin hopes that young actors will not be overwhelmed by the classics, and will not take the tone, because "Seagull" tells the story of young people, and young actors can experience the characteristics of life. "They're willing to listen to my nagging, okay, come together." He said.

Rehearsing a play with Pu Cunxin is a special experience. He is an actor rather than a professional director, and the rehearsal scene is more like a discussion and inspiration between actors, rather than a step-by-step execution according to the directorial process. The actors often teased him, deliberately reciting the lines of the drama "Li Bai" in front of him: "Where to find the soul of poetry~". Pu Cunxin listened: "You want to play "Li Bai"? "Then just stand up and improvise for a while." Just like an old urchin mingling with a group of children," Li Yue said, "each other will also inspire some new inspiration." ”

Pu Cunxin directed three dramas "Hamlet", "Thunderstorm" and "Seagull", he acted in them when he was young, but he did not act well. The first version of Beijing Renyi's "Seagull" was rehearsed in 1991, and Yevremov, the chief director of the Moscow Art Theater, was specially invited to direct. In 1898, "The Seagull" became a hit after it was staged at the Moscow Art Theater, directed by Stanislavsky, and the play was so iconic to the Moscow Art Theater that the theater's emblem was a seagull. When Beijing Renyi was preparing for "Seagull", Pu Cunxin had already been selected to play Zhuge Liang in the TV series "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", because of the recommendation of the vice president of Beijing Renyi to Ye Friemov, Pu Cunxin refused the TV series and concentrated on being the male protagonist of "Seagull".

Looking back, he felt a little regretful and just treated it as an ordinary task. Over the years, he could not forget a kind of look that Yevremov often showed in his eyes, that is, a kind of high spirit, feeling that Chinese dramas were "too bad", and the impression was only "Three Forks" and "Trouble in the Heavenly Palace". That subtle emotion stimulated Pu Cunxin. Yevremov wanted the actors to completely listen to his own directions, and some actors wanted to act according to their own ideas, and the two never spoke again.

Yevremov spent more than a month in Beijing, and on August 1991, 8, the crisis of the collapse of the Soviet Union appeared. That day, Pu Cunxin saw something else in Yevremov's eyes: disappointment.

Before Yevremov returned to China, colleagues from Beijing Renyi brought flour from home and made dumplings for Yevremov to bid farewell. As is customary in the Soviets, he walked up to everyone and said goodbye one by one. He said to Pu Cunxin that you are a smart and hard-working actor, if you understand the inner turbulent waves, and the surface is calm as water, you will become a good actor.

Pu Cunxin didn't understand at the time, but he still acted vigorously. Until a few years later, Beijing Renyi director Lin Zhaohua set up an independent studio, because he did not have much money, he often asked the familiar Pu Cunxin for help. Pu Cunxin followed Lin Zhaohua for several plays, and then gradually understood Ye Fremov's sentence, a "Zen saying" left by Ye, which finally resonated here in Lin Zhaohua. He also practiced Yevremov's advice in poetry readings, reciting long lyrical poems such as "Dayan River - My Nanny", which can completely eliminate the need for physical cooperation.

Later, Pu Cunxin visited Moscow twice, both of which went to see Yevremov's tomb. In the office of the director of the Moscow Art Theater hang four portraits, the first three are Chekhov, Stanislavsky and Danchenko from a hundred years ago, and the last one is Yevremov. "I miss Yevremov very much, I must have seen the disappointment in my eyes in his eyes." He now recalls.

Yevremov left three days after the performance of "The Seagull", and the play was only performed dismally for two rounds before being sealed. So he wondered: "Such a good play, why don't you take a seat?" ”

Since its premiere on May 5, the new version of "Seagull" has been fully packed, which of course also benefits from the hot cultural consumption in Beijing today. Pu Cunxin is very happy, now so many viewers pay attention to Beijing Renyi. His directorial exposition is only two short sentences, the second sentence humbly says: In the 1st century, we have completed a stage exercise for this drama classic.

"Let them move forward"

In addition to his work in Beijing Renyi, Pu Cunxin has also devoted a lot of effort to Tibet over the years. In 2017, he accepted the invitation of the Shanghai Theater Academy to participate in the teaching of the sixth Tibetan class of the play. It was a four-year acting class, and he spent time with Tibetan students every year. The Tibetan students were very engaged, playing couples quarrelling, raising their hands and slapping unambiguously, and continued to calmly perform after being slapped, Pu Cunxin was truly touched by this. When he graduated, he lined up the graduation play "Hamlet" for them.

"Hamlet" is scheduled in two versions, Chinese and Tibetan, and is open for sale at the time of graduation, which is the first public ticket sale drama in the graduation drama, causing a small sensation. Only 22 of the 15 students in the class could enter the Tibetan Repertory Theatre, and after the performance, the Tibet Repertory Theater borrowed a few formations to accept the entire Tibetan class. The children found good jobs. A few months later, when they performed the play in Lhasa, they invited Pu Cunxin over, and he was heartily relieved to see the children's parents happily pouring backstage.

In the late autumn of several consecutive years, Zhao Miao, a theater director and founder of the "Three Tuoqi Troupe", can always meet Pu Cunxin in Daliangshan, and they are also the initiators of the Daliangshan International Theater Festival. Daliangshan in Sichuan is an ethnic minority area that has recently been lifted out of poverty, and Pu Cunxin feels that it needs better cultural resources. As the first initiator, he used his ability to send plays to Daliangshan, and dozens of plays are staged in Daliangshan every year, including Beijing Renyi's drama.

In Daliangshan, Zhao Miao remembers Pu Cunxin's two "retreats" deeply. The first Drama Festival held a ticketing ceremony on the shore of Qionghai, and Pu Cunxin led all the guests and experts to step back, allowing more than 100 dramatists to stand in front; At the closing ceremony of the festival in another year, old artists from Daliangshan were invited, and Pu Cunxin also asked the guests to step back, hand over the microphones to the old artists, and change the theatrical performance to old artists telling their stories.

"We give them a flag and shout, they are the protagonists of the stage, let them go forward." Pu Cunxin often says this.

Nearly 20 years ago, a group of young dramatists emerged at the Beijing University Student Drama Festival and the Beijing Renyi Youth Debut Drama Exhibition, and Pu Cunxin was almost the most frequent drama predecessor in the audience. In the eyes of young people, Pu Cunxin is a celebrity celebrity, a senior with both virtue and art, and a righteous and awe-inspiring national face. But he often lingers in the dark in small theaters such as Beijing Renyi Small Theater, Pioneer Theater, and 9 Theater, watching young people act. When he couldn't understand new expressions, he would ask and listen to their thoughts. There are countless young people who have received his help and attention.

He saw creativity in these "wild" young people. When planning the Daliangshan Theater Festival, he proposed that the criteria were: free, diverse, and most dynamic. "There must not only be 'Suzhou gardens', there must be primeval forests, let the miscellaneous forests grow in the wasteland, I don't know when talents will emerge, and now there are good seedlings among young people." He said, "If you only plant a flower, a grass, and a tree, there is no ecology, you need to grow freely, you need the most primitive ecology." Now the theater festivals that are sprang up all over the country are "ecology in the initial stage" in his eyes, and are nurturing excellent talents, but they have to be slow.

"I think he has his own ideas about theater, about Chinese theater, and he's actually working hard." Zhao Miao said.

Zhao Miao still remembers the first time she saw Pu Cunxin. It was 1997, in the crew of the movie "Love Spicy Hot", the young Zhao Miao and Gao Yuanyuan played two middle school students, and Pu Cunxin also starred in it. With film and television dramas such as "Heroes Have No Regrets" and "The Bells of Qingliang Temple", Pu Cunxin is just popular, and Zhao Miao and Gao Yuanyuan have long been looking forward to seeing him. When they first saw Pu Cunxin, they stood solemnly to the side and watched, not daring to squeak. Pu Cunxin took the initiative to step forward and talk to the two children, so that they could not have a sense of distance, no need to be nervous and strange. Zhao Miao remembers his elegant smile vividly, and more than 20 years later, he feels that Pu Cunxin has not changed at this point, and is still elegant and equal to everyone.

But the 70-year-old Pu Cunxin has changed a lot, and he doesn't want to always be center of the stage. He has lived all his life in Beijing Renyi, and his father Su Min was one of the first actors to build the academy. The Capital Theatre, built in 1956, was only 3 years younger than him, and he grew up backstage at the Capital Theatre and spent half of his life on stage.

"There are so many wonderful moments in life, everyone has their own style of life, everyone is a world, it's a piece of history. People have different pains and different pleasures. Reading "Seagull" again, Pu Cunxin read a new meaning.

The rain had stopped, the sun was raging in the evening, and the sky was unrealistically blue. It won't be long before the audience will enter the theater and wait for The Seagulls to begin. Young people perform on stage, and Pu Cunxin will sit and watch.

China Newsweek, Issue 2023, 18

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