A piece of artistic work, I believe, will be appreciated by the crowd only if it is stamped onto the features of that time. Father, this graduation play presented by 2010 Performances Class has been branded the concept "worker", while the very word shouldered some certain weight back to the PRC in last century.
The play is a tribute to the workers who are struggling forward, just as the sentence shouted out by the actor who plays the father at the end of the scene.
The play depicts the life experience from an ordinary family of the workers. It was in the middle of 1990 or later, and the family is in the old industrial town in Northeast China. The ordinary father was the model worker in this community, whose values change little by little along with the transformation of the society. Yang Daqiang, the elder son, against great pressure, quitted from the position of the Deputy Director of the factory and went to join a private enterprise. He wanted to struggle for his bright future. And at last he decided to sell the houses and take the responsibility for his factory. Yang Erqiang, the younger son, looked like an ordinary person. Being the first laid-off worker, he "stole" 3000 Yuan from home and went out for a living. And at the end of the story, Erqiang brought back money he earned by overlapping the bricks, one piece by another. The elder daughter was searching for a new job after being laid-off. She met with so many difficulties because she used to aim at merely being a good worker. After all these difficulties, she finally became paper vender in the street. All these characters reflect the problems that generation experienced, and the features of workers showed in the offspring's of the workers.
There is no traditional fierce dramatic conflict in the whole play; neither the upheaval plots. This is all about the life of some ordinary persons.
Aristotle insists that all plots are made for the creation of the heroes. This play showed us the experiences of the members in one family and the life in a factory after the workers gone by the vivid performance of the actors.
Group photo
Stage photo
