30 October 2017
(Vice President Gong Barong introducing famous director Ms Chen Xinyi)
(Ms Chen Xinyi donating a selected collection of her works to STA)
On the afternoon of 27 October 2017, the famous director, Ms Chen Kai, was invited the Shanghai Theatre Academy (STA) to give an academic lecture entitled "To be or not to be, it is not a question to think about - My Zhu Shenghao and Hamlet". Before the lecture began, Ms Chen Xinyi donated a selected collection of her stage productions to STA. This event was presided over by Vice President of STA Gong Baorong and attended by the teachers of the STA Graduate School as well as some teachers of professional courses.
Before the commencement of the lecture, Vice President Gong Baorong extended the warm welcome to Ms Chen Xinyi on behalf of STA and all teachers and students, and then presided over the donation ceremony of the selected collection of Chen Xinyi’s stage productions. Professor Tang Yipei, curator of STA Library, as the STA representative, and three graduate students Gao Shanyang, Yang Jiayi and Li Yixuan as the student representatives, accepted donation.
Ms Chen Xinyi first recalled her work experience in the early years. When she graduated from the Directing Department of the Central Academy of Drama, she returned to the Shaanxi People’s Art Theatre where she formed the team and fought for the funding for the performance of the modern drama "Life of a Woman" in Beijing which turned out to be a great success. In order to free her ideals from being suppressed by reality, she chose to leave Shaanxi People’s Art Theatre and go to work in the Railway Art Troupe. In 1986, China’s first-ever Shakespeare’s Theatre Festival was held, and she gained a very high reputation nationwide by directing the drama "Othello".
Next, Ms Chen Xinyi elaborated on creation process of the drama "Hamlet" and, in the meantime, she introduced the life story of Mr Zhu Shenghao. The drama "Hamlet" directed by Ms Chen Xinyi will be staged at the Shanghai Grand Theatre on 3 December, formerly named as "My Zhu Shenghao and Hamlet". Her view is that “Hamlet” is a work full of "black humor", so that she has had a new annotation and interpretation of Hamlet and other main characters from the aspects of personality, humanity and morals. The storyline of the drama also shows the hardship that Mr Zhu Shenghao experienced in the translation process. At that time, Mr Zhu Shenghao was seriously ill, and China was suffering from the Japanese invasion. The translation manuscripts were destroyed by the gunfire for several times, and Mr Zhu Shenghao had to redo it once and again until he finally completed the translation of Shakespeare's works.
At the end of the lecture, Ms Chen Xinyi answered the questions on the spot. She summed up and analyzed the reasons for the success of some of her early works, and encouraged young people to base the subject matter of their creation from what they have personal experience and interest, and advised that the works created should be aesthetically pleasing or human.
