19 November 2019
From 13 to 15 November, the original drama “Life Trek” produced by the Shanghai Theatre Academy (STA), for which Meng Bing, the chief expert of Meng Bing Drama Creation Art studio and part-time professor of STA, acted as the artist director, Ding Zhixin, a student of MA Theatrical Literature 2018 at STA was the playwright, and Li Yukun, a doctoral student of Year 2018 at the STA Graduate School was the director, was staged successfully in the Jing Theatre, bringing a new theatre experience to the audiences.
The original drama Life Trek is the project outcome of the Meng Bing Drama Creation Art Studio, which is on the list of STA’s culture-education integration studios in 2019. It is also the outcome of the Shanghai First-Class Graduate Education Leading Plan, a project financially funded by STA’s Shell Pecking Program 2019, and a mid-term project of STA’s MFA Playwriting 2018. The work puts the background of the story in the hot topic of the moment, i.e. the cosmic space, and tells about the confusion between the memory and the reality of astronaut Mu Sheng in the interplanetary exploration. When he was interwoven with his mother, wife and young self, he reviewed his life and recognized himself. When he finally arrived at the pink extragalactic nebula that he had dreamed of, he eventually chose happiness in the face of the choice of return or exile.
“Life Trek” is not only unique in form using the frame structure with strong sense of science fiction to build the stage space, but also adds more dimensions to the expressiveness of the work using multimedia, lighting and dance. Through the polishing during the Meng Bing Playwriting Workshop, the script has been improved in the aspects of dramatic structure, character image, and purpose of the work, striving to explore the topic of how to present the dramatic text on the stage.
During the performance of the play, Meng Bing, artist director and tutor of the play and part-time professor of STA, Mao Shi’an, vice chairman of China Literary Critics Association, Luo Huaizhen, part-time professor of STA and vice chairman of China Drama Association, Lu Ang, dean of STA Department of Directing, and Chen Jun, dean of STA Department of Theatrical Literature, also came in person to watch. After the performance, they cordially took a group picture with the main creative team and provided suggestions for further improvement.
The performance of Life Trek is the practical outcome of the cultural-educational integration studio project in STA, and is also the first students’ original work launched by Meng Bing Drama Creation Art Studio. It is hoped that the cultural-educational integration studio project in the future can cultivate more and more art talents, and present more and better high-quality plays originally created by students.
