Shangguan News 14 June 2020; Reporter: Xu Ruizhe
On the evening of the 13th, wearing a mask and in a low-key manner, Professor Zhang Wenhong, walked into the STA Experimental Theatre which had been closed for 145 days. Despite his titles as the head of the Expert Group for COVID-19 Treatment in Shanghai and director of the Infectious Disease Department of Huashan Hospital Affiliated to Fudan University, he came to watch the play as an ordinary audience.
The first play for public performance at the reopened STA Experimental Theatre was “Nurse’s Diary”, which is also China’s first large-scale original drama on fighting COVID-19. It was also the first stage play that the Shanghai Theatre Academy (STA) had set up the cast and rehearsed online, making it the first play in the history of entire STA to go from online to offline.
When the lights of the stage were turned off, a "time and space tunnel" with angular perspective effect was unfolded, and countless slogans and posters related to fighting COVID-19 seemed to fly out of the background quickly bringing a strong visual impact to Zhang Wenhong and other audience, and the story of the play that closely held people’s hearts also began to roll out from there.
"Your mother was diagnosed COVID-19 three days ago and is now in hospital for isolation and treatment." When Dr Lin from the CDC arrived at the police station and picked up Dong Lili, who had been “temporarily held” there, the daughter finally knew why her mother, a head nurse, had failed to come.
In the play, Dong Lili is a third-year medical college student majoring in nursing. She is dissatisfied with her mother Dong Fang's lack of care for her after the mother’s divorce. After she leaves home, she calls her classmates to hold a birthday party at home. As a result, she is reported by her neighbors as impeding the COVID-19 prevention and control, and is admonished by the police. When she goes back to her empty home alone, she finds a diary of her mother’s while doing the disinfection. In order to find the source of mother's infection, Dong Lili begins to check and trace the clues one by one.
The sudden outbreak of COVID-19 makes everyone, including Dong Lili, experience growth in different ways. Therefore, “Nurse’s Diary” focuses on the theme of "growth" to show all aspects of human nature under the big test of COVID-19 and pay homage to medical workers, the spirit of fighting COVID-19 and the beautiful life.
As the story goes on, from "hermit crab" who sells masks at a high price through to the families of patients who beat medical staff because of the difficulties in getting the patients admitted, Dong Lili is able to discover her mother’s experience which is completely different from her own anticipation, learn about the various aspects of the society under the severe pandemic, and have a new perception of her mother's sentiment and conduct.
In the end, the daughter is surprised to find that the source of infection may be the student who conceals his travel history to participate in the birthday party. When her mother's life is uncertain, Dong Lili recalls every bit of being with her mother and feels guilty for her own willfulness. Before the play ends, the mother passes away because of the deterioration of her condition, and the daughter takes over her mother's white gown while grieving, and becomes a front-line nurse “following her mother’s footsteps”.
Xie Wei, Party Secretary of STA, said that "Nurse’s Diary" is the first approved work since the promulgation of STA’s administrative measures for the production of major creation and performance projects and cooperative creation and performance projects, and that "this is an important play and also an exemplary play." In fact, the creation of realistic masterpieces has become one of the important directions of STA’s creation on significant themes in the future.
“Nurse's Diary”, which is about two hours long, gathers a galaxy of excellent creative personnel of STA. Professor Lu Jun, one of the playwrights, has had 36 large-scale plays put on the stage, and the script of this play has been revised for no less than six times in order to strive for perfection. Professor Yi Tianfu, Dean of the Department of Stage Design, is the director of the play and is in charge of the stage design and lighting design. His works have won the "Five One Project" Award and Mandarin Award for many times. Professor Xu Jiahua, the chief designer for costume, make-up and modeling for the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games, is in charge of the costume, make-up and modeling design of this play.
The cast is composed of Liu Wanling, Wang Su, He Yan, Wang Xueming, Li Chuanying, Xue Guanglei, Wan liming, Xia Shuai, Xiekezati and other accomplished actors and actresses from STA. Shen Taoran, a young actor, and Li Bing, a TV host at the Shanghai TV Station, are also among the cast.
"Nurse Diary" is jointly presented by STA and the Publicity Department of CPC Songjiang District Committee of the Communist Party of China, and is jointly produced by the STA Performance Center and the Songjiang District Culture and Tourism Bureau, with the support of the China Theatre Association, the Zhejiang Writers Association and the Humanistic Songjiang Institute of Creation and Research etc.
The creation and rehearsal of the play started online. As early as 9 March, when the COVID-19 situation in China was not completely stable yet, the crew set-up meeting “Nurse’s Diary” was held online. In the three months since then, the crew of “Nurse’s Diary” did not wait passively for the theater to reopen, but simultaneously made it into a radio play of the same name, which was launched on the online audio platform on 12 May, i.e. the International Nurses Day, for the public to listen.
On the occasion of the long-awaited premiere of “Nurse’s Diary”, the co-producers invited a group of special audiences like Zhang Wenhong to watch the play. Among them, there were medical workers, medical researchers and community volunteers in Shanghai, and also representatives of the industries and enterprises which started the production lines of protective masks to support the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. After watching the play, Zhang Wenhong said, "I have benefited a lot. It's very good! Salute the actors! "
As one of the playwrights, Lu Jun, Chairman of the STA Academic Committee, said, "when any great nation makes a mortal battle against a natural disaster or a man-made misfortune that occurs in the progress of human civilization, it requires the synergy of science, conscience, order, responsibility and dedication from the whole society in order to overcome the difficulties and win the final battle.
