11 June 2018
On the evening of 8 June 2018, “The Field of Life and Death”, the practice production of the Class of 2015 of the Shanghai Theatre Academy (STA), was officially staged at the Duanjun Theatre on the STA campus. The play had been highly anticipated ahead of the performance, and the theater was packed during the performance. The play was written by the famous director Ms Tian Qinxin and directed by Professor He Yan of STA. After the performance, Ms Tian Qinxin went onto the stage and gave a high degree of recognition to the whole play. The director, Professor He Yan, also said: "This was a brave creation which has left the precious creative experience. The students, young and immature but full of hope, have advanced firmly step by step under the guidance of the teachers towards the future ideal." Mr Lou Wei, Chairman of STA, also came to watch the performance.
"The Filed of Life and Death" is a novella written by Chinese writer Ms Xiao Hong, and is the culmination of her early works. The story describes women living and dying humbly and helplessly on the miserable dark soil land, in the patriarchal world and in painful families.
Through the vicissitude of the family in the play, the director developed the story of life and death, and reflected and presented the numb souls and the state of ignorance with extreme means. Only when the living space was encroached upon, and the time was really coming when living stably as a slave was not possible, they embarked on the road of resistance. In order to present such a theme, the director, Professor He Yan not only reproduced the life at that time, but also overlooked human life and death from the angle of human nature and from the height of philosophy, and deconstructed and reconstructed the elements of life in the play with the ideological consciousness of the contemporary people, thereby better explaining the spirit of the original work and highlight the significance of human existence. The stage design of the whole play was based on the simple colors of black and white and is divided into three layers, which was integrated with brightness-darkness alternated lighting. The whole stage was looming and elusive and was full of symbolic meaning. The costume design boldly used the naked skin to highlight the life of people at the bottom of the society. Director He Yan brought to the audience the calmness and frenzy before the storm was about to hit. The whole performance deeply shook the audience and made them feel like they were in it and also deeply moved.
