Twenty years ago, one of the leading post-Mao era writers, Yu Hua, found a way to voice the dark experiences of rural China in his groundbreaking novel 'To Live' (活着, Huozhe in Chinese).
20年前，后毛泽东时代作家群的领军人物余华通过他突破性的小说《活着》(To Live)，找到了一种方式来表达中国农村黑暗的生活体验。
A year later, film director Zhang Yimou brought the gripping tale to the big screen to international critical acclaim winning the Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival and Best Foreign Language Film at the BAFTA Awards in 1995 ─ only to face a ban in China.
一年后，电影导演张艺谋把这个扣人心弦的故事搬上了大银幕，并赢得了国际好评──获得戛纳国际电影节(Cannes Film Festival)评委会大奖以及1995年英国电影学院奖(BAFTA Awards)最佳外语片奖，但在中国却遭到了禁播。
The story, which is set over a period that sweeps across the Chinese civil war in the 1940s to the tumultuous Cultural Revolution that ended in 1976, is getting another public viewing now this time on stage under the direction of the talented avant-garde master of drama Meng Jinghui.
这个故事的时间跨度很大，从上世纪40年代的国共内战直至结束于1976年的文革动乱。现在，公众有了另一种观看它的方式──这一次是在舞台上，由才华横溢的先锋戏剧大师孟京辉执导。
'Everything has been going smoothly,' Mr. Meng told the Wall Street Journal at a reception ahead of the Beijing opening. 'We closely followed the original novel, which is not a social history but a personal history. '
在北京首场演出前的招待会上，孟京辉告诉《华尔街日报》：“一切都进展得很顺利。我们紧跟原着，它不是一部社会史而是一段个人史。”
But he adds: 'So far I've been lucky as a director. '
但他补充道：“到目前为止，作为一名导演，我是幸运的。”
The 49-year-old director of the National Theatre of China is best known for his absurdist taste and staging works like 'Rhinoceros in Love,' 'Soft,' and Dario Fo's 'The Accidental Death of an Anarchist.' His stellar cast this time around is led by Huang Bo, the actor who shot to fame with his comic role in the hugely popular 2006 screen farce called 'Crazy Stone,' and actress Yuan Quan, who last appeared on screen in 2012's 'The Last Tycoon.'
这位49岁的中国国家话剧院(National Theatre of China)导演因其作品的荒诞意味以及舞台剧《恋爱的犀牛》(Rhinoceros in Love)、《柔软》(Soft)和达里奥·福(Dario Fo)的《一个无政府主义者的意外死亡》(The Accidental Death of an Anarchist)而声名远播。这一次，他的明星阵容由男演员黄渤和女演员袁泉来领衔，黄渤因在2006年大热的喜剧影片《疯狂的石头》(Crazy Stone)中饰演的喜剧角色而声名鹊起，袁泉的最近一部电影作品是2012年的《大上海》（The Last Tycoon）。
Yu Hua's novel, which has been translated into dozens of languages, describes the life of Xu Fugui, the profligate son from a wealthy family. While his name means 'rich,' he loses all of his wealth gambling and ironically spends the rest of his life in poverty.
余华的这部小说已被翻译成了几十种语言，主要描述了富家浪荡子徐福贵的一生。虽然他的名字意味着“富贵”，但他却因赌博而倾家荡产，并极具讽刺意味地在贫穷中聊度余生。
He is forced to become a soldier ─ first under the Nationalists and then for the Communists. In a twist of fate, he lives to sees the man who ended up owning his property executed by the Communists as a landlord and enemy of the people. It dawns on him that poverty sometimes has its small rewards.
他被迫去当了兵──一开始在国民党部队，后来又为共产党效力。经历了命运的转折之后，他看着最终拥有了他的财产的那个人被作为地主和人民公敌被共产党处决。他这才明白，贫穷有时候也有它的小小益处。
From his dissolute beginnings he becomes an adoring father and grandfather only to watch his family members die one by one in a series of cruel twists of fate. He insists he just wants to live a simple life but circumstances always seem to interfere.
他从最初那个浪荡子变成了一个溺爱子孙的父亲和祖父，却眼睁睁看着自己的家庭成员在一系列残酷的命运转折面前一个接一个地死去。他打定主意只想过简单的生活，然而天不遂人愿。
Mr. Meng's direction and the stark but imaginative staging adds to an already bleak story. In the Zhang Yimou version, Fugui ends up with a glimmer of hope as one grandson survives the string of tragedies. Mr. Meng's stage version tacks a bit closer to the Yu Hua novel, leaving no one spared. 'Zhang Yimou had a little softer touch,' said Mr. Meng.
孟京辉的导演和鲜明而富有想象力的舞台表现给原本阴冷的小说增加了一些色彩。在张艺谋的影片中，福贵最终存了一线希望，因为他的一个外孙在一连串的悲剧中得以幸免。孟京辉的舞台剧版本更接近余华的小说，剧中无一人幸免。孟京辉说：“张艺谋用了稍微柔软一些的笔触。”
While it may not have killed off as many characters, the film lobbed a more obvious assault on the arbitrariness of political power, taking an incendiary aim at absurdities such as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. As a result, Zhang Yimou was banned from filmmaking for two years. In September 2010, when Mr. Zhang was interviewed by local news and entertainment website ifeng.com, he said: 'I'm tiny when I'm in front of the system, and I feel powerless. China's film censorship will continue to exist for many years.'
虽然电影中死去的人物要少一些，但它却对政权的独断专行予以了更为明显的抨击，将矛头对准了诸如大跃进和文化大革命这样的荒谬行为上。结果，张艺谋被禁拍电影两年。2010年9月，张艺谋在接受中国新闻娱乐网站凤凰网(ifeng.com)的采访时说道：“在体制面前我很渺小，我感到无力。中国的电影审查制度还将会继续存在很多年。”
Mr. Zhang is enthusiastically embraced by authorities these days. His leading role in the artistic establishment was cemented when he was tapped to direct the lavish opening ceremonies at China's 'coming out party' ─ the Beijing Olympics in 2008.
如今，张艺谋被官方热情接纳。当他被选中在中国的“亮相舞会”──2008年北京奥运会──上执导盛大的开幕式时，他在艺术领域的主导地位毫无疑问地确立起来了。
The slightly better reception for Mr. Meng's 'To Live' the second time he has brought the play to the stage ─ is largely the result of the passage of time. The film was made only five years after the upheaval of the Tiananmen Square crackdown, a time when political critiques, even of the Cultural Revolution, were salt in an open wound. But the fanaticism of the Cultural Revolution is now so far removed from current events that much of the sting is gone.
孟京辉版的《活着》的接受度有了些微的提高──这是他第二次把这部剧搬上舞台──很大程度上是时间流逝的结果。电影《活着》在天安门事件被镇压仅五年后就诞生了，那个时期，政治批评，即便是针对文化大革命也无异于往伤口上撒盐。但是现在，对文革的狂热早已是时移事异，许多刺痛都已烟消云散。
Mr. Meng may also benefit from the the fact that no matter how riveting the performance, a stage production is less threatening than a mass market film.
另外还有一个事实或许也起到了作用──无论演出多么吸引人们的眼球，相对于拥有大众市场的电影，舞台剧的威胁总是小一些。
'To Live' is now on a tour of nine major cities in China, and will be shown in Germany in 2014.
《活着》现在正在中国九大主要城市巡演，并将在2014年于德国上演。
Mr. Meng, who strolled onto the stage in a Pink Floyd t-shirt to welcome those lucky enough to get a ticket to one sold-out performance in Beijing, had some advice for theater-goers: 'I want to make my audience strongly face their difficulties and live steadfastly when they think of Fugui.'
孟京辉穿着一件平克·弗洛伊德(Pink Floyd)主题T恤踱步上台，欢迎那些买到了北京已售罄场次入场券的幸运的观众，并向戏剧迷们提出了一些建议：“我希望让我的观众坚强地面对他们的困难，当他们想到福贵时能坚强地活下去。” |
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