I have always tried to transform the characters in my plays into whole new persons because acting is really about the complexity and fluidity of human existence. It is impossible to categorize people as merely good or bad, kind or evil, but on the spectrum of human complexities, so are the characters I portray.
In Uncle Vanya, I played a young girl called Sonya. After I read the scripts multiple times in the rehearsal room, I started to try to live the life of Sonya each day. I grabbed a mop and cleaned the entire floor, and heavy clothes were filed up in every corner. Unexpected, the first thing that crushed me while cleaning the floor was not the burdensome labor but pure despair. Sonya would have to carry out this physical labor every day with zero possibility of ending it anytime soon. Therefore, like Sonya, I didn’t cry out during the performance because Sonya realized crying was no longer the solution to the problem. She was not just an empty “miserable” or “understanding” female character, but a woman built by real actions, experiences, and life goals. For real humans, being happy doesn’t mean laughing, and being sad doesn’t mean crying. Focusing on each character and understanding her as a whole person can make each action reasonable and authentic.
Maugham once wrote in “Summary” in 1938: “More than one person lives in every artist.” This quote inspired me and even helped me defeat a critical bottleneck. When I was studying Jill’s monologue in “Butterflies are Free,” I always felt that I was too different from her, that I couldn’t be as cheerful as she was, or even talked about my relationship stories with a stranger. But Maugham’s words encouraged me to reflect on myself, and I realized that I had been limiting myself. I denied other possibilities before I even continued to explore myself. I began to think that an actor was a person with multiple personalities. In different scripts, different characters can be inspired. Each of us can be a bad guy, a murderer, a fascist, or a saint.
My goal is to continue exploring my different personas as an actor and broaden the boundaries of my performance. I hope to experiment with a wide variety of theatre in
the future, classical, contemporary, structural, and experimental. These explorations equip me to play various roles in different cultures, diverse groups, and unique backgrounds.
In the future, in addition to performing in the theater, I also look forward to cooperating with rural communities to deliver artistic performance for disadvantaged groups. In the summer of 2019, I went to teach at a school for left-behind children in rural Sichuan, designing a theater workshop for them three times a week. Over two months, I saw the children’s passion for theater and the resulting changes. Through the connection of imitating animals, a boy spread out his limbs on the floor and slowly slid them across the floor – a jellyfish swimming! The children’s imaginations were skilled, and they no longer felt terrified of public expression and enjoying the pleasure of acting. This made me realize that theater can be seen as an essential part of education. In the future, my second goal is to continue to create plays with children in the villages and to offer more diverse and longer-lasting workshops.
Art of any kind is rooted in human civilization and culture, not just beautiful and flamboyant techniques. Acting for me is more than a form of expression: it’s a method of connecting with others, confronting issues, and a career that I would like to devote myself.