Theme from Restlessness: Stories of Childhood | Composed and Performed by Ren Ming Young
Restlessness: Stories of Childhood
Premiered at Shanghai International Arts Festival 2014
A tale of a Chinese boy growing up in the1980s.
A snapshot of China within an individual development.
An attempt to recapture significant moments of life out of memory.
A comment on the process of recollection itself.
Joy, grief, enlightenment, confusion. Life happens, and faith restored.
Upcoming:
17 May 2019, Tianjin Airport Economic Area Cultural Center
Ticketing: 022-84925888
Ma Liangliang was born in 1980s to a small town on the boundary of Northern and Southern China. His father was a military; his mother was a salesperson of a state-owned shop. To the audience, Ma Liangliang tells the story of his childhood life: a military courtyard, some playmates, grandparents, aunties, a house moving, a parental divorce, a departure from the small town. Through this process of endless retrospection and re-imagination, Ma Liangliang gets to re-experience all the significant moments of his growing up, the discoveries, the joy, the sadness, the confusion, and together with the audience, reflecting on how a child constructs his understandings and feelings of the world in that very first experience of life.
The four female actors role-play all the characters other than the protagonist (including all the male characters). They weave through the flashing memories of Ma Liangliang, and enable the memory of Ma Liangliang to be restored. When Ma Liangliang joins them, he turnsinto Ma Liangliang the child. But other times, they also jump out of the memory with Ma Liangliang, and comment on the memory out of the memory.
Written, Music and Directed by Ren Ming Young
Cast(2019): Sun Taojie, Jiang Shuyu, Bao Yuanyuan, Tang Lingting, Zheng Qi and Ren Ming Young
Producer: LI Huizi
Presented by RMYTHEATRE
