On The Creation Method And Story Narrative Structure Of The Collective Improvisation Of Lai

On the history of theatre, The Method of theatre’s compositioncommonly have two: one called “mechalically and orderly author-stylecomposition”, which based on modern theatre-producing industry.Another called “one-whole-organically and simultaneouslyfamily-improvising composition”, which based on performer’simprovised-performing. These two has the ambiguous link andinterinfluence and interpenetration between each other from the deriveand beginning.“mechalically and orderly author-style composition”means structure of “up to down”, in which, playwright finished playfirstly, then producer, director and performer finished rehersal and stagepresent orderly and continuously.“one-whole-organically andsimultaneously family-improvising composition” means structure of“down to up”, in which mode, traditional play-text and story-plot wasabandoned firstly, every element of theatre integerated into one-wholewhich would to produce play and present. In family-improvisingcomposition, Director give an ambiguous concept and a frame for everyperformer firstly, then stimulate every performer open heart-insidethemselves, release themselves, and usher their personer feeling and lifeexperence to an public feeling and to the masses’s perception forreceiving, in it, play text also produced on the spot by the improvisation.Long long ago improvisation have showed up on histroy, now existmany place around the world. On west, improvisation mainly as a practical,empiracal, pioneer,and vangard theatre practice, but on east, theimprovisation had become a main-bone amid in theatre culture body. Thismethod mainly focused on and be represented by Stan Lai and his teamnamed “performace studio”. He leaded and engaged peroformance-studiowhich through family-improvisating to convey and express issue whichrelate with every public people feeling and life experence, it received bythe masses, producing massive influence on society.Essensially say, theatre is a compound comprehensive and integratedarts, it need intensive cooperation between playwright, director, andperformers. Nevertheless, in traditional composition mode, therelationship between playwright, director, performers is isolated andinsulated, and becoming a mechalically, orderly “assemble-art”, it cuttedaway and reduced contributuion of director and performer forplay-writing essencially. Stan Lai capitalized on Italian-improvisationmethod17th. and to creating a new way to a new “compound”: throughimprovising-performance and improvising-rehersal, it integratedplaywright, dirctor and performer, driving theatre becoming a reallycomprehensive arts unseparately.Play is a foundation and a start in composition. From ancientGreece-tragidy to now-day, the traditional plot-preseting author-stylecomposition occupied the most of the creation. The author-stylecomposition is a method which based on plot-preseting, but infamily-improvisation, the preset mode was abandoned by director, he justuse one material——performer, so, the important traditional playwrightseems like unnecessarily, director and performer replaced and robbed hiswork. in theory and practice of play-writing, plotilization of story andpersonalization of character is most important thing than others, they together decided and influenced the development of whole theatreprocess. For traditional, the plot-designing and character-carving is up toplaywright, he always preset a plot, preset one or a group characteraround the leading role, and according to his or her deeplycomprehension to plot and charater, but in improvisation, director andperformer charged the work for plot and charcter, character’spersonlalzation is fulfilled by a special improvise-performing process, inthis improvise process, performer’s speach,action and the behavior wasboundaried and limited at a highly controlled standard which designed bydirector. In other words, the performer sculptured his or her personalityby themselves, finishing his or her action and mission by themselves, notdepending on anything existing outside themselves, except stage. thismistery process also really integrated playwright, director andperformer’s function.All magic and key of family-improvisation lied in preseting ofcharacter, not traditional preseting of plot, its foundation liedin“improvising-perform”, the essence of “improvising-perform” is amethod which can sculpture, develop, and maturize the characterpersonlality, producing life-oriented scenes, and use these scenes formedthe story plot strucuture. In traditional author-style composition,performer always be compelled and pressed into the character’s insideworld, not use themselves to mulde the character. their contribution toplay-writing always be degradated, their inside feeling, consicious andsubconcious, personal experence, always be ignored. But infamily-improvisation, the performer’s function had been magnified andenlarged, everything about their personal feeling, concious anssubconcious, life experence and so on and so forth, will be used by director as material for composition. They creat their world, release theirfelling, act their action, at the sametime, they also creat character’s world,release charcter’s felling, act chacter’s action magically, because they arecharacter, charater also they are. They and director together shared themission of character-sculpturing and plot-developing. In other words,every participant of improvisation-family disassembled the mission ofcharcter creating and story narrating, the every one in family becomeevery one in story. So, the essense of family-improvisation of Stan Lai isa omitted and simple method for forming character’s personalization, isa method for preset improvised-performing boundary and limit, is amode of composition for integrating improvising and play-writing. Thiscomposition mode, which tightenly related with the property of “on thespot” of improvising-rehearsal, extremely reduced and shortened thedistance between playwright, director, and porformers in traditionalcomposition.Performer themselves just know who is he or she, then they act as acharacter according to their understand to charater. This is also a methodfor Stan Lai’s story-plot developing. In improvisation, because everyperformer develop their personality and action independently, so thenarration structure is mainly represented one whole mode: an freelyassembled structure of more life-oriented scenes.Because unseparated and simultaneously property betweenimprovisation’s play-writing and improvise-rehersal, this “on spot”property decided the special results——the story’s structure and stagespace-time can truely integrated and penetrated between each other. Andspace-time can involving and participating in narration, and caninfluencing or driving the plot on the head. Meanwhile, this results produced a phenomenon: space-time had become a specially particularidentification for Stan Lai which couldn’t be copied by any others. Thiscan called a “patent” for Stan Lai’s improvisation. The patent property ispresented by follows: different space-time can show up in stage at thesame time, different space-time can flowed freely to integrate, tocompound. So, Stan Lai’s play derived from stage, come from stage, andreturn stage eventually. It is uncopyed and unseparated.This paper though comparetive between other improvise-form,traditional plot-preset authorlic composition, rightly and correctyresearched relationship and correlation between play and improvisation,seized, curbed the central concept of improvisation, and illustrate theguide sense for present preset traditional composition.