A Beautiful Child

从8月10号到26号，纽约市的非主流戏剧市场又热闹起来。今年是The New York International Fringe Festival在纽约举行的第十一年，成百上千的戏剧人从世界各地赶来，整个格林威治村的大小剧院全被动员起来参与。 根据戏剧节自己的介绍：“This is FringeNYC – a beautiful cacophony put together from a lot of little pieces-all very different, but somehow working perfectly together to create a wonderful megaphone. They are New York’s best, freely giving of their time and energy and together giving a much larger voice to artists from all over the world. This festival DOES take a village!”整个戏剧节动用了纽约下城区20个剧院，其中包括The Soho Playhouse, the Cherry Lane Theatre, The Studio@Cherry Lane, The Lucille Lortel Theatre, The New School, The Village Theatre, Our Old Lady of Pompei, The Players Theatre, The Players Loft, Center for Architecture, The Skiball Center for the Performing Arts, The Independent Theatre, Linhart Theatre, The Gene Frankel, Theatre at 45, the Connelly Theatre, CSV Cultural and Educational Center。

每天从下午三点直到午夜，每个剧院都要上演4到5个不同类型的节目，其中包括话剧、舞台剧、音乐剧、音乐会、现代舞蹈、木偶戏等等，凡是你所能够想象的表演艺术类型在这里都可以找到。为了方便群众的观看，不论长短和剧团的知名度，所有的节目一律定价在15美元，既可以在网上订票，也可以到现场购买。

As an experience in scruffy cultural consumption, the New York International Fringe Festival is without parallel in Manhattan, or possibly anywhere else. From its very first year, in 1997, the Fringe has offered about 175 shows every summer, performed in small theaters, community centers and church basements, some of which depend on hand-held fans as their sole source of cooling. In certain cases, the seats seem to function as probable cause of advanced-stage sciatica. And to anyone who bemoans the disappearance of an alternative New York and sees apocalyptic implications in the arrival of Whole Foods on the Bowery, after a week perusing the Fringe I would have to issue a hearty “I don’t think so.”

多数参演的剧团是艺术界的无名小卒, 不过中间也有成名的大腕。与其他戏剧节不同，Fringe Festival 有自己的评审团,只有通过评审团认可的作品才能演出.即便如此,每年参演的剧目也超过了150, 今年更是达到了180部作品.这个戏剧节由Aaron Beall, John Clancy, Jonathan Harris, and (current Artistic Director) Elena K. Holy创立于1997年, 其监制人为The Present Company. 每年8月一到, 纽约时报的剧评专栏就开始报道这个戏剧界的各种新闻，好不热闹。这个戏剧节的背后只有两个全职的工作人员，这其中还包括了Elena K. Holy。 根据纽约时报的介绍，戏剧节不以赢利为不目的，演员和剧院都是义务劳动。

Site directors make only $800, though that’s up $200 from last summer. Box office managers net $500. Almost everyone else is unpaid. By staying so grass-roots — the annual operating budget is just $840,000 — the Fringe helps people feel that they are offering vital support to quirky theater that otherwise wouldn’t be seen.

“I do this because I get to support amazing artists, and I do it because I love the people I work with,” said Shay Samuels, a festival box office manager since 2005. “They’re like a family — as in, they knew I was getting married before my mom did.” She even jokingly credits her marriage to the Fringe, since she met her husband after asking him to kill a “huge, gross” bug that crawled into her theater.

上个礼拜朋友从北京来，我们在第三大道和27街的土耳其厨房（Turkish Kitchen）吃了午饭，酒足饭饱之后，从第三大道向下城溜达，去看根据卡波蒂的短篇小说改编的独幕戏《美丽的孩子》（A Beautiful Child）。

小说出自卡波蒂的小说集《Music for chameleons》，这个故事截取了卡波蒂和玛丽莲.梦露1955年在纽约所度过的一个下午的片断，两个人从Constance Collier—梦露的表演教师—的葬礼出来，一路上有说有笑，在纽约的大街小巷闲逛，分享八卦消息、彼此的秘密和无数的香槟。从梦露和卡波蒂的对话中，观众逐渐看到一个他们所不熟悉的梦露，他的诙谐幽默、她的玩世不恭，和她对自己感情秘密的几乎神经质的保守。作为大众偶像的梦露和卡波蒂身边这个面对着大海沉默的女人，颠覆了人们对偶像的观念。在故事的最后，梦露问卡波蒂，如果有人问他梦露是个什么样的人，他会如何回答。卡波蒂引用了Collier的评价，他说梦露是个美丽的孩子。Collier曾经说过，在梦露过于美丽的容貌背后，是一个真正具有艺术天赋的灵魂，但是她的美过于绚烂，无法在舞台上表现出来，只能为摄影机所捕获。可惜，多数人只是为她的美色所蛊惑，懒得去发掘她的灵魂。因此，没有人能认识到她实际上是一个美丽的孩子。

卡波蒂称这个小说为“conversational portrait”，他认为”A conversation is a dialogue, not a monologue. That is why there are so few good conversations; due to scarcity, two intelligent talkers seldom meet”. 他又说道，“All literature is gossip”。因此，他用闲谈的形式将他所认识梦露勾勒出来。Joel Van Liew自己兼任主演和监制，他的表演不温不火，将卡波蒂的诙谐幽默和愤世嫉俗，表现得淋漓尽致。虽然他的外形过于高大俊朗，和卡波蒂相距甚远，但是他能够在语言的使用上尽量接近卡波蒂。尤其是开场白的一大段台词，他先后模仿Constance Collier，一个带有英国口音的著名舞台剧演员和教师，以及Constance Collier的朋友们，不断变换着口音和神态，让人忍俊不禁，台下笑倒了一大片。

Maura Lisabeth所扮演的梦露也很有意思，她可以模仿梦露的怯生生地口音和故意讨好的姿态，将一个在男人中周旋的妙龄女子的憨态表现出来。当卡波蒂指出她的秘密情人就是阿瑟米勒以后，Maura将梦露喜忧参半的心情用一些细节带出来。梦露无知的纯真，和卡波蒂看破红尘的诙谐，真是再好没有的一杯cosmopolitan了！小剧场的妙处就在于在一个相对较小的空间内发挥每个演员的所有特质，因为他们不能借助于场景的帮助来吸引观众的注意力，演员们必须全力以赴地用自己表演的魅力来赢得观众的芳心。从这个角度来讲，卡波蒂的conversational portrait真是再好没有的剧本了。

卡波蒂曾经说过："I'm not a saint yet. I'm an alcoholic. I'm a drug addict. I'm homosexual. I'm a genius. Of course, I could be all four of these dubious things and still be a saint.'' 其实，他才是一个真正的beautiful child!