Chapter 129 The Difficulty of Casting

When he went to work on Monday, Lin Weimin received another bag full of letters, all of which were letters from readers who had mailed them to Guowen Publishing House from all over the country.

In the past, Lin Weimin had handled all the letters he received at the editorial department of Contemporary Magazine. However, as the number of letters increased day by day, the number of letters Lin Weimin replied to did not decrease, and the letters took up too much space in the office.

"Weimin, I think you should find a place to organize these letters. It's not a good idea to keep them in the editorial department all the time!" Meng Weizai reminded.

The leader had spoken, so Lin Weimin didn't dare to delay and said, "Don't worry, I'll take it away after get off work."

After work, the back seat of Lin Weimin's bicycle was loaded with a large sack of letters, and the same was true for Rong Shihui and Yao Shuzhi's bicycles.

There were so many letters that Lin Weimin had no choice but to ask for help.

After returning home, Lin Weimin stuffed the letters from readers into the back room, and the letters were scattered all over the floor.

"Weimin, you can't leave the Xinguang like this. It will be ruined after a few days due to moisture on the ground. You have to find something to pad it." Rong Shihui warned.

"I know. I'll ask someone to build two bookshelves and put the letters on them."

Yao Shuzhi said, "You are so extravagant that you need a special bookshelf to store letters?"

"What should we do? There has to be a place to put it, right?"

Lin Weimin thought to himself, what I am doing is nothing, there are people who buy houses specifically to keep their trust.

Yao Shuzhi agreed. It was impossible to reply to most of these letters. If she couldn't bear to throw them away, she had to keep them well. They were the heartfelt messages from readers from all over the country.

Two days later, Lin Weimin visited Shi Tiesheng's home.

He has been quite busy lately and hasn't been here for a long time.

It was summer, and Shi Tiesheng's house was a bit stuffy, so the two of them ran to the tree in the yard to chat.

Shi Tiesheng said that Qu Xiaowei hadn't been here for a while and he didn't know what he was busy with.

"What else can he be busy with? His work is so boring that he doesn't even write any articles. What a waste of life!"

Lin Weimin did not feel guilty at all for speaking ill of others behind their backs. Instead, he felt a little happy. "I wonder how his girlfriend is doing? Jinling, it seems unrealistic to think about it. The girl should have graduated by now."

Shi Tiesheng laughed and said, "You call me a little girl, but I seem to be older than you."

"That's different. I have experienced more and my mental age is older than hers." Lin Weimin talked nonsense.

"Oh, right. Xiaojian came that day and said that you were giving lectures at Yanying."

There was amazement in Shi Tiesheng's tone.

Lin Weimin then recounted the story of how he met Han Zhuangzhuang. Shi Tiesheng was very happy to hear that Lin Weimin had recognized his sister's son.

"You have to call your eldest nephew over to let me meet him."

"No problem, wait until this weekend. This kid will always find trouble for me."

Shi Tiesheng has always been a cheerful and generous person. He said, "It is a rare experience to help Yanying's students, and it will also be beneficial to your nephew's development."

"I know this, otherwise I wouldn't agree to it."

In the yard, the children from the neighboring families were running around. Lin Weimin changed Shi Tiesheng's seat. "I ran into Xiaojian at Yanying that day, and told him to come to your house to get together when he has time. But I was a bit busy during this period. I went to Shaanxi to get Lu Yao to come back to Yanjing to revise the manuscript, and it took a week."

Lin Weimin had mentioned Lu Yao's crazy writing skills during their previous chat. Shi Tiesheng shook his head and said, "He will suffer in the future if he doesn't take care of his body like this."

"Yes, I brought him to Yanjing because I was worried that it would be too dangerous for him to continue like this."

Lin Weimin thought of Lu Yao's miserable condition in the small dark room, patted Shi Tiesheng's wheelchair handle, and said with a smile: "It's good now. I guarantee he will have a healthy body. Not only has he finished writing the novel, but when I saw him come out, he has gained ten pounds."

"Haha, you are such a bad boy!"

After having dinner at Shi Tiesheng's house, Lin Weimin returned home at eight o'clock in the evening.

The next day after get off work, Lin Weimin rode his bike to the People's Art Theatre as there was a script discussion meeting that day.

The origin of Lin Weimin's version of the drama "Farewell My Concubine" is the movie version. The movie is nearly three hours long, which is very long, but the script is basically created by strictly following the classic three-act play structure.

In order to meet the requirements of the drama stage as much as possible, Lin Weimin made necessary deletions and arrangements of all the contents presented in the novel at the very beginning. This is one of the reasons why he firmly opposed when the old comrades from the People's Art Theatre said they wanted to change the script.

All the changes that can be made have been made. Any further changes would be a major overhaul and the entire book would be scrapped.

The script had been handed over to Lan Yinhai for some time, and he had also made some optimizations. Of course, this optimization was more to better suit the performance habits of the drama.

When Lin Weimin said "not a single word will be changed" he was expressing his own position.

Lan Yinhai sat beside Lin Weimin, holding a pen in one hand and marking on the script, "That's it. The script still has three acts, but the concept of scene should be expanded. The three acts are sworn brotherhood, grudges and betrayal, corresponding to the nine development stages: joining the class, setting a goal, turning into a butterfly; giving the sword, saving the Overlord, saving Yu Ji; hope, despair and disillusionment.

According to this plan, the duration is about two and a half hours. "

Lan Yinhai is an actor who switched to screenwriting, but his professional ability is unquestionable. He discussed the planning of "Farewell My Concubine" with Ouyang Shanzun, and Lin Weimin could not find any fault with it.

"Okay, just do as you say. I have no objection."

After talking about the script, Ouyang Shanzun talked about the role issue.

The biggest difference between "Farewell My Concubine" and the People's Art Theatre's previous scripts is that the prominence of its characters almost exceeds the importance of conflicts. As a result, the casting of actors has become a big problem.

Who can take on the role of Cheng Dieyi, a character who cannot survive without being crazy?

There are many actors signing up for selection in the theater now, but there are only a few who Ouyang Shanzun and Lan Yinhai feel are highly compatible with the roles.

The two called over actors they thought were similar and asked Lin Weimin to take a look. Lin Weimin's impression of Farewell My Concubine all came from the movie. If the role was based on the feeling of the movie, Lin Weimin felt that there should be no problem letting the actors from the People's Art Theatre play the roles of Duan Xiaolou and Juxian.

But he paid particular attention to the casting of Cheng Dieyi. Just based on the appearance of the two actors he saw, Lin Weimin was unable to substitute themselves into the role of Cheng Dieyi.

After sharing their opinions with Ouyang Shanzun, he and Lan Yinhai also felt a little worried.

The classic status of the role of Cheng Dieyi is self-evident. This is also the main reason why the two have been wavering in choosing among the actors of the People's Art Theatre these days.

After discussing for a long time, there was still no clue and Lin Weimin hesitated to speak.

Seeing his expression, Ouyang Shanzun said, "Teacher Lin, you can say whatever you want to say!"

Lin Weimin shook his head and said nothing. Just now, an idea suddenly popped up in his mind to let Zhang Guorong perform in the drama, but then he felt that his idea was simply a fantasy.

After discussing for a long time without any clue, the meeting ended and Lin Weimin left the People's Art Theatre.

(End of this chapter)