Jin Shijie -- life is like a play
- By Li Shen
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E-mail China.org.cn, January 8, 2015
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Stage photo of "Tuesdays with Morrie" [File photo] |
To vividly present Morrie's declining health and his suffering from ALS, Jin spent a lot of time watching videotapes of Morris S. Schwartz, the character on whom Professor Morrie is based, and observing ALS patients' in local hospitals in addition to learning about etiopathogenesis and other symptoms of the disease.
During his performances over the past three years, Jin has constantly integrated his inspirations and his concept of life into his portrayal of the character. "There is no perfect play or acting," he said. Before playing Morrie, Jin played Jiang Binliu, a hero in the play "Secret Love in the Land of Peach Blossoms," for twenty years. This play was the first successful modern play in Taiwan and had a deep influence on contemporary theater throughout China. Jin's Jiang Binliu has become a legend in Taiwan theater and a model for those who took on the role after him.
Since his first public performance in 1978, Jin has played more than 30 different characters on the stage. To him, plays are like life. "The axes of my life are literature and art," Jin said. At the age of 27, after working on a hog farm for a year and a half after graduating from an agriculture institute in southern Taiwan, Jin moved to Taipei to pursue his dream of acting in plays and movies.
At that time, Taiwan was like a cultural desert since people were busy earning money and no one dared to invest in contemporary theater. "I was not afraid of being poor then. As long as there was a way to earn money, I could manage to organize a theater group." Jin recalled. He founded the Lanling Theatre Collective, Taiwan's seminal experimental theater group of the late 1970s and 80s. His 1980 staging of "Hezhu's New Match" was a milestone production that opened the door for experimental works in Taiwan. His colleagues in Lanling, including famous actor Lichun Lee and noted playwright and director Hugh K. S. Lee, also became leading figures in contemporary theater in Taiwan.
Jin's good friend and long-time collaborator Stan Lai, a distinguished playwright and director, once praised him as a pioneer and key advocate of contemporary theater in Taiwan. His works and efforts have revitalized theater in Taiwan and were echoed in Taiwan's New Wave Cinema movement, led by renowned directors Edward Yang and Hou Hsiao-Hsien. Jin became good friends with them and played supporting roles in several of their movies.
Jin is a versatile artist. He has published three collections of play scripts and directed two stage plays so far. When asked to choose whether he preferred the role of actor, playwright or director, Jin chose the second. "Playwright is the loneliest among the three, but it is the one that touches the deepest place in my heart," Jin said.
In recent years, Jin has begun to play supporting roles in idol dramas and commercial films. Most of them are small roles, but they have still brought him nominations for film and TV drama awards in addition to lots of fans from the post-1985 and post-1990s generation.
From a pig-breeder to a veteran of stage, from a bachelor to the father of twins, Jin's life is also like a play.
He once had a 10-year relationship with a famous actress who was his soul mate, but she was driven by depression to commit suicide. Jin was heartbroken over her loss for a long time.
He finally married one of his former students at the age of 57, and he became the father of twins, one girl and one boy, at the age of 60. "When I found that I was like a fallen leaf, I stopped arguing with my ego," he says.
Jin smiles gently as he talks about the twins. He said that the babies brought him a taste of heaven and made him always feel a certain sweetness in his heart. "I'd like to write something for them and teach them that writing comes from healthy growth and hard thinking."
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