超级好工作：在舞台上无所事事地忙活

文：司马勤（Ken Smith） 编译：李正欣

我人在香港，安安分分地在剧场大堂排队入场，碰巧导演探出头来看见我，突然就把我拉进了后台。在那里，一个穿着礼服的男人告诉我，“你的餐桌已准备好了”。拉开帷幕的时候，我坐在了舞台上，身边还有十来个人和我一样。

左页：笔者在彼得·戈登执导的《女仆作夫人》中被拉去做了临时演员（作者提供）

彼得·戈登（Peter Gordon）是歌剧剧本与字幕翻译家，他也撰写了不少关于香港本地制作或是引进剧目的导赏文章与演后评论。这一次，彼得担任导演，执导的作品是佩尔戈莱西（Pergolesi）的幕间剧《女仆作夫人》（La Serva Padrona）——这个制作加了个副题，“女侍应在上（Waitress on Top）”。香港的演出版本源自彼得早前在澳门岗顶剧院（Dom Pedro V Theatre）执导的制作，他把故事原型的两位人物——易怒的单身男主人与他工于心计的女仆人——改编为意大利餐厅里懊恼的老板及富有进取心的年轻女服务员。在这一刻，我跟我的11位新朋友一起在舞台上充当了食客。

上：彼得·戈登执导的《女仆作夫人》剧照

那个晚上真的令人尴尬。演出诙谐的段落时，我可以跟得上对白，因为演员在台上说的是英语。可是，当艾乐册（Isaac Droscha）与冯晓枫（Etta Fung）开始用意大利语歌唱的时候，我就抓不住唱词与细节了。有几次，我把头转过来偷看身后的投影字幕，几乎要忍不住笑了出来。字幕的设计十分有创意：有时候出现漫画画框或传情泡泡，有时候又看似微信的推文界面。基本上，坐在舞台上的十几人都懵懵懂懂，无法跟得上故事发展。我们在台上遇到的经历如下：不但没有人帮我们点菜，只有餐厅老板拿着一瓶餐酒东奔西跑，可他从来都没有帮我们倒过酒。餐桌上唯一摆着的就是几瓶圣培露矿泉水（San Pellegrino）。

欢迎你来到充满激情也令人沮丧的——歌剧临时演员（supernumerary）的职业生涯。

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要是在电影中或剧场里，临时演员都统称为“extras”（额外演员）。放到歌剧领域当然是要奢华一点——“supernumerary”这个专有名词都要多几个音节。编制外临时演员在舞台上没有任何指定的工作：不用歌唱、跳舞，或是任何算得上“演戏”的成分。你可以这样想——很多导演都是这样想——他们只不过是布景的一部分。你看到舞台后方拿着长矛的宫廷卫士吗？他就是一位编制外临时演员。

在任何情况下，当一台戏需要把气氛搞得热热闹闹——像是《茶花女》晚宴中的宾客及《波希米亚人》咖啡厅里的顾客，或是《战争与和平》台上的几百个士兵——制作组会到处招募一些渴望在舞台亮相、与大明星可以近在咫尺接触的“戏迷”。比如说，华盛顿国家歌剧院在自己的官网里放上了电子表格供下载，鼓励“年龄介于18至50岁的男士”参加演出。当芝加哥抒情歌剧院要物色《特里斯坦与伊索尔德》剧中的众多船员，招募广告里强调了演员的必备条件：“体形魁梧、光头或剃去毛发的健美先生”。有时候，如果这些临时演员需要在台上搬动道具，或是必须接受某种特殊训练，他们还可以赚一丁点象征性的工资。因为大都会歌剧院庞大的规制作和演出规模，院方常年聘请了9位编制外的临时演员，他们每年的工资依据演出剧目所需而定。其他歌剧院没有这样丰厚的待遇：编制外的临时演员能够分得一瓶矿泉水，就已经很好了。

通常，临时演员们都会参加几场排练。但这一次《女仆作夫人》找来的“食客”纯属“临时”。作为临时演员的主要职责之一是，除了不抢走观众的注意力，还要跟观众一起专注于舞台上的情节发展。因此，他们对于故事情节，应该有一定的概念。《女仆作夫人》却属于例外：舞台上的群众演员越蒙在鼓里，越能凸显故事的戏剧性效果。

左页：大都会歌剧院《波希米亚人》中的群众场面

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歌剧院的规模越大，就越需要专职的行政人员来负责编制外临时演员的编排。不同歌剧院有着不同的行政架构：这种工作有时候落在艺术部，或由公关部管辖。

大都会歌剧院邀请来的导演经常要求临时演员具有特殊技能，所以这份差事由艺术部门来管理。数年前，负责这份差事的总监乔·巴恩斯（Joe Barnes）在大都会的博客里清晰地列出威廉·肯特里奇（William Kentridge）要求招募受过同样肢体动作训练的临时演员的条件；而为了肖斯塔科维奇的歌剧《鼻子》的演出，又要招聘懂俄语的临时演员。

上：露丝·贝德·金斯伯格（中）在《军中女郎》里担任了临时演员

不过，在美国首都华盛顿的歌剧院，许多被招募上台的临时演员都是公职人员，公共关系是这项工作的重要组成部分。最令人津津乐道的一次，大概是最高法院的法官露丝·贝德·金斯伯格（Ruth Bader Ginsburg），一位资深的歌剧迷，于2016年在歌剧演出中担纲临时演员，甚至她还有一两句对白。当年她83岁，在歌剧界“初试啼声”，演出的剧目是多尼采蒂的《军中女郎》。

几十年前，在俄勒冈州尤金市（Eugene）的一家小型歌剧院里，发生过一宗更离奇古怪的选角个案。歌剧院请来了著名幽默作家戴夫·巴利（Dave Barry）担任临时演员——巴利当年的专栏在全国各大报纸转载。他曾发表过一篇文章，描述丹麦动物园里有一只动物，因为整天听着歌剧演员排练，引至焦虑过度而死。于是他断言，歌剧可能是致命的，应该像海洛因一样列为违禁品。

左页：笔者在彼得·戈登执导的《女仆作夫人》中被拉去做了临时演员（作者提供）

他的文章引来众多歌剧迷攻击他的信件；尤金歌剧院的总经理却特意邀请巴利参演普契尼的《贾尼·斯基基》（Gianni Schicchi），在剧中饰演布奥索·多纳蒂（Buoso Donati）一角。巴利欣然应邀，来到歌剧院参加演出，却赫然发现扮演的角色正是躺在床上的尸体！他很搞笑，要求跟仿造人（android）见面。显然，他把《斯基基》与电影《终结者2：审判日》（Terminator II）的桥段混淆了。

演出过后不久，国内多家媒体刊登巴利撰写的参与歌剧演出的亲身感受。尽管他在舞台上扮演尸体接近一个小时，但这次经历改变了他的看法，证实“歌剧一点都不会致命”。巴利更坦言说，他十分享受那个经验，但他提醒读者，倘若被邀请在歌剧里扮演尸体，必须预先提出以下几个问题：

1．“尸体”在演出期间，会被一班用意大利语大声叫喊的人推推搡搡，头部会撞到地板吗？

2．“尸体”穿着的睡袍可能因为身体倒立、两脚朝天而滑落下来，那么几百名素未谋面的观众会在有射光灯照明的情况下，看到这种丑态吗？

3．有没有方法，避免在众目睽睽之下露出“尸体”的臀部？

尤金的演出应该贡献了不少艺术成分，但我猜，这场《贾尼·斯基基》在公关方面取得了最大胜利。

So there I was in Hong Kong, waiting in line at the opera, when the director stuck his head in the lobby.Suddenly I was whisked to the back of the theatre,where a man in a dinner jacket told me my table was ready.When the curtain finally went up, so to speak,I found myself sitting on the stage with a dozen or so others.

上：《战争与和平》中的群众场面

Peter Gordon, who usually limits his operatic work to English-language translations and commentaries on various international shows and local productions, was this time sitting in the director’s chair for Pergolesi’sLa Serva Padrona—or as it was additionally titled here,Waitress on Top.Based on a production he’d staged earlier at Macau’s Dom Pedro V Theatre, Gordon had turned the story’s cranky bachelor and his calculating maid into a harried Italian restauranteur and an enterprising young waitress.And now 11 of my newfound friends and I were sitting in their restaurant.

It was an awkward evening, to say the least.I could follow most of the comic bits, since they were in English, but when Isaac Droscha and Etta Fung started singing in Italian I had no idea what was going on.The few times I could steal glances at the projected translations behind me, I nearly laughed out loud.Sometimes they were projected as cartoon speech balloons and thought bubbles, other times like a Twitter feed.Basically, no one on stage could tell what was happening.All we knew was that no one was taking our order, and the restaurant owner kept coming around with a bottle of wine that he never got around to pouring.All we had on the tables were some bottles of Pellegrino.

Welcome to the exciting, and frustrating, life of an opera supernumerary.

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In film and theatre they’re usually called extras,but opera—being grander—requires a few more syllables.Supernumeraries are those people on stage with no obvious role, neither singing, nor dancing, nor doing much that anyone would properly call acting.You can—and at least many directors do—think of them more like part of the set.See that guy at the rear of the palace holding a spear? He’s a supernumerary.

歌剧《茶花女》中的宾客场面

Any time a show needs to fill the stage—a few dozen partygoers inLa Traviata, some café diners inLa Bohème, a few hundred soldiers inWar and Peace—a casting call goes out to find people craving the proverbial 20 feet from stardom.Many established opera companies have a regular list of people they call on.Washington National Opera, for example, has an application form on its website,specifically encouraging “men between the ages of 18 and 50.” When the Lyric Opera of Chicago was looking to man the ship inTristan and Isolde,they sent word out for “big, buff, bald or shaved bodybuilders.” Sometimes—if there’s really heavy lifting involved, for example, or if a role requires particular training—people may even get some token payment.The Metropolitan Opera, being the Met, actually has nine supernumeraries on staff,with payment depending on the season’s repertory.But most of the time, supers are lucky to get a bottle of water.

They do, however, generally attend a set number of rehearsals, which is more than we got inLa Serva Pedrona.One of the principle duties of a supernumerary, besides not calling attention to yourself, is to focus the audience’s attention on key developments on stage, which requires a certain knowledge of what’s happening at all times.Except,of course, forPedrona, where not knowing what was going on was precisely the point.

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The bigger the company, the greater the likelihood of its having a dedicated administrator to deal with supernumeraries.What also varies from house to house is whether that position is aligned with the artistic staff or considered part of public relations.

At the Met, where directors often come with demanding concepts requiring supers with specialized skills, the job is categorically artistic.Several years ago, the Met’s Director of Supernumeraries Joe Barnes detailed on the company’s blog about William Kentridge’s need for non-speaking actors who come from the same school of physical theatre as he did, as well as a particular need for Russian speakers in his production of Shostakovich’s operaThe Nose.

In Washington， DC though, where a number of people recruited to the stage have been public officials, public relations is a major part of the job.Perhaps the most beloved appearances have been by US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg,a longtime opera fan, who finally made her speaking opera debut—at age 83!—in a 2016 production of Donizetti’sDaughter of the Regiment.

The quirkiest casting to come to mind,though, occurred a couple of decades ago at the considerably smaller opera company in Eugene,Oregon, which once recruited the humorist Dave Barry.Back when Barry’s newspaper column was syndicated throughout the country, he’d reported that an animal in the Denmark zoo had died from stress brought on from hearing opera singers rehearse.This led him to claim that that opera was probably fatal and should be banned as a public health menace, like heroin.

Barry got a lot of hate mail from opera fans, but also an invitation from the Eugene Opera’s general manager to play the corpse of Buoso Donati in Puccini’s comic operaGianni Schicchi.To everyone’s surprise, Barry turned up.He also surprised them by asking to meet the android (evidently confusing the plot ofSchicchiwithTerminator II).

But shortly afterward, newspapers around the country published Barry’s firsthand findings that,despite his playing a corpse for nearly an hour,opera proved “not in the least bit fatal.” He even claimed to enjoy the experience, though he did caution readers that if they were ever invited to portray a corpse in an opera to ask the following questions beforehand:

1.Does the plot call for the corpse to get shoved halfway off a bed headfirst by people shrieking In Italian?

2.If so, is the corpse wearing a nightgown that could easily get bunched up around the corpse’s head if the corpse finds itself in an inverted position with its legs sticking up in the air on a brightly lit stage in front of hundreds of people whom the corpse does not personally know?

3.If so, what, if any, provisions will be made to prevent a public viewing of the corpse’s butt?

There may have been some artistry involved out there in Eugene, but I think we can pretty much chalk this one up purely to public relations.