黎导的“舞台”

大妞

老黎是个工人子弟。

他的祖父在五十年代的“大冶炼厂”里烧过第一炉钢；父母、叔叔、姨妈、舅舅以及后来老黎的妻子，全都在那个庞大的钢铁公司体系里工作。那是一座由火、烟、铁水和口号构成的城，几代人都在其中生、死、嫁、娶。只有老黎是个“异类”——家里唯一一个上过大学的。

他学的专业叫“戏剧导演”。

那年，他考上省城的艺术学院，全家都像放了炮仗一样庆贺，说他们老黎家终于出了个“知识分子”。可从那天起，他就和家族的命运分了叉。别人一辈子认炉火、认计划指标、认厂徽，他认的是舞台、剧本、演员的台词和灯光。

一

八十年代末，钢铁厂改制。那座几万人口的工业城开始解体，福利房变成了私产，食堂和托儿所卖给了私人，老黎的兄弟姐妹纷纷下岗。有人在厂门口摆摊卖煎饼果子，有人开了小饭店，只有他回了老家，在市话剧院拿到一个干部编制的导演职称。

那几年，他还挺得意。结婚、生子、分到两居室，有戏排排戏，没戏就在家琢磨菜谱，写点小剧本。兄弟姐妹聚在一起，总调侃他说：“老三混得最体面，坐办公室喝茶看戏。”

可这份体面没维持多久。话剧院市场化了——演员要找赞助、卖门票、拍广告。有人北漂去跑群众演员，有人投靠电视台拍栏目剧。老黎也去过几次，当群头、教导演员走位。年轻制片人一口一个“黎老师”，嘴上甜得像蜜，可转身就把他排在预算最后。

那时他心里窝着一股气，觉得自己“怀才不遇”。他关在家里写了部剧——写的正是他们那个钢铁厂的变革与崩塌，写那些被废弃的工人宿舍、失业的兄弟、沉默的父辈。剧本送去文化厅，他一次次跑审批、找资金、拉赞助，终于排上演了。

首演那晚，老工人们坐满了前排，泪眼婆娑。演了一周，工会的票卖完了，票房立刻归零。那出戏就像一枚流星，在舞台上闪了一下，就掉进黑暗。

话剧院从此只发基本工资，没戏可排，靠自己去外面接活。

二

就在这时，他母亲查出乳腺癌晚期。老黎陪她辗转上海、北京，又回到武汉手术。术后恢复不理想，老太太住在病房里，和病友们一起练起了健身操。

“动一动，气血才活。”老太太说。

他每天早上陪母亲去公园。那段时间，戏剧与生活的界限在他心里模糊了——老太太一招一式，像在演一出缓慢的独角戏。老黎帮她编动作，甚至写了口号。老太太练着练着，气色真变好了。

他们母子俩的“健身操”队伍越来越大，成了公园里的一道风景。有人送水果，有人塞红包，还有社区请他们去表演。车马费有了结余，母亲笑得像花一样。

可另一拨“操队”不服气，说他们抢地盘、抢生意，几次冲突。派出所来了，把几个“头目”都带走。老黎和母亲被拘留了一天一夜。回家后，老太太的病情突然恶化，不久就去世了。

他不甘心，一天到晚往派出所跑，要求一个“说法”，嚷着要追责。几次三番又被拘留。后来，厂里和话剧团领导出面，给了一笔抚恤金，这事才算了。

母亲走后，家里彻底散了。妻子是三班倒的纺织工，每天累到瘫。儿子学习差得一塌糊涂，初中快毕不了业。老黎写不出戏，也不想出门。生活像一口冷掉的锅。

三

转机是从一个电话开始的。

那是他大学同学，早年去了美国，说在那里拿到了“特殊庇护”。同学在电话那头说：“老黎啊，这边正在换届，机会多，你那点经历，正好能用上。”

他愣住：“我哪有啥经历？”

“被拘留啊！那可是证据。”

老黎半信半疑，挂了电话后，开始收拾那些旧纸：拘留证明、调解书、话剧院的处分通告……一叠叠复印出来。他觉得这些纸忽然有了价值，像通往另一个世界的门票。

那年，他四十七岁。

他们卖掉了老房子，把能换的钱都换了美金。妻子哭着问：“真要去？”

“去试试。”他咬着牙说，“留给儿子的只有这条路。”

于是，他们办了旅游签证，带着行李降落在多伦多，第二天，他就去申请了庇护。那一刻，他感觉自己成了一个“受害者”，也成了一个“希望者”。

四

等待的岁月很漫长。

他们搬进政府提供的廉价公寓，墙皮发霉，暖气忽冷忽热。老黎和妻子在大学食堂的后厨裹三明治，工资按小时结算。油烟混着冻气，夜里回到家，手上全是腌肉的味道。

可他仍习惯别人叫他“黎导”。教会组织活动时，他主动负责摄影、排节目；在移民语言学校里，他教同学发音、表演。有人问他：“你以前真是导演？”

他笑笑：“曾经是。”

每逢国庆或纪念日，他都会拿出那张早年被拘留的证明，用塑料袋包好，和妻子去国会山或大使馆门前拍照。照片上传到某个机构网站，算是“维权”证据。拍完照，他们就去教会的免费餐厅喝咖啡、蹭午饭。

他们的儿子倒适应得快，高中毕业后考进一所社区学院学电脑技术。移民局通知他们的永久居民身份获批那天，妻子哭了，说终于不用再等了。

老黎点点头，却没有喜悦。他知道，那些“证据”、那些照片、那些语言培训课，已经成为他人生的另一种剧本。只是这次，他不再是导演，而是“编剧”和一个被导演的人。

五

夜深时，他仍打开电脑，写自己的故事。他把母亲、公园、拘留、出逃都写进一个剧本，拍成十几分钟的网剧，放在视频网站上。片头署名“黎导”，播放量一直停在十几个。

他仍然在追求“观众”，只是观众换成了另一个世界。

有一次，他在街角咖啡店碰到一位退休的英语老师，对方问：“你为什么来加拿大？”

老黎沉默很久，说：“因为我想让儿子活得有用一点。”

“那你呢？”

“我嘛……我只是来陪他活下去。”

老师点点头：“那你现在呢？”

他苦笑：“我还在排戏，只是剧场换成了厨房。”

外头雪下得正大，像从天上洒下的盐。老黎望着窗外，忽然想起那座钢铁厂，想起夜里炉火喷出的红光。那光像母亲练操时的笑容，也像一场永不谢幕的梦。

他合上电脑，对妻子说：“明天休息，我带你去拍照吧。”

“又拍？”

“再拍一张。就当——留个纪念。”

他们站在渥太华的雪地上，举着那张被塑料袋包裹的证明。快门一响，笑容僵在风里。

雪落在他们肩头，像给这一幕加了柔光。

黎导看着相机屏幕，忽然觉得，那些年他写的所有剧，都在这张照片里。

只是——这一次，他终于成了剧中的人物。

Lao Li and His Stage

Lao Li came from a family of steelworkers.

His grandfather had poured the first ladle of molten steel in the Great Smelting Plant of the 1950s; his parents, uncles, aunts—and later even his wife—had all worked within that vast iron empire.

It was a city built of fire, smoke, molten metal, and slogans. Generations were born, married, and buried within its walls.

Only Lao Li was the exception—the family’s single “intellectual,” the only one who went to university.

His major was Theatre Direction.

When he was admitted to the provincial arts academy, the entire clan celebrated as if fireworks had gone off in their narrow alley. “Our Lao family finally produced a scholar!” they said.

But from that day on, his fate diverged from theirs.

While others devoted their lives to furnaces, production quotas, and the factory emblem, he pledged himself to stages, scripts, actors’ lines, and light cues.

I

By the late 1980s, the steel plant was being restructured.

The industrial city that once housed tens of thousands began to dissolve.

The welfare apartments were privatized, the factory canteen and daycare centers sold off. Lao Li’s brothers and sisters were laid off one after another—some started street stalls selling pancakes, others opened tiny eateries.

He was the only one who went back to the provincial capital, where he secured a civil-service title as a stage director in the municipal drama troupe.

For a few years, he was quietly proud.

He married, had a son, was assigned a two-bedroom apartment.

When there was a play, he rehearsed; when there wasn’t, he cooked, wrote short scripts, and experimented with recipes.

At family gatherings, his siblings teased him:

“Old Third has it best—drinking tea in the office, watching actors play make-believe.”

But the dignity didn’t last.

The theatre was marketized—actors needed sponsors, plays had to sell tickets, directors were expected to shoot commercials.

Some colleagues drifted north to Beijing, hustling for background roles; others joined television crews for soap operas.

Lao Li tried his luck too—served as assistant director, taught actors their marks.

The young producers called him “Director Li,” their tone syrupy-sweet, but he always ended up last in the budget line.

Anger simmered inside him—a feeling of being unrecognized.

He locked himself in his apartment and wrote a play about the rise and fall of their steel plant: the crumbling dormitories, the unemployed brothers, the silent fathers.

He carried the manuscript to the Cultural Bureau, knocking on office doors for approval, sponsorship, and funding—until finally, it was staged.

On opening night, the first rows were filled with retired workers, eyes glistening.

For one week, the tickets sold out through the union.

Then the box office dropped to zero.

The play flared across the stage like a meteor—one brief blaze before vanishing into darkness.

After that, the theatre paid only base salary.

No new productions. Directors had to find gigs on their own.

II

It was around that time his mother was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer.

Lao Li accompanied her through hospitals in Shanghai, Beijing, and finally Wuhan, where she underwent surgery.

Recovery went poorly, but she insisted on exercising in the ward.

“Move your body,” she said, “and the blood will keep flowing.”

Every morning, he took her to the park.

The boundary between theatre and life began to blur in his mind—his mother’s slow, deliberate gestures looked like a one-woman performance, unfolding in silence.

He choreographed her movements, even wrote little slogans for the group.

To everyone’s surprise, she improved.

Their “exercise team” grew larger each week, becoming a small spectacle in the park.

People brought fruit, slipped them envelopes; even the neighborhood committee invited them to perform.

There was spare money left over—his mother beamed like a blossom in winter.

But another fitness group grew jealous, accusing them of stealing space and audience.

Conflicts broke out.

The police came, detaining all the “leaders.”

Lao Li and his mother spent a night in custody.

After they returned home, her condition worsened sharply.

Within weeks, she was gone.

He refused to accept it—storming the police station, demanding justice, shouting for accountability.

After several confrontations, he was detained again.

Eventually, the factory and theatre officials intervened, offering a condolence payment to settle the case.

When his mother died, the household collapsed.

His wife, a textile worker on rotating shifts, came home too tired to speak.

His son’s grades were abysmal—he was about to fail middle school.

Lao Li stopped writing. Stopped going out.

Life cooled like a forgotten pot on the stove.

III

The turning point came with a phone call.

An old university classmate, now in the U.S., said he’d been granted special asylum.

“There’s an opening here,” he told Lao Li. “Your experience fits the criteria.”

“My experience?” Lao Li asked.

“Detention!” the classmate said cheerfully. “That’s your ticket.”

He hung up in disbelief, but the words stuck.

He dug out the old papers: the detention notice, mediation records, the theatre’s disciplinary letter.

He photocopied everything—each page suddenly precious, like a visa to another world.

He was forty-seven that year.

They sold their apartment, converted everything to U.S. dollars.

His wife wept. “Do we really have to go?”

“We’ll try,” he said, jaw clenched. “It’s the only road left for our son.”

They applied for tourist visas and landed in Toronto.

The next day, he filed for asylum.

For the first time, he felt both a victim and a believer in hope.

IV

The waiting years were long.

They moved into a government-subsidized apartment where mold bloomed on the walls and the heating coughed like an old man.

He and his wife worked in a university cafeteria, assembling sandwiches for hourly pay.

The mix of grease and cold air clung to their clothes.

Still, he liked being called “Director Li.”

At church events, he volunteered to take photos and stage performances.

In the ESL school, he taught classmates pronunciation, even basic acting.

“Were you really a director?” someone asked.

He smiled. “I once was.”

Every national day or anniversary, he’d take out that worn detention paper—sealed in a plastic sleeve—and pose with his wife in front of Parliament Hill or the embassy.

They uploaded the photos to an activist website—proof of their “ongoing advocacy.”

Afterwards, they would go to the church’s free lunch program, sharing coffee and soup.

Their son adapted quickly, graduating from high school and entering a community college for computer technology.

When their permanent residency was finally approved, his wife cried with relief.

Lao Li nodded but felt no triumph.

He knew those documents, those photos, those English classes—had all become a new kind of script for his life.

This time, he was no longer the director, but both the screenwriter and the actor—performing a role that someone else had already outlined.

V

Late at night, he still opened his laptop to write.

He turned his mother, the park, the detention, the escape—into a short web drama.

The credits read Directed by Lao Li.

The view count never passed a dozen.

He was still searching for an audience—only now, the audience belonged to another world.

One evening in a café, a retired English teacher asked,

“Why did you come to Canada?”

He thought for a long time. “For my son,” he said. “So he might live a useful life.”

“And you?”

He smiled faintly. “I came to help him survive.”

The teacher nodded. “And now?”

He looked down at his hands, smelling faintly of dish soap. “I’m still directing,” he said, “only the stage has become a kitchen.”

Outside, snow was falling hard—white salt from the sky.

Lao Li gazed through the window, remembering the steel plant’s furnace glow, his mother’s smile during morning exercises.

That glow—like her laughter—was an eternal curtain call.

He closed the laptop and said to his wife,

“Let’s go take a picture tomorrow.”

“Another one?”

“Just one more. For memory’s sake.”

They stood in the Ottawa snow, holding the laminated certificate.

The shutter clicked; their smiles froze in the wind.

Snow settled on their shoulders, softening the scene like stage light.

Lao Li stared at the camera screen and realized—

every play he had ever written was inside that photograph.

Only this time, he was no longer the director.

He had finally become part of the play.