You might remember the meaning of the character 演 with this easy mnemonic:
The character you are to act out for the show is simple: you are a country housewife devastated by some droplets (氵) of rain leaking through the roof (宀). Your family owns one (一) field (田) and you have eight (八) children.
Using mnemonics to remember the meaning of Chinese characters like has a huge impact on how long to learn Mandarin it takes.