Writing more light is the keynote of Lao She’s new drama. This tone is more fully reflected in the three-act and six-scene drama "Longxugou". Longxugou is a smelly ditch near a flyover in Beijing. In the summer of 1950, under extremely difficult economic conditions, the Beijing Municipal People's Government took the initiative to repair this smelly ditch that had brought suffering and death to nearby residents. "Longxugou" is an ode to the new socialist China. It tells the story of the protagonist, Madman Cheng, who changed from an artist to a "madman" in the old society, and then from a "madman" to an artist after liberation. It reflects the story of the Chinese people before and after liberation. different fates and their support and love for the party and the government. The script concept is unique and novel. The author closely combines the transformation of smelly ditches with the treatment of people's mental trauma. He reflects the changes in society with the changes in ditches and people, thus convincingly revealing that only the Communist Party can Leading the people to stand up for liberation, the truth is that only socialism can save China.
"Longxugou" has successfully created several real and credible characters. "Everyone has his or her own personality, appearance, thoughts, life, and his (or her) relationship with the dragon." The relationship between Xugou". Among them, Madman Cheng is the most successful and moving artistic model. He was originally an accomplished folk artist, but because "he refused to serve powerful people in a humble manner, he was beaten to death" and "he went to the overpass to go to the ground, refused to give his arm money, and was beaten half to death by the bully." . After losing his job, he has been living in a small courtyard next to Longxugou. He is upright and kind, but weak and timid; he is dissatisfied with reality, unwilling to be humiliated but does not fight; he loves art and yearns for the days when "the ditches do not stink, the water is clear, and the country and the people enjoy peace", but real life is exactly the opposite. . The pain and depression needed to be vented, so he had a series of crazy words and actions. After the liberation of Peiping, he was given a new lease of life, and his joy was beyond words. He worked "as if he were a military minister, for fear of missing the opportunity to go to court." The Shu Laibao song he composed and sang at the end of the play praising the People's Government not only expresses Madman Cheng's spiritual outlook, but also deepens the theme. "Longxugou" also successfully created the image of old man Zhao, a plasterer. After liberation, this protester from the old society naturally became an active participant and supporter of the new regime. The appearance of this image shows new progress in Lao She's creative thinking. "Longxugou" is not only one of Lao She's most influential plays, but also an important harvest of my country's drama creation in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China. "Mr. Lao She's realistic techniques and unique humorous talents, combined with his high political enthusiasm for the new society, have brought him to a new level in artistic creation." "Longxugou" won Lao She's reputation , the Beijing Municipal People's Government awarded him the honorary title of "People's Artist" on December 21, 1951.
As a writer who keeps pace with the times, after writing "Longxugou", Lao She insisted on creating works that reflected realistic themes, and launched some excellent scripts, such as "Shop Girl", "Family Portrait" ", but also wrote several works that made mistakes, such as "Spring Flowers and Autumn Facts", "Red Courtyard" and other works that were made in response to the situation. Lao She analyzed the main reasons for his mistakes in his article "Subject Matter and Life": "I considered whether the subject matter itself was highly political, but did not think about my own adaptability to the subject matter. Therefore, when I was not prepared enough for life, I wanted to write When it came to this subject, I had to piece it all together."
The three-act drama "Teahouse" published in 1957 (contained in the first issue of "Harvest") is a monument to Lao She's dramatic creation. Drama history father-in-law has a very important position.
"Teahouse" is based on the failure of the Reform Movement of 1898 in 1889, the warlord war in the early Republic of China, and the Kuomintang rule after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War. Through the description of the rise and fall of the "Yutai Teahouse" in old Beijing, it reflects the three A period of 50 years of historical changes.
The structure of "Teahouse" reflects Lao She's bold and unique exploration and innovation. Different from traditional dramas, this play does not have storylines and dramatic conflicts throughout, but it has many characters and extremely rich details, so some people call it a "picture scroll-like work." The three-act play is like three groups of genre paintings.
Although the teahouse landlord Qin Zhongyi does not appear in the second act, he is still a character with a complete and distinctive personality. He was originally a rich young man with a lot of money. Under the influence of the reform ideas, this enterprising capitalist embarked on the road of "saving the country through industry". He resolutely sold his industry and concentrated his funds to open a factory. But in a semi-feudal and semi-colonial society that was extremely corrupt, he suffered a devastating blow: first, the Japanese "cooperated" his factory, and after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, his factory was regarded as "counterproductive" by the Kuomintang government. It was confiscated. In the end, the factory was even demolished and the machines were sold as scrap metal! All that is left are curses and protests: "Can you find such a government all over the world?" His failure showed that the road of saving the country through industry was not feasible in old China.
The above three typical images have different personalities and different life paths. Although they have struggled for a lifetime, they all ended in tragedy. At the end of the play, the three old people followed the old-age funeral rules and scattered paper money to "memorize themselves." This move is not only a self-mourning for their respective tragic fates, but also a silent accusation against that society and a funeral for the dying era.
The second category is secondary characters, mostly villains, such as Tang Tiezui, Liu Mazi, Song Enzi, Wu Zangzi, Ma Wuye, Huang Fatty, Eunuch Pang, etc. The author arranges for some of these characters to become sons and inherit their father's legacy, "so that these social dregs can be passed down from generation to generation in the sinful old society, thereby profoundly revealing the nature of the society at that time" (Lao She said).
The third category is the numerous insignificant characters. The author always adopts the method of coming and going, and reflects the style of the times through the silhouette of each character.
With its breadth and depth of life reflected, as well as its outstanding achievements in art, "Teahouse" has become "one of the top few first-rate works that has appeared on the Chinese drama stage in the past half century." "One of them", "is the pride and glory of our socialist drama front". "Teahouse" is "a treasure that our country's socialist drama art can contribute to the world's art treasure house." Beijing People's Art Theater was invited to perform "Teahouse" in the Federal Republic of Germany, France and Switzerland in 1980 and in Japan in 1983. It caused a sensation and was fully affirmed and highly praised, winning international reputation for our country's drama art.
Unlike Tian Han, Cao Yu and other famous drama masters who are good at designing complex and tense drama plots with ups and downs, and constructing fierce and sharp dramatic conflicts, most of Lao She's drama works after liberation are not based on complex and tortuous storylines. Instead, he is good at creating characters that are real, believable, and have distinctive personalities. He believes that "you must be confident about the characters, and when you close your eyes, you can see their voices, faces, and smiles. Only in this way can the play be written well." Most of the considerable number of characters who appear in Lao She's plays are full-bodied and distinctive, and are living "this one". Writing about certain people resembles them, and writing about each of them alive. This is the height that Lao She's plays have reached in character creation.
"Without real emotions, characters cannot be written well." When Lao She created characters, he often poured his own strong love and hate into them. He said in the article "Diligence and Hard Work": "As long as I meet a pleasant character, I love him so much, and I always try to make him more pleasant and lovable than I am, and even his shortcomings are lovable. ... For pity As a character, I also used his abominations to find out the reasons why he lives a strange life, so that he can be justified and not feel that he is disgusting and deserves to die. "In the second act of "Teahouse", Tang Tiezui (face to face). ) said to Wang Lifa: "The smoke of the British Empire and the 'white face' of Japan. Two powerful countries serve me alone. Isn't this a small blessing?" In just one or two sentences, he drew this breathtaking picture. The ugly behavior of shameless people reveals from one side the economic aggression and spiritual poisoning of China by the imperialist powers.
Lao She has his own extraordinary qualities in expressing the character traits of characters through their language and actions. He is especially good at "drawing a person with three strokes and two strokes."
The first person to appear in "Longxugou" was Ding Sisou. She only spoke three sentences to the lady. Her character and the power of her mouth left a deep impression on the audience. Director Shen in "Tea House" only appeared once at the end of the play. The director said nine words: eight. "Good (pole)" and a "biography". The writer used eight "good" characters with a foreign accent to vividly portray the sour look of this Kuomintang bureaucrat who regarded himself as noble and was pretentious.
Dialogue is the main means of communication between characters in drama works, the development of character relationships, and the in-depth portrayal of their characters. The dialogues in Lao She's plays are written in carefully processed and refined Beijing spoken English, which is vivid, accurate, concise, and simple. "Fang Zhenzhu", "Dragon Beard Gou" and "Tea House" are all very common in the old society, with a strong sense of humor and poetry. This scene has been written about in every play. In the second scene of "Fang Zhenzhu", the gendarmerie squad leader took advantage of the opportunity of the Kite-breaking team to come to blackmail Mrs. Cheng in "Longxugou". They also came to threaten and intimidate. In "Teahouse", detectives Song Enzi and Wu Zangzi went to the teahouse to arrest someone, and they took advantage of the situation to blackmail them. The lines in these three drama scenes all have a strong action character. Feng Gouzi is outspoken about blackmail. He relies on the power of the bully Black Tornado to do whatever he wants. Compared with Feng Gouzi, Song Enzi and Wu Zangzi appear to be sophisticated and smooth in their words. He is soft, but his gentleness reveals his toughness, and his level of greed is far superior to that of Feng Gouzi. His extortion skills are even better than theirs. His tone was absolutely commanding, and there was no room for negotiation. Due to their different identities and occupations, their personalities were also different. .
Lao She’s humor is well-known in the literary and art circles. His plays after the founding of the People’s Republic of China are full of comedy atmosphere, whether they are dramas or tragedies. , Lao She's humorous talent was freely and vividly displayed. He used humorous language to portray the tragic character Song Erye, a bannerman. He used humorous language to describe Liu Mazi, Er Dezi, and others. The shameless personalities of social scum such as Tang Tiezui, Wu Zangzi, Song Enzi and his sons, who took pride in shame and beauty in ugliness, were exposed on the stage. Lao She also boldly applied certain techniques of folk art into dramas. , adding a bit of national flavor to the humorous language. Even the characters' words shine with wit and humor once they are written by Lao She.
Lao She attaches great importance to the poetry of dramatic language and requires himself to: "Writing a line in a drama should be as painstaking as writing a poem." He prefers words that are "very ready-made but have deep meaning". The poetic flavor of Lao She's dramatic language is characterized by "simple" and "light". ”, “shallow”, and “explicit” forms.