Yang Wei (right) and Zhang Manping reunite in Nanjing for a photo
Mr. Yang Yuan The photos in the text are Tang Ruoqing, who became famous for playing "Xiao Chunlan", an actor of the China Travel Theater Troupe, Zhang Manping (left) and Tang Ruoqing (left) and Tang Ruoqing (right) taking a group photo with friends Zhang Manping
◎ Chen Hong (daughter of Nanjing Normal University professor and dramatist Chen Baichen)
At the age of 16, he published "Commenting on the Performance of China Travel Theater Troupe 'Thunderstorm'"
Mr. Yang Wei told the reader in the article: "I am a good dreamer. Mr. Barkin replied to her: "People who have dreams are happy." ”
So she wrote "Dreams" - "Dream Xiaoshan", "Dream Li Lin", "Dream Back to Wukang Road", "Broken Dreams Are Hard to Pick Up"... The article is deep and meaningful;
So she talked about "dreams" - childhood, adolescence, youth... Until old age, there is suffering, there is joy, and the sections are gripping.
It was a clear morning after the spring, and as usual, I went to visit the 102-year-old man and sat next to her as usual to listen to her "hazy dream like a light veil." The warm sun sprinkled all over Mr. Yang's bedroom, she was half reclining on the bed, her neat white hair shining like silver wire, and her kind smile was as clear as a child.
She handed me a stack of papers and a pen, and when she saw that I no longer refused, she smiled happily—"My handwriting is already difficult..." She had said this to me more than once. I know that Mr. Yang still has a "beautiful dream-like past years" that has not been written, but I dare not agree, worried that I will not be able to complete the task, worried that I will not meet her requirements.
That's how the story of that day began—
"Do you know what my first public article was?" She looked at me with a smile and a smile, mystery and pride hidden in her eyes.
"It must be poetry, or essays." In the face of this well-known poet and writer, my imagination is really a little embarrassed, will there be other "debut works"?
"No, it's not! It is a review article - "Commenting on the Performance of the Chinese Travel Theater Troupe 'Thunderstorm'". Mr. Yang triumphantly unveiled the "mystery" and smiled like a child. "It was 1935, I was 16 years old, and I was in my freshman year of high school. The Chinese traveling theater troupe came to Tianjin to perform Cao Yu's play "Thunderstorm", which is not far from my home at the Star Grand Theater. I was fascinated, I was in love, and I actually watched it three times! Back at home, I couldn't sit still, my palms itched, I wrote this review in one breath, and directly submitted it to Tianjin's "Yong Bao". Unexpectedly, it was actually published, accounting for a small half of the page! ”
I opened my mouth wide in amazement: "You... You..." I couldn't find the words for a while.
"Yes, no one knows. I used a pen name - Xiao Dai, Lin Daiyu's Dai. This is what my brother gave me. "Mr. Yang's brother is the famous translator Yang Xianyi, and she loves her brother and the pen name he gave herself." Maybe I hope that I can also become a talented girl like Daiyu, my brother is also a dreamer. Mr. Yang slowly lifted his head and looked at the ceiling fixedly. The sunlight smeared on it recklessly, shaking out a circle of light and shadow, like a dream.
I remember that Mr. Yang once wrote such a poem: "The things of the past are really like dreams, and when you fall asleep again, you will pick up the past things and decorate the dreams of the present." "How wonderful, how moving. My heart couldn't help but jump wildly: Could it be that the stage is also one of her dreams? She also had colorful dreams about it?
8-year-old rehearsed the mime "Maria"
To make a long story, Mr. Yang has also chatted casually before, and as early as the third grade of primary school, she has acted on stage. But as listeners, we didn't care, just laughed. At this time, when I spread out the manuscript paper and began to record it seriously, Mr. Yang's narration brought me immersively into her dream— a real dream more than ninety years ago.
At that time, she had just turned 8 years old and was studying at the Affiliated Primary School of Tianjin Zhongxi Girls' High School. On Christmas Day, the school rehearsed a mime "Maria", with only music and no lines. She plays the protagonist, the Virgin Mary. It was a dilapidated and simple stable, and Mary sat on the straw floor, her hands on a cradle in which she slept her newborn child. ...... Then the light came on, hitting her face intently; the music sounded, soft and delicate. She lowered her head like a beautiful statue... I was mesmerized by her story, and I couldn't imagine how she, who was still in her old age, could express her divine maternal love so vividly.
Mr. Yang smiled, she did not answer me directly, but continued to tell her long-standing "dream" that did not end: "The next Christmas, I came to power again. Maybe the teacher, out of appreciation and encouragement for me, once again let me star in "Doctor Orient". "I have heard Mr. Yang say that The Chinese and Western Girls' High School is a famous church school, including its attached primary school, and every year on christmas day, a school-wide party is held to commemorate the birth of Jesus. She said: "This play is a continuation of last year's performance, and Jesus should be one year old. So three 'Doctors of the East,' including me, came to celebrate him with gifts in their hands, and we bowed to him reverently and saluted him. The set of the stage is still the stable of the year, the stable of the mantle where he was born. I held my breath as I listened to her, as if following her onto that dream-like stage, into the legendary stables of the birth of Jesus.
Mr. Yang stopped, she closed her eyes quietly, and then slowly turned her head to the wall on the left, where a picture of her mother hung, kind and dignified. "In order to perform Dr. Oriental, my mother specially asked the tailor to sew a dark blue satin robe for me, which shone brightly under the light." Could it be that the mother's love was in her blood? Could it be that the talent for acting lurks in her body? How tempting this "dream" is, how fascinating this "dream" is.
Mr. Yang's face glowed red with excitement, after all, he was an old man in his old age, and I couldn't help but take care of her health. She waved her hand, said it didn't matter, just took the cup I handed her and took a sip gently. "Later, I was promoted to Chinese and Western Girls' High School, and the school still advocated weekly drama performances and English dramas in the graduating class. And I was also deeply fascinated by drama. Mr. Yang put the cup back on the bedside table and continued to speak with great interest, "It was the first year of high school, and I took the stage again, this time performing Li Kengo's one-act play "Mother's Dream", and I played my daughter Hideko. "Mr. Yang's face is proud," the script was published by the Cultural Life Publishing House founded by Mr. Ba Jin, with lines, and it is no longer a mime written by himself. ”
I was stunned, not only because Mr. Yang and her classmates were able to rehearse a formal play, but because they were able to perform Ken-woo Lee's work. Li Jianwu is a famous writer and dramatist in modern China, who studied in Europe, was deeply influenced by the famous Irish drama master Singer, and adapted his representative work "The Man Riding into the Sea" into "Mother's Dream", without losing the characteristics of Chinese localization and nationality, which was called "the new writing of the image of 'mother' in modern Chinese drama" by theater historians.
I tentatively asked Mr. Yang, "This is an anti-war work, and there are only three characters—the mother and her son and daughter." "Yes, it's challenging." Mr. Yang waved his arm, "I still can't forget one of the lines - the mother's son was forced to be cornered and arrested as a soldier." His mother dreamed of him for several nights and asked herself for shoes. So early in the morning, she got busy making shoes for her son, who didn't know where to fight. Just then, when the news came from the neighbor's house that her son had been killed in the Zhifeng War last month, the mother was stunned, and suddenly fell to the stool, and the shoe she was cutting in her hand also fell to the ground, murmuring: 'Shoe look...' At this time, I cried and pounced, shouting: 'Mom! mother! And then the closing. ”
What a dedicated performance, mr. Yang is still unforgettable. Without waiting for me to ask for specifics, she told an even more amazing story: "When I graduated from high school, I took the lead against re-acting in English (every year), and I was also a director, rehearsing Ibsen's "Doll's House." But..." She added sheepishly, "Just 'one of them,' and the general director is a foreign teacher named 'Snow.'" ”
I was so immersed in her narration that I had long forgotten the record in my hand. "Are you a self-taught person?" In the face of this stage dream that Mr. Yang has cherished for many years, I can't help but blurt out.
"Dreams are not made up, they are woven. At that time, young students would weave their dreams and weave their own bright future. Instead of answering me directly, she turned her head and brought up another story—a story of how to weave dreams.
"I used to be a movie fan, Hollywood films, basically not falling. Not only love to watch, but also love to wonder: why does he act well? What's the best place to do? ...... Do you know? My favorite movie star is the American actress Nauma Sheila, who won an Oscar and starred in "The Perfect Queen." After all, it was a generation away, she saw me stop writing, a blank face, so she took the paper and pen and wrote her name in English one by one: Norma Shearer.
What a clear handwriting, I can't imagine that it came from the hand of a centenarian. Since you want to "weave", there must be the following. Sure enough, the little middle school student who admired Nauma Sheila later wrote a letter in English expressing his love and admiration for her, and even suggested that with her acting style, he should shoot Romeo and Juliet. She sent the letter directly to the MGM Film Company in the United States, which signed a contract with Nauma Sheila, and unexpectedly, the other party actually replied to the letter, and also sent a 6-inch black-and-white photo that she personally signed. Mr. Yang drew his hand and excitedly told me: "This letter caused a small sensation in the class in the school at that time. ”
"Haha, Mr. Yang has also been a 'fan'!" I burst out laughing.
"Not bad, and it's 'hardcore'!" She took my words over, "but I'm not touting her. After the performance of "Thunderstorm" in 1935, the students all ran to the Huizhong Hotel in the French Concession to see the actors of the Chinese traveling theater troupe staying there, and we asked three classmates to go as well. Later, the actors of the crew walked past me one after another, and all of them looked at me curiously, and Zhao Huishen also stopped. I heard them whispering, 'She wrote the article in the Phillips?' So small, still a child! ’”
The story finally returns to the 1935 copy of the Phillips.
I asked Mr. Yang, can you still find it now? She shook her head regretfully; I asked again, is the manuscript still there? She sighed regretfully. What exactly a 16-year-old girl wrote made the stage stars of the year look at her with amazement, and now I am curious.
"It's about evaluating the style of the performance and the performance of each actor." The tone is so relaxed, it seems to be just casual writing.
with Tang Ruoqing, Tao Jin and Zhang Manping and others
Became friends
Founded in Shanghai in 1933, the China Traveling Theatre Troupe was founded by Mr. Tang Huaiqiu, the founder of the Chinese drama movement. At the beginning of the last century, he studied at the Paris Aviation College and was widely exposed to modern European theater, so he had this ambition: "When I was in France, I saw many cars loaded with sets, props, and members of the group, driving on flat roads, and even the European travel theater troupe with the stage (made of a tabernacle) and his own, had a dream - to organize a traveling troupe in China. So after returning to China, he took his wife Wu Jiajin and his 16-year-old daughter Tang Ruoqing, as well as a dozen young drama lovers, to set up the first professional troupe of non-governmental organizations in the history of modern Chinese drama, and existed in the blue wisps of Yanlu for fourteen years.
The Chinese traveling theater troupe has come to Tianjin many times to perform, and the first play is "Mei Luoxiang". The prototype of the script is the American playwright Eugen walter's "Shortcut", with the unfortunate love life of the female artist Mei Luoxiang as the main line, reflecting the cold and warm human feelings and the cold of the world in the world of money. Yang Jingru (Yang Yuan's original name), a junior high school student who was only 15 years old at the time, became its loyal audience, and she fell in love with Tang Ruoqing, who became famous for playing Mei Luoxiang's girlfriend "Xiao Chunlan", as well as actors Such as Tao Jin and Zhang Manping, who were almost the same age difference and soon became friends.
Since they are friends, they have no scruples; since they are fans of drama, they can write straight letters. So she took up her pen and wrote this review article in one fell swoop.
In the article, she said that later Zhou Puyuan played the role of Dai Ya, whose acting skills were not as good as A corner Tang Huaiqiu, Mr. Tang can be described as a "character actor", and the fiery passion firmly grasped the audience's heart; she said that The actor Zhao Huishen, who played The Ripple, is a real experiential actor, she does not have any strong actions, but she is always immersed in the spiritual world of the characters, and the performance is delicate and profound; she said that Lu Ma's actor is Tang Ruoqing, who is only 17 years old, and can actually bring the old woman who is nearly half a hundred years old to life, only from the makeup point of view, She also had to admire her spirit of sacrifice; she said that Tao Jin and Zhang Manping played a pair of lovers Zhou Ping and Si Feng, whose expressions were true and the beauty of their actions were very well grasped; she also said that the only thing she was not satisfied with was Lu Dahai's actor Cao Zao, who spoke a thick southwest dialect and spoke words that were not very clear...
Mr. Yang slowly recounted the content of her article, telling the past events that happened more than eighty years ago, so clear, so focused, just like yesterday. I sat quietly beside her, savoring her sweetness and sharing her joy, but I couldn't help but blame myself: Why didn't I listen to her sooner? She wrote in the article such a passage - a passage that I did not understand until today: "People are old and decayed, the past is like a cloud of smoke, some of the clouds naturally disperse, and some of them are condensed into piles of heavy memories buried in the bottom of the heart." If you want to re-flip it out and tell it to the world, it is like telling a story: it is difficult for storytellers to depict the laughter and crying of adolescence, and it is difficult for people who listen to stories to imagine the persistence and pursuit of young people at that time..."
The 102-year-old may have forgotten a lot of suffering and sorrow, but he could not forget this lingering dream, which is firmly rooted in the heart of the complex. I want to tell her that I can imagine her "persistence and pursuit" at that time; I can understand her dreamy ideals at that time. If it were not for the turmoil of the times and the changes in society, Mr. Yang, as a translator, poet and essayist, would still have an artistic garden that belonged to her, a theater world where she could show her talents to the fullest. This is a dream that she has been weaving since she was 8 years old, a dream that she has begun to pursue.
This was a thing of 1945
She still remembers it vividly
It was 1937, and the Japanese invasion of China shattered Mr. Yang's peaceful life and her carefully woven dreams. Having just been admitted to Nankai University, she had to follow the re-merged Southwest United University to migrate to Yunnan and later Sichuan. Hiding from airplanes and running alarms has become commonplace; eating cauldrons of rice and sleeping in thatched huts is their basic life. Since then, Mr. Yang has lost the opportunity to associate with drama and the dream stage that has just been built in his heart. But as a former "persistence and pursuit", as long as she has the opportunity, she must run into the city to see a play, whether it is a professional theater company or an amateur drama club, it can help her find the dream that has not been woven.
"When Fengzi performed "Motherland" in the United Nations Theater Troupe, she asked a good classmate to borrow a costume from me. When Bai Yang was in Chongqing, I went backstage to see them; Zhang Manping played the prostitute Cabbage in "The Dance of the Demons", which is really a must; my favorite is Shu Xiuwen, her play road is wide, any role can be played, the action is delicate and stretched, the lines are clear and smooth, worthy of being one of the four famous dans on the Chongqing drama stage..." Mr. Yang began to tell again, gushing endlessly, and listening beautifully.
After graduating from university, Mr. Yang found a career as an English teacher at Jianshan Middle School in Beibei, Chongqing. "The school has a drama club founded by itself, and teachers and students from Fudan University have been hired to guide it. So everyone joined forces to rehearse Cao Yu's "Sunrise", in which I played Li Shiqing's wife. Mr. Yang told me proudly.
It's a supporting role that doesn't have much of a role, not even his own name. Her husband, Li Shiqing, is an insignificant clerk who climbs onto the table with cunning and flattery. Cao Yu prompted in the script: "A very thin woman, with a heavy demeanor and not very gorgeous clothes. She looked gentle, but covered with worries, she applied a thin layer of powder, almost did not embellish, as if she came here reluctantly, politely and uncomfortably talking to Chen Bailu..."
I don't know exactly how the drama school drama club rehearsed it, nor how Mr. Yang played it, she didn't tell more about it, but she clearly remembers the line she pulled Li Shiqing home from Chen Bailu's luxurious apartment: "You are a small clerk in the bank, tired to death one day, and the salary is still not enough for the family." After work, you have to accompany these bosses to play, play cards, and socialize. If the child has no money to go to school, he must also be socialized; at the end of the month, there is no rent money, and he still has to socialize; when the child is sick, he has no money to find a good doctor to treat him, or he has to socialize. Mr. Yang said that she said this passage in tears. It was 1945, and she remembered it vividly.
The clock ticked and ticked, and two full hours passed. Mr. Yang was tired, and she leaned her head on the quilt behind her. There was silence all around, so quiet that it seemed to hear the old man's heartbeat. I looked at her silently and remembered what she had said: "Now I have reached the age of shattered dreams, like Falling Ying scattered on the ground, unable to lean over and pick it up." ”
The branches outside the window are gently swaying, and the light and shadow in the house are swaying and gathering. I couldn't help but lean down and kiss Mr. Yang lightly on the cheek, just like I used to say goodbye to her every time. I wanted to say it to her, but quietly swallowed it back into my stomach: "Rest assured, the scattered broken dream will not be lost, it will always live in your heart." 'People who have dreams are happy. This is what Mr. Barkin said to you! "Courtesy photo/Zhao Yun