Children's drama "Goats Don't Eat Paradise Grass" Photo: Yang Yi
I have always believed that drama is a part of literature. Drama without a literary spirit is just a "show".
I am a drama worker starting from literature, counting from the official publication of works, I have 40 years of creative experience, the first few years of novel prose creation, the last 30 years of drama, film and television script creation. In the course of decades of screenwriting, I have never stopped thinking about the relationship between literature and drama. I think that novels, poems and plays differ in different styles and different writing techniques, as people often say: novels are the art of narrative, and drama is the art of action. In essence, they are inseparable from the "spirit of literature", that is, a deep and unique insight into human nature, an understanding of human circumstances and choices, and an eternal concern for human emotions and spirits.
Many people will think that the literary nature of the play is mainly reflected in timeless themes and philosophical or sonorous and gorgeous lines, and as a result, some plays called "literary" are often a euphemistic expression of another critical opinion, that is, "lack of drama", which is manifested as dramatic action being replaced by large lines and lyrical scenes. In fact, the literary nature of the play should construct a dramatic situation that is enough to open up the inner world of the characters in public. The character shaping and theme revelation completed through the stage action of the characters are the profound and unique insights into human nature revealed by the author through the fate of the characters and the dramatic scenes while following the laws of theatrical creation, which is the understanding and accommodation of human circumstances and choices, and the eternal care for human emotions and spirits. From "Peony Pavilion", "Dou E'er", "The Tale of the West Chamber" to "Thunderstorm" and "Tea House", all the materials that may be written as hunting stories have become immortal works in the hands of great playwrights, with their profound insight into life and great compassion for life. Shakespeare's plays are just as great as Cao Xueqin's novels, and greatness lies in the spirit of literature.
In 2014, I transferred to the China Children's Art Theatre and entered a whole new field again. In the main theater creation and my own practice, I have constantly realized that children's theater needs more to be observed by the literary spirit, because children need to be touched to the heart more than adults, and they need to know the world and know themselves through images and emotions.
In 2015, my first children's play", "Wood and Inch", was put on the stage, and the protagonist of the play was a ginkgo tree. It was transplanted from the mountains to the city because of its beauty. Bidding farewell to mountain eagles and tree partners, along the way, I got to know The Willow Sister, stray cats and zhi, I got to know humans, I got to know trains, streets and parks, I experienced demolition, power outages, road construction, digging lakes... Experiencing a whole new course of life in the human world. With every migration of this little tree, every encounter, farewell and reunion, the children will find that this innocent and innocent tree, eager to be understood, full of trust and confusion about the world, easy to hurt but will not tell, often trapped in helplessness but full of love of the little ginkgo tree, much like themselves. And parents will find that this little ginkgo tree has experienced involuntary passivity and helplessness, tasted intentional and unintentional injuries, feared strangeness and loneliness, endured humility and weakness, longed to be understood and respected, experienced the pain of parting and the pain of lovesickness, felt the drift of gloom and the ecstasy of rekindling hope, is simply never told of themselves...
This one-man show, played by an actor with 14 roles and 10,000 words of lines, not only made Chinese children and parents fully engrossed in accepting and leaving a deep memory, but even performed abroad in the form of subtitles. The coming-of-age drama "Goats Don't Eat Paradise Grass" is based on Cao Wenxuan's novel of the same name, and the protagonist is a rural teenager Mingzi. Forced by the pressure of poverty and with the responsibility of supporting the family, Akiko followed her master into the city to work and earn a living, in the hardships of life and the heat of the world, the simple and stubborn Akiko was forced to the precipice of human choices from time to time, and grew up to be a "person" and a "capitalized" person in constant self-torture and dilemma choice. Mr. Cao Wenxuan's original work provides a very literary textual basis, that is, a great compassion for the people at the bottom, and I have received this and fully transformed it into a theatrical expression.
Over the years, the protagonists of my writing, whether trees or insects, have written not only stories, but human emotions and spirits. In the realistic fairy tale drama "The Adventures of Firefly Sisters and Brothers", several children kindly released a firefly, and this firefly gave birth to a baby in the last moments of life, and the story began. In a city that has long been unsuitable for fireflies, a pair of fireflies are lucky to survive, they search for food, fight against ant corps, outwit voles, fight poisonous spiders, and stubbornly survive in a world that is over-demanded by humans. The children who released the fireflies continued to go into nature because of a lot of concern, from anxiety and began to change, and finally became the saviors of the fireflies sisters and brothers. Parent-child musical "Where is the little butterfly's mother?" The protagonist of "" is a small caterpillar named Butterfly, which has not seen its mother, but can see that the little magpies, lambs, and chickens are all cared for by their mothers, and they have the desire to find their mothers. Silkworm babies who have never seen their mothers know because of the arrival of butterflies that there is a warm "mother" in the world who will hug the baby and kiss the baby, and she is also full of yearning. They worked hard together to grow up and look forward to seeing their mother. Later, the caterpillars grew into small butterflies, and the silkworms became moths, and they not only grew up and became mothers themselves, but also came to the end of their lives, and they finally understood that even if the mother never saw the child, it was the best mother. No matter where the child is, it is in the sight of the mother, no matter where the mother is, it is in the child's life...
The reliance of script writing on the spirit of literature is the foundation of a good work. Among the nearly 40 works created by Chinese Children's Art in recent years, artists and I have continuously pursued the literary spirit of children's drama in the drama and the second creation, which has also brought many new changes. "Minimalist Creation", which will meet with a small audience at the end of the year, is the first new work of China Children's Arts that "has no script". On stage, plastic bags, plastic pipes, sponges, and wooden blocks from garbage heaps are "alive" through the imagination of artists, forming a world of oceans, insects, animals and humans. Although we define this work as a "workshop", when I see the little turtle made of plastic bags and my father gone missing, in the tension and loneliness of meeting Uncle Ray, I immediately play happily... When I saw the "insect wings" composed of worn-out umbrellas, I was repeatedly teased by the "heads and bodies of insects", and I was angry and picked up the strike... I know that this imaginative unscripted work is still a drama! Because it has the "character" and "character relationship" that children feel empathy for, because it can make children empathize, because it can constantly touch people's hearts.
Thanks to the propositional invitation of "Literature and Art Daily", let me once again think deeply about the relationship between drama and literature.
As a delegate to the Sixth and Seventh Congresses and the current Session, I would like to wish the Eleventh And Tenth Sessions of the Literary Congress and the Tenth Congress of Literature and Art to once again promote the great development and prosperity of Chinese literary and artistic creation.