Fuding Forum Storytelling
Recently, the Fuding City Culture and Arts Center Grand Theater has revealed its true face, which is amazing. But it is also reminiscent of the People's Theater, which was once the "cultural granary" of the general public, and now the two old and new theaters are far apart. For the old Fuding people, the People's Theater carries deeper feelings.
Inside the Fuding City Culture and Arts Center Grand Theater
The People's Theater on Zhongshan Middle Road, since its completion in the 1950s, has become an important place to nourish the spiritual world of generations of Fuding people, especially in the last century, when cultural life was relatively poor, and it has brought countless Fuding people a sense of happiness.
The People's Theater, built in the 1950s, is based on the Archives Bureau
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Recently, we can learn about the beginning and end of the construction of the People's Theater from the mouth of cultural scholar Ma Shuxia, and explore the story behind this former "cultural landmark".
From Ma Shuxia's mouth, we know that the People's Theater was founded in 1958. Fuding is a famous tea town, and the People's Theater was built under the impetus of this leaf. In 1958, the national tea production site meeting was held in Fuding, and more than 100 representatives from all over the country attended the meeting, so that the conference could be carried out smoothly, and the construction plan of the People's Theater was put on the agenda.
After the workers rushed to work day and night, which lasted about three months, a people's theater that could accommodate more than 1,000 people was successfully completed.
According to Ma Shuxia, at that time, the People's Theater was a fusion of the architectural style and characteristics of theaters in Nanjing and other places, the shape of the theater was Romanesque, and the corridor was accompanied by 4 large circular columns, which looked dignified and gorgeous.
The exterior of the People's Theater, built in the 1990s
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After the completion of the People's Theater, in addition to serving as the venue for various large-scale conferences, it is mainly used for troupe performances. "In the past, there were performances almost every day, and in addition to the Yue Opera Troupe, peking opera troupes, puppet troupes, etc. would also perform various repertoire performances here." Ma Shuxia said that the People's Theater has performed many successful plays, such as "Jinsha Riverside", "Liu Sanjie", "Borrowing An Umbrella", etc., which were quite popular at that time, and were often overcrowded during the performance.
Fuding City Culture and Arts Center, newly built and put into use
According to Ma Shuxia's recollection, the most lively time of the year for the People's Theater at that time was during the Spring Festival. At that time, the Spring Festival Gala had not yet been opened, and television had not yet been popularized, and the New Year's Party of the People's Theater had become a "fragrant feast". Therefore, every year from one to Chinese New Year's Eve night, the performances of the People's Theater are difficult to find.
The evening program was mainly jointly performed by the literary and art propaganda teams of various organs and units, and the performance forms were various, and most of the contents were Fuding revolutionary songs and dramas written and performed by the propaganda team, which were quite popular with the general public.
Fuding City Culture and Arts Center Grand Theater
This wave of excitement will continue until the night of the fifteenth lantern of the first month. On the night of the Lantern Festival, publicity teams from various townships will also gather here to "make a Lantern Festival", and on the stage of the theater, you will sing and I will appear, so it is not lively. Among them, the programs brought by the "Aquatic Brigade" in Shacheng Town and the "Jianguo Brigade" in Taimushan Town are particularly famous.
During the Spring Festival, it has also become a golden season for cultural publicity.
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To this day, the People's Theater is still an important venue for all kinds of performances. However, with the development of society, the cultural entertainment of the masses has become more and more diversified, and in the torrent of time, the popularity of the People's Theater has gradually receded.
According to Ma Shuxia, the People's Theater has undergone a major change. At the end of the twentieth century, the People's Theater was renovated, which not only reduced the overall scale of the building, but also underwent new changes in architectural style and structure. "In the earliest days, the People's Theater was a separate building, and there was also a dormitory for the cast members inside, and in addition to going out to perform, the cast members lived in the theater." According to Ma Shuxia, the remodeled People's Theater has removed the 4 Roman columns at the entrance, and the entrance has been changed from the first floor to the second floor, and the architectural style has changed significantly.
Today, standing outside the People's Theater and looking at the four big golden characters, it seems that you can still faintly see what the theater once looked like - solemn and grand.
Bucket to star shift
In these more than half a century
The small city of Fuding is changing with each passing day
Something has changed dramatically
And the People's Theater stands in the center of the city
But it waited for decades
Encounter with every citizen
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