After 30 years of cultural exchanges and opening up between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, Shang Changrong recalled the story of his first visit to Taiwan

This weekend, the musical "We and the Town" jointly created by the two sides of the strait was staged at the 1862 Fashion Art Center, and the story of Tamsui Town evoked many warm memories of the audience. Yesterday, the 2022 Cross-Strait Theatrical Art Cooperation Seminar was held in Shanghai, and theater people and entrepreneurs from both sides of the Straits gathered together to jointly promote synergy in the prosperity of Chinese art.

Photo: 2022 Cross-Strait Theatrical Art Cooperation Seminar held in Shanghai Official Chart

At the beginning of the New Year, the guests talked about the past and future of Chinese drama art, and their hearts stirred with the love and awe of the theater people for the stage. In 1992, when cross-strait cultural exchanges were opened for the first time, the Shanghai Kunqu Opera Troupe, as the first opera troupe in the mainland, was invited to Taiwan and performed 3 major plays such as "The Hall of Eternal Life" and "Rotten Keshan" and 13 folding plays, which were a sensation. Later, more and more opera troupes visited Taiwan, and Shang Changrong, a master of Peking Opera, also became one of them.

In 1994, Shang Changrong went to Taiwan for the first time with the Shanghai Peking Opera House, and after that he received a call from a theater fan: "Mr. Evergreen, the first time you went on stage in Beiping when you were 5 years old, we saw your play. Over the years, Shang Changrong has performed in Taiwan more than a dozen times, cooperated with the Taipei New Theater Company a lot, and later felt that he was also one of them. Shang Changrong's two grandsons are small Taiwan compatriots, from Taipei, Tainan, Taichung all the way to Kaohsiung, Kinmen, he has performed, "until now our family knife is still the knife of Kinmen."

Under the epidemic situation, performance exchanges are temporarily inconvenient, and Shang Changrong suggested whether the Kunqu opera films "Jingyang Zhong" and "Handan Ji", the Peking Opera films "Farewell to the King" and "Cao Cao and Yang Xiu" can have the opportunity to be sent to Taiwan for screening. "These plays are very popular in Europe, America, Australia and Japan, the audience lined up to find the lead actor to sign a photo, they bowed to me, I will bow back", the scene is so warm, Shang Changrong is still impressed.

This Saturday and Sunday, "Freshwater Town" returned to the original famous "We and the Town" staged, 33 years after its premiere, but there are still many people listening to the song "Opportunity" and missing the story of that town. Why has this simple story been around for so long? Executive director Wang Mutian said: "Because he talked about everyone's life. "Initially, when director Liang Zhimin chose this script, he moved the background of the story to the simple Taiwanese tamsui town with mountains and seas, in order to make this play closer to people's daily lives.

Zhao Nuan, chairman of the Cross-Strait Entrepreneur Summit Cultural and Creative Alliance and one of the conveners of the symposium, sighed that american playwright Thornton Wilder's 1938 work "Our Town" Chinese is the best among so many adapted versions in the world. He said: "A classic Western script has been transformed by the Chinese-speaking world and has touched so many people. This not only shows that Chinese performing arts have a strong inclusiveness, but also shows that Chinese culture has a strong inclusiveness. ”

Huang Changyong, president of the Shanghai Theater Academy, saw that Taiwanese artists and art groups will consciously come to Shanghai to exchange, perform, and even stay in Shanghai for a long time to do theater art. In recent years, the Exchanges and Visits between the Chinese theatre community at home and abroad in various fields have been frequent, and artistic cooperation has become closer, and the United States and the United States have been united and the harvest has been full. It is believed that with the continuous efforts of countless dramatists, the threshold of influence of Chinese drama will cross regions and time and space, and truly become the link of resonance of Chinese hearts around the world. (Xinmin Evening News reporter Zhao Yue)