Two scenes by chance

【Drama Masters Tell Stories】

Author: Zheng Huaixing

I belong to the "old three" high school graduates, as a soldier, as a farmer, began to teach myself to write plays in 1971, now has been 50 years, large and small to write about 50 scripts, the creative process is different, some smooth, some stumbling. The most eye-catching are my two newly written historical dramas "New Pavilion Tears" and "Fu Shan Into Beijing", which were written by accident if they were helped by God.

Zheng Huaixing

In May 1981, an amateur literary and artistic performance was held in Xianyou County, and Mr. Zhang Senyuan, the former head of the county's screenwriting group who had retired and returned to his hometown, was invited to come back as a judge and live in the same room as me. One night, Mr. Zhang told me during small talk that in the past, he watched the traditional folding play "Biting the Navel and Hunting" and did not understand a line that "Bo Ren died unjustly". Who is Bo ren? To check this allusion, He Yi haixia fishing for a needle, he hid this mystery in his heart, a hidden is decades, this time look back at the "Two Jin Dynasty" to know, in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, there was an official Shangshu Zhou Yan, the word Boren, because of the misunderstanding of his friend - Wang Dao, the king of Xiang and cut off his life, the story of Bo Ren. Listening to Mr. Zhang's story, I couldn't help but move in my heart, this is the subject matter of a good play! The next day I said to Mr. Zhang, "The story you told last night can be written as a play." The gentleman listened and was silent. Maybe he thinks that I have only been engaged in professional opera screenwriting for more than a year, and I have just written a big drama with modern themes, how dare I write a historical drama? But the two ghosts of Zhou Boren and Wang Dao have penetrated into my heart and have been playing with my heartstrings and making me think of many thoughts. In the days that followed, I couldn't help but say to Mr. Morimoto again and again: "I must write a play for Zhou Boren and Director Wang." But he told me, "To write, first read the history books." So I went to the library of the county cultural center to borrow the "Book of Jin" and "The New Language of the World", and the more I watched, the more excited I became, and the idea of a play began to brew in my mind... Late one night, I couldn't hold back my passion, woke up Mr. Morimoto, got up together, turned on the lights, smoked a cigarette, and told him about the scenes I had conceived. When I talked about Zhou Boren going to the new pavilion at night, drinking, playing the piano, and talking to a fisherman who didn't know where he came from, Mr. Zhou's eyes lit up, he patted his thigh and said, "Okay, go write!" In this way, I hid in my hometown in the countryside for eleven days, hurriedly wrote the first draft of "New Pavilion Tears", and took the manuscript to find Mr. Morimoto, who was 30 miles away from my hometown. As soon as he saw it, he was overjoyed and said it was a good play.

However, at the script discussion held by the county cultural bureau, "New Pavilion Tears" was rejected, and a newly created script of others was listed as a priority for the Carp Sound Troupe to rehearse. Just when I was depressed, Mr. Liu Wenxin, the old drummer of the Carp Sound Troupe, read the script of "New Pavilion Tears" and thought that it was a good play, and suggested that the head of the troupe organize the remaining actors in the key repertoire to rehearse "New Pavilion Tears". I'm very happy to be able to pay for the schedule. The premiere of "New Pavilion Tears", the audience response was very enthusiastic, but some people said that they could not understand... At the end of the same year, the play participated in the Fujian Provincial Drama Performance, which also caused a fierce debate. In the end, "New Pavilion Tears" won the first prize of the provincial acting script. In the first national excellent screenplay awards held in 1982, "New Pavilion Tears" won another award... In December 2019, the China Critics Theater asked me to revise and rearrange the commentary version of "New Pavilion Tears". As soon as the drama was grandly launched in Beijing, it caused a sensation.

After 24 years, I was invited to write a "Fu Shan Into Beijing" for the famous female student Xie Tao.

Fu Shan was a thinker in the Ming and Qing dynasties, he was knowledgeable about the history of the sons and the way of Buddhism, and he also worked on poetry, calligraphy and painting, and jinshi, and was proficient in medicine, "After the death of the Ming Dynasty, he was dressed in Zhu Zhuyi, and he lived in the earth cave to adopt his mother... Kangxi enlisted the Erudite Hong ci ke and was forced to go to Beijing to refuse to try it to the death. Specially awarded the Zhongshu Sheren, still resigned from the old age and illness. I admire a pair of dramas written by Fu Shan: "The song is also a song, the song is full of human feelings, the more twisted and twisted; the play is not dramatic, the drama pushes physics, and the more the play, the more true it is." So I also "joked" about this upright gentleman: closely centering on the central event of Kangxi's conquest and Fu Shan's resistance, from the real to the virtual, to the false and the real, like a dream, also zhuang and harmonious, inspiration like a spring. In early 2007, the play starred Xie Tao, and as soon as it was put on the stage, it caused a sensation. It has been fourteen years now, and this play has become popular in the north and south of the river, and has won numerous awards.

"New Pavilion Tears" and "Fu Shan Into Beijing" are my masterpieces, both of which are accidental, but if I look closely, I feel that the advent of these two plays is also inevitable. If I had not been deeply thinking about history and reality since 1964, studying history and philosophy books diligently, not groping for the art of opera since 1971, and cultivating the fertile land of Puxian opera in my hometown, I would not have been able to create these two plays at all. It is the opportunity of the times and the nourishment of the traditional culture of the Chinese nation that has given me the success of creation.

At present, our nation and our times are giving literary and art workers endless creative wealth. Writing historical dramas is not only about writing stories that have happened in history, nor is it about making up a bizarre and attractive story, but it is precisely to use the ideological aura given by the times to activate ancient themes. Only by injecting the present into the ancient events can the ancients be "resurrected", and only then can the shadows of the present be found from these vivid ancients and arouse the emotional resonance of the present people. Therefore, China's excellent traditional culture is an important source of literary and artistic innovation, and it also has the eternal charm of attracting audiences.

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Zheng Huaixing, as one of the iconic figures leading the creation of opera literary scripts in the new era, has created many excellent plays such as "Tears of Xinting", "Hanyue of Jin Palace", "Ugly Tale of ducks", "Tianshu of Qianyou Mountain", "Shangguan Wan'er", "Wang Zhaojun", "Fu Shan Jinjing" and so on, involving Puxian opera, Peking opera, Gaojia opera, commentary, Gezai opera, Yue opera, Han opera and other excellent plays. His works have won many Chinese Drama Awards, Cao Yu Script Awards, the "Five One Project" Award of the Central Propaganda Department, and the Wenhua Award.

Guangming Daily ( 2022-01-19 16 edition)

Source: Guangming Network - Guangming Daily