Look at the news knews reporter Zhang Haiyan
2022-02-10 16:01
The classic work "Thunderstorm" created by dramatist Mr. Cao Yu in the 1930s is known as the foundation work of modern Chinese drama, which has been put on the stage by many famous masters and is also the Chinese drama work with the most overseas rehearsals. Last night (9th), the China Grand Theatre staged the first Shanghainese version of the drama "Thunderstorm", the performance team is the Shanghai Baoshan Shanghai Opera Troupe, which is famous for the Shanghai opera "Woman Picking the Mountain", so why doesn't a Shanghai opera troupe perform the Shanghai opera "Thunderstorm", but to perform the drama "Thunderstorm"?
On the stage, wrapped in a birdcage-like set, the eight characters in "Thunderstorm" staged a story that happened in just one day, pushing the tragedy of life to a climax. At the end, the secrets of family and life are revealed on a thunderstorm night. In the end, Si Feng and Zhou Chong were electrocuted and killed, and Zhou Ping learned that her beloved Si Feng was her sister and shot herself. The guilty and the innocent go to destruction together, and the torrential rain of unbridled emotions and strong tragedy deeply shocked the audience.
The actors speak the Shanghai dialect and use two hours of interpretation to reproduce the classic charm. Some viewers said: "I still have to watch subtitles sometimes, but in the expression of emotion, I can still feel it, it is still quite shocking", and some people say: "Because we are Shanghainese, listening to our own dialect is more intimate." A senior Shanghai opera fan said: "The performance is quite grounded, and it is also the first time to see them do it in this form on the stage, which is a challenge for everyone, the actors are doing quite well, and the stage sound is too shocking, they really took a big step." ”
In the face of the applause of the audience, Hua Wen, the head of the Shanghai Baoshan Shanghai Opera Troupe, who starred in the booming, breathed a long sigh of relief. She said that before the performance, she was very worried about being considered to be not doing the right thing and ruining the classic, "I was very nervous about making this play, today from the beginning to the end, the audience gave us enough respect, we felt that the drama theater was like this, we used to act a paragraph and sing down, to applaud and discuss, the theater is so quiet, I never met, I didn't expect the enthusiasm of the audience later." It was worth the two months we suffered, and it turned out that we were all white when we were performing, because most of them had gray hair, and today we saw a wave of young people."
Hua Wen's idea of rehearsing the Shanghainese drama "Thunderstorm" stemmed from a wave of Shanghainese dialect fever at the end of last year. The Shanghainese film "Love Myth" became a phenomenon-level work, and the word-of-mouth box office double harvest; the Shanghainese stage drama "Blossoms" was sold out a month before the start. But Hua Wen felt that "in the process of watching "Blossoms", there is a problem I was thinking about, really do not read the subtitles, I can't understand it at once, the Shanghainese in "Blossoms" are all modern Shanghainese, not a special standard Shanghainese language, the most standard of the whole drama is Pan Hong. If you want to speak Shanghainese, our group of people must speak the most authentically, it is this sentence that caused it, and we also rank one. ”
The reason why "Thunderstorm" was chosen was because Shanghai opera also had "Thunderstorm", which was premiered in 1938 and has always been a classic in the history of Shanghai opera, and every Shanghai opera actor is very familiar with it. With the foundation of Shanghai opera and the advantages of language, the actors originally thought that rehearsing the Shanghainese drama "Thunderstorm" was easy to do, but they encountered unprecedented challenges. Shanghai opera actors are accustomed to using sharp tuan tone to pronounce white, and in this drama performance, in order to meet the identity and emotional expression of different characters, sometimes the sharp tuan tone is needed, sometimes it is not needed, and large paragraphs of lines must be considered word by word.
After passing the line level, it is more difficult to perform. In order to let the actors understand the role more deeply, director Wu Wencong led everyone to read the original book of "Thunderstorm" seven or eight times, watched various drama versions of the performance video, rehearsal field, but also personally demonstrated each role, let the actors remove the performance method with opera, and use the ultimate drama performance to show the emotional level of the characters' hearts. Director Wu Wencong said: "The characters in "Thunderstorm" have a lot of emotions superimposed, regret, consternation, pain, the need to reflect the whole emotion through complex, three-dimensional emotions, for Shanghai opera actors is a certain challenge, due to the relationship between the drama, we tell the story in different ways. ”
Such a rehearsal process is a learning and grinding for the actors, and although the process is difficult, the actors feel that this road is worth trying. Zhao Junqing, played by Sifeng, said: "This performance is a promotion, exercise, and enlightenment for young actors, our drama can attract more young people to pay attention, before some young people did not know Shanghai opera, but through this performance hope to be a little like a snowball, form an atmosphere, and make a certain contribution to the future development of opera." ”
The Shanghainese drama "Thunderstorm" was performed in the first round of six performances in china's grand theaters, with an average attendance rate of more than 80%, and box office revenue has basically covered production costs. What is even more gratifying is that many young audiences have spent money to buy tickets and entered the theater, which makes the leader of the troupe Hua Wen see the possibility of the Shanghai Opera Troupe testing the market outside the Shanghai Opera. In recent years, although the Shanghai Opera Troupe has won numerous awards such as "The Woman Who Picks the Mountain", she has always been thinking of danger in times of peace and wants to find more new ways for the Shanghai Opera Troupe.
Hua Wen, head of the Shanghai Baoshan Shanghai Opera Troupe, said: "Shanghai opera has become more and more a weak drama, there are fewer and fewer people to watch, "Picking the Mountain Woman" has been ten years, such a play we have to continue to act, but the performance of our market is very bad, not "Picking the Mountain Woman", other good quality plays, the audience does not care. I've been agonizing over this, buying tickets has become our biggest thing, and we've gone from a seller's market to a buyer's market. This time, my real purpose is actually to bring a certain drainage effect to Shanghai opera, although we are a little unprofessional shanghai opera troupe, to perform a little drama, but I think in the end I am still making a certain attempt and contribution to this kind of drama. ”
Dialect works carry the genetic code of a city, if there is no dialect, local opera, local opera, local opera, will become a source of water, excellent traditional culture will also disappear. In recent years, people have paid more and more attention to the inheritance of Shanghainese, which has also spawned many artistic creations and ignited the art market.
Last night, the one-legged actor Mao Mengda also watched the performance of "Thunderstorm", and he was deeply touched by the cross-border breakthrough. In 2018, he and Shen Ronghai, together with the planning team, created the original one-legged play "The Laughter of Shikumen", which was performed in the traditional double-file form of one-legged drama, and with the help of the outer packaging of the talk show, it was close to the present and often performed, which met the audience's demand for laughter, which aroused the attention of the entire burlesque industry.
Since its premiere in September 2018, "The Laughter of Shikumen" has been performed more than 120 times, with a total audience of nearly 100,000 people, and two performances at the China Grand Theatre this year's Spring Festival are still difficult to find. Last night's hot performance of "Thunderstorm", he saw the traditional opera and opera art, can not stick to the old rules, it is necessary to innovate and break through in order to develop. We must dare to innovate in order to win the market, "In the past, the Shanghai People's Art Theater had a dialect drama troupe, which performed many classic plays, and I think that in recent years, dialect dramas, especially Shanghainese stage plays, have been very few, and this time I am quite excited." Shanghainese works should be carried forward, traditional opera should attract audiences, especially young audiences, to continue to develop, to develop on the basis of inheritance, must be innovative, must adhere, adhere to not stick to stereotypes, must be innovative, have ideas, and make breakthroughs. ”
At present, the Shanghainese drama "Thunderstorm" is invited to perform continuously, and it will also perform in the Majestic Theater, Oriental Art Center and other theaters, and the number of performances will reach 50 times a year. While the Shanghainese drama "Thunderstorm" has brought new audiences and new markets, it has also brought more topics worth pondering, is it that the Audience of Shanghai Opera itself is too small? Or does the Shanghai dialect really have a market? When many people are worried about Shanghai opera and even Shanghai's local culture, why are there so many people who do not speak Shanghainese in Shanghainese drama who are willing to buy tickets to watch it? This is not a problem of Shanghai opera as a genre, but a problem facing all local drama genres in China.
(Look at the news Knows reporter: Zhang Haiyan Intern Editor: Yin Yixing)