Red classic theatrical path with artistic characteristics

Author: Song Baozhen

In 1942, Comrade Mao Zedong published his "Speech at the Yan'an Forum on Literature and Art", which produced many literary and artistic works that reflected the course of revolutionary struggle, shaped the image of proletarian heroes, conformed to the interests of the party and the state and its mainstream ideological standards, and had lasting artistic charm.

In the all-media era, with the increase in the rate of information dissemination, the sense of thickness and certainty of the connotation of words is weakening, if people mentioned "classic" with absolute value judgment in the past, then what people say today is more metaphorically recognized. "Red classics" such as "White Haired Girl", "Red Detachment of Women", "Sister Jiang", "Daughter of the Party", "Honghu Red Guard", "Red Lantern", "Sentinel under Neon Lights", "Tea House", etc., the artistic vitality of many dramas has been continuing.

Continue the spiritual bloodline of red literature and art

After entering the new century, the "red classics" have a great tendency to generalize, and in a broad sense, all literary and artistic works that reflect the revolutionary war years, the socialist construction, the reform and opening up period, and the new era, and play an important role in the revolutionary cause can be regarded as "red classics." In the wave of red literature and art, the red classics on the drama stage were staged one after another, the National Peking Opera of China reproduced the modern Peking Opera "Red Lantern", the China Coal Mine Cultural and Labor Troupe performed "The Warm Current of Sound - Red Classic Recitation Concert", the Central Ballet performed the ballet "Red Detachment of Women", the Hubei Provincial Song and Dance Theater launched the opera "Honghu Red Guards", and the Henan Yu Opera Troupe performed the newly compiled Yu opera "Red Plum Under the Cutter" based on Liu Hulan's deeds. These plays all show the spiritual leading role and touching artistic charm of red drama with great enthusiasm. These repertoire performances have attracted a lot of attention – satisfying the nostalgia of some middle-aged and elderly people, and also stimulating young people's enthusiasm for looking back on history.

In terms of artistic standards, artistic creation should adhere to the goal orientation of "profound thinking, exquisite art, and excellent production"; in terms of creative intention, we must adhere to the value orientation of "having faith, feelings, and responsibility" and "having bones, morality, and temperature"; in the pursuit of art, we must adhere to the artistic ideal of "painting for the times, establishing a legacy for the times, and making a mark for the times", which is an important ideological arsenal for the vast number of literary and art workers to create red classics.

Literary and artistic works are a portrayal of the spirit of the times. The spirit of the times is the concentrated embodiment of the social development dynamics and trends of a specific historical period, the overall representation of the psychology and emotions of the social groups in which it is located, and a collective consciousness with universality and typicality. It is often embodied in the ideology of society and related to the spiritual civilization of society.

Since the Eighteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, in order to carry forward the red tradition, remember the revolutionary martyrs, know where they have come from, and think about the future, a large number of plays with the red history and revolutionary pioneers as the object of expression have appeared on the stage, such as the opera "The White Haired Girl" performed by the China Opera and Dance Theater, the opera "Daughter of the Party" performed by the Zongzheng Song and Dance Troupe, the drama "Ten Thousand Waters and a Thousand Mountains" performed by the Zongzheng Repertory Troupe, the drama "Three Bays, That Night" and "Gu Wenchang" performed by the National Drama Theatre of China, and the drama "Branch Built on the Lianshang" performed by the Jiangxi Provincial Repertory Theatre. The original opera "Long March" performed by the National Centre for the Performing Arts, the dance drama "The Eternal Electric Wave" performed by the Shanghai Song and Dance Troupe, the Huai opera "Send You Across the River" performed by the Yancheng Huai Opera Troupe, the Fujian Opera "Life" performed by the Fujian Experimental Min Opera Troupe, the opera "Red Boat" performed by Zhejiang Performing Arts Group, the drama "Liu Qing" performed by Xi'an Drama Theatre, the "Deep Sea" performed by Guangdong Provincial Drama Theatre, the drama "Tonight Stars" performed by Anhui Provincial Drama Theatre, the drama "Dong Biwu" performed by Wuhan People's Art Theater, and the dance drama "Inner Mongolia Arts Academy" performed by Inner Mongolia Academy of Arts Little Sisters of Prairie Heroes" and so on.

Red classics should have the depth of thought, the temperature of human nature, the thickness of culture, and the height of spirit. In the creation of red-themed dramas, some works have shown classic appearances, showing good social and economic benefits; some works contain classic potential, and in time, modification and polishing will have higher artistic quality.

Create artistic masterpieces worthy of the party and the people

Creating a red classic is never an easy task, nor can it be achieved overnight. On the one hand, because of the emergence of classical art, there must be a matching artistic ecology, cultural resources, social mechanisms, humanistic environment, etc., as well as the artist's personal extraordinary artistic talent, diligent work posture, abundant spiritual energy and soaring artistic imagination; on the other hand, the recognition and interpretation of artistic masterpieces also need the accumulation of space, time and aesthetic psychology. Van Gogh's paintings were only a huge sensation after his death, and the writer Potapenko, who was more famous than Chekhov at that time, has long been forgotten in the dust of history. Lao She is known as the "miracle on the oriental stage" drama "Tea House", which was lonely and nameless before Lao She was born. Literary critics have an unshirkable responsibility for discovering art classics, but art criticism is originally the adventure of the critic's soul in artistic masterpieces, and no critic has the omnipotent eye of God, so it is not uncommon to point out deer as horses and absurd things in front of artistic masterpieces. This requires us to continuously improve our artistic accomplishment, maintain artistic determination, be bold and insightful, with patience and courage, with understanding and tolerance, and look at all works of art frankly, dialectically, objectively and fairly.

Artistic creation must be clear about why people are the problem, the red classics of the new era can only come from the red history and the life of the times, serving the people. There is no doubt that valuable art needs to go deep into life, but mechanically and passively and temporarily going deep into life can only be duckweed reflecting water and walking around. Mao Zedong said, "Although the social life of mankind is the only source of literature and art, and although it has an incomparable vivid and rich content than that of the latter, the people are still not satisfied with the former and demand the latter." Why? Because although both are beautiful, the life reflected in literary and artistic works can, and it should be higher and stronger than ordinary actual life, more concentrated, more typical, more ideal, and therefore more universal. "Liu Qing was a farmer in Shenheyuan for 14 years, and he integrated and internalized the peasant life in his heart to create a great literary work. For a person who has no literary talent or is unwilling to work hard with his heart, even if he has been in The Divine Heyuan for many years, he will eventually achieve nothing.

Sing the main theme of the times in an artistic way

Regarding the red theme, what to write and how to write it has always been a matter of position and method that a playwright should solve. To tell a good Chinese story, the key problem is to solve the problem of how to tell "good", which requires the exploration and innovation of narrative methods in the creation of red-themed dramas. According to the clues of time, telling a red historical story with a beginning and an end is not enough to mobilize people's viewing interest in the Internet age, and the trinity and closed drama structure are no longer the mainstream creative mode of today, multi-line interweaving, time and space interlacing, multi-scene juxtaposition, scattered perspective, mixed with various art styles, flashbacks, interludes, multi-head narratives, and the organic combination of technology and art, which has become an important way to explore the art of red theater today.

Red classics need the support of thought, but thought for art, not labels, not symbols, not splicing, not pasting, the profundity of good art lies in the potential richness of thought, the so-called "salt in the water to understand poetry Zen". Engels once said that the tendency of the work must be expressed through the actions of the character, through what he does and how to do it, and the more hidden the author's point of view, the better it is for the work of art. A good drama is like a spring wind and rain to the audience's soul, and the moisturizer is silent.

The red classics need to echo with the grand tide of the times, but this is not the larger the volume, the larger the scale, the better, the paintings of bada shanren, Qi Baishi and others are not large in size, and the artistic masterpiece "Mona Lisa" is also a small painting of less than one square meter, but this does not affect their value. Sima Qian's "Shi Ji" is only 600,000 words, and today's general scholars have published works several times that of the "Shi Ji", but who dares to say that their academic contributions have surpassed Sima Qian? The Qianlong Emperor held a high position of power and wrote more than 40,000 poems in his lifetime, but which one can become a classic?

At present, the total number of red theme drama creations is increasing, narrative mode, structural methods, performance styles, stage technology are also constantly innovating and developing, but the superposition of quantity is only the base of the art pyramid, and the qualitative leap is the key to forming the pyramid tip - red classics, in how to improve the quality of art, it is also necessary to rationally allocate artistic elements to maximize the development of the energy of artistic creation.

Creating red classics is the vision of contemporary art workers, and it is also the artistic mission that we should strive for. We must have the spiritual preparation of "gradually widening the belt and never regretting it, and making the people of Islamic hazel"; we must also have the hard work and earnestness of "two sentences and three years, one chant and two tears" and "the words are not shocking and endless"; we must also have the enterprising posture of "making the tide stand up to the waves, and holding the red flag in our hands is not wet", and strive to create a red classic that belongs to the times and the people, builds the soul of the nation and the Chinese spirit.

(Author Affilications:China Academy of Art)

Source: China Culture Daily