"Tongguang Thirteen Absolute" Shen Rongpu
Stage photo of "The Noble Concubine Drunk"
Mei Lanfang and Stanislavsky ◎ Wang Jiannan
Exhibition: Mei Lanfanghua - Mei Lanfang Art Life Exhibition
Duration: From 2022.1.20
Venue: National Museum
In his later years, the famous Russian theater director Stanislavsky repeatedly inspired actors to learn Mei Lanfang's acting skills, and he not only watched the performance, but also received Mei Lanfang at home. Another world-renowned Russian theater director, Meyerhold, not only called Mei Lanfang an "outstanding actor", but also regarded him as a theater director and innovator, alongside Stanislavski. The German dramatist Brecht was deeply inspired by Mei's performance system and believed that in Mei Lanfang's performance, there was no "fourth wall".
The fourth wall is an important concept in Western theatrical art theory. It refers to the realistic arrangement set up on three sides on the traditional "mirror frame" stage. Facing this side of the stage, for the audience, it is a transparent wall. Actors have to imagine that they can't see this wall, and that they are "real life" in a space that simulates objective reality. Therefore, the actor should try to eliminate the distractions that the audience is watching, and strive to devote themselves to the scene, in this hypothetical space with four walls, to achieve "real listening, real thinking, real seeing, and real feelings." The audience, as if through the "fourth wall", observes the characters set in the script to live in this hypothetical space. In stark contrast, Chinese opera art "ignores" the existence of the fourth wall from the day it was born. During the performance, the actors on stage and the audience have maintained communication. Peking Opera art is an outstanding form of opera performance in this unique theatrical experience.
Mei Lanfang once briefly described the origin of Peking Opera in "Forty Years of Stage Life": in the fifty-fifth year of the Qianlong Dynasty (1790), in order to congratulate the Qianlong Emperor on his eightieth birthday, Zhejiang salt officials and merchants sent the Huiban "Sanqing Class" to the capital to perform. Since then, hui classes have successively entered Beijing, of which Sanqing, Sixi, Chuntai, and Hechun are the most influential, and are called the "four hui classes". Huiban and the Qin cavity, Yi cavity, Han tune, Kunqu opera and other mutual influences and references in Beijing at that time, in the repertoire, singing cavity, performance and many aspects of the eclectic strengths, and gradually formed a new kind of drama - Peking Opera. The production of Beijing opera is a mixture of Hui and Han local operas, and then absorbs some of the essence of Kunqu opera, so that the organization is successful.
As a rising star, Mei Lanfang was born in 1894 in Beijing to a pear garden family, the Jing Gong Tang Mei family. He began to learn Peking Opera qingyi at the age of 9, and the enlightened teacher Wu Lingxian laid a solid foundation for him. Ru Laiqing taught martial arts, Lu Sanbao taught the sword Andan opera, in addition to benefiting Wang Yaoqing, Chen Delin, Li Shoushan, Qiao Huilan and other predecessors. Debuted at the age of 11. In 1912, Mei Lanfang co-starred with Tan Xinpei, the "King of the Lingjie", "Mulberry Garden Sending Son", and came to prominence on the stage in Beijing. In 1913, he performed in Shanghai for the first time, although he hung a second card, it caused a sensation in newspapers and theater fans, and at the end of the performance, he finally played "Mu Ke Zhai", which shined and achieved great success. For the 19-year-old Mei Lanfang, this is a milestone for him to move from "fame and fame" to "stand alone", and since then "Mei Lanfang" has become a household name, and eventually became a generation of Beijing-Kunming art masters.
In the more than one hundred years since the birth of Peking Opera to its prosperity, a complete set of performance systems has gradually been formed. According to gender, age, identity, status, personality, etc., Peking Opera divides characters into four major lines: birth, dan, net and ugly. Among them, the "sheng" role is divided into old students and young students, which become the dominant roles on the initial stage, and the industry is called "living by life". More than a hundred years later, Mei Lanfang reversed this situation and created a new era of "equal emphasis on life and death", and experts in the industry competed to emulate it.
Mei Lanfang on the stage presented two images: "one is on display, one is being displayed", which is a major breakthrough in performance cognition. Previous performances have always emphasized the need to be engaged, to be 100% integrated into the role, to the point of selflessness. Through her own practice, Mei Lanfang put forward the concept of "being shown", that is, on the one hand, the actor should merge with the role and create a lively life with a set of theatrical performance skills; on the other hand, he can "drag" himself out of the character's body at any time and "examine himself and his own performance with a strange eye". This "bizarre gaze" refers to the rational thinking of the actor, keeping a certain distance from the role he plays. This is the unique charm of Chinese Peking Opera and even Chinese opera. We often see that in the traditional Peking Opera performance scene, the actors sang to the wonderful place, winning the loud applause and warm applause of the audience. The actor's interest in performing rose even higher, and the reward received was more enthusiastic applause.
Mei Lanfang's portrayal of the role is extremely in-depth and has a huge innovative nature. The well-known "Noble Concubine Drunk" is the most influential representative work of Mei's performance career, reflecting his multi-faceted reform and creation of traditional performance methods. In terms of theme, Mei Lanfang abandoned the vulgar performances and lyrics of the past, and instead highlighted Yang Guifei's depressed and depressed state of mind in the deep palace. In terms of performance, he strengthened the performance of singing and dancing, so that every lyric echoed the body and eyes. While showing her dignified beauty and demeanor, the heroine also expresses real emotions, thus giving the traditional repertoire a new ideological connotation. Mei Lanfang wrote in review of her acting career: "The trend of the future of theater changes with the needs of the audience and the times. I don't want to stand still in this old circle and be bound by it. I want to seek development on a new path. Such an expression completely transcends the ideological realm of an old social artist, which is to stand on the high ground above the performance, examine the past of the entire industry, and bravely create the future.
Mei Lanfang is not limited to the situation that the traditional Tsing Yi opera only focuses on singing, and continues to improve the traditional body, makeup, and choreography, and extensively studied the various lines of repertoire in Beijing and Kunming. In addition to Tsing Yi, he also studied heavy performances and martial arts dramas. One of the most prominent examples is his performance gestures on stage – 53 "orchid fingers". Mei Lanfang's collaborator and opera theorist Qi Rushan once compiled and printed a pamphlet "Mei Lanfang's Art Spots", which was accompanied by English and French translations, which became an important material for Understanding Mei Lanfang's performing arts in Europe. In this regard, Meyerhold once specifically pointed out: "Dr. Mei Lanfang reminded us that it is the hand. Seriously, comrades, watch him perform, and then go around our theater and you will agree with me that it is time to cut off the hands of all our actors, for those hands are of no use to us. ”
It can be seen that Mei Lanfang's artistic reform is all-round, not only in the way of performance, but also in makeup, costumes, accompaniment, stage sets and other aspects. Mei Lanfang has a wide range of hobbies, but she has never forgotten her original intention of performing. For example, he loves painting and once studied under famous painters in Beijing, but all this serves the purpose of theatrical performance. "I once created costumes and makeup that I had never done on the Peking Opera stage in the new row of plays, and this attempt was closely related to my usual study of painting." After unremitting efforts, Mei Lanfang and her team have pushed the performing arts of Peking Opera Danjiao to an unprecedented height, leading Peking Opera into a new era of performing arts.
In addition to reforming the traditional repertoire, from 1914, the 20-year-old Mei Lanfang began to write innovative plays and launched a number of fashion plays that directly faced the social problems at that time. For example, "Deng Xiagu" in 1915 advocated freedom of marriage; while "A Wisp of Hemp" revealed the evil consequences of blind marriage. Mei Lanfang's dedicated practice on the basis of inheriting tradition has triggered a boom in the public's viewing of the drama, and the audience has been impressed by the new image created by Mei Lanfang. Mei Lanfang, Cheng Yanqiu, Xun Huisheng, Shang Xiaoyun and other Danjiao rose one after another, and the Danxing headed by the "Four Famous Dans" went to the center of the Peking Opera stage, creating another heyday of Peking Opera art.
Not only that, Mei Lanfang also brought her understanding of the performing arts overseas. In 1919, Mei Lanfang went to Japan to perform, which was the first time that Peking Opera art officially went abroad. In 1924, he was invited to Japan again. In 1930, Mei Lanfang officially began a nearly half-year tour to the United States for performances and exchanges. This is the first time that Peking Opera art has appeared in an organized and large-scale manner in the mainstream cultural vision of the West. In 1935, Mei Lanfang was invited by the Association of Foreign Cultural Relations of the Soviet Union to perform in the Soviet Union, which aroused the strong repercussions of many famous artists in the theater circles of Eastern and Western Europe, produced a cultural impact far beyond the general sense, and further established the international status of Chinese opera art. Decades later, Mei Lanfang's overseas performances were seen as a symbol of a fruitful and formal dialogue between traditional Chinese art and Western culture.