"Walking Snow" is a traditional Qin opera, but also a heavy performance, testing the performance level of the actors, of which Xiao Dan's "swooping down", "skirt flipping dance", "bending over" and other performances, quite distinctive. In the play, Cao Yulian is "hanging on the grass on the side of the road" for a while, and needs to bend the waist to close the skirt; the other is "green silk and hanging dry treetops", which needs to reach out and pluck her hair, Zhang Yuhua portrays the kind, intelligent, cowardly, and squeamish character characteristics of qianjin women through the full display of cao Yulian's various hardships encountered on the way to escape and different performances when in distress. The "bridge crossing" section is even more wonderful. When Cao Yulian first came out of the boudoir, she was terrified to see the single wooden bridge, but she had no choice but to cross her heart, grabbed the willow branch, and raised her leg to cross the bridge. Looking down, she was frightened and dizzy, standing unsteadily, wanting to pass, wanting to retreat, had to grab the willow branch with both hands, staring straight ahead, shaking three times, slowly moving forward, trembling across the bridge, at this time she was paralyzed and fell to the ground. This performance truly shows the complex psychology of panic, fear, and dilemma when the characters cross the bridge, and at the same time mobilizes the imagination of the audience, so that the audience feels that there is both a single wooden bridge and an abyss on the empty stage. Here can not fail to mention Zhang Xuanhua's eye performance. As an excellent actor with rich creativity, Zhang Xuanhua attaches great importance to combining the traditional so-called "things in the heart" performance method with the use of "subtext" in drama performances to avoid the problem of "a soup" in the use of eyes. In the face of the servant Cao Fu, he focused on showing that although there is gratitude, after all, men and women have different complex psychology, want to talk and stop, consider words and sentences, and the most revealed in the eyes is shyness and helplessness. Seeing the plum deer, encountering the ape, the eyes showed great surprise, "hanging the skirt", "hooking the green silk", and there was a little more anger in the eyes, which appropriately showed the cowardice and delicacy of Miss Qianjin who did not understand the world. In 1956, the 16-year-old Zhang Xuanhua won the second prize for actors at the First Drama Observation and Performance Conference in Shaanxi Province for this play.
Zhang Xuanhua & Wang Junqiu , "Walking in the Snow"
Excerpt from Han Jian's "Zhang Xuanhua's Pipe Peep of Performing Arts"
Editor/Liu Jun Review/Yang Yao Final Review/He Jun