Shang Wei
Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Columbia University
【Introduction】In the past half century, the status of Peking Opera has gradually declined, but throughout history, Peking Opera has also taken the lead in the modernization process of classical opera art, and has dominated the turmoil for more than a hundred years. Today, looking back at the historical changes of Peking Opera, how do we view its changes and invariances, innovations and traditions, and refine the core characteristics of its performing arts? Further, what kind of language should we use today to tell about China's cultural traditions?
Since the publication of the book "Great Games: Where Is Peking Opera" co-authored by the famous director Guo Baochang and the scholar Tao Qingmei, it has attracted attention from all walks of life. This article points out that the book not only gets rid of the previous routine of using Western literary and art theories to study Peking Opera, but also uses the original "jargon" of Peking Opera and the unique philosophy and aesthetic thinking of Chinese culture to clarify the story of Peking Opera itself. The author believes that one of the keys to constructing the Chinese performing arts system based on the traditional resources of opera is to grasp the difference between "normative language" and "reference language". From the perspective of performance, in addition to playing characters, opera actors also assume the function of narrator to varying degrees, and communicate and interact with the audience at different levels. This helps to transcend the barriers of "distancing" and "experiential theory", and provides us with a new starting point and thinking for understanding and defining the performance and viewing of traditional opera. To explore the characteristics of opera art, it is necessary to refer to reading practice and commentary on opera novels, and further reveal other relevant factors related to the formation and change of the relationship between opera and performance.
This article was originally published in Literature and Art Studies, No. 4, 2022, and is hereby compiled and distributed for your consideration.
Theoretical construction of traditional opera and Chinese performing arts
——Commenting on Guo Baochang and Tao Qingmei, "The Great Game: What's So Good about Peking Opera"
In the history of Chinese opera, Peking Opera came out relatively late. But it came to the fore, not only winning the title of "national drama", but also advancing with the times and constantly renewing itself. Although its status has gradually declined in the past half century, throughout history, from Huiban into Beijing, Haipai Peking Opera, Yan'an Opera Society, all the way to the model opera, Peking Opera has surged forward in the tide of political culture in the past two centuries, and was once a tide on the cusp of the storm; in the process of modernization of classical opera art, it has also taken the lead and dominated the turmoil for a hundred years. So, how to tell the history of Peking Opera, how to look at its changes and invariances, innovation and tradition, and summarize the core characteristics of its performing arts from it?
In July 2021, Life, Reading, and New Knowledge Triptych Bookstore published the book "Great Games: Where Peking Opera Is So Good" (hereinafter referred to as "Great Games"). This is a milestone event: the famous film and television director Guo Baochang and the scholar Ms. Tao Qingmei joined hands to bring out his lifelong artistic practice experience and observation of Peking Opera. The book consists of seven chapters, of which the sixth chapter, "Can Opera Films Still Be Made Well", takes the artistic experiment of "Spring Girl's Dream" as an example, explores the new direction of opera films, "recreates the stage with film language", and presents the aesthetic logic of Peking Opera. Among them, the drawbacks of direct chen opera films, such as The Ding Ding Xie Niu, are cut to the point. What is even more valuable is that this chapter directly benefits from Guo Baochang's own rich artistic practice and deep understanding of opera performance and film media, which provides new enlightenment for the emerging cross-media research. The fifth chapter, "The Gains and Losses of revolutionary model plays," not only affirms the creativity of the model plays, but does not shy away from their mistakes and defects; it is not correct but not correct, sharp but fair.
The first four chapters of the book are "Games", "Peking Opera Should Establish Its Own Performance System", "Applause", and "Say Ugly". They elaborate the core characteristics of the Peking Opera performance system around "gameplay", and involve related issues such as performance space and the relationship between theater and stage. The author believes that Peking Opera is a holistic theater art, and its theater space "does not have any certainty, and the actors belong to the whole theater, not just the stage." In addition, the idea of "viewing and performing as one" is also proposed, which points directly to the core issue of Peking Opera performing arts. Among them, the three chapters of "Game", "Applause" and "Say Ugly" emphasize the interaction between actors (especially ugly feet) and the audience. From this point of view, to understand the opera concept, game mentality and aesthetic concept embodied in the art of Peking Opera, it can be called a unique angle. In short, these four chapters are connected into one, with both vivid and perceptual descriptions and enlightening understanding and thinking.
"The Great Game" is about Peking Opera, but Peking Opera does not fall from the sky, but is part of Chinese opera. In fact, the author's ambition is not limited to Peking Opera, but to summarize the theory and aesthetic principles of Chinese performing arts through Peking Opera. Therefore, whether the above proposition can be established or not needs to be verified from outside of Peking Opera. How should we construct and understand the performance system of Peking Opera, and grasp its core and uniqueness? This is the main theme of the book, and the meaning is naturally unusual. At the same time, this raises a general methodological question, which is also a question that scholars who study classical Chinese literature and art and readers who love Chinese culture often encounter and cannot fail to answer:
What kind of language should we use today to tell about China's cultural traditions?
▍"Entering the drama" and "going out of the drama" of opera performance
When describing the performing arts of Peking Opera, there are usually two approaches: either the experiential school emphasizes the realism and touching of the performance, or it focuses on the distancing effect caused by stylized performance. Sometimes they wander between the two, or look for the possibility of reconciling with each other. Of course, in depth, both of these practices have their own shortcomings, which are not to be left alone. "Amazing Game" tries to jump out of this trap. The whole book is dominated by "gameplay", from Peking Opera to "Dream of the Red Chamber", which is not limited to classical opera, but mainly Peking Opera. The author elaborates on the concept of playfulness on both the Tao and the Shu level. At the macro level of the Tao, playfulness is embodied not only in artistic concepts and aesthetic principles, but also in a worldview and attitude towards life, the "game mentality" repeatedly emphasized in the book. This game attitude runs through all aspects of Peking Opera performances. At the same time, the author also implements the gameplay in the specific forms and methods of artistic performance. Like the actors on the stage to compete in the fighting method, the performance of martial arts, acrobatics and dance as one of the "Shozi Gong", etc., are more or less outside the plot, for the character shaping, more or less, even dispensable, but they are an important part of the Peking Opera performance. Ultimately, the author summarizes gameplay as "the transcendent principle of Chinese aesthetics." Beyond what? This includes the category of dualistic opposites that transcend all man-made opposites and the choice of either or.
For example, Peking Opera actors can often freely "play" and "enter the play": not only in the play, into the role to experience and present the joys and sorrows of the characters; but also not in the play, temporarily free from the prescribed character roles, as actors to communicate directly with the audience. Examples often spoken of in the book, such as actors getting rid of plot and script lines, improvising and joking, are "live scratches". For example, in the play "Wu Peng Ji", the ghost liu Shichang, who died, complained to Zhang Beigu for his grievances, and Zhang Beigu had four next verses: "Strange and strange, it is really strange, halfway through the road to meet a ghost, you have something wronged today, follow me to see Bao County." One day, the actor who played Zhang Beigu sang here and temporarily changed the last sentence to "Go backstage with your father." Zhang Beigu and Liu Shichang in the play are not father and son, but the actors on that day happened to be father and son on the same stage, and the audience knew it, so they laughed and applauded. The actors on the stage pointed out the father-son relationship and broke the story behind the scenes. The effect of this is to clearly tell the audience: they are doing a play on the stage and playing a character; when they leave the stage, they are father and son, and they do not go to see any Bao Gong, but go directly to the backstage. This kind of improvisation on the spot not only destroys the logic of the plot, but also destroys the realism and integrity of the opera performance, so it is often regarded as a theater chaos and controversial. But the audience liked it very much, and in the words of the book, "the actors on the stage and the audience off the stage were immersed in the gameplay of Peking Opera."
How should this phenomenon be understood and evaluated? When Qian Zhongshu talked about classical Chinese performance theory, he once quoted the Hangzhou proverb "first learn ruthlessness and then learn drama" as evidence, believing that this old saying echoes the view expressed by Diderot in "The Mystery of the Drama Actor": "The actor must be calm in his heart in order to embody the warm emotions of the character he plays, and he must first learn not to 'move in the middle', in order to vividly 'form the character's joy and sorrow.'" On the surface, "ruthless theory" runs counter to the experiential performance theory represented by Steiney, but in fact, it is the same way: although the actors are not emotional, they can create realistic and evocative performance effects, and even make the audience mesmerized. It can be seen that regarding the separation and experience, some people emphasize the performance method, some people focus on the performance effect, and some people take both into account, Qian Zhongshu is only in terms of performance methods. In contrast, one of Cheng Yanqiu's sayings is closer to the "drama" and "entering the drama" here, that is, Peking Opera actors "perform drama for seven points and deal with the audience with three points". Actors can't help but perform drama, whether they are indifferent or empathetic, whether they belong to the distancing school or the experiential school. But what about "dealing with the audience"? My understanding is to perform outside of the drama and the prescribed characters. This is important because the performance of the play opens up an additional shared space for communication with the audience. The actors always have the audience in mind, so they are always in the play and not all in the play. As described in the book, Peking opera actors sing and recite on the stage, usually facing the audience directly. The "eye skills" they practice hard are also aimed at being able to focus on the whole audience when facing the stage, so that every audience can feel their full gaze. Even in the prescribed scenes of character dialogue, the actors rarely communicate with each other face to face, but as always, face the audience and rap to them. This is very different from the concept and training of drama.
Observing Peking Opera performances from this perspective is indeed unique, but it is also somewhat unexpected. It is inevitable that some people will ask, is it not possible to understand the art of Peking Opera in this way because of small mistakes and big mistakes, and even to put the cart before the horse? Is it possible to exclude the main part of the art of opera and consider only improvisation? There are two points worth noting here. First, the above characteristics are not limited to Peking Opera, but are a common phenomenon of classical Chinese opera. The reason why actors can freely enter and exit plays is inseparable from some fundamental attributes of opera art, including the aesthetic concept of theater space consciousness and viewing and performance that the two authors have repeatedly emphasized in the book. As mentioned above, the actor's performance in front of the audience is itself a sign of the play. Second, in traditional opera, the actor's performance is not only improvised on the stage, but also implemented in the foot color line, the performance of the science and the drama (the concept of "drama" in the broad sense is used here, including scripts, texts compiled according to performances, and long legends written by Ming and Qing literati as desk dramas). The act is not only the actor's chosen action, but also the prescribed action of the play text: it forms part of the play.
The actor is leaning on, Liu Tianxiang photographed, illustration of "The Great Game"
Let's start with the performance of the opera. The confessions of meta-dramas are divided into two categories: dialogue and monologue, of which the monologue includes narration, that is, speaking directly to the audience behind the back of other actors on the same stage. With the help of narration, the actors and the audience have established a special communication channel, which can not only reveal their thoughts and feelings to the audience, but also express their opinions on other characters in the same play, and even joke about them. This approach not only temporarily interrupts the unfolding plot, but also leaves aside the other actors on the same stage. Narration is an important setup, and one of its functions is to ensure that the actors can play at any time.
Let's talk about the foot color line. Song And Yuannan opera has the tradition of "opening at the end of the vice", which was carried forward in the legend of the Ming and Qing literati. In today's parlance, this foot color is first and foremost a announcer. Before the play began, he appeared first, introducing the author and the plot, and commenting on the next play. However, the announcer is limited to the curtain, and the deputy is not. When the play officially begins, the vice president changes to a character in the play, usually a minor older male role. However, he did not fully integrate into the character, but retained some of the function of the opening scene at the end of the sub- He is on stage and in the play, but he can stay out of the play, temporarily withdraw from the role he plays, and observe and comment on the play that is being staged from the perspective of the other and even the omniscient narrator. In other words, he is both a man in the play and a spectator, both a character and a narrator.
"Zhang Xiezhuangyuan" is a relatively complete preserved work in the "Three Kinds of Yongle Classic Drama Texts", which can be seen as an early example of the opening of the second end. This deputy end (the "end" of the Yongle Canon is actually the "vice end", just as the "net" in it is also the "vice net") not only "announces the curtain", but also rehearses the main key points of the play with the help of the rap form of the palace tune. He plays one by one, switching back and forth between different characters, but at the same time taking on the role of a storyteller in this one-legged play. Some people may say that the opening of the second and last part of "Zhang Xiezhuangyuan" adopts the form of zhugong tuning, which preserves the traces of the transformation of early opera from rap art, which is a sign that the art of opera is not yet mature. However, in order to establish opera as an independent artistic style, it is considered that it is cut off from rap art, which is also difficult to establish. In fact, the subsequent legendary works often set up the role of a storyteller, such as Li Guinian in "The Hall of Eternal Life" and Liu Jingting in "Peach Blossom Fan". They are all storytellers in the play, re-performing the content of the play through the form of rap, forming a dialogue with the unfolding opera, so that the polyphonic structure of rap and opera interaction has been generated within the opera work.
Strictly speaking, every opera actor is also a narrator. When he appeared on the scene, he reported to his home, and did not forget to explain what he was doing and the ins and outs of the current scene. The stage changes scenery step by step, but also need him to rely on monologues and lyrics to describe and narrate, rather than relying on the stage's end props. In short, opera performance did not abandon the art of rap, but absorbed it. Even the pinnacle of the literati legend, "Peony Pavilion", often borrows the performance method of storytelling. For example, when Chunxiang witnessed Du Liniang's serious illness and death, she not only spoke directly to the audience, but also called herself a "lookout official": "Ranking officials, what's wrong!" Wait for me to cry to him for a while. Shi Daogu stepped in and said, "You are crying well, and I will help you." He also spoke the sarcasm of the narrator of the "Chronicle of History", Pi Li Yangqiu, into the language of the characters, and opened up the ironic distance from this scene on the stage10. It can be seen that the actor's body and two positions move back and forth between the narrator and the characters. Correspondingly, there is the drama and drama of opera performance.
In addition, the foot color of the vice end also provides us with an opportunity to understand the dual relationship between the actor and the character in the opera performance, and the double relationship between the opera foot color and the character. This dual relationship is reflected in both the drama and the stage performance. In the fifth play of "Zhang Xiezhuangyuan", this deputy end disguised himself as a servant of Zhang Xie's family. Zhang Xie's mother shouted five or six drinks to the servant, but instead of calling him by his first name, she said, "Tell Vice Mordecai to come here!" The servant had no name, but was called "Vice-Admiral." In early opera, servants may not have names and surnames, but like other characters with similar identities, they use class names according to convention, such as the guy is called Xiao Er Brother, and the servant is called Zhang Qianzhi, but it is different to call it "vice end". This is equivalent to reminding the audience not only to look at the character played by the vice end, but to see the vice end playing. Even if the audience is obsessed with the plot of the opera characters, it cannot be done.
Opera performances make a big fuss about the relationship between the foot color line and the characters, and even constantly direct the audience's attention to the actor and the foot color he assumes. Many of the foot colors in the early opera can play different characters in the same play, and the same is true for the vice end of the southern opera, and the same is true for the vice jing. The vice net can play a male, and can reverse the female role. Importantly, he not only reversed the string with gender, but also turned his role change and anti-string into a topic of gag on the stage. This is undoubtedly an out-of-the-box, outside the plot of the characters, but it is also part of the play, and even derives new plots and scenes from it. This is also a special form of transformation of the play and the play.
For example, in the sixteenth play of "Zhang Xiezhuangyuan", the deputy jing yan shan shen presided over the wedding feast, and when he left, he said: "I went to beg the lady!" After the original vice jing left the scene, he immediately returned and changed his role as Aunt Li to preside over another wedding banquet. The comedic foot color of the vice net is expected and remembered, and there is its own consistent background color. In this play, whether it is the mountain god he plays or Li Dabao, he is single-mindedly thinking only about eating and drinking. It can be seen that in addition to the characters played by Vice Jing, "Zhang Xiezhuangyuan" also develops another plot thread around this foot color itself. Originally an out-of-play play, it turned out to be an inside play. It is worth mentioning that when Vice Jing changed his role as Grandma Li, he simply took off his shoes on the stage and became a "barefoot wife". He did not hide it, pretending to be a three-inch golden lotus, and did not single-mindedly and consistently manage and maintain the illusion of the authenticity of the opera performance, but deliberately exposed the horse's foot, showing the truth of the gender reversal of this foot color, and showing the behind-the-scenes card to the audience.
It can be seen that in addition to playing the characters, the opera actors also assume the function of the narrator to varying degrees, and play on their own foot color lines, taking the foot color line as a matter. It can be said that they perform these roles at the same time, or they exercise the above various functions at the same time, and communicate and interact with the audience in their own corresponding ways. Therefore, the performance and viewing of opera should also be understood in these different senses. The frequent conversion between entering and exiting the play is precisely the basic feature of traditional opera.
For these phenomena, the academic community usually has two reactions. One thinks they're cheap gimmicks, crude and vulgar. The reason for the above situation is mainly because the early opera is not mature enough; or because the grass stage class from the folk is inevitably simple because of the ugliness; or the number of actors is not enough, so they have to work several times; and even the foot color line and the character role are confused and confused, so as to destroy the authenticity and integrity of the play. The other way of looking at it is just the opposite. Scholars trained in Western theory who read this cannot help but be amazed, directly classifying them as "meta-dramas" as post-narratives and self-commentaries of operas. In their view, this shows that the actors can pull away from the ironic distance of the plot scene in which they are, and comment on the color of their feet and the characters they play; and the post-setting consciousness is the product of an artistic maturity and high degree of self-awareness.
Is the above phenomenon a sign of the immaturity or maturity of the opera art? Is it unconscious or conscious? Is it a desperation due to conditions or an admirable invention? I think neither of these views is necessarily appropriate and has its own problems. The former is lost in simplicity and assumption, while the latter is preconceived and seeks too deeply. Whether the art of opera is mature or not is a judgment premise that requires introspection, not a conclusion that is taken for granted. Therefore, we don't have to choose between the two extremes of the preset. The performability of classical Chinese opera is far from being limited to the plot characters, and there are many overflowing or additional factors. These factors are often the brilliance of a play, and cannot be judged and evaluated according to the classical and realist principles of Western drama. What is obvious is that in the field of modern opera research, these factors are often misunderstood, underestimated, or even ignored. The propositions of entering and exiting the play provide us with an observational perspective for understanding these phenomena, and there is a great need for in-depth exploration. It can even be said that the mystery of the classical opera performing arts lies between entering the play and leaving the play. Looking at the performing arts of Peking Opera, it can be seen that it has a long history and is by no means an exception to classical opera.
▍ From the audience to the reader: "Watching and Acting as One" and the commentary on opera novels
"Viewing as one" refers to the audience's frequent interaction with the actors, intervening and participating in the performance of the opera. The stage is therefore not self-contained, there is no insurmountable dividing line with the audience, and there is no invisible wall. This feature of Peking Opera and even traditional opera performance has been pointed out by scholars before, but it still needs more specific descriptions and more in-depth arguments. "Great Game" proposes the integration of Peking Opera art, emphasizing the continuity and integrity of the performance space, that is, the performance space is based on the entire theater as a unit, rather than demarcating the boundaries according to the stage. However, this does not mean that there is an inherent identity between viewing and performance, because the audience can also applaud and react negatively to the performance. Strictly speaking, audience participation does not indicate that they are immersed in the daydreams of the drama and cannot extricate themselves. As you can see above, they quite appreciate the occasional moment of the opera performance and interact with the actors on different levels. In any case, the two authors here understand the performing arts of Peking Opera with the audience as the center, while explaining the historical rise and fall of Peking Opera. When they made the above observations on Peking Opera, they thought of Western drama (especially drama) and famous drama theory, and summarized the particularity of classical Chinese opera.
This observation is insightful and instructive. It should be added that the so-called difference between China and the West is, to a certain extent, also the difference between ancient and modern. The emergence of modern theaters and stages, the strict isolation of the stage from the audience, and the audience's unsmiling and precarious sitting are all relatively recent things. The ancient Greek amphitheater performed, and the audience also chatted while eating and drinking, which could be applauded or applauded. Comedians making fun of audiences is a common trick and is still faintly visible in the extant texts of ancient Greek comedy. Theater viewing until Shakespeare's time is still far from the situation in modern theater. From a sociological and anthropological point of view, participatory viewing is a common phenomenon in traditional communities, especially in rural life, and is not limited to theatrical performances, but includes all religious and entertaining festivals and ceremonial performances. Together, these activities serve to strengthen interpersonal bonds within the community by periodically demonstrating and reaffirming the group relationships that community members share through participatory and interactive performances. From the standpoint of sociology and cultural anthropology, it is natural to examine the performance and viewing activities of Peking Opera and other local operas.
But it is difficult to ignore that the live state of traditional Western theatrical performances has not received enough attention in classical theater theory. From Aristotle's "Trinity" to french neoclassical theory of theater (of course, the "trinity" is also derived from the neoclassical interpretation of Aristotle), there is no reference to the randomness of theatrical performance, and little consideration is given to the interaction between the stage performance and the audience. In fact, modern Western theory of drama is often based on the silence and alienation of the audience. Some theorists even believe that participatory viewing is a ritual activity, which is fundamentally different from theatrical viewing. Related to this, Western music theory has long rejected jazz improvisation and improvisation. From this point of view, in addition to the difference between China and the West and the difference between ancient and modern, it is also necessary to pay attention to the difference between theory and practice. Theory is sometimes at odds with practice, but it may in turn have an impact on practice, participating in shaping the way plays are performed and viewed. Therefore, looking back at the integration of Peking Opera art today, it is of great significance, especially the urgency of reality, because the scene of the integration of viewing and performing is no longer visible, and the social relations and theater conditions that support it have long been a thing of the past. It is worth noting that european and contemporary avant-garde dramas and experimental dramas have made some interesting and difficult attempts to break the "fourth wall" of the audience and the stage. In this regard, Peking Opera and even the entire Chinese classical opera have left a rich historical heritage, which should be ignored and reviewed and summarized.
After taking into account the differences between China and the West, ancient and modern, and theory and practice, re-evaluating the integration of Peking Opera art can find a moderate and more realistic starting point for it. It should be emphasized that if the integration of performances is a common phenomenon of traditional opera art, it is entirely possible that we will see similar examples in the relevant fields of literature and art. For example, is there some parallel between watching a play and reading a book, between the audience and the reader? Can watching a play and reading a review be an isolated act that has nothing to do with each other? What new views can these similar and even interrelated phenomena lead us to traditional culture and art?
Happily, there is exactly such a statement in "The Great Game": "If a play is compared to an article, applause is the punctuation (comma, period, exclamation point) in the text; if it is compared to a book, it is not only punctuation, but also eyebrow and tooth criticism, and its merits are like the Fat Yan Zhai Batch "Red Chamber", just like Jin Sheng's sigh "Water Margin"! "When it comes to Ming and Qing novels and operas, the comments are a topic that cannot be bypassed. Academics studying novel opera criticism often understand it as "reader acceptance" criticism. There is a problem with this statement, that is, the reader's reading behavior is classified into the category of "acceptance", assuming that the text of the work is definite and has a clear and fixed boundary with the reader, as an act of acceptance, the reader's reading is passive, only a reaction to the established text. This is not the case. The books read by the ancients, whether they are manuscripts or printed copies, usually have no punctuation, and readers need to punctuate and break sentences themselves, which is the so-called "sentence reading". It can be said that the text that the reader gets is an unfinished product. Books presuppose reader engagement and also depend on reader intervention. Only through the reader's sentence reading can it be completed and turned into a text that can be interpreted. So, reading is a positive act that participates in shaping and ultimately completing the text as the object of reading.
Critics of fiction and opera are special readers, who go further than ordinary readers. In addition to sentence reading, they also wrote their own interpretations of the work and their interaction with the work into text, and reframed and packaged the original text of the novel and opera through different methods such as prologue, appendix, double-line sandwich batch, eyebrow review, review before review, and review at the end. The form of the sandwich batch even intervenes directly in the body of the work from the outside. In terms of effect, it interrupts the reader's reading process, forcing them to read the commentary text interspersed in the main text while reading the main text. Jin Sheng sighed and commented that "Water Margin" is the same as the applause of watching the play: "wonderful", "wonderful" and "wonderful good text". However, the comments are not only applauded, but also from time to time to highlight the subtleties of the author's writing, including the rules of the back and forth, echo, and contrast, as well as the intricate and changing syntax, the word-by-word, the so-called "sudden frustration has a law" and "the word is not empty". He always regarded the novel as a work of art and applauded it. It is undeniable that Jin Shengsi is also an experiential reader, and when he reads the thrilling point, he will blurt out: "Shocking the reader!" Even now, he does not forget to remind the reader that this is the result of deliberate manipulation by the author, cursing "the talent is hateful"17. Of course, when he reads something he doesn't like, he will also applaud it, or even delete it directly. In fact, these critics are often also adaptors, deleting the works they comment on, and even commenting on their own deletions, just as actors applaud their own performances. Even if he did not make deletions, he would make a big stroke of the pen and approve the word "can be deleted", or simply a "delete" word. It seems to echo the sound of Bao Gong on the stage of "opening the sword" or "chopping", it is the hand that falls with the knife, so it is not painful, not to mention that Jin Shengsi also "waist chopped" "Water Margin". It can be seen that the pinch plays a multiple role: it interrupts the narrative of the main text of the novel, slows down the speed and rhythm of the narrative, focuses the reader's attention on the sentences and words that the critic repeatedly plays, and reads the novel and opera through the eyes of connoisseurs and judges. In doing so, the critic does not lock the work in the distant past, but maintains close contact with it, so it is either positive or negative, deleted or modified. All of this fundamentally shapes the reader's reading experience and attitude towards the work.
From this point of view, the participatory way of watching plays is essentially consistent with the participatory reading behavior, and in some respects there is even a phenomenon of mutual imitation or echoing each other. Like an open book, the former stage does not constitute an enclosed autonomous space, and the performance on the stage is not self-completed, but the intervention and interaction of the audience is expected. The audience applauded as if to mark the opera performance with commas, periods and exclamation points, they circled the words, created pauses, controlled the rhythm, and finally incorporated the opera performance into the context and atmosphere of their operation. It is no exaggeration to say that such an experience of opera presentation and perception is created by the audience and the actors.
Of course, we also know that watching a play is not reading a book after all. The audience appears at the scene of the performance, directly reacts to or intervenes in the opera performance, and the effect is immediate - this is incomparable to the reading review. But after all, the way to watch the drama is relatively simple, and it is impossible to intervene and intervene in the novel and opera works in an all-round way like a critic. If the theory of Peking Opera performance is established with the audience as the center, the most urgent thing is that we should discuss the subjectivity of the audience under the topic of the integration of viewing and performance.
This is a challenging question, and it may not be without revelation to see how Kim Shengsi establishes the subjectivity of the reader through commentary. He commented on the "West Chamber": "The Holy Sigh Criticism "The West Chamber" is a holy sigh text, not a "West Chamber Record" text. He also said: "The Record of the West Chamber was not created by a man with the surname Wang Zishi, but to read it with a calm heart, that is, I am suitable for my own creation, and when I see it word by word, I just want to write it in my heart, and the Book of the West Chamber is written in this way." Through his commentary, he successfully transformed himself from a reader into an author, replacing him with Wang Shifu, and was stunned to read other people's books into his own books. Later, Zhang Zhupo commented on "Golden Plum Bottle" and said something similar. Another example comes from the empty karate man in the first episode of the Book of Stones. As the first reader set up by the novel for himself, the empty karate man read "The Book of Stones", as if repeating his own life, so he changed his name to "Love Monk" and changed "Stone Record" to "Love Monk Record". Here, Cao Xueqin shows the magical transformation of the karate people from the reader of the novel to the author/character, and the so-called reading is the process of shaping the mutual relationship between the reader and the work.
Although Jin Shengsi prides himself on being an author, he is not here, and he said when he reads it: "The "Record of the West Chamber" approved by the Splendid Talents of the World of Heaven and The Splendid Talents of the World is the text of the Talents of the World, not the Words of the Holy Sigh. In the end, Jin Shengsi gave his commentary text a universal character, sharing his copyright with the "Splendid Talents of the World" who was also a reader. It can be seen that what he seeks to establish is the subjectivity that these readers share in common. The so-called people with this heart, the same heart, a talented reader/audience group conceived by the critic, has been called out.
But whether it is reading books or watching plays, they have undergone modern transformation later. The participatory reading and performance-watching experience of the reader marked by the comments, the author, becomes unsustainable. The history of Chinese books and readings underwent historical changes in the late 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, and related changes also occurred in other areas of social culture, reflected in new theater structures and viewing styles. These changes occur almost simultaneously and have an inherent identity.
In the book market of the Ming and Qing dynasties, novels and opera works could only become popular with additional comments, and the big names of critics were more appealing than authors. But by the 20th century, the critics were no longer favored, and the community of readers called for by critics collapsed. Hu Shi, a leader of the New Culture Movement, once presided over the publication of the Yadong edition of the classic novel series, not only adding modern punctuation to these works, but also deleting all comments. This means that the way classical novels are read has also changed accordingly. We know that the comments bring in the voices of others, including applause and exclamation, with a high degree of performance and drama, thus breaking the closed space and silence of the reader's personal private reading. Through the medium of commentary, reading becomes dialogue, and the reader not only talks to the main text, but also to the sub-text of the commentary. In contrast, the modern version of the classical novel eliminates the reader's way of intervening in the text, thus ensuring the independence of the text and the objectivity of the reading. Reading is no longer interactive, but becomes a lonely, personal act. This is not difficult to understand, because in modern Europe, with the emergence of urban middle-class readers, silent reading and personal private reading have gradually become popular ways of reading. Modern reading theory even sees this way of reading as a necessary prerequisite for the construction of modern individual subjectivity and inner world.
In China in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the way of watching theater also began to evolve with the times. The first is that the internal structure of the Urban Theater has undergone a modern transformation: the stage is high, only one side is open to the audience, and through the lighting installation and fixed seating, the audience is isolated from the actors on the stage, and the audience can no longer watch the performance from other angles. At the same time they are silenced and become passive recipients with silent isolated individuals. In short, theater watching has gradually accepted a new set of norms in middle-class society, including polite distance and behavioral discipline in public space. The concept and practice of opera performance has changed.
"The Great Game" tells us the wonderful story of the integration of Peking Opera art and performance, and the disintegration of the integration of peking opera is an important part of the process of cultural transformation in modern society. Time has passed, and today we are once again confronted with the problem of audiences and readers. On the one hand, online platforms are systematically replacing face-to-face direct communication, and on the other hand, multi-media technology offers us unprecedented possibilities for us to intervene in and interact with the production of images and texts. In this sense alone, the viewer and reader as individuals seem to have acquired unprecedented initiative, manipulation, and an immersive sense of engagement. With this as a starting point, revisiting the phenomenon of the unity of observation and performance helps us to think about where the present comes from and where it will go.
▍Normative Language and Reference Language: Theorizing of Opera Art Practice
How to grasp the essential characteristics and aesthetic ideals of classical Chinese opera through the performing arts of Peking Opera? This undoubtedly requires us to refine the theory from the performance practice of Peking Opera art. "The Great Game" has done enough articles on the level of experience, telling the vivid experience of Guo Baochang himself watching and directing the play, and also interspersed with many anecdotes about the masters of Peking Opera, showing us the vivid feelings and in-depth experience of an insider on Peking Opera performance. These direct, rather than indirect, experiences make people nod their heads and say that they have no intention of knowing, and their meaning depends on the specific situation they are in, as well as on the vocabulary and cultural reference system they share. If we change the historical and cultural context, the reader may not be able to fully understand it. Therefore, how to rise to the level of universal theoretical generalization is still a major challenge. This is reminiscent of the term "thick description" borrowed and played by the cultural anthropologist Clifford Geertz from Gilbert Ryle. The conundrum lies in how to use the "deep depiction" of insiders to reveal the universal normativity of a culture without weakening or even canceling its specific particularities.
The establishment of the theoretical system of classical Chinese art itself also contains a "comparative" proposition, because only by referring to other cultural and theoretical systems can we obtain the basic positioning and cognition of our own cultural traditions and ideological systems. Once you know yourself out of the frame of reference of others, you will inevitably fall into the trap of self-talk and circular argumentation. In fact, our theoretical discourse today has already undergone the baptism of modern scholarship. It is neither possible nor necessary to eliminate all foreign or late-rising concepts. At the same time, this also creates a difficult problem, that is, tao Qingmei's "conceptual entanglement" in the "Afterword". Discussions of Peking opera have adopted foreign terms such as "experience" and "separation." They all have their own histories, with complex meanings attached, and they are entangled with the history of the development of Peking Opera itself, becoming inextricably linked. This dual history can be described as a thousand and one things, it is difficult to quickly cut through the chaos, to sort out a clear vein, and it is even more difficult to redefine "experience" and "separation". Even using local concepts like "games" to understand Peking Opera performances is not guaranteed to be troublesome. Its connotations and extensions are quite broad and difficult to determine; not to mention that we also use "games" to translate Schiller's theory of the origin of art, and the resulting confusion is even more numerous.
These questions are not only found in the study of Peking opera and even classical opera, but also return to the fundamental question raised at the beginning of the article, that is, what language should we use today to tell about traditional Chinese culture. If our goal is to tell our own stories in our own language, then this "own language" still needs to be created in the future. Of course, this does not preclude the creation of new concepts, such as starting from the experience of Peking Opera performances and refining the phrase "viewing and acting as one". In order to accurately and effectively express the understanding of Peking Opera art, it is also necessary to select some existing concepts, interpret and develop them, and thus give them historical and theoretical explanatory power. One of the keys, in my opinion, is to differentiate "normative concepts" (or "analytical concepts") from "reference concepts".
Normative concepts are tools for our constructivism theory, and must have universality that transcends specific contexts. It is undeniable that each concept has its own complex history, and if it is allowed to fall into the historical context, it is like stepping into quicksand, doomed to find a solid foundation for the establishment of a theoretical edifice. However, the rich history of the concept itself is not only a burden to be shaken off, but also an important resource for our theoretical construction. If it is not effectively utilized, the process of theorization is bound to become passive water, like building a car behind closed doors or building a castle in the air. From this point of view, the theoretical formulation must be negotiated between the historical and normative nature of the concept, so as to establish a fulcrum. The ultimate goal is to establish a theoretical discourse with universality and flexibility, which can not only put forward normative propositions, but also be able to cope with historical changes and make effective explanations for complex phenomena in history.
Unlike normative languages, reference languages belong to the object of analysis of researchers, are part of their self-expression, and are the languages chosen to be used in understanding and presenting cultural phenomena. This is the case, for example, in both "experience" and "dissociation", and the importance of these concepts lies in revealing the positions, perspectives and approaches held by their users. We need to understand these ideas in their own historical context, that is, by analyzing the intentions, purposes, and agendas of the users, while revealing the history of their own formation and evolution, as well as their external conditions, particularities, and other contingencies. Obviously, when we construct our theories or even describe the object of investigation, we should not use the language of our analytical object unreservedly, otherwise we will fall into the traps and ecstasy arrays it has set and will not be able to escape; still less should we use it as our own normative language, so that we cannot analyze it and maintain a critical distance. As the language of the parsing object, it has only a referential role. Because of this, I call it "reference language" to avoid confusion with normative language.
"Great Game" uses its own normative concepts, including "play", "play", "watching and acting as one", and ultimately under the "transcendent principle of the game". There is also an important concept, that is, "ugly". The author believes that "'born and pure ugly' really should be reversed in order" and changed to "ugly" to start with "ugly". The role of "ugly" is so great that instead of dividing Peking opera works into two categories, "tragedy" and "comedy", it is better to call it "ugly drama" (perhaps "ugly drama" would be better). This once again bears witness to the importance of comparison with the other, and in order to illustrate what Peking Opera is not, it is necessary to use the concept of referentiality. From this point of view, the concept of "ugly" has a lot of room for in-depth discussion, and it also has the potential for further theorization. I am interested in: can we understand the performing arts of Peking Opera with the core concepts of "ugly" and "game", and summarize the artistic theory of classical opera on this basis?
▍ "Ugly" and the transcendence of the game: meaning and problems
In terms of literary achievements, Peking Opera's performance was greatly inferior, and it did not even develop its own opera literature. However, Peking Opera embodies all its essence in the performance of the stage. As far as performance is concerned, Peking Opera not only preserves many characteristics of traditional opera art, but also carries forward or innovates in many aspects. When explaining the achievements of Peking Opera, "Great Game" particularly emphasizes the pivotal role of "ugly". The author claims: "If the ugliness is understood, the main characteristics of the aesthetics of Peking Opera will also be understood." "This means, first and foremost, correcting the common understanding of ugliness. The book quotes the old works of Potano Gan and xu Binbin's relevant expositions, indicating that the ugly original is mainly funny, which can be traced back to Sima Qian's "History of History" in the "Funny Column Biography". In contrast to its humble identity, ugliness often possessed a special intelligence and transcendent character that needed to be understood in what is said today in what is said in the philosophical sense. And one of the big mistakes we often make is to equate him with the villain. In fact, the characters played by the ugly, from the emperor's ministers to the Ichijing xiaofu, are not only negative characters, but also many positive characters, and even mostly positive characters. This is not only true of Peking Opera, but also the legends of the Ming and Qing dynasties. For example, Liu Jingting in "Peach Blossom Fan", as a character, is incomparably positive, but he is ugly. Ugly feet first appeared in the Song and Yuan southern dramas, but there were already vice-final and vice-net in the Song and Yuan miscellaneous dramas. Song Nai De Weng's "Capital City Jisheng" said: "The deputy net color is Qiao, and the deputy last color is slanderous." It can be seen that they gag and joke, sing and harmonize, or play with each other, laughing and laughing, and the good drama is continuous. Around the ugly and vice-end, vice-net, but also formed other foot colors, and echo with it. Therefore, it is necessary to link the ugly and these foot color trades that are similar to and related to the ugly, and make a general investigation in order to sort out their development and changes in the history of opera, and at the same time show their wonderful performances on the stage and in the works of opera.
Why is ugliness so important? Amazing Game gives the following reasons. First, the ugly drama road is the widest, which fully reflects the technicality of Peking Opera: the drama of life, dan, and purity will be, the voice of the big and the small, the singing and playing can be all afforded, and the rap and singing are also not lost. The author takes Xiao Changhua from the late Qing Dynasty to the 1960s as an example: he has the reputation of "the first ugly", as the chief teacher of Fulian Cheng's class, his status is extremely high, and he is equivalent to today's artistic director. Second, related to this, ugly also has an important function, that is, to grasp the rhythm and speed of the whole play. Once the performance starts, he needs to make timely adjustments according to the changes in the situation on and off the field, through work such as stringing the scene, saving the scene and mating the scene. It can be said that ugly also plays a role in stage scheduling in opera performances. Third, ugliness is known for its funny humor, which is always self-deprecating and self-deprecating, which can best reflect the gameplay and can also impress the audience the most. Fourth, the ugliness on the Peking Opera stage enjoys great freedom, and can jump out of the characters to interact with the audience at any time, and can also hang up and improvise. He is a key link between the stage and the audience. Fifth, and most importantly, ugliness represents the transcendence of the game, beyond life and death, beyond sorrow and joy. Specifically, ugly plays can often overcome the plot content of the opera, or make it recede to a secondary position, or even become an excuse for performance, and direct the audience's full attention to ugly superb performances, applauding his unique skills. As a result, it is often the case that murder, madness and death are clearly performed on stage, but the audience laughs and applauds. In this sense, the so-called art is to overcome difficulties. Of course, this is not only about ugly performance skills, but also about his difficult body movements and the wonderful language, tone and rhythm of singing Nian Bai. "The Great Game" constantly reminds us that the worldview and outlook on life embodied in Chinese opera are very different from European tragedies, so it is difficult for Peking Opera to observe the world and grasp life in a tragic way, but instead transcends the opposition between tragedy and comedy and treats the tragic themes dealt with in Western dramas with a game attitude. As a result, generations of opera artists, combined with their own understanding of life and destiny, interpret this way of thinking or attitude towards life on the stage, and finally give it a wonderful form of performing arts. In fact, the above characteristics of Peking Opera art, marked by ugliness, are also seen to varying degrees in other forms of classical opera.
Starting from the ugly, it is still the end of the game. The game is said to involve skills at the micro level, and at the macro level, it is related to the world view and life view. When the two authors discuss the game, they are not limited to Peking Opera itself, but also cite "Dream of the Red Chamber" as an example, which shows that they aim to reveal a longer and grander tradition of classical Chinese literature and art. If we make arguments from the height of our outlook on life and our attitude towards life, the game says that there is probably still a way to go, and we need to mobilize more ideological resources and organize the discourse more effectively. But as far as opera fiction is concerned, the game theory undoubtedly touches on some important aspects of it, which makes readers and audiences feel at ease.
Classical Chinese opera is a comprehensive performing art that includes singing and playing. Early opera performances were inseparable from fighting, competition, juggling, gossiping and singing fruit. Strictly speaking, opera covers different types of European opera, dance drama and drama, and there are many components such as farce and rap art. It is precisely for this reason that the foot colors such as vice end and vice net that combine various talents with funny as the background color can show their skills like a fish. In this sense, the concept of "opera" is far greater than that of "drama" in the modern European sense. The opera performances of the Song and Yuan dynasties were known as "miscellaneous operas", which is an excellent sign of this attribute. Since opera encompasses many elements of games and skills, the interest of opera is not limited to shaping characters and presenting dramas, but also pays attention to them in addition to characters and dramas. As seen above, opera performances always contain many factors that are outside the plot and characters, that is, the components of the play.
Literati of the Ming and Qing dynasties wrote long stories, and as desk dramas, their scale was comparable to that of long novels. It is worth noting that in these long legends, the comprehensive and mixed characteristics of early opera have not been eliminated, but have been integrated into the works in a new way, integrating many skills into one, and also forming a complex situation of coexistence and interaction between high and low, elegant and vulgar, serious and funny, sad and funny. In this regard, the related foot color centered on ugliness is even more indispensable. For example, "Peony Pavilion" has reached an astonishing degree in the richness and heterogeneity of content and style, and the internal tension caused by it, as have other masterpieces of the legend, such as "Hall of Eternal Life" and "Peach Blossom Fan". This is extremely rare in the history of world theater, although the above characteristics are almost absent in the performance of Kun Zi Opera.
The game theory needs to be more fully discussed, if you cite a chapter novel to explain the transcendent principle of the game, it is not "Journey to the West", and Sun Wukong is the embodiment of the spirit of the game. In the final analysis, this is still inseparable from opera, because it is the opponent scene between Sun Wukong and the Eight Precepts of Pigs that occupies a lot of space, which reminds people of the vice jingfa Qiao and the vice end of the miscellaneous drama. The foot-color line of the opera brings a complete set of performances on the stage to the narrative of the novel, from gags to playful nonsense. In this particular sense, it is no harm to regard "Journey to the West" as a derivative of the miscellaneous drama. Indeed, although in the novel, Monkey King can enjoy the joy of role playing and the freedom to change roles. Reading the list of famous doctors asked by King Zhu Ziguo, he said with joy: "Wait for the old grandson to be a doctor to play." "Knowingly", "being a doctor" is only "playing tricks" after all. Not only that, Sun Wukong traveled west to protect the monks to learn the scriptures, born into death along the way, and lowered the demons and monsters, but in his dialogue with the elder, it was only "because he was staying overnight, he took a few monsters to play by the way." Ask how many monsters there are in the house." He can find pleasure in difficult situations, and he is even more excited in the face of challenges, but he has no interest in Buddhist scriptures. Whether it is reading "Journey to the West" as a Buddhist fable or a Quanzhen sect fable, it is inevitable that there is some separation from this protagonist; and putting on the big hat of optimism and heroism for Sun Wukong is also finally difficult: either crushing him or dwarfing him. Perhaps what runs through the core of Sun Wukong's personality and all his actions is his playful but desperate and invincible game spirit.
"Journey to the West" combines all spells, skills and juggling, and fighting competition is a common thing for Sun Wukong. One of the ways to fight with youkai is to gamble on beheading. When Sun Wukong heard this, he was eager to try: "When I was practicing in the temple, I once met a Fang Shang Zen and Son, who taught me a beheading method. "He bet his life, but he did nothing. The king commented, "The monk was young and ignorant. Beheading where is it good to try new? The head is the head of the six yangs, and if it is cut off, it will be dead. This relaxed gesture covers the danger of death, and the showmanship on the Peking Opera stage is not dangerous! Not only may the play be smashed, but the actor is also prone to disability. This is an extreme game on the edge of danger, otherwise it is impossible to produce suspense and gripping. Interestingly, this beheading method comes from a reserved repertoire of Ichijing juggling, as detailed in Tang Wei Chi Wei's "The Story of China and North Korea" and Ming Xie Zhaochun's "Five Miscellaneous Groups". According to Song Mengyuan's "Tokyo Dream Record", the emperor ascended the Baojin Building in Kaifeng, and the various armies presented hundreds of plays, including the program of "Seven Sacred Swords": "When there is another explosion of war, fireworks will gush out, and people will not see each other." There were seven people in the smoke, all wearing tattoos, wearing green gauze short back clothes, splendid belly belts, one person with a small hat of gold flowers, holding a white flag, Yu All turbans, holding real knives, fighting and stabbing each other, making a face-breaking and heart-breaking posture, called the 'Seven Holy Swords'. Song's "Records of the Prosperity of the Old Man of the West Lake" said: "Fluttering and selling and making a scene inside the road, doing the 'Seven Sacred Swords', cutting people's heads, selling charms, and less idle yiyuan to pick up." "The artist performs the beheading method, and the most amazing thing is that after cutting off the head, it can also be tightly connected according to the original. The Ming Dynasty novel "The Legend of the Three Sui Ping Demons" has already interpreted the Seven Sacred Swords as a narrative plot, and the Che Chi Guo Dou Fa of "Journey to the West" has also come from this. The so-called unique work is nothing more than this. But the audience did not stop watching because the children's severed heads were too cruel, and even came forward to stop it. On the contrary, they watched with relish, and they were all overjoyed. In other words, at this moment, they are brought to another world by the performance, completely following the logic of that world, and thus temporarily detached from the moral ethics and code of conduct of the real world, and forgetting the fear of death and violence. It is the triumph of art, the triumph of art that briefly overcomes the logic of life. If Peking Opera embodies the transcendence of games, what it transcends is the iron law of the real world, and at the moment of performance, it is replaced by the logic of game art.
However, it is not easy to clarify the meaning of the spirit of the game. Freedom is always premised on unfreedom, otherwise it loses its meaning, cannot be said, and is difficult to define. What is the freedom of the game for? What is its foundation? Where are the boundaries? The golden hoop worn by Sun Wukong on his head is therefore of great significance. Tang monks rarely chanted the tightening mantra, but the tightening mantra was a necessary setting. Sun Wukong seemed to do whatever he wanted, but he understood very early on that although he was fighting for 108,000 miles, he still couldn't jump out of the palm of the Buddha in the end. His game is freedom under the control of spells. The same is true of the unique performances on the stage, where the actors are dressed up as if dancing in shackles, challenging the limits of the body and imagination. This is the other side hidden behind the game.
Whether it's a "game" or a "cheer," each of these concepts implies a fragile and vague tipping point within itself. The player has great wisdom, great joy, and is enviable. Those who wait for the next may become arrogant and stubborn chaos demon kings, or become floating and sinking in the world, and it is inevitable that they will retreat and retreat. Zi Yue: "Aspirations are in the Tao, according to virtue, according to benevolence, and in art." Everything is taken care of, and it sounds foolproof, but the Confucians have the admonition that the plaything is lost. The same is the game mentality, play well that is Sun Wukong of "Journey to the West", play badly and become Wei Xiaobao of "Deer Ding", the two are high and low, positive and negative. The Great Game repeatedly emphasizes that "games" are free to transcend the category of all artificial dualities. But at the same time, it brings an antithesis of itself: once it crosses that undefined tipping point, the concept can go to its opposite, as if applause becomes theater chaos, and criticism points become out of control and become a barrage of bullets. One of the clever things about the author of this book is that he looks at the gameplay of Peking Opera through the so-called chaos. But chaos is, after all, the result of the failure of the rules, so it seems to me that the greatest challenge in making theoretical generalizations about games and applause is to explain what the rules are behind them, how they work, and what the conditions under which they operate. In turn, it is also possible to ask: What kind of game is no longer a game, but becomes a chaos? Therefore, the in-depth thinking and discussion that emanates from the propositions proposed by "The Great Game" will be a great blessing for us to review the tradition of the performing arts and construct our own theoretical discourse.
This article was originally published in Literature and Art Studies, No. 4, 2022, originally titled "Theoretical Construction of Traditional Opera and Chinese Performing Arts: Commenting on Guo Baochang and Tao Qingmei's "Great Games: What's So Good about Peking Opera"" Welcome to share personally, media reprint please contact the copyright owner.