The True Expression of Ninety Years of Life - Watching the Quyi Musical "Zhou Yongkai"

Du Jianhua

In late June this year, Sichuan Province opened the annual "Drama Beauty Tianfu - Excellent Drama Exhibition Season". In the next time, more than 100 performances of 62 newly created dramas (festivals) will be staged in various parts of Sichuan. Recently, a number of new plays have appeared on the Chengdu stage. From the perspective of drama styles, there are sichuan opera, lantern drama, drama, dance drama, acrobatic drama and symphony. From the perspective of theme content, the repertoire of local characters, red history, and heroic models of the times accounts for more than half of the repertoire, among which the quyi musical "Zhou Yongkai", which is created by the Bazhou District Committee of bazhong City and the Bazhou District People's Government of Bazhong City, has left a deep impression on the audience in Rongcheng, and a smell of earth in Dabashan is coming to the face.

Quyi musical "Zhou Yongkai", listening to the title of this simple and homely play, first understand the plot - the story of a ninety-year-old communist party member who won the national July 1st Medal and the title of national outstanding communist party member. Objectively speaking, such a suspenseful live-action and true-story report drama does not have much appeal to the current audience. However, entering the theater, in the two-hour viewing process, the audience was attracted by the ordinary, realistic, vivid and unique story of the owner of the play many times, moved by his simple quality and noble feelings, infected by the actor's sincere and full of charm singing, and encouraged by the young and passionate actors in the stage. In the audience's endless applause, the curtain fell, and I couldn't help but sigh that I hadn't seen such a play for a long time!

Zhou Yongkai is a Dabashan man who has never left Dabashan in his life. He joined the underground party in 1945 when he was 17 years old in school, lived 94 years, 76 years old, served as the secretary of the underground party county party committee, and risked his life before the founding of the People's Republic of China to plot an uprising against the division commanders of the Nationalist Army; After the founding of the People's Republic of China, he held many positions, led the members to build reservoirs during difficult years, and after the reform and opening up, he served as the secretary of the Discipline Inspection Commission to investigate and deal with corrupt elements; After retiring, he returned to his hometown, lived in the mountains, and embarked on the road of leading the peasants to get rid of poverty and become rich. It is such a realistic drama of real people and real events, one without suspense, two without complete running through events, three without outside the big name, four without stage beauty installations, but it is interpreted by a group of local actors with sound and color, flesh and blood, sincerity, simplicity and touching.

Although it is called Quyi Musical, when the author structures this drama, he adopts the flashback and beaded narrative methods commonly used in dramas, which match the expression of Quyi singing and narrative interaction. In the face of the rich life course and inexhaustible related events of this 76-year-old party protagonist, the author extracts the stories of Zhou Yongkai's long and extraordinary life that best reflect the excellent qualities of a communist in different eras, thus shaping a different stage art image of a communist party member. He resolutely joined the Communist Party in the midst of the White Terror; Before the founding of the People's Republic of China, as the secretary of the underground party and county party committee, he went to the enemy's headquarters and mobilized the commanders of the Kuomintang army divisions with heavy troops to surrender to the uprising, facing the enemy's obstruction and the danger of life and death, he calmly coped, fought with wisdom and courage, and finally ushered in the peaceful liberation of Bazhong County. For this extraordinary experience, the author adopts the expression method of combining dots and lines, and concisely outlines the historical contribution of an old Communist Party member Zhou Yongkai. For the complicated historical events and life stories experienced by the protagonist in the 70 years of New China, the author cleverly places the characters and events in the major political and historical background and the local specific environment, and complements the macro narrative of the major events with the small events of specific life, creating a real and credible and touching dramatic scene. In the most difficult period of life, as the commander-in-chief of the construction of the reservoir, Zhou Yongkai and the members fought together at the construction site, pulling stones and digging earth. During the break, Secretary Zhou took out a "hard dish" - a bag of dried beans and distributed it to the members of the club. It was the only grain he had saved from his own mouth. It is this "hard dish" that seems insignificant today, which not only touched the members of the reservoir repair, but also moved the audience in the theater. In this situation, what kind of action and what language can better express the concern of a Communist Party member for the masses?

As a quyi musical, the play gives full play to the specialty of quyi rap art, and the intertwined combination of many quyi elements shows the uniqueness of quyi drama in terms of narrative lyrical richness. The whole drama is a non-scene structure, in the face of a span of more than 70 years of time, different characters and independent events, the time switching between each other, the scene transfer is mainly through the explanation of the music and rap method, the dance conversion of the mass actors, all in one go, there is no sense of violation. What is particularly commendable is that the author's description of important events and key plots, the shaping of the main characters and the allocation of ink and ink to many minor characters, are handled appropriately. In the 1980s, Zhou Yongkai, who was the secretary of the Discipline Inspection Commission, encountered relations and intercessions from all sides when dealing with the illegal and disorderly behavior of the director of the canning factory in the local pillar industry, and it was difficult to handle the case according to law. In the performance of this complicated scene where many characters appear, the director adopts the combination of realism and symbolism, in addition to the protagonist Zhou Yongkai, he faces six characters representing different views, different forces, and different attitudes, whether it is a representative who supports handling cases according to law and adheres to the truth, or a person with ulterior motives who cover up and bend the law for personal gain, there are also people who are doubtful and vacillating, and there are more threatening and intimidating underworld forces, all of which use symbolic and symbolic expression methods. The six characters on the stage have no names, they stand around Zhou Yongkai, take turns to fight, and create a tense situation of verbal and deadlock in a sharp and direct dialogue, so that the audience can directly feel the heavy pressure on Zhou Yongkai, thus also expressing the difficult persistence and noble qualities of a Communist Party member who upholds justice, adheres to law and discipline, and never bows to the evil forces.

There are many kinds of Sichuan operas, but the musical design of the play is mainly based on the processed and beautified Sichuan Yangqin and Qingyin tunes, which constitute the main theme that runs through the whole play. According to the needs of different scenes and emotional expressions, the money board and percussion music with Sichuan characteristics are dotted in the background music, forming a unified and distinctive musical style of the whole play. The thickness, somberness, high pitchedness, elegance and clarity of the yangqin are gorgeous, crisp, jumping and bright, laying the foundation for the different musical images of different roles of men, women and children. The distinctive Sichuan quyi music accompanied by the local atmosphere of Daba Mountain is smooth to the ear and quite infectious.

The young Zhou Yongkai is played by Wang Chao, the winner of the Plum Blossom Award from Chengdu Chuan Theatre, whose performance is simple and skillful, close to the role, his voice is transparent and bright, the singing voice is rich in charm, and there is a trend of "one cavity fixing taiping". When Zhou Yongkai handled the case, he faced various pressures and the incomprehension of his relatives, and came to his sister's grave to pour out his thoughts, and the two sisters and brothers had spiritual dialogues and exchanged duets. At this time, the large sections of solo singing and duet singing, sometimes low back grievances, sometimes family memories, and finally concentration and calmness, firm faith, the ups and downs of the singing section was interpreted by Wang Chao with great emotion, ease, clear layers, and deep feelings, adding a lot of color to the whole play.

It must also be pointed out that as a modern play with an original local theme theme from the grassroots, they save the cost of creation and performance, there is no external big name, and there is no stage large-scale production package, except for the first protagonist from Chengdu Chuan Theater, the other actors are performed by the actors of the Bazhou District Cultural Center and the Sichuan Opera Cultural Protection and Inheritance Center. They are passionate, simple in nature, and most have many years of stage experience and emotional experience with the blood of the local people. The artistic creation that is fully committed to it will naturally have infectious and affinity, which is also an important reason for the success of the performance of "Zhou Yongkai".

(The author is a researcher at Sichuan Academy of Arts)

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