A set of "Yongzheng Sword Hero Diagram" Wang Yuebo said for thirteen years

◎Xin Yousheng

At the end of September, Xuannan Library ushered in its 700th performance, and actor Wang Yuebo performed for two hours by himself, and the book list was "Yongzheng Sword Hero Map". Since its establishment in 2007, Xuannan Library has first performed in the Xuanwu Cultural Center for many years, then moved to the Tianqiao Art Building, and after experiencing a suspension during the epidemic and online performances, it finally resumed offline performances at Lao She Tea House.

Thirteen parts, thirteen years

"Yongzheng Sword Hero Map" is a commentary compiled by Chang Jiemiao, a book commenting artist during the Republic of China, who made Dong Lin, the founder of Baguazhang, alias Tong Lin, as the protagonist. This book has many characters, complex plots, wonderful martial arts, and many comments on people's feelings, which is very attractive to the audience and quite magical. Since its creation, the commentators have loved to perform, and there is a saying that "the "Sword Hero Map" has a house and a building". As a work that the commentator himself "clenched" (quyi jargon, meaning creation), there is no text in the world, relying on oral transmission between teachers and disciples. Later, Chang Jiemiao and his disciple Jiang Yiting successively serialized texts in newspapers such as New Tianjin News, and wrote new content while serializing. In order to meet the needs of serialization, there are too many plot details in the later stage, the main line is extremely vague, and the content is almost fantasy.

Since the 80s of last century, a large number of "Yongzheng Sword Hero Map" review texts have been published, and the authors are mostly book commentators, such as Li Xinquan and Shan Tianfang. Starting from their respective performance practices, they cut and intensively integrated the story into their own creations. Based on the serialized content of Republican newspapers and periodicals, Beijing Normal University Press published "Thirteen Yongzheng Swordsman", which is the most complete and faithful publication of various texts and the most faithful to the original appearance of the serialization. Wang Yuebo performed with "Thirteen Yongzheng Swordsmen" as the basis.

In fact, in mid-September, Wang Yuebo said that Zhang Fang's return to the mansion had reached the end of this version, and it was said that the merit could be completed. Fortunately, the Tianjin audience provided follow-up content serialized in newspapers and periodicals during the Republic of China, and the Wang version of "Yongzheng Sword Hero Map" was able to continue. For Wang Yuebo's book fans, this performance is a memorable day, Wang Yuebo said that the 13 films and 13 volumes of "Yongzheng Sword Hero Map" took exactly 13 years.

The time span of a book review performance is 13 years, which sounds incredible. In the era of radio commentary, Mr. Yuan Kuocheng wrote "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" 365 times, half an hour a day for exactly one year. Mr. Shan Tian Fang's "White Eyebrow Hero" 400 times, which has been broadcast for more than a year, is extremely long. During the Republic of China, he commented on books in a teahouse, and legend has it that Pin Zhengsan, known as "eight sets of pins", can talk about "Sui and Tang" to "Remnant Tang" in two months, spanning 300 years. However, any of Wang Yuebo's full-length commentaries (except "Liaozhai"), whether "Sui and Tang" or "Water Margin", take several years, which is directly related to the changes in the current performance mode of commentary.

From prosperity to twilight

The Beijing Pingshu story began with the Qing Dynasty artist Wang Hongxing. His performances were accompanied by musical instruments, rapping and doing, because music was banned during the national mourning after Yongzheng's death, and instead only talked and did not sing, which became the beginning of Beijing Commentary. After that, his disciples and successor disciples "Sanchen, Wuliang, Jiu Mao, Eighteen Kui" and others gradually developed and grew Pingshu. At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China period, famous artists such as Shuang Houping, the king of the Pingshu world, who were known as the "Three Great Kings" together with Tan Xinpei, the king of the Lingjie world, and Liu Baoquan, the king of the drum world, appeared. At that time, there were many venues for Pingshu performances in Beijing. According to Jin Shoushen, an expert on Beijing folklore, there were eight big book teahouses in Beijing at the end of the Qing Dynasty, and no book sheds and open-air storytelling places are counted. "Jianghu Cong Talks" records that there were seventy or eighty libraries in Beijing during the Republic of China; Qi Rushan said that during the Republic of China, there were nearly 1,000 teahouses in Beijing performing commentaries, with 200,000 listeners per day, which may be exaggerated.

In the late Qing Dynasty, the performance of commentaries in the tea house of the Republic of China is divided into two periods every day, with the matinee session from 3 to 6 p.m. and the "night of lights" from 7 to 10 p.m. Additional sessions can be held from 1 to 3 p.m. before the matinee session, which is called "early child". The actor changes every two months, called "one turn". Each teahouse, except for "early children", needs 12 actors per year. Every year before the New Year, the library invites actors to be called "Please Zhuan'er", and the cast and bibliography of the year must be determined before a performance year. After accepting the invitation, the actor cannot regret it, and if he cannot perform for various reasons, he will be compensated for the losses caused to the library. This two-a-day, non-stop performance continued after 1949. According to the business table of drum commenting actors in Beijing in the 1950s that can be seen on the Internet, there were dozens of teahouses in Beijing at that time, but the performance was invited by the owner of the library to be assigned by the performance theater troupe.

This performance mode has certain requirements for actors, and each performance is about three hours, which is 180 hours in two months. It is not easy for any story to fill this length, and the actor joins the book and idle baier, and there is a legend that Shuanghouping said "Water Margin" "Douqing kills sister-in-law", at the request of the audience on a business trip, the Wusong knife does not fall for 10 days, and the legend that the knife does not fall until the return of this business trip; Only then did the "King of Clean Street" Wang Jiekui say "Bao Gong Case", and it takes more than ten minutes for a "Bao Gong to drink tea". Of course, only to delay the time, the audience does not buy it, requires the actor's superb acting skills.

Because it is only two months in a library, and there are a large number of books, and when you turn around and return to this library, the audience can listen to it again, so it does not require the actor to master a lot of books. Pin Zhengsan has eight sets of books that can be used as a nickname, and many artists only say one book in their lives, such as Guang Jaming's life only says "Good and Evil Map".

After the founding of New China, radio commentaries developed rapidly, and famous artists such as Yuan Kuocheng achieved national influence through broadcasting. Especially since the 1980s, radio and television have become the main way for audiences to listen to books, half an hour at a time, and later compressed to about 20 minutes in order to add advertisements. In order to adapt to the way of TV representation, the actor came out from behind the desk and went from "sitting and talking about the past and the present" to opening and closing his body.

Since the mid-to-late 1990s, storytelling has ceased to be the main cultural entertainment, and old gentlemen have gradually faded out of the stage, and there are only a few actors engaged in commenting performances in the country, and commenting has gradually felt like the sunset.

Rely on feelings, many twists and turns

Even so, there are still audiences who love to review books. When cars entered thousands of households, many radio stations turned to broadcast commentary, and offline commentary-based performances have not disappeared. Old movies from the 1980s and special programs about temple fairs can also be seen in footage of small book reviews; At the end of the 1990s, Liulichang Jingwei Tea House gathered a group of new and old actors who love to comment. At this time, Wang Yuebo was also saying "Three Kingdoms" in a small restaurant adjacent to the train track and trembling as long as the train passed through the house. Southern commentators have maintained the tradition of running docks, for example, Jiangsu commentators will go to Hangzhou for a month or two to perform, and then change to other venues, which is still the case.

When Guo Degang, who used to be a member of the Beijing Flavor Tea House, brought the crosstalk market to fire, he opened the Deyun Library near the crosstalk garden, and invited Jin Wensheng, an old actor from Tianjin, to perform in Beijing. Jin Wensheng has been speaking for a group of audiences with an average age of 60 or above in a hut in Tianjin's South City, with a book price of 3 yuan, two hours a day in the afternoon, and for more than ten years, except for the Spring Festival, all year round, rain or shine. Deyun Library continues Jin Wensheng's performance mode in Tianjin, which continues every day. Unfortunately, Mr. Jin Wensheng came to Beijing to perform for a long time and suffered from an occasional illness, and the frequency of performances in Deyun Library has gradually decreased.

In 2007, Xuannan Library was founded and performs every Saturday afternoon. The founder, Mr. Lian Liru, previously opened a library in Houhai Yueming Lou, and the bibliography of the speaker "Romance of the Eastern Han Dynasty" was later suspended due to venue reasons. Although Xuannan Library is a theater environment, it has restored the style of teahouse commenting to a certain extent, the audience can drink tea, each actor performs for an hour, there is no limit to how many times a story can be told, and it can be laid out and told after sitting firmly on the table. After Xuannan Library was recognized by the audience, Lian Liru's team successively opened Chongshu Library and Dongcheng Library, which are closer to traditional tea houses, with small venues and actors closer to the audience, forming a pattern of performances every Friday, Saturday and day.

Due to the venue, the epidemic and other reasons, Lian Liru's team's performances went from three to two, and returned to the situation where there was only Xuannan Library. Driven by the Xuannan Library, a number of book commenting performance venues have appeared in Beijing, and with the opening of the association, there are now three or four groups in Beijing to perform book commentary.

Can write a lot, quasi-predecessors

Wang Yuebo in Xuannan Library is the backbone of the city. Previously, he appeared more as a comedian, occasionally performing commentaries at the box office, and also performed several commentaries for Deyun Society. The emergence of Xuannan Library allowed Wang Yuebo to finally systematically display his storytelling talent, and people's understanding of him also turned to commenting actor.

Wang Yuebo has a lot of books, including robes-belt books "Sui and Tang" and "Zhengdong", as well as short books "Yongzheng Sword and Hero Map" and "The Legend of Chivalrous Heroes", and is even better at "Liaozhai". Mr. Weng Pinghong, an opera expert, said that there are three schools of commentary, one group wins the audience with "penetration", which is hearty and magnificent; One faction pleases the audience with a "square mouth", neat and clean, lang lang and clear; One group attracts the audience with "living mouths", cold and humorous, cool and hot. Wang Yuebo's performance is close to a "living mouth", often with ingenious baggage, and every time Wang Jun has chuckled because of his complacency, the audience laughs loudly. Wang Yuebo is also good at tracing details, such as saying that a person loves to count money at night, take out the yuan treasure and smoke it with a small mouth, and chant in his mouth how you came, with the hair trust to sell the image, there is really something subtle. And when it comes to the start of the conquest, it is clean and complete.

Wang Yuebo's extra-book books and idle white children are a characteristic, and it is rare that although they digress thousands of miles, they can be pulled back in one sentence. Whenever he says a book outside the book, the audience does not feel bored, but his mind runs according to his rhythm, and he doesn't even care much about the main book. If in the past, the audience's cultural level was low, and there was a factor of using the idle children of storytellers as knowledge, it is difficult to attract audiences if there are no unique opinions and ideas today. There are also storytellers who pretend to be able to tell books outside the book, long talks, boring, and the audience is like sitting on pins and needles.

Regarding the second creation of the original work by commenting on the book, I heard Wang Yuebo say that "Liaozhai" can have some understanding. He said an hour of content, often only a dozen words in a book. If the recording of the performance is organized into words, it will always take tens of thousands of words. There are representations, analysis, and extension of the original text, which is the creation of a book that transcends the original story, which is the charm of the commentary. Through Wang Yuebo's performance, it may be possible to restore or recall the performance of the previous book commenting to a certain extent.

New medium, new model

Let's talk about the change in the performance mode of the commentary. Xuannan Library maintains a weekly performance mode, which may be the most suitable way for the current audience to be accustomed to, and the most effective way to ensure that the audience is in person to watch it live. Wang Yuebo said that he is not good at using the Internet and even rejects the Internet, but since the epidemic, he has also performed online first, and then synchronized online live broadcast of offline performances. Replayable, replayable web content is too suitable for commentaries that need to be watched continuously, and gathers a larger audience. Although the scene can provide the best viewing experience, no one can be alone in the Internet age. In the environment of the revival of traditional culture and the increasingly fragmented literary and artistic forms, there have been regular live broadcast commentaries, drum books, and commentaries, and ticket users have also uploaded their own works one by one out of hobby, and audio and video platforms have provided opportunities for professional and non-professional actors to be recognized. Mr. Shan Tian Fang recalled that in the 1950s, with the income from book commenting performances, he could easily own bicycles and Swiss watches; Now the income provided by the network platform also gives a certain guarantee for the actor to continue to walk.

The book has never gone away, it is on the radio of the car, it is in the mobile phone of the morning exerciser and night runner, it is in the laughter of the library. The young people who performed the commentary in the resonance brought by the train may not have imagined that they would spend 13 years interpreting a work in the future, and the audience may not be able to imagine following a work for 13 years, which is a two-way rush, companionship and long-term love between actors and audiences.