Chen Haomei | My Cultural Revolution Memory (XXVII)

Recent photo of the author, Chen Haomei

(Originally published in Yesterday, Issue 217, January 30, 2023)

"Yesterday" editor's note: This is a selection of some of the author's memories published on the Internet in recent years (such as the WeChat "New Third Session" public account), which was slightly revised before this publication.

The author, Chen Haomei (recent photo above), was born in Beijing in 1953, worked as a youth and porter, graduated from the Department of Chinese of Beijing Normal University in 1982, and later worked as a teacher at Beijing Radio and Television University. Because his father Chen Huangmei served as the former vice minister of culture of the Cultural Revolution, he had some unique experiences and memories during the Cultural Revolution.

(xxvii)

From the second half of 1970, the repertory troupe finally resumed normal business a little and began to recruit new students.

At that time, people who could sing and dance well were very popular, and some such students in our school were recruited by the military literary troupe. However, I think that the requirements for dialogue actors should be more than singing and dancing, so how to recruit them? I was very curious about it, so whenever I heard about such a good thing one day, my neighborhood children and I were very excited. On two occasions I was already leaving for school, and as soon as I heard that there was something lively to see, I immediately decided to skip school.

Admissions took place in the rehearsal hall in front of the troupe, where we used to go to watch the critique meeting. Several admissions officers sat downstage, and those candidates took turns on stage, singing, dancing, reciting stories, and so on. Those of us who were watching the excitement were either standing in the doorway or simply going in and finding a corner to sit down.

Most of the students who came to apply for the exam were one or two years younger than me, and they were fifteen or six years old at the time (I remember that the youngest student was only thirteen years old when he joined the group), because according to the regulations, young people could not participate (it is estimated that the household registration and establishment could not be solved). Once someone on stage was quite good in all aspects, but in the end he said that he was a young man and just came to play (it is estimated that he still has illusions, in case he is admitted as an exception)!

I used to hear my mother talk about film school admissions, and often listened to her analyze whether a person's appearance is photogenic or not, etc.; When I arrived in Chongqing, I participated in the "salon" of daily chats, and this ability to analyze looks became even more popular. For example, if we see a tall person with good features, but not handsome at all, we will carefully analyze why he is not handsome, whether his posture is not stretched or his expression is not confident? Or some people seem to be ordinary, the five senses are common to analyze, but the more you look at it, the better it looks, and we will definitely go back to the source, and we must summarize the reason. So that later, I was often accused by friends who did not know the details: Why do you always like to talk about people's appearance?

Therefore, whenever a candidate takes the stage, he is faced not only by the admissions officers, but also by the harsh eyes of our family children. In the eyes of those of us who are picky, most of them are not good enough, or they are not good enough, or Mandarin is too bad, or they can't sing and play well...

However, there are always some people who can enter the eyes of admissions officers. I remember a man who grew tall and had a particularly loud voice. When he was asked for something, he said he was not prepared, so an admissions officer stood up to demonstrate - she stood on the stage, looked affectionately at the portrait of the great leader on the wall in front of her, and recited in frustration: "Chairman Mao, Chairman Mao, how much we love you!" This is accompanied by excited expressions and lyrical movements. So the boy followed passionately, and was admitted. Later, he became a pillar of the repertory troupe, and in previous years became the director of the troupe.

At that time, although the adults returned from the countryside, they faced a round of shockwaves of "spit out the old and new". Many people were cleared out, became supernumeraries, and were sent to factories and mining enterprises. I heard that after they went down, they also helped the factory to rehearse the drama and publicize, which was very popular with the workers, and some children's children were able to replace their parents and retire to the factory as workers, I don't know whether it was a blessing or a curse.

These included the suicidal Uncle Xiao's wife, Aunt Liu, who had been branded an active counterrevolutionary in the early days of the movement, and a graduate of the Central Academy of Drama. He was very reluctant to leave the troupe, saying that he had liked art since he was a child, so he gave up on being admitted as a pilot. So everyone criticized his idea of fame and fortune, he couldn't admit it, anyway, he was too selfish. Later, he spent a lot of effort to move around, so instead of going to the industrial mine, he went to the Peking Opera Troupe to become a screenwriter.

But his lover is different from him, she used to be recruited as an actor and later switched to makeup, according to herself, she served people face wash, and did not even say a word during the group meeting. After being assigned to a large department store, it is estimated that because the cultural level of the people around her is too low, she has greatly developed her potential, and she is a writer and a model (after hearing about it for a few years, according to the unknown policy, everyone can return to the group, but she chose to stay there).

After a few years of concentrating on "sports", a new play was finally ready for rehearsal - the relevant personnel went to Beijing to see a play, and when they returned, they started practicing as usual. I didn't know what it was like to fall in love with theater (it was said that it became addictive to it), and then I read some memoirs to see how the people in the troupe were rejuvenated and threw themselves into the rehearsal of a new play.

I just feel that some things seem to go back to the old days. For example, the director-centric system that has been approved for a long time - but once the play is arranged, who is not centered on the director? As a result, the "three highs" who were criticized for fighting back and forth have regained their strength again.

At that time, as soon as the role selection started, the actors, especially those between the first and second lines, began to get nervous. Because the best actor is definitely the protagonist, the second is definitely the trick, and the person in the middle has multiple possibilities. Listening to a neighbor child, every time after dividing the role, the two families next door to her house will be angry because they have not been assigned their favorite role, and it will definitely develop into a big fight in the end.

I believe this because there is evidence - once I happened to go to the house of a young actor, who had just returned from a script discussion and was very excited to turn over and over and say something she said at the meeting, "The director looked at me!" "At that time, after a large number of revelations, everyone called the director La Leader by her first name, and I heard her call someone "director", and I felt very unaccustomed to it, so I remembered it now.

Because to play a new play, the dressing room has to resume its former function. So the three of us moved together to the first floor of the "building" and finally got rid of the increasingly serious rain leakage problem.

It didn't feel good to go back to the "building", the room was smaller than the dressing room, and the location was remote (in fact, the entire troupe did not occupy a large area). I remember that at that time, the adults still lived outside, and for the safety of the families who stayed in the group, the carpentry class made wooden railings for the windows of each of our residents on the first floor.

It's wonderful to live in a group – adults, families, and children are all mixed together, and they live and work in the same place, it's like coming out of a village. Your every move is in the sight of others - who bought what good things and made what delicious food, who two families quarrel and scold over something, who is or wants to engage in some extramarital affairs, and even who has a little meaning to whom, all of them cannot escape the "bright eyes of the revolutionary masses."

Therefore, in such a living environment, it is inevitable that I will be given some opinions - for a period of time, I was carrying out the "whole party" activities, and my mother was put forward by others to discuss my opinions: I often hold my cat in bed and read, and I have to find someone else to pick up my own coal, and so on. My mother told me this, of course, hoping that I would correct my mistake, but I had already passed the anger with the neighbor girl Xiaodong, and knew that she had been given a similar opinion, saying that her cats ate well (there were many mice at that time, and several of them had cats). So I also learned her way of speaking, and replied very domineeringly: "It's okay to shut them up!" "I was so angry that my mother nagged for a long time.