What is the story of Liu Housheng in history?

Mr. Liu Housheng is a well-known drama theorist, critic, activist in mainland China, and a senior citizen in the Chinese theater industry.

This is the reference room of the Chinese Dramatists Association, as the library of the association, there have always been not many books here, but recently there have suddenly been more than a dozen precious drama books, and there are many books lying in the corner waiting to be sorted out, these books have attracted everyone's attention. Huang Weijun said: "I saw how many books have increased, the books of the Drama Association were lost during the "Cultural Revolution", and the library was still the same, but there were no books lost. "Sent by Housheng, a small note on the bookshelf also reminded the original owner of these books, Liu Housheng, carefully look at it, these books span a large age, although the old and new are different, but they are all well preserved and not damaged, it can be seen that the owner of the book usually takes good care, why did Liu Housheng, who cherishes these books so much, give them to the Chinese Drama Association. These are worthless when old books are sold, and you shouldn't be used as waste paper, there are still a lot of good books, a lot of useful books, and I negotiated with the drama to deal with the volume, the drama association originally had a reference room, and there were not many books, so I hoped to expand the reference room. The purpose of sending books is to expand the reference room, and it is to unreservedly contribute all the professional drama books that he has treasured all his life, including many precious cultural relics of historical significance, such as this set of "The Complete Works of Lu Xun", which was personally given to Liu Housheng by Lu Xun's wife Xu Guangping. The 30s of the last century was a prosperous period in the history of modern Chinese theater, when Chinese theater was divided into three centers, Chongqing in the national control area, Yan'an in the liberated area, and Shanghai in the occupied area, and dramatists from the three regions made outstanding contributions to the Anti-Japanese War and the revolution. During this period, Liu Housheng, who loved drama, studied at the National Drama College in Chongqing. In 1938, in Chongqing, the school enrolled students for the fourth session, and there was an underground party classmate who came to the school, named Fang Xuande, and later in the Beijing People's Art Theater, he was an underground party member, and he developed a group of students in the school to participate in the party's underground organization. Liu Housheng, who joined the underground party, actively participated in the performance of various progressive dramas while studying drama, and the Kuomintang government at that time regarded progressive drama as a beast, supervising every aspect of a play from script to performance, and also using some special means, but progressive dramatists also came up with various ways to deal with it. Sometimes, there are one or two slightly more enlightened censors, and we have a relationship with him, and sometimes it is like this, and the book submitted for review has to be revised, but the performance is according to our original book, and he can't listen to it every day, and he often comes to listen to it, but it is impossible to listen to it every day, and when he comes to listen, we say something that has changed, and when he doesn't come, we say it as it is, and this kind of struggle is very sharp, and it can be said that it is very complicated in various ways. The complex environment of struggle enabled Liu Housheng to accumulate rich experience in the struggle against the enemy and a foundation for his life. When the school asked him to create children's plays for children, his talent for dramatic art was fully displayed. One is called "Table", which is a Soviet novel translated by Mr. Lu Xun and later adapted into a children's play; and the other is called "Little Master", both of which are children's plays, and I arranged these two plays for the drama team of Yucai School. After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, Liu Housheng returned to Shanghai with the troupe, and as an underground party in the theater industry, he accepted Zhou Enlai's instructions to stick to the drama position for the party, because the form of drama is the main way for our party to propagate progressive ideas in the national control area, so Liu Housheng accepted a more arduous revolutionary task. At that time, I was ordered to run such a troupe called the Audience Performance Company in the underground party, and I ran such a troupe with many of my best comrades and friends, and it was very difficult to run this kind of troupe at that time, because there were basically many troupes in Chongqing that used the money of the Kuomintang to run our troupe, but when we arrived in Shanghai, there were no more, and we had to be completely self-reliant. Liu Housheng had to overcome the difficult conditions for drama creation and maintain the troupe, and at the same time he had to do a good job of secret underground work and keep the drama positions entrusted to him by the party, so Liu Housheng led the troupe to Taiwan, where there were not many theatrical performances at that time, to look for new opportunities, hoping to not only maintain the normal performance of the troupe, but also to propagate the party's progressive ideas in the new region. In the summer of 1947, he stayed in Taiwan for a total of 10 months, trying to maintain the troupe and not disband. This travel performance is of great significance in the history of Taiwanese theater and left a great impact on the Taiwanese theater industry at that time, because some of the actors who went to Taiwan with him at that time did not come back, but continued to develop in the local area, so that the professional papers of the current Taiwanese theater industry mention the history of that time, and Liu Housheng's trip to Taiwan will be listed among them, after Liu Housheng returned to Shanghai, the struggle situation here became more difficult, and the Kuomintang also felt it at that time, arresting people everywhere, and there were still few literary and artistic circles, other aspects, workers, On the student side, quite a few were arrested. The danger of underground work may have been mentally prepared for Liu Housheng, but the wife who was in love with him at that time was worried about it all day long. Fu Huizhen said: "Although I was in a troupe, I couldn't see each other all the time, that is, the police car all day long, it rang so loudly, I didn't listen to one for a while, I listened to one for a while, I arrested people, buried them alive, and in 1943, to 1944, more than 30 Communist Party members were buried alive. Liu Housheng did not stop his work because of the danger of the current situation, and as the Kuomintang stepped up preparations to flee the mainland, Liu Housheng accepted another work of great significance. Several Kuomintang film studios, China Film Studios, Central Film Studios, and so on, if he wants to move all the equipment, we have to leave the film equipment, and the film has to be left behind, and we can't let him take it away, and he has sent letters and warning letters to many leaders of the Kuomintang's film and art circles, saying that you have to run, you can't take things away, you can't take many of us away, this thing still works, and we also let him express it, if you take it away, we will not be polite to you. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, our film industry quickly developed in full swing, but few people knew about the contributions of the heroes behind the scenes. In 1965, Shanghai Tianma Film Factory completed a popular film "Stage Sisters", in which the audience knew that the prototype of Zhu Chunhua was the famous Yue Opera performance artist Yuan Xuefen in the mainland, but almost no one knew that the prototype of Jiang Bo, an underground party member in the film, was Liu Housheng. Comrade Zhou Enlai left Comrade Yu Ling and himself, Comrade Zhou Enlai said, for example, like Yue Opera, he said that he knew about Yue Opera in the past, but he didn't know that Yue Opera had such a great influence in Shanghai, and at that time the drama could not be maintained, and there were twenty or thirty troupes of Yue Opera in Shanghai, and twenty or thirty troupes of all sizes and large and small. Yue opera was originally a local opera in Ningbo, Shaoxing, Zhejiang, from the earliest Tongzhi years of the landing singing, small song troupe to Shaoxing opera, before the liberation of the Yue opera in Shanghai to the women's opera troupe as the main form of performance, at that time Yuan Xuefen's Xuesheng troupe was the representative body of the women's troupe, "Stage Sisters" in the women's troupe of the women's troupe as the prototype of the creation, Liu Housheng was the underground worker at that time into the troupe. Huang Weijun said: "In that "Stage Sisters", there was an underground worker who approached the troupe, helped them in their struggle, built the repertoire, behaved and played, and gave them some help and support. In "Stage Sisters", Zhu Chunhua was instructed by the authorities to sprinkle lime by hooligans in order to perform Lu Xun's "Blessing", and at that time, Yuan Xuefen's Xuesheng Troupe was also persecuted by the authorities in order to perform Lu Xun's "Blessing", Yuan Xuefen was instructed by the authorities to splash feces by hooligans, and in the face of the despicable methods of the authorities, Liu Housheng has been helping Yuan Xuefen behind the scenes to fight unremittingly. I was the performance director and director of Yuan Xuefen Xuesheng Troupe, and I rehearsed two plays, and the performance director helped her find a director to help her rehearse the play and help her find the script, and it didn't take long and more than half a year to be liberated. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Liu Housheng continued to engage in theater work, and although he no longer had to hide his identity, he was still working behind the scenes. After the liberation of Shanghai, the Literature and Art Department of the Shanghai Navy Management Commission had an institution in charge of opera, called the Drama Art Room, and let me work there. After the liberation, the people in Shanghai's theater industry were very unstable, everyone did not know much about the party's policies, and many people wanted to leave Shanghai, including some well-known artists later. Mrs. Fu Huizhen said: "At that time, he was very busy, because he wanted to unite the characters of various drama troupes, at that time it was very chaotic, Shanghai had just been liberated, some people he didn't understand the Communist Party, there were many troupes to go, like Xu Yulan and Wang Wenjuan, they were ready to go to Hong Kong, then he would do the work." If it weren't for Liu Housheng's patient persuasion of Xu Yulan and Wang Wenjuan at that time, it would have been difficult for them to stay in Shanghai, and we would not have seen their wonderful works that became popular later. In old China, the opera industry was regarded as the ninth rate, the status of artists was relatively low, and there were a lot of dross mixed in artists, repertoire and groups, so the government that cared about the people's literary and artistic undertakings had to reform it. It is the transformation of people, the so-called transformation of people, basically political enlightenment, so that everyone can understand what social development history, what is going on with the Communist Party, etc., the transformation of people, the improvement of the play, many backward plays, persuade everyone not to act, there are many stage images, for example, in the past, on the stage, Dan horns stilts, pretending to be a small foot, this little foot is a kind of old society insulting women, on the stage seems to become a beautified thing, the meaning is to advocate cancellation, change the play, as well as reform, change the system, The boss's system, some of which are run by the state, such as Yuan Xuefen's troupe, has become a national troupe.

Reform of anything is accompanied by innovation, and opera is no exception. While reforming the old opera, Liu Housheng also spared no effort in the creation of new opera. At that time, he was a partner of Peking Opera master Zhou Xinfang, who was also committed to the creation of new operas, and at this time, a drama that influenced and changed the fate of their lives slowly began. When Comrade Zhou Yang arrived in Shanghai, he conveyed the spirit of Chairman Mao Zedong, that is, to learn from Hai Jui, to learn from Hai Jui's kind of people who are not afraid of going up, not afraid of going up, and dare to speak straight, Zhou Yang suggested that it was Mr. Zhou Xinfang, you can write a play about Hai Jui, and Zhou Xinfang was of course very happy. Zhou Yang saw Zhou Xinfang, he accompanied Zhou Xinfang by himself, and he went with him, this was probably in April 1959, Zhou Xinfang organized Xu Siyan, the playwright of the Shanghai Peking Opera Company, and wrote "Hai Rui Shangshu", which can be said to be quite sensational and successful after the performance, which was very popular at that time.

The success of "Hai Jui's Upper Letter" is inseparable from the historical background at that time, because the policy at that time hoped to vigorously promote the spirit of Hai Jui, so the Beijing performance of "Hai Jui's Dismissal" and Shanghai's "Hai Jui's Shangshu" have caused great repercussions, and "Hai Jui's Shangshu" still has Liu Housheng's contribution behind the scenes, and Zhou Xinfang also specially mentioned this in the preface of the performance at that time.