A few days ago, I watched the large-scale drama "Fireworks in the World" created by Qingdao Drama Theater, this three-hour drama tells the story of the parents of each family in a courtyard called "Xiangyang Courtyard" by describing the unique courtyard architecture of Qingdao, reflecting the changes of a city since the reform and opening up. It can be seen that the creator wants to maximize the characteristics of Qingdao and the history of China's reform and opening up through the perspective of the life of the people in the courtyard, so that it has a deep sense of history. Objectively speaking, this goal has basically been achieved, so I think it's a good show.
Those who know me well know that I am a fan of theater, and I am very fond of all kinds of stage plays, especially dramas. The play "Fireworks in the World" is more exquisite, whether it is costumes, stage art, and music, and the folding chairs that were popular in the eighties of the last century, as well as the public faucets in the courtyard, as well as the enamel basins and other things of the year, all of which have a sense of age, which can bring people back to the past at once.
However, as a veteran theater fan, I am still a little picky when watching the theater. Although this "Fireworks in the World" is generally very good, there are still some small problems, which make those of us who have experienced that era and are familiar with the courtyard have a little bit of "drama". What's the problem? The main problem is to grasp the details of the chronology.
Here's a casual example. For example, there was a little problem with the age when Yanzi went to college. The creator estimates that the character for Yanzi should be the first batch of college students after the reform and opening up, if so, then the time for Yanzi to go to college should be the end of 1977 or the summer of 1978, at the beginning of the play, Yanzi and Jixiang meet to go to the movie, at this time Yanzi is already a junior or senior student, that is to say, this time should be in 1981 or 1982. But here the problem arises, that is, the movie they went to see turned out to be "Manhunt"! As we all know, the movie "Manhunt" was released in mainland China in 1978, and by the 80s, the movie had long been removed from cinemas. And there is another detail that I didn't pay attention to in the play, in 1978, when the movie "Manhunt" was released, except for street hooligans, serious girls would not wear jeans, and the most fashionable ones were straight pants with side openings. Another detail is that Yang Laoshi advised Yanzi not to stay in Beijing when he graduated from university, but to return to Qingdao Port to work, and said that college students can choose their own work units. This point makes people "play" again. You must know that college students in the mainland were allocated by the state at that time, and every year when it comes to college graduation and distribution, there are "a few happy and a few sad", and many students cannot be assigned to the place they want to go as they wish. At that time, there was a slip of the tongue in the distribution of college graduation, called: "Far away is the right child, close is redundant, not far away is not close to the single." It means that if someone is found to be in love during college, the couple will be assigned to a more remote place when they graduate; If there are old, weak, sick and disabled people in the family who need to be taken care of, that is, the student has a "burden", he will be assigned to a place closer to home, and the most likely is to return to the city where his hometown is located; Most of the "single" students are at the mercy of the school, and they are assigned anywhere. When we graduated from university, many of our classmates got on the train crying with their registration cards. As for college students' choice of careers, it was not until 1989 that it began to be piloted in some universities, and then slowly rolled out. So, the timeline here seems a bit messy.
According to the description in the play, Yanzi studied in Beijing and majored in computer science, if it is inferred from this, the earliest university in Beijing to set up a computer major was Peking University, which was in 1978. The play does not explain whether Yanzi went to the countryside and passed the job before going to college, so there is a high probability that he is a fresh high school graduate. Then the time of Yanzi's graduation should be 1982. And the time when Master Qin picked up the little clam was within a year before and after this time, so the little clam should have been born between 1981 and 1983, and the time when Master Qin died was when the typhoon was fighting, and the time when Qingdao encountered Typhoon No. 9 was August 1985, so the little clam was at most 4 years old, so the little clam in the play seems to be a little older. In the play, Yanzi was 25 years old when she got married, that is, in 1984, so Yanzi's birth time should be in 1959, Jixiang is two years older than Yanzi, and the birth time should be 1957, and in that era, single-child families are actually very rare, and there are two in this courtyard, which is really a small probability event.
There is another detail, that is, Sanya and their group of migrant workers want to seize the house after Master Qin's death. According to the time calculation, Master Qin died on the night of the typhoon, that is, on the night of August 18, 1985. Then the time when Sanya and they occupied the house was in 1986 or 1987, but the time when Qingdao Port began to recruit migrant workers in the old area of Linyi was in 1989, which is also a bit wrong in time. In addition, when they occupied the house, they had already worn port overalls with reflective strips, which was also inconsistent with the reality of that era.
The problem of these small details should be said to be not too big a problem for the whole play, people of our age will recall the memories of their youth when they watch this play, and naturally have a little more intimacy. However, this brings me to another question, that is, why are our memories of the era erased so quickly? Come to think of it, our times are moving so fast that many people, things, and objects are quickly replaced by new things before they even have time to leave a deep memory in people's minds. Therefore, I estimate that these choreographers and directors who are younger than us are actually quite vague in their memories of many details of that era, probably when talking about old movies, they immediately think of "Manhunt", and when they talk about college graduates, they naturally think that they can choose their own careers.
Sometimes I think that people of our age are just in time for the decades when China is changing the fastest, and if we dig up our own memories, we may leave a lot of vivid and vivid details for young people, which are details that belong to the times and witnesses of China's reform and opening up. I really hope that my peers will have a little memory, at least I can find an opportunity to be a "time consultant" or something for those crews in the future, isn't that a very interesting thing?
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