"Wild Boar Forest" is a very good traditional Peking Opera, which has been performed for decades. The earliest script of the play was written by Mr. Wu Xiansun and consisted of two parts: "The First Wild Boar Forest" and "Erben Mountain Temple". These two books were written relatively early, when they were written for two pear garden titans. These two famous pear garden masters are Master Yang Xiaolou, the founder of Yang Pai Wusheng, and Mr. Hao Shouchen, the master of Jingxing, who play Lin Chong and Lu Zhishen in the play. Probably because the two masters each had a very good old play in their hands, so this newly compiled "Water Margin Play" at that time did not become popular in the hands of the two masters.
In the autumn of 1948, Li Shaochun and Yuan Shihai, two famous Peking opera artists, decided to change "Wild Boar Forest" again, and Mr. Li Shaochun wrote the script. They referred to Mr. Wu Xiansun's script, and then discussed and decided to condense the two books into one, and added some more gripping performances, such as Lin Chong's vegetable garden dance sword, Lin Chong's and Gao Qi's reading dialogue in the White Tiger Hall, Lin Chong and Niangzi Changting's farewell duet, sending Lin Chong's high dial on Cangzhou Road, wearing handcuffs to take "hanging hair", Lin ChongShan Temple throwing clothes against the enemy, and fighting the enemy alone. After the adaptation, "Wild Boar Forest" has a complete structure, a distinct theme, a compact rhythm, a smooth plot, full of feelings, and rich performance means, and the capacity, artistic appeal and ornamentation of the whole play have reached a new level.
In the process of writing the script of "Wild Boar Forest", it is also necessary to mention one person, that is, Mr. Weng Yihong, a famous playwright in China. Mr. Weng and Mr. Li Shaochun's father is a close friend, so there is a layer of uncle-nephew relationship between Mr. Weng and Mr. Li Shaochun as a background. In addition to this traditional friendship relationship, there are also very deep personal feelings between the two, and this latter feeling is based on the common Peking Opera artistic creation, so the quality is extremely high. The two are the best collaborators in art, having collaborated on many times long before the creation of The Wild Boar Forest. Mr. Li Shaochun is a master of Peking Opera performing arts who is both literate and martial, and Mr. Weng Yihong is a master of drama writing in Xuefu Wuche, although the two of them have studied and created Peking Opera art in different ways, they can both interact with each other and communicate with each other. Mr. Li Shaochun best understood the rich information conveyed in the script written by Mr. Weng's clever pen, and fully displayed Mr. Weng's creative intention on the stage through his superb performing arts, so that Mr. Weng felt happy and had no regrets. Mr. Weng, on the other hand, is the person who can best understand the characteristics of Mr. Li Shaochun's performing arts, so he can write a script that highlights mr. Li Shaochun's artistic characteristics and charm, and such a script makes Mr. Li Shaochun feel powerful and comfortable. With the cooperation of the two masters, "Wild Boar Forest" finally came out with an unusually full stage image and a shocking artistic appeal. At the end of 1949, Mr. Li Shaochun and Mr. Yuan Shihai were invited to perform in Shanghai, and "Wild Boar Forest" set a record of two consecutive months and more than 70 performances, and the field was full, which was a miracle.
The reason why "The Boar Forest" can become a classic is actually very simple, it is in line with the basic principle of artistic creation to the greatest extent: the high unity of content and form. In terms of content, there are characters with distinct personalities, twists and turns, tear-jerking love, touching friendships and fierce conflicts. It is particularly worth mentioning the contradictions in "Wild Boar Forest", from the formation and development to the end of the compact and progressive layers, with the development of the contradictions, the theme ideas are perfectly presented like a cocoon. The theme of "Wild Boar Forest" is another point of view, because it settles on "the confrontation between loyalty and adultery and the contest between good and evil". This theme happens to be the core pursuit of China's traditional value system for thousands of years, and it is the essence of Chinese national culture, and such a theme is bound to arouse great psychological resonance among the audience. Such a perfect content has laid a solid foundation for the success of "Wild Boar Forest", and on this basis, supplemented by exquisite And in-place Peking Opera performing arts, success and brilliance are inevitable.
From the perspective of performance form, the play "Wild Boar Forest" calls for singing, reading, composing, and playing various performance methods, and the use of each performance means is very demanding. In addition, the play also has very high requirements for actors, to dress, to voice, to martial arts, in addition to these basic qualities, is a higher requirement, the actor needs to have a very deep personal quality, must eat the identity of the character thoroughly, both "literary drama martial singing" and "martial arts singing", in the literary drama to exude the heroic spirit of martial arts, in the martial arts there is a considerable sense of identity, only with these characteristics can Lin Chong, the leader of the eight hundred thousand forbidden army, the identity and temperament of the life. Just performing the action and voice, detached from the feeling of the plot and characters, it is easy to play Lin Chong "small", which is a very big taboo. The detailed analysis is as follows:
The singing section of the play has distinct characteristics, and different plate styles are used in different scenes to show the rich and changeable feelings of the characters. For example, the White Tiger Hall's "Eighty Sticks Beat Me to the Heavens" section must explode the anger of Lin Chong's hero being trapped and innocently humiliated. Another example is the duet in the farewell of the Long Pavilion, which requires the expression of the couple's reluctance to give up, the sadness of not being able to rest assured of each other, and the intolerance and pain of Lin Chong when he holds the book in his hand. However, all this suffering comes from the trap of the high ball, so in addition to the sadness and pain, there is also a strong anger. These complex emotional and psychological changes must be integrated into the duet of the two people, or slow, or urgent, or sighing, or excited, and the audience is sad and indignant at the same time. The high-pitched section of Cangzhou Road has the artistic charm of making heaven and earth cry. Look, in the misty and desolate hair distribution process, there is a high-pitched and sad resistance in the distance: along the way, ruthless sticks, it is really difficult to bear... Lin Chong, who was shackled in hand, staggered forward under the escort of two messengers. The rapid rhythm of the high dial and the difficult figures such as "hanging hair", "back grabbing" and "rubbing steps" in the interspersed singing section are very naturally integrated, creating a strong artistic appeal and moving. And the popular "big snow drift" in the Fengxue Mountain Temple has become a representative singing section of "Wild Boar Forest". The entire singing section has a total of 26 sentences, which clearly outlines Lin Chong's complex inner feelings. From "heavy snow drifting, fluttering people's faces" to "deserted village selling wine to comfort sorrow" expresses the depression and sadness of the hero when he falls, followed by "looking at his hometown, going to the road, not his wife's thousand miles of music and books, and Guan Shan blocking the two hearts" to express the loneliness in Lin Chong's heart and his thoughts and concerns for his wife. The next dozen sentences highlight the repression, helplessness and loneliness in Lin Chong's heart, "there is resentment that cannot be sung, there is hatred that cannot be snowed, and anger cannot be expressed", which makes people can't help but ask: Heaven, do you have eyes?
The nianbai characteristics in the play are also extremely strong. Because the emotional color of the characters in different scenes varies greatly, there are many messages conveyed by Nianbai, the most representative of which is Lin Chong's nianbai in the two scenes of "White Tiger Hall" and "Mountain Temple". At the White Tiger Hall, Lin Chong began to feel inexplicable about his arrest, and although he had doubts, he did not realize that Gao Li had framed him. He wanted to explain clearly, so the tone was still very gentle at this time. Then Lin Chong learned of Gao Li's ruse and knew that he had been framed, and he was immediately filled with righteous indignation, and a series of rapid laughter broke out, and the laughter was full of anger, irony and indomitability. What followed was a large section of frustrated, sonorous and powerful recitation, questioning Gao Li, and piercing Gao Li's tricks step by step. Although Lin Chong was beaten all over the body at this time, this long recitation still made people feel happy and proud. At the Mountain Temple, Lin Chong faced Lu Qian, who wanted to put himself to death several times, and was furious, and the reading here was full of anger, hatred and gritted teeth. When Lin Chong learned that niangzi had been forced to die by Gao Yanei, he was suddenly sad and lost his soul, and in desperation, he chose to defect to Liangshan. He squeezed out from between his teeth, "It is difficult to return to the home, and it is difficult to vote for the country!" In two sentences, this is Lin Chong's end to the past, and it is also a helplessness and struggle against a cruel fate.
Martial arts features. "Wild Boar Forest" is a big drama that attaches equal importance to both culture and martial arts, but there are not many martial arts dramas that really start, only in the last one. However, the weight of this martial arts drama is quite heavy, just as the so-called enemies meet each other is divided into red eyes, so the martial arts here must render a strong atmosphere of confrontation. In addition to the final martial arts, "martial arts color" also runs through the whole play. This martial arts drama that runs through the whole play is a feeling of "invisible", which is reflected by Lin Chong's sense of identity. Lin Chong is the leader of the 800,000 Forbidden Army, has the martial arts of the world, he must have a strong heroic atmosphere and a very obvious martial temperament, "heroic atmosphere" and "martial temperament" is the invisible "martial arts shadow" of the "Wild Boar Forest", which needs to be expressed by the actor's expression, eyes, tone, gesture and temperament. That is to say, the martial arts on Lin Chong's body are not only displayed when fighting, but more importantly, they must be elevated to the level of cultivation to be performed, and they must be integrated into the character's mental state and released. This is also known as "martial arts singing" and "martial arts singing". If you only rely on the fiery opening to show Lin Chong's martial arts and ignore the performance of the sense of spiritual heaviness, Lin Chong will definitely become an ordinary little martial artist, becoming a reckless hero, and the sense of weight of the role will be greatly reduced.
In 1962, "Wild Boar Forest" was made into a colorful opera film, which achieved the eternal charm of Peking Opera art. However, since film and stage art are two completely different ways of artistic expression, in the process of film shooting, in order to meet the needs of the film structure, the director did not put Mr. Li Shaochun's stage version of "Wild Boar Forest" unchanged on the screen, but adjusted and deleted on the basis of the stage play. Therefore, to this day, "Wild Boar Forest" has two versions, one is the "movie version" directed by Cui Wei, and the other is Mr. Li Shaochun's own "stage version".
In 1984, Teacher Song Yuqing led the troupe to Beijing to perform, as a veteran actor of wenwu, Teacher Song of course has his own exquisite acting, because only those plays that attach equal importance to culture and martial arts can meet his artistic characteristics. Teacher Song chose three plays: "Mulberry Garden Society", "Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea" and "Wild Boar Forest". The first two plays are very familiar plays that have been acted for many years, especially "Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea", which was a play tailored to him by the school when Teacher Song was studying in Beijing, and he had not yet graduated, and the play was played by him. The rehearsal of "Wild Boar Forest" is more troublesome than the first two plays, because at this time, Mr. Li's "Wild Boar Forest" has already made a movie, that is, both versions have appeared. Which way should it be played? It wasn't easy to be sure at first. When Mr. Song was young, he saw Mr. Li Shaochun's performance of "Wild Boar Forest" in the theater, and he deeply understood Mr. Li Shaochun's performance style and artistic characteristics, but Mr. Li Shaochun's performance of "Wild Boar Forest" on the stage was very long, and it took more than three hours to complete. After many considerations, in the end, Teacher Song decided to arrange this play according to the movie version. But according to the film version, what about the essence of the stage version that the director deleted? Later, Teacher Song sent a letter to Mr. Zhao Lao, the class teacher when he was studying in Beijing, asking for his opinion. This old Mr. Zhao especially valued Teacher Song, and when he was in school, he found that Song Yuqing was a rare good seedling, and gave him a lot of "small stove lessons" alone. Soon, Mr. Zhao sent his treasured hand-made herb "Wild Boar Forest" script to Teacher Song, this book is very thick, there are film version of the content and stage version of the content, there are also some of Mr. Zhao's own experience and creative opinions, in short, the essence of "Wild Boar Forest" is in it. Although the content of Mr. Zhao Lao's book is rich, if it is performed unchanged, it will take a long time, and some of the content will be too cumbersome. Therefore, Teacher Song synthesized the artistic information of watching Mr. Li Shaochun's stage performance memory, Mr. Zhao Lao's manuscript and film materials, taking the performance path of the film version of "Wild Boar Forest" as a template, integrating Mr. Li Shaochun's stage performance style into it, and most importantly, Teacher Song restored some wonderful pieces that appeared in the stage version and were deleted in the movie version of "Wild Boar Forest". In fact, it is a process of re-creation. Therefore, the 1984 rearrangement of "Wild Boar Forest" is a fusion of the stage version and the movie version of "Wild Boar Forest", which retains the essence of these two versions. The most typical example is the sword dance section in the vegetable garden.
Song Yuqing as Lin Chong
In the first scene of "Wild Boar Forest", Lin Chong heard the cheers of someone practicing martial arts outside the wall of Dongyue Temple, and couldn't help but go to watch and get acquainted with Lu Zhishen. The first time the two martial arts masters meet, they must start the initial exchange with the display of their respective martial arts, so in Mr. Li Shaochun's stage version of "Wild Boar Forest", after Lu Zhishen danced the Zen staff, Lin Chong had a very wonderful sword dance performance. From the plot point of view, the design of this sword dance scene is very necessary, because in the play, Lin Chong's identity is the leader of the 800,000 forbidden army, and the audience must have an understanding and impression of his martial arts, so at the beginning of the play, it is a very good design to let Lin Chong reveal a good kung fu by meeting new friends. However, this wonderful sword technique was deleted in the movie, which cannot be said to be a great regret. Teacher Song made up for the regret here in the movie version when he rearranged it, that is, to add the scene of the vegetable garden sword dance. However, the set of sword techniques used by Mr. Li Shaochun during his stage performances has no information retention, and Teacher Song watched Mr. Li Shaochun's plays more than twenty years ago, and it is impossible to recover from memory. At this time, there is one more person to mention, and he is Mr. Yuan Jinkai. Mr. Yuan is a highly talented student from the Chinese Opera Vocational School (the predecessor of the current China Drama Academy), and is a pillar of the "stunt drama" stage that Mr. Weng Yihong appreciates, and Mr. Yuan has a good martial art that ordinary people cannot match. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, Mr. Yuan Jinkai worked in the Shandong Peking Opera Troupe, Teacher Song and Mr. Yuan had a lot of contact, and admired Mr. Yuan's martial arts to the extreme, especially Mr. Yuan's leg skills, in the original words of Teacher Song: How high is Mr. Yuan's leg skills? His legs are as flexible as the arms of a normal person. When Teacher Song rehearsed "Wild Boar Forest", Mr. Yuan provided great help, he taught his outstanding performance experience and refinement to Teacher Song, and told Teacher Song a passage of the "Three Talents Sword" method. On this basis, Teacher Song integrated his own stage drama experience of Mr. Li Shaochun and his own artistic accumulation over the years, and re-created the play "Vegetable Garden Dance Sword". Under the premise of ensuring that the whole set of sword techniques is elegant and beautiful, Teacher Song's own martial arts characteristics are also reflected, such as the difficult action of "anti-bungee lying fish". After going to Beijing, the first "Wild Boar Forest" was performed at the Wufangqiao Workers' Stadium, and in the "Vegetable Garden Sword Dance", Teacher Song used a real sword with an open blade, the sword body was very long, the weight was very heavy, and it carried a long sword robe (sword spike, known as the sword robe on the Peking Opera stage). At that time, many people were a little worried, because Teacher Song's head was not very tall, and his body was also very thin, such a physique should dance a real sword with a very heavy weight, lifting a light weight, and the long "sword robe" flew freely, which was easy to talk about. As the old saying goes: the artist is bold. In the performance content that seems difficult and dangerous to others, it is almost impossible to complete, but Teacher Song completes it easily and freely, and is neat and beautiful.
In 1984, Teacher Song went to Beijing to perform "Wild Boar Forest", which actually carried a certain risk. There are two reasons: First, Beijing is the home base of Mr. Li Shaochun, which has great artistic influence in the local area, and a large number of Mr. Li Shaochun's fans are also alive. In such a historical context, Teacher Song's rehearsal of "Wild Boar Forest" naturally faces great challenges from the environment and historical background. Secondly, Teacher Song has been deprived of the right to appear on the stage for a long time since 1976, and a lot of his time has been taken away by non-artistic content, and the whole person has been greatly hit from mental state to physical condition. However, these objective conditions have not become an obstacle for Teacher Song to rehearse "Wild Boar Forest", after all, the kung fu foundation in the past is so solid, and his influence in the Peking Opera circle still exists vividly in the hearts of the audience, so the 1984 re-rehearsal of "Wild Boar Forest" is very successful. Time is like an indefatigable horse, it keeps running forward, many boring things are mercilessly thrown into the dust of history by it, and there are many valuable things that are always carried on its shoulders and escorted by the footsteps of history. It was produced in 1990 for "Chinese Peking Opera Sound Examination", which coincided with the 200th anniversary of Huiban's entry into Beijing. This set of recording materials is composed of 30 CDs, selecting 280 Peking Opera recordings and singing segments of 120 famous Peking Opera masters since 1910, Tan Xinpei, Sun Juxian, Wang Yaoqing, Yang Xiaolou, Yu Shuyan and other giants in the history of Peking Opera in the late Qing Dynasty, the four famous Dans, the four major Susheng, the four small famous Dans and other masters, all the famous artists who emerged after the founding of the People's Republic of China have been included in it, which is a set of authentic Peking Opera sound history, some of which are simply "superb" in my opinion. In this set of materials, I saw the three words "Song Yuqing", which were introduced as follows: Song Yuqing, 6 years old into the Linxiang Society, after worshiping Mr. Zhou Xiaotian as a teacher to learn old student drama, in 1958 into the Chinese Opera School for further study, from Liu Zhongqiu, Lei Xifu, Song Jiting and other teachers to learn old student drama, Zong Yu sent old students. His voice is fresh and his martial arts are sharp. The repertoire he often performs include "Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea", "Man Jiang Hong", "Lost Space Chop", "Lying Down and Tasting Bile", "Wild Boar Forest" and other old martial arts dramas. In the performance of the modern Peking Opera "Surprise Attack white tiger troupe", the heroic image of Yan Weicai was successfully shaped, leaving a deep impression on the audience.