Author: Cao Juren
The previous day's newspapers carried Shaw's conversation at sun residence, and there was a paragraph:
Xiao asked, "I have one thing that I don't understand very well. I'm a scriptwriter and know that when you're doing a play on stage, the audience needs to listen. Why do Chinese theaters like to beat up big gongs and drums, and do Chinese audiences like to listen to plays in the liveliness? If the little boy who called England heard it, he would be frightened. ”
Mei Lanfang: "Chinese opera also has quiet, such as Kun opera, from the beginning to the end does not use gongs and drums. ”
I think this answer is stupid! Suppose George Bernard Shaw asked, "Why is Chinese's face yellow?" Isn't Mei Lanfang going to answer: "Chinese's face is also white, that is, like me Mei Lanfang"?
The form of art is necessarily determined by the material environment, and capitalist urban art connoisseurs often fail to understand art that reflects rural society, so George Bernard Shaw asks why Chinese theaters like to beat gongs and drums.
George Bernard Shaw with Lu Xun and Cai Yuanpei
Ryunosuke Wasagawa also had this doubt: "The first feature of Chinese drama is that the noise of musical instruments is above imagination. I was not used to hearing it at first, and I could not go to jail except to cover my ears with both hands. (Travelogue of China)
The big gong and big drum in the Chinese theater are indeed after the Kunqu opera, and the Kunqu opera is the same as the previous Northern Opera, the String Suoxi Box, or the opera in the living room, and there is no need for the big gong and the big drum. This kind of opera, once sent to the field square, the sound is too low and too quiet, it is not in line with the public's viewing, and the big fight is exactly the actual need of the field square, and if you go to the countryside to listen to the play Chinese mainland, you will not understand the benefits of the gongs and drums of Chinese opera.
Shanxi Wanquan County Siwang Village Theater Stage
A critic in Japan once said: "Chinese drama is a big knock, shout, big jump, so that the audience is dizzy, very unsuitable for the theater, but if you are in the wild square, far away sounds, looks, has its own style." ”
It is evident that there is no one who understands the rural background of Chinese opera, Mei Lanfang plays a famous chinese drama, and answers such a bull's head is not right for the horse's mouth, which really makes people sigh.
Mei Lanfang
The correct and clever reply should be said: "The use of this big gong and drum is just suitable for the theater in rural China, and the shortcomings of the noise are only revealed in the theater of the city, and in the theater of the countryside, only his advantages are shown, Mr. Xiao, please go to Chinese mainland to listen to a play?" ”
(Declaration, February 22, 1933)
Attached: "A Rumor That China Has No Culture to Speak of"
Xu Ruxuan
On the eighteenth day of this month, the British literary dramatist George Bernard Shaw, from Guangdong to Shanghai, celebrities from this port, the academic circles and the art circles of the press, warmly welcomed the crowd.
After landing in the World News Agency, when Mei Lanfang and Xiao Shi talked, Xiao's tone was quite harsh, not Mei's hostile, Xiao Shi took the Chinese opera has gongs and drums and many noises as an excuse, and Mei's answer is that "although there is noise in ping opera, Kun opera has no sound", it is inevitable to lose ground, obviously admitting that Ping opera is bad, and Kun opera does not have gongs and drums? If you refute it here, I don't know what Mei will answer? If there is no face to face, Yi Xiao has the saying that there is no Culture in China. I don't know if Xiao Shi is good for Mei Shi personally? Or is it for the whole of China?
Mei Lanfang and Liu Lianrong's "Thorny Tiger"
I now want to be Xiao Jun's informant, the gong and drum are made in the Tang Dynasty of China, commonly used to play with silk bamboo, Sunqing Jiaqing twenty-eight years, especially in the feast and yang music, add a set of ten times, the size of the gong has ten kinds, the size of the drum also has more than ten kinds, now the existing score, there are still eighteen sets, the timbre has orchestral pulling four categories, musical instruments at most, all percussion type, are polyphonic symphonic nature, and the ordinary silk bamboo sketches in society, completely different. Also mentioned in the history of the Tang Dynasty: Emperor Ming once used the karma drum as the conductor of the great music ensemble in the garden, and in an instant, a hundred flowers bloomed, and it can also be seen that one of the values of the gong and drum is spotted.
Great Wall Company produced record scenes
I hope that Xiao Jun will not make this incomplete argument after that, and I would prefer that Mei Jun read more ancient books, do fundamental research, and no longer be proud of thirty years of dramatic life, covering the linggong of thirty years ago, most of them are not unskilled, and their qualification status cannot be compared with today's linggong, is it unknown to Meijun?
I have said this for Mei Jun, not only for Mei Jun, but for all those who have the responsibility of culture, they should pay attention to it. As for the Tianxiang culture, what is its state, Xiao Jun did not point out, it is incomprehensible, but where is the real culture of China? Four thousand years ago, there was already a special word called "Shengjiao" (a "liturgical music"), from the national ceremony, down to social communication, as well as scholars reading, peddlers for a living, and even beggars begging for food, there is a part of the musicalization, Xiao Jun's so-called natural culture, when here and not in the other cloud.
(Declaration, February 24, 1933)