The "talk box" stopped - the famous storytelling artist Yuan Kuocheng died

Guangming Daily, Beijing, March 2 (Reporter Guo Chao) "Words cut Kunshan into stone jade, words poured into the sea to identify fish and dragons." At 3:30 a.m. on March 2, Yuan Kuocheng, a famous storyteller and performance artist remembered by generations, died of heart failure in Beijing at the age of 86. Together with Liu Lanfang, Shan Tianfang and Tian Lianyuan, he is jointly known as the "Four Great Storytelling Performance Artists".

In the 1980s, Yuan Kuocheng was a household name, known to women and children. "The only motivation for going to primary school every day after noon to run home is to listen to Yuan Lao's "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" from the inside of the conversation box. As long as our generation is a child in the city, they are all fans of his old people, thank him for bringing us childhood happiness. "A post-60s netizen fondly recalled." When we were young, there was no TELEVISION, listening to the radio at home was the only entertainment, and Yuan Kuocheng's book review was a daily compulsory course. A post-70s netizen said. In my mind, one of the representative figures in the Chinese book critics circle must be Mr. Yuan Kuocheng. Zhang Lixian, a well-known publisher and writer, wrote in the article.

Yuan Kuocheng was born in Tianjin in 1929. His uncles Yuan Jieting and Yuan Jieying and his father Yuan Jiewu were known as the "Three Masters of the Yuan Family", and were famous for speaking "Five Daughters and Seven Virgins". Yuan Kuocheng took the stage at the age of 14 and performed in Tangshan, Tianjin, Harbin, Yingkou, Beijing and other places for a long time, and at the age of 18, he became famous for his short books "Twelve Golden Darts" and "Shi Gong Case". He was the leader of the reform of the art of storytelling, and first removed the desk, so that the art of appraisal was changed from a half-body art taught by Gaotai to a full-body art that emphasized qi, sound, character, knots, hands, eyes, body, law, and steps. On the basis of inheriting the traditional commentary, he constantly explores, has the courage to innovate, the language is vivid and humorous, and the character image is distinct. His book-reading performances have widely absorbed the strengths of drama, film, opera and cross-talk and other art forms, with new content, new style and new language, with the characteristics of "drifting, pretty, fast and brittle", and made valuable contributions to the promotion of national culture and art. Yuan Kuocheng's representative works include "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", "King of Western Chu", "Shui Po Liang Shan", "Agni King Kong" and so on.