The revision and reconstruction of the drama "Li Bai"

【Drama Masters Tell Stories】

Author: Guo Qihong

Guo Qihong profile photo

The creation of the drama "Li Bai" began in 1989, was drafted in mid-1990, and then the main creators went to the Yangtze River to experience life, and after several revisions, they entered the rehearsal hall and performed for the first time in 1991. After that, the performance was intermittent and continuous, and it has been 30 years now.

When I was writing the script of the drama "Li Bai", so I was the vice president of Beijing Renyi, and he once asked me, what is the difference between drama and opera? I was asked for a moment and said that I couldn't get the point for half a day. I have an inaccurate analogy that drama is prose and opera is poetry. Later, Lao Yu said that "Li Bai" could not be written too realistically. I was confused. He also said that Li Bai was different from Du Fu, different from Gao Shi, and different from other poets. Director Su Min asked, can you be more specific? Old Yu thought about it, "It should be ethereal!" Then a "hi" sounded, "I'm embarrassed for a writer!" "I suddenly realized that the old man was a good leader and a literary commentator, and I seemed to understand him, that he never imposed his opinion on the author, that he always hoped that the author would think more about himself. I have repeatedly pondered that ethereal is the pursuit of poetry, drama talks about contradictions and conflicts, and it is far from ethereal! I then reread Engels's three letters to Lassalle, Minna Kautsky, and Hakenas to find a solution to the puzzle, to no avail; I asked the literary commentators to revisit Liu Yuxi's "The Realm Is Born Outside the Elephant", Sikong Tu's "Elephant Outside the Elephant, Scenery Outside the Scene", "Taste Outside the Taste", "Rhyme Outside", Yan Yu's "Sound in the Air, Color in the Middle, Moon in the Water, Image in the Mirror". Ethereal spirit is based on reality, with the virtual world as the guide. In essence, ethereal does not belong to drama, but to poetry! The pursuit of ethereality in drama may be the pursuit of the poeticization of drama; in "Li Bai", the pursuit of "this one" poet's unique poeticization. This seems to be the reverse pursuit.

It is not difficult to imagine that without dramatic action, without the action contained in the dramatic language, without contradiction, without conflict, without climax, without anticipation and suspense, without sudden turn and discovery, without these dramatic elements, how can it become a drama? Ethereality is precisely to dilute the drama and highlight the poem, highlighting the artistic conception of the poem. Ethereal has pushed the choreographer to a dead end! I finally realized something, "Li Bai" seems to have both the meaning of prose and the realm of poetry, and the creation method should also have both realism and romanticism. Therefore, when revising the script, I identified the goal, waded into danger, and worked hard to explore the meaning and build the realm, including the fusion of the two brushworks in language. How many drafts of the script were revised, I can't remember myself.

For example, the most modified is the last scene before the epilogue, which is the climax of the whole play - Li Bai and his wife Zong Yan broke up, a special kind of divorce. I repeatedly compared the statements of several literary historians, and finally set guo Moruo's hypothesis as "the final trick of affection" (see Guo Moruo's book "Li Bai and Du Fu"). Finally, the trick is to say goodbye! The inevitability of the final trick and the temporary nature of the affection form a strong contradiction, which is where the drama lies! But it also determines that the formation of the dramatic climax does not depend on strong external actions, but relies on the collision between the inner conflict of the characters and the characters that have been externalized. The event of this drama is that Li Bai wants to join the army and Zong Yan wants to enter the Dao. Joining the army and entering the Tao are actually the bipolar behaviors of Li Bai's personality. At this time, all reasoning is pale! When I was revising, I deliberately inserted a "idle pen" in the gap between external conflicts—setting up a couples poem.

"Zong Yan: ... I always felt that it was not so much poetry as the spirituality of words! Every word has spirituality! By the hand of the poet, they ran down from the tip of the pen one by one, lined up, and lined up in rows!

Li Bai: That's right! Do you remember the words "come towards me" on the pile? Those three words lined up together are poetry!

…………

Zong Yan: ... When you are in your career, you can't stand the inclination of the officialdom, and once you indulge in the rivers and lakes, you can't forget to be loyal to the country. You are in and out, and you are not willing to retreat!

Li Bai: (sighing) Three points into the wood, three points into the wood! Maybe I'm destined to go back and forth like this all my life! (Bow your head in pain)

Zong Yan: (Return to calm, take out the poem manuscript) If you don't walk back and forth like this, there would be no Li Bai's poem! Rich and noble have no poetry, there is no poetry in seclusion, only the heart that cannot be quiet, poured with intoxicating wine, can exude immortal qiwen! Throughout the ages, how many people have attained the spirituality of words? Master you got it! ...... I also hope that the Master will fulfill me. (Meaning that the upper Lushan screen is stacked into the road)

Li Bai: (shouting violently) No! No! You can't get into the way! ”

This "idle pen" is actually a momentum of wanting to promote the first to suppress. I used to think that when the national hand plays chess, sometimes the surface of the game seems to be as calm as a pool of water, and there is no gunfire and smoke, but in fact it is a contest at a higher level. The same is true of drama. I appreciate the aphorism of the drama theorist Tan Peisheng: "The drama is in the 'words'." I thought that this "word" should be action-oriented, and it should also be speculative.

Let me give you another example. In order to adapt to the poet's theme and create a poetic atmosphere, in addition to tempering the lines, I studied with director Su Min the use of lyrical monologues and singing and singing between the curtains. Feeling that the drama stage has been separated for a long time, Li Bai's three-hundred-word monologue of "Farewell to the Yangtze River" was suggested to me by Su Min; feeling the dissociative effect of the drama and the assumption of the stage, with the support of Su Min, the opening, intermission and the end borrowed the tradition of classical poetry and classical opera, and the modern singers at the beginning seemed to appear at the end of the stage, singing long and short sentences describing the content of the whole play, singing or chanting new near-body poems and ancient poems between the curtain and behind the scenes, and the last four solo songs were in the riot style. Su Min also personally sang two inter-scene poems. The practice after the play shows that there are gains and losses in this attempt. Commentators affirmed the large monologues and argued that the modern singer's appearance was incompatible with the style of the whole play. Drama critic Ke Wenhui wrote an article pointing out: "The opening song is the flavor of Song Ci, which is a little farther away from the magnificent Tang tone; the solo singing between the curtains is less 'fairy', especially the intermission song of the fifth scene, all four sentences are from the flat sound, which is the flaw in Yuzhong." With Qi Hong's literary talent and literacy, it is not difficult to iron out such small wrinkles. "After consulting with me, Su Min abandoned the modern singer and changed it to singing behind the scenes, and I also slightly modified several poems.

The modification of a play seems to be a never-ending complex labor, in which the pain of denial is alternated with the joy of reconstruction. The pain of denial is only temporary, and the heart yearns for the joy of reconstruction. After the script is revised, so it is said, that's it, the words that were not said at the beginning, take it back, and rehearse it according to your text. Wow! For most of my life, I heard my boss say something about retracting my opinion! I burst into tears. I have the privilege of living in the art group of renyi, and the joy of reinvention is also reflected in the discussion with artists of various disciplines, and it is concentrated in the process of playing from flat to three-dimensional. This process has always condensed the wisdom and painstaking efforts of artists.

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Guo Qihong is a contemporary playwright. Former first-class screenwriter of Beijing People's Art Theatre. He has won the Wenhua Drama Composition Award, the Cao Yu Drama Literature Award, the Lion Award, the highest gold prize for personal achievement in Chinese drama, and the Lao She Literature Award, the highest award in Beijing Literature and Art. His works include the drama "Confidant", "Li Bai", the Kunqu opera "Southern Tang Relics" and so on.

Guangming Daily (2021-07-25, 12th edition)

Source: Guangming Network - Guangming Daily