How Yan Huizhu Climbed the Peak of Meipai Art (1)

On August 15, 1945, Japanese imperialism announced its unconditional surrender, and Mei Lanfang re-entered the stage. In the spring of 1946, a series of Meipai famous dramas such as "Fenhe Bay", "Cosmic Front", "Feng Hui Chao", "Fishing and Killing The Family", "Shilang Visiting Mother", "Famen Temple", "Wu Jia Po", "Dadeng Hall", "Baolian Lantern", "Royal Monument Pavilion", "Anti-Gold Soldier", "Overlord Farewell", "Noble Concubine Drunk" and so on were staged successively. During this period, Yan Huizhu also happened to perform in Shanghai, and Mei Lanfang left a ticket for Yan Huizhu every day. And said, "The more you watch my plays, the more I teach you." "This period is the best time for Yan Huizhu to combine her learning and practice. Yan Huizhu began the third stage of learning mei, climbing the peak of meipai art. The following is a series of excerpts from the book "Absolute Style: Yan Huizhu".

When it comes to Yan Huizhu watching the drama, she is notoriously restless. Either "late" or "early departure". However, whenever she watched Mei Lanfang's play, Yan Huizhu changed her normal state and became more at ease than anyone else. The seats for watching the show have also changed. Watching the other corner plays, she must sit in the first three rows downstairs, which is the best place to catch the eye. Watching Mei Lanfang's play, the second floor is lined up with her special seats. Because it is condescending here, it is easy to control the entire stage. Even if you are still sitting in the front seat downstairs, at this time, the words and wisdom of the pearl eyes are "empty" of everything. Her heart is in addition to Mr. Mei and Mr. Mei. Whoever didn't want to distract her focused gaze and highly focused attention.

Mei Lanfang's plays have always been big axes. Yan Huizhu watched Mei Lanfang's play, the time was more accurate than the stopwatch, usually three or five minutes before Mei Lanfang played, she rushed to arrive. Sometimes after performing his own play in the "Queen" Theater, he rushed to see the play without washing up the lead. With her, it was either Ms. Ren Yinghua or Ms. Xu Meiling, and more than that, the three of them came together. Ren Yinghua was also a disciple of Mei Lanfang. Xu Meiling specializes in Mei Pai and has a strong personal relationship with Yan Huizhu.

The three of them have a division of labor to watch the play, each with a pen and a book, where Mei Lanfang walks a few steps, where to throw sleeves, which body corresponds to which sentence, which dance moves with which beat, they all have detailed records. Including Mei Lanfang's makeup and costumes, there is no omission. Once, Mei Lanfang performed "Fenhe Bay", when singing "Wait for today to come tomorrow and wait, wait for you to come back and I will be a wife", Mei Lanfang was so affectionate that she made a larger figure that was very different from the past; this figure was borrowed from Kunqu opera to express the joy of Liu Yingchun and Xue Rengui's long-term reunion and bitterness. This improvisation messed up Their "position" of Yan Huizhu. After the performance, the three of them took notes on a pair, and as a result, no one recorded Mei Lanfang's figure.

The next day, Yan Huizhu went straight to Mei's house and begged Mr. Mei to repeat his figure from yesterday. But Mei Lanfang couldn't remember it for a moment. He made several figures, and Yan Huizhu shook his head and said no. Mei Lanfang is an extremely well-cultivated artist, not to mention facing such a meticulous student. So one by one, he demonstrated to Yan Huizhu. Suddenly, Yan Huizhu shouted, "This is it." Quickly took out a pen and a notebook to record it, and also asked Mei Lanfang for advice on the canon and essentials of this figure. Mei Lanfang told Yan Huizhu that "Wu Jia Po" and "Fenhe Bay", the two plays have extremely similar drama paths, and there is no big difference in appearance, but one is a Xiangfu Qianjin style, and the other is an ordinary folk woman. When it comes to the reunion of husband and wife, it is very humane to reveal the joy of a long-term reunion and the style of a woman, which should be different.

Later, Yan Huizhu wrote in "Ten Years of Learning Plum":

I was like a greedy child, eager to take what I didn't have at once; eyes like cameras, ears like radios, I wanted to be a "replica" of the teacher's performance.

Yan Huizhu loves "mei" like fate, intoxicated, and in its own words: "Meipai art is to sleep and forget to eat, night and day, I am afraid that it is rare to have its true meaning"; "Learning may not be attainable, if you no longer hold the attitude of being afraid to learn, then there is even less left." According to the original work Fei Sanjin