Today is January 8, 2020
Celebrities who speak of Chinese drama and opera
We can always blurt out names such as Cao Yu and Mei Lanfang
But there is a name
But it is silently advancing in the course of history
The development of drama and opera
【Western Opera Yellow Calendar】
January 8, 1988
Ma Yanxiang died
Ma Yanxiang was born in the era of the crazy growth of Chinese drama and opera. During that period, both drama and opera ushered in a period of maturity and professionalization. During that period, famous drama artists such as Ding Xilin, Tian Han, Cao Yu, Lao She, and Ouyang Yuqian were famous; in terms of opera, there were tan pai, four major Su sheng, four famous dans and other famous characters.
In contrast, Ma Yanxiang is not a "big figure" in the history of Chinese drama, but it is not difficult to look at the literature and find that in the organization, director, and theory of drama, Ma Yanxiang's figure can always be seen. Since the 1930s, Ma Yanxiang has been active on the stage of drama and opera. Four of his five wives are nationally renowned artists, and each wife's story can hold up an article.
Ma Yanxiang's family conditions were superior, and his father, Ma Heng, was a pioneer of modern Chinese archaeology and later became the director of the Palace Museum. Her mother, Ye Weiqing, is the daughter of Ye Chengzhen, the king of hardware on the beach.
Xu Beihong's 1932 sketch of "Portrait of Ma Heng" should have been made by Mr. Ma Heng in his home in Xiaoyabao Hutong, Dongcheng, Beijing. At that time, Mr. Ma Lao was busy packing cultural relics in the Forbidden City Antiquities Museum and preparing for the relocation of national treasures to the south. Mr. Ma Heng, who is calm in Mr. Xu Beihong's pen, was ordered to be in danger a year later, leading colleagues in the Forbidden City to start the 12-year-long migration of the treasure protection.
According to the custom of "rich family", Ma Yanxiang was labeled as "rebellious" and "not doing the right thing" very early. In 1923, Ma Yanxiang, who was still in the third grade of junior high school at Beijing No. 2 Middle School, became fascinated by Peking Opera, and his father persuaded him to go over the wall, run away from home, and leave a letter. Through the introduction of the fans' friends, he did the proofreading and writing of the magazine in the Liulichang area, and watched the drama at night.
This life lasted about a year, and after the mother who returned to Beijing from Shanghai learned of her son's "bad behavior", she served a family law and brought her son to Shanghai to personally discipline him. After some twists and turns, Ma Yanxiang was admitted to the Department of Chinese Literature of Fudan University in Shanghai without completing his secondary school studies. Unexpectedly, Fudan University also fulfilled his dream of drama.
At Fudan University, Ma Yanxiang focused on the drama courses taught by Hong Shen and Liang Shiqiu in the Department of Foreign Literature, and these two big men laid a solid foundation for Ma Yanxiang's theory of drama, and Ma Yanxiang also quickly became a pillar of the Fudan New Drama Society with the foundation of Peking Opera in his youth.
In 1925, Ma Yanxiang, Wu Faxiang, Bian Fengnian, and other Chinese students who loved drama initiated the establishment of the "Fudan New Drama Society" (also known as the "Fudan New Theater Troupe"), which was also active in the Jian Gongtang. In 1926, fudan drama company was established in Jian Gongtang.
Under the leadership of Hong Shen (Hong Shen: one of the main founders of modern Chinese drama that was first created and used under the name "Drama"),Fudan Drama Society has gone to the road of public performance after several years of internship rehearsal, and it is extremely popular, for example, Zhejiang University has announced that "students who love American drama in the Fudan Drama Society do not miss classes." Schools "support" students to skip class to watch dramas, which is not easy to count.
During this time, Ma Yanxiang became the spokesperson of Fudan Drama Club, and outside Fudan School, Ma Yanxiang was also a talent that different drama clubs competed for. Nowadays, famous artists have also had contact with horses, such as in the "Lu Xun Diary" "Two days clear." In the morning, Liu Xiaoyu, Huang Chunyuan, and Judy came and did not see each other. This diary should be written by Mr. Lu Xun on November 2, 1926, and the Ma Fan bird is Ma Yanxiang's pen name.
In 1926, due to the gift program of the 20th anniversary of Fudan University (in 1925, due to the "May 30th" massacre, the 20th anniversary of the celebration was postponed for one year). Ma Yanxiang and Chen Ying (Chen Ying, influenced by Gu Sui, used Shen Ying as a pen name, and at the age of 60, she translated and printed the novel collection "Letters from a Strange Woman" at her own expense) became more frequent, and soon the two fell in love.
In the winter of 1928, Ma Yanxiang completed the credits stipulated by the department of Chinese of Fudan University and graduated six months ahead of schedule. Ma Yanxiang and Shen Ying were married on June 9, 1929. He had his first marriage.
At the end of 1930, Shen Ying and Ma Yanxiang divorced. Ma Yanxiang attributed the reason for the breakup to the discord between his mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, and there was a rumor that Ma Yanxiang fell in love with the beautiful actress Bai Yang, which caused Shen Ying to part ways with him. But Poplar, who was born in 1920 that year, was only ten years old. Although unwilling to believe this rumor, from the summer of 1935 to the summer of 1936, Bai Yang became Ma Yanxiang's second wife.
Ma Yanxiang should be said to be a noble person on the path of Poplar Star, and Bai Yang can also be regarded as Ma Yanxiang's hand, but when Poplar began to walk to the screen, her relationship with Ma Yanxiang also came to an end. The reason is that Ma Yanxiang explained to his friend Xu Xiacun this way: "I am most opposed to people who engage in drama making movies, and Bai Yang must make movies, so I had to break up with her." After the breakup, Ma Yanxiang went alone to the Soviet Union to "heal his wounds".
The picture shows the joint drama club led by the heroine Ms. Bai Yang and Ma Yanxiang performing in Beijing [Fishing and Killing Family]
From the autumn of 1932 to the summer of 1934, Ma Yanxiang edited the Yulin, a supplement to Yishi Bao, in Tianjin. With Tianjin Meng Xiaoru as a teacher, it can be regarded as a real entry into the door of opera, and has laid a solid foundation for its future research and theory.
In 1934, Ma Yanxiang and Tian Han organized the Chinese Stage Association, and together with Cao Yu and others, they founded the semi-professional theater troupe China Drama Society. After 1934, Ma Yanxiang served as a professor at the Department of Chinese Literature and the Nanjing National Drama School at Qilu University in Jinan, and thus introduced his third wife, Lin Feiyu, a student of the Nanjing National Drama School.
Lin Feiyu is a Thai native of Chaozhou, Guangdong. The marriage between the two is also very similar to Shen Ying, after the marriage, Lin Feiyu settled in Beijing, and Ma Yanxiang ran around the country for the sake of the theater career. It's just that Lin Feiyu doesn't have as much courage as Shen Ying, so this marriage lasted for eight years before it broke down.
Their child Ma Simeng also recorded his father's life in the book "Collecting Fragments of History" in the year of Hua Jia, and was also the main source of Ma Yanxiang's gossip.
The reason for the breakup this time, the two have their own explanations. The following is a telegram sent by Lin Feiyu from Hong Kong to Ma Yanxiang on April 16, 1949: "According to Yao Meiyan Jun, who has lived with her sister, is very relieved, and will not return to the north, when the north plane makes a contract, the thought is as fierce as the mother,Please send it..."
At the end of 1937, Ma Yanxiang was elected as a director of the All-China Theater Anti-Enemy Association. In 1943, he went to Chongqing to serve as the president of the Central Youth Drama Society. During this time, Ma Yanxiang worked in the theater groups or institutions, covering most of the important modern theatrical events of the past decade (even he observed the Soviet theater festivals). Looking around the entire modern drama scene, such a contact surface is probably not a second person to think.
On July 7, 1937, the Anti-Japanese War broke out, and theater workers took up arms and went deep into the nation to propagate anti-Japanese resistance, but the fact is that the vast number of rural audiences do not accept dramas, and the most the audience says is ''you' acting drama "We can't understand it, we want to watch 'acting'". This experience should be said to have sown the seeds of Ma Yanxiang's subsequent contributions to opera.
Under the main tone of the people of the whole country that "the war of resistance is victorious, the old drama is destroyed", Ma Yanxiang put forward the idea of "how art can be old and new" during this period, and after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War in 1949, Ma Yanxiang sat in the deputy director of the Opera Improvement Bureau of the Ministry of Culture, the deputy director of the Art Bureau, the consultant of the Art Research Institute, and the adviser of the Ministry of Culture.
Xu Beihong he Ma Yanxiang made a picture of "Double Flying God Jun" when he was married. Knowledge: Brother Yan Xiang Shiren, Lady Ju Yu JiaLi.
In 1949, after decades of war, everyone also had the basic conditions for settling down and establishing a life, and Ma Yanxiang also married his fourth wife, Yun Yanming. Yun Yanming: Zi Juyuan, Peking Opera Danjiao, rehearsed the modern Peking Opera "Revolution Has Its Own Descendants", which opened the way for the later model play "Red Lantern". In 1950, the two married, and the witness was Tian Han.
At this time, Ma Yanxiang was 18 years older than Yun Yanming, and at the wedding, Mr. Ma Heng was not polite to his son, saying that he hoped that this would be his last marriage. But this time it was not his own son who disappointed the old man.
In the old days, China still existed according to the chain of contempt of "industry-commerce-peasant-soldier-beggar-prostitute-excellent", and the drama represented by "excellent" was at the lowest end of the chain of contempt. Therefore, although Yun Yanming was thirteen years old and had become extremely popular with "Thirteen Sisters", Yun Yanming hated himself in his heart.
Another reason is because Yun Yanming's lover Zhang Yunxi, who is also at the bottom of the chain of contempt, was beaten with a stick, so when Yun married director Ma, who was 18 years older than herself, the two were not happy, according to her later memoirs, in the face of her husband's knowledge, prestige, and generous consideration for herself, Yun Yanming was more respectful and guilty.
In 1958, Yun Yanming took the initiative to apply to be transferred to the Harbin Peking Opera Troupe. In 1961, Ma Yanxiang married his fifth wife, Tong Baoling, who was 24 years younger than him.
Tong Baoling was born in the famous Liyuan family "Tong Family Class", Zong Shang Xiaoyun and Xun Huisheng. Ma Yanxiang's marriage to Tong Baoling also did not take long for problems, during the Cultural Revolution Ma Yanxiang was pestered, and Tong Baoling, who was not mentally prepared, immediately filed for divorce, but was not approved by the organization.
In the next 22 years, although the two stumbled, Tong Baoling still accompanied Ma Yanxiang on his final journey.
In fact, Ma Yanxiang's wife's situation after the divorce is still quite glamorous, the four left for the United States, and they all have their own careers, and more exciting stories. I will not dwell on this article.
For drama and opera, Ma Yanxiang, as an unprecedented explorer, may not be explained by simple love, firm faith or pursuit of ideals. In the turbulent times, the ideological trends of movements such as new culture have brought profound changes to society, but in the absence of a perfect critical spirit of the reformers, the art of opera has long been excluded from the new cultural movement.
In the era of national thought and change, Ma Yanxiang reiterated the concept of "drama duality", summarized the double aesthetic standards of classical Chinese opera theory from the essence of drama, and emphasized the script and modernity of opera. For example, in the article "The Consciousness of Those Engaged in Drama Luck", Ma Yanxiang proposed that "old techniques should be used to create new operas... It is a huge mistake to think that Pi Huang opera cannot coexist with drama. " point of view.
This view is still carried out by countless practitioners today.
Therefore, there is a sentence that summarizes Ma Yanxiang's contribution is still appropriate, "he is involved in the study of opera in order to develop drama, and the study of opera is to provide reference for the enrichment and perfection of the drama stage", it can be said that Ma Yanxiang took the first step in national opera art, and also opened the first window for the study of opera theory.
the end
Write at the end: The fate of the individual will always be wrapped in the torrent of the times, without the slightest ability to resist, the chaotic world has created not only heroes, but also countless people who have silently dedicated their lives to the industry they love. So we are also willing to believe that there will always be a small group of people, only with enthusiasm and enthusiasm Insist on struggling in every corner of the performance industry I wish every practitioner of the performance a Happy New Year