Tang Jiaofang
The Jiaofang was the department that managed the court actors in ancient times. In addition to the ** used in ceremonies such as sacrifices and pilgrimages, the teaching, rehearsals, and performances of other folk music, dance, and acrobatics are all managed by the workshop. In some dynasties, the actor lived in the workshop with his family, and the workshop may be in the palace or near the palace.
Excerpts from two short stories from the Tang Dynasty's "Jiaofang Ji".
Pang Sanniang specializes in dancing, she is older, but she wears very good makeup, and can paint her face with pink honey and mica to cover up the wrinkles on her face. There was a banquet for a dignitary, and a messenger was sent to make an appointment. After meeting, she was called her mother-in-law and asked Pang Sanniang if she was in **. Sanniang deceived someone and said: "Pang Sanniang is my niece, she went out today, you can come tomorrow!."”
When the envoy came back the next day, Pang Sanniang had already put on heavy makeup, but the envoy didn't recognize it, and said, "I already told your aunt yesterday that a certain official is invited." Her peers in the community called her a fake face thief.
There is also a lady Yan, who is also good at makeup, and her eyes are different from ordinary people (the original text is "heavy eyes, deep face"). After putting on makeup, I can't see it at all, but my eyes are cross-browling, which is very charming. Mrs. Yan never faces people with a plain face, and no one in her family knows her true face. One day, her son died of illness, Mrs. Yan cried and wiped her tears, and the maid saw her eyes and couldn't help exclaiming: "Lady's eyes are broken!."”
The workshop is also a small river and lake. Pei Chengen's sister Pei Da Niang is good at singing, and her husband is Hou who climbs the wooden pole. Mrs. Pei had an affair with Changjin Zhao Jiechou ("Changjin" is a person who often performs for the emperor, and has a high rank among the royal actors and has some privileges), taking advantage of Hou's illness and wanting to poison him with medicine.
Zheng Zhishan and Zhao Xie are good friends, and the relationship with Hou is also okay. When he learned about this, he didn't want to see the tragedy happen, so he found someone to send a message to Hou: "Someone sent porridge tonight, don't eat it." ”
Hou didn't eat the poisonous porridge, and Aunt Pei discussed with Zhao Xie to use a cloth bag to fill the soil and suffocate Hou, and Zheng Zhishan took the initiative to ask Ying for help. The three of them entered Hou's room in the dark, Zheng Zhishan put the dirt bag on Hou, and deliberately did not suppress his mouth and nose, so that Hou could not die.
Later, this incident was exposed, and the three of them were beaten with a hundred rods, although Zheng Zhishan was beaten, he did not say that he rescued himself. When the women in the workshop heard about this, they all thought that the bag containing the soil was not strong, and Hou was able to survive. They joked to each other while they were doing needlework: "Sew it tightly so that it doesn't bloom when you press your husband." ”
After many years, everyone knew that it was Zheng Zhishan who saved Hou.
Ma Ling's biography
At the end of the Ming Dynasty, Xinghua and Hualin were the two most famous troupes in Jinling, and the pillars of the Xinghua troupe were called Ma Jin, and the ancestors were Hui people.
One day, a big businessman invited him and hired the two troupes to perform at the same time, also to make them compete with each other by the way. At that time, the audience was blocked, celebrities, and gentlemen, all came.
The two troupes performed "Ming Feng" at the same time, which is the play of the treacherous minister Yan Song ** Yang Jisheng. At first, the audience was equal, but when the song reached the Hetao, the audience gradually moved to the stage of the Hualin team, and the actor who played Yan Song on the stage was an actor surnamed Li. Yan Song played by Ma Jin had no one**, he took off his robe and fled after singing halfway.
Since then, Ma Jin has not known his whereabouts, and the Xinghua Opera Troupe refused to find someone to replace Ma Jin, and the gang also dispersed.
Three years later, Ma Jin returned from other places. He invited his former partners, found the original businessman, and begged: "Please arrange another spar, I want to compete with Li Ling." The businessman readily agreed, and there were more spectators than there had been back then.
The two troupes sang "Ming Feng" again, and when they sang about the Hetao, everyone felt that Yan Song performed by Ma Jin was very vivid, and they couldn't help but applaud hard under the stage of the Xinghua class. Li Ling of the Hualin class also kept her mouth shut and ran over to Ma Jin to apprentice.
For a while, the Xinghua Opera Troupe was in the limelight, and the people from the Hualin Class also came to learn from the experience and asked: "Li Ling of our class is good at playing a traitor, and she is already perfect. How did you get to the top of your game, like seeing others?”
Ma Jin said: "I heard that today's Xiangguo Gu Bingqian and Yan Song are the same kind of people, so I went to Beijing to mix in Xiangguo's Mansion and worked as a janitor for three years. Open and close the door for Gu Xiangguo every day, listen to the tone of his voice, observe his walking posture, and treat people with a ...... expressionWhen everyone heard this, they were amazed.
The story is from "Yu Chu Xinzhi", and the stories in this collection are all excerpted and collected from other places. I suspect that the original author said that Ma Ling was the second time, and that Gu Bingqian was the master.
Yu Sansheng
Yu Sansheng ancestor is a native of Anhui, at the end of the Qing Dynasty, his father came to the capital to work as a hawker, and later lived in peace to marry a wife, and gave birth to Yu Sansheng. Sansheng has been smart since he was a child, he grew up plump and handsome, like a good son, likes to sing, and has a loud voice. Because of his poor family, he learned to sing, and he was an old singer, and he entered the Guanghecheng opera class in the second year of Tongzhi, and he was an old singer. He is good at singing "Shiro Visits His Mother", "Catch and Release Cao" and other tracks.
Yu Sansheng reads a lot, has excellent eloquence, can flexibly respond to emergencies, make up words casually, and rhyme. Once, he sang a fold of "Sitting in the Palace" in Shiro's visit to his mother. The actor who played the princess was late, and he played Yang Shilang and sang: ".I am like a caged bird, with wings that are difficult to spread;I am like a tiger leaving a mountain, lonely;I am like a wild goose from the south, lost and scattered;I'm like a shallow water dragon, stuck on the beach. "The next should be sung".I think that Ssangyong will have a bloody battle ...... back then"A short account of how he ended up in Fanbang, and then the princess appeared.
He couldn't see the actor playing the princess waiting, so he made up his own lyrics along the line "I'm like a diving dragon trapped on the beach" and made an analogy: "I'm like the Mid-Autumn Moon, covered by dark clouds;I'm like a stream of water, and I won't return ...... forever"Seventy-four verses are sung in a row, all of them are metaphors.
The audience knew that it was procrastinating and waiting, because they liked Yu Sansheng's singing voice, smiling and listening quietly. At this time, he caught a glimpse that the princess had changed into a costume and was waiting for the scene, so he introduced the normal lyrics, and the princess came on the stage.
Later, he was asked, "What if the princess is not there?"Yu Sansheng said: "I am going to sing the analogy to eighty lines, if the princess has not yet arrived, I will let Yang Shilang recall the origin of the Yang family in Tianbo Mansion, and introduce Lao Linggong, She Taijun, and every brother of the Yang family." If you allow, you can sing it for a day. "Barnyard banknotes
There is a joke recorded in Ming's "History of Ancient and Modern Laughter". There is a monk in Wudi, whose family name is Wang, because his brother is an official, so he also married a daughter-in-law.
Monk Wang is very unqualified, because he has an elder brother who is an official, he always shows the appearance of being arrogant and empty-eyed. Everyone was bored and always wanted to find an opportunity to humiliate him.
One day, a gentry held a banquet and invited a troupe to help the fun. The person at the same table with Monk Wang secretly found the servant, stuffed the money and said: "This person's name is Monk Wang, he often makes trouble, and he is very annoying, can you sarcastically mock him?"The servant smiled and agreed.
When playing the legend of "Su Jizi", Su Qin asked the hexagram in despair, and the hexagram master should have sang: "There is still a day of clarification in the Yellow River, how can the hexagram person have no luck!."The servant got the money, and deliberately read: "The king monk has a marriage day, how can the hexagram person have no luck!."Everyone burst into laughter, and Monk Wang fled from the table.