Dance drama "The Source of the River" Material**.
Stills from Huangmei Opera "The Immortal Proud Yang" taken by Zhang Peipei.
Stills from the drama "Iron Flow Eastward" taken by Wang Haochen.
In recent years, on the stage of Chinese drama, the youthful expression of traditional drama has gradually become a trend. Through breakthroughs and innovations in the selection of themes, plot conception, character relationships and stage design, the creators tell the main theme story in a way that fits the aesthetic taste and acceptance psychology of the new generation of audiences, while realizing the dual goals of art appreciation and mainstream values, it also expands the aesthetic form and creative paradigm of traditional drama, and provides greater space and possibility for drama to "tell Chinese stories well".
1.Let young people of different generations have a dialogue across time and space.
On today's drama stage, drama works that reflect realistic themes such as revolutionary history, heroic characters, poverty alleviation, and urban construction still dominate. These works invariably show their preference for "telling the stories of young people": such as the drama "Wave", which commemorates the "Five Martyrs of the Left League";The drama "Sanwan, That Night", which reproduces the history of "Sanwan Adaptation";The national opera "Half of the Red Army Quilt", which tells the story of the Long March;The drama "Saihan Long Song", which praises the builders of the Saihan Dam;The Peking Opera "Neem Tree Flower" that shows Wang Jicai and Wang Shihua guarding the island border post by husband and wife;With the life and deeds of revolutionary martyr Qu Qiubai as the theme, the Kunqu opera "Qu Qiubai" and the * drama "Qu Qiubai";Huangmei Opera "The Immortal Proud Yang" and Sichuan Opera "Sister Jiang" all focus on the protagonist's youth, focusing on portraying the life choices and revolutionary ideals of young individuals or groups in specific environments, highlighting the growth, courage and responsibility of young people. In the words of He Nian, the director of "Wave", it is to "infect the youth of today with the youth of the time".
In terms of plot setting and image building, these works take family life and daily work as the incision, and integrate solemn and heavy themes such as family and country feelings into the civilian narrative, effectively realizing the emotional communication between the "young people at that time" as the object of the play and the "young now" as the audience of the play. The protagonist's yearning and pursuit of love, family affection, and friendship are shown in these works, as well as Tong Zhenbao's fragility in "Saihan Long Song" to "escape" from Saihan Dam, and Fan Jinshi's stubbornness in "Dunhuang Daughter" when he first arrived in Dunhuang and the director's "three high-fives", and the panic ...... when he mistakenly thought that there was a wolf outside the houseThese portrayals of "human nature" all reflect the narrative strategy of the traditional drama creation team with "people" as the main body and the great over the ordinary.
At the same time, the creators consciously enhance the suspense of the drama and build the structure of the drama at the beginning of the creation, and give the characters and plots humorous and relaxed contemporary art characteristics under the premise of reasonableness, so as to meet the aesthetic demands of the new generation of audiences for plot intensity and drama entertainment. For example, the drama "Live Broadcast of the Founding Ceremony", at first glance, the audience will think that it is a traditional repertoire of historical scenes, but the play is bold and innovative, integrating suspense, spy war, love and other genre elements that modern audiences love, and the viewing is greatly enhanced;Another example is the Gannan tea-picking opera "One Man's Long March", which tells the tragic story of the Long March in a light comedy tone.
2.Establish an open and flexible relationship between the audience and the performance.
The narrative perspective of the drama greatly affects the communication effect of the theme. Practice has proved that using the "current perspective" as the starting point and using the first-person way to structure the plot is easier to obtain the psychological identity of young audiences. For example, the drama "Iron Flow Eastward" uses the perspective of Li Anben's grandson to find the reason why his grandfather calls himself a "martyr";The drama "Teacher Guimei" explores and thinks about Zhang Guimei's "original intention" and "way forward" from the perspective of young and middle-aged teachers and several children in Huaping Girls' Senior High SchoolThe dance drama "The Source of the River" shows the unique customs and cultural ecology of the snowy plateau from the perspective of an urban photographer riding a motorcycle and dressed in fashionable clothes. There are also repertoire such as the folk dance drama "Little Sisters of the Prairie Heroes" and the drama "Red Starting Point", all of which put the "strange" eyes of one or several young characters into the drama situation, and use their observations and feelings as clues to spread out the plot.
Another way of "looking back" is also often used. For example, the drama "Revolutionary Family", the Shanghai opera "Dunhuang Daughter", the drama "Deep Sea", the Soviet opera "The Soul of the National Ding", etc., the beginning of the play is narrated by a respected old man from a specific time node, and the old man and his (her) youth in the historical context, subjective life experience and objective background of the times are reflected, showing a time scale with different layers. Whether it is the "exploration" from the perspective of teenagers or the "retrospection" from the perspective of the elderly, it fully respects the sense of distance between young audiences and the plot due to the era and region, and builds a dialogue bridge through the "credible narrator", imperceptibly completing the value transmission and spiritual inheritance.
Traditional theatrical creations also try to incorporate surreal perspectives into realistic narratives, such as in "Iron Streams Eastward", in which a deceased person walks to the stage and narrates himself in a monologue"Wave" directly sets the plot as after the sacrifice of the "five martyrs", their souls start to ask "why do we die", and their relatives and friends, seniors and descendants, and characters appear one after another to participate in the speech and discussion;The drama "Literature and Art in the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression" gives full play to the characteristics of a documentary drama, with more than 30 actors jumping in and out of the roles, playing characters, telling their lives and interpreting comments, interspersed with overlapping information, and information from various dimensions and perspectives is intertwined. This multi-temporal perspective creates a more open and flexible relationship between viewing and performance, echoing the aesthetic mentality of contemporary young people seeking innovation and change, and arousing strong repercussions for watching dramas.
3.Create a visual landscape with a modern texture.
The youthful expression of the visual style of traditional dramas is also a highlight. This is first reflected in the shaping and presentation of the "age" and "fashion" of the character image. Using young actors or inviting idol stars to play roles, through costumes, hairstyles, makeup and other styling designs, to meet the visual aesthetic demands of young people, and externalize the vigorous and heroic demeanor of the founders and builders of New China in an intuitive way.
Space design and stage performances are key elements of visual style. Judging from the on-site effects of the performance and the comments after watching the play, contemporary audiences pay great attention to the narrative ability of the "stage vocabulary", especially the visual landscape or scene setting that reflects the sense of modernity and youthfulness: the drama "Gu Wenchang", "Saihan Long Song", "Deep Sea", the national opera "Jinsha River", "Xiao Erhei Marriage", and the Henan opera "Dahe Anlan" and other repertoire, with a huge screen and LED screen as the background, dynamic or static images and set devices are seamlessly connected, creating a realistic and majestic theatrical scene, so that the audience has an immersive shock;"Live Broadcast of the Founding Ceremony" divides the longitudinal and narrow stage with a strong sense of depth of field into local spaces such as doorrooms, conference rooms, broadcast studios, dormitories, laboratories, etc., and uses "montage" to show the occurrence of different events in parallel or cross, forming a viewing experience of "drama + film and television".The drama "Avenue" uses multi-technology to build a spectacle image effect with rich layers and fast transfer on the four-story stage, which corroborates the plot theme of "China's communication technology is advancing by leaps and bounds"."Iron Flow Eastward" adopts a metaphorical set, and the white modules arranged according to different rules are poetically transformed into concrete ......scenes such as mountains, high hills, trenches, bunkers, etc., with the help of actors' performancesThere is also the symbolic simple stage and the introduction of shadow puppet elements in the Gannan tea-picking opera "One Man's Long March", the rain of flowers sprinkled at the end of the Kunqu opera "Qu Qiubai", the spiritual world of the protagonist externalized by the "petrel soaring in the storm" in the ** drama "Qu Qiubai", and the image of a slender man climbing the slope that often appears in the drama "Lu Yao", etc., because of the visual appeal of the scene blending and the far-reaching rhyme, etc., which left a deep impression on the audience.
In short, the exploration of traditional drama in the expression of youth is an inevitable move to adapt to the cultural context, aesthetic needs and market rules of the new era, and its experience and achievements are worthy of attention and development, but at the same time, we should also be wary of the tendency to pursue too much content curiosity and sensory stimulation, as well as the tendency to vulgarize the values embodied in some dramas. Only by grasping the balance between artistic value and commercial value, mainstream culture and youth culture, and inheritance and abandonment of tradition can traditional drama works demonstrate their unique artistic charm and strong artistic power, and be welcomed by more audiences.
Author: Meng Mei is an associate professor at the School of Drama, Film and Television, Communication University of China