Recently, the "2023 China Small Theatre Opera Performance" was held in Shanghai, and "Red Beans", which I created for Wuxi Tin Theater, participated in the opening performance at the Yangtze River Theater Black Box as the first small theater tin opera in China. As one of the youngest behind-the-scenes creators in the exhibition, I have a deep relationship with the "Chinese Opera Performance". Since 2018, I have written a total of 4 works to participate in the exhibition, namely-Yue Opera "Monk", "Letter from a Strange Woman", Wu Opera "No Name", and Tin Opera "Red Bean". In the past five years, I have witnessed the process of upgrading the "Shanghai Small Theatre Xiqu Festival" to the "Chinese Small Theatre Xiqu Performance".At the same time, these small theater opera works of different genres, themes and styles have also witnessed my growth on the road of creation.
At the end of 2018, the Yue Opera "Monk Diagram", a small theater I created for the Nanjing Yue Opera Troupe, was staged at the Yangtze River Theater Red Box as the opening scene of the exhibition. At that time, I was still a graduate student at the China Academy of Drama. The high-speed train from the north is heading to the south, and the warm winter sun is coming.
The day after the performance, a friend sent me a text, which was a drama review spontaneously written by the audience in Shanghai, writing: "The plot is about Zhang Shengqian who suffered a mid-life crisis after becoming famous for 20 years, Jiang Lang is exhausted, I thought the screenwriter was an uncle, but I didn't expect to search for information on the Internet after the show, and it was actually a post-90s screenwriter, and it was the first time to write Yue Opera. "The person who wrote the review may not know that the person he wrote about had seen his words, but the affirmation and encouragement from people I didn't know was a source of strength for me in the early stages of my creation.
It is worth mentioning that during the performance of "The Monk" in Shanghai, I met Rong Zhaoqi, the director of the Shanghai Theater Academy, and at his invitation, I began to create the first small theater Wu opera "No Name" in China. At that time, I graduated from the China Academy of Drama and joined the Jiangsu Provincial Drama and Literature Creation Institute as a full-time drama playwright. In December 2020, the Wu opera "No Name" was unveiled, and the next day, the Yue opera "Letter from a Strange Woman" also met with Shanghai audiences. In 2022, the script of "No Name" was selected for the script analysis of the postgraduate professional examination of the Department of Directing of Shanghai Theater Academy, and the vitality of the play continues.
By the end of this year, I have been working for four years, and I once again participated in the "Chinese Small Theater Opera Performance" with the tin opera "Red Bean", and I felt a lot of emotion. The familiar Yangtze River Theater has a melodious rhyme, the senior teachers cordially communicated with me, and the experts and audiences in the theater who have met or have not yet known each other in the exhibition and performance for many years talked about the text of the drama review and the spirit of the main creators of the small theater opera. When I look up, the sun is warm and bright, just like the winter day when I first came to Shanghai five years ago.
The moon is born on the sea, and the end of the world is at this time. For me, the Chinese Opera Performance is no longer an exhibition and performance event, but an ideal garden that witnesses the enthusiasm of young people, grows up and moves forward, and writes the dream of drama with the pen. (The author is the deputy director and screenwriter of the Creation Department of Jiangsu Provincial Drama Literature Creation Institute).
Author: Yu Sihan.
Text: Yu Sihan: Photo provided by the organizer Editor: Wang Xiaoli Xu Yang Responsible Editor: Xing Xiaofang.
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