Chapter 17 Section 3 Ukiyo-e of folk life in the old era: "Tea House"

Lao She's 12 is the leading masterpiece on the stage of Chinese contemporary drama. Its outstanding feature is that while it fits with the "common name" of the times, the writer mobilized rich life resources to present a Ukiyo-e of the old Peking society, Through such a small corner as the "teahouse", it shows the changes of Chinese history in the past fifty years.In the creation of modern historical themes at that time, it was the work that best played the traditional folk narrative mode. The three acts respectively select three scenes of social life after the "Reform of 1898", the period of the Beiyang Warlords' rule, and the period of the Kuomintang's rule after the Anti-Japanese War. The era has common characteristics of political chaos, right and wrong, wicked people gaining power, and people living in dire straits. Dark forces are spreading more and more, and the whole society is showing a situation of continuous decline.In the first act, after the failure of Kangliang Reform, all kinds of characters in Yutai Teahouse performed on the stage. On the one hand, pimps married eunuchs, spies spread all over the society, numb flag soldiers were doing nothing, provoking quarrels and gang fights, and on the other hand, bankrupt farmers. Selling sons and daughters, the patriotic bannerman Chang Siye was arrested for a few complaints, the emerging capitalists tried to "save the country by industry", and the owner of Yutai Teahouse tried to make business flourish; in the development of the second and third acts, The evil forces are becoming more and more unscrupulous, doing whatever they want, spying on the descendants of Song Enzi and Wu Xiangzi, inheriting their father's business, and continuing to extort money. The superstitious sect formed by nephews, nieces and daughters-in-law dominate the society, and even dream of "emperor" and "mother", but some good people who try to make a difference are desperate: Qin Zhongyi, a national capitalist who advocates "saving the country by industry", is The property was robbed by the Japanese, and after the Anti-Japanese War, the Kuomintang authorities confiscated it as a "reverse property" and fell into a situation of complete bankruptcy. Wang Lifa, a teahouse owner who has been a obedient citizen all his life, tried to "improve" to catch up with the times, but his business went from bad to worse. In the end, even the "teahouse" was snatched away by bureaucrats and scammers; in the Qing Dynasty, Chang Siye, a bannerman who "eat imperial food" and had "hard-core crops" that ensured harvests from drought and flood, became a self-reliant hawker, living a precarious life.At the end of the play, the three old men "scattered paper money" and "sacrificed themselves" on the stage, and the desperate Wang Lifa hanged himself. This is a very symbolic ending. Song", filled with a gloomy and miserable atmosphere.This is a dull ending that rarely appeared on the stage of drama in the 1950s.

It describes all kinds of people in old Beiping in three eras, forming a portrait exhibition-style "Ukiyo-e". Lao She chose "teahouse" as the scene of the script quite ingeniously. The repercussions of these historical events among the people have been incorporated into daily life, thereby avoiding the simplicity, rigidity, and arbitrariness of the common names of the times, and taking advantage of the writer's familiarity with the social life and various characters in old Beiping.In fact, this is an important artistic means for folk discourse to express itself under the shadow of the common name of the times.To achieve this goal, the location of the "teahouse" is an ingenious choice. "A big teahouse is a small society". From the upper class to the lower class of society, all kinds of characters appear on the stage in the teahouse.The script mainly describes the characters. Lao She's familiarity with the spoken language of Peking and the psychology of the characters in old Peking enables him to outline a vivid portrait of the characters in a few words and create inner dramatic conflicts.For example, in the first act, the conflict between Song Erye, Chang Siye and the thug Er Dezi takes up only one page, but the dramatic conflicts, characters' personalities and psychological development levels are vividly written.At the beginning of the conflict, Er Dezi, a soldier and ruffian, tried to overwhelm others with power, but he didn't want to really fight, so he asked Chang Siye "who is he gossiping about", and was choked by the other party, "I want to show off my prestige, go fight with foreigners "Afterwards, he was pinched for his weakness, unable to step down from the stage, he wanted to hit someone, but he didn't expect the other party to "skip past" lightly, and he had nothing to do, so he had to threaten him.At this time, Ma Wuye, who "eats foreign education", said "Er Dezi, you are so majestic", and immediately restrained him and slipped away.This thug's character of being strong but capable, bullying the weak and fearing the hard is well expressed on paper.Look at the reactions of Second Master Song and Fourth Master Chang in the face of accidents. Second Master Song has a weak personality, so he quickly smoothed things over by saying that everyone is an "outsider". Keeping people out of the way, saying "British and French allied forces burned Yuanming Garden, and the Zun family was living on official pay, but I didn't see you charge forward", choking the other party to have nothing to say, but he didn't want to make troubles, so he didn't take the initiative to talk to the other party. Hands-on; and the image of Ma Wuye, who has only three lines of lines, shows the author's great writing. He has the power of a foreigner to rely on, so he subdued Er Dezi with one sentence; Let’s talk about things properly, why do you always talk about beating?”; but he subdued Er Dezi not because he sympathized with Chang Siye, but because fighting would disturb him to drink tea, and Chang Siye scolded foreigners and offended him unintentionally, so when When Fourth Master Chang asked him to comment, he said coldly, "I still have something to do, goodbye" and walked over.In just one page, four characters with distinctive personalities and rich psychological layers are created. Every move, every word and every action of the characters is in perfect harmony with the characters' personalities and psychology.There are many such scenes in the film, such as the conflict between Qin Zhongyi and Pang eunuch in the first act; The vivid characters created in the film include the monster-like eunuch Pang, Grandma Pang, spies Song Enzi, Wu Xiangzi, Liu Mazi who is a pimp and trafficker, Tang Tiezui who cheats money by fortune telling and other social dregs and their descendants, national capitalists, etc. Qin Zhongyi, Wang Lifa, the owner of the teahouse, Cui Jiufeng, a congressman who engaged in the revolution in his early years and became discouraged in his later years, worshiped Buddha and practiced Zen, and even Director Shen of the Kuomintang bureaucrat who only had one line: "Gao (good)!" and so on.In just three acts, dozens of characters with distinctive personalities have been created, summarizing the history of more than fifty years, and showing Lao She's superb artistic skill and talent.

In terms of structure, three cross-sections are adopted, and each act is also connected with many small drama conflicts.Such a structure is easy to become loose, but Lao She overcame this difficulty. The script uses "characters to drive the story", "the main characters run through the whole play from strong to old", "secondary characters inherit from father to son", "it doesn't matter". At the same time, the stories and fates of the characters allude to the development of the times, which makes the script tightly stitched and dense, with scattered characters and plots. A "Surfing the River During the Qingming Festival" style depicts the portraits of the people from the end of the Qing Dynasty to the end of the Republic of China.This unique artistic conception and creative courage are worthy of admiration today.