Chapter 17 Part I: The Dangerous "No. 1 Case in Guangzhou" with Hopes in the Western Regions

Chongqing, as the rear area of ​​the Anti-Japanese War, gathered theater troupes, celebrities and famous actors from all over the country. It can be described as a gathering of stars.At that time, due to the shortage of film, the production of feature films was extremely difficult, and drama performances were more frequent, and Wang Weiyi, Zhao Dan and others often participated in the performances. However, the more everyone felt that the path of drama performance seemed to be getting narrower and narrower, and the various disadvantages exposed by the single form and chaotic performance made Zhao Dan, Zheng Junli, Wang Weiyi and others fall into deep thought.Everyone is thinking hard, looking for a way to solve the progress of the drama and the way forward, hoping that the theme of the drama will be more clear, the plot will be more concentrated, the performance style will be more unified, and the form and expression techniques will be more diverse.In order to create and improve China's own drama performance career, we must study seriously and systematically from the system of Stanievlavsky, the famous Soviet drama master.

At this time, it was spread in Chongqing society that the politics of the Xinjiang region was enlightened, advocating the policies of "anti-imperialism, pro-Soviet, democracy, incorruptibility, peace, construction" and "anti-Chiang" policies, and learned that the great writer Mao Dun and the famous industrialist Du Chongyuan , scholar Zhang Zhongshi, journalist Sa Kongle and others have worked in Xinjiang, and the news that Life Bookstore will also set up a branch in Xinjiang has greatly attracted everyone's determination to go to Xinjiang.In this way, Wang Weiyi, Zhao Dan, Xu Tao, Zhu Jinming, Yi Lie and their companions, editor Shi Mei of Chongqing Life Bookstore and others, brought their families, wives and children with them, with the sacred mission and sense of responsibility of the dialogue drama business, I am going to go to the Soviet Union to study Steiner's professional system systematically and completely, and dream of coming back to build our own art temple in China, exploring and promoting the cause of Chinese drama performance. In the summer of 1939, Wang Weiyi and his party traveled thousands of miles to Xinjiang, but the cruel reality completely shattered their good wishes.

Sheng Shicai, a warlord in Xinjiang, is a brutal and vicious dictator. On the surface, he flaunts the so-called "six major policies" of "anti-imperialism, pro-Soviet, democracy, incorruptibility, peace, and construction", but in essence he implements cruel and bloody internal rule. Suppress and restructure Xinjiang to realize its own "independent kingdom".Mao Dun and Zhang Zhongshi who came here planned to escape, but Du Chongyuan fell into the clutches of the devil.Subsequently, Xu Tao who was the organizer, main actor Zhao Dan, choreographers Wang Weiyi, Zhu Jinming, and music composer Yi Lie were all thrown into prison and held separately.During the five long years from 1939 to 1944, Wang Weiyi, Zhu Jinming, and Yi Lie were imprisoned for 4 years and 2 months, while Zhao Dan and Xu Tao were imprisoned for 5 years, and Yi Lie was in prison Died of a moderate illness.

After the news of the arrest of these five famous film creators spread to the mainland, Zhou Enlai mobilized celebrities in the literary and art circles in Chongqing to jointly write a letter to protest, and the Yan'an literary and art circle also jointly signed a letter. Under the changing situation, Wang Weiyi and other talents escaped death, and walked out of the hellish Xinjiang after going through all kinds of hardships. However, they lost their deeply affectionate wife forever.Because the wives who came with them lost contact with their respective husbands and were driven out of Xinjiang alone. After being exiled to Lanzhou, they had no means of living. Opportunity, return to Chongqing by plane.They were forced to remarry in order to survive.This left irreparable emotional scars on each other's hearts.