Chapter 25 Magic Hour Niu Niu

Bull ghosts, snake gods, Zhoutian gods and Buddhas were all clustered around us, just waiting for us to speak first. In fact, I am not familiar with the word magic. I first saw it, followed by a word, realism.Magic realism was a very arrogant word in the 1980s, which is equivalent to the current body writing.However, a few years older, I also understand that magic is not a concept and title that humans can self-admire. Magic has existed millions of years before we were born.When human beings gather around the bonfire to create epics, magic is the darkness that can only be driven away by adding firewood and grass. When human beings surround the emperor mountain and shout long live, magic is the comet hitting the moon, the white rainbow piercing the sun, and the goshawk hitting the temple.

Sometimes magic is mixed with words like absurd and mystical, but it's easy to tell the difference.Listen to me tell you a few stories. Story 1: There was a fire in the theater. The clown came to the front desk and told everyone to run away. Everyone didn’t believe it. It was just a show, and they laughed happily. The clown was so anxious that he was about to cry, and everyone laughed so hard.No one left, no one ever left. This is a story that Lu Xun loved to tell in his essays, and the flavor of this story is absurd.Absurdity is the logic you are least willing to accept, let the world be quietly destroyed in front of you, on a certain sunny morning.

Story 2: Once upon a time in the holy city of Mecca, a servant of a rich merchant went to the street to buy vegetables, but in the crowd, he saw the god of death grinning at him.He was so frightened that he didn't even buy food, and went back to ask the master for help.The kind master lent him a fast horse and asked him to go to Medina city for a while.Later, the owner went to the street to buy vegetables by himself, and saw the Grim Reaper among the crowd.The master stepped forward and asked, why did you smile so menacingly at my servant? Could it be that you want to harm him?Grim Reaper's expression was very innocent. He said that I just felt strange at the time. I was going to take him away in Medina tonight. Why is he still staying in Mecca at this moment?

This is a very vicious fable about fate, letting you know that all struggles are of no avail, just like mosquitoes caught in a spider's web.The flavor of the story is mysterious.Mysteries are phenomena that you simply cannot explain. Story Three: A Yankee came to explore an old English castle, hoping that something special would happen so that he could show off to the folks when he returned.But after a day, nothing happened, the tourist was so disappointed, he turned around and asked the tour guide here: "Why don't you even have ghosts here?" The tour guide shrugged: "I have been working here for so long, and I have never seen one." "How long have you been working here?" "Just three hundred years, sir."

This is magic, a sudden dialogue between humans and non-humans. The ghosts, snakes, gods, gods and Buddhas of the Zhou Dynasty are all around us, just waiting for us to speak first.In the face of magic, Westerners and Easterners are all equal, and no one will be missed or spared. "Lord of Ghosts" is the theme of "Liao Zhai", and "Feng Shen Bang" is just another ending of "Lord of the Rings". Drama and magic are just like shadows appearing on the horizon of human civilization.Drama is the indulgent chant before the bonfire, and magic is the humble silence in the dark.Just as lightning and thunder can make you recognize the words engraved on the sky, we often have to rely on the brushstrokes of talented playwrights to perceive magic on the stage.

First of all Shakespeare, of course, the bald squire of England who was the first to scare me, through his fellow countryman, Sir Laurence Oliver - The Revenge of the Prince, the scariest scene in that movie is Hamlet The father of the king, appeared on the wall in the form of the dead, proclaiming the most vicious murder in the kingdom of Denmark.I don't know how many people were frightened when this play was staged at the Globe Theater in London, but I heard that the boundary was where the red light district was at that time, and more than half of Shakespeare's audience were customers queuing up to perform illegal sexual acts. What they talked about in the bed room, apart from the misfortune of Master Romeo and Miss Juliet, probably also had the gloomy appearance of the undead.

Yes, the magical image is to declare a confession, and some characters appear on the stage to predict and warn.The reason why the protagonist of Shakespeare's other famous play "Macbeth" dares to seek to usurp the throne is precisely because three witches predicted to him that there is no man born from the mother's womb in the world who can take his life. He Macbeth loses the battle, unless Duncan Woods starts to move.This kind of reassurance of "mountains collapsing and rivers drying up" has turned into a pistachio after the bloody storm of the whole play, pleasing all the spectators who don't take the rebels seriously, because the army that conquered Macbeth was killed by everyone. A bundle of twigs from Duncan's Woods was tied to his head, and at the end he slew his loyal servant.It is precisely cut out from the mother's womb before full term.Everything turns out to be just a word game, and the fate of mortals is thus played invisible by unknown magical forces.

Mortal life can also be embodied as another tragedy, that is, a bet between God and the devil. In the "Book of Job" in the "Old Testament", in order to consider the believer Job, God viciously took away all his property and relatives, just to save face in front of the devil, and let the devil see how the lamb who believes in God is. "Although he died nine times, he still has no regrets."This kind of evil deeds of gods and demons who bet on the lives of mortals has been developed to Goethe's masterpiece "Faust".However, this time, human beings have the upper hand. After experiencing multiple temptations such as wealth, power, love, and youth, the old scholar resolutely made the most noble choice, led the people to reclaim land from the sea, and died of exhaustion.Faced with the unknowable and uncontrollable myriad of magic, Faust found a way out, that is labor, selfless labor, and sacrificed his life in labor to become enlightened.

When drama was passed down to the twentieth century, we began to see what is called modernism.After all, it has been a hundred years, and the people's thunderbolt and thunder can now be heard as vague music, and all doubts and sneers can now be heard as murmurs.But I should still mention O'Neill's "Emperor Jones", which tells the story of a black careerist who starts his business by selling his compatriots, and finally builds his own kingdom deep in the jungle, living off fish and meat.In the end, the people rioted, and he fled into the forest, lost his way and collapsed.Seeing the familiar dead swarming in, he feared that he would repent, and swallowed his last breath.On the stage are not only the good companions who were murdered by him, but also the white colonists who once drove him out of his mind. "The betrayal of Jesus Christ should be traced back to Judas' hurt childhood." The injustices and wrongs of Jones' life are lined up on the stage. Such magic contains the way of heaven.

There is another chill worth mentioning, that is the Noh play "Aya Drum" created by the Japanese writer Yukio Mishima who committed suicide by caesarean section.A mediocre man fell in love with a lady from a great family, and mustered up the courage to confess, but the lady's answer was a silk drum—whenever you can ring this silk drum, I will marry you.The man accepted the impossible task and beat the drum until he died of exhaustion.The lady came to the mourning hall to worship, and the ghost of the man followed, claiming to beat the drum for the lady one hundred times.After hitting it a hundred times, the silk drum still hasn't sounded, the undead left sadly, and the lady sighed softly-in fact, as long as you hit it again, the silk drum will ring again.Of course, this is not an inspirational story that encourages perseverance and opposes giving up halfway. What is recorded here is that people watch and cannot help each other.

By the time the theater of the absurd had taken over the stage, magic was no longer the exception but the rule. In "Amadi or Escape Technique", there is an unknown corpse that is inflated every time in the protagonist's home. In "Chairs", more and more chairs are crowded in the room, and more and more guests appear invisibly. Finally, A mad old man addresses a room full of empty chairs...but the most famous example is Ionesco's Rhinoceros.Men and women all over the city have turned into rhinoceros one after another, and the protagonist, who is sober and clear, has no choice but to go out of his way.It is said that when this play was moved to China in the 1980s, there was almost a performance accident - the avant-garde theater director Meng Jinghui was still an enthusiastic drama activist at that time, playing a role in "Rhinoceros" A rhino named Jean.Rang is so tired of the world, so tired that he jumps up and down on the stage at any time, roaring all kinds of world-weary maxims, but accidentally jumps into a swinging noose and almost strangles him to death. Asking for help was regarded by the audience as an actor's improvisation, and they responded with warm applause.This little episode proves to us that the magical and absurd atmosphere is really close to our lives. Of course, what is closer to us is the opera stage of our country. During the Cultural Revolution, Kang Sheng secretly lifted the ban, and Mao Zedong completely destroyed so many ghost operas, which shows that our nation has always been a nation that likes to pretend to be ghosts.Li Huiniang was murdered by the treacherous official Jia Sidao. Once she returns to the sun, she will naturally come to chase her soul and life, so there is no need to criticize it. However, the story of "Catching Saburo Alive" in Kunqu Opera comes from the Water Margin, but it has a special taste, which is worthy of careful appreciation. Yan Poxi was originally the concubine of Song Jiang and Song Yasi, and it is gratifying that the people in the world have achieved such a positive result.She cherishes this fate very much, because she has read Li Bihua's book and knows that "a woman is like this. If her life is good, she will be with one man; if her life is not good, she will be with many men." Po Xi knows that her life is good, and she is willing to keep this man.Compared with the Zhang Wenyuan she met in the future, this man is naturally inferior in appearance and scheming, but what he can be proud of is his reputation before and after.A woman with a background like Poxi cares most about the respect of others. However, there will always be unwillingness, because Song Yasi would rather visit the poor and ask questions, and work overtime than come back to face Po Xi.Po Xi found Zhang Wenyuan, and the city was full of disturbances. She did it on purpose, and wanted to bet her life's destination, win some true love back, and comfort her life. As a result, with "Oolongyuan", there was that moment, that moment, that knife.All the operas say "Song Jiang Kills the Pity", but no one says "Song Jiang Kills His Wife".Terrible precision, shameful calmness——Po Xi couldn't get a name in exchange for her whole life.So, she returned to the underworld to capture Saburo alive and bring him back to the underworld, where he was guilty and suffered the same.At this time, do you think she caught Song Jiang Heisanlang?wrong!wrong!She never felt that there was anything wrong with Song Yasi, she was ashamed to see him, she was looking for the bad luck of her concubine Zhang Wenyuan and Zhang Sanlang.I once witnessed the exquisite performance of Ms. Liang Guyin, a Kunqu Opera performer, with every frown, smile and provocation, without any trace of sadness, so I took Zhang Wenyuan on the road.At this moment, the devil starts from the heart, and the illusion turns into emotion. The later Song Gongming was a rebel, a big brother, a bandit in the army, and a vanguard official of the imperial court.I want to know, in his wandering years, would he think of this woman who was killed by his sword?I don't remember him killing anyone else.Then, the only person he killed in his life was a woman who loved him the most and was the least loved by him.After ten years of night rain in the rivers and lakes, then when he was gathering in the forest with one hundred and seven partners, when he collided with one hundred and seven wine bowls, Brother Yu Song in time, would he hear such a voice: "Officer?" Man, you're back?" - Don't know. Like "Catch Alive", there is also Hebei Bangzi's "Zhong Kui Marries a Sister" narrated by the long-haired man Ms. Pei Yanling. My own little sister to be married.The stage is full of noisy ghosts, going in and out of the world of mortals, in order to perfect a girl who has no one in the world.The taste of the world is all reflected in the three characters "ghosts pity people". Finally, we should also mention the Peking opera "Han Palace Cry", in which Emperor Guangwu Liu Xiu was instigated by a treacherous concubine and unjustly killed the founding minister Yao Qi.He really didn't want to do this at first, so he sang "Brother Yao Huang, Yao Zikuang, escorting the king, lonely love, boldly follow the widow step by step, lonely is a righteous Mingjun, you and I are commoners King and minister", however, the demons in his heart finally emerged, and the water was hard to get over. Emperor Liu could only meet one after another in the pavilion of meritorious officials who had been wrongly beheaded by him, feeling guilty.The common people at that time really believed that the emperor would feel guilty, just like they believed that people could transform into ghosts after death. Talking about so many sad old things, I always want to end with a good story, just like once the sad movie is over, the theater should also be gratifyingly bright. Even if you don't mention the supernatural characters in Hayao Miyazaki's works, you can at least talk about Peter Pan.It is said that at the beginning of the last century, "Peter Pan" was adapted into a stage play and staged in London.In the play, when Peter Pan's friends are in danger and Peter Pan has to re-use his magic to win, he comes to the edge of the stage and shouts to all the audience: "Do you still believe in magic, do you still believe in fairy tales? If you believe it, please applaud!" This play has been performed for decades, and every time I come to this place, there is always applause, continuous and enthusiastic applause, impulsive and affectionate applause.In fact, deep down in each of us, we all look forward to such a magical time.