? The model theater in my hometown is commonly known as the family theater. The heyday in the mid-1970s, fell in the early 1980s. Now has been the sound of the piano far away for forty years, most of those actors and actresses were old, gray hair, some even ancient, but I still remember it well.
? Listening to the old generation of folks, our village is a family theater in the pre-liberation. But I was able to hear and see is the middle of the seventy years. When I was in school, I often passed under the old stage in the center of the village. During the winter months near the end of the year, the stage was used for rehearsals of model operas. The old stage was very small, twelve or thirteen meters in length and ten meters in depth, with four lattice doors at the entrance, which were usually locked. Only at the time of the New Year's Singing will the doors be temporarily unlocked. The old stage was the office space of the village office. After liberation, it was officially used as a stage. Lunar month of the production brigade's agricultural work a little slack, the party branch from each squad draw up some talented performers, love singing and will play the erhu board, will play the board will play the flute members, composed of a temporary sample of the propaganda team, after more than a month of round-the-clock rehearsals, discharged a few sample of the opera, to the first month of the townspeople to perform.
? As a village with a relatively strong cultural heritage and a population of 1,800, the hometown is really full of talent. The actors of each model theater are basically not repeated. In my memory, has rehearsed and successfully staged model theater are "red lanterns", "Shajiabang", "Zhiqi Weihuoshan", "seize the seal", "the water township wind and waves", "sunrise gully", "the red mother", "red sister-in-law" and so on more than a dozen. Rehearsals for these plays were all directed and performed by everyone, giving full play to their genius. The winters were particularly cold, with the wind howling from the north and water dripping into ice. Sometimes it snowed heavily and the alleyways were slippery, but everyone still came to the stage to rehearse on time. There was no fire on the stage, so if you couldn't support yourself, you could light a hold of straw and roast it, but everyone was still very enthusiastic and responsible, and often worked overtime to catch up with the play. At that time, I was just over ten years old, and when I came home from school, I could hear the melodious sound of erhu and banhu from a long distance away. I came to the stage below only to see the door closed tightly, do not allow outsiders to come in, we had to lie down in the doorway with eyes wide open to sneak a moment to see. By the fifth day of the first month, the village began to play, seven or eight days in a row, basically every night performance. We moved our stools early in the afternoon to take our places. Some families lacked stools, so they brought old purlins and used bricks to support them. Since there were not many villages around us that could afford to rehearse a play, many relatives came to our village to watch the play. The host family not only had to entertain the theater, but also had to cook, but the hospitable folks enjoyed it. Although the economic conditions were poor at that time, there were still a few stalls under the stage. There were candy canes, sugar canes, wheat cannons for children to play with, foreign eggplants, foreign balloons and small bombs, and so on. We trick-or-treating kids, whose minds were not really on the theater at all, were just greedy for fun. One of my classmates was instructed by his mother to sit underneath the stage before dark to take his place. A few naughty classmates went so far as to shove a lit firecracker under his buttocks. With a muffled bang, the student was blown up and his cotton pants caught fire. Good thing his ass wasn't hurt. Otherwise it would have been a big mess. Before the opening of each play, the children under the stage like monkeys, swallows in general, open to and fro, so lively. In the early seventies, the countryside has not been on the electricity, as soon as it is dark, the stage on both sides of the steam lamps lit up, the field lit up the snow. In a short while, with the clanging of the clanging sound of the frying table, the curtain was drawn and the play began.
In my memory, there are a few actors who left a deep impression on me. Lin Xianmin, who played Li Yuhe, Lin Shenglian, who played Li Tiemei, and Lin Shuichan, who played Grandma Li, each performed their own play to the utmost, drawing applause from the stage one after another. Lin Xuejian, who played the role of the three-flower face, with a thief's bewildered eyes, played the selfish and self-serving form of Pan Fajia in "The Red Heart and the Rising Sun" to the fullest extent. Lin Shenglong, who played the antagonist Chen Yinhu in "Wind and Waves in the Water Town", had a sinister expression, his eyes rolled back and he spoke in an eerie manner, which made the audience really want to go up on stage and punish him severely. There is also the actor Lin Dongling who plays the Yinhuan in "Chaoyang Gully", who is not only beautiful and graceful, but also has marvelous acting skills. In those years, the hometown as a whole commune a literary propaganda of a benchmark village, many times on behalf of the commune to the county to participate in the performance. The award is also a matter of course.
? I like music since childhood, playing the flute in school. After graduating from junior high school, I caught the last train of the family theater, and also mixed a few days in the propaganda team of the brigade. But the good times didn't last long, after the eighties, with the model theater sitting on the bench, coupled with the dissolution of the collective cooperatives, the hometown of the literary propaganda team was disbanded.
Over the years, cultural activities in the hometown have evolved, and square dances have been organized in several corners. Although the material life of the townspeople has undergone a radical change, but it is difficult to organize a troupe. Although the village built a new stage, but only three or two years the county culture to the countryside to perform a play. When the red-hot momentum and it blossomed the luster of the farcical theater, can only fade away, turned into a permanent memory.