Longbeard Ditch was written by Lao She.
Longsugou, one of Lao She's masterpieces, was originally written as a play to coincide with current events and policy propaganda, an ode to the new socialist China. The play was completed in 1950 and premiered in February 1951 by the Beijing People's Art Theater, directed by Jiao Juyin.
Contents of the play:
Longshu Gully depicts the different encounters of four families in a small courtyard in Beijing in the midst of social changes, and shows the great changes between the old and the new eras. Longsugou" portrays various characters such as Cheng Crazy, Wang Dama, Niangzi, Ding Sister-in-law, etc. In particular, the main character Cheng Crazy was transformed from an entertainer to a "crazy person" in the old society, and then from a "crazy person" to an entertainer after the liberation, reflecting the different destinies of the Chinese people before and after the liberation, and the people's government. This reflects the different destinies of the Chinese people before and after the liberation, and reflects the central idea of the people's government for the people, as well as the people's support and love for the Party and the government. The Longshougou project alarmed the people of Beijing. At that time, Beijing had just been liberated, and many people didn't understand what the ****production party was all about. Through this incident, the people learned about the ****production party. People from all walks of life also paid extensive attention to the management of Longsugou. Through the governance of Longsugou, the people thought that the new government was removing the pollution and harm for the people. Unlike the previous reactionary rulers, the government did not just build roads and buildings for the dignitaries, nor did it just fix the Tongheng Road and whitewash it, but it looked for the most urgent things to do first. Even though Longsugou was in the middle of nowhere, the government did not neglect it because it was in the middle of nowhere. This is because it is the people's government, so it really serves the people.
Reviews of the play:
1. The play reflects the big time by recounting the small things in daily life, and expresses the reality of life with the flavor embodied in the daily words and deeds of the characters of the civic society and in the short stories of the parents.
2. The play is an ode to the new socialist China, reflecting the different destinies of the Chinese people before and after the liberation and their support for the Party and the government through the story of the main character, Crazy Cheng, who was transformed from an entertainer to a "madman" in the old society, and then from a "madman" to an entertainer after the liberation. It reflects the different destinies of the Chinese people before and after the liberation and their support and love for the Party and the government.
3. The play was originally a drama created for the purpose of supporting current affairs and policy propaganda, but it reflects the big time by narrating the small things in daily life, and expresses the realities of life through the flavors embodied in the daily words and deeds of the characters in the civil society and the shortcomings of the parents.
4. Longsugou takes the people's government's transformation of Longsugou as its background, and expresses the theme of contrasting the old and new societies through the joys and sorrows of the common people in the compound. In the new period, playwright Li Longyun wrote the play "Xiaojing Hutong", and in the new century, he produced the play "Ten Thousand Lights", both focusing on the city life of the residents of the Longshugou area and personnel changes, not only to pay tribute to his beloved Mr. Laoshe, but also to the south of the city of Beijing, which was born in and grew up in the city of his nostalgia. 70 years ago, the Longshugou area has changed its appearance for the new era of great changes, presented in the two generations of playwrights, and even more shining in the life of the people. The people's lives.
The story behind the creation of Longshugou:
In 1949, Lao She, who had just returned to Beijing from the United States, experienced life in the southern city of Beijing with full enthusiasm for the new China, and created a three-act play, Longshugou, after understanding the situation of the grassroots.
The play premiered in February 1951, and it became a sensation, with a run of 55 performances. The play was performed by the "Elderly Arts", which was a comprehensive arts organization of opera, drama and dance at that time, and it was the first realist original play of the Human Arts at the beginning of its establishment.
In the spring of 1951, Longshougou was performed for Chairman Mao Zedong at the Huairen Hall in Zhongnanhai. This was the first drama production that Chairman Mao saw in Beijing after the founding of new China. Because of the great influence of Longsugou, the Beijing Municipal People's Government awarded Mr. Lao She the honorary title of "People's Artist" in December 1951, and Lao She is the only artist to have received this title from 1949 to the present.
One year later, in June 1952, under the advice and concern of Premier Zhou Enlai, China's first professional drama theater, the Beijing People's Art Theater, was officially established.
A year later, in June 1952, under the advice and concern of Premier Zhou Enlai, China's first professional theater, the Beijing People's Art Theater was established.
In the same year, the movie "Longshougou", which was filmed by Beijing Film Studio and starred the original cast of the play, was released, and Cheng Maniac, played by the 23-year-old Yu Zhi, became an insurmountable classic image in the history of Chinese theater and film. "Longsugou" came first, and then Beijing Renyi". Looking back at the history of theater in New China, the play Longsugou is an insurmountable milestone. It was the first play written and co-written by Lao She and Jiao Juyin at the Beijing People's Art Theater, and laid the foundation for the theater style of the Beijing People's Art Theater.
The tradition of realism opened up by Longshougou has had a significant and far-reaching impact on the Beijing People's Art Theater and even on Chinese drama, and it still has.
Laoshe's play Longshougou is based on the life of the lower class in old Beijing at the beginning of the new China, reflecting the changes in a slum area in the south city of Beijing, and is an indictment of the old society as well as an ode to the new one. Longsugou premiered on February 1, 1951, the second anniversary of the peaceful liberation of Beijing. And Lao She had been working on it since about the summer of the previous year.
On July 14, 1950, Premier Zhou Enlai hosted a banquet for Lao She, who had returned from the U.S., and encouraged him to write more for the people, to write more about the Beijing he was familiar with, and to write more about the great changes that had taken place in Beijing since its liberation. At that time, Lao She said he wanted to write a play on the subject of the changes of Beijing Longshugou, to glorify the **** Producer's Party, Chairman Mao and the People's Government through the comparison of the old and new societies. And said he had made an appointment to go to Longshugou the next day for a field interview, Zhou Enlai said repeatedly, "Yes, yes, must go, waiting to see your new play."
Longshu Ditch was once a stinky ditch in the southern city of Beijing, near today's Temple of Heaven's north gate at the Goldfish Pond. At that time, Longshougou was full of garbage and stench, and was inhabited by many underclass people who had fled from abroad, as well as some local residents.
In the spring of 1950, the Beijing Municipal People's Government decided to repair Longsugou. Lao She's creative touch also originated from this.
The next day, Lao She, together with Li Bozhao, then director of the Beijing People's Art Center, came to Longsugou to conduct field interviews and watch the construction work on the construction site, so as to collect materials for the creation of "Longsugou". However, due to the seriousness of Lao She's leg disease, he couldn't go out frequently for field visits. Therefore, Elderly Art sent a young man, Lin Jinlan, to Longshugou to conduct field interviews and collect materials for Mr. Lao She's creation. After carefully reading the documents for the construction of Longsugou and combining them with fieldwork, Lao She experienced a half-month-long conceptualization, and he recalled: "During this bitter half-month, a small courtyard was presented in front of my eyes at times, and that was the one I saw when I went to Longsugou - the courtyard was very small! The house was small, low and shabby, with wet and tattered clothes and quilts drying in front of the windows, and two or three women working in the yard; and all these I saw in full, for the walls of the yard had collapsed and were unobstructed. In a flash of inspiration, I seized upon this little motleyard, and taught it to be my stage!"
In less than a month, Lao She wrote the three-act play Longshugou. The play tells the story of four families living in a small courtyard along the ditch of Longsugou. By portraying many small characters with different personalities, such as Cheng Crazy, Cheng Maiden, Ding Sister-in-law, and so on, Lao She reflects the great changes of the new society through their changing destinies.
After the script was completed, Li Bozhao, the director of the Beijing Human Art Center, invited Jiao Juyin, who at the time was the dean of the College of Literature and the head of the Foreign Languages Department at Beijing Normal University, to be the director. Jiao Juyin, a doctor who studied in France, had been engaged in progressive theater activities since his youth. In 1930, he founded and served as president of the Chinese Opera College and was the first person to bring Shakespeare's plays, including Hamlet, to the Chinese stage. Upon receiving the invitation from Nanyi, Jiao Jiuyin felt that this was an opportunity to practice his art in China and establish a Chinese theater like the Moscow Theater. He quit his job at the North Normal University and gave up his secure job as a university professor to focus on rehearsing his plays at the People's Art Museum. Longshougou" was Jiao Juyin's first work at the NPCA, and it officially launched him into a career as a director. At the beginning of the rehearsal, Lao She's script faced controversy over its lack of "theatricality". However, Jiao Juyin saw Stanislavsky and Chekhov in Lao She's script, and after reading the script, he once exclaimed, "Mr. Lao She, with the handwriting of a ghost, can vividly portray a character's character and his thoughts and feelings in just a few words." At that time, the Elderly Arts Theater had just been established not long ago, and the cast could be described as a motley crew. Each of them had followed a different artistic path and had their own acting habits, so how to unify their creative methods was the first major difficulty Jiao Juyin encountered. He put forward only one requirement: actors must experience life. Based on Stanislavski's system of acting, Jiao conceived his direction around the center of "expressing real life" on stage. At his request, the director took the lead, and the entire cast and crew spent nearly three months traveling to Longshugou to experience life. The actors went to Longshugou every day to talk to the local residents and take notes. Sometimes they also caught up with heavy rainstorms, and stayed until the middle of the night around the not yet fully repaired Longshu Ditch, dripping with the stinking water. Jiao Juyin mobilized the actors to give their opinions on the script based on their experience of life. Lao She's script was changed in more than 70 places. The changes were mainly in the lines, but not in the characters. Lao She later said, "The play was written very quickly. I almost finished the three acts in one breath. This, inevitably, there are some holes here and there: after Mr. Jiao took the trouble to install a saw in the east and a bit of putty in the west, it only became a complete vessel."
These on-the-ground experiences were ultimately brought to life on stage. The extremely vivid characters flowed on stage as a vivid picture of real life. Longsugou, which had 55 performances in its first run, was an instant hit in Beijing, and after it was made into a movie, it gained a tremendous response throughout the country. More than half a century later, the artistic influence of "Longsugou" has never dissipated, and the images of Crazy Cheng and Sister Ding have been rooted in the hearts and minds of several generations of audience members, making them unforgettable.
As the founding work of Beijing Renmin Art, this play is the beginning of a rich flavor of life, real touching characters and authentic Beijing flavor, Beijing Renmin Art's unique style of acting initially laid. In the following sixty years, People's Art has always followed the path of realist theater opened by Longshougou. Jiao Juyin, the director of the play, began the exploration of the nationalization of drama, and in 1953, Peking People's Art re-staged the play again, with modifications in response to the situation at the time. However, in the 56 years since then, Longshougou has not been seen by the audience again because of its strong historical and contemporary colors. It was not until 2009, the 110th anniversary of Mr. Lao She's birth, that Beijing People's Art once again re-staged Longsugou. Veteran artist Gu Wei directed the play, and Yang Lixin starred as Cheng Maniac. After 56 years, "Longsugou" tries to restore a real Mr. Lao She's thoughts. 2012, the 60th anniversary of the founding of Beijing RenYi series of performances, "Longsugou" as the opening work is once again grandly staged.
Author introduction:
Lao She (February 3, 1899-August 24, 1966), male, formerly known as Shu Qingchun, also known by his pen names Jieqing, Honglai, and Feiye, was born on February 3, 1899 in Beijing. He was born in Beijing on February 3, 1899. He was a modern Chinese novelist and writer, a master of language and a People's Artist, and the first writer in New China to be honored with the title of "People's Artist".
In 1921, he published a vernacular novel called "Her Failure" in Overseas New Voice, signed by Sheyu, which is the earliest piece of Lao She's work found so far. His representative works include Camel Xiangzi, The Fourth House of God, and The Teahouse.
In 1926, he published a long novel, Lao Zhang's Philosophy, in Novel Monthly, signed Shu Qingchun in the first issue, and changed his name to Lao She in the second issue. Since then three years to continue to create, in the United Kingdom *** created and published three novels "Lao Zhang's Philosophy", "Zhao Ziyi", "Two Horses". The teaching career in Britain made Lao She a qualified writer.
September 1936 created "Camel Xiangzi", caused a literary sensation, and later became its masterpiece.
In 1936, Lao She resigned from his post as a professor at Shandong University to concentrate on writing, and in September, Camel Xiang Zi was serialized in Cosmic Winds, which was formally released in 1939 by Human Bookstore.
In 1966, unable to tolerate humiliation during the Cultural Revolution, he sank himself in Beijing's Taiping Lake.
In September 2017, the modern Chinese literary classic of long fiction, The Fourth Generation, was published and listed by the Oriental Publishing Center. This is the first time the work has been published in a complete edition since its publication.