Three Great Ancient Dramas in the World

China's traditional opera, Greek tragicomedy and Indian Brahma are also called the three ancient drama cultures in the world.

China's operas include Southern Opera in Song and Yuan Dynasties, Zaju in Yuan and Ming Dynasties, Legends in Ming and Qing Dynasties, Peking Opera and various local operas with wide influence in modern times, which are collectively called China traditional drama culture. China's traditional operas only formed a complete form and matured in the 2nd century/KLOC-0. After more than 800 years of innovation and prosperity, more than 300 kinds of operas and tens of thousands of plays are still staged on the vast land of China, showing strong vitality and enduring artistic appeal. Song and dance are the main means to express life in China operas. On the basis of constantly absorbing sister arts such as poetry, music, dance, painting, rap, acrobatics and martial arts, the Southern Opera in the Song Dynasty and the Zaju in the Yuan Dynasty were compatible with each other, and finally formed a drama form with the comprehensive performance of singing, doing, reading and playing as the core. Its musical dialogue-"singing" and "reading" (speaking), dance movements-"doing" and "beating", the virtuality of stage time and space and the stylization of performance are the characteristics of China traditional opera art.

In order to meet the needs of drama plot and performance, all kinds of roles in Chinese traditional operas are divided into four categories according to the age, gender, identity and personality characteristics of different types of characters, such as Facebook, costumes, singing, etc., which are highly summarized as life, courage, purity and ugliness.

Student: One of the main types of traditional Chinese opera performances, which is dominated by male characters and is different from old students, young students and military school students. Dan: One of the main types of traditional opera performances in China, which mainly focuses on female roles. There are five branches: Zheng Dan, Hua Dan, Udan, Lao Dan and Cai Dan.

Jing: One of the main types of traditional opera performances in China, commonly known as Hualien. There are branches such as Dahuanlian, Erhualian and Wuerhua. Clear angle is a kind of facial mask with various colors and patterns, which mainly shows or boldly unfolds; Or strong-willed, honest and frank; Or sinister and sinister; Or reckless and honest male characters with different personalities.

Ugliness: one of the main types of traditional Chinese opera performance, which belongs to comedy role. Because makeup is characterized by drawing a small face between the bridge of the nose and the eye socket with white powder, it is also called a small face, which can play various types of role merchants. According to the identity and personality of the characters, they are divided into two branches: Wen Chou and Wu Chou. In the 20th century, China has been in a period of drastic changes. The spread of western learning to the east inevitably collided and merged with traditional culture and modern concepts, which led to unprecedented embarrassment in the preservation of traditional operas in China, but at the same time provided the necessity and possibility for its popularization and development. Democratic thoughts advocated by the Revolution of 1911; Periodicals and newspapers have opened up positions for promoting the development of traditional Chinese opera; New theaters and troupes have emerged. All these make the traditional opera art in China get new prosperity. In particular, the art of Chinese Peking Opera, known as "national opera", was once famous for a time and varied. Beijing Opera, with a history of more than 200 years, has different faces in different plays. When performing, people can sing, read, do and play. They use exaggerated and symbolic virtual actions. Opening the door, going upstairs, boating and riding a horse have no physical props, and they rely entirely on the dancers' dance movements, but they can give a very realistic impression.

After 1950s, with the support of government cultural institutions and the participation of intellectuals and artists, some emerging operas originally belonging to folk operas developed rapidly to local operas. Such as Pingju Opera, Yue Opera, Kunju Opera, Cantonese Opera, Shanghai Opera, Huangmei Opera and Henan Opera, are flourishing and developing day by day. At the same time, a large number of outstanding works created by various operas, such as Yang Sanjie's Bitter, The Legend of the White Snake, Fifteen Passes and Guan Hanqing, became masterpieces for a while. Ethnic historical dramas also strive for innovation and prosperity on the basis of maintaining tradition. The theme of newly compiled historical dramas has become a trend of China's opera creation since 1980s, especially the dramas such as Cao Cao and Yang Xiu of Shanghai Peking Opera Theatre. In practice, China opera artists also try to reflect contemporary real life with the form of China classical opera. Shanghai Opera "Luohan Qian" and Beijing Opera "White-haired Girl" are both successful works in this respect. Sichuan Opera "Mountain Ye Gang" and Jiangxi Tea-picking Opera "Oil-pressing Workshop Style" all have strong local customs. While inheriting the excellent tradition of China's poetry, they absorbed the essence of contemporary folk oral literature, making realistic opera art present a romantic stage scene.

It is in the eager longing for the future and the endless nostalgia for tradition that China's operas are developing and updating new opera culture, and in the entanglement between traditional culture and modern consciousness.

With the gradual maturity of China's traditional opera art, the architecture of performance and viewing places is becoming more and more complete, and the viewing places of China's traditional operas are increasingly showing distinctive national characteristics and unique artistic style. The stage art of China's traditional operas is the unity of figure modeling and scenery modeling, which is dominated by figure modeling, so it has the artistic characteristics of dancing, decoration and formality.

★ Greek tragicomedy

Tragedy and comedy creation are another great contribution of the ancient Greeks in culture. Tragedy and comedy were both born in Athens in the second half of the 6th century BC, and both were related to the worship of Dionysus, the god of wine. Organizing theatrical performances is one of the important tasks of Athens. In the 5th century BC, Aeschylus, Sophocles and euripides, the great tragic writers in Athens, constantly improved the expressions of tragedy, profoundly reflected the concerns of citizens in reality through myths and legends, and had a wide social impact. The works of comedian aristophanes, with its rich imagination and unique structure, express the author's views on pressing social and political issues. Christian era

The works of the famous playwright Minand in the second half of the 4th century provided a lot of valuable information about the society at that time. In the 4th century BC, the amphitheater became the most popular building in Greece. In the Hellenistic era, gymnasiums and theaters were indispensable public buildings in every city. In the second half of the 4th century BC, the theater built by Epi Darus in the Peloponnesian Peninsula is still well preserved, and there are often ancient Greek dramas staged there in summer.

★ Brahma drama in India

Brahma Drama, an Indian classical drama, is the main part of Indian classical drama, mainly based on epic and legend, such as Moroviga, which focuses on describing court life, and Shagondaro, which is innovative in legend. Second, based on real life, it mainly depicts the urban world and human feelings, such as Little Clay Truck. In addition, there are some works aimed at promoting religion, such as A?vagho?a's Residual Drama.

People don't know much about the artistic form of Brahma drama. Judging from A?vagho?a's Remnant Plays, there were at least three ways for the characters to appear at that time: one was to name the characters; Second, only indicate the role identity, such as "prostitute" and "protagonist", a clown with distinctive characteristics; The third is to name the role with abstract concepts, such as "wisdom" and "reputation".

In the style of the script, there is an introduction at the beginning and a conclusion at the end. The introduction is generally not directly related to the plot, some endings are sung or read by playwrights, and some are added. The text of the script consists of three elements: explanation, lyrics and action tips. To put it bluntly, besides dialogue, there are monologues and narrators. Lyrics belong to the role and blend in the plot, which is different from the singing method of Greek tragedy and close to the lyrics of China's classical opera. Action tips are diverse and detailed. The script language is elegant and popular. The protagonist often uses elegant language when talking with people in the upper class, while women and people in the lower class often use spoken language.

Indian drama in BC12nd century was a period of classical Brahma drama, and the main playwrights were Kalimdor, sudra Gaga, Vishamenton and so on.

Batty's plays are mainly 13, among which A Dream of Red Mansions has been translated into Chinese (translated by Han Tingjie, China Drama Publishing House,1983); Sudra Jia's Little Clay Car (translated by Wu Xiaoling, People's Literature Publishing House, 1957); Three Sanskrit scripts, Kalidasa, Moroviga, King of Fire Friends, Joeri Poshi (translated by Ji Xianlin, People's Literature Publishing House, 1962) and Shagongdaro (translated by Ji Xianlin, People's Literature Publishing House, 1980); The Joy of the Dragon (translated by Wu Xiaoling, People's Literature Publishing House, 1956); Babaua Hattie's Jasmine and Youth, etc.

Sudra's "Little Clay Car" and Kalidasa's "Shagongdaro" are two peaks of Indian drama in the Middle Ages.

There are a few words circulating among Indian people and scholars: "Of all art forms, drama is the most beautiful. Of all the plays, Sagondaro is the most beautiful. In Sagondaro, Act IV is the most beautiful. In the fourth act, four poems are the most beautiful (referring to those poems when Shagongdaro left his adoptive father and godmother). "

The earliest extant Brahma drama: A?vagho?a's Biography of Sharifutsu.