Differences between North and South Drama in China

The origin and formation of China's plays have gone through a long period. From Qin Song and dance in the early stage, to hundreds of plays in the Han and Wei Dynasties, and then to banter in the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the performance elements are improving day by day. At the end of the Jin Dynasty and the beginning of the Yuan Dynasty, the literary world found a suitable carrier for performing stories under the infiltration and enlightenment of narrative genres such as the Tang Dynasty Bianwen and various Gongdiao rap, and merged with dance, rap, geisha, science and technology to develop into a drama. Due to the confrontation between Song and Jin Dynasties and the split between the north and the south, there appeared two types of zaju and Nanju, each of which had its own performance characteristics and matured in the south and the north respectively. At that time, many literati actively participated in script creation, making this narrative literature genre the backbone of the literary world.

There were many scripts created in the Yuan Dynasty. According to statistics, there are more than 530 kinds of operas and more than 2 10 kinds of southern operas, but most of them have been lost. As for the screenwriters who devoted themselves to script creation at that time, it is impossible to accurately count them now. According to ghost books and ghost books, there are more than 220 names, but "it's better to record an anonymous person." I guess there are still many omissions. The playwright has a high creative enthusiasm. Some people write plays for musicians, and some people "grovel" to participate in performances. Some celebrities also form "Yujing Book Club" in most places to learn from each other. Many playwrights are highly educated, such as Guan Hanqing, Wang Shifu, Bai Pu, Ma Zhiyuan and others. They have rich life experiences and are good at poetry creation. When they mastered the characteristics of drama and the popular narrative genre, they wrote an immortal chapter and opened a new page for the literary world. At that time, the playwrights adapted to the needs of the audience, either brilliant or natural, and competed for beauty, which made the drama scene show a prosperous situation.

Judging from the existing scripts, the themes of Yuan Zaju include love and marriage, history, case-solving, chivalry and immortality. The level involved is extremely extensive. "On the one hand, it is the gain and loss of the government's politics, and on the other hand, it is the thickness of seven town's friends of father, son, brother and wife, and even the human nature of medical divination, witchcraft and Buddhist merchants, which are different in different foreign languages. Nothing can not be ignored and inexhaustible. "Many plays have created vivid characters, exposed the evils of feudal system in real life and praised the rebellious spirit of the persecuted. It can be said that playwrights, with their unique artistic style and passionate pen and ink, showed the colorful life and complex and subtle spiritual world of the characters in the Yuan Dynasty.

Drama performances in the Yuan Dynasty were frequent and had a large audience. Xia Tingzhi said in "The Story of the Brothel": At that time, "there were so-called goulan people inside and outside the capital, who got ahead and enjoyed it, and the viewers spent money with them." Goulan is an amusement place in the city, where cultural performances can be performed. In his book Bankers Don't Know the Goulan, Du wrote that a countryman went to town and met Goulan: "I asked for 200 yuan to let me go, and I got a wooden slope on the door. Seeing layers of reunion, I looked up at a bell tower and looked down at the whirlpool of people. I saw several women sitting on the stage, but they didn't go back to the shrine. They kept beating gongs and drums. " It can be seen that there is a wooden stage in the Goulan, and there is a bell tower-like "God Building" above the stage, and there are audiences around the stage. It should be noted that the audience needs to pay "200 yuan" to enter the Goulan, which shows that drama performance has become a commercial activity. In the box, there is also the so-called "confrontation", which is similar to the later confrontation. Obviously, market competition has also entered the cultural field.

In rural areas, plays are staged on the stage and theater. At present, there are still many Yuan Dynasty stage sites in Shanxi rural areas, which can infer the grand occasion of drama performance at that time. The stage is often built in front of the temple, which shows that acting and offering sacrifices to the gods are combined to entertain and educate. In the main hall of Wang Ming Temple in Zhao Cheng, Shanxi Province, there is a painted wall of Yuan Zaju, which reads the words "Du Yao sees love, Dou Xiu comes to show", indicating that professional troupes have performed in the countryside. "Rebuilding the Monument to Wang Mingying Palace" describes the scenes of people from all walks of life coming to the theatre, and also mentions that "it is extremely annoying to support music and sacrifice money for several days." It shows that artists' acting is actually a commercial activity for a fee.

Urban and rural performances are active, and many employees naturally emerge. Xia Tingzhi said: "I have lived in a block for almost a hundred years. There are hundreds of millions of prostitutes teaching dance in the world." (Brothel Collection) Many actors have their own strengths, superb skills and high cultural accomplishment, such as Xiu, Sai Lian Xiu, Yanshan Xiu, Nature Xiu, Liang and so on. They worked closely with playwrights and contributed to the prosperity of drama.

There are two types of dramas in Yuan Dynasty: Zaju and Nanxi. Although the scripts of these two operas also include lyrics, guest dialogue and science (introduction), their systems are different. Zaju is popular in the north and south of the river. Generally, it consists of four folds, each of which is equivalent to today's scene. The foot color of the play can be divided into three categories: end, Dan and Jing. At the end, small; Dan is divided into iron eggs, tea eggs and Xiao Dan. Musically, only one gong key is used for 10% discount, and there is no repetition. However, the whole play can only be sung by one person, namely Zheng Mo or Zheng Dan. The singer at the end of the play is called "End Ben", and the singer in Zheng Dan is called "Dan Ben".

Southern Opera is very popular in the southeast coast. The script consists of several "outs", and the number of "outs" is not specified. There is no provision for the palace tune of the lyrics. The roles of southern opera can be divided into life, Dan, Jing, beauty and ugliness, and all of them can be sung. There are various forms of singing, including solo, duet, chorus and rotation, unlike zaju, which can only be sung by one person to the end.

The scripts of Zaju and Nanxi have complete story lines, depicting characters in dramatic conflicts. The lyrics of the script are more used to express the thoughts and feelings of the characters in a specific scene, and even directly reveal the author's voice, which is strongly lyrical. It can be said that the lyrics are often poems, which constitutes the characteristics of China's drama literature, and also shows the complementary relationship between China's narrative literature and lyric literature. As for the actors in zaju and Nanxi, they should be able to speak and sing, and master the skills of dance, martial arts and even acrobatics. Therefore, drama in Yuan Dynasty is a comprehensive art.

There are obvious differences between Zaju and Nanxi in singing. The tune of Zaju is a combination of northern folk songs, minority music and traditional tunes of the Central Plains (including palaces, temples and folk music). The tunes of Nanxi Opera are composed of folk music from the southeast coast and traditional music from the Central Plains. Because both Zaju and Nanxi originated from the Central Plains tradition in music and cultural system, they are in the same strain and easy to communicate and complement each other, and some of their qupai have the same name or surname. As for the musical differences between Zaju and Nanxi, they are actually the manifestations of the differences between the northern and southern dialects. China has a vast territory, and its language system is constantly changing in the process of cultural development, forming many dialect areas. For example, in the Song Dynasty or even earlier, the northern tone entered disappeared, while the southern tone entered remained. China traditional opera music and language are inseparable. Zaju and Nanxi are produced and popular in different dialect areas, and cultural differences such as regional life customs form two major music systems. Wang Jide said: "The Northern and Southern Song Dynasties, like a division, were all ministers of the country, but the subjects of civil and military affairs were different." Wang Shizhen said: "There are many words in the north, but they rise, and they rise to see the tendons; South words are few and slow, and the slow place is obvious. There are more feelings in the northern dialect and less feelings in the southern dialect. " (Qu Zao) Their judgment is in line with the reality of the development of drama in the Yuan Dynasty.

The drama activities in Yuan Dynasty actually formed two drama circles.

The northern drama circle is centered on the majority, including most areas north of the Yangtze River, where zaju is popular. In most cities, a large number of zaju artists have emerged, "two cities in the north and south, one hospital, one society and one episode" (Liu Qi's Analysis of Tianjin Record). Many excellent playwrights, such as Guan Hanqing, Wang Shifu, Ma Zhiyuan, Ji, etc. , mostly people or people who are active here. Here, "singing and dancing in karaoke bars, pavilions and pavilions are dotted", and there are often zaju performances, which provide playwrights with a garden to display their talents. At that time, writers mostly gathered in Dongping, Bianliang, Calm, Pingyang and other relatively developed cities. Writers living in the same region are influenced by the regional atmosphere, have similar interests, or have similar backgrounds, and consciously or unconsciously form different groups. As a kind of market demand, the audience's preference has a certain influence on writers, which makes the creation in different regions present different characteristics. For example, it is said that heroes such as Song Jiang and Li Kui jy gathered in Liangshan Bo, Shandong Province, so many dramas about Water Margin were filmed in Dongping. Writers who once lived in Dongping also wrote many water margin plays, and Dongping became the birthplace of the miscellaneous drama Water Margin. Generally speaking, most of the dramas in the northern drama circle are based on water margin stories, case-solving stories and historical legends. Many writers dare to face the darkness of reality and are eager for honest officials or heroes to support the oppressed. As for the artistic styles of various writers, they are even more colorful. With different customs and charms, they created a splendid theater. Generally speaking, the works of the North Drama Circle give people a feeling of being enthusiastic and lively. Xu Wei once said in "Narration of Southern Ci": "Listening to the Northern Song makes people heroic and cool, and their hair is scattered, which is enough to make people brave." Xu Wei's comments on the music of Peking Opera can also help us to grasp the characteristics of Peking Opera as a whole.

South Opera Circle takes Hangzhou as the center, including Wenzhou, Yangzhou, Jiankang, Pingjiang, Songjiang, Jiangxi, Fujian and other southeast regions. Different from the situation in the north, the urban and rural stage here is popular with both southern operas and northern zaju, showing a situation in which the two operas reflect each other.

Southern Opera originated in Yongjia (Wenzhou), Zhejiang Province, so it is also called "Yongjia Zaju". It was formed in the early years of the Southern Song Dynasty, spread widely in the southeast, and gradually entered Hangzhou. According to Liu Yiqing's records, "From Chen Wu (1268) to Jici (1269), Wang Huan's operas prevailed in the capital" (Legacy of Qiantang, Volume 6, Opera, Culture, Education and Prostitution). Many artists create, perform and publish Southern Opera here, making this bustling city the center of Southern Opera.

In the 13th year of the Yuan Dynasty (1276), the Yuan army occupied Hangzhou, ending the long-term situation of partition between the north and the south. The country has been unified. The economic and cultural exchanges between the North and the South have become increasingly frequent, and the influence of zaju has also expanded to the south. Xu Wei said: "In the early Yuan Dynasty, northern zaju flowed into Nanxun, which was popular for a while." The famous scenery in the south has attracted a large number of northerners, and many playwrights including Guan Hanqing, Bai Pu and Ma Zhiyuan have been to Hangzhou successively. Writers living in Hangzhou, such as, George, Qin, Xiao Dexiang, etc., also joined the creation team of zaju. Yu Ji said in the preface to the phonology of the Central Plains: "Since I have mixed the North Korea, the South of Shuozhou, the victory of religion, and the literati sing harmony, I must seek correct pronunciation. Everything they produce is enough to make the country prosperous. Naturally, I went out of BeiYueFu and washed away the customs in the southeast. " It can be seen that under the impetus of the political climate and the influence of the high cultural taste of zaju, the south is also attracted by the "positive tone", "based on the Central Plains, compiled in unison with all corners of the country". In this way, after the Zaju was introduced to the south through Yangzhou, it also spread to the vast areas in the south of the Yangtze River with Hangzhou as the center.

In the southern drama circle, in addition to performing zaju introduced from the north, more plays focus on social issues such as love, marriage and family ethics. For example, Zheng Guangzu's zaju Away from the Soul, Georgie's Marriage of Two Generations, The Story of Money, Southern Opera Pipa Travel, Chai Jing and Yue Bai are all representative. In addition, playwrights who went south often experienced all kinds of ups and downs and saw through the human world; Writers who have lived in the south for a long time also have a clear understanding of the bleak prospects of fame and fortune. The prosperous life and beautiful scenery in the south have aroused their enthusiasm for spring forest poetry and wine. Therefore, many people, with rich feelings, describe the scholar's lack of talent and arrogance, in fact, through the experience of the characters in the script to express their feelings. RoyceWong Climbing the Building, Yangzhou Dream and other plays clearly show this creative tendency. Obviously, the dramas in the Southern Opera Circle pay more attention to the description of love and the catharsis of personal feelings, which is closely related to the economic development and the evolution of values in the South.

The competition between Zaju and Nanxi also promoted mutual communication. Xu Wei's "Narration of Nanci" contains 65 kinds of "Old Song and Yuan Dynasties" plays, half of which are seen in zaju performances. It can be seen that the writers of the two plays often learn from each other and adapt their works to each other. Musically, the appearance of "the combination of North and South" is the obvious evidence that the two major operas learn from each other. According to the "Postscript" of Yueting compiled by the gifted scholars of Hangzhou Book Club, it is written that "the bookstore is churning, and Yan Dou is an old book", so it can be seen that the compilation of this Southern Opera is based on Guan Hanqing's zaju Yueting. At the end of the third fold of Guan Hanqing's zaju Wangjiangge, Shao Li, Official's Son and Zhang Qian sang Nanqu [Horse], which obviously absorbed the flexible and reasonable system of Nanxi in singing. Official's Son made a joke: "This fellow plays Nanxi every time!" The situation of Guan Hanqing's plays is a vivid example that the two major dramas of North and South meet and complement each other and promote the development of drama.

The system of zaju.

1, structure

Usually a book is 60% off, plus a wedge. There are also a few 50% or 60% discounts, such as 50% discount for orphans to go to their families and 60% discount for swings. A 10% discount is roughly equivalent to a scene in a modern play, and it can be divided into several scenes. Fold is a big paragraph in the development of the story, and field is a short paragraph. The standard of parting is that all actors retreat into the background and appear empty. The fourth fold of "Save the Wind and Dust" is divided into three scenes. At the same time, the school is also a unit of the music organization. Generally, one school uses a set of tunes, and the number of tunes varies, but they belong to the same palace tune. The first song is marked with the name of Gongdiao, and the last song is marked with "sand" or "tail". Wedges are sawdust in tenons. This refers to a small independent paragraph added in addition to the 60% discount. Usually put in front of the first discount. As the beginning of the plot, it introduces the origin of the story (equivalent to the prologue), and sometimes it is placed between folds, similar to a cut. Wedges don't need divertimento, just one or two singles. When one book is not enough, you can increase the number of books, and the five books of The West Chamber are 20% off. At the same time, at the end of each drama, there are two, four or eight poems that summarize the plot. The first half is called the title and the second half is called the name. It may be a poster during the performance, such as Yuan.

Topic: Insist on Honesty and Integrity

Correcting Name: Feeling Dou E's injustice on earth.

2. Qu Ci. The main function of lyrics is to express emotions, and it can also play the role of rendering the scene and running through the plot. The lyrics of Yuan Zaju are usually sung by a main actor. Lyrics have strict rules, and the songs in the same stack are all a rhyme. Lyrics are long and short sentences, and lines can be added outside the box. Sandwiches are usually modal particles or conjunctions. Thus making the lyrics lively. Qu Ci is the main body of Yuan Zaju.

3. Bai Bin: That is to say, Nianbai, that is, the whiteness of the characters in the play. Yuan zaju is mainly about singing, supplemented by speaking, so the part spoken is called guest white. It is also the main body of Yuan Zaju literature. "Clouds" are often used in scripts, and they are usually divided into fixed field white, opposite field white, blunt field white (second appearance), back field white (inner monologue) and white (caught in the process of singing, and there are prose and rhymes in the away game (rhymes are poems or jingles, such as fixed field poems and the next poem). The overall story is mainly explained by Bai Bin (narrative). Bai Bin, a Yuan drama, was written in northern dialect.

4. Ke Fan: also known as Ke Fan and Ke Fan, or "Ke Fan" for short. Refers to the actors' animals, expressions and stage effects. For example, "failing subjects", "laughing at subjects", "playing subjects" and "doing sad subjects" The characters of Yuan Zaju "Yanjiaoke" have the basic characteristics of China opera.

(1) Programming (2) Virtualization

5. Function: Also known as foot color, it is the identity type of characters in Yuan Zaju. The roles of Yuan Zaju can be roughly divided into four categories: the end, the Dan, the clean and the miscellaneous. There is an actor at the end, which is equivalent to "sheng" and "Zheng" in Beijing opera. There are also "extras" and "little actors". Dan is an actress, and the leading role is Zheng Dan. In addition, there are "deputy actors" and "foreign actors". "Net" plays strong, fierce or funny people, both men and women. "Miscellaneous" includes "lonely" (official) old man (old man), Bo 'er (old woman), Xian 'er (child), (scholar, scholar), Jielang (monk), Gang's old man (robber) and Zi (beggar). And the lead singer at the end is called "Benben".

Sanqu is a new style of poetry popular in northern China during the Jin and Yuan Dynasties. It is a song with no drama performance and a new style of poetry. The tone of his poems and words is similar, and the number of sets is the same as that of traditional Chinese opera. The composition of Sanqu writers is very complicated, and the styles of their works vary widely. Ordinary playwrights, such as Guan Hanqing and Ma Zhiyuan, are often good at Sanqu, and their works have a bold style. Later Sanqu writers, such as George and Zhang Kejiu, are representative writers of Li Qing School, and their attention to "emotion" is also worthy of attention.

(2) Prose

Literature in Yuan Dynasty has both these styles. The north inherited the ethos initiated by Zhao Bingwen, a literary leader at the end of Jin Dynasty, while the south continued and reversed the writing style at the end of Southern Song Dynasty. Prose continues the tradition of ancient prose movement in Tang and Song Dynasties. Yuan Haowen became a leader in the northern literary world after the death of Jin, while Dai became a famous writer in the southeast. Since then, Yao Sui, Wu Cheng, Yu Ji and other famous writers have followed suit, paying equal attention to orthodoxy and literary tradition, forming the characteristic of "learning from Luo Yi and writing about Europe".

(3) Poetry

There are many writers of Yuan poetry, and Gu's Selected Poems of Yuan Dynasty collected more than 2,600 writers in Qing Dynasty. Poetic style "was born in the Tang Dynasty. Its ancient style is more important than Han, Wei, Dong and Jin Dynasties, and its style is similar to that of the Tang Dynasty.". It is the source of the retro trend in Ming Dynasty. There were four great poets in Yuan Dynasty: Yu Ji, Yang Zai, Fan Yi, Jess and Sadu Ci, Wang Mian, Yang Weizhen and Naixian. Yuan Haowen and Zhang Jian were the representatives in the early Yuan Dynasty, while Zhen Guan and Zhang Jian were in the middle and late Yuan Dynasty.

Story-based novels and rap literature

The art of speaking and rap for the audience appeared in the Tang Dynasty, and it was more prosperous in the Song, Jin and Yuan Dynasties. It was a very popular form of popular literature at that time. There are four schools of speech in Song Dynasty: novel, classics, history and chorus. The speaker's script, which appears because of speaking, is collectively called "story script" in later generations. In fact, it is the story text of storytellers and becomes the main form of novels in Song and Yuan Dynasties. There are three existing scripts in the Song and Yuan Dynasties: one is an artistic script with rough narration, such as Romance of the Three Kingdoms; The other is a recorded script with oral stories of artists as the main content, which is fluent in words, meticulous in description and brilliant in description. It may come from the hands of book lovers, such as "Wrong Chop Cui Ning" and "Broken Jade Guanyin", and the other is based on history books, unofficial history notes and literary novels. These works are included in Sanyan compiled by Ming Dynasty. In addition, during the Song and Jin Dynasties, a kind of rap literature, namely Zhu Gong tune, was popular, which was a combination of music and stories. Also called tanci, chord and script. The most famous works are Dong Jieyuan's The West Chamber, Liu Zhiyuan Palace and Tianbao Palace.

Southern Opera is the abbreviation of Nanqu, which was first popular in the coastal areas of eastern Zhejiang, and is called Wenzhou Zaju or Yongjia Zaju. In the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yunming said in a wretched way: "After the announcement of peace, the Southern Opera was called Wenzhou Zaju." Xu Wei's "Introduction to Southern Opera" said: "Southern Opera began in the Dynasty, and Yongjia people were Zhao Zhennv and Wang Kui, which were two real firsts. ..... or Yunxuanhe has been made, popular from Nandu, posthumous title Yongjia Zaju. " It can be seen that it was formed earlier than the northern zaju. But in the early days, it only spread among the people and was rejected by scholars. With the southern crossing in Song Dynasty and the prosperity of urban economy, he developed and gradually flourished, becoming the main art form of the southern stage.

The system form of South Opera is different from that of North Zaju. "Narration of Nanci" says that the tune of Nanqu is "Song Ci is beneficial to alley ballads, but not to palace tune." He spread in the south, singing in the southern dialect, divided into four tones, unlike the three tones of the northern song, and the rhyme is loose. The tune is soft and euphemistic, unlike the sonorous Northern Song Dynasty. The accompaniment is mainly wind music, with drums as the festival; Northern music is dominated by strings. Zaju can only be sung by one person, and all the characters in Nanxi can sing, including solo, duet, chorus, chorus and chorus. The singing forms are flexible and diverse. The theme is mainly love stories and family disputes, and rarely praises historical stories and heroes. The plot is rich. A book often needs dozens of performances. The form of Southern Opera gradually took shape in the late Yuan Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty. Generally speaking, the deputy director begins by reporting the purpose of singing and the general idea of the whole play. From the second appearance, important characters such as Sheng and Dan appeared one after another, gradually unfolding the plot, going through all kinds of joys and sorrows and ending in a happy ending. As usual, there is a poem at the end of every scene in Nanxi Opera. Important people sing an introduction first, and then a self-introduction poem called Ding Changbai (the actor's self-confession). Lyrics generally consist of introduction, overture and ending. This is the main form of drama creation from the end of Yuan Dynasty to the middle of Qing Dynasty, and it is also a legendary drama used to distinguish it from zaju in later generations.