Characteristics of experimental drama

Although experimental drama appears in the face of rebellion and denial of tradition. However, as a stage of the development of modern drama in China and an adjustment and improvement of the development of modern drama in China, experimental drama also participated in the inheritance and development of the tradition of modern drama in China.

(1) Modernism in form and realism in content.

In the 1920s, realism, romanticism and modernism coexisted in China's drama. However, after the 1930 s, there was no mutual integration and absorption between the three major ideological trends. However, due to more emphasis on choice and trade-off, more emphasis on the utilitarian side, more exclusion than integration ... In this way, modernism and romanticism gradually narrowed their territory, while realism was unique and gradually grew into the mainstream. (14- 15) from the forties to the end of the seventies, modernism had long since disappeared, and romanticism only existed in the mainstream of realistic drama as an element infiltrated with realism. Therefore, realism is the mainstream tradition of China's modern drama. However, because of this, the development of realism itself is getting slower and slower, which leads to a serious survival crisis in China's drama after it entered the 1970s. Experimental drama appears in the form of rebellion and denial of this realistic tradition. For experiment and innovation, they chose western modernism again.

Modernism advertised by irrationalism is full of radical rebellious consciousness, and it can easily become a spiritual weapon for China people to criticize tradition during the social transformation period. Therefore, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when China's drama circles began to explore the road of reform and innovation of China's modern drama, modernism openly entered the field of drama. As the earliest experimenter and introducer of modernist techniques, Gao Xingjian almost integrated all the new modernist techniques that could be used into drama experiments. Therefore, it can be said that experimental drama deliberately abandoned the tradition of realism and chose western modernism again.

First of all, they abandoned the utilitarian function of traditional realism in drama, paid no attention to the specific problems of social reality and paid no attention to the propaganda and education function of drama, but emphasized the macroscopic sense and philosophical sense of drama, or the exploration of human deep psychology. Gao Xingjian's Savage, for example, is a reflection on man, nature and human cultural history. The station is actually China's version of Waiting for Godot. Secondly, experimental drama abandons the traditional objective and realistic drama form, and expresses uncertain themes in an abstract and virtual way under the uncertain stage time and space. The most typical scripts are the Rubik's Cube created by students of Shanghai Normal University and Jesus Confucius and the Beatles Lennon created by Sha. Thirdly, the creative, directing and performing methods of experimental drama no longer use stanislavski's experience and traditional methods of reproduction to reflect the objective reality. They use the stream of consciousness of symbolism, expressionism, absurdity and western modernism to express some thoughts and feelings of the author. For example, in "There is Heat Flow Outside", the dead Zhao Changkang can appear three times. "It expresses a philosophical social theme: if a person escapes from the fierce struggle and retreats into the small circle of individualism, he will inevitably be unable to resist the cold of losing his loved ones from the collective. Only when he is out of the house can there be heat flow and life. " In the station, people can wait until their hair turns white, but what they want to express is their feelings about an absurd situation.

As can be seen from the above analysis, experimental drama is indeed very similar to western modernist drama. But similarity is only similarity after all, and this similarity is only formal similarity. After all, experimental drama appeared in China in 1980s, and its cultural tradition and realistic environment are different from those in Europe after World War II. Therefore, if we peel off the shell of these novel forms of modernism, we will find that their contents are realistic. For example, Sartre pays attention to the rational reflection on human nature and "the other", and also shows people's anxiety about choice. The psychological feelings of the characters in Gao Xingjian's Absolute Signal are not based on man's eternal fate, but the playwright's feelings about reality. The mood and attitude of the creative subject are also very distinct. Praise to the old conductor and the girl bee, and condemnation to the car thief are all obvious and concrete. More importantly, the work contains thoughts on major social issues during the social transition period, such as the social employment mechanism and the way out for unemployed youth. Obviously, regarding the proposition of human beings, western modernism only pays attention to the abstract and ultimate proposition of "existence". Gao Xingjian pays more attention to the realistic and concrete "survival" problem. The same is waiting. Godot in Waiting for Godot is unspeakable and represents the ultimate concern of some kind of saving power. The car in the station and its destination, the city, are obviously more realistic and symbolic. Moreover, the dialogue between the characters in the station revolves around a large number of social problems. Such as corruption, back door, public moral corruption, separation between the two places, worship of foreign things, young women's sense of crisis in youth love and so on. Therefore, it is the core of experimental drama to pay attention to the fate of China society and characters in the transitional period. This is an aspect that experimental drama inherits the realistic tradition of modern drama in China. If we examine the relationship between experimental drama and China's modern drama tradition from a philosophical perspective, we will find that the emergence of experimental drama conforms to the development law of modern drama in China. It both negates and affirms the tradition of China's modern drama. There are inheritance and development.

(2) Learn from western modernism and learn from China's traditional operas.

Since the birth of China's modern drama, the drama circle has begun to explore how to combine this foreign art form with China's local drama tradition. Compared with the Spring Willow Society, the theatrical groups in the period of civilized drama inherited the artistic tradition of China classical opera more. In the 1920s, although the drama circles mainly advocated western realistic drama, Song Chunfang, Yu Shangyuan and others have been exploring how to combine modern drama with China's classical drama and how to modernize China's classical drama. The great discussion about the nationalization of drama in 1930s and Xiong Foxi's "peasant drama" experiment are also exploring the road of the modernization of China's classical drama and the nationalization of China's modern drama. In the 1940s, the great discussion about "national form" in the drama circle made China's modern drama find the right way in the nationalization exploration and killing. Therefore, in the development of China's modern drama, on the one hand, we learn from foreign modern drama art, on the other hand, we are trying to inherit the excellent artistic tradition of China's classical drama. However, after the founding of the People's Republic of China, especially during the Cultural Revolution, this tradition was almost completely denied.

In 1980s, experimental drama introduced and experimented with various dramatic artistic techniques of western modernist drama. From the experimental drama, we can almost find the influence of various schools of modern western drama, such as absurdism, existentialism, symbolism, stream of consciousness and expressionism. Gao Xingjian, in particular, almost integrated all the skills he could apply to the western modernist drama into his own experimental drama. Therefore, some people regard experimental drama as the introduction and experiment of western modernist drama. In fact, this view is a bit biased. On the one hand, experimental drama draws lessons from western modernist drama, and at the same time inherits the excellent artistic tradition of China's classical drama. When experimental drama first appeared, it was influenced by Huang 1962' s essay On the View of Drama, in addition to drawing lessons from the artistic skills of western modernist drama. It used China's classical drama for reference and experimented with "freehand brushwork" drama. The two more influential experimental dramas, Chinese Dream and Moth to the Fire, which appeared in the late 1980s, embodied the concept of this kind of freehand brushwork drama. 1980, Cao Yu published "A Random Talk on Drama Creation", which set off a great discussion on the concept of drama for many years. Gao Xingjian's viewpoint represents the dramatic view of experimental drama. He said that his experimental drama strives to create "a new drama that is different from the old drama and retains and develops other artistic traditions, a modern oriental drama that is completely different from the modern western drama." It can be seen that although Gao Xingjian not only advocates learning from western modern drama, but also advocates inheriting and carrying forward the artistic tradition of China's traditional drama, his aim is still to create an "oriental modern drama". This is the inheritance and development of the nationalization tradition of modern drama in China. Many editing and directing techniques of experimental drama are indeed based on the practices of western modernist drama, but many of them are directly inherited from China's traditional drama. Such as the pursuit of virtuality and freehand brushwork, the free and open structure, the increase of song and dance elements and the realism of the core content. Therefore, experimental drama has both negation and inheritance to China's modern drama, and these two aspects are not contradictory. This is also the performance of China's nationalization tradition of modern drama in experimental drama.

(3) Individualized drama and popular drama.

China's modern drama has always had a popular tradition. The reason why China's classical operas were thoroughly criticized and denied during the May 4th Movement was that the classical operas represented by Peking Opera were increasingly divorced from the times and people, and became "playthings" for a few people to enjoy themselves. They advocated building a popular drama close to reality and the masses, and introducing and advocating Ibsen's plays on a large scale. The "proletarian drama" in the early 1930s and the later left-wing drama have been pursuing popular drama. When Zheng put forward the task of emerging stage for the drama industry, the fourth item was "the closeness between drama and the public-the popularization of drama". Tian Han also thought that modern drama "lost civilians without civilians." By the1940s, modern drama was completely popularized in Yan 'an and other liberated areas. However, after the founding of the People's Republic of China, the audience of modern drama, especially drama, became less and less, and there was a crisis of survival.

The direct purpose of the emergence of experimental drama is to win more audiences for modern drama, which is consistent with the purpose of China's modern drama popularization tradition, and from the perspective of development, it is also in the same strain as China's modern drama popularization tradition. However, in terms of specific methods, experimental drama takes a road contrary to the traditional practice of modern drama in China. In order to create a popular drama, if the traditional modern drama is popular, then the experimental drama is personalized and elegant. They have innovated and explored modern drama with their personal hobbies and pursuits, which is beyond the understanding of the general audience; Metaphor, symbolism, absurd deformation and overlapping of time and space, which are widely used in western modernist dramas, are only popular in the small circle of drama lovers or intellectuals; Dramas like The Station, Jesus Confucius and the Beatles Lennon are obviously not passed on from mouth to mouth. It is precisely because of this path that experimental drama broke away from ordinary people and went downhill rapidly after reaching the climax of creation and performance in the mid-1980 s. In the 1990s, although some people were still exploring experimental dramas. However, because it only exists in colleges and academic circles, it can no longer be called experimental drama, but can only be called drama experiment.

In a sense, experimental drama can be a personalized product, that is, the materialized state of drama artists' personal artistic hobbies and personal artistic tastes. But if its purpose is only to satisfy one's own creative impulse and desire, it is understandable. However, if its purpose is to promote the better development of drama, make drama understood, accepted and loved by more people and serve more people, then experimental dramatists can't be too partial to their own personal tastes and can't express their works too personally. We should consider how to get closer to "popularization". Because drama belongs to the public after all, the foundation of its survival and development lies in the public.