------Program code: DO-080914-00724 (what's this?)
Source: CCTV.com
09-14-2008 09:22
 |
On October the 1st, 1949, the founding ceremony of the People’s Republic of China was held in Tian’anmen Square. The occasion also marked the beginning of a new era for Chinese drama.
Tian Han, a 51-year-old playwright and member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, was on the viewing platform. With tears in his eyes, he listened as the national anthem March of the Volunteers, for which he had written the words, was played. 38-year-old Cao Yu was leading a Yangge team in the parade. Meanwhile, in the U.S., Lao She received a special letter, and 13 days later, he decided to return home.
 |
After the birth of New China, the government brought all the country’s folk performing troupes under its leadership. Organizations were set up at the central, provincial and local levels.
On April the 2nd, 1950, the Central Academy of Drama was founded. Ouyang Yuqian, at the age of 60, became its president, and Cao Yu was named as vice president. In the same year, Xia Yan became president of the Shanghai People’s Art Theatre, with Huang Zuolin as vice president. Meanwhile, the newly-returned Lao She was made vice president of the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles.
In the first years of New China, workers received standardized wages and commodity supplies according to their position. Under the system, writers and theatre professionals were encouraged to come forward and serve the new country.
Now, with the war over, drama took up the task of publicizing the country’s new policies.
On June the 30th, 1950, the Land Reform Law of the People’s Republic of China came into force. It rejected the landlords’ claims to land, which had been accepted under the Republic of China, and guaranteed the peasants’ rights to their land. The reform benefited the vast bulk of the Chinese peasantry. Before long, as a way of publicizing the reform, the Shanxi Drama Theater staged a single-act play, called Land Certificate.
A month before the land reform was carried out, a team of construction workers arrived at a place called Dragon Beard Ditch outside Chongwenmen in Beijing. It was a stinking canal at the time. Before the founding of the PRC, it had been badly polluted, and piles of rubbish had built up along its banks. It was not only reeking, but also infested with insects. The nearby residents were fed up with it, and the arrival of the workers to carry out renovation, was warmly welcomed. Lao She, despite an injured leg, came to research a play he intended to write about the project.
Lao She remained at the ditch for the whole afternoon, lost in thought. He knew it would be difficult to tell the story of the renovation of a ditch. Furthermore it wouldn’t really be very interesting. Eventually, a large yard nearby inspired him, and he decided to start from the fate of a group of minor characters. A few weeks later, the play Dragon Beard Ditch was completed and went into rehearsal at the Beijing People’s Art Theatre. Its director was the famous dramatist Jiao Juyin.
The first performance of Dragon Beard Ditch was given by the Beijing People’s Art Theatre in February 1951. It described the changes in the lives of three families living beside Dragon Beard Ditch before and after Liberation, and in particular following the renovation work. The play was a depiction of New China, a new life. Its success attracted the attention of the country’s leaders.
Before long, Dragon Beard Ditch was staged in Huairentang Hall at Zhongnanhai. It was the first play Chairman Mao saw after arriving in Beijing in 1949. On December the 21st, 1951, the title of “People’s Artist” was conferred on Lao She by Peng Zhen, mayor of Beijing, on behalf of the Beijing municipal government. The play Dragon Beard Ditch was made into a film. Yu Shizhi, a young actor from the Beijing People’s Art Theatre, became famous for his portrayal of “Madman Cheng”, in both the play and the film.
In September 1950, US-led forces in Korea began sending planes to threaten Chinese airspace. This triggered the Chinese participation in the Korean War.
On March the 14th, 1951, the Command Centre of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, led by Guo Moruo, made an announcement:
Caption: We must better educate people about the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea. Everyone, everywhere must be aware of this patriotic action, and actively participate in it.
Several plays about the Korean War were written and performed. These included The Front Moving Southward. In them, PLA soldiers were always the heroes.
One effect of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea was to turn people away from the US, and towards the Soviet Union. Hollywood movies disappeared from cinemas, and the wearing of suits was frowned upon. Permed hair, high-heeled shoes and cosmetics became capitalist symbols and were no longer seen.
In the meantime, the Soviet Union became an object of admiration. Films such as Lenin in 1918, songs such as Moscow Nights and novels such as How the Steel Was Tempered were among the most popular artistic works in China at the time. The Stanislavski Method also became the model for Chinese drama.
Konstantin Stanislavski was a famous Russian actor and drama teacher. By combining and developing the approaches of various other dramatists, he created his own acting method based on the Soviet tradition of realism. He called his new approach experientialism, and wrote a book The Actor and His Work, which expounded the Stanislavski Method, centring on internal experience enriched by physical gestures. This new method had a powerful influence on 20th-century drama around the world.
After the founding of New China, many Chinese theaters invited Russian experts to give lectures and workshops, or perform famous Russian plays.
The director Sun Weishi had recently returned from the Soviet Union. She was the daughter of the martyr Sun Bingwen, who had been a friend of Premier Zhou Enlai. The premier and his wife Deng Yingchao had adopted her and, in 1939, sent her to study drama in the Soviet Union. She was the first Chinese director to be trained in the Stanislavski Method.
