Young Peking Opera actors perform the classic drama "Beijing People". Wu Guoqing/photo

In Peking in the early 1930s, the family of Zeng's family declined, and its former prominence had long become an old shadow. In this sad family, three generations consume the only remaining decency. The old man of the Zeng family was powerless to stop the family's decline, and the eldest son Zeng Wenqing was addicted to piano, chess, calligraphy and painting, and was unable to face reality. His wife Zeng Siyi strongly controls the operation of the family, but it is useless. Su Fang, a cousin who was living under someone else's roof, fell into the imagination of nothingness in forbearance, and the young Zeng Ting and Ruizhen felt suffocated in their marriage in name only... Mr. Cao Yu once said: "Why did I write "Beijing People"? At that time, I had a wish that people should live like humans, not like many people at that time, and they had to find a way in the dark."

In April, to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the founding of the Central Academy of Drama, the Institute of Drama Arts of the Central Academy of Drama and Liu Xinglin Stage Design Studio jointly launched the first drama "Beijing People", the "China Drama Performance Creation Plan", which conducted a new experiment on the Chinese drama performance methods in the new era. "Beijing People" is directed by Cao Yan, director of the Peking Opera Department of the Central Academy of Drama, and the roles in the play are played by teachers and students of the Peking Opera Department. Opera actors have solid basic skills, know how to be proportionate and have a sharp eye, clear lines and sonorous tone. The student actors deeply analyze the characters' inner world and contradictions. With tacit cooperation with the teacher, they injected a youthful background into the performance with their outstanding performance. Drama critic Bei Xiaojing believes: "If we talk about the past when we watched Mr. Cao Yu's "Beijing People", we felt the destruction of "death". In the same drama, I saw the passion of "life" on the stage of the Central Academy of Drama."

The director fully taps the potential of Peking Opera actors to shape drama characters. The left-behind Su Fang is played by Mou Jia, a young teacher of Dao Madan. Dao Madan is skillful and emphasizes both singing, reciting and doing in performances, giving space for the characters' long literary dramas and personality interpretations. The role of Wen Qing, who is gentle and cowardly, is Zhen Haobei, a post-00s student who works in Peking Opera. He is good at using wide and false notes, has solid waist and legs, and is unique in singing, footsteps, and transition. Jiang Tai's actor Bian Jianglong applied the thrust kung fu to the performance, and the audience was frightened and still unsatisfied. This is exactly the charm of the basic skills of opera actors.

With the help of the director, opera actors incorporated the "singing, reciting and playing" of characters into the "sound and stage form" of drama performance. On the basis of "shape and integration", they focused on the "integration" of performance, so that the performance achieved the effect of Peking Opera and drama "you have me, I have you, you are not me, I am not you". The audience cannot see the obvious traces of the actors' performance during the performance, but they can also feel the "easy-minded and handy" performance style that is different from previous drama performances. The famous director Xu Xiaozhong believes: "The performance is very complete, and I feel the charm of Chinese opera art on the drama stage."

Unlike the stage display of traditional realism in the past, this version of "Beijing People" presents the audience with a cold, unrestrained and sad stage image that seeks vitality from a circular narrative structure and a contemporary perspective. "Beijing People" completes the aesthetic expression of a contemporary theater with the meaning of traditional Chinese aesthetics. The stage design sprays the old furniture purchased from the fresh market into black and stacks it on top of the table lips. Together with the huge beams deliberately lowered on the stage, the despairing and desperate Zeng Mansion was trapped into an invisible spiritual cage. The few pigeons landed on the beams of the house brought a little vitality to the lifeless Zeng Mansion. The precise stage lighting design and the use of black and white set turntables provide a space-time cutting scene for the entire performance between movement and stillness. Accompanied by fleeting pigeon whistles and street hawking, young Peking Opera actors show a different style and state from the previous version in their every move, creating a poetic space where "the glimmer of light is hidden in the depths of despair."

Since the birth of Chinese drama, the older generation of drama performing artists such as Shi Hui, Li Moran, and Lin Liankun have been nourished by opera art. In this performance of "Beijing People", teachers and students from all majors of the Central Academy of Drama worked together to use the rehearsal venue as a discussion room and the theater as an experimental venue, completing an experimental performance. Ouyang Yuqian, the first president of the Central Academy of Drama, proposed: On the Chinese stage, the Chinese people cannot be separated from the tradition of Chinese drama art, and this tradition must be inherited and carried forward. The performance of the first drama "Beijing People", the "China Drama Creation Plan", not only paid tribute to Mr. Cao Yu, the honorary dean of the college, but also contributed a performance with Chinese rhythm, Chinese figure and Chinese expression to the Chinese drama stage.

(The author of Lin Jinji is an assistant researcher at the Institute of Drama Arts, Central Academy of Drama)

[Editor in charge: Tang Wei]