思考中国戏剧现代化的一个视角

"The Progressive Cannot Overtake the Backward":Modernization of the Chinese Stage

京剧"以歌舞演故事"的叙事方式,最先得到王国维的命名和赞赏,五四时期则在新的文学观念的比照下被否定,再到"国剧运动"派从艺术角度肯定。趋势是,京剧"行动不足、造型有余"的特性在实践和理论上逐渐被确认,艺术自觉不自觉地卸下文学的沉重包袱,拉开同现实的距离,走上西方式的纯粹歌舞剧之路。民族化大众化口号指导下的"戏改"、旧形式利用等举措,实质反映了使京剧重新成为道之载体的努力。

＂Story telling via song and dance＂ as the definitive feature of Peking Opera, first established and praised by Wang Guowei, was to be denigrated in comparison with the contemporaneous new literary criteria during the May-Fourth Movement, and then rehabilitated during the ＂national theatre movement＂, tracing a trajectory that ended in a general consensus that Peking Opera was strong in plastic expression but weak in dramatic action. Thence, Peking Opera embarked on a road whereby it distanced itself from literary obligations and social reality in pursuit of a western style combined form of song and dance. Under the guise of domestication and popularization in the 1950s, theatre reform programs sought to rejuvenate Peking Opera as a conveyor for ideological tenor.