演剧与环保:清代徽州乡村的罚戏

Theatre Performance and Environmental Protection——Punishment Plays in Qing Dynasty in Huizhou

较之于同一时期其他地区的罚戏记载,徽州罚戏文的内容多半与自然环境保护,尤其是与植被保护密切相关。相关史料表明,清代徽州罚戏文保护环境的内容与棚民入迁徽州密切相关。始于乾隆年间而终于嘉道年间的棚民,大批迁入徽州后对当地自然环境造成致命性破坏;“驱棚”运动结束后,徽州当地官民将环境保护视为头等大事,罚戏成为保护自然环境的一种有效方式。与此同时,罚戏是清代徽州当地宗族抵制清朝中央统治者控制乡村宗族社会的有效方式,也是保护宗族成员免受政府刑罚的有力手段。罚戏看上去是一种带有情感意味而温和的惩戒方式,但却具有强制、公开、解释、自我证明与昭示罪行的作用。

Compared with records in the other regions in Qing Dynasty in China in the same period, records of punishment plays in Huizhou show that they are closely related to the protection of natural environment, especially the protection of vegetation. Some historical records show that the contents of punishment plays are closely linked with the immigration of shed people from other regions to Huizhou in the years of Qianlong (1711-1799) to Jiaqing (1760-1820) and Daoguang (1821-1850), which caused the damage to the natural environment in Huizhou. After the shed people were expelled from Huizhou, the local people and office in Huizhou regarded the protection of natural environment as the most important thing on the agenda. Against this background, the punishment play was the effective way to protect the collapsing ecological environment. At the same time, it was also the effective approach from which the local clan could resist the central rulers of Qing dynasty to control the village clan society, and the powerful means from which the local clan protected the clans from the punishment of the government. The punishment play may seem like an emotional and gentle approach of discipline to punish the clansmen, but it has the power of compulsion, openness, explanation, self-proof, and disclosure of crime.