剧体何用:戏曲早期剧本认定问题新论

What is the Purpose of Theatrical Style:A New Discussion on the Identification of Scripts in Early Xiqu

在戏曲发展的早期,剧本与剧伎在剧体上存在着诸多不对应之处,因此,对于早期剧本的认定,本质不在于从中抽取出一些与剧伎对应的构成要素(歌舞、故事、代言体、角色扮演),而在于综合其原生伎艺场境的属性,辨析这些构成要素之间的配合关系,既不能脱离文本的原生伎艺场境来判定其文类属性,也不能不顾原生伎艺场境的属性事实来认定剧本。据此而言,早期剧本相对于后世文体剧本的简陋之处,不是已有“全本”的残缺或节略,而是书写文化参与戏剧的口传系统初期出现的不同剧本形态,属于戏剧的口传系统与书写系统不对应关系的表现。元刊杂剧即典型体现了早期剧本的这一状态,它尚非现代学术意义的文体剧本的等效物,需要依附戏剧的口传系统,参照剧伎的内容和形制来达成戏剧传述任务。对于早期剧本的出现与形态,应放在戏剧领域口传与书写的关系框架中来切实辨析,而不应拘囿于书面领域来理解它的戏剧传述能力,或仅立足于书面领域来论定其身份和属性。

In the early development of Xiqu, inconsistencies existed between scripts and theatrical skills. Therefore, the core of identification of early scripts is not to seek out some elements corresponding with theatrical skills(such as songs and dances, stories, dialogue and monologue, and role playing), but to identify and to analyze the coordination of these elements based on the original contexts of theatrical skills. We can neither identify the genre of a text by separating it from the original contexts of theatrical skills, nor can we identify a script while ignoring the attributes of the original contexts of theatrical skills. In this sense, the weaknesses of early scripts in comparison with the later scripts is not the incompleteness or abridgement of the existing “full scripts”, but the different forms of scripts that emerged in the early stage when the written tradition seeped into the oral tradition, which shows the incompatibility between the oral tradition and the written one in theatre. Zaju in the Yuan Dynasty is a typical embodiment of such early scripts. It is not the equivalent of scripts in modern academic sense. It fulfills the task of theatre transmission by relying on the oral tradition of theatre and referring to both the content and form of theatrical skills. As for the appearance and form of early scripts, we should identify and analyze them in the relationship between oral tradition and written tradition, and should not be confined by the written tradition to understand their dramatic expressions, or identify them and their attributes only by the written tradition.