On April 14, the family of Chen Yongquan, a famous cross talk artist from the Beijing Folk Art Troupe, issued an obituary. Chen Yongquan died in Beijing at 8:48 on April 14, 2024, due to ineffective medical treatment. He was 92 years old.
Chen Yongquan was born in Beijing in 1932. His maternal grandfather Zhong Ziliang was a representative figure of the "Qingmen" cross talk in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China. He successively wrote the cross talk "Eight Major Changes", "Selling Five Weapons", "Dumen Jiluo", etc. His father, Chen Zizhen, was a famous crosstalk artist from the 1920s to the 1940s. His representative works include "Eight Cats", "On Wealth and Poverty", and "Sheep on a Tree". In 1955, Chen Yongquan began to create cross talk and published "I'm OK", "New Words and Old Words", "Please Call the Doctor", "Pregnant Women Questionnaire", etc. In the 1960s, Chen Yongquan created and adapted a number of crosstalks such as "So Passionate", crosstalk dramas "Who Do You Look Like", "Miss City", etc.
Mr. Chen Yongquan has inherited the elegance of "Qingmen" cross talk and the popularity of professional cross talk. He has comprehensive skills, can praise and amuse, and is good at stand-up comedy. Mr. Chen Yongquan's performance is crisp and clear, with a loud voice, good at speaking and singing, upright style, vivid and clean language.
After Chen Yongquan returned to the stage in 1977, he collaborated with Li Jindou for a long time. Their cooperation was tacit and they were called a model of cooperation and a golden partner in the cross talk industry. The two have collaborated for nearly 30 years and have performed more than 100 cross talk works together. Among them, "Wu Song Fights the Tiger" is one of their most representative works and has won many awards. In addition to his cooperation with Li Jindou, Chen Yongquan also participated in the creation and performance of many other cross talk works. In 1995, Chen Yongquan won the "Outstanding Contribution to Crosstalk Art Award" in the first national "Hou Baolin Award" TV crosstalk competition.
The cross talk "Wu Song Fights the Tiger" was written by Lian Chunming, a professional writer of the Beijing Folk Art Troupe at that time. Chen Yongquan once recalled, "After we got the notebook, we started to process and revise it repeatedly, and revised it eight times in total." In order to keep improving, the two took the notebook again and approached the famous Peking Opera performing artist Mr. Li Wanchun for humbly asking for advice, and the result was Many true stories. Chen Yongquan said: "We have combined many performance techniques from Peking Opera, such as the appearance of little painted faces, playing with fans, as well as some performance techniques from fairy tales and local operas, etc., with the performance techniques of cross talk itself. Only then can the audience watch it. The live effect allowed the audience to pick up many thought-provoking meanings in the laughter. "
Crosstalk performing artist Jiang Kun and his disciples mourned Chen Yongquan. In an interview, Li Jindou, Chen Yongquan's partner and a famous cross talk artist, said sadly: "Mr. Chen Yongquan is our cross talk predecessor in Beijing, a famous cross talk artist, and my teacher and old partner. His death is a great loss to the cross talk industry. April 2020 Mr. Chen was hospitalized due to a heart disease. The last time I saw him was two months ago. He was still chatting and laughing, talking about cross talk creation with me, and sent us out when he said goodbye."
Yangtze Evening News/Ziniu News reporter Zhang Nan
Proofreading. Li Haihui
