Stills from the original Cantonese musical "The King"
Yuan Weijing
In the past half month, "half of the theater circle" flew to Hong Kong just for one play - the musical "The King". And more audiences are staying online to watch extra performances and release tickets. How did a musical performed in Cantonese arouse such a huge wave of attention? What new breakthroughs can we see in Chinese original musicals?
——Editor
At the end of the year and the beginning of the year, an original Cantonese musical "The King" brought full surprises to the performance industry, with a total of 21 additional performances. As an original musical, its scale of performance in Hong Kong is also unprecedented.
In fact, as early as the preview in 2019 and the official premiere in 2022, this play has attracted strong attention and became the absolute winner at the 31st Hong Kong Drama Awards, including Best Production and Best Director. , Best Original Score (Musical), Best Lyrics, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor (Tragedy/Drama), etc. ten awards. As the entire market gradually recovers, the play has become a hit, helping Chinese musicals show their vitality and creativity.
Cultural inheritance and theme innovation of classic texts
The theme of "The Great King" is very special in a musical. As a rare historical "court drama" on the stage, the story focuses on Fang Tang Jing, one of the four great kings in Guangdong. Because he helped the tyrants and committed many injustices, he provoked the evil ghost to seek his life. In order to survive, he helped the ghost A Xi Xin. Xiuxiu reverses the verdict and embarks on a journey together. From hatred to forgiveness, setting things right after thousands of obstacles, and redeeming himself amidst all difficulties, Fang Tangjing finally transformed into a person like Song Shijie who begged for life for the people, and finally reversed his destiny.
And this story is placed in the local culture of the Greater Bay Area and has been passed down. Historically, Fang Tangjing did exist. Fang Tangjing, a lawyer in the late Qing Dynasty, was famous in Guangdong folklore for being cunning and bullying the people, and was known as the "Twister Master". He has repeatedly appeared as a supporting villain in Cantonese films and TV dramas. Perhaps the most well-known one is "Fang Tangjing" (1994) directed by Wang Jing and starring Zhou Xingchi, in which Wu Qihua played the treacherous and sinister Fang Tangjing. Fraud, setting up a frame-up to turn the plaintiff into a defendant.
Song Shijie was originally the fictional character "Song Shijie" in the drum song "Purple Golden Hairpin", which was later adapted into the Peking Opera "Four Jinshi", and then the Cantonese opera "The Death Judge" adapted from "The Four Jinshi" gradually spread among the people. He was mistakenly thought to be one of the four major lawyers in Guangdong in the late Qing Dynasty. Song Shijie has been adapted into countless film and television works. The most familiar one is "The Death Judge" (1992) directed by Johnnie To. The character Song Shijie played by Stephen Chow originally fought lawsuits for evil people for money. Later, he was dismissed due to divine punishment. hands, and turned to seek justice for the poor people.
"The King" takes Fang Tangjing, who has always been a supporting character, as the protagonist. He is a villain when he appears. In the middle and later stages, he transforms into the well-known "Song Shijie", which is already unconventional. The first half of the play shows Fang Tangjing, as a profit-seeking litigator, starting from facing the dark side of his past, gradually awakening and reconciling with the past, and turning into a "Song Shijie" who is dedicated to upholding justice. The most exciting thing is the final courtroom showdown, in which his former subordinate "Fang Tangjing" imitates the role of the wealthy businessman's lawyer, performing a show where the "I" of the present defeats the "I" of the past. The literary and philosophical nature of this play has been brought to a new level.
The emphasis on both Chinese and Western expressions on the stage and the local awareness
The Qing Dynasty court meets the form of Western musicals, and the lyrics, music and story are blended smoothly and naturally, without being obtrusive and distinctive. This is the success of "The Great King".
At the beginning of the play, as the drums symbolizing "ascension to the court" began to sound, the storyteller came on stage and read out a seven-character quatrain: "The stick never has a heavenly disguise, and it twists and turns violently in the court, and it will be difficult to turn over the snow in June through the ages. Let’s look at a generation of powerful kings!” The drum beat gradually accelerated, and the old woman shouted “Redress for grievance——” in a Cantonese opera style, trying to draw the audience into the atmosphere of an ancient courtroom in one second.
Hong Kong scholar Dr. Zheng Xiaotong believes that the seven-character quatrain is equivalent to the setting poem in traditional cross talk or storytelling. The drum sound between the verses is similar to the gongs and drums in opera, but the gradually accelerating drum sound is close to the Western music technique. The old woman The cry of injustice imitates Cantonese opera. In just 40 seconds, the composer has pointed out the "time" and "place". At the same time, he uses traditional performance forms (storytelling/opera) and Western music, highlighting the characteristics of this play that pays equal attention to both East and West. Later, the music also included Chinese and Western instruments, Nanyin, folk songs, shu bai lan, Cantonese opera elements, etc. The band performing the music live included cello, bass guitar, pipa, jazz drums and percussion musicians spanning various music types. , it is rare for the entire court trial process to be expressed in music. Composer Gao Shizhang shows his proficiency in mixing Chinese and Western music.
On this basis, the main creator is also good at using the advantages and expression characteristics of the local culture of the Greater Bay Area to highlight its "locality". During the 20-minute redress of grievance section in the first act, the music in the entire court scene did not stop, and the actors' lines naturally switched between singing/rapping/dialogue, which did not make the audience feel abrupt. Cantonese opera has the advantage of mixed singing and singing. Among the large number of words that need to be narrated and reasoned, the actors sing or rap, including neatly rhymed numbers. The group performers sometimes use chorus to enhance the effect, and the fast tempo and drum beats simultaneously enhance the compactness and tension of the plot. In the third act of "Retribution", where Ah Xi debuts, the song recalls the two of them when they were young, interspersed with local nursery rhymes and sings "I saw the mouse by the stove/I saw Ah Mei tying her braids...".
Thanks to the nourishment of Cantonese music lyrics culture, the lyrics written by Shun Weizhong are full of philosophy and humanistic flavor.
"Spreading White Rice" throws out three questions from Ah Xi:
How can you lower yourself and untie the ties in this hasty life/How many problems in your heart are like stains on the flesh that have not been washed/What nobleness and shame can be together when you look back? The passage of time/Whether love and hate always come together or cancel each other is like a mystery/Ask again whether the relationship in the world is unfinished but it is hard to find the entity/The sudden end is like a show of white rice
Asking how to reduce the pain in the world, whether the essence of all this will change with people Die and disappear together? The awakening of seeking the path is finally letting go. A life is rushed and ends in a blink of an eye. Everything will be gone forever:
. It seems that today I hate you enough to go by together/Love and hate may never be offset/Who can answer this question/Far away Looking at the floating clouds gradually closing/The brilliant flowing clouds gradually getting shorter/The sudden end is like a rice dumpling
And Fang Tangjing’s "Tao Te Ching" made a major turning point, showing the struggle process of his change of mood:
The moment he turned around, the front was filled with rain and mist/Awakening Who is willing to sigh again and again/Fighting death and life must be within the time limit/People in the waves feel doubly difficult to get on the road
After some ideological struggle, Fang Tangjing understood the ways of Confucius, Mencius and Lao Zhuang, and sang out his inner firm declaration: " Be confident and bold, no fear of rain and fog / Seeing the mountains and taking action is better than sighing / Fighting to the death and letting go of the time limit / People are tumbled in the waves, even if it is difficult to get on the road / I have to choose, I have no fear to ask." Even if you have to choose between life and death, No longer afraid of life or death, move forward bravely.
In 1972, Hong Kong's first locally created Chinese musical "White Lady" was staged. The play was produced by Pan Dihua at a cost of one million Hong Kong dollars. The composer was Mr. Gu Jiahui and the lyrics were written by Huang Zhan, Lu Jingwen and Zhuang Nu. In 1980, the newly-established Hong Kong Repertory Theater put the Cantonese version of "Dream on the West Side" on the stage. It was the first Broadway musical performed in Cantonese in Hong Kong. Until 1986, the experimental, small-scale production "Golden House" was staged. It was performed in Cantonese and was considered to be the most Hong Kong musical in the 1980s. Director Pan Guangpui launched a second Cantonese musical in 1994. The drama "Slim Road in the Wind". After that, for a long time, when people talked about Hong Kong musicals, they would think of "Snow Wolf Lake" starring Jacky Cheung in 1997. It premiered for 42 consecutive performances and attracted more than 300,000 people. It was called a blockbuster. represent.
When "The King" premiered, 50 years had passed since the musical "White Queen" was staged. Whether it can ride on the east wind and become a representative of stage dramas on the world stage is worth looking forward to.
Source: Wen Wei Po
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