On November 28th, the play "Zheng Banqiao" created and arranged by Yangzhou Yang Opera Research Institute was staged in Beijing Mei Lanfang Grand Theater. The play was starred by "Prince of Yang Opera" Li Zhengcheng, who has won the "Plum Blossom Award", "Wenhua Performance Award" and "Magnolia Awards" leading role award. Li Zhengcheng starred in a light and witty light comedy style, so that a modern aesthetic imagery, do not flatter the rich and powerful, sympathetic to the people, easygoing, honest and clean Zheng Banqiao "live" on the stage.
Yang Opera "Zheng Banqiao" to Zheng Banqiao in his middle and twilight years twice living in Yangzhou as the main line, and in the middle of his Shandong grain as a wedge, the structure of the whole play. Zheng Banqiao's strange relationship with his wife Rao Wuniang, his reunion with the official Lu Baosun, and his feud with the salt merchant Zhang Cong, are three relationships that unfold to depict the city life of Yangzhou in the Qing Dynasty. The play uses fictionalized characters and the folk anecdotes of Zheng Banqiao, who was famous for his "weirdness", to vividly illustrate what was so "weird" about the "Eight Strangenesses".
The play is written by Luo Zhou, president of Jiangsu Provincial Drama and Literature Creative Institute and a first-class screenwriter, directed by Han Jianying, a first-class director, starring Li Zhengcheng, and performed by Peng Kaiyi, Chen Jun, Zhang ZhuoNan, Shen Renmei, Wang Hai, Xu Mengxue, Xu Fan, and You Jiaqi. As a new historical drama, "Zheng Banqiao" combines elements of Zheng Banqiao's poems, paintings and characters through choreography and lighting to create a poetic stage space. On the basis of the aesthetic principle of "capitalization and small realism", it provides more performance space for the actors. Director Han Jianying said that on the basis of maintaining the characteristics of the opera itself and the local features of Yang Opera, the production strives to use a rich variety of artistic techniques, so that Zheng Banqiao's upright and honest personality, his concern for the people and compassion for the people, and his debauchery and humor can be fully demonstrated.
Li Zhengcheng is a leading figure in the art of modern Yang Opera, playing Zheng Banqiao is another breakthrough for him, portraying a "four-season orchid, a hundred sections of evergreen bamboo, a stone that will remain undefeated for a thousand years and a man who will remain unchanged for a thousand years". Especially the last section of more than ten minutes of solo singing, clear plate, dresser, large openings, joint bomb, stacked word continental plate, Daoxiang ...... the articulation of several kinds of songs naturally and smoothly, Zheng Banqiao's life to sing, the singer's voice and feelings, the listener stirring.
The representative singing of the play for the famous Yang Opera "Banqiao Daoxiang". Li Zhengcheng laughed that he had been singing "Daoxiang" for decades, but it was the first time he played "Zheng Banqiao" on the stage, which also fulfilled his wish: "Zheng Banqiao is actually in the world, and his behavior will be a bit strange, but his character is out of the mud. His character, however, is untainted by mud, always noble."
Translator: BAI Jing
Reviewer: LIU Jin
