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Lu Xun (1881-1936) is regarded as China's greatest writer of the 20th century. On the 120th anniversary of his birth, two dramatic interpretations of his life will be staged in the capital this April.
One will be "Master Lu Xun" featuring songs in folk rhyme style written by Zhang Guangtian. The other will be the drama "Lu Xun" directed by Li Liuyi. These two works, very different in style and message may well reignite the interest of modern audiences in the life and thought of this great writer.
Between 1907 and 1936, Lu Xun finished three collections of short stories. Two of the stories therein, "A Madman's Diary" and "The True Story of Ah Q," stand as the epitome of his work. And his 16 collections of essays made him one of the most significant essayists of 20th century China.
Yet, he was more than a "literary man." Late Chairman Mao Zedong paid him as "The Chief commander of China's cultural revolution, he was not only a great man of letters but a great thinker and revolutionary."
"He is a warrior more than a 'literary man'," wrote Lin Yutang, one of Lu's contemporaries and a prolific writer, in the introduction to his work "The Wisdom of China and India," a book dealing partly with Chinese literature.
"(Lu Xun) is one of the most biting satirists of Chinese culture..." he added. "Behind some of his short epigrams one gets a glimpse of the gigantic spiritual and mental turmoil of a China in revolt against the past. Lusin (Lu Xun) represents the Literature of Revolt."
In his introduction to "The True Story of Ah Q," one of his immortal works, Lu Xun declared that he wanted to portray the "silent soul of the people" which for thousands of years "grew, faded and withered quietly like grass under a great rock."
"Fierce-browed, I coldly stand up to the evil people; head-bowed, I serve the people like a cow feeding its calf."
This couplet, taken from a poem by Lu Xun, is cherished by many who see it as the epitome of the character of Chinese people: righteousness, honesty, and respect for humanity.
As a youth Lu Xun lived in a gloomy, failure-ridden atmosphere. Among his family, who lived in a typical courtyard home, were several unsuccessful uncles who were addicted to opium. The imprisonment of his grandfather, a government official, together with the sickness and death of his father, exhausted the family's wealth. In spite of the family shame, Lu Xun worked hard and in 1902 won a government scholarship to study in Japan. He later returned to China to devote his life and writing to the nation's new cultural movement.
In 1993, long before Zhang Guangtian finished the script of "Master Lu Xun" in 1998, Li Liuyi had completed his drama "Lu Xun." For both playwrights, Lu Xun was the ideal character through whom to express their vision of society.
Zhang started writing his play in 1993, when the Shanghai Film Production Studio asked him to write a play about Lu Xun. He began to write a biographical drama but eventually turned to the musical genre. He couldn't find a director at the time, so the play got relegated to the back burner.
This year, the Central Experimental Drama Institute chose to take on "Master Lu Xun" as its most important play of the year. Director of the institute Zhao Youliang also invited Zhang Guangtian to join the institute so that he could better cooperate with the troupe members.
Li Liuyi has been reading Lu Xun's works for many years and holds him to be the finest writer in China. But over the past eight years, Li failed to find anyone interested in bringing his drama to the stage.
Now, at last, the play has its chance to come to life, but Li is still a bit disappointed, as he had planned to invite Jiang Wen, Wang Zhiwen or some other famous actors to act in the drama, but they were all busy with other commissions.
Every Chinese person has his or her own image of Lu Xun. No two are the same. In Zhang Guangtian's musical, most of the lyrics are taken from Lu Xun's articles or letters.
Zhang plans to put the orchestra and chorus at the back of the stage, while the front will be taken up by four singers who will use traditional folk song forms to give shape and character to Lu Xun, his wife Xu Guangping, his students Liu Hezhen, Feng Xuefeng, Rou Shi and others. As for the negative characters, the four singers will render them through tradition folk opera forms.
A narrator will carry the development of the play, and the singers will attempt to capture every nuance of the writer's life and friends in their interpretation of their roles.
As a demonstration, Zhang Guangtian sang Lu Xun's lines that come just before his death. It is surprising that Lu Xun's writing adapts itself so wonderfully to folk tunes. The singing is subdued but rich in content, easy for the audience to understand and it provokes deep thought.
While Zhang Guangtian enriches his version of Lu Xun with musical elements, Li Liuyi is trying to strike a delicate balance between openness and reserve in his drama. Li feels that Lu Xun is such a complex character that he can hardly represent this great writer in a single story. At one point, he picks the moment of Lu Xun's death and amplifies it, to bring forth his view of Lu Xun's spiritual world, the time, society and history.
Li Liuyi divides his drama into three acts, titled "Na Han (Crying Out)," "Liang Di Shu (Correspondence)," and "Ye Cao (Wild Grass)," three of Lu Xun's most famous pieces. Li believes the most sparkling part will be the final act, which will bring the drama to its climax.
With Wu Gang playing Lu Xun, Chen Xiaoyi his wife Xu Guangping, and Yang Qing as Aunt Xianling, who was a tragic character in one of Lu Xun's novels. Li's drama has a cast of 30.
"Master Lu Xun" will debut on April 12 at the China Children's Theatre in downtown Beijing's Wangfujing. Li Liuyi's drama "Lu Xun" will start around April 15 at the nearby Capital Theatre.
Although neither of them intended to stage the dramas so close together, both Zhang and Li believe it's a good chance to bring Lu Xun into modern people's minds.
"I hope that more people will think about Lu Xun today, because his thoughts aren't old for us. On the contrary, you'll probably be surprised at the timeliness of his ideas," said Zhang Guangtian.
"No matter whether it is in literature or philosophy, Lu Xun is without doubt China's foremost writer of the past century," said Li Liuyi. "Lu Xun had a profound understanding and insight into the human character. His works still rings true today."
(China Daily 03/20/2001)
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