Amid the applause of the audience, the curtain was closed again, and the staff began a new round of busy work. The audience also took the opportunity to start activities and chat, waiting for the next scene to begin.
"Isn't the scene just now good?" Li Xuanying commented: "I heard that the audience will like it more if the male and female characters have some more emotionally complex interactions, and that seems to be the case."
"I don't quite understand this." Guo Kang admitted: "But I think the most important thing is how to express emotions on stage so that the audience can actually feel it, right?"
"This is really..." Li Xuanying thought for a moment and said, "I know the people in their troupe. The actors from Philotes and the actors from The Sun are indeed in a relationship."
"That's right, then maybe you really understand this emotion." Guo Kang nodded, and then thought of another question.
"Huh? I remember that in serious Greek plays, actresses were not allowed to appear, right?"
"Yes, this is the ancestral method. It has been like this since the classical era." Li Xuanying said: "Actresses appear directly, usually not in serious dramas, but the kind that rural villagers like... very direct Repertoire.”
"Relatively serious scripts, especially the most important tragedies and historical dramas, must in principle use all male actors. However, these roles are mainly symbolic. Everyone wears masks, and later dramatizations were introduced. , it’s not a big problem for male actors to play female roles.”
Guo Kang opened his mouth and paused for a moment: "Then what we are watching is a serious drama, right?"
"This is recommended by the church as a key publicity tool. No matter how dishonest Master Wang is, he should pay some attention to it." Li Xuanying pointed out.
Guo Kang thought for a while and wondered whether this couple was serious.
——Of course, after he thought about it more seriously, he felt that in Greece, this might be a serious couple.
"I understand, then it's no problem." He said: "It seems that these details are worth noting. In the future, we may be able to summarize a set of our own drama routines. We can do whatever the Romans like. "
"This is not considered Roman, it is a feature of Greek new comedy and contemporary Italian street drama." Li Xuanying seemed to be quite knowledgeable and told him: "Of course, we don't need to completely learn from ancient Rome. The comedy of ancient Rome is actually Not very successful.”
"Is there such a difference?" Guo Kang is really not sure about this.
"Actually, the level is not as good as that of the Greeks." Li Xuanying replied: "But it would take a long time to talk about this. Because the development of Greek drama is relatively complete and clear. It was not these comedies that were praised at the beginning. But a tragedy.”
"The tragedies of the classical Greek era are different from those of today. There is often no clear binary of good and evil. The characters are more complex and often difficult to summarize with simple good or bad."
"The contradiction in tragedy is not as simple as the contradiction between good people and villains. Strictly speaking, it should be the contradiction between people's will and fate - or in other words, people's free choice and some kind of inevitability that is difficult to change. 'Conflict between."
"To use an example that we can better understand, it is that Prime Minister Zhuge died of illness in Wuzhangyuan." Seeing that Guo Kang still didn't understand, he directly gave an example: "Zhuge Liang's free will, and the historical fate of the ultimate failure of reviving the Han Dynasty, produced This created an extremely intense conflict, which gave future generations the feeling that 'it depends on people to make things happen, and it's up to God to make things happen'."
"As the saying goes, 'The hero is not free until he is transported'. This emotion is actually very similar to the classic Greek tragedy."
"That's it." Guo Kang thought for a while and felt that they were indeed somewhat similar.
"There must still be differences. After all, the Greeks at that time didn't have a long history, and their sense of history was not as strong as ours now. They did have a vague sense of the general trends hidden in history and society, but they could not summarize it. Even though I don't understand it clearly, I can't understand the logic. Therefore, in the play, this feeling is often classified as some relatively 'imaginary' personal destiny and chanted." Li Xuanying gestured and tried hard to explain.
"In comparison, we now have a lot of personal experience with the general trend of the rise and fall of history. We can also empathize with the powerlessness of individuals during it, which makes the story much thicker."
"But in terms of aesthetics, I feel that both sides are similar. Prometheus and Zhuge Liang are both typical tragic heroes."
"That's right." Guo Kang thought for a while and agreed: "I think this kind of story is quite shocking."
"Yes, tragedy does not mean to make people feel sad. The Greeks at that time tended to believe that the main point of tragedy is to reflect the nobility of the hero." Li Xuanying said: "Therefore, they would even view it with an optimistic attitude Tragedy believes that although the hero is destroyed, his spirit is invincible. This ending cannot be classified as tragic, and can even be regarded as a kind of spiritual perfection."
"It sounds very profound." Guo Kang said.
"The wise men of ancient Greece regarded tragedies as education rather than entertainment." Li Xuanying said: "According to Aristotle, tragedies describe serious events with the purpose of purifying people's emotions. Follow Compared with today’s popular dramas, there is still a big difference.”
"But this type of drama only flourished for a while." He thought about it and said, "I remember hearing someone say that the tragedy family was not dominant for a long time. After its heyday, comedy soon became the mainstream. ”
"Is there anything special about this?" Guo Kang really didn't understand.
"To put it simply, the environment has changed, and people no longer believe in gods and destiny as much as before." Li Xuanying said: "During the height of the classical era, the Greeks were very superstitious. Failure to worship the gods of the city-state could be punished with the death penalty. A serious crime, for which Socrates was accused and killed."
"In this atmosphere, people believe that God's will arranges the development of events and human encounters. Therefore, in epics and tragedies, God's will can be used to explain issues of fate."
"But in about...the late fifth century before the Era of Brother Tian, Athens encountered major political and military crises. The original order of the Greek world gradually failed, and philosophers began to advocate rationality. As a result, people began to doubt God more and more."
"Decades after Socrates' death, the Greeks had been so frustrated that they no longer believed in the justice and authority of gods. They still nominally believed in the gods of the city-state, but the people began to believe that gods would not interfere in human lives, leading to Attitudes towards religion have also become much more negative.”
"If this continues, will the Greeks follow our development direction?" Guo Kang suddenly felt that this trend was quite interesting.
"I don't know about this. Maybe if time passes long enough, it's possible." Li Xuanying didn't seem to have thought about it seriously: "But I think Greeks are indeed more pragmatic than other Europeans, and it may have something to do with history. …”
"I actually heard this knowledge from other people, so I didn't think too deeply about it. If you are interested, you can also chat with them directly." He thought for a while and said, "Although it's a drama History, but it should also reflect social changes.”
"So overall, can we summarize the context?" Guo Kang asked.
"On the whole, there is an increasing tendency to write about ordinary people directly." Li Xuanying said: "The protagonists of comedies often have nothing to do with gods and are not heroes. Comedies at this time mainly satirized politics and immorality in society. Phenomenon is the main thing.”
"The source of comedy is originally the vulgar farce in the countryside. In addition, the plot is relatively popular, so it is easily welcomed by more people. In addition, the playwrights of this period also began to actively cater to the audience and design the plot."
"This is the direction that everyone will choose." Guo Kang said.
"Of course. Even tragedians are changing their past habits. For example, the later writer Euripides began to study how to add a relatively happy ending to the script." Li Xuanying introduced the classic characters: "Because traditional tragedies , it is said that spiritual perfection and sublimation have been achieved, but many people still find it difficult to accept it. I have no choice but to change it."
"This is especially true for comedy. Their target audience is larger in number but has a relatively lower cultural level, so they can only make further changes. For example, these ordinary Greeks prefer happy ending stories and are not interested in profound philosophy. I am not very interested in thinking. Therefore, comedies are becoming more and more popular, and the storylines tend to have happy endings to cater to the audience."
"In addition, comedy itself is constantly changing with the development of the times. In terms of context, there are probably a few more." He listed it out.
"First of all, it's the scene. The earliest dramas did not have special scenes, or even the interaction of multiple actors, but a one-person performance. This person would play all the roles in various symbolic ways."
"Later, Aeschylus changed the stage configuration and increased it to two people. Only then did 'confrontation' appear, and it was also the first time that 'dramatic conflict' really appeared on the stage. That's why he has such a high reputation in the history of drama. status."
"Sophocles increased the number of people to three, and also expanded the size of the chorus to more than a dozen people. The chorus at that time not only had to sing background music, but also had to dance to indicate the change of environment. In addition, he had to play the role of narrator and commentator. These functions were not gradually separated until later, when the play became more and more complex."
"But on the Greek side, it was never very rapid. It wasn't until the rise of Rome that theater really suddenly expanded in scale."
"The ancient Romans were different from the Greeks. They did not like performances that were too abstract and required thinking and imagination, but liked real big scenes. Their own formal dramas were also different from the Greeks. They did not come from the Dionysian sacrifices, but from the Dionysian sacrifices. It comes from a kind of war dance called 'Pilika'. Therefore, during this period, the stage expanded rapidly, and the number of performers increased to hundreds."
"For example, there is a part in the plot where you drive a carriage to fight. When the Greeks performed it, they might use dance steps and lyrics to express it, but the Romans would actually drive a carriage up and fight on the spot."
"Isn't this just a gladiatorial performance?" Guo Kang said with a smile.
"It was indeed quickly combined with gladiatorial performances." Li Xuanying said: "The Romans did not have a separate theater for a long time, but there were many dramatic gladiatorial performances. The design level of some gladiatorial arenas is no less than that of the Greeks. . During the construction, careful layout was used, and it was even possible to fill the site with water and bring boats in to perform water battle scenes."
"These technologies also allowed Roman drama to develop rapidly in terms of scenery and props, which can be said to be completely different from the Greek style."
"I really didn't pay much attention to it before. There are so many scenes performed in the gladiatorial fight." Guo Kang recalled it and found that his impression of the gladiatorial fight seemed to be that the two sides were fighting to the death.
"In fact, performance is the main part of gladiatorial combat." Li Xuanying said: "Even the gladiator's two-two fighting performances, in most cases, are just performances and are different from actual combat."
"Gladiators have been specially trained. Their movements tend to be exaggerated and fancy, and they also pay attention to reducing the probability of casualties. After all, a skilled gladiator has a high status and a very high price. Gladiator bosses are reluctant to let them do it casually. died."
"When there are really a lot of casualties in the gladiatorial arena, it is basically because the organizers deliberately let prisoners, prisoners of war and the like join in in order to create a bloody scene. Most of these people have no fighting skills and are in poor condition. They are just used They will die. When they encounter well-trained professional gladiators, they will often be killed in batches. But this is more of a performative massacre than a fight, and the outcome is actually already doomed."
"People at that time really liked bloody scenes..." Guo Kang said with emotion.
"Actually, it has always been the same." Li Xuanying said: "But even so, the cost is too high. So there is another way, which is to let the beasts in and let the gladiators kill the animals on the spot."
"Oh, later they also let the Christian believers in and let the animals kill the believers on the spot." He added: "After all, there are too many Christian believers, they will pop up everywhere, they are not worth the money."
"Well, we are now considered Christian Christians." Guo Kang quickly reminded.
"Huh?" Li Xuanying was stunned for a moment before reacting: "Oh, I forgot..."
"..." Guo Kang didn't know what to say for a moment.
"Well, I'm just trying to summarize the development from an objective point of view." Li Xuanying defended: "In short, the official drama of the Romans probably has this idea."
"However, not many of these plays have survived to this day. The Romans paid too much attention to the spectacle. They focused on grand scenery and good music effects, but ignored the script itself. Even when they copied Greek plays, they liked Only perform the climax and ignore the storyline before and after. In this environment, it is difficult to produce good works."
(End of chapter)
