1, experimental drama mainly appears in front of rebellion and denial of tradition. Abandon the utilitarian function of traditional realism in drama, pay no attention to the specific problems of social reality and the propaganda and education function of drama, but emphasize the macro sense and philosophical sense of drama, or tap the deep human psychology. Gao Xingjian's Savage, for example, is a reflection on man, nature and human cultural history. The station is actually China's version of Waiting for Godot. Secondly, experimental drama abandons the traditional objective and realistic drama form, and expresses uncertain themes in an abstract and virtual way under the uncertain stage time and space. The most typical scripts are the Rubik's Cube created by students of Shanghai Normal University and Jesus Confucius and the Beatles Lennon created by Sha. Thirdly, the creative, directing and performing methods of experimental drama no longer use stanislavski's experience and traditional methods of reproduction to reflect the objective reality. They use the stream of consciousness of symbolism, expressionism, absurdity and western modernism to express some thoughts and feelings of the author. For example, Zhao Changkang, who died, can appear three times in "There is heat flow outside the house". "It expresses a philosophical social theme: if a person escapes from the fierce struggle and retreats into the small circle of individualism, he will inevitably be unable to resist the cold of losing his loved ones from the collective. Only when he is out of the house can there be heat flow and life. " In the station, people can wait until their hair turns white, but what they want to express is their feelings about an absurd situation.
2. Avant-garde drama rebelled against traditional drama in some aspects and created and developed its own distinctive features. A variety of dramas are integrated in one class.
First of all, introduce avant-garde drama and its historical evolution:
Avant-garde drama is a kind of director minority art involving formal exploration and artistic spirit. Under the premise that the commercial market form has been formed, avant-garde drama has gradually moved towards commercialization and popularization.
The word "pioneer" first appeared in18th century and was originally used as a military term. Its nature at least includes these aspects: frontier; Adventure; Difficulty It was not until the second half of19th century that the concept of pioneer was associated with literature and art..
Historical evolution:
Origin:
Chinese mainland's avant-garde drama began in the late 1970s. At that time, the environment was relaxed, and dramatists' groups began to visit abroad to see the development of their plays in various parts of Europe. Some people in China began to make some attempts. At that time, it was called exploration drama.
1, 1980s
In 1980s, Lin Zhaohua and others listed Absolute Signal as the first avant-garde drama. This era is mainly the experiment of rebels in traditional directors. Their experiment caused controversy in the field of drama.
2. The 1990s
In 1990s, Mou Sen, Meng Jinghui and other students started large-scale experiments and achieved certain success.
3. After 2000
Avant-garde drama tends to be silent, and the trend of integration with business is beginning to emerge.
Drama development:
1, China
From the beginning, avant-garde drama has been widely known in China. Many young people regard it as a fashion to watch avant-garde dramas in small theaters, and the consumption of theatrical performances has also begun to be included in the expenses of wage earners. As a result, drama performance began to change the previous outstanding market structure of Beijing people's art, and found a completely different performance style outside the traditional "realistic" performance mode.
His main works are Absolute Signal by Gao Xingjian and Liu Huiyuan, Nirvana of Dog Owner by Liu Jinyun, Three Sisters Waiting for Godot by Lin Zhaohua, Rhino in Love by Meng Jinghui, Life Opinions of Two Dogs, etc.
China's famous avant-garde drama directors include Meng Jinghui, Mou Sen, Zhang Guangtian, Wang Xiaoying, Chu Wang and others.
2. The West
In the west, avant-garde art reached its climax in the 20th century, especially in the field of drama, such as symbolism drama, futuristic theatre's grotesque drama, expressionism drama, Brecht's narrative drama, surrealism drama, Sartre's existentialism drama, the absurd drama, Handke's drama, Reinhardt's adaptation drama, Mainhold's constructivism drama, Aalto's cruel drama, Brooke's space drama, Grotowski's simple drama and so on. The dramas in this period were different, but they all rebelled against the traditional dramas in some aspects and created and developed their own distinctive features. It can be said that avant-garde drama is a building built on the ruins of traditional drama.
After more than two thousand years of development and evolution, western drama entered the realistic stage at the end of 19. This is the highest embodiment of the traditional rationalist drama concept. Realistic drama has concrete material environment, accurate atmosphere of the times, harmonious and stable space, uniform flow of time, logical and reasonable events, plump characters, fluent and natural language, identity and personality; The scenery is real, the lights illuminate the actors and the whole stage, and the performance is strictly limited to the stage; The director organizes rehearsals in advance, the actors try to imitate real life on the stage, and the audience seems to be there; Critics and artists make comments and summaries after the performance. These achievements are based on rationality, and through imitation activities, they pursue real artistic ideas in drama and form a set of theater practices.
Second, introduce experimental drama.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, with the smooth progress of reform and opening-up, people's social hotspots changed, their aesthetic ability improved and their aesthetic taste changed greatly. Coupled with the vigorous development of various cultural forms such as film and television, song and dance, and sports, theater art has been greatly impacted and squeezed. Not only is there a great loss of drama audience, but also drama talents have changed classes. Modern drama, especially drama, is facing an unprecedented crisis. Facing the changing social reality and indifferent audience, the drama industry began to explore new ways of drama development. Playwrights no longer only reflect the social content directly related to reality, but pay attention to the external value of the theme. Instead, we will extend the tentacles of art to the deep layer of society and observe life in multiple dimensions, so as to tap the rich connotation of life and arouse the audience's philosophical thinking about life. The director is no longer just pursuing the realistic reproduction of real life and shaping the typical. Instead, we began to explore the virtual abstract stage design, express the subjective thoughts of the author and director, and tap the deep psychology of the characters in the play; Arouse the emotions of the audience and arouse their philosophical thinking. At the same time, western modernist dramas flooded in. This also provides a good opportunity for dramatists to absorb and learn from foreign dramas, transform traditional dramas and explore new ones. As a result, the experimental drama movement, which lasted for ten years, became popular in China.
The first wave of experimental drama can be traced back to Xie Min's Why I Die. However, it was Ma Zhongjun, Jia Hongyuan and Qu Xinhua's "There is a Heat Flow Outside the House" that really had a great influence in the drama circle and triggered the experimental trend of 1980 drama reform. The works organize the plot with absurd and symbolic modern drama skills, and attract extensive attention from drama and theoretical circles with philosophical themes and novel and unique artistic forms. Since then, Gao Xingjian's Absolute Signal attempts to explore the spiritual world of the characters by means of stream of consciousness. And performed in the form of a small theater for the first time, which once again had a wide impact. These experimental dramas have brought new breath to drama creation, prompting more playwrights to rethink and understand the present situation and concepts of drama. Under this background, the drama circle has launched a big discussion on the concept of drama for several years. This discussion further enlivened the playwrights' thoughts and broadened their artistic horizons. They boldly innovate and explore, and constantly explore the infinite possibilities of drama to express life, making experimental drama a new trend of literature and art with great influence and spectacular effect. Such as Gao Xingjian's Savage and the Station, Liu Jinyun's Nirvana of Dog Master, and Chen Zidu's Sangshuping Chronicle. It was not until the 1990s that the experimental drama movement gradually faded out.