A sketch in a broad sense is actually a mini-drama, which can be a comedy or a tragedy. In short, a sketch is a work that shows the plot and deduces the characters on the stage through actors.
In the history of the Spring Festival Evening, almost all the sketches we saw were funny comedy sketches, and of course there were "comedy" sketches that wanted to be funny but couldn't. Among these sketches, if measured from the wonderful degree of the plot and the meticulous degree of characterization, the most authentic sketch should undoubtedly be 1993 Spring Festival Evening's "Zhang San Qi Man".
Peisi Chen said that the core of the highest comedy sketch is tragedy. And "Zhang San Qi Man" is also one of the best sketches to interpret this sentence.
First, Zhang Sanqi's creative background
Although "Zhang San Qi Man" is a sketch of 1993 Spring Festival Evening, the script was written by 1986. The authors are Wang Zhen (formerly known as Li Hui) and Huo Bingquan. Their original intention of writing this script is not to engage in comedy sketches, not to go to the Spring Festival Evening, but to accumulate character material.
Until the Spring Festival Evening of 1993, Zhang Ziyang, the director of the Spring Festival Evening, met two alumni at an alumni gathering and recommended the play. His first impression is that this sketch is more like an ordinary drama, because there are no comedy or funny lines.
However, alumni all think that the plot and characters of this sketch are excellent, and it is a pity not to attend the Spring Festival Evening. But the problem is coming again. Even if the characters in the plot are excellent, actors are needed to interpret the characters and the plot. Once such a literary script is not well played, it will be embarrassing.
When Zhang Ziyang took the script back to the director group of the Spring Festival Evening, two groups of famous sketch directors saw it. He also thinks the book is very good, but he needs a good actor to perform it. Finally, after several discussions, they chose Yan Shunkai, a veteran of the Spring Festival Evening, as the leading role.
Yan Shunkai, a classic Ah Q, was the first actor in China to win the Chaplin Golden Cane Award. On the Spring Festival Evening of 1983, Yan Shunkai performed three sketches by himself. Because he and Gaowa Siqin's "Visit the Factory" came before Wang Jingyu's "Eat Chicken", you can also say that Yan Shunkai was the first comedian to perform a sketch in the Spring Festival Evening.
The director's vision in the Spring Festival Gala is diabolical, and Yan Shunkai's artistic attainments in interpreting little people are second to none in China, especially his facial expression control.
As for the other actors in the sketch, the director group of the Spring Festival Evening will find their own matches, and two groups of friends are guest stars of the retired old leaders in the sketch. Director Wang, the new leader, is played by another director. They also ensure the quality of supporting roles and sketches.
As for the other two main supporting roles, they may have been unknown at that time, but they all became famous actors later. Especially the hometown of two groups of friends who play Li Si's director.
Second, the essence and connotation of the essay Zhang San Qi Man
Before the Spring Festival Evening, although Zhang Sanqi's script was good and the actors were good, the director group still lacked confidence in this sketch because it was too literary and ordinary, like a drama, or it looked more like a tragedy.
Surprisingly, however, in the selection after the Spring Festival Evening, Zhang San Qi Man beat Zhao Benshan's Happy New Year and won the first prize of the Spring Festival Evening sketch program. This result surprised many people, but it also proved that Zhang Sanqi's script was really good, the actors were excellent, and the audience was very knowledgeable.
So, why did Zhang Sanman win Zhao Benshan?
We might as well review the main plot of the sketch "Zhang San Qi Man", which is the life of a little person who is troubled by misunderstanding and entanglement.
Zhang San is the janitor of the factory. He is cautious, but the more careful he is, the more likely he is to offend people.
First, I had a little misunderstanding with the new leader about whether to go out to buy food at work, and then I had a little misunderstanding with the fat female worker in the factory about whether to report her to buy food at work.
Then Zhang San struggled to explain his attitude to the old leader and was misunderstood by the new leader, Director Wang.
Zhang San helped Li Si to collect the eggs he sent, and he and Li Si had a misunderstanding about whether they took someone else's eggs.
The fat lady lost her clothes. Zhang San had a misunderstanding with the fat lady on purpose.
It can be said that in these ten minutes, Zhang Sanhe and four colleagues have had several misunderstandings, some of which are coincidences and bad luck, and some are caused by their tangled mentality.
Around Zhang San's entanglement and various misfortunes, the audience laughed one after another. However, some viewers said that they didn't like this sketch, not because it was not funny, but because it was so funny that the audience could easily think of themselves. At that time, laughter was a wry smile or even a mockery, not a mockery of Zhang San, but a mockery of himself.
Is Zhang San a bad person in Zhang San's Man? Obviously not. Is he a good man? I cann't tell you how good it is I still have many shortcomings of ordinary people.
In fact, Zhang San is an ordinary person. He is as helpless as we are. He often struggles with other people's opinions. He wants to do everything well and let everyone recognize himself. But in the end, he is very tired, not to mention being black and blue by life.
So when the audience sees Zhang San, it's like seeing themselves. Zhang San's man is not so much Yan Shunkai playing Zhang San as Zhang San playing most people.
Then, why did the screenwriter ask him to call him "Zhang San", which has the same name as the symbol? Because he is a symbol.
Third, after "Zhang San Qi Man"
There are two kinds of comedy sketches, one is "keeping people alive" and the other is "keeping people alive". If you insist on giving the title to Zhang Sanqi, it should be classified as "supporting people". Therefore, several actors in this sketch did not rely on this sketch to get higher honors in the future.
Teacher Yan Shunkai is relatively better. Although his "Zhang San" is not as representative as Ah Q, it can also become a classic figure in the middle and late stage of his acting career. As a veteran of the Spring Festival Gala, Yan Shunkai has been on the stage for many times since then. Especially 1999 and Zhang Kaili's Love Father as a Son is also a very classic sketch.
The most touching thing is the memory of a director in the Spring Festival Evening. 200 1 The essay "Golden Wedding Film Festival" co-authored by Mr. Yan Shunkai and Bai Qing won the prize at the last minute. He checked out on the morning of New Year's Eve and kept apologizing to the director group of the Spring Festival Gala: "I'm really sorry that it took so much money and so long for you to finish your work." His sincerity made the director group of the Spring Festival Evening speechless.
In 20 17, Yan Shunkai died of illness at the age of 80.
Zhao Lingqi, who plays a fat woman worker in Zhang San Qi Man, looks like her mother Peng Yu. Interestingly, both of them are good at sitcoms. Peng Yu starred in The Northeast Family, while Zhao Lingqi starred in The Story of the Waiting Room.
Yang Xinming, who plays Li Si in Zhang San's Man, embarked on an extraordinary road of acting. Although the role of Li Si is not much, there is one detail that "exposes" his acting skills.
When Zhang San accidentally dropped the egg basket on the ground, we obviously saw that it contained fake egg, and an egg even jumped out of the basket.
Li Si was angry and picked up the eggs that jumped out of the basket, and then his movements of lifting the basket were particularly vivid. He leaned back, hid, and stretched out his hand with the basket as if to avoid the egg liquid flowing out of the basket. This seemingly casual performance detail highlights Yang Xinming's acting skills.
Yang Xinming is from Xi. In his early years, he starred in the comedy film Falling Eggs with Guo Da and Cai Ming. After Zhang San's Man, he continued to take root in comedy sketch stage, and cooperated with Guo Da and Cai Ming in many new works.
Perhaps limited by his own image, Yang Xinming didn't develop on the sketch stage. He returned to Xi 'an, the stage of drama and the field of film and television. A TV series "The Road to Grave Robbery" made Yang Xinming famous in the field of film and television, and he played Song Xuruo as a model of acting school.
Since then, Yang Xinming has started a brilliant supporting career. He has performed well in various film and television dramas, such as The Battle of Changsha, No War in Beiping, No Man's Land, Desire for Survival, Ghost Blowing Lights, Ancient City, etc.
Best of all, if you don't look at the cast, sometimes you won't realize that all these unique roles are played by Yang Xinming alone.
Today, Yang Xinming has long been a minor celebrity in domestic film and television circles, and has also become a famous golden supporting role. It's just that many people didn't expect that he won the first prize of CCTV Spring Festival Evening sketch so early.
It's gold. It will shine sooner or later.