/kloc-in the summer of 0/950, my father received the notice of entrance examination from Southwest People's Art College.
The examination address is a large conference room in Chongqing Qiujing Middle School. When my father came to Qiujing Middle School, the yard was crowded with people who came to take the exam, most of whom were students from China Theatre Academy. A lesbian in Lenin's clothes shouted the names of candidates at the entrance of the examination room, and the candidates entered the examination room one by one.
About an hour later, I finally called my father's name. Father walked into the examination room and saw a long table in the examination room. Behind the long table sat a row of teachers in dark blue and gray uniforms. The lesbian dressed in Lenin introduced her father's situation to the examiner according to her father's application form. Before entering Southwest People's Art College, my father was a student majoring in drama in China. After the liberation of Chongqing, the drama major was closed for various reasons. My father, who studied acting for a year, entered the newly established Southwest People's Art College under the introduction of a teacher.
My father calmly introduced to the examiner that he had participated in the performance of the opera "White-haired Girl" and played the role of "big lock" in the play.
Several examiners are very interested in their father. They were whispering to each other. Maybe they have seen his performance in White-haired Girl.
An examiner asked, "Besides the white-haired girl, what roles have you played?"
The father replied, "Eisenhower".
Examiners looked at each other: "What play?"
Father calmly replied, "A living drama that exposes the conspiracy of warmongers."
An examiner whispered to the person next to him that he had seen the drama performance in the square of the monument to the victory of the Anti-Japanese War (later renamed Jie Fangbei), and then turned to his father and said, "OK, don't take the exam, that's it!" He said to the lesbian who called at the table, "Please call the next one."
My father looked at the examiner in surprise and thought, why not take the exam?
The examiner in charge of the exam seemed to see his father's heart and said gently, "You have finished the exam, please go out and have a rest."
It suddenly dawned on my father that they had already seen their own performance, and of course they didn't need to take the exam again. Besides, my father has been studying acting in drama school for one year. For the college, the father should be regarded as a foundation.
My father later learned that the examiner in charge of the exam was Li, director of the Fine Arts Department. Director Li has participated in the revolution since he was a child, and he is a veteran "March 8"-style cadre going south. But he is approachable and has no leadership shelf, which left a deep impression on my father. Later, Director Li became my father's good friend who talked about everything and was my father's mentor and friend who benefited from his life.
Being able to pass the exam smoothly, my father thought that a student majoring in drama like him should have no problem applying for Southwest People's Art College, but he was wrong. Later, only a few dozen students majoring in drama received the registration notice.
The registration place is also in Qiujing Middle School. After registration, the college gave each student two sets of gray-blue school uniforms and a set of cotton school uniforms, as well as 80,000 yuan of living expenses (old money, equivalent to new money in 8 yuan). Because the college is still in preparation, the college temporarily put his father in the band of the experimental troupe. From then on, my father began a new life: eating in the courtyard of Qiujing Middle School, with a class surrounded by a circle, dishes in enamel washbasins, cooked pork, cabbage, tofu, vermicelli and so on. Steamed bread and rice are all eaten at will. Accommodation in the group dormitory, each with a single bed, unlike the bunk beds in the original drama school. Dad was very excited at that time, because he no longer had to worry about dressing and eating. He sincerely felt that the * * * production party really worked for the people. Father secretly made up his mind that he must study hard and devote himself to the party's literary and artistic undertakings.
In September, 1950, Southwest People's Art College was formally established, located in Jiulongpo, Chongqing. It is divided into three departments, namely drama department, fine arts department and music department, and an experimental troupe. My father and classmates left the experimental troupe band and moved to Jiulongpo to study drama.
Three departments of the college also have specialized courses. The students are all active cadres from various military art troupes and come to the college for further study. They are all dressed in military uniforms and uniforms, and one of them is a battalion-level cadre who came to study with the correspondent. There are five or six hundred people in the whole college, and there is a guard company at the entrance of the college, standing guard with guns, just like the military school.
Some famous musicians, artists and writers were invited to teach in this university. For example, Ai Wu, a writer, teaches literature, and Liu Kaiqu, a sculptor, teaches art. Only the drama department, except the department leader and the political teacher, is taught by the original drama teacher. Therefore, the course is no stranger, but many Soviet playing systems (that is, stanislavski's system) have been added to the teaching, and there are also some criticisms on European and American playing.
One day, several military trucks drove into the Southwest People's Art College in Jiulongpo, which was full of Sichuan opera boxes and some Sichuan opera artists. The college specially allocated a dormitory building for them to live in, and the canteen held a party for them. Practice in the playground in the morning, walk on the top, practice leg press's voice, rehearse on the stage of the college auditorium in the morning, and perform Sichuan Opera for all teachers and students in the evening.
It turns out that this group of Sichuan opera actors are all famous Sichuan opera actors from all over Sichuan, such as Zhou Qihe, Liu, Yang Youhe, Polo, Yuan Yukun, Xu Qianyun and Chen Shufang. In order to participate in the first national opera performance. Every day, they are famous traditional Sichuan operas, such as The Story of Liu Yin and Yu He Bridge.
Because most of the teachers and students in the college are from other provinces, and even some of them are Sichuanese, and because they have rarely or never enjoyed Sichuan Opera in the past, they are not familiar with the gongs, drums and vocals of Sichuan Opera. At first, people were not very interested in Sichuan Opera. However, the college is militarized. At seven o'clock every night, all departments and classes blow their whistles, queue up for admission, take their seats in the specified area, and are not allowed to leave during the performance. In this way, the teachers and students of the whole hospital observed it for a month.
The superb skills and wonderful performances of these famous Sichuan opera artists gradually infected the teachers and students of the college, and the more they watched them, the more they liked them. Finally, they fell in love with it until the troupe set off for Beijing, and they were still reluctant to go. When Sichuan Opera entered the college, we learned from the dean's summary report that the leaders of the college had a good intention: in order to cultivate truly outstanding artistic talents and let these future artists create excellent works with the soul of China, the college spared no effort, material resources and funds to invite a huge Sichuan Opera Troupe to perform for students for more than a month, so that these students studying music, art and drama in the college could learn nutrition from national art and improve their national artistic accomplishment.
When the film "White-haired Girl" was shown in Chongqing, the college also organized students to walk dozens of kilometers from the location of Jiulongpo College to the urban cinema to observe and study. At that time, unlike now, there were no buses, and hundreds of college teachers and students had to walk into the city. Although the film doesn't start until 7 pm, the students will leave the college in the afternoon. In order to solve the problem of eating, each of them arrived at the cinema at six o'clock, ate dry food at the door, and then went to the cinema to watch. It's past ten o'clock in the evening when the movie is over, and everyone walks back to Jiulongpo. By the time we got to the university dormitory, it was almost dawn. Although this observation is hard, the college still requires students to persevere. This shows that college leaders attach great importance to students' learning, and my father has also honed his perseverance, exercised his physique, and learned nutrition from Chinese arts and film and television arts.
1953, the Southwest People's Art College was abolished, the Fine Arts Department was changed to sichuan fine arts institute, the Music Department moved to Chengdu to establish the Sichuan Conservatory of Music, and the Drama Department merged with the Southwest People's Art Troupe to establish the Southwest People's Art Theatre, so that parents could graduate early and take part in the work.
Southwest People's Art Theatre is located in Baoan Road, Chongqing. The entrance is a four-story building. The office, meeting room and various departments of the theater are all in this building. There is a yard behind the office building, with a basketball court and volleyball court. On the left is a two-story building, with a library on the ground floor, a theater dormitory upstairs, an actress dormitory on the left and an actor dormitory on the right. There is a three-story building on the right side of the yard, which is the dormitory of the song and dance troupe. There is a three-story building in front of the yard, which is the dormitory of the troupe. On the left of this building is the rehearsal space, and on the right is the dining room. There are five or six hundred cast members in the theater, all of whom work and live in this yard, just like a big family. Dancers practice in the yard in the morning, band members practice music, singers practice their voices, and drama actors practice reading. At dusk, some people play basketball, some people play volleyball and some people practice parallel bars in the yard. It's really lively. When it's time to eat, there are dozens of tables in the dining hall. Every table is filled with chicken, duck and fish. Men and women are talking and laughing. Everyone lives in such a good environment as a family. Really happy.
(To be continued)