Brief introduction to the scenic spots of Tianjin Theatre Museum (Guangdong Guild Hall);
Located in the south of Gulou in the old city of Tianjin, it is the most complete and largest hall building in Qing Dynasty in Tianjin. It not only embodies the architectural style of Lingnan in China, but also reflects the hardships of Cantonese people living in Tianjin.
About 300 years ago, Guangdong merchants and Fujian and Chaozhou merchants formed a merchant fleet to do business in Tianjin. Their merchant ship, whose bow is painted red and painted with big-eyed chickens, is called big-eyed chicken boat. Every spring, as soon as the monsoon blows, they are loaded with goods and go north along the coast and into Tianjin along the Haihe River. Over time, these businessmen formed three factions: Jianbang (Fujian Gang), Chaobang and Guangbang. In order to facilitate business and reunion, they raised funds to build the Fujian-Guangdong guild hall, and the three gangs took turns to manage the guild hall.
At the end of Daoguang, it happened to be the year of Guangbang. Jianbang and Chaobang refused to serve Guangbang for one year and were not allowed to audit their accounts because a manager owed public funds. Guangbang was excluded from the Fujian-Guangdong Guild Hall.
At the end of Guangxu, Tang, a Cantonese from Tianjin Customs Road, proposed to raise funds to rebuild his guild hall in order to develop and consolidate the influence of Guangbang, and took the lead in donating 4,200 taels of silver. This initiative has received enthusiastic response from Guangbang businessmen. In a short time, he raised more than 90,000 taels of silver, bought the land of the former site of Salt Transportation Department in tianjin drum tower South Street, and began to build a new guild hall. In the thirty-third year of Guangxu (A.D. 1907), the Xinhui Pavilion was completed in 14 10, and was named Guangdong Guild Hall. The clubhouse is like a big quadrangle. Most of the bricks and tiles are bought from Guangdong. The courtyard gate is spacious, the Luohan gable is towering, the halls are all out of the corridor, and the interior decoration is gorgeous, which has Lingnan characteristics. There are more than 300 shops and houses around the guild hall. There is a South Garden in the southeast of the guild hall, where flowers and trees are planted, and a medicine store is set up for Guangdong villagers to rest and recuperate. At that time, there were peach blossom forests and vineyards in the South Garden, and the scenery was beautiful.
The building of the guild hall is magnificent and Lingnan style. It includes door-to-door, main room, supporting room, theater and suite, covering an area of 20 mu. It is the largest and most luxurious hall building in Qing Dynasty in Tianjin. Step into the main entrance of the hall and enter a big quadrangle. There is a brick wall in the south, a big square in the middle, a tall gate in front, and a Haizhu Club plaque hanging under the eaves. The upper end of the main entrance is raised to form a nine-story ladder, which is called the five mountains in the sky. Re-entering the room, there is another quadrangle. The main house and apartment protrude from the porch, pass through the small courtyard behind the main house and enter the main hall. On the east side of the General Assembly Hall are townsman hotels and quadrangle buildings, and on the south side is Nanyuan, commonly known as Peach Blossom Garden.
Theater is the main building of Guangdong Guild Hall in Tianjin. There is a wide quadrangle with Lingboning and giant plaques hanging in front of it. This is a wooden indoor theater, which can accommodate 700 or 800 people. The audience upstairs is a box, and the seats downstairs are scattered. The stage of the Opera House is 10 m deep and10 m wide. The top of the stage is a spiral caisson made of fine wood components, with exquisite carving technology and good sound effect. The horizontal eyebrow at the front desk is carved into the pattern of a lion rolling hydrangea with through carving, and the two corners are carved into lotus hanging columns in bud. The front of the stage is inlaid with a huge woodcarving of the gods to bless the people, with four corners of celestial officials, boys, apes, pines and cypresses, clouds and bats, forming a vivid and harmonious picture. The doors and windows of the theater are also carved with traditional decorations such as lions, phoenixes and peonies.
Guangdong Guild Hall in Tianjin is the most famous theater. The architectural design of the theater is unique: the stands are divided into two floors, upstairs and downstairs, with scattered seats, seats, teahouses and boxes. Both the theater and the stage are made of wood, and the theater is famous for its long span and exquisite carving. The stage is lengthened, without wooden pillars, sitting in the south, extending to the north, nearly square, living in front of the theater, and the audience can watch the performance on three sides. The layout of this theater and stage is similar to that of the Forbidden City and the Summer Palace in Beijing, but the scale is slightly smaller, and it can also accommodate 700 to 800 people. The hanging umbrella roof of the stage design is unique: the top of the stage is composed of hundreds of deformed arches, weighing about 10 ton, with a round outer side and a pile of tenons, and the butterfly spirals upwards. Not only has a unique shape, but also plays the role of a speaker. As long as the actor sings on the top of this umbrella, he can reach the audience without a megaphone. The center of the stage canopy is inlaid with fine colored wood carvings blessed by God. Immortals and fairies stand on the altar, and monkeys play between conifers and ganoderma lucidum. The four corners are bats with branches in their mouths, and the composition is exquisite and symmetrical. Box railings and partition doors and windows are also carved with peony, squirrel, grapes, flowers of the four seasons and other patterns, and the knife method is fine and lifelike. Upstairs in the background is the dressing room, surrounded by flowers and trees, fresh and elegant. Famous Peking Opera artists Mei Lanfang and Yang Xiaolou have performed here. 1965438+In August, 2008, the Yuxing Department of the exhibition was established in Tianjin Museum, and the Rong Qing Society of Beijing was invited to perform in Tianjin for three days. On the third day, there were two performances in the morning and evening, which were Wu Wen's "Liantai Drama" and "Tin Pot Map". Among them, the scene of stabbing the tiger was performed by Han Shichang, and the last scene of reading the holy army was to read the imperial edict in Manchu, which was very popular. 19 19 Deng also acted here.
Entering the hall, we crossed the small courtyard from the aisles on the east and west sides of the main room, and then came to the Song Stage, the main building of the Guangdong Hall, which is the theater. The theater building faces south, accounting for two-thirds of the whole building. Head-on, a pair of pillars painted with black and gold letters were added with black and pink to distinguish loyalty, betrayal, human dance and light songs. Guzheng and arpeggio played in a hurry, showing off the theme of the theater. The mesa of the theater is an extended stage, which can accommodate four or five hundred spectators. Amazingly, there are no pillars on the stage, so the audience on three sides can watch the performance from different directions, and their vision is not blocked, which is unique to other stages in ancient China. What is even more amazing is the umbrella top hanging in the center of the stage. This roof is made up of thousands of deformed bucket arches with uneven tenons, like spiral patterns, stacked and combined, like a large bowl with a full diameter of 6 meters, forming a cage-type algae well. Plus painted gold and painted green, it is even more dazzling. It is not only beautiful in appearance, exquisite in craftsmanship, but also scientific in design. It can absorb the sound in the stage into the dome to gather the sound, and then transmit the clear echo to every corner of the theater. So you don't need a loudspeaker to have an excellent singing effect. Looking up from the front of the stage, the cage caisson is suspended in the air without pillars. How do a few tons of self-weight hang in mid-air? According to relevant research, there was originally a waist beam with iron columns installed on both sides of its bottom, which was cleverly hidden on the surface through wood carving art. The wisdom and ingenuity of predecessors were amazed only after they had been there.
In the second year after the completion of Guangdong Guild Hall, the Shanghai theater industry began to be influenced by the new western theaters, and the first frame-type new theater building in China was built. Since then, the old theater has been gradually eliminated. The theater of Guangdong Guild Hall has become the last relic of China's classical drama. 1986 Guangdong Guild Hall was transformed into the first drama museum in China.
During the period of 19 12, several historic events occurred in the Guangdong Guild Hall in Tianjin. In February, a meeting was held here to celebrate the founding of the Republic of China. In March, in response to the call of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, he initiated the establishment of the National Donation Federation. In August, Sun Yat-sen went to Tianjin, where he held a grand welcome party. In September, a meeting was held to welcome Chen and Song. Later, Sun Yat-sen went from Taiyuan to Tianjin and held a meeting attended by 6,000 people.
In this rare theater in the north, a new revolutionary drama was staged in 19 1 1. 1965438+On August 24th, 2002, the Northern Branch of the League invited Dr. Sun Yat-sen to give a speech here. During the May 4th Movement, mass gatherings or performances were often held here, and famous performing artists such as Mei Lanfang and Yang Xiaolou all performed here.
1925.* * * Producer An Shengxing established Tianjin Federation of Trade Unions, and also took Guangdong Guild Hall as the meeting place. When Tianjin fell, the guild hall once became a training center for police officers run by the Japanese aggressor troops. Now, the renovated Guangdong Guild Hall has become a window for understanding and appreciating China's drama art and displaying Chinese drama culture.