Smile, the name is a farce. Speaking of the origin of this stage name, he recalled: "This stage name was taken when I was 1 1 years old. My father used to juggle. He always juggles and trains my sister to play the double reed. Later, when my sister got sick, I was 9 years old. 1 1 years old, a tailor in the neighborhood said to me, ah, your name on the stage is too literary and funny. If you sing funny now, it will make people laugh. Your face is always smiling. Just call it a smile. When my father heard the name was quite special, he made me laugh until I was 88 years old. "
1946, Smile and Zhu Peisheng went to the Central Western Restaurant to perform a one-man show. One of the programs is called "making money harmoniously". He said: "this program is to persuade the audience to be kind and conscientious, and not to quarrel and fight with others in vain." Only kindness can make money and peace. The play depicts some idle hooligans, making trouble all day and knocking on people's backs. After watching the performance, the hooligan was unhappy, so he waited for me to come out at the gate of the Chinese and Western restaurant and gave me a good beating. When I was injured and recuperated at home, Zhou Baichun came to see me and invited me to perform with them on the radio after I recovered. In this way, I, every dark cloud has a glimmer of hope, and I have cooperated with Yao Mushuang and Zhou Baichun since then. "
A little actor who plays a hooligan and cries.
1958, Smile was elected as the head of Dagong Crosstalk Troupe. As soon as he took office, he paid close attention to creation and insisted that actors write their own plays. It was at that time that Seventy-two Tenants, which reflected the lives of ordinary people in Shanghai, was born. She smiled and recalled: "At that time, the performance was very popular with the audience, because many life details of the play were adapted from real events, which made the audience feel very cordial. For example, this is the kind of house I live in. There is a plot in the play based on my father. My father has a stubborn temper. When the floor of a family above rang, he knocked on the ceiling with a piece of wood. When this life detail was put into the play, it became a quarrel between the upper and lower tenants, and the downstairs tenants pierced the ceiling. "
In The Seventy-Two Tenants, he grinned at the funny image of the past, revealing a ferocious rogue face. Regarding how to create this image at that time, he said: "I have seen people like rogue Binggen in my life. They are everywhere, so I moved this image to the stage." Speaking of hooliganism, there is another interesting thing. Smile has always insisted on acting like one, so when he finally came on stage, he was so involved that all the little actors who played with him were scared to cry. He smiled and recalled, "A Xiang was in that young actor's play. She was relaxed during rehearsal, but as soon as I got on stage, I devoted myself to acting, just like a real gangster. There was a scene in which Binggen molested A Xiang after drinking. When she saw me dangling, she thought I was serious and cried with fear. "
After the performance of Seventy-two Tenants, there are two opinions in the society. One is that the play is very real and instructive. The other group thinks the play is a mess, and there are few normal people in it. 1960, then Minister Zhou Yang of the Ministry of Culture, after listening to different opinions, decided to watch the performance in person, and said with a smile, "He laughed from beginning to end, and after watching it, he ran to the stage to shake hands with me, even saying that the play was rarely instructive. The next day, I received a telegram from Beijing asking me to get the script out quickly and publish it immediately. After the publication, more people watched it, and all kinds of dramas were transplanted and became popular all over the country. "
Living Bodhisattva has been performed thousands of times.
After she became the head of the troupe with a record-breaking smile, she not only created Seventy-two Tenants, which was deeply loved by the audience, but also created many plays such as Living Bodhisattva, which caused great repercussions in society. He said: "At that time, Zhang Qiaonong and Shen and I were called the four top actors of the troupe. When we played Living Bodhisattva, we also joined Cheng, Xiao and Yu Xiangming, as well as two Hua Dan, Nenniang and Lvyang. The lineup is very strong. " This farce, adapted from Moliere's The Hypocrite, is anti-superstition and anti-feudalism. At that time, the performance was very popular, and it was not enough to perform twice a day, so it was necessary to perform in advance. The play lasted one year and nine months, with more than 1 1,000 performances, which broke the performance record of the stage play at that time.
In addition to Living Bodhisattva, they also arranged a very interesting drama called Stupid Grandparents, which was specially arranged by the director of Shanghai Cultural Bureau on 1962 to create a farce reflecting the theme of educating children. He recalled: "Our troupe was creating while touring. Lv Yang and Ye Yiqing and I made up the drama Stupid Grandpa and Stupid Mom. "1963, the Central Ministry of Culture recommended this play to various troupes, and later it was adapted into a film, renamed Such Parents, and performed by the original crew of Stupid Parents. He said with a smile: "Change all the Shanghai dialogues in the original play into Mandarin dialogues so that foreign audiences can understand them. At that time, Shen and Xiao were quite old, and they had to play children. They are wearing a little hat and jumping around on the stage. It is really like that. "