中译英-《苏州评弹》前言
2013-01-02 11:44阅读：
苏州评弹
苏州评话渊源于古代的讲史，苏州弹词则渊源于古代的小说、词话等赞体说唱。用苏州话说唱的评话和弹词，先后形成于明末清初，至今已有三、四百年的历史了。
因为都用苏州方言，经常演出于同一场所——书场，组织在同一个行业（说书）和团体（今为评弹团）之中，所以，苏州评话和苏州弹词成为曲艺家族中的一对姊妹花，合称苏州评弹，但仍为两个曲种。
苏州评弹是根植于民间的群众性艺术。过去，在广大农村集镇、中小城市，听书是群众娱乐的主要方式。进入大城市后，也是市民娱乐的主要方式之一，因而在竞争中迅速提高。
目前，因为娱乐内容的大量增加，苏州评弹的听众减少，但总数还是不小的。苏州评弹在人文心态、思想感情上和群众保持着密切的联系。苏州评话讲述的故事，主要是历史演义，过去，曾成为群众的通俗历史教材。而且反映了普通群众对历史事件的态度，对历史人物的褒贬。苏州弹词的故事，反映了广泛的社会生活，人情世故，世道艰难，善恶忠奸，悲欢离合。弹词《珍珠塔》揭露的势利现象，千百年来，在私有制社会中普遍存在，所以引起过多少人的共鸣。至今仍有势利现象存在，对势利的批判还能感染人心。弹词《玉蜻蜓》中的金张氏，《描金凤》中的钱篤招，洪尾良，《双金锭》中的戚子卿、韩通等，在听众中已经成为家喻户晓、脍炙人口的典型形象。
苏州评弹是叙事性艺术，但和同为情节性艺术的小说和戏曲，在叙事方式上有很多不同。评弹的叙事者，用口头语言和群众当面交流，在客观叙述的同时，又可以故事中人物的面目出现，或代故事中人物做主观叙述，和戏曲的限制视角不同。所以，苏州评弹的叙事方式丰富了艺术的叙事方法和描写能力，为语言艺术别创一格。
因为经济、交通的发达，人际交往频繁，各地方言特色渐被消融，而苏州抨弹为吴方言坚持一片领地。
苏州评弹是表演性艺术，艺术手段，说是共同的。评话只说不唱，弹词有说有唱。说分两部分，一为演员的，即叙述者的语言，这是主要的。一为演员模仿故事中人物讲话的语言，辅之于表情
动作，称之为“起角色”。评弹重“噱”，有故事情节中的喜剧因素，还有穿插于故事讲述中的逗笑性语言。
所谓“说、噱、弹、唱”，弹唱则仅为弹词所用。弹词自弹自唱，弹奏一般用琵琶、三弦。两人演出时，相互衬托。演唱以七言为主，间有用三、五言的民歌、小调。因一七言为主，形成了板腔体的唱腔，和多种以创始人姓名命名的流派曲调。如徐（云志）调、周（玉泉）调、魏（钰卿）调、蒋（月泉）调、薛（筱卿）调、张（鉴廷）调等。
弹词演出以说为主，唱用为抒情咏叹。唱篇的语言，和说一样，也由两部分组成。一部分是演员的叙述性语言，一部分是故事中人物的语言。在演出开始之前，演员先唱一曲，起静场、定音的作用，称开篇，已经形成了演出习俗。因为弹词的唱，曲调优美，悦耳动听，受到群众欢迎，所以离开说书的唱渐多。在有了广播、电视以后，只唱不说的演出渐多，唱开篇，唱说书时的唱篇（称选曲），又发展到了晚会演出，在群众业余文艺活动中演出，做宣传性演出。而且有了专门谱曲的作品。
苏州评弹是具有浓郁地方色彩的曲艺，在保护传统艺术的努力下，一定会流芳溢彩。
Preface Suzhou Pingtan
Suzhou Pingtan is
generally used to refer to the combination of two originally
distinctive forms of art, Suzhou Pinghua (Suzhou Story-Telling) and
Suzhou Tanci (Suzhou Ballard Singing). And of the two component
forms performed both in Suzhou dialect, the former was originated
from the ancient Chinese epic (Jiangshi), and the latter was
developed from the earlier Chinese lyric and ballad. Therefore, the
history of Pingtan may be traced back to three or four hundred
years ago during the period between the end of the Ming Dynasty and
the beginning years of the Qing Dynasty.
Since both of the two forms of
Suzhou Pingtan were performed in Suzhou dialect, often in the
setting of Shuchang (Story-Telling Site) and patronized by the same
organization of what is now usually the Pingtan Troupe, the two
forms of art are often taken as twin performances and thus given
the general name of Pingtan, although they are in fact two
distinctive categories of performing entertainment.
In nature, such a form of
entertainment is deeply rooted in the broad masses of populace.
Although this art form used to be a major pastime for the residents
of smaller towns and villages in the country, it is nevertheless
the big cities that have seen its rapid growth through competition
as an important entertaining activity to the great number of the
citizens.
With the increasing variety
of modern forms of entertainment and recreation, the present
situation of Pingtan performances is that the relative number of
its audience is being reduced, while the total remains to be
considerably large. This is because it is still as close as ever to
the great number of the masses in terms of cultural mentality,
psychology and esthetic tastes.
Stories told in the form of Suzhou Pinghua (Suzhou Story-Telling)
are mainly about historical events, and thus it has served the
function of mass education in history. With comments in its course
of narration, the general attitude of the common people and their
evaluation of the historical events and personages are anticipated
and well represented. As for Suzhou Tanci (Suzhou Ballard Singing),
its contents are usually about a great extent of common people’s
social life, their worldly experience and wisdom, often covering
hardships of life, the conflict between the good and evil,
reluctant departures and happy reunions, and the joys and
distresses of the heroes and heroines. For examples, the Tanci of
Pearl Tower is a disclosure of the philistine snobbishness seen
everywhere through hundreds of years in the social system of
private ownership. And thus it has roused popular sympathy among
the common people, who are still moved by the story now because
they can see the same phenomena in the contemporary time. Through
such Tanci performances as Jade Dragonfly, Depiction of the Golden
Phoenix and Double Gold Ingots, the names of quite a number of
historical and fictional personages have become household words
among the audience.
Narrative in nature, Suzhou
Pingtan is nevertheless distinctively different in their modes of
representation from other narrative forms of art such as the
fiction or the drama. For one thing, the narrator in Pingtan
conducts a face-to-face exchange with its audience through spoken
language. He or she can assume the attitude of the
omniscient story-teller and use a subjective point of view, but
this does not prevent him or her from assuming the position of a
character in the story and disclosing the events through a limited
but comparatively objective point of view. Therefore, Suzhou
Pingtan is a unique form of narrative art that has greatly enriched
the modes of narratives and hence the representations of
traditional language art.
While the development of
economy, modern means of communication and intense social
activities are greatly wiping out the features of many Chinese
dialects, Suzhou Pingtan are nevertheless holding its own in the
use of local Wu dialect. And this is also significant in terms of
dialect preservation.
As a form of stage
performance, spoken language in Pingtan is a common means of
expression in both Pinghua and Tanci, but the former employs spoken
lines exclusively and the latter uses them interchangeably with
singing. In both forms, speaking falls into two parts, one the
major part by the actor who assumes the position of the narrator
himself, and the other by a character in the story whose language
the narrator borrows while mimicking his facial and body
expressions. In Pingtan performance, the importance of teasing as a
technical device is seldom over-emphasized, because it contributes
to the comic feature of the performance. Therefore, joking language
also seems to be an indispensable part.
In the whole, Pingtan
performance is composed of four parts, namely “speaking, teasing,
music-play and singing”(shuo, xue, tan and chang). Among them,
music-play is done by the actor or actress to accompany his or her
singing, and the instruments used are generally the pipa and
sanxian. In case of pair performance, the actor and actress are set
in contrast with each other in terms of voice, language and music.
In the part of singing, the number of words in a line is regularly
seven Chinese characters, although five- or three-character lines
borrowed from folk songs sometimes also appear between the regular
lines. This basic regularity of using seven characters in a line
has given rise to what is called Banqiang Ti ( Banqiang Style, or
the Rhythmic Singing Style ), while other styles are named after
the initiators’ family names, such as the Styles of Xu (Yunzhi),
Zhou (Yuquan), Wei (Yuqing), Jiang (Yuequan), Xue (Xiaoqing), Zhang
(Jianting), Yang (Zhenxiong) and so on.
The art of Pingtan has its
main contents performed in the spoken language, and its expressions
of special emotions and sentiments are represented in the form of
singing. The latter, like the former, also falls into two parts,
one the major part by the actor who plays the role of the narrator,
and the other by a character in the story whose position the
narrator takes while mimicking his facial and body expressions. In
a formal performance, the actor or actress will start by singing a
comparatively short passage, which functions to calm down the
audience and set the pitch. This passage is named the opening
passage (Kaipian) and has become customary in all Pingtan sites.
Since the part of singing is extremely appealing to the audience
with its melodious tunes, it has gradually loomed up against the
part of speaking and is now more frequently performed as an
independent program. The singing of the opening passages, together
with the singing of the main contents (called content passages, or
Xuanqu as a technical term), has become a major performance item in
evening entertainment activities as it gained influence among the
masses. With this development appeared special Pingtan music
compositions for new or newly adapted works.
Generally speaking, and as a
conclusion, we should say that Suzhou Pingtan is a very special
form of entertaining art carrying great local glamour, and that it
has a great chance to further flourish under our common efforts of
traditional art protection.
