曹禺剧作与中国话剧意识的觉醒

“话剧”究竟“怎是”,如何建构现代西方意义上的“话剧意识”,中国学界、演艺界在1930年之前一直昧而未明。曹禺在改译《争强》一剧时,从布局、行动、性格、对话和情趣等方面,表现出他对现代西方话剧意识的极其敏锐的悟解。曹禺的话剧意识形成的机缘是多种的。《雷雨》产生前后曹禺的话剧意识已经很成熟,走在当时、乃至今日中国话剧界的最前沿。话剧剧作家写什么并不是最重要的,而以什么样的话剧意识引领写作,才是最为关键的。话剧进入中国已经百年,但如何补上话剧意识这一课,在今天仍显得急迫。

Cao Yu's Plays and the Awakening of the Sense of Chinese Drama

What makes a drama and how can we build a sense of drama with a modern Western perspective? Before 1930,Chinese academics and the performing arts circles had failed to answer these questions.When translating the play Swift,Cao Yu changed this drama's composition,action,character,dialogue,sentiment and other aspects.He displayed an extremely keen sense of uniqueness.Thanks to various reasons,Cao Yu formed his sense of drama and his drama awareness had already been very mature when he wrote The Thunderstorm.Even today,no dramatist in China can match him.What a dramatist writes is not so important as the sense which leads to the writing.Modern drama has been in China for 100 years,but today the sense of drama is still an important lesson we should take.