Comedy/喜剧

Chen Yan, winner of the Mao Dun Literature Prize, is known for his "Stage Trilogy," which includes "The Leading Actor" and "The Stage Installation".

陈彦，茅盾文学奖作家，与《主角》《装台》并称舞台三部曲

Comedy serves as the concluding piece of Chen Yan's "Stage Trilogy." Like The Stage Installation and The Leading Actor, it delves into the soul-stirring life stories of characters both on and off the opera stage-tales inevitably shaped by the vicissitudes of fate: the bitterness of unwanted encounters, the pain of parting, and the anguish of unfulfilled desires. These experiences manifest as rises and falls, successes and failures, entrances and exits, advances and retreats, partings and reunions. Yet, by using these trials as a whetstone for self-cultivation, the narrative achieves a profound and penetrating understanding of human existence, rendered through exquisite artistic treatment.

Unlike The Leading Actor's Yi Qin'e, who, despite enduring the world's praise and blame, relentlessly pursues self-improvement on an upward trajectory, Comedy's protagonists, the brothers He Jiabei and He Huoju, represent two distinct archetypes, giving rise to two divergent life paths. The former, consumed by an unrequited obsession with the leading actress Wan Dalian, strays further down the deviant path of "comedy," ultimately losing himself in a labyrinth of his own making. His "comic life" tragically concludes as a "tragedy." He Huoju, though also momentarily led astray, experiences a fortuitous awakening. Pulling back from the brink, he gains a sudden insight into the essence of comedy as taught by his father, Huo Shaotian, and grasps the subtle relationship between performance and the world of life. This understanding opens up new possibilities for his comic life-a reversal of fortune and a path to renewal. Though their spiritual trajectories differ, their parallel journeys offer a mutual commentary on the interplay between integrity and adaptability, destiny and choice.

Comedy thus explores the complex, mutually influential and fulfilling relationship between drama, life, and the human world. It also traces the inheritance and innovative transformation of the comic spirit-its realm, vision, vigor, and subtle essence. Woven into this tapestry are the cycles of human affairs, the passage of time, the intertwining of life and death, and the entanglements of love and hate. There are moments of glory and moments of decline, the vicissitudes of warmth and cold, and the inevitable dispersal after every grand feast-an endless procession of players taking their turns on the stage. Gradually, a vast and expansive human world unfolds, revealing the intricate circumstances from which no mortal-with their complex social interactions and diverse forms-can escape. The universe itself is a stage. If one can calmly observe the patterns of the world from this vantage point and contemplate the profound wisdom of life, they may come to understand that self and other, right and wrong, praise and blame, success and failure are all interconnected and mutually constitutive. They contain limitations, yet also harbor the immense power for transcendence and liberation.

《喜剧》为陈彦"舞台三部曲"的收官之作，与《装台》《主角》一般，仍属戏曲舞台内外中心人物动人心魄的生命故事，也不外是怨憎会、爱别离、求不得诸般际遇所致之起落成败、出入进退、离合往还，然以之为自我砥砺之地，也便蕴含着对人之在世经验透辟、深入的理解和绝妙的艺术处理。不同于《主角》中忆秦娥虽面临外部世界是非毁誉之磋磨，却一味精进自我成就的向上一路,《喜剧》的主角贺加贝、贺火炬兄弟分属两种类型，由之生成两种人生状态：前者因心里有所郁结而对女主角万大莲不能或忘，也在"喜剧"之邪路上愈行愈远，终至于误入歧途难以自拔，其"喜剧人生"终