On the Art of Drama Conception in Lao She's Teahouse

She wrote "Teahouse", originally to cooperate with current political propaganda. The first constitution of People's Republic of China (PRC) was promulgated in 1954. The author has many regrets about the past and thinks it is time to write a play to explain the hard-won new constitution in order to educate young people. So he wrote a play with four acts and six scenes at 1956, in which there were many characters. From Guangxu period, I began to write about the "anti-hunger and anti-persecution" movement of Peiping students on the eve of liberation. The main characters in the play are three brothers. Lao She took the first draft to Beijing People's Art and read it to Dean Cao Yu, Director Jiao Juyin and others for comments. Cao Yu and others think that the most exciting part of this work is the second scene of the first 1 act, which took place in an old teahouse. They feel that they should start a new stove according to this scene and write a play describing the social appearance of the old times. Lao She accepted this suggestion happily and immediately said: Hand in the script after 3 months! As soon as the deadline arrived, the new work Teahouse did come out. After learning from directors and actors, this new work is really finished. The final draft of the script completely abandoned the scene of revolutionary struggle and became a social drama composed of pictures of street life in the past years.

After the script was published, Lao She wrote an article "Answering Several Questions about Teahouses". He wrote: "The teahouse is a gathering place for all kinds of people. A big teahouse is a small society. Although the play has only three acts, it has been written for fifty years. In these changes, political issues are unavoidable. But I'm not familiar with senior officials in the political arena, and I can't describe their promotion or abdication. I don't know much about politics either. I only know some small people. These characters often go to teahouses. Then, if I gather them in a teahouse and reflect the changes in society with the changes in their lives, won't I reveal some political news sideways? "

This passage confirms that Lao She made up her mind to "avoid political issues" when she wrote this drama, and he wanted to use this drama to write "the changes of China society in the past 50 years"; The screenwriter said "avoiding political issues" because he always "doesn't know much about politics", so the best effect he can achieve is to use small people to "reflect the social changes in their lives" and "reveal some political news sideways".

When Lao She was writing Teahouse, he turned the theme of his writing back to the old times he was familiar with. He said that the play can only "reveal some political news from the side". If the literary line is "Left", I am afraid it will be labeled as "political hat". It was at this time that social development gave Lao She an opportunity: 1956, the country basically completed the socialist transformation of agriculture, handicrafts and capitalist industry and commerce, and the focus of China's work shifted from launching fierce large-scale class struggle to relatively stable economic and cultural construction. In order to promote the cause of science, culture and art, he put forward the idea of "letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend", and Teahouse was born in this climate. The social conditions were not good before and after, so he could only write some works, such as Chunhua Qiushi, Looking at Chang 'an in the West, Red Courtyard and Salesgirl.

Teahouse consists of three acts, each of which takes place in the same scene-all the scenes take place in a big teahouse called Yutai in old Beijing. In terms of time, the stories of the three acts are separated from each other for a long time: 1 Act took place in the 18th year of Guangxu Movement in the late Qing Dynasty; The second act took place more than ten years after Act 1 in the period of Beiyang warlord regime. The third scene took place more than 30 years after the end of the Anti-Japanese War. The author mobilized his profound observation and accumulation of the social life in old China, and used the ingenious concept of "a big teahouse is a small society" to attract all kinds of people in three eras, which not only highly refined but also vividly displayed the basic national conditions of old China and vividly described the morbid reality of that era.

When Lao She wrote Teahouse, she had thought enough about the old times. He improved his ability to reflect on the great history and social evolution of old China by using historical materialism, and also had a profound understanding of the law of social development buried deep in the historical process. This ensured that he could scan the holographic images of social changes in old China with great boldness of vision and hit the historical essence on the head.

However, to write this drama well, we need not only insight into history, but also identify the parts of social life and carve an artistic window that is convenient for displaying historical pictures. This window was also discovered by Lao She, which is the "big teahouse" in the play. The old-fashioned teahouse, where almost everyone can freely enter and exit regardless of identity, status and occupation, is the most sensitive point to call people to the pulse of society; Teahouses, like the spiritual bonds of the Five Elements and Eight Merits, naturally show the living conditions of all living beings. Lao She relies on the teahouse to focus on social life, and artistically superimposes this rare life stage on the drama stage, so that it can bear the history and reproduce it calmly. Such a creative scheme is really extraordinary and empty.

It is a severe challenge for the author to accurately express three historical periods in just three acts. Lao She, who likes ink like gold, used a unique skill that ordinary writers don't have. It took only about 30 thousand words to write the play perfectly. After careful screening, the characters and events in the social cross-section of the three historical processes have typical significance. These people and things work together to explain a unified answer, that is, the unbearable old system has long been decadent, absurd and dirty to the extreme, and this world will never tolerate its comeback. Under the general nature of semi-colonial and semi-feudal society in old China, there are many complicated contradictions. And so many contradictions, here in Lao She, have been easily refined into vivid sketches of life.

The historical emphases of the three bills are different. Act 1 focuses on the social scene that the "Qing Empire" was terminally ill on the eve of its demise, with a hint, and also explains the pursuit of aspiring innovators and patriots, as well as some ordinary citizens' instinctive longing for life in the face of rapidly declining society; By the second act, the Qing dynasty had collapsed, and feudal warlords as evil as tigers and wolves used guns given by foreigners, causing years of war and social unrest. However, a few days later, people who begged for a peaceful life were afraid. Although times have changed, all ugly and reactionary forces, like the late Qing Dynasty, are still rampant, keeping the public away. In the third act, the scene is the bleakest. People finally got rid of the "conquered" life, but fell into an unprecedented dark reality. China people, who have always had good expectations and dare not relax for a moment, have come to the end of their fate, and even the excellent traditional culture cannot escape the crisis of being ruined. In this way, the whole teahouse faithfully depicts the deteriorating social situation from the end of 19 to the middle of the 20th century.

Under the historical background, all the plots of the play appear in the form of silhouette of characters and events. Take Act 1 as an example. There are some relatively independent plot units before and after it: the first "pigeon" dispute-a big house in Beijing fought for a pigeon and almost had a group fight. The standard-bearer often sends a few words of emotion, which leads to the rescue of the camp fighter Er Dezi, but is suppressed by Master Ma who "eats foreign religions". This scene shows the arrogance and arrogance of the dignitaries in the late Qing Dynasty, but the biggest influence is the collusion with foreigners. In the second paragraph, farmers sell their daughters-famine years. Kang Liu, a bankrupt farmer, had no choice but to sell his 15-year-old daughter. The trafficker pockmarked Liu took the opportunity to make huge profits, and the poor old man who sold small things happened to see it. He hit the nail on the head: "people are not as good as pigeons these days!" " This is a contrast technique to show the severity of polarization between the rich and the poor. In the third paragraph, Qin Changyou had different opinions-Master Qin, the landlord of the teahouse, came, and he was full of ambition to gather capital to run the industry to save the country, but he was indifferent to the poor people begging in front of him, and the warm-hearted Master Chang gave generously, so they disagreed on whether to give the poor a bowl of carrion noodles. This drama is about a national disaster, and there are still some people in China who have conscience and want to do their best to help the people. However, both the enthusiasm of Master Qin and Master Chang have historical limitations. In the fourth paragraph, Qin Pang bickered-eunuch Pang, the spokesman of the die-hards in the imperial court and the general manager of ouchi, came to the teahouse to buy a peasant daughter. He was caught by Mr. Qin, who had a tendency to reform, and they were furious and showed no weakness. When it comes to the suppressed 1898 reform movement, tea drinkers talk about it. These people are insensitive to reform and hate slander. This drama shows the arrogance of the die-hards, and also shows that the Reform Movement is divorced from the people and lacks self-confidence. In the fifth paragraph, Grandpa Chang was arrested-Grandpa Chang witnessed the tragic situation of selling children and girls and sighed: "I see, the Great Qing Dynasty is going to be finished!" Being targeted by spies, two spies borrowed eunuch Pang and took Master Chang and Master Song, the flag bearer who had tea with him. The reason is that "the flag bearer is a traitor, and the crime is aggravated!" This story outlines that there are many spies in the dark world, and good people will suffer if they are not careful. In the sixth paragraph, the eunuch bought a wife-an old, groggy and psychopathic eunuch Pang came to see the peasant girl that Pockmarked Liu bought for him. He was old and ugly, and he scared Kang, a peasant girl, to death on the spot. At this time, the tea drinker who was playing chess suddenly broke into his ear: "Yes! You are finished! " This scene ends here, which means that although the end of feudalism is quite bluffing, it has long been rotten. Act 1 is roughly composed of six interlocking plots, interspersed with Wang Zhanggui's subtle attitude towards these things, as well as the ugly performance of social scum such as Tang Tiezui and Huang Fatty. The whole scene is rich in content, changeable in stories and full of life. Every step of the plot shows profound historical connotation. Although the play is short, it has infinite significance. The contradiction, darkness, absurdity and helplessness of the whole late Qing society are all reflected.

All the smoky and suffocating social status quo in the play depends on the dark old system, which the audience of Teahouse can understand at a glance. When Lao She wrote Teahouse, he respected the mentality of the audience. He abandoned political preaching, spoke only with vivid artistic images, and easily conveyed his political ideas to the audience. At the beginning of the second act, Li San, an old teahouse buddy, refused to cut off his braid more than ten years after the demise of the Qing Dynasty. He has his own "saying": "improvement! Improve! The better, the colder! ..... Hum! I still have my pigtails in case I change the emperor back! " This is "political news" from the mouth of a small person at the bottom of society who has no culture and political consciousness. Seeing that the emperor is gone, the world is not as good as before. The more those in power shout for "social improvement", the more people will suffer. Judging from his simple experience, he may change an old court back one day, so he might as well protect this "foresight". These three sentences are more and more interesting than ordinary people can gossip. Isn't the "political news" revealed in the middle heavy, profound and convincing? In the first 1 act, Master Chang, who was caught by spies of Song Enzi and Wu Xiangzi, bumped into them again in the second act. He was surprised to find that these two guys were spies of warlords again. The spies boasted: "When there is an emperor, we work for the emperor, and when there is President Yuan, we work for President Yuan;" Now ... ""Who gives food, we work for whom! " Grandpa Chang urged him: "What should foreigners do if they give food?" The spy is also unambiguous: "I tell you, Master Chang, all the people who want us to work are supported by foreigners! How can we fight without foreign guns? " This talk also "revealed" quite important "political news": the feudal dynasty is gone, but the feudal forces still dominate everything, and foreign guns still play a great role-doesn't this mean telling the audience that the semi-feudal and semi-colonial nature of China society has not changed at all? In the drama Teahouse, there are many places where political information is revealed from the side. Lao She turned the theory written by political scientists in textbooks into gossip blurted out by the little people at the bottom of society, and into handy details in the play, which was subtly injected into the audience's appreciation activities. If compared with political textbooks, the results received are at least similar.

Teahouse is different from ordinary dramas. It is not a drama that tells a specific story, but shows the overall image of a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society represented by three historical eras. In Lao She's words, the purpose of writing this play is to "destroy three eras". In the three scenes, Lao She's profound review and reflection on history is plain, which makes people of the same generation as the writer and people who came to this world later than him feel shocked when watching the drama. A work can achieve such a function, and its ideological value cannot be underestimated.

When Teahouse was first staged, some people thought it was not strong in story, so it was suggested that Kang's experience and her son Kang Dali's participation in the revolution should be used to develop the plot. Lao She declined this suggestion and said, "In this way, it will be difficult for me to achieve the goal of destroying the three eras. Holding on to one thing, I am afraid that the teahouse will collapse before it is occupied. " ("Answering Several Questions about Teahouses") In the 1950s, writers, readers and audiences in China almost invariably felt that the only task of writing about the old times should be to express sharp class struggle and praise the victory of the revolution, otherwise it would be impossible. Lao She euphemistically explained that if the old teahouse became a revolutionary fortress, its days would not last for a few days, let alone let it witness three dark ages. As for why we can't take the reflection of revolutionary struggle as the theme of our works of art, Lao She was unwilling and impossible to delve into it at that time.

Because of its originality, the drama Teahouse had attracted some criticism before the Cultural Revolution. Some people think that Teahouse is "nostalgic", proclaiming that "the present is worse than the past", "the earth-shattering waves of the times have not been revealed" and "the people's inevitable victory and lofty ideals have not been pointed out". "In the final analysis, it is closely related to the writer's world outlook, class position and creative methods." During the Cultural Revolution, Teahouse became the evidence that Lao She was framed as a "reactionary writer". Now, we don't need to refute the accusations of the teahouse one by one. What people can't help but think of is that in the third act of Teahouse, Wang Lifa inexplicably asked, "Did you change the name of' strike' to' riot'?" Special agent Song Enzi immediately seized this sentence and swept the door, saying that Wang Lifa and the students who went on strike were "the same goods!" The old shopkeeper in the teahouse, who has been through many battles all his life, didn't frighten him, but muttered to him, "Me?" You flatter me! "It seems that it is not difficult to refer to the deer as a horse in our land.

Today, decades later, I feel that many so-called good works that came out at the same time as Teahouse have long since vanished. However, teahouses, like wintersweet in Ao Shuang, have stood the test and flourished. From the late 1970s to the present, Beijing People's Art has adapted Teahouse for many times, with as many as 500 performances, creating many records that are most loved by the audience in the history of China drama. Teahouse also represents China's dramatic art and has been performed in German, French, Swiss, Japanese, Hongkong and Taiwan Province. Being appreciated by audiences of different races, experiences and values is called "miracle on the oriental stage".

Second, write about society by writing about culture.

Teahouse will show the audience the social changes in old China. But Lao She is not familiar with politics, which limits his ability to directly write about social and political changes. Therefore, the writer knows all about the social and cultural changes he knows to reflect the subtleties of social and political changes. As we all know, the culture and politics of an era are subordinate to the superstructure of society, and there is an internal relationship between them. The political nature of society will always affect its culture explicitly or implicitly, and various cultural worlds can often convey all kinds of implicit political information to people. Therefore, it is a feasible way for art works to reflect the political outlook of an era by writing the cultural phenomena of the era. Teahouse is the embodiment of Lao She's artistic advantage in choosing this creative method.

Teahouse shows the darkness of old China, and shows the people's painful struggle and tragic ending for survival, justice and development in the dark society. Lao She didn't put this heavy theme into a specific story. He decided to use the social "how little people live and how they die" to illustrate the satire of that era (Teahouse Theory) to express his dislike of the whole old era and his ideological tendency of spitting. Sick society, deformed culture and strange life ... constitute the bizarre social picture in the teahouse. Lao She's pen is like a probe in a surgeon's hand. Every time he breaks the scab of decadent society, he teaches people to see a dirty pus gushing out, and the ulcer in society from the outside to the inside has reached such a terrible level. It is of course the most reasonable to teach it to reinvent itself.

The audience of Teahouse has to open their eyes at any time and look directly at the absurd world on the stage: It is said that Pang, the eunuch who "waits on the queen mother and blushes, even the vinegar bottle at home is made of agate", is senile and girly, but faces the news that he wants to end his "marriage" shamelessly in public; The trafficker pockmarked Liu is ruthless, and he is not afraid that people will see through his misdeeds of selling a peasant girl and earning 190 yuan. He boasted and publicized his own logic: "If I am not distracted, they may not find a buyer"; Two deserters, who didn't have enough money and wanted to meet their physiological needs, had to chip in to let the traffickers buy a shared wife, forming an unimaginable "friendship of three people"; The war continues, warlords are separated, citizens feel insecure and complain. However, some people "thank you for this year" and said to Tang Tiezui, who specializes in selling divination for a living: "The more chaotic the year, the better my business will be! These days, whoever lives or dies has to take a chance. How can it not be fortune-telling and face reading? " These plots, one by one with abnormal taste and a little funny color, are strange scenes born in the absurd age. When they are displayed by playwrights, it proves that an era without social justice will inevitably change unreasonable strange things in normal society one by one. It's like a dream of red mansions is full of absurd things and bitter tears, and Teahouse teaches people "all kinds of absurd things", which makes the audience sigh every time they think about it.

Teahouse shows the deterioration of the world and the decline of rivers. The work adopts the identity arrangement of "hereditary substitution" between most clown characters and their fathers. In the three scenes, the traffickers Liu Mazi and Xiao Mazi, the swindlers Tang Tiezui and Xiao Tangtiezui who sell divination, the detectives Song Enzi and Xiao Songzi, Wu Xiangzi and Xiao Wu Xiangzi, and the thugs Er Dezi and Xiao Er Dezi are all passed down from generation to generation. Through this group of social scum, they are not only shameless but also shameless. In Act 1, pockmarked Liu used the difference between the rich and the poor in society to resell the population and got along well. But in the second act, he lost his pride It is not that the society where the rich and the poor are divided has improved, but that the worse reality has made him unlucky. He complained, "What a revolution! How painful! Now the second in command, the class teacher wants to marry an aunt and pay attention to singing Kunqu opera. A flower for the actress in the troupe is worth 35 thousand! I'm staring, but I can't touch the door! " Asako Liu, who is engaged in old-fashioned ambiguous business, can't keep up with the speed of "social development" with his vision and courage. In troubled times, lean men have become the nouveau riche of society, and their evil deeds are far ahead of the dignitaries. Their criteria for choosing concubines and their tolerance for spending a lot of money make an old hand like Asako Liu do nothing, which shows that the world is getting worse. In the third act, it is pockmarked Liu's turn to appear as a newcomer in the fiber industry. He summed up the lesson that his father "can't get along all his life", went against the turbulent trend of the times, colluded with the autocratic Kuomintang bureaucrats, and set up Bao Yuaner Company, which organized dancers, prostitutes, jeep girls and waitresses all over Beijing to serve American soldiers and bureaucrats. Pockmarked Liu's ambition and cunning can really put his dead father to shame. The trafficker's business has been refurbished and reached its peak, which proves that what kind of years will naturally have what kind of world style. Let's look at Tang Tiezui and his son again: in the first two scenes, Tang Tiezui swaggered through the city. Although there were years of war to help him sell divination, he failed to make a fortune after all. He drank the residual tea in the teahouse for nothing, and even Wang Zhanggui dared to squeeze him; However, Tang Xiao Tezui, who inherited the mantle of a liar, was dubbed the "Shi Tian" of the "Yellow Sandao" cult. Tang Xiao stuck his mouth and said, "Pockmarked Liu and I ... we came into being, and living in this era is really like a duck to water!" In this ugly world, there will never be any serious people who are "like a duck to water" except street hooligans and social scum like Pockmarked Liu and Iron Mouth. What kind of society is society? It depends on what kind of people are like a duck to water, which is also called "survival of the fittest". In fact, Father Pockmarked Liu and Father Tang Tiezui are both "cultural symbols" of the times, and they represent the most shameful "culture", which can only be enjoyed in the most shameful society.

On the one hand, ugly things breed and spread everywhere. On the other hand, the valuable things in national traditional culture can't live out in those years, and even go to destruction. In the third act, Zou Fuyuan, a famous storyteller, Wei Fuxi, a Peking Opera actor, and Master Ming, a famous chef in a restaurant, all expressed their opinions and expounded the art and skills that they cherish as their lives, all of which were in jeopardy. Master Ming is a person who can "set one or two hundred tables of banquets". Finally, forced to make a living, he sold all the kitchen utensils and went to the prison to steam his nest, because "there are so many people in the prison now!" " Zou Fuyuan expressed the extreme distress of these artists and craftsmen: "This year is an evil year, and all the serious things are rotten!"

People's spiritual crisis is a part of the cultural crisis of the times. Teahouse describes the spiritual crisis of people in the old society with the help of three key figures-Wang Lifa and Qin Hechang.

Wang Lifa, the shopkeeper of Yutai Teahouse, runs through the whole play. My father died early, and he was able to cope with life independently in his twenties. He knows that "it's the most important thing to make a living in the street", so according to the old method left by the older generation, he thinks that "if you say more good things and pay more attention to make people like you, there will be no problems". Every day, he smiles at the blackmail and harassment from bureaucrats, foreign forces, bullies, local ruffians, secret agents and police. He is not bad-hearted, just because his position is higher than that of the extremely poor, so he has long turned a blind eye to human suffering. He is a dutiful businessman, hoping for social stability and better business, but society is always entangled with him. He didn't dare to compete with the society, but bowed to the people and often advised tea drinkers not to talk about state affairs. The world is at war, and all the other big teahouses in the city are bankrupt. He is still struggling. From time to time, he comes up with some tricks to resist the trend of street business returning to the word. In his later years, he watched the teahouse not go down. He is not ashamed, and plans to add another waitress. However, the claws of society are getting tighter and tighter around his neck. The "Huang San Road" founded by the Kuomintang party stick wanted to smash his teahouse, and spies also threatened him to hand over the gold bars that he couldn't get out. Rogues opened new brothels, and the authorities encouraged him to occupy his pavement ... Wang Lifa was at a loss and had reached the end of his life. He realized that decades of caution and efforts were in vain. I did everything I could, just to survive! Yes, if I should bribe, I will hand over my luggage. I have never done anything evil ... those dogs and people are alive and well, but I can't eat corn bread. Whose idea was this? "Wang Lifa's psychological crisis is very representative. Cheated people-harmless, resigned, not demanding too much, was the most common mentality of ordinary citizens at that time. Wang Lifa, a small businessman with a slightly higher status than ordinary people, tried to live a well-off life but failed. In the end, the poor citizens living in that world are even more desperate. Wang Lifa walked to the last stop of his life and shouted a few words, which were also the consistent confusion and resentment that haunted the hearts of the little people at the bottom of society.

Qin is a national capitalist. 1 When the bill appeared, he was only in his twenties. After the failure of the Reform Movement of 1898, the national situation declined. With a heart of serving the country, he sold his ancestral business to set up a factory and wanted to save the country through industry. It took him 40 years to start a big enterprise, and he felt that this was enough to "enrich the country and enrich the people". He was wrong. His property was confiscated by the government just after the end of the Anti-Japanese War. Instead of setting up a suitable factory, the authorities sold the machines as scrap metal. Seeing the ruins of the factory, Mr. Qin was saddened and resentful: "The whole world, the whole world can't find such a government?" His life conclusion is even worse than Wang Lifa's: "... you should advise everyone that if you have money, you should eat, drink, gamble and run amok instead of doing good deeds! "Qin has greater viability than Wang Lifa, and he is determined to change the reality of China. However, his life has not escaped the shackles of the world. The semi-feudal and semi-colonial system and the national economic situation jointly controlled by imperialism, feudal oligarchy and bureaucratic comprador have left him no room for exertion. And he thinks highly of himself and won't communicate with the public. It is inevitable that he was defeated in the dark all his life.

Fourth Master Chang is the least ridiculed and criticized image in the drama Teahouse, which has a considerable relationship with his specific identity and experience-a self-reliant who came out of the banner of old Beijing. Lao She, a Manchu writer, created many characters with Manchu personality characteristics in his life. However, it was not until the end of the year that he clearly and confidently wrote a decent, simple, honest and diligent Manchu for the first time! The main purpose of the author's writing about Master Chang is to write that there are indeed a group of patriots who are loyal to the liver, righteous and courageous in the lower classes of the flag bearer; There are also some valuable things in writing Manchu cultural spirit; And to reflect that Manchu people who came from the late Qing Dynasty were not all "losers" who were doing nothing. Master Chang's body embodies the patriotic feelings that most of the Eight Banners soldiers still adhered to until the end of the Qing Dynasty. When he was still eating money and sitting in a teahouse in the late Qing Dynasty, he looked down on Master Ma who ate foreign religions, and he looked down on "how many foreign things a person has" who worships foreign things and flatters foreign countries. When he saw that the snuff bottle was also imported from abroad, he was distressed by "how much money has to flow out!" In particular, he felt the tragic situation of the country and people and blurted out: "I see, the Great Qing Dynasty is going to be finished!" The detective of the authorities wanted to arrest him for saying this. He told the truth: "I love Daqing, and I'm afraid it's over!" " Still useless, I was arrested and spent more than a year in prison. After he got out of prison, he caught up with the Boxer Movement. In order to defend national rights, he fought several wars with foreigners with knives and guns. Later, Qing finally died, and he was not surprised. He realized that this was the punishment of history: "Damn it! I am a flag bearer, but I have to be fair! " He maintained the loyal and stubborn temper of Manchu people all his life, and did not bow to the wicked or to fate. When he rejected Manchu people everywhere in the early years of the Republic of China, as Mr. Song said, "Who wants to stare at starvation?" However, who wants us to be standard-bearers? "Even if you sell vegetables with a basket, or sell peanuts with a basket, you can still live straight. So, can a tough guy like Master Chang have a better fate? No, he can't escape the tragedy of life. After he is over seventy, he is still as poor as a church mouse. Only then did he understand: "I love our country, but who loves me?" "He had a hunch that if he continued like this, he would" starve to death or be killed "and he" could not shed tears even if he had them ". Fourth Master Chang, a China native who hopes to strive for a better future for his country and individuals, his tragedy does not come from timidity and laziness, but from his outdated concept, which belongs to the traditional outlook on life in the old days of Manchu, so that he always thinks that with an upright and indomitable spirit, he can find a way out in the overwhelming social darkness. Such a naive wish cannot be realized at all, and an evil society will always open its jaws and mercilessly devour the poor. Master Chang's failure is not only a question of social responsibility, but also because his philosophy of life is out of date. At this point, he and Wang Lifa, Qin and others finally fell into the same fate.

As soon as Teahouse was published, some critics criticized: "This play ... has too much sympathy for some old people in the old society." This work incorporates Lao She's considerable "sadness", which should be said to be a fact. The question is, is this feeling unnecessary or unhealthy? Playwrights "pay tribute" to the excellent culture that ugly times can't tolerate, and "pay tribute" to the kind people who finally failed in their struggle. As long as we respect history, it is not difficult to understand Lao She's recognition of the value of these mourning objects. Excellent national traditions are ruthlessly suppressed by the harsh cultural environment. Of course, we should mourn and express our feelings. Even the old people like Li Fa and Qin Hechang embody the kindness, simplicity, diligence, forbearance, tenacity and integrity of our nation.