"Blossoming red plum, coming from bitter-cold and barren hummock, has always been facing piercingly cold weather, which is although in full bloom in the wind and snow, but fervent like a morning glow…" Three performances of the large-scale original musical Red Plum Blossom which is co-produced by College of Chinese & ASEAN Arts and Zigong Cultural Tourism Investment & Development Co., Ltd. were given in Chengdu ASEAN Arts Center (Universiade Village Arts Center) in Jun.21 and Jun.22.
The musical Red Plum Blossom began slowly and unhurriedly from Jiang Zhuyun's student days. While accepting advanced idea, Jiang Zhuyun was also propagandizing the Communist Party to the students around continually. From a student to a mother, Jiang Zhuyun's identity had changed, but what had not changed was her consistent firmness to the Communist Party. The musical Red Plum Blossom contains four scenes.
Scene one: representation of Jiang Zhuyun's growth in student days. Under the leadership of teacher Ding Huai, Jiang Zhuyun conducted a discussion about revolution trend of thought with other students, and also expressed their thought on the destiny of the country and nation, and she finally made a determination of devoting herself to the cause of communism.
Scene two: representation of Jiang Zhuyun's devotion to revolution and responsibility of communication and contact work by accepting the arrangement from the organization to disguise herself as the wife of Peng Wutong. Under Peng Wutong's leadership, she founded and spread Tingjin Newspaper along with the other comrades. During the work days with close cooperation and correlation dependence, Jiang Zhuyun and Peng Wutong gradually fell in pure love with each other.
Scene three: representation of revolutionary comrades' successive death since Jiang Zhuyun and the comrades were tailed by spies while carrying out revolutionary activities. During the hard times, Jiang Zhuyun gave birth to her son. Soon afterwards, Peng Wutong sacrificed unfortunately when leading the guerrilla war in lower part of east Sichuan.
Scene four: Jiang Zhuyun's insistence on accomplishing Peng Wutong's mission to seek fund from salt merchants in Zigong so as to supplement equipment for the guerrilla forces. Jiang Zhuyun and other comrades got caught into Zhazidong Prison, and they showed unyielding heroism and finally sacrificed their lives bravely and gloriously despite of cruel torture.
The revolutionary martyr Jiang Zhuyun's short but brilliant life reappeared by the forms of art through every scene of plot connecting the opening, developing, changing and concluding, each piece of impressive song, and each vivid and substantial person presented on stage, which eulogized her communistic belief that she defended with her youth and blood as well as the revolutionary sentiment and lofty moral courage that she could valiantly die for the country and people. Thanks to the art on stage, nearly a thousand of live audiences accepted a baptism of revolution and had a deeper understanding of those difficult history years, and young people in nowadays were therefore called to build correct values and lofty ideal and belief.
When red plum burst into bloom, it shows the spirit of tenacity and persistence. The play peculiarly focuses its story on the period before Jiang Zhuyun was arrested and sent to jail so as to be distinguished from Jiang Zhuyun's stories in opera and film versions which has been regarded as a classic. In Red Plum Blossom, Jiang Zhuyun is no longer a "heroic and indomitable" opera makeup character, and she was a daughter, a wife, and a mother before she became a hero.
The main participating personnel of Red Plum Blossom are all the teachers and students from College of Chinese & ASEAN Arts. As said by the director Zhou Yingchen, "Most of the actors on stage are only 18 and 19 years old, and they have actually made a great success since it's their first stage performance."
Zhou Xiaoji, Secretary of the Party Committee of CCAA, expressed that it was not only a grand baptism to all students, but also the best education of the Party's history. The red spirit should be passed down through generations, which is also the expectation of the college. The musical Red Plum Blossom will not end along with completion of the performance. In future, it will be provided as an elaborate practice curriculum for students in each period to participate and comprehend jointly. "The original musical Red Plum Blossom is not only a mission of passing down red classic themes and an appeal for good forms of music drama in new era, but also cohesion of a group of excellent artists in College of Chinese & ASEAN Arts."
Jiang Qianru, a youth singer and actor representative of the musical Red Plum Blossom, said that "it's a meaningful as well as discerning choice to present sister Jiang's stories in the form of musical."
Li Boyan, the postgraduate of School of Music and Dance, who ever played the parts of the spy Ran Kechang, Jiang Zhuyun's classmate and the old uncle selling cigarettes, said that "I still found some imperfections after first performance. Nonetheless, I thought it was exactly the charm of live performance. When receiving good feedback from the audiences and teachers and students offstage, I felt it was really worthwhile although we went out early and came home late every day for training during this period. The performance ended successfully, and I felt quite satisfied with myself."
Zhang Jialin, a student from music performance specialty who enrolled in 2020, said that "It's an edification-type and immersion-type education course of the Party's history, the red revolution classics reappeared from the musical, and predecessors defended their belief with the warm blood. I couldn't help crying when seeing the revolutionaries including the teacher Ding Huai, Peng Wutong, Zhou Weiwei and sister Jiang all lost their young lives." Huang Dan, a student from radio and TV editing specialty, who enrolled in 2020, said that "It's the first time for me to watch a musical. I really appreciate the precious study opportunity given by the school. The revolutionary road was dangerous, but thousands of revolutionary martyrs stood on the revolutionary road without fear just as red plum burst into bloom against the cold weather. On the future academic road, I will also continue passing down the revolution spirit via my lens language, and I will tell Chinese great stories better, and assume the mission and responsibility of a photographer."
Chen Na, as a parent, expressed after watching the musical that "I didn't tell my two daughters about the content of the musical before watching it, but they watched the performance quite carefully and asked me to tell them revolutionary stories related with Jiang Zhuyun on their own after watching the musical. This kind of unconsciously influenced type education method can help them to understand red classic culture more comprehensively rather than simple indoctrination."
Subsequently, the musical were performed twice in Yandu Grand Theater of Zigong in Jun.26 and Jun. 27.
