On Wang Renjie’s Gains And Losses Of Drama Creation

Wang Renjie’s adoration of traditional culture deeply influences his opera creation. However, as the saying goes " the key to his success is also his undoing", the great insufficiencies as well as prominent achievements in his opera creation can be attributed to his attitude towards traditional culture. From the perspective of traditional opera, Wang Renjie inherites the "folk tradition" started from southern drama in Song and Yuan Dynasties to Liyuan opera, namely, delicacy, routineness, and wittiness that runs throughout. As an overall aesthetic style, the wittiness brings to Wang Renjie’s several successful Liyuan operas surpassing vision as well as the "spirit of games". Especially notable among these works is Mr. Dong and Ms. Lee, which has broken from the utilitarian yoke to arrive at the aesthetic realm. This is the most prominent and unique as well as the most valuable feature in Wang Renjie’s works. However, from the perspective of "modern opera", Wang Renjie does not pay sufficient attention to plot art in opera, in need of a powerful tailoring and refinement of themes. In addition, starting from Song of the Pipa, he displayed a strong interest in art of language and further ignorance of plots, which is inseparable from his unclear notion of "poetry" and "opera". In terms of thoughts expressed in works, Wang Renjie consciously followed the "enlightenment" mainstream in the 1980s. In the 1990s, however, with the dramatic change of ideas of the time, Wang Renjie became conservative in thoughts and began to convey conspicuous dissatisfaction with social reality. There was an increase of moral discourse in his works where he even called out for the revival of traditions. This tendency was only turned over in his rent work Liu Yong.