茅威涛、蔡浙飞、李云霄——浙江越剧小百花的三代演员，现身罗马尼亚的锡比乌市。此行，她们是去参加第26届锡比乌国际戏剧节。

　　这次戏剧节上，来自70多个国家和地区的3000多名艺术家在城中各大剧院、音乐厅等场所举办了500多场活动。茅威涛作为表演艺术家受邀参加，首次在海外艺术节上开设“越剧工作坊”，教授中国的越剧艺术。

　　回顾这些年，小百花“走出去”，在海外艺术节上频频亮相，德国威斯巴登五月国际艺术节、瑞士文化风景线艺术节·中国主宾国开幕式、泰国国际音乐舞蹈艺术节、东京国际舞台艺术节，茅威涛都是带着成熟的作品大戏登台演出。这次参加锡比乌戏剧节，为什么会以工作坊的形式出现呢？

　　去年3月，位于浙江嵊州的越剧小镇成立国际戏剧小镇联盟，应联盟主席郭小男邀请，锡比乌戏剧节组委会主席康斯坦丁先生造访了越剧小镇，并专门到杭州考察了浙江越剧小百花团和小百花越剧场。

　　茅威涛专门为他准备了包括《梁祝》《江南好人》《寇流兰与杜丽娘》等一批代表作品的精彩片段，以及长水袖和扇子功等节目展示。表演打动了康斯坦丁先生。他当即发出邀请，请茅威涛尽快安排小百花越剧团参加锡比乌戏剧节。

　　按国际艺术节的惯例，正式演出前，需要做一些对这个剧种和这门艺术的宣导和普及。锡比乌艺术节素有举办“大师工作坊”的传统，会邀请国际上具有前瞻性的著名艺术家。于是顺理成章，茅威涛亲率一支精英小分队登场。

　　艺术节工作坊，面向的是艺术从业人员，他们有对艺术基础结构的理解，以及互动中学习表演技巧的需求和能力。这听上去更像一个小型中国戏曲培训体验。

　　“在我就任小百花团长期间，十几年一而贯之地推行校园计划，讲座、演出以及设立爱越基地，比如，北大、复旦、中山大学、贵州大学、兰大，还有杭二中、无锡女中、新加坡南阳女子中学等等，我们都去过。杭师院也被确定为‘爱越基地’。这是一个推广越剧的平台，但进入国际性的艺术节，做工作坊是一个更重要的平台，这是开中国传统戏剧艺术进入国际艺术节工作坊的先河了。”茅威涛说。

　　三天三出“女小生”的戏

　　面对来自全世界各个门类的艺术家和文化语境的不同，茅威涛从“女小生”的角度切入，在工作坊里对中国传统戏剧做了一个诠释。

　　“为什么选择这个主题？这要说到这门艺术的特性。任何艺术门类都有它不可替代的独特性。在中国，京剧有男旦，越剧有女小生。而现在男旦在京剧舞台上鲜有见到，但在娱乐圈，男生女唱并不少见，如霍尊、李玉刚。而越剧始终保持着‘全女班’主流特征，我们从‘女小生’的角度切入，在工作坊里对中国传统戏剧做了一个诠释。”

　　“工作坊的题目用了‘跨性别’一词，就是要让参与者明白，女小生如何通过‘装扮’，在舞台上实现超越自身性别的表演。”茅威涛说。

　　工作坊的内容设计，也有一个递进关系。

　　第一天，茅威涛讲解了越剧艺术的基础结构与新版《梁祝》，“《梁祝》就像东方的《罗密欧与朱丽叶》，在世界上的影响非常广泛，梁山伯又是越剧女小生塑造中国古代书生的典型。”

　　为了能让学员们感同身受，团队次专门带了多套服装和专职的化妆师随行，还精心准备了扇子、水袖、练功靴，甚至考虑到欧洲男生的体型，专门定制的大码矮靴，“高靴是穿不了的，他们都没练过功，肯定会摔。但准备靴子，是希望他们能对‘女小生’装扮有整体的切身感受。”

　　在现场，工作坊选择了两位罗马尼亚演员，解锁了梁山伯和祝英台的妆容造型。蔡浙飞、李云霄邀请在场学员热身，指导她们身形、步法、指法，以及新版《梁祝》中关键的扇子技巧。

　　对越剧女小生有基本了解后，第二天的工作坊便从入门到进阶，讲演员在男女性别之间的转换呈现。茅威涛选择了改编自布莱希特作品的《江南好人》。在里面，她一人分饰两角，隋达、沈黛，男女同构，雌雄一体。这部作品也是她对女小生艺术生涯的一个挑战性代表作。

　　歌德学院院长阿克曼先生曾有这样一番评价，“如果布莱希特在世的话，他一定会觉得这个戏就是专门为茅威涛女士写的，因为没有一个女演员，天然地具备演男性的技术，而女小生恰恰是一辈子都在接受如何演男人的声腔和表演的训练。”他也看过德国、日本的女演员演这个戏，“她们演男人的时候，总有一番女态和脂粉气的流露，但茅威涛去演隋达的时候，正应了她的本工——小生。”

　　有了前两天的铺垫和学习，第三天茅威涛引导学员“更上层楼”——重点介绍东西融合之作《寇流兰与杜丽娘》。

　　在《寇流兰与杜丽娘》里，茅威涛一人分饰二角，一边是最西式极致刚烈的武将战神寇流兰，一边是东方极致儒雅的少年君子柳梦梅，在刚柔、爱恨、生死的极致反差和时空穿越之中展现东西方戏剧融合的魅力。

　　这部纪念莎士比亚与汤显祖逝世400周年而创作的越剧作品，2016年于伦敦西区孔雀剧院进行全球首演，并成功出访英、法、德、奥四国。2020年，茅威涛还将把这部作品带到锡比乌国际戏剧节上演。

　　一路向西诠释越剧艺术

　　三天的工作坊，围绕新版《梁祝》《江南好人》《寇流兰和杜丽娘》三个核心剧目，在技术手段、艺术代表性、剧种创新、女小生审美意义上，层层递进、步步深入，茅威涛从性别转换、古今穿越、中西对撞，向西方文化语境中的艺术从业者、爱好者们诠释越剧女小生独特的表演艺术。

　　对百越和小百花来说，锡比乌国际戏剧节只是海外宣讲的第一站。未来三年，茅威涛还将带着越剧艺术继续向西，直达阿维尼翁、爱丁堡，推动中国传统戏剧艺术“走出去”。

　　“简而言之，中国文化‘走出去’需要更多活态的、令人感同身受的文化艺术。而且在形式上，需要与西方国家的文化形式对位。像工作坊这样一种交流，我觉得太有必要了，它真正让中国传统戏剧艺术在世界戏剧语境中进行正面对话。”

　　在茅威涛看来，越剧所有的创作不能拘泥于本体，“今天很多创作为什么无法让“90后”、“00后”们接受，就是因为太拘泥于本体，甚至还依然停留在农耕时代的美学形态、表演形态里。我们的小百花越剧场近期就将开幕了。很多人问我为什么要做剧场，其实很简单：当年以袁雪芬老师为代表的前辈艺术家们，在新文化运动的摇篮上海滩这样一个经济文化中心，都敢昂首迎接新文化，选择新的越剧表演方式，缔造了越剧的荣光，那我们这一代越剧人为什么不敢昂起首来，迎接互联网时代，创造一个崭新的越剧新时代呢？”

　　茅威涛告诉笔者：“通过互联网，人和人可以在线上交流、生活。那么未来线下的生活场景在哪里？一定是剧场、美术馆、博物馆、电影院。我觉得这太有必要了，要让世界知道杭州不仅有Jack马（马云），还有我们越剧场，还有女小生。”

　　Workshop Introduces Yueju Opera at Sibfest

Zhejiang Xiaobaihua Yueju Opera Troupe, led by Mao Weitao, has been promoting Yueju Opera to the world for years. Mao and her colleagues just conducted a three-day Yueju Opera workshop at the 26th Sibiu International Theater Festival (Sibfest), which went from June 14 to 23, 2019 in Sibiu, a city some 275 km northwest of Bucharest, Romania.

The decision to have Zhejiang Xiaobaihua Yueju Opera Troup perform at Sibfest was made in March 2018. In March 2018, Constantin Chiriac, chairperson of the organizing committee of the 26th Sibfest, visited Yueju Opera Town in Shengzhou, a county-level city in Shaoxing in eastern Zhejiang, at the invitation of Guo Xiaonan, a Yueju Opera director and president of International Theater Town Alliance. The headquarters of the alliance is located at Shijia’ao, a village where Yueju Opera originated more than 100 years ago. After attending the first gathering of the alliance at Yueju Opera Town, Mr. Constantin Chiriac visited Xiaobaihua Yueju Opera Troupe and the troupe’s theater, which was still under construction then, in Hangzhou. Mao Weitao, who acted as the director of Zhejiang Xiaobaihua Yueju Opera Troupe from 1999 to 2018 and has been the best known Yueju Opera star over the past decades, staged a group of Yueju Opera highlights and performed some performing essentials of Yueju Opera in honor of the visiting chief organizer of Sibfest. Mr. Chiriac was deeply impressed and made the decision there and then.

In light of the tradition of Sibfest, a troupe conducts a workshop first before it makes a performance there. So Xiaobaihua decided to conduct a workshop at 26th Sibfest in 2019 before it stages a full-fledged performance in 2020.

Mao Weitao led a team to conduct a workshop like a training course in Chinese theater for international professionals at Sibiu during the 26th Sibfest. Mao Weitao is famed for the characters she creates and interprets in the role of Xiaosheng, the Chinese name for the handsome young male role. For Chinese audience who know about Yueju Opera, Mao is simply an amazing phenomenon. For international theatergoers and theater professionals, Mao is doubly amazing as a cross-gender performer. While working as the director of Xiaobaihua, Mao conducted numerous workshops at universities and middle schools across the country. But the workshop at Sibfest would be the first international one for Mao and her colleagues.

To present international colleagues with Chinese theater, Mao decided to give them a glimpse into a special Chinese phenomenon: She and her colleagues would show how they played Xiaosheng roles performed by women through special makeup, costumes and performing. Not long after its inception in rural Shengzhou, Yueju Opera became an all-women phenomenon. Over the past 100 years, Yueju Opera has evolved into an all-women success.

The three-day workshop was designed to have different plays for different purposes. On the first day, Mao gave a general introduction to the essentials of Yueju Opera plays and analyzed Liang Shanbo & Zhu Yingtai or Butterfly Lovers as known to western audiences. Cai Zhefei and Li Yunxiao, two younger Yueju Opera stars of Xiaobaihua, acted as demonstrators at the workshop. Two Romanian theater performers were picked to dress up in the costumes which had been brought over all the way from Hangzhou. They also wore the big-size stage boots especially made in Hangzhou for use in the workshop. The international performers learned and practiced some essential techniques at the workshop.

On the second day, the focus was on how a performer transforms back and forth between two roles in opposite genders. Mao Weitao picked The Good Person of Jiangnan, an adaptation of The Good Person of Szechwan by Bertolt Brecht, to demonstrate the transformation.

On the third day, Mao Weitao introduced Caius Marcius Coriolanus and Du Liniang, a Yueju Opera play based on Coriolanus by Shakespeare and The Peony Pavilion by Tang Xianzu. The play made its international debut in London in 2016 in its first European tour in the UK, France, Germany and Austria. In 2020, the play will be presented at Sibfest.

In the next three years, Mao and her colleagues will bring Yueju Opera to Avignon Theater Festival and Edinburgh International Festival, to expose the elegance of the traditional opera genre from Zhejiang fully to the outside world.

“Chinese culture needs to go international in a more flexible and direct manner. We need to find a western way to illustrate China. Conducting an exchange program in the form of a workshop is truly amazing. It puts traditional Chinese theater in the context of international theater,” comments Mao.

In her opinion, new Yueju Opera plays should not confine themselves to traditional stereotypes. Some new Yueju Opera plays are not popular with the young people born in the 1990s and in the 21st century simply because these plays stay in the past in both aesthetics and performance. Yueju Opera underwent radical innovation in its early decades in Shanghai and we have every reason to embrace the internet age and bring Yueju Opera into a brand new time.

Mao Weitao is ambitious, saying “The world knows Hangzhou has Jack Ma and Alibaba. We want the world to know that Hangzhou has Yueju Opera and female Xiaosheng.”