In the twelfth year of Kangxi, there was a troupe in the Li family in Cao County, and when singing, they asked people to stack boxes. stacking boxes is to confiscate your troupe's things and not let you perform.

The Li family in Cao County and the Yao family in Juye Chengjiao are friends, and they found Yao Lou in Chengjiao. There was a Yao Suiyuan in the thirteenth generation of the Yao family, who was the prefect of Anqing at that time, and he came forward and asked for the confiscated things back.

The Li family got the things, summed them up, and said: "Let's stop playing, if you don't have power or power, you can't play the troupe." ”

The Li family gave things to the Yao family, and after Yao Suiyuan took over the box, he spent money to equip the equipment, and the troupe was named the Quansheng Class, also known as the Da Yao Class. Since then, the Da Yao class has been rehearsed, and Yao Suiyuan has become the first class leader of the Da Yao class.

Some also say that it was Yao Kongshuo, the seventeenth of the Yao family, who took over the box. Yao Kongshuo is the head of Chengdong Township, in charge of the forty-eight villages in Juye, and also in charge of the defense of the east gate of the city.

Others said that it was Yao Liangcai, the eighteenth generation of the Yao family, who took over the box. Yao Liangcai was the commander of the Ten Battalions, specializing in protecting the Empress Dowager Cixi. When the Eight-Nation Coalition entered Beijing, Cixi ordered him to guard the Summer Palace. The foreigners entered Beijing and burned and robbed, which frightened him and stared at him, and after returning to his hometown, he set up a Da Yao class.

The latter two statements mean that the latter two people probably have been the head of the Da Yao class, and the history of the Da Yao class is more than 300 years, and the Yao family has had nine class masters.

The class master is not easy to do, you have to approve the play first, and if someone asks for the play, the troupe will not lose money. If the drama can't be approved, you have to pay for the artists to provide them with food and housing. There are everyone who invites and watches plays, some are officials, some are rich, some are gangsters, and some are ordinary people. When you go out to sing, you have to worry about not making a mess, and you have to think about cleaning up the mess.

I heard my mother-in-law say that in the past, some troupes had female actors. If the play is sung well and the appearance is good, singing and singing, a few people will come up and say that they will carry the people away.

The big Yao class has the support of the Yao family, and no one dares to bully the play. The singing is dressed in a new way, and in my hometown, I say "the box is good". With these two things, artists who sing well are willing to come here. I didn't sing very well before, but when I got to the Da Yao class, my voice was good. The Da Yao class also recruited a lot of children and asked old artists to teach them to sing.

There are many opera troupes who come to Juye, some sing Shandong Lu Opera, some sing Henan Henan Opera, and some sing Liuzi Opera and Two Strings. The Da Yao class mainly sings Shandong Bangzi, and also sings two strings and Da Ping tune. Where the drama of the Da Yao class is approved, you have to show the excerpts of the play first and ask others to order the play. The excerpt is pulled outward by a meter to length, and it is no longer needed to be closed.

The excerpt is also called the drama list. In other troupes, the play list is folded red cloth, inlaid with gold edges, two wooden boards, one zhang long, four inches wide, with "Taoyuan Three Knots" written on the front and "Bangs Playing Golden Toad" on the bottom. The play list of the Da Yao class is not made of red cloth, it is pasted with paper, like the previous account fold, with wooden shells on both sides, with raised words on it "Yao Ji Quansheng Class", and the bottom side is "Da Yao Class". Each fold is folded horizontally, vertically, in two columns, and three plays, for a total of more than 480 plays.

Some drama fans have watched too many plays, and made up the names of Da Yao's troupes into a smooth mouth, and said one by one: "Tou Jizhou", "Er Jizhou", "**Zhengnan", "Hook", "Hitting the Golden Branch", "Scolding the Golden Palace", "Cao Zhuang Killing His Wife", "Shepherd's Circle", "Borrowing a Wife", "Tang Break", "Drill Circle", "Chopping", "Scolding Yan", "Weishui River", "Crying Head", "Running Slope", "Lintong Mountain", ......

The troupe all worships God, and Da Yao Ban respects Xiaolang God. Xiaolangshen is made of jujube wood, sixty or seventy centimeters tall, a big man with a black face, and wears silk clothes. No matter where he sings, Xiaolang God presses the box all the way and blesses peace. When they arrived at the place, the troupe first invited Xiaolang God out, put on offerings, burned incense, kowtowed, and then started the play.

sang until the twentieth month of the lunar month, and stopped singing, and the artists went back to their own homes and went to the busy year. The head of the Yao family invited Xiaolangshen to the hall room to make offerings, and every year he had to make new clothes and change them for Xiaolangshen.

On the fifth day of the first month, the artists all came back, on this day, they had to dry the box first, sing in the Yaojia Temple, dry the box in the Yao Building, and go out to sing the next day.

The last class leader of the big Yao class is called Yao Nianji, and some say that it is Yao Baoyuan, the grandson of Yao Liangcai.

What I heard in Juye was the story of Yao Nianji.

In the first few years of the Republic of China, our country was in turmoil, and Da Yao's class stopped acting.

Yao Nianji, the twentieth generation of the Yao family, was the chief of Chengdong Township, and one night he had a dream that he saw Lao Lang Shen, and Lao Lang God said to him: "Nianji, you still have to run the Da Yao class." ”

Yao Nianji woke up, sweating on his head. He had an acre of land, sold 20 acres of land, went to Nanjing and Shanghai to buy things for singing, found old artists, reorganized gongs and drums, and the Da Yao class started the show again.

During the land reform, Yao Nianji was given the landlord, and he handed over the troupe to others. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the county took over and established the Juye County Popular Troupe.

In the past, artists didn't use tuba, they used stage names, and there were many famous artists in the Da Yao class: "** Zi" sang blackface, and tuba Zhang Xuewei; "Dou Fa" sings with a red face, and the tuba Dou Chaorong; "Yanma" sings with a red face, and the tuba is Yu Yanyin; "Liu San" sings, tuba Liu Yunting; "Xiao Lileng" sings Lao Dan, and the tuba Song Yushan; "Eryang Donkey" sings with a red face, and the tuba Shi Weixian. After liberation, these people were the pillars of the popular theater troupe.

I heard my mother-in-law say that the Yanma is tall and big. His family is in Hebei, and he is a big family, and his family doesn't ask him to sing, and no one listens to him. His father had no choice, so he brought some cow ears and asked the servants to put them in the water and pour them into him. The Yanma does not open his mouth, they pinch his nose. The Yanma gasped, opened his mouth, and they poured something into his stomach.

The Yanma drank the cow's ears, his voice was hoarse, and he couldn't speak. Just after his throat was better, he went again. The family couldn't take care of it, so they didn't care.

This time, when I went back to my hometown, I found someone who knew the bottom line, and I knew that it was nonsense. The big Yanma is a giant savage, and his home is Tianqiao Lehai's, who sings ugly first, and then red-faced.

Eryang donkey is my Baishitun, he is also a big man, his nickname is Hei Xiao, and the people of Baishitun call him Erhei. Erhei has a girl, I have seen it, and she looks very white. His children go to the opera garden to listen to the play, they don't need to buy tickets, and as soon as they pull their wrists, people will know what's going on.

Xiao Lilen sang well and acted well, and everyone said: "The golden bell and the silver bell are not as good as Xiao Lilen's dangling." "Akira" is a local dialect, and the woman with small feet walks unsteadily, swaying and swaying, and I say that this is "Akira". The old lady with small feet walked swayingly, and Xiao Lileng learned too similarly.

When I was eight years old, I lived in Juye City and often went to Aunt Fu's house to play. My neighbor Xiaoling is one year older than me, and Xiaoqin is one year younger than me, and they both want to learn to sing, so we went to Da Yao's class together. The people in the Da Yao class first let them take two steps, and then let them sing two sentences, and when they finished singing, they said, "Okay, you guys can come over tomorrow." ”

Thinking about rubbing powder all over my face, wearing a phoenix crown and singing on stage in costumes, I feel beautiful in my heart. When I got home, I told my mother, "You told me to go and learn opera." ”

The mother said, "No." If you learn to sing, outsiders will laugh at me. The one who sings is the ninth rate. ”

I asked, "What do you mean by being a ninth-rate?" ”

The mother said: "The pedicure, the bath, the blower, the flower child, the woman in the kiln, are all low-class people." In the lower ninth stream, singing is the worst. ”

Liu Guisong, the daughter of Liu Yunting, an artist in the Da Yao class, later became the inheritor of Shandong Bangzi, a national intangible cultural heritage. This is a still of Liu Guisong in the 80s of the 20th century. Photo by Yao Jiping.

My mother said a lot, but she didn't let me go. My mother is not in good health, no one dares to make her angry, and I don't dare.

When I was fifteen years old, I listened to a play by Da Yao's class. At that time, it had long been liberated, and the Da Yao class was renamed the popular theater troupe, and it was difficult for the common people to change their mouths, and they were still called the Da Yao class.

That time, they sang in Yang Temple, which was more than two miles away from Baishitun. On the eighth day of the first lunar month, women can't do needlework, so my sister-in-law took me to the play. There were a lot of people listening to the play, and the second sister-in-law of Aunt Fu's family went back to her parents' house, and she also went to Yang Temple to watch the play.

came out of a Hua Dan, and Fu's second sister-in-law said that this was Xiaoling; Later, a little student came out, and she said that this was Xiaoqin. I haven't seen each other for seven or eight years, and they both wear makeup, so I don't recognize them.

After watching the play, I went home with my sister-in-law. After that, I never saw them again.