弄堂做為「家」的符號：從《上海屋簷下》到《大哥》談上海小市民戲劇的流變

Nongtang as Tropes of Home: On the Changing Representations of Shanghai Petty Urbanites in Under the Eaves of Shanghai and Big Brother

本文以「弄堂建築」在當代「老上海鄉愁情感結構」浮現，成為上海人對「家」的想像符號為討論起點，論述夏衍《上海屋簷下》（1937）左翼戲劇留下的傳統如何複雜化三○年代上海「文化鄉愁」的現象。文章首先討論《上海屋簷下》描寫上海小市民弄堂日常生活群像的傳統：對日常生活的美學化以及政治化。這傳統到了新時期有無傳承，如何演變？接著透過代表性文本《大哥》（2010）的深入討論，文章最後分析這傳統在變與不變之間，於新時代傳遞出什麼樣的歷史思維？本文認為《上海屋簷下》揭露了租界「現代性」歷史進程下造成的「非人」處境，以日常生活美學化為途徑，讓舞台上人物「當著觀眾生活」，把日常生活的庸俗瑣碎匯集成一股藝術情感之流，試圖讓當時的觀眾超脫日常生活的囹圄。夏衍的情節鋪陳採用多點複線交織穿插，構造出一幅日常生活群象，最後又彙整成一條行動線，讓全劇在英雄殞落的悲劇下沉氛圍當中緩緩上揚，所有人物在逆境中持續掙扎，導向革命的期望，提升至一個光明的結局，以此展現馬克思史觀的歷史必然性，一方面批判現代性進程的摧毀性發展，一方面擁抱持續的進步，寄望未來，呼喚在彼處地平線浮現的新歷史主體。《大哥》繼承了《上海屋簷下》的美學策略，卻展現出非常不同的政治意涵。戲劇以牛培華一家的親情倫理劇，從改革開放前後開始，探索進入新的市場經濟以後，新一輪的「現代性」進程如何影響弄堂裡的人文地理。在《大哥》的最後，牛培華成了弄堂記憶的肉身，成為「家」的時代寄託，進而抵抗新時代全球資本主義的強勢邏輯。最後在廢墟裡的團圓，象徵性地寄寓了一個願望，牛培華以情感動能與倫理品質回應此刻上海百年現代性進程的滄桑，延續社會主義革命的記憶與烏托邦的訴求。這是《大哥》美學化日常生活後提出的倫理情感策略與抵抗訴求，以傳統「大團圓」的人情倫理願望，試圖在「歷史終結」的後冷戰時代，於左右政治光譜之外，找到展望未來的新可能性。 Nongtang (traditional Shanghai alleyway house) emerges from the contemporary “structure of feelings of old Shanghai nostalgia” as tropes of home. Taking this as the point of departure, this paper discusses how the leftist legacy of Xia Yan's Under the Eaves of Shanghai (1937) complicates this phenomenon of cultural nostalgia. First, this paper focuses on the realistic representations of the lives of petty urbanites in 1930s' Shanghai in the play, lying bare how Under the Eaves of Shanghai achieves its leftist traditions by aestheticizing and politicizing everyday life. How have these traditions been inherited or changed since the 1980s when the open door policy heralded in a new era? Then, with an in-depth analysis of Big Brother (2010), a representative text, this paper eventually seeks to find out the similarities and differences between these two plays and further intends to demonstrate how they reflect changing historical consciousness with the advent of a new era. This paper argues that Under the Eaves of Shanghai reveals the dehumanizing historical circumstances in Shanghai's passages into modernity in the 1930s. By way of the aestheticization of everyday life, the play sublimates the triviality of everyday life, transforming it into an affective force of art, and further transcending the banality of everyday routines. Xia Yan creates a play structure constituted by the interweaving of multiple plot lines, producing a tapestry of the living scenarios of the petty urbanites; nevertheless, the plot lines eventually converge into a dominant one, leading the characters to rise up from an atmosphere of tragic downfall and spring to a revolutionary exaltation. Through this, Xia Yan presents his view of Marxist historicism, one the one hand, critiquing the destructive forces of modernization; on the other, in embracing revolutionary progress, he beacons the new historical subject who is emerging from a new horizon. Big Brother inherits the aesthetic strategies of Under the Eaves of Shanghai but presents a distinctly different political view. By telling the melodramatic story of the Niu family, this play intends to explore how the new wave of modernization has changed the human geography of Shanghai since the open door policy. In the end of the play, the main character Niu Peihua becomes the embodiment of Nongtang memory, carrying on the symbolic function of this architectural style when the real building is destined to be destroyed due to the law of profit of the new globalized market system. Niu enables a final reunion upon the ruins of home, symbolically registering a wish to maintain the memories of socialist revolutions and Utopian longings. This is how Big Brother responds to the ongoing ravaging forces of Shanghai's historical necessity towards modernity; with the affective power of ethical demands, Big Brother continues the political resistance in Under the Eaves of Shanghai; nonetheless, by reintroducing the Chinese tradition of “da tuanyuan (literally meaning grand reunion),” it also aims, beyond the spectrum of leftist to rightist politics, to look for new future prospects in the post-Cold War era when the “End of History” is celebrated.