影片对白

Effie: I'm sorry I'm late.

C.C. : Effie.

Effie: C.C., sorry I missed rehearsals. But I went to the doctor, and I am feeling much better now.

C.C. : Look, don't try to make it tonight.

Effie: What are you talking about, baby? It's New Year's Eve.

C.C. : Yeah. Curtis just stepped out to make a call. Why don't you go up to your room and later he'll come up and talk to you?

Effie: I said, I'm fine. Excuse me. I have to get dressed now. 

Woman: Oh, God, I'm so nervous. I got all the steps down, but those harmonies...

Effie: C.C., what's going on? Lorrell, what's going on?

C.C. : Effie, Curtis was supposed to...

Effie: Love me. Curtis was supposed to love me.

Curtis: There you are, Effie. I've been looking all over.

Effie: I turn my back and find myself out on the line
You could have warned me
But that would have been too kind

Curtis: I've been warning you for months toclean up your act.
You've been late, you've been mean,
Giving all kinds of bullshit flack.

Effie: That's a lie, that's a lie
It's just I haven't been feeling that well

Curtis: Effie, please!
Stop excusing yourself.
You've been late, you've been mean,
And getting fatter all the time.

Effie: Now, you're lyin', lyin'
I've never been so thin!
You're lyin', you're lyin'
'Cause you're knocking off that piece
Who thinks she's better than everybody
She ain't better than anybody!
She ain't nothing but common!

Deena: Now, who you calling common
You self-indulgent, self-absorbed, non-professional?

Effie: You! I'm calling you
I'm calling you the common piece he's knocking off

Deena: Now, you listen to me
Miss Blame It On The World
See, I've put up with you for much too long
I have put up with your bitching
I've put up with your nagging
And all your screaming, too

Lorrell: Now, when are you two gonna stop all this fighting?

Effie: Stay out of this, Lorrell.
This is between Deena and me.

Lorrell: Yeah? Well, it's between me, too!
I'm as much a part of this group as anybody else
And I'm tired, Effie, I'm tired
Of all the problems you're making us

Effie: I always knew you two were together

Lorrell: What?

Effie: I always knew you two wereganging up on me!

Deena: She had nothing to do with this change
It was you, it was you
Always thinking of you!
Always thinking of you!

Curtis: I knew you were trouble from the start

Effie: Trouble?

Curtis: You were real bad trouble from the start

Effie: Curtis, I'm your woman.

Curtis: But you're getting out now
I'm not building this group
To have you tear it apart
Go ahead and rant and scream and shout!
Don't worry, baby, I'll buy you out

Effie: There's no money dirty enough to buy me out. You remember that, Curtis.

C. C. :Lay off, Effie
Just take the money and run

Effie: You're in this with him, C. C.?

C. C. : Cool it, Effie
This time you know what you done

Effie: So they bought your black ass, too, huh?

C. C. : I said, cool it, Effie
This time you've gone too far

Effie: Oh, I can go further! I can go further!

Woman: I don't want to stay around this
I'm just breakin' into this business
This is between all of you
This is none of my affair

Effie: Yeah?
Well, it's between you, too
Now, little sister
This snow job is as much your sin
Look at me! Look at me!
How much did you put out to get in?

Woman: Now, you watch your mouth
Watch your mouth, Miss Effie White
'Cause I don't take that talk
From no second-rate diva
Who can't sustain

Effie: I'm not feeling well, I've got pain

All: Effie, we all got pain!

妙语佳句，活学活用

1. Clean up one's act

意思是"to stop doing things that other people do not approve of and start to behave in a more acceptable way"，例如：There's a very strong anti-press feeling at the moment. A lot of people think it's time they cleaned up their act.

此外，clean up 还可泛指一切"bring to a certain standard of order or morality"的行为，例如：This script won't do; we'll have to clean up the language.

2. Gang up on someone

Gang up 的意思是"联合起来一致行动，通常是对抗/攻击另一方"，例如：The older children were always ganging up on the little ones.

3. Lay off

这里的意思是"Stop doing something, quit"，例如：Lay off that noise for a minute, so the baby can get to sleep. C.C. 这里的意思是要Effie 不要再纠缠不清了。

Lay off 在俚语中还可以用来警告别人"不要再烦我"：Lay off or I'll tell the teacher.
文化面面观

音乐剧 Musical

Theatrical production that is characteristically sentimental and amusing in nature, having a simple but distinctive plot and offering music, dancing, and dialogue. Its roots can be traced to 18th- and 19th-century genres such as ballad opera, singspiel, and opéra comique. The Black Crook (1866), often called the first musical comedy, attracted patrons of opera and serious drama as well as those of burlesque shows. European composers such as Sigmund Romberg brought to the U.S. a form of operetta that was the generic source formusical comedy. George M. Cohan ushered in the genre's heyday, and in the 1920s and '30s it entered its richest period with the works of Jerome Kern, George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, and Oscar Hammerstein. Kern and Hammerstein's Show Boat (1927) was perhaps the first musical to employ music thoroughly integrated with the narrative. The genre flourished in the 1950s with works by composers such as Leonard Bernstein, but it began to decline in the late 1960s, by which time musicals had begun to diverge in many different directions, incorporating elements such as rock music, operatic styling, extravagant lighting and staging, social comment, nostalgia, and pure spectacle. Later notable musical composers included Stephen Sondheim and Andrew Lloyd Webber.

音乐剧将戏剧、舞蹈、音乐、诗歌通过不同的途径混合起来的样式并非是百老汇的首创和发明，可以说古典音乐和通俗表演才是音乐剧的亲生父母。

一般认为音乐剧来自英国喜歌剧 （Comi opera）或歌谣歌剧（Ballad opera ）插科打挥，胡闹耍宝，因此被称为"音乐喜剧"。

19世纪后半期，施特劳斯使俗音乐登上了大雅之堂，备受中产阶级的热爱。法国的轻歌剧经由奥芬巴赫发扬成为-种大众娱乐，英国在吉尔伯特与苏黎温的合作下，轻歌剧也成为维多丽亚时期嘲弄讽刺之社会喜剧。这些轻歌剧的音乐轻松活泼，为未来音乐剧指引了一条明路。

相对于大雅之堂的剧场，欧洲的杂耍剧院为音乐剧的诞生提供了更活泼热闹的表演空间，从杂技到短剧，魔术到马戏，歌手到坎坎舞女郎，这类世俗的、甚至被禁止的舞台表演，在欧洲的歌舞厅里出现了非常流行的歌舞秀。在美国本土，黑人表演和白人模仿黑人的表演戏、滑稽剧一直深受欢迎，正是这些催化剂带给音乐剧更多的亲和力，才逐渐融合成了我们喜爱的百老汇音乐剧（Broadway Musicals）。

由于制作人开始沉迷于喧闹逗笑的滑稽杂剧中，除了从欧洲移植而来的小歌剧风格的作品外，美国音乐剧一度走进了死胡同。幸亏全能天才乔治·高汉一手包办了撰写剧本、填词、谱曲、编舞甚至导演的工作，将音乐剧的活力传播开来，为美国的音乐剧本土化做出了贡献。

歌曲成为音乐剧中不可或缺的部分，插入的舞蹈也给音乐剧增添了新的活力，再加上后来爵士乐和舞步的加入，终于在1927年科恩和《演艺船》（Showboat）（剧中名曲《老人河》）里开花结果，成为音乐剧的里程碑和音乐剧的成型标志。音乐剧走向了黄金时代，从此有很多作曲家成为20世纪音乐剧史上的巨星。

百老汇音乐剧成为美国文化历史的缩影。由葛什温兄弟创作的《引吭而歌》获得了普利策奖，成为第一次获此殊荣的音乐喜剧。他们成功地迈出了用音乐剧智慧地讽刺时代政治的步子。

随着时代的发展，音乐剧出现了一批创作人才。早年的艾尔文·伯林创作出了《安妮，拿起你的枪》，科尔·波特也推出了《吻我，凯特》，弗兰克·罗伊瑟创作了《红男绿女》，还有弗瑞德里克·罗伊维和阿兰·杰·勒内改编自萧伯纳作品的音乐剧《窈窕淑女》，现代的"罗密欧与朱丽叶"演绎的《西区故事》在伯恩斯坦的音乐和罗宾斯的舞蹈中逐渐家喻户晓等等。理查德·罗杰斯和奥斯卡·汉姆斯特恩二世这对音乐剧史上的黄金搭档，创作了《音乐之声》、《国王与我》、《俄克拉荷马》、《南大平洋》等等，其中《南太平洋》获得了1950年的普利策奖。

1968年盖尔特·马克德莫特创作的《毛发》引发出了"摇滚音乐剧"的新潮。这种音乐剧带来了一股"音乐秀（show music）的风潮，舞台效果显得比情节更为重要。流行音乐（Pop MlisiC）进驻音乐剧中，吸引了更多新生代为之着迷。

美国的强势横扫整个世界，与纽约百老汇同为音乐剧重镇的伦敦西区，自然不是滋味，六七十年代以后，英国伦敦西区开始与美国百老汇分庭抗礼。1963年被誉为"英国现代音乐剧之父"的巴特所创作的《奥里弗》掀起了与百老汇的首轮大战。70年代著名英国音乐剧大师韦伯和莱斯的天才创作，极大地推动了音乐剧的发展，开创了音乐剧的新纪元。音乐剧四大名剧《猫》、《歌剧院的幽灵》、《悲惨世界》、《西贡小姐》全是在伦敦首演。这些音乐剧题材深刻，制作严谨，毋需电影撑腰就名扬四海，力挽狂澜地把音乐剧从大腿舞的印象推回艺术的境界。

法国人勋伯格则是一颗异军突起的新星，他的《悲惨世界》与《西贡小姐》，造就了音乐剧界最感伤迷人的音乐，传达了一份真诚的人文关怀，使音乐既触动人类的情感，又不沦为靡靡之音。

20世纪8O年代以后音乐剧走向"巨型音乐剧'时代，韦伯与勋伯格这类大成本的剧作，如果没有精心的策划与制作，也是很难招揽群众走进剧院的。相较于韦伯与勋伯格的大制作，美国的桑德汉姆却常常被人所忽略，他也是当代具有影响力的全才。他所创作的直指人们深不可测心灵状态的作品，似乎成为了未来音乐剧走向的指标。

20世纪80年代以来百老汇的音乐剧受到了6个方面的影响，这6个方面也成为当代音乐剧的特点。其一，欧洲轻歌剧风格的音乐剧大获成功，尤其是伦敦韦伯和法国勋伯格的音乐剧吸引了众多的音乐剧迷。其二，反映英国早年的摇滚组合的英国摇滚音乐剧《汤米》在1993年的纽约引起了轰动，这表明摇滚音乐剧仍然有市场。其三，复排过去成功的音乐剧成为百老汇票房的保证。其四，将电影搬上音乐剧舞台的风气逐渐形成。其五，挖掘歌剧的题材成为音乐剧的一个发展潮流。其六，美国音乐剧早期的"歌舞时事讽刺剧"的形式重回百老汇，并获得了票房成功和观众认同。 （幕羽）

考考你

用今日所学将下面的句子译成英语。

1. 他得修正自己的行为，遵守规定。
He'll have to clean up his act and obey the rules.

2. 各个机构联合起来对抗非法药品的使用。
Various agencies gang up to combat the use of illicit drugs.

3. 她下定了决心戒烟。
She resolved to lay off smoking.

Dreamgirls《追梦女郎》（精讲之四）考考你 参考答案 

1. I know what you cats are trying to do, and you can forget it. James Early ain't no street-corner punk looking for his first date. He's an established artist with a recording contract.我知道你们这些人想干嘛，你们还是算了吧。詹姆斯·厄里可不是业余歌手，他是个有名望的签约艺术家。

2. All I'm asking is one record, man. One song with a simple hook. "Look at me in my pretty car, makes me feel like a movie star." You know where all the hits happen these days? In cars, man. Songs that make you feel good while you're driving your automobile. 我要求的只是一张唱片，一首简单的、能让人们记住的歌。"驾着美丽的车，感觉自己像个电影明星"。你知道这年头排行榜首的都是些什么歌吗？都是关于汽车的，朋友，都是那些让你在开车时感觉良好的歌。