A ledbure of the greatest interest was delivered under the auspices of the World's Chinese Students' Federation on Saturday night. The lecturer was Professor Sung 'Tsun-fang,' of the Peking Govern: ment University, and he dealt with the "Reform of the Chinese Drama,"
Speaking of the failure of the attempts towards reform, Professor Sung said that there were two categories of people who attempted to reform the Chinese drama, and the cause of failure in their attempts was not far to seek, The first of these two categories were the actors themselves. The plays staged during the first decade of this century could hardly be called new inasmuch as they could be considered only as_ transitional. With the downfall of the Manchu dynasty, there came into existence different dramatic groups the members of which founded theatres from which music was forever banished. They failed after a few years' hardship and struggle, because these actors were poorly equipped, speaking from a purely business point of view.
In the second category of theatrical reformers were, and still are, the students. They were the firs men in China who had the idea of not using music on the stage. They had not thought of reforming the Chinese drama until the publication of the October number of 1917 of "Za Jeunesse" which was entirely devoted to the study of the various problems in the Chinese theatre. Since then works of eminent western playwrights had been continually rendered into Chinese, and many famous scholars had been endeavouring to write for the stage. But they too had failed.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.