Discussing the question: What were the dramatists trying to do, and why in such manner? the speaker quoted a playwright of the Yuan ty who wrote, in the prologue to one of his plays: To entertain is easy. But if a play does not better the traditions or cultural life of a people, no matter how good its style may oe, it is worth nothing." While aiming definitely at entertainment and instruction, the Chinese dramatist was convinced that Drama is manipulation and pretence hence the peculiar technique and seeming absurdity, the writer being less bound by commonsense or strict logic, and having greater freedom to work in his material. There is in Chinese drama no exposition as in modern work. There are no French maids and butlers who, whilst prolonging their duties of dusting the furniture, tell each other of their master's recent misfortune or their mistress's latest flirtation. The telephone is not used as a device to develop a situation. The Chinese method of revelation is direct and simple. A character just walks to the foot lights, points his sleeve at himself, and says: "I (so-and-so,) a rich merchant of Peking," and so on.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.