'When the illustrious Emperor Ming} Huang of the Tang Dynasty dedicat~ ed his Pear Garden to music and drama, he did not foresee that he would' also give up his Lotus Pond review of the advertisements in the local Chinese papers will give us Jsome conerete idea of the tendency. ers are some of them:
Tien Chan, Theatre ({rom the "Shun-
{or the accommodation of crocodiles pao twelve centuries later. Unfortunately for him, he did not live long enough rose the sensational Chi nese theatrical events of 1935—Dr, 'Mel Lan-fang's appearance at Moscow in March and" Mr, Crocodile' presence in the Pear Garden of Shanghai in September. Had he, really seen these high lights, I wonder whether he could - believe his own eyes.
The truth is the Chinese stage all at once has soared high up 10 the zenith of its glory and sunken low: in the abyss of Its degeneration. However, this is no cause for alarm. Our common sense teaches us that old patriarch celebrating his} glorious eightieth birthday ds at the same time the surest object of public admiration and the worst specimen of physical deterioration, "Tt incredulously contrasting, and yet 50 glaringly real, The Chinese stage certainly has aroused the cultural interest of the world for nearly three decades. Since Mei Lan-fang's debut at Tokyo in 1019, we have witnessed its success abroad from time to time—Dr. Mel's trip to America in 1930, "Lady Precious Streams" recent long "run" in London, and finally Dr. Mel's appearance at Moscow in March las These may not prove that the Chi rose dramm has made any commends lo prewress or is in any way bet ter than it was, They rather serve} evidences that the West has grown lured of Sts hackneyed stagecraft and.
yearning for something new and Must Draw from the Sell This is all very well; but the Chinese drama must draw its sap, from the Chinese sell. instead of a remote and strange land. The Peking opera first, came into vogue sometime in the fifties during 1 days of the Taiping Rebellion. has dominated the Chinese stage for nearly a century and has to its credit a most glorious past, In. the past decade or so, it struggled hard against the rivalry of the rising westernized stage and the formidable Invasion of the American cinema, It] endeavoured to adapt itself to the new society in the making. But will it ultimately succumb to the Holly wood craft" and vanish from the stage like a phantom? Or will it emerge triumphant and make its future more glorious than its pa:
"To answer this question, we must turn our eyes to the Chinese stage and see what has been going on all the time. Since the initial years of the Republican' regime, the Peiping opera has split into two camps—pure Peiping School rooting deep in Lits old tradition, and. the wayward Shanghai School' groping at_ random for something new. The Shanghai New Theatre, Hsin Wu Tal, the first tone to deviate from the good old me, early built a modernized stage snd equipped it with realist scenery, with the help of some Japanese stage experts. Tis spectacle success caused an unprecedented revolution in the Pear Garden, so that in a few years the obsolete "tea gardens" in Shanghai, Peiping and other large cities had to be torn down and replaced by modern, theatres, over ten feet in length, 'Wil be on the' stage to perform. The old King of "Lilliput. with a. strange, Fantastic, laugh-provoking appearance.
the. Water Ghost, hardly one foot tal, fierce and. ghastly-lookdng..7-ete"
"But for the Word "theatre" in. the Jabove advertisements, one _would never have dreamed that they had Janything to do with drama at all. Hag the Shanghai stage manager actually converted his theatre into 700 Or a circus? No. If one peeps into one of the local playhouses, one will gee drama—the same good old drama with all its clamour of gongs, movements, falsetto singing. and so} on. The only departures from the old tine extent, of lighting effects, realistic scenery and stage properties, the obvious effort to popularize the play} by making the songs and dialogue more colloquial and to indulge in cheap "gags" calculated to provoke laughter, ete, But more _imposing and astounding than all these is the presence of a crocodile,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.