They know too well that their JPear Garden has gone the way of a 200, and that they cannot compete) with the crocodile in a long run. Otherwise, there Is no reason why they should cling to the Peiping stage, whereas they can earn many Himes more in Shanghai, 'Yet, even in Peiping the future of the conven-tonal stage is doubtful and pessim~ istic, from all indications and infer Jences. 'The hackneyed old plays have Test their' erstwhile attraction, and new plays have to be staged from. time to time in order to keep the player's pot boiling. Some theatres there have even boldly deviated from the good old line and followed in the wake of the Shanghai producers. Chi Linctung, a Shanghai actor, whom Peiping. theatre-boers not Tong ago held in cold disdain as tone pertaining to the naughty "be-Jyond-the-River" school, heartily was Fecelved by them last year during} hig trip there, And yet, Peiping is Jan old. city. where the very atmosphere breathes antiquity and its people are reputed for refusing to hear anything less than their pure opera, even in their cradles!
The prevailing Peiping opera made Its debut at Peiping sometime around 1830, when the then classical: "K'un Chu," or Quinsan opera, was at its last licker. It was at first regarded by Peiping society as utterly vulgar and contemptible but, nevertheless, t'won popularity in o time on the strength of its unrefined, col Toquial simplicity, its greater tre }dom. in expression, and ite Mandarin dialogue. instead" of the Quinsan, opera's Soochow dialect which was unintelligible to the Peiping public. By the time the Taiping Rebellion broke out, It had triumphantly wrest ed the sceptre of the stage from the Southern companies in old Peiping all in twenty years, In the past century or so, it has flourished and exerted its influence fall over China and in many cultural Jeentres abroad but essentially it has Femained unchanged. It hag delibberately flung itself into the fatal embrace of classicism which spelled. ruin to the Quinsan opera, and departed, in the course of time, farther and farther from the people and their life. Instead of taking to speedy and artistic readaptation, it bhangs on its barren conventions, and merely tries to conceal its lifelessness by begging a live crocodile to; ove about in the Pear Garden. But, 4 live erceodile ie versatile. It may help a lame dog over a stile, but it may, aso land "it upon a funeral pilot Whether Prophet or Charlatan Now, having said so much about the crocodile in the Pear Garden, I
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.