That the Chinese theatre requires intelligence, not imagination, to be understood," was the contention of Dr. P. C. Chang, eho spoke on the tradition and technique of the Chinese theatre at the International Arts Theatre, 85 Museum Rond, on Nover-ber 23. He said that the general conception of symbolism in regard fo the art of "the Chinese theatre was Incorrect. It was neither symbolism, naturalism nor realism, ut what he termed "patternism."
Dr. Chang, scholar and philosopher, who accompanied Dr. Moi Lan-fang on both his tour to America and Soviet Russia, has the distinction of having been' the. first to produce Ibsen's plays in China, is the author of several plays, and' has produced tone of Rabindranath Tagore's with great success in Peiping. In addition to having been a visiting professor at the universities of Chicago and Hawaii, he was exchange lecturer for the British Universities China Commission last year. He -returned recently from" the International Pacific Relations Conference held Yosemite, where he 1 represented China, Dr." Chang began his lecture by tracing the evolution of the Chinese theatre which, he said, actually emerged only 300 years ago and was composite art made up of the elements of dancing, acting, miming, aerobatics, story-telling, etc, developed 700 "years. Songs became most important during the Yuan dynasty, the development of lyrics came with the Tang dynasty, and the. remarriage of poetry and mi the Sung dynasty.
The First Stage The Yuan dynasty also saw the reduction of drama as the term is understood to-day, the frst form being in "four turns," as the Chinese call with a prologue and sometimes, an Interlude, A feature of it was that only one person was allowed to sing, thus revealing the origin of that particular theatre. The singer was Accompanied by the pi-pa. During the Ming dynasty in the Afteenth and sixteenth centuries, a raised stage stead of a common platform was used for the first time. The music was more complicated and all the actors sang. The plays were longer, even Fomances being given, and.were accompanied by the fute which greatly influenced the technique of singing. In the nineteenth century, the 30- called Peking theatre emerged, and stylistic form of make-up, more definite in design, and using a brush instead of the Ming method of putting on colour with fingers, came into being.
Dr. Chang, though still in his early forties, recalled how during his youth the Peking drama was given. He said that at that time modern commercial-jam had not corrupted the theatre, no tickets were issued, people simply came and sat at tables and paid for their, tea, Others who came and found no seats just stood around and watched without' paying even. this small sum, It was then pure art and one saw donkey-drivers, people from all walks of Life enjoying and appre-lating its fine points. They were the real orities, he asserted, The present star system, which did not exist in the day of the real Peking rama, he held mainly responsible for latter's decadence. Even the realest star of the olden days did hot get more than ten times as much fas the poorest paid assistant, Nowadays a star earned anything from $10,000 to $20,000 per month, while Tower grade players earned only n few dollars, and this was having Its effect on the theatre.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.