The Golden Horse And The Iron Horse: A Study Of Suzhou Commentary Since The Late Qing Dynasty

Since its arising during the transition period of Ming and Qing dynasty,Suzhou Pinghua has a unique and traditional characteristic.The subjects in general are about the stories of war between the nations and its heroes,which has a very huge difference with the subjects of scores disputes and love stories in Tanci art.Regarding the art of playing,traditional story-telling has a style of bold outline and exaggerated projections which has a sharp contrary with the elegant and gentle style of Tanci Performing.The traditional Pinghua and Tanci competed with each other and learned from each other,this makes the two arts evolved through the history.This is the key factor that promoted Suzhou Ping Tan art to be mature,stable and prosperous.After the establishment of People's Republic of China,in order to meet the needs of political propaganda,Pinghua has been constantly adapted: From the ‘The Leisure of Tunings and Audition' to ‘The Pressing of Hurricane and shower',this adaption has caused a large number of excellent traditional Pinghua to either be excised or banned.Meanwhile,new Pinghua which was composed to serve the political propaganda took the lead in the Pinghua Market,which forced the traditional Pinghua to be alienated.At the end of the year 1950 s,when the Ping Tan sector finished its socialism transformation,most of the Ping Tan actors took the route of collectivization.The unreasonable phenomena in attribution of economic and political well-being brought great frustration to actors both in Pinghua playing and researching.This in turn had led to severe consequence for the Pinghua development.Starting from 1960 s,political route shifted left,traditional Pinghua have all banned.When ten the years ‘Cultural Revolution' ended at the end of 1970 s,people wished to restore the traditional Pinghua,however they found Pinghua art fell into a situation of almost dying.In order to renew its vitality,the Pinghua sector took two major measures: The first one was to encourage the elder Pinghua actor to come to the stage.However after years of torturing both physically and psychologically,negative factors appears in their health,playing skill and emotion which prevent them from showing the old days glamour.Besides,they are too old to be the backbone.The second approach was to inspire the younger generation to perform the traditional Pinghua script.The fact was most of the younger player started their Pinghua studies from the end of 1960 s,some even during the mid of 1970 s,they knew less about the spirits of traditional Pinghua.Not to mention that the Pinghua they inherited had beenadapted many times which had a great gap with the original Pinghua.Such Pinghua can never be popular among the audience.In order to meet the demands of Ping Tan Market,from beginning of 1990 s,a number of lengthy Pinghua with current political theme came to the market,such as Chronicle of culture revolution,General Peng,The Fourth of June Event,Inside and outside the Red wall,Turmoil of the capital city.Though the performances were warmly welcomed by the audience and earned revenue,they received high pressure from the official department.The situation was even tougher in Shanghai,the largest Pinghua market in the Jiangnan area.This created the dilemma that new adapted Pinghua cannot evolve while the traditional Pinghua cannot survive.This brought the call of who is to play Pinghua.Looking into the four hundred years history of Pinghua development,it is not hard to find that there is continuity and discontinuity.When there is good continuity,Pinghua would develop and prosper.But when the continuity stops,crisis would appear at the same time.