Study On Literature Of The Theatre Monthly

The period of the Republic of China, especially the late1920sand the early1930s, is the golden era of dramas, with excellentactors and actresses and popular plays springing up, withperforming techniques improving and with different schoolscompeting. However, with the western dramas introduced and localnew plays and modern dramas coming into being, there wasco-existence new and old dramas in the drama field. Newdramatists rubbished old plays, and old plays themselves had manyflaws which were out of date. These factors lead to fierce debatesbetween new and old dramas about which one is better.Against the background came The Theatre Monthly. It was aprofessional drama review, aimed at refreshing national dramas. Itfeatured Peking Operas, along with local dramas and other Chinesefolk art forms. It advocated its ideas with the improvement of olddramas. Besides, it well combined the commerce andentertainment. Why old dramas declined and what measures shouldbe taken to improve them were the main topics to discuss. Thedrama review also covered beautiful illustrations, dramatic facialmake-ups, celebrities’ stage photos and life photos and preciouscalligraphy and paintings. All these are important to study the history and theories of dramas.The thesis focuses on The Theatre Monthly, trying to describingits birth, development and disappearance, introducing Liu Huogong,the chief editor and uncover main problems discussed, such as theactivities of popularizing an actor or actress and the argument overnew and old dramas.The part of introduction introduces the origin of the project, thethoughts of studying and findings.Chapter one is on Liu Huogong and his The Theatre Monthly.Firstly, it gives a brief introduction of Liu’s life and all dramas andother art forms he performed. Secondly, by studying differentdevelopmental stages, it draws the conclusion that it’s a monthlymagazine with beautiful illusions, excellent essays and well-madepages. Lastly, it studies the style of the magazine, classifying it intofive categories---pictures, pattern of the make-ups, paintings, printsand words. The part of words is further divided into eightsubcategories, which are drama reviews, actor or actress reviews,literary quotation in dramas, actors and actresses’ anecdotes, thehistory of drama, life stories of celebrities, scripts and music books.Furthermore, drama reviews include five parts. They are study onscripts, singing techniques, performing techniques and costumesand paraphernalia, music and instruments and study on theorganization of theatrical troupes.Chapter two is about the change from famous Dans preferenceto popularizing actors or actresses. Because of the stage focuschanging from the role of Sheng to Dan, the magazine paid attentionto famous Dan actors by opening special issues and essay competitions and other kinds of activities. Even when new dramaswere prevailing, the magazine kept on doing what it was alwaysdoing. At that time, popularizing actors or actresses is mainly topopularize Dans. This chapter dates back to the origin of thebehavior of popularization and then gives ways of popularizing by allpopularizing main parts of students, servicemen, politicians, richmerchants and literati. The last part of this chapter elaboratespositive and negative effects, from which comes the conclusion thatnegative effects overwhelmed the positive ones.The third chapter evaluates new and old dramas in a scientificway. It contrasts them in five aspects. They cover the writing styles(in a realistic way or in a freehand way), the quality of plays, singinglevels, the stage arrangement and the differences between thePeking school and Shanghai school.Chapter four is about improvements on old dramas after learningthe flaws. Setting up the principles of drama improving, it expoundsthe declining reasons and measures to improve from main parts ofdramas, which are actors and actresses, dramatists, audiences,reviewers, theaters and directors. The magazine gave penetratingreasons and simple and practical measures, which showedprofessional and broaden academic understandings.