The Study Of Modern Peking Opera Monkey

Since the publication of the Journey to the West,there have been a lot of derivative dramas about it.Among these dramas,the monkey performance of Beijing opera,which divided into Beijing and Shanghai factions,exerts far-reaching impacts on later generations.Beijing monkey performance emerged in the mid-Qing Dynasty,and prospered at the time of the collapse of the Empire.It grew and then flourished in the court stage.After 1899,Wu Sheng actors like Yang Yuelou,Yang Xiaolou are gentry in Shanghai operatic circle as "inner court serving actors".In contrast,many later Shanghai actors can only be regarded as the most deviant people in history.Showing luxury and dignity,Beijing monkey performance enjoys a noble aristocratic blood.In comparison,during the period of the Qing Dynasty to the early Republic of China,Shanghai monkey performance shows a rather dazzling and funny style.In the early monkey performance in Shanghai,the Sizhou City,Leopard and Ready source of money accounted for 61 percent of the total amount of performance,which means that the image of traditional orthodox Monkey King persisted at that time.After 1920s,affected by foreign Circus and films,along with the improvements of performance places,the emerging Shanghai citizens witnessed Continuing Grand Opera of monkey performance with local features.Besides,Some groundbreaking films about Journey to the West began to emerge in the same period.Shanghai monkey performance tended to be more vivid,popular and skillful,but abandoned the opera’s original purpose,which takes people as the most important in the theatre.According to the view of the literati in operatic circle,this was a kind of back-and-forth between elegance and vulgar,in which Beijing monkey performance represents the former,while Shanghai monkey performance represents the latter.In my opinion,what behinded the conflict was the different stresses on wisdom and techniques,as well as on real and unreal in Chinese traditional aesthetics,which can be embodied by imperfect images of the Monkey King in two factions of monkey performance.In summary,these two different acting styles actually shows the vulgar overcoming the elegant,the civil class replacing the noble class.And while the discourse power was still hold in the hands of the aristocracy,the wealth has been transferred into the hands of the civil class.