Ancient Drama: Social Status, Fate and Ending

Drama is a Chinese word that used to refer to people engaged in entertainment performances. According to the Old Book of Tang, In order to stop crying for his newborn crown prince Li Chengqian (who was later deposed), Emperor Taizong of Tang ordered people to organize people who were good at blowing in the palace to perform, and the young prince stopped crying when he heard the sound of blowing. Li Shimin of Longyan Da Yue then set up a special team of blowing and playing, and the main task of these people was to tease the prince, referred to as "drama". This form of performance entertainment was later spread to the private market, and since then, the crowd specializing in blowing entertainment has continued to grow and develop, and their title "drama" has been passed down in the change of regime, so from the moment the drama was first produced, they were seen as playthings for people's amusement. In the ancient society, where agricultural production was the main mode of subsistence, drama was undoubtedly widely disdained and scorned.

Ancient China was a hierarchical and well-known society. After the Wei and Jin Dynasties, the official revision history books divided the members of society into "three religions and nine streams" in terms of social status, and divided people into "three six nine and so on" from the perspective of professional identity. The so-called "three religions" are Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism. Although the "nine streams" have always been different, they are all divided into three classes: first-class emperors, second-rate officers and generals, third-rate gentry and merchants, fourth-rate religious gangs, fifth-rate craftsmen, sixth-rate medical farmers, seventh-rate witch beggars, eighth-rate thieves and robbers, and nine-stream art prostitutes. In the Wei and Jin dynasties, the artist was also called Youling, and Youyou is Haiyou, which has the meaning of flirting; Ling refers to the music worker, and the word Youling contains the meaning of lightness. Whether it is the Youling of the Wei and Jin Dynasties or the dramatists of the Tang Dynasty, as professional performers, they were called the lower nine of the three religions and nine streams in ancient times, such as handmaidens, prostitutes, beggars, villains, shaved heads, pawnshop practitioners, stove cooks, bathhouse practitioners, carpenters, etc., at the bottom of the social pyramid, regarded as untouchables, and were specially used for the entertainment and entertainment of high-ranking officials and nobles. They are not allowed to take the imperial examination, they cannot intermarry with the "good family" (the military, the people, the merchants, and the stove are good), and even the clothing and riding are restricted, so the social status in ancient China is very low, and the folk are known as "prostitutes are ruthless, and the drama is unjust", and it is even more juxtaposed with drama and prostitutes. Although prostitutes and dramatists are both inferior, prostitutes still have the opportunity to be virtuous, and dramas are difficult to get rid of for life, which shows that dramas were very unpopular in ancient China. So what is the reason why the drama is in such a difficult situation and such a humble position?

First of all, ancient China practiced the "official standard". Especially under the historical conditions of low productivity levels, successive dynasties and dynasties have advocated taking agriculture as the foundation and taking crops as the first, and those who are far away from farming do not occupy a single of the four main strata of "scholars, peasants, industrialists, and merchants"; they do not understand agricultural affairs and do not produce, and are regarded by the government as untouchables who do not do their proper work. Second, there are many places in the profession of drama that are contrary to the norm of ethics. The actors are running around all year round, there is no fixed place, they cannot honor their parents at home and serve the elders, especially women show their faces on the stage, according to the needs of the performance, they must often dress as women, the original mother-child relationship may become a husband and wife relationship in the play, even if the family is handling funerals or happy events, they still have to enter the role on the stage, or cry loudly or laugh, which undoubtedly contradicts the ethics and morality of feudal society. Third, it is the duty of the drama to perform on the stage, but many dramas off the stage have to be as flattering as "prostitutes" to meet the dignitaries, selling both singing and laughing, which makes people sigh. As the saying goes: one minute on stage, ten years off stage. Performing a good play on stage, and singing and doing proofing, requires the actors to work hard for ten years, even in the cold winter and heat, they must hang their throats and pull their bones. Whether it is picking the curtain on the stage, gently throwing the water sleeve, or the new style of the old play, the flower is gentle, perhaps you have become famous in your voice, become a corner, the guests are full, and thousands of followers. The drama enters the painting, the end of the world; the drama falls on makeup, and the song is finally scattered. Wiping away the powder and looking at the face in the mirror that has long been eroded by heavy makeup, my heart is inevitably miserable and sad.

Feudal social drama is the lowest social group that is even more despicable than the commoner status, just like the slaves in the homes of the ancient dignitaries and dignitaries, the dramatists not only have no personal freedom and no way to rise, so their fate is relatively bumpy, and the ending is very miserable. Male dramats, in particular, not only cannot take the imperial examination themselves, but they are not allowed to serve as officials for life, but their descendants are also deprived of the right to take the imperial examination. For the male literati of ancient times, the imperial examination system was undoubtedly the only channel to the glory of the nobles, and it was also the only way for poor children to change their embarrassing situations, and this channel and path ruthlessly blocked the male drama and their descendants.

What is even more tragic is that the feudal society has always practiced that good and lowly people are not allowed to intermarry, and this discriminatory concept originated in the pre-Qin period, and it is clearly recorded in volume 3 of the Dialects that "all the men and sons-in-law of the people are called Zang, and the women are slaves and are obtained." The Qin and Han dynasties stipulated that if a good citizen married a dalit, he would also be reduced to a dalit. Some regimes of the Wei and Jin dynasties, the official government of the Wei and Jin dynasties, fixed in the form of law that good people could not intermarry with untouchables. The legal system of the Sui and Tang dynasties of good and poor people not intermarried each other tended to be sound and perfect. For example, the laws of the Tang Dynasty strictly stipulated that the marriage relationship between the dalits, including the drama, and the good people, should be dissolved within a time limit and punished with a staff of fifty to one year depending on the seriousness of the circumstances; it was clearly stated that the marriage of the drama himself and his children was decided and controlled by the owner of the theater, and if the drama and the good people intermarried, then the owner of the theater should be jointly and severally liable, and if the drama himself made a claim, he would be punished for robbery or theft. Although the enlightened Song Dynasty made great reforms and adjustments to the marriage system, it still continued the tang dynasty's legal provisions that drama and good people could not intermarry. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, on the basis of continuing to follow the relevant laws of the previous generation on the prohibition of intermarriage between dramatists and liangmin, the government came up with more specific rules for the handling of children born to the illegal marriage of dramatists and liangmin. It is precisely out of jealousy and fear of the law that the marriages of ancient dramatists are almost always settled between the same industry and within the ethnic group, so at that time, even if some rich princes were in love with the drama, they did not dare to marry them home as wives. At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the People's Republic, due to the increasing prosperity of some local operas, the identity and status of pear garden dramas have changed, but they are limited to practicing tricks and exchanging singing skills with middle and upper-class people. When the appreciation, joy and laughter are over, the spectators will still tidy up their costumes and dresses like ordinary people, and comment on the shallowness and humility of the play while drinking and writing poems with their guests.

Because the actors have long been in the environment of selling and singing for survival, their psychology has gradually distorted and even perverted. They play all kinds of roles, say a thousand drama words, people are people in the play, but the heart is the heart of the guest, how the script is written they sing, over time it will become rigid and numb and even the song is welcome, the eyes of the heart in addition to money or money, the drama has become synonymous with money. After the founding of New China, especially since the reform and opening up, with the state's concern and attention to entertainers, the situation of entertainers has continued to improve, their status has risen, their character and quality have gradually been recognized by the party and the government, respected by members of society, and many performing artists with both moral and artistic integrity have emerged, and the old title of drama has gradually faded out of the historical stage. However, in recent years, for the sake of money and selfish desires, some entertainers have blatantly lost morality and violated the law, violated public order and good customs, or flaunted their wealth and ostentation, sounded like dogs and horses, liked and worked badly, or evaded taxes and evaded taxes, concealed income, took drugs and gambled, staged an ugly and evil deed that violated the laws of law and trampled on the bottom line of morality, polluted the literary and artistic ecology to a large extent, and damaged the overall image of contemporary entertainers, so that people called them dramas again. The author believes that this is by no means an insult to them by society, but rather that some of them blame themselves. "Drama is in charge, and people are misleading the country." These contemporary dramas, which are more harmful to the ancient drama society than the ancient dramas, should indeed be strictly regulated and thoroughly rectified.

Column Editor-in-Chief: Wang Duo Title Image Source: Figure Worm Image Editor: Su Wei

Source: Author: Liu Jinxiang