The bifurcated theater urban space, operatic entertainment, and cultural politics in shanghai, 1900s 1930s 4

Chapter Syncretizing Fantasy and Science: Serial Plays, Petty Urbanites, and Modern Identities As the popularity of plays concerned with contemporary social or political issues diminished in the 1910s, local theaters struggled to find new ways to boost business. One tactic was to invite Peking opera stars from Beijing, who tended to draw a larger audience than usual, to perform in Shanghai more frequently. The first decade of the Republic thus saw their appearance on the stages of Shanghai one after another. Most of their performances were conventional selected-scene plays, while new plays composed specifically for them were staged as well. Abiding by conventional performing rules more strictly than local players, stars from Beijing were applauded enthusiastically by elite patrons of the treaty port as representative of “orthodox” Peking opera (discussed in depth in Chapter 5). However, the stars’ skyrocketing wages made it increasingly costly and risky for theater entrepreneurs to employ them. In addition, few of the stars, regardless of their reputation and talent, brought theaters long-term prosperity. Therefore, their employment contracts were commonly short-term, ranging from several weeks to a few months, and few local theaters were prepared to base daily business mainly on their performances. New plays remained the principal measure of promoting business, and since plays with explicit sociopolitical significance were now on the wane, various other subjects were tried out. The mid 1910s thus saw the production of new plays with diverse subjects, ranging from ancient Chinese tales to                                                                                                                                   Buzhai Laoren, “Minguo shinianlai haishang lingjie zhi huisu” (A review of the theatrical circle of Shanghai in the first decade of the Republic), Youxi shijie (Feb 1922).   165 foreign detective stories. From the late 1910s, a type of play that combined long ancient Chinese stories, especially mythical ones, and marvelous stage sets, became increasingly fashionable in Shanghai. Each of these had to be segmented into a number of episodes for performance. These plays were commonly called liantai benxi 连台本戏 (serial plays). While having a long history as a dramatic form in imperial China, serial plays achieved unprecedented popularity in early Republican Shanghai. Enjoying a wide spectatorship, primarily comprised of the petty urbanites, serial plays were the mainstay of daily performances of leading local theaters in the 1920s and 1930s. The prevalence of serial plays in Shanghai even exerted considerable impact upon theaters in other regions, including Beijing. Serial plays in Republican Shanghai, however, have long been ignored by historians of Chinese drama and local history. Existing accounts of the theatrical landscape of early Republican Shanghai tend to focus on signature plays by opera stars based in the treaty port or from other regions, particularly Beijing. In comparison, far less attention is paid to the serial plays that prevailed throughout most of the period and even became the city’s cultural symbol. The major reason for this imbalance is that, dating from their prevalence in the 1920s, serial plays produced in Shanghai have long been attacked by drama critics and connoisseurs as a heterodox, tasteless type of Peking opera. Likewise, scholars of Chinese drama or popular culture usually hold that such plays are too commercialized and vulgar to merit serious scholarly inquiry. Consequently, little systematic, in depth research on them has been conducted to date.2 Plays once in vogue fell into obscurity, and                                                                                                                                   For instance, in the second volume of Zhongguo jingju shi, which examines the evolution of Peking opera in the Republican period, only four serial plays were listed among hundreds of plays produced between the late 1910s and late 1930s. With the exception of a two-page general description of stage sets of serial plays, this form of Peking opera is rarely discussed throughout the book. Ma et al., Zhongguo jingju shi (zhongjuan), pp. 58-59, 138-139. The two-volume proceedings of the Third International Academic Conference of Peking Opera Studies collects dozens of papers about Peking opera, but none of them take serial plays as subject. Du ed. Jingju yu xiandai zhongguo shehui. Similarly, serial plays in Republican Shanghai have been barely examined in the English scholarship of Chinese drama. For example, in his recent work surveying the evolution of Peking opera in late imperial and early   166 their forms and content remain unexplored, not to mention their social and cultural significance. Taking the popularity of serial plays as a significant local sociocultural phenomenon, this chapter aims not only to fill a gap in the history of Chinese drama, but also to illuminate the relationship between social reconstruction and urban culture in modern Shanghai. This chapter begins with a survey of the evolution of serial plays and their popularity in Shanghai during the 1920s and 1930s. The following four sections investigate in detail the production of serial plays by local theaters, including the themes and plots, stage sets, players and performances, and advertising. The last three sections explore the consumption of serial plays. After an analysis of the spectatorship, I probe into the meanings of serial plays to their audiences, especially the petty urbanites who constituted the majority of viewers. Instead of analyzing their scripts—in fact, few complete scripts are available—I pay more attention to the modes of production and presentation of serial plays. Instead of lamenting that Peking opera was corrupted by commercial culture and popular tastes, I examine the profound social and cultural significance of serial plays that underpinned their prevalence. This chapter argues that the syncretization of mythical subjects and advanced technologies, conventional values and new discourses in serial plays accorded with the psychological structure of the petty urbanites in Republican Shanghai, and the consumption of serial plays facilitated the construction of their modern identities in fast-changing sociocultural circumstances.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 modern China, Joshua Goldstein offers a rather brief introduction of serial plays and their stage sets. Attributing the popularity of serial plays to commercial tactics of local theaters, however, Goldstein hardly analyzes their sociocultural significance. Goldstein, Drama Kings, pp. 190-192.   167 The Heyday of Serial Plays The serial play is a conventional performance form of Chinese drama that features a complete story, winding plot, and plentiful roles. The earliest recorded play can be traced back to the Northern Song Dynasty.3 Given their extraordinary duration and high costs, serial plays were more likely to be performed on noncommercial occasions, such as religious festivals and palace celebrations, than in commercial theaters. Beginning in the mid Qing, palace playwrights produced many da xi 大戏 (epic plays), mostly adapted from popular literary works such as Xi you ji 西游记 [Journey to the West] and Sanguo yanyi 三国演义 [Romance of the Three Kingdoms], which increased the duration and magnificence of Chinese dramatic performances to an unprecedented level.4 It usually took several whole days, or even more, to stage one play from the beginning to the end, and the cost was astonishing. Such plays hardly suited the daily programming of commercial theaters in Qing Beijing which accommodated different troupes under a rotation system, each performing for just a few days. Only one troupe was known to have staged serial plays regularly, and spectators who favored these performances, mostly ordinary people, had to follow the troupe from one theater to another.5 In late Qing Shanghai, commercial theaters with resident troupes integrated serial plays into daily performances. About one hundred Peking opera serial plays were produced in the late nineteenth century; their length ranged from two to forty episodes.6 Some of these were quite well received. According to one bamboo-branch poem, when Wucai yu 五 彩 舆 (The                                                                                                                                   Meng Yuanlao et al., Dongjing menghua lu (wai sizhong) [Dreams of splendor of the Eastern Capital (and four others)] (Shanghai: gudianwenxue chubanshe, 1956), p. 49. Liao, Zhongguo xiqu shi, p. 122. For some of the scripts of serial plays for the Qing palace, see Guben xiqu congkan bianji weiyuanhui ed. Guben xiqu congkan jiuji [The ninth collection of ancient scripts of Chinese drama] (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1964) Ruizhu Jiushi, Menghua suobu [Miscellaneous notes of dreams of splender], in Fu ed., Jingju lishi wenxian huibian, Qingdai juan, Vol. 1, pp. 500, 502. Chen Hu, “Shanghai Jingju liantai benxi jianbiao—Shenbao yanchu guanggao jilu,” [A brief table of Peking opera serial plays in Shanghai—a compilation of performance advertisements in Shenbao], Zhonghua xiqu 37 (Jan 2008): 377-394.   168 Multicolored Sedan Chair), one of the earliest serial plays produced in Shanghai, was staged by the Red Cassia Teahouse in 1872, it created a sensation among the public. In December 1893, the Heavenly Immortal Teahouse brought out Tie gongji 铁公鸡 (Iron Rooster), a play about the warfare caused by the Taiping Rebellion in the mid nineteenth century. Such was its popular that it was performed continually for more than one year from start to finish.8 The production of serial plays by local theaters was highly market-oriented and flexible, which distinguished them from those staged on noncommercial occasions. Few plays were rigorously planned and completely scripted beforehand. As long as a play proved to be profitable, the theater usually kept producing subsequent episodes until it lost appeal to the audience. Therefore, the length of a play often depended more on the market situation than on the development of dramatic plot. As a rule, one or two episodes were presented each performance, and each episode might be staged repeatedly, with the number of repetitions also depending on attendance. The time interval between performances of successive episodes ranged from several days to more than one month. Serial plays remained a common form of new plays in early twentieth-century Shanghai. Many reformed new plays were serial, including A Wronged Soul in the World of Opium Addicts, The New Camellias, and Blood of Hubei. As reformed new plays declined, local theaters in the mid 1910s began trying various other subjects that mostly had little to with contemporary social and political issues. This shift reflected the general depoliticization of popular drama in the early Republican period. Two plays, namely Hong bi yuan 宏碧缘 (Fate of Hong and Bi) staged by the Great                                                                                                                                   Haishang Zhuxiufu, Xu hubei zhuzhici [Sequel of northern Shanghai bamboo-branch poem], May 18, 1872, 4. The Multicolored Sedan Chair is a play about Hai Rui, an incorruptible, upright official of the Ming Dynasty. Initially a Hui opera play, it was adapted into Han opera and Peking opera subsequently, and had been performed in all three genres in Beijing before its first performance in Shanghai. See Zhang Hong, “Wucai yu liantai benxi yanjiu” [Study on the serial play of The Multicolored Sedan Chair], Zhongshan daxue yanjiusheng xuekan (shehuikexue ban) [Journal of the graduates of Sun Yat-sen University (social sciences)] 28, (2007): 2-8. Lin, You Shenbao xiqu guanggao kan shanghai jingju fazhan, pp. 195-196.   169 Stage in 1915 and Jiushi wo 就是我 (It is Me) by the New Stage in 1916, turned out to be fairly successful.9 The former was produced based on a popular novel Lü mudan 绿牡丹 [Green Peony], which told an ancient Chinese story combining chivalry and romance.10 It is Me was claimed to be adapted from a French detective novel with the same name.11 Despite their different themes, both were long serial plays with twisting plots, each comprised of sixteen episodes. Continually staged for years, they exerted considerable influence upon serial plays produced thereafter. In the late 1910s and early 1920s, three plays stood out, achieved extraordinary successes, and heralded the heyday of serial plays in Shanghai. On December 7, 1918, the New Stage premiered a new play Jigong huofo 济 公活佛 (The Living Buddha Jigong). The protagonist, Jigong, was a popular historical figure who was believed to have supernatural powers and always punish the evil and praise the good. Drawing materials mainly from a mythical story Jigong zhuan 济公传 [Biography of Jigong] and related folk tales, the play was an instant hit, and was eventually developed into a twenty-two-episode series that was constantly performed for six years. The New Stage reputedly made from the play a total profit of about 800,000 yuan from the play, a record for local theater enterprise at the time.12 In June 1920, the case of Yan Ruisheng 阎瑞生, a bank clerk in Shanghai who robbed and murdered a famous prostitute named Wang Lianying, created a great sensation in local society. Five months later, the Great Stage presented a three-episode play titled Yan Ruisheng, which attracted a large crowd of spectators. Several similar plays were soon produced by other theaters, and the one by the New Stage proved to be the most popular. Incredibly, its first episode was ceaselessly restaged for about three months, with the exception of just three                                                                                                                                   Kanwai Ren, Jingju Jianwen lu, p. 297; Ouyang, Zi wo yanxi yilai, p. 121. 10 Wang ed. Xi kao daquan, Vol. 3, p. 807. 11 “Xin Wuati xinpai qiqiguaiguai xinju” [Strange new play newly arranged by the New Stage], Shen bao, April 21, 1916, 9. 12 Meihua Guanzhu, “Xin Wutai paiyan Jigong huofo zhi qianyin houguo” [The cause and result of the New Stage arranging The Living Buddha Jigong], Xiju yuekan 2, (Jan 1930).   170 days, and brought the theater a profit of more than 100,000 yuan.13 In terms of influence, however, neither The Living Buddha Jigong nor Yan Ruisheng was comparable to Limao huan taizi 狸猫换太子 (The Fox Cat Substituted for the Crown Prince, hereafter The Fox Cat), which the Heavenly Toad Stage premiered in June 1921. Largely adapted from a late Qing popular novel, the play depicts an astounding conspiracy and power struggle within the royal family of the Northern Song Dynasty. The performances created an enormous stir in Shanghai, and the second episode alone was continuously restaged for nearly half a year. 14 The business flourished so much that, it was reported, gangsters attempted to extort 2,000 yuan from the theater in December 1921.15 The twelve-episode play finally reached its conclusion in 1924. During the three years of its performances, numerous relevant reports, reviews, and even folk poems were published in newspapers and magazines. A milestone of Peking opera’s evolution in Shanghai, the play generated extensive, far-reaching impact upon the local theater world. On the heels of the Heavenly Toad Stage, other theaters brought out different versions of the play one after another in 1922, with the longest one by the Great Stage consisting of thirty-six episodes.16 The late 1920s and 1930s saw the emergence of several more plays with the same title. Moreover, the play greatly shaped the appearance of serial plays in the following decades. An article published in 1928 held that The Fox Cat was the synthesis of innumerable new plays that local theaters had produced since the late nineteenth century; it advanced Shanghai-school new plays to a golden age,                                                                                                                                   13 Qiufan, “Xia Yuerun yixi tan” [A night talk by Xia Yuerun], Xi zazhi (Apr 1923); Sheyu, “Haishang ge wutai zhi zhuangkuang” [The situation of theaters in Shanghai], Xiaoshuo xinbao 7, (1922). The play was sometimes called Qiangbi Yan Ruisheng (The Execution of Yan Ruisheng) as well. 14 Tiandan, “Tianchan Wutai sanben Limao huan taizi” [The third episode of The Fox Cat Substituted for the Crown Prince (Hereafter, The Fox Cat) by the Heavenly Toad Stage], one, Shen bao, May 17, 1922, 18. 15 “Xiazha Tianchan Wutai zhi hanjian,” [Blackmail letter received by the Heavenly Toad Stage], Shen bao, December 19, 1921, 15. 16 Even a civilization-play society and a Fujian floating troupe presented plays with the same title. A Hong, Shanghai wutai de jinzhuang [Recent situation of theaters in Shanghai], Xi zazhi (Sep 1922).   171 and those that appeared thereafter were nothing but its “disguised” versions.17 While such a statement might be an oversimplification, the play indeed marked the maturation of serial plays in Shanghai. By the early 1920s, serial plays had become the mainstay of daily performance in most local theaters. A survey published in 1922 reveals that the business prospects of leading theaters relied heavily on the serial plays they produced.18 Most theaters had signature productions that were staged for months or years at a time. According to an article in 1921, these plays were even more attractive to the local audiences than performances by leading stars such as Tan Xinpei and Mei Lanfang.19 The popularity of serial plays made the local theater enterprise prosper. In 1921, a sojourner from Beijing found that, due to the charm of serial plays, most Peking opera theaters in Shanghai were enjoying thriving business; each theater was nearly filled to capacity by eight o’clock in the evening, far outmatching those in Beijing.20 Reading advertisements in Shen bao in the mid 1920s, one finds that nearly all theaters were staging serial plays during the prime slots of their daily shows. The play’s title was normally highlighted in extra-large characters, followed by a brief but alluring description of its plot and features. In short, serial plays had become the predominant form of public operatic entertainment in Shanghai. The prevalence of serial plays reached its climax in the late 1920s when the Heavenly Toad Stage presented Fengshen bang 封神榜 (The Investiture of the Gods). The play was adapted from a sixteenth-century popular novel, Fengshen yanyi 封神演义 [Romance of the Investiture of the Gods], which is a romanticized retelling of the overthrow of Zhou Wang 纣王 (King Zhou), the last ruler of the Shang Dynasty, by Wu Wang 武王 (King Wu), who founded the Zhou Dynasty in place of Shang in the eleventh century before Christ. The novel intertwines numerous Chinese mythological elements,                                                                                                                                   17 Xu Xiaoting, “Jingpai xinxi yu Haipai xinxi de fenxi” [Analysis of the Beijng-school new plays and Shanghai-school new plays], Xiju yuekan 1, (Aug 1928). 18 Sheyu, “Haishang ge wutai zhi zhuangkuang.” 19 Yanwu, “Jin shinian Shanghai liyuan bianqian shi,” one. 20 Youyou, “Shanghai zhi benxi” [Serial plays of Shanghai], Shen bao, July 16, 1921, 18.   172 including deities, immortals, and spirits. The sixteen-episode play was average in length, but achieved astonishing success. The first episode premiered on a rainy day in September 1928 to a spectacular crowd: “The accumulated water caused by steady rain was level with the step at the theater’s gate, and boards were set up to let the spectators pass. Even so, by six o’clock the theater had been filled up by thousands of spectators, so crowded that no water could seep through, which was indeed amazing.”21 Furthermore, according to a report the very next day, the play was so anticipated that, upon the audience’s request, its first show started half an hour ahead of the scheduled time.22 Only eight episodes were produced within two years, with the performances of each lasting for three months on average, a record to which few other plays could match up.23 Prevailing for three years, The Investiture of the Gods was widely regarded as the peak of serial plays in Republican Shanghai (Figure 11).   Figure 11. One scene of The Investiture of the Gods by the Heavenly Toad Stage Source: Shanghai dang’an guan ed., Zhongguo jinxiandai huaju tuzhi [The pictorial chronicle of the spoken play in modern China] (Shanghai: Shanghai kexue jishu wenxian chubanshe, 2008), p. 83                                                                                                                                   21 Jinliang, “Fengshen bang zuichu chuyan zhi huiyi,” [Memory of the premiere of The Investiture of the Gods], Xiju zhoubao 1, 10 (Dec 1936). 22 “Fengshen bang kaiyan zhi shengkuang” [The spectacular premiere of The Investiture of the Gods], September 15, 1928, 15. 23 Shuliu Shanfang, “Luanqibazao de benxi tan” [On disordered serial plays], Xiju yuekan, 2, 11 (Jul 1930).   173 The prevalence of serial plays in Shanghai extended into the 1930s. Almost all major local theaters cancelled the conventional “summer break” in 1931 due to the popularity of serial plays they were staging.24 A Shanghai guidebook published in 1934 reads: “Peking opera entertainment at the present time is dominated by newly-arranged serial plays in which mechanical sets were utilized, such as the Heavenly Toad Stage’s Guanyin dedao 观音得道 (The Goddess of Mercy Attains the Way), the Common Stage’s The Fox Cat, and the Three Stars Stage’s Penggong an 彭公案 (Cases by Master Peng). All of these were constantly performed for months or years.”25 The following two years saw the production of two popular plays, namely Huoshao Honglian Si 火烧红莲寺 (The Burning of the Red Lotus Temple) by the Common Stage and Journey to the West by the Great Stage. With thirty-four and forty-two episodes respectively, they were two of the longest serial plays in Republican Shanghai, and their performances lasted for about four years. During the twenty years between 1918 and 1937, some 160 serial plays were produced in Shanghai, eight per year on average, not including those that theaters plagiarized from one another.26 Popular plays were often introduced into other regions. For example, when The Fox Cat swept local theaters in the early 1920s, many troupes in other cities sent people to Shanghai to observe the performances, and the play soon became fashionable in cities along the Yangzi River.27 By 1923, theaters in Beijing had imported the Fox Cat as well as some other serial plays from Shanghai, and they often turned out to be well received.28 The impact of The Fox Cat was so broad that even Hu Shi 胡适,                                                                                                                                   24 San Jiangjun, “Ge wutai de jingqi xianxiang” [The thriving conditions of theaters], Liyuan gongbao, July 20, 1931. 25 Zhongguo Lüxingshe, Shanghai daoyou, p. 185. 26 Statistics based on Chen, “Shanghai Jingju liantai benxi jianbiao.” 27 Zhang Defu and Qiu Wenbin, “Xiao Dazi zouhong de qianqianhouhou” [Before and after Xiao Dazi came to the fore], Shanghai xiqu shiliao huicui (Sep 1988): 16-17; Zhang Guyu, “Cong Sida Mingdan dao ‘Shanghai Sida Mingdan’” [From the Four Great Female Impersonator to the “Four Great Female Impersonator of Shanghai”], Shanghai xiqu shiliao huicui 5: 7. 28 “Guanju yumo” [Extra notes on theatergoing], Shishi baihua bao [Practical things vernacular news], October 19, 1922, 3; Baipin, “Beijing jujie zhi chaoliu” [The trend of the theatrical circle in Beijing], Xi zazhi (Apr 1923).   174 facilities in performances, but also adopted modern concepts and discourses—of enlightenment, reformism, nationalism, revolution, science, and so forth—to “legitimize” their products in the sociocultural context of Republican Shanghai. The sincerity of such rhetoric was questionable, and in most cases, the theaters’ use of modern discourses seemed farfetched, exaggerated, illogical, or even ungrammatical. However, as part of theaters’ advertising efforts, it nevertheless might have impressed ordinary spectators enough to increase the attraction of serial plays. Spectatorship Generally speaking, serial plays had a broad spectatorship in Republican Shanghai. Though concrete statistics are impossible to obtain, we may attempt to identify the social groups that constituted the main body of audience. To begin, some male patrons from the upper class might have found serial plays enjoyable. For example, among the audience of The Investiture of the Gods, there were men who visited the theater by car or motorcycle, which suggests a relatively high economic status. 97 However, serial plays were seemingly disliked by most male elites. Despite their popularity, serial plays did not win many compliments from drama critics. With the exception of some who had relationships with the theaters, most critics looked down upon serial plays and regarded them as an artistically valueless, aesthetically vulgar type of Peking opera that catered to bad tastes of the masses. That viewpoint was widely accepted by male elite patrons who regarded themselves, and expected to be regarded, as connoisseurs of Peking opera. They thus would not deign to attend serial plays. Xu Muyun 徐慕云, a famous drama critic at the time,                                                                                                                                   97 Jingu, “Kanle Fengshen bang yihou” [After watching The Investiture of the Gods] Shen bao, January 19, 1929, supplement (3); Jianying, “Tianchan Wutai zhi shiyiben Fengshen bang” [The eleventh episode of The Investiture of the Gods by the Heavenly Toad Stage], Liyuan gongbao, January 8, 1931.   195 wrote in 1928: “All of these opera fans had rarely patronized theaters in years, because the serial plays that local theaters present now are indeed too inferior for investigation.”98 Although most male elites despised serial plays, their wives and children did not necessarily follow their opinions. In fact, many women and children from the upper class were rather fond of serial plays. From the late nineteenth century, women became an increasingly important audience group of local theaters, and the vast majority of them, except courtesans, came from the upper class. 99 As David Johnson points out, having less access to high education than male elites, women from privileged backgrounds in late imperial China “must have remained much closer to the main currents of the non-elite culture.” 100 Indeed, female spectators generally preferred serial plays that had complete stories, absorbing plots, and exciting scenes to selected-scene ones that emphasized players’ skills of singing and acting.101 Gaining more freedom to participate in public life, women constituted a considerable portion of audience for serial plays in the first years of the Republic.102 Meanwhile, it was commonplace for female spectators to bring their children. 103 Some male elites actually attended the performances accompanying their wives and children, or at their recommendation. One review of The Investiture of the Gods in 1928 read: “[The play] is certainly welcomed by children, and it is also favored by ladies and their daughters; to accompany them, old and young gentlemen had to take a look at it as well.”104                                                                                                                                   98 Xu Muyun, “Muyun tanju” [Muyun’s talk about drama], Xiju yuekan 1, (Oct 1928). For further discussion of local elites’ attitudes toward serial plays, see Chapter 5. 99 See Wang et al., Jindai Shanghai chengshi gonggong kongjian (1843-1949), pp. 127-128. 100 David Johnson, “Communication, Class, and Consciousness in Late Imperial China,” in Popular Culture in Late Imperial China, eds. Johnson, Nathan, and Rawski, p. 62. 101 Wang Mengsheng, Liyuan jiahua [Talking points of the theatrical circle] (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1915), p. 53. 102 For example, according to one review of 1913, when a new episode of The New Camellias was staged, women would fill the seats. Xuanlang, “Jutan,” Shen bao, May 1, 1913, 10. 103 Sometimes, the theater also urged parents to bring their children, asserting that the performance would promote the latter’s knowledge and courage. Advertisement of the first episode of The Investiture of the Gods by the Golden Great Theater, Shen bao, September 5, 1936, 22. 104 Zhou Shoujuan, “Minjian de xiju” [A folk play], Shen bao, December 1, 1928, 13.   196 The majority of spectators, nevertheless, came from the middle class, or, to use a common yet vague term, xiao shimin 小市民 (petty urbanites). Referring to those whose socioeconomic status was between the elite at the top and urban poor at the bottom, petty urbanites in Republican Shanghai were comprised of members from a wide range of professions, including clerks, secretaries, white-collar factory workers, small merchants, shop assistants, normal school teachers, housewives, and so forth. 105 Thanks to the fast growth of industry and commerce in early Republican period Shanghai, the number of petty urbanites increased rapidly, in turn generating profound changes in urban popular culture. By the late 1930s, there were about 250,000 to 300,000 white-collar employees working in various economic, cultural, and political institutions, with family members together numbering more than 1.5 million. To them, we must add numerous skilled manufacturing workers and their families.106 Modestly educated in general, petty urbanites tended to have similar tastes and practices in cultural life. As scholars have shown, petty urbanites were the major readers of the Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies fiction, a kind of popular fiction that primarily featured romantic love stories and prevailed in early twentieth-century Shanghai, and various popular periodicals like Shenghuo 生活 [Life] in Republican Shanghai.107 Likewise, petty urbanites constituted the main body of serial play spectators. This could be partially reflected in the ticket prices for performances. For most ordinary theatergoers, performances by star players from Beijing were prohibitively expensive. According to an article published in 1928, one had to spend at least three yuan (including the ticket and other                                                                                                                                   105 For a profound discussion on the definition and composition of petty urbanites, see Lu, Beyond the Neon Lights, pp. 61-63. 106 At the beginning of the twentieth century, there were around 40,000 industrial workers in Shanghai. In 1928, the eight largest local industries had more than 223,000 workers. Zou Yiran, Jiu Shanghai renkou bianqian de yanjiu [A study on the change of population in old Shanghai] (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1980), p. 30. 107 Wen-hsin Yeh, Shanghai Splendor: Economic Sentiments and the Making of Modern China, 1843-1949 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2007), p. 102. Perry Link, Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies: Popular Fiction in Early Twentieth Century Chinese Cities (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981), p. 189.   197 odd expenses) to enjoy a performance by Mei Lanfang, which was only affordable to wealthy spectators.108 In comparison, tickets for performances of serial plays were much cheaper. At the beginning of the 1920s, ticket prices for The Living Buddha Jigong by the New Stage ranged from one and a half to six jiao.109 The most expensive seats for the red-hot The Investiture of the Gods cost one yuan and two jiao, and the cheapest less than two jiao.110 Such prices were acceptable to petty urbanites who earned up to one hundred yuan per month. When C. T. Hsia 夏志清 (Xia Zhiqing), who later became the pioneering scholar of modern Chinese literature, stayed in Shanghai for several months in the early 1930s, his father, a bank clerk, often took the whole family to enjoy serial plays.111 Even members of the lower middle class, such as skilled workers, whose monthly wages were between thirty and forty yuan in the 1920s, could afford the performances.112 In addition to local residents, visitors from adjacent towns and other regions often attended performances of serial plays during their short stays in Shanghai. In spite of the cheap tickets, serial plays were still inaccessible to the lower class of the city. In Republican Shanghai, there were innumerable urban poor living at the bottom of society, including unskilled workers, servants, coolies, rickshaw pullers, peddlers, beggars, and many others.113 Most of them probably never stepped into a commercial theater, though they might have had the chance to enjoy free operatic performances provided occasionally at temples or the assembly halls of native-place associations.114 According to                                                                                                                                   108 Zhenggang Shizhe, “Yuan Meilang tichang pingminhua” [Hope Mei Lanfang advocates popularization], Xiju yuekan 1, (Nov 1928). 109 Advertisement of the New Stage, Shen bao, December 1, 1920, 8. 110 Advertisement of the New Stage, Shen bao, December 27, 1928, supplement (5). 111 Chih-tsing Hsia, Jichuang ji [A collection of the study] (Shanghai: Shanghai sanlian shudian, 2000), p. 19. 112 Tang Hai, Zhongguo laodong wenti [Chinese labor issues] (Shanghai: Guanghua shuju, 1927), pp. 177-178, quoted from Lu, Beyond the Neon Lights, p. 60. 113 For a comprehensive survey on the urban poor in Republican Shanghai, see Lu, Beyond the Neon Lights, pp. 65-66. 114 For an examination of operatic activities in native-place associations, see Goodman, Native Place, City, and Nation, pp. 103-106. A native-place association in Shanghai often had a stage for occasional operatic performances, but Goodman’s argument that commercial theaters developed from native-place associations is highly questionable.   198 statistics from the 1930s, a worker’s family spent just 1.24 yuan on average each year on proper entertainment activities such as theatergoing.115 Unskilled workers from northern Jiangsu Province, who were often paid less than half a yuan per day, could only occasionally visit small, crude theaters in working-class districts that staged performances of regional dramas from their hometowns, because the tickets were extremely cheap. 116 Spectacular performances of Peking opera serial plays, which were only available in large modern theaters, were unaffordable for the urban poor. A Fashionable Entertainment Serial plays prevailed in Republican Shanghai, first and foremost, because they were probably the most entertaining programs at the time. Theatergoing remained the primary entertainment form for local residents and visitors to relax or exhilarate themselves in early Republican Shanghai. Connoisseurs might have paid great attention to players’ conventional skills of singing and acting, but ordinary spectators visited theaters primarily for fun and excitement. In performances of serial plays, the recreational function of drama was maximized. While a selected-scene play often appeared confusing and cheerless to ordinary people, a serial play seemed to have something for everyone. The absorbing plot drew spectators to watch one episode after another to follow the story line, just like people’s addiction to TV series today. 117 The performances were so comprehensible that even illiterate spectators could understand them. Meanwhile, spectacular scenes created by                                                                                                                                   115 Shanghaishi Zhengfu Shehuiju, Shanghaishi gongren shenghuo chengdu [Standard of living of Shanghai laborers] (Shanghai: Zhonghua shuju, 1934), p. 77. 116 For an examination on Subei workers’ operatic entertainment in Republican Shanghai, see Emily Hoing, Creating Chinese Ethnicity: Subei People in Shanghai, 1850-1980 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), pp. 54-55. 117 Zhang, “Shanghai Jingju yiwang,” p. 216.   199 mechanical sets brought fresh visual experiences to spectators who, in response, applauded loudly for amazing scenery and tricks. Local players’ innovations and overacting in performances, which critics often attacked, were welcomed by ordinary spectators, especially those from the lower middle class. Collaborative singing, breathtaking martial arts, and random comic routines were indispensable elements for almost all serial plays, for they made the performances much more amusing. Even children, who might not be able to comprehend the plots completely, enjoyed the performances. Recalling his childhood experience of watching a serial play in Shanghai, C. T. Hsia states that: “the mechanical sets and martial arts, plus humor, indeed interested an eleven-year-old boy.”118 Few other public entertainment programs at the time were so exciting and colorful as serial plays. One article in 1930 suggested that serial plays such as The Investiture of the Gods and Journey to the West created great sensations because they were even more enjoyable visually than films about similar subjects.119 In addition, the festive atmosphere that one experienced while attending a live performance in a Peking opera theater was much more substantial when watching the screen in cinemas. While spectators with diverse backgrounds shared a fondness for serial plays, the practice of attending a performance could have different meanings for them. With little knowledge about opera and life, children from privileged and ordinary families probably had similar feelings in the theater. The theatergoing experience of adults, however, was more complicated. To wealthy patrons, theatergoing was just one of many pastimes, and their favoring of serial plays was thus largely a reflection of personal taste. In comparison, petty urbanites had to work hard to support their well-to-do families and therefore had much less money and leisure time for amusement. Watching a serial play show must have been a more solemn practice that had multifold significance for them.                                                                                                                                   118 Hsia, Jichuang ji, p. 19. 119 “Ge wutai suotan” [Chitchat of theaters], Liyuan gongbao, July 11, 1930.   200 First, theatergoing was one important vehicle for ordinary people to escape temporarily from their tedious working and living circumstances. The work of common employees of modern industrial and commercial institutions, such as factories and banks, was usually repetitive and monotonous. Meanwhile, socioeconomic modernization caused profound changes in urban family life. Instead of traditional large families, nuclear ones became prevalent in Republican Shanghai, with most inhabiting the city’s cramped shikumen 石 库门 (stone portal) houses in lilong 里弄 (alleyway) neighborhoods, where everyday life was relatively quiet and colorless.120 In an era without television, the narrowness of living space and boredom of daily life tended to generate a psychological need for public life and excitement. Public operatic entertainment within local theaters filled that need. The magnificent modern building, spectacular performances, and festive atmosphere could temporarily take one’s mind off daily life. That was even more the case when enjoying a serial play. Serial plays usually told legendary stories of ancient China that therefore were distant from spectators’ real life, and the absorbing plots and marvelous sets made it a fantastic experience to watch the performances. One article from 1928 even suggested that middle-class families should decorate their stereotypical stone-portal houses in imitation of stage sets of local theaters, so as to “alleviate the dullness and boredom of everyday life.”121 Besides escapism, to petty urbanites, watching a serial play, especially newly produced ones, was a fashionable recreation and a manifestation of “being modern.” From the 1900s, the grand buildings and elaborate sets of local theaters were regarded as part of the metropolitan spectacle of modern Shanghai.122 When serial plays flourished from the late 1910s onward, both theater buildings and stage sets became increasingly advanced. Various new technologies and exotic objects were utilized to create unprecedented visual                                                                                                                                   120 For a profound investigation of the everyday life of alleyway neighborhood in Republican Shanghai, see Lu, Beyond the Neon Lights, Chapter 4. 121 Gulian, “Gushi yeyao bujinghua” [Houses should be decorated as stage setting], Liyuan gongbao, December 23, 1928. 122 Tiaoshui Kuangsheng ed., Haishang liyuan xin lishi, p. 687.   201 effects, which continuously brought the experience of modernity to the audiences. For instance, in October 1930, one spectator was greatly amazed by several incredible scenes of the Reform Stage’s Journey to the West. Though the plot was somewhat inappropriate, he could not help admiring the producers’ “genius in applying science.”123 Some spectators were so curious about technologies and tricks used in performances that, when technicians were switching stage sets in dark between two acts, they attempted to use flashlights to observe the process. 124 According to one critic, when the audience stepped out of the theater, the first thing that they talked about in delight was usually the mechanical sets rather than the dramatic plot or players’ performance.125 Spectacular scenes created by complex mechanical sets, as well as the sensational marketing of serial plays, were well situated within the material and discursive conditions of Republican Shanghai, where spectacle and sensation had increasingly become part of daily life.126 Performances of serial plays, to a certain extent, commodified the strong sensory stimulus that typically exemplifies metropolitan modernity. In addition, while critics attacked local players’ innovative singing and acting in serial plays, ordinary people considered them enjoyable and stylish.127 Therefore, in the eyes of petty urbanites, watching serial plays was a modern and fashionable entertainment. Such theatrical experiences, which were almost exclusively available in Shanghai’s grand modern theaters, attracted both local residents and visitors. While the spectators’ perceptions of serial plays must have been considerably                                                                                                                                   123 “Kexuehua de Xi you ji.” 124 Wanneng, “Zi qu qi ru” [Self-inflicted humiliation], Liyuan gongbao, October 5, 1928; Liu Binkun, “Wutai xianchou bashichun” [Performing for eighty years], in Xiqu jingying, ed. Zhongguo renmin zhengzhi xieshang huiyi shanghaishi weiyuanhui wenshi ziliao gongzuo weiyuanhui, p. 189. 125 Qienan, “Tan bujing” [On stage sets], Xiju zhoubao 1, 10 (Dec 1936). 126 Ben Singer offers a profound discussion of the possible interrelation between the sensationalism of popular entertainment and the new sensory conditions of metropolis in America during the decades around the turn of the twentieth century. See Ben Singer, Melodrama and Modernity: Early Sensational Cinema and its Contexts (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), Chapter 3. 127 Weichun, “Wangyun Lou jutan” [Drama reviews of the Watching-Cloud Chamber], Xiju yuekan 2, (Oct 1929).   202 shaped by public media, especially the sensational advertisements that widely employed modern discourses, their consumption of the performances also affected the (re)construction of their urban identities. To the locals, watching serial plays was part of Shanghai-style life. The high expense of serial plays catered to the materialism and vainglory of a rising middle class of the city. As one critic suggested, serial plays commonly cost tens of thousands of yuan to produce, otherwise they could hardly satisfy the audience’s expectations and eyes.128 The theaters therefore often boasted about the high cost of their products in advertisements. Furthermore, since a new play soon became the talk of the town, it was a somewhat “necessary” practice for one to attend the performance so as to avoid being out of fashion. That was probably the reason why, it was said, even thrifty persons might spend money to watch popular plays such like The Investiture of the Gods.129 Such a “necessity” is well revealed in one spectator’s account of what he saw at the gate of the Heavenly Toad Stage. On a rainy day in February 1929, a beautiful lady patronized the theater for The Investiture of the Gods. She came alone by rickshaw, which implies that she was likely from a middle-class family. When getting off the rickshaw, she accidently slid into the accumulated water on the ground and soaked her shoes and socks. Blushing in embarrassment, the lady stood at the staircase, staring blankly, as if she wanted to just take the same rickshaw back home. Yet, she was so reluctant to miss the sensational play that she eventually went upstairs in sodden shoes and socks, her head nodding with every stride.130 In addition, serial plays contributed to the construction of a common “Shanghainese” identity in the city whose residents were mostly immigrants from other regions of the country. Bryna Goodman is right to point out that                                                                                                                                   128 “Diyi Tai erben Kaitian pidi zhisheng” [Recording the spectacle of the second episode of The Making of heaven and earth by the First Stage], Shen bao, September 21, 1928, supplement (2). 129 Bowen, “You Fengshen bang shuodao shixia wutai de qushi” [Discussion from The Investiture of the Gods to the present current of theaters], Shen bao, December 1, 1928, 13. 130 Jingu, “Kanle Fengshen bang yihou.”   203 performances of various regional drama sponsored by native-place associations in modern Shanghai did not bring the audiences a common theatrical experience, even though the performances usually did not exclude nonnatives. 131 In contrast, Peking opera serial plays enjoyed a broader spectatorship that crossed regional boundaries more than any other dramatic genre in Republican Shanghai. According to one article from 1929, most immigrants from Zhejiang actually preferred Peking opera serial plays to the Yue opera that originated in their native province.132 Indeed, watching and discussing popular serial plays had become a common urban cultural practice of people from different regions. For example, one article from 1930 asserted: “In the city of Shanghai, I think only very few people have not heard of the second episode of Journey to the West staged by the Reform Stage.”133 Such a common cultural life must have fostered the construction of a collective “Shanghainese” identity among spectators. If watching serial plays made the locals feel “being Shanghainese”, it was also an important part of a visitor’s experience of “having been to Shanghai.” According to one advertisement of the New Stage in 1921, a visitor from the hinterland told people that if one did not watch several episodes of The Living Buddha Jigong, his whole trip to Shanghai was almost in vain.134 Fabricated by the theater or not, the statement was right in that, to numerous visitors to Shanghai, serial plays were an embodiment of the city’s unique metropolitan splendor. When young C. T. Hsia was about to leave Shanghai in 1932, he desperately wanted to stay for one more day to watch the new episode of a serial play, because once he returned to Suzhou, a big city close to Shanghai, such splendid plays would not be available anymore.135 The experience of watching serial plays in Shanghai thus became something that one could brag                                                                                                                                   131   Goodman, Native Place, City, and Nation, p. 23.   132   Zhou Jintao, “Shanghai Yueju buneng lizu zhi yuanyin” [The reason why the Yue opera cannot find a foothold], Xiju yuekan 1, 10 (Apr 1929).   133   “Kexuehua de Xi you ji.”   134 Advertisement of the fifteenth episode of The Living Buddha Jigong by the New Stage, Shen bao, July 20, 1921, 12. 135 Hsia, Jichuang ji, p. 19.   204 about to his/her townsmen, showing that they “had been around.” This was vividly described in one short story published in 1929. In an old town near Shanghai, a woman boasted to others in a theater as follows: “When I was in Shanghai, I watched The Investiture of the Gods performed by Qilin Tong 麒 麟童 [stage name of Zhou Xinfang] and Wang Yunfang 王芸芳 for more than ten days in a row, the first episode of the Reform Stage’s Baishe zhuan 白蛇传 [Legend of the White Snake] for five or six days, and also Chuanjin baoshan heng 穿金宝扇恨 [Hatred of the Gilded Fan] by Zhao Ruquan 赵 如泉. Which one did I not see?”136 In line with their perception of serial plays as a fashionable entertainment, spectators consumed the performances like fashion goods. The premiere of a new play tended to create a sensation, but the audience was prone to get tired of previous episodes. When the third and fourth episodes of a given play came out, they were not interested in the first two any longer.137 It was as if they were consuming trendy products rather than operatic performances, which was strikingly different from how Chinese enjoyed popular drama conventionally. Therefore, local theaters seldom re-staged a serial play. A Familiar Modernity Notwithstanding their novelty and stylishness, the vast majority of serial plays took ancient Chinese stories as their subjects, and the most popular ones were usually concerned with deities and demons. This prompts us to explore the connection between serial plays and the audience’s psychological mindsets on another level. While enjoying the unprecedented sensory experience created by new technologies, spectators tended to favor plays depicting stories familiar to them. Consequently, those adapted from popular fiction and tales                                                                                                                                   136 You Banguang, “Duifu buliao” [Difficult to handle], Xiju yuekan 2, (Sep 1929). 137 Qiufan, “Xia Yuerun yixi tan.”   205 turned out to be most welcome, because most spectators had some background knowledge about the stories and primary characters, which facilitated their comprehension of the performances. As Song Chunfang 宋春舫, a noted scholar and dramatist in Republican Shanghai, pointed out, plays like Zhuge Liang Marries into his Wife’s Family and The Living Buddha Jigong created great sensations precisely because people already had the images of Zhuge Liang and Jigong in their minds before they watched the performances.138 Likewise, the great success of the play The Investiture of the Gods should partially be attributed to the popularity of the original novel, which, according to an advertisement of the Heavenly Toad Stage, was “known by all men and women” and “loved by everyone.”139 In contrast, few plays based on stories strange to ordinary people achieved remarkable success. For instance, the Heavenly Toad Stage presented Shijiamoni fo 释 迦 摩 尼 佛 (Sakyamuni Buddha) in December 1925. Despite the high investment, the play was hardly a success, and only two episodes were staged. The major reason was probably that, though the name of Sakyamuni was known to almost everyone, the play was set in ancient India and the story was rather strange to most people.140 Likewise, a few plays based on local news, such as Yan Ruisheng, were considerably popular, whereas those based on happenings in other regions generated little response from the audience. More often than not, therefore, modern technologies and facilities were utilized to visualize amazing scenes that already existed in the audience’s expectations or imagination, rather than to create something completely new. When The Investiture of the Gods was about to premiere, the Heavenly Toad Stage claimed that many experts of optics and mechanical sets had been employed to present “all mystical, fantastic theurgies in the original book,                                                                                                                                   138 Song Chunfang, “Zhongguo xinju juben zhi shangque” [Discussion of scripts of Chinese new play], Shen bao, October 10, 1921, 42. 139 Advertisement of The Investiture of the Gods by the Heavenly Toad, Xiju yuekan 1, 3. 140 “Tianchan zhi xinxi Shijiamoni fo” [The Heavenly Toad’s new play Sakyamuni Buddha], Shen bao, December 19, 1925, supplement (4). The play had just two episodes, which reveals its unpopularity.   206 which people only heard about but never saw.”141 Such a combination of, or negotiation between, novelty and familiarity in operatic performances well suited the taste of petty urbanites. This is clearly revealed in one spectator’s remarks on the second episode of the play, whose plot was said to be arranged totally according to the original novel. Amused by the comic scenes and splendid sets, however, the spectator found “a fly in the ointment” that he felt regrettable: in the novel, the immortal warrior Nezha 哪吒 always rode fire-wheels into battle, but the theater failed to present them in the performance.142 Mediating the encounter with new technologies and exotic objects through recognizable stories and scenes, the performances of serial plays offered ordinary spectators a “familiar” modernity. As one folk song from 1922 suggested, the popularity of The Fox Cat could be attributed to its “renovation of the old, which every Shanghainese welcomes.”143 Ordinary spectators favored serial plays with familiar themes not only because the performances were more accessible but also because the values embedded in the stories were dear to them. Drama in imperial China had a close connection with ethics. While the ruling class attempted to use it as a tool to propagate orthodox ideology, popular drama often contained folk ethical values that were not necessarily consistent with orthodoxy. The radical cultural and political changes of early twentieth-century China caused ethical disorder in society. Whereas the May-Fourth intellectuals fiercely attacked traditional morality and advocated values of “democracy” and “science” imported from the West, the revolutionaries attempted to establish a new sociocultural order that coincided with the party-state polity. Among the ordinary people, however, conventional ethical values still prevailed. Facing bewildering new discourses and chaotic sociopolitical circumstances, people found in these values mental security and moral order, though they might not                                                                                                                                   141 Advertisement of The Investiture of the Gods by the Heavenly Toad, Xiju yuekan 1, 3. 142 Jingu, “Kanle Fengshen bang yihou.” 143 “Wutai shigeng diao” [Ten two-hour ditty of theaters], Xi zazhi, Tentative Issue (Apr 1922).   207 follow all of them in daily practice. Expressions of such a state of social mentality could be found in various forms of urban popular culture, including the new ones that emerged under Western impact. In his classic work on the Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies fiction, Perry Link points out that, despite their “new style” in appearance, popular fiction in the 1910s and 1920s paid tribute to many Chinese traditional values, such as honesty, frugality, respect for age, and respect for nature and the supernatural. Link argues that such ambivalence toward Western influence offered “psychological comfort” to Shanghai’s middle-class readers who lived in a semi-colonized, fast-modernizing treaty port, but still had conservative cultural tendencies in general.144 This thesis could be applied to serial plays as well. It was commonplace that a serial play, regardless of its subject, claimed to be beneficial to social morals and traditional ethics. The Living Buddha Jigong by the New Stage, for instance, was characterized by its strong moral concerns. According to the theater’s advertisements, the play was dedicated to promoting social morality, and traditional virtues such as xiao 孝 (filial piety), zhong 忠 (loyalty), and yi 义 (righteousness) were disseminated to the audience through comic stories; the largest number of stories were about filial sons and chaste women, and moral principals were expressed in a straightforward manner in performance, “shocking the eye and astonishing the heart” of spectators.145 Such emphasis on plays’ moral concerns, just like that on their stage sets, was an advertising strategy catering to public mentality. It is difficult to tell whether the performances had genuine substantive impact on public morals, but many serial plays did feature traditional ethical values. As a rule, the good and the evil were depicted in a stereotypical way, which was facilitated by the long, complete story and players’ melodramatic performance style. The moral dichotomy not only helped spectators grasp the                                                                                                                                   144 Link, Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies, p. 20-21. 145 Advertisements of The Living Buddha Jigong, Shen bao, December 19, 1918, 8; March 8, 1919, 8; March 13, 1919, 8.   208 storyline, but might also have relieved their moral anxiousness, providing them with clear moral images to applaud or condemn. For example, one article in 1934 regarded The Fox Cat as a play essentially about the moral struggle between kindness and evil, which was more likely to touch the masses than class or national struggles.146 When it was presented by the Heavenly Toad Stage, the audience hated Guo Huai 郭槐, the most evil role in the play, so much that they often threw nuts and fruit at the player.147 Such a collective emotional catharsis must have provided spectators with temporary moral comfort, perhaps even more strongly than when they read the Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies novels alone. In almost all plays, the good would eventually be rewarded and the bad punished, which reaffirmed traditional ethical values. It was a common occurrence that the “happy ending” of a play was achieved with the intervention of supernatural power. Deities and ghosts therefore appeared in almost all plays, and those that featured them were particularly favored by petty urbanites.148 Most supernatural characters had their origins in popular religion, and some were worshiped by ordinary people, which often made it a thrilling or even mysterious experience for them to watch the performances. For example, in the version of The Fox Cat presented by the Red Cassia First Stage in 1922, one scene about ghosts was so creepy that timid women and children dared not look at it at all.149 The New Stage purportedly staged The Living Buddha Jigong following Jigong’s own instructions, which were gained through divination. Furthermore, during one night’s performance, Jigong was said to have visited the theater invisibly, and after he left, a bottle of wine prepared for him turned into water. 150 Nevertheless, the fundamental reason for the play’s popularity was that Jigong                                                                                                                                   146 Su Wen, “Minzhong yishu de neirong” [Content of folk culture], Xiandai [Modern] 5, (Aug 1934): 531. 147 Guanglei Shizhu, “Ping Han Wudi yu Tianhe pei” [Reviewing Emperor Wu of the Dan and Milky Way Match], Shen bao, August 11, 1924, supplement (2). 148 Liu Peiqian, Da Shanghai zhinan [A guidebook of great Shanghai] (Shanghai: Zhonghua shuju, 1936), p. 130. 149 “Ji Diyi Tai zhi liuben Limao huan taizi” [Recording the sixth episode of The Fox Cat Substituted for the Crown Prince], November 6, 1922, 17. 150 Meihua Guanzhu, “Xin Wutai paiyan Jigong huofo zhi qianyin houguo.”   209 always brought about a righteous outcome of the stories. Suffering the ethical disorder of Republican Shanghai, ordinary people found moral certainty and poetic justice in such plays. One writer, who was an atheist himself, wrote in 1928: “In an age when old ethics are about to collapse but new ethics have not been established yet, the hypotheses about ghosts and deities are indeed one means to complement education and maintain people’s morality.”151 That may help explain the puzzling phenomenon of the popularity of plays about ancient Chinese deities and demons in China’s most Westernized city. Syncretizing supernatural elements and high technologies, combining traditional values and modern discourses, serial plays accorded with the pretty urbanites’ psychological structure toward modernity in Republican Shanghai. For one thing, the high cost of plays, fantastic visual effects created by new technologies, and sensational advertisements catered to the petty urbanites’ desire to be modern. For another, the familiar subjects and traditional ethnic values that the plays conveyed provided them with a kind of mental comfort in the fast-changing sociocultural circumstances, enabling them to “be modern” without abandoning conventional ethics. The consumption of serial plays therefore facilitated the petty urbanites’ construction of their modern identities, which determined the plays’ popularity in Republican Shanghai. Meanwhile, it also promoted the formulation of a common “Shanghainese” identity among the spectators. However, as noted earlier, serial plays were fiercely attacked by local elites who, wanting manipulate Peking opera entertainment to their own ends, enthusiastically embraced performances by star players from Beijing. This, as I will elaborate in the next chapter, led to an increasing bifurcation of local operatic entertainment culture.                                                                                                                                   151 Shouti, “Duiyu Fengshen bang zhi yijian” [Comments on The Investiture of the Gods], Shen bao, December 1, 1928, 13.   210 [...]... passed the imperial examination at the county level) was invited to polish the script of the second episode of The Investiture of the Gods that were initially produced by the leading players Yang Yuhua, “Huiyi Zhou Xinfang bianyan erben Fengshen bang de jingguo” [Recalling the process of Zhou Xinfang’s composing and performing the second episode of The Investiture of the Gods], in Zhou Xinfang yishu pinglun... serial plays as both a form of performing art and a commercial product, the latter helps us understand their sociocultural significance at that time This and the following three sections examine in detail the configuration of serial plays and the ways in which they were created and performed, starting with their themes and plots While serial plays in the late 1900s and early 1910s often took foreign stories... Peking opera serial plays, which were only available in large modern theaters, were unaffordable for the urban poor A Fashionable Entertainment Serial plays prevailed in Republican Shanghai, first and foremost, because they were probably the most entertaining programs at the time Theatergoing remained the primary entertainment form for local residents and visitors to relax or exhilarate themselves in. .. emerged during previous performances The mode in which local theaters presented serial plays reflects the high commodification of operatic performance in Republican Shanghai, which was conditioned by the fierce competition in local theater business Theaters usually initiated the plan for a new play as a speculative investment Due to the intensive use of mechanical sets and new costumes, the cost for... zhi tekan” [The special issues of The Investiture of the Gods by the Heavenly Toad Stage], Luobinhan, September 14, 1928 90 “Tianchan Wutai Fengshen bang tekan” [Special issue of The Investiture of the Gods by   191 unprecedented in China As one reviewer pointed out, the theater s strenuous efforts in advertising indeed contributed a lot to the extraordinary success of the play.91 When the second episode... housewives, and so forth 105 Thanks to the fast growth of industry and commerce in early Republican period Shanghai, the number of petty urbanites increased rapidly, in turn generating profound changes in urban popular culture By the late 1930s, there were about 250,000 to 300,000 white-collar employees working in various economic, cultural, and political institutions, with family members together numbering... with the import of Western magic Modern Western magic was introduced into China in the late nineteenth century, and some foreign magicians were invited to perform for Chinese spectators in local theaters Western magic became increasingly popular in the 1910s, and the 1920s witnessed the emergence of a number of local magicians who performed modern magic 53 It was during this period that local theaters.. .the flag-bearer of the New Culture Movement who used to advocate abolishing “backward” Peking opera, published an article in 1925 investigating the evolution of its original story.29 Themes and Plots To understand the prevalence of serial plays in Shanghai, we must explore at least two dimensions: their production by local theaters and their consumption by spectators While the former demonstrates the. .. devices should be applied in operatic performances, and players ought to have knowledge of scientific inventions and technological products; competition in material aspects—stage sets in particular—among theaters, according to the author, had much to do with the progress of Chinese civilization. 94 These opinions were echoed by theaters in advertisements In May 1931, for instance, the Heavenly Toad Stage... fondness for serial plays, the practice of attending a performance could have different meanings for them With little knowledge about opera and life, children from privileged and ordinary families probably had similar feelings in the theater The theatergoing experience of adults, however, was more complicated To wealthy patrons, theatergoing was just one of many pastimes, and their favoring of serial plays . plays and their popularity in Shanghai during the 1920s and 1930s. The following four sections investigate in detail the production of serial plays by local theaters, including the themes and. theater was nearly filled to capacity by eight o’clock in the evening, far outmatching those in Beijing. 20 Reading advertisements in Shen bao in the mid 1920s, one finds that nearly all theaters. Xinfang bianyan erben Fengshen bang de jingguo” [Recalling the process of Zhou Xinfang’s composing and performing the second episode of The Investiture of the Gods], in Zhou Xinfang yishu pinglun