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The Roles Of Drama In Beijing And Opera's Peking Opera

Decent Essays

During the 17th and 18th century, drama played a huge role in impacting the urban environment of Beijing and Edo, and its citizens. Drama, transcended through the virtuality of fictional play and characters that come to parallel the everyday life of locals. Although Beijing and Edo are two different cultural regions in the East, their similarity could be accounted for in their inclusiveness of the local commoners through applying the worldview of lower rank members of society to execute the play. However, their differences lie in the Edo culture instilling a certain sentiment within the urban people to act on social injustice or issues. Though drama in Beijing remains to be an instrumental tool for members of society to relay messages, and act a means to communicate their true thoughts that could not otherwise be outspoken in a conservative and authoritarian era. In Beijing, the two most prominent types of drama are known as Peking Opera and Chinese Shadow Theatre. In Peking Opera, troupes are usually invited to enter the palace to perform their plays. However, the play that gets to be staged and performed very much gets decided by the audience in the case that it is performed in the palace. Since misconduct and outspokenness is highly frowned upon in the palace and court, Peking drama is often used to relay implicit messages that the person selecting the drama wants the audience to comprehend. For example, Empress Dowager “Cixi often ordered a Peking Opera called

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