Yuan_Drama

Yuan Drama Yuan Drama History During the period of Mongol rule in China, the Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368), there were great developments and evolution in the area of performance art. It was during this period that a style of theatre referred to as poetic musical drama, or as zaju (tsa chu, "mixed entertainments"), gained greatly in popularity and reached what is viewed as its Golden Age. Therefore, this style later came to be known as Yuan ch'u ("Yuan Songs"), Mongol theatre, or Yuan drama. This classical and highly stylized form of theatre, an ancestor of the Chinese opera, called for entertainers, both male and female, to sing, act, mime, and play music. Through the use of such skills, the performers presented stories of political intrigue, heroism, villainy, filial devotion, and the faith of lovers. The Yuan plays themselves were often works by Chinese scholars and intellectuals, though Mongols, and others are also noted to have been dramatists .As was the case with many Yuan dramas, the stories were usually based on earlier materials: older Chinese tales and anecdotes that were already familiar to the people. The playwrights, though, took liberties to adapt and rework the materials for their own purpose, yuan, chinese, theatre, mongol, period, mongols, entertainers, during, drama, works, though, style, stories, society, since, political, playwrights, plays, people, music, much, materials, intellectuals, dynasty, class, china, called, already, zaju, years, writer, while, wedge, way, villainy