Actors’ Training 训练
BEFORE THE SCHOOLS
In traditional way of
training, the actors accept a child, often only seven years old, whom they
thought showed promise, on contract from the child’s parents. Under the term of this contract, the child
will live in the actor’s house for seven-year period and the actor is completely
responsible for the child; the child is more of apprentice than a student.
The tutor/actor’s first
few years of teaching will be paid off when the student learns fully and earns
money for his master by acting in the theaters and privately and the student
had to perform whenever he’s required in order to earn money for his master.
Sometimes, if the tutor
is thought that his contract had not been fulfilled, the student had not earned
yet the money to repay, the tutor will extend the seven-year period of the
contract until the time he’s satisfied.
ESTABLISHMENT OF THE SCHOOLS
After 1911,
the Yeh Ch’un Shan’s school, a constructive
system of training is given and has the same seven-year period contract. The relationship between the
master and apprentice was more of a
student than of an apprentice. The punishment is readily given whenever the student made a mistake.
In summer, they
rose at 5am; in winter, they rose at 6am and have T’AN TZE KUNG or
carpet exercise whereas they start the day by doing an hour of strenuous
exercise to loosen their stiff leg muscles for acrobatics an equivalent bar
work for ballet training. The senior
students practiced the more advanced acrobatic feats.
In Yeh Ch’un
Shan’s school, they also do body warm ups. Relaxing the tension of the strained limbs, the students will walk
through the town to the city walls where they sang at the top of their voices
(done so that they can judge the quality of their singing voices by the sound
deflected on the walls). They eat breakfast at 8am. And aside from T’AN TZE KUNG, they also have TA
PA TZE, the training with which
they use stage weapons and take half
hour rest before lunch time. After
lunch, the students will go to the school theater to watch the senior students
perform. The students will have their singing and acting lessons after the lunch time and will take their
supper by 6pm.
TA T’UNG T’ANG is
the term they use for the punishment for the students in group or alone.
There are no proper education at all in
this school, apart from theatrical training and the students were from poor families and for the most part illiterate.
They learned all their roles in more or less parrot fashion. Only those who came from educated families in
Peking were themselves educated.
Generally, actors were
looked down upon by the scholarly families in Peking and women are not allowed
on stage, only female impersonators existed. They had to learn to walk on
stilted shoes.
In 1930, there was another training ground for Peking artists.
It’s called Chung Kuo Hsi Chü Hsüeh Hsiao school and was founded by westernized Chinese. These people disapproved of the harsh
training methods and lack of education given in the previous school and they introduced methods they had learned
abroad to educate the young actors. The same seven-year period contract is still applied but many of the harsher punishment were
abolished and parents could
visit their children more frequently
The actors were
more accepted in the society whereas before they were outcasts and girls were
accepted to train for female roles, female impersonators continued to train for
these parts.
In 1931, both Yeh Ch’un Shan’s school and the Hsi Chü
Hsüeh Hsiao closed down at the time of the Japanese invasion.
In 1952, the state set up two new schools after 21
years and these two were the China Opera Training School which has Peking
opera department and local opera department; and the Peking
Municipality Opera School which trains
students Peking opera only. More
education was given at both schools, as the ordinary school subjects are taught
to a greater extent than in the schools previously mentioned. The training is not so harsh and all the more
severe forms of punishment including beating have been abolished and musicians
for the orchestra are trained in the school where before they had to rely on
private tutor -- Many musicians are pupils who have trained in the school but
have lost their singing voices. The
women are now trained to play an orchestral instrument where before they were
not allowed in the orchestra and female impersonators were no longer trained,
female roles are now taken by girls. The stilted shoes are worn for some female parts have been also abolished
and the actor is rehearsing his singing
and acting abilities in his free time and/or when not performing. The Peking opera of today still reflects
great credit on his initial training which has obviously given him the stamina
to use his skill to the utmost.