NAN-HSI

Pinyin nanxi one of the first fully developed forms of Chinese drama. Nan-hsi (southern drama) emerged in the area around Wen-chou (Wenzhou) in southern China during the Sung dynasty (9601279). Originally the creation of folk authors, the earliest nan-hsi were a combination of Sung plays with local folk songs and ballads. They were characterized by their colloquial language and large number of scenes; flexible verses (ch', Pinyin qu) set to popular local music, which made both poetry and music accessible to the ordinary spectator, alternated with vernacular spoken passages. Professional playwrights belonging to Hangzhou's book guilds (shu-hui) wrote large numbers of nan-hsi for local troupes. Of these, however, only 283 titles and 20 play texts remain. Chang Hsieh chuang-yan (Top Graduate Chang Hsieh) is one of the best-known of the extant texts. The form was the precursor of the ch'uan-ch'i style.