On a covered wooden platform among stalls, a comic pair of performers trade quick lines beside a drum and a clapper, a few small onlookers seated at the back right.
Song-Jin Zaju and Yuanben
Song and Jin variety plays and yuanben, the stage forms before Yuan zaju
Introduction
Song zaju brought song and dance, music, comic talk and acrobatics together, was performed in sections, and opened with a section called the yanduan. Its roles were the moni, yinxi, fujing and fumo, sometimes with a zhuanggu added; the fujing played the fool and the fumo cracked jokes. The yuanben of the Jin developed out of Northern Song zaju, and most had simple, comic plots; in towns they were performed by the court music office and musician households, and in the countryside traveling troupes set up stages at temples or in the homes of great families. Jin yuanben and zhugongdiao were the base on which Yuan zaju developed.