Why Not Return

Introduction

Why Not Return is a classic of the Cantonese opera repertoire written by the playwright Feng Zhifen, praised by the Macao Cultural Affairs Bureau in 2019 for its tight plot, clear characters and elegant arias. Ping Sheng and his beloved wife Pin Niang are tricked by his cousins, who bribe a doctor to declare her incurably ill, and while Ping Sheng is away with the army his mother drives her from the house, so that she hides from the world by pretending to have died. When Ping Sheng weeps at her grave she is moved to reveal herself, the mother and the cousins confess, and the couple are reunited. Audiences called the cast of Xue Juexian, Shanghai Mei and Bun Yat On the original version of the play, and in 1940 Xue also starred in a film of it. In the 1920s and 1930s Cantonese troupes competed to stage new plays, and Why Not Return is named among the works that set the fashion of the time.

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