This statement is not very accurate. Zhang Shouchen is not against naming the cross talk. He is against announcing the curtain before the cross talk, which means telling the audience in advance what the actors will say next in the cross talk. Why does Zhang Shouchen object to giving cross talk a name?
The reason why crosstalk artists in the early years chose to talk about crosstalk was because it could bring them money to survive. Who pays for survival? Of course they are regular customers who listen to cross talk. Therefore, in order for crosstalk artists to retain the audience of these people who live and feed themselves, each of them knows a lot of jokes and has solid basic skills.
So, when listening to a cross talk performance, we usually look at the scene to determine what today’s theme is. Start by teasing a few small pieces of baggage. If the response from the audience is good, then talk about this topic. If the response on the spot is not good and the comment is complimentary, then you have to change the joke. There was originally no announcement for cross talk
Before liberation, the cross talk garden charged by segment, and the method of laying on the ground continued. The actors woke up and patted each other, holding small bamboo baskets and asking for money one by one. This method of profit attaches great importance to "drawing people in", because if the audience stands up and leaves, the actors will have no income, so the most important thing is to "make the point lively" and say what cross talk to the audience.
After the liberation, in the 1950s and 1960s in Tianjin, crosstalk performances were still based on time-based charging. It seemed that one fee was charged every ten minutes, and the fee for less than ten minutes was rounded off. Although it was much more formal at this time than before liberation, in fact there were still disadvantages. The audience would "draw lots" and leave if they were not satisfied. Fundamentally speaking, it still depends on the actor's skills and whether he can observe the audience's flexible "points away". live".
Zhang Shoushen’s objection to the crosstalk announcement was based on the way of life of artists at that time. After the announcement, you could not change your life casually. As for the era when Zhang Shouchen lived, his understanding was correct, just as Guo Degang sometimes joked on stage, "A crosstalk actor must not let the audience guess. Once he guesses, he will think you are worthless." The hourly charging of cross talk is actually outdated
An attempt was made to recreate the "hourly charging" at the 7th Tianjin Crosstalk Festival in 2016, but this was just a gimmick. Today's performance venues have a strict management system, and there are restrictions on how many people can enter a theater. Therefore, when an audience member does not like a certain program and is ready to stand up and leave, it is equivalent to giving up his seat. So in order to keep his seat, he may not really leave, so this is no different from selling tickets originally.
The original intention of hourly charging was to recreate the competition mechanism of the cross talk industry back then. The income of actors was directly linked to the number of viewers. However, this was unnecessary because the competition mechanism already existed when the actors' "water cards" were announced. If someone’s name is written on it, the ticket can be sold out, or if someone’s name is written on it and it doesn’t change, in these two cases, as for how many viewers will support it, in the end it may be more than who has more relatives at home.