These modern dramas usually had very concentrated themes, often with patriotic or social overtones. It was also the period of the early flourishing of Western-influenced spoken drama in Shanghai among the rather limited university-educated audience. These kinds of new operas were very popular during the period of the Republic of China. In the 1910s and 1920s he worked actively in the field of xinxi or “new plays”, in which a famous actor invites a scholar or a writer to adapt an already well-known story into an opera libretto. Although he specialised in traditional Peking Opera, he also experimented with modern drama, inspired by the many innovations of the lively theatre life of cosmopolitan Shanghai. In 1913 he performed in Shanghai and was a sensation in South China. He made his stage debut at the early age of ten.

He was born into a Peking Opera actor family that specialised in the dan or female roles. It was Mei Lanfang who, for the first time, brought Peking Opera to the West, and thus influenced many Western pioneers of early modern theatre. Mei Lanfang (1894–1961) is without doubt the most famous Peking opera actor, both in China and abroad.

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