The scale and exquisite structure of the Pingyang Guild Hall theater building are far greater than those of the Huguang and Anhui guild halls. From this, it can be inferred that it was built by Linfen merchants. The two guild halls in Huguang and Anhui were built by bureaucrats, that is, scholars, so later they all had their own records. Pingyang Hall was built by merchants, so there is no written record.
The Pingyang Guild Hall is now a warehouse of the Beijing Traditional Chinese Medicine Company. There is an undamaged plaque preserved in it. The text is "Jing Shi Duo" three days, which literally means it is written for the theater. So, the person who wrote the plaque was signed "Wang Duo".
Wang Duo once served as a minister in the Ming and Qing dynasties and was also a famous calligrapher.
If this plaque is indeed written for Ping Duong Guild Hall, then the construction date of this theater can be pushed back to before 1652, because Wang Duo died in this year. If this assumption is true, the theater will be a very valuable ancient theater. There are only a few complete ancient indoor theaters in the world that are mainly made of wooden structures.
The difference between the Pingyang Guild Hall Theater and other theaters is that the auditorium is surrounded by three independent double floors, and a roof is buckled on top. This is similar to the old Guild Hall Theater in Beijing. Including the existing theater building in the original Zhengyi Temple, they are all different.
These theaters are already very mature and complete buildings with buildings on three sides and a stage on one side. Only the Pingyang Guild Theater seems to be in the stage of development of a theater.
Another distinctive feature of the Pingyang Hall Theater is that there is a square hole on the top of the stage, and there are traces of a hanging hoist on the square hole.
Many theaters in Beijing during the Qing Dynasty had tunnels and cranes on the top of their stages for actors to get up and down, such as the Changyin Pavilion stage in the Forbidden City, the Shufangzhai stage, and the Tingliu Pavilion stage in the Summer Palace. This equipment is available on the , Deheyuan Stage and Nanfu Stage.
However, the above stages were all used by the royal family. This equipment has not been found in private theaters, guild hall theaters, or even mansion theaters. It is rare to have this equipment on the Binh Duong Hall stage.
Secondly, the above stages are all outdoors, but the stage at Pingyang Hall is indoors and has a tunnel for actors to lift.
Judging from the experience of performing in the Qing Dynasty, any stage with actors going up and down the stage must perform lantern plays on the stage, and the play must be performed with a rough end. In this regard, Pingyang Theater is comparable to the Imperial Palace.