According to legend, when Emperor Taizong and Li Shimin were sitting in the world, the prince cried for a day after his birth, but he couldn't coax him to move. Inside and outside the palace, from the queen to the eunuch Gong E, they are all worried about this, and they can't eat well or sleep well. Li Shimin pondered for a long time and came up with a way to coax the children. He said, "Call the people who can play in the palace and let them play for a while. Maybe it will be a climax. " But he thought, I am afraid that so many people will scare the children, and if there are fewer people, it will be unbearable. What should we do? Seeing that Viva was in a dilemma, several empresses took on the task of beating themselves and called several fathers-in-law (eunuchs) to help.
This move really worked, and the prince stopped crying at once when he heard the sound of being beaten. Li Shimin knew that the queen was very happy, so he went to the court to sing and coax the prince and the queen. But it's no good fighting like this all the time. The emperor is going to attend a holy meeting to discuss state affairs, and the nun is exhausted from tossing and turning all day. Li Shimin ordered the geisha musicians in the palace to be summoned, and a team was set up, which was responsible for fighting and coaxing the prince not to cry. It means to tease the prince. Therefore, singers are called "actors".
When the prince grows up, he often feels that it is nothing new to listen to such pandering. He asked people to compose the characters and stories of the former dynasty into lyrics, and found some people who could sing. When singing, he had to change into the clothes of the former dynasty. Later, it spread to the common people, who found it interesting, added some roles and began to sing. This is the later troupe.
There is a very feudal saying, which is extremely insulting, saying that bitches are heartless and players are meaningless. Meaninglessness is the evaluation of performers' moral standards in the old society. The origin of this evaluation must have its historical reasons. I'm not a sociologist, so I can't analyze the ugliness. In short, on the moral level, in the eyes of many literati, actors often have some immoral behaviors.