Put Down Your Whip

Put Down Your Whip
Xu Beihong's 1939 oil painting of Wang Ying's performance of the play.
Written by	Chen Liting
Date premiered	10 October 1931
Place premiered	Nanhui County
Original language	Chinese
Setting	Manchuria

Put Down Your Whip, also translated as Lay Down Your Whip (Chinese: 放下你的鞭子; pinyin: Fàngxià nǐde biānzi), is a 1931 Chinese street play written by Chen Liting during the Republican era, who drew inspiration from the earlier play Meiniang by Tian Han.

Originally an anti-government play, it was adapted to take on an anti-Japanese theme after growing Japanese aggression against China. It became the most influential street play during the Second Sino-Japanese War, and was performed countless times throughout China, and even in the White House for President Roosevelt by the actress Wang Ying. The future Madame Mao was also among its many performers.

Wang Ying's performance of Put Down Your Whip inspired Xu Beihong's eponymous painting, which in 2007 set an auction price record for Chinese paintings.

A young girl named Fragrance (Xiang Jie) and her old father are poor and homeless street performers. Fragrance sings the folk song "Fengyang Flower-Drum" and does acrobatics on the street. She performs badly because she is weak from chronic hunger. Angry with his daughter's poor performance, the old man raises his whip to punish her. A young man, who is an actor in disguise, charges out from the audience, shouting "Put down your whip!" He scolds the old man for abusing his own daughter. Unexpectedly, Fragrance defends her father, and recounts her family's plight: they are refugees who have escaped flood, exploitative landlords, and tyrannical government of their hometown. The spectators are deeply moved by her misfortune. At the end, the young man turns to the spectators and exhorts them to resist the oppressive Kuomintang government: "We must resist those who coerce us to live a life of starvation and homelessness."