本文試著以日本殖民台灣時期二○年代前後，在殖民結構下卻超越殖民現代性的劇場觀眾，理解一種尚未正式命名，而本文稱之為「聚眾」的另一種群眾想像，並藉此提出殖民現代性與歷史主義在目前處理殖民文學的知識學與認同問題上的盲點。本文想要透過當時劇場（尤其是白字戲與歌仔戲）的觀眾，對照殖民政權與被殖民知識分子對於人民與群眾的論述與想像，思考當時劇場如何有別於傳統對於戲曲的認識，呈現出另一種不同於殖民現代性的人民／群眾面貌。本文認為對於聚眾的理解，一方面有助於我們歷史化（historicize）戲曲，重新認識長期被視為自成系統的美學和去政治（apolitical）表演，另外一方面，也有助於我們檢視所謂「傳統戲曲」與「現代戲劇」之間知識學的（epistemological）鴻溝。

This paper aims to articulate a historical imagination of the multitude, which is yet to be named in scholarship, by looking at local performances of theater during the Japanese colonial period of Taiwan in the 1920s. The paper argues that the multitude who can be found in the local performances exceed the discourse of colonial modernity by looking into the problematic of colonial modernity and historicism. Audiences of Baizixi and Gezaixi serve an example of the multitude that represents different significance from the concepts of“people” or “the masses” under the imagination of modernity of the colonial regime or the colonized intellectuals.This paper argues that the re-articulation of the multitude helps historicize xiqu (Chinese music drama) by re-examining the drama that used to be seen as a particular and apolitical form of aesthetics. It also helps challenge the
epistemological rupture between xiqu and xiju (modern drama).