The concept of "Little Theatre Peking Opera" originates from Peking Opera House of Beijing. The naissance of Little Theatre Peking Opera, full of modernism and innovations, has brought significant results in the revitalization and pioneering of Peking Opera, attracted flocks of young audience, especially university students to go to such theatres, and blazed a new trail for the inheritance and development of the art of Peking Opera.

Six Chapters of a Floating Life is one of the little theatre Peking Opera highlights at Peking Opera House of Beijing. Emphasizing the comedy elements of the opera, it presents a love story of romantic, emotional, sentimental, implicit, naive and devoted feelings.

Although the opera depicts the love story between Shen Fu and Yun Niang, who lived in the Emperor Jiaqing's reign of the Qing Dynasty, their marriage characterized by domestic and romantic joys, naturalness, naivety, and harmony touches the heart of today's spectators and makes the audience feel the same way as they experienced and are in sympathy with their feelings. With play within a play, the opera elaborates on what marriage is to the audience. It shows to the audience that marriage depends on love, which relies on perseverance, respect and simplicity. Although Shen Fu and Yun Niang led a simple and hard life, struggling to make a decent living, they found joy amid hardship, and created a pure land of tranquility and harmony against a social environment filled with material desires, vanity and dissipation. Marriage should be like theirs.

The opera is sadly moving and aesthetic. And interaction is possible in the little theatre. A shared relaxing atmosphere is also one of the key and expected features of the play.

Synopsis
Six Chapters of a Floating Life was written by Shen Fu of the Qing Dynasty. The novel consists of six chapters, with the first four chapters narrating the domestic joys of the author and his wife, their frustrations, ups and downs as well as the sights and sounds of their travels through China. The last two chapters were missing, only with topics available: Chapter V Travel in Zhongshan Kingdom (discovered recently), gives an account of a journey to Ryukyu; Chapter VI The Way to Wellness, is assumed to have many descriptions of Taoist practices.

In the opera, the middle-aged Shen Fu and his two servants peddled in various places and were sheltered for the night on a courtesans' boat at sea.

His servants managed to get him intoxicated and found a sing-song girl called Xi-er, who looked like his wife, to imitate the reoccurrence of his past life so that they may obtain some information about a fairy mountain overseas described in the last two chapters of his book.

Xi-er got to know his past, gradually pined for such ordinary but contented life of Shen Fu and wanted to go back to Jiangnan (south of the Yangtze River) with him.

The servants guided them again, and stated his past frustrations to shatter completely his beautiful dream.

Shen Fu and Xi-er reenacted the heartbreaking parting between Shen Fu and his wife when she died, and plunged into the sea with the last two chapters.