麒麟童（周信芳）與馬連良都是京劇鼎盛期首屈一指的老生，都擅長唱念做表並重的戲路，擅演劇目與人物也有相當程度重疊，並有多次機會同戲同臺。本文主要藉由1920年代的報刊劇評、戲園廣告、兩位名伶自身之論述、當時戲迷之回憶，以及相關研究論文等資料，還原當時京劇劇壇商業競爭氛圍，如何促使馬麒兩大老生演員塑造自身的藝術風格。本文第一節將以1927年馬麒在上海天蟾的同臺競藝為主軸，比較兩人的劇目安排，以探究兩人以甚麼樣的演出策略獲得觀眾認同，而這些策略之形成與奏效，又與當時上海的劇壇趨向有何關係。第二節則討論當時的演出劇目中，有不少在商業競演的刺激下，馬麒兩人反覆琢磨，後來成為流派名劇；甚至更有如《四進士》、《清風亭》等，同一齣戲成為兩人共同流派代表劇目者。本節將詳細分析兩人在同樣劇目中，針對同一位主角，如何塑造出不同的演出風格，讓觀眾都能欣然接受，並且長期活躍於京劇鼎盛期的舞臺，成為老生流派一代宗師。

Qilintong (Zhou Xinfang) and Ma Lianliang were leading senior male roles in the golden period of Peking opera. They both specialized in characters that required virtuoso singing and performing. The repertoire and characters they mastered considerably overlapped. Many times did they appear in the same play and on the same stage. I will use play reviews, theatre houses' advertisements of the 1920s, the actors' autobiographical accounts, memories of theatregoers and research articles to reconstruct the competitive atmosphere between Peking Opera commercial theatres and the circumstance that impelled the actors to formulate their own artistic styles. The case studied in the first section of this article is their same-stage competition in Tianchan Theatre, Shanghai in 1927. I will compare their repertoire arrangement, explore the strategies they used to win over audience, and analyze how their strategies reveal the trend of Shanghai theatre. In the second section, I discuss how certain plays, stimulated by commercial theatres' competition, and polished repeatedly by Qi and Ma, became famous plays of their respective schools. There are even plays such as Four Scholars and Breeze Pavilion that are considered representative repertoire of them both. I will analyze in detail how the two actors used their different performance styles to interpret the same character, how the audience welcomed the result, and how they remained active on stage during the golden period of Peking Opera and became masters of the senior male role.