THE CHINESE THEATER
[Illustration]
_Seven hundred and fifty copies
of THE CHINESE THEATER have
been printed from type and the
type distributed. Of this Limited
Edition, seven hundred and
twenty copies are for sale, of
which this is_
_Number 16_
[Illustration: A GENERAL
Chinese Character Type]
THE
CHINESE THEATER
BY
A. E. ZUCKER
_Professor of Comparative Literature, University of Maryland
Formerly, Assistant Professor of English,
Peking Union Medical College_
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
[Illustration]
BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
MCMXXV
_Copyright, 1925_,
BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
_All rights reserved_
Published November, 1925
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
_To_
MY WIFE, LOIS MILES
[Illustration]
PREFACE
The genial Reverend Arthur Smith in his “Village Life in China” says
that the Chinese sometimes finds it hard to understand the Westerner.
As an instance he cites the case of a tired traveler who stops at an
inn for the night and is told that there will be theatricals in the
evening. Instead of sharing the glee of the natives, he gathers his
tired self together and hurries on to the next village that he may enjoy
his sleep far away from sounding brass and clanging[1] cymbal. Possibly
this explains why among all the books written on China comparatively
few concern themselves with the theater. One might add too that the
drama stands on a relatively lower level than some other Chinese arts,
for example, landscape painting and lyric poetry. Yet though his dramas
are poor the Chinese actor has at his command consummate skill to hold
the mirror up to life; he is no less of an artist than his Occidental
colleague.
Still, the subject has attracted a fair number of Occidental writers.
Du Halde was the first; in his monumental description of China published
in 1735 he printed a translation by a Jesuit missionary of the Yuan
Dynasty drama, “The Orphan of the Chao Family.” It was this translation
that inspired Voltaire’s “L’Orphelin de la Chine.” Other translations
followed in the nineteenth century, together with some critical material
and various descriptions of Chinese staging. In the last few years the
interest in the Chinese stage has evidently become greater than ever,
both in China and in Western lands. A history of the Chinese drama,
however, has never been written; largely because the Chinese themselves
have no such work. Only a few present-day innovators among Celestial
scholars consider the drama as literature. Thus the information we
possess on this vast subject is very meager, and much of it is also
out of print. This book is an attempt to gather together what is known
on the subject, as well as to present in a volume supplied with vivid
illustrations the results of five years’ experience with the Peking
theater by a student of comparative literature possessed of a modest
knowledge of the Peking dialect.
Those who have so far written on the subject have always spoken of a
decadence of the drama which set in immediately after the first period of
bloom in the Yuan Dynasty (1280-1368). In the course of the revaluation
of values now going on in China this opinion is being changed. Mr. Wang
Kuo-wei has recently compiled a dramatical catalogue which shows that
numerically, at least, there is no decrease in the production of dramas.
A trenchant critic, Doctor Hu Shih, holds that only technically can the
drama of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) be said to be inferior, because
the compact and unified plays of the Yuan period become diffuse and of
serpentine length; but that in the matter of characterization, poetic
diction, and content they are far superior. Furthermore, modern Chinese
criticism considers the very highest point of the drama to have been
reached in two historical tragedies of the Ching Dynasty (1644-1911).
As can readily be seen, there is an enormous amount of work to be done
in this field; and if the gaps and errors in this book shall impel a
competent scholar to write the long overdue history of the Chinese drama
this work will have served its purpose.
In general the Chinese drama is like ours. It is divided into acts, often
corresponding in number to our customary four or five. It is presented in
a manner strikingly similar to that employed during our greatest period
of the drama—Shakespeare’s day. It can be classified according to content
into our usual divisions. Historical drama prevails perhaps; because of
the great love of the Chinese for his long tradition contemporaries of
the Romans or even earlier heroes are favorites on the stage. Family
drama is extremely popular, with subdivisions such as the drama of
the court room and criminal drama. The magic or mythological drama,
recalling perhaps “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, is also very important;
among this group the very best plays are those that treat superstitious
beliefs satirically. Then there are dramas of character, among which can
be found a good counterpart to “The Miser” of Plautus or Molière. Dramas
of intrigue abound on every program. Even the monodrama can be found
among modern innovations. And last, but by no means least, there is the
religious drama in some ways analogous to our miracle and mystery plays.
The three chief religions of China have exerted their influence on the
stage. Confucianism supplies the general moral background of the majority
of plays. The veneration of the scholar rather than of the warrior makes
the former the chief hero on the Chinese stage, while filial piety is
the most outstanding virtue which the hero displays. Taoism, generally
described as the religion of superstitions, is responsible for the many
mythological and ghostly figures that fill Chinese plays. Rational
Confucianism is not conducive to imaginative writing, but under the
influence of Taoism the Chinese allowed his fancy to roam to the end
that innumerable delightful fairy and ghost stories were invented. The
keen sense of humor of the Chinese often comes to the fore in plays
dealing with Buddhist monks. These monks are the exact counterpart of
the lazy, ignorant, sensual, superstitious brethren who people the
pages of Boccaccio, Chaucer, Hans Sachs, and many other tellers of droll
tales. In fact when Père Prémave first came to China (around 1700) and
saw the monasteries with the celibate monks, who abstained from meat,
chanted offices, burned incense, shaved their heads, prayed with beads,
and gathered money from the pious, he decided that this was an invention
of the Evil One for the sole purpose of exasperating the Jesuits. With
the exception of some satire on the migration of souls the doctrine of
Sakyamouni has had little influence, but whenever chanting priests or
monks are brought on the stage they are burlesqued. The Chinese are
extremely tolerant in regard to religion and never fanatical; their
attitude toward the supernatural has been aptly defined as “politeness
toward possibilities.”
But the main theme of the Chinese drama, as of all drama, is the human
side of life. The stage is naturally enough a mirror in which we can see
the Chinese as they see themselves. They present themselves not as the
wise men of the East that some idealizing travelers would like to make
them, nor as the bloodthirsty monsters of the “Limehouse Nights” brand;
but as human beings, neither white nor black. We see the corruption of
officials, the callousness toward suffering, the selfishness of parents,
the eagerness for compromise, and the lack of physical or moral courage;
on the other hand the polite civilization with its long tradition, the
respect for the past and for learning, the love of poetry and art, the
general kindliness and honesty of the people, the love of humor, the
extreme democracy in social relations, and the reasonableness and lack of
fanaticism. He who would know the Chinese ought to know their stage; and
furthermore, he who loves our Middle Ages will derive endless pleasure
from its counterpart, the pageant of Chinese life.
In my years in the East I received helpful suggestions from many friends
in the course of hundreds of visits to the theater. Professor Soong
Tsung-faung first introduced me to this fascinating spectacle. Doctor Hu
Shih discussed it illuminatingly in conversation and by correspondence.
Lucius Porter, Professor of Chinese, Columbia University, 1922-1924,
offered helpful suggestions on the manuscript, which he read in part,
as did likewise Professor Ferdinand Lessing, formerly of the National
University, Peking. Two of my students, Huang Ke-k’ung and Jung Tu-shan,
who learned from me about Sophocles and Shakespeare, introduced me in
turn to many fine things on the Chinese stage. And finally, I wish to
express my appreciation to Mr. Chang Ziang-ling and the many other
_p’iao-yu_ (amateurs) for acquainting me with the nonprofessional stage.
Thanks are due to the editors of _La Revue de Littérature Comparée_ and
of _Asia_ for permission to reprint a number of chapters.
A. E. ZUCKER
RIVERDALE, MARYLAND, December 7, 1924
[Illustration]
CONTENTS
PAGE
Preface vii
CHAPTER
1 Early History 3
2 Formal Development—Yuan Dynasty, 1206-1368 A.D. 19
3 The Ming Dynasty, 1368-1644 A.D. The Pi-Pa-Chi 43
4 The Drama under the Manchus and the Republic—1644 to the
Present Day 69
5 Modern Tendencies 108
6 External Aspects of the Chinese Theater 129
7 The Conventions 161
8 Mei Lan-fang—China’s Greatest Actor 171
9 Analogies Between East and West 190
Chronological Table 221
Bibliography 223
Index 231
[Illustration]
ILLUSTRATIONS
For the purpose of giving a vivid impression of the colorfulness of the
Chinese stage, the publishers have imported from China four thousand
paintings on silk, done by students of the Peking School of Fine Arts.
They represent four of the standing character type of the Chinese stage,
in their traditional make-ups.
A General _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
A Scholar 52
A Demi-Mondaine 152
A Clown 206
Illustration by a Chinese artist for “The Chalk Circle” 28
Illustration by a Chinese artist for “The Chalk Circle” 32
Illustration by a Chinese artist. Tou-E before the judge 38
Illustration by a Chinese artist. Tou-E about to be beheaded 40
A Chinese artist’s conception of two pious souls 48
Warrior-acrobats 80
Amateur actors in an old-style Chinese play 110
Hu Shih 118
A typical Peking audience with the inevitable teapots 130
Orchestral instruments 146
Orchestral instruments 148
The actress Kin Feng-Kui in a male rôle 164
Mei Lan-fang in European dress, and in parts 176
“Burying the Blossoms” 180
The Fortune Theater 198
A typical Peking theater 198
The orchestra seated in a corner of the stage 202
THE CHINESE THEATER
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER ONE
EARLY HISTORY
“Students of the Pear Garden” (Li Yuan Tzu Ti) is the name by which
actors in China are called in elegant literary style. This appellation
was given them in memory of the traditional origin of the Chinese theater
in the imperial palace gardens of a T’ang Dynasty emperor, Ming Huang
(Yuen Tsung, 713-756 A.D.), who was a generous patron of the arts in his
splendid capital Ch’ang An. This ruler established a college called the
Pear Garden for the training in music and dramatics of young actors of
both sexes. His plan for court entertainment the emperor had derived,
according to legend, from a visit to the moon where he had seen a troupe
of performers in the Jade Palace of the lunar emperor. In the annals of
the T’ang Dynasty the following is told about the art-loving ruler:
“Ming Huang was not only passionately fond of music, but he also had a
thorough knowledge of its essential principles. He established an academy
of music with three hundred students. Ming Huang himself gave them
lessons in the Pear Garden; if any of the students sang in poor taste
or incorrectly the emperor noted the fault immediately and corrected it
sharply. The young girls of the harem, several hundred in number, were
later also attached to the academy as students.... On the occasion of
the emperor’s birthday the empress ordered them to perform some musical
numbers in the Palace of Eternal Life.”
The French scholar Bazin in the introduction to his translation of four
Chinese plays comments upon this as follows: “Surely it is a great
thing that, at a time when the Chinese had as yet no idea of dramatic
performances, a man who had founded the institution of the Han-Lin
(literally ‘The Forest of Pencils’, i.e., The Imperial Academy of
Scholars), and who could justly call himself ‘the teacher of his nation’,
conceived and carried out single-handed a work of art, in which we find
for the first time with all its marvelous charm the union of lyric
poetry with the drama. This work, fitted to arouse in the souls of the
spectators the sentiment of the sublime, could be the product only of a
genius.”
In “The Chinese Drama”, William Stanton writes on the origin of the drama
as follows:
The long reign of Yuen Tsung, styled the Illustrious Emperor
(Ming Huang) owing to its splendid beginning and disastrous
close, is one of the most remarkable in Chinese history.
On ascending the throne, the young emperor zealously strove to
purge the empire of the extravagance and debauchery that was
ruining it; and in his austerity went so far as to prohibit
the wearing of the then fashionable costly apparel, and, as an
example to his subjects, he made a large bonfire in his palace
of an immense quantity of embroidered garments and jewellery.
Under the wise administration of this stern ruler and his able
ministers the state attained a great height of prosperity.
But unexpectedly the emperor’s character underwent a change;
he developed a love of sensuality and himself indulged in the
luxuries he had formerly so strongly condemned.
In A.D. 734 he obtained a sight of his daughter-in-law, the
beautiful Yang Kuei-fei, and became so violently enamoured
with her that he took her into his own seraglio. She speedily
obtained a complete ascendency over him and succeeded in
getting raised to the highest position next the throne.
According to legendary stories the Herdsman and Spinning Damsel
are two lovers who each inhabit a star separated by the Silver
River (the Milky Way) and are unable to meet except on the
seventh night of the seventh moon, when magpies from all parts
of the world assemble, and with their linked bodies form a
bridge to enable the damsel to cross to her lover. Consequently
this is one of the great festive occasions of China. On the
said evening of A.D. 735, Yuen Tsung and his celebrated
consort stood gazing into the starlit sky. Remembering the
occasion Yang Kuei-fei burst into protestations of affection
and assured the monarch that she was more faithful than the
Spinning Damsel, for that she would never leave him, but,
inseparably with him, tread the spiritual walks of eternity.
In order to reward such love the emperor sought to discover a
novel amusement for her. After consideration he summoned his
prime minister and commanded him to select a number of young
children, and, after carefully instructing and handsomely
dressing them, to bring them before the beautiful Yang
Kuei-fei, to recite for her delectation the heroic achievements
of his ancestors. That was the origin of the drama in China.
The first performances were generally held in a pavilion in
the open air, among fruit trees, and Yuen Tsung subsequently
established an Imperial Dramatic College in a pear garden,
where hundreds of male and female performers were trained to
afford him pleasure. From the site of the college the actors
become known as the “Young Folks of the Pear Garden”, a title
they claim to the present day.
The Pear Garden origin of the Chinese drama is a fine legend and heroic
history, but it is typical of Chinese who have come in touch with
Occidental science that they should search for a more realistic, if less
picturesque, account of the beginning of their theater. The first, and
so far the only, systematic and scientific work on this subject is “The
History of the Drama under the Sung and Yuan Dynasties”, by Mr. Wang
Kuo-wei.[2] This author has taken great pains in collecting all evidences
of pantomimes, dramatic dances, satirical buffoonery, or anything else to
which the roots of a theater might be traced. While he is not yet able
on the basis of his evidence to lead us back step by step to the genesis
of the theater—as could for example a scholar dealing with the Greek
drama—yet the evidence he adduces is most interesting.
About 2000 B.C. there were found mediums called _wu_ when they were women
or _hsien_ when men, who performed dances and sang songs in the worship
of the gods, to exorcise evil spirits, to induce the gods to send rain,
or to act as mourners in times of calamity. It was believed that the gods
descended to earth and communicated with men through these mysterious
beings, especially in the course of violent dances. This form of worship
designed for the pleasure of the gods was evidently much according to
the taste of men, for we find it such a widespread form of popular
amusement that I-Yin, famous minister of the Shang Dynasty (1766-1122
B.C.), issued an edict prohibiting it. “The late sovereign instituted
punishments for the officers, and warned the men in authority, saying,
‘If you dare to have constant dancing in your mansions, and drunken
singing in your houses, I call it wu-fashion’.”[3] During the classical
Chou Dynasty, beginning 1122 B.C. with Wu Wang, everything in Chinese
life was cast into the fetters of a strict ritual. There were regulations
governing the dress to be worn, the speeches to be made, and the
postures to be assumed on all possible occasions, whether at the court
or in private life; in fact, these rules were the prototypes of most of
the characteristic features governing Chinese public and social life
down to the present day. It can be seen readily that the more or less
spontaneous and popular mimicry of the _wu_ (mediums) would naturally
enough be suppressed at this time; but in later dynasties we find again
many references to the beauty, the splendid costumes, the singing and
dancing, and in general the charm of these actors in popular religious
ceremonies.
These performances of the early Chinese centered about the divine
worship, as everything of æsthetic nature in the life of primitive man
seems to do. Even to-day all of the theatrical performances in China
outside the large cities are a form of divine worship, usually harvest
festivals staged by way of thanksgiving for good crops. That there
is in the minds of the Chinese a definite religious association with
theatricals performed in the villages is shown by the fact that the
Christian converts always receive a dispensation for their share of
the sum demanded by the traveling company. Sometimes missionaries hear
complaints from the village elders that some thrifty members of their
flocks save the tax for theatricals and yet go to look on at the shows;
however, thanks to the reasonable and unfanatic character of the Chinese
such quarrels are usually easily adjusted.
Because of this close association of the theater with temple worship,[4]
it seems reasonable to seek for another possible origin of the drama
in the early ancestor worship in which the deceased forefather of the
family was impersonated by one of his descendants. A ceremony of honoring
a revered ancestor could easily be expanded into a representation of
his great deeds. It is also known that not only men but also gods were
impersonated by the actors; as Mr. Wang puts it, they dressed in the
attire of the gods and imitated their gestures. However, in regard to
these representations of the gods our author feels that it is impossible
to give any definite details. Yet in the verse of the time there are
allusions to these performances referring to extravagance in dress and in
articles of toilet, such as perfume; to a change in the style of music;
to the employment of themes of love or of sadness in parting—all of which
indicates the great popularity of these entertainments of singing or
dancing. Hence our Chinese scholar believes that out of these beginnings
the drama has grown.
In this connection it would seem proper to mention the work of the
Cambridge University scholar, Professor William Ridgeway. He holds
that Greek tragedy proper did not arise in the worship of the Thracian
god Dionysus; but that it sprang out of the indigenous worship of the
dead, especially dead chiefs who in some cases are later deified.[5]
In dramatic dances in honor of ancestors or deceased heroes in Asiatic
countries Professor Ridgeway finds support for his theory of the origin
of the Greek theater. Speaking of the Chinese theater, he says that
already in the time of Confucius certain solemn dances were held in the
ancestral temples; at the present time in the temples of local deities,
who were once heroes or heroines of the immediate neighborhood, dramatic
performances are held in which these deified heroes are supposed to take
an interest for the reason that they are themselves frequently the object
of the worship; and that these modern theatricals seem to be descended
directly from the ancient cult practiced five hundred years before
Christ. It would seem from the foregoing that Mr. Wang’s evidence gives
support to Professor Ridgeway’s theories of the origin of tragedy out of
the worship of deified heroes.
Doctor Berthold Laufer, curator of the Field Museum, Chicago, has stated
to me that in his opinion a discussion of the origin of the Chinese drama
ought to differentiate between the beginnings of the “military plays” and
the “civil plays.” The latter are, as will be explained more fully in a
later chapter, plays in our sense of the word, while the “military plays”
consist of acrobatics that symbolize fighting. Doctor Laufer believes
that these last-named take their origin from ancient ceremonials in
which the use of weapons was the chief feature. Doctor Laufer has had
considerable experience with the Chinese theater, and his museum is
the only one in the world, so far as I know, which possesses life-size
figures of Chinese actors in correct costume.
So much for ancestor worship as the source of the drama with the _wu_
or _hsien_. Mr. Wang adduces records also of other types of actors. As
early as 1818 B.C., according to a none too reliable Han Dynasty (206
B.C.-221 A.D.) record, a ruler is said to have abolished the temple rites
and ceremonies and to have collected about his court clowns, dwarfs, and
actors to perform amusing plays. In the more historic period of “Spring
and Autumn” (770-544 B.C.) there are records of dwarfs in rôles similar
to those of our court fools. They attempted to gain the favor of the
rulers by their witty sayings which were often full of satire. Confucius
in his capacity of prime minister saw himself forced to put to death one
of these wits[6] because of his disrespectful allusions to the ruler—an
action, incidentally, that seems most characteristic of the noble sage,
who with all his virtues certainly was not endowed with a sense of humor.
The function of these dancing, singing, play-acting dwarfs was not a
religious one; “they were to amuse men, not to amuse the gods.”
In a review[7] of Mr. Wang’s “History of the Drama under the Sung
and Yuan Dynasties” Professor Soong calls attention to the following
interesting analogies between Orient and Occident:
The influence of the court fools was considerable, and on the
whole salutary in China. Shih Huang-ti (255-206 B.C.), the
builder of the Great Wall, was so addicted to great building
enterprises that the people suffered in consequence. It was Yu
Sze, the court fool, who caused the emperor to treat the people
with more consideration. The successor of this mighty ruler
conceived the plan of having the Great Wall painted—perhaps
just a caprice on his part, perhaps in order to render the
Wall less subject to the influence of the weather. Again Yu
Sze dissuaded the emperor from carrying out such a costly
and wasteful project. The history of Yu Meng is even more
interesting. In the kingdom of Chou the family of Suen Lo
Ngao had become extremely impoverished because the king had
forgotten the merits of the chief of the house, a famous
general. Yu Meng, the court fool, donned the armor of the
defunct military leader and sang of his exploits before the
royal palace; now the king could no longer refuse to recognize
and recompense the merits of the family. This touching episode
told by the historian in the “Biography of Court Fools” cannot
but recall Will Sommer to whom “The King would ever grant what
he would crave.”
During the Han Dynasty records show the existence of jugglers, magicians,
rope-walkers, sword-swallowers, and also of plays in which masked actors
disguised as gods, fearful leopards, cruel tigers, white bears, and gray
dragons had their parts. Dwarfs and giants were made to play together in
humorous pieces. Singing girls in costumes of feathers executed artful
dances. Some of these performances are said to have been so indecent that
passers-by covered their eyes. However, such performances were sharply
censored at the time, just as they would be in present-day China.
All of these performances were very much favored by the rulers, but they
consisted mostly of singing and dancing, while there was very little
that might be called drama. In the northern Ch’i Dynasty (550-570 A.D.)
however, there arose what might be called a historical play based on an
episode in the life of a heroic warrior, Duke Lan Lu. This warrior had
a somewhat effeminate aspect, and therefore he wore a mask in battle to
inspire fear in the hearts of his enemies. His story was dramatized and
became a very popular play, probably similar to the present-day “military
plays” in which the play with swords and spears forms the _pièce de
résistance_. There is a record about the same time of a comedy also
based on an actual occurrence, called “The Drunkard.” A certain man,
Su Pao-pi (a name alluding to red spots on his nose) was a very heavy
drinker and after each spree would beat his wife in the village street
until she wept pitifully. Two actors, one dressed as a woman and the
other as a man, would amuse the people by a popular farce portraying
this quarrel between husband and wife. The playlet must have been one of
extraordinary vitality, for there are records of it in the Chi, Chou, and
Sui dynasties—to be sure, three short dynasties that followed one closely
upon the other. Music and dancing also played a part in these two early
dramatic presentations, so that they were probably of the melodramatic
(in the etymological sense of the term) variety, such as is most of the
Chinese drama of to-day.
The dramas in China are classified according to the style of music they
employ. Another play of the same, or perhaps a little earlier period,
called “The Tiger,” is thought by Mr. Wang, because of the music of
foreign tribes employed in it, to have been brought into China from “The
Western Regions” (central Asia).[8] It is the story of a man who was
killed by a tiger and whose son then set out on a search for the wild
beast, fought with it and avenged his father by killing it in turn. Mr.
Wang even hazards the suggestion that the two plays mentioned above, “The
Mask” and “The Drunkard,” were in their music and manner of presentation
imitations of “The Tiger,” in which case this form of drama would be a
borrowing from a foreign country and not indigenous to China.
Two other early plays which Mr. Wang mentions deal with historical
episodes. From the Han dynasty (206 B.C.-221 A.D.) dates the story of an
unjust mandarin who had “squeezed” as they say in China, ten thousand
rolls of silk and was put in jail. Later on the emperor moderated this
punishment, because of the mandarin’s great learning, into the following:
the culprit had to appear at court dressed in a white robe while for the
period of one year the court fools were at liberty to make sport of him.
This became the basis of a play shown by a number of records to have
been acted frequently before the T’ang Dynasty. The plot seems, indeed,
to have been a comedy made to order for the court fools to display
their wit. There is evidence to show that this play was enacted in the
imperial palace in the middle of the eighth century. A group of actors
from Chekiang in presenting this play were said to have had voices so
loud that they penetrated to the clouds—a circumstance that would win the
favor of the devotees of certain types of modern Chinese drama. The other
historical play has for a hero Fan Kuai, a noble who saved the emperor’s
life by his prompt action against rebels. It is said to have been written
by the T’ang Dynasty emperor, Chao Tsung himself, and to have been acted
in the imperial palace in Ch’ang An.
It was during the T’ang Dynasty especially that a nonmusical type of
drama flourished in the form of extemporized comedies. The plots hinged
on local occurrences and differed with practically each presentation.
However, much as in the Italian _commedia dell’ arte_, with its
Arlecchino, Pantalone, Dottore, Scapino, etc., certain characters or
character types seem to have arisen. The very same extortionate mandarin,
mentioned above as the central figure of a play, became such a type who
figured in almost all of these comedies—in fact he is a stock character
on the Chinese stage even to-day—while opposite him there appeared as his
regular companion a fool wearing a green cap. Thus dialogue between two
actors—in other words rudimentary drama—became firmly established. Since
the satirizing of current events and of local characters was the avowed
purpose of these comedies, it will be readily understood by all familiar
with life in the East that the dishonest official came in for his fair
share.
A topical comedy with a purpose from the Sung Dynasty (960-1126 A.D.)
played before the emperor attained all that might have been desired.
Through the efforts of an unpopular official a system of coinage had
been introduced in which the smallest coin had a value of ten cash.
Naturally enough this caused great inconvenience to very many poor
people. Therefore some actors called upon to play before the emperor
in the course of a feast proceeded to give him a lesson in rudimentary
economics. A vendor of syrups appeared and shortly afterwards a thirsty
customer. The latter paid one coin and demanded one drink. The merchant
explained that he had no change for the coin and asked his patron
therefore to take a number of drinks. The buyer does his best, but after
the fifth or sixth cup taps his bulging stomach and exclaims, “Well, I’ve
done it at last. But if the gentlemen in the government were to make us
use hundred-cash coins I should surely burst!” The emperor was moved to
gay laughter and smaller coins were at once issued. However, the efforts
of these actors were not always so fortunate in outcome. The story is
told, for example, of actors who had dressed up to represent Confucius,
Mencius, and other sages for the purpose of giving the emperor some very
pertinent advice on the division of land in the very words of the great
moral teachers. The advice proved to be so inconvenient that the emperor
had the actors whipped for their pains.
From the Sung Dynasty (960-1127 A.D.) Mr. Wang reports the names of 280
plays and from the Chin Dynasty (1115-1234 A.D.) 690 plays, but fails to
state how many are extant. Of the so-called Ancient Drama it is known
that a certain kind of free metrical form adapted to music (_ch’ü_) was
employed; that as a rule only two actors appeared in each play; and that
theatricals, though still very primitive, were quite popular, as they
were presented both to the general public in shabby mat-sheds and to
the court at magnificent feasts. Our knowledge of the Ancient Drama is
very meager to be sure, yet the work of Mr. Wang has made it possible to
go beyond what Mr. Giles says in his “History of Chinese Literature”[9]
after having mentioned the Pear Garden myth: “Nothing, however, which can
be truly identified with the actor’s art seems to have been known until
the thirteenth century, when suddenly the Drama, as seen in the modern
Chinese stage play, sprang into being.” Owing to the great interest in
Western drama in China at the present time it is very likely that other
Chinese scholars will make researches in this interesting field and that
more light will soon be shed on the origin of the Chinese drama.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER TWO
FORMAL DEVELOPMENT—YUAN DYNASTY, 1206-1368
The rise of the Chinese drama was due to a national disaster that broke
the sway of the ruling literary class. In 1264 Kublai Khan with his
Mongols fixed his capital at Peking and for the first time in their
history the sons of Han passed under the rule of an alien sovereign.
The barbarians naturally enough abolished the literary examinations for
government posts, consisting of competitions in the writing of essays and
poetry in the language of the classics, for they did not care to appoint
as viceroys and justices members of the subject race. The Mongol language
had absolutely no literature and, indeed, not even an alphabet until
1279, when a Tibetan priest constructed one by imperial order. Chinese
scholars were thrust out of their high offices and could find employment
only as writers of petitions or as lowly clerks. There was no longer any
call for the exercise of their talents in the writing of descriptive
essays or lyrical poetry such as had been demanded in the examinations
formerly leading to the highest offices; they found, however, a fruitful
outlet for their literary powers in a genre previously greatly despised
by the literati—the drama.
The cause of the scholar’s disdain for the drama and the novel was
the great chasm that yawned between the classical language and the
spoken language of the day in which, perforce, popular literature of
entertainment or of the stage had to be written. For over a thousand
years the literary language had been a dead language, so dead that a
learned scholar could comprehend it only if he saw the text in black and
white before his eyes—to hear it read did not by any means enable him to
understand it. Everything that had been considered literature up to that
time was composed in this language, and anything composed in the vulgar
tongue was considered beneath the dignity of a scholar. Now, however,
clever writers turned to the drama and the novel with the result that the
written language was to a certain extent democratized in the works that
appealed to the broad masses of readers or hearers. But let it be noted,
_to a certain extent only_; for, as vanquished Greece in turn conquered
Rome by her superior culture, so Chinese culture conquered the Mongols.
After having been abolished for practically eighty years the literary
examinations were reinstated and the drama too was gradually caught
in pedantic fetters of formalism. Yet in spite of the fact that the
Yuan dramatists moved away from the spoken language to one presupposing
considerable erudition on the part of the reader, there are many scholars
even to-day who regard the novel and drama as beneath their notice,
just as a medieval scholar would have despised any work not written in
Latin.[10]
In fact these works have been recognized at their true worth only as
late as 1917, when Hu Shih, Columbia University doctor of philosophy
and professor at the National University in Peking, began to lecture on
the Chinese drama as drama and to publish the best of the novels with
historical introductions. Professor Hu Shih finds in the language of
these works a compromise which he hopes will be an aid in inducing the
Chinese of to-day finally to adopt the vernacular as the language of
science and belles-lettres. For, in spite of the concessions made to
the firmly rooted conventions of the conservative class of scholars for
the sake of lending dignity to their works and securing the approval of
the literati, the novel and the drama, owing to their popular appeal,
deviated largely from the dead language and approached the vernacular of
the day.
The dramatists are as a rule men who are not otherwise famous as writers.
Biographical material concerning the authors of the “One Hundred Yuan
Dramas”, the collection of plays considered classical in China, is so
meager that it does not seem worth while to mention names about whose
bearers little more can be said than that they “flourished.” About five
hundred plays were extant at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, while
to-day there exist but one hundred and sixteen. Modern Celestial scholars
are proud of the fact that an overwhelming percentage of the authors
were real Chinese, practically all from the territory now covered by the
provinces of Chihli, Shantung and Shansi, about a third of them born in
Peking (called Yenching at the time). Nine tenths of the authors lived
in what is called the first period of the Yuan drama (1235-1280) with
its center in Peking; while the much smaller Southern School developed
later (1280-1335) around Hangchow. Most of the authors were from among
the common people, and only one among the whole ninety odd was a Tartar.
Chinese critics regard Kuan Han-ching (the author of “The Sufferings of
Tou-E”, a play discussed below) as the greatest of all these writers,
because his manner is true and natural. Others are spoken of as having a
style that is lofty and magnificent, or pure and beautiful, or biting and
vigorous.
The historian of the Chinese drama, Mr. Wang Kuo-wei, quoted above,
states that the Yuan drama is a natural growth out of the previously
existing forms and the traditional plots. More than thirty Yuan plots,
he points out, had been used before in plays of the Sung Dynasty. He
finds the chief advance of the Yuan drama to consist in the employment
of more flexible verse forms for the poetic sections and the use of more
dialogue in the place of narration and description. Thus the essence of
drama, action, takes the place of narration. Moreover, the drama rose to
the dignity of an art. Previous to this the plays, generally dialogues
by clowns, had been mostly interlarded in entertainments of acrobatics,
dancing, and music. Such performances took place frequently at the royal
court and are described also in the writings of the Italian Ma-Ke-Po-Lo
(Marco Polo) when he tells about the feast of the Grand Khan: “When the
repast is finished, and the tables have been removed, persons of various
descriptions enter the hall and amongst these a troop of comedians
and performers on various instruments, as also tumblers and jugglers,
who exhibit their skill in the presence of the Grand Khan to the high
amusement and gratification of all the spectators.”[11]
As has been stated above, the dramas soon took on certain formal aspects.
In general they have four acts, with a prologue, epilogue, or interlude,
which makes them in appearance and length quite similar to our five-act
plays. Some plays—analogous to our trilogies—have acts of a number that
is a multiple of four and each group of four acts forms a unity by
itself. For example, “The Western Chamber”, has twenty acts and forms
really five plays. According to Chinese critics the drama is composed
of three elements: (1) action; (2) speech; (3) singing. Speech may be
divided into monologue and dialogue; the purpose of the latter is to
advance the action and of the former to arouse emotions—a function that
very properly invites comparison with the rôle of the chorus in the Greek
drama. No longer are there only two characters in these plays, but we
now find four chief rôles along with various minor parts. In very rigid
manner only one character is made to sing in each act, which means that
each of the four characters has one act in which he or she plays the
main rôle. This arrangement has had its peculiar effect which can be
witnessed in present-day Peking, where plays of this type are staged,
inasmuch as a famous actor who plays, let us say, the rôle of the lover,
will not present entire dramas, but only such of the acts as give him
the principal part. In the new plays of to-day, of course, a different
practice is followed but the old repertoire of the average Chinese
theater is so well known that it makes very little difference whether a
drama is presented as a whole or in part. The character types of the Yuan
drama, the _Mei_ (male) and _Tan_ (female), with their many variations,
are in general quite similar to the types of present-day drama, a
discussion of which is given in a later chapter. In the printed texts of
the play characters are designated not by their names, but by the rôles
which they play.
The classical drama of China offers many interesting parallels to
different stages in the development of our drama, though it nowhere
equals the plays of our great masters. Its greatest height reaches the
level of perhaps the pre-Shakespearean drama in content, construction,
and manner of presentation. The presentation of Chinese plays with
the projecting platform stage, the lack of scenery and the emphasis
on gorgeous costume, the playing of female parts by male actors, the
extemporizing of clowns, and the use of music in “flourish” and “alarums”
offers a strikingly close parallel to Elizabethan staging. But that is a
chapter by itself.
In the consideration of Chinese drama a few facts of Chinese life
must be borne in mind. The beau ideal in the Middle Kingdom is not the
warrior, but the scholar. There is no hereditary aristocracy, but wealth
and power falls to him who distinguishes himself in the competitive
examinations and thus becomes viceroy of a province or some other type
of high official. The passing of the examination therefore serves as the
_deus ex machina_ in many plays, solving all knotty problems accumulated
by the fifth act. Marriages are arranged by the parents, and the romance
of courtship is a rare and forbidden fruit. The religious and ethical
background consists chiefly of a respect for the minute moral precepts of
Confucius, with some Buddhistic notions of reincarnation and some Taoist
superstitions impartially admixed.
To examine a few of the acknowledged masterpieces of the Yuan drama is
to invite fascinating comparisons. In “Chao Mei Hsiang” (Intrigue of a
Lady’s Maid) we have a young servant girl uniting two lovers, a sort of
Dorine of Molière’s “Tartuffe” in a Chinese setting. The destiny of the
young man and the girl have been settled beforehand by their parents,
much as Orgon in “Tartuffe” disposes of his daughter’s future:
_Enfin, ma fille, il faut payer d’obeissance,_
_Et montrer pour mon choix entière déférence._
The lovers in both plays revolt against parental authority, and in both
cases a happy ending is brought about indirectly through fortunate
intervention on the part of the monarch himself. The meat contained in
the Chinese play is about what “Tartuffe” would be with Tartuffe left out.
Two generals arrange, shortly before they die in battle, that their
children are to marry. The son of the one, therefore, while on his
journey to the capital to take his examination, visits at the home of the
widow of his father’s friend. The widow invites him to take up his abode
in a pleasant pavilion in the garden, but she meets with icy silence
every reference on the part of the young man to marriage. This is because
she wishes to observe the very strictest code of conduct, which ordains
that when a girl has lost her father she dare not marry until three years
afterward. The young people fall in love at first sight; the young man
so desperately that the yearning for the girl he is not permitted to
see after their first accidental meeting causes him to become violently
ill. The quick-witted, impertinent maid sent to look after the wants of
the patient carries messages between him and the young girl and finally
arranges a meeting on a moonlit night. The lovers have exchanged but a
few words when the mother discovers them. She punishes the maid and sends
the young man away in disgrace. He goes to the capital and passes such a
brilliant examination that he attracts the attention of the emperor. The
latter becomes interested in the young man’s future and decides to carry
out the wish of his two faithful generals. The marriage is arranged by
imperial command. Both lovers are in ignorance as to who their selected
mates are to be, and at first are very much dejected; but when they meet
as bride and groom their happiness is all the greater when they realize
that the choice of their elders is also the choice of their hearts.
[Illustration: ILLUSTRATION BY A CHINESE ARTIST FOR “THE CHALK CIRCLE”
This, together with three similar illustrations, has been taken from the
standard edition of the Yuan Dynasty classics]
The play moves in an atmosphere of strictly prescribed etiquette of which
the mother is a stony-eyed incarnation. The facetious little maid is
a breaker of rules in the interest of more human considerations, and,
like the servant in all our comedies from the time of Menander downward,
she tells her mistress some frank home-truths. Not only is the young
man a scholar, but the heroine with her maid-companion also have been
ardent students of the classics. Quotations from Confucius, Mencius,
Laotze, and the Buddhist writings lend their sparkle to the dialogue.
The lovers exchange poems exhibiting that charming impressionism of
delicately sketched moonlight on the lotus or snowfall on pine trees so
characteristic of Chinese verse. Allusions to myths abound; for example,
to the moonlit cloud that wooed the mother of Huang Ti as Jupiter did
Io. As in the plays of Bernard Shaw and of his predecessor Shakespeare,
the heroine takes the initiative by tossing into the room of the rather
passive hero a bag embroidered with characters revealing her love. A
wistful note is sounded by the young scholar when the wedding commanded
by the emperor is, as he believes, about to unite him to a woman other
than the one he loves: “Musicians, please do not now play the air of the
teals meeting in chaste pleasure who lament and yet feel no sorrow.” This
speech gives the same blending of the emotions so often spoken of by
our poets in analyzing the mystery of love, perhaps most strikingly in
Goethe’s lines:
_Freudvoll und leidvoll,_
_Gedankenvoll sein,_
_Langen und bangen_
_In schwebender Pein,_
_Himmelhoch jauchzend_,
_Zum Tode betrübt,_
_Glücklich allein ist_
_Die Seele die liebt._