employed by the orchestra sitting on the stage. On the whole the
instruments are practically the same for all kinds of music. They are
shown in the accompanying illustrations drawn for me by a Chinese artist.
The _hsien-tzu_ is a sort of three-stringed banjo, the sounding box
of which is covered with a snake skin. The _yüeh-ch’in_ (moon guitar)
has four strings and a wooden sounding-box. Other wind instruments in
addition to the _ti-tzu_ (flute) are the _shou_, resembling somewhat a
bagpipe, and the _la-pa_, a brass horn used to announce the entry of
great military personages. Instruments of percussion outnumber those of
other varieties. The _ch’iao-pan_ are two flat boards tied together
with a string, used by the leader of the orchestra to indicate the time.
The _t’ang-ku_ is a brass plate beaten furiously in battle scenes, as
are also the _lo_ and the _ch’a_ (cymbals). The _peng-ku_ is a drum
made of a solid block of wood which gives piercing, high notes when
beaten in a whirlwind tattoo by means of two thin sticks. The _ku_ has
a leather drumhead and resembles somewhat our kettledrum. It should be
noted that the size of the orchestra and the kind of instruments employed
vary a great deal. However, the above may serve to give an approximate
conception of the Chinese theater music. Just as in much of our own
earlier drama, emotional or poetic passages are sung by the actors on the
Peking stage.
[Illustration: ORCHESTRAL INSTRUMENTS
1—_Hsien-tze._ 2—_Ku._ 3—_Yüeh-ch’in._ 4—_Chiao-pan_ or _pan-tze_.
5—_Lo._]
Another striking similarity to the European medieval theater is the fact
that the Chinese stage has its fixed character types. The four most
important among these, called the _t’ai chih_ or pillars of the stage,
are: 1, the _cheng-sheng_; 2, the _wu-sheng_; 3, the _ching-i_; 4, the
_hua-tan_. Each company must always have its best actors among these
four, because one of them is sure to be the star in the play.
The _cheng-sheng_ is an elderly man wearing a long beard. The great
actor T’an Shen-pei, who died about five years ago, but whose fame lives
on in his many imitators, played this part. It comprises the rôles of
emperors, generals, and also old faithful servants, the latter generally
characters oppressed by grief. T’an Shen-pei, who became the founder
of a tradition called the _t’an-p’ai_, was famous for his skill in
acting, his fine singing, and his distinct, measured pronunciation.
Among his most famous followers are Yü Ssu-yen and T’an Hsiao-sheng,
the latter one of his sons. A related type is the _hsiao-sheng_, a
youthful civilian or military character, frequently the young scholar
who plays the part of the lover. The young military hero is called the
_ch’ü-fei-sheng_ (wearing pheasant feathers) and the young scholar and
lover _shan-tze-sheng_ (carrying a fan). Chu Su-yung is the most famous
_hsiao-sheng_ in Peking at present. He has been nicknamed the “living
Chou Yü”, after a hero from the ancient tale of “The Three Kingdoms”
whom he frequently impersonates upon the stage. Mei Lan-fang has found
in the handsome Chang Miao-shang a very satisfactory partner for his
romantic plays. This young man, who acts the part of the ardent lover to
perfection, has the probably unique distinction among actors of being
the product of a Christian missionary school, the Peking Methodist
Academy. The Chinese criticize the weakness of his voice and say that his
reputation is due only to the fact that he plays opposite the greatest
actor of the present day in China.
The _wu-sheng_ is the military hero. To impersonate this rôle properly
an actor must be very skillful in the art of stage fighting, which means
that he must possess great acrobatic skill. He must understand how to
fence with wooden stage swords or spears, and furthermore how to box.
Chinese boxing has nothing whatever to do with the bloodthirsty Boxers of
1900, for the latter received their name through a misunderstanding. It
is, on the other hand, a most inoffensive art, consisting of a series of
poses rapidly and skillfully executed. I believe that formerly it was a
method of fighting, but that it has become thoroughly conventionalized at
present into a system of posturing and rapid movements.
For a gorgeous riot of color one might recommend a play acted by Yang
Hsiao-lou, Peking’s most famous actor of military plays, who is beginning
to command the same salary as Mei Lan-fang. He is known not only for his
ability in fighting, but also because he can sing well and enunciate
very clearly. The tourist can tell the home folks that he has seen
something if he has watched Yang Hsiao-lou with a face painted in heavy
reds and blues, wearing tall feathers on his head, dressed in a garment
embroidered in rich colors and studded with little mirrors, mounted
on shoes with very thick soles, strutting about the stage in martial
attitude, and finally engaging in combat a similarly dressed hero to
the end that both whirl about the stage with lightning speed, while the
orchestra supplies the excitement by means of a terrific noise which
threatens to take the roof off the building. It makes a truly exciting
spectacle of which even an untrained Westerner can feel the thrill.
The two types of _ching-i_ and _hua-tan_ are both young women characters.
The difference made between them is that the former represents an honest
and simple girl generally playing a sad part in which great emphasis is
placed on the singing, while the _hua-tan_ represents a woman of doubtful
reputation or a maid servant in a comedy part, requiring great skill in
acting. It is one of the merits of Mei Lan-fang that he acts both types
and thus breaks down one of the stiff rules of the Chinese theater in
the interest of developing it into a freer art. Indeed, for over ten
years he has been the supreme artist in both types. It is said of him by
Peking critics that he sings as beautifully as a nightingale, that he
has a pretty face, that he dances gracefully, and that his acting, in
the Chinese simile, is like quicksilver which fills up every crevice and
crack of a hole into which it is poured—that is to say, satisfying to
the last detail. Teh Hing, a man over sixty years old, is another famous
_ching-i_; however, he scorns to play the rôle of the _hua-tan_, the
flowery maiden who treads the primrose path. Still another type in which
Mei Lan-fang appears at times is that of _wu-tan_, or warrior maiden, a
rôle comparatively rarely seen.
[Illustration: A DEMI-MONDAINE
Chinese Character Type]
For some of the best make-ups and the most natural action on the Chinese
stage one ought to see men playing the part of _lao-tan_, or old
woman. I have frequently found it difficult to believe that it was a
man who appeared with the sorrowful, lined face, the black headdress,
tottering along with the stiff walk engendered by bound feet, leaning
on a tall staff with a carved handle, and all in all giving a perfect
representation of a _lao-t’ai-t’ai_ (old lady). Very touching bits often
appear in plays in which an old woman in her broken voice bewails the
loss of a son, her only support in life. Among other minor types are
found the _lao-sheng_ (old man), the _ta-ching_ (male part, either wicked
or honest—his character is indicated by the style of face-painting he
wears), and the _er-hua-mien_ (usually a robber). In addition to these
there are an infinite number of other possible parts; for example one
sees not infrequently various wild and domestic animals interpreted in
very droll make-ups that recall Shakespeare’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
A very important type is the _ch’ou_, the clown, as much an institution
on the Chinese stage as he was on that of our Middle Ages. It is very
difficult, Chinese critics say, to become a famous clown. The part of the
clown consists largely of improvisation, but it is quite risky for him
to be as funny as he can. He is permitted topical allusions, but he must
gauge carefully the mood of the audience. I remember one quite successful
hit. In a certain play a husband returns after an absence of ten years
and finds his wife and son in good health, but with an added blessing
of Heaven in the shape of a one-year-old boy. He berates his wife for
her infidelity and exclaims, “Who could have done me such a turn?” At
that moment the clown leaped to the edge of the stage shouting, “It was
he!” and allowed his pointing finger to sweep slowly across the sleek,
blushing faces of the row of rich merchants in the front seats.
It may seem surprising that I speak so glibly of the “best” actors among
the various types, but I should hasten to state that this is a matter in
which I do not give my own judgment but the result of popular balloting.
A Peking newspaper holds an annual vote for the best actors among each
rubric, and the judgment of the readers of this journal is generally
accepted among theatergoers. Although the daily papers are an innovation
in Peking, perhaps less than twenty years old, yet many of them have
their theatrical critics who “puff” actors and more often actresses for
other reasons than for art’s sake. Press-agenting is far from being
an unknown art in the Middle Kingdom. Much of the writing is done by
students of the National University who earn a little extra money by this
means. The most picturesque among the Peking critics is a Japanese called
by his Chinese name, T’ing Hua. For the last twenty years he has devoted
himself to the Chinese theater heart and soul, and shows his devotion
by adopting orphans whom he gives a schooling as actors. T’ing Hua has
over twenty such “sons”, one of whom is becoming very famous, especially
in the _Shun T’ien Shih Pao_, the paper for which father writes. Yet in
spite of all touting the vote reflects the popular feeling, especially
as regards Mei Lan-fang and Yang Hsiao-lou, the most famous interpreters
of the rôles of young girl and military hero respectively.
Theaters on a commercial basis are also practically a new thing in China;
that is to say something that has developed on a large scale only within
the last twenty years. Before that time theatrical performances were
given mostly at temples or harvest festivals, at the houses of rich men,
and, most elaborately, at the imperial court. As a sign of the times I
should like to quote an item clipped from the _Peking Daily News_ of
June 28, 1922. The article tells of a meeting of the representatives
of Peking’s five thousand blind men held in a temple. The end of the
paragraph I shall quote verbatim in the English of the Chinese translator:
Among the business matters discussed was the organization of a
blind man’s association for the purpose of carrying on their
trade effectively. The usual crafts of the blind men in Peking
are singing and fortune telling, but conditions have gradually
changed, whereby theaters are established everywhere, popular
education has paralyzed superstition, so now their crafts are
generally getting out of date, and thereby need reformation.
But the Peking police force, perhaps the best in the world, has drawn
up full regulations, which are adequate for preserving order in the
playhouses that have multiplied so rapidly in the capital. Each company
must be registered, must pay a tax of five dollars for each performance,
must reserve certain seats for policemen who keep order, must not crowd
extra seats into the aisles, must avoid immoral plays, must submit all
new plays to the police, and must apprise the police beforehand of
every performance to be held. The ordinance requiring the separation of
the sexes in the theater is an Eastern touch that is sure to impress
Occidentals—who have forgotten that in Shakespeare’s day also women were
confined to the gallery. Peking police rules demand that the ushers and
tea-venders in the galleries must also be women and that these galleries
must have their separate exits. The rule that spectators are forbidden to
sit on the stage also recalls Elizabethan manners. One can read in these
police regulations:
If the program has been changed and the spectators start a
protest by throwing teacups at the actors, these disturbers of
the peace must be arrested and conducted to the nearest police
station.
There is, however, very little disturbance in the theaters; at least
I have never seen the least sign of a fight or quarrel among the
spectators. Actors on the stage are forbidden to curse and are fined if
they do so. The hours for the performances are fixed from twelve noon
to five in winter and spring, and from noon to six in summer and fall,
while all evening performances must end at midnight. The latter are an
innovation at Peking and are taxed more heavily than the regular daytime
performances. There is also a ruling aimed against “claques” which
forbids too boisterous applause.
On one occasion when I took some New Yorkers to see Mei Lan-fang in the
rôle of “Yang Kuei-fei on a Spree”, one of my guests exclaimed, “If this
play is permitted, I wonder what kind of plays the police forbid!” The
obliging Chinese police have supplied me not only with the regulations
for theaters, but also with the list of forbidden plays. Naturally enough
gross immorality realistically presented is forbidden. There is no
question of the display of nudity; it never occurs and, I believe, would
hold little appeal for a Chinese audience. Some of the plays forbidden
are rather interesting.
There is the “Shang Ting Chi” (Ruse of the Nail). A wife killed her
husband because she was in love with another man. The police were
unable to learn the cause of the man’s sudden death, but the examining
magistrate was told by his superior that he must fathom the mystery or
be himself beheaded. When he went home sorrowfully to tell his wife of
his plight, the latter asked whether he had examined the part of the head
covered with hair. The officer hastened to investigate the back of the
victim’s head and found that a nail had been driven into it. When the
superior learned of this he ordered the officer’s wife to be arrested.
She confessed that she had known of the ruse because she had put her
former husband to death by driving a nail into his head and braiding the
queue over the wound. Thereupon both women were put to death. The play
is forbidden lest women learn how to rid themselves of their husbands!
Another forbidden play is “Sha Tze Pao”, the story of a young woman who
loved a monk. One day her young son discovered them _in flagranti_. The
mother feared that the boy would tell of her shame and therefore she
killed him. His sister suspected a crime, told the boy’s teacher about
it, and he in turn reported it to the authorities. As a result, both the
woman and the monk were put to death. The play is based on an actual
incident that happened in the province of Hunan about forty years ago.
The sister, later in life, at one time visited a theater where this very
play was being staged and received a shock comparable to the one an
honest son of a famous murderer might receive if he went to visit Madame
Tussaud’s Waxworks and suddenly beheld his own father reënacting his
crime in wax. The Chinese authorities forbid the play because the killing
of the child by the mother is realistically acted out. The mother’s face
is covered with blood as she cuts the body into many pieces and places
them in a wine vat. It is a curious thing that on the Chinese stage where
fixed conventions leave so much to the imagination one finds occasionally
the most revolting realism in plays of the “shuddering” variety. I have
seen, for example, the victim of an assault dragging his entrails across
the stage—a nauseating imitation of the real thing. The Chinese love
their “horrors” just as much as our medieval ancestors did.
It is a custom on the Chinese stage to play on the occasion of various
seasonal festivals pieces pertaining to the holiday in question. The best
known of the seasonal plays is perhaps the “Ta Yin Ho” (Crossing the
Milky Way), played on the seventh day of the seventh month of the Chinese
calendar, that is to say, generally some time during our month of July.
This story is an old legend, varying somewhat in different versions,
related in the quotation from William Stanton in Chapter One, where Yang
Kuei-fei in the T’ang Dynasty makes allusion to it. It can be seen on a
number of stages in Peking at the time of this festival, and is staged in
an especially colorful manner by Mei Lan-fang.
The same actor plays another mythological fancy on the occasion of the
mid-autumn festival, “Ch’ang-O Pin Yüeh” (Ch’ang-O’s Flight to the
Moon).[24] This custom of seasonal plays shows a very close connection
existing between the popular beliefs and the theater which recalls in a
manner the medieval mysteries of the Easter and Christmas seasons. The
fact that some of the plays have been written within recent years only
indicates that the Chinese theater is in no way declining as a typical
Chinese institution, as is, for example, the popular theater of India.
What the visitor sees in the native theaters of Calcutta or Bombay, as
has been stated above, is a diluted imitation of our weakest and worst
melodrama with all its mannerisms. In contrast to this the Chinese
theater of Peking is continuing as a living popular art, introducing some
external features from our stage, but on the whole remaining true to its
own genius.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE CONVENTIONS
To the average Occidental the Chinese stage appears a very queer
institution with ridiculous customs. This is due largely to the fact
that in the Chinese make-believe world the conventions differ from those
employed by us on the stages where we mock life. We accept our own stage
conventions as something so natural that habit permits us to forget the
strangeness of the devices employed. How many Americans among those who
have been under the spell of the realistic action of “The Bat” have
thought of the fact that the characters were at all times moving about
in rooms with only three walls, that darkness was symbolized by lights
carried by the actors, that the attic in the country home of the astute
spinster was lighted by footlights, and that an actor who had been killed
appeared a moment later for a curtain call? And if in a play that has
been pushed approximately to the extreme of realism, an unsophisticated
rustic on his first visit to New York might discover the above-mentioned
ridiculous customs, what might his comments be on the fact that
Mephistopheles sings melodiously in encouraging Faust to fight for his
life, that stage whispers are heard by every one in the house except the
one person most in need of hearing them, that a flimsy canvas door can
shut out a stout villain, or that the last words of a dying man reach to
the very highest seat in the top gallery?
Thus it would seem that any one who laughs at the conventions of the
Chinese stage simply displays his provincialism. Our forefathers
tolerated almost the identical conventions on the medieval stage, as I
have shown at length in Chapter Nine. Moreover, it is a very striking
fact that there is in many of our theaters at present an extreme reaction
against a minute and pedantic imitation on the stage of the realities of
everyday life. Because it is felt that too much attention to external
things deadens the imagination of the spectators, stage managers of
to-day are beginning to prefer once more a conventional presentation.
As a Westerner learns to recognize the conventions of the Chinese stage
he quickly becomes used to them, and soon he is as little disturbed by
the make-believe of the Oriental theater as he had been before by that
of the Occidental. He is then ready to appreciate the art of the Chinese
actor, which runs the gamut of human emotions quite as fully as that of
the great actors of the West. He must know, however, that the rug on
the floor of the projecting, curtainless stage is a magic carpet which
carries the actors without change of scenery from Mongolia to Tibet,
from the market place to the audience hall in the palace, or from the
forest to the prison by the simple device on the actor’s part of walking
once or twice about the stage or of exiting and reappearing immediately
afterward. The stage has two doors; the one at the spectators’ left is
generally used for entrances and the one at the right for exits. However,
at times the door at the left is also used for exits, if the actor wishes
to indicate that he is not leaving the house or is otherwise remaining
in the immediate vicinity. The crossing of a doorsill is presented by
raising the feet about eight inches off the floor in making the steps. To
open or close a door the actor raises both hands and makes the pantomime
of drawing a bolt and moving a door. Slow steps in which the feet are
raised well off the floor show that the actor is walking up a stairway.
When a general ascends a hill to review a battle he mounts on a chair or
table. If a mountain is to be crossed, a similar pantomime is performed.
That a man is on horseback is shown by the fact that he carries a riding
whip. When he mounts he takes the whip and raises one leg in a movement
intended to imitate the action of leaping into the saddle, and when he
dismounts he hands the whip to an attendant with a similarly appropriate
movement. When the groom leads off the horse he pulls after him the
seemingly refractory whip. Sometimes these actions attain a touch of
realism, but generally they are—in better taste—confined to quite
conventionalized movements. Frequently they escape the newcomer entirely.
A mandarin arriving in a chair walks on the stage surrounded by four
attendants, who make a stooping movement such as chair-bearers might
make by way of setting down the imaginary palanquin. A lady traveling in
a carriage carries with the aid of a servant two pieces of canvas about
three feet square, on each of which is painted a wheel; the squares of
cloth are supported on bamboo rods, the lady holding the rear ends and
the servant the front ends of the rods as they walk across the stage.
When she descends she makes an appropriate movement, while the servant
folds up and carries off the two painted wheels. Characters who wish to
show that they are riding in a boat indicate this by carrying oars with
which they paddle in the air. If some one is to enter the boat an oar
is stretched out, the new arrival grips it and takes a long step, as
though he were boarding a vessel. A man committing suicide by drowning
performs a leap as though he were jumping into a well and then quickly
runs off the stage. Some commit suicide by throwing themselves down from
a wall, indicating this by leaping off a table or a chair placed on top
of a table, at times falling on their backs in a manner that requires
great acrobatic skill. However, many of the somersaults and similar
feats performed on the stage are simply ornamental, with no symbolic
significance whatever.
[Illustration: THE ACTRESS KIN FENG-KUI IN A MALE RÔLE
The long feathers and the headdress mark the warrior, while the
riding-whip signifies that the general is on horseback]
Stage fighting has been developed in China into an intricate art with
many cut-and-dried conventions and a minimum of realism. The warriors
fly at one another, but they never hit with their swords or spears. The
art consists simply in making quick passes at the opponent, whirling
about rapidly, throwing a weapon into the air and catching it again,
or spinning a spear about much as a drum major does his baton. All the
while the orchestra is playing wild and loud music, the kind that Thomas
Moore’s Mr. Fudge would call the music of the spears, for every tone
seems to go right through you. As neither of the contestants is wounded
or falls down, the spectator learns the issue of the battle from the fact
that the defeated warrior exits first, while his victorious opponent
makes a sort of bow to the audience and then struts off with a dignified
step. Sometimes a spear is thrown at a soldier who catches it and sinks
to the ground clutching it to his breast, denoting that he has been
pierced; then he runs off quickly, a dead man. In stage armies one man
carrying a banner signifies one thousand men.
The stage in Peking theaters is lighted by daylight or by means of huge
arc lamps that illumine the auditorium and the stage alike. Therefore
darkness must be indicated by a conventional symbol, and the same one is
chosen that we have selected in the West, namely, a lighted (sometimes
unlighted) candle, lamp, or lantern. It is hardly necessary to recall
here that even in our most realistically staged plays the darkness on
the stage is only relative and never, except for very brief moments,
absolute. The passing of time at night is indicated by the drummer of the
orchestra, who beats the hours on his kettledrum while otherwise there is
silence on the stage. As the Chinese divide their day into twelve periods
of two hours each, this can be done more quickly than would be the case
if our divisions of time were used and the entire gesture is fairly
inconspicuous.