THE GREATEST EVENT IN LIFE

A Farce in One Act by Doctor Hu Shih

SCENE—A parlor in Mr. Tien’s home. A door on the right leading to the hall; a door on the left leading to the dining room. Sofa at the back end. Armchairs. A round table in the center with flower-vase and writing materials on it. Two chairs beside the table. A writing desk at the left side of the stage.

On the walls are hanging rolls of Chinese painting and writing, together with framed Dutch landscapes, bespeaking the complexity of taste in a partially modernized Chinese family.

As the curtain slowly goes up, there is heard the voice of the fortune-teller, who is seated by the table, and the final notes of his accompanying string instrument are still audible. Mrs. Tien is seated on one of the armchairs.

MRS. TIEN—I don’t quite understand what you say. Tell me, what do you think of this match.

FORTUNE-TELLER—I only speak the truth, Mrs. Tien. We all speak the truth. You see—

MRS. TIEN—But what is the truth?

FORTUNE-TELLER—I am sorry to say that this match is undesirable. It would be a very unhappy marriage if your daughter should marry this young man.

MRS. TIEN—Why so?

FORTUNE-TELLER—Well, you see, I only speak the truth. This young man was born in the year of the Tiger and your daughter was born in the year of the Rabbit. In the books of fortune-telling, this is called “conquering the rabbit by the tiger.”

The wife would live in constant fear of being swallowed up. And, as the conquest is complete, the wife will probably die long before her husband. I have examined the Month and the Day and the Hour, and found no way to escape it. Of course I am only telling the truth: please don’t blame my frankness.

MRS. TIEN—Not at all. I like truth spoken in frankness. I know what you said is true. For the Goddess of Mercy said the same thing yesterday.

FORTUNE-TELLER—So the Goddess of Mercy also disapproved of this union?

MRS. TIEN—Yes, she said that this couple, if married, will not live long together.

FORTUNE-TELLER—That’s exactly what I said.

MRS. TIEN—What the Goddess said must be true. But you see, this is a very important matter; it is the greatest event in my daughter’s life. We parents cannot take too much care in selecting the best possible mates for our children. So, having known the Goddess’s opinion, I sent for you to see if there is any possible escape. You know the words of the gods are always very brief: one may not be sure of their exact meaning.

FORTUNE-TELLER—Quite so, quite so.

MRS. TIEN—I am glad that you have confirmed the Goddess’s judgment. (Rises and hands him some money) Thank you; here is your pay.

FORTUNE-TELLER—(Groping for the money) No, no, that is not necessary. Thanks, thanks. I am glad that the Goddess has confirmed my truth. (Rises)

MRS. TIEN—Lee Fuh! (Enter Lee Fuh from the right-hand door) Show him out. (The fortune-teller goes out led by Lee Fuh)

MRS. TIEN—(Taking up the red paper on which are written the dates of the young couple, folds it and puts it back into a drawer of the writing desk) It’s a pity!—it’s a pity!—

(Miss Ah-may Tien enters by the right-hand door. She is a young woman of about twenty-four, tastefully dressed and wearing a rather anxious look on her face)

MISS TIEN—Mother, are you consulting fortune-tellers again? I met one at the gate. Have you forgotten that father had forbidden fortune-telling in our house?

MRS. TIEN—Just once more, my dear.

MISS TIEN—But you have promised father never to call fortune-tellers into our house.

MRS. TIEN—I know that. But you see I can’t help doing it just once more. I have sent for him to see if you and Mr. Chen—

MISS TIEN—Oh, Oh!—

MRS. TIEN—You see this is the greatest event in your life, and you are my only child. I can’t let you marry a man with whom you can’t live long.

MISS TIEN—But we can!

MRS. TIEN—No, you can’t. The fortune-teller says so.

MISS TIEN—What does he know about us?

MRS. TIEN—And the Goddess of Mercy says so, too.

MISS TIEN—So you have asked the Goddess too? What would father say to this?

MRS. TIEN—I know your father would object to this, as he always objects to everything I do. But how can we old folks decide a matter which concerns your entire life? We are liable to make grave mistakes. But the gods cannot deceive us. Moreover, the fortune-teller has confirmed what the goddess said. (Going to the desk and opening the drawer) Let me show you what the goddess said.

MISS TIEN—Oh, no! I don’t want to see it!

MRS. TIEN—(Closing the door reluctantly) My dear, don’t be too obstinate. I like your young man whom you have known during your stay in Japan. He seems to be a fine fellow. You say you know him well. But you are young and inexperienced. Even we old folks dare not trust our own judgment in such important matters. That’s why I went to the Goddess of Mercy and sent for the fortune-teller. They both said that this match would be undesirable. It must be true. The fortune-teller said that this is a case of conquering the rabbit by the tiger, because you were born in the year of—

MISS TIEN—Please don’t say any more of it. (Sobbing) I don’t want to hear it. I know father will not agree with you. I know he will not.

MRS. TIEN—I will tell him what I have done. He must not give away my daughter against my wish. (Approaching her daughter and trying to dry her tears with a handkerchief) Now, don’t cry. I’ll leave you to think it over. Your father will be back soon; I go to see if dinner is ready. Be a good child and cry no more. (Goes by the door leading to the dining room.

A pause. As Miss Tien looks up, Lee Fuh appears at the door. She beckons him to come near)

MISS TIEN—Lee Fuh, I need your help. (Lee Fuh bows amicably) My mother does not want to let me marry Mr. Chen.

LEE FUH—It’s a pity, a great pity. He is such a fine gentleman. He even bowed to me when I met him this morning at the street corner.

MISS TIEN—Yes, he saw you bring in the fortune-teller and he was afraid of any sudden change. So he telephoned to me at the school and followed me back in his motor-car. He may still be waiting at the street corner. Go and tell him that my mother has made up her mind not to let us marry. Of course father will help us. Tell Mr. Chen to move his car to the next street and wait for further news. Go quickly. (Lee Fuh bows to go) Come back. Tell him—tell him—not to be anxious. (Lee Fuh bows smilingly and goes by the right-hand door)

MISS TIEN—(Goes to the desk and opens the drawer; looks at its contents without taking it out. Then looks at her watch) Father ought to be back now; it is almost twelve. (Mr. Tien, a man of about fifty, enters by the right-hand door)

MISS TIEN—(Quickly closes the drawer and rises to meet him) Oh, father, you are back! Mother was—(hesitates) mother has something to say to you,—something very important.

MR. TIEN—What’s that? Tell me first what it is.

MISS TIEN—Mother will tell you. (Runs to the dining-room door and calls) Mother, mother, father is back.

MR. TIEN—What’s in this now? (Sits down in the armchair. Mrs. Tien enters) Ah-may told me that you have something very important to say to me.

MRS. TIEN—Yes, something very important. Now don’t contradict me. (Sitting down by the table) It is about Mr. Chen’s proposal to marry Ah-may.

MR. TIEN—Yes, I have been thinking about it too.

MRS. TIEN—Good, we all ought to be thinking about it. It is the greatest event in her life. I was simply overawed at the idea of its importance. It is true that Ah-may has known this young man for some years during their stay in Japan. But we don’t know him. How can we be sure of his character? He is wealthy, but many wealthy young men are simply awful. He is well-educated, but I have heard many returned students abandon their wives.

MR. TIEN—What are you driving at?

MRS. TIEN—My point is this. We should not trust our own poor judgments. At least I can’t, I dare not trust myself in this matter. So I went yesterday to the Temple of the Goddess of Mercy.

MR. TIEN—What! Have you forgotten what you promised me?

MRS. TIEN—I can’t help it. I did it merely for the sake of our daughter.

MR. TIEN—Pooh, pooh! Go on.

MRS. TIEN—I went there and asked for a Divine Stick. It says that this match is undesirable. Let me show you the poem on the Stick. (Going to the desk)

MR. TIEN—Pooh, pooh! I don’t want to see it. I’ll have nothing of this stuff! If you don’t trust yourself, how can you trust such an important matter to wooden images and clay idols?

MISS TIEN—(Cheering up) I know father doesn’t believe in all this. (Going to him) Thank you, father. We should trust our own judgment, should we not?

MRS. TIEN—But it isn’t the Goddess alone that says no.

MR. TIEN—Who else then?

MRS. TIEN—I still had my doubts, so I sent for the best fortune-teller in this city.

MR. TIEN—Ahem! You have broken another promise to me.

MRS. TIEN—I know it, but you see this is the greatest event in Ah-may’s life, and I want to clear up every little doubt in my mind.

MR. TIEN—But, for heaven’s sake, why did you create the doubt by going to the Goddess? Why didn’t you come to me?

MRS. TIEN—Don’t be blasphemous. Well, the fortune-teller said exactly the same thing as the Goddess of Mercy. Wasn’t that wonderful?

MR. TIEN—Oh, come. Don’t be foolish. You have no confidence in your own eyes, so you go and put complete confidence in those who have no eyes at all!

MISS TIEN—I quite agree with you, father. I knew you would be on our side.

MRS. TIEN—(To her daughter) How dare you talk in that manner about your own marriage? “Our” side? Whose side is “our” side? For shame! You all conspire against me! (Putting her face into her handkerchief and sobbing) Have I no right to decide my own daughter’s greatest event in life?

MR. TIEN—Just because this is our daughter’s greatest event in life, we must go about it in a sane and intelligent manner. We must not be deceived by wooden images and clay idols,—and blind fortune-tellers. Am I not right, Ah-may?

MISS TIEN—You are quite right, father. I knew you would not believe in all this.

MR. TIEN—Now, let us talk seriously. (To Mrs. Tien) Don’t cry. No more childish superstitions! (To Miss Tien) Sit down and we’ll have a serious talk. (She seats herself on the sofa. A pause)

MR. TIEN—Ah-may, I don’t want you to marry Mr. Chen.

MISS TIEN—(Greatly agitated) Oh, father, you don’t mean it!

MR. TIEN—Yes, I do mean it. This union is impossible. I am sorry.

MISS TIEN—Have you found anything against him?

MR. TIEN—No, I like him very much. I could not possibly choose a better son-in-law. So much the more I am sorry.

MISS TIEN—(Puzzled and grieved) And you don’t believe in the gods and fortune-tellers?

MR. TIEN—Oh, no.

MRS. TIEN AND MISS TIEN—(At the same time) What is it then?

MR. TIEN—(To Miss Tien) My child, you have been abroad for so long that you have forgotten our own custom and etiquette. You have even forgotten the law of our ancestors.

MISS TIEN—What is the law of our ancestors that forbids our marriage?

MR. TIEN—Let me show you. (Goes out by the dining-room door)

MRS. TIEN—What could it be? But I am glad that he is opposed to this union.

MISS TIEN—(Reflecting, then suddenly showing determination) I know what to do.

MR. TIEN—(Enters with a set of big folio volumes) Here is our genealogy. (Turning over the leaves) Look at this long line of our ancestors and see if there has been any marriage between the Chens (陈) and the Tiens (田).

MISS TIEN—Why couldn’t there be any marriage between the two families?

MR. TIEN—Because it is the custom of the country to forbid intermarriage between persons bearing the same family name.

MISS TIEN—But our family is Tien and Mr. Chen’s family name is Chen: we are not of the same family name.

MR. TIEN—Yes, we are of the same family name. About two thousand five hundred years ago, these two words, Tien and Chen, were pronounced in the same way, and our family name was sometimes written in the form of Chen and sometimes in the form of Tien. As the ages passed by, these two words came to be pronounced quite differently, and the two branches of our family had all the appearances of a separate origin. But the philologists know it, and our family records show that the two families have sprung from one and the same stock. The law of both the Chen family and the Tien family forbids intermarriage between them.

MISS TIEN—Does this prohibition apply to persons whose relationship dates back two thousand five hundred years?

MR. TIEN—Unfortunately it does.

MISS TIEN—Oh, father, surely you don’t believe in the reasonableness of such a custom.

MR. TIEN—I don’t, but society does and the old scholars do. A story was told of a peasant woman of the Tien family who married a Mr. Chen by mistake. But after her death, she was not allowed to occupy a seat in the ancestral temple until her name was changed into Shen (申) by prolonging the middle stroke of the word Tien (田).

MISS TIEN—I am willing to prolong the middle stroke of my family name, if that is the only objection.

MR. TIEN—You are willing, but I am not. I don’t want to be criticized by the old scholars of our clan on your account.

MISS TIEN—(Sobbing) But we are not of the same family!

MR. TIEN—Our genealogy says we are, and the old scholars say we are. I have consulted a number of scholars on this point, and they all oppose this union. You see, in a matter of such importance, although one must not be deceived by the wooden gods and blind fortune-tellers, one must respect the opinion of old scholars. And then, your young man is from a very wealthy family. I don’t want people to think that I sold my daughter to a rich man at the cost of sacrificing my family name.

MISS TIEN—(In despair) Oh, oh! Father! You have destroyed the idols of superstition, but you bow to the idols of tradition!

MR. TIEN—You are angry with me? Well, I don’t blame you. I understand your feelings. (Lee Fuh enters)

LEE FUH—Dinner is ready. (All rise except Miss Tien)

MR. TIEN—Let us talk it over after dinner. Come, I am hungry. (Goes into the dining room)

MRS. TIEN—(Going to her daughter) Don’t cry now. We all wish for your best. Compose yourself and come to dinner.

MISS TIEN—I don’t want dinner.

MRS. TIEN—Don’t be obstinate. We’ll wait for you. (Goes into the dining room. Lee Fuh closes the door after her)

MISS TIEN—(Looks up and sees Lee Fuh standing) Is Mr. Chen still waiting in his car?

LEE FUH—(In a low voice) Yes, here is a note for you. (Hands her a note)

MISS TIEN—(Reads) “This concerns us alone. Decide for yourself.” (Repeating the last sentence) “Decide for yourself.” Yes. I must decide for myself. I must! (To Lee Fuh) Tell father and mother not to wait for me. I’ll join them after dinner. (Lee Fuh bows knowingly and retires. Miss Tien rises and puts on the cloak which she had taken off when she first entered. Goes to the desk and writes a note which she leaves under the flower vase; then she hurries out by the right-hand door. A pause)

MRS. TIEN—(From within) Ah-may, you must come and have dinner with us. (Enters) Where are you? Ah-may!

MR. TIEN—(From within) Leave her alone for a while: she is angry with us. (Enters) Where is she?

MRS. TIEN—Where is she? She has gone with her cloak on.

MR. TIEN—(Seeing the note under the vase, takes it and reads) “This is the greatest event in my life. I must decide for myself. I am gone with Mr. Chen in his car. Good-by!”

(Mrs. Tien sinks into the armchair. Mr. Tien rushes to the door and then hesitates. Curtain.)

CHAPTER SIX
External Aspects of the Chinese Theater

Foreigners in general regard the Chinese theater as noisy, dirty, and dull, and therefore as a most unattractive spot; yet the Chinese must think differently about it, for the houses are always crowded. When still at a great distance from the theater one can hear a horrible racket of drums, cymbals, and screeching string instruments. On entering the building one is struck by the lack in the Chinese of the sense of how to make things attractive, for, just as one enters a Chinese restaurant through a dirty kitchen, so one often enters a theater through the laundry; four or five men are seen in the “foyer” bending over steaming tubs, washing towels, essentials in a Chinese theater the use of which the spectator is soon to learn. On entering one finds the house—which, by the way, is arranged like a beer garden with the spectators seated at little tables—packed to the last seat. But the usher says nothing about S. R. O.; he leads you somewhere and as the other spectators seem to telescope you are asked to sit down either at a table or on a bench which has before it a board to hold the teapot and watermelon seeds that arrive the minute you have taken your seat.

As you settle down and look about, you find yourself in the usual kindly, dirty, ill-smelling, smoking, talking, shouting, eating crowd that one finds everywhere in China. Everybody is glad to give the newcomer information or a match; the inimitable, gentle Peking old men with their pairs of walnuts in their right hands which they roll around to keep their fingers supple for writing Chinese characters, drink tea, and smoke pewter water pipes, smiling the carefree smile that old age has graven on their faces. Waiters are continually walking around, jostling the spectators and shouting the merits of their tobacco, candy, fruit or what not, and depositing teapots and steaming dishes of food wherever they are wanted. The most spectacular thing is the manner in which the towels arrive. One waiter throws them to the other in tightly wrapped bundles, the pitcher standing near the entrance and the catcher near the stage or wherever people need to wipe their hands and faces. In hurling these bundles they show an unfailing aim and in catching they never miss. Even though one of these soggy masses of steaming cloth seems headed straight for your face, you need not dodge, for without fail a waiter’s hand will always be stretched out to catch it and all that the drama lover will ever suffer is to have a fine mist sprinkled over his face. Needless to say for this he neither expects nor receives any sympathy—not even a passing notice. A great many soldiers—about whom the Chinese says the worst thing he can think of, that they are “rough”—are admitted free, not because the manager is exceedingly patriotic, but because he thinks that discretion is better than having the door kicked in. In the gallery are seated the women, also eating, drinking, smoking and chattering. How much attention does this audience pay to the play? About as much as we do to the music in a restaurant. They don’t come for a few hours’ excitement, they come to pass the day that hangs heavy on their hands. As one French returned student put it, “In Europe one works during the day and amuses oneself at night; in China one amuses oneself during the day and sleeps at night.”

A TYPICAL PEKING AUDIENCE WITH THE INEVITABLE TEAPOTS

From Jacovleff, “Le Théâtre Chinois”

The returned student finds the Chinese theater very little to his taste, but yet he goes because Chinese social life is so dull that there is nothing better to do. Comforts in our sense are lacking absolutely in these theaters. You sit on stools without backs, your feet rest on stone slabs when the thermometer is hovering about zero and the cold wind is blowing down on Peking from Mongolia; there is absolutely no effort at heating or ventilation—it is Chinese animal heat that keeps the spectators comfortable and in a frame of mind to enjoy the performance. Yet these discomforts are felt only by those used to Western standards of life, for nine out of ten who leave the theater after the last villain has been duly punished go to houses that are likewise unheated and have no light, no agreeable company, and of course no play to charm the soul away from reality.

Peking is the real center of Chinese drama, the city that sets the style for the rest of the country so far as native drama is concerned. Innovations of Occidental nature generally have their origin in Shanghai and are adopted later on in Peking; such imitations of Western institutions are, for example, the amusement arcades called in both cities “The New World”; boxes in the theaters in which men and women sit together; and, of course, motion pictures, at first imported from Europe and America, but in recent years manufactured by Chinese firms in China. But as regards the native theater, Shanghai learns from Peking. The language of the theater, in general, is the Peking dialect spoken by actors all over China. Famous actors from Peking regularly visit Shanghai. It is only in Peking and the treaty ports that regular theaters exist. The vast majority of the four hundred million also have their plays, but they are dependent for them on traveling companies, that set up their mat-shed theaters wherever the citizens are willing to pay them for acting. Thus the political capital Peking is also the leading city for Chinese drama.

The eight hundred thousand residents of Peking have, according to Mr. Gamble’s recently published social survey, twenty-two regular theaters and eight mat-shed theaters; that is, portable buildings covered with matting. Furthermore, there are some nine restaurants, provincial halls, and temples where theatrical performances are regularly given. It is customary to mark all big weddings, funerals, banquets, charity events, and other festivities by theatricals for which the services of professionals are engaged or in which the many eager amateurs are given opportunities to appear in public. Most of the large buildings,—temples, guildhalls, palaces, etc.—are equipped with the simple projecting stages, either inside a large hall or out of doors in a courtyard. If you happen to live near a restaurant or a temple you will be able to speak feelingly of the love of the Chinese for theatricals!

The business organization of the Chinese theater is the same as that which obtained in Elizabethan playhouses. Our theater owner-manager of to-day who selects a play, determines the manner in which it is to be staged and played, and then engages actors to do what he pays them for—this enemy of real art and bête noire of the theater uplifters can be found neither in Elizabethan England nor in the Chinese theater. In staging and acting the company of players has entire freedom in China, just as it had in London. The theater-owner (quite like the “housekeeper” of Shakespeare’s day) engages a troupe to play in his theater, but he never dreams of interfering with the actor’s art. The Chinese call him the “behind-the-curtain” while the actors are the “before-the-curtain.” The former receives thirty per cent. of the income, while seventy per cent, goes to the manager of the company, who then pays the salaries of his actors. Some of these troupes or actors’ clubs are of a rather democratic nature, because all the actors belong to their guild. The actors’ guild has its special temple just outside the Hata Gate, for the actors are religious folk—much as are the members of most guilds in China.

In this temple the actors worship three deities, or rather deified men. The first of these is Kuan Yu (Yo Fei), the god of war, during his lifetime a great fighter against the Chin Tartars in the course of the twelfth century. There is a well-known play that sets forth the high qualities of this hero. Though he had been dismissed by the emperor as the result of a court intrigue, yet he refused to join the rebels, no matter how tempting the offers they made him, but remained loyal to his emperor. His mother was so pleased at this that she tattooed on his back: “He repays the state with loyalty and integrity.” Later on the emperor reinstated him in his high honors and placed his mother’s inscription on the banner of the army.[22]

The second deity is the T’ang Dynasty emperor mentioned in the first chapter as the traditional founder of the theater, T’ang Ming Huang. In his “Pear Garden” school for actors he is said himself to have acted the rôle of the clown. It is for this reason that the clown enjoys special privileges; for example, he is the first one to receive the attention of the make-up artist, while other actors must wait until the clown has had his turn; and he may sit on any actor’s box in the greenroom. It is the clown, furthermore, who burns the incense before the idols found in every theater on the rear wall just opposite the stage and in the dressing room. Such a little religious ceremony is carried out before and after every performance to ward off bad luck. Another feature of the theater that impresses us as being typically Chinese is found in the boards placed at the rear of the stage and on the two supporting columns on which are found inscriptions, generally in gilt characters, setting forth the high moral purpose of the stage. In comparing these mottoes with what is being presented on the stage one is often reminded of the saying of the Reverend Arthur Smith, that no one knows so well as the Chinese what is fitting and proper.

The third deity is Lin Ming-ju, generally pictured as a little boy. This noble youth was a pupil in the “Pear Garden”, and all who were friendly to him made rapid progress in their art. Hence they realized gradually that he was a god. Like other well-known gods he afterwards disappeared in a sudden and miraculous manner. Because the second part of this god’s name is the word for dream, actors never speak of their dreams in the morning.

But religion does not mean to the actors merely the burning of incense or the making of an annual pilgrimage to Miao Feng Shan, two days’ journey from Peking. There is a definite tradition that an actor must show filial piety. Whenever he undertakes something out of the ordinary, such as perhaps accepting a contract to act in Shanghai, he must first ask his mother’s permission. I asked repeatedly about this custom, and learned not a reason for it, but simply the fact that if an actor did not ask his mother’s permission he would be laughed at. Often it is the mother who makes the contract and receives most of the money. Of a certain rising actor it is said that his mother never allows him to act unless he is to receive twenty dollars for each performance.

In the fairly democratic China of the imperial times the son of the poorest man could rise to the position of viceroy of a province by virtue of passing a brilliant literary examination—and if we are to believe Chinese playwrights he often did. However, the actor, together with the son of the prostitute, and one or two other despised classes, was debarred from these examinations. Of course, with the discontinuance of the examinations in 1907 and the establishment of the republic in 1912, these disqualifications dropped away. Socially the position of the actor is improving rapidly nowadays. For example, in July, 1922, the son of a high official of Shantung Province married the actress Li Feng-yün. Far from being ashamed of her profession, she acted several plays on her wedding day as part of the festivities of the occasion. However, she abandoned her professional career on becoming the wife of this wealthy man. The fact that she was the first wife was the remarkable thing to the Chinese who spoke to me of the event; for that an actress becomes the concubine of a rich official is almost an everyday occurrence in Peking. Progress along such lines is not a unique or surprising thing in China; to mention but one example, coeducation has come into being since 1919, almost overnight, so to speak, with surprisingly little opposition. Actresses were forbidden on Chinese stages during the days of the Manchu Dynasty, but since 1912 their number has increased rapidly so that they are appearing now on eleven stages in Peking. Only in the foreign concessions of such treaty ports as Tientsin and Shanghai do men and women appear together on the stage, however; in Peking, Chinese prudery still forbids this.

There is a current notion that Chinese plays last a week or a lunar month, but as a matter of fact about a dozen plays, or separate acts taken from different plays, are given in one performance. Toward the end of the afternoon’s or evening’s entertainment the spectator may observe that some long strips of red paper covered with Chinese characters in black ink are removed from the two side railings of the balcony and others substituted in their place. In this manner the program of the following day is announced. The performances generally last from noon to about six and from seven in the evening until midnight. The best plays with the stars are reserved until the last, while dull, long plays with inferior actors generally begin the program. These poor actors are often retained merely for charity’s sake; often, too, famous actors give benefits for their less fortunate colleagues. In Shanghai actors get monthly contracts; but in Peking the minor actors are hired by the day, and some of them must play in several theaters in one afternoon in order to eke out a meager living at about twenty coppers a day.

Men of this type, of course, are hardly more than “supers.” Regular actors on the average earn about one dollar a day, while some of a higher grade receive five dollars to ten dollars. To receive twenty-five dollars for a regular performance a man must be quite prominent in the theatrical world. A few stars, like Mei Lan-fang and Yang Hsiao-lo, receive one hundred dollars for each regular performance, and considerably more when they act at banquets or on other special occasions.

The charges in the theaters depend on the type of theater and even more on the actors. Theaters where women or boys appear as actors are lower in price. There is no ticket or money demanded as one enters the theater, but the price is collected by the usher when he seats the spectator. In the ordinary theater one can sit at a comfortable table for forty cents or in a box for a dollar and a half. There are two large theaters in Peking built in Occidental style with receding stages, in which the prices are somewhat higher: eighty cents for a first-class seat and nine dollars for a box seating eight persons. When a star is playing, these prices are augmented somewhat. The poorer classes can enjoy theatrical performances for five coppers by going to the mat-shed theaters. The average seating capacity of a Peking theater is about a thousand, and the average attendance is very near this figure, if not above it.

The course of an actor’s training is an extremely hard one. For seven years he is instructed in singing and acrobatics, and then he begins to play in some of the boys’ theaters, institutions connected with the training schools for actors. During the longest part of his apprenticeship he receives no wages, he has long hours, menial tasks, and severe taskmasters. Actresses are trained by special private teachers and their courses have not yet become so uniform as have those for the men. The police have very strict regulations to prevent actresses from becoming prostitutes, but according to Mr. Gamble, in some theaters women from the licensed quarter appear, make engagements after giving their acts, and do some other soliciting. The connection between the lower-grade theaters and the segregated district is rather close.

In order to give an idea of the different kinds of theaters one encounters in Peking, I can do no better than to describe several typical entertainments from my notes stretching over five years. There is in the Southern City, for example, the Tung Lo Yuan, a fine specimen of the old-style Chinese theater. No women are allowed to visit this theater—not because of immoralities, but simply because the place is conservative. The seats run at right angles to the stage, along tables, showing that people come to hear the music rather than to observe the action on the stage. I paid twenty-four coppers for my seat in the balcony; the usual price in this theater is eighteen coppers, but because Han Hsi-ch’ang was going to act, the price was raised on that particular day. After a series of plays dealing with murders and robberies, in the course of which the audience gloated over the shuddering and weeping of the victims, there came the chief play of the day—a Yuan Dynasty drama revived in this theater.

The play deals with a poor woodcutter and his wife. The hero takes no interest in his humble calling; in fact, he neglects it for the study of literature. Since he does not support his wife, she deserts him for a smith. Finally the husband goes to Peking for the literary examination and passes with honors. When the wife learns that her first husband is to become a mandarin she is filled with joy; she sits down at a table, falls asleep, and has a wonderful dream. The dream is portrayed just as it would be in our moving pictures; a conventional symbol, a short pause in the action and the tapping of the drum, indicates to the audience that there is going to be a dream, and then the dream action continues in the same way in which the rest of the play had gone on. A number of men—recalling the Wise Men of the East—enter, bringing all manner of silk robes, headdresses, and other rich gifts for the lady. In her dream the faithless wife sees all this; she tries on her robes, shows them off to the neighbors, and glories in her riches. Then she returns to her sleeping position at the table and awakens to find that all had been a dream. In the fourth act the husband returns, dressed in embroidered robes, a prosperous mandarin. He pours a cup of water on the ground, saying that he will take his wife back provided she can gather up the water again. From this play comes the proverbial expression, “Water once spilled cannot be gathered up again”, which means, of course, that a wife who has been unfaithful cannot be taken back by the husband.

According to the custom of Chinese theaters only one act was presented; it was the third act, the dream, that I saw. The too-severe strain on the chief actor who must sing very long arias is generally given as the reason why plays are not presented in their entirety. Sometimes when an entire play is presented—this is frequently done at guildhalls and other private theatricals—three or four actors in turn play the leading rôle. The actor portrayed exceedingly well the wife’s emotions of joy, surprise, and pride. He wore a black dress, because this is the conventional color for the poor, although it was made of fine silk instead of the cotton which is actually worn by the masses. In the old-style Chinese music (called kuan-ch’ang) the flute is the leading instrument and the strains are melodious and sweet, not at all offensive to the foreigner’s ear as is a great deal of the modern music.

One evening I was the guest of Mr. Chang Ziang-ling, the present Chinese Consul-General in New York, at a performance by Mei Lan-fang in the so-called First Theater, a large playhouse built in European style. The usher took us to two good seats near the stage occupied by two ragamuffins, and asked the latter to give up their seats to us. Mr. Chang then paid him two dollars for two seventy-cent seats and explained that it is a little graft on the part of the ushers to place vagabonds in good seats until people who they know will tip them come to the theater.

The play again was a Yuan drama called “Snow in June”; a play discussed in a previous chapter under the title, “The Sufferings of Tou-E.” Mei Lan-fang is introducing many innovations into the manner of producing plays, turning the stage into a veritable riot of colors selected with exquisite taste. The rear of the stage is covered by a curtain painted with plum blossoms and chrysanthemums in allusion to two of the characters of his name. The executioners, dressed in rich red trousers lined with white, come on the stage leading in their midst the victim wearing a long robe of a delicate shade of light blue. Some of the executioners have their faces painted in vivid reds and blacks; I find that this adds a great deal to the spectacle, even though it is the very opposite of realism. To illustrate the sort of gagging constantly practiced by Chinese actors I might quote what the judge says to the prisoner: “What! One so young as you is accused of having committed a murder? For this you will be beheaded. Let that be a lesson to you not to do it again.” Such a feeble joke in the face of the innocent young victim is, of course, just as fitting as many calembours in Shakespeare’s tragedies. After the execution snow falls; that is, bits of paper are tossed down from above. All in all the staging of the play is most agreeable and Mei Lan-fang’s acting is extremely good.

Quite a different performance can be observed in one of the “new” theaters, a blight which has come to Peking via Shanghai. One evening I went to the one in the “New World”, a four-story concrete building, an amusement palace offering for the single admission fee of thirty cents, old-style plays, “new” drama, story-tellers, singsong girls, moving pictures, performances by acrobats, jugglers, and sword-swallowers, restaurants both for foreign and Chinese food, tea room, billiard tables, and bowling alleys, convex and concave mirrors, and penny slotmachines showing pictures of various sorts. (“A number of these pictures were of rather coarse nature,” observes Mr. Sidney Gamble in his “Peking, A Social Survey”, “but none of them could be called immoral.”) My goal was the “new” theater, namely plays staged in what the Chinese fondly believe to be the manner of the Occidental theaters. Before a very crowded auditorium a play was being performed by actors dressed in European style, or perhaps better, the style of the mail-order-house type of clothing. The play was in spoken Chinese, and no music accompanied the action. Only in the intermissions between the rather short scenes the band from the Boys’ Industrial School, sitting in a corner in the rear of the hall, played “John Brown’s Body” and other appropriate dirges.

The play dealt with a woman who had lured men into her house in order to have them robbed there by her accomplices. This woman was dressed in a red silk waist and a lavender skirt; she no doubt seemed very Western to the audience, because she wore a corset and allowed the contour of her body to show instead of being bound so as to look flat-chested like the Chinese women. The part, however, was acted by a man who spoke in a high falsetto. There was a great deal of love-making of a kind unknown to the Chinese stage—the men kissed the woman’s hand and even put their arms about her. At times the vampire left the stage for a short time with one of the victims, in a significant manner. Most applause was accorded the actor who played the ruffian, when he strode “toughly” across the stage with his coat collar turned up and his cap pulled down over his eyes. By way of giving a good imitation of the manners of Europeans the actors, when speaking to the lady, consistently took off their coats, held them on their arms, and displayed brand-new red suspenders! The scenery was changed with every act and showed crude imitations of our painted interiors or street scenes with lamp posts. The play was endless and the action extremely slow. This heart-breaking imitation of our worst melodramas is, I am glad to say, not making the rapid progress it has made in India, where it has driven out completely the native drama, at least in Calcutta and Bombay.

As I have stated above, the Chinese stage lacks scenery almost altogether. Practically the only ornate—and to a certain extent the most realistic—part of the Chinese theater is found in the costumes. In regard to the dress of the actors, historical truth, as has been stated, is observed to a certain extent. The magistrates, the courtiers, the yamen-runners, the merchants, the doctors, the students, the priests, the monks and nuns, the matchmakers, and similar characters appear in appropriate costumes, but usually much more elaborate than they would be in real life. In the troupe of Mei Lan-fang, Peking’s most famous actor, the men carrying banners in processions are dressed in silk of the same color as the cotton gowns which these ragamuffins wear in the streets of Chinese cities. Honorable personages appear in silk robes in solid colors: purple, yellow, orange, or red. In the dress of common soldiers the spectator finds the styles of the various periods followed with historical accuracy, but the dress of great warriors is fanciful and highly ornamented. These peacocks of the Chinese stage with their feather headdress, their painted faces, and their richly embroidered gowns studded with little mirrors, are the most colorful sights in the theater. Such warriors wear shoes with thick soles, thus adding about three or four inches to their natural height, a touch recalling the soccus of the classical theater. The peculiarly slit-eyed expression of the warrior is achieved by binding a strip of silk tightly about the head, pulling up the eyebrows.

A conception of the immense popularity on the Chinese stage of the warrior performing acrobatics signifying tremendous battles can be gained from the Chinese classification of plays. One of the two main divisions is the wu-hsi or fighting play, involving very little plot and almost continuous acrobatics or “fighting.” The other main division is the wen-hsi or civil play, which is practically the same thing we mean by the term drama. In general, the two kinds of plays alternate in the course of the performances so that each division makes up about fifty per cent. of the plays presented. Westerners are frequently surprised that the Chinese do not make the division into comedy and tragedy, but it may be well to recall that even with us this differentiation is a floating conception. Practically all the divisions mentioned in “Hamlet” could be matched on the Chinese stage; historical, comical, tragical, pastoral, and so on. The Chinese have farces called nao-hsi (noise plays) and fen-hsi (painted, make-up plays), both full of comical and burlesque elements. The only difference between them is, an old Peking resident has observed, that the latter excel the former in obscenity.[23]

ORCHESTRAL INSTRUMENTS

1—Shou. 2—Ti-tze. 3—Peng-ku. 4—Hu-ch’in. 5—Ch’a. 6—La-pa.

A cross division of the above classification is found in the distinction drawn between plays according to the style of music employed; kuan-ch’ü, er-huang, hsi-p’i, and pan-tzu. Among them only the first mentioned has an appeal to literary men, while the other three are considered fit for the mob only. The kuan-ch’ü music is a real Chinese product descended from the classical plays of the Yuan Dynasty. It flourished during the Ming Dynasty, but during the Ch’ing rule it fell into desuetude until at the time of the late Dowager Empress it had entirely passed out of fashion. In the last decades there have been made fairly successful efforts to revive it, especially on the part of Mei Lan-fang. The chief instrument in this style of music is the flute. Er-huang and hsi-p’i are very similar. Both styles came to Peking from the province of Hupeh at the beginning of the Ch’ing Dynasty, and in both the hu-ch’in, a string instrument with a sounding-box played by a bow, gives the characteristic touch to the music. These two styles, together with the pan-tzu, are considered rather vulgar music, especially the pan-tzu. This latter style came to Peking from the province of Shansi, where the barbarian Mongol blood predominates in the population over the purer Chinese strain. The hu-ch’in is also played in pan-tzu; but the instrument that gives the name as well as the character to this style is a wooden board held in one hand by a member of the orchestra and beaten with the other to indicate the rhythm. As can be gathered from this fact, the music is very simple and primitive.

In addition to the instruments mentioned above there are various others 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

High military officers can be recognized readily by the four pheasant feathers, sometimes as long as six feet, which form part of their headdress. The Chinese call them “back-protecting feathers”, because they are supposed to ward off the blows of the enemy swords. In the same way the painted faces of the warriors can be traced to originally utilitarian purposes; about a thousand years ago a famous Chinese warrior whose scholarly face had a very unmartial appearance painted his face in a gruesome manner in order to inspire fear in the hearts of his enemies.

The manner in which the faces of traditional heroes of war are painted is an attempt at a conventionalized reproduction of the facial expression of these terror-inspiring men as they are described in the books of history or in novels. Therefore it is not possible to give a definite color or color scheme for warriors. But in some other respects there is a definite custom. A face painted pure white denotes a wicked person, while no color on the face means a good character. Pure red designates an honest and faithful man, gold a heavenly being, and several colors applied unevenly a robber. The white nose is the mark of the clown. It is interesting to note that in Chinese clown has likewise the three connotations given for the word in Webster’s dictionary: rustic, ill-bred, and buffoonish.

Gods and spirits can be recognized by the horsehair switch they carry whenever they appear and by the slight tapping of the gong as they enter the stage. The ghosts of the deceased wear black veils over their heads, or bundles of strips of paper under their right ears. Whenever any character from the world beyond, god or ghost, appears, fireworks are set off by a stage hand; usually this takes the form of large flames emitted repeatedly from an oil lamp. Monks and nuns carry the same horsehair switch, perhaps because of their “spiritual” lives. A bride can be recognized by the red veil she wears on her head. Good officials wear square hats, while wicked officials wear round ones. The wicked jailer in his round hat is a frequent figure on the Chinese stage.

A strong wind is indicated by the waving of flags, which recalls the fact that the flags used in our operatic performances are not made of silk as are ordinary banners, but of stiff material, giving them the appearance of banners flying in the wind. A snowstorm is produced by flakes of paper tossed into the air by a stage hand in full view of the audience. A sick person is designated by a yellow cloth which covers his face. When a character has died his face is covered with a red cloth. The head of a decapitated person is symbolized by some object about the size of a human head, wrapped in red cloth. Sometimes an execution is portrayed by making a sword thrust at the victim who then runs off the stage, after which his head is brought on.

For new or exceptional situations new symbols must be invented. There is a play called “Chu Fang Ts’ao” taken from the novel “The Three Kingdoms.” It is the story of a guest who hears his host sharpening a butcher knife and, as he fears the worst, runs off under somewhat amusing circumstances. However, his host was the very reverse of a robber; he was in fact slaughtering the fatted pig in honor of the visitor. The business of slaughtering the pig is done in the following manner: an actor with a black cloth thrown over his head and back walks on the stage in a stooping posture, driven forward by another actor’s stick and making the various deviations from the right path by which a pig in real life exasperates the swineherd. The actor-pig finally walks up to a chair on which he can rest his hands in comfort, while the business of slaughtering is given in pantomime. After this has been done the cloth is removed and the man, now neither pig nor actor, walks off the stage erect.

The above conventions, which have come under my observation in the course of my attendance in Chinese theaters, do not by any means exhaust the list, nor do they represent anything permanent. Changes are continually occurring. One that I have been observing is that the long conventionalized beards no longer hang down from the upper lip, covering the mouth; probably because this was found to be inconvenient for purposes of speaking or drinking tea, and some one hit upon the idea of having the beard only below the mouth and of painting in the moustache to match. Incidentally, only good characters have a moustache, while the villains of the Chinese stage have no hair on the upper lip. One ought to note, too, that these conventions are not so arbitrary as they might seem at first glance, but are generally founded on some real element in Chinese life. The yellow dress denoting the emperor, the red veil marking the bride, and the black costume signifying the poor man have their basis in everyday Chinese custom. A mourner on the Chinese stage appears in white, and the long beards of old men naturally enough have the same color, both quite as in real life. The symbols are an imitation of real life more or less stiffened into conventions. Of course, the origins of the conventional signs are sometimes a bit difficult to trace, especially in the case of ghosts and gods.

From the instances cited above it is plain that the Chinese theater contains much that from our point of view tends to “destroy the illusion.” Another factor in this process is the “property man”—made known to Americans through “The Yellow Jacket”—who is ever on the stage in the midst of all action. When the heroine must kneel before the judge a coolie in a dirty blue cotton gown rushes forward to place a pillow on the floor lest the actor’s costly embroidered gown be soiled. An actor is frequently handed a cup of tea by another such attendant; some actors to-day even equip their servants with thermos bottles for these occasions. A general preparing for combat by removing his outer coat is aided in this operation by ordinary stage hands, not by servants forming part of the dramatis personae. From all the above it would seem that human nature does not demand any particular kind of realism on the stage, but is quite able to adapt itself to any illusion whatsoever.

CHAPTER EIGHT
Mei Lan-fang—China’s Greatest Actor

Every traveler who comes to China hears of the fame of Mei Lan-fang. He is told that in his visit to Peking he ought not to miss the opportunity of seeing this male actor of female rôles interpret the gay or tragic events of the lives of coy Chinese maidens. When the Chinese Government entertains a distinguished foreign visitor, General Joffre or Secretary of the Navy Denby, for example, Mei Lan-fang gives a performance which forms the pièce de résistance of the Oriental splendors shown to the visitor by way of hospitality. Americans who in turn entertain Chinese friends in Peking generally resort also to a play by this actor. In 1919 a group of American bankers paid Mei Lan-fang four thousand dollars (I have the information from the man who wrote out the check) for half an hour of acting and singing; it is true that in this case an especially large price was paid by way of gaining that imponderable Oriental asset known as “face”, because shortly before this a group of Japanese bankers had tried to impress their Chinese guests by paying Mei Lan-fang one thousand dollars for an evening’s entertainment. The common masses among the Chinese also appreciate this actor, and a manager who succeeds in inducing Mei Lan-fang to sign a contract with him is always sure of a crowded house. For five years I have had the opportunity of observing Mei Lan-fang’s work and I have come to the conclusion that he justly deserves his fame and his popularity.

Perhaps some who have heard Mei sing in his falsetto voice and have seen him act a “slow” play, or opera, if you will, in the conventionalized Chinese manner, to the accompaniment of a screeching violin and ear-splitting brass cymbals, feel that they would have been willing to pay a good sum to be excused from the performance. There is, to be sure, a long list of martyrs who with lavish Oriental hospitality were treated to interminable sessions of Chinese drama; General Wood, for example, recently suffered two hours of it. I should like to say that in my opinion, keenly as I appreciate the Chinese drama and its interpreter, Mei Lan-fang, I realize fully that it does not present such a finished product as is found in our theater. The Chinese have no great tragedies to place by the side of Shakespeare’s; they have no profound comedies such as Molière’s; their plays are never so closely knit as are our “well-made” plays; while in staging they are centuries behind us. The Chinese drama is a case of arrested development; it is childish, medieval, and very trying to our ears. Yet it is typically Chinese. No other art is so popular in China as that of the theater, which presents the old legends of the nation, the famous novels read by the masses, intrigues such as occur on every hand, the music of the various provinces, and the moral ideals of the four hundred millions in general. In fact, the Chinese consider the theater fit for the gods; for whenever they wish to thank their deities or reconcile them, they give theatrical performances for the pleasure of the gods and that of the entire village as well. As Mr. R. F. Johnston remarks in his characteristic manner, designed to shock the ultra-pious, the taste of the gods as regards the drama seems to coincide in a remarkable manner with that of the villagers. Since the theater is in a manner the mirror of the Chinese nation, and is also of intrinsic interest to the student of the drama, it is well worth some attention on the part of any Westerner at all interested in the Orient. Furthermore, because Mei Lan-fang is the most widely known actor, and because he is an extremely intelligent and progressive artist, it is perhaps best to approach this exotic drama through him.

Since Mei Lan-fang is an actor and his ancestors were actors before him, he comes from the lowest class of society. In the otherwise extremely democratic organization of the Chinese empire, where the poorest boy could rise to wealth and fame by virtue of passing the literary examination in the capital, sons of prostitutes, lictors, and actors, as has been said, were barred from competing for government posts. This system of examinations was abolished in 1907, but the social disqualification was felt by Mei Lan-fang, for he is now just thirty years old. His youth was tainted also by his being subjected to unspeakable immoral practices which were openly tolerated in Peking until the Revolution in 1911. Quite aside from this, the childhood of an actor is no bed of roses in a land where the struggle for existence is so desperate, and ninety per cent. constantly hover near the starvation line. In the Southern City of Peking one meets frequently a long line of boys, with prematurely old faces, ranging from eight to sixteen years, marching along seriously and apathetically under the stern eye of a preceptor—the pupils of an actors’ training school. Or if one takes the morning canter along the city wall on the smooth stretch to the south of the Temple of Heaven, one may see the boys at their interminable lessons, which begin at sunrise. They must learn to sing in the shrill, artificial falsetto voice characteristic of the Chinese theater, under a master whose cruel discipline would make Dotheboys Hall seem a pleasant place for week-ends. When there is a sharp wind blowing Peking dust in a gale, the boys are taken to sing against the storm in order that their throats may become properly hardened. The competition for a livelihood as actor is deadly. Three boys’ theaters are training hundreds of boys, while about two thousand actors are already out of work in Peking or are being hired by the day with about twenty coppers’ reward for their long hours of labor. In such an environment Mei Lan-fang grew up facing a drab, dismal existence such as the vast majority of Orientals suffer cheerfully.

But Mei Lan-fang’s originality and talents brought him to the highest position in his art. He had been trained, because of his slender build, girl-like face, and high voice, to act the type of hua-tan, the hetaera. This figure appears regularly in Chinese plays in the rôle of servant girl, lady’s maid, or demi-mondaine. The method pursued by most tyro actors is to attempt to approximate down to the minutest mannerisms the style of the actor at the top of their special class. Mei Lan-fang, however, decided to copy nature instead. He introduced into his acting female traits and foibles observed in the women about him, and this freshness in his style pleased his audiences. He was gradually accorded more and more prominent parts until twelve years ago he was voted the most popular interpreter of female rôles in the capital. The actors selected as the best “lovers”, “warriors”, “old men”, “old women”, and the various other conventional types can count their fortunes as made. After he had been chosen as the most popular actor of female rôles, Mei Lan-fang commanded fifty to one hundred dollars for one regular daily performance, and for private performances some such amounts as were mentioned in the first paragraph of this chapter. He organized his own company, made a triumphal tour through Japan, and began to fill annual engagements in Shanghai, the “Paris of China” so-called.[25]

Let us suppose that in wishing to see Mei Lan-fang you have done as many Pekingese do—sent your servant to the theater to hold a seat for you. Your menial has been enjoying an afternoon’s work by grabbing a good seat in the almost empty theater at one o’clock and warming it until five-thirty, at the same time drinking tea, chewing watermelon seeds, smoking cigarettes, gossiping blandly with his neighbors, and occasionally watching the actors on the stage. Now comes the hour for the star, and you, with many sleek Chinese merchants, displace coolies whose figures—in blue cotton—shrink inconspicuously toward the exit. The moment you sit down a waiter with the inevitable teapot is at your elbow, depositing on the table before you a cup containing one grimy thumb. The tea and watermelon seeds are, as they say in the Moulin Rouge, “obligatoire”, but you are free to refuse threescore flies resting on a bar of candy, eggs of uncertain age whose whites have become black, or apples just the proper softness with which to pelt actors. At the tables all around you men are audibly sipping tea or eating dishes of steaming viands, after which they wipe face and hands on hot towels which the waiters are passing. Bundles of towels continually soaring overhead may remind you of bats under the rafters, or if you are medically minded you may exclaim, “Look at them throwing the smallpox around!”

MEI LAN-FANG

In European Dress

Ch’ang-O’s Flight to the Moon

Burying the Blossoms

A Young Nun Seeks Love

The indifferent actors have been on the stage for hours, impersonating famous emperors of the time of Attila, cunning counselors as old as Alcuin, or sages contemporary with Pope Sylvester. One short play or part of a play after the other—each lasting about thirty to forty-five minutes—has been going on without intermission since noon. The fact that no pause is made between the plays often leads foreigners to believe that Chinese plays are of serpentine length, while in reality they are no longer than the separate numbers of our continuous vaudeville. The orchestra leader merely beats a few short notes on a gong and the stage is set for the next play—that is to say, Chinese drama has no stage settings whatever. A brightly colored curtain forms the background of the bare stage; in other words, the scenery is left to the imagination, as it was in Shakespeare’s theater.

When the hour for the star has finally come, a special fluteplayer takes his seat as leader of the orchestra and sends out soft, wistful notes that contrast gratefully with the brass din of the preceding battle scene. With tense interest Mei Lan-fang is awaited, for to-day he is to play “A Young Nun Seeks Love.”

With light, mincing step he enters in a long nun’s gown of white silk, over which he wears a white coat dotted with a diamond pattern in light blue. Long black tresses and a narrow black belt set off the delicate shades of the light colors. The exquisite color combination is enhanced by his soft, clear voice and the emotional play of his facial expression. The theme of the forty-minute monodrama is similar to Browning’s “Fra Lippo Lippi”, a story which Mei alternately sings and recites to orchestral accompaniment.

A pitiful existence is that of the nun with the shaven head! At night only a lone lantern consorts me to sleep. Time quickly pursues one to old age, leaving only the memory of a monotonous youth.

Sent to the convent at a tender age, she finds her life at sixteen a dull round divided between the burning of incense and the reading of monotonous Buddhistic sutras. The abbess has deprived her of the ornament of her hair and forces her to carry water from the well at the foot of the hill. On these excursions she has stolen long looks at a handsome youth playing outside the city gate, and he seems not indifferent toward her.

For the price of a little sympathy I would be willing to go to the palace of Yen Wang, the god of Hell, to be ground up in the mortar, cut into bits by the saw, crushed between the millstones, or to seethe in burning oil. My love is deep enough to outweigh the punishments of all devils.

Her childhood at the home of her pious parents had been an interminable droning of the sacred syllables, “O mane padme hum, o mane padme hum”, beating of drums, ringing of bells, blowing of horns, tinkling of cymbals—all to drive away the devils. Her heart, hungry for a bit of brightness, feels cramped in her cell and she decides to enter the large hall filled with the statues of five hundred saints and Buddhas. Since the stage is absolutely bare, Mei at this point goes through the pantomime of opening a door and closing it again behind him. After some quaint meditations before the various ascetic lohans and the figure of the “laughing Buddha”,[26] who seems to say, “Why waste the precious days of sweet youth?”, the young nun decides to risk all for the sake of finding love. In a graceful, rhythmic dance Mei moves off the stage. The young girl has gone into the “black world”, as the Buddhist nuns call life outside the convent walls.

Another favorite among Mei Lan-fang’s plays is “Burying the Blossoms.” A young girl, tormented by jealousy and doubt of her lover’s good faith, finds the garden path covered with fallen blossoms. In these flowers, broken from their stems and lying crushed on the ground, she sees the image of herself, a girl whose parents are dead and who is neglected by every one. She takes pity on the flowers, and, placing them in a silk bag, buries them under a tree. As she is shedding tears over the little mound her lover comes upon her. The explanation that follows effects a deepening of their love.

In Professor Giles’ translation (“Chinese Literature”, page 368) we have the sentiment of the play expressed (Cf. Moore’s “The Last Rose of Summer”):

Farewell, dear flowers, forever now,

Thus buried as ’twere best,

I have not yet divined when I,

With you shall sink to rest.

I who can bury flowers like this

A laughing-stock shall be;

I cannot say in days to come

What hands shall bury me.

See, how when spring begins to fail

Each opening floweret fades;

So too there is a time of age

And death for beauteous maids;

And when the fleeting spring is gone,

And days of beauty o’er,

Flowers fall, and lovely maidens die,

And both are known no more.

But not only such pale, wistful themes are found in Mei’s repertoire. The “Three Pulls”[27] is a tragi-comedy of bourgeois life where Mei presents a delightfully coquettish wife. This is a four-act play in which a large company appears in gorgeous costumes of embroidered silk studded with the little mirrors characteristic of Chinese stage apparel. The various characters wear historically correct dress, the well-known Manchu robes. But as an example of the extreme incongruities in the mixture of the Oriental and the Occidental now taking place in Peking I should like to mention an incident that occurred when the play was staged for the first time at the Chen Kwang Theater. This new playhouse has a large European stage and various other modern conveniences as yet not fully understood or appreciated by the Chinese, for I observed that the petition written by the husband and later flaunted in court was written on a three-foot strip of toilet paper!

BURYING THE BLOSSOMS

The setting in this amateur production shows more stage properties than are customary in most Chinese theaters.

The very best-beloved of Mei Lan-fang’s plays is “Yang Kuei-fei Tsui Chou” (Yang Kuei-fei’s Spree). Yang Kuei-fei, the famous concubine of the Emperor T’ang Ming-huang, of about 900 A.D., as has been stated, lives on in Chinese poetry as a charming beauty of absolutely bewitching qualities. In connection with this play one ought to say that drunkenness is rare in China and is not considered a vice or a disgrace. On the other hand a genial spree is looked upon as an exploit. A Chinese gentleman will tell you “I was roundly drunk last night”, much as an American might beamingly confide his triumphs at golf. K’ang Hsi, perhaps the greatest emperor China ever had, used to urge his guests to drink heartily, assuring them that if they drank too deep he would have them taken to their homes in a dignified manner.

The plot of the play is a short episode in the imperial palace. Yang Kuei-fei learns from two eunuchs that the emperor is supping with a rival beauty, and in her jealous rage she orders one bumper of wine after the other. As the wine begins to take effect, she performs some charming dances in which other court ladies join, to the end that a beautiful inebriated ballet is performed. The effect of the dancers in the ancient Chinese dress, the style with the long sleeves taken over by the Japanese as the kimono, is much like a vision of fluttering, multicolored butterflies. Later Yang Kuei-fei, in a low-comedy scene, uses her charms first on one and then on the other of the servants, who prefer to run away rather than be found in a compromising position with the favorite concubine. Finally Yang Kuei-fei leaves the stage alone, singing, “Now lonely I return to the palace.”

One specialty of this play is the manner in which Mei Lan-fang drinks the wine. He grips the cup with his teeth and bends backward very slowly until his head touches the ground. Such “stunts” are fairly frequent in Chinese plays and are used just as traditionally as some of the byplay in French masterpieces staged at the Comédie Française. The great T’an had a very famous trick which no actor has been able to imitate; in the play, “Seeing the Ancestral Portraits”, he would kick off his shoe in such a manner that in falling it would always strike exactly on his head. Mei Lan-fang is not stressing these acrobatic and other tricks, but is placing the emphasis on the interpretation of the emotional content of the scenes.

A little farce that Mei presents in a droll manner is the “Ch’ing Shang Lao Shüeh” (Slave Girl Plays Tricks on the Old Schoolmaster). This play presents the perennial theme of the impertinent servant. The make-up of the old scholar in Ming costume is comical to the last degree. The slave girl receives instruction, together with her mistress. When asked to recite she does so with the swaying body motion commonly found in our urchins when they “say their piece.” She catches a fly off the teacher’s face, and in mixing ink, spits in his eye. When he sets out to beat her, she catches the switch, and as he pulls, lets go, with the result that teacher falls back into his chair and rolls over on the floor with a tremendous crash. After suffering many similar tricks the pedagogue decides to teach in that house no longer. As he leaves the room the audience sees that the slave girl has pinned on his back a picture of a turtle—than which there is no greater insult in all the Middle Kingdom!

This is the only play I have ever seen that makes fun of a scholar. I consider it a pleasant tribute to the Chinese sense of humor that it allows them to laugh occasionally, even at the figure of their national hero. The scholar who by virtue of having passed the examination in Peking is made magistrate or even viceroy of a province is the hero of hundreds of Chinese plays. The examination in the capital with the attendant change of fortune in the life of the hero is the deus ex machina of the Chinese stage. As an example I shall mention another play of Mei Lan-fang’s, the one he played before Secretary of the Navy Denby on July 17, 1922. This play is called “Yü Pei T’ing” (The Pavilion of the Royal Monument). A poor scholar on his way to Peking is caught in a heavy storm and seeks shelter in the pavilion of a royal monument. He finds, however, that a lady has come before him and taken possession of the interior of the small building. Since he is both a scholar and a gentleman, he passes the night on the outside, where the eaves afford him only insufficient shelter from the rain. In the morning the lady thanks him for his consideration, and he continues on his way. The courtesy of the young scholar has made so deep an impression on the lady that she cannot refrain from telling her sister-in-law about it, who in turn tells the lady’s husband. The latter thinks that the story is only a disguise for what he believes to have been the true state of affairs, namely that his wife has been unfaithful to him. He therefore divorces his wife and abandons her to a life of misery and disgrace. The scholar, on the other hand, passes his examination with such distinction that the emperor grants him an audience, in the course of which he asks the young man to tell of the noblest thing he has ever done. The scholar tells of his night spent out in the rain for the sake of an unknown lady. The husband happens to be among the courtiers present, and, upon this corroboration of his wife’s story, he takes her back into his home, and all live happy ever afterward!

The scholar’s quick change of fortune as a theme in the Chinese theater finds a close rival in the motive of filial piety. Among Mei Lan-fang’s plays the latter is best illustrated by the play “Mu Lan”, the name of a girl who goes to war in place of her father because the latter is too old to undertake a heavy campaign. It is characteristically Chinese that this Joan of Arc does not fight for motives of patriotism, but out of regard for the comfort of her aged father. This fascinating play gives Mei an opportunity of showing in the first part his skill in portraying a demure young maiden, while in the second part he can display his address in the extremely conventionalized art of Chinese stage fighting.

All of these and many more characters Mei Lan-fang is on the stage, but of his real character very little is known among foreigners in China. It is known that he has a kindly heart, for every year he contributes his services to a dramatic entertainment arranged by American missionaries for the purpose of providing shelters for the riksha runners during the bitter Peking winters. One reads about it in the papers when he makes his annual pilgrimage to Miao Feng Shan, a mountain temple three days distant from Peking, the traditional shrine where actors worship. But artists eager to paint his portrait have never been able to secure him as a sitter, because he is very shy about entering any society outside his immediate circle. I considered myself very lucky when after some negotiations I secured an interview with him in the typical Chinese fashion through some friends of some friends of his friends. The house in which I called on Mei was his house; he keeps two other establishments—one for his wife and the other for his concubine. For many years Mei Lan-fang was known as the faithful husband of one wife, but finally friends prevailed on him to act in the manner of every Chinese gentleman who respects himself and to take a concubine into his domestic circle. Among Mei’s friends I met a young actor with eloquent scars on his cheeks; he had been the one who introduced Mei to the concubine and the scars were the result of some acid thrown by a brother of the jealous wife. Another gentleman present was a stocky officer of the Peking gendarmerie, a useful friend to the actor, because on several occasions ruffians have attempted to extort blackmail from him by violence—as they do with every one in China who has any money. Mei was the last one to appear, wearing a long white silk gown, the customary hot-weather dress of the Chinese gentleman.

Some of the coyness that gives such a true ring to his stage presentations of young ladies clings to Mei off-stage. He seems like a charming, bookish, slightly effeminate boy of seventeen. In reality he is thirty, but like so many other Orientals he appears to Westerners much younger than he is. He is of the frail, willowy build demanded in a Chinese beauty, but he is the very opposite of languid, sparkling with vivacity and full of life. His voice is high, gentle, and soft; in fact, it sounds very much like that of one of his heroines on the stage.

All in all Mei gives the impression of a youthful scholar rather than of an actor. There is not the slightest touch of Bohemianism about him. His favorite avocations are music and drawing; opium smoking and other fashionable dissipations hold no charms for him whatever. He is very fond of Western music, and hopes ultimately to win over his audiences to an appreciation of the piano and the violin, which would give him an immensely richer field for his musical repertoire. He has for a close friend and daily companion a learned scholar with whom he makes researches in ancient works dealing with the drama. Instead of following in the beaten path he is intent on improving the drama by presenting ancient plays with a staging historically correct, and by reviving whatever was vital in the past. With great pride he showed me his extensive library, lingering long over a neatly written text of a play copied by his grandfather, who had been musician to the great actor T’an.

To sum up Mei Lan-fang: like most other men who achieve distinction, he is in love with his work and devotes himself to it night and day.

His great merit is that he is bringing good taste and sensible innovations to the Chinese theater, which had been stagnant—in a state of arrested development. The old Empress Dowager, showing her usual bad taste, had made fashionable in Peking a Mongolian style of music intended for open-air theaters on the wind-swept plains, which in a roofed theater is absolutely ear-splitting. Mei Lan-fang is returning to traditional Chinese music in which the soft notes of the flute prevail. Instead of the old hackneyed themes Mei has staged numerous new plays based on the famous romantic novel, “The Dream of the Red Chamber”, as well as many other plays written especially for him. Into his fanciful plays of the type of “Midsummer Night’s Dream” he has woven graceful dances, an absolute innovation on his part. New and often historically correct costumes appear in his plays, enlivening the otherwise rather drab Chinese stage. In contrast to the Chinese habit of presenting only the favorite acts of the well-known plays (as though our managers should stage only the balcony scene from “Romeo and Juliet”, or the husband-under-the-table scene from “Tartuffe”), he presents even the older plays in their entirety. When he plays in Japan or in the European theater in Peking, he removes the ill-clothed orchestra from the stage; but he cannot do this in the native theaters, where the strong tradition insists that the musicians must sit on the stage and destroy the illusion, for the foreigners at least.

In this ability of his to make innovations and at the same time to adapt himself to his audiences to a certain extent, lies the key of Mei Lan-fang’s success. Even the most hidebound theater devotees and connoisseurs must recognize the skill of his acting and the perfection of his enunciation, and therefore they are willing to accept the foreign elements which he introduces. Mei Lan-fang’s greatness lies in the fact that he is able to introduce bold reforms into the theater without cutting himself off from the tradition.

CHAPTER NINE
Analogies Between East and West

I have often met with people who ask: “Do the Chinese have the division of plays into tragedies and comedies?” and when they learn that there is no such division they feel this to be a great defect in the Chinese theater. But it might be well worth recalling that these Greek terms did not originally have their present-day connotations, and that their original meanings were perhaps not far removed from the divisions which the Chinese make in classifying their plays. Tragedy meant originally a “goat song”, and philologists are divided on the question as to whether the name is derived from the fact that the song was sung by revelers worshiping Dionysus, who, because of their appearance and licentious character were called “goats”, or whether it was sung at the sacrifice of a goat, or whether a goat was the prize which was awarded to the successful poet.[28] At any rate there is no doubt that tragedy was a musical term. The same is true of comedy, which is the song of the comus, or band of revelers, who marched along in procession carrying aloft the phallus and chanting songs to Dionysus which were called phallic songs. The scurrilous remarks interlarded in the intervals between songs by the leader of the comus gave rise to the form of light entertainment known as comedy in the theater of to-day. In the Middle Ages it had the meaning of a poetic work with a happy ending, for which reason Dante called his long poem a “comedy”, which later writers made “The Divine Comedy.” Thus we see the two words have deviated altogether from their original meanings. We know very little about Greek music of these earliest days, but we hear also of Doric music and Phrygian music employed in the theater. The Doric music was grave, dignified, and employed the harp as the chief musical instrument, while the Phrygian mode was emotional and was accompanied by the flute.

Now let us look for a moment at the Chinese classification of styles of drama. We generally hear of the divisions of kuan-ch’ü, p’i-huang (a telescoping of hsi-pi and er-huang) and thirdly of pang-tzu. These are all musical terms. Kuan-ch’ü is accompanied by the flute, and is said to be the most literary, the most graceful and soft; also because of its lack of vulgarity it is caviare to the general. It is rarely performed nowadays, but was quite popular in the Ming Dynasty. It was directly descended from the classical Yuan drama, whose authors were scholars ousted by the Mongols from their public offices. This name is derived from a geographical term, just as are the Greek Doric and Phrygian modes. The pang-tzu came to Peking from Shansi during the Ch’ing Dynasty. The chief instrument is a rude kind of fiddle with a round, flat sounding box, and the genre is considered to be exciting and vulgar. The er-huang or hsi-p’i (said to be very similar) are also styles adopted during the Manchu Dynasty. They employ as their chief instrument the well-known hu-ch’in. There is a great similarity between Greek and Chinese thought, in that both speak of the good moral effects of music if only there be the proper harmony; and likewise of the immoral effects of vulgar, exciting music. I believe one could find almost exact parallels in the writings of Plato and of many Chinese authors,[29] even so modern a one as Tsai Yuan-pei. We modern Europeans and Americans, on the other hand, seem to have given up the idea of music as a means for developing harmonious and moral souls.

In practice music was employed in the Greek theater not only by the chorus, but also by the actors in the midst of the spoken dialogue when a particularly emotional point was reached. When the passions rose to a high pitch the musical accompaniment commenced and the actor sang; such a passage was, for example, the recital of the forebodings of Cassandra in Æschylus’ “Agamemnon”, interrupted by the Argive elders who form the chorus. Exactly the same practice obtains in the Chinese theater, as any one can readily observe in almost any play. Some scholars have asserted that the whole of a Greek play was accompanied by music, but it is generally believed now that only the lyrical passages were sung, while the iambic dialogue was spoken. In this similarity of the Greek and the Chinese theaters we can find an aid in our efforts at reconstructing the past—perhaps worthy of consideration by régisseurs who attempt to put on the stage to-day some of the plays which stirred the imagination of the Athenians of old. Possibly it may also be a shock to some who have seen modern representations in which the actors, as well as the chorus, employ a solemn and stately, sometimes monotonous recitative, to learn that the ancients sang or chanted a great part of their plays; a shock such as we are likely to receive when we first learn that the ancients did not employ marble in their architecture in its austere virginal whiteness only, but that they frequently colored their buildings. But just as a traveler coming to China may see beautiful architectural results achieved by the bold use of color in architecture, so he may come closer to the real—not the pseudo-classical—art by reflecting on the effect of musical interruptions in Sophocles’ “Œdipus” or Euripides’ “Medea.”

In Greece the theater was an institution which gave performances at the time of certain religious festivals, and it was in this sense a folk theater. In Peking also there are certain plays given always at particular festivals, and dealing always with the supernatural, or if you prefer, with religion. On the first day of the New Year, for example, there is the “Ch’ing Shih Shan”, a play dealing with the gods’ conquest of the devils; on the fifth day of the New Year comes a play in honor of the god of wealth; on the fifth of the fifth month, a play describing the overcoming of the five dangerous poisons; and on the seventh of the seventh month the “Meeting on the Milky Way.” These plays persist in spite of the commercialization of the Peking theaters.

The student of European literature whose field of research lies in the reconstruction of the past can find in China a wonderful source book, for this is a magic land where for Europeans and Americans the clock has been set back several centuries. We can see the Middle Ages enacted before our very eyes, and get in that way a vivid picture of things as they were in the Europe of yesterday. In illustration of this I wish to cite the Chinese theater of to-day, and to offer the suggestion that the Shakespeare scholar who has seen the Peking theaters of the present time has—if one may use the figure—not only the words, but also the tune, of the Elizabethan drama.

If I take a tourist to the theater his first remark often is that this is just like the Shakespearean theater. And it is indeed not surprising that it should be so, for China to-day is at about the same stage of culture as England was at the beginning of the seventeenth century. There is a court where royal splendor can be seen; the deposed emperor still receives in the Forbidden City the faithful Manchus, who come in gorgeous raiment and with fastidious regard for court etiquette to offer their congratulations on the occasion of his birthday.[30] The ordinary man of means dresses not in the stereotyped manner of our present-day civilization, but follows his taste in the selection of rich purple, wine-colored, or other shades of silk. Sedan chairs are still used as a common means of transportation. Torture is still practiced, and the heads of executed criminals are hung up in the streets in case of a revolution or other great excitement. The servants are typical Dromios in their submissiveness and occasional impertinence. The streets are frequently still the narrow and filthy lanes of medieval times. Most important, there are few factories, and manufacture is done by leisurely home industry. Much of this is passing with the coming of industry, the automobile and the tram car, the Europeanized tailor and the moving-picture machine; yet much that is picturesque in Peking continues to flourish, and the theater with its huge community of actors is one of the most conservative elements.

To begin with, the Chinese and the Elizabethan theaters are almost identical in structure, and for much the same reasons. The origin of the sixteenth-century theater in London is to be found in the innyard in which a platform had been erected for the performance; and when James Burbage in 1576 built the “Theater” outside the jurisdiction of the City Fathers of London he erected what was practically an innyard without the inn. There was a platform stage projecting into the yard, where the rabble could find standing room, and a gallery in which the wealthier patrons could be seated. The origin of the Chinese theater building, such as it is found in Peking, is very similar. Performances were first given in the courtyards of temples or of the houses of rich men. A platform was erected at one end. The spectators stood in the courtyard or sat at tables. The latter was particularly the case when theaters were held in the private courtyards of princes or other rich men. For centuries theatricals in China were either religious or private, and public theaters which any one may attend for the payment of an admission fee are a fairly recent institution, but when they were built they were constructed on the model of the temple or palace theaters, with a projecting roofed stage at one end, the cheaper seats on the ground floor and the more expensive ones in the gallery. The Chinese audiences have been trained to regard the stage as anywhere and not as a particular place; it is unlocalized, as in Shakespeare’s time. The roof on the stage serves the same purposes as in Elizabethan times; it is a protection for the actors against rain, and a “heaven” from which deities may be lowered.

In distinction to our modern theater in which we present a series of pictures within a frame called the proscenium, which we cover with a curtain while the pictures are being shifted, both the Elizabethan and the Chinese stage have neither a proscenium nor, in general, a curtain. In both the stages is an unframed rostrum thrust bodily forth into the auditorium, surrounded on three sides, if not on four, by spectators. In short it is not a picture stage, but a platform stage. On such a stage there can be, of course, no question of artistic lighting effects; the plays are performed either by daylight, as they were in Shakespeare’s day, or by the light of huge arc lamps that illuminate stage and audience alike. As the actors cannot present artistic stage pictures to three sides of the house at the same time, it is not surprising that, as the English literary historians tell us, the appeal was more to the ear than to the eye. That this is equally true in China is seen from the Peking term for a theatrical performance, t’ing-hsi, which means a play that is heard. In old Peking theaters the seats on the ground floor are arranged at right angles to the stage, along tables on which are served tea and cakes; recently built theatres, however, have their seats (with rails for the inevitable teapots) running parallel to the stage.

In speaking of the chief characteristics that distinguish the Elizabethan from other stages Professor Thorndyke says:[31]

The fixed and most important principle was the use of the projecting platform as a sort of neutral, vaguely localized territory, where almost anything might happen. The second principle was the use of the inner stage with its curtains (and to some extent the upper stage) as a means to denote locality more exactly, to employ properties more readily, and to indicate changes of scene more effectively.

THE FORTUNE THEATER

A TYPICAL PEKING THEATER

From what has been said it is apparent that in regard to the first principle the Chinese and the Shakespearean stage are identical. In regard to the use of the curtain and the inner stage, scholars are very much divided as to the manner and frequency with which they were employed. To quote Professor Thorndyke once more:[32]

The total evidence of the stage directions alone indicates that the arrangement prescribed was in general use in important theaters, public and private, though doubtless its adoption was gradual and subject to variation. We may suppose that the size and visibility of the inner stage varied in different theaters, and that the extent to which the curtain was used changed from decade to decade, or playwright to playwright, or manager to manager, or even according to the state of the weather and light.

The use of the curtain in Chinese theaters is very rare; and the curtain itself is by no means like the curtain to which we are accustomed. When a relatively elaborate setting is about to be placed on the stage a curtain about ten feet high by about twenty feet wide is carried by stage hands to the front of the stage, and there stretched out to cut off the view of the audience. The ends of the curtain are each sewed to a bamboo pole held upright by two coolies. In this most primitive manner a garden setting or a heavenly throne is made to appear to the audience in one burst of glory instead of being carried on piece by piece, as is the case with most properties and sceneries. The Chinese playhouse has no inner and likewise no upper stage. Curtains about beds or other pieces of furniture are used to “discover” actors in the same manner as was done on the Elizabethan stage. But all of these articles are regularly carried on the stage in full view of the audience. The size of the two stages seems to be about the same, except that the Elizabethan was much wider. The dimensions given for the stage of the Fortune are forty-three feet wide by twenty-seven and a half feet deep; while a typical Chinese stage measures about twenty-five feet in both directions.

We generally think of the Elizabethan stage as very primitive, and in this respect the Chinese stage is very much like it, only a bit more so. Both stages lack curtains, and therefore in both properties are brought on in full sight of the audience, making necessary in China the “property men” who furnished so much amusement in the performances of “The Yellow Jacket.” Shakespeare however arranged that at the end of a play, for example in “Hamlet”, the dead were carried off the stage, while in Peking convention allows that a victim of murder arise and walk off, after having gone through the motion of falling dead. The London theaters also had (at least such seems to have been definitely proved by recent writers) a small curtain at the rear of the stage shutting off a place which served as cave, shop, tomb, bed, Bathsheba’s bath, or any other locality that needed to be “discovered.” In Peking theaters things are much more conventionalized; a table represents a shop, a blue curtain with lines painted on it, held up by two stage hands, makes a city wall, a chair may be a gate or a prison door, a boat on a lake may be represented simply by the actors appearing with oars with which they seem to be rowing. Much is also symbolized; an actor on the bare stage goes through the motions of opening and shutting a door and thus shows that he has left the house. When a curtain is needed to represent a listener in another room, or a patient in a bed behind drawn curtains, two vertical bamboo poles with a horizontal one attached to them from which the curtain hangs are placed on the stage by the “property men.” The arrangement is most primitive and casual; the poles are generally tied to chairs. If the drawing of the “Swan” showing neither an inner stage nor a curtain is authentic, a similar portable curtain may have been the method employed in Elizabethan times. In Peking this is a rich, figured fabric, even though not exactly an “Arras.” If a Chinese Polonius were to conceal himself behind the arras, it would have been previously brought on by the “property men” at the beginning of the act or perhaps even just a few moments before it was needed. In a Chinese theater the center back of the stage is a wall hung with a rich piece of tapestry just as free from doors or recesses as the wall of the “Swan.” There are doors, however, at both sides of the rear wall, corresponding to those in the “Swan” drawing. As the Chinese theater has no upper stage, men on a city wall, for example, stand on a table behind the curtain held up by the stage hands. A general surveying his troops from a mountain top or a god on his throne in heaven sit on a chair placed on top of a table.

In the paucity of the stage properties we find another parallel. In Albright’s “The Shakespearean Stage”,[33] the properties are listed, and I can say from my five years’ experience that the same and no more are found on the Chinese stage; bedroom: a bed, table, chairs or stools, and lights; a hall: table, chairs, and stools; presence chamber: a throne, and occasionally tables and chairs; a church: an altar, and if needed a tomb; prison scenes: usually no properties are mentioned except fetters and chains; woods or park: large and small artificial trees, shrubbery, and benches; shop scenes: a counter and a few wares. The Chinese theater is often even a bit more simple; for example, a chair serves as a throne, or a table with a few decorations as an altar. However, for certain plays fairly elaborate paper properties are used, which are brought on and removed in full sight of the audience. In both theaters the imagination of the audience is strained a great deal more than is the case in a Belasco play; and many conventions that differ from ours, such as bringing on properties in full sight of the audience, seem just as natural as it seems to us that a stage room has only three walls.

Even though the Elizabethan and the Chinese stages have no scenery of any kind, yet it is wrong to imagine that they seem bare, for the color is supplied in the rich and elaborate robes of the actors. A Chinese stage filled with actors in court costumes of yellow, red, black, blue, or purple, with inwoven designs, fierce warriors with masks or painted faces, wearing pheasant feathers six feet long, and lovely maidens in costumes of exquisite pastel shades, walking or running about on a gaudy Oriental rug against a background of rich tapestry, form a veritable riot of color, very similar in its effect, no doubt, to what was seen on the Elizabethan stage when the actors appeared in their gowns costing from £80 to £100 in modern money. They were elaborate creations of velvet trimmed with gold and silver lace and embroidery, capped by the “forest of feathers” that Hamlet mentions as necessary for the equipment of an actor, with tapestry from Arras as background. To quote Professor Thorndyke,[34] “No stage cared more for fine clothes than the Elizabethan or lavished a larger portion of its expenses on dress.” In both theaters almost no attention is paid to historical appropriateness of costume. Elizabethan actors sometimes wore masks also, just as the Chinese often do.

THE ORCHESTRA SEATED IN A CORNER OF THE STAGE

From Jacovleff, “Le Théâtre Chinois”

The stage direction “alarums” for the entry of a king or other important personage, which may never have been associated by the reader with anything definite at all, will be full of meaning to any Westerner who has heard the Chinese orchestra sound the Leitmotiv for the entry of a famous general. The Chinese orchestra sits on the stage in full view of the audience, while in Shakespeare’s day the upper stage was the normal place for the “noise.” The use in the Elizabethan days of the word “noise” for both music and orchestra establishes another great similarity between the two theaters. In Shakespeare’s day the music seems to have been confined chiefly to the intermissions between the acts and to occasional songs, while in the Chinese drama almost every emotional part is punctuated by song. It approaches close to opera in many cases in the number of lines sung by the actors. One division of Chinese plays is that into civil and military, and in the latter the fighting is always accompanied by a terrible din of brass, drum and string music. This frantic noise stimulates in the audience the excitement which the desperate contest in arms is supposed to arouse. As a fact, these military plays are very popular with the masses, and they take up fully half the program.

In the eating, drinking, smoking, hawking, towel-throwing, spitting, and loud interruptions always found in the Chinese theater we have another close parallel to the Elizabethan. It is well known that hawkers went about before and during the performance selling ale, tobacco, and various articles of food. Apples were fought over by young apprentices and sometimes even used to pelt the actors. The women in the galleries were offered pipes to smoke. Young nobles insisted on sitting on the stage in order that they might display themselves and their garments, while pages lighted their pipes for them. The groundlings in the yard were intent on the broad humor and the fighting in the plays. The women of the town in the gallery probably also had other motives for coming besides that of seeing the play. All of this a Westerner can understand very much better after he has seen a Chinese theater, for the conditions are very similar; except that the Chinese lack of pugnacity makes the spectators perhaps a little less violent.[35] In this connection it is interesting to compare the methods of applause and criticism in Shakespeare’s time and in present-day China. Applause was rendered by clapping—some writers refer to it as “thundering”—while disapproval was evinced by hissing, and by even more violent methods, as may be judged from the verse of an Elizabethan drama:

We may be pelted off for aught we know,

With apples, egges, or stones, from thence belowe.

In China applause is expressed by shouting the word “hao”, good, and disapproval by no more violent method generally than by a sarcastic intonation of the same word! It it difficult for a foreigner to tell which is meant, especially since applause is rendered for subtleties of intonation often lost even on natives. However there is also the word “t’ung”, which is very rarely used to express disgust with the performance; but when it is employed the actors are driven off the stage in utter shame and confusion. In recent years, however, clapping has been introduced from the West along with many other innovations. But in spite of all distractions one can very often see a Chinese audience sitting spellbound during the recitation of a particularly beautiful passage or the presentation of a tragic scene, as I imagine must have been the case in Shakespearean England also.

Without the aid of scenery or lighting the acting must be splendid to hold an audience, and there is the danger that it become loudly declamatory and bombastic. Hamlet’s well-known criticisms frequently apply in Peking, for there are many who mouth their lines so that the town crier could improve upon them, who saw the air too much with their hands, who tear a passion to tatters, who strut and bellow as though one of nature’s journeymen had made them, and thus make the judicious grieve. However, good actors of all times avoid this. Hamlet tells of a good actor who

Could force his soul to this conceit

That from her working all his visage wann’d;

Tears in his eyes, distraction in ’s aspect,

A broken voice, and his whole function suiting

With form to his conceit! and all for nothing!

For Hecuba!

It is similarly impressive to see Mei Lan-fang, for example, playing Mu Lan, the Chinese Joan of Arc, presenting in the first part the coy maiden and loving daughter, and in the second the brave warrior, or to see him (he is an actor who always interprets female rôles) portray the emotions of the daughter who finds her old father in prison but who dares not make herself known. In most theaters in Peking the acting is good, so that the foreigner can often follow the play, even though he does not understand one word of what the actors are saying. For vivid portrayal of emotions, facial expression, and delightful byplay, the Chinese actors are wonderful, just as the scholars conjecture that the English players must have been in Shakespeare’s day.

A CLOWN

Chinese Character Type

The Chinese audiences demand the fool, the acrobat, and the dancer quite as loudly as they were demanded by the groundling in Shakespeare’s time. The Chinese clown is very good at improvising, and provokes the same criticism that Hamlet made, “And let those that play your clowns speak no more than is set down for them.” Giles in his “History of Chinese Literature” writes in this connection, “As they stand in the classical collections or the acting editions, Chinese plays are as unobjectionable[36] as Chinese poems or general literature. On the stage, however, actors are allowed great license in gagging, and the direction which their gag takes is chiefly the reason which keeps respectable women away from the playhouse.” This recalls that in Elizabethan days the respectable women who attended the theater wore masks or made judicious use of their fans to hide their blushes.[37] It is only in the last few years that the better class of women have begun to attend the theater in Peking; just as the mingling of the sexes in the theater was an innovation in the early seventeenth century in England. In Peking, as formerly was the case in London, the women are admitted to the gallery only.

A vital similarity between the two theaters is the fact that women’s parts are played by men. The reasons in both cases are moral or Puritanical motives. The similarity in this case is accidental, for it was only about George Washington’s time that women were forbidden to appear upon the stage; during the Ming Dynasty many princes and officials had large numbers of actresses in their palaces—a custom that led to gross abuses and immorality. Therefore the early Manchu emperors forbade women to appear as actresses. But things are fast changing in this respect in China, for in some parts of the country men and women appear together on the stage, while in Peking, where this is forbidden by the police, there exist two theaters in which women act both male and female rôles. The Chinese consider the women poor artists, and the connoisseurs do not patronize these theaters, or if they do they apologize for it. A Chinese actor who respects himself will never appear on the same stage with actresses. That the Elizabethans likewise thought women incapable of good acting can be seen from the patronizing tone of Thomas Coryat in which he tells (1611) of having seen women acting in Venice “and they performed it with as good a grace, action, gesture and whatsoever convenient for a player, as ever I saw any masculine actor.”[38]

In connection with the subject of impersonation of the other sex, which we see nowadays only in burlesque or minstrel shows, I should like to quote some observations made by Goethe[39] in Italy on seeing a performance of Goldoni’s “La Locandiera” in which a man acted the part of the heroine, the pretty innkeeper. Goethe of course grants that the highest form of art cannot be found in such a representation, but he says that he would like to speak a few words in defense of this practice to tell how one might well derive considerable pleasure from such a performance. He states that he went to the theater with prejudice, but once there he became reconciled to it and even experienced a certain kind of pleasure never felt by him before. He tried to analyze this æsthetic sensation and came to the conclusion it consisted in the enjoyment of the fact that the actor could not possibly play himself, but had to put his art of imitation to a far greater test, that of holding the mirror up to life in a sex not his own. The spectator enjoys a much more self-conscious delusion, just as when he sees a young man playing the part of Rip Van Winkle or King Lear. There is a more conscious æsthetic pleasure in seeing how well a young man has studied the actions of a young girl in order to present a Rosalind, or how perfectly Mei Lan-fang can copy the dainty dress, actions, and walk of a Chinese lady. My experience has been that this is much more pleasant than to see round-cheeked girls essay the rôles of fearful generals or cruel husbands in the woman’s theater in Peking.

It has often been remarked that as a result of the fact that boy actors played the women’s parts in the Elizabethan theater we find Shakespeare’s heroines very frequently masquerading as pages. Julia, Portia, Nerissa, Jessica, Viola, Rosalind, and Imogen all appear as handsome youths. An analogous result in the Chinese theater of to-day is that the heroines appear in an endless number of cases as warriors. The Chinese have not only their Mu Lan (who goes to war in her father’s place because the latter is old and feeble), but very many other heroines who invariably defeat men in battle. Chinese history or legend does not account for this, but it is due to the fact that the actors who portray women seek opportunities to display their skill in fighting. This fighting is a highly conventionalized art, a combination of dancing and acrobatics performed to a deafening and exciting music, which, in regard to its place on the program, can best be compared to our ballet. Most foreigners in Peking are kept away from the theater by the fearful noise made in these “fighting plays”, as they are called, but if these same people could attend an Elizabethan theater they would possibly find that the great delight of the audiences was the “noise” (music), the clatter and scuffle of the battles, the drums, the squibs, and the cannon.[40]

There are in Peking three companies of boy actors, the largest of which has about three hundred in its theater. These are training schools for actors in which the boys of eight to sixteen or eighteen years are given very arduous courses in singing, acrobatics, stage fighting, and all the other arts that an actor requires. The competition of these “little eyases” in Peking might well arouse the ire of some of the regular actors, as it did Shakespeare’s (“Hamlet”, II, 2, 362), for in China the life of the common actor is a hard one, most of them eking out a meager living at about twenty cents a day.

The position of the actor in society is very low in Peking, just as it was in London. A Chinese moralist might well apply to them the words written in 1759:[41] “Players are masters of vice, teachers of wantonnesse, spurres to impuritie, the Sonnes of idlenesse, so longe as they live in this order, loathe them.” Under the former dynasty the actors and their sons, together with the sons of prostitutes, jailers, and lictors, were not eligible for taking the examinations. Even now they usually intermarry only among their own number, and they suffer also from various other discriminations. Most of them were catamites, until the Republic abolished this formerly legalized institution. Mei Lan-fang, an actor who has risen to high perfection in his art, as well as to great wealth, an artist who may tour America in the near future, would have ample reason in the present organization of Chinese society to reproach Fortune in Shakespeare’s words:

That did not better for my life provide,

Than public means which public manners breeds,

Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,

And almost thence my nature is subdued

To what it works in, like the dyer’s hand:

Pity me then and wish I were renewed.

Peoples are alike and differ also in what they consider to be humorous. It has been said that the first comedy was the torture of a captive by his enemies. This sort of performance would nowadays of course be impossible; yet in most of our comedies we enjoy heartily the discomfiture of victims of circumstances. We have not yet become too refined to enjoy the difficulties of a man whose senses are benumbed by alcohol, of a bald man, a lame man, yes, even a deaf man. The condition of a blind man, however, strikes us as too tragic to figure in a comedy, and no modern comedian could draw a laugh from his audience by fooling a tottering old man bereft of his sight. Yet every one who has seen “The Merchant of Venice” acted recalls very well what Launcelot Gobbo does to his blind old father, and I have seen in Chinese theaters how a blind old beggar deceived by a clown affords huge amusement to the audience.

As I have already stated, Chinese and Elizabethan audiences are alike also in that they use their imaginations much more vividly than we do. For them a draped screen represents a city wall, and the bare stage any country, a ship, a mountain, any house, a street, or whatever is needed in the particular scene acted. Warriors on horseback in the Chinese theaters carry whips to let the audience know that they are mounted on chargers, while Macbeth and Banquo rode on the stage on hobbyhorses—and were taken seriously. I recall a performance in the Chinese City in which there suddenly came running on the stage on all fours a man in a tiger skin, and I laughed because of droll recollections of Shaw’s “Androcles and the Lion.” But no one else laughed; to the Chinese present it was a tiger, just as real a tiger as the actors on the stage were for the moment real kings and queens, soldiers and servants. Of this particular illusion more anon.

Because there are many similarities in the theaters, stages, actors, conventions, audiences, and the psychology of the spectator of Shakespeare’s day and of present-day Peking, I certainly should be the last to say that because a thing is so in local theaters, it must have been identical in London three hundred years ago. Yet it seems that since human nature is very much the same everywhere, it would be safer, if one wished to hazard conjectures as to what was true in the past, to take a living example of the theater on the same level of culture, than to look back at the Elizabethan stage in the light of what has been accomplished since, and what happens to be the fad at the present time. This is the day of stage lighting and color effects, of Gordon Craig, Max Reinhardt, and Bakst, but we should hardly think that these problems troubled Burbage, who had neither electric light nor scenery, and who performed his plays on an uncurtained stage by daylight. Yet Professor H. T. Stephenson of Indiana University, for fifteen years a lecturer on Shakespeare, author of “Shakespeare’s London”, and “The Elizabethan People”, by profession a specialist in reconstructing the times of “Merrie England”, discusses seriously in his very stimulating “Study of Shakespeare” (page 40) the plight of the stage manager of Shakepearean days, who could never tell beforehand how the gaily dressed young nobles sitting on the stage would fit into his color scheme! He also believes that changes in the stage setting could not have been made in full sight of the audience, because “this would have upset entirely the unity if not the gravity of the piece.”

In Peking one can see very remarkable things on the stage that fail to upset the gravity of any present except the Westerners, who are used to different conventions in the theater. Professor Stephenson, with the results of three hundred years of stage experience at his hand, believes that the Elizabethans must have been fools if they could not have thought of the same useful devices for the theater that he knows of. To quote (page 47):

“To my mind the situation suggested by these facts reduces itself almost to a mathematical problem; if one of us can easily invent such a staging for an Elizabethan scene, as any ingenious person could construct out of what we know they had in those days, is it unfair to assume that the ingenious Elizabethans did as well if not better? More likely better. They were more used than we are to making a little go a great way.” He even goes on to explain how one could put up a curtain, simply by the use of canvas, wire, a few rings, and presto, the thing is done. A play without the commonplace scenic devices of the twentieth century is unthinkable to him.

Another theorist is Mr. Corbin, in the Century Magazine for December, 1911. He proves to his own satisfaction that Burbage and his colleagues had means for darkening the stage.[42] It seems this author staged “The Winter’s Tale” in New York a few years ago. In this play a bear has to appear on the stage, and this part was acted by a man on all fours. At first the scene was played on a lighted stage, and all the New Yorkers present laughed at the sight of the actor in a bearskin. Then they hit upon the device of darkening the stage, and having the actor-bear run quickly across. When this was done, no one’s risibilities were affected. This forms one of Mr. Corbin’s chief arguments for his assumption that the Elizabethan stage was darkened; namely, that it would have offended the good taste of the audience to see in broad daylight in a serious scene, an actor impersonating a bear. If human nature can endure this convention in Peking, with the above-mentioned tiger, why should we assume that three hundred years ago people felt as we do now, and base on this the novel theory that stages were darkened in those days?

A large measure of the success attained by “The Yellow Jacket” was due to the fact that the Chinese stage conventions employed seemed so funny to us provincial Westerners that they caused a great deal of happy laughter. But this is really quite as intelligent as the attitude of the rustic who sought out Richard III after the performance and offered to sell him a good horse for less than a kingdom. It is very strange that even otherwise scholarly men, like, for example, Victor Albright in “The Shakespearean Stage”, struggle with all fours against the possibility that in the theater of the gentle Shakespeare there might have been committed such desecrations as setting properties on the stage in full view of the audience. He approaches the evidence with blinkers when it seems to contradict his theory. He says (page 126): “Only the dramatists had not yet learned to use explicit stage directions.” On page 143 he tells us that the Elizabethans did not read stage directions literally. Then on page 106: “Here in the midst of a street scene is a direction to set the stage with a table, stand, chairs, stools, etc.,—just such properties as are used in the next scene, a counting room. We cannot believe that a manager would disturb an important scene by setting the stage for a coming one.” Further, on page 110: “The placing and replacing of a regular setting in full view of the audience never was a general custom. It is contrary to the very nature of the stage,—an illusive, make-believe world.” In my opinion it is contrary only to the very nature of a provincial New Yorker.

Let me add in passing that William Archer holds that “in the generality of cases properties were brought on in full sight of the audience, often in the middle of the action.”[43]

Doctor Albright, in “The Shakespearean Stage” (pages 122ff.) condemns with sarcasm (which seems well merited) the theory of Brodmeier, who holds that the entire stage in Shakespeare’s theater was curtained from view. But I should like to question whether or not his own judgments would have been quite the same if he had known the Chinese stage before he wrote his estimable thesis. A Chinese actor walks once around the stage in full view of the audience, and in conformity with the ruling conventions he has traveled miles, or hundreds of miles, as the plot requires. Doctor Albright, arguing backwards from the Restoration staging, comes to the conclusion that there was in the Elizabethan theater a regular changing from inner to outer scenes, and vice versa, and that the few pieces of furniture which constituted the stage setting were always carefully shut off from the view of the audience. He quotes an example with his comment from a play called “Pinner of Wakefield”, Act IV, Scenes 3-4. “Jenkins enters a shoemaker’s shop, and dares the owner to meet him at ‘the towne’s end.’ The challenge is accepted, and after a certain amount of stage business, during which the curtains must have been closed [italics mine], Jenkins says, ‘Now we are at the towne’s end, what say you now?’” However, I should add that in his concluding paragraph Doctor Albright is by no means dogmatic, but gives this merely as his theory, stating that there is absolutely no way of proving it.

With all the striking similarities in the Shakespearean and the Chinese theater there are of course also vast differences, especially in the background of the two. So far as I know there has never existed in China a manner of staging which could in any way be compared to the medieval system of mansions. Likewise the evolution of the platform stage into the picture-frame stage of the present day makes it seem that even on the projecting stage the feeling for the need of the curtain for the sake of the illusion increased as time went on. I repeat that I have not the slightest intention of arguing from certain conventions on the Chinese stage that they must have been identical in Elizabethan times. My point is simply that scholars ought not to assert that certain primitive conventions are “against the nature of the stage” or “contrary to human nature”, for this point of view is based on the current conventions with which the particular writer is acquainted. I should like to quote the concluding words of Doctor Albright’s thesis, spoken out of the depth of his experience of wrestling for years with the problems we are discussing. He calls an article by William Archer “one of the most original and enlightening articles on the Shakespearean stage that has yet appeared.” He says further about this writer, “As a learned dramatic critic of to-day, he approaches the Elizabethan stage with that special insight and ability which a closet student cannot hope to have. The stage and the staging have changed since the days of Shakespeare, but the mimic world is still the mimic world; and the deeper the scholar is grounded in the stage of to-day, the better he is qualified to study the stage of yesterday.” And, allow me to add, the knowledge of a living stage at a similar period of culture will likewise add to his qualifications to study the theater of the past.