The Chinese theater

by A. E. Zucker

WARRIOR ACROBATS

Another “peculiar” (as Bret Harte would put it) play from the same source is “Hsü Mu Ma Tsao” (Hsü’s Mother Curses Tsao Tsao). The famous general Tsao Tsao found that he was being defeated continually through the clever stratagems suggested to his opponent by a certain Hsü Su. He therefore plotted to get this clever adviser into his hands in order that he might profit by his knowledge of strategy. For this purpose he kidnaped Hsü Su’s mother and sent a forged letter asking the son to come to her. Filial piety demanded that Hsü Su obey and therefore he came into Tsao Tsao’s camp only to be forced into the service of his enemy. When Hsü Su’s mother heard how her son had been tricked she went to Tsao Tsao’s tent, called him a man without honor, a traitor, and a wretched deceiver. This scene, when the tottering old lady scolds in a shrill voice, as only a Chinese woman can ma, is of course the pièce de résistance of the play. When she has spoken out her mind she returns to her own tent and commits suicide. Although Tsao Tsao continued to hold Hsü Su, yet the latter never offered a single stratagem to the general, an outstanding piece of bravery according to the Chinese view. The very favorite play from this novel is “Ch’un Yin Hui” (The Meeting of Many Heroes). When this play is staged with the parts of the great heroes of the novel filled by stars, the Chinese theater lovers feel that such an ensemble offers about the finest thing possible. The plot again turns chiefly upon a ruse by Chu Ko-liang. His side is facing tremendous odds in the huge fleet of wooden vessels under the control of the enemy, and therefore his commander decides to attack them with fiery arrows. Chu Ko-liang is commissioned to procure 100,000 arrows, and is given for this task five days, which he himself cuts down to three. Two and a half days he spends in calm meditation, doing nothing about the arrows. When one of his comrades discovers him sitting under a tree he is very much alarmed at the waste of time and suggests that the only thing left for his friend is to commit suicide. But our hero is undaunted. He places a number of straw men in the prows of a few boats and sails toward the position of the enemy. Owing to the dense fog the enemy commander is unable to ascertain the size of the attacking force, but he orders his archers to shoot as fast as they can. The arrows strike the straw men and pierce them without doing any harm. When 100,000 arrows have been caught up in his decoys, Chu Ko-liang orders his boats to retreat, and thus is able to deliver the required number of arrows to his commander on time. The manner in which the play is staged, with two or three arrows flitting across the scene, provides, at least for the Westerner, a distinct anticlimax.

Another play in which three stars play together to good effect is “The Three Strange Meetings” (Ch’i San Hui) or, as it is popularly nicknamed, “The Three Pulls.” It is a popular comedy written during the time of the Manchu Dynasty, and is one of the favorite plays of Mei Lan-fang. Through his great prestige he is able to induce other stars to play with him, and when he presents the rôle of the wife supported by Chü Su-yün as husband and Li Shou-shan as father, the Chinese consider it a perfect performance. The play is rich in glimpses of Chinese life and also full of excellent opportunities for the actors to show their mettle. The opening of the play is also most unusual, for, like Goethe’s “Faust” and some of our other famous plays, it has a prologue in heaven. There is as a general thing no curtain used in the Chinese theater, a rule to which a scene in heaven forms an exception. Stage hands bring on a curtain about eight feet high and twelve feet wide, supported by bamboo poles and painted with clouds and bats to symbolize the sky. Behind this the stage is set for the divine scene. When the curtain is removed the spectator sees a god seated on a high throne. Four spirits bearing tall shields painted with the conventionalized cloud pattern stand by his side. The horns of the orchestra are blown mightily and fireworks are set off until finally the god begins to speak in a slow, impressive bass. Like a Homeric Zeus he sends a messenger to earth to free a certain innocent man who is languishing in prison. The messenger is ordered to find the man’s daughter and to conduct her to the prison. The divine herald departs, carrying a horsehair switch, the conventional symbol by which a spirit may be recognized on the Chinese stage.

The next scene begins the first of the four acts on earth: 1. The Weeping in Prison; 2. Writing the Petition; 3. The Three Pulls; 4. The Family Reunited.

Li Kuei-chih (played by Mei Lan-fang), newly married to a young magistrate, visits the prison, inspired by the divine messenger. There she sees the jailer mistreating an old man, in whom, to her surprise and grief, she recognizes her father, from whom she had been separated in childhood at the time of his unjust condemnation. The jailer is willing to relent after the daughter, without disclosing her identity, has paid him a good-sized bribe. Li Kuei-chih then asks her husband to make an effort to free her father by writing an appeal to a higher court. The husband complies very willingly, but, in order to write the petition he must know his wife’s “little name”, a sort of family nickname of the little girls, which, according to Chinese custom, is never revealed to the husband. There ensues a fine comedy scene in which the wife at first withholds and then shamefacedly tells her “little name”, to the great triumph of her husband. In presenting the petition to the judge of the higher court, the wife is recognized by the judge as his long-lost sister. He rises from his seat, and discarding the stiff formality of the courtroom, pulls Li Kuei-chih out of the room in order to reveal his identity to her in the privacy of his home. The husband is told of this by the servant, and rushes to the court in a rage, because he fears that the judge has been induced by his wife’s beauty to make her his concubine. The judge is not in the courtroom, but he sends out two officers to bring the husband also into his home. The second of the three pulls comes when the messengers drag the husband off-stage in a state of comical terror; for, like a true Oriental, he fears sudden death,—a fear that caused Abraham to lie to the Pharaoh of Egypt about his relationship to the beautiful Sarah. In the next scene brother, sister, and husband are happily reunited. The father is summoned from the prison into the court. He recognizes his son, the presiding judge, and gratefully bows toward the audience (that is, toward heaven) for, according to Chinese custom, a father dare never bow toward his son, no matter what position the latter may hold. Thereupon the father is also pulled off-stage to complete the happy family reunion. The jailer, knowing full well what manner of unpleasant death may be in store for him, ends his life by jumping down a well.

This last-named action is accomplished by the jailer’s making a quick leap and running off-stage, the conventional expression for suicide by drowning. The court scenes, especially when the play is given by Mei Lan-fang, abound in gorgeous costumes of richly embroidered silk. The various characters wear historically correct dress, the Manchu robes with wide sleeves. So far as my own observation goes, I have found that for Manchu or Ming Dynasty events the styles of the respective periods are followed, but that beyond this no attempt is made at providing historically correct costume. Characters in plays taking place before the Ming Dynasty wear Ming costume; it is the style worn before the coming of the Manchus and therefore serves for all ancient settings.

The actor who plays the part of the husband in this play is Chu Su-yün. He is nearly fifty years old, but he continues to play the rôle of the lover opposite Mei Lan-fang, because there is no younger man who can do it half so well. He is really as good as any Occidental comedian in assuming the expressions of surprise, anger, or terror; he stutters admirably whenever necessary, and in laughing gets a comical effect by means of his faulty teeth, blackened by opium smoking. In another play, “Ngoh Chia Chuan” (The Ngoh Family Village), he plays the part of a young boy who has prodigious strength; in fact, he, though a mere child, protects his family’s home by killing two generals. In one of the first scenes the parents forbid their abnormally strong offspring to handle dangerous weapons, whereupon this actor in the costume of a child goes into tantrums of weeping that convulse the audience by their realistic imitation of the overgrown baby. Li Shou-shan, in the rôle of the father, is made up as a fine, dignified old Chinese gentleman. He brings out very poignantly the tragic situation of the helpless old man unjustly imprisoned; though perhaps by some of his pitiful wails he somewhat overdoes his part.

Another very popular domestic drama is “Ta Chih Shang Wen” (Beating the Nephew and Worshiping at the Grave). The Chinese prodigal son is Ta Kuan, an orphan boy raised by his uncle. Wicked companions taught him gambling and other ways of squandering money, and as he needed funds for these pursuits he insisted that his uncle give him his paternal heritage. In a short time, of course, all his substance has been wasted with riotous living and Ta Kuan is forced to beg for his food. His uncle at that time is distributing alms among the poor and the nephew is not ashamed to appear among the beggars at his uncle’s door. Naturally, the uncle’s “loss of face” is tremendous; he becomes extremely angry and chases Ta Kuan off with blows. But his aunt, in the kindness of her heart, gives him some money and urges him to avoid his angered uncle. But in China too there is a destiny that shapes our ends: Ta Kuan’s money is stolen from him, and with no prospects whatever before him, he suddenly becomes pious and worships at his father’s grave. While he is busy burning paper money (i.e. paper imitations of silver ingots) for the spirits of his ancestors his uncle and aunt happen also to visit the family graveyard. The moment Ta Kuan sees them, remembering his uncle’s blows and curses, he runs away. His foster-father is very much surprised that some one should have been burning paper money at his brother’s tomb. He never would have suspected his nephew of such an action, but when he finds that it really was Ta Kuan, his heart is touched by such a display of filial piety that he sends for the nephew, inviting him to return to his house, and then persuades him to study under the direction of a teacher. There has been a real change of heart in the youth, for he applies himself diligently to his task. And virtue is not without its reward; for when Ta Kuan takes the examination he passes with the very highest honors.

A play similar to the previous one in that it is much more moral than probable is “Chu Sha Chü” (A Cinnabar Spot). A certain elderly gentleman by the name of Han was very unhappy because he had no son. To remedy this condition he bought himself a concubine; but when the marriage was about to be consummated, the bride wept bitterly. Han asked the cause of the tears at such an inappropriate time, and learned that his new spouse was in reality a married woman who had allowed herself to be sold to aid her sick husband. The old man took pity on her, burned the marriage contract, and presented her with more money for her unfortunate husband. A noble and unusual action, to be sure, which merited and received an unusual reward! The woman returned to her husband and the latter recovered at once. Returned once more to health, he went about his business which carried him to Sze-chuan province. He brought with him a present for his benefactor, a young boy whom he had bought in a district afflicted by famine. Han was very much pleased with the bright boy and devoted himself eagerly to his education. He gradually remarked that the boy resembled him a great deal and began to wonder if it might not be possible that it was his own son, who had been carried off a few years before in the course of a rebellion. One day it occurred to him to examine the sole of the boy’s foot, and there he found the very same cinnabar spot that had always been his own distinguishing mark. This proved conclusively that it was his own son, and both were very happy over the reunion that had been brought about through Han’s kindness to a poor woman!