The Chinese theater

by A. E. Zucker

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.