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