A. E. Zucker

“ 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. ”

“ As a true Oriental, Mao demands a heavy bribe from the family of every girl whose portrait he submits to the emperor. But the family of the most beautiful girl of all is so poor as to be unable to pay a bribe, and therefore the minister causes the artist to distort the portrait. Naturally the emperor does not summon this lady into his presence. But one evening, when in a melancholy mood he walks in an unfrequented part of his palace grounds, he comes by chance upon this girl as she is singing to her lute. Her beauty enchants him. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 [210] girls essay the rôles of fearful generals or cruel husbands in the woman’s theater in Peking. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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 [177] 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Chinese name for the instrument is chin. Chinese writers on music have set down seven conditions under which one should not play the instrument: when one has just heard the news of a death; when some one is playing the flute in the vicinity; when one is oppressed by business cares; when one has not purified his body; when one is not wearing the ceremonial cap and gown; when one has not lighted sweet-smelling incense; and when there is not present a friend who understands music. ”

“ Thus is filial piety perpetuated from generation to generation, and from age to age.”
Of course, this is as the matter appears to the Occidental from the outside. But for the Chinese, who has grown up in a deep veneration of Confucius, filial piety is the most laudable institution in existence. Confucius laid it down as a principle that in the relations of ruler and subject, husband and wife, father and son, elder brother and younger brother, there must be rule on one side and submission on the other. ”

“ But as there are two things in life that one must never lose sight of—loyalty to the prince and filial piety—I have always tried to show myself grateful for the emperor’s benefits and to return with thankfulness the kindness of my parents. ”

“ But the chief innovation in the drama under the Manchu rule came through the influence of popular novels. Episodes from the famous novels read by everybody were brought on the stage in ever-increasing numbers. The novel, like the drama, is a literary form despised by the pundits and it too began to flourish during the Mongol Dynasty when the literary examinations were suppressed. Many novels are of unknown authorship, because their authors considered such works as beneath their dignity. ”

“ As in the plays of Bernard Shaw and of his predecessor Shakespeare, the heroine takes the initiative by tossing into the room of the rather passive hero a bag embroidered with characters revealing her love. A wistful note is sounded by the young scholar when the wedding commanded by the emperor [29] is, as he believes, about to unite him to a woman other than the one he loves: “Musicians, please do not now play the air of the teals meeting in chaste pleasure who lament and yet feel no sorrow.” ”

“ A friend decides to save the family name by substituting just before the execution his own young son for a child of the condemned family. His wife absolutely refuses to enter upon his plan, but when he kneels before her she is compelled to yield to his wishes to sacrifice her child; this is typical of the Chinese, inasmuch as they seem to think that when some one humbles himself unduly he must gain his end and other people must grant him whatever he asks. The man and his wife then bring up the orphan as their own son. ”

“ But Niu refuses; he will accept for his daughter none but the scholar who has won the very highest honors at the examinations. The two women begin to quarrel and are driven off with blows by Niu’s orders, because by fighting in his house they offend against the rites. A marriage arranged by such wrangling old hags between young people who meet for the first time on the day of their wedding certainly does not offer much in the way of romance. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Dramas of intrigue abound on every program. Even the monodrama can be found among modern innovations. And last, but by no means least, there is the religious drama in some ways analogous to our miracle and mystery plays.
The three chief religions of China have exerted their influence on the stage. Confucianism supplies the general moral background of the majority of plays. The veneration of the scholar rather than of the warrior makes the former the chief hero on the Chinese stage, while filial piety is the most outstanding virtue which the hero displays. ”

“ But by means of their magic they sent a flood which threatened to destroy the island. The abbot, surrounded by all his priests, spread his garment at the edge of the water, thereby causing the island to rise in the same degree as the water. At this point K’uei Shing, god of the literati, arrived like the deus ex machina of a Euripidean play. He had been sent by Wen Chang, the god of science and literature, to put an end to the quarrel because the son of Hsü Hsuan and the White Snake was destined to obtain the highest degree in the literary examinations. ”

“ 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. ”