Inscribing Jingju/Peking Opera Textualization and Performance, Authorship and Censorship of the “National Drama” of China from the Late Qing to the Present (Studies in the History of Chinese Texts) 2021011864, 2021011865, 9789004461925, 9789004463394, 9004461922

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Inscribing Jingju/Peking Opera

Studies in the History of Chinese Texts Edited by Martin Kern (Princeton University) Robert E. Hegel (Washington University, St. Louis) Manling Luo (Indiana University, Bloomington)

volume 12

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/hct

Inscribing Jingju/Peking Opera Textualization and Performance, Authorship and Censorship of the “National Drama” of China from the Late Qing to the Present By

David L. Rolston

LEIDEN | BOSTON

Cover Illustration: Backstage performance abstract giving lists of characters and the actors to perform them scene by scene for a Cheng Yanqiu play that premiered in 1924. Pasted on slips with actors’ names (in this case the slips of paper are red or faded red and are clearly no longer complete) are used to update such an abstract. Wang Wenzhang 王文章, ed., Jingju daishi Cheng Yanqiu 京劇大師程硯秋 (Jingju master Cheng Yanqiu; Beijing: Wenhua yishu, 2003), p. 41. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Rolston, David L., 1952– author. Title: Inscribing Jingju/Peking opera : textualization and performance,  authorship and censorship of the “national drama” of China from the late  Qing to the present / by David L. Rolston. Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2021. | Series: Studies in the  history of Chinese texts, 1877–9425 ; volume 12 | Includes  bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2021011864 (print) | LCCN 2021011865 (ebook) | ISBN  9789004461925 (hardback) | ISBN 9789004463394 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Operas, Chinese—China—Beijing—History and criticism Classification: LCC ML1751.C58 B447 2021 (print) | LCC ML1751.C58 (ebook)  | DDC 792.50951/156—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021011864 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021011865

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 1877-9425 isbn 978-90-04-46192-5 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-46339-4 (e-book) Copyright 2021 by David L. Rolston. Published by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Hotei, Brill Schöningh, Brill Fink, Brill mentis, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Böhlau Verlag and V&R Unipress. Koninklijke Brill NV reserves the right to protect this publication against unauthorized use. Requests for re-use and/or translations must be addressed to Koninklijke Brill NV via brill.com or copyright.com. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

Contents Preface ix Acknowledgments xix Introduction: What Is Jingju, and Why Should We Care about It? 1 1 Names, Names, Names 1 1.1 “National” Dramatic Forms before Jingju: Kunqu 5 1.2 Yabu vs. Huabu 9 1.3 Anhui Troupes in Beijing: Mixing Performance Styles 13 1.4 From Luantan to (Xipi plus Erhuang equals) Pihuang 16 1.5 Beijing and Jingju 20 1.6 Old vs. New Plays, Beijing-Style vs. Shanghai-Style 24 1.7 Becoming National Drama 26 1.8 Spreading Out from Beijing 30 1.9 Spreading to the Borders 40 1.10 A National Form? 42 1.11 Jingju Outside China/Outside Chinese 44 1.12 A National Drama? 50 2 Why Should We Care about Jingju? 50 2.1 The Great Classroom: Theater and Education 51 2.2 Listening to Plays Is the Same as Reading Books 54 2.3 Representing China: Military and Political Leaders 56 2.4 Representing China: Cultural and Underworld Leaders 62 2.5 Everywhere You Look and Listen: Transmission through Old Media 65 2.6 Everywhere You Look and Listen: Transmission through New Media 73 2.7 A Nation of Jingju Fanatics 91 1 Jingju Repertoire(s) and Types of Plays and Playscripts 95 1 The Repertoire(s) 95 2 Types of Plays 123 3 Types of Playscripts 162 3.1 Manuscript Copies 165 3.2 Printed Copies 177 3.3 Play Format: Division into Scenes 187 3.4 Musical Notation 189

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3.5 Play Texts That Record Stage Movement in Detail (Chuantou, Paichang, Shenduan pu, etc.) 192 3.6 Textualization of Parts of Plays 196 3.7 Competition, Innovation, Printing, and a Preliminary Look at the Question of Libretto Fixity 201 2 Textualization and Authorship before Xikao (Research into Plays) 210 1 Authorship and Textualization of “Classical Chinese Indigenous Theater” 213 2 Two Kinds of Early Literati Jingju Playwrights and the Common Fate of Their Plays 226 3 Early “Ordinary” Actors as Playwrights 266 4 Literati Who Became Actors and Also Wrote Plays 280 5 Early “Professional” Playwrights 288 3 The Production of a Mass-Market Collection of Jingju Playscripts: Xikao (Research into Plays) 293 1 The Publication History of Xikao 296 2 What Is Xikao? The Title(s) 315 3 What Is Xikao? Looking for the Master Plan 355 4 Who Put Xikao Together? 371 5 Where Did the Playscripts Come From? 392 6 The Photos 397 4 After Xikao: The Rise of Theater Studies, Copyright, and New Censorship Regimes 406 1 Evaluation of Xikao 406 2 New Approaches That Arose at Least Partially in Reaction to Xikao 421 2.1 The Rise of Xixue/Juxue 421 2.2 The Development of Stronger Conceptions of Copyright, Authorship, and Performance Rights 428 2.3 New Censorship Regimes 444 5 New Kinds of Playwrights 482 1 Chen Moxiang: The Most Prolific Jingju Playwright of the Republican Era 482 2 Weng Ouhong: The Most Prolific/Famous Jingju Playwright 504 3 Playwriting after Weng Ouhong 513

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6 New Kinds of Publication 524 1 Single Plays Published in Anthologies 530 2 Single Plays Published as Books 536 3 Single Plays Published in Periodicals 549 4 New Media and the Recording of Image, Movement, and Sound 565 5 Recording More Detail in Play Texts: Adding Graphic Elements and Photographs 568 6 New Recording Media and New Ways of Telling Plays (Shuoxi) 576 7 New Recording Media: DVD Bonus Features, Digitization, Hypertexts, and the Web 580 Epilogue: Living with Textual Fixity 585 Appendix: List of Plays in Xikao 589 Bibliography 622 Index 711

Preface Jingju 京劇 (Peking opera)1 is known as a performance medium that privileges the actor over the playscript. Mainly for this reason, and because of the common conception that Jingju actors tended to be functionally illiterate, there has been a tendency to underestimate the importance of Jingju playscripts and other kinds of the textualization (in any media) of how plays have been or should be performed. This book focuses on the processes by which this theatrical tradition became textualized in a wide variety of forms, for a wide variety of purposes, for a wide variety of practitioners, consumers, and government censors. Written forms of this theatrical tradition became more important as its status, and the status of its practitioners, rose in society. These processes of textualization, along with some of the forces driving them (especially state censorship), worked to stabilize performance practice and remove a lot of the fluidity and improvisation that marked the tradition in its earlier stages. Certain aspects of my scholarly career have led me to stress written forms of Jingju (Peking opera) and to spend more time reading its libretti than most anyone I know. I did my doctorate in an area studies department that stressed written Chinese over spoken Chinese and literature over performance, as was very common then, even in the case of literary traditions that were not very “literary” and were thought to have been heavily influenced by oral storytelling. However, during my first trip to “Greater China” right after finishing my master’s degree (in 1980–1982 as a student on the campus of Taiwan University), I fell in love with xiqu 戲曲 (Chinese indigenous theater) and with its most influential form,2 Jingju, in particular. Having not had the advantage of growing up listening to and watching performances of xiqu and possessing a pair of subpar ears (courtesy, I think, of eardrum ruptures and scarring when I was young), I found that I needed to do much preparation, in the form of reading playscripts, before I went to hear or watch3 performances; and when attending theater performances, I had to keep my eyes on the subtitles to follow what was being sung (the fact that, for both movies and stage performances, Chinese subtitles are provided more consistently for sung portions than for

1 A history of the ways Jingju has been referred to, and the connotations of each, will be presented in the Introduction. 2 Evidence for this claim will also be given in the Introduction. 3 As will become evident in the Introduction, different audiences, at different times, stressed the aural over the visual or vice versa in performances of Jingju.

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dialogue can be taken as evidence that, even for native Chinese, the former is harder to understand orally than the latter). During those years on the campus of Taiwan University, I was fortunate to participate in a variety of activities that focused on Jingju: a one-on-one Jingju class at the “Stanford Center” (devoted at that time to improving the Chinese of American graduate students), a class on Jingju taught for regular Taiwan University students, and a student club devoted to learning and performing Jingju. In my second year, the teacher of the two classes and the faculty advisor of the club heard that the national opera school (Fuxing Juxiao 復興劇校) was looking for its first-ever foreign language secretary and recommended me. The school had regularly scheduled public performances by the students on campus (every Tuesday and Thursday morning) and public performances in the evenings by the school’s troupe (which included past graduates and current students) that took their place in the regular rotation of performances, along with the four military-based troupes, at the main theater for Jingju in Taibei. For all of the plays to be performed I had to produce English language plot summaries, and to act as guide and interpreter for any foreign guests4 at the performances on campus. This meant that I not only had to read the libretti first, but I also had to read them even more carefully than before. The school thought that a simple translation of the Chinese summaries they had been providing for Chinese audiences would suffice, but that quickly turned out to be completely untenable. One of the problems was that those Chinese summaries were extremely laconic and elliptical presentations of entire stories that did not bother to point out which parts would actually be performed, whereas I wanted to make clear in my summaries exactly what the foreign spectators would see. Another problem was that the Chinese versions assumed a level of competency in Chinese culture, literature, and theater that one could not expect in foreign spectators. For these and other reasons, my summaries ended up much longer than the original Chinese ones. I also translated a play that the school was planning to perform on an international tour.5 4 I was very excited when the famous “theater of the absurd” playwright Eugene Ionesco (1909–1994) came to watch the students perform traditional plays and to watch a Jingju-style performance by senior actors of his The Chairs, but his English was no good and my high school spoken French completely failed me. 5 The printed collections of Jingju plays I collected while in Taiwan to use as reference works for my work at the opera school included one that is featured in chapter 3 below and a later one that was heavily influenced by it. The first was bound in eleven volumes and the second in fifteen. I was able to find a copy of the second one in a used-book stall and talk the price down a bit, but even so the purchase required turning over all the money that I had on me. Not having even enough money for bus fare, my wife and I carried the set home on foot.

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After a month-long whirlwind tour of the Mainland in the summer of 1982, spending most every night watching performances of Jingju and other types of Chinese indigenous theater, I returned home to await the arrival of crates mailed from Taiwan packed with hundreds of recordings on cassette tape of Jingju, some purchased but the bulk recorded from radio broadcasts of both phonograph recordings and live performances. But although for many years I maintained a regime of listening to a play or a tape every night, I decided that for the purposes of my doctoral dissertation it would not be a good idea, for a number of reasons, to switch my original plan to work on Chinese fiction for my dissertation. It would not be until I got tenure that I first offered a graduate seminar on Jingju,6 and only after the publication of my second book on Chinese fiction (1997), that I began to concentrate my formal research activities on theater instead of fiction. It was around that time, the later 1990s, that I began to go to Beijing for a month or so every summer or every second summer to see what was going on in Jingju. I had contacts in the theater world that I had made during a year-long stay in Nanjing in 1986, and expanded on them by doing such things as going to performances, noting mistakes in translation in the programs or subtitles (at the time performances for regular Chinese audiences were losing money and only performances for foreign tourists were really profitable), bringing them to the attention of troupe administrators, and offering to help correct them. I have continued to contribute in this way to the English language textualization of Jingju up to the present, being responsible, for instance, for the finalization of the English subtitles for performances by visiting Jingju troupes at Lincoln Center in New York (2014 and 2015) and the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. (2014). I have been pushing, particularly of late, for the provision of English language subtitles for DVD s of Jingju, and for the addition to such DVD s of specialist commentary, in both English and Chinese. There is a severe shortage of the former (what is available does not tend to be very well done), and a complete lack of the latter.7 This book developed out of an earlier project focused on the world that was represented on the Jingju stage, with particular attention to the types of characters that appeared, how they are categorized, and how those categories affected how they were handled. That book was planned to be twenty chapters 6 The students were initially quite resistant to the course. This was before the “canon” wars and the idea that popular literature was also worthy of study became common. My department still stressed a rather narrow idea of “literature,” although the name of the department had already changed from Far Eastern Languages and Literatures to Asian Languages and Cultures. It is only quite recently that my department hired someone in performance studies. 7 The translation of Jingju plays into English is taken up below, in chapter 6.

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long, and it gradually became clear that finishing it would require another lifetime (besides the length of the project, there was also the problem that there has been an exponential boom in Chinese publishing on Jingju). The Introduction in the present book makes use, in a very condensed form, of some of the introductory material drafted for the earlier project.8 The Introduction first lays out the history of Jingju through the names it has been called and the importance that it has had, then explains how it works as a theatrical system. Jingju began as just another popular form of Chinese indigenous theater closely tied to one locality (Beijing) that was able, primarily through appropriating and assimilating attractive elements from other forms of theater, to develop into something many called the “national theater” of China. Despite only becoming a mature theatrical form with its own characteristics in the middle of the nineteenth century, Jingju has been able to convince many that it is older and more “classical” than it really is. For many, it “represents” China. Chapter 1 introduces the repertoire(s) of Jingju and the categories that Jingju plays were divided into and discusses how traditional Chinese play texts in general, and Jingju playscripts in particular, were originally organized. It discusses how elements of plays, including non-verbal and performance elements, could and were textualized before the advent of media that could conveniently capture and integrate aural and visual elements into the “texts” that they produced. Chapter 2 covers the years from the very beginnings of Jingju up into the beginning of its “golden age” in the Republican period (1912–1949) when, in a brand new way, competition between stars became very fierce and that competition was waged, in part, through the production of new plays written with literati help. This chapter focuses on what kinds of roles playwrights had in the period prior to that new development, what kinds of people they were, and who among them were more successful than others. The playwrights ranged from literati without strong connections in the world of Jingju, who apparently thought that their pens/writing brushes could help their plays succeed regardless of that flaw (until their plays’ failure to find permanent places in the Jingju repertoire proved otherwise), to people with a stronger understanding of the needs of performance (including ordinary actors who nevertheless managed to write plays, literati who became Jingju performers and also wrote plays, and a small number of professional playwrights with strong connections with individual troupes and actors). As will be shown in detail, only in the case of the 8 A chapter on Jingju’s stages, theaters, troupes, actors, and audiences will be made available as part of the supplementary material for this book posted on the publisher’s website.

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plays by literati without theater connections were their works published under their names (or pseudonyms) in the hope that they would circulate widely and be influential as texts. The plays of the other playwrights did not, in general, circulate as texts, the exceptions only coming at the end of the period, when literati turned actors turned playwrights with an activist bent published their plays in newspapers under their own names. Chapter 3 traces the rather tortured but very interesting and telling history of the publication of a pathbreaking collection of over 500 Jingju playscripts, Xikao 戲考 (Research into plays), in forty installments, from 1912–1925, in Shanghai.9 At the time of its publication, it was the biggest such collection ever published, something that remained true, oddly enough, for a very long time. As will be shown in this chapter and expanded upon in the following chapter, Xikao became both the model for many later collections of Jingju playscripts and the object of criticism by their compilers, who claimed to have surpassed it, if not in bulk, then at least in how the play texts were collected, edited, and arranged on the page. It is only very rarely that Xikao mentions the name of anyone responsible for writing a play text it includes; instead the collection is most concerned with making the reader believe that some of its play texts originated from the private manuscript collections of the star actors who had created the most popular and influential versions of the main characters in them. One of the criticisms of Xikao was that it was not “scientific” enough. Chapter 4 shows that it was in the wake of the appearance of Xikao that different people advocated the study of theater as a discipline and began to publish periodicals that also took that point of view. Those periodicals published Jingju play texts but did so in entirely new ways, one of which was to proclaim that the copyright and performance rights were retained by the playwright. It was also during this period that the Republic got more serious about enforcing copyright and censoring plays. As mentioned above, the Republican era was marked by a new and very intense competition between Jingju stars that most particularly took the form of a rush to premiere new plays, and even to premiere new plays that can be seen as responses to a rival’s new plays. Most of these playscripts were supplied by members of the star’s “brain trust,” who presented themselves as offering their services for free. Chapter 5 showcases the most prolific playwright of the 9 For a list of the plays in Xikao see Appendix A, where they appear in the order of their appearance in the collection and are assigned a serial number (for how this was done, see the introduction to the appendix). When plays are mentioned below, if they appear in Xikao their serial numbers will be noted; if they do not appear in it, that will also be noted.

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Republican era, who seems in a number of senses to have “worked” for the star that he wrote almost all of his plays for, but who almost never talked or wrote about actual compensation for the various things he did for that star. A second playwright, who wrote even more plays in total and for a much longer period than the first one, wrote them for a variety of stars in the Republic, and then phased from writing for some of the same stars in the early years of the People’s Republic to ending up as a professional playwright attached to the national Jingju troupe. The rest of the chapter looks at attempts, during the People’s Republic, to both professionalize Jingju playwriting and train enough playwrights to revise old plays and create new ones sufficient to meet the needs of a new regime of censorship that affected performance and playwriting in entirely new ways. In recent decades, as Jingju has lost substantial chunks of its old audience to old age and death and potential new audience members to new forms of entertainment, the number of in-house playwrights attached to troupes has declined severely, a gap only partially closed by the possibility of performing plays written by free-lance playwrights. The final chapter looks at the new types of Jingju play texts and new ways of publishing them that have appeared since 1949. It also looks at how more and more detail was preserved in some of those printed texts, through the inclusion of more highly detailed stage directions, notes, and appendices, and how unprecedented detail was preserved by means of film and video. The question of using such media, whether in the form of recordings of performances or of teachers teaching students, to wholly or partially replace the living teacher’s role in the transmission of Jingju and its repertoire naturally comes up. A theme that has appeared in many of the previous chapters, how to present Jingju to foreigners,10 is also addressed. The chapter ends with a discussion of how the information provided in digital forms of Jingju playscripts can be further enhanced by providing additional supplemental materials (expert commentary and other kinds of “bonus material”) to DVD recordings of performances, linking digital texts through hypertext links, and increasing access to playscripts and other material through online postings.

10

While I did spend precisely one day learning German (as a child I talked my father into using his high school German textbook to teach me; we both decided there was no future in the project) and passed a qualifying exam in French as a graduate student, I claim no competency in any European language, but I think I have a pretty good idea of the range of activities in this field of endeavor in English, having participated in some of them myself. As for the related question of scholarship on Jingju in European languages, citations below are few, but I can affirm that to the best of my knowledge, nothing resembling the present project as appeared in any of them.

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The more print, audio, and multimedia reproductions of Jingju play texts have been made available, the more those versions of Jingju plays have been used to learn to perform the plays; and the more the student is required to emulate what is given in such fixed forms, the more likely it is that the ways the plays are performed becomes fixed. As is pointed out in a number of places in the book, and in reference to different censorship regimes, another prime reason for both the textualization and the textual fixation of Jingju has been the demands of censors. Censors both want to know in advance exactly what is going to be performed, and want a written record of what has been approved for performance that can be used to judge how faithfully performances stick to what was approved. Censorial regimes have gotten only more powerful and more intrusive as time has gone by in the history of Jingju. This book closes with a brief meditation on the darker side of the textualization (= fixation) of Jingju.11 Since this is the first book that I know of, in English or Chinese, that tries to give a sustained history of the textualization of a performance genre,12 let alone the history of the textualization of Jingju, I have had no models to follow.13 That can make one feel a bit isolated and wondering why no one else has thought of such a wonderful project, but it certainly is helpful in at least one respect. Since such explorations are clearly still at an exploratory stage, I have not been under the kind of pressure to “theorize” my approach to the material in the kinds of ways that trying to intervene in more crowded and competitive fields often makes necessary. Instead, my approach has been to use “common sense” terms (and common sense understanding of those terms) and language, so that the things I point out in this study will be more readily comparable with future work on textualization of very different performance traditions. I have also preferred to use broader conceptions of terms such as “text” and “textualization.” In my usage, in accord with more recent formulations of these two 11

12 13

It is not the case that textualization automatically means complete fixation, even of the play text itself. Early manuscript copies of Jingju playscripts, for instance, can provide either small or large scale examples of alternative choices by taking such steps as providing stage directions that say that here you can do either A or B, or say either C or D, or do something on the order of E. These basically disappear in printed play texts, except for rare examples in which alternatives are given in footnotes. It is not the case that print or multimedia prohibit the provision of alternatives, it is just the case that the main tendency has been to not exploit such opportunities. I am excluding the work of folklorists on oral epics and folk songs. An example of a book on a different performance genre that has influenced the ways I have approached some things, but in which the word textualization occurs only once (p. 287), is Julie Stone Peters, The Theatre of the Book, 1480–1880: Print, Text, and Performance in Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

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terms that have arisen to meet the needs of our increasingly multimedia world, the former is not restricted to written texts but includes multimedia “texts,” whereas the latter includes the making of tangible and transmissible records or notations of things that were not, originally, purely textual (in the older, more narrow usage). Despite the variety of opinions on the matter among literary critics, “texts” for me are always material.14 The title of the book includes five important terms. The first of these, “inscribing,” is used because it seems the least limiting way to refer to the fixation of aspects of Jingju in any media whatsoever.15 Whereas in folklore studies, “textualization” is used to refer to the transcription—through writing, aural and/or video reproduction, digitization, or combinations thereof—of (typically oral) “performance,”16 this book will cover both transcriptions of aspects of performances (transcribing all aspects being a practical impossibility) and the writing and revision of playscripts for performance17 (in Jingju it is hard to find examples of “closet plays” not written with at least some hope of performance) and consumption (including reading, which does not, however, loom very large). In the development of Jingju, “censorship” preceded the development of a strong conception of “authorship.” In the late Qing and the Republic, for example, the owners of the theater where an objectionable play was performed were far more likely to be held liable for the harm thought to have been caused

14

For instance, Matthias Richter, The Embodied Text (Leiden: Brill, 2013), p. 9, speaks of the text as “essentially non-material,” while Thomas Tanselle, A Rationale of Textual Criticism (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1989), pp. 16–18 and 26–33, speaks of the “work” as immaterial and the text as material. 15 In both the Near East and China, early forms of writing featured inscription or incision of symbols onto substances such as bone or stone, and many English words, such as transcription, memorialize that past, even when transcribing does not entail literal “inscription.” On the etymology of words for “writing” in a number of languages, see Ignace Gelb, A Study of Writing, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), pp. 6–7. 16 See, for instance, Jonathan Ready, Orality, Textuality, and the Homeric Epics (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019), pp. 108–109, where he surveys the use of the word “textualization” and related terms and explains his decision to use the former to refer to the process of the writing down of the Homeric epics. 17 In folklore studies, the emphasis has been on recording oral performances to both preserve some feature(s) of them and to making them more accessible to study. See John Miles Foley, “From Oral Performance to Paper-Text to Cyber-Edition,” Oral Tradition 20.2 (October 2005): 233–65, for an example that involves the production of both an experimental paper version and a hypertextual electronic version. Textualization of performances to “revitalize” indigenous languages in decline has also been done. For an example, see Gerald L. Carr and Barbra Meek, “The Poetics of Language Revitalization: Text, Performance, and Change,” Journal of Folklore Research 50.1–3 (2013): 191–216.

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than the playwright).18 Like Hollywood scriptwriters, Jingju playwrights rarely enjoyed the kind of creative authority and freedom (and attendant fame) associated with the “romantic author,” a conception of authorship that some scholars see as integral to the modern notion of copyright.19 Finally, the idea that Jingju was (and still is for some) the “national drama” of China conveys quite succinctly its cultural importance (a question addressed far less succinctly in the second half of the introduction). Desire for a national drama, something new to late 19th- and early 20th-century China, was largely prompted by new understandings (including misunderstandings) of the importance of drama in the West, fed by new information (sometimes distorted) arriving by new media first invented in the West, and a desire for theater that was Chinese that could be both seen and read by Westerners. Chinese regimes of censorship pushed for textualization of Chinese theater to facilitate the policing of performances, something whose effects became more and more real as the power, capabilities, and interest of the state in these affairs increased, culminating in the demand that everything be textualized in the PRC. As opposed to the textualization of oral “literature” by scholars who were often non-native to the cultures that produced those traditions,20 in the case 18

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This would change, with severe consequences, in the Cultural Revolution and the years leading up to it; the Cultural Revolution is commonly thought to have begun with criticism of a Jingju play (see chapter 4). The amount of resources the PRC currently invests in censorship, and its success at making certain things basically “disappear” is, of course, the focus of a lot of scholarly concern, but the target of that kind of censorship is primarily the internet and not theater. For two very recent books that make that fact very clear, see Margaret E. Roberts, Censored: Distraction and Diversion Inside China’s Great Firewall (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018), and Margaret Hillenbrand, Negative Exposures: Knowing What Not to Know in Contemporary China (Durham: Duke University Press, 2020). As Jack Stillinger, Multiple Authorship and the Myth of Solitary Genius (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), shows in great detail, the solitary romantic author was and is a myth. In Chapter 8 he shows how authorship in plays and films is inherently collaborative, despite efforts by playwrights such as Arthur Miller and Samuel Beckett who went to court to have their plays performed as written, and the pushing of the “auteur” theory in the case of film. Another way to move away from this romantic ideal is to speak of the author as a composite of functions, as in Raji C. Steineck and Christiane Schwermann, eds., That Wonderful Composite Called Author: Authorship in East Asian Literatures from the Beginnings to the Seventeenth Century (Leiden: Brill, 2014), “Introduction,” pp. 1–29. For an example of Chinese intellectuals textualizing an oral tradition and the kind of editorial decisions made, see Anne E. McLaren and Emily Yu Zhang, “Recreating ‘Traditional’ Folk Epics in Contemporary China: The Politics of Textual Transmission,” Asian Ethnology 76.1 (2017): 19–41. For an example of textualization that involved both Western scholars and native practitioners, see Mark Bender, “Co-creations, Master Texts, and Monuments: Long Narrative Poems of Ethnic Minority Groups in China,” CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature 38.2 (2019): 65–90.

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of Jingju, despite the input of literati and embedding of “cultural workers” and representatives of the Party in troupes and theater companies, the textualization of Jingju was mostly carried out by practitioners, including actors who were never professional actors such as Chen Moxiang 陳墨香 (1884–1912) and Weng Ouhong 翁偶虹 (1908–1994) (see chapter 5).

The supplementary chapter to this book, “Stages, Theatres, Troupes, Actors, and Audiences”, has been made available online and is referenced via a unique DOI number on the website www.figshare.com. It may be accessed by scanning the QR code, or alternatively by accessing https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.14828352.

Acknowledgments This book has been in the making for many years, and in the course of those years I have become indebted to a wide range of people and institutions for their help and encouragement. My doctoral dissertation was on Chinese fiction at the University of Chicago, but the long years before I finished work on that degree included a lot of Chinese language training, two years in Taiwan watching plays whenever I could and working at a Chinese opera school. The whole process was overseen by my main advisor, David T. Roy (1933–2016), who was always more interested in the late Ming novel Jin Ping Mei than most anything else, but will always be my North Star when it comes to scholarship and professional integrity. I began teaching at the University of Michigan as a visiting lecturer even before I finished my degree, and was lucky enough to get a tenure-track position the next year. Over the decades both my department and the Center for Chinese Studies have been very generous in terms of financial support and the rich human resources of the Asian Studies community, including the graduate students, have always been important to my own growth. The three institutions outside the University of Michigan that have kept me in contact with scholars of like interests located primarily in North America are the Association for Asian Studies (AAS), the Association for Asian Performance (AAP), and The Conference on Chinese Oral and Performing Literature (CHINOPERL). The annual meetings of these three organizations and especially being editor of the house journal of the last of the three have enabled me to come in close contact with a wide variety of scholars and scholarly approaches. I am particularly thankful for the chance to work with CHINOPERL’s wonderful editorial board. I have been very lucky in my interactions with people in the world of Jingju in both Taiwan and China. I must admit that I did not manage, over the decades, to keep in contact with those I met in Taiwan in 1980–1982, with the sole exception of Tseng Yong-yih (Zeng Yongyi), with whom I took a class at Taiwan National University and have been fortunate enough to see again several times at academic conferences. My first trip to China was for only a month, in 1982, too brief to get to know anyone as I ran from city to city with my wife to watch plays, but in 1986 we had the chance to live in China for almost a year, primarily in Nanjing. A young man came up to talk to me as I was waiting to go into a theater to see a performance in Nanjing and we became friends. His name was Wang Yuan and he

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was well connected and enjoyed introducing me to new people, face to face in Nanjing, and by letters that I took with me to Beijing and other places. It was through him that I met Wen Ruhua, who had become quite famous for performing a play that Weng Ouhong wrote for him that allowed him to show off both his skill at performing the young male roles that he, as a male, was officially allowed to perform, and young female roles that he had secretly learned from Zhang Junqiu (1920–1997). Wang Yuan, unfortunately, was dead from a sudden illness by the next time I got to go to China, but I get to see Ruhua and hear his thoughts on Jingju every time I go to Beijing. It was in the late 1990s that I began to go to Beijing quite regularly at the end of most every school year. On one such trip, while I was watching the graduation plays of the students of Zhongguo Xiqu Xueyuan (Academy of Chinese Theater Arts), someone came and sat next to me, we began to talk, and quickly became friends. His name was Hai Zhen and he was the Chair of the Music Department of the Academy at the time (later he would become the Curator of the Library, a post from which he recently retired). He arranged for me to give the first of a series, over the years, of talks for the Academy, and to teach there for a semester. He is extremely curious and interested in learning new things. It was through Hai Zhen that I got to know Fu Jin, a professor at the Academy who has been at the very center of a multiyear program to turn the study of Jingju into a real academic discipline, both in terms of organizing bi-annual conferences on Jingju and overseeing the editing and publication of a wide range of resources critical to the study of Jingju. Many people have read and commented on parts of this book and I am grateful to all of them, particularly to those who yelled at me. The colleague who put the most effort into trying to make its text readable and presentable, however, is Catherine Swatek, recently retired from the University of British Columbia. She is a repeat-offender, having also put a tremendous amount of effort into cleaning up the manuscript for my 1997 book. Being naturally thickheaded, I have not always accepted her good advice, for which she should not be blamed. Last but not least, it is with great pleasure that I acknowledge the longterm and very patient support of my wife, Kathryn Rinehart, and two children, Benjamin and Elizabeth. I made sure to sneak all three of them into footnotes, since their experience as a co-conspirator (Kathryn), a jazz musician (Benjamin), and a choreographer (Elizabeth) have been great sources of inspiration for me.

Introduction

What Is Jingju, and Why Should We Care about It? Jingju 京劇 (“Peking opera”) was one of the most important ways that people in China for most of the last two centuries imagined the world. This Introduction will attempt to provide a general overview of the history of Jingju in its first half by tracing the various names it has gone by, and in its second half to make clear why Jingju is worth our attention. After reading this introduction, the reader should be better able to judge whether Jingju truly deserves having been called the “national drama” of China and what that really means. 1

Names, Names, Names

Before delving into the history of Jingju, let us briefly deal with the question of how Jingju has been/is referred to in English. Presently, most writers on Jingju in Chinese have decided to use the term Jingju, which combines the character for “capital” ( Jing 京, meaning specifically here Beijing, the “Northern Capital,” capital of China from early in the 1400s to the present, except when the capital was moved to Nanjing from 1928–1949, during which time it was known as Beiping 北平, “Northern Peace”) and a character meaning “play” ( ju 劇). Since there is no Chinese homophone for Jingju with which it might get confused, using Jingju in English creates no confusion, and has the advantage of echoing current Chinese usage. That pretty much explains why I have privileged this romanized term, Jingju, in the title of this book and its main text, even though it is a latecomer, in print anyway, first used in Shanghai and not Beijing (see below). The non-romanized term I use in the book title, “Peking opera,” has been enlisted for that duty solely because it is still the most commonly used English term for Jingju.1 “Peking,” which has been almost entirely superseded by the pinyin romanization of the same place, “Beijing,” is a remnant of the old so-called “Post Office” system of transcribing place names in China. Now that there no longer is any 1 A Google search on October 23, 2016 for “Peking opera” produced “about 473,000” hits and a search for “Jingju” only “about 254,000” hits. A similar search on November 12, 2019, produced “about 27,000,000” hits for the former and “about 227,000” for the latter. Why there should be such a radical disparity between the two searches isn’t clear, but both do show higher usage for “Peking opera” than “Jingju” (changing the capitalization for either term did not affect the number of hits).

© David L. Rolston, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004463394_002

2

Introduction

such place as “Peking,” the resulting distancing effect does have its advantages. For one thing, it might help prevent simplistic assumptions, such as the idea that the relationship between Jingju and Beijing is of the same kind as that assumed to hold for the vast majority of traditional Chinese local theatrical traditions (difang xi 地方戲), i.e., that it was born in Beijing and largely performed only there. “Peking’s” association with the past—a likely factor in its continued use in Beijing University’s preferred English title—may also suggest to an English-speaking public that Jingju is primarily a product of the past and designed to reflect a bygone world. Jingju’s difficulty in representing modern life is a problem that has proved difficult to solve. Even though “Peking opera” appears in the titles of two recent, well-regarded books in English on this performance genre,2 there has been a fair amount of animus against the term in China.3 For some, the use of two foreign terms, “Peking,” and “opera,” to refer to something Chinese smacks of a colonial mentality, or of comparing apples with oranges. A claim that A is like B, when A is unfamiliar and B is familiar, is typically done to help the target audience of the comparison recognize something of importance about A. Calling Jingju “Peking opera,” or “Beijing opera,” for that matter,4 is thus best understood as an attempt to get an audience unfamiliar with Jingju to realize the importance of music and singing in the genre. The typical Chinese person has perhaps the opposite problem: Jingju is the familiar term and opera the unfamiliar one. 2 Nancy Guy, Peking Opera and Politics in Taiwan (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2005) and Joshua Goldstein, Drama Kings: Players and Publics in the Re-Creation of Peking Opera, 1870–1937 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007). 3 Discomfort in China with the term “Peking opera” peaked around 2011 when, for instance, the two most important Jingju organizations in China, the national company, Guojia Jingju Yuan 國家京劇院 (formerly known as Zhongguo Jingju Yuan 中國京劇院), and the Beijing company, Beijing Jingju Yuan 北京京劇院, decided to no longer use the term “Peking opera” in their English language material. See Niu Chunmei 牛春梅, “Jiang Jingju de Yingwen yifa cong ‘Peking Opera’ genggai wei Jingju zhengming” 將京劇的英文譯法從 ‘Peking Opera’ 更改為京劇正名 (Changing the English translation of Jingju from “Peking opera” to Jingju as a rectification of names), posted on xijucn.com on June 9, 2011 (accessed June 27, 2011). Since then, however, there has been something of a shift back toward using “Peking Opera.” See, for instance, the official website for Guojia Jingju Yuan, http://www.cnpoc.cn/ (accessed October 14, 2016) and promotional material for Zhang Huoding’s 張火丁 Lincoln Center performances, September 2–3, 2015 (see Rose Jang’s review of those performances, CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature 35.1 [July 2016]: 75). 4 “Beijing opera” appears in the titles of two other well regarded books on Jingju in English: Elizabeth Wichmann’s Listening to Theatre: The Aural Dimensions of Beijing Opera (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1991) and Li Ruru, The Soul of Beijing Opera: Theatrical Continuity in the Changing World (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2010); in the case of the latter book, however, “Beijing opera” only appears in the main text on p. 1, together with “Peking opera,” as part of an explanation that the term that will be used is jingju (no capitalization).

Introduction

3

One problem with many of the Chinese arguments against claiming or even implying that Jingju is a kind of opera, is that this Western term tends to be understood rather reductively (e.g., to mean that everything must be sung, or that it has always been an aristocratic style of performance alienated from the people). Another way to stress the importance of music in Jingju would be to speak of it as an example of “music drama,” a term frequently encountered as a translation for xiqu (“Chinese indigenous theater”). “Music drama” may cause less trouble than “opera,” precisely because people might have a less restrictive notion of what it means. The use of xiqu to refer in Chinese to traditional Chinese theater is now almost universal.5 The term is now understood as stressing both play (xi) and song (qu), and is used in opposition to huaju 話劇 (spoken drama),6 while both are conceived of as examples of a larger category, xiju 戲劇 (theater). After the establishment of the PRC, when all of the theatrical troupes were gradually nationalized and a great variety of governmental units concerned with theater were established, a pretty standardized system for referring to indigenous theatrical traditions ( juzhong 劇種) was worked out, one that tended to 5 For a lone voice of dissent that traces the history of the use of the term, see Luo Di 洛地, “Woguo xiju bei cheng wei ‘xiqu’ de zhengwen (dai qianyan)” 我國戲劇被稱為 ‘戲曲’ 的 征問 (代前言) (An interrogation of the use of xiqu to refer to Chinese theater [in place of a preface]), Xishi bian 戲史辨 (Looking into theater history) 2 (2001): 1–5. In the 1920s and 1930s, yueju 樂劇 (music drama) and geju 歌劇 (opera) began to be used in China to distinguish traditional Chinese theater from the new form of “spoken drama” (huaju 話劇), the latter term only coming into usage in the 1920s. For instance, Xu Lingxiao 徐凌霄 (1886–1961), when he edited the theater supplement to Jingbao 京報 (Beijing daily), Xiju zhoukan 戲劇 週刊 (Theater weekly), used yueju to refer to the non-huaju plays printed in the supplement; in issue 40 (1925), p. 6, he provided a note on “Yueju juben” 樂劇劇本 (musical theater playscripts) in which he stresses the commonality of theater forms that use music in China and the West. 6 On late Qing resistance to the idea of plays without traditional costumes (xingtou 行頭), singing (gechang 歌唱), and music (yinyue 音樂), see Qi Rushan 齊如山 (1877–1962), Wushi nian lai de Guoju 五十年來的國劇 (National drama of the last fifty years), p. 144, in Qi Rushan quanji 齊如山全集 (The collected works of Qi Rushan), 10 vols. (Taibei: Lianjing, 1979; a 2010 edition of Qi’s collected works is available, but unless otherwise specified, citations are to the 1979 edition), 5: 2816. There has been some debate about whether any traditional Jingju plays completely lack singing. While there is a term for a class of plays, baikou xi 白口戲 (dialogue plays), that might seem to indicate plays with no singing, plays spoken of as belonging to this category include very little singing but do not lack it completely. See Tian Zhiping 田志平, Xiqu wutai xingtai 戲曲舞臺形態 (The ecology of xiqu; Beijing: Wenhua yishu, 2008), pp. 296–97. A play with no singing or dialogue, Yandang shan 雁蕩山 (Yandang Mountain), was created in 1952 but remains a curiosity, contrary to the expectations of some. If anything, music is more important to it than the average Jingju play.

4

Introduction

stress geographical over musical distinctions. In the first ten years of the PRC, in a process that resembled the “ethnic classification” (minzu shibie 民族識別) project of the same decade that produced fifty-six officially recognized ethnicities in China,7 over 300 local theatrical traditions were recognized. Terms created for them tended to combine one-character toponyms with the character ju 劇, Jingju being an example.8 These theatrical traditions have been and continue to be referred to as juzhong 劇種 (types of theater).9 Earlier terms for

7 On this project, see Thomas S. Mullaney, Coming to Terms with the Nation: Ethnic Classification in Modern China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011), and Charles Keyes, “Presidential Address: ‘The Peoples of Asia’: Science and Politics in the Classification of Ethnic Groups in Thailand, China, and Vietnam,” Journal of Asian Studies 61.4 (November 2002): 1163–1203. 8 Xu Chengbei 徐城北, Jingxi zhi mi 京戲之謎 (The riddle of Jingju; Beijing: Shishi chubanshe, 2002), “Yuanlai de xu” 原來的序 (The original preface), p. 1, talks about how use of Jingju was something that began in the 1950s and was associated, in Beijing, with official speech (guanfang yuyan 官方語言) and not that of the people (laobaixing yuyan 老百姓 語言). The people preferred the term Jingxi 京戲 (which can also be translated as “Capital play”). However, an October 23, 2016 search of titles of articles included in the Minguo shiqi qikan quanwen shuju ku (1911–1949) 民國時期期刊全文數據庫 (1911–1949) (Full text database of Republican-era periodicals [1911–1949]) shows a 3.67:1 ratio in favor of Jingju over Jingxi. A similar search done on the same day in Zhongguo qikan quanwen shuju ku 中國期 刊全文數據庫 (Full text database of Chinese periodicals) in articles published from 1994 to the time of the search, shows the overwhelming dominance of Jingju (107.25:1). 9 Guides to these juzhong range from the more compact Zhongguo xiqu juzhong shouce 中國戲 曲劇種手冊 (Handbook of the theatrical traditions of Chinese traditional theater; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 1987) at 985 pages, to the large format Zhongguo xiqu juzhong da cidian 中 國戲曲劇種大辭典 (Great dictionary of the theatrical traditions of traditional Chinese theater; Shanghai: Shanghai cishu, 1995), at 1668 pages. Both stress geography by moving through the provinces and provincial-level cities in the basic standard sequence beginning with Beijing used in the PRC. An example of a guide to the music of these juzhong is He Wei 何為 and Wang Qin 王琴, Jianming xiqu yinyue cidian 簡明戲曲音樂詞典 (Concise dictionary of the music of traditional Chinese theater; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 1990). The number of recognized juzhong changed over time, rising from 120 in 1949 to 360 in 1959. For an analysis and critique of how reference works list numbers of juzhong, see Hai Zhen 海震, “Women daodi you duoshao ‘juzhong’?—Dui xiqu gongju shu zhong youguan shuju de fenxi” 我們到底有多少 ‘劇種’—對戲曲工具書中有關數據的分析 (In the end, how many juzhong do we have?—An analysis of the relevant statistics in xiqu reference works), in Wang Yaohua 王耀華 et al., eds., Haixia liang’an xiqu yishu lun 海峽兩岸戲曲藝術論 (On xiqu art on both sides of the Taiwan Strait; Beijing: Beijing daxue, 2015), pp. 12–17. Two reasons for inflated numbers are that the lists include theatrical traditions that are already extinct and examples of single traditions claimed under different names by different localities. Hai estimates that there are presently only 150 or so juzhong (p. 16).

Introduction

5

Jingju, especially those used by natives of Beijing, tended to stress the musical systems used, rather than their “homeland,” or to combine both elements.10 1.1 “National” Dramatic Forms before Jingju: Kunqu Prior to the rise of Jingju, the predominant theatrical tradition in China was Kunqu 崑曲, which had developed from a local theatrical form (“Kun” refers to Kunshan 崑山, to the west of Shanghai) into a “national”11 one, primarily because literati from the Jiangnan 江南 (“South of the [Lower] Yangzi River”) area took it with them when they went to the capital to take the civil service exams and take up metropolitan posts. In Beijing, Kunqu won the patronage of first the Ming (1368–1644) and then the Qing (1644–1911) court. Scholarly opinion is unified in its support of the idea that Ming dynasty theater was dominated by elite playwrights and connoisseurs, and that in contrast to the Song and Yuan dynasties (960–1279 and 1279–1368, respectively), professional public theaters and performances were scarce and all of the “action” was in the private troupes ( jiayue 家樂, jiaban 家班) maintained by the court and members of the royal family, aristocrats and big landowners, and literati families who could afford to keep them.12 These family troupes were primarily made up of actresses or young males, with comparatively few adult males.13 This fact partly explains the predominance of romantic stories in the kinds of drama these troupes performed. The dominance of this kind of theater in the scholarship on the Ming dynasty is surely largely a function of the fact that the bulk of the written records that we have on Ming dynasty theater comes from literati with close connections to precisely such private troupes, and we can surely assume that a lot of theatrical activity occurred “under the radar.”14 10

11 12

13 14

With regard to the shifting weight given to variables used to distinguish juzhong, such as musical systems (yue 樂, qiang 腔, diao 調, qiangdiao 腔調), performance dialects, and locality of performance or supposed origin, see Lu Yingkun 路應昆, “Luantan, juzhong, difang xi” 亂彈, 劇種, 地方戲 (Luantan [see below], play type, local theatrical tradition), Da xiju luntan 大戲劇論壇 (Forum on theater broadly understood) 3 (2007): 67–84. “National” is in quotes because, as we will see, it is not until Jingju that any one indigenous Chinese theatrical tradition achieves a deep penetration into all parts of China, or is presented to both Chinese and foreigners as representative of the entire country. The only books specifically on Ming theater published in English in the West both include the word “elite” in their titles: Cyril Birch, Scenes for Mandarins: The Elite Theater of the Ming (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995) and Grant Guangren Shen, Elite Theatre in Ming China, 1368–1644 (London: Routledge, 2005). See Wang Zhaoyu 王照璵, “Qingdai zhong hou qi Beijing ‘pinyou’ wenhua yanjiu” 清代 中後期北京 ‘品優’ 文化研究 (Research on the ‘evaluation of actors’ culture of middle and late Qing dynasty Beijing), master’s thesis, Guoli Jinan guoji daxue, 2008, p. 87. The portraits of theatrical activity that one finds in Ming dynasty fiction can differ from the literati and scholarly focus on private troupes. Accounts of professional troupes in

6

Introduction

Another factor favoring private troupes and performances were laws prohibiting officials from (openly) patronizing the pleasure quarters,15 one of the traditional centers of theatrical activity in China. Song, Yuan, and Ming dynasty drama can be divided into two main traditions, both of which featured arias of the qupai 曲牌 type (qupai, or “tune patterns” stipulate such things as the number of lines, the number of base characters per line, and which lines rhyme; arias of this kind break down into strophes that can be made up of odd numbers of lines, including single lines). There was a northern tradition (beiqu 北曲) in which plays were written and performed in the dramatic form of zaju 雜劇 (lit.: variety plays) whose four acts were strictly organized around song-suites that were all performed by one actor,16 and a southern one (nanqu 南曲) in which plays were written and performed in the dramatic form of chuanqi 傳奇 (lit.: transmit the strange) divided into scenes in which any of the actors could sing (singly or in chorus).17 the Ming, such as the chapter in Zhang Faying 張發穎, Zhongguo xiban shi 中國戲班史 (The history of theatrical troupes in China), rev. ed. (Beijing: Xueyuan chubanshe, 2004), “Mingdai yiban yingye xiban ji qi yingye yanchu huodong” 明代一般營業戲班及其營 業演出活動 (Ordinary professional theatrical troupes in the Ming and their professional performance activities), pp. 109–37, frequently quote fictional works, for want of anything better. 15 Dramatized in the Jin Ping Mei 金瓶梅 when the main male character, Ximen Qing, becomes an official in chapter 30 and is forced to change his relationship with the prostitute, Li Guijie, whose services he has retained but must now visit in the pleasure quarters in disguise. See Tao Muning 陶慕寧, ed., Jin Ping Mei (Beijing; Renmin wenxue, 2000), pp. 32.408–409 (chapter 32, pp. 408–409), and David Tod Roy, tr., The Plum in the Golden Vase or Chin P’ing Mei, 5 vols. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993–2013), 2: 32.245–48. On Ming prohibitions against officials patronizing sing-song girls and actors, see He Lianghao 何良昊, Shiqing ernü: Jin Ping Mei yu minsu wenhua 世情兒女: 金瓶梅 與民俗文化 (Worldly lovers: The Jin Ping Mei and popular culture; Harbin: Heilongjiang renmin, 2003), p. 97. 16 For a brief introduction, see Stephen H. West, “Tsa-chü,” in William H. Nienhauser, Jr., ed., The Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature, 2 vols. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986–1998), 1: 774–83. For the zaju repertoire, see Zhuang Yifu 莊一拂, Gudian xiqu cunmu huikao 古典戲曲存目彙考 (Collected research into the known repertoire of classical Chinese drama; Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 1982), pp. 141–370 (Yuan dynasty), 371–535 (Ming dynasty), 535–680 (anonymous Yuan-Ming plays not precisely datable), 681–818 (Qing dynasty), and 1725–52 (recent [ jindai 近代; 1840–1911] plays including some zaju). 17 For a brief introduction, see Cyril Birch, “Ch’uan-ch’i,” in Nienhauser, ed., Indiana Companion, 2: 353–56. For the chuanqi repertoire, see Zhuang Yifu, Gudian xiqu cunmu huikao, pp. 819–1131 (Ming dynasty), 1133–1516 (Qing dynasty), 1517–1723 (anonymous Ming-Qing works not precisely datable to either dynasty), and 1725–52 (recent plays including some chuanqi). The most detailed bibliography of chuanqi plays is Guo Yingde 郭英德, Ming Qing chuanqi zonglu 明清傳奇總錄 (Complete record of Ming and Qing chuanqi plays;

Introduction

7

In the Ming, public performances of standard zaju declined and it became a genre performed primarily at the imperial court and the palaces of imperial princes or moved off the stage entirely as new works classified as zaju increasingly came to belong to the category of “closet drama” or “plays for the scholar’s desk” (antou zhi ju 案頭之劇). These did not follow the originally rather strict rules for zaju composition and performance. The formidable lengths of chuanqi plays (averaging from twenty to forty scenes)18 and the large number of characters that appear in them would seem to require large troupes to perform them, but the truth was that except for the two major roles, played by the male and female leads (sheng 生 and dan 旦, respectively), the scenes were carefully laid out so that the minor roles could be played by a limited number of less important actors who would perform different characters in different scenes of the same play. A whole play could be performed by a troupe of twelve actors or less.19 But to watch an entire play was quite a commitment of time (it was typical to spread the performance of an entire chuanqi play over two days), and before too long, it became the practice for a program to include only selected highlight scenes (zhezi xi 折子戲)

Shijiazhuang: Hebei jiaoyu, 1997), 1260 pp. (the information for 1821–1911 is covered in a brief appendix, pp. 1195–1217). There was a more rustic or vulgar form of southern drama known as nanxi 南戲 (lit.: southern plays) or xiwen 戲文 (lit.: play text) that eventually gave way to the more elegant and literary chuanqi form under the increasing influence of literati playwrights and elite patronage. For the known repertoire of this earlier genre, see Zhuang Yifu, Gudian xiqu cunmu huikao, pp. 1–91 (Song and Yuan dynasties), and 93–139 (early Ming dynasty). 18 Guo Yingde 郭英德, Ming Qing chuanqi shi 明清傳奇史 (History of Ming and Qing dynasty chuanqi; Nanjing: Jiangsu guji, 1999), p. 330, presents in three charts figures on the length of chuanqi plays in the three main periods of its dominance as a theatrical form (1465–1586, 1587–1651, and 1652–1718). He divides the plays into six categories: (1) 51 scenes or above in length, (2) 40–50 scenes, (3) 31–39 scenes, (4) 20–30 scenes, (5) 13–19 scenes, and (6) 12 and under scenes. Although there is a pronounced decline in the average length of the plays, with a majority of plays in the third period now in the 20–30 scene category, for all three periods combined the average is closer to 31–39 scenes. The 1999 “complete” (excepting that two scenes were not acted out by actors and other scenes were abridged) performance of the 55-scene Mudan ting 牡丹亭 (The peony pavilion) at Lincoln Center took more than eighteen hours. 19 Qi Rushan 齊如山, Jingju zhi bianqian 京劇之變遷 (Changes in Jingju), pp. 26b–27a (Qi Rushan quanji, 2: 864–65), notes that “formerly the number of actors in a troupe was quite few, a full-fledged private Kunqu troupe would have no more than a little over ten people” 從前戲班腳色甚少, 真正私家崑曲班不過十餘人. The troupes run by wealthy salt merchants in Yangzhou, however, could be significantly larger. See Ding Xiuxun 丁修詢, Kunqu biaoyan xue 崑曲表演學 (The discipline of Kunqu performance; Nanjing: Jiangsu fenghuang jiaoyu, 2014), p. 145.

8

Introduction

from a number of different plays.20 Li Yu 李漁 (1611–1680), author of the most practical manual on how to write chuanqi plays ever written,21 urged authors to write shorter plays so that they could be performed in their entirety,22 but his call fell on deaf ears. In any case, performing only selected scenes represented less of a burden on the very young actors (predominantly female) who formed most of the private troupes,23 and also allowed actors who did not perform sheng and dan roles a chance to shine.24 The imperial court, of course, could mobilize vast resources for their productions, many of which involved hundreds of performers doing different things at the same time on threetiered stages.25

20

Zeng Yongyi 曾永義, “Zhezi xi zhi ming shi yu Zhonggong jianguo zhi chu” 折子戲之名 始於中共建國之初 (The term zhezi xi began to be used in the beginning years of the founding of the PRC by the Communist Party), in his Xiqu zhi yasu, zhezi, liupai 戲曲之 雅俗, 折子, 流派 (Refined versus vulgar, extracted scenes, and schools of performance in indigenous Chinese theater; Taibei: Guojia chubanshe, 2009), pp. 334–37, points out that zhezi xi was not a term in wide use before 1949. Li Hui 李慧, “Zhezi xi yanjiu” 折子戲研究 (A study of zhezi xi), doctoral thesis, Xiamen University, 2008, pp. 17–18, provides a chart of older ways that the basic concept of zhezi xi was expressed. Recently, Dongshin Zhang, “Borrowing the Fan: An Example of Actable Plays (Zhezixi) for the Kunqu Stage,” Asian Theatre Journal 34.2 (Fall 2017): 259–83, as the title of the article shows, has proposed translating zhezi xi as “actable plays.” This implies that the other scenes in a chuanqi were not actable, which would certainly not be true. Another problem is that the performance practice(s) for some zhezi xi has been lost and they are no longer “actable” in the same ways as those that have been more fortunate. Yet another problem when it comes to dealing with this term is that it is quite often used to refer to shorter plays that do not originally derive from scenes from longer plays. 21 Represented by the sections on drama in his Xianqing ouji 閑情偶記 (Random repository of idle thoughts), most of which were eventually extracted and printed together under the title Li Liweng quhua 李笠翁曲話 (Li Yu on drama) in 1925. The best edition available is that edited and annotated by Chen Duo 陳多, Li Liweng quhua 李笠翁渔曲話 (Changsha: Hunan renmin, 1980). 22 Li Yu, Li Liweng quhua, “Suo chang wei duan” 縮長為短 (Shrink the long to make it short), pp. 113–14. 23 See Shen, Elite Theatre, pp. 74–78, on the actual repertoires of one of the best known private troupes (ten plays!). 24 See, for instance, Catherine C. Swatek, Peony Pavilion Onstage: Four Centuries in the Career of a Chinese Drama (Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 2002), p. 249. 25 For a detailed discussion of one of these big productions, see Ye Xiaoqing, “Ascendant Peace in the Four Seas: Tributary Drama and the Macartney Mission of 1793,” Late Imperial China 26.2 (2005): 89–113. This article makes use of the version of a play, whose name is given in the first half of the title of the article, as adapted for performance before Lord Macartney when he met the Qianlong emperor.

Introduction

9

1.2 Yabu vs. Huabu Kunqu was originally only one of four famous southern dramatic singing styles (shengqiang 聲腔) of the Ming dynasty, but the dynasty ended with it possessing the highest level of cultural capital of the four. One of the others, Yiyang 弋陽,26 maintained a certain level of popularity and respect, and these two styles were patronized by the Qing court as the main members of the elegant/ refined division (yabu 雅部) of Chinese theater.27 The inclusion of Yiyang in the yabu is perhaps slightly unexpected, in that its musical accompaniment, comprised solely of percussion, was perceived as fairly crude and primitive, especially in comparison to Kunqu. But the real difference between the yabu and its opposite, the flowery/ornamented28 division (huabu 花部, consisting of up-and-coming local theatrical traditions whose arias were predominantly of the simpler banqiang 板腔 type with lines with equal numbers of characters organized into couplets) was a matter of the literary quality of the scripts. As much as Kunqu and Yiyang sounded very different in performance, the written texts for the arias of Kunqu and Yiyang were very similar and play texts written

26

Named after Yiyang in Jiangxi Province. For a brief introduction, see Li Hanfei, Zhongguo xiqu juzhong shouce, pp. 433–37. 27 On the inclusion of Yiyang in the yabu, see, for instance, Zhou Yude 周育德, “Qianlong monian jin Jing de Huiban—Du ‘Xiaohan xin yong’ suo jian” 乾隆末年進京的徽班—讀 ‘消寒新詠’ 所見 (Anhui troupes entering the capital at the end of the Qianlong reign period—Material gleaned from reading “New verses to while away the cold”), in Jiang Zhi 姜智 et al., eds., Xiqu yishu ershi nian jinian wenji—Xiqu wenxue, xiqu shi yanjiu juan 戲曲藝術二十年紀念文集—戲曲文學, 戲曲史研究卷 (Collected essays commemorating twenty years of Xiqu yishu—Volume on research on traditional theater literature and history; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 2000), p. 347. It is common to forget that Yiyang was also considered to belong to the yabu. Part of the problem might be that Yiyang included both an elegant tradition (as represented in the styles favored in the palace and the mansions of the imperial princes) and a vulgar one. See Dai Hebing 戴和冰, “Yiyang qiang xi shengqiang de ‘ya’ yu ‘su’ ” 弋陽腔系聲腔的 ‘雅’ 與 ‘俗’ (The elegant and vulgar in Yiyang qiang system performance styles), Qingdai Beijing gaoqiang mingshi guanxi yanjiu 清代北京高腔名實關係研究 (Research on name and reality of gaoqiang 高腔 [one of the names that Yiyang went under in Beijing] in Qing dynasty Beijing; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 2008), pp. 100–22. Lu Yingkun, “Luantan, juzhong, difang xi,” pp. 70–71, has rightly cautioned us to remember that the practice of labeling theater as yabu and huabu was something that was largely restricted in the Qing dynasty to the troupes of the wealthy salt merchants of Yangzhou, and had no real currency among the general populace. 28 Hua can also mean “patterned.” Although all of these ways of translating hua seem positive, or at least neutral, it should be kept in mind that literati aesthetics traditionally favored the subtle over the flashy and hua would be categorized with the latter rather than the former.

10

Introduction

for one performance style could easily be adapted for the other.29 Both styles attracted literati playwrights, whereas plays in the huabu genres were, for the longest time, written anonymously. During the Qing, the court and members of the imperial family maintained both Kunqu and Yiyang troupes. Periodic trimming of the size of such troupes for reasons of frugality or at least the appearance of “belt-tightening” sent actors trained in these styles out to more rural settings around Beijing to make their livings. They were the founders of a new northern style of Kunqu more popular and martial in orientation than classical Suzhou-style Kunqu.30 The imperial court and other patrons of southern-style Kunqu in Beijing imported actors (as well as children to train) from Suzhou and Yangzhou in fairly large numbers. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Kangxi (r. 1662–1722) and Qianlong (r. 1736–1795) emperors toured Jiangnan on numerous large-scale inspection tours,31 which brought them into contact with both Kunqu and huabu performers.32 Huabu troupes and performers also came

29 See Zhichaozi 枝巢子 (Xia Renhu 夏仁虎; 1874–1963), Jiujing suoji 舊京瑣記 (Miscellaneous notes on the old capital; Taibei: Chun wenxue, 1970), p. 93, which says: “… although Yiyang’s tunes [yindiao 音調] are different from those of Kunqu, its structure [paichang 排場] and language [ciju 詞句] are for the most part the same….” The text uses an alternate name for Yiyang, Yiqiang 弋腔. Hou Yushan 侯玉山 (1893–1996), whose oral account of his eighty years of performing includes a lot of information on mixed Kunqu and Yiyang (Kun Yi 崑弋) troupes in Hebei and Beijing, recounts a story about how, in the Guangxu reign period (1875–1908) when a private troupe maintained by Prince Chun 醇 親王 (1840–1891) was in the midst of performing a Kunqu play, the prince suddenly had the idea to have the troupe switch over to performing it in Yiyang style, which the troupe was immediately able to do “without changing a single word” (lian yi ge zi dou wei dong 連一個字都未動). See Hou Yushan 侯玉山, dictated, You Meng yiguan bashi nian 優孟 衣冠八十年 (Eighty years as an actor), recorded and edited by Liu Dongsheng 劉東升 (Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 1988), p. 54. 30 In 1918, a northern-style Kunqu troupe, Rongqing She 榮慶社, made a successful entry into Beijing; see Chen Jie 陳潔, Minguo xiqu shi nianpu, 1912–1949 民國戲曲史年 譜, 1912–1949 (Chronological history of xiqu in the Republican era, 1912–1949; Beijing: Wenhua yishu, 2010), p. 41. After some very hard years, its actors became core members of Beifang Kunqu Juyuan 北方崑曲劇院 (Northern Kunqu opera company; commonly abbreviated to Bei Kun 北崑), established in 1957 in Beijing. 31 On these tours, see Michael G. Chang, A Court on Horseback: Imperial Touring and the Construction of the Qing Realm, 1680–1785 (Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2007). 32 Tradition has it that the birth mother of the Jiaqing emperor (r. 1796–1820) was an actress whom the Qianlong emperor met on one of his tours to the south and had brought back to Beijing. See, for instance, Yao Shuyi 么書儀, Wan Qing xiqu de biange 晚清戲曲的變 革 (Changes in xiqu in the late Qing; Beijing: Renmin wenxue, 2006), p. 17.

Introduction

11

to the capital, where commercial theaters were beginning to open, to try their luck. The huabu included many different local performance traditions livelier than Kunqu that were consumed by audiences in a more raucous fashion,33 something that endeared them to some residents of Beijing and made them the object of others’ scorn.34 The huabu genres eventually won out over their yabu rivals, even though (or perhaps precisely because) almost all of the huabu styles were strongly influenced by Kunqu and individual troupes would tend to include Kunqu plays in their performance programs or perform plays in local genres that included Kunqu arias. The popularity of Kunqu dropped so low in the commercial theaters that performance of individual Kunqu plays in a program would be taken as an opportunity to leave one’s seat and go to the bathroom.35 A character in a scene set in the nineteenth century, from a novel that is often cited as if it was an historical work, lists several reasons for Kunqu’s decline: it’s too old; ordinary people (suren 俗人) don’t understand it (ting bu dong 聽不懂); Kunqu is not commercially viable in the public theaters; and (4) whereas in the Ming dynasty wealthy people maintained their own troupes, during the present dynasty (the Qing), in which frugality ( jianjie 儉 節) has become the watchword, private troupes have gone out of fashion, leaving only those of the emperor (neifu 內府) and the princes (wangfu 王府).36 33

Luo Di 洛地 quotes material to the effect that yelling appreciation (hecai 喝彩) was not regularly done during performances of Kunqu; if such sounds came from an audience it was a sign that something had gone wrong on stage. See Luo Di 洛地, “Kun—ju • qu • chang—ban” 崑—劇 • 曲 • 唱—班 (Kunqu and theater, arias, singing and troupes), Minsu quyi 民俗曲藝 (Journal of Chinese Ritual, Theatre and Folklore) 136 (2002): 187. 34 Kong Shangren 孔尚任 (1648–1718), author of one of the last “masterpieces” of chuanqi drama, Taohua shan 桃花扇 (Peach blossom fan), discussing the dialogue and jokes (dahun 打諢) therein in item 11 of his fanli 凡例 (editorial principles) for the play, wrote: “I would rather not be popular [tongsu 通俗] than harm refinement [ya 雅].” See Kong Shangren 孔尚任, Taohua shan 桃花扇 (Taiwan: Xuehai chubanshe, 1981), p. 12. 35 Supposedly, Kunqu got so unpopular that “when the dizi 笛子 [the main accompanying instrument of Kunqu] sounded, everyone would leave their seats and flock to the toilet” 笛聲一起, 聽著紛紛離座如廁, and Kunqu was given as a nickname the name of a drug used to stimulate urination (cheqianzi 車前子). See the item titled “Yang Xiaolou zhi Kunqu wuxi” 楊小樓之昆曲武戲 (Yang Xiaolou’s Kunqu martial plays) in He Shixi 何 時稀, “Liyuan jiuwen” 梨園舊聞 (Anecdotes about theater), reprinted in Jingju tanwang lu sanbian 京劇談往錄三編 (Records of talks about the past of Jingju, third volume; Beijing: Beijing chubanshe, 1990), p. 505. 36 For a 1794 edict banning officials from maintaining (yang 養) their own actors, see Wang Liqi 王利器, comp., Yuan Ming Qing sandai jinhui xiaoshuo xiqu shiliao 元明清三代禁 毀小說戲曲史料 (Historical materials on the prohibition and suppression of fiction and drama in the three dynasties of the Yuan, Ming, and Qing), enlarged ed. (Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 1981), pp. 53–54.

12

Introduction

The character he is talking with points out how the Taiping Rebellion has cut off communication between north and south (nanbei dao zu bu tong 南北道阻 不通) as another reason.37 Although Kunqu was influenced by northern standard Chinese, especially in the case of the arias and more dignified speech by characters of high status or education,38 lower status roles were performed using a form of the local dialect of Suzhou (referred to as Subai 蘇白 in Kunqu circles). Southern speech and southern women were considered both very beautiful and very feminine,39 but northerners such as the emperors and other members of the imperial house had some difficulty understanding parts of plays performed in the Kunqu style. The preparation of palace editions (andian ben 安殿本) of plays performed at the palace that could be consulted during a performance probably helped somewhat, but the use of southern dialect in Kunqu plays prompted the Qianlong emperor to issue an edict making actors use Mandarin in performance.40 An important huabu actor who predated Jingju is Wei Changsheng 魏長生 (1744–1802), who became a sensation upon entering the capital in 1779. He was 37

Pan Jingfu 潘鏡芙 and Chen Moxiang 陳墨香, Liyuan waishi 梨園外史 (Unofficial history of the theater; Beijing: Baowen tang shidian, 1989), p. 7.92 (chapter 7, p. 92). Chen Moxiang (1884–1942) was an amateur performer of Jingju who wrote or adapted more than 100 Jingju playscripts who will be featured in chapter 5. Scholars quoting Liyuan waishi as an historical source include Yao Shuyi, Wan Qing xiqu de biange, pp. 245, 262, and 267; Wang Zhengyao 王政堯, “Liu Gansan” 劉趕三, Beijing shehui kexue 北京社會 科學 (Beijing Social Sciences) 2003.3: 121; and Ye Xiaoqing, “The Legal and Social Status of Theatrical Performers in Beijing during the Qing,” East Asian History 25–26 (2003): 79–80 (where it is not even pointed out that this is a work of fiction). Chen also published “Guanju shenghuo sumiao” 觀劇生活素描 (Sketches from my life of watching plays), in Juxue yuekan 劇學月刊 (Theater studies monthly), in installments from issue 2.3 (March 1933) to 3.8 (August 1934); the first nine parts are reprinted as an appendix to Liyuan waishi, pp. 371–520, and will be cited frequently below. 38 See Yang Zhenqi 楊振淇, “Kunju yu Zhongzhou yun” 崑劇與中州韻 (Kunqu and the rhymes of the central plain), in Jiang Zhi et al., eds., Xiqu yishu ershi nian jinian wenji: Xiqu wenxue, pp. 627–39. 39 Kunqu itself is often considered to be more “feminine” than plays in the huabu traditions. Wang Limei 王麗梅, “Mansheng yerong: Kunqu biaoyan nanxing hua guifan” 曼聲冶 容: 崑曲表演男性化規範 (Drawn out arias and luscious beauty: The standard of masculinization of Kunqu), Xiqu yishu 戲曲藝術 (Indigenous Chinese theater arts) 2006.2: 25–27. Wang (p. 26) speaks of Kunqu as having “clear feminine characteristics” 明顯的 女性化特徵 that she associates with its patronage by literati. She also claims that the “softly fetching and clinging aesthetics” 柔媚纏綿之美 of Kunqu music were well suited to courtesans. 40 Yan Quanyi 顏全毅, Qingdai Jingju wenxue shi 清代京劇文學史 (A history of Jingju as literature in the Qing dynasty; Beijing: Beijing chubanshe, 2005), p. 178.

Introduction

13

trained to perform Qinqiang 秦腔, an older huabu tradition that belongs to the larger category of plays that use a wooden sounding block (bangzi 梆子) to keep time, hence known as bangzi plays (bangzi xi 梆子戲).41 Such plays make less use of qupai arias and received less influence from southern styles of theater that emphasized them more than most of the huabu theater traditions;42 their singing styles are known for both their intensity and power (haofang 豪 放) and their crudeness (cukuang 粗獷).43 Wei Changsheng was a huadan 花旦 (flowery/patterned dan) actor and would play women of comparatively loose morals. He is reportedly responsible for developing techniques whereby male actors improved their ability to imitate women, such as new ways of imitating women’s hairstyles and bound feet (the latter involving walking on small wooden stilts [qiao 蹺] strapped to their feet).44 Wei’s acting was far more explicit than was the norm for Kunqu. Rumor has it that he became the lover of one of the most powerful men of the time, Heshen 和珅 (1746–1799),45 himself the male favorite of the Qianlong emperor. But in 1785, an edict from that same emperor specifically prohibited the performance of Qinqiang46 and Wei Changsheng was forced to leave the capital. He returned in 1800 a changed man who would now perform women of more chaste character.47 1.3 Anhui Troupes in Beijing: Mixing Performance Styles Both the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors were great patrons of traditional theater who, as part of the celebration of important anniversaries and birthdays, 41

Unfortunately, it has become standard to translate bangzi 梆子, when it occurs in compounds related to these performance traditions, as “clapper,” and to speak of them as “clapper opera.” This makes no sense, since bangzi refers to a sounding block (bangzi) and not a clapper (ban 板). 42 Yan Quanyi, Qingdai Jingju wenxue shi, pp. 44–45. 43 Guo Jingrui 郭精銳, Chewang fu quben yu Jingju de xingcheng 車王府曲本與京劇的形 成 (The Prince Che collection of plays and the development of Jingju; Shantou: Shantou daxue, 1999), p. 81. 44 See, for instance, Yang Maojian 楊懋建 (1808–c. 1856), Menghua suobu 夢華瑣簿 (A disparate register of a dream of splendor), in Zhang Cixi 張次溪, ed., Qingdai Yandu liyuan shiliao 清代燕都梨園史料 (Qing dynasty historical material on the theater in Beijing; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 1988), p. 356. 45 See Zhang Jiliang 張際亮, Jintai can lei ji 金臺殘淚記 (Record of the leftover tears over the golden stage; 1828), in Zhang Cixi, ed., Qingdai Yandu liyuan shiliao, p. 251, second item. 46 See Ding Ruqin 丁汝芹, “Sheji Qinggong yu xiju de wushu” 涉及清宮與戲劇的誤述 (Mistakes in accounts concerning the Qing court and theater), Yitan 藝壇 (Arts forum) 4 (2006): 163. Ding adds, p. 164, that the Qianlong emperor was not originally against huabu performances. 47 For his return to Beijing, see Guo Jingrui, Chewang fu quben yu Jingju de xingcheng, p. 83.

14

Introduction

brought scores of theater troupes from other parts of the empire (particularly Jiangnan) to perform on the streets of the capital along the imperial procession routes. Some date the birth of Jingju to 1790 because of the arrival in the capital for the 80th birthday celebration for the Qianlong emperor that year of the Sanqing Ban 三慶班 (lit.: Three celebrations troupe), the first “Anhui troupe” (Huiban 徽班) to go up to the capital.48 It is true that the Sanqing Troupe continued to perform in Beijing until after the turn of the twentieth century, and clearly was one of the major Jingju troupes later, but that does not mean that what they performed on arrival can be called Jingju. What does it mean to say that a troupe is an “Anhui troupe”? The home headquarters of Sanqing before it moved to Beijing in 1790 was actually Hangzhou, in modern Zhejiang Province and not Anhui; moreover, in all of the “Four Great Anhui Troupes” (si da Huiban 四大徽班) of which Sanqing was one,49 actors whose native place was Suzhou outnumbered those from Anhui.50 Each of the four troupes (all of which would later perform Jingju) was different from the others, in terms of where their members came from and which kinds of singing styles they specialized in.51 But the association of these troupes with 48

For instance, Colin Mackerras, author of the first scholarly book on Jingju in English, The Rise of Peking Opera, 1770–1870: Social Aspects of the Theatre in Manchu China (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972), still accepted 1790 as the birth date of Jingju in his Peking Opera (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 1. 49 The three other troupes are named Sixi 四喜 (Four happinesses), Hechun 和春 (Mild spring), and Chuntai 春臺 (Spring terrace). Unlike the other three, which moved to Beijing, Hechun was created in Beijing. See Yan Quanyi, Qingdai Jingju wenxue shi, p. 35. 50 Tao Xiong 陶雄, “ ‘He’—Cong Huiban xiang Jingju shanbian zhi lu” ‘合’—從徽班向京劇 嬗變之路 (‘Amalgamation’—The road of transformation from Anhui troupes to Jingju), in Zhengqu Jingju yishu de xin fanrong: Jinian Huiban jin Jing erbai zhounian zhenxing Jingju xueshu yantao hui wenji 爭取京劇藝術的新繁榮: 紀念徽班進京二百周年振 興京劇學術研討會文集 (Striving for a new flourishing of the art of Jingju: Collected papers from the academic conference on the 200th anniversary of the entry of an Anhui troupe into Beijing; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 1992), pp. 192 and 194. 51 See Wang Jun 王俊 and Fang Guangcheng 方光誠, “Li Cuiguan, Mi Yingxian, Yu Sansheng” 李翠官, 米應先, 余三勝, in Zhengqu Jingju yishu de xin fanrong, p. 219, where Hechun is presented as a Yangzhou troupe, Chuntai as a Hubei troupe, Sixi as a Suzhou troupe, and Sanqing as an Anhui troupe. Their “tunes” (diao 調) and “performance styles” (pai 派) are described as all differing from each other. Yang Maojian, Menghua suobu, p. 352, famously records that Sixi was known for its songs (quzi 曲子) or performance of Kunqu, Sanqing for its major plays (zhouzi 軸子), Hechun for its military plays (bazi 把子), and Chuntai for its young actors (haizi 孩子). For an explanation of the ways the four troupes are characterized as being different from each other, see Qi Rushan 齊如山, Tongzhi hou wushi nianjian Beiping hengyan jumu 同治後五十年間北平恆演劇目 (The regularly performed repertoire of the fifty years since the Tongzhi period), “Zixu” 自序 (Author’s preface), p. 4 (Qi Rushan quanji, 4: 2564).

Introduction

15

Anhui, whatever the exact relationship in each case, is important. In the Ming and Qing dynasties, Anhui became renowned for the ability of Anhui families to pursue diversified economic strategies, with some members of even official families going into trade. Anhui merchants became famous, and like Suzhou exam candidates and officials carried “their” opera with them wherever they went.52 Like Jingju later on, Anhui troupes did not perform just one singing style (shengqiang).53 Although they performed a fair number of Kunqu plays, even in the late Ming they performed the kind of martial acrobatics that Kunqu generally lacked.54 What these troupes performed that other troupes did not was Huixi 徽戲 (Anhui plays) and particular to the performance of those plays were a number of singing styles known collectively as Huidiao 徽調 (Anhui tunes). These included chuiqiang 吹腔 (lit.: blow singing) and gao bozi 高撥 子, a local banqiang style influenced by the bangzi style of singing and sharing some the latter’s qualities. Later two more banqiang styles were added, Siping diao 四平調 (Siping tunes) and erhuang 二簧.55 Jingju makes use of all four of

52 On Anhui merchants and theater, see Qitao Guo, Ritual Opera and Mercantile Lineage: The Confucian Transformation of Popular Culture in Late Imperial Huizhou (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005). For a study of the influence of Huizhou merchants on performance traditions of one particular play, see Tanaka Issei, “A Study on P’i-p’a chi in Hui-chou Drama—Formation of Local Plays in Ming and Ch’ing Eras and Hsin-an Merchants,” Acta Asiatica 32 (1972): 31–72. 53 Chinese theatrical performances in which more than one performance type or style is used, and those elements are quite separate from each other (at the level of different plays on the same program, or different scenes or sequences in the same play), were described as feng jiao xue 風攪雪 (wind mixed with snowflakes) or liang xia guo 兩下鍋 (two things into the wok at once). See Pan Xiafeng 潘俠鳳, “ ‘Liang xia guo’ ‘feng jiao xue’ zhide shi shenma?” ‘兩下鍋’ ‘風攪雪’ 指的是甚麼? (What do ‘liang xia guo’ and ‘feng jiao xue’ mean?), Jingju yishu wenda 京劇藝術問答 (Questions and answers on the art of Jingju; Beijing: Wenhua yishu, 1987), p. 344. 54 Tao Xiong 陶雄, “ ‘He’—Cong Huiban xiang Jingju shanbian zhi lu,” p. 206. Yan Quanyi, Qingdai Jingju wenxue shi, p. 56, points out that because of their ability to put on military plays, Anhui troupes were called wuban 武班 (martial troupes). 55 See Tao Xiong, “ ‘He’—Cong Huiban xiang Jingju shanbian zhi lu,” p. 192, and Tan Wei 譚 偉, “Lüelun cong Huixi dao Jingju de deshi” 略論從徽戲到京劇的得失 (Cursory comments on the failures and successes in the development from Anhui plays to Jingju), in Zhengqu Jingju yishu de xin fanrong, pp. 293–94. Tan Wei uses evidence from the Wuju 婺 劇 tradition in Jinhua, Zhejiang, one of the last places where there is a professional troupe that uses Huidiao. On Siping (a place name), see Zeng Yongyi 曾永義, Xiqu qiangdiao xintan 戲曲腔調新探 (A new investigation into the musical systems of xiqu; Beijing: Wenhua yishu, 2009), pp. 334–50.

16

Introduction

these performance styles, particularly erhuang.56 This latter term was also used to refer to Jingju, as was also the case with Huidiao.57 The Anhui troupes were both daring and expansive when it came to absorbing outside influences. In Beijing they borrowed from the Kunqu, bangzi, and Jingqiang 京腔 troupes performing there. Jingqiang developed in Beijing from Yiyang and flourished in the Qianlong reign period. It used only percussion music and offstage choruses (bangqiang 幫腔), as did Yiyang, and though once popular has long been extinct.58 1.4 From Luantan to (Xipi plus Erhuang equals) Pihuang Except for the Kunqu pieces they would perform (some of the Anhui troupes were particularly known for them) and Yiyang plays (both use qupai), the other traditions the Anhui troupes performed (most of which used banqiang or very simple qupai systems) fall into the category of huabu and were also referred to by a relatively new term, luantan 亂彈 (lit.: sloppy plucking). That term stressed the importance of stringed instruments in the troupes’ orchestras, as opposed to the reliance on the dizi 笛子 (horizontal bamboo flute) in Kunqu and the lack of melodic instruments in Yiyang. Both huabu and luantan were generally

56

There has been a lot of debate about the origin of the term erhuang (often written as 二 黃). Advocates of omitting the bamboo radical on top of the character argue that erhuang referred to two place names in Hubei that begin with the character “huang” meaning yellow: Huanggang 黃岡 and Huangpi 黃陂. On how that theory has been discredited, see Ma Shaobo 馬少波 et al., Zhongguo Jingju shi 中國京劇史 (The history of Chinese Jingju), 3 vols. (Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 1990–2000), 3: 1122. Hai Zhen 海震, in his doctoral dissertation and in numerous articles, has argued that for the earliest period in particular, huang with the bamboo radical is correct and the character was a synonym for huqin 胡琴 (spike fiddle), the main accompanying instrument of Jingju. For details, see, for instance, Hai Zhen 海震, “ ‘Erhuang’ chuyi ji erhuang qiang xingcheng bianxi” ‘二簧’ 初義及二簧 腔形成辨析 (On the original meaning of erhuang and the formation of the erhuang style of singing), in Du Changsheng 杜長勝, ed., Jingju de lishi, xianzhuang yu weilai: “Jingju de lishi, xianzhuang yu weilai ji Jingju xue xueke jianshe xueshu yantao hui” lunwen ji 京 劇的歷史, 現狀與未來: ‘京劇的歷史, 現狀與未來暨京劇學學科建設學術研討 會’ 論文集 (The history, present situation, and future of Jingju: Collected essays from the ‘Academic conference on the history, present situation, and future of Jingju, and the establishment of the discipline of Jingju-ology’; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 2006), pp. 223–33. 57 For example, item 4 of the “editorial principles” (“li” 例) of Wang Mengsheng 王夢生, Liyuan jiahua 梨園佳話 (Notable theatrical anecdotes; Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1915), stipulates that the book is about Huidiao, but glosses the term as pihuang 皮黃, one term used to refer to Jingju (see the next section below). 58 For a description of Jingqiang in English, see Mackerras, The Rise of Peking Opera, pp. 89–91.

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17

used as derogatory terms59 intended to set these styles off from the yabu styles supported by the imperial house and conservative cultural elites. According to Lu Yingkun 路應昆 and Hai Zhen 海震, in its broadest meaning luantan was used to refer to any non-yabu style of dramatic performance, while in more narrow usage it referred to bangzi performance styles and traditions heavily influenced by them.60 By the end of the Tongzhi reign period (1862–1874) and the beginning of the Guangxu reign period (1875–1908), luantan had come to mean specifically Jingju.61 Palace performances were controlled by an office run by eunuchs originally known as the Nanfu 南府, subsequently superseded by a new organization, the Shengpingshu 昇平署, in 1827. The earliest performance of a play in the palace labeled as luantan is dated to 1825.62 At that time, palace performances were put on by eunuchs (neixue 內學) taught to perform plays by performers and teachers brought in from outside (waixue 外學).63 Late in the nineteenth century, Empress Dowager Cixi 慈禧 (1835–1908) first decided to organize her own troupe of eunuch performers (1879),64 then found a way to bring in individual performers (1883), and then even entire troupes (1893). Although Cixi is primarily known as a fervent supporter of Jingju, she also had bangzi troupes brought into the palace for performances.65

59 For a dissenting opinion on whether luantan was originally meant to be derogatory in tone, see Guo Jingrui, Chewang fu quben yu Jingju de xingcheng, pp. 75–76. 60 Lu Yingkun 路應昆 and Hai Zhen 海震, Changjiang xiqu 長江戲曲 ([Middle] Yangzi theater: Wuhan: Hubei jiaoyu, 2005), p. 220. 61 Zhu Jiajin 朱家溍, “Xu” 序 (Preface), in Beijing tushu guan cang Shengpingshu xiqu renwu huace 北京圖書館藏昇平署戲曲人物畫冊 (Albums of paintings of theater characters from the Shengpingshu in the collection of the Beijing Library; Beijing: Beijing tushu guan, 1997), p. 1. 62 See Ding Ruqin 丁汝芹, “Pihuang xi de ‘Jinghua’ ” 皮黃戲的 ‘京化’ (The ‘Beijingization’ of pihuang plays), in Zhengqu Jingju yishu de xin fanrong, p. 246. 63 Qi Rushan 齊如山, “Tan Shengpingshu waixue jiaose” 談昇平署外學腳色 (On outside performers brought in to perform in the palace in the Shengpingshu), Xiju congkan 戲劇 叢刊 (Collected publications on theater) 3 (December 1932): 1a–4a (separate pagination), p. 4a, lists the four acronyms for theater personnel in the palace after Empress Dowager Cixi’s changes: waiban 外班 (troupes brought in from outside), waixue 外學 (famous actors from outside brought in to perform), Nanfu 南府 (palace eunuchs), and benjia 本 家 (Cixi’s own eunuch troupe). 64 On this troupe see You Fukai 游富凱, “Wan Qing gongting jutuan ‘Putian tongqing ban’ yanjiu” 晚清宮廷劇團 ‘普天同慶班’ 研究 (A study of the late Qing palace troupe “Universal Celebration”), master’s thesis, Taibei National University of the Arts, 2010. 65 Yao Shuyi, Wan Qing xiqu de biange, pp. 42–43, lists eleven bangzi troupes that were brought into the palace for performances.

18

Introduction

Among the plays labelled as luantan in 1825, Zhu Jiajin 朱家溍 (1914–2003) has identified one as a xipi 西皮 (lit.: western skin) play.66 Xipi is, along with erhuang, one of the two major musical systems of Jingju. Erhuang was so important to Jingju that, according to Yan Quanyi 顏全毅, it became the earliest name for Jingju as a [separate] type of play.67 Proto-Jingju troupes began to perform both xipi and erhuang tunes, at first in plays devoted to either style and then to plays that featured both. These troupes could be called pihuang troupes and their performance styles pihuang, borrowing the second characters of the names for each of these musical systems.68 Both xipi and erhuang had their own audience bases and appeal. By combining the two, Jingju greatly increased its audience. While it is not the only type of Chinese theater to combine different musical modes this way,69 it was the 66 67

68

69

Yan Quanyi, Qingdai Jingju wenxue shi, pp. 384–85. Yan Quanyi, Qingdai Jingju wenxue shi, p. 38. Jingju was also called Huangqiang 黃腔, an abbreviation of erhuang qiang 二黃腔. For an example of this kind of usage, see the preface to the cichang 詞場 (theater) section of Dumen jilüe 都門紀略 (Concise record of the capital), which appeared in the first edition (1845) and was reprinted in later ones as well. For the 1845 version see Fu Jin 傅謹, ed., Jingju lishi wenxian huibian: Qingdai juan 京劇 歷史文獻彙編: 清代卷 (Collected historical material on Jingju; Qing dynasty section), 10 vols. (Nanjing: Fenghuang chubanshe, 2010), 2: 907–908. In a novel serialized from 1928–1931 and widely regarded as accurate in its portrayal of Beijing at the end of the Qing dynasty and the beginning of the Republic, a character depicted as knowledgeable about such matters explains to another character from out of town who thinks erhuang refers only to erhuang: “Elder brother is mistaken. In our Beijing, when we speak of erhuang we are including xipi; erhuang is a general term” 老兄誤會了. 我們大城裡邊, 說二黃就包 括西皮在內, 二黃是個總名. The novel is Xu Lingxiao’s 徐凌霄 (1886–1961), Gucheng fanzhao ji 古城返照記 (Record of sunset in the old city). Extensive sections of the novel were reproduced in the periodical Zhonghua xiqu 中華戲曲 (Chinese theater). This particular segment is reproduced in the sixth installment, issue 27 (2002): 175–230 (for the quoted passage see p. 206). See below for more on this novel and its author. It took a while for the term pihuang to catch on. Xu Lingxiao 徐凌霄 used it in the title of a book of his, Pihuang wenxue yanjiu 皮黃文學研究 (Studies in the literature of pihuang; Beiping: Zhongguo xiqu yinyue yuan yanjiu suo, 1936). But he claimed (pp. 25–26) that the people of Beijing only talk about erhuang troupes and don’t speak of pihuang troupes, the latter term being something only writers for newspapers and journals began to use in the last twenty years, and that since there are different kinds of pihuang genres, you still need to distinguish between Jingchao pai 京朝派 (Beijing-style) pihuang and such things as Guangdong pihuang (i.e., Cantonese opera) and Handiao 漢調 (pp. 25–26). According to Ding Ruqin, “Pihuang xi de ‘Jinghua,’ ” p. 244, there are over twenty types of traditional Chinese theater that combine xipi and erhuang. Yu Zhibin 于質彬, Nanbei pihuang xi shishu 南北皮黃戲史述 (Historical account of pihuang plays north and south; Hefei: Huangshan shushe, 1994), pp. 321–32, provides a chart of fifty-five different pihuang traditions, with information on each as to alternate names, most important musical systems, geographical spread, and when pihuang tunes first began to be sung. Liu Zengfu 劉曾復 “Yi tingxi yu xuexi” 憶聽戲與學戲 (Remembering listening to and

Introduction

19

most successful and best known. Xipi and erhuang are considered to have their own emotional colors, with xipi more suited to martial themes and erhuang to tragic ones.70 The plays that were core to the xipi and erhuang repertoires were also different, with most of the xipi plays deriving from plays in the bangzi tradition and the erhuang plays more likely to be adaptations of Ming and Qing chuanqi plays.71 Jingju also incorporated a number of plays with minor musical systems that do not belong to either xipi or erhuang, and that constitute a separate part of the Jingju repertoire.72 Once the Anhui troupes were settled in Beijing, a new influence on their music and repertoire came from Hanju 漢劇 (Wuhan opera) actors who came to the capital. Hanju was also known as Handiao 漢調, Chuqu 楚曲, or Chudiao 楚調. Han and Chu are ways to refer to the Wuhan area, and qu and diao both mean “song” or “tune.” While there are arguments about whether Huidiao or Handiao versions of xipi or erhuang were more important in the formation of Jingju, the chronological sequence is clear. Of the three laosheng 老生 (older, mature male role) actors generally considered fundamental to the formation of Jingju, one of them, Yu Sansheng 余三勝 (1802–1866), was trained in a Handiao troupe in Hubei and was pretty famous even before he arrived in Beijing as early as 1832. He quickly became the star performer for the Chuntai 春臺 Troupe and greatly expanded their repertoire with Handiao plays.73 Yu Sansheng is recognized as starting, and Tan Xinpei 譚鑫培 (1847–1917) as accomplishing, the task of melding together three phonetic systems—Zhongzhou yin 中州音 learning plays), in Du Changsheng, ed., Jingju de lishi, xianzhuang yu weilai, p. 183, claims that “everywhere throughout China you can find erhuang, where it is well received, and people are used to listening to it” 全國各地都有二黃, 受人歡迎, 聽得慣. For a comparison of the xipi and erhuang systems of Jingju and Guangdong opera, see Huang Jinpei, “Xipi and Erhuang of Beijing and Guangdong Operas,” Asian Music 20.2 (Spring–Summer 1989): 152–95. At first hearing, these two types of singing seem totally unrelated, but under more careful scrutiny the similarity of the musical structures becomes clear. 70 On this question, Rulan Chao Pian, “Peking Opera,” in Ruth M. Stone, ed., The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, Volume 7: East Asia: China, Japan, and Korea (London: Routledge, 2002), p. 283, says, “For example, xipi melodies are said to be more suitable for lively, cheerful stories, whereas erhuang melodies are more suitable for serious, heroic stories. However, from actual examples, we see that there are many exceptions to such rules.” 71 Lu Yingkun and Hai Zhen, Changjiang xiqu, p. 310. 72 See, for instance, Yan Quanyi, Qingdai Jingju wenxue shi, p. 55. 73 Zhou Xiaoxian 周笑先, “Ban yue Huiban, diao yue Handiao—Qiantan Handiao zai Jingju xingcheng zhong de lishi zuoyong” 班曰徽班調曰漢調—淺談漢調在京劇形成 中的歷史作用 (The troupes are called Anhui troupes, but the tunes are Handiao—A superficial discussion of the historical functions of Handiao in the formation of Jingju), in Zhengqu Jingju yishu de xin fanrong, p. 228.

20

Introduction

(the central plain system of pronunciation), Huguang yin 湖廣音 (Huguang Province system of pronunciation), and that of Beijing—into the unique system of stage pronunciation of Chinese used in Jingju.74 The influence from Handiao in the capital on the Anhui troupes was also important in the process of the change from dizi to huqin as the main accompanying musical instrument, a transition completed by the beginning of the Tongzhi reign period (1862–1874).75 1.5 Beijing and Jingju Of the four possible ways to refer to Jingju or proto-Jingju that we have mentioned, luantan, erhuang, and pihuang all refer to the musical systems for the arias. The fourth, Huiban, refers to the supposed geographical origin of the troupes. After a certain period, the natives of Beijing got used to going to performances of Anhui troupes and would often use terms that stress the scale of the plays and not the musical performance style, the most common being daxi 大戲 (big plays).76 Anhui troupes were much larger than those for most of the other styles of theater performed in the capital and were able to put on simultaneous performances at different venues; actors belonging to the troupes also 74 On Tan Xinpei’s role, see Guo Jingrui, Chewang fu quben yu Jingju de xingcheng, p. 91. Huguang Province is the present-day Wuhan area. 75 See Yan Quanyi, Qingdai Jingju wenxue shi, p. 275. 76 See, for instance, Zhang Guowei 張國威, Ximi yehua 戲迷夜話 (Night talk from a Jingju fanatic; Wuhan: Wuhan chubanshe, 1998), p. 2. This book contains dialogues between a college student and an “old opera fanatic.” Unless otherwise stated, quotations from this book will be of the words of the second character, whom I assume to be modeled closely on the author. In Pan Jingfu and Chen Moxiang, Liyuan waishi, p. 28.339, a character telling an anecdote refers to a performance by the Sanqing Troupe as Sanqing ban de huoren daxi 三慶班的活人大戲 (living actor big play by the Sanqing troupe). As we will see, Chen Moxiang’s later autobiographical novel, Huoren daxi 活人大戲 (Living actor big plays) also uses this way of talking about Jingju. Qi Rushan 齊如山, Guoju mantan 國 劇漫談 (Leisurely talks on national theater; originally published 1954), “Guoju mingci de youlai” 國劇名詞的由來 (Origins of terms for national theater), p. 172 (Qi Rushan quanji, 3: 1650), claimed that “In fact, as for people who lived in Beiping [in this piece he uses Beiping to refer to Beijing even in the Qing dynasty], there were absolutely none who called it Jingxi 京戲 [capital plays] or Pingxi 平戲 [Beiping plays]” 其實在北平居 住的人絕對沒有管他叫京戲或平戲的. See also Goldstein, Drama Kings, p. 2. Outside of Beijing, both Jingju and bangzi were referred to as daxi. See, for example, Siyuan Liu, “A Mixed-Blooded Child, Neither Western nor Eastern: Sinicization of Western Theatre in Rural China in the 1930s,” Asian Theatre Journal 25.2 (Fall 2009): 272–97, p. 277. Che Wenming 車文明, “Zhongguo gudai xitai guizhi yu chuantong xiqu yanchu guimo” 中國 古代戲臺規制與傳統戲曲演出規模 (Premodern Chinese stages and the scale of performances of indigenous theater), Xiju yishu 戲劇藝術 (Theater arts) 2011.1: 13, speaks of how after bangzi matured, it was known everywhere as daxi.

Introduction

21

opened parlors (tangzi 堂子) and trained disciples to engage in the secondary occupation of serving wine and waiting on patrons in their parlors and in restaurants.77 In the tangzi, young actors (known by a number of terms, of which xianggong 相公 was perhaps most common) would perform simple plays or playlets that only needed a small number of characters. In their public performances the Anhui troupes increasingly performed larger scale and more complex plays, many with martial and/or historical themes, a change from the typical dominance of small-scale plays (xiaoxi 小戲) in local drama types of the time.78 Just as you can buy a flavor of ice cream named “New York Ice Cream” in Chicago but not in New York, Jingju was first referred to as a theatrical tradition of the capital not in Beijing but elsewhere. It is well known that the first published reference to Jingju as Jingju occurred in the Shanghai newspaper, Shenbao 申報, in the March 2, 1876 edition.79 Jingju was also once one of a number of theater traditions known as Jingdiao 京調 (Capital tunes) for their association with Beijing. At the end of the Qing dynasty and the beginning of the Republican period, a number of Jingju playscripts were published in Shanghai with the words Jingdiao in their titles.80

77

Yan Quanyi, Qingdai Jingju wenxue shi, p. 33, quotes Wu Zhongshan 伍仲山, in his commentary edition of Suiyuan shihua 隨園詩話 (Poetry talks from Sui Garden), to the effect that each of the Anhui troupes in the capital had no less than one hundred xiaodan 小旦 (this term meant different things at different times, here it refers to actors specializing in less proper but sexually attractive female roles). The disciples in the tangzi tended to be xiaodan. More will be said about this secondary industry below. 78 See, for instance, Yan Quanyi, Qingdai Jingju wenxue shi, pp. 49–50, and Guo Jingrui, Chewang fu quben yu Jingju de xingcheng, p. 13. 79 See the item labeled “Shenbao shoujian Jingju yi ci” 申報首見京劇一詞 (First appearance of the term Jingju in Shenbao), in Cai Shicheng 葉世成, ed., Shenbao Jingju ziliao xuanbian (Fu: Liyuan gongbao ziliao xuan 申報京劇資料選編 (附: 梨園公報資料 選) (Selected material on Jingju from the Shenbao [Appended: Selected material from “Theater Bulletin”]; Shanghai: n.p., 1994), p. 10. This item is also reproduced in Fu Jin, ed., Jingju lishi wenxian huibian: Qingdai juan, 4: 98–99. In his preface to this collection, Fu Jin points out that from the first appearance of the term Jingju in Shenbao all the way to the end of the 19th century, it only appeared four times as a separate term (1: 6). The volume edited by Cai Shicheng has the advantage of giving the volume and page numbers in the photo-reprint of the newspaper published by Shanghai Shudian 上海書店 (1983, 400 vols.). Shenbao is also available in electronic editions, the most complete being that included in the Erudition (Airusheng 愛如生) Zhongguo jindai baokan ku 中國近代報 刊庫 (Database of early modern Chinese newspapers and periodicals). 80 Many examples are reproduced in the Jingju section of Su wenxue congkan 俗文學叢刊 (Collectanea of folk literature), 500 vols. (Taibei: Xin wenfeng, 2001–2005). For an example, see 285: 411–20.

22

Introduction

The use of Jingdiao to refer to Jingju continued at least into the 1920s,81 but the term continued also to refer to other types of theater and never was used exclusively for Jingju. When the Nationalist (Guomindang 國民黨) government established its capital in Nanjing in 1928 and changed the name of Beijing to Beiping, some people began to call Jingju Pingxi 平戲 or Pingju 平劇, both meaning the theater of Beiping. After the retreat of the Nationalists to Taiwan in 1949, both terms continued to be used in Taiwan but not on the Mainland. It took a long time for the troupes themselves to call what they were performing “Jingju.” In 1863, when the Beijing troupes had to re-register with the government after performances were banned during a period of national mourning, the filing by Cheng Changgeng 程長庚 (1811–1880), leader of the Sanqing Troupe, did not specify what type of drama the troupe specialized in. In the same year the Sixi 四喜 Troupe described themselves in the registration documents as performing qinqiang 琴腔,82 but did not identify the type of drama they perform when they registered again in 1877.83 Of the troupe registration material collected by Qi Rushan 齊如山 (1877–1962), in the summary titles for 143 registrations he lists thirty-four as indicating that the troupe was Kunqu, twenty-three Qinqiang, and one qinqiang. There are also nine that only indicate a locality where the style of theater performance originated (eight give Huguang 湖廣 [includes Wuhan], and one indicates Anhui; both might be referring to pihuang indirectly). Only one indicates pihuang specifically.84 Not until the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) established themselves in Yan’an in 81

See, for instance, Xia Yuerun 夏月潤 (1878–1931), Jingdiao gongche zhinan 京調工尺指 南 (A guide to gongche musical notation of Jingju; Shanghai [?]: Dongnan shuju, 1921). Xia Yuerun was a well-known actor based in Shanghai. 82 Zhongguo xiqu quyi cidian 中國戲曲曲藝詞典 (Dictionary of Chinese indigenous theater and oral performing literature; Shanghai: Shanghai cishu, 1981), p. 173, identifies qinqiang with Gansu diao 甘肅調 (Gansu tunes) and takes both as alternate ways to refer to xipi. The qin of qinqiang would usually refer to the literati instrument, the qin-zither, but here it is a shortened way to refer to the huqin. 83 Ding Ruqin, “Pihuang xi de ‘Jinghua,’ ” p. 246. 84 See Qi Rushan 齊如山, Guoju xuehui chenlie guan mulu 國劇學會陳列館目錄 (Catalogue for the exhibition hall at the Association for the Study of National Drama; Beijing: Beiping Guoju Xuehui, 1935), photo-reprinted in Wu Ping 吳平 and Hui Daqiang 回達 強, eds., Lidai xiqu mulu congkan 歷代戲曲目錄叢刊 (Collectanea of lists of Chinese indigenous theater material; Yangzhou: Guangling shushe, 2009), pp. 4935–48. The one that indicates pihuang occurs on p. 4941 and is dated to 1885. The registration documents for that 1885 troupe registration, as given in Fu Jin 傅謹, ed., Jingju lishi wenxian huibian: Qingdai juan xubian 京劇歷史文獻彙編: 清代卷續編 (Collected historical material on Jingju; Qing dynasty section, supplementary volumes), 4 vols. (Nanjing: Fenghuang

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the late 1930s can one find a performance unit that has the word Jingju (or its Republican era substitute, Pingju) in its title.85 The earliest troupe taking up residence in Shanghai to include the word Jingju in its title did not do so until 1949.86 Throughout most of the nineteenth century in Beijing there was a rotation system by which the major troupes took turns putting on four-day sets of performances at the major commercial theaters. In general, spectators went to see individual troupes, not plays or actors. There was a high tolerance for mixing various performance styles in a performances by the same troupe, on the same program or even in the same play.87 From time to time, the imperial government would try to outlaw the performance of entire theatrical traditions in favor of those that it officially supported, but such bans probably only increased the “fuzziness” of the whole situation, since the troupes would make changes in their performance styles or how they presented themselves to evade these bans.88 Regardless of the details, for the imperial period and on into the Republican era, what we notice is that the troupes and actors identified later on as either representing Jingju or its antecedents tend to stake out a middle ground between the rarified and heavily literary tradition of Kunqu, and the coarser, more openly emotional bangzi, while taking care to incorporate whatever was useful from both (either plays or elements of performance). chubanshe, 2013), 3: 225–227, gives the performance style of the troupe as huangqiang 簧 腔 (a synonym of erhuang, which in turn can be a synonym for pihuang). 85 See Huang Jun 黃鈞 and Xu Xibo 徐希博, Jingju wenhua cidian 京劇文化詞典 (Dictionary of Jingju culture; Shanghai: Hanyu da cidian, 2001), p. 642, entry on Yan’an Pingju Yanjiu Yuan 延安平劇研究院 (Yan’an Pingju Institute). 86 See Xu Xingjie 徐幸捷 and Cai Shicheng 蔡世成, eds., Shanghai Jingju zhi 上海京劇志 (A record of Jingju in Shanghai; Shanghai wenhai, 1999), p. 68, entry on Huadong Jingju Tuan 華東京劇團 (East China Jingju Troupe). 87 Dai Yun 戴雲, “‘Liyuan ge ban huaming ce’ de shiliao jiazhi” ‘梨園各班花名冊’ 的史 料價值 (The historical value of official theatrical troupe registration documents), in Du Changsheng 杜長勝, ed., Jingju yu Zhongguo wenhua chuantong: Di’er jie Jingju xue guoji xueshu yantao hui lunwen ji 京劇與中國文化傳統: 第二屆京劇學國際學術研討會 論文集 ( Jingju and Chinese cultural traditions: Collected essays from the second international academic conference on Jingju-ology; Beijing: Wenhua yishu, 2008), p. 302, notes that in the Tongzhi and Guangxu periods, among the plays held in the Shengpingshu, one can find individual playscripts that explicitly indicate which passages should be sung in bangzi and which in pihuang, and the registrations include examples of troupes claiming to perform more than one style (pp. 302–303). 88 Most official prohibitions were aimed at the content of particular plays, but edicts targeting specifically Qinqiang (1785) and Qinqiang, luantan, bangzi, and xiansuo 弦索 (1798) were promulgated. See Guo Jingrui, Chewang fu quben yu Jingju de xingcheng, p. 84.

24

Introduction

As the draw of Kunqu progressively declined, bangzi became the real “local” competition. But it was a competition that Jingju won. While there are many examples of famous Jingju actors who were originally trained to perform bangzi, the most famous being Xun Huisheng 荀慧生 (1900–1968),89 one of the “Four Famous Dan Actors” (si da mingdan 四大名旦) of the Republican period;90 examples of actors going from Jingju to bangzi are rare. Although Jingju had a substantial audience in the countryside, its nineteenth-century form was primarily the product of the special urban environment of the capital city of the Chinese empire, Beijing. The commercial theaters of the city, the cross fertilization of the different types of theater that came into the capital, and imperial patronage under Empress Dowager Cixi were all very important to Jingju’s development. Members of the elite classes and literati not only became part of Jingju’s audience, they also began to exert their influence on the performance and development of Jingju, becoming amateur actors (piaoyou 票友), advisors, and playwrights. While its basically popular (tongsu 通俗) and commercial nature helped Jingju make it to the top of the heap by the end of the nineteenth century, it could not have stayed there if it could not keep elite and literati support. 1.6 Old vs. New Plays, Beijing-Style vs. Shanghai-Style After the turn of the century, traditional Jingju plays became the prime examples of “old plays” ( jiuju 舊劇) that reformers wanted to abandon in favor of “new plays” (xinju 新劇). The main models for these new plays were different conceptions of what Western theater was like, some of which developed in

89 On Xun Huisheng’s training as a bangzi actor and his eventual switch to Jingju, see Ma Shaobo et al., Zhongguo Jingju shi, 2: 659–61. After 1949, Xun partially returned to bangzi, becoming the head of the Hebei Sheng Hebei Bangzi Juyuan 河北省河北梆子劇院 (Hebei Province Hebei bangzi institute), ibid., p. 664. 90 Yao Shuyi 么書儀, Cheng Changgeng, Tan Xinpei, Mei Lanfang—Qingdai Minchu Jingshi xiqu de huihuang 程長庚, 譚鑫培, 梅蘭芳—清代民初京師戲曲的輝煌 (Cheng Changgeng, Tan Xinpei, Mei Lanfang—The flourishing of theater in the capital in the Qing and the beginning of the Republican period: Beijing: Beijing daxue, 2009), p. 304, contrary to the common understanding that the term si da mingdan comes from a 1927 newspaper competition, points out that the term was first used in 1921 in Tianjin to refer to an earlier set of four actors (75% the same as the later one), and did not come to refer to precisely the famous set of four actors as commonly understood until 1930.

Introduction

25

Japan,91 and some of which were influenced by cinema.92 Beginning in 1928, “new plays” would come to be called huaju93 and they would be differentiated from Jingju primarily in terms of whether arias were sung or not.94 Prior to that time, however, the distinction between old and new plays was more one of content than form, with the main experimental variety of theater often referred to as wenming xi 文明戲 (civilized plays) or wenming xinxi 文明新戲 (new civilized plays), a form of theater that involved the frequent participation of Jingju actors singing Jingju arias.95 With the “death” of wenming xi and the rise of huaju (“spoken drama”) as a not particularly popular but valorized form of theater, and the concurrent drying up of experiments in creating new Jingju plays set in modern times with characters wearing modern clothing 91

2007 was celebrated as the 100th anniversary of productions in Japan and then in Shanghai of plays later classified as huaju, although they often contained elements of Jingju. For the dates of the performances, see Zhao Shanlin 趙山林 et al., Jindai Shanghai xiqu xinian chubian 近代上海戲曲繫年初編 (A preliminary yearly chronicle of traditional theater in early modern Shanghai; Shanghai: Shanghai jiaoyu, 2003), pp. 209–10. Westerners had performed “spoken drama” in Shanghai since at least 1866 (see ibid., p. 49), and students at select schools in Shanghai had been staging spoken plays since 1889. See Dietrich Tschanz, “The New Drama Before the New Drama: Drama Journals and Drama Reform in Shanghai Before the May Fourth Movement,” Theatre Insight 10.1 (Spring 1999): 54. On the influence of modernizing forms of Japanese theater (gakusei shibai 學生芝居, shinpa 新 派, xingeki 新劇, etc.) on Chinese theater, see, for instance, Siyuan Liu, “The Impact of Shinpa on Early Chinese Huaju,” Asian Theatre Journal 23.2 (Fall 2006): 342–55. 92 This was particularly the case with Shanghai-style (Haipai 海派) actors such as Zhou Xinfang 周信芳 (stage name Qilin tong 麒麟童, 1895–1975) and Zhang Yingjie 張英傑 (stage name Gai Jiaotian 蓋叫天, 1888–1970). See Hou Shuoping 侯碩平, “Haipai Jingju yu Haipai wenhua” 海派京劇與海派文化 (Shanghai-style Jingju and Shanghai-style culture), in Zhengqu Jingju yishu de xin fanrong, p. 313. 93 The standard line is that Hong Shen 洪深 (1894–1955) coined the term in 1928. Zhang Yifan 張一帆, ‘Juxue’ benwei de queli—20 shiji er sanshi niandai Zhongguo xiju yanjiu fanshi zhi zhuanxing ‘劇學’ 本位的確立—20 世紀二三十年代中國戲劇研究範式之轉 型 (The establishment of ‘the science of theater’—The shift in the model for Chinese theater studies in the 1920s and 1930s; Beijing: Zhongguo renmin daxue, 2015), p. 60 (and elsewhere) argues that Xu Lingxiao used the term publicly months before Hong Shen’s private use at a closed meeting. Siyuan Liu, Performing Hybridity in Colonial-Modern China (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), p. 8, has pointed out that Chen Dabei 陳大 悲 (1887–1944) used the term huaju in an advertisement for a new theater school in 1922. 94 See, for example, Shi Xusheng 施旭升, “ ‘Chang’ yu Zhongguo xiandai xiju de fasheng” ‘唱’ 與中國現代戲劇的發生 (“Singing” and the birth of modern Chinese theater), Nanda xiju luncong 南大戲劇論叢 (Collected papers on theater from Nanjing University) 1 (2014): 111–19. 95 On how the 1907 public performance by Chinese actors of a version of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Heinu yu tian lu 黑奴籲天錄 (Record of a black slave’s cry to heaven) was called a wenming xi and included Jingju singing, see Ma Shaobo et al., Zhongguo Jingju shi, 2: 16–17.

26

Introduction

(shizhuang xi 時裝戲), the main opposition became between huaju and xiqu, with Jingju cited as the most important example of the latter. Most leaders of the May Fourth Movement went on record as being opposed to jiuju, which meant, for all practical purposes, traditional Jingju.96 For many of these critics, Jingju represented all that was wrong with China and how far behind the West China had fallen. This period of flux came largely to an end in Beijing by the late 1920s. The new forms of Jingju developed in Shanghai to meet the special conditions there continued, and became more and more commercial in orientation. More conservative fans of Jingju valorized what they called the “Beijing style of Jingju” ( Jingpai Jingju 京派京劇) and labeled what was going on in Shanghai as the “The Shanghai style of Jingju” (Haipai Jingju 海派京劇).97 Such artificial divisions were constantly crossed by individual performers, of course. Shanghai theaters would invite Beijing star performers down to Shanghai to perform with the theater’s troupe (bandi 班底) for a certain contracted time. In Shanghai, these Beijing actors would be exposed to the practices of not only Shanghai-style Jingju, but also of Western cinema and theater.98 1.7 Becoming National Drama In the late 1920s, under the leadership of Qi Rushan, Jingju was promoted as Guoju 國劇 (the national drama). From 1894–1900, Qi had studied French and German in Beijing and had gone to Europe for business purposes three times, in 1908, 1911, and 1912.99 He says that he became very interested in Western drama, often presenting his trips to Europe as if he had gone on them to do research on Western drama but never writing anything specific about the plays 96 In the famous “drama issue” of the important periodical Xin qingnian 新青年 (New youth), published October 15, 1918, and in articles and letters to the editor before and after that issue, only Zhang Houzai 張厚載 (1895–1955) dares to stick up for Jingju. Much of this material is reproduced in Weng Sizai 翁思再, ed., Jingju congtan bainian lu 京劇 叢談百年錄 (A record of a hundred years of discussion of Jingju; Shijiazhuang: Hebei jiaoyu, 1999), pp. 3–47. 97 The most comprehensive account of Haipai Jingju to date is Qian Jiuyuan 錢久元, Haipai Jingju de aomiao: Qian Jiuyuan boshi lunwen ji juzuo xuan 錢久元海派京劇的奧妙: 錢 九元博士論文及劇作選 (The mystery of Haipai Jingju: Qian Jiuyuan’s doctoral thesis and selected plays; Hefei: Hefei gongye daxue, 2006). 98 Much has been made of the influence that Shanghai had on Mei Lanfang 梅蘭芳 (1894– 1961). He first went on a performance tour there in 1913. 99 See Miao Huaiming 苗懷明, ed., Qi Rushan Guoju luncong 齊如山國劇論叢 (Collected articles by Qi Rushan on Guoju; Beijing: The Commercial Press, 2015), “Qi Rushan xian­ sheng xueshu nianbiao” 齊如山先生學術年表 (Yearly chronicle of the academic activities of Qi Rushan), pp. 501–506.

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27

he saw.100 Upon his sudden return to China in 1912 because of his father’s illness, he began to be taken as an expert on Western theater, giving a talk that year for the actors’ guild in Beijing, which had changed its name with the establishment of the Republic to Zhengyue Yuhua Hui 正樂育化會 (Society for the rectification of music and the transformation of the people), and publishing in 1913 a book, Shuoxi 說戲 (On theater). Both the talk and the book (and a followup book published in 1914) were very critical of traditional Chinese theater.101 Although Qi Rushan once was involved in experimental Jingju productions starring Mei Lanfang 梅蘭芳 (1894–1961),102 the version of Jingju he later theo100 For instance, in his Qi Rushan huiyi lu 齊如山回憶錄 (Qi Rushan’s memoirs), p. 365 (Qi Rushan quanji, 10: 6379), he says that while he was in France he “studied spoken drama for a few days” 研究過幾天話劇, but gives no specifics about what that “study” involved. 101 Shuoxi and the book that he published in the following year do not appear in the original Qi Rushan quanji. In his Qi Rushan huiyi lu, p. 83 (Qi Rushan quanji, 10: 6097), Qi explains that while in Europe his brain got “Westernized” (Xiyang hua 西洋化) and “when I returned and watched Guoju, I was very unsatisfied, and believed it could never be watched” 回來 再一看國劇, 乃大不滿意, 以為絕不能看. He goes on to say that, looking back now (at the time of writing the memoir), what he wrote in Shuoxi was “destructive and damaging” (huihuai 毀壞) to Guoju. In Shuoxi Qi Rushan has nothing but praise for Western theater practice and theaters and nothing but blame for modern Chinese theater practice and theaters, finding many theater practices unrealistic or unreasonable and many theaters unhygienic and poorly designed. His only positive comments about Chinese theater are addressed to a vaguely specified past when things were better. The following year, 1914, he published with the same press (Jinghua Yinshu Ju 京師京華印書局 of Beijing) another book that was not included in the original Qi Rushan quanji, likewise very critical of traditional Chinese theater: Guanju jianyan 觀劇建言 (Advice on playwatching). In his preface, he talks about the genesis of his first book from his lecture for the actor’s guild. A manuscript version of the basic content of this book minus the original preface and first chapter but with a 1928 note by Qi that functions like a preface, has been made available in transcribed form in Wang Xiaofan 王曉梵, ed., Qi Rushan wencun 齊如山文 存 (Repository of writings by Qi Rushan; Shenyang: Liaoning jiaoyu, 2010), pp. 297–318. In the 1928 note (p. 297), Qi writes that the chapters were written in 1914, but, “Reading it now, I immediately felt that I was entirely wrong, and wanted to destroy them” 今日 讀之, 直覺自己皆錯, 欲遂毀棄之. He seems to have forgotten that the chapters were published in the 1914 book. The new version of Qi Rushan’s works, Liang Yan 梁燕, ed., Qi Rushan quanji 齊如山全集 (Complete works of Qi Rushan), 11 vols. (Shijiazhuang: Hebei jiaoyu and Beijing: Kaiming chunban she, 2010), does include Shuoxi and Guanju jianyan. 102 Mei Lanfang starred in five shizhuang xi and Qi Rushan claims to have written two of them: Yilü ma 一縷麻 (A strand of hemp; 1915; not in Xikao) and Tongnü zhan she 童女斬 蛇 (The maiden decapitates the snake; 1918; Xikao #405). They appear in a list of his works appended to his Guoju yishu huikao 國劇藝術彙考 (Collected research into the art of national drama), p. 2 (separate pagination), Qi Rushan quanji, 6: 3918. For his reluctance to write this kind of play for Mei Lanfang, see Qi Rushan, “Bianju de fangmian” 編劇的方 面 (Composing plays), Wushi nian lai de Guoju, pp. 81–82 (Qi Rushan quanji, 5: 2753–54). For Mei Lanfang’s reasons for ceasing to perform shizhuang xi, see Mei Lanfang 梅蘭芳,

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Introduction

rized as national drama stresses a certain number of essentialist and aesthetic characteristics that he argues are at the heart of Jingju. These were eventually canonized, by 1961 at the latest, in his four “principles” (yuanli 原理): 1) “if there is a sound it must be sung” 有聲必歌, 2) “no movement that is not danced” 無動不舞,103 3) “real things are not permitted on the stage” 不許真 物器上臺, and 4) “realism is not permitted” 不許寫實.104 Many of these principles are designed to posit Jingju as differing from Western theater, which was conceived by Qi Rushan as being primarily realistic and downplaying the role of music and poetry. Prior to Qi Rushan and the establishment of the Guoju Xuehui 國劇學會 (Association for the Study of National Drama) in Beijing in 1931,105 the term oral narration, Fu Jichuan 許姬傳 (1900–1990), ed., Wutai shenghuo sishi nian 舞臺生 活四十年 (Forty years of life on the stage), 3 vols. (Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 1961–1981), 3: 98–103. 103 The importance of a new kind of dance in the plays that Mei Lanfang and his brain trust put together after he turned away from performing shizhuang xi, and the influence of modern dance on that work, has been a recent focus of Catherine Vance Yeh and Hirabayashi Norikazu 平林宣和, among others. Mei Lanfang himself stressed the role of dance in the success of his 1930 performance tour of the U.S. In a lecture published as transcribed (biji 筆記) by one of the students in attendance, who signed himself as Jianying 建英, Mei said “As for my success this time on my trip to the U.S., that was mostly due to the ‘dance’ component” 這次我到美國的成功, ‘舞’ 的成分就占大半. See “Mei Lanfang xiansheng zhi yi ke” 梅蘭芳先生之一課 (A class taught by Mr. Mei Lanfang), Guoju huabao 國劇畫報 (National drama pictorial) 22 (June 17, 1932): 87. 104 Qi Rushan, “Qianyan” 前言 (Preface), Guoju yishu huikao, pp. 3–4 (Qi Rushan quanji, 6: 3329–30). An earlier publication, Guoju de yuanze 國劇的原則 (The principles of national drama; Qi Rushan quanji, 5: 1461–75) has similar content but is not as concise. One could possibly add to these four a “principle of economy” ( jingji yuanze 經濟原則), which takes as a matter of aesthetics the historical necessity that acting troupes be mobile and flexible because they had to move from one stage to another. See Qi Rushan 齊如山, Guoju gailun 國劇概論 (An overview of national drama), “Guoju jingji hua” 國劇經濟 化 (The economization of national drama), pp. 72–83 (Qi Rushan quanji, 3: 1378–89). The ideas behind Qi Rushan’s first two principles had been briefly mentioned in a January 1, 1924 Shenbao article by Ma Er xiansheng 馬二先生 (Feng Shuluan 馮叔鸞 1884–after 1940), “Zhongguo xiju zhi gaikuang” 中國戲劇之概況 (An overview of Chinese theater); see Cai Shicheng, ed., Shenbao Jingju ziliao xuanbian, p. 259: “words are song, actions are dance” 語言為歌, 動作為舞. 105 On the background of the establishment of the Association as recounted by one of the participants, see Zhang Boju 張伯駒 (1898–1982), “Beijing Guoju Xuehui chengli zhi yuanqi” 北京國劇學會成立之緣起 (On the origins of the Association for the Study of National Drama of Beijing), in Jingju tanwang lu 京劇談往錄 (Records of talks about the past of Jingju; Beijing: Beijing chubanshe, 1985), pp. 128–31. For Qi Rushan’s account, see the chapter “Chuangli Guoju Xuehui” 創立國劇學會 (Establishing the Association for the Study of National Drama), in his Qi Rushan huiyi lu, pp. 152–81 (Qi Rushan quanji, 10: 6166–95).

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Guoju had been used to refer to a type of drama that could be old or new in style but which must reflect Chinese realities.106 Guoju, as used by Qi Rushan, had both the broad meaning of all Chinese drama (Guo zhong zhi ju 國中之 劇)107 and the narrow meaning of pihuang or Jingju,108 and it was not always clear which he had in mind in any one instance. The library of the Association included material related not only to Jingju but also to Kunqu and a fairly broad variety of local operas and other forms of oral performing literature.109 When the Nationalists retreated to Taiwan in 1949, Qi Rushan went along and functioned as kind of a czar of Guoju there. In Taiwan, until the hegemony of the Nationalists and Mainland culture came to an end with the repeal of martial law and transition from what was essentially a one-party state to a democracy, the term Guoju enjoyed greater currency than it had ever enjoyed on the Mainland.110 Recently the term Guoju or its functional equivalents have been used on the Mainland with increasing frequency, as advocates of Jingju have sought to raise its status as a way to counter falling attendance and prestige.111 In any case, despite the clear evidence that appears from a simple 106 In his preface to a volume he edited, Guoju yundong 國劇運動 (Shanghai: Xinyue shudian, 1927; reprint, Shanghai: Shanghai shudian, 1992), which collected essays mostly by members of the “Crescent Moon” Literary Society (Xinyue pai 新月派), Yu Shangyuan 余上沅 (1897–1970) said that China should not imitate the West but should have a theater “created by Chinese using Chinese materials, performed for Chinese” 由中國人用 中國材料去演給中國人看, and this kind of theater could be called [China’s] National Theater. He said that for the moment, one could reluctantly (mianqiang 勉強) call Kunqu, pihuang, and Qinqiang national theater, but the purpose of the “movement” was to come up with something better. Zhang Yifan, ‘Juxue’ benwei de queli, pp. 11–39, discusses the failure of the movement, which he traces to the bookish tendencies of its advocates (few of whom had practical theater experience) and rebellion by their students against the movement’s “failure” to categorically reject traditional Chinese theater. Yu Shangyuan was later the assistant director of the troupe that Mei Lanfang took to the Soviet Union. 107 See Qi Rushan, “Guoju mingci de youlai,” Guoju mantan, p. 173 (Qi Rushan quanji, 3: 1651). 108 On the two definitions of Guoju used by Qi, see Liang Yan 梁燕, “Qi Rushan juxue chutan” 齊如山劇學初探 (A preliminary investigation of Qi Rushan’s theories of drama), doctoral thesis, Beijing, Zhongguo yishu yanjiu yuan, 1996, in Liang Yan 梁燕, Hanchuang sandie: Diyi wei Zhongguo xiqu xue nü boshi Liang Yan xuewei lunwen ji 寒窗三疊: 第一 位中國戲曲學女博士梁燕學位論文集 (Cold window trilogy: First female holder of a doctorate in the study of traditional Chinese theater Liang Yan’s degree theses; Xiamen: Xiamen daxue, 2000), pp. 90–91. 109 The catalogue, compiled by Fu Xihua 傅惜華 (1907–1970) in 1934, is included in Qi Rushan quan ji, 5: 3175–3304. Fu’s categories for the material are listed on 5: 3179–83; there isn’t one that includes the term Guoju, which implies that all categories of drama and oral performing arts covered by the catalogue are equally examples of Guoju. 110 See Guy, Peking Opera and Politics in Taiwan. 111 According to Sun Yue 孫玥 and Xie Yufeng 解玉峰, “ ‘Guoju’ mingyi xiaokao” 國劇名義 小考 (A brief investigation of the meaning of the term Guoju), in Du Changsheng 杜長

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survey of the terms used for Jingju presented above, Qi Rushan’s presentation of Jingju as largely unchanging112 and fit only to represent the Chinese past has been the strongest and most lasting conceptualization of Jingju since it was formulated in the late 1920s.113 1.8 Spreading Out from Beijing To refer to Jingju by terms that refer primarily to its musical systems, such as luantan, erhuang, or pihuang, or by terms that link it to specific parts of China, such as Huiban, Jingban, Jingxi, Jingju, or Jingdiao, is to both set it apart from other local theater traditions and identify it as just another local tradition. To refer to it simply as “theater,” as in tingxi 聽戲 (listening to theater) or in Xikao, or “the big theater” (daxi), privileges it in a way that both sets it off from the competition and allows for a certain fuzziness about its identity, which in turn allows for the incorporation, with comparatively little change, of whole plays from other traditions into its repertoire. To refer to Jingju as the national opera (Guoju), or as representative of the nation in such actions by the PRC as establishing a national-level troupe, Zhongguo Jingju Yuan 中國京劇院,114 勝, ed., Jingju yu xiandai Zhongguo shehui: Disan jie Jingju xue guoji xueshu yantao hui lunwen ji 京劇與現代中國社會—第三屆京劇學國際學術研討會論文集 ( Jingju and modern Chinese society—Collected essays from the third academic conference on Jingju-ology; Beijing: Wenhua yishu, 2010), p. 626, the earliest direct use of Guoju to refer to Jingju in the PRC occurred in 1989. Since then the term is seen more and more in the PRC but has no official status (it is not used in the names of troupes or organizations), a situation that is also now largely true in Taiwan. 112 Paradoxically, whether you look at his early reformist works or the later almost propagandist ones, Qi Rushan’s writings on Jingju are generally saturated with the idea that there in fact have been lots of changes in the details of the performance of Jingju, the majority of which were not for the better. This, of course, flies in the face of the reality that he was so instrumental in the creation, through his work with Mei Lanfang, of the present common understanding of what “classic” Jingju is, but then again he often justified what were probably innovations by claiming that they represented older practice that had fallen into disuse. Barbara Mittler, “ ‘Eight Stage Works for 800 Million People’*: The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in Music: A View from Revolutionary Opera,” Opera Quarterly 26.2–3 (2010): 377–401, p. 380, perhaps sums up the general situation most succinctly: “Chinese opera has never been what it once was.” 113 See Goldstein, Drama Kings, p. 292. For an example of the success of Qi Rushan’s conception of Guoju as unchanging, see Estelle M. Rabin, “Peking Opera: The Persistence of Tradition in the P.R.C.,” Journal of Popular Culture 25.4 (Spring 1992): 53–61, which includes the claim that “this tenacious art form survived essentially unchanged from its centuries-old origins.” 114 The only other xiqu troupe that has “China” in its formal name of which I am aware of is the Zhongguo Pingju Yuan 中國評劇院 (China Pingju Company), which was established in Beijing in 1955. In 1958 its administrative superior was downgraded from the national

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places it in a different realm altogether, one not limited by geography or musical style. Kunqu became a “national” theatrical form because of historical circumstances: the dominance of the examination system and officialdom by its native Suzhou and a transportation technology (the Grand Canal) that facilitated that dominance. Jingju had the advantage of having the capital, Beijing, as its home base. Imperial support was important in not only solidifying its position in the capital, but also spreading it to the provinces. But it was new forms of transport, particularly the steamship, railroad, and later the airplane, that allowed Jingju to spread far enough throughout China that thinking of it as a truly national form in modern terms makes sense. Jingju’s “native place,” Beijing, was a special place. As the capital under the Qing (and under the Republic until 1927) and a city of as many as three million people even in imperial times,115 it was a melting pot composed in Qing times of such elements as the court and the substantial garrison of bannermen living in the inner city (neicheng 內城), as well as thriving commercial and scholastic communities in the outer city (waicheng 外城).116 It was also in this outer part of the city that the very large Anhui troupes established residence. Beijing was the home of many native place associations (huiguan 會館) that provided lodgings for sojourning merchants and exam takers from the provinces.117 Many of these huiguan had their own theaters where both plays in native theatrical traditions and Jingju were performed. And during the Qing, Beijing had the greatest number of commercial theaters of any city in the empire.118 Yao Shuyi

115 116

117

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level Cultural Ministry (Wenhua bu 文化部) to the Beijing municipal administration, although it has continued to retain “Zhongguo” as part of its title. See Beijing zhi: Wenhua yishu juan: Xiju zhi, quyi zhi, dianying zhi 北京志: 文化藝術卷: 戲劇志, 曲藝志, 電影 志 (Gazetteer of Beijing: Culture and arts section, theater, oral performing literature, and cinema records), vol. 91 (Beijing: Beijing chubanshe, 2000), “Zhongguo pingju yuan,” pp. 152–53. On estimates of the population of Beijing during the Qing, see Alison Dray-Novey, “Spatial Order and Police in Imperial Beijing,” Journal of Asian Studies 52.4 (November 1993): 889 n. 2. On the different cultural elements in Qing dynasty Beijing and their influence on the development of Jingju, see Wu Yuhua 吳毓華, “Jingcheng wenhua dui Jingju de niangzao” 京城文化對京劇的釀造 (The influence of capital culture on the fermentation of Jingju), Xiqu meixue lun 戲曲美學論 (Essays on the aesthetics of traditional Chinese theater; Taibei: Guojia chubanshe, 2005), pp. 271–99. An 1847 supplemented edition of Dumen jilüe lists 354 native place associations and 7 guild associations. See Yao Shuyi, Wan Qing xiqu de biange, p. 323. On native place associations in Beijing in general, see Richard Belsky, Localities at the Center: Native Place, Space, and Power in Late Imperial China (Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2005). The 1845 Dumen jilüe already lists 19 famous theaters (see Yao Shuyi, Wan Qing xiqu de biange, p. 411). Even in the case of the early Republic, Tsuji Chōka 辻聽花 (1868–1931),

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has estimated that during the Daoguang and Guangxu reign periods, in the theaters in the Da Shalan 大柵欄 (a.k.a., Da Shala’er 大柵欄兒)119 area alone (just south of the southernmost gate of the inner city, Qianmen 前門), from 3,000 to 6,000 people went to see plays every day, plays which were performed by around 600 actors.120 Going to the theater was an important part of the social life of the city, especially for male sojourners who lived in Beijing in great numbers.121 According to Yan Quanyi, the citizens of Beijing, even to the lowest level, were more sensitive to politics than in places such as Suzhou, and were consequently less interested in the romantic plays that dominated one of the most famous products of Suzhou, Kunqu.122 Jingju is naturally strongly connected to Beijing, and Beijing was commonly thought of as a place where the citizens were strong supporters of theater, which was generally equated with Jingju.123 Although the founding of the Republic in 1912 removed the imperial court and the imperial princes as the predominant patrons of the theater,124 the banning of male prostitution and the tangzi in the same year removed an important subsidiary industry closely connected to

119 120

121 122 123

124

Zhongguo ju 中國劇 (Chinese theater; Beijing: Shuntian shibao she, 1920), in a list of theaters in its appendix (pp. 17–18), gives as many theaters in Beijing as in Tianjin, Shanghai, Hankou, and Guangzhou combined. Zhalan 柵欄 (barriers) were used to divide up the city and control the flow of traffic after curfew. See Dray-Novey, “Spatial Order and Police in Imperial Beijing,” pp. 892–94 (p. 893 has an illustration of one). Yao Shuyi, Wan Qing xiqu de biange, p. 372. Another district with lots of theaters is Xuanwu 宣武, also in the outer city, which is the only district in Beijing today that has its own Jingju troupe (Beijing Fenglei Jingju Tuan 北京風雷京劇團). In the twentieth century, cheaper theater performed mostly in matshed theaters became available in the Tianqiao 天橋 section of the city. It was there that all-female troupes tended to perform. Even the matshed theaters could hold from 700 to 800 spectators. See Sidney D. Gamble, Peking: A Social Survey (New York: G. H. Doran Co., 1921), p. 226. A. E. Zucker, “Peking Playhouses: In Which the Conservative Taste of the Capital Sets a Fashion for China,” Asia 25.4 (April 1925): 308, estimates that there were two males for every female in the city at the time he was writing. Yan Quanyi, Qingdai Jingju wenxue shi, p. 116 (for similar comments, see p. 7). For instance, Liang Shiqiu 梁實秋 (1903–1987), in his famous essay, “Tingxi” 聽戲 (Listening to plays; 1963), said, “Practically everyone who grew up in Peking liked to listen to plays.” See Liang Shiqiu, “Listening to Plays,” in David Pollard, tr. and ed., The Chinese Essay (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), p. 234 (for the original Chinese text see Weng Sizai, ed., Jingju congtan bainian lu, pp. 79–81). Xu Muyun 徐慕雲, Liyuan waiji 梨園外記 (Supplemental anecdotes concerning the theater; Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 2006; this book is a collection of pieces published in Shenbao, 1939–1940), pp. 68–69, tells the story of a Qing prince who liked to take the stage himself but who fell from being a big patron of actors to a xi tidiao 戲提調 (someone who puts theater programs together for others) on the fall of the dynasty and his running out of money. In the end, the actors got together and put on a charity performance for

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the Anhui troupes, and the moving of the capital in 1928 to Nanjing removed even its status as the capital of the country, Beijing remained the place where the majority of actors were trained and the home of Jingpai Jingju, which some thought of as the only true Jingju. A 1934 plan to revitalize the city envisioned “a large Beijing opera theater catering to foreign tourists.”125 Although the “War of Resistance Against Japan” (1937–1945) and the ensuing civil war between the Nationalists and Communists (1945–1949) were hard on theater in Beijing (during the occupation of Beijing by the Japanese many famous actors refused to perform), at the beginning of the PRC there were still over 2,400 theater artists performing in formal theaters as members of almost fifty professional theatrical troupes.126 One source says that at that time there were more than 1,300 Jingju artists (yiren 藝人) in the city.127 Not far from Beijing is Tianjin, which has a kind of “second city” relationship with Beijing. There are already mentions of the performance of erhuang in Tianjin as early as 1824. In 1843 the famous laosheng actor Yu Sansheng went to Tianjin to perform,128 and Tianjin soon became a place where well-known actors from Beijing could go to supplement their income (much as they would later do in Shanghai) and where up-and-coming actors such as Tan Xinpei could make a name for themselves before trying to conquer Beijing. There was a saying: “Learn your art in Beijing, become famous in Tianjin, and earn money in Shanghai” 北京學藝, 天津唱紅, 上海賺錢.129 Tianjin audiences developed a reputation for being more demanding than those in Beijing.130 Although in Tianjin Jingpai aesthetics were important,131 after Shanghai it was the most his benefit. There were prohibitions (often breached) against bannermen going to public theaters or becoming actors, and the fall of the dynasty removed them. 125 Madeline Yue Dong, “Defining Beiping: Urban Reconstruction and National Identity, 1928–1936,” in Joseph W. Esherick, ed., Remaking the Chinese City (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i, 1999), p. 132. 126 Ma Shaobo et al., Zhongguo Jingju shi, 3: 6. 127 Menggeng 夢庚, “Beiping xiqu jie zai jinbu zhong” 北平戲曲界在進步中 (Theater circles in Beijing are progressing), Wenyi bao 文藝報 (The arts), September 25, 1949, quoted in Zhongguo xiqu zhi: Beijing juan 中國戲曲志: 北京卷 (Record of Chinese traditional theater: Beijing volume; Beijing: Wenhua yishu, 1999), p. 1317. 128 Zhongguo xiqu zhi: Tianjin juan 中國戲曲志: 天津卷 (Record of Chinese traditional theater, Tianjin volume; Beijing: Wenhua yishu, 1990), p. 71. 129 Huang Yanzhi 黃炎智, “Xu” 序 (Preface), Jingju yishu zai Tianjin 京劇藝術在天津 (The art of Jingju in Taiwan; Tianjin: Tianjin renmin, 1995), p. 1. 130 For a representative statement on this, see Kanwai ren 檻外人 (Wu Xingcai 吳性裁), Jingju jianwen lu 京劇見聞錄 (Record of Jingju seen and heard; Beijing: Baowen tang shudian, 1987), p. 13, quoted in Yao Shuyi, Wan Qing xiqu de biange, p. 382. 131 Xu Chengbei 徐城北, Jingju yu Zhongguo wenhua 京劇與中國文化 ( Jingju and Chinese culture; Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1999), p. 712, says that Jingpai aesthetics ( Jingpai

34

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important center for theatrical experimentation. It was in Shanghai and Tianjin that all-female troupes and single actresses got their start before getting an opportunity to move to the more conservative capital in the late Qing and early Republic. Another difference was the emphasis in Tianjin on martial plays that featured hand-to-hand (duanda 短打) combat.132 Tianjin was one corner (although perhaps the least important one) of a triangular performance touring circuit that also featured Beijing and Shanghai.133 Shanghai shared with Tianjin the advantages of being freer from the kind of strict controls on theater that the state tried to exert in Beijing in the Qing; neither were the capital and both had foreign concessions and the kind of fractured governmental structure necessitated by them.134 This was, of course, even more the case in Shanghai than in Tianjin. According to Catherine V. Yeh, “In Shanghai, things were driven by the market, and there was little interference from gentry or official guardians of morals,”135 while Jingju in Beijing “had been inserted into an institutional structure that came with firm ideological and social strictures” that only began to loosen after 1900.136 Like Beijing,

132 133

134

135 136

shenmei guandian 京派審美觀點) were taken up in Tianjin and sometimes taken to an extreme, adding that today Tianjin can be “more Beijing than Beijing” 比北京還北京. Wang Chengyun 王承運, “Liangge Taiping tianguo xi” 兩個太平天國戲 (Two plays about the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom), Zhongguo Jingju 中國京劇 (Chinese Jingju) 2000.5: 38. According to Goldstein, Drama Kings, such touring circuits were instrumental in effecting changes within Jingju circles such as the breakdown of the old system of theater organization in favor of a star system and the construction of modern theaters to hold the larger crowds that the touring circuits made possible and necessary. In the sixth installment of Xu Lingxiao’s Gucheng fanzhao ji in Zhonghua xiqu 27 (2002), p. 176, the narrator explains that since 1900 (and the Boxer Rebellion), censorship of plays and prohibition of mixed-sex troupes had been left up to local officials and there was a lot of variety, some of which was explained by the presence of foreign concessions (as in Tianjin). But there also were cities without concessions, such as Shijiazhuang, where plays prohibited in Beijing and Tianjin were being performed and mixed-sex troupes performed openly. Catherine V. Yeh, “Where is the Center of Cultural Production? The Rise of the Actor to National Stardom and the Peking/Shanghai Challenge, 1860–1912,” Late Imperial China 25.2 (2004): 111. Yeh, “Where is the Center of Cultural Production,” p. 110. As an example of how different things were in the two cities, to open a theater in late Qing Beijing you had to get the permission of the actor’s guild (Jingzhong miao 精忠廟), while in Shanghai all you had to do was register with the Municipal Council and pay taxes. Although an actor’s guild had been established in Shanghai in 1873 (Zhao Shanlin et al., Jindai Shanghai xiqu xinian chubian, p. 66), it did not have the kind of governmental ties and functions the one in Beijing did. Also, in Shanghai, it was more common for actors to run or be shareholders in theaters (ibid., 83). While evening performances were prohibited both at the court and in public theaters until the end of the Qing in Beijing, they became common in Shanghai at a much

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however, a substantial proportion of the population in Shanghai were male sojourners.137 The first Jingju troupe to perform in Shanghai did so in 1867 and came from Tianjin. In the same year, some individual actors came from Beijing to perform.138 Instead of the rotation system used in Beijing, where the troupes and theaters were independent of each other, a system developed in Shanghai where theaters either had their own full-fledged troupes or basic troupes (bandi) that could back up actors invited down from Beijing.139 Shanghai audiences were different from Beijing audiences, as were the different local theatrical traditions that Jingju interacted with and competed against in Shanghai;140 these and other factors produced a new Jingju tradition, Haipai Jingju, as we have already noted. One of the accommodations that Haipai Jingju made to its Southern audiences was the liberal use of both Shanghai and Suzhou dialect141 and a less artificial form of Mandarin. Although Shanghai was not always first when it came to embracing new technology,142 the special character of the city, its orientation toward the

137 138 139 140

141 142

earlier date (facilitated by the comparatively early introduction of first gas then electric lighting). By 1883, the year after the introduction of electric streetlights in Shanghai, electric lighting was already being used in Shanghai theaters. See Shen Dinghu 沈定戶, “Xin wutai yanjiu xinlun” 新舞臺研究新論 (New arguments about the New Stage), Xiju yishu 1989.4: 67. On the importance of affluent male sojourners in Shanghai to the growth of entertainment culture there, see Catherine V. Yeh, Shanghai Love: Courtesan, Intellectuals, and Entertainment Culture, 1850–1910 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2006), p. 13. Xu Xingjie and Cai Shicheng, eds., “Dashi ji” 大事記 (Record of important events), Shanghai Jingju zhi, p. 7. For a summary description of the new systems of theater and troupe organization in Shanghai, see Yeh, “Where is the Center of Cultural Production,” pp. 82–84. See, for instance, Zhao Shanlin 趙山林, “Nanbei juzhong de jingzheng yu ronghe de wutai” 南北劇種的競爭與融合的舞臺 (A stage with competition and amalgamation of northern and southern theater traditions), Xiqu sanlun 戲曲散論 (Various discourses on traditional Chinese theater; Taibei: Guojia chubanshe, 2006), pp. 326–29. On the importance of clowns (chou) speaking Suzhou dialect in Haipai Jingju, see the February 2, 1928 Shenbao article by Juping 菊屏, “Haipai zhi Jingju” 海派之京劇 (Haipai Jingju), in Cai Shicheng, ed., Shenbao Jingju ziliao xuanbian, pp. 335–36. It was in Beijing, for instance, that movies of Jingju performers were first made. For an imaginative recreation, see Ann Hu (Hu An 胡安), director, Xiyang jing 西洋鏡 (Shadow Magic; 2000). Before long, however, Shanghai became the undisputed center of China’s film industry. In 1925, of the 175 film companies in China, 141 were in Shanghai. See Niu Weiping 鈕衛平 et al., eds., Bainian huiwei: Shanghai chengshi lishi fazhan chenlie guan xunli 百年回味: 上海城市歷史發展陳列館巡禮 (Recollection of one hundred years: A tour of the exhibit on the history of urban Shanghai; Shanghai: Shanghai yuandong, 2002), p. 36.

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ocean (and the rest of the world) and extensive foreign concessions and expatriate population,143 made it nearly inevitable that it became the center for modern media in China. Catherine Yeh has shown how the rise of the tabloid press in Shanghai was critical to the rise to national stardom of both Shanghai courtesans144 and Jingju stars.145 These factors also favored the development of creativity and experimentation in Shanghai Jingju circles.146 Compared to Beijing audiences, Shanghai audiences preferred new plays (including plays on recent events) and new actors;147 they preferred actresses (or handsome or pretty actors in general) over laosheng actors;148 and were fans of spectacle,149

143 All about Shanghai: A Standard Guidebook (Shanghai: Shanghai University Press, 1934; Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1983 reprint), pp. 33–34, says that according to statistics published in 1933, there was a foreign population in Shanghai of almost 70,000. 144 See Yeh, Shanghai Love, especially p. 247. See also her article, “Playing with the Public: Late Qing Courtesans and their Opera Singer Lovers,” in Bryna Goodman and Wendy Larson, eds., Gender in Motion: Divisions of Labor and Cultural Exchange in Late Imperial and Modern China (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005), pp. 145–68. 145 See, in particular, Catherine Vance Yeh, “A Public Love Affair or a Nasty Game? The Chinese Tabloid Press and the Rise of the Opera Singer as Star,” European Journal of East Asian Studies 2.1 (2003): 13–51. Meng Yue, Shanghai and the Edges of Empires (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006), p. 66, suggests that Shanghai was not so much the originator of new trends as refuge for or recipient of developments first made elsewhere. In a February 2, 1929 issue of Liyuan gongbao 梨園公報 (Theater bulletin; official mouthpiece of the Shanghai actors’ guild) item, Sushi 漱石 (Sun Yusheng 孫玉聲; 1862–1937), “Haishang bai mingling zhuan xu” 海上百名伶傳序 (Preface to biographies of 100 famous Shanghai actors), Cai Shicheng, ed., Shenbao Jingju ziliao xuanbian, p. 641, claims that while “Shanghai is not a place that produces famous actors, it is one where they are gathered together” 上海雖非名伶產生之地, 實為薈萃之區. 146 See, for instance, Xiaomei Chen, “Performing the Nation: Chinese Drama and Theater,” in Joshua Mostow, ed., The Columbia Companion to Modern East Asian Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003), p. 438. Tao Xiong, “ ‘He’—Cong Huiban xiang Jingju shanbian zhi lu,” pp. 210–11, emphasizes the willingness of master actors in Haipai Jingju to learn from spoken drama and cinema and not lock themselves up ( fengbi 封閉) in a small restricted world (xiao tiandi 小天地). Xu Chengbei, Jingju yu Zhongguo Jingju, pp. 142, 392, contrasts Shanghai and Beijing actors in precisely these terms, but with more detail. 147 See Yeh, “A Public Love Affair,” p. 28. 148 A January 1, 1927, Shenbao article, Zhuo’an 拙庵, “Jin sanshi nian lai Hushang juchang zhi bianqian ji” 近三十年滬上劇場之變遷記 (A record of changes on the stage in Shanghai for the last thirty years), in Cai Shicheng, ed., Shenbao Jingju ziliao xuanbian, p. 370, claims that for people in Shanghai, when it comes to theater-going, whether the actors are good looking (piaoliang 漂亮) is the first consideration (diyi yaoyi 第一要義). 149 See Goldstein, Drama Kings, pp. 128 and 189–90.

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martial plays with real weapons,150 realistic151 and machine-operated scenery ( jiguan bujing 機關布景),152 lighting effects using colored lanterns (dengcai 燈彩)153 and electric lights,154 serialized stories (liantai ben xi 連臺本戲),155 and sex.156 Haipai plays tended to stress dialogue over singing. The constant demand for new plays meant that literary quality was often slighted; this was 150 A March 9, 1923, Shenbao article, “Nanfang mingling zhi yingpin Bei shang” 南方名伶 之應聘北上 (Famous southern actor receives invitation to perform in Beijing), in Cai Shicheng, ed., Shenbao Jingju ziliao xuanbian, p. 236, notes how rare it is for southern actors to go up to Beijing and how common is the opposite, but explains an instance of the latter as a special case where the actor involved is a famous wusheng 武生 (male martial role) actor, Li Chunlai 李春來 (1855–1927), and the Beijing theater doing the hiring lacks wusheng. Li Chunlai was 67 years old at the time! The use of real and not stage weapons is generally dated to the premiere of the first installment (touben 頭本) of Tie gongji 鐵公雞 (The iron rooster; #334 in Xikao) on December 4, 1893. See Zhao Shanlin et al., Jindai Shanghai xiqu xinian chubian, pp. 135–36. 151 For instance, from its inception in 1908, Xin Wutai 新舞臺 (The New Stage) used realistic scenery. See Ma Shaobo et al., Zhongguo Jingju shi, 2: 140. 152 Goldstein, Drama Kings, pp. 194–95, has stressed how the use of scenery in Shanghai-style Jingju freed the actor from representing that scenery through his words and actions, allowing for greater stress on characters’ interiority. Developing the interiority of his characters does indeed seem to have been a major goal of the famous Shanghai actor Gai Jiaotian, as evidenced in his memoirs, recorded and edited by He Man 何慢 and Gong Yijiang 龔義 江, Fenmo chunqiu 粉墨春秋 (A chronicle of my acting), 2nd ed. (Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 1958, 1980). Li Zigui 李紫貴, in his memoirs recorded and edited by Jiang Jianlan 蔣健蘭, Yi Jiangnan 憶江南 (Remembering Jiangnan; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 1996), p. 22, holds that mechanized scenery didn’t appear until 1928, which differs from the date of 1916 in Ma Shaobo et al., Zhongguo Jingju shi, 3: 19 and 138; Li’s definition is more strict: the entire set has to be able to change mechanically. 153 See Chen Boxi 陳伯熙, “Shanghai dengcai xi yuanliu kao” 上海燈彩戲源流考 (On the origin and development of colored lantern plays in Shanghai), Lao Shanghai 老上海 (Old Shanghai), 2 vols. (Shanghai Taidong tushu ju 1919; reprinted as Shanghai yishi daguan 上 海軼事大觀 [Grand collection of anecdotes of Shanghai; Shanghai: Shanghai shudian, 2000]), p. 494. 154 On an 1898 performance using electric colored lights (dianguang dengcai 電光燈彩), see Cai Peifen 蔡佩芬, “Wan Qing fushi hui: Youxi bao yu Shanghai wenren de wenhua xiangxiang” 晚清浮世繪: 游戲報與上海文人的文化想像 (A portrait of the floating world of the late Qing: Youxi bao and the cultural imaginary of Shanghai literati), master’s thesis, Jinan International University, 2007, p. 170. 155 For a list of these kind of plays in Shanghai, arranged according to their premieres and including information on the number of installments and how long they ran, see Xu Xingjie and Cai Shicheng, eds., Shanghai Jingju zhi, “Jiefang qian liantai benxi yanchu qingkuang jianbiao” 解放前連臺本戲演出情況簡表 (Concise chart of performance details of serialized plays before Liberation), pp. 190–208. The earliest premiere listed is 1875. 156 Wang Dacuo 王大錯, in his introduction to play #102, Huatian cuo 花田錯 (The mistake in the flower field), puts it quite simply: “Unfortunately, when Shanghai people watch

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all the more so because the plays were generally written by the actors themselves, with a lot of improvisation and a tendency to use outlines rather than fully written-out scripts.157 Haipai actors were more willing to cross the lines between and mix elements of different role types than Jingpai actors generally were, and it was more common for them to perform a greater variety of role types. Many thought that Shanghai audiences simply did not know how to or were unable to appreciate “standard” (i.e., Jingpai) Jingju. Shanghai saw the establishment of the first modern venue for Chinese theater,158 Xin Wutai 新舞臺 (The New Stage), which opened in 1908.159 Shanghai was also the first to build “entertainment centers” (youle chang 游樂 場), which featured a variety of stages and performances within the same complex. The tickets to enter these complexes were modest in price and patrons plays, they only know to emphasize sex, and don’t know to emphasize art!” 惜滬人看戲 只知重色不知重藝爾 (Xikao, p. 928). 157 On the lack of professional playwrights in Haipai Jingju, see Hou Shuoping, “Haipai Jingju yu Haipai wenhua,” p. 315. 158 The Lyceum Theatre (Lanxin xiyuan 蘭心戲院), built in 1866, was the first modern theater in Shanghai, but it was built for performances of Western drama by the Amateur Drama Club of Shanghai. See Tang Zhenchang 唐振常, ed., Jindai Shanghai fanhua lu 近代上海繁華錄 (A record of the prosperity of modern Shanghai; Hong Kong: The Commercial Press, 1993), p. 279, and Hong Peijun 洪佩君, “Huadeng chu shang: Shanghai Xin wutai (1908–1927) de biaoyan yu guankan” 花燈初上: 上海新舞臺 (1908–1927) 的 表演與觀看 (Patterned lanterns just lit: Performance and spectatorship at the New Stage [1908–1927] in Shanghai), master’s thesis, Jinan University, Taiwan, 2009, p. 17, who notes that these performances were expensive and the only Chinese in the audiences were spoken drama enthusiasts and prostitutes accompanying foreign men. On the Lyceum, see Ō hashi Takehiko 大橋毅彦 et al., eds., Shanghai zujie yu Lanxin da xiyuan: Dong Xi yishu ronghe jiaohui de juchang kongjian 上海租界與蘭心大戲院: 東西藝術融合交匯的劇 場空間 (The Shanghai foreign concessions and the Great Lyceum Theater: A theatrical space that amalgamated Eastern and Western art), 趙怡 et al., trs. (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin, 2015). For a photograph of the auditorium of the rebuilt Lyceum, see Wei Bingbing, “Semicolonialism and Urban Space: Architectural Transformation in Chinese Theaters in Late Qing Shanghai, 1860s–1900s,” Chinese Historical Review 17.2 (2010): 166– 92, fig. 2 (p. 179). 159 For a brief account of the theater, see Xu Xingjie and Cai Shicheng, eds., Shanghai Jingju zhi, pp. 312–13. In a special column entitled “Shijie xinju” 世界新劇 (New plays of the world), nine of their early productions were featured in Tuhua ribao 圖畫日報 (Pictorial daily), with as many as 46 full-page illustrations for one play. See Tuhua ribao, 8 vols. (Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 1999), 1: 6; 1: 462; 2: 114; 2: 438; 3: 489; 4: 270; 5: 90; 5: 558; and 7: 18, for the first installment for each of the plays; see also the helpful index provided at the end of the last volume. The series is also reproduced in Fu Jin, ed., Jingju lishi wenxian huibian: Qingdai juan, 10: 5–611. For a strongly written account of the changes wrought by the new way of consuming theater represented by Xin Wutai, see Joshua Goldstein, “From Teahouse to Playhouse: Theaters as Social Texts in Early Twentieth-Century China,” Journal of Asian Studies 62.3 (August 2003): 753–79.

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included lower class people who could not afford the tickets for regular theaters. Imitations were soon built in Beijing and Tianjin.160 In Shanghai, Jingju theaters, and entertainment in general, could be very profitable ventures, and because of this many theaters were run by or dominated by Chinese organized crime.161 Until recent decades, Haipai Jingju was denigrated in the PRC as too commercial. Now that Jingju is no longer as heavily subsidized by the government, even Beijing theater companies are reviving elements of Haipai Jingju162 and there is talk of a “new-style” (xin 新) Haipai Jingju.163 Canals and rivers connected the major cities of Jiangnan to Shanghai. Shanghai troupes used these water routes and the railroads that later supplemented them to tour the major cities of Jiangnan and to spread Jingju. People also came from the cities of Jiangnan to Shanghai to see Jingju. One of these cities, Hankou 漢口 (part of modern Wuhan), became an important node on the modern touring circuit and the fourth most important center for Jingju after Beijing, Shanghai, and Tianjin.164 We have noted above the influence of the local theatrical tradition, Hanju, and its actors on Jingju, and around the turn of the twentieth century you find examples of Jingju actors coming to

160 The most famous of these were Xin Shijie 新世界 (New World; opened in 1915) and Da Shijie 大世界 (Great World; opened in 1917) in Shanghai; Xin Shijie 新世界 (New World; opened in 1916) and Chengnan Youyi Yuan 城南游藝園 (Southern city entertainment center; opened in 1918) in Beijing; and Quanye Chang 勸業場 (Exhort commerce center; opened in 1928) in Tianjin. Xikao #515, Touben Yan Ruisheng 頭本閻瑞生 (Yan Ruisheng [gets shot to death], first installment), features a scene set in Da Shijie in Shanghai (pp. 5863–64). 161 See below. 162 Xu Hengjin 徐恆進, ed., Hesui liantai benxi—Jingju Zaixiang Liu Luoguo 賀歲連臺本 戲—京劇宰相劉羅鍋 (New Year’s serial play—The Jingju Prime Minister Hunchback Liu; Beijing: Beijing chubanshe, 2002), contains scripts for all six installments of a serial play produced by Beijing Jingju Yuan that was often talked about as being influenced by Haipai Jingju (but not by the producers themselves). Shanghai Jingju Yuan 上海京劇院 (Shanghai Jingju company), of course, has been particularly interested in exploiting the heritage of Haipai Jingju. For instance, they produced in 1988 a play about one of the principal founders of Xin Wutai, Pan Yueqiao 潘月樵 (1869–1928). See Liu Mengde 劉夢 德 et al., “Pan Yueqiao chuanqi” 潘月樵傳奇 (The legend of Pan Yueqiao), in Xin shiqi Shanghai Jingju yuan chuangzuo juben xuan 新時期上海京劇院創作劇本選 (Selected original New Period plays of the Shanghai Jingju company; Shanghai: Shanghai wenhua, 2005), pp. 549–609. 163 There is only one book to date that tries to cover Haipai Jingju in a comprehensive fashion: Qian Jiuyuan, Haipai Jingju de aomiao. It has a section (pp. 29–33) covering developments since the end of the Cultural Revolution. 164 See, for example, Tsuji Chōka, Zhongguo ju, p. 43, and Reginald Johnston, The Chinese Drama (Shanghai: Kelly and Walsh, 1921), p. 12.

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Hankou to perform together with Hanju actors.165 In recent decades, the success of productions mounted by the Hubei Sheng Jingju Yuan 湖北省京劇院 (Hubei province Jingju company) starring Zhu Shihui 朱世慧 (1947–) has led to talk of Epai 鄂派 (Hunan-style) Jingju.166 Jingju was brought to small towns and settlements in Jiangnan by troupes that traveled by boat on circuits in Jiangnan. These troupes were called shuilu ban 水陸班 (water-route troupes).167 They performed on temple stages or on patches of open land (guangchang 廣場). Tickets were not sold. Instead, the cost of hiring the actors was borne by local elites, a system commonly used in the countryside. Their audiences insisted on martial plays in which real weapons were used. Production qualities were crude compared to what was expected in the big cities. Some shuilu ban actors originally came from Beijing to perform in Shanghai but ended up joining shuilu ban,168 while some shuilu ban actors, after a period of apprenticeship, were able to move to Shanghai to perform.169 1.9 Spreading to the Borders Water of a different sort (the Pacific Ocean) brought Jingju to Taiwan and to the Southeastern coast of China, particularly Fujian and Guangdong,170 and then on down into Southeast Asia.171 Jingju troupes first began to come to 165 For instance, Shi Shoucheng 石受成, “Wuhan Jingju shihua” 武漢京劇史話 (On the history of Jingju in Wuhan), Yitan 藝壇 (Arts forum) 3 (2004): 303–53, p. 306, describes Wang Xiaonong 汪笑儂 (1858–1918) interacting with Hanju actors in Hankou with Wang learning to perform a Hanju play and giving them one of his own plays in exchange. Railroad service to Hankou began in 1904 (p. 304). Mei Lanfang went to Hankou for the first time in 1919 (Chen Jie, Minguo xiqu shi nianpu, p. 47). In the spring of 2007, Beijing Jingju Yuan and Wuhan Hanju Yuan 武漢漢劇院 (Wuhan Hanju company) came together in Beijing and jointly mounted a series of plays. 166 See, for instance, Chen Lingbin 陳齡彬, “ ‘Epai’ Jingju shengcheng de wenhua genyin” ‘鄂 派’ 京劇生成的文化根因 (The cultural roots behind the development of Hunan-style Jingju), Zhongguo Jingju 2001.3: 4–7. 167 For an account by a participant, see Li Zigui, Yi Jiangnan. 168 An example would be Li Yonglu 李永祿, Li Zigui’s grandfather, who came south with other Jingju actors to Shanghai in the Tongzhi reign period but was unable to make a living there 沒能站住腳 and moved on to Suzhou where, Li Zigui says, a considerable number of Jingju people had concentrated (Li Zigui, Yi Jiangnan, p. 207; also p. 18). 169 Li Zigui himself is an example of this. 170 Mei Lanfang made his first tour of Hong Kong in 1922 (see Chen Jie, Minguo xiqu shi nianpu, pp. 69–70). Perhaps to help with the linguistic obstacles, playscripts were printed beforehand and sold as “advertising material.” 171 See Li Xingke 李星可 (Ly Singko), “Jingxi zai Dongnan ya” 京戲在東南亞 ( Jingju in Southeast Asia), Shanghai xiqu shiliao huicui 上海戲曲史料薈萃 (Collected historical material on traditional theater in Shanghai) 5 (1988): 138–41, 150.

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Taiwan in the first decade of the twentieth century. Up until the 1940s, the vast majority of Jingju troupes that toured Taiwan came from Shanghai.172 During the War of Resistance against Japan, the Japanese government tried to limit access to Jingju, to prevent it from linking Taiwanese to the Mainland.173 After the Nationalists moved their government to Taiwan in 1949, the preservation of Jingju was a major part of political policy.174 After the fall of Nanjing to the Japanese in 1937, the Nationalist Government retreated first to Hankou and then to Sichuan and Yunnan.175 Not only the government, but the army and educational institutions all retreated to the “interior.” Unlike Southern China, the local dialects in these areas tended to be varieties of Mandarin, and Jingju, brought by the refugees with them, flourished, particularly in Yunnan.176 Jingju also spread out from Beijing into the surrounding countryside, as Northern-style Kunqu (Beifang Kunqu 北方崑曲) had done before it,177 and into Inner Mongolia178 and Manchuria.179 In the puppet state Manchukuo 滿州 172 See Xu Yaxiang 徐亞湘, “Rizhi shiqi lai Tai yanchu zhi Zhongguo xiban yilan biao” 日 治時期來臺演出之中國戲班一覽表 (Concise chart of Chinese theatrical troupes that came to perform in Taiwan during the Japanese occupation), Rizhi shiqi Zhongguo xiban zai Taiwan 日治時期中國戲班在臺灣 (Chinese theatrical troupes in Taiwan during the Japanese occupation; Taibei: Nantian shuju, 2000), pp. 241–45. The first Jingju troupe came in April 1907. 173 See Guy, Peking Opera and Politics in Taiwan, pp. 21–22. 174 See Guy, Peking Opera and Politics in Taiwan, which also covers how government support fell when the Nationalists lost power. On recent attempts to “nativize” (bentu hua 本土 化) Jingju in Taiwan, see Wang Anqi 王安祈, Taiwan Jingju wushi nian 臺灣京劇五十年 (Fifty years of Jingju in Taiwan; Yilan: Guoli chuantong yishu zhongxin, 2002), p. 403. 175 See, for instance, Liu Husheng 劉滬生 et al., Jingju Lijia ban shi 京劇厲家班史 (A history of the Li family Jingju troupe; Beijing: Beijing tushu guan, 1999). This troupe was founded in Shanghai in 1936 and toured extensively in Jiangnan. After Shanghai fell to the Japanese, the troupe removed first to Hankou, then to Sichuan. During the war they toured extensively in Sichuan, Guizhou, and Yunnan. In 1944 they located themselves in Chongqing, and in 1955–56, Chongqing Shi Jingju Yuan 重慶市京劇院 (Chongqing municipal Jingju company) was formed, primarily by making use of their personnel. 176 Some recognize a specific Yunnan style (Dianpai 滇派) of Jingju. See Chen Peizhong 陳培 仲, “Jingju de diyu liupai” 京劇的地域流派 (Local traditions of Jingju), Zhongguo Jingju 2000.2: 18–19. 177 See Hou Yushan, You Meng yiguan bashi nian. Some of the actors who performed in the Beifang Kunqu tradition were originally palace performers who were let go during the periodic cutbacks of staff. Curiously, I don’t know of any equivalent memoir about the performance of Jingju in the countryside around Beijing. 178 Jingju reached Zhangjiakou 張家口 around 1915. See Ma Shaobo et al., Zhongguo Jingju shi, 2: 499. 179 Ouyang Yuqian 歐陽予倩, “Zi wo yan xi yi lai” 自我演戲以來 (Since I began acting), in Ouyang Yuqian quanji 歐陽予倩全集 (Collected works of Ouyang Yuqian), 6 vols.

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國 set up in Manchuria by the Japanese with the Xuantong emperor, Puyi 溥儀

(1906–1967), as its titular head, Jingju was officially made the “national opera” (Guoju).180 Some hold that a specific style of Jingju developed in Manchuria, called Guandong pai 關東派 (east of the pass [Shanhai guan] style).181 In the north, there were the equivalents of the shuilu ban troupes of the south, which carried Jingju into rural areas. While they were less likely to travel by boat than their southern counterparts, they did perform at wharfs.182 1.10 A National Form? Is Jingju truly a national form? It has certainly come to represent China. But did it spread throughout China? Jingju spread from Beijing as a combination of two processes: competition in Beijing amongst actors drove some of them to head for what they thought were “greener pastures,” while new audiences developed as more and more people became exposed to Jingju through a variety of technologies. Old media (woodblock prints, for instance) and new (tabloid and entertainment newspapers, photography, phonograph records) circulated news and visual images and the sound of Jingju performances and actors, while old transport (carts and small boats) and new (rail and steamboat) brought actors and audiences together physically over greater and greater distances. Besides these actors on the move, Jingju was also carried to new locations by merchants, officials, politicians, soldiers, and courtesans. Zhongguo Jingju shi 中國京劇史 (The history of Chinese Jingju) claims that in the period 1919–1937, “the art of Jingju had almost spread completely to (Shanghai: Shanghai wenyi, 1990), 6: 113, describes a performance trip he made to Dalian in the 1920s, where he found out that the local audience liked military plays with real weapons and illogical and over-sexed (kuazhang seqing 誇張色情) civil plays. This very important memoir covers 1907–1928, was written in 1929 and began being serially published in that year, and was revised in 1958 and published in book form in 1959 in the version cited here. Ouyang discusses the revisions in his preface, p. 1. 180 See Ma Shaobo et al., Zhongguo Jingju shi, 2: 446, and Goldstein, Drama Kings, p. 10. Puyi was allowed to stay in the Forbidden Palace from the fall of the Qing dynasty until 1924, but with greatly reduced resources under his control. There were only five performances of Jingju in the palace during this period (Ma Shaobo et al., Zhongguo Jingju shi, 2: 42). 181 See, for instance, Ma Mingjie 馬明捷, “Tang Yunsheng he Guandong pai Jingju” 唐韻笙 和關東派京劇 (Tang Yunsheng and east of the pass style Jingju), Zhongguo Jingju 1994.3: 10–11. Tang Yunsheng 唐韻笙 (1902–1971) was a famous laosheng (older, mature male role) actor who was Manchu and a native of Shenyang. 182 Hence the term pao matou 跑碼頭 (do the wharf circuit). In his memoirs, Fenmo chunqiu, chapters 1 and 2, Gai Jiaotian, who joined a Tianjin keban 科班 (opera training school) when he was young, describes travelling by cart (che 車) from performance to performance with the keban (adult actors played the lead roles and students played the minor parts in this particular keban). He describes the keban as a shuilu ban (p. 9).

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every place in China” 京劇藝術幾乎傳遍全國各地,183 but the physical spread of Jingju performers and stage performances throughout China surely reached its height during the time period from the founding of the PRC through the Cultural Revolution (1949–1976). Fully aware of the value of traditional Chinese theater in a China that was still underdeveloped both in terms of popular literacy and the penetration of new media, and more than willing to try and make use of the genre for its own purposes, the CCP heavily subsidized traditional theatrical forms, and Jingju in particular. In the first decade of the PRC, the government gradually nationalized the private troupes that had managed to keep themselves together through the hard years of civil war and inflation prior to 1949184 and went on to establish Jingju troupes in places that had never had them before.185 Beijing actors were moved out to provinces in the interior and on the frontiers.186 In reference works on Chinese local theatrical traditions, only Jingju is said to have spread throughout the entire country.187 So, in terms of geographical spread, perhaps it is indeed correct to speak of Jingju as the national drama of China. Whether it should be considered the national drama because it has come to symbolize China (or some aspect of it) rather 183 Ma Shaobo et al., Zhongguo Jingju shi, 2: 26. 184 See, for instance, the quotation of the 1959 Beijing municipal government announcement of the nationalization of the troupes in Beijing, Zhongguo xiqu zhi: Beijing juan, pp. 1465–66. 185 Luke Kai-hsin Chin, “The Politics of Drama Reform in China after 1949: Elite Strategy of Socialization,” doctoral thesis, New York University, 1998, p. 136, quotes statistics comparing 1949 and 1959 to show that the number of drama troupes more than tripled, the number of drama workers more than quadrupled, the number of theaters more than tripled, and the number of amateur drama troupes went from a very small number to almost 500,000. 186 Liu Wenfeng 劉文峰, “Shilun diyu wenhua dui Jingju liupai xingcheng de yingxiang” 試 論地域文化對京劇流派形成的影響 (A modest discussion of the influence of local culture on the development of Jingju schools of performance), in Du Changsheng 杜長 勝, ed., Jingju biaoyan lilun tixi jiangou—Disi jie Jingju xue guoji xueshu yantao hui lunwen ji 京劇表演理論體系建構—第四屆京劇學國際學術研討會論文集 (To establish a performance theory and system for Jingju—Collected essays from the fourth academic conference on Jingju-ology; Beijing: Zhongguo xiqu xueyuan, 2013), pp. 674–77, discusses the development of local Jingju styles in Inner Mongolia, Yunnan, and Qinghai. Li, The Soul of Beijing Opera, p. 9, says that after the establishment of the PRC many Jingju performers “were urged to settle in inland provinces … and to establish permanent jingju companies …,” and cites examples. 187 Zhongguo xiqu juzhong da cidian, in its second appendix, “Zhongguo xiqu juzhong liu­ xing diqu yilan biao” 中國戲曲劇種流行地區一覽表 (Concise chart listing the areas of spread of traditional theatrical traditions in China), pp. 1661–68, lists Jingju first and gives only for it the annotation “every place in the entire country” (quanguo gedi 全國各地) for its area of spread (p. 1661).

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than because of its geographic spread, as well as the question of whether it had or still has the largest audience among the local traditions, will be addressed in the second half of this chapter. 1.11 Jingju Outside China/Outside Chinese Jingju did not stop at the boundaries of the empire, the Republic, or the PRC, however these are defined. It was also carried out into the Chinese diaspora, where aficionados took Jingju along with them and created amateur Jingju clubs (piaofang/piaoshe 票房/票社). The more ambitious of these put on periodic public performances every year, and the less ambitious still provided a place where members could sing or listen to others sing.188 Professional Jingju troupes and Jingju workers have long left China for commercial reasons, for longer or shorter periods, to find new audiences and make money. They first went to parts of the world with substantial overseas Chinese populations that had been significantly affected by Chinese culture in the past, such as Taiwan (under Japanese control from 1895–1945) or Southeast Asia.189 Some tours were more successful than others.190 Before too long, however, the transmission of Jingju abroad and the related problem of its international 188 For Jingju clubs in the U.S., for instance, see Lin Qianliang 林乾良, “Bei Mei diqu piaofang yipie” 北美地區票房一瞥 (A brief survey of Jingju clubs in North America), Zhongguo Jingju 1995.5: 53–54. Such clubs tend to hire professional performers, whom they sometimes help emigrate from China, to teach members and play key or technically (especially physically) demanding roles in the performances put on by the club. A 1989 documentary film on Jingju amateurs and aficionados in the U.S. (particularly New York City and environs) is available, directed by Christine Choy, The Monkey King Looks West (New York: Filmmakers Library, 1992). 189 The first Jingju actor to go to Japan to perform was Zhang Guixuan 張桂軒 (1872–1963), a wusheng actor who “at the invitation of Chinese residing in Japan” (lü Ri qiaobao 旅日 僑胞), went in 1891 to Japan for a tour of three years. In 1895, he was invited to perform in Seoul in Korea. The following year he went to perform in Vladivostok and environs for two years, and later toured Siberia. See Liu Songkun 劉嵩崑, Liyuan yiwen 梨園軼聞 (Theater anecdotes; Beijing: Beijing Yanshan, 1998), “Diyi wei chuguo yanchu de yishu jia” 第一位出國演出藝術家 (The first artist to go abroad to perform), pp. 6–7. On the spread of traditional Chinese theater abroad, see Liu Wenfeng 劉文峰, “Zhongguo xiqu zai Gang, Ao, he haiwai nianbiao” 中國戲曲在港澳和海外年表 (Chronological listing of Chinese traditional theater in Hong Kong, Macao, and overseas), Zhonghua xiqu 22 (1999): 459–85 (part one); 23 (1999): 294–312 (part two); and 25 (2001): 247–301 (part three). 190 Yang Xiaolou 楊小樓 (1878–1938) led a company of more than 100 persons to Japan in 1926 but had trouble selling tickets. See the June 28, 1926 Shenbao article by Zhang Jiya 張 寄涯, “Tan Yang Xiaolou zai Ri jiongkuang” 談楊小樓在日之窘況 (On the unfortunate situation of Yang Xiaolou in Japan), in Cai Shicheng, ed., Shenbao Jingju ziliao xuanbian, pp. 360–61.

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reputation changed from a commercial matter to one of diplomacy and national prestige. Reports of generally negative comments on traditional Chinese theater performance by Japanese and Western visitors to China circulated widely and were a matter of concern.191 The idea that Chinese theater could be (or could be made to be) attractive to foreigners had great appeal.192 It is in this context that we should see the famous tours of Japan (1919 and 1924), the U.S. (1930),193 and the Soviet Union (1935) by Mei Lanfang and supporting actors, and the study tour of Europe of one of the other “four famous male performers

191 For instance, in a piece calling for the reform of traditional Chinese theater signed Guanyun 觀雲, “Zhongguo zhi yanju jie” 中國之演劇界 (The world of theater performance in China), which first appeared in a bimonthly Chinese journal published by Liang Qichao 梁啟超 (1873–1929) in Japan, Xinmin congbao 新民叢報 (Journal for the renovation of the people), 3.17 (March 20, 1905): 95–98, Jiang Guanyun 蔣觀雲 (1866–1929) stressed the negative view in the Japanese press of that tradition as extremely youzhi 幼 稚 (immature), citing in particular the idea that a very unmodern version of warfare is presented on stage (Jiang goes on to argue that the recent disaster of the Boxer Rebellion was caused by traditional theater’s influence). This piece is reproduced in Fu Jin, ed., Jingju lishi wenxian huibian: Qingdai juan, 8: 699–701. 192 In the 1922 publication of the playscript of Mei Lanfang’s Tiannü sanhua 天女散花 (Heavenly maiden scatters flowers; Xikao #485), done in preparation for Mei Lanfang’s first performance tour by the Hong Kong organization that invited him, Tongle she 同樂 社, the introductory piece, “Tiannü sanhua shuolüe” 天女散花說略 (A brief introduction to Tiannü sanhua), separate pagination, claims that when the play first premiered it “resounded throughout the entire world” (xuandong quanqiu 暄動全球), “foreigners who came to China without exception all were extremely eager to see it” 外邦人士來 華者, 無不極欲一睹為快, and “as for photographs of Tiannü sanhua, over eighty thousand copies have already been sold in America alone” 天女散花照片, 在美國一處, 已 售之八萬餘張. 193 Japanese traditional theater, in the form of the Kawakami troupe, had toured the U.S. thirty years before. Several books have been written on the troupe’s international tours and the accommodations made to meet Western audience expectations, but the best is Ayako Kano, Acting Like a Woman in Modern Japan: Theater, Gender, and Nationalism (New York: Palgrave, 2001). Much has also been written on the intense and careful preparation for Mei Lanfang’s tour of the U.S. and the stakes involved. See, especially, Joshua Goldstein, “Mei Lanfang and the Nationalization of Peking Opera, 1912–1930,” positions 7.2 (1999): 377–420; Nancy Guy, “Brokering Glory for the Chinese Nation: Peking Opera’s 1930 American Tour,” Comparative Drama 35.3–4 (2001–2002): 377–92; and Qi Rushan’s own account, Mei Lanfang you Mei ji 梅蘭芳遊美記 (Mei Lanfang’s tour of the U.S.), in Qi Rushan quanji, 2: 1007–1232. Besides materials prepared for the trip by Qi Rushan and others that have long been readily available in Qi Rushan quanji, there is also Wang Wenzhang 王文章, ed., Mei Lanfang fang Mei Jingju tupu 梅蘭芳訪美京劇圖譜 (Illustrative material on Jingju for Mei Lanfang’s tour of the U.S.; Beijing: Wenhua yishu, 2006) and its revised and supplemented edition (zengding ban 增訂版; 2014).

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of female roles,” Cheng Yanqiu 程硯秋 (1904–1958), in 1932–1933.194 As happened earlier when Jingju moved from Beijing to places such as Shanghai, the kind of Jingju taken abroad by Mei Lanfang was tailored to appeal to the taste of audiences that differed from those in Beijing.195 In fact, one could argue that most of the innovations made by Qi Rushan and Mei Lanfang when they were working together, at least since Mei Lanfang stopped acting plays based on contemporary stories, were made under a Western gaze for the purpose of turning Jingju into a form of theater suitable to be shown to foreigners.196 How formidable a project this was can perhaps be seen from two popular sayings that take the form of xiehou yu 歇後語 (lit.: words after a wait): Waiguo ren kan Zhongguo xi—bu dong 外國人看中國戲—不懂 (Westerners watching Chinese opera—don’t understand) and Yang guizi kan Jingxi—shayan 洋 194 See his “Fu Ou kaocha xiqu yinyue baogao shu” 赴歐考察戲曲音樂報告書 (Report on my trip to Europe to research theater and music), dated August 10, 1933, in Cheng Yanqiu wenji 程硯秋文集 (Collected writings of Cheng Yanqiu; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 1959), pp. 180–210. 195 For all the preparation done beforehand, the tour’s first performance for an American audience, on February 14, 1930, went badly, and things are thought not to have improved until radical changes were made. Chinese sources tend to attribute those changes to Qi Rushan or P. C. Chang (Zhang Pengchun 張彭春, 1892–1957), holder of a 1924 Ph.D. from Columbia University, but A. C. Scott, Mei Lanfang: The Life and Times of a Peking Actor (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1959; this book is partially based on interviews of Mei), pp. 108–109, and Catherine Yeh, “Refined Beauty, New Woman, Dynamic Heroine or Fighter for the Nation? Perceptions of China in the Programme Selection for Mei Lanfang’s Performances in Japan (1919), the United States (1930) and the Soviet Union (1935),” European Journal of East Asian Studies 6.1 (2007): 94–95, give the credit for turning things around to F. C. Kapakas, whom Scott identifies as a Hollywood producer hired after the troupe arrived. Such a figure appears in Chinese sources on the tour, but his name is Romanized in different ways and what he actually contributed is not made clear. 196 According to Qi Rushan, Mei Lanfang you Mei ji, juan 1, p. 6 (Qi Rushan quanji, 2: 1016), Qi Rushan’s friend, Wu Zhenxiu 吳震修, said with reference to the first of Qi Rushan and Mei Lanfang’s guzhuang 古裝 (ancient-clothing) plays, Chang’e ben yue 嫦娥奔月 (Chang’e flees to the moon; Xikao #489; premiere 1915), “Now we have a play we can give foreigners to see!” 以後有給外國人看的戲了! Early on the play was performed before the members of the American Association of Teachers in Northern China in Beijing (see Goldstein, Drama Kings, p. 123). Adolf Eduard Zucker, The Chinese Theater (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1925), pp. 105–107, supplies the synopsis/translation of the play used at a 1917 performance for the American College Club. For all of that, Xiong Foxi 熊佛西 (1900–1965), Foxi lun ju 佛西論劇 (Xiong Foxi on theater; Shanghai: Xinyue shudian, 1931), “Mei Lanfang” 梅蘭芳, pp. 195–205, severely criticized Mei Lanfang and his helpers for being not conversant with modern Western stagecraft and having such bad taste in scenery and lighting in plays such as Chang’e ben yue 嫦娥奔月 (Xikao #489) and Tiannü sanhua (Xikao #485). Xiong got a master’s degree in theater from Columbia University in 1926.

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鬼子看京戲—傻眼 (Western devils watching Peking opera—stunned).197 Qi Rushan and Mei Lanfang’s project to make a kind of Jingju fit for Westerners eventually succeeded. Whereas Former President Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) turned down an opportunity to see a Chinese theater performance in Shanghai in 1879,198 the current Vice-President, Charles Curtis (1860–1936), and the wife of former president Woodrow Wilson, Edith Galt Wilson (1872–1961), went to a reception for Mei Lanfang when he was touring the U.S. in 1930.199 After the Nationalists retreated to Taiwan, both sides of the Taiwan Straits made heavy use, internationally, of Jingju, as a way to build up their prestige.200 The progressive opening up of China to Western tourism since the end of the Cultural Revolution and importance of the money that these tourists bring to China, coupled with the increasing inability of Jingju companies to

197 Since these sayings are not very “politically correct,” they are not included in standard reference works on xiehou yu. I have only seen the second one in print once: Huang Xunhua 黃勛華, “Liyuan yiwen yishu” 梨園軼聞一束 (A bundle of theater anecdotes), Zhongguo Jingju 1999.2: 48–50, p. 49, where it is carefully labeled as a saying from the past. 198 See the May 22, 1879 item in Shenbao, “Ji Mei gongzi guanju shi” 紀美公子觀劇事 (A report on the playviewing of the American president’s son), reproduced in Fu Jin, ed., Jingju lishi wenxian huibian: Qingdai juan, 4: 158–59, which describes how Grant himself turned down the invitation but his son and the U.S. consul did go, and records the amounts of money Grant’s son awarded the performers of the plays that he saw. 199 See Xie Sijin 謝思進 and Sun Lihua 孫利華, Mei Lanfang yishu nianpu 梅蘭芳藝術年譜 (Chronology of Mei Lanfang’s art; Beijing: Wenhua yishu, 2009), p. 159 (February 14, 1930). 200 See Guy, Peking Opera and Politics in Taiwan, for Taiwan uses of Jingju. The Mainland history of Jingju, Ma Shaobo et al., Zhongguo Jingju shi, which took ten years to finish and represents the mobilization of a lot of resources, is very concerned with Jingju’s spread abroad. The last volume ends with an inserted map with this title: “Jingju zou xiang shijie shiyi tu” 京劇走向世界示意圖 (Map showing the spread into the world of Jingju) with lines connecting Beijing with the capitals of all of the countries where Jingju troupes have toured or where there are local Jingju activities up until 1989. On the planned, strategic, diplomatic use of Jingju by the PRC, Mao Shaobo et al., Zhongguo Jingju shi, 3: 933, makes this claim, which it puts in italics: “… the success of Chinese Jingju performances on the international stage has continuously deepened the understanding of the people of each of the nations of the world of the new China, increased the friendship between the Chinese people and peoples of all the other nations, and with respect to increasing the international influence of our nation and the advancement of peace in the world, has had important effects” 中國京劇在國際舞臺上演出的成功, 不斷加深了世界各國人民 對新中國的了解, 增進了中國人民與各國人民間的友誼, 在擴大我國國際影響, 促進世界和平事業上, 起到了重大作用. For an overview, country by country, of the promotion of Chinese indigenous theater abroad by the PRC up to 2012, see Zhou Lijuan 周麗娟, Zhongguo xiqu yishu duiwai jiaoliu gailan, 1949–2012 中國戲曲藝術對外交流 概覽, 1949–2012 (An overview of the introduction abroad of Chinese indigenous theater, 1949–2012; Beijing: Wenhua yishu, 2014).

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generate income from domestic performances,201 has led to the dominance, in terms of numbers, of performances of “Tourist Jingju” (lüxing Jingju 旅行京 劇) in Beijing,202 and more purely commercial tours abroad, including tours of Taiwan.203 As flattering as having foreigners pay to watch Jingju performers, perhaps even more so is the idea that Jingju has influenced Western theater and Westerners have tried to learn to perform Jingju. Just as Chinese theater borrowed elements of Western stagecraft and theatrical practice that would supposedly enable Chinese theater to be more “realistic,” when Western dramatists got tired of the dominant realistic tradition they turned to Jingju and other non-Western theatrical traditions for “fertilizer.” Around the turn of the century, this took the form, for instance, of American dramatists imitating elements from performances of Cantonese opera that they saw in American Chinatowns.204 The chance to see Mei Lanfang perform in the West influenced playwrights such as Thornton Wilder (1897–1975)205 and Bertolt Brecht

201 Cui Changwu 崔長武, ed., Jingju xianzhuang yanjiu 京劇現狀研究 (Studies on the present condition of Jingju; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 1996), p. 14, talks about how people have turned from collective entertainment such as Jingju performances to spending more time at home with electronic entertainment, and about a survey in which TV was ranked as the number one entertainment with performances of Jingju number 8 (p. 52). 202 On tourist Peking opera, see David L. Rolston, “Two Decades of Selling Peking Opera White Snakes to Foreigners: From Tourist Peking Opera in Beijing (1996) to Zhang Huoding at Lincoln Center (2015),” CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature 37.1 (July 2018): 57–74. 203 Tours of Taiwan, which began in 1992, are still officially described as more a matter of policy or diplomacy, but participants make it clear that the real impetus is the money that can be made. On these tours, see Zheng Xin 鄭欣, “Fanhua guojing: Dalu Jingju tuan zai Taiwan yanchu yanjiu” 繁花過境: 大陸京劇團在臺灣演出研究 (Blossoms across borders: On performances by Mainland Chinese Jingju troupes in Taiwan), master’s thesis, Zhongguo wenhua daxue, Taiwan, 2014. 204 For instance, George C. Hazelton and Benrimo, The Yellow Jacket: A Chinese Play Done in a Chinese Manner (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1913), made use of the authors’ experiences of Cantonese theater in San Francisco. 205 See Sang-Kyong Lee, “The Impact of East Asian Theatre Traditions upon the Dramatic Works of Thornton Wilder,” East Asia and America: Encounters in Drama and Theatre (Sydney: Wild Peony, 2000), pp. 82–99, especially p. 82. On American adaptations of Chinese plays and reflections of Chinese theater in American theater, see Wenwei Du, “Traditional Chinese Theatre on Broadway,” in Sǿren Clausen et al., eds., Cultural Encounters: China, Japan, and the West (Aarhus, Denmark: Aarhus University Press, 1995), pp. 192–214, and Du Wenwei 都文偉, Bailaohui de Zhongguo ticai yu Zhongguo xiqu 百老 匯的中國題材與中國戲曲 (Chinese subject matter and Chinese traditional theater on Broadway; Shanghai: Shanghai sanlian, 2002).

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(1898–1956).206 Less probably, Qi Rushan claimed that Mei Lanfang’s tour of the U.S. had a strong influence on Hollywood movies.207 The first Westerner to perform Jingju “professionally” did not appear until the early 1930s,208 and it is only within the last few decades that Japanese and Westerners have graduated from Chinese institutions that train Jingju actors with the aim of performing professionally.209 A number of universities in the U.S. have periodically put on performances of Jingju in English. Most prominent has been the University of Hawai’i which, since 1986, has mounted a number of productions that were performed not only in Hawai’i but also in China. This work has been done under the direction of Elizabeth Wichmann (Chinese name Wei Lisha 魏莉莎), with help from professionals brought from China to teach the students. Professor Wichmann’s productions have been 206 For an evaluation of whether Brecht got traditional Chinese theater and Jingju “right,” see Min Tian, “ ‘Alienation-Effect’ for Whom? Brecht’s (Mis)Interpretation of the Classical Chinese Theater,” Asian Theatre Journal 14.2 (Fall 1997): 200–22. 207 See Qi Rushan huiyi lu, pp, 139–40 (Qi Rushan quanji 10: 6153–54), where he stresses that all the film people came to see the performances and that the industry was presently in a quandary because of the transition from silent to sound movies. He implies that “the recent tendency in movies” 現在電影的趨勢 for characters “at appropriate moments, to begin to sing and dance” 到相當的時候, 就起歌唱 is related to the influence of Mei Lanfang’s performances in Los Angeles. Liang Yan, “Qi Rushan juxue chutan,” pp. 144–45, in summarizing what Qi says, makes the connections more direct: “He believed that the addition of no small amount of song and dance in American and international movies during the 1920s was influenced by Chinese xiqu” 他認為二十年代美國電影和世界電 影增加了不少歌舞部分, 是受了中國戲曲的影響. 208 See Wan Chengzhong 萬澄中, “Deguo guniang gua toupai” 德國姑娘掛頭牌 (German miss takes top billing), Liyuan zhoukan 梨園周刊 (Traditional theater weekly), June 6, 2000, p. 2. The young woman, Rosa Jung (1908–1995), used the Chinese name of Yong Zhujun 雍竹君. Born in Beijing, her father was a German consular officer and entrepreneur and her mother was Chinese. Despite her Chinese mother, she looked very Western and had blonde hair and blue eyes. She performed with such well-known actors as the laosheng performer and Jinghu player Yang Baozhong 楊寶忠 (1909–1958) and also led her own troupe. Quite a few photos of her in ordinary dress appeared in Chinese periodicals. In the captions and accompanying articles, she is treated as a piaoyou and her appearances in charity performances are highlighted. 209 An example is Ghaffar Pourazar (Chinese name Ge Fa 格發), from England, who graduated from Zhongguo Xiqu Xueyuan where he learned parts such as that of the Monkey King. In Pourazar’s “Uniting Cultures with the Beijing Opera,” Interchange (Zhong Wai wenhua jiaoliu 中外文化交流) 2002.6: 27–29, he says (p. 29): “The Chinese needed a foreigner on TV on a regular basis to say to the world that ‘Chinese culture is so good that this foreigner has left his job in England to come and study with us.’ ” On Pourazar and some other Westerners who learned to perform Jingju around the same time, see Barbara Kaulbach, “Western Actors in the Beijing Opera,” in Kim Karlsson, ed., On Stage: The Art of Beijing Opera (Basel: Museum der Kulturen Basel, 2011), pp. 168–79.

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greatly appreciated by audiences and officials in China, who are glad to see Jingju come “full circle” in this way.210 1.12 A National Drama? Even though this is in a state of flux, the majority of people in China still live in the countryside. But the Jingju that most people are familiar with, both within China and abroad, was and remains primarily an urban phenomenon. This is partly because the more rural Jingju traditions such as the shuilu ban have been overlooked, while the large theaters and famous actors of the cities have been most written about, mostly by fellow urbanites. It is clear that the sources of Jingju often came from the countryside and carried many rural elements with them to the capital, but it is equally true that those elements were subjected to a process of “metropolitanization” (dushi hua 都市化) in Beijing and other cities where it flourished. And it was processes of modernization, originally based in the cities, that enabled Jingju to spread throughout China to such an extent that we are justified in thinking of it as the “national drama” of China.211 2

Why Should We Care about Jingju?212

Farewell my Concubine (Bawang bie ji 霸王別姬; 1993), directed by Chen Kaige 陳凱歌, is fairly widely known in the West. The film covers about half a century of the history of Jingju in the twentieth century, from the early Republican 210 When China was first opened up to Americans after the Cultural Revolution, Wichmann was taught by Mei Lanfang’s last disciple, Shen Xiaomei 沈小梅 (1937–) to perform the lead role of Guifei zuijiu 貴妃醉酒 (Consort Yang gets drunk; Xikao #192) and publicly performed it. Wichmann discusses the Hawai’i program in general terms in her “Jingju (Beijing/Peking Opera) as International Art and as Transnational Root of Cultural Identification: Processes of Creation and Reception in Shanghai, Nanjing, and Honolulu,” in Hae-Kyung Um, ed., Diasporas and Interculturalism in Asian Performing Arts (London: Routledge, 2005), pp. 166–73. Her career is the subject of an article by one of her students, Xing Fan, “Elizabeth Wichmann-Walczak,” Asian Theatre Journal 33.2 (Fall 2016): 432–45. 211 For a look at how Jingju is now used in the international marketing of China in English and Chinese, see Megan Evans, “ ‘Brand China’ on the World Stage: Jingju, the Olympics, and Globalization,” TDR: The Drama Review 56.2 (Summer 2012): 113–30, and Wang Shasha 王 沙沙, “Shilun Jingju yishu zai Hanyu guoji tuiguang zhong de zuoyong” 試論京劇藝術 在漢語國際推廣中的作用 (On the role of the art of Jingju in the international promotion of Chinese), master’s thesis, Jilin University, 2012. 212 Early versions of this half of the introduction appeared in Chinese as Lu Dawei 陸大 偉, “Women weishenme yao zhuyi Jingju?” 我們為甚麼要注意京劇? (Why should we pay attention to Jingju?), in Du Changsheng, ed., Jingju yu xiandai Zhongguo shehui, pp. 411–34, and in Cao Lin 曹林 and Yu Jiangang 于建剛, eds., Kua wenhua zhong de

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period to after the Cultural Revolution. In it, the head of the opera school (keban 科班) where the main characters learn their trade says, “if someone is human, he will listen to plays; whoever doesn’t listen to plays, he is not human” 他是人的, 就要聽戲; 不聽戲的, 他就不是人.213 He is trying to assure his pupils that they will be able to support themselves after their training is done and thus is not an impartial observer, but the idea that the vast majority of Chinese were once avid playgoers is very common. 2.1 The Great Classroom: Theater and Education It was this supposed ubiquity of theater in China,214 and the idea that theater could reach all levels of the people, especially the great unlettered masses, that led social reformers of the early twentieth century such as Chen Duxiu 陳獨 秀 (1879–1942) to talk of it as even more useful than fiction for reforming the nation.215 In his 1905 essay, “Lun xiqu” 論戲曲 (On traditional theater), Chen speaks of theater as “the great classroom for all men under heaven” 譜天下人 之大學堂 and actors as “the great teachers for all men under heaven” 譜天下人 之大教師, and concludes that traditional theater is the way to “move all of society” 改動全社會, since even the deaf can watch and the blind hear what goes on on stage. He praises it as “the one and only ‘dharma gate’ to reform society” 改良社會之不二法門, argues that “if people enter it [the theater], then control of their thought will in all cases be within the grasp of those performing the plays” 苟其入之, 則人之思想權, 未有不握於演戲曲者之手矣, and adds, “Once they are watching it [the play], they are no longer masters of themselves” 使人 觀之, 不能自主.216

213 214

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Zhongguo xiqu 跨文化中的中國戲曲 (Traditional Chinese theater in cross-cultural context; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 2009), pp. 55–85. Bawang bie ji, VCD (Tianjin: Tianjin shi wenhua yishu yinxiang, 1999), 12:15–12:26. The idea that the Chinese were overly addicted to theater is a constant theme in Western writing on China from early on. For instance, Nicholas Trigault, a Jesuit missionary writing in 1615, said of the Chinese, “I believe this people is too much interested in dramatic representation and shows. At least they certainly surpass us in this respect.” See L. J. Gallagher, S.J., tr., The China That Was: China as Discovered by the Jesuits at the Close of the Sixteenth Century (Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Co., 1942), p. 37. Liang Qichao, in his “Lun xiaoshuo yu qunzhi zhi guanxi” 論小說與群治之關係 (On fiction and the government of the masses), Xin xiaoshuo 新小說 (New fiction) 1.1 (1902), “Lunshuo” 論說 (Essays), pp. 1–8, famously believed that the modernization of England and Japan owed much to the influence of “political fiction” (zhengzhi xiaoshuo 政治小 說) and thought the same kind of thing could happen in China. See San’ai 三愛 (penname of Chen Duxiu), “Lun xiqu” 論戲曲 (On traditional theater), in Cheng Bingda 陳炳達 and Wang Weimin 王衛民, eds., Zhongguo lidai qulun shiping 中 國歷代曲論釋評 (Treatises on theater through the ages, explicated and commentated; Beijing: Minzu chubanshe, 2000), pp. 577–80. This version of the essay, written in literary

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The head of the opera school in Bawang bie ji does not specify the kind of plays he teaches by using any of the terms that Jingju was known by. But there can be little doubt that for him, the default referent of “plays” was Jingju. The play most often featured in the film, from which the film gets its name, was one of the guzhuang 古裝 (ancient-clothing) plays developed by Qi Rushan217 and the other members of Mei Lanfang’s brain trust.218 As for Chen Duxiu, after surveying the history of Chinese drama and theatrical forms he implies are no longer current, he specifically mentions bangzi, erhuang, and xipi, which he claims “have circulated completely throughout both the north and south for some time” 南北通行, 已非一日.219 Clearly, these are the theatrical forms he thinks have the biggest audience and influence.

Chinese, first appeared in 1905 in Xin xiaoshuo. A year before, substantially the same essay had appeared in vernacular Chinese in Anhui suhua bao 安徽俗話報 (Anhui vernacular newspaper), eleventh issue of 1904. Both versions are reproduced in Fu Jin, ed., Jingju lishi wenxian huibian: Qingdai juan, pp. 719–25. 217 Qi Rushan tended to take credit for innovations connected to Mei Lanfang and underplay the contributions of others. His portrait of his own contributions in his own writings, and that drawn by Mei Lanfang in his Wutai shenghuo sishi nian do not match up very well, even considering the fact that the latter was written and published in China after 1949 (when Qi Rushan was in very bad odor). On the general issue of Qi Rushan’s contributions, see Fu Jin 傅謹, “Qi Rushan he Mei Lanfang zhi guanxi er san ti” 齊如山和梅蘭 芳之關係二三題 (Several topics concerning Qi Rushan’s relationship to Mei Lanfang), in Fu Jin 傅謹, ed., Mei Lanfang yu Jingju de chuanbo—Diwu jie Jingju xue guoji xueshu yantao hui lunwen ji 梅蘭芳與京劇的傳播—第五屆京劇學國際學術研討會論文集 (Mei Lanfang and the transmission of Jingju—Collected essays from the fifth academic conference on Jingju-ology; Beijing: Wenhua yishu, 2015), pp. 33–44. A version of this article was also published in Dushu 讀書 (Reading) 2013.4: 147–55, and was responded to by Liang Yan 梁燕, “Yetan Qi Rushan yu Mei Lanfang” 也談齊如山與梅蘭芳 ([I] also talk about Qi Rushan and Mei Lanfang), Dushu 2014.10: 137–39. 218 It premiered in 1922 and quickly became one of Mei Lanfang’s signature plays. There are echoes of the career of Mei Lanfang and his collaborators in Chen Kaige’s film, which is based on but in many cases deviates from Pik Wah Lee/Lilian Lee’s (Li Bihua 李碧華) novel of the same name, Bawang bieji. For instance, the actor who played the male lead in the original play (Yang Xiaolou 楊小樓 [1878–1938]) and the character of the actor who plays the same role in the movie (Duan Xiaolou 段小樓) share the same personal name. Of the three other plays that figure prominently in the movie, two are Kunqu: Sifan 思凡 (Thinking of worldly pleasures; Xikao #369) and Youyuan jingmeng 游園驚夢 (A stroll in the garden, Interrupted dream; Xikao #464), but both were often part of the repertoire of Jingju troupes and were widely performed by Mei Lanfang. 219 San’ai, “Lun xiqu,” in Cheng Bingda and Wang Weimin, eds., Zhongguo lidai qulun shiping, p. 578.

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Turn of the century reformists thought that traditional theater was the way to reach and change the people220 even as they complained about how bad plays had perverted the people.221 This was not a new way of thinking. Liu Xianting 劉獻廷 (1648–1695) had declared: “Plays and fiction are none other than the great pivots by which enlightened rulers transform the world; even if the sages were to arise again, they could not but use them in their governance” 戲文小說乃明主轉移世界之大樞機, 聖人復起, 不能捨此而為治.222 Fear of the powerful influence of theater is evident in the numerous edicts aimed at controlling its supposed bad effects, beginning in the Yuan dynasty and particularly numerous in the Qing dynasty.223 In imperial China there had also been sporadic attempts by the government to provide good plays or promote plays deemed to be good moral propaganda.224 Perhaps part of this idea that theater is so influential on the “people” is the common notion that they will take what they see on stage as an accurate representation of what goes on in real life. For instance, in a short piece of fiction included in a book published 220 This idea can be seen, for instance, in the names of troupes, such as the Qinqiang troupe Yisu She 易俗社 (Change customs troupe), founded in 1912, and of theaters, such as the Gengsu juchang 更俗劇場 (Change customs theater) in the model city established by industrialist Zhang Jian 張謇 (1853–1926) in Nantong. 221 In the essays referenced above, both Liang Qichao and Chen Duxiu spend as much time talking about the powerfully bad influence of popular fiction (Liang) and theater (Chen) as they do about the good that good fiction and theater can do. Both blame the Boxers on the influence of theater. 222 From his Guangyang zaji 廣陽雜記 (Miscellaneous notes from Guangyang), quoted in Chen Fang 陳芳, “Wan Qing wenshi xiju guan yu xiju lilun” 晚清文士戲劇關與戲劇理 論 (Views of theater and theater theory of Late Qing literati), Zhong Wai wenxue 中外文 學 (Literature Chinese and Foreign) 16.2 (1987): 161. 223 Wang Liqi, Yuan Ming Qing sandai has already been mentioned. Also to be recommended are Ding Shumei 丁淑梅, Qingdai jinhui xiqu shiliao biannian 清代禁毀戲曲史料編 年 (Historical material on the prohibition and suppression of drama arranged by year; Chengdu: Sichuan daxue, 2010), and idem, Zhongguo gudai jinhui xiju biannian shi 中國 古代禁毀戲劇編年史 (Chronological history of the prohibition and suppression of theater in pre-modern China [i.e., through 1911]; Chongqing: Chongqing daxue, 2014). 224 For instance, the founding emperor of the Ming dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang 朱元璋 (r. 1368– 1398), is supposed to have been very impressed by the Pipa ji 琵琶記 (The lute) by Gao Ming 高明 (d. 1359), whose prologue claimed that if a play is not concerned with the transformation ( fenghua 風化) of the people, even if it is well written, it was written in vain, and to have taken steps to see that it was performed widely. See Xu Wei 徐渭 (1521–1593), Nanci xulu 南詞敘錄 (A record of southern drama), in Zhongguo gudian xiqu lunzhu jicheng 中國古典戲曲論著集成 (Compendium of writings on classical Chinese indigenous theater), 10 vols. (Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 1959), 3: 240; William Dolby, A History of Chinese Drama (London: Elek Books, 1976), p. 82; and Ding Shumei 丁淑 梅, Gudai jinhui xiju shilun 古代禁毀戲劇史論 (Historical discourses on the prohibition and suppression of theater; Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue, 2008), pp. 190–91.

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in 1911, after two women have left a theater where they saw plays that got them sexually excited (in a very physical way), the younger asks the older whether people really do such things with each other, and is told, “It is popularly said, ‘whatever happens on stage also happens off it’ ” 俗言道, 臺上有, 臺下有.225 Much later, we have perhaps the most concerted attempt ever seen in history to use theater as a means to remake the people in the use of yangban xi 樣板戲 (model revolutionary operas) in the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976).226 2.2 Listening to Plays Is the Same as Reading Books Lin Yutang 林語堂 (1895–1976), in the 1930s, wrote this way about the importance of traditional theater in Chinese life: Through its immense popularity, the theatre has achieved a place in the national Chinese life very nearly corresponding to its logical place in an ideal republic. Apart from teaching the people an intense love of music, it has taught the people, over ninety per cent of whom are illiterate, a knowledge of history truly amazing, crystallizing, as it were, the folklore and entire historical and literary tradition in plays of characters that have captured the heart and imagination of the common men and women.227 Lu Xun 魯迅 (1881–1936), often on the other side of the “fence” from Lin Yutang, describes the situation as being much the same as Lin gives it, but seems less happy about it: “As for the knowledge [xuewen 學問] of our country’s citizens, the great majority of it is actually reliant on fiction, or even plays based on fiction” 但我們國民的學問, 大多數卻實在靠著小說, 甚至于還靠著從小說編 225 “Wuhan shishi: Huiyin tang” 武漢時事: 誨淫堂 (Current event in Wuhan: Hall for the proselytization of lewdness), in Muyou sheng 慕優生, Haishang liyuan zazhi 海上梨園 雜志 (Miscellaneous notes on traditional theater in Shanghai; Shanghai: Zhenkui she, 1911), p. 11/3 (each chapter has separate pagination); Haishang liyuan zazhi is included in Fu Jin, ed., Jingju lishi wenxian huibian: Qingdai juan, 2: 505–659 (see pp. 643–46 for this story). 226 Jiang Qing 江青 (1914–1991), one of the main architects of yangban xi in the Cultural Revolution, in a speech given in 1964 but not published until 1967, when it appeared simultaneously in Hongqi 紅旗 (Red Flag), Renmin ribao 人民日報 (People’s Daily), and Jiefang jun bao 解放軍報 (Liberation Army Daily), said “The theater is fundamentally a place to educate the people …” 劇場本是教育人民的場所…. This translation comes from Jiang Qing, “On the Revolution in Peking Opera (Tan Jingju geming): A Speech from the Plenary Discussion with Performers after the Modern Peking Opera Trial Performance Convention in Beijing, July 1964,” Jessica Ka Yee Chan, tr., Opera Quarterly 26.2–3 (2010): 455. 227 Lin Yutang, My Country and My People (New York: Reynal and Hitchcock, 1935), pp. 265–66.

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出來的戲文. He goes on to note that even in the case of worshippers of the two “martial saints” (wusheng 武聖), Guan Yu 關羽 (d. 220) and Yue Fei 岳飛

(1103–1144), the image they have of these figures in their minds is the same as they appear on stage, complete with flags strapped to their backs.228 Chen Moxiang 陳墨香 (1884–1912) claimed that there was an old saying, “Listening to plays is the same as reading books” (tingxi jishi dushu 聽戲即是讀 書).229 But another way to look at the importance of Jingju in shaping conceptions of the past among the people are the efforts taken to point out historical inaccuracies in traditional Jingju plays in an attempt to counter the effect that these plays are supposed to have on their audiences. Numerous books have been published in Chinese in an attempt to improve ordinary theater-goers’ understanding of how some plays in the Jingju repertoire diverge from historical reality.230 The author of one of these, Gong Debo 龔德柏, even called for the establishment of a government commission to make sure that the plays are truly historical.231 Belief in the historicity of patently ahistorical stories, such as that of Xue Pinggui 薛平貴 becoming emperor in Hongzong liema 紅鬃烈馬 (The red-maned fiery horse; plays #24, 52, 75, 129, 172, 196, 356, and 486 in Xikao are all parts of this long play), has been so strong among the populace that the preservation from the Tang dynasty of the abandoned kiln where he and his wife were reunited after eighteen years of separation was not considered that 228 Lu Xun 魯迅, “Mashang zhi riji” 馬上支日記 (Mashang zhi diary), Huagai ji xubian 華 蓋集續編 (Continuation of the Huagai Collection), Lu Xun quanji 魯迅全集 (Complete works of Lu Xun), 16 vols. (Beijing: Renmin wenxue, 1981), 3: 334, item dated July 5, 1926. 229 Chen Moxiang, “Guanju shenghuo sumiao,” part one, in Pan Jingfu and Chen Moxiang, Liyuan waishi, p. 375. In Chen’s novel originally serialized in 1941–1942, Huoren daxi 活 人大戲 (Living actor big plays), Li Shiqiang 李世強, ed. (Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 2015), p. 11.57 (first number is chapter number), a character says something very similar: “Listening to plays is just like reading books, reading books can be considered the same as listening to plays” 聽戲就是讀書, 讀書也算聽戲. 230 Examples include Gong Debo 龔德柏, Xiju yu lishi 戲劇與歷史 (Theater and history; Taibei: private printing, 1962; reprint, Taibei: Zhong Mei wenhua, 1967); Dong Dingming 董鼎銘, Lishi ju kaoping 歷史劇考評 (Research and comments on historical plays; Hualian, Taiwan: Huaguang shuju, 1970); Sun Xianzhao 孫賢照, Guoju gushi suyuan 國劇 故事溯源 (Retracing the sources of national drama [plays]), 7 vols. (Taibei: Zhengzhong shuju, 1976); Lai Xinxia 來新夏 et al., Tanshi shuoxi 談史說戲 (Talking about history and plays; Beijing: Beijing chubanshe, 1987); and Shan Linmin 單林岷, Lishi yu xiju de pengzhuang 歷史與戲劇的碰撞 (Clashes between history and theater; Taibei: Lishi zhiku, 1996). Not all of the plays covered in these books are Jingju, but the vast majority are. 231 It is in an added preface that Gong makes his proposal. This preface is discussed in Yu Dagang 俞大綱, “Du Gong zhu ‘Xiju yu lishi xuyan’ shugan” 讀龔著戲劇與歷史序言 述感 (My thoughts on reading Gong Debo’s preface to his Xiju yu lishi), reprinted in Yu Dagang quanji: Lunshu juan 俞大綱全集: 論述卷 (The collected works of Yu Dagang: Academic writings) 2 vols. (Taibei: Youshi wenhua, 1987), 2: 649–51.

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much of a problem.232 What is more of interest to us than the actual historicity (or not) of the plays is that people thought they were historical,233 and divergences from history in them are often related to the desires or worldview of the audience.234 Hsü Dao-Ching, a bit harshly, put the matter this way: “The credulity, the naïveté, and the simplicity of the popular intellect are all reflected in the legends and the dramas; the ideal and the actual merge into one, there is no sharp distinction between what the public wish the story to be and what they think actually happened.”235 2.3 Representing China: Military and Political Leaders Going the head of the opera school in the film Farewell my Concubine one better, Zhang Xueliang 張學良 (1901–2001), the general who kidnapped Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi 蔣介石; 1887–1975) in 1936 to make him join the Communists to fight the Japanese and suffered decades of house arrest for doing so, is supposed to have said, “If you don’t watch national drama, you can’t be considered Chinese” 不看國劇就不算中國人.236 Persons of even higher social prominence than Zhang Xueliang threw their weight behind Jingju.

232 There are actually at least two different existing kilns that have been thought to be the very ones where they lived. 233 Xu Chengbei, Jingju yu Zhongguo wenhua, p. 708, for instance, points out that the account in Da jinzhuan 打金磚 (Hitting with the gold brick; not in Xikao) of the slaughter of loyal officials and generals who put Liu Xiu 劉秀, founder of the Eastern Han dynasty, on the throne is patently ahistorical, but through its performance by actors, “there is no one in the audience who doesn’t believe it, and it is passed on generation after generation, leaving historians to get angry about it in vain” 觀眾無不相信, 並且世代相傳, 弄得歷史學 家只能乾生氣. 234 He Manzi 何滿子, for instance, notes that the presentation of Empress He in Hehou ma dian 賀后罵殿 (Empress He curses the throne; Xikao #463), ahistorical as it is, resonates so strongly with people because of their familiarity with the figure of the oppressed widow and her children. In the play, Empress He curses the second emperor of the Song, Taizong, for reneging on his promise to turn the throne back to her and the first emperor’s son. See He Manzi 何滿子, “Jingju de wutai chengshi paichu xiandai qingjie” 京劇的舞 臺程式排除現代情節 (Jingju’s theatrical conventions preclude [dramatizing] modern stories), reproduced in Weng Sizai, ed., Jingju congtan bainian lu, pp. 423–24. 235 Hsü Dao-Ching, The Chinese Conception of the Theatre (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1985), p. 110. 236 Qiu Shaorong 裘少戎, “Zhang Xueliang jiangjun shuo, bu kan Guoju jiu bu suan Zhongguo ren” 張學良將軍說, 不看國劇就不算中國人 (General Zhang Xueliang says, If you don’t watch national opera, you can’t be considered Chinese), Xiju dianying bao 戲 劇電影報 (Theater and film news), May 23, 1993, p. 2.

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We have already seen that Empress Dowager Cixi, who dominated the last decades of the Qing dynasty, was an avid consumer of Jingju.237 We have also seen that the last emperor and puppet ruler of Manchukuo, Puyi, was a fan. Sun Yat-sen 孫逸仙 (1866–1925), provisional (linshi 臨時) president of the Republic at the beginning of 1912, personally commemorated the formation, early in that year, of the Shanghai Actors’ Association (Shanghai Lingjie Lianhe Hui 上海伶界聯合會),238 supported progressive actors and theaters in Shanghai,239 and later that same year lent his name to the inaugural issue of Tuhua jubao 圖畫劇報 (Theater pictorial).240 But by the time Sun did the last of these, he had been forced to yield to Yuan Shikai 袁世凱 (1859–1916). Yuan was a Jingju fanatic who tried to force famous actors to mount a revision of Antian hui 安 天會 (The bringing-peace-to-heaven banquet; Xikao #502) meant to mock Sun Yat-sen, who had the same surname as the hero of the play, Sun Wukong 孫悟 空 (a.k.a., The Monkey King).241 There are many stories of famous actors and actresses such as Tan Xinpei, Sun Juxian 孫菊仙 (1841–1931), and Liu Xikui 劉 喜奎 (1894–1964) rejecting his advances.242 His second son, Yuan Hanyun 袁寒 雲 (a.k.a., Yuan Kewen 袁克文; 1890–1931), however, was a respected amateur Kunqu and Jingju actor.243 237 Beyond the ample historical record of her patronage of Jingju, there were (patently false) rumors that Cixi had Jingju actors as lovers and that the discovery of her with Yang Yuelou 楊月樓 (1844–1890) led her to poison the Empress Dowager Ci’an 慈安 (1837– 1881). This particular rumour made it into English through such books as E. Backhouse and J. O. P. Bland, Annals and Memoirs of the Court of Peking (From the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Century) (London: William Heine Manne, 1914; see especially pp. 487–89), and Harry Hussey, Venerable Ancestor: The Life and Times of Tz’u Hsi, Empress of China (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1949; see especially pp. 256–57). 238 For what Sun wrote, see Ma Shaobo et al., Zhongguo Jingju shi, 1: 244. 239 See Chen Jie, Minguo xiqu shi nianpu, pp. 1–4, for his patronage of Xin Wutai in Shanghai and presentation of his calligraphy to it and its actors in 1912. 240 The inaugural issue appeared in November. See Chen Jie, Minguo xiqu shi nianpu, p. 5. 241 See Huang Shang 黃裳, Jiuxi xintan 舊戲新談 (New talk about old plays; Beijing: Kaiming chubanshe, 1994), “Xin Antian hui” 新安天會 (New Bringing-peace-to-heaven party), pp. 148–50. 242 Ren Erbei 任二北, ed., Youyu ji 優語集 (Collected sayings by actors; Shanghai: Shanghai wenyi, 1981), is a collection of anecdotes about actors. Items 339 and 340 (pp. 281–82) are parallel stories of Tan Xinpei (item 339) and Sun Juxian (item 340) first refusing Yuan’s summons, then being brought to participate by force, but that end with Tan laughing at Yuan all the way home and Sun throwing away the money he was given on his way home. Yuan seems to have been sexually interested in Liu Xikui, an actress who originally performed bangzi. Item 341 (pp. 282–83) and its notes depict her slighting him and giving him the slip. 243 See Xu Lingxiao 徐凌霄, “Jinian qujia Yuan Hanyun (fu tu san)” 紀念曲家袁寒雲 (附圖 三) (Remembering theater authority Yuan Hanyun [with three pictures]), Juxue yuekan

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In 1915–1916, Yuan Shikai tried to make himself emperor, failed, and died. From then until the success of the Northern Expedition (Beifa 北伐) in 1927 and the establishment in 1928 of the Nationalist government in Nanjing with Chiang Kai-shek in charge, regional leaders and warlords ran China. Warlords liked to take as concubines Jingju actresses, whom they forced to stop acting and treated as trophy wives.244 There is a recent Jingju play set in 1923 that depicts Liu Xikui foiling the unwanted advances of Cao Kun 曹錕 (1862–1938), who served as president of the Republic briefly;245 its author claims that it is based on historical sources.246 There is evidence in Xikao itself that the twotime (1916–1917 and 1922–1923) president of the Republic and Cao Kun’s immediate predecessor, Li Yuanhong 黎元洪 (1864–1928), liked actresses.247 Chiang Kai-shek was, like Sun Yat-sen, a southerner. He does not seem to have had a personal affection for Jingju.248 Most of the public money that was spent on Jingju during the “Nanjing decade” (1927–1937) came from returned

244

245 246 247

248

2.1 (1933), 4 page article (there is no consecutive pagination in this issue) and Yao Shuyi, “Jingju mingpiao, gui gongzi Yuan Hanyun” 京劇名票, 貴公子袁寒雲 (Famous Jingju amateur performer, aristocrat, Yuan Hanyun), Wan Qing xiqu de biange, pp. 393–407. Yuan Hanyun’s influence is probably related to the fact that he was one of the leaders of the “Green Gang” (qingbang 青幫); see Wang Zhonghe 王中和, Yuan Kewen zhuan 袁克 文傳 (A biography of Yuan Kewen; Tianjin: Baihua wenyi, 2006), chapter 10, “Qingbang daye” 青幫大爺 (Honored man in the Green Gang), pp. 91–100. Three photos of Yuan Hanyun in theatrical costume (but probably taken in a photography studio) appeared in the original edition of Xikao. In the very popular melodramatic novel by Qin Shou’ou 秦瘦鷗 (1908–1993), Qiu haitang 秋海棠 (Begonia [the stage name of the main character]), it is the male performer of female roles, not an actress, who is pursued by a warlord. The novel was first serialized, then published as a book in 1942. Before the end of that year it was made into a spoken drama play that was very popular. See Zhang Buhong 張步虹, Jinguo ji 巾幗集 (Collected female heroes; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 1995), “Kunling dawang” 坤伶大王 (Great king of the actresses), pp. 259–332. Zhang Buhong, Jinguo ji, “Houji” 後記 (Postscript), p. 335. A photo of the actress Qin Xuefang 琴雪芳 (1905–1931) in Xikao (11: 199) has the caption: “Favored by President Li” 黎大总统所赏识者. You Julu 尤遽盧, “Nishang yanying lu” 麑 裳艷影錄 (A record of fetching images of the stage), Xiju yuekan 戲劇月刊 (The Theatre Monthly) 1.6 (November 1928), pp. 4–6 (no consecutive pagination), indicates that Qin (original name Ma Jinfeng 馬金鳳) was also patronized by Prime Minister Zhao Erxun 趙爾巽 (1844–1927). After the retreat to Taiwan, despite the intense government support for Jingju chronicled by Guy, Peking Opera and Politics in Taiwan, Chiang Kai-shek never personally attended public performances of Jingju. On this last point, see Mao Jiahua 毛家華, “Jianggong yu Guoju” 蔣公與國劇 (His Honor Chiang Kai-shek and national drama), Jingju erbai nian shihua 京劇二百年史話 (Two hundred years of Jingju; Taibei: Xingzheng yuan, 1995), pp. 140–41. Wang Anqi, Taiwan Jingju wushi nian, p. 509, quotes Xu Lu 徐露 (1941–; the most famous female actress of Jingju ever trained in Taiwan) that Chiang Kai-shek once

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Boxer Rebellion Indemnity funds.249 When Nanjing was lost, the Nationalist government organized and funded propaganda troupes (xuanchuan dui 宣 傳對) that Jingju personnel participated in, but these were not run as well or as successfully as those organized by the Communists.250 After Japan was defeated, and Chiang Kai-shek agreed to meet with Mao Zedong 毛澤東 (1893– 1976) and other Communist Party leaders, the banquet in Chongqing featured Jingju plays.251 The wife of Chiang Kai-shek’s private secretary, Chen Lifu 陳立 夫 (1900–2001), was an amateur singer of Jingju.252 Direct and intense support (and control) of Jingju by the CCP and the government of the PRC should just be taken for granted. It is only in recent years that the level of subsidization of Jingju troupes has dropped,253 but it still remains higher than for other xiqu traditions. Mao Zedong, undisputed leader of the CCP from 1935 to his death, does not seem to have performed Jingju himself, but besides decades of regular attendance at Peking performances and public pronouncements on Jingju in general and on particular plays, there are reports of him privately singing Jingju arias and listening to Jingju recordings;254 even in Yan’an he had Jingju records and a complete set of Xikao.255 In both

said “If I don’t return to the Mainland I won’t go to watch plays” 不回大陸不看戲, but mentions that he did watch Jingju on television. 249 This money was used, together with private donations, to fund a new-style opera school (whose short name was Zhonghua Xixiao 中華戲校), Cheng Yanqiu’s research trip to Europe, and Qi Rushan’s Guoju Xuehui. Lu Yingkun 路應昆, “Chuantong Jingju yishu de ‘jingji jichu’—Lüeshuo Qingmo Minchu Beijing Jingju yiren de shouru” 傳統京劇藝術 的 ‘經濟基礎’—略說清末民初北京京劇藝人的收入 (The ‘economic foundation’ of the art of traditional Jingju—Brief remarks on the income of Jingju artists in Beijing in the late Qing and early Republic), in Zhengqu Jingju yishu de xin fanrong, p. 626, calls these activities “the greatest instance of public and private subsidization in the history of Jingju (prior to 1949)” 京劇史上 (1949 年以前) 最重要的一次公私資助事件. 250 See, for instance, Ouyang Yuqian, “Zi wo yan xi yi lai,” pp. 135–40. 251 See Mao Jiahua, Jingju erbai nian shihua, p. 113. 252 For instance, both Chen and his wife participated in plays put on to encourage the troops in 1938 (Ma Shaobo et al., Zhongguo Jingju zhi, 2: 272). 253 Elizabeth Wichmann-Walczak, “ ‘Reform’ at the Shanghai Jingju Company and Its Impact on Creative Authority and Repertory,” TDR: The Drama Review 44.4 (Winter 2000): 96–119, p. 101, notes that public subsidies for the running of the Shanghai Jingju Company dropped from 100% in the early 1990s to only 60% in 1995. 254 See, for instance, Ding Ling 丁玲 (1904–1986), “Mao Zedong yu Jingju” 毛擇東與京劇 (Mao Zedong and Jingju; title supplied by editor), in Weng Sizai, ed., Jingju congtan bainian lu, p. 138 (originally published in 1983 in Xin wenxue shiliao 新文學史料 [Historical material on new literature]). 255 Wang Peiyuan 王培元, Yan’an Luyi fengyun lu 延安魯藝風雲錄 (A record of tempests at the Lu Xun Dramatic Academy in Yan’an; Guilin: Guangxi shifan daxue, 2004), p. 218.

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public and private speeches he refers to Jingju continuously.256 His private doctor speaks of Jingju as their “mutual hobby.”257 Mao’s wife, Jiang Qing, of course, had once performed Jingju258 and was later intimately involved in the development of the “model revolutionary operas” (yangban xi 樣板戲) in the Cultural Revolution. There are many reports of both Mao and his wife enjoying banned Jingju plays in private.259 Next in long-term influence in the PRC, but surpassing Mao in his interactions with Jingju and theater in general, was longtime Premier Zhou Enlai 周恩 來 (1898–1976). While Mao made comments on performances that he saw that were then circulated,260 Zhou Enlai, like Jiang Qing, is credited with having a lot of input into Jingju productions before their premieres.261 Leaders of the PRC since the Cultural Revolution who were personally interested in Jingju include Premier Zhu Rongji 朱鋊基 (1928–) and Chairman of the CCP Jiang Zemin 江澤民 (1926–). Zhu Rongji appeared in numerous 256 As an example of how he brought up Jingju in private speeches, see the translation of a 1957 speech of his concerning specialization and leadership in Roderick MacFarqhuar, ed., The Secret Speeches of Chairman Mao: From the Hundred Flowers to the Great Leap Forward (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989), pp. 171–72, where Mao cites the idea of Mei Lanfang leading “modern drama” and not Jingju as an example of “laymen leading experts.” 257 Li Zhisui, The Private Life of Chairman Mao: The Memoirs of Mao’s Personal Physician, Tai Hung-chao, tr. (New York: Random House, 1994), p. 403. 258 She studied for a while at Shandong Sheng Shiyan Juyuan 山東省實驗劇院 (Shandong provincial experimental drama academy) and then joined a Jingju troupe in Beijing. Although she was good enough to play leading roles, she was apparently not a success in Beijing. See Ye Yonglie 葉永烈, Jiang Qing huazhuan 江青畫傳 (An illustrated biography of Jiang Qing: Hong Kong: Shidai guoji chuban, 2005), pp. 9–10. Liu Zengfu 劉曾復, “Wenjian zashuo” 聞見雜說 (Miscellaneous comments on things heard and seen), Yitan 6 (2009): 29–51, pp. 42–43, item 82, recalls hearing Jiang Qing perform Jingju in 1931. He says that “she actually had some skill” 實在是有點本事. 259 Godwin C. Chu and Philip H. Cheng, “Revolutionary Opera: An Instrument for Cultural Change,” in Godwin C. Chu, ed., Popular Media in China: Shaping New Cultural Patterns (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1978), p. 98, report how Jiang Qing, on a 1975 trip to Dazhai 大寨, was bored during a yangban xi performance but “enthralled” by a traditional Jingju performance that she personally arranged using actors she brought with her. 260 See, for instance, his 1944 letter to Yang Shaoxuan 楊紹萱 and Qi Yanming 齊燕銘 about his reactions to a Jingju play they had helped produce, reproduced photographically in the front matter of Jin Ziguang 金紫光, ed., Bishang Liangshan 逼上梁山 (Forced to climb Mount Liang; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 1980) and translated in Faye Chunfang Fei, ed. and tr., Chinese Theories of Theater and Performance from Confucius to the Present (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999), p. 142. 261 A book has been published on Zhou’s interactions with artists (almost entirely actors), Chen Huangmei 陳荒煤, ed., Zhou Enlai yu yishu jiamen 周恩來與藝術家們 (Zhou Enlai and artists; Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian, 1992).

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photos playing the Jinghu for Jingju stars.262 Jiang Zemin, who has been photographed playing the main instrument of Kunqu, the dizi,263 was more prone than Zhu to make pronouncements and deliver addresses on the importance of Jingju.264 However, although some lower level officials who are extremely supportive of Jingju such as Li Ruihuan 李瑞環 (1934–) remained in office and power,265 the next generation of leaders, Party Chairman Hu Jintao 胡錦 濤 (1942–) and Premier Wen Jiabao 溫家寶 (1942–), showed no signs of being personally invested in Jingju, although both presumably supported a new project to include singing of Jingju in elementary and middle school music curriculums.266 While there was some talk of the current President, Xi Jinping 習近平 (1953–), attending the performances of the Jingju diva Zhang Huoding 262 See, for instance, Meng Guanglu 孟廣祿, “Zongli qinshi” 總理琴師 (Premier huqin master), Liyuan zhoukan, June 14, 1999, p. 8. Zhu also sang Jingju arias at the event where the picture was taken. 263 Niu Biao 鈕驃 et al., Zhongguo Kunqu yishu 中國崑曲藝術 (The art of Chinese Kunqu; Beijing: Yanshan, 1996), has a picture of Jiang Zemin playing the dizi in the front matter. 264 See, for example, Jiang Zemin 江澤民, “Hongyang minzu yishu, zhenfen minzu jingshen” 弘揚民族藝術, 振奮民族精神 (Make Chinese art flourish, stir up Chinese spirit), in Meiyun Qifeng: Mei Lanfang Zhou Xinfang bainian danchen jinian wenji 梅韻麒風: 梅 蘭芳周信芳百年誕辰紀念文集 (Mei’s resonance and Zhou’s air: Collected papers commemorating the 100th anniversary of the births of Mei Lanfang and Zhou Xinfang; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 1996), pp. 1–5. 265 Li, former mayor of Tianjin and chair of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, was the driving force behind the Zhongguo Jingju yin pei xiang huicui 中國 京劇音配像薈萃 project, which involved recording actors body-synching to hundreds of audio recordings of now dead or very old Jingju stars known for performing those plays: Zhongguo Jingju yin pei xiang jingcui 中國京劇音配像精粹 (Selected Chinese Jingju body-synched plays) 558 DVD disks (Tianjin: Tianjin shi wenhua yishu yixiang, 2000). A collection of Jingju plays that Li adapted has been published: Li Ruihuan gaibian juben ji 李瑞環改編劇本集 (Collected plays adapted by Li Ruihuan; Beijing: Zhongguo wenshi, 2005). 266 See Tu Linghui 涂玲慧, “Jingju jin zhong, xiaoxue ketang yanjiu” 京劇進中, 小學課堂 研究 (Research on the entry of Jingju into the elementary and middle school classroom), in Du Changsheng, ed., Jingju yu xiandai Zhongguo shehui, pp. 153–63. Jingju also has a prominent place in materials prepared for foreigners learning Chinese. For an example in a Chinese language textbook, see Huang Zhengcheng 黃政澄, Xinbian Hanyu jiaocheng 新編漢語教程 (Newly compiled curriculum for Chinese; Beijing: Commercial Press, 1997), “Di shisi ke: Zhongguo xiju yishu de daibiao—Jingju” 第十四課: 中國戲劇藝術的 代表—京劇 (Lesson 14: The representative Chinese theatrical art—Jingju), pp. 217–32. For an example in a periodical aimed at foreigners, see Zhang Jingxian, “Learn to Speak 100 Chinese Sentences (X): See a Performance of Beijing Opera,” Interchange 1997.4: 44–47. One of the sentences is translated as “While in China, particularly in Beijing, if you do not go to a theater to see a performance of Beijing opera, it will be a greatest regret” (p. 44).

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張火丁 at Lincoln Center on September 2–3, 2015,267 that did not happen and

he has not shown himself to be overly concerned with Jingju’s fate. The older leaders of the PRC were products of a world where it was pretty common to “grow up listening to Jingju” (tingxi zhangda 聽戲長大). In that world, children were often taken by their parents, grandparents, or other relatives, to the theater.268 With the disciplining of the audience to behave like Westerners do at the theater, young children were and are prohibited or restricted,269 so later generations have a different relationship with Jingju as live performance. Some Westerners thought that Westerners could not understand Chinese plays precisely because they were not taken to see them often as a child.270 One, writing in 1923, said, of Jingju performances in Beijing, “The inexperienced Westerner will seldom have the faintest idea what it is all about…. For that matter, the average Chinese would not understand much unless he had imbibed all these old stories almost with his mother’s milk.”271 Perhaps the younger generations of Chinese are beginning to resemble Westerners, in this respect as well as in others. 2.4 Representing China: Cultural and Underworld Leaders Cultural leaders also had special relationships with Jingju. These include intellectual leaders such as Qian Mu 錢穆 (1895–1990);272 artists such as Feng

267 On the performances, see Rose Jang, “Performance Review: Zhang Huoding’s Performances of Legend of the White Snake and The Jewelry Purse at David H. Koch Theatre at Lincoln Center on September 2 and 3, 2015,” CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature 35.1 (July 2016): 75–82. 268 For instance, Xu Chengbei 徐城北, Mingzi jiu you xi 名字就有戲 (There’s drama just in the name; Beijing: Zhongguo shudian, 1997), pp. 35 and 43, tells, respectively, the story of a man who was first taken to the theater to hear Jingju when he was three years old, and one who first went as a five-year old. 269 Restrictions on children under one-meter tall attending plays are mentioned, for instance, in Zhang Guowei, Ximi yehua, p. 124. This represents a change from earlier in the PRC. For theater tickets that include the words “Children under six are permitted to enter the auditorium; children over six need tickets bought for them before they can enter the auditorium” 六歲以下兒童謝絕入場; 六歲以上兒童購票入場, see Juhua liuyan: Shoudu tushu guan cang Beijing ge Jingju yuantuan lao xidan 菊苑留痕: 首都圖書館藏 北京各京劇院團老戲單, 1951–1966 (Leftover traces from the garden of theater: Theater programs from the various Jingju troupes and companies of Beijing held in the Shoudu Library, 1951–1966; Beijing: Xueyuan chubanshe, 2012), p. 3. 270 See B. S. Allen, Chinese Theatres Handbook (Tianjin: La Libraire Francaise, 1926?), p. 27. 271 Harry A. Franck, Wandering in North China (New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1923), p. 219. 272 See Wang Yong 王勇, “Qian Mu yu Jingju” 錢穆與京劇 (Qian Mu and Jingju), Zhongguo Jingju 2000.2: 24–25. Qian was interested in the cultural meaning of Jingju and planned a book on that topic but never finished it. Kang Youwei 康有為 (1858–1927), Gu Jiegang 顧

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Zikai 豐子愷 (1898–1975);273 spoken drama playwrights such as Cao Yu 曹禺 (1910–1996);274 film actors such as Hu Die 胡蝶 (1907–1989);275 novelists and short story writers such as Zhang Henshui 張恨水 (1897–1967);276 and poets and essayists such as Xu Zhimo 徐志摩 (1896–1931).277 These cultural leaders are generally thought to have contributed positively to modern Chinese culture, and were interested in Jingju for non-commercial reasons. A whole different group of people were also deeply interested in Jingju: gang leaders. Commentators are pretty much in agreement that the theater system in Shanghai was particularly well set up to make money for the theater owners.278 Easy money draws the attention of organized crime, and so

273

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275

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277 278

頡剛 (1893–1980), and Liang Shuming 梁漱溟 (1893–1988) also had special connections to Jingju. See Feng Zikai 豐子愷, “Fang Mei Lanfang” 訪梅蘭芳 (Paying a call on Mei Lanfang; originally published in Shenbao on March 2, 1947), in Weng Sizai, ed., Jingju congtan bainian lu, pp. 93–97. One of his daughters was a Jingju fanatic (p. 95). Zhang Daqian 張大 千 (1899–1983) and his wife could perform Chunxiang nao xue 春香鬧學 (Chunxiang causes a ruckus in the schoolroom; Xikao #268); see Xin Rong 欣榮, “Jingju yanyuan yu Zhongguo shuhua” 京劇演員與中國書畫 ( Jingju actors and Chinese calligraphy and painting), Zhongguo Jingju 1995.3: 21. In the early 1980s I witnessed Zhang attend a Jingju performance in Taiwan. See Tian Benxiang 田本想, “Cao Yu he xiqu—Dao Cao Yu xiansheng” 曹禺和戲曲— 悼曹禺先生 (Cao Yu and traditional Chinese theater—In mourning for Mr. Cao Yu), Zhongguo Jingju 1997.1: 22–23, who points out that Cao Yu performed Jingju with his classmates, read each volume of Xikao until it was in tatters, and married the famous Jingju actress Li Yuru 李玉茹 (1924–2008). Hu Die knew Mei Lanfang (see Wu Zhongping 吳仲平, “Hu Die ‘baishi’ Mei Lanfang” 胡蝶 ‘拜師’ 梅蘭芳 [Hu Die took Mei Lanfang as her teacher], Zhongguo Jingju 1995.6: 45) and participated in charity performances of Jingju (for a 1931 instance, see Chen Jie, Minguo xiqu shi nianpu, pp. 131–32). Jackie Chan (Cheng Long 成龍; 1954–) and Gong Li 鞏俐 (1965–) also have had connections with Jingju. Zhang was a Jingju fanatic (ximi 戲迷) who also sometimes performed as an amateur. He included descriptions of Jingju performances in his novels and wrote at least one piece of dramatic criticism: Zhang Henshui 張恨水, “Jiuju gailiang nan” 舊劇改良難 (It is difficult to reform old theater), originally published in 1927 and reproduced in Yitan 2 (2002): 28. Other fiction writers with special connections to Jingju include Li Baojia 李寶 嘉 (1867–1906), Yu Dafu 郁達夫 (1896–1945), Xiao Jun 蕭軍 (1907–1988), and Liu Xinwu 劉心武 (1942–). Xu liked plays and was acquainted with actors. See Zhang Huiguo 張惠國, “Xu Zhimo yu Jingju” 徐志摩與京劇 (Xu Zhimo and Jingju), Zhongguo Jingju 1998.2: 37. He and his wife, Lu Xiaoman 陸小曼 (1903–1965) performed together on stage. For example, Han Xibai 韓希白, “Jingju yu Shanghai banghui” 京劇與上海幫會 ( Jingju and the Shanghai gangs), Zhonghua xiqu 14 (1993), p. 66, argues that costs were low and ticket prices comparatively high, and quotes a late 19th century source that claims “as for those who opened theaters none did not earn profits” 開戲館無不獲利. Han later (p. 70) claims that 95% of the ticket price could be profit.

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Republican era Shanghai Jingju was dominated by gangs and the underworld.279 Most notorious was the “Green Gang” (Qingbang 青幫), and most famous in that gang for their patronage of Jingju were its two most powerful bosses, Huang Jinrong 黃金榮 (1867–1953) and Du Yuesheng 杜月笙 (1888–1951). Huang got his start as a theater owner in Suzhou and in 1916 began to gain control of a number of theaters in Shanghai, ending up with almost monopoly control280 and a combined staff of as many as one thousand persons working in them.281 In 1922 he took as wife Jingju actress Lu Lanchun 露蘭春 (1898–1936).282 Du Yuesheng also liked to marry Jingju actresses. According to Han Xibai 韓 希白, he married enough actresses for a theatrical troupe,283 the most famous of whom was the performer of laosheng roles, Meng Xiaodong 孟小冬 (1907– 1977), who had been briefly married to Mei Lanfang.284 When Mei Lanfang inadvertently caused Du Yuesheng to lose face when he was on the same bill with a different actress-wife of Du’s at a charity performance, it took the mobilization of all the resources available to Mei to lift Du’s embargo on his performing in Shanghai.285 Du Yuesheng and other Green Gang bosses such as Du’s sworn brother, Zhang Xiaolin 張嘯林 (1877–1940), were amateur performers of Jingju who regularly performed with or without costume in amateur Jingju clubs286 or 279 Yuan Yingming 袁英明 has translated from the Japanese an anonymous 1940 survey of the Shanghai theater world done for the Japanese army under the title, “20 shiji 40 niandai zhongqi Shanghai jutan yu banghui de guanxi” 20 世紀 40 年代中期上海劇壇與幫 會的關係 (Connections between the theater world and gangs in Shanghai in the middle of the 1940s), Da xiju luntan 3 (2007): 102–17. Its list of Shanghai theater managers indicates that only one of them was not a member of one of the gangs, and that even that manager had close connections with the Green Gang (p. 114). 280 Zhou Liangcai 周良才, “Xiandai banghui yu Haipai xiqu” 現代幫會與海派戲曲 (Modern gangs and Shanghai-style theater), Shanghai yishu jia 上海藝術家 (Shanghai artists) 1994.2: 36. 281 Han Xibai, “Jingju yu Shanghai banghui,” p. 74. 282 Han Xibai, “Jingju yu Shanghai banghui,” p. 78. 283 Han Xibai, “Jingju yu Shanghai banghui,” p. 80. 284 Goldstein, Drama Kings, p. 242, characterizes the marriage of Mei, a male performer of female roles with the title of “Lingjie dawang” 伶界大王 (King of the world of actors), and Meng, a female performer of male roles with the nickname “Donghuang” 冬皇 (lit.: Winter emperor), as “part love affair, part publicity stunt.” 285 See Goldstein, Drama Kings, p. 222. In general, Mei Lanfang and his brain trust were able to keep on the right side of Green Gang leaders such as Du Yuesheng and Huang Jinrong. 286 Du Yuesheng was instrumental in establishing at least three amateur Jingju clubs. Huang Jinrong does not seem to have been as into singing Jingju as Du, but he did get himself listed as an “advisor” (guwen 顧問) to an amateur Jingju club. See the July 1, 1935, Shenbao item, “Qilin tong jiang yan Wang Baochuan” 麒麟童將演王寶川 (Zhou Xinfang will perform Lady Precious Stream), in Cai Shicheng, ed., Shenbao Jingju ziliao xuanbian, p. 425.

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in public at high profile events such as charity performances.287 The results were sometimes laughable,288 but you could be punished for laughing.289 Not only did the Green Gang control the theaters, they also had considerable influence over the press in Shanghai,290 and used the press and their support of charity and large-scale performances by special invitation to win social capital. Although not the longest in duration of Jingju events put on by Du,291 the most celebrated was the three-day performance of plays to celebrate the completion of the Du family ancestral shrine in 1931. More than fifty plays were performed and there were estimates that there were more than 80,000 spectators.292 Although these activities were carried out largely for personal and even selfish reasons, the intense involvement of the Green Gang in Jingju to acquire profit and social credit is surely evidence of how important Jingju was at the time. 2.5 Everywhere You Look and Listen: Transmission through Old Media As Jingju matured in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, even if Chinese never went to see a performance, Jingju had many other ways to bring itself to their attention, through old and new media alike. Chief among the older media would be visual forms such as nianhua 年畫 (New Year’s prints),293 and oral forms such as quyi/shuochang wenxue 曲藝/說唱文學 (oral performing literature). While the Qing palace commissioned and housed a rather large variety of visual material reflecting Jingju,294 most of this material did not become 287 For an extended description of Du Yuesheng and Zhang Xiaolin’s performance at a big charity performance (yiyan 義演) to relieve flooding along the Yangzi, see Han Xibai, “Jingju yu Shanghai banghui,” p. 83. 288 Du Yuesheng was a native of Pudong 浦東, across the river from Shanghai, and his strong Pudong accent made his singing of Jingju quite odd. His accented singing was widely imitated, for comic effect. See Han Xibai, “Jingju yu Shanghai banghui,” pp. 79–80. 289 In one performance with Du Yuesheng, Zhang Xiaolin lost his false teeth and forgot what he was supposed to say on stage. When members of the crowd began to boo, henchman began beating them up. See Zhou Liangcai, “Xiandai banghui yu Haipai xiqu,” p. 36. 290 Du Yuesheng was on the board of directors of eleven newspapers, including Shenbao; see Han Xibai, “Jingju yu Shanghai banghui,” pp. 75–76. 291 The peformances of Jingju plays for Du Yuesheng’s 60th birthday in 1947 lasted for ten days. See Han Xibai, “Jingju yu Shanghai banghui,” pp. 84–85. 292 Han Xibai, “Jingju yu Shanghai banghui,” pp. 81–83. 293 It is customary to call all popular, single sheet woodblock prints New Year’s prints regardless of whether they were produced and bought for the new year or not. 294 This material can be divided into three categories: (1) sets of illustrations of the characters in different plays, usually referred to as banxiang pu 扮相譜 (stage appearance illustrations), either upper body only (1A) or full body (1B); (2) illustrations of scenes from plays; and (3) scrolls depicting celebrations of important birthdays and other events. Thirty-four

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known outside the palace until after the fall of the dynasty. Nianhua and woodblock prints, however, for which there was a steady market, were popular and cheap. No extant prints with theatrical subject matter appear to date from

examples of category 1A and fifty of category 1B are reproduced in Liao Ben 廖奔, ed., Zhongguo xiju tushi 中國戲劇圖史 (Illustrated history of Chinese traditional theater; Shijiazhuang: Hebei jiaoyu, 1996), the first for category 1A appearing as figure 2–188 and the first for category 1B as figure 2–90. Scenes from plays (category 2) are preserved in two separate albums labeled Xichu huace 戲齣畫冊 (Album of play paintings) and Qingren xichu ce 清人戲齣冊 (Album of scenes by Qing painters), respectively. 160 of the former (first example, figure 2–89) and thirteen of the latter (first example, figure 2–185) are reproduced in Liao Ben, Zhongguo xiju tushi. The illustrations show little evidence of the kind of extravagant use of props and extras that can distinguish palace productions from commercial ones, although the dragon suit in one of them (ibid., fig. 2–103) does look like quite extraordinary. To what extent the resources of the palace were lent to commercial actors and troupes when they performed in the palace is not clear to me. Che Wenming 車文明, ed., Zhongguo xiqu wenwu zhi 中國戲曲文物志 (Record of material objects related to Chinese indigenous theater), 4 vols. (Taiyuan: Sanjin chubanshe, 2016), 4: 1, presents a photograph of costumes from the palace that includes something labeled as belonging to or used by Tan Xinpei. The holdings of various institutions of examples of category 1A paintings held by various institutions have been published in a variety of volumes, the first being Beijing tushu guan cang Shengpingshu xiqu renwu huace 北京圖 書館藏昇平署戲曲人物畫冊 (Sets of paintings of traditional dramatic characters from the Shengpingshu held in the Beijing Library; Beijing: Beijing tushu guan, 1997). As for the relationship between these different kinds of paintings and performance, examples of category 1A that made it onto the antiques market have the words chuandai lian’er ju zhao ci yang 穿戴臉兒俱照此樣 (costume and makeup are all to be done completely after this model), which Zhu Jiajin thinks were added to increase their market value. Zhu also points out that the sets of paintings were actually held in the Empress Dowager’s quarters and not the Shengpingshu, which leads him to conclude that they were for appreciating (guanshang 觀賞) rather than for actors’ use, as the added phrase seems to indicate. See his short preface to Beijing tushu guan cang Shengpingshu xiqu renwu huace. Yang Lianqi 楊連啟, Qing Shengpingshu xiqu renwu banxiang pu 清昇平署戲曲人物扮相 譜 (Banxiang pu from the Qing dynasty Shengpingshu), 3 vols. (Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 2016), “Qianyan” 前言 (Foreword), p. 12, claims that because of the plays the characters come from, the set is definitely from the Guangxu reign period, and even narrows the time of their creation to 1884–1900. Yang also stresses that actors would have no need of such paintings (ibid.). While the paintings themselves have been done pretty carefully, there are lots of mistakes in the names of both the plays and the characters (on this last subject, see ibid., pp. 18–19). The majority of the plays in the published sets are in Xikao. An excellent reference source on paintings of traditional Chinese theater is Che Wenming 車文明, Ershi shiji xiqu wenwu de faxian yu quxue yanjiu 二十世紀戲曲文物的發現與 曲學研究 (The discovery of theatrical artifacts in the 20th century and the study of traditional Chinese theater; Beijing: Wenhua yishu, 2001), Appendix H, pp. 271–87. Pp. 285–86 (H 103–H 107) cover the categories of material discussed above; pp. 279–80 (H 51–H 64) cover Category 3.

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before the Qing dynasty.295 Qianlong reign nianhua tend to picture scenes from plays found in the anthology of highlight scenes, Zhui baiqiu 綴白裘 (A patched cloak of white fur), and the majority of them are Kunqu. Prints from Suzhou tend to favor civil plays (wenxi 文戲), just as does Kunqu.296 The biggest popular print production center close to Beijing and most productive in terms of theater prints of any of the workshops,297 Yangliu Qing 楊柳 青, also printed pictures of Kunqu plays in its earliest days,298 but prints of Jingju plays dominate their total output.299 In prints from the Jiaqing and Daoguang reigns, yabu and huabu types of drama are mixed in the prints, with bangzi most prominent among the huabu genres; martial plays featuring characters wearing armor (kao 靠) are common. By the Guangxu reign, martial plays from Jingju featuring hand-to-hand fighting (duanda 短打) dominate.300 Hundreds

295 Wang Shucun 王樹村, “Guanyu ‘Jingju banhua’ ” 關於 ‘京劇版畫’ (Concerning ‘Jingju woodblock prints’), in Wang Shucun 王樹村, ed., Baichu Jingju huapu 百齣京劇畫譜 ( Jingju New Year’s prints for 100 plays; Harbin: Heilongjiang meishu, 1999), no pagination (first of 10 pages). 296 Wang Shucun 王樹村, Xichu nianhua 戲齣年畫 (New Year’s prints of plays), 2 vols. (Taibei: Hansheng zazhi she, 1990), 1: 29. There is also a 2007 Peking University Press edition of the book. 297 Liu Jian 劉見, “Xianban nianhua jianshuo” 線版年畫簡說 (A brief introduction to linedrawing woodcuts and New Year’s prints), in Liu Jian 劉見, ed., Zhongguo Yangliu qing nianhua xianban xuan 中國楊柳青年畫線版選 (Selected New Year’s prints and linedrawing woodcuts from Yangliu Qing in China; Tianjin: Tianjin Yangliu Qing huashe, 1999), p. 615. 298 Wang Shucun, “Guanyu ‘Jingju banhua’ ” (fourth of ten pages). Wang notes that the most of the jing 凈 and chou 丑 roles in the prints do not have face paint (bu goulian 不勾臉) and that the costumes (xingtou 行頭) differ from what is used today for these roles. The workshop at Wuqiang 武強 in Hebei was also close to Beijing. Their prints featured a mix of Jingju and local opera play scenes. For summary information on different workshops’ theatrical woodblock prints, see Chen Wenming, Ershi shiji xiqu wenwu, pp. 283–84 (H 85–H 97). 299 Yang Lianqi 楊連啟, “Xiqu nianhua er ti” 戲曲年畫二題 (Two topics concerning New Year’s prints), Yitan 4 (2006): 179. 300 Wang Shucun, “Guanyu ‘Jingju banhua’ ” (fifth to the seventh of ten pages). Margaret B. Wan, Regional Literature and the Transmission of Culture: Chinese Drum Ballads, 1800–1937 (Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2020), focuses on two story cycles, each ostensibly about an eighteenth-century official renowned for solving court cases, Shi Shilun 施世綸 (1719–1805; “Judge Shi”) and Liu Yong 劉墉 (1695–1722; “Judge Liu”). Only the former is prominent on the Jingju stage. Professor Wan has located over sixty nianhua treating episodes from the Judge Shi cycle (see p. 231 and Appendix D.1, pp. 326–29), but the judge only appears in five of the prints (p. 233), the focus typically being on the exploits of the judge’s martial lieutenants.

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of different kinds of prints depicting Jingju have been preserved;301 they circulated throughout China, reaching as far as Xinjiang Province in the far West.302 Earlier prints, just as in the illustrations to printed editions of chuanqi plays, do not tend to depict the plays being performed on stage, but either present the scenes basically the same way one would depict them if they were based on a work of fiction (i.e., with realistic backgrounds and no sign of a stage or dramatic costume or make-up), or show the action spilling off a represented stage-like piece of architecture, with some of the characters on it and some off. Later prints tend either to show the characters on a stage or to depict them the way they would look on stage and with the same props as would be found on stage, without depicting the stage itself (this being the basic style of the paintings held in the palace that depict scenes from Jingju play). A small number of the prints include information, in the picture itself, about the troupe or actors depicted.303 But regardless of whether the prints were based on actual performances or not,304 at the very least these prints were labeled with the names of the plays according to the Jingju repertoire and carried at least those plays to the corners of the empire. There is an interesting subgenre of popular prints that depict very young children performing plays. They can be divided into two types, one only depicting a small number of children performing the same play with some stage props against a blank background, the other depicting a classroom of children in small groups performing different plays (as many as eight) while

301 Wang Shucun, “Guanyu ‘Jingju banhua’ ” (sixth of ten pages), gives a figure of almost 500 in 1958. 302 Wang Shucun, “Guanyu ‘Jingju banhua’ ” (eighth of ten pages). 303 See Zhongguo xiqu zhi: Tianjin juan, “Yangliu Qing muban xiqu nianhua” 楊柳青木版戲 曲年畫 (Yangliu Qing woodblock theatrical New Year’s prints), p. 311. Wang Shucun, ed., Baichu Jingju huapu, p. 199, reproduces a print that identifies itself as depicting the stage of a theater in Tianjin. The stage is represented only by the entrance and exit doors on either side and a separate structure in the middle, similar to the way a bed chamber or general’s headquarters was represented on a stage that unexpectedly depicts a real horse on it. Yang Lianqi, “Xiqu nianhua er ti,” p. 178, reproduces a print from the Taohua wu 桃 花塢 workshop near Suzhou with text on the two front pillars of the stage indicating that the troupe is from the capital ( jingdu 京都) and the play that they will “definitely” (zhun 准) perform. 304 Ma Shabo 馬少波, “Xuyan” 序言 (Preface), in Wang Shucun, ed., Baichu Jingju huapu, no pagination (first of two pages), stresses how many of the prints were drawn from life, while James A. Flath, Cult of Happiness: Nianhua, Art, and History in Rural North China (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2004), especially pp. 101–102, stresses how rare this was.

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the schoolmaster is either absent or has just returned and is viewing the scene from a doorway.305 Among older visual media, woodblock prints were clearly the only one that came close to being a mass media in terms of the way they were produced, the fact that multiple copies were made, and that they circulated easily.306 Wall paintings, lanterns, sculpture, and bas-reliefs representing scenes from drama were common enough,307 but probably had less impact in terms of the number of people exposed to them in person. This is perhaps least true of lanterns308 and figurines made from clay (niren 泥人) or dough (mianren 麵人), which were either displayed in places where they could be seen by many (lanterns), or were made and sold in large quantities and easy to transport (figurines). Especially famous for making figurines of actors and scenes from plays were the generations of members of a Zhang family in Tianjin known as “Niren Zhang” 泥人張 (Clay Figurine Zhang) whose figurines were done so realistically you could figure out who the models for them were.309 The same was said of figurines made from dough.310 These figurines can also be seen as one of 305 See Ellen Johnston Laing, “Boris Riftin and Chinese Popular Woodblock Prints as Sources on Traditional Chinese Theater,” CHINOPERL Papers 29 (2010): 183–207, pp. 197–98, on the second type of print showing children performing plays, and p. 207 for the reproduction of an example. Laing’s article, and the resources she introduces in it, represents a good brief introduction to the representation and circulation of xiqu in popular prints. 306 The majority of theatrical woodblock prints are color prints. Regardless of whether the color was added through the use of multiple blocks, through painting parts of the blocks with different colors, or by adding color directly to the printed image, a lot of handwork was involved. 307 See Che Wenming, Ershi shiji xiqu wenwu, p. 282 (H 77–H 84 [wall paintings from the late Qing]), and pp. 215–19 (D 92–D 133 [sculpture of the 19th to early 20th centuries]). 308 The same Shenbao article that contains the earliest occurrence of the word Jingju in print (February 7, 1876) also contains a description of how, in the area south of Qianmen in Beijing (where theaters were concentrated), there were about fifty-sixty shops that sell glass and paper lanterns and hang up lamps outside to attract customers. The piece describes the lanterns as portraying scenes from fiction and drama, and particularly notes that they could involve portraits, in their stage roles, of famous actors, including “thirteen famous actors of Yiyang troupes of the past” 昔年弋腔班中十三名角 and five recently added Jingju stars. See Cai Shicheng, ed., Shenbao Jingju ziliao xuanbian, p. 10. 309 See Zhongguo xiqu zhi: Tianjin juan, “ ‘Niren Zhang’ xiqu renwu caisu” ‘泥人張’ 戲曲人物 彩塑 (Colored figurines of stage characters by ‘Clay Figurine Zhang’), pp. 361–62, on how when the laosheng actor Yu Sansheng came to perform in Tianjin in 1844, he was a great sensation and many portraits of him were made, but most striking were the clay figurines of him made by the first generation “Niren Zhang,” Zhang Mingshan 張明山 (1826–1906). For a photograph of one of them see Liao Ben, Zhongguo xiju tushi, fig. 3–513. For summary information on “Niren Zhang” figurines, see Che Wenming, Ershi shiji xiqu wenwu, p. 219 (D 132). 310 On the famous laosheng actor Gao Qingkui 高慶奎 (1890–1942) buying dough figures when he was young whose models he could recognize, see Xu Chengbei, Mingzi jiu you xi,

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a number of cheaply and traditionally produced items that could be used by children and others to put on pretend plays.311 Oral performing literature, like theater, and perhaps even more so because of its portability and lower capital costs, had the potential to reach illiterate as well as literate audiences. Jingju was very prominent in these genres, and particularly so in the case of genres associated with Beijing, such as zidi shu 子 弟書 (lit.: cadet stories312) and xiangsheng 相聲 (lit.: appearance and sound; often translated “crosstalk”). Zidu shu was primarily produced and consumed by bannermen. It was one of the more literate genres of oral performing literature in China, and more texts with names of their authors have survived (almost all from the 19th century) than is usual for premodern oral performing literature. Zidi shu that are narrative tend to be either adaptations of traditional fiction or Jingju plays, the latter having titles identical or similar to the names of the plays.313 Others describe the activities of natives of Beijing, many of whom are presented as giving too much attention and money to Jingju.314

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p. 58 (figurines made by “Mianren Tang” 麵人湯 [Dough Figurine Tang]). Weng Ouhong tells how he and Gao Qingkui came across someone selling heads for shadow puppets (yingxi rentou 影戲人頭), divided according to their role categories. Weng and Gao were able to recognize that many of them were modeled on famous Jingju actors. The person selling them said he made them because formerly, photography was difficult and many images from the stage had not been passed down. See Weng Ouhong 翁偶虹, Weng Ouhong bianju shengya 翁偶虹編劇生涯 (My life writing plays; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 1986), pp. 86–87. For instance, the HathiTrust scan of the Harvard University copy of the 1907 edition of Dumen jilüe mentions a shop that sells xifang qiemo 戲房切模 (dramatic props [or perhaps, stages and props]; qiemo is more commonly written as 切末) made from paper (p. 1/21b of the “Jiyi” 技藝 [Skills and arts] section [282 of the continuous pagination]). Printed sets of ten of character or scenery cards about one inch tall for Jingju plays were also sold. H. Y. Lowe, The Adventures of Wu: The Life Cycle of a Peking Man, Volumes I and II, Derke Bodde, tr. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), 2: 174, notes that among the material for kids at Liuli chang 琉璃廠 in Beijing were “papier-mache theatre masks complete with beards of white or black horse hair.” Also translated as “scion’s tales,” “youth books,” or “bannerman tales.” Chen Jinzhao 陳錦釗, “Zidi shu zhi ticai laiyuan ji qi zonghe yanjiu” 子弟書之題材來源 及其綜合研究 (A comprehensive investigation of the sources for zidi shu), master’s thesis, Zhengzhi University, Taibei, 1977, “Qu cai yu dangshi liuxing zhi sanchu, Jingju deng zidi shu” 取材於當時流行之散齣, 京劇等子弟書 (Zidi shu based on popular single plays, Jingju, etc.), pp. 87–98, lists thirty zidi shu that share narratives with plays. In sixteen cases Chen thinks the source plays were Jingju. As for the thirty play titles listed, sixteen can be found in Xikao (the two sets of sixteen plays largely overlap but are not completely the same). See, for example, Liyuan guan 梨園館 (The theater), photo-reprint of a manuscript copy produced by the “Baiben Zhang” 百本張 shop in Beijing held by the Academy Sinica in Taiwan and reproduced in Su wenxue congkan, 397: 365–86. An actor from the Sixi Troupe

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The roots of xiangsheng go way back, but the art as practiced today dates from the eighteenth century. Traditional xiangsheng is steeped in Jingju, with performers making constant reference to its repertoire of plays and building many routines around specific famous ones.315 The performers (most xiang­ sheng routines have two) feature the “jokester” (dougeng de 逗哽的) of the pair getting laughs by pretending not to understand the conventions of Jingju or failing at performing segments of plays he boasts he can perform, or else getting applause by accurately imitating the singing-styles of famous actors. Most of these routines take it for granted that the audience will be intimately familiar with the content of the plays mentioned,316 will know not only the names of famous actors but also their singing styles,317 will be familiar with seeing Jingju has been paying regular calls on the main character of the piece, a young wealthy playboy (wanku zidi 紈絝子弟) who agrees to go to the theater and has servants bring with him “almost as much stuff as if he was moving house” 賽搬家多少東西 (p. 371). Regardless of the waste involved the narrator praises him as a worthy (xianzhe 賢者) among playboys because he goes home early (pp. 385–86). 315 The titles of the plays were so familiar that narratives could be put together that featured them. For examples in verse and prose dialogue see, respectively, “Baixi ming” 百戲名 (lit.: 100 play names) and “Da ximo” 大戲魔 (The great opera demon), in Feng Buyi 馮 不異 and Liu Yingnan 劉英南, eds., Zhongguo chuantong xiangsheng daquan 中國傳 統相聲大全 (Complete collection of traditional Chinese xiangsheng routines), 4 vols. (Beijing: Wenhua yishu, 1996), 4: 719–20 and 3: 434–42. In the latter, it is explained that a ximo (opera demon) is even worse than a ximi (opera fanatic). The original title of this piece was “Wubai chu ximing” 五百齣戲名 (500 play titles). There is a novel by Sun Yusheng (published under a penname, Sushi shi 漱石氏) that inserts hundreds of play titles into its text (both Kunqu and Jingju), Ru ci guanchang 如此官場 (A world of officialdom [screwed up] like this; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 1989). This novel, which was originally published in 1915 under the title Ximi zhuan 戲迷傳 (Biography of an opera fanatic), is referred to by that title in Sun’s Haishang fanhua meng, fu Xumeng 海上繁華夢, 附續 夢 (A dream of the splendor of Shanghai, with its sequel; Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 1991; originally published 1903–1908), p. 29.1019 (third part of the novel). Ru ci guanchang, however, makes clear from its first page that it is not about the world of theater or an opera fanatic but only wants to make the point that being an official is like being an actor (Sushi shi, Ru ci guanchang, p. 1.1). 316 For example, two versions of a routine in which the performers are going to act the Jingju play Huanghe lou 黃鶴樓 (Yellow crane tower; Xikao #12) under the name of the play are included in Feng Buyi and Liu Yingnan, eds., Zhongguo chuantong xiangsheng daquan, 1: 649–70 and 671–80. 317 See Gaihang 改行 (Changing professions), in Feng Buyi and Liu Yingnan, eds., Zhongguo chuantong xiangsheng daquan, 2: 456–64. The premise of the routine is that during the period of national mourning for the death of the Guangxu emperor in 1908, when normal theater performances were prohibited, the famous actors are forced to find other lines of work, but can’t stop themselves from acting as if they were still performing Jingju. The version given is that of Hou Baolin 侯寶林 (1917–1993), the most famous xiangsheng performer of the 20th century. On Hou Baolin’s particularly strong connections to Jingju,

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in theaters,318 and are willing to accept the idea that Jingju can spill out of the theaters into ordinary life, with comic effect.319 Since Jingju also became an important part of the cultural scene in Shanghai, we would expect that fact to be reflected in the genres of oral performing literature popular there. In a novel about Shanghai published from 1903–1906, there are descriptions of performances by courtesans at shuchang 書場, venues for the major genre of oral performing literature in Shanghai, tanci 彈詞 (lit.: plucking songs). What the courtesans perform are not entire stories, but opening pieces (kaipian 開篇). When patrons request particular pieces, the term dianxi 點戲 (select a play) is used. The pieces are called after the names of plays, and although some of the names are those of Kunqu or bangzi plays, the majority have the names of Jingju plays.320 The Shanghai oral performing genre closest to xiangsheng, dujiao xi 獨腳戲 (lit.: monologues), which began to get popular around 1920 and is performed in southern dialect, has many routines in which the comedy is generated by southern dialect speakers trying to sing Jingju.321

318

319

320

321

see Wang Jue 王決, “Hou Baolin yu Jingju” 侯寶林與京劇 (Hou Baolin and Jingju), Zhongguo Jingju 1993.2: 18–20. The conceit in Mai guapiao 賣掛票 (Selling tickets for hanging from the wall), in Feng Buyi and Liu Yingnan, eds., Zhongguo chuantong xiangsheng daquan, 2: 523–35, is that Jingju is so popular that the theaters can sell tickets that buy you the privilege of being hung from the wall (there being no other space left in the theater). Absurd as this is meant to be, it resonates with a description of people sitting on railings and improvised swings in a crowded theater in Pan Jingfu and Chen Moxiang, Liyuan waishi, p. 12.155. For routines in which Jingju fanatics get in trouble because they insist on singing at odd moments as if they were on stage, see Feng Buyi and Liu Yingnan, eds., Zhongguo chuantong xiangsheng daquan, Nao gongtang 鬧公堂 (Causing an uproar in the court), 2: 456– 64; Ximi 戲迷 (Opera fanatic), 3: 148–49; Ximi yaofang 戲迷藥方 (Opera fanatic medical prescription; the prescription is packed full with the names of Jingju plays), 3: 443–53; Ximi 戲迷 (Opera fanatic), 4: 619–21; and Ximi qichuang 戲迷起床 (The opera fanatic gets out of bed), 4: 638–40. For a description of such a session in a shuchang, see Haishang fanhua meng, p. 4.37 (chapter 4, p. 37). Christian Henriot, Prostitution and Sexuality in Shanghai: A Social History, 1849–1949, Nöel Castelino (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), notes the shift to Jingju and ballads in the shuchang of the late nineteenth century (p. 38), and the difficulty of learning Kunqu as a reason for the change (p. 40). See, for instance, Yang Huasheng 楊華生 (1918–), ed., “Ningbo Kongcheng ji” 寧波空城 計 (Ningbo-style Ruse of the empty city), in Chuantong dujiao xi xuanji 傳統獨腳戲選 集 (Selected traditional dujiao xi routines; Beijing: Zhongguo quyi, 1985), pp. 195–204. Yang notes that he first learned the piece in 1931. Dujiao xi was also known as huaji 滑稽 (lit.: comic). Imitation of Jingju by huaji actors was so popular that a designated collection was published: Huaji Jingdiao daguan 滑稽京調大觀 (Compendium of huaji Jingju; Shanghai: Guoguang shudian, 1938).

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Although there were no set venues where you would go to hear them performed, information and opinions about Jingju also circulated in short, popular poetic forms such as zhuzhi ci 竹枝詞 (lit.: bamboo sprig poems). As is common with forms of Chinese poetry that began as oral genres, literati both copied and circulated oral compositions in the genre and composed imitations of their own.322 2.6 Everywhere You Look and Listen: Transmission through New Media Vernacular fiction might have had a more limited audience than oral performing literature, in that it required a certain level of literacy to read it or the resources (social or economic) to get someone to read it to you. But it still had a wide audience and influence, especially after the importation of Western mechanized printing technology (lithography, etc.) spurred the creation of mass audiences in the late Qing.323 The connections between vernacular fiction and dramatic literature had always been strong, with adaptations and influence going both ways.324 For instance, Li Yu 李漁 (1611–1680) turned many of his vernacular short stories into plays and his stories are saturated with theater.325 In the nineteenth cen322 For the Beijing section of a collection of zhuzhi ci, see Lei Mengshui 雷夢水 et al., eds., Zhonghua zhuzhi ci 中華竹枝詞 (Chinese bamboo sprig songs; Beijing: Beijing guji, 1997), pp. 1–433. Another written genre that had a significant oral impact was lantern riddles (dengmi 燈謎). For a collection of lantern riddles about Jingju, some of which are said to date from the Qing dynasty, see Zhai Hongqi 翟鴻起 et al., Quwei Jingju dengmi 趣味 京劇燈謎 (Interesting lantern riddles about Jingju; Beijing: Xueyuan chubanshe, 2003). Lowe, The Adventures of Wu, 1: 98, also mentions riddles with “the name of a famous play or an actor, as the answer.” 323 See Leo Ou-fan Lee and Andrew J. Nathan, “The Beginnings of Mass Culture: Journalism and Fiction in the Late Ch’ing and Beyond,” in David Johnson, Andrew J. Nathan, and Evelyn S. Rawski, eds., Popular Culture in Late Imperial China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), pp. 360–95. 324 See, for instance, Liu Hui 劉輝, Xiaoshuo xiqu lunji 小說戲曲論集 (Articles on fiction and drama: Taibei: Guanya wenhua, 1992), “Yishu xingshi de jiejian yu jiaoliu—Zhongguo xiaoshuo yu xiqu bijiao yanjiu zhi yi” 藝術形式的借鑒與交流—中國小說與戲曲比 較研究之一 (The mutual influence and interchange of artistic form—Study number one on the comparison of Chinese fiction and drama), pp. 17–54, and “Ticai neirong de danxiang xishou yu shuangxiang jiaorong—Zhongguo xiaoshuo yu xiqu bijiao yanjiu zhi er” 題材內容的單向吸收與雙響交融—中國小說與戲曲比較研究之二 (The unidirectional and multidirectional melding of subject material—Study number two on the comparison of Chinese fiction and drama), pp. 55–77. 325 One of the stories that he turned into a play and which is about a young man who becomes an actor to pursue his love, an actress, is the first of his Liancheng bi 連城璧 (Jade worth a string of cities) stories, “Tan Chuyu xiyu chuanqing; Liu Miaogu quzhong sijie” 譚楚玉戲 語傳情; 劉藐姑曲中死結 (Tan Chuyu conveys his love through acting; Liu Miaogu dies

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tury, the first novel that focuses exclusively on the theater and actors, Pinhua baojian 品花寶鑒 (Precious mirror for evaluating flowers), was written by Chen Sen 陳森 (c. 1797–c. 1870), but that novel is on Kunqu in Beijing.326 Within a decade, however, representations of theater in Beijing based-fiction begin to stress Jingju over Kunqu.327 Since Shanghai quickly became the center of a modernized, mechanized print industry that permitted the printing of reading materials in great quantity cheaply,328 it was in Shanghai that a new media, fiction magazines, and a new way of printing fiction, serialization, developed.329 This fiction flooded the market, and it was natural that representations of Jingju in Shanghai, not Beijing, are prominent in the serialized novels of the late Qing. Because of the close ties between courtesans and Jingju, especially in Shanghai,330 it is in the courtesan novels of the late Qing that Jingju is perhaps most prominent. This is true of the very first Chinese serialized novel, Haishang hua liezhuan 海上花列傳 (Biography of Shanghai flowers; 1892) by Han Bangqing 韓幫慶 (1856–1894),331 which includes descriptions of such things as the call chits used to call courtesans to the theater to accompany patrons there ( jiaoju 叫 局), performances by all-girl troupes (mao’er xi 毛兒戲), courtesans singing Jingju ( Jingdiao 京調) arias, the use of theater programs (xidan 戲單) to decide which theater to go to, and secret love affairs between courtesans and actors.332 for chastity when the aria comes to an end). It has been translated into English by Patrick Hanan as “An Actress Scorns Wealth and Honour to Preserve Her Chastity,” in Patrick Hanan, ed., Silent Operas (Wusheng xi) (Hong Kong: Research Centre for Translation, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1990), pp. 161–201. 326 Lindy Li Mark, “Kunqu and Theatre in the Transvestite Novel, Pinhua baojian,” CHINOPERL Papers 14 (1986): 37–59, sorts through all of the information on Kunqu in the novel, which she accepts as a fairly accurate representation of certain aspects of the Kunqu theater world in Beijing of the time. 327 For example, in a novel that was finished around 1850, Wenkang 文康, Ernü yingxiong zhuan 兒女英雄傳, Heroic lovers; Jinan: Qi Lu shushe, 1989), the mentions of Jingju plays and performances are more striking and important than those referring to Kunqu. 328 See Christopher A. Reed, Gutenberg in Shanghai: Chinese Print Capitalism, 1876–1937 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2004). 329 See Alexander Des Forges, “A New Mode of Literary Production in the Late Qing: The Invention of the Installment Plan,” in David Der Wei Wang and Shang Wei, eds., Dynastic Crisis and Cultural Innovation from the Late Ming to the Late Qing and Beyond (Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2005), pp. 388–419. 330 See, for instance, Yeh, “Playing with the Public.” Even in places in China where women were not allowed to enter theaters, prostitutes were. 331 The process of serialization was never finished and it was published as a separate novel of 64 chapters in 1894. 332 The novel has been partially translated as The Sing-Song Girls of Shanghai, Eileen Chang and Eva Hung, trs. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005). Representative examples

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The references to Jingju become very dense indeed in Haishang fanhua meng 海上繁華夢 (A dream of the splendor of Shanghai) and its installments, written by Sun Yusheng 孫玉聲 (1862–1937; a.k.a., Sun Jiazhen 孫家振) under the penname Jingmeng chixian 警夢痴仙, which first began to be published in 1903. A sequel, Xu Haishang fanhua meng 續海上繁華夢, began to be serialized in 1908. Sun wrote on Jingju and edited newspapers connected to entertainment in general or Jingju in particular under the penname Sushi sheng 漱石 生 (or just the first one or two characters of this penname), and appears in his own novel under that name.333 Material not seen in Haishang hua liezhuan but found in Sun’s novels includes descriptions of courtesans acting (kechuan 客 串) on stage in Jingju plays,334 the rise of wenming xi and why they and the kind of plays acted by the courtesans are both easy and hard to perform,335 looking in the ads in newspapers to see what is playing,336 and the ranking of actors in a roster (bang 榜) in the newspapers in imitation of the way the results of the old civil service examination system were announced.337 of the first four things listed above can be found on pp. 19.150–51, 19.150–53, 29.240, and 29.242–43, respectively. For the fifth, see Keith McMahon, “Fleecing the Male Customer in Shanghai Brothels of the 1890s,” Late Imperial China 23.2 (2002): 17–20. 333 See, for example, Haishang fanhua meng, p. 40.2277 (part 3 of the sequel), where a character called Sushi sheng claims that the novel is based on events of the last decade plus a few years, and although “not official history, can be seen as a collection of anecdotes” 雖 非正史, 可作叢談. 334 Haishang fanhua meng, p. 10.799 (third part of original novel), oddly praises the famous courtesan Lin Daiyu 林黛玉 (1864–1924) for her skill at using small stilts to simulate bound feet (qiaogong 蹺工), when one would expect her to have bound feet to begin with. 335 In a discussion on pp. 20.1710–11 (part two of the sequel), it is said that since the plays involved (huadan plays and wenming xi) have no real singing (changgong 唱工), as long as you are eloquent and can brazen it out, it takes little or no training to perform them. On p. 23.2082 (third part of the sequel), a character says that while in old plays ( jiuju 舊 劇) there was the percussion rhythm (luogu jiezou 鑼鼓節奏) to keep everything in order, that is missing in new plays (xinju 新劇). 336 See p. 27.1001 (part three of the novel), where the problem of finding out what play would be good to see is solved by buying a copy of Xiaolin bao 笑林報 (Forest of laughter), a periodical started by the author of the novel. 337 See pp. 28.1007 and 29.1019 (third part of novel). Rosters of courtesans had been produced going back hundreds of years but rosters of actors are largely a thing of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. To distinguish the two, those for courtesans were called huabang 花榜 (rosters of flowers) and those for actors were called jubang 菊榜 (chrysanthemum rosters). On the history of the former, see Chen Boxi, Shanghai yishi daguan, pp. 407–10 and Yeh, Shanghai Love, pp. 226–36. On jubang, see Wang Zhaoyu 王照璵, “Youling pingxuan huodong—Jubang” 優伶評選活動—菊榜 (Actor selection activities—Chrysanthemum rosters), “Qingdai zhong hou qi Beijing ‘pinyou’ wenhua,” pp. 61–78. Over time, these ranked lists of actors morphed from the work of small coteries

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It is also in the late Qing and into the beginning of the Republican period that you begin to see more and more short pieces of “fiction” focused on Jingju published in leisure media. I put fiction in quotes because much of what is labeled “fiction” we might categorize as plays or parodies of plays. Muyou sheng 慕優生, Haishang liyuan zazhi 海上梨園雜志 (Miscellaneous notes on theater in Shanghai; 1911), which according to its preface brings together material from a variety of sources (but unfortunately routinely declines to identify them), has one whole chapter of such pieces (labeled “Xiaoshuo” 小說). There are four items: one labeled “A Wuhan current event” (Wuhan shishi 武 漢時事) describes how watching lewd plays leads to the seduction of a pair of women (pp. 11/1–7); one labeled “A short piece of historical fiction” (lishi duanpian xiaoshuo 歷史短篇小說) describes a performance of Shi Jieting 失 街亭 (“Losing Jieting;” Xikao #136) that warns readers not to be like Ma Su 馬 謖, responsible for the military defeat mentioned in the play’s title (pp. 11/7–8); one labeled “An allegorical piece of short fiction” (yuyan duanpian xiaoshuo 寓言短篇小說) describes a performance of a play making special use of lanterns (dengxi 燈戲; pp. 11/8–10); and one describes a charity performance at a school for drought relief, for which a variety of people show up to buy tickets (not labeled; pp. 11/10–22). The last of these particularly mixes elements of the genres of fiction and drama. In the Republican era, leisure magazines such as Libai liu 禮拜六 (Saturday) also published a substantial number of short fictional pieces on Jingju.338 The period also saw the appearance of a piece of fiction supposedly about the famous actor Yang Xiaolou 楊小樓 (1878–1938) that appeared in three versions under three different titles, and a number of fictional works about Mei Lanfang.339 of men that provoked debate about the standards used in competitions run by newspapers for which the readers were invited to vote by filling out and turning in forms printed in the newspapers (which in turn provoked suspicion that the results had been skewed by people with influence and money). 338 See, for instance, Henwo 恨我, “Nüling Liu Xikui zhi zhanshi” 女伶劉喜奎之戰史 (The battle history of the actress Liu Xikui; labeled biecai xiaoshuo 別裁小說 [special fiction]), Libai liu 55 (June 19, 1915): 18–27 and Ma Er xiansheng 馬二先生 (Feng Shuluan 馮叔 鸞), “Zhan huangpao” 斬黃袍 (Executing the official with the imperial yellow gown; labeled yuyan xiaoshuo 寓言小說 [allegorical fiction]), Libai liu 71 (October 9, 1915): 9–12, in which two men discuss the play of the title (Xikao #51). Matsuura Tsuneo 松浦恆雄, “Xikao zai Minguo chunian de wenhua diwei” 戲考在民國初年的文化地位 (The cultural status of Xikao in the early years of the Republican period), Wang Jie 王傑, tr., in Du Changsheng, ed., Jingju yu xiandai Zhongguo shehui, p. 767, speaks of the second of these as an example of juping xiaoshuo 劇評小說 (theater critic/review fiction). 339 See Gu Shuguang 谷曙光, Liyuan wenxian yu youling yanjiu—Jingju Kunqu wenxian shiliao kaolun 梨園文獻與優伶演劇—京劇崑曲文獻史料考論 (Theatrical archives and actor performance—Essays on archival and historical material on Jingju and Kunqu;

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In Republican China, Jingju continued to be a common topic in fiction, but what is new is the number of more ambitious works in which Jingju becomes the main subject. These included works presented as lightly fictionalized histories by authors intimately connected with the world of Jingju.340 These authors are better known for their connections to the world of Jingju than for their fiction. But there were also works by what we could call professional fiction writers. Many of these focus on male performers of female roles, such a 1932 short story by Ba Jin 巴金 (1904–2005) about a male performer of female roles who temporarily becomes a mother-figure to the narrator, “Di’er de muqin” 第 二的母親 (My second mother);341 or a 1942 bestselling novel by Qin Shou’ou 秦 Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue, 2015), pp. 291–97 (for the Yang Xiaolou pieces) and pp. 207–25 (for fiction about Mei Lanfang). One of the versions about Yang Xiaolou is reproduced in Fu Jin, ed., Jingju lishi wenxian huibian: Qingdai juan, 2: 721–35; and several of the pieces about Mei Lanfang are reproduced in Gu Shuguang 谷曙光, ed., Mei Lanfang zhenxi shiliao huikan 梅蘭芳珍稀史料彙刊 (Compendium of rare historical material concerning Mei Lanfang), 4 vols. (Beijing: Xueyuan chubanshe, 2015), 1: 3–392 (includes Mu Rugai’s 穆儒丐 Mei Lanfang 梅蘭芳 [1919] and Bao Tianxiao’s 包天笑 Liufang ji 留芳記 [Record of leftover fragrance; 1922]). 340 One example is Pan Jingfu and Chen Moxiang’s Liyuan waishi, which has been cited a number of times above. Chen also wrote an autobiographical novel, Huoren daxi, serialized in the 1940s, that begins with his youth, describes his interest in Jingju and becoming a piaoyou, his shift to concentrating on writing playscripts, and his final decision to concentrate on researching Jingju. Less well known, perhaps because it is not solely focused on Jingju, is Xu Lingxiao’s Gucheng fanzhao ji, serialized from 1928–1931. Xu Lingxiao was a significant figure in the development of Jingju in the twentieth century whose name will be mentioned often below. About three-fourths of the novel was reprinted in Xu Zeyu 徐 澤昱 et al., eds., Gucheng fanzhao ji 古城返照記 (Beijing: Tongxin chubanshe, 2002) and, as noted above, the sections concerning Jingju (approximately one-fourth of the entire work) were reprinted in Zhonghua xiqu, issues 22–27 (1998–2002). For another example, one whose introduction explicitly compares itself to Liyuan waishi and Gucheng fanzhao ji, see Qiu xingfu zhaizhu 求幸福齋主, “Kuilei dengchang ji” 傀儡登場記 (The story of the puppets taking the stage), Xiju yuekan 3.6 (March 1931): 1–4 (separate pagination), p. 4. In the editor’s preface (“Juantou yu” 卷頭語), pp. 2–3 (separate pagination), the editor, Liu Huogong 劉豁公 (c. 1890–1969+) discusses the genre of “Xiju de xiaoshuo” 戲劇的小 說 (theater fiction), mentions that he himself wrote an example eight or nine years ago, and also mentions Xu Lingxiao’s Gucheng fanzhao ji and an example that the journal published earlier. There are four more installments of “Kuilei dengchang ji” (issues 3.7, 9–11). The earlier example of this kind of fiction that Liu mentions as appearing in the journal was Kaikou tiao 開口跳, “Yan Zhao lihen” 燕趙梨痕 (Theater tears from the Beijing and Hebei area), issues 1.2 and 1.3 of 1928. For the example that Liu himself wrote, see “Ximi zhi qi” 戲迷之妻 (The opera addict’s wife), Xinsheng zazhi 心聲雜志 (Heart’s voice magazine) 3.4 (1924): 1–13 (separate pagination). 341 Ba Jin 巴金, Ba Jin duanpian xiaoshuo ji 巴金短篇小說集 (The collected short stories of Ba Jin), 4 vols. (Hong Kong: Qiandai tushu, 1959), 3: 17–36. Jingju, and male performers of female roles in Jingju, were also important subjects in huaju plays. The stage adaptation

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瘦鷗 (1908–1993) first serialized in Shenbao, about a male performer of female roles struggling to find his masculinity, Qiu haitang 秋海棠 (Begonia; the stage

name of the performer).342 Later, some of the interest in male performers of female roles in fiction seems to have been transferred to actresses, as exemplified in the novel Luoyue 落月 (Setting moon) by Peng Ge 彭歌 (1926–) originally serialized in Taiwan in 1956, about a famous Jingju actress who is drafted to become a spy for the Nationalists.343 More directly even than the short stories and novels serialized in them, the modern newspapers and pictorials printed primarily in Shanghai, and particularly the new entertainment press, conveyed news and images of Jingju to the rest of the country. Catherine V. Yeh (Ye Kaidi 葉凱蒂), in a number of articles, has shown how these new media were fundamental to the rise of Jingju actors as national cultural stars.344 The readers of these newspapers and magazines were not just passive consumers. They were periodically asked to send in contributions or to vote on some issue or other, such as who should be the “king of the world of theater” (lingjie dawang 伶界大王), or whose new play was the best.345 Of smaller circulation, but still important, were a number of periodicals

342 343

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of Qiu haitang has been mentioned. Two more examples would be Qin’ai de zhangfu 親 愛的丈夫 (Dear husband; 1924), by Ding Xilin 丁西林 (1893–1974), in which a male performer of female roles marries a man but is tracked down by a past patron and forced to return to the stage; and Fengxue ye guiren 風雪夜歸人 (The returning person on a windy and snowy night; 1942) by Wu Zuguang 吳祖光 (1917–2003), about the mistreatment of a male performer of female roles. This novel, and its successful stage version, was mentioned above. Peng Ge 彭歌, Luoyue 落月 (Taibei: Yuanjing chubanshe, 1977). On this novel and the critical controversy about it, see Christopher Lupke, “Xia Ji’an’s (T. A. Hsia) Critical Bridge to Modernism in Taiwan,” Journal of Modern Chinese Literature in Chinese 4.1 (July 2000): 35–63. Lupke has produced a draft translation of the novel, a copy of which he kindly sent me. Articles by her on this topic already mentioned include “A Public Love Affair”; “Where is the Center of Cultural Production”; and “Playing with the Public.” She has argued that Shanghai courtesans were superseded in the press by Jingju actors as national cultural figures (“A Public Love Affair,” p. 21). An interesting piece missed by Catherine Yeh is one mentioned above, Henwo, “Nüling Liu Xikui zhi zhanshi.” Its preface (p. 18) explains that unlike regular wars, the “war” over the evaluation of Liu Xikui took place not on the battlefield but in the newspapers, that it lasted for more than a month, and the weapons used were “spear-lips and sword-tongues” (chunqiang shejian 唇槍舌劍). For example, in 1917, Shuntian shibao 順天時報 (Capital daily paper) ran a competition (readers were to mail in their ballots) to elect “the king of the actors” ( jujie dawang 劇界 大王; Mei Lanfang won with 232,865 votes), “the king of the actresses” (kunling dawang 坤伶大王; Liu Xikui won with 238,606 votes), and “the king of the child actors” (tongling dawang 童伶大王; Shang Xiaoyun 尚小雲 [1900–1976] won with 152,525 votes). See “Benbao juxuan zhi da piluo” 本報菊選之大批落 (Grand release of results in the actors’

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specifically devoted to Jingju and theater, the first of which dates back to 1904.346 These included both periodicals published by theaters in Shanghai and scholarly journals.347 These new discourses on Jingju superseded the form that had dominated before the introduction of new printing technologies, the “Flower Register” (huapu 花譜), which had concentrated on evaluating the attractiveness, primarily, of male performers of female roles (nandan 男旦). While a popular and influential form in their time, huapu were not generally produced for a mass market and instead catered to rather specialized tastes.348

competition), Shuntian shibao, November 12, 1917, p. 10 (for the ballot and instructions, see p. 5 of the October 2, 1917, edition). In 1927 the same newspaper ran a similar election to pick the best new Jingju play. For other elections run by newspapers, see Liu Songkun, Liyuan yiwen, pp. 292–300, 326. 346 The first theater periodical was called Ershi shiji da wutai 二十世紀大舞臺 (The great stage of the twentieth century). Only two issues were published and both are reproduced in Fu Jin, ed., Jingju lishi wenxian huibian: Qingdai juan, 8: 643–84. It and more than fifty theater periodicals held in the National Library in Beijing are photo-reprinted in Fu Jin 傅謹 and Cheng Lujie 程魯潔, eds., Qingmo Minguo xiju qikan huibian 清末民國戲劇 期刊彙編 (Collection of theater periodicals from the late Qing and Republican period), 60 vols. (Beijing: Guojia tushu guan, 2016). 347 Geng Xiangwei 耿祥偉, “Wan Qing Minguo xiju qikan yanjiu” 晚清民國戲劇期刊研究 (Research on theater periodicals in the late Qing and Republican periods), doctoral thesis, Fudan University, 2010, has an appendix of the titles (with brief publication information) of these periodicals that is over thirty pages long (pp. 169–200). On periodicals published by entertainment centers in Shanghai, and an in depth look at one of them, see Catherine Yeh, “Guides to a Global Paradise: Shanghai Entertainment Park Newspapers and the Invention of Chinese Urban Leisure,” in Christiane Brosius and Roland Wenzlhuemer, eds., Transcultural Turbulences: Towards a Multi-Sited Reading of Image Flows (New York: Springer, 2011), pp. 97–131. 348 Zhang Cixi, ed., Qingdai Yandu liyuan shiliao, is the most convenient and complete collection of huapu. Many articles and theses (the latter in Chinese) have been written on the genre; here I only mention three books on the genre and the world they focused on: Pan Lizhu 潘麗珠, Qingdai zhongqi Yandu Liyuan shiliao pingyi sanlun yanjiu 清代中期燕都 梨園史料評藝三論研究 (Study of the three discourses in the evaluation of [actors’] art in the middle of the Qing dynasty found in [Qingdai] Yandu liyuan shiliao; Taibei: Liren shuju, 1998), Wu Cuncun 吳存存, Xi wai zhi xi: Qing zhong wan qi Jingcheng de xiyuan wenhua yu liyuan siyu zhi 戲外之戲: 清中晚期京城的戲園文化與梨園私寓制 (The play outside the play: Theater culture in Beijing of the middle and late Qing and the private studio system; Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2017), and Wu Xinmiao 吳新 苗, Liyuan siyu kaolun: Qingdai lingren shenghuo, yanju ji yishu chuancheng 梨園私寓考 論: 清代伶人生活, 演劇及藝術傳承 (Investigations into the private studios in Chinese theater: The life of Qing dynasty actors, performance of plays, and transmission of stage art; Beijing: Xueyuan chubanshe, 2017). Wu Cuncun stresses that some of the huapu were published by Shenbao Guan 申報館, publisher of Shenbao.

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With the development of a truly national market for books in the early twentieth century, it became profitable to publish books on Jingju349 and collections of Jingju scripts such as Xikao.350 Western and Japanese books on Jingju also began to appear,351 some of which appeared in Chinese versions, and some of which were read by and influenced Chinese. Besides the changes in publishing brought by new technology already discussed above, other new media and technologies entered China in a big way in the twentieth century. These include visual media and genres such as photography, cinema, television (much later), cartoons/sketches (manhua 漫畫),352 and connected picture narratives/comics (lianhuan hua 連環畫);353 and audio media such as phonograph records and radio, and modern advertising. All of these media helped Jingju to spread to all parts of China in ways that would have been impossible otherwise. Photography studios were first established in Hong Kong and moved in the middle of the nineteenth century to Shanghai, which became the photography center of the country.354 Although some of the reluctance to have your “soul” captured by photography could be found among Jingju actors,355 they, like courtesans before them,356 soon learned how the new media could help increase 349 See Ma Shaobo et al., Zhongguo Jingju shi, 2: 152–61, 163 (1917–1937) and 2: 259–64 (1937–1949); also Huang Jun and Xu Xibo, Jingju wenhua cidian, pp. 711–17 (works written 1910–1949). 350 See chapters 3 and 4 below for discussion of Xikao’s antecedents and “imitators.” 351 See, for instance, Ma Shaobo et al., Zhongguo Jingju shi, 2: 161–63 (“Waiguo ren guanyu Jingju de zhushu” 外國人關於京劇的著書 [Works by foreigners on Jingju]). 352 For instance, Feng Di 馮棣 (1907–1983), under the penname of Pengdi 朋弟, created a cartoon character called Lao fuzi 老夫子 (lit.: Old Master). One of his adventures, published in 1941, was to try and open a theater of his own. See Feng Jicai 馮驥才, ed., “Facai huanjia” 發財還家 (Get rich and return home), Lao fuzi chutu 老夫子出土 (The recovery of Lao fuzi; Beijing: Xiuyuan chubanshe, 2001), pp. 186–97 (excerpted from the original 86-page narrative). 353 Huang Ruogu 黃若谷 et al., “Lao lianhuan hua lishi gaishu” 老連環畫歷史概述 (Historical overview of old connected picture narratives), in Wang Guanqing 王觀清 and Li Minghai 李明海, eds., Lao lianhuan hua 老連環畫 (Old connected picture narratives; Shanghai: Shanghai huabao, 1999), p. 2, discusses Jingju as a source for these books and on pp. 3–4 gives examples from one of them in which the characters are wearing Jingju stage costume. 354 Laikwan Pang, The Distorting Mirror: Visual Modernity in China (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2007), p. 71. 355 Tsuji Chōka, Zhongguo ju, pp. 190–91, claims that actors such as Mei Lanfang and Shang Xiaoyun, who have let themselves be photographed “more than a thousand times” (bu chi qianbai 不啻千百) are the exception, and that “Chinese actors, because of superstition, consider having their image taken strictly taboo” 中國優伶, 因有迷信, 甚忌攝影. 356 On how Shanghai courtesans took to photography, see Yeh, Shanghai Love, pp. 84–95.

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business and how important photos were to their patrons. Actors’ photographs were given out at performances as keepsakes357 and to patrons,358 sold by photography studios,359 and collections of photos of actors were put together and published.360 Photography studios purchased theatrical costumes so that their patrons could have their pictures taken dressed for the stage.361 Photographs are naturally instrumental to the way the history of Jingju is told today, when the “greats” of the past are long dead,362 but it has also been argued that they were fundamental to the extension of Jingju out of the theaters into the world.363 Film is an extension of photography, and it is thus natural that the first Chinese movie, which was of Jingju, was made (in 1905) by the Fengtai

357 See Yeh, “Where is the Center of Cultural Production,” p. 96, for how photos of Mei Lanfang and his co-star were given out at the closing performances of his first Shanghai tour in 1913. 358 For an example of an actor giving his photograph (Taixi suo zhao xiaoying 泰西所照小 影) to a patron in the 1870s, see “Yao Baoxiang xiaozhuan” 姚寶香小傳 (A brief biography of Yao Baoxiang), in Yilan sheng 藝蘭生, Xuannan zazu 宣南雜俎 (Xuanwu district miscellany), in Zhang Cixi, ed., Qingdai Yandu liyuan shiliao, p. 529. The passage concerned is translated in Mark Stevenson and Wu Cuncun, trs., “Notes on Flower Appreciation in the Phoenix City: Xiangxi yuyin 香溪魚隱, Fengcheng pinhua ji 鳳城品花記,” Renditions 69 (Spring 2008): 37. 359 In his reminiscences, recorded and edited by Yuan Jing 袁菁, Yihai wuya 義海無涯 (The sea of art has no borders; Beijing: Zhongguo qingnian, 1985), p. 128, Yuan Shihai 袁世海 (1916–2002) says that in the Republican period he did not have to pay for having his photo taken because the studio would sell enlarged photos of him in theatrical costume. 360 For a list of these, the earliest of which dates to 1922, see Gu Shuguang 谷曙光, “Goujian Jingju xue yanjiu de lianghao wenxian jichu—Jingju wenxian xue lungang” 構建京劇學 研究的良好文獻基礎—京劇文獻學論綱 (Build an excellent foundation on which to establish the discipline of the study of Jingju—An outline for the study of Jingju literature), in Du Changsheng, ed., Jingju yu Zhongguo wenhua chuantong, p. 222. 361 See Zucker, The Chinese Theater, p. 109, and Pang, Distorting Mirror, p. 85, which quotes a 1912 photography studio ad on the charges for putting on theatrical costumes for your photos, and reproduces a 1923 ad (fig. 2.8, p. 87) for a studio that claims that it has an extremely ample ( jiduo 極多) supply of theatrical costumes and further proclaims that its manager has “always studied Jingju” (xianglai yanjiu Jingju 向來研究京劇). Comparing early photographs of actors in theatrical costume and ordinary contemporaneous photography studio portraits makes it pretty clear that the former were also taken in photography studios and not “on the stage” (which would have to wait for better lighting and photographic equipment). 362 See, for example, Jingju shizhao 京劇史照 (Historical photographs of Jingju; Beijing: Huangshan chubanshe, 1990) and Jin Yaozhang 金耀章, ed., Zhongguo Jingju shi tulu 京 劇史圖錄 (A pictorial record of the history of Chinese Jingju; Shijiazhuang: Hebei jiaoyu, 1994). 363 See, for instance, Pang, Distorting Mirror, pp. 143–44.

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Photography Studio (Fengtai zhaoxiang guan 豐泰照相館) in Beijing,364 which had also pioneered Jingju “tableau photos.”365 According to one reference work, fourteen silent movies of excerpts of single Jingju plays and one combining excerpts from several were made in between 1905 and 1933.366 Many of the earliest successful commercial silent films were adaptations of recent plays.367 The first sound movie of a Jingju play was made in 1930, in the U.S.368 According to the same reference work just cited above, from the first sound movie of a Jingju play made in China (1933) until the film made in 1948 that was both the first color feature-length movie made in China and the first color movie of Jingju, Shengsi hen 生死恨 (A hate that will last past death), thirteen black and white sound films of single Jingju plays and two featuring highlights of several plays were made.369 These movies were on a continuum between the straightforward recording of a stage performance on the one hand, and 364 The film was comprised of three episodes from the play Dingjun shan 定軍山 (Dingjun Mountain; Xikao #98) and featured Tan Xinpei. The owner of Fengtai, Ren Qingtai 任慶 泰 (1850–1930), also owned a theater at which he showed the films and where live Jingju was performed. Most scholars claim that the films were a big hit, but Pang, Distorting Mirror, pp. 143–48, argues that silent films of Jingju failed to catch on (unlike phonograph records of Jingju). Very few survive. 365 See, for instance, Pang, Distorting Mirror, p. 93, “The circulation of these tableau photos transformed Jingju from a folk performance into a modern mass commodity culture with an influence and commercial network that extended far beyond the theater….” For a brief discussion of photographs and the career of Mei Lanfang, see Suk-young Kim, “From Imperial Concubine to Maoist Model: The Photographic Metamorphosis of Mei Lanfang,” Theatre Research International 31.1 (2006): 37–53. 366 See Huang Jun and Xu Xibo, Jingju wenhua cidian, pp. 775–76. Lists of Jingju films do not include films that were adapted from Jingju plays but shot as regular films, of which there were many, or noncommercial films of performances, such as those made of the famous laosheng actor Yu Shuyan 余叔岩 (1890–1943; see Ma Shaobo et al., Zhongguo Jingju shi, 2: 527). 367 Zhen Zhang An Amorous History of the Silver Screen: Shanghai Cinema, 1896–1937 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), p. 100, says: “The first successful commercial films, such as Victims of Opium (1916) and Yan Ruisheng (1921), were adapted from sensational wenmingxi plays.” The first of the two plays mentioned is Heiji yuanhun 黑籍冤魂 (Wronged spirit of an opium addict [not in Xikao]), premiered by Xin Wutai in 1908, while the second is Xikao #515. 368 The play was actually a Kunqu play, Ci Hu 刺虎 (Stabbing the tiger). Mei Lanfang plays the young woman who stabs Li Guo, known as “The Tiger” 一隻虎, a general under Li Zicheng 李自成 (1606–1645), leader of the rebellion that captured Beijing in 1644. The filming was done by Paramount Pictures. See Xie Zijin and Sun Lihua, Mei Lanfang yishu nianpu, p. 161. 369 See Huang Jun and Xu Xibo, Jingju wenhua cidian, pp. 776–77. One of these films was made in the Soviet Union, during Mei Lanfang’s tour. Except for the last six, which were made in occupied Beijing, the others were all made in Shanghai.

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adaptation of the play to film conventions and possibilities (use of outside locations, realistic scenery, etc.) on the other, including unhappy mixes of the two.370 The first sound feature movie made in China (in 1931) was about a Jingju actress.371 Not only does Jingju dominate any list of “firsts” in Chinese film, it so dominated Chinese film that it was not until 1948 that a film of traditional Chinese theater was of another style.372 Although few of the participants prior to 1949 were completely satisfied with the attempts to put Jingju on the silver screen,373 movies of Jingju allowed new audiences to see something of what Jingju was like,374 just as much later, television would become the main way that Chinese would relate to Jingju performance.375 Since 2001 China Central TV has included a xiqu channel that shows a lot of material relating to Jingju. Indeed, in recent years, as fewer people actually go to the theater to see Jingju performed, more and more feature films and TV miniseries

370 With reference to the first sound film of Jingju made in China, the 1933 Silang tanmu 四 郎探母 (Fourth son visits his mother; Xikao #22), Li Fusheng 李浮生, Zhonghua Guoju shi 中華國劇史 (A history of Chinese national drama; Taibei: Guofang bu, 1969), p. 149, says that the contrast in the film between the use of realistic scenery and non-realistic conventions such as holding a whip to indicate being on horseback made the film “neither donkey nor horse” ( fei lü fei ma 非驢非馬) and a laughing stock (xiaobing 笑柄). Liu Songkun, Liyuan yiwen, p. 11, however, claims that the film played to packed audiences. 371 The name of the film was Genü Hong mudan 歌女紅牡丹 (Songstress Red Peony). See Wu Zhongping, “Hu Die ‘baishi’ Mei Lanfang,” p. 45 (Mei Lanfang’s voice was used for the arias). 372 See Gao Xiaojian 高小健, Zhongguo xiqu dianying shi 中國戲曲電影史 (The history of films of traditional Chinese theater; Beijing: Wenhua yishu, 2005), appendix three, “Zhongguo xiqu yingpian mulu” 中國戲曲影片目錄 (List of films of traditional Chinese theater), pp. 287–321. The first non-Jingju xiqu film listed is of a Yueju 越劇 (Zhejiang opera) version of Lu Xun’s story “Zhufu” 祝福 (New Year’s sacrifice) as Xianglin sao 祥林嫂. 373 Mei Lanfang, surely the most filmed actor before the dominance of videotape and TV, expressed regrets about almost every film he made in his Wo de dianying shenghuo 我的 電影生活 (My life in films), which is included in Mei Lanfang quanji 梅蘭芳全集 (The complete works of Mei Lanfang), 8 vols. (Shijiazhuang: Hebei jiaoyu, 2000), 4: 79–243. 374 None of the movies of Jingju made before the PRC would rival the effect of the film versions of revolutionary model operas in the Culture Revolution. Paola Iovene, “Chinese Operas on Stage and Screen: A Short Introduction,” Opera Quarterly 26.2–3 (2010): 189, claims that these films “granted Peking opera a diffusion that it had never enjoyed before; indeed it is mainly thanks to itinerant projectionists who brought cinema to the most remote corners of the Chinese countryside that Peking opera became a truly popular and national art.” 375 Cui Changwu, ed., Jingju xianzhuang yanjiu, reporting on a recent survey (1990s) of people in Beijing, the “homeland of Jingju,” as to how they got to like Jingju, reports that over 26% said it was from TV.

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featuring Jingju have been made.376 Watching performances of Jingju on New Year’s TV programs broadcast throughout China has been a ritual in the PRC for decades now.377 Modern print advertisement grew up along with mechanized printing. Mass market newspapers and pictorials began to include images in their ads, drawn images at first, then photos also. The appearance of “testimonials” by Jingju actors, even if only textual and not accompanied by an image,378 show the cultural weight of Jingju in the society, at the same time that they represented how that cultural weight was reinforced and augmented. Jingju was used predominantly to sell Western or modern goods and services, probably because they needed the most “pushing,” but perhaps also because it was felt that something “certifiably Chinese” such as Jingju was useful in their domestication.379 Incongruously enough, considering what they do to one’s voice, it was particularly cigarettes that were most often connected with Jingju in ads. There was, for instance, a “Mei Lanfang” brand of cigarettes put out by a cigarette 376 Chen Kaige’s Bawang bie ji has been mentioned above. Because of both censorship and the international nature of its funding, it initially had more impact in the West than in China. Besides the PRC, feature films highlighting Jingju have also been made in Hong Kong and Taiwan, the most famous being, respectively, Daoma dan 刀馬旦 (Peking opera blues; 1986), directed by Hong Kong director Tsui Hark 徐克, and Yeben 夜奔 (Fleeing by night; 2000), directed by Taiwan director Hsu Li-kong 徐立功. As for TV miniseries, they have been made about Jingju figures such as Mei Lanfang (Mei Lanfang 梅蘭芳, 14 episodes, 1994); Cheng Changgeng (Da laoban Cheng Changgeng 大老闆程長庚 [Big boss Cheng Changgeng]; 9 episodes, 1994); and the founder of the Fuliancheng opera school, Niu Zihou 牛子厚 (1866–1943), Niu Zihou yu Fuliancheng 牛子厚與富連成 [Niu Zihou and Fuliancheng], 40 episodes, 1996). 377 For an article reviewing these programs for 1994–1999, see Wei Zichen 魏子晨, “ ‘Chunjie xiqu wanhui’ fansi lu” ‘春節戲曲晚會’ 反思錄 (Reflections on New Year’s Evening [TV] variety programs), Liyuan zhoukan, August 23, 1999, p. 4 (part one); August 30, 1999 (part two); and September 6, 1999 (part three). 378 Mei Lanfang’s image proliferated and was used to sell a variety of things, but there are examples where his written testimonial for a product seems to have been enough. See, for instance, an ad for Dr. Williams’ Pink Pills for Pale People (Weilian shi da yisheng hongse buwan 韋廉士大醫生紅色補丸) run in Xiju yuekan 1.8 (February 1929), reproduced in Su wenxue congkan, 9: 168, and one for an insurance company (Zhonghua baoxian xiejin hui 中華保險協進會), in Xu Muyun 徐慕雲, Liyuan yingshi 梨園影事 (Images of the theater; Shanghai: Donghua gongsi, 1922), p. 96. 379 Among the more traditional products Jingju images were used to sell, cloth is prominent. Zuo Xuchu 左旭初, Lao shangbiao 老商標 (Old trademarks; Shanghai: Shanghai huabao, 1999), contains many examples (see pp. 85, 89, 90, 97, 116), almost all of which resemble Jingju nianhua in that they depict scenes from specific labeled plays and the characters are portrayed as they would appear on stage, together (usually) with elements that recall the stage.

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company of which Mei Lanfang was a member of the board of directors.380 At least one Jingju actress became more famous because of her image on cigarette packs than from her acting.381 Inserted in packs of ten cigarettes each were small cards (known as xiangyan paizi 香煙牌子 [cigarette cards] in Shanghai and as yang hua’er 洋畫兒 [foreign paintings] in Beijing), a little like baseball cards in that they could be collected and traded. The earliest of these cards were made by an English tobacco company in 1894, and by 1904 Chinese tobacco companies were also making them.382 These cards circulated throughout China until the outbreak of the Pacific War in 1941;383 a full set (tao 套) could include as many as 350 individual cards.384 Images of traditional Chinese theater were popular, and

380 The company was Nanyang Xiongdi Yancao Gongsi 南洋兄弟煙草公司 (Nangyang Tobacco Company). For examples of different formats of ads for these cigarettes, with different images of Mei Lanfang, see Shenbao tuhua zhoukan 申報圖畫周刊 (Shenbao weekly pictorial), 32 (December 21, 1930): 3 and 35 (January 16, 1931): 3. Cards with Mei’s image on them were also inserted into packs of cigarettes made by this company; Sheng Xunchang 盛巽昌 et al., Lao xiangyan paizi huacong: Jingju yishu, lianpu 老香煙牌子 畫叢: 京劇藝術臉譜 (Compendium of old cigarette cards: Jingju art and face-paint patterns; Shanghai: Shijie tushu, 2002), pp. 79–80, reproduces 21 of them from a set of thirty cards. On Mei Lanfang and tobacco advertising, see Li Tianyin 李湉茵, “Shanghai xiangyan guanggao Mei Lanfang Jingju tuxiang yanjiu—Yi Jingju dingsheng qi wei li” 上 海香菸廣告梅蘭芳京劇圖像研究—以京劇鼎盛期為利 (Research on Mei Lanfang’s Jingju image in Shanghai tobacco advertisements—Taking the peak period of Jingju as example), Dongwu Zhongwen xuebao 東吳中文學報 (Soochow University Journal of Chinese Studies) 34 (November 2017): 227–58. 381 The actress was Lü Meiyu 呂美玉, daughter of Lü Yueqiao 呂月樵 (1869–1923), an actor who will be mentioned in notes below. An example of a cigarette pack with Lü Meiyu’s image on it can be found in Zuo Xuchu, Lao shangbiao, p. 51. On how her career was affected by the use of her image to advertise cigarettes, see Zhongguo xiqu zhi: Shanghai juan, “Jingju mingjue shang shangbiao” 京劇名角上商標 ( Jingju stars begin to appear in trademarks), p. 801. 382 Feng Yiyou 馮懿有, “Zhong Wai xiangyan paizi fazhan gaishu” 中外香煙牌子發展概述 (An overview of the development of cigarette cards abroad and in China), in Feng Yiyou 馮懿有, ed., Lao xiangyan paizi 老香煙牌子 (Old cigarette cards; Shanghai: Shanghai huabao, 1996), p. 2. 383 Chen Xiejun 陳燮君, “Xiangyan paizi de jingji—Wenhua siwei ji qi wenhua zheshe” 香 煙牌子的經濟—文化思維及其文化折射 (The economy of cigarette cards—Cultural thought and its cultural refraction), in Wang Heming 王鶴鳴 and Ma Yuanliang 馬遠良, eds., Qicai xiangyan pai—Shanghai tushu guan guancang jingxuan 七彩香煙牌—上海 圖書館館藏精選 (Colored cigarette cards—Selections of the best of the holdings of the Shanghai Library; Shanghai: Shanghai kexue jishu wenxian, 1998), p. 13. The cards selected for this book were drawn from a collection of more than ten thousand (ibid., p. 14). 384 Chen Xiejun, “Xiangyan paizi de jingji,” p. 12.

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among them Jingju dominated,385 with both Jingpai and Haipai plays and actors represented.386 Some of the cards had on their reverse sides text such as the lyrics for arias from the play depicted, short biographies and other facts on the actors, or information about the character depicted.387 Besides play scenes and portraits of actors, face-paint patterns (lianpu 臉譜) were also very important.388 It is ironic that face-paint patterns, which May Fourth activists and planners of Mei Lanfang’s tour to the U.S. once thought should just be scrapped, came to symbolize not just Jingju, but also Beijing, and even China.389 The purely aural media of audio recordings (first wax cylinders, then phonograph records) arose after photography but before film. The earliest records of Jingju seem to have been made in 1903.390 As with photography, there was 385 In the “traditional drama category” (xiqu lei 戲曲類) section of Feng Yiyou, ed., Lao xiangyan paizi, pp. 37–62, all but one page are of Jingju cards (the last page contains images of huaji actors). 386 For examples of the latter, from Zhou Xinfang’s serial installment production of Fengshen bang 封神榜 (Roster of the invested gods), see Sheng Xunchang et al., Lao xiangyan paizi huacong, pp. 82–84. 387 Examples of the first type are reproduced in Wang Heming and Ma Yuanliang, eds., Qicai xiangyan pai, pp. 10 and 16; of the second type in Chen Xiejun, “Xiangyan paizi de jingji,” pp. 12–13; and of the third type in Lu Zhongmin 魯忠民, ed., Yang hua’er: Xiqu Xu Baichou tu 洋畫兒: 戲曲續百丑圖 (Yang hua’er: Sequel to Pictures of One Hundred Chou Roles; Beijing: Renmin meishu, 2003). 388 Different sets of cards of the face patterns of jing actors are reproduced in Sheng Xunchang et al., Lao xiangyan paizi huacong, pp. 52–67. Such sets have, more recently, taken the form of matchbook covers. The biggest set I know of is Zhongguo Jingju lianpu 中國京 劇臉譜 (Face-paint patterns of Jingju; Tianjin: Tianjin shi Huochai chang, c. 1985), which includes 450 covers (all of jing roles). 389 The quantity of three-dimensional souvenirs with different kinds of Jingju face-paint patterns on them for sale in Beijing nowadays is enough to give one pause. On the use of face-patterns in modern commercial design, see Chen Meijun 陳美均, “Zhongguo Jingju lianpu tu’an yingyong zhi yanjiu” 中國京劇臉譜圖案應用之研究 (Research on the application of designs of Chinese Jingju face patterns), doctoral thesis, Datong University, 2017. 390 Chai Junwei 柴俊偽, ed., Jingju da xikao 京劇大戲考 (Great investigation into the plays of Jingju; Shanghai: Xuelin chubanshe, 2004), unlike most other works in its genre (collections of texts for recordings of Jingju, generally known as xikao), generally includes dates for the records it includes, and notes those whose authenticity is in doubt. The 1903 recordings it lists, although datable to that year, are counterfeits attributed to Sun Juxian (p. 4) and Wang Guifen 汪桂芬 (1860–1906) (p. 8). An informational booklet dated by scholars to either 1906 or 1907, which Pathé (Baidai 百代) produced for the recordings it made in Beijing, Beijing changpan 北京唱盤 (Beijing phonograph records), reproduced in Fu Jin, ed., Jingju lishi wenxian huibian: Qingdai juan, 9: 121–88, has a testimonial on the first page from Tan Xinpei, who claims that although previous recordings “had never been able to include true famous actors, this honorable company, through the introduction of Mr. Qiao [Qiao Jinchen 喬藎臣 (1863–1926)], made arrangements for all of the famous

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some initial resistance on the part of actors to the idea of the recording of their voices.391 Chinese originally thought it odd for the human voice to come out of a machine, but before long records were played in public places (e.g., outside shops to get the attention of shoppers, at open air fairs, in first- and secondclass railway carriages)392 and in the home (by bringing in entrepreneurs with their phonograph machines and records, by renting the necessary equipment, or buying the equipment outright). Recordings of Jingju dominated, as in other media.393 The earliest recordings focused on arias and had little or no dialogue. actors of Beijing to sing” 總未克將真正名角收入, 而貴公司此次有喬君介紹, 將 北京名角全行約唱. Although at first Jingju actors had little notion of the profits that would be made from their records and recorded them for pretty insignificant fees, income from records soon became very important (Tan Xinpei’s fee jumped from about fifty silver ounces worth of opium in 1908 to 5,000 dollars in 1912; see Lu Yingkun, “Chuantong Jingju yishu de ‘jingji jichu,’ ” p. 623). Yu Shuyan stopped performing on stage fairly early and the recordings that he made, from 1920 to his death in 1943 (see Chai Junwei, Jingju da xikao, pp. 24–28) were one of his main sources of income. There is a website, Zhongguo Jingju lao changpian 中國京劇老唱片 (http://oldrecords.xikao.com) devoted to old Jingju records. When accessed on November 1, 2016, the site listed a total of fourteen recordings attributed to Tan Xinpei, five of which were judged to be not really by him, of which three were actually by his son Tan Xiaopei 譚小培 (1883–1953), a conclusion also accepted by Chai Junwei, Jingju da xikao, p. 3 n. 1. For background on how this came about, see Wang Anqi 王安祈, “Jingju mingling guan changpian xintai tanxi—Wuzhi wenhua yu fei wuzhi wenhua xiangyu (yi Jingju wei li zhi er)” 京劇名伶灌唱片心態探析—物質文化與非 物質文化相遇（以京劇為例之二）(An exploration and interpretation of the mentality of Jingju master actors’ recording of phonograph records—The meeting of tangible and intangible culture [taking Jingju as an example, number 2]), Qinghua xuebao 清華學 報 (Journal of Ts’ing-Hua University) 41.1 (2011): 208–209. 391 A 1923 newspaper article quoted Sun Juxian saying that he had never made a record because just like with photography, “the majority of people say that it does harm to one’s spirit” 人多謂損失精神. See Liu Dingxun 劉鼎勛, “Sun Juxian changpian de zhenwei kaozheng” 孫菊仙唱片的真偽考證 (An investigation into the authenticity of Sun Juxian’s recordings), in Chen Jun 陳鈞, ed., Changpian yanjiu yu cunmu 唱片研究與 存目 (Research on phonograph records and discographies; Tianjin: Tianjin Yangliu qing huashe, 2002), pp. 16–26 (Liu argues that Sun was not telling the truth). 392 The pictorials of the late Qing and early Republic contain many stories of phonograph records being played in public. See, for instance, “Jingyuan bu aiting liusheng jiqi bei ru” 警員不愛聽留聲機器被辱 (A police officer, because he doesn’t like to listen to the record player, is humiliated), reproduced in Qingmo Minchu baokan tuhua jicheng 清末 民初報刊圖畫集成 (Compendium of pictorials from the late Qing and early Republic; Beijing: Quanguo tushu guan wenxian suowei fuzhi zhongxin, 2003), p. 4270. The (drunk) policeman of the title joins the people listening to the records being played by a clock shop, and gets into a fight with another policeman who tries to get the shop owner to turn off the record player. 393 Of the five discographies in Chen Jun, ed., Changpian yanjiu yu cunmu, one each for recordings of Kunqu, Jingju, pingju, Hebei bangzi, and quyi, all of which use basically the

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It was not until 1937 that an entire major play was recorded on phonograph records from beginning to end.394 Phonograph records of Jingju were widely thought of as substitutes for going to the theater.395 This can be seen on the part of actors who were afraid that records would influence performance income,396 or who wanted to “hold back a trick or two” (liu yi shou 留一手) when they made recordings.397 If it was truly a matter of zero/sum games in both realms, their fears would certainly seem to have been born out by ads for shops selling records and record players, which claimed that with their help you could have a “private performance” (tanghui 堂會) with all the Jingju stars in your very own home,398 and by people starting

394

395

396

397 398

same format, the one for Jingju requires more than three times the pages for any of the other four, and more than all four of the other ones combined. The play was Silang tanmu and it was recorded on thirty-two sides (total time about 96 minutes). All thirty-two sides and the text for them are available at http://oldrecords. xikao.com, under the names of Guan Shaohua 管紹華 and Wang Yurong 王玉蓉, the actors who played the leads. According to Li Jianchen 李建琛, “Qiantan Guan Shaohua Wang Yurong Silang tanmu changpian” 淺談管紹華王玉蓉四郎探母唱片 (A superficial discussion of the recording of Silang tanmu by Guan Shaohua and Wang Yurong), in Chen Jun, ed., Changpian yanjiu yu cunmu, some changes were made to the play for the recording (p. 33), but it was the top bestselling record of the 1930s and 1940s (p. 34). Until long playing records became available, each side of a record was limited to around three minutes. The earliest record that I have come across of Chinese listening to recordings instead of going to the theater is dated to 1900 in a diary entry written by Zhang Gang 張棡 (1860– 1942). The relevant entry is reproduced in Fu Jin, ed., Jingju lishi wenxian huibian: Qingdai juan, 7: 681. In it, Zhang explains that because it was raining, he did not go to the theater, but instead hired someone to come by with a wax cylinder player and listened to more than ten plays (surely only extracted arias). The cost (xiaoyang yijiao wufen 小洋一角五 分) was considerably less than a typical theater ticket at the time. Liu Songkun, Liyuan yiwen, p. 289, reports that Wang Yurong’s 王玉蓉 teacher, Wang Yaoqing 王瑤卿 (1881–1954), told her not to make the complete recording of Silang tanmu, since it would “influence commercial performances” (yingxiang yingye yanchu 影 響營業演出). See Yuan Shihai 袁世海 and Xu Chengbei 徐城北, Jingju jiazi hua yu Zhongguo wenhua 京劇架子花與中國文化 (The Jingju posturing painted-face role and Chinese culture; Beijing: Wenhua yishu, 1990), p. 22. This claim is made, for instance, in a Beikai 蓓開 (Beka) Record Company ad inserted on p. 168 of Xu Muyun, Liyuan yingshi (1922). For an example of an actual substitution of a recording of traditional opera for performed opera, see the report in Shishi baoguan wushen quannian huabao 時事報館戊申全年畫報 (Current events news pictorial for the entire year of 1908), of a clan in Fujian substituting the playing of a recording for a Winter Solstice (dongzhi 冬至) ceremony when they couldn’t use a live band because of national mourning for the death of the Guangxu emperor, reproduced in Qingmo Minchu baokan tuhua jicheng, p. 7397.

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to learn to sing from records.399 From as early as 1904 such a strong association was thought to exist between phonograph players and Chinese indigenous theater (particularly Jingju) that the machine itself was called a “singing plays machine” (changxi jiqi 唱戲機器).400 But it was not a zero/sum game. The audience for live performance was greatly increased by the numbers of people who first came into contact with Jingju through recordings, whether they used them to learn how to sing or not.401 Not every family could afford to buy a record player and records,402 but with the establishment of radio stations in China,403 Jingju records could be broadcast through the air. Although live broadcasts of Jingju began in Shanghai as early as 1925, with Cheng Yanqiu and another actor coming to the radio station to perform,404 broadcasts of Jingju typically took the form of playing records. As with record players, radio receivers were played in both public and private venues,405 and these two inventions allowed for a saturation of at least

399 Erhuang xunsheng pu 二黃尋聲譜 (Scores for seeking out the sounds of Jingju; Shanghai: Dadong shuju, 1929), provided musical notation for arias based on published phonograph records of them. This book claimed that by using it “there’s no need to hire a teacher: you can naturally become accomplished” 不必請教師: 自然入門. It and its 1930 sequel are reproduced in Su wenxue congkan, v. 31. As early as the 1920s, recordings of Jingju arias with only the musical accompaniment, which one could sing to, were available on the market. See Li Enpu 李恩璞, “Zui zao de kala OK” 最早的卡拉 OK (The earliest karaoke), in Chen Jun, ed., Changpian yanjiu yu cunmu, pp. 101–102. Xi Xiaobo 奚嘯伯 (1910–1977), a famous laosheng performer who was originally an amateur singer, learned to sing from records (see Ma Shaobo et al., Zhongguo Jingju shi, 2: 565). 400 On changes in Chinese terminology used to speak of phonograph players, see Ge Tao 葛濤, Changpian yu jindai Shanghai shehui shenghuo 唱片與近代上海社會生活 (Phonographs and social life in early modern Shanghai; Shanghai: Shanghai cishu, 2009), p. 45. 401 For instance, Wu Xiaoru 吳小如 (1922–2014), in his Wu Xiaoru xiqu wenlu 吳小如戲曲 文錄 (A collection of my writings on traditional theater; Beijing: Beijing daxue, 1995), “Mianhuai Xiao lao—Xiao Changhua xiansheng 110 zhounian jinian” 緬懷蕭老—蕭長 華先生 110 周年紀念 (Remembering Old Xiao—In memory of the 110th anniversary of Mr. Xiao Changhua’s birth), p. 566, wrote about how he began listening to Jingju recordings when he was only three, and in his “Niaokan Fuliancheng houbian” 鳥瞰富連成後 編 (Postface to A birds’ eye look at Fuliancheng), Yitan 3 (2004): 245, about how all that listening prepared him well for when he first got a chance to go to the theater. 402 They could, however, pay people to bring and play their own equipment. 403 According to Jonathan Stock, Traditional Opera in Modern Shanghai (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), p. 121, the first radio station in Shanghai was established in 1923. 404 Shanghai guangbo dianshi zhi 上海廣播電視志 (Record of radio and TV broadcasting in Shanghai; Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexue yuan, 1999), p. 173. 405 Peng Ge, Luoyue, p. 17, describes how the female lead in the novel learned to sing Jingju from hearing records always being played on the radio in a local shop.

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certain parts of China with Jingju at an unprecedented level.406 Later on, it would become common to simulcast (zhibo 直播) live performances of Jingju,407 and for famous members of the world of Jingju to teach plays (shuoxi 說戲), over the radio.408

406 Liu Songkun, Liyuan yiwen, p. 290, claims that with the complete recording of Silang tanmu becoming a bestseller, and being broadcast over the radio stations, “on big streets and small streets, wherever you went, you could hear ‘Maid, lead the way!’ ” 大街小巷到 處能聽見 ‘丫頭帶路’! The quoted words are those said offstage by the female lead of the play just before her first entrance. In 1929 the first edition of Da xikao 大戲考 (Great investigation of plays) was published (the original title was Changpian juci huibian 唱片 劇詞彙編 [Collected play texts for recordings]; see Xu Xingjie and Cai Shicheng, eds., Shanghai Jingju zhi, “Da xikao,” p. 382). By 1947 it had gone through eighteen editions. These and similar publications provided the texts of the arias for recordings of traditional Chinese drama, which were dominated by Jingju. These books were used to help listeners follow along the words of recordings, particularly those broadcast over the radio. For an example of the actual use of such a text to understand the singing on Jingju recordings, see Xu Chengbei 徐城北, Liyuan zou ma 梨園走馬 ( Jingju as seen from horseback; Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue, 2000), pp. 63–64. For a fictional example of a character using a copy of a xikao to follow the lyrics of a rare play (lengxi 冷戲) being played on the radio, see Zhang Ailing 張愛玲, “Jinsuo ji” 金鎖記 (The golden locket), in Fang Ming 方銘 et al., Zhongguo xian dang dai wenxue jingpin xuan: Xiandai juan (Xiaoshuo) 中國 現當代文學精品選: 現代卷 (小說) (Selected top quality examples of modern and contemporary literature: Modern section [Fiction]; Hefei: Anhui jiaoyu, 2008), p. 356. 407 On a 1935 broadcast of a two-hour performance by Zhou Xinfang from the radio station in Da Shijie, see the April 11, 1935, Shenbao article, “Qilin tong xiansheng duoren—Ben xingqi liu zai Zhongguo diantai boyin” 麒麟童先聲奪人—本星期六在中國電臺播 音 (Mr. Zhou Xinfang by sounding out first captures attention—Broadcast this Saturday from China Radio Station), in Cai Shicheng, ed., Shenbao Jingju ziliao xuanbian, p. 422. Simulcasts of performances into movie theaters, of the kind that have been very profitable for the Metropolitan Opera in the last two decades, have not occurred yet in China. 408 A June 1, 1948, Shenbao article, Baiyu 白雨, “Jingpai” 京派 (Capital-style [ Jingju]), in Cai Shicheng, ed., Shenbao Jingju ziliao xuanbian, p. 609, mentions that previously, in Beijing, Xu Lanyuan 徐蘭沅 (1892–1977), Mei Lanfang’s private huqin player, talked radio audiences through plays (shuoxi 說戲). An article from Liyan huakan 立言畫刊 (Establishing oneself through speech pictorial; issue 296 [1944]: 11) closer to the time when Xu was giving these broadcasts twice a week, claims that the famous actor Tan Fuying 譚富英 (1906–1977) listened in as he was preparing one of the roles Xu was going to talk about: “Xu Lanyuan diantai bojiang Zhusha zhi: Tan Fuying ceng shouting” 徐蘭沅電臺播講 朱砂痣: 譚富英層收聽 (Xu Lanyuan’s radio broadcasts on Zhusha zhi [Xikao #9]: Tan Fuying listened in), reproduced in Chen Zhiming 陳志明 and Wang Weixian 王維賢, eds., Liyan huakan Jingju ziliao xuanbian 立言畫刊京劇資料選編 (Selected material on Jingju from Liyan huakan; no publisher listed, 2005), p. 519.

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2.7 A Nation of Jingju Fanatics What was the effect on ordinary people of all the different ways that Jingju presented itself to them? This is how Lin Yutang described it: Imagine a people whose masses know the airs of Tannhaüser and Tristan und Isolde and Pinafore by heart, gayly singing them in the streets and at all odd moments, and you have a picture of the relation between Chinese operas and the Chinese masses. There is a type of mania in China, unknown in the West, called ximi [戲迷] or ‘opera mania,’ and one may often see a maniac of the lower class, with dishevelled hair and clad in tatters, singing the airs of Kongcheng ji [空城計; The ruse of the empty city; Xikao #1] and acting the part of Zhuge Liang [諸葛亮] in the streets of old Peking.409 The term ximi is often translated as “Jingju addict,” but the term ximi does not partake directly in the analogy of addiction. Instead, people with a great need to hear or sing Jingju were said to have a great addiction or “itch” for opera (xiyin/xiyinzi 戲癮/戲癮子) that could only be relieved by getting a “fix” (guo yin 過癮).410 “Horror” stories about opera fanatics and what happens to them might lead one to think that Chinese thought Jingju was not really good for your health. But there has also been the opposite idea, that Jingju is good for your mental (and physical) health. Republican era ads and texts claimed that Jingju, as an “active art” (dong de yishu 動的藝術), could help “harmonize” (tiaojie 調節) pharmaceuticals411 or that singing Jingju arias from plays in which righteous

409 Lin, My Country and My People, p. 262. The older Romanization of Chinese in the original has been changed to pinyin. 410 Wu Zuguang’s play, Fengxue ye gui ren, includes a Jingju addict who describes how he became “addicted” (shang yin le 上癮了) to Jingju to the point that he can’t do without it for a single day. See Fengxue ye guiren/Nao jianghu 風雪夜歸人/闖江湖 (Fengxue ye guiren and “Stirring up Trouble on the Rivers and Lakes”; Beijing: Renmin wenxue, 1996), p. 39, and the translation by Thomas Moran in Xiaomei Chen, ed., The Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Drama, p. 472. On people with mental disorders in the Republican era, primarily women, who turned to Jingju to express themselves, see Hugh Shapiro, “Operatic Escapes: Performing Madness in Neuropsychiatric Beijing,” in Jing Tsu and Benjamin A. Elman, eds., Science and Technology in Modern China, 1880s–1940s (Leiden: Brill, 2014), pp. 297–325. 411 See the ad for the Shanghai Zhong Fa Yaofang 上海中法藥房 (Shanghai Sino-Franco Pharmacy) on p. 108 of Xu Muyun, Liyuan yingshi.

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characters curse villains can relieve the kind of suppressed anger that can make one sick.412 Even stronger claims are made nowadays.413 Why have there been so many amateur singers of Jingju? Part of the answer must be that it is fairly easy to sing it. According to A. C. Scott, “The musical content was limited and repetitious, but it was precisely these qualities that gave it the strong appeal it had for the ordinary public.”414 Why did Jingju have such strong effects on the Chinese? Western opera has certainly had its addicts,415 even if the sheer numbers probably pale before that of their counterparts in China. It might be useful to quote an explanation of why Western opera is so powerful: In artistic terms, the power of opera likely stems from what might be called this ‘overdetermination’ of effect: the combination of the dramatic + the narrative + the thematic + the verbal + the visual + the auditory. There is no such thing as the single ‘text’ of opera.416 If anything, Jingju had even more going on in it than Western opera, although the orchestra was certainly smaller in size. Although it was only a minority of Chinese who participated in amateur Jingju clubs, and the number of true fanatics who had to sing every time they opened their mouths, so popular in the social imaginary, was certainly smaller yet, there was the expectation that almost everybody could sing some snatches from Jingju. Qi Rushan talked of people walking down the streets of Beijing

412 See Jin Jiyun 金吉雲, Xuexi baifa 學戲百法 (One hundred ways to study Jingju; Shanghai: Zhongyang shudian, 1935), “Xuexi de lequ” 學戲的樂趣 (The delights of learning to sing plays), pp. 4–5, which also claims that if you are bored at work, humming some lines of Jingju will perk up your spirits. 413 See, for instance, Li Chunshan 李春山, “Jingju shi wo xin shen jiankang” 京劇使我心 身健康 ( Jingju caused my mind and body to become healthy), Liyuan zhoukan, April 3, 2000, p. 3; Deng Min 鄧敏, “Jingxi zhu wo zhan bingmo” 京戲助我戰病魔 ( Jingju helped me fight the demon of illness), Liyuan zhoukan, August 14, 2000, p. 3; and An Gengxin 安 更新, “Jingju zhen qimiao, shei xiang shi liang yao! Yanchang sansi nian, juran xian qi xiao” 京劇真奇妙, 誰想是良藥! 演唱三四年, 居然顯奇效 ( Jingju is truly marvelous, who would have thought that it is excellent medicine! After performing and singing it for three or four years, it actually showed extraordinary results), Zhongguo Jingju 2004.2: 31. 414 A. C. Scott, Actors are Madmen (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1982), p. 105. 415 Herbert Lindenberger, Opera in History: From Monteverdi to Cage (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998), pp. 270–73, identifies a category of Western opera operagoers called “the avid,” which includes “converts” and “addicts.” 416 Linda Hutcheon and Michael Hutcheon, Opera: Desire, Disease, Death (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999), p. 5.

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singing snatches from opera “as soon as they open their mouths” (yi zhang zui 一張嘴).417 There were, of course, Jingju fanatics who expressed their fanaticism primarily in going to performances and “supporting actors” (pengjue 捧角). Wu Zuguang 吳祖光 (1917–2003) was such a fanatic when he was a student. Here is something he wrote in 1936, not long after he was “cured” of such fanaticism (although not of a love for xiqu): … half a year ago I was precisely such a student supporter of actors, and at the mention of this it makes me quite upset. Deceiving my parents, who knows how much money I wasted? Who knows how much time I wasted? Even worse, who knows how much my studies were sacrificed? How much of my spirit was wasted? I constantly cut classes and hurried down to the Guanghe Theater to immerse myself for the entire day. In the beginning it was a friend who seduced me into it, but then it went on for more than a year without my being able to pull myself out. Later, I suddenly woke up and swore off such a disordered life. Now, when I occasionally go to Guanghe Theater, I don’t have the slightest interest in supporting actors. You could say that I have turned into an entirely different person…. 因為在半年前我正是一個學生捧角家, 說到這裡真叫我痛苦. 我滿了父 母不知花了多少冤錢? 不知虛靡了多少光陰? 更不知犧牲了多少功課? 糟蹋了多少精神? 常常曠了課趕到廣和樓去泡一整天, 其始是由了朋友 的引誘, 便如此不能自拔地過了一年多. 後來忽然清醒便斷絕了這種混 沌生活. 現在偶爾去廣和樓時, 一點沒有捧角的心了. 我已經算是一個過 來人….418

In contemporary China, Jingju surely does not loom as large as it did in the Republican period through the Cultural Revolution,419 but I hope it is clear, 417 Qi Rushan, Jingju zhi bianqian, p. 3 (Qi Rushan quanji, 2: 818). 418 Wu Zuguang 吳祖光, “Guanghe lou de pengjue jia” 廣和樓的捧角家 (The supporters of actors in Guanghu Theater; 1936), Wu Zuguang daibiao zuo 吳祖光代表作 (Representative pieces by Wu Zuguang; Beijing: Huaxia chubanshe, 1998), p. 365. 419 A new publication provides evidence on how much money some are now willing to pay for memorabilia associated with performers of Chinese indigenous theater in general and Jingju in particular: Yueshi 閱時, ed., Cong Mei Lanfang dao Zhang Chonghe: Zhongguo xiqu yishu 從梅蘭芳到張充和: 中國戲曲藝術 (From Mei Lanfang to Chang Ch’ung-ho: The art of Chinese indigenous theater; Hangzhou: Zhejiang renmin yishu, 2017). The preface is largely a justification of the auctioneering of cultural items, while for each of the items described, “lot” numbers and estimated prices are given. The items include such

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from what has been said in this half of the introduction, that Republican-era China was a place awash in Jingju. Jingju was not just in the theaters, but in the minds of political and cultural leaders as well as illiterate peasants and city dwellers, in the eyes of consumers of the text and pictures of both serious and entertainment reading material, in the ears of travelers in railway cars or pedestrians walking past shops playing gramophone records or radio receivers, and in the throats of countless amateur singers. For Jingju fanatics, whom the popular imagination seems to have thought were quite common, Jingju was a matter of life or death. Considering all of this, it should make sense that we should pay attention to Jingju if we are interested in understanding China. things as Zhou Xinfang’s diary from 1939 (item 927; price estimated at 80,000–120,000 RMB) and a play manuscript (item 928; price estimated at 20,000–30,000 RMB), both in Zhou’s own hand; and a collection of playscripts, photographs and other documents related to Zhang Junqiu 張君秋 (1920–1997) (item 931; price estimated at 38,000–50,000 RMB) and a set of Zhang’s stage costumes (item 932 [photographs of 10 items provided]; price estimated at 10,000–20,000 RMB).

Chapter 1

Jingju Repertoire(s) and Types of Plays and Playscripts The Introduction introduced the history of Jingju and its importance. The chapter following this one will lay out the early history of the textualization of traditional Chinese drama and issues of authorship, presenting what we know about the earliest Jingju playwrights. In preparation for that, this chapter presents an overview of the repertoire(s) of Jingju and the ways plays were defined and textualized. 1

The Repertoire(s)

When it comes to the repertoire(s) of Jingju plays, it is useful to speak in the plural for a number of reasons. One repertoire, the largest one, would be the total number of known Jingju plays, regardless of whether or not some of them were ever mounted on the stage. Smaller repertoires could be restricted to only plays that we know were performed, or to those we know were performed regularly. Smaller yet would be repertoires that are restricted to plays that we know were performed in a particular time period. We can also think about the personal repertoires of individual actors and troupes, and about what factors prevented the unrestricted performance of some plays or favored the performance of others. For most of its history, Jingju has been a “repertory theater” in the sense that the bulk of the plays regularly performed in any historical period were not new plays but were instead drawn from one of the repertoires mentioned above.1 Even in locations (Shanghai, for instance) or times (the Republican period) that favored new plays instead of old ones, the difference 1 It is also the case that traditional Chinese theater in general has favored the reworking and adaptation of existing material over creating entirely new stories. On this trend in traditional Chinese theater, see Liu Hui, “Ticai neirong de danxiang xishou yu shuangxiang jiaorong,” and Yan Quanyi, Qingdai Jingju wenxue shi, p. 13, who says “the composition of traditional Chinese drama is not the same as poetry, it does not emphasize the creation of new material but instead puts its effort into new versions of old material …” 戲曲劇作和詩歌不同, 不重 題材新創而講究老題材新演繹…. Even the Chinese dramatist who most stressed his own originality, Li Yu 李漁 (1611–1680), spent a lot of time on the revision of old material in his writings on drama, and adapted his own fiction into plays.

© David L. Rolston, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004463394_003

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was only relative and actual stage repertoires were still dominated by old plays, in traditional or adapted form. There was a saying, “[You can] watch a good play one hundred times and still not be tired of it” 好戲不厭百回看.2 What constitutes a “play” in Jingju is somewhat problematic. On the one hand, scenes from longer plays were extracted and performed separately as zhezi xi 折子戲, although sometimes these zhezi xi would be performed under the title of the original play they were extracted from. It was also possible for two or more zhezi xi from the same play to be combined and performed as a play with a title that usually distinguished it from the individual zhezi xi but not always from the original, longer play. On the other hand, there were also liantai benxi 連臺本戲, serial plays composed of discreet episodes (ben), which were performed/viewed in sequence one after the other or separately and did not generally have their own titles, being distinguished from each other only by episode number (i.e., ben modified by a number). Sometimes two or more episodes, in sequence, were performed on a single program (two on the same bill was very popular). Some combinations were thought to go together in such a satisfying way that the tendency became to perform those episodes together more often than not, without, however, giving that configuration its own name. There is also the problem that many plays had multiple titles. Because of these complications, it is inevitable that sources on the Jingju repertoire are not always in agreement about their definition of what constitutes a “play”; what were considered different plays in one source might be seen as the same play in others.3 Qi Rushan, who once tried to compile a master list of all Chinese plays, complained that there was no way to do that because “people in the theater world themselves have screwed this matter up, listing both the names of the main play and the separate zhezi xi together without distinguishing them, and making up names as they like” 戲界本身就把這件事情, 給弄亂了, 總本名 詞與單折名詞, 往往並列不分, 又隨便起了些名詞.4 2 Xia Tian 夏天, Xiyan yiqian tiao 戲諺一千條 (One hundred traditional drama maxims; Shanghai: Shanghai wenyi, 1985), p. 12. 3 For example, Shenting ling 神亭嶺 (Spirit pavilion ridge) and Hanzhan Taishi Ci 酣戰太 史慈 (Fighting Taishi Ci with abandon) are identified as the same play by Tao Junqi 陶君 起, ed., Jingju jumu chutan 京劇劇目初探 (A preliminary investigation of the repertoire of Jingju; Shanghai: Shanghai wenhua, 1957; rev. ed., Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 1963), p. 73 and Xikao (#389), but given two separate entries in Zeng Bairong 曾白融, ed., Jingju jumu ci­dian 京劇劇目辭典 (Dictionary of the repertoire of Jingju; Beijing: Zhongguo xiyu, 1989), pp. 205–206. 4 Qi Rushan, Tongzhi hou wushi nianjian Beiping, preface, p. 2 (Qi Rushan quanji, 6: 2562). The preface ends (p. 5; Qi Rushan quanji, 4: 2565) on the same theme: “Since things are like this, the unfortunate situation has come about that the play titles are not used uniformly, complete plays and separate scenes are confused with each other, there is even more repetition,

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Before turning to the Jingju repertoire, what can we say about the repertoire for earlier forms of Chinese theater, and about the size of the repertoire of traditional Chinese theater in general? Zhuang Yifu 莊一拂, compiler of the 1982 Gudian xiqu cunmu huikao 古典戲曲存目彙考 (Collected research into the known repertoire of classical Chinese drama), lists a total of more than 4,740 plays, divided up into the genres of nanxi 南戲 (lit.: southern drama; 320-plus plays), zaju 雜劇 (lit.: variety plays; 1,830-plus plays), and chuanqi 傳 奇 (lit.: transmit the strange; 2,590-plus plays). There is a separate appendix listing ninety-six plays of the modern era ( jindai 近代; 1840–1919).5 There was once a plan to publish a set of bibliographies of different classical theatrical genres divided by historical period. Only four were completed, three are on zaju. They respectively record 737 titles for the Yuan (including 187 anonymous plays that might be either from the Yuan or Ming), 618 for the Ming, and 1300 for the Qing.6 A recent comprehensive bibliography of chuanqi plays7 has 1,119 titles in its index. and therefore there is no way to check things out and come up with a count” 這樣一來, 鬧 的戲名不同意, 整本與單齣相混, 重複的更多, 於是就無法調查統計了. Qi’s list, which consists of 936 play titles (Qi Rushan quanji, 4: 2567–85), also appears as part of an appendix in Zhou Mingtai 周明泰, Wushi nian lai Beiping xiju shiliao 五十年來北平戲劇史料 (Historical material from the last fifty years concerning plays in Beijing; Taibei: Guangwen shuju, 1977 reprint), Qianbian 前編 (First half), which allows the reader to learn how many troupes are listed as performing each play in the 1,157 handwritten troupe playlist programs reproduced in that half of the compilation. According to Wu Jiang 吳江, “Jingju yanchu shichang, jutuan buju yu jumu shengchan zhi guanxi” 京劇演出市場, 劇團布局與劇目生 產之關係 (The relationship between the performance market, the distribution of troupes, and play production), in Jin Hezeng 金和增 and Wang Yunming 王蘊明, eds., Huiban yu Jingju 徽班與京劇 (Anhui troupes and Jingju; Beijing: Hualing chubanshe, 1992), p. 292, the playlists in Zhou’s book list 771 play titles (the difference comes from Qi’s including alternate names for the same play in his total of 936). 5 Zhuang Yifu, Gudian xiqu cunmu huikao, “Liyan” 例言 (Editorial principles), p. 1. All of the figures appear to be quite precise, but each is accompanied by a yu 餘 (plus). 6 These figures come from Yu Lin 俞琳, “Zhongguo gudian xiqu zonglu” 中國古典戲曲總錄 (Complete bibliography of Chinese classical drama), in Zhongguo baike quanshu: Xiqu quyi, p. 583. The majority of the Qing plays are more for reading than for performance. 7 Guo Yingde, Ming Qing chuanqi zonglu. In the Preface (前言, p. 9), Guo estimates that the total number of chuanqi plays must have been at least 2,700. The most comprehensive bibliography of plays produced before the twentieth century is Quhai zongmu tiyao 曲海總 目提要 (Annotated bibliography of the sea of plays). It was reprinted in 1928 by Dadong Shuju in Shanghai, which mistook it for a work of similar title not now extant produced by Huang Wenyang 黃文暘 (1736–1804), who was the head of the Yangzhou Ciqu Ju 揚州 詞曲局 (Bureau to [revise] plays), established in 1780 to investigate and revise playscripts. We do not know the names of the compilers but do know that it was compiled in the first half of the eighteenth century and that what we have is incomplete. It gives summaries of the plots of 685 (includes one repeated title) zaju and chuanqi plays. See Shao Zengqi 邵曾

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To expand the purview beyond “classical” (gudian) drama (which typically does not include Jingju and other genres once referred to as huabu), we can turn to Wang Senran’s 王森然 Zhongguo jumu cidian 中國劇目辭典 (Dictionary of the Chinese dramatic repertoire). According to the “Editorial Principles” (Fanli 凡例), the work’s 15,855 entries include “classical plays” (gudian xi 古 典戲), which are completely included (quanbu shoulu 全部收錄), and plays from Jingju and local popular traditions from before 1949, which are “in principle completely included” (yuanze shang quanbu shouru 原則上全部收入).8 This 15,855 figure is far less than the total of 51,867 for local tradition plays produced in a 1957 national survey, but that is surely because this last number repeats the titles of plays when they occur in more than one local tradition,9 while Zhongguo jumu cidian privileges Jingju plays and only records plays from the local traditions that do not repeat items in that repertoire or, if they do, are particularly influential or important.10 The 1957 survey was part of the huge governmental effort to reform traditional Chinese theater undertaken in the early years of the PRC. Commonly referred to as xigai 戲改, it was supposed to make traditional theatrical forms and plays serve the perceived needs of the state and Party. Like the “literary inquisitions” (wenzi yu 文字獄) of the eighteenth-century, it involved collecting information about what was in circulation so as to better restrict what was not wanted and encourage what was. The Nationalist government, while it still ruled the Mainland, had similar ambitions and plans, but lacked the resources or will to implement anything like what happened under the PRC.11 The only 祺  , “Quhai zongmu tiyao,” in Zhongguo da baike quanshu: Xiqu quyi 中國大百科全書: 戲曲曲藝 (Great Chinese encyclopedia: Traditional theater and oral performing arts; Beijing: Zhongguo da baike quanshu, 1983), p. 301, and Yuan Xingyun 袁行雲, “Qing Qianlong jian Yangzhou guanxiu xiqu kao” 清乾隆間揚州官修戲曲考 (Research into the governmental revision of drama in Yangzhou during the Qianlong reign period in the Qing), Xiqu yanjiu 28 (1988): 240–44. 8 Wang Senran 王森然, ed., Zhongguo jumu cidian 中國劇目辭典 (Shijiazhuang: Hebei jiaoyu, 1997), “Fanli,” p. 1. 9 See Zhou Huabin 周華賓, “Ershi shiji de Zhongguo xiju shi yanjiu” 二十世紀的中國戲 劇史研究 (Research on Chinese theater history in the twentieth century), Xishi bian 1 (1999): 298. See also Su Yi 蘇移, Jingju erbai nian gaiguan 京劇二百年概觀 (An overview of two hundred years of Jingju; Beijing: Beijing Yanshan, 1989), p. 131. 10 Wang Senran, ed., Zhongguo jumu cidian, “Fanli,” p. 1. 11 Gu Shuguang 谷曙光, “Minguo wunian Beijing Jingju tan yanchu zhuangkuang fenxi—Yi ‘Yanchang ximu cishu diaocha biao’ wei zhongxin” 民國五年北京京劇壇演出狀況分 析—以 ‘演唱戲目次數調查表’ 為中心 (Analysis of the situation concerning performances of Jingju in 1916 in Beijing—Taking “Survey of the Frequency of the Performance of Plays” as a focus), Xiqu yishu 2009.1: 72–75, concerns a project from the Republican period that predated Nationalist control. The survey itself has not been published.

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government list of Jingju plays in the performance repertoire prior to the PRC was put together under orders issued in 1944 by the “Cultural Bureau” (Shehui ju 社會局) of the Beijing municipal government when it was under Japanese control. The stated reason for requesting the actors association to compile the list was that the troupes and actors had been playing games with the names of the plays to avoid censorship.12 The actors association was ordered to present a report on how many plays were presently in performance (xianzai tongxing 現在通行), what their names were, and how many alternate names they had.13 The preface to the list says that it excludes plays registered by individual actors as “solely-owned plays” (du you ximu 獨有戲目) and contains “more than thirteen hundred play titles” (ximing yiqian sanbai yu chu 戲名一千三百餘齣). By 12

This is not a new complaint. For a similar accusation, this time from the government of one of the Shanghai foreign concessions, see Zhao Shanlin et al., eds., Jindai Shanghai xiqu xinian chubian, p. 110 (1885). Fu Jin, ed., Jingju lishi wenxian huibian: Qingdai juan, vol. 4, includes complaints about this problem found in Shenbao dating from 1896 (pp. 448–49), 1901 (p. 523), 1902 (p. 534), and 1911 (pp. 624). Liu Qing 劉慶, “Wan Qing xiju jinguan zhidu xia xiyuan xiban de yingdui celüe” 晚清戲劇禁管制度下戲園戲班 的應對策略 (Strategies used by theaters and theater troupes in the face of play censorship in the late Qing), Quxue 2 (2014): 529–33, discusses changing the names of banned plays as the first of three strategies used. Other reasons for the proliferation of alternate names include: 1) Trying to sell old plays as new ones by changing their titles, see [Zhou] Jianyun [周] 劍雲, “Shanghai liyuan guanggao tan” 上海梨園廣告談 (On the advertising of plays in Shanghai), in Zhou Jianyun 周劍雲 [1893–1967], ed., Jubu congkan 菊/蘜 部叢刊 (Theater collectanea; Shanghai: Jiaotong tushu guan, 1918), “Pinju yuhua” 品菊 餘話 (Leftover words after evaluating chrysanthemums [i.e., actors] section), pp. 78–80, reproduced in Pingju shiliao congkan 平劇史料叢刊 (Collectanea of historical material on Jingju), 12 vols. (Taibei: Zhuanji wenxue, 1974), 6: 744–46; 2) Changing inauspicious titles into auspicious ones, see Chang Renchun 常人春 and Zhang Weidong 張衛 東, Xiqing tanghui 喜慶堂會 (Private celebrations; Beijing: Xueyuan chubanshe, 2001), pp. 175–76, 200; 3) Changing titles that no longer make sense because how the play is performed has changed or because they only refer to part of the play, see Qi Rushan, Tongzhi hou wushi nianjian Beiping, preface, p. 2 (Qi Rushan quanji, p. 2562), where he lists plays whose names only refer to one part of their play; and 4) Problems in either the original title or a later one, see Niu Biao 鈕驃, “Jingju ximing ewu” 京劇戲名訛誤 (Problems in the titles of Jingju plays), Zhongguo xiju 中國戲劇 (Chinese theater) 1997.4: 44–46, which lists more than twenty examples. Wang Qinghui 王清輝, whose series of articles pointing out problems with Zeng Bairong’s Jingju jumu cidian is mentioned below, estimates that of the 5,300 plus entries in that dictionary of Jingju plays, as many as 1,300 are alternate names. In an earlier work the ratio is even higher: Yang Pengnian 楊彭年, Pingju ximu huikao 平劇戲目彙考 (Collected research on the Jingju repertoire; Shanghai: Xinji shuju, 1933), reprinted in vol. 7 of Minguo Jing Kun shiliao congshu, covers 975 plays and their 500 alternative names. 13 The initial order, dated March 1944, is reproduced in Zhongguo xiqu zhi: Beijing juan, p. 1303.

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my count, the list contains 1,343 play titles, of which 107 are labeled alternate titles (bieming 別名), for a total of 1,236 different plays.14 If we exclude Xikao, and a work related to it, Xikao xinbian 戲考新編 (Xikao newly edited), for which see chapter 3, the earliest attempt to compile a reference work introducing the repertoire of Jingju as a whole, Yang Pengnian’s 楊彭年, Pingju ximu huikao 平劇戲目彙考 (Collected research on the Jingju repertoire), was published in 1933 and had 975 entries, some of which were just cross-references.15 It was superseded by Tao Junqi’s 陶君起 (1915–1972), Jingju jumu chutan 京劇劇目初探 (A preliminary investigation of the repertoire of Jingju; 1957) with over 1200 entries, whose revised and expanded edition contained (by my count) 1,392 entries.16 Tao criticizes some plays for being politically incorrect,17 but this did not prevent the work from being branded a “big poisonous weed” (da ducao 大毒草) during the Cultural Revolution.18 Unlike Jingju jumu chutan, the largest and most authoritative reference work to date on the Jingju repertoire, Zeng Bairong’s 曾白融 (1923–1998) Jingju jumu cidian 京劇劇目辭典 (Dictionary of the repertoire of Jingju), is careful not to include any evaluative remarks from the contributors about the plays.19 According to the preface, the project had access to over 5,000 Jingju 14 The list, transcribed into simplified characters but still divided by the stroke numbers of their traditional forms, with documents attached, can be found in Zhongguo xiqu zhi: Beijing juan, pp. 1303–10. 15 Yang Pengnian, Pingju ximu huikao. 16 See the 1963 enlarged edition of Jingju jumu chutan, the edition of reference in this study. That edition is divided into two sections: jiabian 甲編 (first section) and yibian 乙編 (second section). According to the 1962 preface, the second section is new and covers plays produced after 1949, while the first section has been revised and augmented. There are 1,294 entries in the first section and 98 in the second (my count). The unrevised edition was republished in Taiwan as Pingju jumu chutan 平劇劇目初探 (Taibei: Mingwen shuju, 1982). Mei-Shu Hwang, “Peking Opera: A Study on the Art of Translating the Scripts with Special Reference to Structure and Conventions,” doctoral thesis, University of Florida, 1976, pp. 29–31, says 1,225 plays were treated in the first edition of Tao Junqi’s book. 17 Item 11 of the “Fanli” (Editorial principles, p. 9) claims, “In the case of plays with reactionary, sexual, superstitious, or horrific content, this will be briefly pointed out, as an aid to research” 凡內容上含有反動, 色情, 迷信, 恐怖成分的劇目, 亦略加指出, 以利參考. For example, see Tao’s entry on Duidao buzhan 對刀步戰 (Matched swords fighting on foot; Xikao #506), in which he comments that the play “has places that distort the revolutionary army [of Li Zecheng 李自成]” 有歪曲起義軍處 (p. 373). 18 See Tao Muning 陶慕寧, “Jingju shi jia Tao Junqi xiansheng xingzhuang” 京劇史家陶君 起先生行狀 (An account of the life of the historian of Jingju Tao Junqi), Yitan 5 (2007): 262. 19 The names of the contributors are listed on the page before the table of contents. Of nine names, four are marked as deceased because of the gap between 1962 when the project

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playscripts, but it seems certain that there was a lot of overlap between them, because although the “Editorial Principles” (Fanli 凡例) gives the total number of entries as 5,300, many are cross-references, and over 300 of the entries appear in a separate section titled “Juqing buxiang” 劇情不詳 (Plot unknown; pp. 1261–75). It is far from uncommon to come across entries in the other sections of the book whose description of the plot is based on a published summary, no playscript being available.20 The book gives information on 5,788 play titles, 954 of which are episodes of serial plays. Contrary to Jingju jumu chutan, which allots one entry for each serial play no matter how many episodes it may have had, Jingju jumu cidian typically allots an entry for each episode, although there are seventy-nine entries that lump two separate episodes (ben) together, and six that lump together from four to eight episodes into one entry.21 Jingju jumu cidian has encountered criticism for what have been considered errors of fact,22 and for failing to apply uniformly its own criteria23 or to utilize certain categories of information and available resources.24 It has been, albeit

20 21 22

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started and 1989 when it was published. Item 4 of the “Fanli,” p. 3, states that the entries consist of “objective introductions” (keguan jieshao 客觀介紹) of the plays and “in no case has commentary been added” 一律不加評論. See item 4 of the “Fanli,” p. 2. For an example of a play for which only a plot summary is given, see the entry on Yiwen qian 一文錢 (A single cash), p. 1256. While item 3 of the “Fanli” (p. 6) states, “every episode of serial plays will get its own entry” 連臺本戲每本單立條目, this is not true in all cases. Wang Qinghui 王清輝 has published six articles of this type: “Mingju duo yiwu, kaoshi bing cushu—Jingju jumu cidian guanchui” 名劇多遺誤, 考釋病粗疏—京劇劇目辭典 管錘 (Many famous plays left out or information incorrect, research that can be faulted for being rough and careless—Modest disagreements with Jingju jumu cidian), Zhongguo Jingju 2001.1: 58–60 (part 1); 2001.2: 64–65 (part 2); 2001.3: 58–60 (part 3); 2001.4: 58–60 (part 4); 2001.5: 60–61 (part 5); 2001.6: 60–61 (part 6). Item 4 of the “Fanli” lays out eight kinds of information that each entry should contain. For instance, number 5 concerns what actors premiered or were especially good at performing the play, and number 6 concerns who made phonograph recordings of the play (arias or portions); however, there are entries in Jingju jumu cidian that lack information under either heading even though reference works used for other items show that such information was readily available and could have been included. This inconsistency, even if it only affects a minority of entries, makes problematic use of the work to compare plays against each other depending on the information in their entries. Another example of unevenness is the fact that the contributors who wrote on plays set in the late Qing were either more interested in researching the background of the plays or given more space to do so than seems to have been the case for other plays. An example of the former is that manuscript copies of the plays are only mentioned when they are the basis for the summary of the play’s plot. This means that a reader of an entry will not learn whether a script of the play is included in the very important Chewang collection of manuscripts (on this collection, see below). A case of an underused resource is that only ads for plays for the years 1915–1937 in Shenbao were consulted

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somewhat silently, at the heart of a controversy over how big the Jingju repertoire is. The controversy began with a claim in 2000 that the Jingju repertoire included at least 5,300 plays and most likely many more than that.25 Niu Biao 鈕驃 (1933–) found that figure very surprising (tinglai hao bu jingren! 聽來好不 驚人!); in the article in which he expressed that surprise he then went through the number of plays listed in a number of historical lists of Jingju plays, beginning with the 1824 Qing Shengping Ban 慶升平班 (Celebrating Rising Peace Troupe) list (see below) with its 272 titles (noting that some scholars doubt the list’s veracity) and ending with Jingju jumu chutan. At that point Niu recounts how he eventually figured out that the number 5,300 comes from Jingju jumu cidian, but that it refers only to the number of entries rather than plays. What boosts the number so high, according to Niu, are not only the entries for alternate names of plays and separate episodes of serial plays, but also the inclusion of some Kunqu and chuiqiang plays and plays that date from before 1790.26 How to get the true figure would be easy enough: simply subtract from the total figure the number of entries that fall into those four categories. If he did what he recommends, Niu does not seem to have published the result, but a more recent article quotes him as the source for the idea that “in the course of Jingju’s development, approximately 3,000 different plays have been performed” 在京劇發展過程中, 大約上演過 3,000 個左右的不同劇目.27

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(see Liu Housheng 劉厚生, “Xu” 序 [Preface], to Cai Shicheng, ed., Shenbao Jingju ziliao xuanbian, p. 4). It should be noted that information on Jingju only available in Taiwan or produced in Taiwan goes largely unused in Jingju jumu cidian, and the edition of Xikao used is the Dadong Shuju reprint rather than the original edition (see Jingju jumu cidian’s appendix, “Cankao shukan mulu” 參考書刊目錄 [List of reference material], p. 1299). For why this matters, see chapter 3 below. Sun Huanying 孫焕英, “Jingju wushi nian fansi” 京劇五十年反思 (Reflections on fifty years of Jingju [in the PRC]), Wenyi bao 文藝報 (The literary arts), September 7, 2000, as quoted by Niu Biao (see the next footnote). Niu Biao 鈕驃, “Jingju jumu helai 5300 bu? Bo ‘Jingju wushi nian fansi’ ” 京劇劇目何來 5300 部? 駁 ‘京劇五十年反思’ (Where does the idea that the Jingju repetoire is 5300 plays come from? A Refutation of “Reflections on Fifty Years of Jingju [in the PRC]”), Zhongguo xiju 2000.10: 8–9. Niu is also peeved at the use of bu as a measure word for all sorts of plays, holding that it should be reserved for daxi 大戲 (big plays) or benxi 本戲 (complete plays). See Zhang Yifan 張一帆, “Jingju jumu chuancheng de shuliang yu zhiliang—You yifen jiandan de jumu tongji xiangdao de” 京劇劇目傳承的數量與質量—由一份簡單的 劇目統計想到的 (Number and quality in the transmission of the Jingju repertoire— Thoughts occasioned from a simple calculation), in Du Changsheng, ed., Jingju yu xiandai Zhongguo shehui, p. 230. No indication is given of when or in what forum Niu made the remark. The figure of 3,000 plays for the Jingju repertoire was also independently reached by Qin Huasheng 秦華生 and Liu Wenfeng 劉文峰, Qingdai xiqu fazhan shi 清代戲曲發 展史 (History of the development of Qing dynasty theater; Beijing: Lüyou jiaoyu, 2006),

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How does Niu Biao’s figure of about 3,000 plays relate to those for other extant Chinese indigenous theater traditions and theatrical and operatic traditions in the West? As we have seen, Jingju was greatly indebted to Kunqu. The two recent large-scale dictionaries of Kunju 崑劇 (a post-1949 name for Kunqu as a stage tradition) include, in their sections on the Kunju repertoire, 971 and 1,224 play titles, respectively.28 Of local theater traditions that were particularly influential on Jingju, we can find over 1,600 for Qinqiang,29 800 separate plays for Hanju,30 and 1,412 for Huixi 徽戲 (Anhui opera).31 Less related to Jingju is Sichuan opera. Chuanju jumu cidian 川劇劇目詞典 (Dictionary of the repertoire of Sichuan opera) has entries on 2,902 separate plays,32 but unlike the sources for the repertoires of Qinqiang, Hanju, and Huixi, this dictionary includes plays written after the establishment of the PRC. How do these figures compare with those for Western theater repertoires? For one thing, we can note that for theater in general in the West, individual playwrights have tended to be more prolific than any examples one can come up with in China, with Lope de Vega (1562–1635) supposed to have written around 800 plays and claiming to have written 1,500.33 Standard editions of p. 732. They estimate that 1,000 of the 3,000 were produced in the Qing. The online site, Jingju jumu kaolüe 京劇劇目考略 (Brief research on the repertoire of Jingju), http:// repertoire.xikao.com/statistic, accessed November 29, 2019, says that their database includes 2,117 plays and 3,255 play titles (includes alternative names). 28 The figure of 971 for Hong Weizhu 洪維助, ed., Kunqu cidian 崑曲辭典 (Kunqu dictionary; Yilan: Guoli chuantong yishu zhongxin, 2002), is produced by combining the 481 play entries in the section on chuantong jumu 傳統劇目 (traditional plays; pp. 49–167) and the 490 titles in the zhezi xi section. For Wu Xinlei 吳新雷, ed., Zhongguo Kunju da cidian 中國崑劇大辭典 (Great dictionary of Chinese Kunqu; Nanjing: Nanjing daxue, 2002), the unit of measure is zhezi xi for all but 197 (or 16%) “newly compiled newly mounted” (xinbian xinpai 新編新派) plays. 29 Yang Zhilie 楊志烈 et al., Qinqiang jumu chukao 秦腔劇目初考 (A preliminary investigation into the repertoire of Qinqiang; Xi’an: Shaanxi renmin, 1984), item 2 in the “Fanli,” p. 1. 30 Lu Yingkun and Hai Zhen, Changjiang xiqu, p. 330; they explain this figure as according to “the traditional way of speaking” (chuantong shuofa 傳統說法). 31 Liu Mei 劉梅, “Huixi jumu yanjiu” 徽戲劇目研究 (Research on the repertoire of Anhui opera), master’s thesis, Anhui University, 2007, p. 6. 32 Chuanju jumu cidian 川劇劇目辭典 (Chengdu: Sichuan cishu, 1999). According to item 1 in the “Fanli” 凡例 (Editorial principles), p. 1, the work deals with a total of 5,892 play titles, has 3,567 entries in the main section of the work, 665 of which are cross-references for alternate titles, and includes an appendix that lists 1660 plays for which basically only the title is recorded (cunmu 存目). On repertoire lists for different local Chinese opera traditions, see Sun Chongtao 孫崇濤, Xiqu wenxian xue 戲曲文獻學 (The bibliographic study of theater documents; Taiyuan: Shanxi jiaoyu, 2008), pp. 64–65. 33 See Peters, Theatre of the Book, p. 31.

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William Shakespeare’s works include thirty-seven plays,34 while “the Chinese Shakespeare,”35 Tang Xianzu 湯顯祖 (1550–1616), wrote four and a half.36 The collective productivity of a European national theater could also be quite impressive. Julie Stone Peters, The Theatre of the Book, 1480–1880: Print, Text, and Performance in Europe, claims that “no fewer than 32,000 new plays were staged in Paris in the nineteenth century.”37 If we turn to Western opera, we also see quite impressive totals of titles, with a 1910 book listing more than 25,000.38 But we all know that the performance repertoire of Western opera has dwindled drastically, with the same “workhorses”39 trotted out again and again. Although Theodor Adorno (1903–1969) probably was exaggerating when he said that “the entire current operatic repertoire in America” has “dwindled to hardly more than fifteen titles,”40 John Dizikes asserts that already in the second half of the nineteenth century “the stream of operas composed began to dry up, and the number of operas performed became much smaller than it had been. Opera began to be less of a contemporary form of creativity and more a historical exercise in revival.”41 The figures presented above deal with two different ideas of repertoire, with the largest representing comprehensive and cumulative numbers, which can be contrasted with smaller figures representing either what plays were important or which were regularly performed. Even though it eventually fails, the intent of Jingju jumu cidian is to provide as comprehensive a portrait of the entire Jingju repertoire as possible. That is surely why it includes many plays about which we know very little indeed.42 At 1,500 plus pages, it also is not 34 See The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (New York: Avenel Books, 1975). 35 2016 saw the 400th anniversary of the death of both men and a multitude of articles comparing them. For one of the more ambitious attempts to compare the two and their times, see Tian Yuan Tan, Paul Edmondson, and Shih-pe Wang, eds., 1616: Shakespeare and Tang Xianzu’s China (London: Bloomsbury Arden Shakespeare, 2016). 36 See Guo Yingde, Ming Qing chuanqi zonglu, pp. 172–91. On the unfinished nature of his first play, see p. 175. 37 Peters, Theatre of the Book, p. 355. 38 See Stanley Sadie, ed., The New Grove Dictionary of Opera (London: MacMillan Press, 1992), “Preface,” p. viii. 39 David Pogue and Scott Speck, Opera for Dummies (New York: Hungry Minds, 1997), refers to these plays as “The Big Kahunas” and lists fifty of them (pp. 189–284). 40 Theodor Adorno, Introduction to the Sociology of Music, E. B. Ashton, tr. (New York: Continuum, 1989), p. 72. 41 John Dizikes, Opera in America: A Cultural History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), p. 258. 42 The entry for Bawang bei 霸王碑 (Hegemon king’s stele), p. 1275, for instance, consists of precisely twenty Chinese characters and says only that the play was mentioned in such and such an article.

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restricted by space concerns. Other works on Jingju that treat the repertoire, however, are both restricted by space concerns and interested (presumably) only in plays that were/are for some reason important. The numbers of plays covered in seven such works, excluding alternate titles for the same play, range from 132 in Zhongguo Jingju guanshang 中國京劇觀賞 (The appreciation of Chinese Jingju; 1998),43 to 184 in Jingju jumu gailan 京劇劇目概覽 (An overview of the repertoire of Jingju; 2003),44 to 382 in Jingju xiao cidian 京劇小辭 典 (Little dictionary of Jingju; 2009),45 to 538 in Jingju zhishi shouce 京劇知 識手冊 (Manual of Jingju knowledge; 1995),46 to 689 in Jingju wenhua ci­dian 京劇文化詞典 (Dictionary for Jingju culture; 2001),47 to 905 in Jingju zhishi ci­dian 京劇知識詞典 (Dictionary of Jingju knowledge; 1990),48 to 1,410 in Jingju zhishi cidian (zengding ban) 京劇知識詞典 (增訂版) (Dictionary of Jingju knowledge, expanded and revised edition, 2007).49 There are two large-scale, national encyclopedias of Jingju: Zhongguo Jingju baike quanshu 中國京劇百 科全書 (Encyclopedia of Chinese Jingju; 2011)50 introduces 357 plays, while Zhongguo Jingju yishu baike quanshu 中國京劇藝術百科全書 (Encyclopedia 43

Gu Qun 顧群, Gu Pengfei 顧鵬飛, and Yuan Dawei 原大偉, Zhongguo Jingju guanshang 中國京劇觀賞 (The appreciation of Chinese Jingju; Harbin: Heilongjiang renmin, 1998). Exclusive of front and back matter, this book is 402 pages long, 46 of which are devoted to introducing plays. 44 Xu Xianglin 許祥麟, Jingju jumu gailan 京劇劇目概覽 (An overview of the repertoire of Jingju; Tianjin: Tianjin guji, 2003). Exclusive of front and back matter, this work is 324 pages long, all of which are devoted to introducing the repertoire. 45 Huang Jun 黃鈞 and Xu Xibo 徐希博, Jingju xiao cidian 京劇小辭典 (Little dictionary of Jingju; Shanghai: Shanghai cishi, 2009). Exclusive of front and back matter, this book is 398 pages long, 98 of which are devoted to introducing plays. 46 Wu Tongbin 吳同賓, Jingju zhishi shouce 京劇知識手冊 (Manual of Jingju knowledge; Tianjin: Tianjin jiaoyu, 1995). Exclusive of front and back matter, this book is 594 pages long, 123 of which are devoted to introducing plays. 47 Huang Jun 黃鈞 and Xu Xibo 徐希博, Jingju wenhua cidian 京劇文化詞典 (Dictionary for Jingju culture; Shanghai: Hanyu da cidian, 2001). Exclusive of front and back matter, this book is 935 pages long, 164 of which are devoted to introducing plays. 48 Wu Tongbin 吳同賓 and Zhou Yaxun 周亞勛, eds., Jingju zhishi cidian 京劇知識詞典 (Dictionary of Jingju knowledge; Tianjin: Tianjin renmin, 1990). Exclusive of front and back matter, this book is 742 pages long, 146 of which are devoted to introducing plays. 49 Wu Tongbin 吳同賓 and Zhou Yaxun 周亞勛, eds., Jingju zhishi cidian (zengding ban) 京 劇知識詞典 (增訂版) (Dictionary of Jingju knowledge, expanded and revised edition; Tianjin: Tianjin renmin, 2007). Exclusive of front and back matter, this book is 544 pages long, 94 of which are devoted to introducing plays, but the pages are twice the size of those of the other works. 50 Ma Shaobo 馬少波 et al., eds. Zhongguo Jingju baike quanshu 中國京劇百科全書 (Encyclopedia of Chinese Jingju; Beijing: Zhongguo da baike quanshu, 2011). Exclusive of front and back matter, this book is 1098 pages long. The entries are arranged alphabetically, by pinyin Romanization, and there is a topical index.

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of the art of Chinese Jingju; 2011) introduces 706 plays.51 All of these reference works focus on China as a whole, while two others are more local: Beijing Jingju baike quanshu 北京京劇百科全書 (Encyclopedia of Beijing Jingju; 2010)52 introduces 187 plays, and Shanghai Jingju zhi 上海京劇志 (A record of Jingju in Shanghai; 1999)53 introduces 128. These more selective presentations of the Jingju repertoire are presumably giving more weight to whether the individual plays were performed and how often, and to how influential the plays were, although they do not explicitly claim to be doing this. There are, moreover, lists that privilege performance. A common feature of most of these is that they tend to focus on particular time periods rather than the entire sweep of Jingju’s history and are more useful the more those time periods can be specified. Unfortunately, we do not have anything like the materials available for the major kabuki theaters in early modern and modern Japan, with their extensive and continuous dated records of the plays that were performed season by season.54 Instead, the earliest material of this type consists of lists of plays performed by individual troupes or actors. The list that has been taken to be the earliest of these is the “Chuntai ban ximu” 春臺班戲目 (Chuntai troupe playlist), because it has the date 1774 on its cover. But Yan Changke 顏長珂 is of the opinion that this date has little to do with the bulk of the list, the calligraphy of which changes on page seven. That 51 Wang Wenzhang 王文章, ed., Zhongguo Jingju yishu baike quanshu 中國京劇藝術百 科全書 (Encyclopedia of the art of Chinese Jingju; Beijing: Zhongyang bianyi, 2011). Exclusive of front and back matter, this book is 1162 pages long. The entries are arranged alphabetically, by pinyin Romanization, and there is a topical index. 52 Duan Bingren 段柄仁, ed., Beijing Jingju baike quanshu 北京京劇百科全書 (Encyclopedia of Beijing Jingju; Beijing: Jinghua chubanshe, 2010). Exclusive of front and back matter, this book is 617 pages long. The entries are arranged alphabetically, by pinyin Romanization, and there is a topical index. Item 9 of the fanli indicates that plays produced outside Beijing but influential there are included. 53 Xu Xingjie and Cai Shicheng, eds., Shanghai Jingju zhi. Exclusive of front and back matter, this book is 486 pages long, 64 of which introduce plays separately. Two charts that list summary information on a greater total number of plays are also provided: one (pp. 150– 73) on plays “created” (chuangbian 創編), “adapted” (yizhi 移植), or “revised” (zhengli 整 理) since 1949 lists 267 plays; and one (pp. 190–208), on serial plays, lists 453 plays. Both lists include different plays that used the same name (or productions with the same name that significantly differ), and the second list includes thirty-one serial plays that are separately introduced. Comparing item 2 of the fanli with the fanli item for the encyclopedia on Beijing Jingju, the Shanghai-focus of this work seems more narrowly conceived than the Beijing focus of the work on Beijing. 54 E.g., Kurahashi Masae 倉橋正恵 et al., eds., Mikan Edo Kabuki nendaiki shūsei 未刊江 戶歌舞伎年代記集成 (Compendium of unpublished yearly records of kabuki performances from the Edo period; Tokyo: Shinten sha, 2017) includes three works that list the performances at the three licensed kabuki theaters in Tokyo from 1751 through 1821.

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later section of the manuscript also mentions actors’ private residence names (tangming 堂名) that date from 1836 and 1846.55 There are 743 titles on the list but according to Yan Changke, once you exclude the repeats, only 300–400 separate plays appear in it.56 Of interest is the fact that plays featuring lao­ sheng actors are very prominent (including forty-three starring Yu Sansheng),57 and there is a special listing of Three Kingdoms plays.58 Yan Changke points out that this is in stark contrast to the impression given in huapu that it was the dan actors who were most important at this time.59 This is especially of note because the troupe is Chuntai, which was known for its young actors (haizi 孩子),60 as reflected in the list’s inclusion of the specific repertoires of twelve tangzi connected with the troupe. As we saw above, the tangzi were where young actors performed services for patrons, including acting in plays requiring a limited number of actors. The number of plays listed for the tangzi ranges from a high of twenty-one to a low of seven, with fairly little overlap between them (only nine play titles are repeated in the tangzi lists). Distinctive about these lists is their tendency to reflect the special repertoires and skills of the actors who founded the tangzi, the high proportion of Kunqu zhezi xi and of zhezi xi in general,61 and the predominance of xiaosheng 小生 (young dignified males) and dan plays.62 55 See Yan Changke 顏長珂, “ ‘Chuntai ban ximu’ bianzheng” ‘春臺班戲目’ 辯證 (Corrections [of our understanding of] the Chuntai troupe playlist), Zhonghua xiqu 26 (2002): 127–28. The article contains a photo-reprint of the original manuscript (pp. 139– 53). The list is also reproduced in Fu Jin, ed., Jingju lishi wenxian huibian: Qingdai juan, 7: 467–502. 56 Yan Changke, “ ‘Chuntai ban ximu’ bianzheng,” p. 121. 57 For the list of Yu’s plays, see the top registers of the second and third double pages of the list reproduced on p. 150 and of the first two pages reproduced on p. 151 of Yan Changke, “ ‘Chuntai ban ximu’ bianzheng.” 58 See the three pages reproduced from the list in Yan Changke, “ ‘Chuntai ban ximu’ bianzheng,” p. 141. 59 Yan Changke, “ ‘Chuntai ban ximu’ bianzheng,” pp. 134–35. 60 For Yang Maojian’s concise descriptions of this troupe and the other three “Sida Huiban,” see the notes to the Introduction. 61 Kunqu zhezi xi are also very prominent in the plays specialized in by the xianggong listed in Li Hongruo 李虹若, Chaoshi congzai 朝市叢載 (Thicket of information on the capital; Beijing: Songzhu zhai, 1886; reprint: Beijing: Beijing guji, 1995), pp. 163–76. 62 See the discussion in Yan Changke, “ ‘Chuntai ban ximu’ bianzheng,” pp. 136–37. On the lists, the tangzi repertoires tend to appear in the lower of the two horizontal registers on the pages (which has the effect of marginalizing them). The tangzi repertoire lists visually stand out from other parts of the list because they contain a lot of two-character titles (the preferred length for Kunqu zhezi xi) instead of the preferred three-character length of Jingju titles.

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Ostensibly dated later but perhaps earlier in terms of content is a manuscript list of 272 plays known as the “Qing Shengping Ban xi/ju mu” 慶升平班 戲/劇目 (Celebrate Rising Peace Troupe play list) at least part of which seems to date from 1824.63 According to Yu Zhibin 于質彬, the list contains plays from a number of different performance styles,64 only one of which can be seen as an early form of Jingju. Yu argues that the list cannot be taken as “recording precisely the performance repertoire of an Anhui troupe” 專錄徽班演出劇目, but the main reason given is that the list lacks plays that feature dan parts and thus does not accord with the idea that dan actors dominated the Anhui troupes of the time. The notion that those troupes were dominated by dan actors, besides being contradicted by both playlists, is most certainly a historical mirage created largely by the focus on such actors in the huapu, which consequently loom very large in the contemporary written record on the Anhui troupes in Beijing. Another list of plays, this time a published one, occurs in the 1845 edition of a guidebook to Beijing, Dumen jilüe 都門紀略 (Concise record of the capital), and consists of presumably the best plays of the best actors of seven different troupes one could expect to be able to catch there.65 The names of sixty-six actors are given, each followed by anywhere from one to as many as twelve titles, with an indication of which role the actors play in each. Consistent with the two lists discussed above, laosheng actors predominate, with a total of fiftyfive plays in which they star versus only twenty-two in which dan or zhengdan 正旦 star. As we will see in chapter 3, the ratio of laosheng to dan plays would 63

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On the authenticity of the list, see Yan Quanyi, Qingdai Jingju wenxue shi, p. 109. Yu Zhibin, Nanbei pihuang xi shishu, pp. 26–28, provides a typeset version of the list. A typeset version is also available in Guo Jingrui, Chewang gu quben yu Jingju xingcheng, appendix 2, pp. 252–54. This list of plays is also given as the eighth of fourteen playlists included in Tian Gensheng 田根勝, “Jindai yi qian yu Jingju xingcheng you miqie guanxi de huabu xiju mulu zhulu” 近代以前與京劇形成有密切關係的花部戲劇目錄著錄 (A record of the popular theater playlists with strong connections to Jingju from the premodern period), Jindai xiju de chuancheng yu kaituo 近代戲劇的傳承與開拓 (The transmission and development of theater in the modern era; Shanghai: Sanlian shudian, 2005), pp. 283–89; and is also reproduced in Fu Jin, ed., Jingju lishi wenxian huibian: Qingdai juan, 7: 503–13. Yu Zhibin, Nanbei pihuang xi shishu, p. 29. The styles are gaoqiang 高腔, Huidiao pihuang, Qinqiang, and Kunqiang 崑腔. Pages 26–28 provide a typeset version of the list. The contents of the list are reproduced in Su Yi, Jingju erbai nian gaiguan, pp. 27–30. The number of plays listed increases in the later editions of Dumen jilüe. The 1864 edition adds 130, the 1876 one adds 9, and the 1880 edition adds 2, for a total of 226. See Tian Gensheng, Jindai xiju de chuancheng, p. 84. For the lists themselves, see Fu Jin, ed., Jingju lishi wen­ xian huibian: Qingdai juan, 2: 908–14 (1845), 918–24 (1864), 928–33 (1873), 939–46 (1874), 951–60 (1907), and 964–73 (1910).

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change tremendously in the twentieth century, as exemplified by the rise of Mei Lanfang. It is significant that in the case of these early “Jingju” lists (none of which contain only Jingju plays), only that in Dumen jilüe was a public one and aimed to give an idea of the state of theater as a whole (in Beijing only). Because a different and more intimate relationship existed between literati and the theater in the case of chuanqi drama (particularly Kunqu) and even zaju, we do not have literati attempts to record and judge the repertoire and playwrights of Jingju, as we do in the case of such works as Lugui bu 錄鬼簿 (Record of ghosts) by Zhong Sicheng 鐘嗣成 (c. 1279–c. 1360), which mentions 152 authors and more than 400 zaju plays,66 or Qupin 曲品 (Evaluation of plays) by Lü Tiancheng 呂天成 (1580–1618), which evaluates 90 playwrights and 192 chuanqi and Kunqu plays.67 What we have instead in the early history of Jingju, predominantly in the form of huapu written by literati, is a fixation on actors, primarily young dan actors. None of the huapu are concerned with the repertoire as a whole; instead they record the repertoire of individual actors, and scholars have drawn up lists and charts of the plays so mentioned.68 As with other early material, the earlier huapu cover both yabu (Kunqu and Yiyang) and huabu (bangzi, pihuang, etc.) actors. A different kind of list gives the plays from a program performed on a specific occasion. One example would be the records of performances held in the palace. These have not survived complete, but what has survived allows us to talk about what plays were performed on what days for certain stretches of time. Working from such records, Zhu Jiajin has compiled such a list of seventy-four performances during the last seven months of the Qing dynasty, before the 1911 revolution brought court performances to a halt. The list includes sixteen ritual program opening plays (kaichang chengxiang chengying xi 開場呈祥承 應戲; including two repeats) and 448 regular plays (including 172 repeats).69 66 See Hong Keyi 洪克夷, “Zhong Sicheng” 鐘嗣成, in Zhongguo da baike: Xiqi quyi, pp. 608–609. Lugui bu and its sequel, which records the names of 71 authors and 78 plays (ibid., p. 609), are included in Zhongguo gudian xiqu lunzhu jicheng, 2: 85–300. 67 In Zhongguo gudian xiqu lunzhu jicheng, 6: 201–63. See the critical introduction (p. 204) for statistics on authors and works covered. On the process of evaluating plays by assigning them to different categories of quality (pin 品) in works such as Qupin, see Jing Shen, “Ranking Plays and Playwrights in Traditional Chinese Drama Criticism,” CHINOPERL Papers 31 (2012): 1–36. 68 Pan Lizhu, Qingdai zhongqi Yandu Liyuan shiliao, for instance, provides two appendixes on the plays found in huapu covering the Qianlong to the Xianfeng reign periods (pp. 189– 217 and 218–22). 69 Zhu Jiajin 朱家溍, “Qingdai luantan xi zai gongzhong fazhan de youguan shiliao” 清 代亂彈戲在宮中發展的有關史料 (Historical material related to the development of

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From such palace records we can know, for instance, that of all the plays in which Guan Yu appears, it is Qingshi shan 青石山 (Black Stone Mountain; Xikao #147), in which he appears as a deity and not a man, that was performed most often for Empress Dowager Cixi.70 Another kind of list of plays from performance programs is reproduced in the first section (Qianbian 前編) of Wushi nian lai Beiping xiju shiliao 五十年來北平戲劇史料 (Historical material from the last fifty years concerning plays in Beijing) by Zhou Mingtai 周明泰 (1896– 1994). Although we do not know who produced these 1,157 manuscript playlists or why, they appear to represent records of real performances and have been provided with indexes that allow one to find out which plays were performed by the most troupes from most to least.71 Finally, programs for specific performances were recorded in the play programs (xidan; also called xibao 戲報) that began to be printed by theaters72 and in announcements and advertisements luantan plays in the Qing palace), in Ma Shaobo et al., Zhongguo Jingju shi, 1: 648–50. Zhu notes that such a small number of opening plays for so many programs is very different from earlier practice, in which programs would always begin with ritual plays. He also points out that in the list of plays only a very small proportion (nineteen, or 7%) are either Kunqu or Yiyang and fourteen (or 74%) of them are opening plays. 70 Wang Zhengyao 王政堯, Qingdai xiju wenhua shilun 清代戲劇文化史論 (Essays on the history of theater culture in the Qing dynasty; Beijing: Beijing daxue, 2005), pp. 119–25. The reason for that preference, surely, is that Qingshi shan is an auspicious play about getting rid of demons. It is also associated with the last month of the lunar year. See Ning Xiao 寧霄, “Shi’er yue ling xi zhi ‘Qingshi shan’ ” 十二月令戲之 “青石山” (The twelvemonth ritual play Qingshi shan), Zijin cheng 紫禁城 (Purple forbidden city) 2017.1: 3. 71 The index indicating how many troupes’ playlists individual plays appear on is 154 pages long. The play that appears on the most troupes’ playlists (29) is an opening program ritual play, Cifu 賜福 (Granting good fortune; not in Xikao). None of the indexes in the book allow one to tell how many times an individual play appears in the playlists. Interestingly, in the playlists some of the plays are marked “Kunqu” (e.g., #689 and #690, pp. 212–13), some playlists have theater names (e.g., #655, p. 196), some are marked “evening performance” (yexi 夜戲; see #659, p. 198), and some contain actors’ names (see #689, p. 212, which has Mei Lanfang’s name appended). According to Tian Gensheng, Jindai xiju de chuancheng, p. 84, adding the 771 play titles included in these handwritten playlists to those in the typeset programs for 1907–1919 in the second volume (Houbian 後編) of Zhou’s work gives a total of 887. 72 Xidan began to be printed in the 1890s, though no copies from that early are extant. A number of Jingju fans have collected xidan as a hobby and some of those collections are quite large, but none of them can claim to be in any sense exhaustive. Lou Yue 婁悅 and Du Guangpei 杜廣沛, Jiujing lao xidan: Cong Xuantong dao Minguo 舊京老戲單: 從宣統到民國 (Theater programs from old Beijing: From the Xuantong period to the Republic; Beijing: Zhongguo wenlian, 2004), represents selections from such a collection, but as its subtitle informs, the earliest are from the last reign period of the Qing, Xuantong (1909–1911). Han Pu 韓仆, ed., Shoudu tushu guan cang jiujing xibao 首都圖書館藏舊京 戲報 (Xidan from old Beijing from the collection at the Capital Library; Beijing: Xueyuan

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posted in newspapers.73 Scholars have begun to make use of these resources, but they have only been reproduced selectively and no complete indexes have been compiled. As opposed to the first set of lists, these lists let us see the plays within their original performance contexts and help answer questions such as which plays were used to open and close programs. The material presented above, although inconsistent and spotty, can give us an idea of such things as what plays were thought worth seeing at a particular point of time (e.g., Dumen jilüe), the repertoires of individual troupes (the Qing Shengping Ban and Chuntai Ban lists and Wushi nian lai Beiping xiju shiliao Qianbian) or tangzi (the Chuntai list), of individual actors (huabu and palace records), and the contents of individual performance programs (palace records, Wushi nian lai Beiping xiju shiliao Qianbian, xidan, and newspaper announcements and advertisements). When troupes registered in Beijing, they were supposed to supply a list of plays that they perform.74 When actors were nominated to perform in the palace, they were supposed to present a list of the

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chubanshe, 2004), includes 747 examples dating from 1908 to 1942, is arranged by the performance venues (forty commercial, ten private), and includes an index to the almost 1,500 play names mentioned in the xidan. The transcribed contents of selected Beijing theater programs from 1907–1932 can be found in Zhou Mingtai, ed., Wushi nian lai Beiping xiju shiliao Houbian. A published collection of xidan from the only national-level xiqu college is Du Changsheng 杜長勝, ed., Huishou dangnian: Zhongguo Xiqu Xueyuan lao xidan 回首當年: 中國戲曲學院老戲單, 1950–2010 (Looking back at yesteryear: Old theater programs from Zhongguo Xiqu Xueyuan, 1950–2010; Beijing: Xueyuan chubanshe, 2010). One for Beijing Jingju troupes is Ni Xiaojian 倪曉建, ed., Juyuan liuhen: Shoudu tushu guan cang Beijing ge Jingju yuantuan lao xidan, 1951–1966 菊苑留痕: 首都圖書館藏北京 各京劇院團老戲單, 1951–1966 (Old xidan from the various Jingju troupes of Beijing held by Shoudu Library; Beijing: Xueyuan chubanshe, 2010) and another on Shanghai Jingju is Lao xidan de xin faxian—Qingmo Minguo shiqi Shanghai Jingju yanchu lüekao 老戲 單的新發現—清末民國時期上海京劇演出略考 (Old xidan newly rediscovered—A rough investigation of Jingju performance in Shanghai in the late Qing and Republican periods; Shanghai: Shanghai wenyi, 2014). Collections concerning individual actors will be mentioned below. Many master’s theses have been written on theater advertisements in Shenbao, but here I only mention one book on the subject: Lin Xinghui 林幸慧, You Shenbao xiqu guanggao kan Shanghai Jingju fazhan 由申報戲曲廣告看上海京劇發展 (Looking at the development of Jingju in Shanghai through the traditional theater ads in Shenbao; Taibei: Liren shuju, 2008). Fu Jin, ed., Jingju lishi wenxian huibian: Qingdai juan xubian, vol. 3, contains nothing but troupe registration documents, but there are only three examples of troupe play lists, one for 1899 for the Yucheng Ban 玉成班 (Jade Completion Troupe; total of 126 play titles), pp. 333–34; and two for 1908 for the Tongchun Ban 同春班 (Shared Spring Troupe), pp. 371–75. These latter two have a lot of overlap between them (the first has 96 play titles and the second 108). It is notable that on these three lists are a number of plays that appear on lists of plays prohibited for lewdness that predate the submission of them, but

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plays that they could perform. According to Zhu Jiajin, palace documents that have been preserved indicate that when Yang Xiaolou was first summoned to perform in the palace he reported that he could perform “around 200 plays” 大約 200 齣左右.75 Actors were also supposed to report how many plays they could perform when they joined a troupe, but those lists were less formal and do not seem to have been preserved.76 How many plays was an actor supposed to be able to perform? Or, alternatively, how many plays would you have to be able to perform to be considered outstanding in that respect? We find statements that so-and-so could perform those lists of prohibited plays are either private ones or lists promulgated in Shanghai in 1874 and 1890. 75 See Zhu Jiajin 朱家溍, “Yang Xiaolou xiansheng de Guangong xi” 楊小樓先生的關公 戲 (Mr. Yang Xiaolou’s Lord Guan [Guan Yu] plays), Zhongguo Jingju 1995.3: 34, where he says that he is referring to a Shengpingshu document labeled “Waixue mulu” 外學目 錄 (External actor repertoires), with the annotation in small characters: “minji xuesheng Yang Xiaolou” 民籍學生楊小樓 (Commoner actor Yang Xiaolou; both actors from outside [wai 外] and eunuch actors in the palace [nei 內] were called “students” [xuesheng 學生]). Yang Xiaolou was first summoned to perform in the palace in 1906. A series of articles in Guoju huabao 國劇畫報 (National drama pictorial) that ran from issue 2.3 (November 10, 1932) to 2.18 (May 18, 1933) under the title “Shengpingshu waixue mulu” 昇平署外學目錄 (Repertoires for external actors [held by the] Shengpingshu) include photos of Shengpingshu play lists for sixteen actors. See pp. 171 (part 1), 175 (part 2), 179 (part 3), 183 (part 4), 187 (part 5), 195 (part 6), 199 (part 7), 203 (part 8), 207 (part 9), 211 (part 10), 215 (part 12), 219 (part 11), 223 (part 14), and 231 (part 16) of the photo-reprint of this periodical by Xueyuan Chubanshe 學苑出版社 of Beijing, 2010 (there is no part 13 or 15 and parts 11, 12, and 14 appear out of order). In the lists, under each play title, the running time for that play is given. The photo showing Yang Xiaolou’s list (part 4) only shows thirty-seven plays. It is possible that Zhu Jiajin’s list was more inclusive (including all plays Yang could perform), while the one reproduced in Guoju huabao is a list of plays he was particularly good at performing. Similar lists for Yang Xiaolou and nine other actors are included in Fu Jin, ed., Jingju lishi wenxian huibian: Qingdai juan, 8: 517–28, under the title “Changchun gong waixue ximu (shizhong)” 長春宮外學戲目 (十種) (Changchun Palace repertoires for outside actors [ten items]; see pp. 523–25 for the Yang Xiaolou list, which has the same thirty-seven plays but in a slightly different order). The introduction (p. 517) explains that these lists were formerly owned by Zhou Mingtai, notes how carefully and attractively the lists were prepared, and speculates that they were for imperial use when selecting plays to be performed. More repertoire lists in the Guoju huabao series are reproduced in a separate section of volume 8 of Jingju lishi wenxian huibian: Qingdai juan, “Qinggong ximu” 清宮戲目 (Qing palace play lists), pp. 530–32. 76 Ouyang Yuqian, “Zi wo yan xi yi lai,” p. 56, claims that at a certain time (around 1916) an actor singing qingyi 青衣 (demure female roles that sing a lot) “only needed ten plus plays to join a troupe” 只要有十來齣戲就能夠搭班子了, but he mentions this figure because he thinks it is very low. Ye Tao 葉濤, Zhongguo Jingju xisu 中國京劇習俗 ( Jingju customs; Xi’an: Shaanxi renmin, 1994), pp. 104–105, talks about how amateurs turning professional have to present a list of the plays they can perform (baoxi 報戲).

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“as many as more than two hundred plays” 多至二百餘齣,77 indicating a high number according to that writer. Ye Chunshan 葉春善 (1875–1935), who ran the famous opera school Fuliancheng 富連成 (1904–1948) for more than half of its existence, reportedly expected the students to learn, within their seven years of study, more than one hundred plays.78 With increasing scholarship on Jingju and Jingju actors, there are increasing attempts either to estimate how many plays a certain actor could perform or to compile lists of plays that it can be proved that an actor performed. Estimates of the repertoires of individual actors, arranged in order of the actors’ birthdates, include Mei Qiaoling 梅巧玲 (c. 1825–1882): “more than 300”;79 Tan Xinpei 譚鑫培 (1847–1917): “as many as more than 300”;80 Pan Yueqiao 潘月樵 (1869–1928): “in twenty-two years … more than three hundred new plays”;81 Yang Sili 楊四立 (?–1939): “more than two hundred plays”;82 Jiang Miaoxiang 姜妙香 (1890–1972): “three to four hundred plays”;83 Xun Huisheng 荀慧生 (1900–1968): “more than 300 hundred plays”;84 Ma Lianliang 馬連良 (1901–1966): “close to as many as one hundred plays”;85 and Li Xiaochun 李小春 (1938–1990): “almost one hundred 77

See the October 9, 1912 Shenbao piece Xuanlang 玄郎, “Yang Sili, Lü Yueqiao zui xiang­yi zhi jiaose” 楊四立, 呂月樵最相宜之角色 (The most fitting roles for Yang Sili and Lü Yueqiao), in Cai Shicheng, ed., Shenbao Jingju ziliao xuanbian, pp. 70–71. The statement is about Yang Sili 楊四立 (1869–1923), a Shanghai-based actor who rates an entry in Zhongguo xiqu zhi: Shanghai juan (p. 858) but not in Wu Tongbin and Zhou Yexun, eds., Jingju zhishi cidian (zengding ban). 78 Ye Shaolan 葉少蘭 (1943–), Suiyue—Ye Shaolan congyi liushi nian zhi ganwu, 1950–2010 歲 月—葉少蘭從藝六十年之感悟, 1950–2010 (Years: Realizations gained by Ye Shaolan over sixty years of artistic life, 1950–2010; Beijing: Wenhua yishu, 2011), p. 329. Ye Shaolan is the grandson of Ye Chunshan. 79 See Wang Ranye 王染野, “Mei Qiaoling shenshi ji yanju kao” 梅巧玲身世及演劇考 (On Mei Qiaoling’s background and performances), Suzhou keji xueyuan xuebao 蘇州科 技學院學報 (Journal of the University of Science and Technology of Suzhou) 2005.1: 129. This estimate includes plays Mei was famous for performing, those that he occasionally performed, and those he knew how to perform but did not, corroborated by quoting Mei Lanfang. Incidentally, Wang argues convincingly that Mei Qiaoling was a native of Suzhou and not Taizhou, as often thought. 80 Zhang Guowei, Ximi yehua, p. 105. 81 See the October 10, 1939 Shenbao piece, Su Shaoqing 蘇少卿, “Pan Yueqiao, Xia Yuerun zhi geming gongzuo” 潘月樵, 夏月潤之革命工作 (The revolutionary work of Pan Yueqiao and Xia Yuerun), in Cai Shicheng, ed., Shenbao Jingju ziliao xuanbian, p. 506. 82 See the October 9, 1912 Shenbao piece, Xuanlang, “Yang Sili, Lü Yueqiao zui xiangyi zhi jiaose.” 83 He Shixi 何時希, Jingju xiaosheng zongshi Jiang Miaoxiang 京劇小生宗師姜妙香 (The master xiaosheng actor Jiang Miaoxiang; Beijing: Beijing chubanshe, 1994), pp. 19–23. 84 See Liu Songkun, Liyuan yiwen, pp. 108–109. 85 Su Yi, Jingju erbai nian gaiguan, p. 237. Although Su Yi seems to think this number large, it is not very large compared to some of Ma’s contemporaries.

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plays.”86 Compiled lists of plays performed by particular actors include, again in order of the actors’ births: Cheng Changgeng 程長庚 (1811–1879): 34;87 Hao Shouchen 郝壽臣 (1886–1961): “as much as 206 plays”;88 Jiang Miaoxiang 姜妙 香 (1890–1972): 172;89 Mei Lanfang 梅蘭芳 (1894–1961): 134;90 Zhou Xinfang 周 信芳 (1895–1975): 590;91 Fang Rongxiang 方榮翔 (1925–1989): 84;92 and Zhong Chuanxing 鍾傳幸 (graduated from Taiwan’s Fuxing Juxiao in 1978): “more than 40” (sishi duo chu 四十多齣).93 One wishes there were more examples of actual repertoire lists, or collection of xidan, for individual actors besides

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Ma Shaobo et al., Zhongguo Jingju shi, 3: 1211. Zhang Xiulian 張秀蓮, “Jingju zhi dianji ren—Cheng Changgeng” 京劇之奠基人—程 長庚 (The founder of Jingju—Cheng Changgeng), in Luntan getai chang jushen: Jinian Cheng Changgeng dansheng yibai bashi zhounian jinian wenji 論壇歌臺唱劇神: 紀念程 長庚誕生一百八十周年紀念文集 (Collection of commemorative articles commemorating the 180th anniversary of Cheng Changgeng’s birth; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 1992), pp. 152–54. In three cases Cheng is listed as fanchuan 反串 or playing a role-type other than his usual one. Two of the plays are listed as Kunqu plays. 88 See Liu Zhaohua 劉釗華, “Hao Shouchen ji qi zisun” 郝壽臣及其子孫 (Hao Shoucheng and his descendants), Zhongguo Jingju 1997.1: 34. No list is offered or referenced, but the exactness of the claim, as well as one about the number of characters Hao performed (“up to 146 persons” 達 146 人) and the fact that the figures are presented more as maximums rather than minimums, inspires confidence that lists were behind them. 89 He Shixi, Jingju xiaosheng zongshi Jiang Miaoxiang, pp. 19–23. 90 This is the number of plays listed in Cheng Yuyan 成喻言, “Mei Lanfang yanchu jumu” 梅蘭芳演出劇目 (The plays performed by Mei Lanfang), in Mei Lanfang biaoyan yishu tuying 梅蘭芳表演藝術圖影 (Illustrations of Mei Lanfang’s performance art; Beijing: Waiwen chubanshe, 2002), pp. 145–48. The plays listed are broken into seven categories: traditional qingyi plays (67), fanchuan (as xiaosheng and wusheng) plays (5), contemporary costume plays (5), new plays from 1915–1925 (15), Honglou meng 紅樓夢 (Dream of the Red Chamber; a famous 18th century novel) plays (3), adaptations of older plays or plays from local opera traditions (8), and Kunqu plays (31). 91 See “Zhou Xinfang yanchu jumu yilan (gong 590 chu)” 周信芳演出劇目一覽 (共 590 齣) (An overview of the plays performed by Zhou Xinfang [altogether 590 plays]), in Zhou Xinfang yishu pinglun ji xubian 周信芳藝術評論集續編 (Continuation of the Collection of articles on the art of Zhou Xinfang; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 1994), pp. 485–508. 92 See the appendices to Fang Limin 方立民, ed., Fang Rongxiang wenji 方榮翔文集 (Collected writings of Fang Rongxiang; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 1994), pp. 187–90 (the list is given here). The list includes nine modern plays (xiandai xi 現代戲). A list of “plays [he] most often performed” (chang shangyan jumu 常上演劇目) gives the names of twenty-five zhezi xi (p. 186). 93 Zhong Chuanxing 鍾傳幸, “Yi ge kunsheng de ziyou” 一個坤生的自由 (The freedom of a female performer of sheng roles), Fuyan zongheng 婦研縱橫 (Varying perspectives on women’s studies) 72 (2004): 18.

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Mei Lanfang94 and Cheng Yanqiu,95 but once we allow for anomalies, we can see a progression from smaller figures for early actors, probably caused by lack of data and the fact that the genre was in its infancy, to quite substantial figures for middle period actors, followed by a decline for actors whose career was or has been mainly under the PRC and Taiwan. Nowadays, of course, there are constant complaints that the latest generations of actors know too few plays. There is a similar decline in the number of plays that Kunqu actors can perform.96 How did the Jingju repertoire change over time? Statements about the early repertoire of Jingju are problematic because sources are lacking and there is disagreement about when Jingju coalesced into something that can be called “Jingju.” There is agreement, however, that the repertoire continued to grow, at first primarily through the adaptation of plays from other theatrical traditions and then increasingly through the production of new plays. Su Yi 蘇移, Jingju erbai nian gaiguan 京劇二百年概觀 (An overview of two hundred years of Jingju; 1989) provides a survey of the “repertoire of Jingju plays frequently seen on the stage” (wutai shang changjian de Jingju jumu 舞臺上常見的京劇劇 目) during the Tongzhi, Guangxu, and Xuantong reign periods (1862–1911) and

94 See Wang Wenzhang 王文章, ed., Mei Lanfang yanchu xidan ji 梅蘭芳演出戲單集 (Collection of Mei Lanfang performance xidan; Beijing: Wenhua yishu, 2016) and Gu Shuguang 谷曙光, Mei Lanfang lao xidan tujian: Cong xidan tanjiu Mei Lanfang de wutai shengya 梅蘭芳老戲單圖鑒: 從戲單探究梅蘭芳的舞臺生涯 (An illustrated guide to Mei Lanfang’s old xidan: Looking at Mei Lanfang’s stage life from xidan; Beijing: Wenhua yishu, 2015). 95 See Cheng Yongjiang 程永江, Cheng Yanqiu yanchu jumu zhi 程硯秋演出劇目志 (A record of Cheng Yanqiu’s repertoire; Changchun: Shidai wenyi, 2015). Some xidan are reproduced, but the book aggregates information from xidan and other sources rather than collecting photo-reproductions of xidan. The first of the appendices (pp. 447–50) lists the plays that Cheng performed: twenty-five of his own plays (benxi 本戲) and seventy-six traditional plays (chuantong jumu 傳統劇目). Kunqu plays are included but not labeled. The list also includes one fanchuan play. 96 For instance, Liu Ting 劉婷, “Dui Beifang Kunju yuan xianzhuang de diaocha—Kunqu bei Lianhe guo Jiaokewen zuzhi lie wei ‘renlei koutou yichan he fei wuzhi yichan’ zhi hou” 對北方崑曲劇院現状的調查—崑曲被聯合國教科文組織列為 ‘人類口頭 遺產和非物質遺產代表作’ 之後 (A survey of the present situation of the Northern Kunju Company—After Kunqu was listed UNESCO as an oral intangible inheritance of mankind), Xiqu yishu 2004.2: 46, claims that while the graduates of the Kunqu Chuanxi Suo 崑曲傳習所 (Society for the preservation and practice of Kunqu), established in 1921, collectively learned over 400 zhezi xi and members of the next generation of Kunqu performers such as Zhang Jiqing 張繼青 (1938–) can perform a little over 200 zhezi xi, actors trained in the beginning of the Reform Period after the Cultural Revolution can only perform less than one hundred zhezi xi.

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lists a total of 563 plays.97 He writes that the repertoire continued to grow until the Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945). After the Nationalists retreated to Taiwan and the PRC was established, both regimes were more successful in controlling which plays were performed than had ever been possible under the Qing or in the Republican era. The Nationalist government in Taiwan periodically issued lists of plays that were okay to perform. Their number (593 on the 1966 list,98 636 on the 1976 revision of the list99) tended to be large but included plays no longer performed.100 According to statistics compiled for the years 1946–1955 from ads for performances in newspapers, the number of Jingju performances per year in Taiwan rose from a low of thirty-one in 1946 to a high of 444 in 1953, and declined to 277 in 1955.101 The compiler of these statistics claims that for the next thirty years, the performance repertoire in Taiwan basically did not go beyond the plays performed in those years.102 According to play programs I collected in Taibei in the period covering 1981 and the first half of 1982, a total of 373 different play titles were performed, a number that includes alternate titles for the same play, as well as three Kunqu performances, four Sichuan opera performances, forty-four Henan bangzi 河南梆子 performances, and one performance each of Fujian opera (Minju 閩劇), Cantonese opera (Yueju 粵劇), and palm puppet plays (zhangzhong xi 掌中戲).103 There has been increasing alarm at the 97 Su Yi, Jingju erbai nian gaiguan, pp. 132–25. 98 Li Fusheng, Zhonghua Guoju shi, p. 478. 99 Shen Kechang 申克常, “Guoju jinxi zhi duoshao?” 國劇禁戲知多少? (How much do you know about prohibited national drama plays?), Guoju yuekan 國劇月刊 (National drama monthly) 48 (1980): 48. 100 Shen Kechang, “Guoju jinxi zhi duoshao?” claims some of the plays in the 1976 list exist only as titles. Li Fusheng, Zhonghua Guoju shi, p. 478, estimates that the troupes when he was writing could only perform about half of the plays on the 1966 list. 101 See Wang Anqi, ed., Taiwan Jingju wushi nian, “Fulu er: Minguo 35–44 nian Jingju yanchu baozhi xidan” 附錄二: 民國 35–44 年京劇演出報紙戲單 (Appendix 2: Play programs for Jingju performances from 1946–1955), pp. 198–281. The average number of play titles per performance for 1953, for instance, was 2.5. 102 Wang Anqi, ed., Taiwan Jingju wushi nian, p. 162. 103 Thirty-eight of the play titles were performed five or more times. If one counts the total performances of all of the play titles, the figure reached is 821. The two plays performed most often were performed on special occasions for children and included a Sun Wukong play and a very patriotic one about Yue Fei. All of the performances took place in Taibei or nearby. Reliance on theater programs produced for specific performances excludes those for which no programs were produced, as was common at that time for performances of local Taiwan opera in temples, for instance. Each episode of a liantai benxi, as long as it was not performed at the same venue together with another episode from the same serial play, was treated as a separate title. On the other hand, zhezi xi were counted separately even when performed together with zhezi xi from the same main play.

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progressive loss of plays from the Jingju performance repertoire in Taiwan,104 but the causes are attributable more to the dying off of the older generation of performers from the Mainland and difficulty in recruiting new performers in Taiwan than to government censorship, which was, until fairly recently, largely focused on preventing Taiwan troupes from performing Mainland plays. PRC censorship was far more restrictive and more directly related to the shrinking of the performance repertoire. The first list of plays that could be performed promulgated in the PRC (in 1950) listed only forty-one plays.105 Although only twenty-six plays were banned nationally, uncertainty about what was permitted and local excesses produced a situation in which actors, troupes, and spectators were left dissatisfied with the very restricted number of plays being performed, so in 1957, even previously banned plays were allowed back on stage.106 Before too long, however, during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) traditional Jingju plays were, for all intents and purposes, banned.107 In 1978 it was proclaimed that the forty-one plays on the original 1950 list could now be performed,108 and traditional plays quickly came to dominate the performance repertoire, reaching 90% by 1980.109 Statistics produced by counting the play titles in ads for performances of Jingju in Beijing show a high of 204 for twelve months in 1956–1957, and a decline to 168 for 1993.110 The data for 1993 104 For example, see Wang Anqi 王安祈, Wei Jingju biaoyan tixi fasheng 為京劇表演體系發 聲 (Speaking up for the performance system of Jingju; Taibei: Guojia chubanshe, 2006), p. 276. 105 Zhongguo xiqu zhi: Beijing juan, pp. 1564–65, reproduces the list. 106 For the order that prohibited plays could be performed again, see He Haisheng 何海生, “Wenhua bu fachu tongling jinyan jumu yilü kaifang” 文化部發出通令禁演劇目一律 開放 (The Ministry of Culture has sent out notice that all proscribed plays can, without exception, be performed), Juben 劇本 (Playscripts) 1957.6: 63. The best work in English so far on the censorship of this period and its effects is Siyuan Liu, “Theatre Reform as Censorship: Theatre Reform in China in the Early 1950s,” Theatre Journal 61.3 (Fall 2009): 387–404. 107 Mittler, “ ‘Eight Stage Works for 800 Million People’*,” p. 383, notes that “Exceptions were made, and not all that rarely. Performances of local operas apparently continued even throughout the 1960s …” and that “It is not correct to assume that the model works actually monopolized the stages. Oral history offers much important evidence that local and traditional operas were performed either behind closed doors or even openly in areas off the beaten track” (p. 392 n. 10). 108 Ma Shaobo et al., Zhongguo Jingju shi, 3: 507–508. 109 Ma Shaobo et al., Zhongguo Jingju shi, 3: 515. 110 Cui Changwu, ed., Jingju xianzhuang yanjiu, pp. 96–99. The 1993 figure would actually represent a strong increase over the figures given for the repertoire of Jingju plays (“there was only a bit more than fifty” [zhi you wushi jige 只有五十幾個]) put on in Beijing in 1984–1985, in Ma Shaobo et al., Zhongguo Jingju shi, 3: 552. The same source gives lists of 405 new plays produced from 1976 to 1996 by various Jingju troupes (pp. 572–90). Cui

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already show the dominance of Tourist Jingju (see the Introduction). The newspapers used to compile these figures no longer regularly print Jingju performance ads. The last newspaper to do so was the short-lived Liyuan zhoukan 梨園周刊 (Traditional theater weekly). In the ads announcing traditional theater performances run during the only full calendar year of its existence, 1999, there are a total of 164 different plays,111 a figure very close to the one for 1993.112 Another way to think about the present performance repertoire for Jingju is to look at recent collections of costume plots, which are compiled for the use of teaching institutions and cover from one hundred to over three hundred plays apiece.113 It is very natural that some plays drop out of the repertoire at the same time that new plays are added, and this can happen for reasons other than government censorship. Qi Rushan, writing in 1935, noted that some 100–200 plays once popular on the stage thirty years before and personally seen by him are no longer performed, and that there are tens of these plays whose names

Changwu, ed., Jingju xianzhuang yanjiu, p. 67, also gives statistics for the total repertoire of Jingju plays performed in Beijing in 1932 (477), 1940 (615), 1943 (313), 1946 (334), and 1947 (345) and total number of performances for these years, but the source of these statistics is not made clear. 111 Since I was in Beijing for one month in the summer of 1999, I can attest that the ads in Liyuan zhoukan do not reflect all of the Jingju performances in Beijing that year. 112 Nowadays, the most complete information about performances is online and hard to archive, aggregate, or compile statistics from. 113 Xu Yanping 許艷平, Jingju baixi fuzhuang 京劇百戲服裝 (Costume plots for one hundred Jingju plays; Hohhot: Yuanfang chubanshe, 1999) lists 102 plays; Xu Yanping 許艷 平, Jingju baixi fuzhuang xuji 京劇百戲服裝續集 (Continuation of Costume plots for One Hundred Jingju Plays; Tianjin: Yangliu qing huashe, 2003) lists 116 plays; Wan Ruquan 萬如泉 et al., eds., Jingju renwu zhuangban baichu 京劇人物裝扮百齣 (Costume and make-up for the characters of 100 plays; Beijing: Wenhua yishu, 1998) lists 124 plays; Zhang Yijuan 張逸娟, ed., Chuantong Jingju renwu zaoxing huicui 傳統京劇人物造型薈萃 (A galaxy of character images in traditional Jingju; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 2001), lists 270 Jingju plays and 30 Kunqu plays (a total of 60 Kunqu items if the zhexi xi are counted separately); Wang Peilin 王佩林, Jingju wutai fushi yingyong huibian 京劇舞臺服飾應 用彙編 (A practical collection of Jingju costume plots; Beijing: Beijing shi xiqu xuexiao, 2000) lists 302 plays; and Liu Yuemei 劉月美, Zhongguo Jingju yixiang 中國京劇衣箱 (The clothes trunks of Chinese Jingju; Shanghai: Shanghai cishu, 2003), lists 188 plays (the vast majority of which are Jingju). These works can be seen as an expansion and development of both the costume lists for individual plays that we have from the Ming and similar lists for a number of plays compiled for use in the Qing palace such as Chuandai tigang 穿戴題綱 (Costume plot abstracts), reproduced in Fu Jin, ed., Jingju lishi wenxian huibian: Qingdai juan, 3: 371–485. They also surely reflect some influence from Western costume plots.

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are not even remembered by people in the theater world.114 We will see in chapter 3 that in the case of some plays, in his introductory remarks to them in Xikao, Wang Dacuo laments that they are no longer performed and expresses the hope that that will change. In the same passage in which Qi Rushan talked about how so many plays have dropped out of the repertoire, he asserts the value of works such as Xikao toward recovering them.115 Concern over the shrinking repertoire in both Taiwan and the PRC has spurred interest in reviving old plays.116 There are other factors beyond government support or suppression that might affect whether an individual play stays in the performance repertoire and how often it is performed. As one might expect, these include straightforward factors such as the quality of the play and performances of it, but they also include factors that are less straightforward, such as whether a play was taught to young actors because of the skills involved or because it was “teachable,”117 whether a play was strongly associated with a festival and time of year,118 or whether the name or content of a play was conceived of as auspi114 Qi Rushan, Jingju zhi bianqian, p. 38a (Qi Rushan quanji, 2: 887). This book is dated to 1935 by Liang Yan, “Qi Rushan juxue chutan,” p. 275. 115 Qi Rushan, Jingju zhi bianqian, p. 38a (Qi Rushan quanji, 2: 887). 116 The yin pei xiang project championed by Li Ruihuan mentioned in the notes to the Introduction has been justified as a means to revive plays no longer performed. The publisher’s preface to Li Qingsen 李慶森, Jingju shichuan jumu changqiang xuanji 京劇失 傳劇目唱腔選集 (Selected arias from lost Jingju plays; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 1990) laments the loss of so many plays because of the Cultural Revolution. The book includes arias from over seventy “lost” plays. For a look at which plays became rare or extinct in the repertoire of Jingju performed in Taiwan, see Liu Huifen 劉慧芬, “Taiwan lengmen Jingju jumu yanchu jilu kaocha—Yi Guoju yuekan wei ju” 臺灣冷門京劇劇目演出記錄 考察—以國劇月刊為據 (A record and examination of the performance of “cold” plays in the Jingju repertoire in Taiwan—Using National Drama Monthly as evidence), Xiju xuekan 戲劇學刊 (Theater studies journal) 15 (2012): 79–139. 117 See Chen Moxiang, “Guanju shenghuo sumiao,” part 2, in Pan Jingxia and Chen Moxiang, Liyuan waishi, p. 403, on Er jin gong 二進宮 (The second entrance into the palace; Xikao #81) and Sanniang jiaozi 三娘教子 (Third mistress teaches the son; Xikao #3; these two plays are referred to, respectively, as Jin gong and Jiaozi by Chen). Both plays have retained a strong position in the repertoire, even though, according to Chen, they have nothing to recommend them (yi wu suo qu 一無所取) beyond their arias. 118 Such plays were known as yingjie xi 應節戲 (lit.: plays responding to the season). They could be tied to a certain festival because they tell the story of the festival (or portion thereof). For instance, Tianhe pei 天河配 (The match by the Milky Way; not in Xikao) tells the story of the Weaving Maid and the Herd Boy, whose yearly meeting was supposed to have taken place on the seventh day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar, which in turn was celebrated as a festival day because of that story. Zhou Mingtai 周明泰, Liushi nian lai Jingju shicai mobian 六十年來京劇史材末卷 (Final installment of Sixty years of historical material on Jingju; Hong Kong?: Privately published, 1980), pp. 72–73, records

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cious or inauspicious.119 Plays with precise ritual functions could be assured continued performance as long as those rituals were observed.120 Another factor that could affect how often a play was performed and by whom could be considered a form of copyright system. Although not enforceable by law, it was not uncommon for some plays to be considered the “property” of the troupes or actors who had created or radically refashioned them (i.e., made them their own).121 Such plays would be referred to as the nashou xi 拿手戲 (plays that show off special skills [ juehuo 絕活] or talent)122 or, more

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play programs for the first, seventh, and eighth days of the seventh lunar month of 1937 in which that play is the final, climatic item (see items 212–214). Yingjie xi can also be linked to a festival simply because of some aspect of the play. For instance, Luoyang qiao 洛 陽橋 (Luoyang bridge; Xikao #183) was associated with the Lantern Festival (celebrated on the fifteenth or full moon of the first month of the lunar year) because it featured a lot of lanterns in productions of it. See Li Zigui, Yi Jiangnan, p. 18. Carefully matching the content or names of plays with yearly festivals began in the palace and spread from there to private and commercial performances. For how this worked out in the palace see Chang Renchun and Zhang Weidong, Xiqing tanghui, pp. 150–52, and for how the practice spread into society in the Republican period, see Ye Tao, Zhongguo Jingju xisu, p. 141. While a strong connection with a certain festival could assure that a play would at least be performed during the time of the festival each year, it might also restrict performances of it the rest of the year. Weishui he 渭水河 (The Wei River; Xikao #156) is an example of the former. Because it deals with the founding of the Zhou dynasty, which supposedly lasted over 800 years, it was also known as Babai ba nian 八百八年 (Eight hundred and eight years) and was included in play programs as a way of wishing longevity. See Chang Renchun and Zhang Weidong, Xiqing tanghui, pp. 153–54. Only one play, the ritual opening play Cifu, appears in more of the playlists in Zhou Mingtai, ed., Wushi nian lai Beiping xiju shicai Qianbian, than Weishui he does (see pp. 152–53 of the index to the playlists in that volume). Maicheng shengtian 麥城升天 (The ascension to heaven at Maicheng; Xikao #322), which tells the story of Guan Yu’s death, is an example of an inauspicious play. Actors and theaters putting on this play were considered to be liable to divine punishment from Lord Guan. It does not appear in the playlists in Zhou Mingtai, ed., Wushi nian lai Beiping xiju shicai Qianbian. Cifu, which has been mentioned several times, is basically an invocation for the deities to bestow blessings on the audience or members of it, and was commonly used to open play programs of less commercial kind. Something similar could also happen with regard to a new way of acting a traditional role in a traditional play, or a new technique or skill employed in such a play. Near the end of the Qing dynasty, Tuhua ribao ran a 186-part illustrated serial column entitled “Sanshi nian lai lingjie zhi nashou xi” 三十年來伶界之拿手戲 (The most famous plays of actors from the last thirty years). The illustration of each installment features a specific play for which a specific actor or pair of actors (three examples) was famous. The bulk of these plays/actors are Jingju, with only 60 identified as non-Jingju (the latter including Kunqu [25] bangzi [22], and Huiban [8]). Only 66 (35.48%) of these plays are not in Xikao. The series is reproduced in Fu Jin, ed., Jingju lishi wenxian huibian:

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tellingly, duyou xi 獨有戲 (exclusively owned plays)123 of the actors or troupes involved. Other actors or troupes were not supposed to perform those plays in those new versions,124 and there was even, at one time, a taboo on professional actors watching, from the audience, other professionals performing.125 Because the actors could, to some extent, control (or try to control) who learned how to perform them, plays not passed down by actors to their disciples could disappear from the repertoire because there was no one who knew how to perform

Qingdai juan, 9: 189–561. The text was written by Sun Yusheng and the pictures drawn by Liu Chun 劉純 (a.k.a., Liu Boliang 劉伯良). Tuhua ribao ran out of gas before the series did. In the last installment (ibid., p. 561; see also Tuhua ribao, 8: 642 [issue 404]), which appeared in the last issue, Sun notes that there are about one hundred-plus male actors still to be included, as well as a similar number of actresses. 123 For an example of the usage of this terminology, see Liu Songkun, Liuyuan yiwen, p. 233. Such plays could also be called “private plays” (sifang xi 私房戲). For an example of this usage, see the November 19, 1939 Shenbao piece, Xiao Fang 筱舫, “Huang Guiqiu dengtai Tianchan xiansheng” 黃桂秋登臺天蟾先聲 (Early news about Huang Guiqiu acting at the Heavenly Toad Theater), in Cai Shicheng, ed., Shenbao Jingju ziliao xuanbian, p. 454. For a discussion of the basic concept, see Qi Rushan, Jingju zhi bianqian, p. 22a (Qi Rushan quanqi, 2: 855). Hsü, The Chinese Conception of the Theatre, p. 279 n. 46, relying on the playlists in Zhou Mingtai, ed., Wushi nian lai Beiping xiju shicai Qianbian, concludes that of the plays listed, 31% “were plays belonging to only one acting company,” while another 31.1% “could be played by practically every company….” This conclusion is not really warranted since we do not know enough about the origin and function of the original playlists. Huang Shengjiang 黃勝江, “Sixi ban yanjiu” 四喜班研究 (Research on the Sixi Troupe), master’s thesis, Anhui University, 2007, p. 72, using the same material concludes that 10% (26) of the 257 Sixi Troupe plays in the playlists are “plays that only they performed” (du yan de ximu 獨演的戲目) and concludes that their own plays were “numerous” (bu zai shaoshu 不在少數) and “as for the generic popular plays, they could perform most of them” 一般流行的劇目多能上演. 124 Qi Rushan 齊如山, Xijie xiao zhanggu 戲界小掌故 (Anecdotes from the world of theater), pp. 55–56 (Qi Rushan quanji, 4: 2371–72) talks of this principle as an example of xide 戲德 (theater morality). In a piece not included in Qi Rushan quanji, “Beiping pihuang shi” 北平皮黃史 (A history of pihuang in Beijing), in Wang Xiaofan, ed., Qi Rushan wencun, Qi associates the practice of respecting other actors’ duyou xi and not performing them with the Tongzhi reign period (p. 111), claiming that later, after the demise of this kind of xide, “creators and performers were not able to preserve [for themselves] the fruits of their physical and mental efforts, so who would go to the effort to exhaust themselves in polishing their work?” 創演者不能保存自己的心血意匠, 誰肯用心琢磨? (p. 112). On a somewhat similar system in the storytellers’ guild in Beijing involving avoiding the performance of works strongly associated with other performers, see Madeline Yue Dong, Republican Beijing: The City and its Histories (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), p. 199. 125 See Wang Anqi, “Jingju mingling guan changpian,” pp. 202–204.

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them after the original actors died.126 Actors who learned plays by going to performances and taking notes were considered to be “stealing the play” (touxi 偷戲),127 a practice Tan Xianpei supposedly sought to foil by constantly changing the words of the plays he performed.128 Sometimes other actors were just not up to performing roles pioneered by major actors and purposely avoided performing them.129 Sometimes actors refused or promised not to perform the plays made famous by other actors so as not to steal the “rice bowl” or 126 We have noted above (and will return to the topic in chapter 2) that many actors guarded the texts and/or secret techniques of their plays to prevent competition with their own performance of them. Yan Quanyi, Qingdai Jingju wenxue shi, p. 17, talks of actors preferring to have their playscripts burnt at their death rather than passed on to someone else. He concludes that this is why “early playscripts often are no longer extant in the world” 早期的劇本往往不復存於世. Zeng Nai 曾鼐, “Jingju huibian chenfu lu” 京劇 彙編沉浮錄 (A record of the fortunes of Compendium of Jingju plays), http://blog.sina .com.cn/s/blog_5db7814d0100gmf6.html, accessed June 10, 2010, records that many of the playscripts collected for the compilation of Jingju huibian (on this PRC collection see chapter 4) were labeled miben 秘本 (secret/private copy) and some even had warnings such as “if any later descendants show [this playscript] to others they [will be considered] extremely unfilial” 後世子孫有示人者為大逆不孝. Zeng Nai is the son of Zeng Bairong 曾白融, editor of Jingju jumu cidian and one of the compilers of Jingju huibian. 127 See Liu Songkun, Liyuan yiwen, p. 248, for an anecdote about Xia Yuerun 夏月潤 (1878– 1931) sitting in the audience with lots of pencils broken in two with both ends sharpened, secretly copying out an entire master script (zongjiang 總講) of a play. Xu Chengbei 徐 城北, “Xin Yanqiu ‘Touxi’ manxiang” 新艷秋 ‘偷戲’ 漫想 (Random thoughts about Xin Yanqiu [stage name, literally “New [Cheng] Yanqiu,” of Wang Yuhua 王玉華, 1910–2008] and stealing plays), Liyuan jiuzong 梨園舊蹤 (Old traces of Chinese theater; Nanchang: Jiangxi jiaoyu, 2000), pp. 114–16, besides speaking of touxi in general, tells the story of how Xin went together with her fiddle player to watch Cheng Yanqiu perform and make notes about the performances, and how before long she was able to perform a new play of Cheng’s. On stories about Western audience members who supposedly memorized plays and sold the scripts to actors, see Peters, Theatre of the Book, pp. 30–31, and Roger Chartier, “Copied Onely by the Eare,” Publishing Drama in Early Modern Europe (London: The British Library, 1999), pp. 28–50. 128 See a piece originally written in 1950: Xu Muyun 徐慕雲, “Lao Tan gaici” 老譚改詞 (Old Tan changed [play]texts), Yitan 3 (2004): 20. 129 Wu Xiaoru 吳小如, ‘Sheng’ ‘Shi’ guanguang “盛” “世” 觀光 (Examining the glories of the Sheng and Shi classes [of Fuliancheng]; Shenyang: Liaoning jiaoyu, 2000), p. 32, laments that with the death of Ye Shenglan 葉盛蘭 (1914–1970), many plays died with him. On the idea that Xiaoyao jin 逍遙津 (Carefree Ford; Xikao #59) was not performed by others for some time after Sun Juxian’s success in the role, see the May 7, 1913 Shenbao piece, Xuanlang 玄郎, “Ji Diyi tai zhi Xiaoyao jin” 紀第一臺之逍遙津 (A record of First Stage’s Xiaoyao jin), in Cai Shicheng, ed., Shenbao Jingju ziliao xuanbian, pp. 139–40. The writer uses two allusions to describe the position that the actors wished to avoid: xiaowu jian dawu 小巫見大巫 (little shaman meets big shaman [and is shamed by comparison]) and xiaopin 效顰 ([Dong Shi] imitating the frown [of Xi Shi, an ancient beauty with a bad case of heartburn; Dong Shi reportedly just ended up looking ridiculous]).

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livelihood of those actors.130 Actors or troupes could also purposely restrict the frequency with which they would perform plays, either to increase public interest for when they did perform them or to prevent other actors “stealing” them. Although it was not until the Reform Period in the PRC and the institution of a royalty system that we begin to see real lawsuits over the copyright of Jingju play texts written after 1949,131 a national copyright law was adopted in China for the first time in 1910132 and in the years in which Xikao was published there were debates about whether playwrights should have copyright and performance rights (see chapter 4). 2

Types of Plays

Jingju plays were divided into different categories depending on a variety of criteria, some of which have already been introduced. Plays that told a complete story in one performance were called benxi 本戲.133 Scenes extracted from a benxi and performed independently were called zhezi xi.134 Plays or 130 One example would be Shang Heyu 尚和玉 (1873–1959), a famous wusheng actor. In the case of a certain number of “common” roles (not considered to be the property of any one actor), which he could perform perfectly well, he refused to perform them and gave the excuse that a certain other actor performed them better, when the real reason was that he wanted to “reserve some food” (liu fan 留飯) for that actor to “eat.” See Yang Fei 楊飛, Liyuan yanjue jiyao 梨園諺訣輯要 (Selective collection of maxims and sayings about theater; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 2002), p. 102. Yang Xiaolou even “yielded” (rang 讓) plays that he developed to other actors, saying, “The food of all under heaven is not something that one person can eat up himself …” 天下飯非一人所能吃儘…. See Ren Erbei, ed., Youyu ji, pp. 190–91 (item 352). 131 See the discussion of the Ma Shaobo case in chapter 4 below. 132 An annotated version of the law was published in 1912. For a modern version of that work, see Qin Ruijie 秦瑞玠 (1874–1923?), annot., Da Qing zhuzuo quan lü shiyi 大清著作權 律釋義 (Explanations of the Great Qing Copyright Law; Beijing: The Commercial Press, 2015). 133 They were also called quanben 全本 (lit.: complete texts) or quanben xi 全本戲 (complete text plays). 134 On zhezi xi in general, see Zeng Yongyi 曾永義, “Lunshuo ‘zhezi xi’ ” 論說 ‘折子戲’ (On zhezi xi), in Zeng Yongyi xueshu lunwen zixuan ji: Jiabian xueshu linian 曾永義學術論 文自選集: 甲編學術理念 (Zeng Yongyi’s self-selected collection of academic writings: Part one: Academic principles: Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2008), pp. 241–321. He dates the use of the term zhezi xi to after the establishment of the PRC (pp. 242–44). There is a similar distinction in kabuki drama between full-length plays (tōshi kyōgen 通し狂言) and programs made of selected extracts (midori 見取) taken from different full-length plays. See Samuel L. Leiter, tr. and ed., New Kabuki Encyclopedia: A Revised Adaptation of Kabuki Jiten (Westport, CN: Greenwood Press, 1997), “Midori,” pp. 402–403, and “Tōshi kyōgen,”

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play-cycles too long for one performance, composed of installments (ben) that would be performed serially, were called liantai xi or liantai benxi.135 Plays were also spoken of as being short/minor/simple plays or long/major/complex plays (xiaoxi136 vs. daxi137). Plays in one of these categories could be revised and either morph into or become part of a play in a different category than where it began. At different times or in different types of Jingju, either benxi, zhezi xi, or liantai benxi predominated. When one of these forms predominated for too long calls for the revival or resurgence of one of the other forms would begin.138

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p. 661. Zhezi xi might or might not be expanded and adapted so that they stand alone better. Sometimes the expansions or added material might constitute separate scenes or segments whose presence might be stressed in promotional material with the information that the performance will include (dai 代 [used for the more correct dai 帶) them. For a brief overview, see Xu Fuming 徐扶明, “Liantai xi jianlun” 連臺戲簡論 (A brief discourse on serial plays), in Jiang Zhi 姜智, ed., Xiqu yishu ershi nian jinian wenji—Xiqu lilun juan 戲曲藝術二十年紀念文集—戲曲理論卷 (Collected essays commemorating twenty years of Xiqu yishu—Volume on the theory of traditional Chinese theater; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 2000), pp. 307–22. Xu talks of four kinds of serial plays in terms of their organization: (1) grabbags that accommodate a variety of materials, as in the case of the Mulian 目蓮 cycle; (2) cycles that string together plays dealing with the same basic stuff material, as in Three Kingdoms serial plays; (3) plays that use a single central figure to tie the cycle together; and (4) cycles without much structure at all. Although serial plays were developed and performed in Beijing before Shanghai, they have become strongly associated with Shanghai-style Jingju. On Shanghai liantai benxi, see Xu Xingjie and Cai Shicheng, eds., Shanghai Jingju zhi, pp. 174–208. According to Pan Xiafeng, Jingju yishu wenda, p. 204, danchu xi 單齣戲 (lit.: single scene play) is another term for xiaoxi. See Wang Anqi 王安祈, “Lun Pingju zhong de jige xiao­xi” 論平劇中的幾個小戲 (On several small plays in Jingju), Hanxue yanjiu 漢學研究 (Sinological research) 8.1 (1990): 563–87 and her related “Jingju zhong xiaoxi ‘Jingju hua’ zhi shizheng” 京劇中小戲 ‘京劇化’ 之實證 (Evidence of the ‘Jingju-ization’ of xiaoxi in Jingju), in Zeng Yongyi 曾永義 et al., eds., Liang’an xiaoxi xueshu yantao hui lunwen ji 兩岸小戲學術研討會論文集 (Collected papers from the academic conference on small plays with participants from both sides of the Taiwan Straits; Taibei: Guili chuantong yishu zhongxin, 2001), pp. 87–103 (pp. 276–77 has a list of fifteen xiaoxi performed by Jingju troupes). In these two articles Wang uses several examples to show how xiaoxi entered Jingju from local opera traditions and were eventually worked over or developed so that they were performed according to the standards of performance of Jingju. She argues that in Jingju circles xiaoxi refers more to shortness and doesn’t have the connotations that the term has for academics, claiming that it instead refers to minor plays that can be used to open programs or fill in gaps in the schedule. Whereas single-actor plays are pretty prominent in Kunqu (Ding Xiuxun, Kunqu biaoyan xue, p. 152, lists five that did not begin as single-actor plays but became so because performance practice elided the other characters), that is not the case in Jingju. Daxi can be a synonym for benxi. See Pan Xiafeng, Jingju yishu wenda, p. 203. See, for instance, Huang Muqiu 黃慕秋, “Jiuju de yanquan wenti” 舊劇的演全問題 (On the question of the acting of complete plays in old theater), Shiri xiju 十日戲劇 (Theater every ten days) 1.10 (1937): 11–12, and Mei Lanfang, Wutai shenghuo sishi nian, 1: 147–48.

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Each of these forms had their problems. Benxi and liantai benxi were said to have too many minor and dull transitional scenes, whereas zhezi xi extracted from the longer plays,139 although they did not have that kind of problem, were said to be “headless and tailless” (meitou meiwei 沒頭沒尾;140 i.e., they did not tell a complete story). It was thought that as time went by audiences would not be able to supply the outlines of the complete story themselves.141 It is also true that once scenes were extracted from their larger plays, actors changed them in various ways so that sometimes the social and ideological meanings of the scenes could change quite radically.142 Plays could also be divided up according to their content. We will discuss different ways the plays in Xikao can be divided according to content in chapter 3 but here I want to introduce one collection of plays in which content categories were particularly prominent. This was a series of forty plays published by the new-style opera school, Zhonghua Xixiao 中華戲校, in the form of individual pocket-size booklets designed to meet the needs of both their students and a mass audience for Jingju plays, under the somewhat unexpected series title Minzhong xiaoshuo xiqu duben 民眾小說戲曲讀本 (Readers 139 Zhezi xi were also extracted from liantai benxi. See, for instance, Ma Shaobo et al., Zhongguo Jingju shi, 1: 539, on how Mu Fengshan 穆鳳山 (1840–?) started this trend and on how Tan Yinshan 探陰山 (Investigating Mount Yin; Xikao #26) was extracted from Zha panguan 鍘判官 (Slicing in half the infernal judge; not in Xikao). See Zheng Bairong, ed., Jingju jumu cidian, pp. 585–86, on the eight episodes (ben) of the entire play. 140 Xu Shucheng 徐書城, “Jingju zhi lu—Lishi de huigu yu qianzhan” 京劇之路—歷史的 回顧與前瞻 (The road of Jingju—A historical retrospective and look toward the future), in Weng Sizai, ed., Jingju congtan bainian lu, p. 393. 141 In Yuan Shihai and Xu Chengbei, Jingju Jiazi hua, p. 62, Yuan Shihai claims that although Shentou ci Tang 審頭刺唐 (Inspecting the head and assassinating Tang [Qin 勤]; Xikao #200) had been performed a lot for a long time, the audience did not know what happens before and after it in the larger play, and explains how Ma Lianliang developed a version of the larger story in which he acted three different roles. A 1906 item in issue number 638 of Jinghua ribao 京話日報 (Newspaper in Pekinese), Cunwu 存吳, “Xiqu gailiang de qianshuo” 戲曲改良的淺說 (A shallow discourse on the reform of theater), reproduced in Fu Jin, ed., Jingju lishi wenxian huibian: Qingdai juan, 6: 130–32, accuses actors of purposely chopping off the beginnings and ends of plays and only performing the romantic bits ( fenghua xueyue 風花雪月) in such a way that the denouements ( jieguo 結果) of the characters get forgotten. 142 How Kunqu zhezi xi could change once they were extracted from Mudan ting and performed separately is a major concern of Swatek, Peony Pavilion Onstage. Li Hui, “Zhezi xi yanjiu,” includes extensive comparison of scenes as they appeared in the original chuanqi plays and zhezi xi versions of them. Siyuan Liu, “The Case of Princess Baihua: State Diplomatic Functions and Theatrical Creative Process in China in the 1950s and 1960s,” Asian Theatre Journal 30.1 (Spring 2013): 1–29, traces the changes in what began as a Kunqu zhezi xi as it was adapted for Jingju performance and used diplomatically. The male lead began as a negative character but later changed back and forth between positive and negative.

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in fiction-style of Chinese indigenous theater for the masses; 1935–1937).143 All but seven of the plays are given generic labels based on content that appear not on the covers of the plays but on their first pages (after the fanli for the series, which appears on the inside of the covers), immediately after the titles of the plays. The categories with number of plays are as follows: Daode ju 道德劇 (morality plays): Guojia ju 國家劇 (nation plays): Jiating ju 家庭劇 (family plays): Jiazu ju 家族劇 (family saga): Minzu ju 民族劇 (nationality plays): Shehui ju 社會劇 (social plays): Wuxia ju 武俠劇 (martial arts plays): Yixia ju 義俠劇 (chivalrous plays): Zhanzheng ju 戰爭劇 (battle plays): No label:

4 plays 5 plays 11 plays 1 play 2 plays 5 plays 1 play 3 plays 1 play 7 plays

The first play to lack a label is the twenty-second one in the series, after which they occur fairly regularly, perhaps a sign of flagging interest in dividing up the plays in this fashion. No other collection of Jingju playscripts that I am aware of takes this approach, which is reminiscent of how fictional items were printed with genre labels—zhengzhi xiaoshuo 政治小說 (political fiction) for example—in early magazines such as Xin xiaoshuo 新小說 (New fiction; inaugurated in 1902). Plays could also be divided up according to the role-type of the lead role. Various role-types have been mentioned above but it is now time to introduce the Jingju role-types (hangdang 行當) as a system. Systems of dividing characters into role-types so that actors can specialize in one of them are common in the development of most theatrical traditions,144 even if an emphasis on the “unique individual” as opposed to “type” of person, 143 Published by Shijie shuju 世界書局 of Shanghai. 144 Some non-Chinese role-type systems would include, in Europe, the “masks” of commedia del’arte and the “lines of business” of opera, and in Japan, the yakugara 役柄 of kabuki. In commedia del’arte the use of set characters could be seen as either necessary or useful in a tradition so reliant on improvisation, while the lines of business in western opera reflect a focus on types of voice (soprano, mezzo-soprano, contralto, tenor, baritone, bass, etc.) more than on character, although certain types of characters were associated with each of the types of voices. For examples, see William Berger, The NPR Curious Listener’s Guide to Opera (New York: Grand Central Press, 2002), pp. 190 (“Baritone”), 191 (“Bass”), 192 (“Contralto”), and 197 (“Mezzo-soprano”). For a succinct introduction to yakugara, see Samuel L. Leiter, The Historical Dictionary of Japanese Traditional Theater (Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, 2006), p. 426.

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which emerged alongside social and economic changes in early modern and modern Europe, brought suspicion that a theater of role types was a more primitive mode of operation.145 This notion is pretty silly from at least two points of view: on the one hand, the absolute individuality of the bourgeoise individual subject is, to begin with, a myth, and on the other hand, we can only recognize individuality through a process of progressively narrowing down the categories or types we can assign a person to. In a theatrical role-type system such as that of Jingju, the point is not to perform a character as nothing more than a representative of a type, but to use the system to efficiently make some basic decisions about how the character should be performed, and then to show how that character differs from the other members of that set through subtler choices. Reliance on a role-type system certainly has concrete effects on how characters are created on stage and consumed by audiences. An emphasis on the idea that a certain character belongs to a certain character type will certainly work against the idea that characters can easily transform from one type to another or be one type in one play and another type entirely in another play. Role-types are static categories with regard to how they are used to differentiate characters at any one point in time, no matter how much the conception of the role-type itself might change over time. Reasons for allotting characters to certain types can be various. They can focus on what the character decides to do or how he was brought up (nurture), or what his character is thought to be like in its essence (nature). The latter can include the belief that there are biological and chemical reasons for why we are the way we are. In the West, that stretches from Galen (120–200) and his “four humours” caused by four different types of body fluids to the modern modification of personality through drug therapy. In Chinese culture there was the idea that humans were malleable and perfectable and that their basic nature was fated, unchangeable, and externally caused through such things as fate, karma and reincarnation, and the influence of geographical “humours” (qi 氣). Whatever thoughts individual Jingju practitioners and playgoers might have had on these matters, they have left few traces, since the role-type system was basically taken as a practical method to organize characters to be represented on the stage, and the theoretical implications of the system were almost entirely ignored.

145 Patrice Pavis, Dictionary of the Theatre: Terms, Concepts, and Analysis, Christine Shantz, tr. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998), pp. 422–23, observes, “A type is created whenever individual and original characteristics are sacrificed to generalization and magnification,” and sees the productions of types as likely to be tied to actor specialization: “Historically, the appearance of the stock character is often explained by the fact that each character was played by the same actor, who evolved an original gestuality and psychology over the years.”

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Although the basic outlines of the historical transition from the earliest forms of Chinese theater and their simple role-type systems (often involving nothing more than a distinction between the “funny man” and the “straight man”) and the role-type system of Jingju are clear and can be easily characterized as increasing complexity and specialization146 with Jingju ending up as the most complex and specialized of all, that transition took place over hundreds of years and there are many details that are obscure. Chief among the latter are the origins and meanings of the names of some role-types. For example, the general term in xiqu for female roles from quite early on is dan 旦 (a pictograph of the sun over the horizon), which literally means “dawn.” Although over the years there have been attempts to come up with an explanation for why dan would be used to refer to female role types, and these exhibit a certain amount of creativity that might be considered interesting for its own sake,147 it is probably most likely that dan 旦 is just an abbreviation of jie 姐 (elder sister).148 One continuity in the development of role-type systems in traditional Chinese theater from the beginning to Jingju is the preference for referring to characters in playscripts not by their names but by their role types, which is the case both in early descriptions of theater and in the stage directions of the vast majority of the playscripts that have come down to us.149 The only time that you really begin to see characters referred to by their names in stage directions is in plays written for large troupes that could and did include the appearance on stage of more than one part in the same role-type at the same time, 146 Zeng Yongyi 曾永義, “Zhongguo gudian xiju jiaose gaishuo” 中國古典戲劇腳色概說 (An overview of the roles of Chinese classical theater), Shuo su wenxue 說俗文學 (On popular literature; Taibei: Lianjing, 1980), pp. 287–88, points out at the conclusion of his article that the first thing to note is precisely this development from the two role types of the “adjutant” (canjun 參軍) plays of the Tang to the seven major categories (hang 行) and thirty-three subcategories (mu 目) of Jingju. 147 Zeng Yongyi 曾永義, “Qianxian ‘jiaose lun’ qianping” 前賢 ‘腳色論’ 淺評 (A shallow critique of the ‘discourse on role-types’ by earlier worthies [from the Qing and earlier]), Shuo su wenxue, p. 298, lists five approaches to the origins of role-type terms: (1) to claim that they derived from the names of birds and beasts, (2) that they were meant ironically, (3) that they come from slang, (4) that phonetic puns are involved, or (5) that allusions to the classics are involved. On pp. 298–99, Zeng gives as an example of the first category the idea that dan refers to dan 狚, the female gibbon (held to be lascivious, hence used to refer to courtesan-actresses), and on p. 301, as an example of the second category, the idea that women are suited to the night and thus perversely referred to as “dawn.” 148 On this possibility, see Zeng Yongyi, “Zhongguo gudian xiju jiaose gaishuo,” p. 240. 149 Fu Jin 傅謹, Xiqu meixue 戲曲美學 (The aesthetics of Chinese indigenous theater; Taibei: Wenjin chubanshe, 1995), p. 148, overstates the case when he says that “in the playscripts for traditional Chinese theater, actors do not appear in the status of the characters they play, but instead always appear under the name of their role-type” 傳統的戲曲劇本裡, 演員不是以人物的身分出現的, 而一律都以腳色的名義出現.

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making it too ambiguous to refer to such characters only by their role-types. This general situation ensured that a consciousness of the role-types to which characters were assigned remained present even when the plays were read and not staged. But we should remember that the role-type assignments in a playscript reflect, if they do even that, only the situation at the time the playscript was written, and that they represent just a snapshot, while actual performance practice was always changing, in comparison to the inherent conservatism of individual playscripts.150 Nanxi and zaju are the two earliest mature theatrical forms in Chinese history. The major difference between them is that in the latter only one actor was permitted to sing the song-suites that were the core of each act of the play (the only things that other actors got to sing were the occasional intrusive aria not part of the major song-suites or the very short song-suite of a demi-act or xiezi 楔子). That one actor could enact different characters in different acts of the same play, but had to play either only male or only female parts. The actor performing male roles and singing all the song-suites was called the zhengmo 正末; one performing female roles and singing all the song-suites was called the zhengdan 正旦. What was most important was the ability to sing so many arias and carry the play. The kind of characters portrayed by the zhengmo could range from the cultured and refined if effete Emperor Minghuang 明皇 of the Tang dynasty in Wutong yu 梧桐雨 (Rain on the pawlonia) to the illiterate roughneck and popular berserker Li Kui 李逵 of Li Kui fu jing 李逵負荊 (Li Kui carries thorns). Since they lack the requirement that one actor sing all of the song-suites, one would expect the role-type systems of nanxi and of chuanqi (which developed out of nanxi) to differ from that of zaju, and that is true in general. The male and female leading roles of nanxi and chuanqi are now called the sheng 生 and the dan 旦, respectively, but the range of characters portrayed is much narrower than for the zhengdan and zhengmo of zaju. Especially in chuanqi playscripts, both sheng and dan are sometimes modified by the qualifier zheng 正,151 but other kinds of sheng and dan could play the lead roles and these 150 This point is forcefully made by Lu Eting 陸萼庭, “Kunju jiaose de yanbian yu dingxing” 崑劇腳色的演變與定型 (The evolution and consolidation of the role-type system of Kunju), Minsu quyi 139 (2003): 6. 151 Luo Di 洛地, “Jiaose zhi” 腳色制 (The role-type system), Luo Di xiqu lunji 洛地戲曲論 集 (Collected essays on traditional Chinese theater by Luo Di; Taibei: Guojia chubanshe, 2006), p. 350, provides this gloss on zhengsheng and zhengdan: “zheng means upright, therefore they must be upright characters, it has nothing to do with age” 正者, 正也, 必 定為正面人物, 非干年齡. As with most generalizations, this one also seems to have exceptions. For instance, the role-type of the main character in Chimeng 痴夢 (The mad dream), Cui-shi 崔氏, who notoriously divorces her husband and remarries, is zheng­ dan. See Zhang Jiqing’s lecture on playing this character, translated by Josh Stenberg,

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were not reserved for zhengsheng and zhengdan only. Early on, most nanxi and chuanqi troupes were small, as few as seven actors, each specializing in one of seven role-types: mo 末 (secondary male role who opens the play and also serves as the troupe’s leader), sheng, dan, wai 外 (secondary male role), tie 貼 (secondary female role), jing 凈 (painted-face roles, male or female), and chou 丑 (“comic” roles, male or female).152 To make such small troupes work, all of the actors except the lead sheng and dan (typically too busy to play other characters as well) doubled up and performed multiple characters in the same play.153 It was not until performance practice shifted from performing entire chuanqi plays to extracted scenes (zhezi xi) that actors of role-types other than the sheng and dan got to be the stars of their own scenes or plays and began to expand and deepen both their role-types and the parts they played.154 Eventually the small troupes performing Kunqu were thought to be just too small and extra actors were added who doubled up role-types covered by troupe members. Members of this second echelon were distinguished from the primary actors by the prefix xiao 小 (small).155 Although xiao originally had nothing to do with the age of the roles played, in the case of xiaosheng 小 生 in particular, the idea that xiao meant young rather than secondary eventually came to predominate.156 Chuanqi drama was originally performed using a number of different musical systems but it was Kunqu that won out and became a national form. Over “An Annotated Translation of Zhang Jiqing’s Lecture on Playing Cui-shi in Chimeng (The Mad Dream): A Sample Lecture from Kunqu baizhong, Dashi shuoxi (100 Kunqu pieces, Master performers talk about their scenes),” CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature 35.2 (December 2016): 153–75. 152 Lu Eting, “Kunju jiaose de yanbian,” pp. 5–6. 153 It was also possible for a lead role to be performed by a number of actors, to lighten the load on any one of them. For a discussion of a playscript of Jingchai ji 荊釵記 (The thorn hairpin) in which this was the case, see Lu Eting, “Kunju jiaose de yanbian,” pp. 25–26. This practice has become popular in recent “complete” productions of chuanqi plays. 154 Hsü, The Chinese Conception of the Theatre, p. 355, suggests that the kind of “doubling” we see in early chuanqi playscripts, in which the laodan 老旦 actor, for instance, is called upon to perform a great variety of roles, must mean that the “acting and voice” of these roles “were not then as much differentiated as they are now.” 155 See Lu Eting, “Kunju jiaose de yanbian,” p. 5; see also p. 21, where she points out that by the time of the twelve-category role-type system described by Li Dou 李斗 in his Yangzhou huafang lu 揚州畫舫錄 (Record of the pleasure boats of Yangzhou; preface 1796), troupes could have up to three or four actors specializing in a single category. 156 Lu Eting, “Kunju jiaose de yanbian,” p. 15, notes that the first playscript to give its lead male role to a part labeled xiaosheng has a preface dated 1718. She thinks that the xiao­ sheng role changed to one that emphasized the use of falsetto in the beginning of the Qing dynasty (p. 13).

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time, more and more role-types were distinguished in Kunqu performance practice. A comprehensive and synchronic chart that includes all of the roletypes to be found in two large-scale dictionaries of Kunqu157 and that counts synonymous ones only once would by my reckoning include seven top-level categories, fourteen second-level categories, twenty-four third-level categories, and nine fourth-level categories, for a total almost eight times the original seven (fifty-four). For only a minority of these role-types would any troupe include actors who specialized only in that one; nor could we expect even modern Kunju troupes to recognize, much less perform, all of the subcategories listed. The minute differentiation among the xiaosheng and dan roles in such a list clearly shows that they were the focus of a lot of energy and creativity. But a synchronic chart of this kind ignores or slights changes over time158 and the listing of role types one after the other might give the impression that all of the roles were basically equal. But we are more interested, in the end, in the Jingju role-type system. The following table (Table 1.1) is designed to show the system as it was around 1912– 1925, the years of the publication of Xikao, and to show how a select number of variables explains most of the differences between the subcategories.159 These variables are as follows: 157 Hong Weizhu, ed., Kunqu cidian, and Wu Xinlei, ed., Zhongguo Kunju da cidian. Each has a separate section on role-types (hangdang). 158 These changes are discussed by Lu Eting, “Kunju jiaose de yanbian,” for instance, and can be tracked by comparing the role-type systems presented in premodern works on nanxi, chuanqi, and Kunqu and in representative scholarly works. 159 Other lists of variables have been proposed, but I think my system is more useful because the variables are easily comparable across role-types. Xiong Chengyu, “The Genesis and Development of Hangdang in Traditional Chinese Theatre before the Emergence of Beijing Opera,” doctoral thesis, Brigham Young University, 1994, pp. 5–6, lists four aspects that he feels govern the division of role-types into categories: 1) natural attributes of the characters (age, sex, etc.), 2) social attributes of the characters (status, occupation, disposition, etc.), 3) aesthetic and moral qualities of the characters, and 4) the “special skills of the performers.” Almost the same list is given in Huang Kebao 黃克保, Xiqu biaoyan yanjiu 戲曲表演研究 (Research into the performance of traditional Chinese theater; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 1992), pp. 129–33, except that the two parts of the third aspect are treated separately. Other systems stress that the characters in each role-type share the same kind of personality, temperament, or both. For an example of assigning “personality characteristics” (xingge tezheng 性格特徵) to the role-types, see Huang Yufu 黃育 馥, Jingju, qiao he Zhongguo de xingbie guanxi (1902–1937) 京劇, 蹺和中國的性別關係 ( Jingju, [boundfoot imitating] stilts, and Chinese sexual relations [1902–1937]; Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 1998), especially Chart I on p. 16; for both “personalities” (xingge 性格) and “temperament” (qizhi 氣質), see Zhao Jingbo 趙景勃, ed., Xiqu jiaose chuangzao jiao­ cheng 戲曲角色創造教程 (A Curriculum for the creation of characters in traditional Chinese theater; Beijing: Wenhua yishu, 2004), p. 368.

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Qualities gender (male vs. female) age (child vs. young adult vs. prime of life vs. old); whether the character is mature or not whether the character is dignified or not whether the character is balanced or not whether the character has social status or not whether the character is civil or martial Methods of Presenting Those Qualities voice quality (falsetto vs. no falsetto vs. mixed) level of diction (elevated speech vs. plain speech vs. dialect) focus on singing vs. focus on acting whether the character’s movements are restrained or not stature (outsized vs. small) type of beard (full beard vs. tripartite beard vs. odd beard vs. no beard) footwear (high-bottom boots vs. flat soled shoes/slippers vs. stilts to imitate bound feet) face pattern/make-up (painted face vs. ugly marks vs. no painted face) Table 1.1

A synchronic chart of Jingju role-types (c. 1912–1925) (*marks role-types that appear in Xikao playscripts)

I. Shengjiao 生腳 (a.k.a., sheng 生,*a Dignified Male [DMb] roles) A. Laosheng 老生* (a.k.a., zhengsheng 正生,* xusheng 鬚生* Mature Dignified Male [MDM]) 1. Changgong laosheng 唱功老生 (MDM who sings a lot) 2. Angong laosheng 安工老生 (a.k.a., wangmao laosheng 王帽老生) (MDM of high status who sings a lot) 3. Zuogong laosheng 做功老生 (MDM who acts more than sings) 4. Shuaipai laosheng 衰派老生 (Older MDM who acts more than sings, usually of low status) 5. Kaoba laosheng 靠把老生* (a.k.a., changkao laosheng 長靠老生,* MDM in armor) 6. Wenwu laosheng 文武老生* (MDM who can fight) 7. Wu laosheng 武老生* (MDM who fights) 8. Hongsheng 紅生* Red-faced MDM (Guan Yu is the most important example) B. Xiaosheng 小生* Immature DM (IDM)

Jingju Repertoire ( s ) , Types of Plays and Playscripts Table 1.1

C. D.

A synchronic chart of Jingju role-types (c. 1912–1925) (cont.) 1. Lingzi sheng 翎子生 (Martial IDM of stature) 2. Shamao sheng 紗帽生 (IDM who is an official) 3. Shanzi sheng 扇子生 (Romantic IDM) 4. Qiongsheng 窮生 (Poor scholar IDM) 5. Wu xiaosheng 武小生* (Martial IDM) Wawa sheng 娃娃生* (Male or Female children) Wusheng 武生* (Martial MDM) 1. Changkao wusheng 長靠武生 (Martial MDM in armor) 2. Duanda wusheng 短打武生 (Martial MDM who fights

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hand-to-hand) E. Mo 末* (Secondary MDM)c F. Wai 外* (a.k.a., laowai 老外*; Secondary MDM) II. Danjiao 旦腳 (a.k.a., dan 旦*;d female roles) A. Zhengdan 正旦* (a.k.a., qingyi 青衣,* qingshan 青衫, dadan 大旦*) (Mature Dignified Woman [MDW] sings a lot) B. Huadan 花旦*e (Undignified and/or Immature girl or woman) 1. Xiaodan 小旦* (a.k.a., tiedan 貼旦*;f Minor younger female role) 2. Guimen dan 閨門旦 (Unmarried girl, often of lower status) 3. Wanxiao dan 玩笑旦 (Light-hearted young woman) 4. Cisha dan 刺殺旦 (Deadly/to-be-murdered adulteresses and avengers) 5. Pola dan 潑辣旦 (Mannish shrews) C. Wudan 武旦* (Martial females, usually supernatural figures or outlaws) D. Daoma dan 刀馬旦* (Female generals) E. Huashan 花衫* (combines elements of qingyi, huadan, and daoma dan)g F. Laodan 老旦* (Older Dignified Woman [ODW]) G. Caidan 彩旦* (a.k.a., chou po[zi] 丑婆 [子],* choudan 丑旦;* Undignified young or mature Woman of lower status) III. Jingjiao 凈腳 (a.k.a. jing 凈,* hualian 花臉;* da hualian 大花臉;*h Outsized Male [OM] roles) A. Da hualian 大花臉* (Dignified OM [DOM]) 1. Heitou 黑頭* (a.k.a., heijing 黑凈;* DOM who sings a lot and whose face pattern is mostly black; Judge Bao is the prime example) 2. Tongchui hualian 銅錘花臉* (DOM who sings a lot) B. Jiazi hualian 架子花臉 (a.k.a., fujing 副凈,* er hualian 二花臉,* fu 副,* fu 付,* xiaojing 小凈* Undignified OM) C. Wujing 武凈* (Martial OM) 1. Wu erhua 武二花* (a.k.a., shuaida hualian 摔打花臉; Rough-and-tumble OM) 2. Maojing 毛凈 (Wild, dancing OM) D. Hongjing 紅凈* (Red-faced OM)

134 Table 1.1

Chapter 1 A synchronic chart of Jingju role-types (c. 1912–1925) (cont.)

IV. Choujiao 丑腳 (a.k.a., chou 丑,* xiao hualian 小花臉, xiao huamian 小花面,* dachou 大丑,* erchou 二丑,* fuchou 副丑,* xiaochou 小丑*;i Undignified Small Stature Male [USSM] roles) A. Wenchou 文丑* (Civil USSM) 1. Fangjin chou 方巾丑* (Scholar/Clerk USSM) 2. Suchou 蘇丑 (Suzhou USSM) 3. Paodai chou 袍帶丑 (Official USSM) 4. Chayi chou 茶衣丑 (Commoner USSM) 5. Xiepi chou 鞋皮丑 (Playboy USSM) 6. Laochou 老丑* (Older USSM) B. Wuchou 武丑* (a.k.a., kaikou tiao 開口跳; Martial USSM) V. Wuhang 武行 (Unnamed martial characters)j A. Shangshou 上手 (Fighters for the “righteous side”) B. Xiashou 下手* (Fighters for the “non-righteous side”) VI. Za 雜 (miscellaneous)

a Xikao also has one instance of the use of fusheng 付生 (lit.: secondary sheng) in play #495. This term is not to be found in lists of role-types. It is tempting to understand the term as equivalent to xiaosheng, since that term also originally meant secondary sheng, but in the play the role is that of a squire or man with a certain amount of property and status, and such roles are most often played as laosheng roles in Jingju. b A more systematic use of acronyms would be ideal but turned out to be too complicated. The main goal is to save space. Within each of the first-level sections (Shengjiao, etc.), the meaning of the acronyms used should be easy enough to figure out. c Mo and wai are placed among the sheng role-types because by this time they had lost their independent status and been amalgamated into the laosheng role-type. Before too long both terms stopped being used in Jingju playscripts. d There are also instances in Xikao of the ghosts of dead women labeled dangui 旦鬼 (female ghost), dangui hun 旦鬼魂 (hun soul of female ghost) or danhun 旦魂 (female hun soul); see plays #411 and #456. e Other terms in Xikao that seem related to this role-type are erdan 二旦 and fudan 付旦, both referring to a secondary female role, e.g. fu huadan 副花旦 (secondary huadan), and huzi dan 鬍子旦 (whiskers dan). f In Xikao this role-type also appears in the abbreviated forms of tie 貼 and zhan 占. g Although huashan is commonly used in writings about Jingju, it does not appear often in playscripts and professional actors often don’t accept the term. Li Hongchun 李洪春 (1898– 1990), dictation, Liu Songyan 劉松岩, ed., Jingju changtan 京劇長談 (Extended talks on Jingju; Beijing: Zhongguo xiqu, 2011 [first edition published 1982]), p. 117, for instance, says about the term, “it seems that up to the present it has not been accepted by professionals” 好 像在內行到現在還沒有被承認. h A role-type labeled laojing 老凈 (old jing) also appears in Xikao. i Dachou on the one hand, and erchou, fuchou, and xiaochou on the other, are typically used when there are a pair of chou roles, one of whom is the senior member and the other the junior member. Other chou role-type labels that appear in Xikao are chouguan 丑官 (chou official), chouza 丑雜 (chou miscellaneous role), and chouyuan 丑院 (chou majordomo). j The ways that wuhang and za roles are referred to in Xikao are particularly complex and hard to keep track of. In common practice, all of them are often called longtao 龍套, referring to their typical stage garment with dragon roundels embroidered on it.

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In this system we find six first-level categories, twenty-one second-level categories, and thirty third-level categories, for a total of fifty-seven categories. If we check for the percentage of terms in this system that appear in that for Kunqu and for five local opera traditions that are closely related to Jingju or influenced it, they range from a low of 23% for Hanju to a high of 88% for Huixi, with Kunqu near the middle with 48%.160 Looking at how Xikao uses role-type terms, we notice a number of things. First, the large number of synonyms for the same role-type, some of them pretty obscure and rarely used, shows that the editorial staff of Xikao was not interested in either unifying the conventions used in the playscripts or imposing their own ideas about how a playscript should be written (as we will see in chapter 3). Second, a fair number of the more minutely distinguished roletypes are not used in Xikao.161 This does not mean that you cannot find characters in the plays that could be assigned to those role-types, because you can. Instead, Xikao shows the same lack of interest in using the finest levels of distinction among the role-types that can be found in most Jingju playscripts, a lack of interest that parallels and is directly related to the lack of interest in spelling everything out in stage directions in Jingju playscripts. The overall trend in most of the role-type systems, and especially in that of Jingju, was to move from a smaller number of simple and broad categories that 160 The sources used to work up a complete role-type system for Kunqu have been mentioned above. Those used to work up the role-type systems for the five local opera traditions are as follows: Jingqiang, thirty-two categories: Cheng Zhi 程志, “Jingqiang de jiaose” 京 腔的角色 (Role-types in Jingqiang), Jingqiang yanjiu 京腔研究 (Research on Jingqiang; Tianjin: Tianji guji, 2007), pp. 227–30; Qinqiang, thirty-four categories: Jiao Wenbin 焦文 彬, ed., Qinqiang shigao 秦腔史稿 (A draft history of Qinqiang; Xi’an: Shaanxi renmin, 1987), pp. 572–73; Hebei bangzi, thirty-two categories (before Jingju influence) and fortysix categories (after Jingju influence): “Hebei bangzi jiaose hangdang tizhi yu yange” 河 北梆子腳色行當體制與沿革 (The hangdang system of Hebei bangzi and its evolution), Zhongguo xiqu zhi: Beijing juan, pp. 564–66 (before Jingju influence) and Ma Longwen 馬龍文 and Ma Dazhi 馬達志, Hebei bangzi jianshi 河北梆子簡史 (A brief history of Hebei bangzi; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 1982), p. 164 (after Jingju influence); Huixi, fifty categories: Li Taishan 李泰山, ed., Zhongguo Huiban 中國徽班 (Anhui troupes of China; Hefei: Anhui wenyi, 2006), pp. 547–55; Lixia he Huiban (a Huixi tradition that did not go to Beijing but stayed in Anhui), twenty-five categories: Yu Zhibin, “Lixia he Huiban jiaose jiamen xulie biao” 里下河徽班角色家門序列表 (Chart of the role-types of Xiali he Anhui troupes), Nanbei pihuang xi shishu, pp. 346–47; and Hanju, eighty-two categories: see the Appendix on role-types for Hanju in Liu Yongji 劉永濟, “Xiqu shi kao er ze” 戲曲史考二 則 (Two items of research on the history of traditional Chinese theatre), Yitan 1 (2000): 45–46. 161 Using the numbering system above, the following role-types do not appear in Xikao stage directions: I.A.1–A.4, I.B.I–B.4, I.C.1–C.2, II.B.2–B.5, III.B, III.C.2, IV.A.2–A.5, V, V.A, and VI (twenty-three in total).

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were pretty distinct from each other to more detailed systems with more finely distinguished categories.162 In Jingju, there was also a trend toward increased cross-fertilization between role-types and for the boundaries between them to become softer and more porous. New role-types came into being that positioned themselves in between older ones, as in the case of the wu laosheng and wenwu laosheng roles, which combined traditional laosheng conventions with wusheng ones. Another example is the huashan role-type, which combined the emphasis on singing of qingyi roles with the emphasis on mobility and action of the huadan and daoma dan roles. There were at least three factors that discouraged actors from experimenting with performing outside the role-type they were trained in. One was the idea that the demands of being able to perform all of the characters belonging to your own role-type were so great that only by maintaining a narrow specialization in it could you become competent in performing those roles. An actor of xiaosheng roles was originally expected to be able to perform any xiao­ sheng role in the standard repertoire. Such roles were referred to as bengong 本 工 (one’s own parts). There were also a certain number of relatively miscellaneous roles that did not logically belong to any particular role-type but instead were rather arbitrarily assigned to certain role-type actors.163 When there were too many roles of the same role-type in the same play some of them would be performed by actors of different role-types without parts in that play. Both types of roles were referred to as yinggong 應工 (roles one should perform).164 162 “Jiaose hangdang tizhi yu yange,” Zhongguo xiqu zhi: Beijing juan, p. 561, puts it this way: “Role-type systems, from the beginning of traditional Chinese theater to the Ming and Qing dynasties, went through a developmental process from few and simple to numerous and complex, and from numerous and complex to a state of high development; their content was increasingly rich and the division between role-types increasingly fine” 行當, 自戲曲形成至明清, 經歷了由簡至繁, 由繁至精的發展過程. 內容日見豐富, 分行 日見精細. 163 See the list of roles of this type and their role-type assignments in Fang Wenxi 方問溪 (1911–?), Liyuan hua 梨園話 (Theater talk [a.k.a., Jingju cidian 京劇詞典 ( Jingju dictionary)]; Beiping: Zhonghua yinshu ju, 1931), p. 78, photo-reprint in Minguo Jing Kun shiliao congshu vol. 8, and Pingju shiliao congkan, vol. 9. For example, the main character in the ritual play Tiao jiaguan 跳加官 (Dance to ensure promotion; not in Xikao), who wears a mask and only dances and does not speak, is assigned to the sheng and mo actors to perform. 164 On bengong and yinggong, see Tian Zhiping, Xiqu wutai xingtai, pp. 86–87. Yinghang 應行 is also used to refer to the roles an actor of a certain role-type is expected to know, as in a conversation in Pan Jingfu and Chen Moxiang, Liyuan waishi, p. 30.365, in which a character stresses that when roles are allotted in a troupe, “according to the way things go, there is no asking whether the person involved can do the part, as long as the part is yinghang he can’t refuse” 照理不問本人會不會, 只應行的就不許推脫. See p. 18.222 in the same

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There was widespread suspicion that someone who performed more than one role-type was not really good at any of them. This view was particularly prominent among Beijing actors and Jingju fans, who were critical of Shanghai-style actors and of the early actresses for performing too many different role-types.165 Although actors could have fun performing in roles that were outside their own specialization, and audience enjoyed the incongruity of watching dan actors perform wusheng roles and wusheng actors playing dan roles,166 this was only supposed to occur in special circumstances, such as charity or private performances and was referred to by a special term, fan­ chuan 反串 (lit.: reverse acting).167 There is the story of one actor who was so angry when he was forced at a private performance to perform a role outside his specialty that he had a fit backstage from which he never recovered.168 It was also possible that the success of a fanchuan performance would lead to that form of performance becoming more like the norm for that character (i.e., for fanchuan to become yinggong).169 Historical circumstances of this kind, as

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novel, where an actor is mocked for trying to refuse to play a role thought to belong to his role-type. Even the well-known Beijing laosheng actor, Gao Qingkui 高慶奎 (1890–1942), because he could also perform wusheng, laodan, and tongchui roles, was called by some “Miscellaneous Gao” (Gao laoban 高老伴). See Yuan Shihai, Yihai wuya, p. 363. Li Fusheng, Zhonghua Guoju shi, p. 401, saw the phenomenon of single actors performing more than one role-type in Taiwan of the 1960s as a sign of decline produced by a lack of good actors and permitted by an audience the majority of whom “do not understand plays” (bu dong xi 不懂戲). He refers to those actors as “acting outrageously without any fear, believing themselves to be good at everything” 膽大妄為, 自以為萬能. See Xu Chengbei 徐城北, Mei Lanfang yu ershi shiji 梅蘭芳與二十世紀 (Mei Lanfang and the 20th century; Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 1990), p. 23, for discussion of a 1921 performance in which Mei Lanfang played Huang Tianba 黃天霸 and Yang Xiaolou played Huang’s wife, Zhang Guilan 張桂蘭, in a performance of Bala miao 八蠟廟 (Bala Temple [“ba” is also written with the insect radical 虫]; Xikao #211). See Ye Tao, Zhongguo Jingju xisu, p. 21 and Wang Anqi 王安祈, “Jianyan, shuangyan, daijiao, fanchuan—Guanyu yanyuan, jiaose zhong, juzhong ren, sanzhe de ji dian kaocha” 兼演, 雙演, 代角, 反串—關於演員, 角色種, 劇中人, 三著的幾點考察 (Acting more than one role, more than one actor acting one role, one actor to be noticed as playing more than one character, and acting roles outside your specialization—Regarding actors, role types, and dramatic characters, some points of investigation concerning these three things), in Hua Wei 華瑋 and Wang Ailing 王璦玲, eds., Ming Qing xiqu guoji yantao hui lunwen ji 明清戲曲國際研討會論文集 (Collected papers from the international conference on Ming and Qing theater; Taibei: Zhongyang yanjiu yuan, Zhongguo wenzhe suo, 1998), pp. 653–61. See the biography of Qing Chunpu 慶春圃, an actor of the fifth and sixth decades of the nineteenth century, in Ma Shaobo et al., Zhongguo Jingju shi, 1: 525. Wang Anqi, “Jianyan, shuangyan, daijiao, fanchuan,” p. 660, relates how Luo Baisui 羅 百歲 (1859–1912), a chou actor, once performed the laodan role of Zhang Yuanxiu’s wife,

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well as the existence of different performance traditions, led to the phenomenon that individual characters in the same play could be performed as more than one role-type, a practice called liangmen bao 兩門抱 (embraced by two specialties).170 These roles are interesting because they show unexpected commonalities between role-types that appear on the surface to be very different. Another factor working against experimentation across role-types was that it was originally quite important, from the viewpoint of both actors and audiences,171 to keep the role-types clearly separated from each other. It was thought that learning the conventions of another role-type would damage one’s ability to perform one’s own properly, or that when learning a new roletype, elements of the one previously learned would cause problems when Zhou-shi 周氏, in Tianlei bao 天雷報 (Punishment by lightning; Xikao #77), and how what was originally in the category of fanchuan became an instance of yinggong. For other examples, see Ye Tao, Zhongguo Jingju xisu, p. 21. Writers perhaps unaware of the historical background of such allotments found some of them absurd. For instance, an anonymous piece, “Gailiang xiju zhi nan” 改良戲劇之難 (The difficulties in reforming theater), quoted in Muyuan sheng, Haishang liyuan zazhi, p. 5/9, found it “inexplicable” (bu ke jie zhe 不可解者) to have a laodan part performed by a chou actor. 170 Wang Xiaoming 王小明, “Jingju rankou zai teshu zhuangtai xia zhi yunyong” 京劇髯 口在特殊狀態下之運用 (Uses of beards in special circumstances in Jingju), Yishu xuebao 藝術學報 (Arts journal) 80 (2007): 39–59, gives lists of roles performed by both laosheng and hualian actors (pp. 50–51), both hongsheng and hongjing actors (p. 51), both hua­lian and chou actors (pp. 51–52), both wusheng and hualian actors (pp. 53–54), and both wuchou and wusheng actors (p. 55). Other possibilities, such as laosheng and laodan, huadan and wudan, qingyi and huadan, huadan and dan, xiaosheng and laodan, xiao­ sheng and dan, wawa sheng and xiaosheng, wusheng and hualian, and laodan and chou, are listed (p. 50) but not looked at in any depth because the article’s main focus is on beards. The article quotes Sun Yuanbo 孫元坡 (1930–) to the effect that liangmen bao was not permitted in the palace but flourished outside it. Liangmen bao, of course, differs from the practice whereby the same character can be portrayed by different role-types in different plays to show off differences in the character (e.g., young vs. old) and in what he does in the plays, or to achieve a certain kind of balance among the figures on the stage at the same time. As an example of having the same actor change the role-type of a character in mid-play, Li Zigui, Yi Jiangnan, p. 36, relates how his father played the character Wang Qinruo 王欽若 in a version of Limao huan taizi 狸貓換太子 (Exchange of a wildcat for the prince; Xikao #460, 465, 473, and 481 represent four episodes of a version of this play). In the first half of the play Wang is an incorrupt official (qingguan 清官) played as a hualian role, but once he accepts a bribe, the role-type immediately changes to that of chou. 171 On the conservative nature of the audience of traditional Chinese theater and the idea that they don’t want a character to change that much but to stay true to type, see Liu Jingliang 劉景亮 and Tan Jingbo 譚靜波, Zhongguo xiqu guanzhong xue 中國戲曲觀眾 學 (The study of audiences for traditional Chinese theater; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 2004), p. 314, and Hsü, The Chinese Conception of the Theatre, pp. 344–45.

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performing the new role-type.172 For instance, Ouyang Yuqian 歐陽予倩 (1889– 1962) was counseled by Sun Juxian not to perform laodan roles because doing so would ruin his ability to sing qingyi roles.173 Finally, there was also the idea that to perform role-types other than your own was “stealing another’s ricebowl” 搶了別人的飯碗 and “conduct that went against professional morality” 違反職業道德的行為.174 The acting of wuchou plays by a wenchou actor, Ma Fulu 馬富祿 (1900–1969), once prompted a famous wuchou actor, Fu Xiaoshan 傅小山 (1880–1934), to gather a posse of wuchou actors to wait for Ma to exit the stage and give him trouble. Fu also laid a complaint against Ma before the actor’s guild.175 The change from a patriarchal baoyin 包銀 system in which loyalty to one’s troupe was paramount to a star system designed to showcase the appeal and skills of the troupe’s star had a number of consequences on the role-type system.176 Ambitious and influential sheng actors such as Tan Xinpei and Yang Xiaolou appropriated hualian roles, with the former performing the roles as laosheng roles177 and without face-patterns and the latter performing them still with painted face patterns but not as hualian characters.178 Tan Xinpei was able to perform both laosheng and wusheng roles and many of his signature roles, such as Huang Zhong 黃忠 in Dingjun shan 定軍山 (Dingjun Mountain; Xikao #98), the play featured in the first Chinese film, were wu laosheng roles. Some stars, such as Mei Lanfang in the North and Zhou Xinfang in the South, 172 In the fourth installment of Xu Lingxiao’s Gucheng fanzhao ji, Zhonghua xiqu 25 (May 2001): 199, Li Shoushan 李壽山 (1864–1932), who changed from performing huadan roles to hualian roles, is criticized for continuing to act like a huadan and given the nickname Er hua (Two hua) to indicate that his performances are a mix of huadan and hualian. In Chen Moxiang, “Guanju shenghuo sumiao,” part 3, in Pan Jingfu and Chen Moxiang, Liyuan waishi, p. 408, the same actor is described as huadan from the waist down and hualian from the waist up. 173 See Ouyang Yuqian, “Zi wo yanxi yi lai,” p. 44. 174 Huang Yufu, Jingju, qiao he Zhongguo de xingbie guanxi, p. 92. In Pan Jingfu and Chen Moxiang, Liyuan waishi, p. 25.298, a xiaosheng actor, Cao Chunshan 曹春山 (b. 1879), refuses to perform a character that does not belong to the xiaosheng role-type because actors of that character’s role-type will complain that he has “not left anything for them to eat” 不給人留飯. 175 See See Yuan Shihai, Yihai wuya, p. 330. 176 On the baoyin system and how it began to give way to a star-centered system, see Goldstein, Drama Kings, pp. 27 and 44, respectively. 177 An example would be Tan Xinpei’s performing Li Keyong 李克用 as a laosheng role in Zhulian zhai 珠簾寨 (Pearl Curtain Stockade; Xikao #497). In Xikao #69, #79, and #428, Li Keyong still appears as a jing role. 178 The most famous example is probably Yang’s performance of Xiang Yu 項羽 in Bawang bieji, though most actors who played the role after him were regular hualian actors. This practice of wusheng appropriating hualian roles did not begin with Yang.

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became famous for crossing boundaries between different role-types.179 As competition grew more fierce, stars had to do more to remain stars. It became not so unusual for stars to perform in more than one play on a playbill, or to perform more than one role in the same play.180 In Shanghai, you might even have the same actor perform in the same play three different characters, each belonging to a different role-type.181 Eventually, performance skills originally restricted to one role-type were borrowed by performers of other role-types,182 and even what seem like the most unlikely combinations of role-types, such as laosheng and chou, were put together.183 The traditional role-type system was radically questioned and changed in the revolutionary model operas (yangban xi) of the Cultural Revolution184 and experimental Jingju of the last several decades.185 179 Mei was important in the development of the new huashan role-type. His grandfather, Mei Qiaoling, is recognized as the first huadan actor to sing qingyi roles. Zhou Xinfang created his own style of laosheng performance that put more stress on acting and dialogue than singing, but prior to that he performed a wide variety of role-types, including chou and xiaosheng (he was the first to sing xiaosheng parts without using falsetto; see Li Zigui, Yi Jiangnan, p. 138). But what is perhaps most remarkable was his ability to influence strongly the performance of a wide variety of role-types, for which see the chapter on him in Yuan Shihai and Xu Chengbei, Jingju jiazi hua, pp. 74–89. In an unpublished paper, “Step Over This Line: Role-Type Boundaries, Creativity, and the Later History of Jingju (Peking Opera),” written in 2001, I examined the strong correlation between willingness to cross hangdang boundaries and success in becoming a star in Jingju. 180 For example, in 1923, Yang Xiaolou, in a performance of Huanghe lou 黃鶴樓 (Yellow Crane Tower; Xikao #12) played the wusheng role of Zhao Yun 趙雲 in the first half and the jiazi hualian role of Zhang Fei 張飛 in the second half. See Liu Songkun, Liyuan yiwen, pp. 84–85. 181 In a version of Suo wulong 鎖五龍 (Locking up five dragons; Xikao #233), Lin Shusen 林 樹森 (1897–1947) played first a laosheng, then a xiaosheng, and lastly a chou character. See Hou Shuoping, “Haipai Jingju yu Haipai wenhua,” p. 312. 182 Wang Yuanfu 王元富, Guoju yishu jilun 國劇藝術輯論 (Collected essays on the art of national drama; Taibei: Liming wenhua, 1980 [revised edition]), p. 88, notes that twoheaded spears (shuangtou qiang 雙頭槍) were originally exclusively used (zhuanyong 專 用) by wudan actors, but were later taken up by daoma dan, and xiaosheng, because they were “good-looking” (piaoliang 漂亮). 183 Zhu Shihui 朱世慧 (b. 1947) once studied Hanju and laosheng (in the style of Zhou Xinfang) but ended up as a chou actor. The roles he has created mix elements of both role-types and have been called chousheng 丑生. See his biography in Ma Shaobo et al., Zhongguo Jingju shi, 3: 1274. 184 The qingyi and xiaosheng roles and the kind of falsetto they used basically disappear in yangban xi, as did the face-patterns of jing and chou roles. A different set of techniques was used to make sure that the audience knew which characters were positive ones and which negative, and there was much borrowing between role-types. 185 For instance, speaking of the Macbeth-like character played by Wu Xingguo 吳興 國 (b. 1953) in his Yuwang chengguo 欲望城國 (Kingdom of desire [an adaptation of

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Jingju plays could be, were, and are divided up according to the role-types that they feature, as for example a play featuring one or more laosheng roles would be referred to as a laosheng play (laosheng xi 老生戲). Such distinctions were important for both actors and teachers of Jingju, and also for audience members. In collections of Jingju playscripts the plays might be divided up by the role-types of the leading parts.186 As can easily be imagined, there were plays that gave equal weight to two or more characters of different role-types. If a play featured two strong roles it might be called a “pair play” (dui’er xi 對 兒戲); if it starred two or three comic roles, with a male and a female role or two male and one female role, it might be called a “two littles play” (erxiao xi 二小戲) or a “three littles play” (sanxiao xi 三小戲), respectively;187 and if a play featured a large number of strong dramatic roles in a variety of different role-types, it might be called a “crowd play” (qunxi 群戲).188 Plays that made big demands on the lead actor or actors might be called “heavy head plays” (zhongtou xi 重頭戲)189 or “bone [old] plays” (guzi [lao]xi 骨子 [老] 戲).190 Jingju plays were also categorized according to the skills or performance modes emphasized in them, skills that we have seen are embedded in the roletype system. Within civil plays, those plays that stressed singing (changgong xi

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Macbeth]), Xu Chengbei, Jingju yu Zhongguo wenhua, p. 13, observes, “But this character’s role-type is hard to pin down—at the beginning he resembles a wusheng [the role-type Wu was originally trained to perform], later he resembles a laosheng, but later yet, then he is like a hualian” 但此人物的行當卻說不清—一開始像武生, 隨後像老生, 在後 則類似花臉. Collections of this sort will be introduced in chapter 4; there was an embryonic move in this direction in Xikao that died after the first installment; for details see chapter 3. “Two littles” are two role-types that begin with the word “little” (xiao): xiaodan 小旦 (alternate term for huadan) and xiao hualian 小花臉 (alternate term for chou). The third “little” is xiaosheng. Guo Jingrui, Chewang fu quben yu Jingju de xingcheng, p. 130, argues that after the Anhui troupes got settled in Beijing, these plays tended to fall out of the repertoire. At the very least, they progressively became less important in the Jingju repertoire. See Qin Huasheng and Liu Wenfeng, “Qingdai Jingju jumu de zhonglei” 清代京劇劇目 的種類 (Categories of Qing dynasty Jingju plays), Qingdai xiqu fazhan shi, pp. 732–33. Such a play might also be called a “show-off-the-costume-trunks play” (liangxiang xi 亮箱 戲). See Liu Jingliang and Tan Jingbo, Zhongguo xiqu guanzhong xue, p. 247. Particularly attractive plays picked for the opening day of a cycle of plays were “shoot-the-cannon plays” (dapao xi 打炮戲). See Peng Ge, Luoyue, p. 3, for an example of this usage. This term could also be used for important plays on a program. Ling Shanchu 凌善初 and Xu Chunhao 許純毫, Xixue huikao 戲學彙考 (Collected research in the field of theater; Shanghai: Dadong shuju, 1926), reproduced in Su wenxue congkan, volumes 1–5, classifies plays by which role-types predominate and whether the emphasis is on singing, acting, or both. Gu Qun et al., Zhongguo Jingju guanshang, p. 397.

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唱工戲) were thought of as a different category from those that stressed acting (zuogong xi 做工戲).191 The very important division between civil and martial plays (wenxi versus wuxi),192 while primarily concerned with contents and subjects, is also related to the fact that for the most part they demanded different skills from their actors.193 Within martial plays, the major division was between plays in which the fighting was among regular armies with warriors wearing full-length armor, known as “long-armor plays” (changkao xi 長靠戲; a.k.a., “armor-and-weapons plays” [kaoba xi 靠把戲]), and plays in which the fighting was primarily hand-to-hand and the fighters wore short garments (duanda xi 短打戲), the latter sometimes further divided according to the skills stressed. These included a set of plays in which the fighting involved a lot of somersaults and other acrobatics ( fanda xi 翻打戲), another that featured the fending off of weapons using one’s legs and feet (chushou xi 出手戲),194 and another involving strenuous acting rather than singing or dialogue, called “tiring-effort plays” (leigong xi 累工戲). Among martial plays, there was yet another set known for the costume worn, “archery-jacket plays” ( jianyi xi 箭衣戲).195 Plays were also categorized by their place or function in a program. Short, auspicious, ritual plays ( jixiang xi 吉祥戲; a.k.a., jiqing ju 吉慶劇) were used to start a performance program (kaichang 開場) off on the right foot.196 These 191 A third category stressed both (chang zuo bingzhong xi 唱做並重戲). Some identify a group of plays that stress dialogue (niangong xi 念工戲). While one could also divide up the changgong plays according to which musical system they feature (qupai, chuiqiang, Siping diao, gao bozi, xipi, erhuang, etc.), the tendency has been not to do so, perhaps because there are many plays that make use of more than one of these systems. 192 Mackerras, The Rise of Peking Opera, p. 6, considers the distinction between martial and civil plays in Jingju as important as that between tragedy and comedy in Western drama. 193 On the origins and history of military plays, see Xu Jianguo 徐建國, “Xiqu ‘wuxi’ qiyuan shulun” 戲曲 “武戲” 起源述論 (On the origins of “military plays” in Chinese indigenous theater), Xiqu yishu 2013.4: 87–92. 194 See Guo Jingrui, Chewang fu quben yu Jingju de xingcheng, p. 45. Chushou generally involves fighting in which the weapons leave the hands (chushou) and fly through the air. See Yu Handong 余漢東, Zhongguo xiqu biaoyan yishu cidian 中國戲曲表演藝術辭 典 (A dictionary of the performance arts of traditional Chinese opera; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 2006), pp. 736–73, for details on this kind of performance. 195 See Pan Xiafeng, Jingju yishu wenda, p. 206. A feature of these jackets are the narrow cuffs designed not to get in the way when shooting arrows. 196 Jin Jiyun, Xuexi baifa, published in 1935, p. 68, stresses that auspicious plays such as Tiao jiaguan are always performed in the countryside, implying that that is not the case in the cities. Li Yuezhong 李躍忠, Yanju, yishi yu xinyang: Zhongguo chuantong kaichang ji­xiang xi juben xuanjiao 演劇, 儀式與信仰: 中國傳統開場吉祥戲劇本選校 (Performing theater, ritual, and belief: A collated selection of playscripts for Chinese traditional program-opening auspicious plays; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 2017), includes such plays from a variety of juzhong, including Jingju.

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ritual plays, or minor plays performed by minor actors, when used to begin programs were called “open-gong plays” (kailuo xi 開鑼戲) or “cap plays” (mao’er xi 帽兒戲).197 Minor plays were also used to consume time early on in a program198 or “pad” (dian 墊) dead time if a major actor was not yet ready to perform in the next play, especially if they had a flexible structure that could be expanded or contracted at will. Used in this way, they were called “padding plays” (dianxi 墊戲) or “plays to pad out the program” (dianchang de xi 墊場的戲).199 A way of speaking that originally referred to the length of a play was later used to talk about the position of plays on a program, hence their importance. Zhou 軸 (scroll) was originally used as a measure for calligraphic or painting scrolls. At the end of the Qing dynasty, when plays were written out they could be written on long strips of paper that were rolled up into a scroll. A long play would require a bigger scroll (dazhou 大軸) than the short scroll (xiaozhou 小軸) needed for a short play.200 Plays that appeared early on in a regular program201 began to be called “early-scroll plays” (zao zhouzi 早軸子), plays in the middle of the program “middle-scroll” (zhongzhou 中軸), the final play 197 See Yu Jiangang 于建剛, Zhongguo Jingju xisu gailun 中國京劇習俗概論 (An overview of the customs of Chinese Jingju; Beijing: Wenhua yishu, 2015), p. 238. 198 In the playlists in Zhou Mingtai, ed., Wushi nian lai Beiping xiju shicai Qianbian, such plays are sometimes prefaced with the character xiao 小 (little, minor), to distinguish them from versions performed by more senior actors. See Zhou’s preface to this volume, pp. 4–5, and p. 111 (item 353) for an example. Liu Zhen 劉禎, “Xiaoxi Tianguan cifu yanjiu” 小戲天官賜福研究 (Research on the minor play, The Heavenly Official Bestows Good Fortune), Minjian xiju yu xiqu shixue lun 民間戲劇與戲曲史學論 (Essays on folk theater and the history of traditional Chinese theater; Taibei: Guojia chubanshe, 2005), pp. 241–62, describes this play as a “minor play” (xiaoxi). In Western theater, especially in the nineteenth century, there was something called the “curtain raiser.” See Pavis, Dictionary of the Theatre, p. 86. 199 See Wang Anqi, Wei Jingju biaoyan tixi fasheng, p. 276. See also Li Desheng 李德生, Jinxi 禁戲 (Prohibited plays; Tianjin: Baihua wenyi, 2009), p. 123, for Xiazi guangdeng 瞎子逛 燈 (Blind one takes in the lanterns; not in Xikao) as a play commonly used as a dianxi. For how Tan qinjia 探親家 (Visiting the in-laws; a.k.a. Tanqin Xiangma 探親相罵 [Visiting the in-laws, Mutual cursing; Xikao #107]), a play formerly used to open programs (mao’er xi) or fill in unexpected gaps (dianxi), was promoted through the efforts of one actor to a yazhou play (see below); see Li Desheng 李德生, Lihua yizhi chunye yu—Shuo bu jin de qizhuang xi 梨花一枝春葉雨—說不盡的旗裝戲 (One pear flower, spring rain on leaves—The inexhaustible topic of banner dress plays; Beijing: Renmin ribao, 2012), p. 75. 200 See Ye Tao, Zhongguo Jingju xisu, pp. 155–56. Not many surviving scripts are in scroll form. For an example of a single-role script in the form of a scroll, see Zhongguo xiqu zhi: Beijing juan, p. 937. The script was formerly used by Chen Delin 陳德霖 (1862–1930) and is signed by him. 201 What is said below does not directly apply to private performances, for which the climax or best play might, depending on circumstances, appear more toward the middle of the program.

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“big-scroll” (dazhou 大軸), and the penultimate play “pressing-down scroll” (yazhou 壓軸). At different times the final play was conceived to be the climax of the program, while at other times it was the penultimate play.202 Although at any one time there seems to have been a general sense of which plays were more appropriate as program openers and which were more suited for the final or penultimate positions in a program, that consensus could change over time203 and even in the same general time period the same play could be performed as a program opener by one troupe and penultimate play by another.204 Plays could also be performed differently depending on where they came up in a program (i.e., how much prominence they were given).205 There are other examples of play categories named according to the costumes worn besides changkao xi and jianyi xi. This way of talking about plays was also used to divide up plays according to (1) the kinds of people (ethnicity) that appear in a play, (2) the historical period the play is set in, or (3) the style of a production. In the first category, one can speak of “bannermendress plays” (qizhuang xi 旗裝戲, also known as “Qing-dynasty-clothing plays” [Qingzhuang xi 清裝戲]) and “Western-dress plays” (Yangzhuang xi 洋裝戲), the first referring not only to plays featuring Manchus in their native dress but

202 Qi Rushan, Tongzhi hou wushi nian Beiping, preface, pp. 3–4 (Qi Rushan quanji, 6: 2563– 64), describes the penultimate play as the play the best actors perform, while the last play is an installment of a serial play favored by commoners and looked down on by cognoscenti. Wu Xiaoru 吳小如 “Haoxi bu yi ding lie ‘dazhou’ ” 好戲不一定列 ‘大軸’ (Good plays are not necessarily placed as dazhou), Jinmen luantan lu 津門亂彈錄 (A record of Tianjin Jingju), Wu Xiaoru xiqu wenlu, pp. 721–22, describes dazhou plays as “plays to send off the audience” (songke xi 送客戲). Pan Xiafeng, Jingju yishu wenda, p. 207, objects to the idea of equating songke xi and dazhou xi. Dazhou xi were also known as “keepthe-audience-from-leaving plays” (yatai xi 壓臺戲). See Gu Qun et al., Zhongguo Jingju guanshang, p. 395. 203 See the article from issue 299 of Liyan huakan (1944), p. 4, by Yiming 佚名 (Anonymous), “Mei Lanfang yanchang Wu Zhaoguan lie dazhou” 梅蘭芳演唱武昭關列大軸 (On Mei Lanfang’s performing The Martial Zhaoguan [not in Xikao] being put in the final play spot), reproduced in Chen Zhiming and Wang Weixian, eds., Liyan huakan Jingju ziliao xuanbian, p. 521. 204 See Wu Jiang, “Jingju yanchu shichang,” p. 292, for a discussion of examples in Zhou Mingtai, ed., Wushi nian lai Beiping xiju shicai Qianbian. Minor plays (xiaoxi) could end up as final plays (dazhou) when performed by famous actors. See Wu Xiaoru, ‘Sheng’ ‘Shi’ guanguang, p. 86, on Xun Huisheng and Xiao Cuihua’s 小翠花 (a.k.a., 筱翠花) performance of Xiao fangniu 小放牛 (Little letting oxen out to pasture; Xikao #71). 205 Tian Hang 田航, Hong qushu shang 紅氍毹上 (On the red carpet; Taibei: Liming wenhua, 1980), p. 313, discusses how when Wupen ji 烏盆計 (The black pot plot) was acted as a dazhou play it would include the full story (i.e., both Xikao #4 and #207), and would include the sequence “heap of ghosts” (duigui 堆鬼) and the scene with the infernal judge dancing and spitting sparks (huopan 火判).

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also other northern ethnic groups even if they lived long before the Manchus,206 and the second referring both to plays in which Westerners appear and plays in which Chinese wear Western dress.207 If we put aside the anachronistic use of banner dress for pre-Qing northerners, both qizhuang xi and Yangzhuang xi can be used to refer to plays set in the Qing or the modern period, since that is when those kinds of dress became known in China. Turning to categories more directly connected to historical periods, the term “contemporaryclothing plays” (shizhuang xi) originally referred to plays featuring specifically Qing-dynasty costume (not just banner costume), but later came to refer primarily to plays featuring Westernized dress.208 Finally, “ancient-clothing plays” (guzhuang xi 古裝戲) refers mainly to a particular style of costume design made popular by Mei Lanfang and his brain trust, which they claimed was more representative of ancient Chinese clothing. The main purpose of these costume-based ways of talking about plays, of course, was to distinguish them from the vast majority of Jingju plays, in which the costumes were all based on Ming dynasty dress and did not change according to the historical setting of the play. The majority of reference works arrange material on Jingju plays according to their historical setting,209 but since cos206 On the relationship between qizhuang xi and Qingzhuang xi and how the currency of the former dates from after the establishment of the Guoju Xuehui and the appearance of a special issue on qizhuang xi, issue 36 (September 23, 1932) of Guoju huabao that featured an article by Qingyi jushi 清逸居士 (Puxu 浦緒; 1882–1933), “Qizhuang xi kao” 旗裝戲考 (An investigation of qizhuang plays), see Li Desheng’s preface to his Lihua yizhi chunye yu, pp. 1–3). Li notes that although the earliest qizhuang plays tended to star laosheng actors (p. 8), dan actors began to become well known for playing qizhuang roles and this helped contribute to the new changes in their status in the early twentieth century (p. 28), and that in the first half of that same century there were no less that one hundred qizhuang plays performed regularly in Shanghai (p. 288). Li Desheng also provides synopses of the plays Qingyi jushi mentioned in his article, on pp. 29–34. Weng Ouhong 翁偶虹, Beijing huajiu 北京話舊 (On old times in Beijing; Tianjin: Chunfeng wenyi, 1985; reprint: Tianjin: Baihua wenyi, 2012), p. 50, writes about organizing a performance in 1943 in which all of the items were qizhuang plays. 207 See Jin Dengcai 金登才, Qingdai huabu xi yanjiu 清代花部戲研究 (Research on huabu plays of the Qing dynasty; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 2006), p. 75. 208 The earliest shizhuang play we know of is commonly dated to 1845. On that play, Yangui tan 煙鬼嘆 (Lament of the opium addict; Xikao #169a), see Zhao Shanlin et al., Jindai Shanghai xiqu xinian chubian, p. 13. 209 One piece of evidence that the historical settings mattered is that when setting up performance programs, which could include as many as ten different plays, you were not supposed to perform plays in such a way that their historical settings would be out of chronological order, a problem for which there was a set term, fanchao 反朝 (going against the [order of the] dynasties). See Su Shaoqing 蘇少卿, “Shouchun hu zhai quhua” 壽春壺齋曲話 (Talks about plays from Shouchun Hu Studio), Shanghai youyi 上海游 藝 (Shanghai entertainment), issue 8 (1947), in Su Shaoqing xiqu chunqiu 蘇少卿戲曲

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tumes in plays set in different dynasties did not differ (with the exception of those set in the Qing dynasty that used Qing dynasty traditional dress or more modern dress), excepting reference works, Jingju plays are not divided by the dynasty in which they were set. The exception, Three Kingdoms plays, is a function of the enormous influence of a novel about the period (see below). Strictly speaking, the Three Kingdoms period lasted from the establishment of the three kingdoms in 220 to the fall of the last of them in 280, but the novel (and the popular conception of the period) includes the last several decades of the previous dynasty, the Later Han (25–220). Although the period thus conceived only covers about 100 hundred years, the importance of plays set in that period in the Jingju repertoire is quite remarkable, as Table 1.2 shows. That table uses the over 500 plays in Xikao to represent the core of the Jingju repertoire in the early Republican period and includes sources on chuanqi and Kunju zhezi xi for comparison: Table 1.2

Historical settings of Xikao plays compared with Chuanqi and Kunqu zhezi xi

Source/ Period:

Xikao

Ming chuanqia Qing chuanqi Kunju zhezi xi Kunju zhezi xi chutanb play chutan total zhezi xi titles

Ritual plays Pre-Shang Shang Zhou Qin [Zhou-Qin] Chu vs. Han Western Han Xin Eastern Han

000 (00.00%) 002 (00.38%) 004 (00.76%) 027 (05.15%) 003 (00.57%) 030 (05.73%) 002 (00.38%) 011 (02.10%) 004 (00.76%) 008 (01.53%)

000 (00.00%) 000 (00.00%) 000 (00.00%) 009 (09.28%) 000 (00.00%) 009 (09.28%) 001 (01.03%) 005 (05.15%) 000 (00.00%) 003 (03.09%)

000 (00.00%) 000 (00.00%) 000 (00.00%) 000 (00.00%) 000 (00.00%) 000 (00.00%) 000 (00.00%) 000 (00.00%) 000 (00.00%) 001 (01.67%)

000 (00.00%) 000 (00.00%) 000 (00.00%) 004 (04.21%) 000 (00.00%) 004 (04.21%) 000 (00.00%) 005 (05.26%) 000 (00.00%) 002 (02.11%)

000 (00.00%) 000 (00.00%) 000 (00.00%) 022 (06.65%) 000 (00.00%) 022 (06.65%) 000 (00.00%) 016 (04.83%) 000 (00.00%) 026 (07.85%)

春秋 (Su Shaoqing’s world of Chinese indigenous theater; Shanghai: Shanghai shudian, 2015), p. 103. In Hatano Kenichi 波多野乾一 (1890–1963), Shinageki gohyakuban 支那 劇五百番 (Five hundred Chinese plays; Beijing: Shina Mondaisha, 1922), he arranged the plays according to their historical setting. Li Liwei 李莉薇, “Boduoye Qianyi [Hatano Kenichi] yu Zhongguo Jingju zai Riben de chuanbo” 波多野乾一與中國京劇在日本的 傳播 (Hatano Kenichi and the transmission of Jingju in Japan), Riben yanjiu 日本研究 (Studies of Japan) 2012.4: 125, quotes Hatano Maya 波多野真矢 as saying that Shinageki gohyakuban was the first work to do this, while Li says that at the very least it was the first work in a foreign language to do so.

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Historical settings of Xikao plays compared with Chuanqi and Kunqu zhezi xi (cont.)

Ming chuanqia Qing chuanqi Kunju zhezi xi Kunju zhezi xi chutanb play chutan total zhezi xi titles

Source/ Period:

Xikao

[Xin, East Han] [West/East Han] Three Kingdoms Two Jin Sui Tang [Sui-Tang] Five Dynasties Song Jin [Song and Jin] Yuan Ming 1644 to 1839c 1840–1911 1912–1949 1949–present Foreign Dynasty not clear Totals Anonymous

012 (02.29%) 003 (03.09%) 001 (01.67%) 000 (00.00%) 000 (00.00%) 025 (04.77%) 009 (09.28%) 001 (01.67%) 007 (07.37%) 045 (13.60%) 081 (15.46%) 002 (02.06%) 000 (00.00%) 004 (04.21%) 014 (04.23%) 009 (01.72%) 009 (01.72%) 069 (13.12%) 078 (14.89%) 011 (02.10%) 092 (17.56%) 000 (00.00%) 092 (17.56%) 021 (04.01%) 066 (12.60%) 031 (05.92%) 006 (01.15%) 001 (00.19%) 000 (00.00%) 000 (00.00%) 067 (12.79%)

004 (04.12%) 001 (01.03%) 023 (23.71%) 024 (24.75%) 000 (00.00%) 026 (26.80%) 000 (00.00%) 026 (26.80%) 002 (02.06%) 004 (04.12%) 000 (00.00%) 000 (00.00%) 000 (00.00%) 000 (00.00%) 000 (00.00%) 018 (18.56%)

001 (01.67%) 000 (00.00%) 004 (06.67%) 004 (06.67%) 000 (00.00%) 011 (18.33%) 000 (00.00%) 011 (18.33%) 001 (01.67%) 014 (23.33%) 000 (00.00%) 000 (00.00%) 000 (00.00%) 000 (00.00%) 000 (00.00%) 028 (46.67%)

003 (03.16%) 000 (00.00%) 017 (17.89%) 017 (17.89%) 001 (01.05%) 026 (27.37%) 001 (01.05%) 027 (28.42%) 002 (02.11%) 009 (09.47%) 000 (00.00%) 000 (00.00%) 000 (00.00%) 000 (00.00%) 000 (00.00%) 021 (22.11%)

006 (01.81%) 000 (00.00%) 051 (15.41%) 051 (15.41%) 004 (01.21%) 089 (26.89%) 009 (02.72%) 098 (29.61%) 002 (00.60%) 036 (10.88%) 000 (00.00%) 000 (00.00%) 000 (00.00%) 000 (00.00%) 000 (00.00%) 056 (16.92%)

524 (99.97%) 097(101.01%) 060(100.01%) 095(100.00%) 331(100.00%) N/A 012 (12.37%) 003 (05.00%) 024 (25.26%) 063 (19.03%)

a For the sake of convenience, the corpus of Ming and Qing chuanqi plays used for this chart comes from Xu Peijun 徐培均 and Fan Minsheng 范民生, eds., Zhongguo gudian mingju jianshang cidian 中國古典 名劇鑒賞辭典 (Dictionary for the appreciation of classical Chinese drama; Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 1990), which provides summaries and other material on a total of over 300 plays. b Chen Weiyu 陳為瑀, Kunju zhezi xi chutan 崑劇折子戲初探 (A preliminary examination of Kunqu zhezi xi; Zhengzhou: Zhongzhou guji, 1991). c When the source only has a “Qing dynasty” section and does not distinguish between 1644–1839 and 1840–1911, since the distinction between these two periods is so important, I have gone ahead and divided the Qing dynasty plays into these two categories. The same is true for periods after the Qing.

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Although not generally spoken of according to the dynasty they are set in, Jingju plays were divided according to whether the events were current or not, or whether the play treated contemporary content or not. It is common to think of Zhang Wenxiang ci Ma 張文祥刺馬 (Zhang Wenxiang assassinates Ma [Xinyi]; 1870) as the first “current events [new] play” (shishi [xin]xi 時事 [新] 戲).210 These plays treated current political or social events.211 After the decline of wenming xi, it was not until the establishment of the PRC that a lot of effort was put into producing plays about contemporary society and problems. Those plays were called “modern [content] plays” (xiandai xi 現代戲).212 Another important distinction was whether a play was a newly-compiled one (xinbian xi 新編戲) or not. Although every play was once newly compiled, nowadays this usage is almost entirely restricted to plays compiled after 1949 that have premodern historical settings.213 For the first part of the twentieth century, practically the entire repertoire of Jingju was categorized as “old plays” ( jiuju 舊劇) and contrasted with more “progressive” and Westernized “new plays” (xinju 新劇). Terminology dividing 210 Ma Xinyi 馬新貽 was the governor general for the two provinces of Jiangsu and Jiangxi. The assassination took place in 1870 and the play was mounted and suppressed within a year. See Zhao Shanlin et al., Jindai Shanghai xiqu xinian chubian, pp. 56–57. Chen Fang 陳芳, Qingdai xiqu yanjiu wuti 清代戲曲研究五題 (Five topics of research into Qing dynasty theater; Taibei: Liren shuju, 2002), pp. 183–86, treats shishi xinxi as a synonym for shizhuang xi. 211 A list of current-event plays produced in 1904–1912 in Tian Gensheng, Jindai xiju de chuancheng, pp. 176–82, stresses the political and lacks plays treating sensational murders produced earlier such as Shazi bao 殺子報 (Retribution for killing [her] son; Xikao #469) and Shuangling ji 雙鈴記 (The story of the double bells; Xikao #316). Concerning the former, Zucker, The Chinese Theater, p. 158, says that the actual incident the play is based on happened “about forty years ago” (he is writing in the early 1920s) and recounts how the aunt of the murdered son supposedly later “visited a theater where this very play was being staged and received a shock….” The first play in Tian’s list (p. 177) is Wang Xiaonong’s Dangren bei 黨人碑 (The stele recording the names of the proscribed faction; Xikao #453), which although set in the Song dynasty has been interpreted as attacking Empress Dowager Cixi’s suppression of the reformers of 1898. See Zhao Shanlin et al., Jindai Shanghai xiqu xinian chubian, pp. 150 (on the suppression of the reformers in 1898 and the meaning of the play) and 160 (on the premiere in 1901). 212 The term is also sometimes extended back to refer to shizhuang xi. See Liu Songkun, Liyuan yiwen, p. 5, on Yangui tan (Xikao #169a). But in Huang Jun and Xu Xibo, eds., Jingju wenhua cidian, all of the plays listed as xiandai xi date from after the PRC was established. 213 The terms used are xinbian lishi ju 新編歷史劇 (newly compiled historical plays) and xinbian guzhuang xi/ju 新編古裝戲/劇 (newly compiled ancient-clothing plays). These terms can be taken as largely synonymous and the second one(s) should not be thought to include either traditional plays performed in traditional Jingju costume or the guzhuang plays Mei Lanfang created.

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up Jingju plays, besides stressing newness of composition, could also stress newness of stagecraft. For instance, a style of play that relied heavily on lanterns (deng 燈) and colored scenery (cai 彩 [short for caiqie 彩切]),214 dengcai xi 燈彩戲, was developed toward the end of the Qing in the palace, then for Kunqu performance, and then taken up in Jingju.215 But as urban China modernized, these plays became old hat and were superseded by plays that used electric lighting and, more importantly, “machine-operated scenery.”216 Both types of play (dengcai xi and jiguan bujing xi 機關布景戲) were disparaged by purists, but presumably the same kind of attraction can be seen in the “big [money] productions” (da zhizuo 大製作) produced by contemporary Jingju troupes in China to compete for national prizes. Jingju plays were also divided up according to their content (we have seen one such attempt above). One main content-centered approach was to divide plays up according to the ultimate source of the stuff material used in the play,

214 See the description of a production of Da Xiangshan 大香山 (Great Incense Mountain; Xikao #483) as a dengcai xi that has lots of colored scenery (caiqie) but no lighted lanterns (denghuo 燈火) in Chen Boxi, “Shanghai dengcai xi yuanliu kao,” Shanghai yishi daguan, p. 494. On dengcai in general, see Jin Yaozhang 金耀章 and Luan Guanhua 欒冠樺, “Dengcai” 燈彩, in Zhongguo da baike quanshu, Xiqu quyi, p. 59. On the history of the kind of lanterns used on stage in Shanghai and how to make them, see Kong Xiaomin 孔曉敏 and Wang Juan 王娟, eds., Shanghai dengcai: Jiaoke shu 上海燈彩: 教科書 (Shanghai lanterns: A textbook; Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 2013). 215 Yan Quanyi, Qingdai Jingju wenxue shi, p. 398, talks of dengcai xi spreading from the palace to commercial theaters and of commercial Kunqu dengcai xi spreading to Jingju in the 1870–80s (p. 409). Lin Xinghui 林幸慧 “Shenbao xiqu guanggao de yiyi” 申報戲曲廣 告的意義 (The connotations of the theatrical advertisements in Shenbao), Minsu quyi 140 (2003): 164, cites a December 23, 1874 Shenbao notice for the performance of a production by a Kunqu troupe of Changsheng dian 長生殿 (Palace of everlasting life) that drops listing the actors’ names in favor of touting the lanterns and scenery used in the production. See also Chen Fang, Qingdai xiqu yanjiu wuti, p. 179. What seems to be the earliest extant notice of a play featuring lanterns (dengxi 燈戲) in what is left of the palace archives dates from 1884 and contains the order that, for the play involved, since it will be for Empress Dowager’s fiftieth birthday, “the men manipulating the lanterns have to be many” 舞燈人要多. See Zhou Mingtai 周明泰, Qing Shengpingshu cundang shili man­ chao 清昇平暑存檔事例漫抄 (Wide copyings concerning precedents from the remaining files of the Shengpingshu of the Qing dynasty; Taibei: Wenhai chubanshe, 1971), p. 108. For a description of a dengcai xi performance in the palace of the Chang’e story for the Mid-Autumn Festival, see Katherine A. Carl, With the Empress Dowager of China (London: Everleigh Nash, 1906), pp. 157–58. 216 On this transition, see the February 17, 1929 Liyuan gongbao piece, Sushi 漱石 (Sun Yusheng), “Xiali xinnian xishi zhi dengxi” 夏曆新年昔時之燈戲 (The lantern plays of the Lunar New Years of the past), in Cai Shicheng, ed., Shenbao Jingju ziliao xuanbian, pp. 639–40.

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while another was to concentrate on the theme or type or focus of the story told in the play. In terms of dividing up plays by source, it is interesting that only fictional sources seem to have been taken into account when plays are categorized by this method (which does not pretend to be able to divide up all of the plays into separate categories). The proximate sources for Jingju plays were often other plays,217 but it is probably true that the ultimate sources tended to be fiction, particularly novels. As we have seen, Three Kingdoms plays make up a large portion of the Jingju repertoire; they are referred to as “Three Kingdoms Plays” (Sanguo xi 三國戲). In a 1927 Japanese work that gave the synopses of 600 plays together with information on the origins of 407 of them, the largest group, ninety plays (22%), were said to be based on the novel about the period, Sanguo yanyi.218 As noted above, like that novel, these plays do not start with the official beginning of the Three Kingdoms period in 220 but instead spend a lot of time on events leading up to the kingdoms’ establishment. There are other novels that are the sources of a substantial number of plays, but it is really only those (ultimately) based on the Shuihu zhuan 水滸傳 (Story of the water margin), Yangjia jiang yanyi 楊家將演義 (Popularized story of the Yang family of generals), and Honglou meng 紅樓夢 (Dream of the Red Chamber) that are also, as with the Three Kingdoms plays, collectively referred to by the name of the novel (as Shuihu xi

217 See, for instance, Zhou Yibai 周貽白, “Zhongguo xiju benshi qucai zhi yanxi” 中國戲劇 本事取材之沿襲 (Continuity in the selection of stuff material in Chinese theater), Zhou Yibai xiju lunwen xuan 周貽白戲劇論文選 (Selected writings on theater by Zhou Yibai; Changsha: Hunan renmin, 1982), pp. 245–63, which only tracks dramatic versions of the 307 stories listed. The column for information on pihuang versions is blank only forty-six times, and the “notes” (beikao 備考) for the stuff material lists Xikao versions 113 times. Of course, dramatic sources are favored by the very nature of the list. 218 See the summary figures on the plays treated in Hatano Kenichi 波多野乾一, Shinageki taikan 支那劇大觀 (An overview of Chinese theater; Tokyo: Daitō Shuppansha, 1944) in Hsü, The Chinese Conception of the Theatre, pp. 70–71. Hatano’s book was originally published as Shinageki gohyakuban. On Hatano, see Yao Shuyi, Wan Qing xiqu de biange, pp. 431–37. Three Kingdoms plays also lead the list with 134 (or 26%) of 515 plays identified in Mei-shu Hwang, “Peking Opera,” pp. 29–31, as listed in the first edition of Tao Junqi’s Jingju jumu chutan. We noted above that there is a separate category of Sanguo xi in the Chuntai ban ximu. Not all of the plays that reference works put in their “Three Kingdoms” section are based on the novel, but a high percentage are. At the end of his “Three Kingdoms” section, Tao Junqi, Jingju jumu chutan, p. 114, says that nine out of ten of Three Kingdoms plays are based on the novel. Guo Yonghong 郭永紅, “Jingju yu Sanguo yanyi” 京劇與三國演義 ( Jingju and Sanguo yanyi), in Jiang Zhi 姜智, ed., Xiqu yishu ershi nian jinian wenji—Xiqu lilun juan, p. 324, asserts that of the novel’s 120 chapters only a little over ten have not been made into plays.

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水滸戲, Yangjia [ jiang] xi 楊家 [將] 戲, and Honglou xi 紅樓戲, respectively).219 In these latter cases, however, the plays do not “benefit” from the fact that the short name of the novel is also the name of an historical period. With plays from a common source, it is also common to separate out plays that feature one particular character or hero and think of them as a group. In the case of Three Kingdoms plays this is done with both Cao Cao 曹操 (155– 220) and Guan Yu but not with Zhuge Liang 諸葛亮 (181–234), even though the latter has a stronger overall presence in the plays than either of the former.220 This is probably because both Cao Cao and Guan Yu are paradigmatic characters within Jingju in that they are considered the most representative character for the role-types they belong to, great white face (da bailian 大白臉) for Cao Cao and red sheng (hongsheng 紅生) for Guan Yu. Similarly, among Shuihu plays, those concerning Wu Song 武松 stand apart and are referred to as Wu Song plays,221 while among Xiyou 西游 (Journey to the West) plays it 219 Zhu Yixuan 朱一玄 and Liu Yuchen 劉毓沉, eds., Shuihu zhuan ziliao huibian 水滸傳 資料彙編 (Tianjin: Baihui wenyi, 1981), pp. 645–65, lists all the Jingju Shuihu plays from Tao Junqi, Jingju jumu chutan. On Yangjia plays, see Zhou Huabin 周華斌, “Yangjia jiang gushi de lishi yanbian” 楊家將故事的歷史衍變 (On the historical development of plays about the Yang family of generals), Zhongguo xiju shi lunkao 中國戲劇史論考 (Essays and research on the history of Chinese theater; Beijing: Beijing guanbo xueyuan, 2003), pp. 500–25. While there is a somewhat similar set of plays about the Xue family of generals (primarily Xue Rengui 薛仁貴 and his son Xue Dingshan 薛丁山) derived from novels about the family, they are not spoken of as a group. On Honglou plays, see Wu Xiaoru, “Genju Honglou meng gushi bianxie de Jingju” 根據紅樓夢故事編寫的京劇 ( Jingju plays based on the Honglou meng), Wu Xiaoru xiqu wenlu, pp. 179–86. 220 That was the conclusion of an unpublished paper I presented at the Sanguo wenhua guoji xueshu yantao hui 三國文化國際學術研討會 (International academic conference on the culture of the Three Kingdoms), Chengdu, May 29, 2001, “Jingju wutai shang banyan de Sanguo yanyi renwu zhong, shui shu diyi?” 京劇舞臺上扮演的三國演義人物中, 誰 屬第一? (Among the characters from the Sanguo yanyi presented on the Jingju stage, which is number one?). On Cao Cao and Guan Yu, see Huang Shang, Jiuxi xintan, “Da bailian” 大白臉 (Great white-faced [roles]), pp. 183–85; Chang Lisheng 常立勝, “Guanyu Cao Cao xi” 關於曹操戲 (Concerning Cao Cao plays), Jing zhi yun: Jingju hualian 凈之 韻: 京劇花臉 (The flavor of the jing role: Painted face roles in Jingju; Beijing: Xueyuan chubanshe, 2007), pp. 148–64; Yao Shuyi, “Wan Qing Guan gong xi yanchu yu lingren de Guan Yu chongbai” 晚清關公戲演出與伶人的關羽崇拜 (The performance of Lord Guan plays in the late Qing and the worship of Guan Yu by actors), Wan Qing xiqu de biange, pp. 241–84; and Wang Zhengyao, “Guan Yu chongbai yu ‘Guanxi’ de fazhan” 關羽 崇拜與 ‘關戲’ 的發展 (The worship of Guan Yu and the development of Guan Yu plays), Qingdai xiju wenhua shilun, pp. 106–140. Out of respect, Guan Yu plays were also known as “Laoye xi” 老爺戲 (His Lordship plays). A recent publication on Guan Yu plays is Liu Changjiang 劉長江, Guan gong xi 關公戲 (Guan Yu plays; Shanghai: Shanghai wenhua, 2018). 221 Among the characters in the novel, Wu Song 武松 is given center stage for the longest number of chapters, ten. Within Jingju circles, it was Gai Jiaotian who did the most to give

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is the Handsome Monkey King (Meihou wang 美猴王; a.k.a., Sun Wukong 孫 悟空) who stands out. Plays that feature him are called Houxi 猴戲 (Monkey [King] plays).222 Certain groups of plays are sometimes thought of as belonging to a certain genre and other times as a group of plays that center around one major character. This is especially true of the genres of “court case plays” (gong’an xi 公案戲) and “incorrupt official plays” (qingguan xi 清官戲).223 In a substantial number of these plays, the judge who oversees the solving of the criminal cases is Bao Zheng 包拯 (d. 1062), generally referred to as Baogong 包公 (Lord Bao or Judge Bao). Although the stuff material of these plays tends ultimately to derive from collections of fictional court cases (e.g., Longtu gong’an/Bao gong’an 龍 圖公案/包公案 [Lord/Judge Bao’s court cases]) that feature Bao, or the novel Sanxia wuyi 三俠五義 (The three heroes and five gallants), that also features Bao but strings a number of court cases, many of which Bao does not figure prominently in, together into a single narrative; in the plays made from this material it is often Judge Bao who is the central figure and focal point. Plays featuring him are known either as “Judge Bao plays” (Bao gong xi 包公戲) or “Black head plays” (heitou xi 黑頭戲) because his face pattern (lianpu 臉譜) is predominantly black (at a distance, anyway). The Jingju performance tradition that character prominence on the Jingju stage. See his Fenmo chunqiu, pp. 209–308 and Qian Naijiang 錢乃江, “Wu Song xi tanhui” 武松戲談薈 (On Wu Song plays), Ximi zhuan 3.1 (1940): 7. 222 Also Hou’er/Houzi xi 猴兒/子戲. Monkey plays were important in both the Beijing and Shanghai styles of Jingju. See, for instance, Pan Xiafeng, “ ‘Jing,’ ‘Hai’ liangpai de ‘Houxi’ you shenma bu tong” ‘京,’ ‘海’ 兩派的 ‘猴戲’ 有甚麼不同 (What’s the difference between Beijing- and Shanghai-style Monkey plays?), Jingju yishu wenda, pp. 223–26. Zheng Faxiang 鄭法祥 (1892–1965), an important actor who specialized in playing Sun Wukong, published Tan Wukong xi biaoyan yishu 談悟空戲表演藝術 (On the performance art of Su Wukong plays; Shanghai: Shanghai wenyi, 1963). In the Reform Period in the PRC, there was a troupe dedicated to performing Monkey plays that proclaimed that fact in its title. See He Baotang 和寶堂, “ ‘Houtuan’ na’er qu le?” ‘猴團’ 哪兒去了? (What happened to the Monkey Troupe?), Wei Jingju haomai: He Baotang xiqu zawen ji 為京劇號脈: 和寶堂 戲曲雜文集 (Taking the pulse of Jingju: Collected short essays on traditional Chinese theater by He Baotang; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 2005), pp. 95–96. While many Jingju plays use stuff material from the novel Shuo Yue quanzhuan 說岳全傳 (The complete story of Yue Fei), and Yue Fei is an important character, no actor became famous for performing him and these plays are not commonly thought of as a group. 223 There is considerable overlap between these two. On the formation of the genre of courtcase plays, see George A. Hayden, “The Courtroom Plays of the Yuan and Early Ming Periods,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 34 (1974): 192–220. On qingguan plays, see Guo Hancheng 郭漢城, “Lun qingquan yu qingguan xi” 論清官與清官戲 (On incorrupt officials and incorrupt official plays), Xiqu jumu lunji 戲曲劇目論集 (Collected essays on the repertoire of traditional Chinese theater; Shanghai: Shanghai wenyi, 1981), pp. 224–39.

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for this character is fundamental to the role type of tongchui hualian 銅錘花 臉 (bronze mallet painted face roles; a jing subcategory that stresses singing).224 Another famous judge, Hai Rui 海瑞 (1514–1587), is represented in the traditional Jingju repertoire by plays based on two novels about him;225 more recently, because of a campaign in the PRC to write about him that spurred Wu Han 吳晗 (1909–1969) to write Hai Rui baguan 海瑞罷官 (Hai Rui dismissed from office; not in Xikao), and the role that criticism of that play had in the beginnings of the Cultural Revolution, Hai Rui became well known. However, the body of plays featuring him is made up of two rather disparate groups (the traditional plays and those such as Hai Rui baguan of the 1950s and 1960s) and they are not referred to by a common label such as “Hai Rui plays.” In the case of a different set of plays united by a common judge, it is the judge’s lieutenant, rather than the judge who is the central figure. These plays deal with the stuff material of the novel Shi gong’an 施公案 (The court cases of Lord/Judge Shi [Shilun] 施 [世綸]). Although originally more commonly spoken of as the “eight great grabs” (ba da na 八大拿)226 because they are concerned with the capture (or grabbing, na) of some powerful “gang” leader, the tendency since the establishment of the PRC is to talk of them as Huang Tianba 黃天霸 plays, after the name of the most controversial of Judge Shi’s lieutenants (played as a wusheng role).227 Table 1.3 surveys the use of different categories of plays in seven sources on the Jingju repertoire: 224 See Wang Zhengyao, “Manzu yu Qingdai Bao gong xi” 滿族與清代包公戲 (Manchus and Qing dynasty Judge Bao plays), Qingdai xiju wenhua shilun, pp. 141–57. 225 See Wang Zhengyao 王政堯, “Kaobian Qingdai Hai Rui xi ji qi fazhan” 考辨清代海瑞 戲及其發展 (On Hai Rui plays in the Qing dynasty and their development), Qingdai xiju wenhua kaobian 清代戲劇文化考辨 (Investigations into Qing dynasty theatrical culture; Beijing: Yanshan chubanshe, 2014), pp. 252–74. 226 Actually, far more than eight plays belong to this group. See Yan Quanyi, Qingdai Jingju wenxue shi, pp. 238 and 367, for different estimates of how many plays can be included (“several tens” [ ji shi ge 幾十個] and “more than thirty” [sanshi duo chu 三十多齣], respectively). Guo Jingrui, Chewang fu quben yu Jingju xingcheng, p. 136, notes that it is now hard to know which plays were of the original eight (if ba was not just a round number or picked because it rhymed with the other two characters). The index to Zeng Bairong, ed., Jingju jumu cidian, p. 1465, lists thirty-two plays that begin with the character na as a verb (grab, snatch, capture, etc.). Seventeen of these use Shi gong’an stuff material. See also, Wang Zhengyao, “Shi Shilun, ‘Shi gong xi,’ Shi gong’an” 施世綸, ‘施公戲,’ 施公 案 (Shi Shilun, Judge Shi plays, and The Court Cases of Judge Shi), Qingdai xiju wenhua shilun, pp. 158–69. 227 See Guo Hancheng, “Huang Tianba xi chansheng de shidai yuanyin ji qi sixiang qing­ xiang” 黃天霸戲產生的時代原因及其思想傾向 (The historical reasons for the birth of Huang Tianba plays and their ideological drift), Xiqu jumu lunji, pp. 240–58.

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Table 1.3

Categories of plays used in sample works with selective lists of Jingju playsa

Titleb

Chuantong jumu/ xic

Lengthbased categories

Zhongguo Jingju guanshang

Lishi jud Gu-zhuang Xinbian Xiandai ju/ Total xinxie lishi ju(xi)f/ xih % xinbian guzhuang ju/xig 007 05.30%

Wenxi 070 53.03%

Total # of Plays

100.00 0132

Wuxi 055 41.67% Jingju jumu gailan

Jingju xiao cidian

99.99

Quanben xii 049 26.63%

0291 76.18%

Zhezi xij 135 73.36% Liantai benxik

0184

063 16.49%

023 06.02%

100.00 0382

035 06.51% 096 13.93%

021l 03.90% 057 08.27%

100.00 0538

123 17.42%

045n 06.37%

005 01.31% Jingju zhishi shouce Jingju wenhua cidian

0482 89.59% 0525 76.20%

Zhongguo 0527m Jingju 74.65% yishu baike quanshu

Liantai benxi

100.29 0689

013 01.89% 011 01.56%

100.00 0706

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Categories of plays used in sample works with selective lists of Jingju plays (cont.)

Titleb

Chuantong jumu/ xic

Jingju zhishi 1231 cidian 87.30% (zengding ban)

Lengthbased categories

Lishi jud Gu-zhuang Xinbian Xiandai ju/ Total xinxie lishi ju(xi)f/ xih % xinbian guzhuang ju/xig 104 07.38%

057 04.04%

Total # of Plays

100.00 1410

a Columns 2–7 provide the number of plays assigned to a category and the percentage of the total plays they constitute. b The works used in this table constitute seven of the works used above to provide figures for selective repertoires of Jingju as given in reference works. Three of the works listed there do not further break down the plays they include into categories and thus do not figure in this table. c Chuantong jumu/xi 傳統劇目/戲 (traditional plays). d Lishi ju 歷史劇 (historical plays), divided into civil (wen) and military (wu). e Guzhuang xinxi 古裝新戲 (new ancient-clothing plays [refers to certain Mei Lanfang plays]). f Xinbian lishi ju 新編歷史劇 (newly compiled historical plays) is a category that became important after 1949. g Xinbian guzhuang xi/ju 新編古裝戲/劇 (newly compiled ancient-clothing plays [not the same as guzhuang xinxi]). h Xiandai ju/xi 現代劇/戲 (modern plays). i Quanben xi 全本戲 (complete [full-length] plays). j Zhezi xi 折子戲 (extracted scenes). k Liantai benxi 連臺本戲 (serial plays). l Combines shizhuang xi 時裝戲 (contemporary dress plays) with xiandai xi. m This category is further broken down into 13 dynastic periods and one for plays whose dynastic setting is not clear (chaodai bu ming 朝代不明). That last category has 27 plays (05.12%). n Actually has two separate categories, shizhuang xinxi 時裝新戲 (contemporary dress new plays), 3 plays (00.42% of total) and Xiandai xi, 42 plays (05.95%).

From this table we can see that a variety of approaches to dividing up the Jingju repertoire are used in these works, but the most important ones are length/ structure (full-length vs. extracted scenes vs. serial), whether a play deals with imperial or modern China (the predominance of the former is extremely clear), and when the plays were compiled (two periods are emphasized, the period of Mei Lanfang and other actors’ experimentation with ancient costume in the early 20th century, and 1949–present). Unfortunately, there are no comparable reference works compiled either in Taiwan or outside of Greater China available to compare.

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In the Introduction, we saw that the formation of Jingju into a separate genre of dramatic performance was a matter of slow evolutionary processes and fairly blurry boundaries. This process took place about the time that a mass market for print was developing and the names and examples of Western genres were entering China. Attempts were made to make traditional Chinese theater sleep on the Procrustean beds of Western genres such as “tragedy” and “comedy,”228 with a lot of effort put into finding examples of the former, since it was felt that tragedy was an esteemed and highly developed genre that it would be embarrassing not to have in one’s own national literary tradition. Adding to the anxiety was the idea that it was precisely the genre of tragedy that was most effective in bringing about social reformation.229 The realization that most Chinese plays would probably only fit into the less esteemed genre of melodrama230 was surely unappealing, as could also be said of the idea to then go ahead and break the plays into melodramatic subgenres. While intellectuals struggled over such issues as how to give Chinese theater the kind of gravitas and seriousness of purpose they tended to associate with Western theater,231 Jingju performers have tended to be more honest about the fact that their main objective is to entertain rather than provoke the audience, to 228 For some remarks on the somewhat torturous path toward a consciousness of fiction and drama as genres in China, see my “Oral Performing Literature in Traditional Chinese Fiction: Nonrealistic Usages in the Jin Ping Mei cihua and their Influence,” CHINOPERL Papers 17 (1994): 2–7. For a recent attempt to speak about the “tragic” (as opposed to tragedy) in Chinese theater, see Alexander Huang, “The Tragic and the Chinese Subject,” Stanford Journal of East Asia Affairs 3.1 (Summer 2003): 55–68. 229 See Zhao Dechang 趙得昌, “Qingmo Minchu de beiju lilun yu beiju jieju” 清末民初的悲 劇理論與悲劇結 (Tragic theory of the late Qing and early Republican period and tragic endings), Shoudu shifan daxue xuebao 首都師範大學學報 (Journal of Capital Normal University) 2005.3: 77–83, particularly p. 83. Writing in 1905, Jiang Guanyun claimed, in “Zhongguo zhi yanju jie,” Fu Jin, ed., Jingju lishi wenxian huibian: Qingdai juan, 7: 699, that Napoleon loved to watch tragedies most of all and (p. 701) that “the masterpieces of the theater world are all tragedies” 劇界佳作, 皆悲劇也. 230 For instance, Hsü, The Chinese Conception of the Theatre, p. 73, says: “Few of the Chinese plays can be said to approach the European idea of tragedy, but many would, by Western standards, be classified as melodramas.” 231 Xu Chengbei, Jingju yu Zhongguo wenhua, p. 276, for instance, contrasts a supposed Chinese “pleasure culture” (legan wenhua 樂感文化) with a Western “guilt culture” (zuigan wenhua 罪感文化). For the debate over whether there is tragedy in Chinese theater, see Mei-shu Hwang, “Is there Tragedy in Chinese Drama? An Experimental Look at an Old Problem,” Tamkang Review 10 (1979): 211–26. Yan Quanyi, Qingdai Jingju wenxue shi, p. 11, says straightforwardly, “Jingju has almost no concept of ‘tragedy,’ strictly defined …” 京劇幾乎沒有嚴格上的 ‘悲劇’ 概念…. Jin Dengcai, Qingdai huabu xi yanjiu, p. 67, says that there is only one huabu tragedy playscript that has been preserved (Yuni he 淤泥河 [Yuni River], a.k.a., Luo Cheng jiaoguan 羅成叫關 [Luo Cheng calls out before the city gate; Xikao play #116]).

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help them sleep rather than to keep them up mulling over what they saw on the stage.232 Western generic terms never gained much traction in native discourse in general on Jingju genres, since few of them resonate with traditional categories.233 An exception might be farce (naoju 鬧劇), but that genre was not seen as a subgenre of comedy but viewed primarily in opposition to “serious plays” (zhengju 正劇).234 While some of the traditional genres address both form and content and imply or require a close interaction between them,235 the emphasis has tended to be on the latter. That is to say, these genres focus on the topics (ticai 題材) 232 Mei Lanfang observed, “When we pay money to hear a play, the motive is to go and find pleasure. It is not important how perilous it may get [for those we sympathize with] in the progress of the play. But at the end of the play, we always desire to see a happy ending, to take that bellyful of anxiety and indignation and let it all out, so that when we go home to bed we can sleep calmly and sweetly. Otherwise, the play might be very stimulating but if we carry home that bellyful of suppressed indignation we will be unable to sleep. To spend money to buy sleeplessness, what would be the purpose of that?” 我們花錢聽戲, 目的是找樂子來得的. 不管這齣戲在進行過程中, 是怎樣的險惡, 都不要緊. 到 了劇終總想看到一個大團圓的結局, 把剛才滿腹的憤慨不平, 都可以泄出來, 回 家睡覺, 也能安甜. 要不然, 戲是看得過癮了, 這一肚子的悶氣帶回家去, 是睡不 著覺的. 化錢買一個不睡覺, 這又圖甚麼呢? See Mei Lanfang, Wutai shenghuo sishi nian, 2: 48. 233 For an attempt to apply Georges Polti’s scheme in The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations, Lucile Ray, tr. (Ridgewood, N.J.: Editor Co., 1916) to the Jingju repertoire, see Zhou Yibai, “Sanshi liu zhong juqing de jiantao” 三十六種劇情的檢討 (An examination of the thirty-six dramatic situations), Zhou Yibai xiju lunwen xuan, pp. 264–75, especially the list with a Jingju example for each dramatic situations (pp. 273–75). 234 See, for instance, Xu Chengbei, Jingju yu Zhongguo wenhua, p. 667. Naoju is commonly used as a synonym for wanxiao ju 玩笑劇 and because these plays commonly feature xiao hualian and xiaodan, or these two role types plus a xiaosheng, they are also referred to as erxiao xi or sanxiao xi (as noted above). In Jingju, naoju can be divided into two main types. In both, the emphasis is on broad comedy and stretching expectations of what is normal, but in one, it is the plot that is farcical, while in the other what is farcical is that the plays have no plot and are just vehicles for the actors to show off their singing by pretending to perform bits from other plays, especially bits for other role-types than their own in the style of famous actors. An example of the former might be Da miangang 打麵 缸 (Breaking the flour vat; Xikao #160), with its Marx Brothers-like piling up of improbable coincidences and use of physical comedy and repetition; and of the latter Shiba che 十八扯 (Eighteen bits; Xikao #139), in which a brother and sister take turns performing roles from other plays to amuse themselves and pass the time. Zhang Guowei, Ximi yehua, p. 164, speaks of this last kind of play as a “show-off-ability play” (nengpai xi 能派戲), while Su Zongren 蘇宗仁 uses “cross-role-type plays” ( fanchuan xi 反串戲) for them; see “Guanzhong aikan ‘yule xi’ ” 觀眾愛看 ‘娛樂戲’ (Audiences like to watch “entertainment plays”), Zhongguo Jingju 1993.3: 55. 235 For a model discussion of the strong mutual interaction and interdependence between form and content in a literary genre, see the essays on the picaresque novel in Eduardo Guillén, Literature as System (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971).

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treated rather than how they are treated, nor is there any implied or explicit relationship between the two. Whereas chuanqi drama was thought to be predominantly about love,236 Jingju playwrights have tended less single-mindedly to focus on love, relegating it to one of two topics prominent in the repertoire; this is seen in the following saying that sums up audience opinion on the matter, “Evil officials harm loyal ones, young men chase after young girls” 奸臣害忠 良, 相公追姑娘.237 An important topical category common in newspaper and governmental discourse that seems to have had little appeal to actors and theater scholars was “lewd plays” (yinxi 淫戲). A less judgmental and more informal term for plays with heavy romantic content was “powder plays” ( fenxi 粉 戲),238 and there was an unsuccessful attempt to propose a more neutral term that encompassed at least some plays categorized as yinxi or fenxi, “humanemotion plays” (renqing xi 人情戲).239 Plays that featured cruelty, blood and gore, and/or horror comprised another category that was the object of governmental censorship, but unlike yinxi there was no single term for them. The Qing state used terms that highlighted the amount of cruelty in plays (canhen xi 慘狠戲 or canren xi 殘忍戲), or that talked of plays with cruel content (buren zhi shi 不忍之事).240 In the PRC, the concern was over whether a play provoked terror (kongbu 恐怖) in the audience.241 For audiences and actors these were 236 Guo Yingde, “Chuanqi shibu jiu xiangsi” 傳奇十部九相思 (For every ten chuanqi plays nine are about love longing), Ming Qing chuanqi shi, p. 261, divides 361 chuanqi from 1587– 1651 into six categories according to their main topics. At 45.6% “love” ( fengqing 風情) comes first; next are “history” (lishi 歷史) and “society and family” (shehui jiating 社會 家庭) at 19% and 14%, respectively. The section title comes from the final poem of Li Yu’s play, Lian xiangban 憐香伴 (Cherishing the fragrant companion). 237 Yu Xuejian 于學劍, Xiyan shangxi 戲諺賞析 (Appreciation and explication of theater sayings; Jinan: Shandong wenyi, 1989), p. 357. 238 For example, Mai yanzhi 賣胭脂 (Selling rouge; Xikao #408), is marked “fen” 粉 in one of the Baiben Zhang manuscript catalogues (see Fu Jin, ed., Jingju lishi wenxian huibian: Qingdai juan, 8: 545). 239 Liu Siyuan 劉思遠 and Wei Lisha 魏莉莎 (Elizabeth Wichmann), “Jingju ‘renqing xi’ biaoyan fangfa chutan” 京劇 ‘人情戲’ 表演方法初探 (A preliminary look at the performance tradition of renqing plays), in Du Changsheng, ed., Jingju biaoyan lilun tixi jiangou, pp. 203–15, trace the brief career of this term in the first years of the PRC. The authors’ definition of the genre (pp. 203–204) is actually more concerned with form than content; they describe them as plays that “use lots of Beijing speech, use few conventions and arias; the emotional expression and acting style is close to ordinary life” 多用京白, 少用 程式和唱腔, 表情和做工貼近生活. 240 See Yang Lianqi 楊連啟, Jingzhong miao daixi dang kaolüe 精忠廟帶戲檔考略 (Succinct examination of documents about the bringing of plays into the palace by the Jingzhong miao; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 2012), pp. 19–20. 241 Nationalist censorship, in the Republic and on Taiwan, was comparatively lenient with regard to these plays. For instance, Jiugeng tian 九更天 (The night with nine watches;

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known as “blood plays” (caixi 彩戲) or “bloody-head plays” (caitou xi 彩頭戲) and featured fair quantities of artificial human blood.242 Some plays, such as Shazi bao 殺子報 (Retribution for killing [her] son; Xikao #469) were known for both lewd content and the spilling of blood. Literati interest and intervention in zaju and chuanqi play production ensured that attempts to come up with topic categories into which all plays could be sorted go back very far.243 We don’t see attempts to do the same in the world of Jingju until well into the 20th century, in printed anthologies of plays or guidebooks to Jingju. For instance, Xixue huikao 戲學彙考 (Collected research in the study of theater; 1926)244 divided up Jingju plays into fifteen categories and listed an exemplary play for each. These categories were (1) shi­ shi 時事 (contemporary events), (2) lishi 歷史 (history), (3) yanyi 演義 (supplements to history), (4) shehui 社會 ([criticism of] society), (5) jiating 家庭 (family), (6) xiayi 俠義 (chivalry), (7) shenguai 神怪 (the supernatural), (8) zhentan 偵探 (detection), (9) zhongxiao 忠孝 (loyalty and filiality), (10) jieyi 節 Xikao #95), features a servant who proves his loyalty to his master by rolling around with bared back on a bed of nails, from which came an alternate name for the play, Gun dingban 滾釘板 (Rolling on the bed of nails). Not banned under the Republic, this play was one of twenty-six banned nation-wide in the PRC (on this play, see Li Desheng, Jinxi, pp. 187–88), and does not seem to have been performed again in the PRC until the national troupe of Taiwan did so in 2011. See Li Wei 李偉, Ershi shiji xiqu gaige de sanda fanshi 20 世紀戲曲 改革的三大範式 (The three great paradigms of Chinese indigenous theater reform in the 20th century; Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2014), p. 322. 242 See Zhang Daxia 張大夏, Xihua xihua 戲畫戲話 (Play paintings, playful talk; Taibei: Chongguang wenyi, 1971), “Shuo cai” 說彩 (On artificial blood), pp. 29–31. In a section on props he discusses caitou 彩頭 (p. 34). Because to even symbolically spill your blood onstage was inauspicious, actors who did so were compensated with fees known as cai­ qian 彩錢 (cai money) or heiqian 黑錢 (black money). See Tang Youshi 唐友詩, Liyuan yihua 梨園軼話 (Theater anecdotes; Beiping: Fanglu zhai shi, 1938), p. 56 (reproduced in Minguo Jing Kun shiliao congshu, 14: 168). Wang Zengqi 汪曾祺 (1920–1997), Wang Zengqi shuoxi 汪曾祺說戲 (Wang Zengqi talking of plays; Jinan: Shandong huabao, 2006), p. 53, talks about how traveling troupes (caotai ban 草臺班) would charge extra money for plays like Shazi bao (he describes the use of cai in the play on p. 52). 243 Zhu Quan 朱權 (1378–1448) divided zaju into twelve topical categories in his Taihe zhengyin pu 太和正音譜 (Formulary of correct sounds of an era of great peace) and Lü Tiancheng divided chuanqi plays into six in his Qupin. See Zhongguo gudian xiqu lunzhu jicheng, 3: 24–25 and 6: 223, respectively. Ming-Qing zhezi xi anthologies such as Yuefu hongshan 樂府紅珊 (Red coral [selections of] plays; 1602) divided up their play selections by content, but in their case the emphasis was on matching content/topic with the occasion and purpose of performances. On Yuefu hongshan, see Patrick D. Hanan, “The Nature and Contents of the Yüeh-fu hung-shan,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 26.2 (1963): 346–61. 244 For this work see chapter 4.

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義 (chastity), (11) yanqing 艷情 (seductive love),245 (12) aiqing 哀情 (nostalgia and regret), (13) dengcai 燈彩 (lanterns and colored scenery), (14) wanxiao 玩 笑 (broad comedy), and (15) liantai 連臺 (serial plays).246 Except categories 13 and especially 15, these are all topical categories. Topics not specifically covered in the Xixue huikao list but are mentioned by others or become apparent by looking at the repertoire include meetings between long-separated fathers and sons ( fuzi chonghui 父子重會),247 the killing of a son by a parent (shazi 殺子),248 the threatened execution of a son who breaks military discipline by agreeing to marry on the battlefield (zhanzi 斬子),249 the divorce or neglect of the first wife when a scholar passes high in the examinations and powerful people throw their daughters at him (hunbian 婚變),250 the testing of the 245 Jingrui Guo and Mobo Gao have written on love stories in Jingju: “Moral Conflicts Reflected in the Love Stories of Jingju,” Asian Studies Review 25.4 (2001): 499–521. 246 See Ling Shanchu and Xu Chunhao, “Xiju zhi leibie” 戲劇之類別 (Categories of plays), Xixue huikao, pp. 1/4–7 (pagination restarts in each section), reproduced in Su wenxue congkan 1: 178–81. The plays that are anthologized in this work, however, are organized according to the role-types of the main characters. When Qi Rushan did propose a set of categories that Guoju plays could be divided into, the set of plays he worked with were zaju and chuanqi, not Jingju. See his “Juben de tedian” 劇本的特點 (Special characteristics of playscripts), Guoju yaolüe 國劇要略 (The essence of national drama), pp. 3–16 (Qi Rushan quanji, 3: 1423–38). He did, however, work up his own list of nineteen of his own Jingju plays divided into six categories: tichang zhongxiao 提倡忠孝 (promulgate loyalty and filiality [plays]; four plays), tichang jieyi 提倡節義 (promulgate chastity [plays]; six plays), pochu mixin 破除迷信 (smash superstition [plays]; one play), shenhua xi 神 話戲 (mythological plays; five plays), yanqing xi 言情戲 (plays about love; two plays), and gaige taimian 改革臺面 (reform of the stage [plays]; one play). One play appears in more than one category (in the last two). See Qi Rushan, Wushi nian lai de Guoju, p. 82 (Qi Rushan quanji, 5: 2754). The list is disappointing in that the categories do not appear to be part of a single system (i.e., they do not strike one as “scientific”), but such a classificatory system obviously speaks to his understanding of what Jingju should be about. Liang Yan, “Qi Rushan juxue chutan,” pp. 165–71, apportions twenty-one of Qi Rushan’s plays among a different set of categories: shizhuang xi 時裝戲 (modern-clothing plays; two plays), shenhua xi 神話戲 (mythical plays; five plays), Honglou xi 紅樓戲 (Honglou meng plays; three plays), lishi xi 歷史戲 (history plays; three plays), and fengqing xi 風情 戲 (love plays; eight plays). For an example of a topical classificatory system that reflects PRC values, see Tao Junqi, Jingju jumu chutan, “Yinyan” 引言 (Preface), pp. 1–2. 247 Heifeng pa 黑風帕 (Blackwind handkerchief, Xikao #37; a.k.a. Beibian renxi 背鞭認子 [Bearing a horsewhip on one’s back; Recognizing one’s son]) is an example. 248 Shazi bao, mentioned above, is an example. 249 Yuanmen zhanzi 轅門斬子 (The execution of the son at the gate of the headquarters; Xikao #46) is perhaps the most famous example. 250 This type of play was exceptionally common in the nanxi repertoire. See, for instance, Zhou Yude 周育德, “Hunbian beiju—Nanxi de qijia xi” 婚變悲劇—南戲的起家戲 (Marriage upheaval tragedies—The founding plays of nanxi), Zhongguo xiqu wenhua 中國戲曲文化 (The cultures of Chinese indigenous theater; Beijing: Zhongguo youyi,

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fidelity of the long-abandoned wife by the returning husband who pretends to be someone else and flirts with her (shi/xi qi 試/戲妻),251 emperors and kings (diwang 帝王),252 literary geniuses and fair maidens (caizi jiaren 才子佳人),253 lewd sisters-in-law (saozi wo 嫂子我),254 loyal servants (zhongpu 忠僕),255 and foreign lands (waiguo 外國).256 As with any commercial theater, hit plays were imitated, sometimes by making as few changes as possible. This was called “stir-frying cold rice” (chao lengfan 炒冷飯).257 Along with other factors, such as a general tendency in traditional Chinese theater to continually work

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1996), pp. 213–21. On the topic in Chinese theater in general, see Huang Shizhong 黃仕忠, Hunbian, daode yu wenxue: Fuxin hunbian muti yanjiu 婚變, 道德與文學: 負心婚變母 體研究 (Marriage upheaval, morality, and literature: Research on the theme of disloyal husbands and marriage upheaval; Beijing: Renmin wenxue, 2000). See Lin Zhiying 林芷瑩, “Jingju ‘shi/xi qi xiqu’ de yanchu fazhan—Yi Jingju shengxing niandai (1880–1937) wei xilun fanwei” 京劇 ‘試/戲妻戲曲’ 的演出發展—以京劇盛行 年代 (1880–1937) 為析論範圍 (The development of the performance of “testing/flirtingwith-one’s-wife plays” in Jingju—Taking the years of the flourishing of Jingju [1880–1937] as the [historical] scope), Minsu quyi 140 (2003): 179–212. See Xu Zhengui 徐振貴, Zhongguo gudai xiju tonglun 中國古代戲劇通論 (A comprehensive essay on traditional Chinese theater: Shandong jiaoyu, 1997), pp. 197–217. Contrary to what one might expect from the scholarship on caizi jiaren fiction, Xu Zhengui, Zhongguo gudai xiju tonglun, discusses caizi plays and jiaren plays separately (pp. 241–69 and 269–96, respectively). Chapter 5 of Andrea Sue Goldman, Opera and the City: The Politics of Culture in Beijing, 1770–1900 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2012), is about these plays, which are prominent in the Kunqu repertoire and also often have Jingju versions. She borrowed this generic designation for them from Chen Moxiang’s “Guanju shenghuo sumiao.” See also his “Shuo Kunqu pihuang sansha danjiao” 說崑曲皮黃三殺旦腳 (On the “three kill” female role-types in Kunqu and Jingju), Juxue yuekan 2.9 (1933): 56–69 (part one) and 2.10 (1933): 1–21 (part two). These plays came more sharply into focus when they were criticized in the PRC. See Daniel Shih-P’eng Yang, “The Traditional Theatre of China in Its Contemporary Setting: An Examination of the Patterns of Change within the Peking Theatre Since 1949,” doctoral thesis, University of Wisconsin, 1968, “Faithful Servants Plays,” pp. 82–91. See Zeng Bairong, ed., Jingju jumu cidian, “Waiguo” 外國 (Foreign lands), pp. 1276–79, which lists plays with foreign content. These pages represent a very small proportion (0.3%) of the pages allotted to the descriptions of the Jingju repertoire in this volume. Even considering the cut off date for the entire volume of 1984 (see item one of the fanli), the list seems very truncated, the last item being Shang Xiaoyun’s Modengjia nü 摩登伽 女 (Matanga girl), which premiered in 1926. See Zhou Xinfang 周信芳, “Tantan ‘liantai benxi’ ” 談談 ‘連臺本戲’ (A little talk on serial plays), in Zhou Xinfang wenji 周信芳文集 (Collected writings of Zhou Xinfang; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 1982), p. 347, on this phenomenon in serial plays, and the February 14, 1914, Shenbao piece, Jin Bi 金碧, “Haishang zuixin zhi mingling (yi)” 海上最新之名伶 (一) (The newest famous actors in Shanghai [part one]), in Cai Shicheng, ed., Shenbao Jingju ziliao xuanbian, pp. 323–24, on the phenomenon in general.

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over the same stuff material,258 this resulted in sets of plays that could be very similar,259 such that actors might get confused about which of several similar plays they were performing at the moment.260 3

Types of Playscripts

During the Cultural Revolution, and particularly under the influence of Jiang Qing, the phrase “juben, juben, yi ju zhi ben” 劇本, 劇本, 一劇之本 (play script, play script, the foundation [of a play]) became very prominent. Its privileging of the playscript (based in part on repetition of the character ben, which refers to both written documents and what is fundamental [this pictogram represents the roots of a tree]) accords with the importance playscripts attained in Western theater and speaks to a fixation on texts (to facilitate censorship) that has typified the Chinese state’s attempts to control theater, both in the 258 See Zhu Chongzhi 朱崇志, Zhongguo gudai xiqu xuanben yanjiu 中國古代戲曲選本研 究 (A study of anthologies of premodern Chinese xiqu; Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 2004), p. 134. There was once a similar tendency in Western opera. According to Anselm Gerhard, The Urbanization of Opera: Music Theater in Paris in the Nineteenth Century, Mary Whittall, tr. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), p. 332, it was not until Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791–1864) that there begins to be a turn toward a stress on originality and away from the previous regime in which it was very common to see multiple treatments of the same stuff material or even libretti. 259 A December 21, 1921 Shenbao piece, Tianxing shizhu 天行室主, “Lun jiuju zhi leitong” 論 舊劇之雷同 (On the mirror-like similarity [of plays] in old theater), in Cai Shicheng, ed., Shenbao Jingju ziliao xuanbian, pp. 194–95, mentions a set of very similar plays including Wujia po 武家坡 (Wu Family Slope; a.k.a., Wujia po 五家坡 [Five Family Slope]; Xikao #75), and argues that this must have been caused by “plagiarism” (chaoxi 剿襲; fanban 翻版), particularly in the case of Wujia po. On this set of plays, see [Wang] Yaoqing [王] 瑤卿, “Shuo Wujia po Fenhe wan Qiu Hu xi qi san chu xiangsi chu zhi fenbie” 說武家坡 汾河灣秋胡戲妻三齣相似處之分別 (On distinctions in the places where Wu Family Slope, Bend in the Fen River [Xikao #127 for the bangzi version and #324 for the Jingju version], and Qiu Hu flirts with his wife [Xikao #43] resemble each other), Juxue yuekan 1.4 (1932), 4 pp. Qi Rushan, Bianju huiyi 編劇回憶 (Memoir on composing plays), p. 72 (Qi Rushan quanji, 5: 2922), argues that Wujia po was written in reaction to Fenhe wan. The most knowledgeable character in Xu Lingxiao’s Gucheng fanzhao ji speaks of these plays as “mold plays” (tao’er xi 套兒戲). See p. 297 of the third installment, Zhonghua xiqu 24 (2000). 260 While I heard of this happening at least once with amateur performers in Taiwan, the closest instance I know of in a professional performance is the story of an actor performing Xue Rengui 薛仁貴 (the male lead in Fenhe wan) mistakenly announcing himself as Xue Pinggui 薛平貴 (the male lead of Wujia po), mentioned in Hou Yushan, You Meng bashi nian, pp. 142–43.

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imperial period and the Republic, and especially in the PRC.261 Play texts did not originally have that kind of importance in Jingju, but over time, as more were printed, their status and circulation increased, as did their fixity. Playscripts used by Jingju troupes were divided between scripts containing the words for only one role (dantou ben 單頭本, danben 單本, danci 單 詞, danpian 單篇, danpian 單片, etc.)262 and master scripts that reflected the entire play (zongjiang 總講, zonggang 總綱, zongben 總本, etc.).263 While the former were freely given out to actors, circulation of the latter was carefully regulated.264 Scripts seem to have been used more when a troupe was work261 See, for instance, Chen Duo 陳多, “Shuo ‘juben, juben, yi ju zhi ben’ ” 說 ‘劇本, 劇本, 一 劇之本’ (On “juben, juben, yi ju zhi ben”), Xiju yishu 2000.1: 103–11. Jiang Qing used the phrase in her famous and very influential 1964 speech, “Jingju geming” 京劇革命 (On revolution in Jingju). 262 On texts given to actors that only contained their own lines see Tiffany Stern and Simon Palfrey, Shakespeare in Parts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). Traditional Chinese danben are distinctive in that they rarely contain cues or stage directions but instead consist almost entirely of just the text spoken or sung by the actor performing the role, with a slash (xiegang 斜杠) indicating when the actor’s verbal production ceases and something else (never specified) occurs. For a modern, printed example, see Yang Baosen 楊寶森 (1909–1958) dictated (shu 述) and [Chen 陳] Guoyi 過宜 recorded (手錄), “Dao zong’an Zhang Cang danci” 盜宗案張蒼單詞 (Single-role script for Zhang Cang in Stealing the Royal Genealogy; Xikao #62), Xiju yuekan 2.12 (August 1930), independent pagination. For photo-reprints of a set of eight such scripts for the characters in one play, see Su wenxue congkan, 288: 119–44. Ding Xiuxun, Kunqu biaoyan xue, p. 141, talks of gaikou 蓋口 as a set of symbols that an actor can use to mark up a “part” to help remember what the other actors are doing. Gaikou also has other meanings (see below). 263 For instance, the section on pihuang plays in Fu Xihua 傅惜華, ed., Guoju xuehui tushu guan shumu 北平國劇學會圖書館書目 (List of holdings of the library of the Association for the Study of National Drama of Beiping), is divided between zongben, pp. 13–24 (Qi Rushan quanji, 5: 3225–36) and danben, pp. 24–31 (Qi Rushan quanji, 5: 3236– 43). All of the danben are identified as manuscript copies (chaoben 鈔本), while there are a number of printed copies among the zongben. Pan Jingfu and Chen Moxiang, Liyuan waishi, p. 27.320, provide a description of troupe personnel making copies of danben for a new play during Cheng Changgeng’s day, and another of how a main actor is given the zongjiang for a new play (Shuangling ji; Xikao #316), to be put on by the Sixi Troupe, in hopes of getting him to agree to join the performance, and how once he agrees, dan­ tou (ben) are distributed to the actors (p. 24.288). For more modern examples, see Yuan Shihai, Yihai wuya, pp. 69 (so-and-so reads the text for the part of Zhou Dewei to Yuan and he uses a brush to make notes and then memorizes the part) and 125 (the zongjiang for a play is passed around and everyone makes copies of their own parts). 264 The person in charge of keeping the zongjiang for the troupe was said to “hold” (bao 抱) it to his chest. Pan Jingfu and Chen Moxiang, Liyuan waishi, p. 19.227, has a prominent actor say that although he studied such and such a play, unfortunately the full text is not in his possession (kexi bu bao zongjiang 可惜不抱總講). Ma Shaobo et al., Zhongguo Jingju shi, 3: 151, gives an alternate designation for this person, bao benzi de 抱本子的 and stresses

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ing up a new play, while the teaching of old plays to students seems to have relied more on simple repetition and memory.265 Because they were based on scripts for actors who knew how to fill in their gaps, none of the older playscripts spell out how the plays were to be performed.266 Stage directions were that he functioned somewhat like a director. Xu Chengbei, Mingzi jiushi xi, p. 108, stresses the security aspect (that person’s job was to restrict circulation of the text while at the same time preserving it). Qi Rushan, Qi Rushan huiyi lu, p. 158 (Qi Rushan quanji, 10: 6172) notes that distributing only danben was both economical and helped prevent others’ “stealing the play.” He describes how, when he first tried to collect play texts, he thought that the great acting families would have lots of them, but was disappointed. He was told that formerly, when it came to studying Kunqu, “texts were used relatively often, but all of them were [just] danben” 用本子的較多, 但也都是單本, and the only people who had complete texts were either those who had themselves “established troupes” (chengguo xiban 成過戲 班) or dizi masters (dishi 笛師; dizi 笛子 is the bamboo flute that was the lead instrument for Kunqu). This implies that danben and zongben for Jingju were even rarer. Li Hongchun, Jingju changtan, p. 51, presents as unusual his teacher, Wang Hongshou 王鴻壽, teaching students entire plays (zongjiang) rather than just their own roles. 265 Yuan Shihai, Yihai wuya, p. 168, compares learning plays in the keban, where students “performed what their teachers taught them” 按照先生所教而作, to the time after joining a troupe when “it was completely up to the individual to work out how to perform the character based on the playscript” 完全靠個人根據劇本琢磨角色表演. 266 Xu Chengbei, Jingju yu Zhongguo wenhua, p. 229, repeats an interesting quote from Yuan Shihai with regard to preparation to perform a new play: “The strong points of this part of the play were in the places where the playscript had no text” 這塊戲的長處就是 在劇本沒有文字的地方. Stage directions in chuanqi playscripts also tend to be quite minimal, but interlineal commentary added to printed editions in the Ming and Qing sometimes includes comments that provide information or guidance that one might expect from stage directions. See Katherine Carlitz, “Printing as Performance: Literati Playwright-Publishers of the Late Ming,” in Cynthia J. Brokaw and Kai-wing Chow, eds., Printing and Book Culture in Late Imperial China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), p. 290, on Ling Mengchu’s 凌濛初 (1580–1644) commentary to his edition of the Pipa ji. Judith T. Zeitlin, The Phantom Heroine: Ghosts and Gender in Seventeenth-Century Chinese Literature (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2007), p. 141, links the increase in stage directions in chuanqi drama playscripts with “the wide-scale publication of plays and emergence of a reading public for drama that solidified in the late sixteenth century.” From the middle of the seventeenth century on, there seems to have been more actor input into the production of Kunqu play anthologies and a corresponding increase in stage directions; see Zhu Chongzhi, Zhongguo gudai xiqu xuanben, p. 25. Min Tian, “Stage Directions in the Performance of Yuan Drama,” Comparative Drama 39.3–4 (Fall 2005– Winter 2006): 404, notes a “significant and continuous increase in the average number of ke [科, a character that appears at the end of the majority of stage directions in in Yuan zaju, equivalent to jie 介 for nanxi and chuanqi drama] for each play in the collections in a chronological order.” On the lack of stage directions in classical Greek drama, see Linda McJannet, The Voice of Elizabethan Stage Directions (Newark, Delaware: University of Delaware Press, 1999), p. 9, and on their only beginning to appear in Western theater at the beginning of the eighteenth century, see Pavis, Dictionary of the Theatre, “Stage

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kept at a minimum,267 even martial plays that might consist, on stage, of a high proportion of action and a very small proportion of dialogue or song. It is not until well into the twentieth century that play texts with more ample stage directions, along with musical notation for the arias and the percussion routines that punctuate the action, begin to appear as the publishing industry discovered there was a market for them among amateur performers. Some collections advertised themselves as a way to learn what you needed without having to bother with a teacher (wu shi zi tong 無師自通; lit.: without a teacher able, by oneself, to penetrate [all the secrets]).268 3.1 Manuscript Copies269 The largest collections of manuscripts of Jingju plays that we know about were commissioned by the imperial court or princes during the Qing dynasty, Directions,” pp. 355–57. Peters, Theatre of the Book, p. 257, describes an advertisement for a 1770 edition of one of Pierre-Augustin-Caron de Beaumarchais’ plays promising that it has everything needed for provincial or amateur players to mount it, including detailed descriptions of the play’s pantomimes and blocking information. 267 Ye Tao, Zhongguo Jingju xisu, p. 93, for instance, says early Jingju playscripts “very very rarely had stage directions” 極少有舞臺表演提示. Ma Shaobo et al., Zhongguo Jingju shi, 1: 159–60 and Yan Quanyi, Qingdai Jingju wenxue shi, p. 503, both talk of early printed Jingju playscripts as basically changci ben 唱詞本 or changben 唱本 that only emphasize the text of the arias and dialogue of the characters. Wichmann, Listening to Theatre, p. 24, quotes Wu Junda 武俊達 to the effect that Western and Western-style theatre playscripts tend to average four times the length of Jingju playscripts. 268 From 1935 to 1938, Zhongyang shudian 中央書店 in Shanghai published four works that made this claim on their title pages. See Minguo shiqi zong shumu, 1911–1949: Wenxue lilun, shijie wenxue, Zhongguo wenxue 民國時期總書目, 1911–1949: 文學理論, 世界文學, 中 國文學 (Comprehensive list of books published in the Republican period, 1911–1949: Literary theory, western literature, Chinese literature; Beijing: Shumu wenxian, 1992), pp. 330–31. One of them, Jin Jiyun’s Xuexi baifa, p. 6, promises that using it, in at most half a month one can learn a play and perform it. On the same page, the use of phonograph records to help one learn arias is also recommended. Elsewhere (p. 91), Jin points out that Jingju scripts do not have musical notation, making it hard to learn to sing from them without a teacher, but providing notation should take care of that problem. 269 Li Yulian 李玉蓮, Zhongguo gudai baihua xiaoshuo xiqu chuanbo yanjiu 中國古代白話 小說戲曲傳播論 (Research on the circulation of premodern Chinese vernacular fiction and plays; Taiyuan: Shanxi jiaoyu, 2005), pp. 326–27, found that of the chuanqi playscripts from 1465–1911 introduced in Guo Yingde, Ming Qing chuanqi zonglu, 55% were manuscripts and 45% printed. Li Zhiyuan 李志遠, Ming Qing xiqu xuba yanjiu 明清戲曲序跋 研究 (A Study of prefaces and colophons to xiqu in the Ming and Qing dynasties; Beijing: Zhishi chanquan, 2011), using the 919 play texts photo-reprinted in Guben xiqu congshu collections 5–7 (which include both chuanqi and zaju texts), found that only just over 33% were manuscripts and almost 66% were printed texts. I know of no comparable figures for Jingju playscripts but would expect that the percentage of manuscripts is much

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after which private collectors (often famous actors)270 and opera schools were important.271 Beginning in the second half of the Republican period, research institutions and libraries and scholars began to build important collections (see chapter 4 below). The Qing court insisted that plays performed at court have set texts that could be checked against the performances, and one copy of the play text (the andian ben 安殿本) was given to the emperor to peruse during a performance. Unlike play texts used by a Jingju troupe or actor outside the palace, the andian ben had include all arias and dialogue,272 even though they did not greater than printed texts for the time periods covered in the sources used by Li Yulian and Li Zhiyuan. The latter also quotes several prefaces and other paratextual material in chuanqi editions that claim the editions of the plays they appeared in were published for the use or convenience of actors or that actors bought copies of the editions as soon as they came out (see pp. 182, 186, and 199). 270 See Yang Hui 楊慧, “Minguo shiqi sijia cangqu yanjiu” 民國時期私家藏曲研究 (Research on private collectors of playscripts of the Republican period), doctoral thesis, Shanxi shifan University, 2014. Two of the most famous actor collectors of playscripts are Mei Lanfang and Cheng Yanqiu. They are treated on pp. 141–48 and 148–52 of the dissertation, respectively. Members of acting families such as Mei Lanfang could inherit play texts from their ancestors. 271 Thirty volumes of photo-reprints of play texts formerly held by Fuliancheng were recently published: Sun Ping 孫萍 and Ye Jinsen 葉金森, ed., Fuliancheng cang xiqu wenxian hui­ kan 富連成戲曲文獻彙刊 (Collected printing of theater material held by Fuliancheng; Beijing: Guojia tushu guan, 2016). Despite the title, the collection reproduces only play texts, the vast majority of which are in manuscript. The preface is not very clear about the provenance of the plays, some of which date from after the demise of the opera school. The table of contents includes some of the dates that appear in the play texts, but only some of them. Ye Jinsen is a descendant of Ye Chunshan 葉春善 (1875–1935), who ran this opera school from the beginning until his death. Ye Shaolan, Suiyue, has an appendix, “Shanben mulu” 善本目錄 (Catalogue of rare books), pp. 316–29. The listed play texts are not separated into genres (e.g., pihuang vs. Kunqu) but even the Kunqu titles are of the kind that a Jingju actor might perform or learn. At the end of the list, Ye Shaolan describes the listed texts as “a portion of the manuscripts transmitted from Fuliancheng” 部分手抄 劇本墨跡, and notes that his grandfather (Ye Chunshan) personally owned play texts for over a thousand plays, but does not explicitly say that any of the texts listed in the appendix were his grandfathers’. It is also difficult to tell how much overlap there is between the manuscripts in the list and the play texts reproduced in Fuliancheng cang xiqu wenxian huikan. 272 A similar system was in place during the Ming. Writing about this system, Wilt L. Idema, “The Many Shapes of Medieval Chinese Plays: How Texts are Transformed to Meet the Needs of Actors, Spectators, Censors, and Readers,” Oral Tradition 20.2 (2005): 327, claims “for the first time in the development of the text of individual plays, the full text is written out, not only of the songs but also of the prose dialogues, including all extensive repetitions and all lame jokes. It is clear that the censors were most concerned about the words of the play, as stage directions are often left quite rudimentary….”

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typically contain the amount of stage directions or musical notation that could appear in other kinds of palace texts prepared primarily for performance. The emperor (or empress dowager, as was more often the case with reference to Jingju performances in the court), could call for whatever changes in the text he or she saw fit.273 Palace texts can have a lot of stage directions and notations about props.274 Many can be dated.275 The court printed very few playscripts. 273 For the changes the Empress Dowager requested be made to Tianlei bao (Xikao #77), see Yao Shuyi, Qingdai xiju wenhua shilun, p. 195. For an example of an edict punishing an actor for not following the text of a play (bu an ben lai, ziji hunshuo 不按本來, 自己混 說), see ibid., p. 46. 274 For an example of a photo-reproduced andian ben, see Su wenxue congkan, 347: 227–77, Hujia zhuang 扈家莊 (Hu Family Village; not in Xikao). The running times for both rehearsal (pai 排) and fully sung (chang 唱) versions is given in the text, which is labeled waixue diben 外學底本, indicating that it was for the performance of an outside troupe. On differences between the andian ben prepared for the emperor and the versions prepared for the troupe’s own use in the palace (kuben 庫本) for a particular play, see Goldman, Opera in the City, p. 329 n. 150. 275 A substantial number of various kinds of palace play texts have been reproduced in volumes 660–696 of Gugong zhenben congkan 故宮珍本叢刊 (Collectanea of precious texts from the Forbidden Palace) 731 vols. (Haikou: Hainan chubanshe, 2000) that are grouped sometimes according to type and sometimes according to theatrical tradition. Volumes 671–84 contain luantan 亂彈 plays. Volumes 685–89 contain musical scores for Kun Yi (mixed Kunqu/Yiyang), there is no corresponding section for luantan playscripts with musical notation. Volumes 690–94 contain abstracts (tigang 提綱), and volumes 695– 96 contain playscripts without the texts of the play but with information on how to stage them (chuantou 串頭 and paichang 排場; these do not include luantan plays). The chuan­ tou can include a lot of detail. For instance, to get to the first aria in the zongben for Jinshan si 金山寺 (Jinshan temple; a Kunqu play sometimes performed by Jingju troupes) requires only 17 Chinese characters, while to get to the same place in the chuantou for the same play requires 98 characters (compare 666: 172, with 695: 129). Some of the abstracts specify the running time of the plays and the actors; some of the playscripts contain lists of the main actors who performed them (for one which refers to Tan Xinpei as Jiaotian 叫天, see 671: 340). Zhu Jiajin 朱家溍, in his preface to the collectanea, outlines the guidelines under which the material was selected for inclusion (everything that was not too damaged or that did not repeat the contents of material already selected; single-role scripts were generally excluded, p. 14), and points out that in the palace luantan had come to mean Jingju (p. 13). None of the Jingju scripts contain musical notations for the arias in xipi and erhuang, but some contain gongche annotation for qupai (e.g., 673: 309) and percussion pattern notation (e.g., 676: 1; see 673: 140, for handwritten annotation indicating the play text “has been corrected; when copied the percussion notation should be left off” 改妥, 寫時撤鑼鼓). Sometimes there are enough copies of the same play to follow patterns of revision. Since the appearance of Gugong zhenben congkan, all of the playscripts in good enough shape to merit photo-reproduction were published in Gugong bowu yuan cang Qing gong Nanfu Shengpingshu xiben 故宮博物院藏清宮南府昇平署戲本 (Playscripts from the Nanfu and Shengpingshu held in the Museum of the Forbidden Palace), 450 vols. (Beijing: Gugong chubanshe, 2015–2017). The scanning was carefully done. The preface

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Major exceptions are the printings of two huge serial plays, Quanshan jinke 勸善金科 (Golden measures for encouraging goodness; the story of Mulian), and Zhaodai xiaoshao 昭代簫韶 (Elegant music for an enlightened age; about the Yang family of generals), which seem to have been prepared so that the plays could be performed outside the palace.276 There are also manuscripts that closely imitate printed texts prepared for the emperor’s own enjoyment.277 Like the visual material related to theater prepared in and for the palace, discussed in the notes to the Introduction, palace play texts did not and were not supposed to circulate freely outside the palace. The palace plays that seem to have had the most appeal outside the palace were those not already in the repertoire of the commercial troupes, and among them the two largest categories were seasonal plays (yingjie xi 應節戲) and huge serial plays (gongting daxi 宮廷大戲) that were typically divided into ten “volumes” (ben 本), each with twenty-four scenes (chu 齣). The former represented a kind of spectacle that commercial troupes did not usually have the resources to mount (the influence of spectacular palace plays that made use of colorful lanterns and scenery, dengcai xi, on commercials performances was mentioned above); the latter nonetheless represented a rich resource of material that could be adapted for Jingju performance. A palace serial playscript for a seasonal play, Chandao chuxie 闡道除邪 (Exemplifying the way, Removing evil), was smuggled out of the palace by Yu Jusheng 俞菊笙 (1838–1914) and was being performed publicly in installments by the Chuntai troupe (Yu’s troupe) in a form that mixed both Kunqu and Jingju under the name Hunyuan he 混元盒 (Chaos says that the playscripts included in Gugong zhenben congkan represent one fourth of the total playscripts held by the Museum. The last 58 volumes of Zhongguo Guojia tushu guan cang Qinggong Shengpingshu dang’an jicheng 中國國家圖書館藏清宮昇平署檔案集 成 (Collectanea of archives from Shengpingshu in the Qing palace held in the National Library) 108 vols. (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2011) photo-reprints play text manuscripts in the order that they were catalogued by the library. A small number of palace playscripts are available in color photo-reprints. On them, see David L. Rolston, “Research Note: Recent Color Reproductions of Qing Palace Multi-Colored Playscripts,” CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature 34.2 (December 2015): 188–93. 276 Black and white photo-reprints are available in Guben xiqu congkan collection 9 (the originals used more than one color of ink). They are unique among palace playscripts in that they include both a preface and a fanli. 277 For instance, the multi-color manuscripts of episodes from Xiyou ji, Jiangliu ji 江流 記 (River Float), Jingua ji 進瓜記 (Offering melons), and Shengping baofa 昇平寶筏 (Precious raft of ascending peace), try very hard to look as if they were printed. On the recent color photo-reprints of these manuscripts, see items 3–4 of the list on pp. 190–91 and p. 193, note 24 of Rolston, “Research Note: Recent Color Reproductions.” The first two of these play texts were kept in a special box in the Qianlong emperor’s private quarters. Such treatment was not accorded to Jingju plays.

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box). When the source of the play was found out its return was demanded. Another source had to be found (the novel Fengshen yanyi 封神演義 and shadow theater renditions of it) and the final play ended up with sections set in the Shang and Ming dynasties! The play was about removing poisonous (du 毒) influences, a major concern at the Duanwu Festival (fifth day of the fifth lunar month, the hottest time of the year), and that was when it was performed. The Chuntai version was performed by other troupes well into the Republican period, when presenting full versions was abandoned in favor of performing just extracts.278 Empress Dowager Cixi herself was responsible for projects to adapt Kun Yi plays for Jingju performance. Two of them involved one of the huge serial plays, Zhaodai xiaoshao.279 Another big collection of play manuscripts is the “Prince Che” (Chewang 車王) collection. Depending on whose figures you believe, the collection includes from almost 900 to almost 1,000 playscripts, the majority of which are

278 On this play, see Xue Xiaojin 薛曉金, ed., Jingju chuantong juben huibian Xubian: Hunyuan he 京劇傳統劇本彙編, 續編: 混元盒 (Continuation of Collectanea of traditional Jingju playscripts: Huanyuan he; Beijing: Beijing chubanshe, 2012), Niu Biao 鈕驃, “Wei jiuwei de jumu wenben gouchen guzhang” 為久違的劇目文本鉤沉鼓掌 (Applause for the recovery of play texts for plays long not seen), pp. 1–6, and Xue Xiaojin’s preface, pp. 1–8 (these two items have separate pagination). This typeset and edited edition is based on a copy of the play transcribed in the 1950s or 1960s. 279 Originally divided into ten parts and 240 scenes, Zhaodai xiaoshao told the story of the Yang family of generals. Two Jingju versions were produced, one on the order of Empress Dowager Cixi for the use of the Shengpingshu eunuch actors, and one for her own Putian tongqing Troupe. Both versions were shorter than the original 240-scene version, in part because between the time when the 240-scene version was printed in 1813 and the time when the adaptations started in 1898, a somewhat abbreviated version had been developed; it was such an abbreviated version that was used as the base text for the Jingju adaptations. See Hao Chengwen 郝成文, “Zhaodai xiaoshao yanjiu” 昭代簫韶研究 (Research on Zhaodai xiaoshao), doctoral thesis, Shanxi Normal University, 2012, pp. 108–26; and Xue Xiaojin’s preface to the Zhaodai xiaoshao volume in Xue Xiaojin, ed., Jingju chuan­ tong juben huibian Xubian, pp. 1–8. This edition is a typeset and edited version of a copy made in the 1950s or 1960s of the Shengpingshu Jingju version. An attempt to perform segments of the play the way it was performed for Cixi premiered in 2013 from May 7–16 at the Chang’an Grand Theater with two different casts, one of young actors and the other of senior actors, who performed two separate evening-length episodes in rotation. For a twenty-minute documentary on that production, see http://v.youku.com/v_show/ id_XNTU2MjYwNDQ4.html (accessed July 25, 2017). The material in the first of the two installments contrasts in interesting ways with the popular Jingju play, Silang tanmu (Xikao #22). On the influence of Zhaodai xiaoshao and its palace Jingju versions on commercial theater, see Hao Chengwen 郝成文, “Zhaodai xiaoshao yu minjian jutan” 昭代簫 韶與民間劇壇 (Zhaodai xiaoshao and popular theater), Zijin cheng 2013.11: 135–40.

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Jingju.280 Some of the manuscripts are dated to 1855.281 The fact that many of them exhibit a very similar style and calligraphy has led Miao Huaiming 苗懷 明 to conclude that the manuscripts are not performance texts (yanchu diben 演出底本) but instead represent “the product of a large-scale copying plan” 有 計劃大規模抄制而成.282 Wang Zhengyao 王政堯 agrees and further believes that the copying took place around 1855. He also thinks there is a good possibility that a relative of the last Prince Che, Duke E (Eduotai 鄂多臺; b. 1863), was the final curator of the collection.283 Neither Tao Junqi’s Jingju jumu ­chutan 280 After the collection was discovered in batches in the early 20th century, those batches and hand copies of them ended up in various places. For a chart that lists both the originals and the copies as well as their locations, see Qiu Jiang 仇江 and Zhang Xiaoying 張小瑩, “Chewang fu quben quanmu ji cangben fenbu” 車王府曲本全目及藏本分布 (A complete list of the Prince Che palace playscripts and where they are held), in Liu Liemao 劉烈茂 and Guo Jingrui 郭精銳 et al., Chewang fu quben yanjiu 車王府曲本研 究 (Research on the Prince Che palace collection of playscripts; Guangzhou: Guangdong renmin, 2000), pp. 135–234. They give a figure of 993 playscripts in the collection (p. 135), but don’t divide the plays by type. Tian Gensheng, Jindai xiju de chuancheng, p. 294, gives the figures of 849 for the total and 591 for Jingju. 281 See Jin Peilin 金霈霖, “Qing Menggu Chewang fu cang quben qianyan” 清蒙古車王府 藏曲本前言 (Preface to The playscripts of the palace of the Mongolian Prince Che of the Qing dynasty), in Liu Liemao and Guo Jingrui et al., Chewang fu quben yanjiu, p. 488. This is the preface to the facsimile photo-reprint edition of the Shoudu 首都 (Capital) Library in Beijing’s collection of copies of these texts made not long after they were discovered: Jin Peilin 金霈霖, ed., Qing Menggu Chewang fu cang quben 清蒙古車王府 藏曲本, 1,661 vols. (Beijing: Beijing guji, 1991). This edition was reproduced in reduced size (six pages of the original on one page of the reprint): Qing Chewang fu cang quben, 57 vols. (Beijing: Xueyuan chubanshe, 2001). The copies held by Zhongshan University were published in typeset form: Huang Shizhong 黄仕忠, ed., Qing Chewang fu cang xiqu quanbian 清車王府藏戲曲全編 (Complete collection of play texts in the Prince Che collection), 20 vols. (Guangzhou: Guangdong renmin, 2013). Each play text is prefaced by a helpful bibliographic note ( jieti 解題). The set of original copies held by the Peking University Library has been photo-reprinted: Zhu Qiang 朱强, ed., Weikan Qing Chewang fu cang quben: Beijing daxue tushu guan cang 未刊清車王府藏曲本: 北京大學圖書館 藏 (Unpublished Prince Che play texts of the Qing dynasty: Held by Peking University Library), 140 vols. (Beijing: Xueyuan chubanshe, 2017), for which an index volume has been published separately: Zhan Baohong 戰葆紅 et al., eds., Weikan Qing Chewang fu cang quben mulu suoyin: Beijing daxue tushu guan cang 未刊清車王府藏曲本目錄索 引 (Table of contents and index to Unpublished play texts of the palace of the Prince Che of the Qing dynasty; Beijing: Xueyuan chubanshe, 2017). 282 Miao Huaiming 苗懷明, “Beijing Chewang fu xiqu wenxian de faxian, zhengli yu yanjiu” 北京車王府戲曲文獻的發現, 整理與研究 (The discovery, editing, and research on the Beijing Prince Che’s palace theatrical documents), Beijing shehui kexue 北京社會科 學 (Beijing social science) 2002.2: 94. 283 Wang Zhengyao 王政堯, “ ‘Chewang fu quben’ de liushi yu E gongfu benshi kao” ‘車王府 曲本’ 的流失與鄂公府本事考 (Research into the facts behind the loss of the ‘Prince

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nor Zeng Bairong’s Jingju jumu cidian make use of this collection of play texts, which includes a number of plays not found in either reference work.284 The original copies appear to have generally been done very carefully, although they are not punctuated, use vulgar characters (suzi 俗字), loan characters (biezi 別字), and even characters made up and used only by actors.285 They can have fairly developed stage directions that include information, for instance, about what the percussion should be doing.286 A convenient way to get an idea of the range of manuscript copies of Jingju playscripts once in circulation is to look in the Jingju section of Su wenxue congkan 俗文學叢刊 (Collectanea of folk literature), which reproduces 1,695 playscripts from the collection of the Fu Sinian Library of the Academia Sinica in Taiwan. Aside from 107 copies made of playscripts from the Prince Che collection, Su wenxue congkan also includes sixty-seven playscripts produced for sale by the most famous purveyor of manuscript copies of playscripts, “Baiben Zhang” 百本張 (One-Hundred-editions Zhang).287 Baiben Zhang was an outfit run by several generations of the Zhang family that had been in business since the Qianlong reign period.288 Besides selling from the address of their

284 285 286

287 288

Che’s palace collection of playscripts’ and Duke E’s palace), in Du Changsheng, ed., Jingju yu xiandai Zhongguo shehui, pp. 744–45 (1855) and 745–46 (Duke E). See Guo Jingrui, Chewang fu quben yu Jingju xingcheng, p. 22, for a different account of how the collection came on the market. Sun Chongtao, Xiqu wenxian xue, p. 165, says that there are more than 500 titles in the Prince Che collection of manuscripts that are not to be found in Tao Junqi’s work. See Guo Jingrui, Chewang fu quben yu Jingju xingcheng, pp. 16 and 26. For an example of characters made up by actors, see Qing Chewang fu cang quben, “Chuban shuoming” 出版 說明 (Publishers’ explanation), p. 2. Copies that ended up in Taiwan and reproduced in Su wenxue congkan include simple annotations such as “luogu” 鑼鼓 (percussion; 298: 196 and 319: 558) or even the name of a particular percussion pattern (chongtou 沖頭, e.g., 319: 587). It was not until quite late that attempts were made to provide musical scores for plays with full percussion notation and make them available to a wider audience. An example of such an attempt is Xu Zhihao 許志豪 and Shen Jingran 沈景然, Jingxi luogu mijue 京戲鑼鼓秘訣 (Secret oral formulas for the percussion patterns of Jingju; Shanghai: Dahua shuju, 1931). The playscripts in Su wenxue congkan are reproduced in black and white, but in the front matter of the first volume there is a color reproduction of one of the Baiben Zhang playscripts that shows how certain elements, including the Baiben Zhang chop, are in red ink. A chop on one of their manuscripts proclaims: zi Qianlong nian qi shichuan 自乾隆年起 世傳 (passed on from generation to generation since the Qianlong era). See Su wenxue congkan, 297: 591. Zhongguo xiqu zhi: Beijing juan, pp. 976–77, confirms this point.

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shop,289 they were also a presence at temple fairs.290 To help customers order manuscript copies made on demand they sold catalogues complete with prices, and what affected price the most was the number of fascicles (ben 本) needed to make copies of each play. Two of their catalogues, Pihuang jumu 皮黃劇目 (Catalogue of pihuang plays; 189 items) and Erhuang xi mulu 二簧 戲目錄 (Catalogue of Erhuang plays; 270 items), have been photo-reprinted.291 Looking at reproductions of their playscripts in Su wenxue congkan, it is clear that the copying was done quite mechanically. For instance, the last line of fascicles that do not contain the end of the play break off in mid-sentence and then begin mid-sentence in the next fascicle. Prices for the same item are not uniform across all of the catalogues and this presumably reflects inflation. If we look at one particular list, we see that items with the same number of fascicles fall into these price ranges: one fascicle: 280 to 560 coppers; two fascicles: 560 coppers to two strings of cash (one string equals 1000 coppers); three 289 For a Baiben Zhang playscript with their address on the cover, see Su wenxue congkan, 293: 263. 290 Fu Xihua 傅惜華, “Baiben Zhang xiqu shuji kaolüe” 百本張戲曲書籍考略 (A brief investigation of the dramatic works [sold] by Baiben Zhang), in Zhang Jinglu 張靜盧, ed., Zhongguo jindai chuban shiliao erbian 中國近代出版史料二編 (Historical material on publishing in modern China, second collection; Shanghai: Qunlian chubanshe, 1954), p. 317. Fu’s article has been reprinted in Wang Wenzhang 王文章, ed., Fu Xihua xiqu lun­ cong 傅惜華戲曲論叢 (Collected articles by Fu Xihua on Chinese indigenous theater; Beijing: Wenhua yishu, 2007), pp. 346–54. The “Jiyi” section of the HathiTrust scan of the Harvard University copy of the 1907 edition of Dumen jilüe, p. 1/22a (p. 283), has an entry on Baiben Zhang, but it makes no mention of selling manuscripts, only “small items” (xixiao zhi wu 細小之物) such as miniature furniture. 291 Wu Shuyin 吳書蔭, ed., Suizhong Wu-shi cang chaoben gaoben xiqu congkan 綏中吳 氏藏抄本稿本戲曲叢刊 (Collectanea of theater manuscripts and drafts collected by Mr. Wu of Suizhong [Wu Xiaoling 吳曉鈴 (1914–1995)]), 48 vols. (Beijing: Xueyuan chubanshe, 2004), 44: 267–305 and 329–84, respectively. The contents of the two catalogues are reproduced in Fu Jin., ed., Jingju lishi wenxian huibian: Qingdai juan, 8: 543–59. Fu Xihua, “Baiben Zhang xiqu shuji kaolüe,” pp. 317–29, describes two such catalogues that he owned, both with the title Erhuang xi mulu 二簧戲目錄 and containing 217 and 218 items, respectively (pp. 321–22). Despite their titles, they are not restricted exclusively to either erhuang or pihuang plays but include both. They also include Kunqu plays, which tend to come at the end of the list. Baiben Zhang did, however, have separate catalogues for gaoqiang plays. See Zhongguo xiqu zhi: Beijing juan, pp. 976–77, for a description of one with 204 plays divided according to role-type of lead actor or type of play (e.g., jiqing xi [auspicious plays] vs. qunxi [big plays with many characters]). For one for zidi shu, see Zhang Shouchong 張壽崇, ed., Manzu shuochang wenxue: Zidi shu zhenben baizhong 滿 族說唱文學: 子弟書珍本百種 (Manchu oral performing literature: One hundred rare zidi shu; Beijing: Minzu chubanshe, 2000), pp. 568–72 (records the titles and number of chapters only).

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fascicles: one string of cash to one string and 400 coppers; four fascicles: one string of cash to two strings of cash; five fascicles: one string of cash and 400 coppers to two strings of cash; six fascicles: one string of cash and 800 coppers to three strings of cash and 500 coppers; seven fascicles: no examples; eight fascicles: four strings of cash to four strings of cash and 800 coppers.292 No information about the number of fascicles for the Kunqu scripts at the end of the list is given. Added beat and musical notation are options for some of them but not for any of the Jingju scripts.293 Some Baiben Zhang manuscripts have their prices written on them.294 Baiben Zhang scripts have a number of chops on them.295 The ones that identify that the scripts are from Baiben Zhang tend also to have the words “don’t look for a lower price” (bie huanjia 別還價). Variants of the same idea include “no returns/exchanges ever” (yong bu tuihuan 永不退還/換) and “if short of cash we won’t sell [to you]” (shao qian bu mai 少錢不賣).296 Some of the manuscripts have pronunciation glosses.297 Qi Rushan says that in the case of certain arias they might include the text as sung by different actors,

292 Wu Shuyin, ed., Suizhong Wu-shi cang chaoben gaoben xiqu, 48: 329–84. 293 The Kunqu plays are all listed at the end (pp. 373–83). Their prices run between 440 coppers to one string of cash and 500 coppers for just the texts of the plays, one string of cash and 800 coppers for beat notation (banyan 板眼) added (only one example), and from 800 coppers to three strings and 200 coppers for musical annotation (gongche 工尺) as well as beat notation added. In some cases, prices for no musical notation vs. musical and beat notation added are given. The difference in price between them runs from 800 coppers to one string of cash and 800 coppers. Su wenxue congkan does reproduce some Jingju playscripts with musical notation (e.g., 295: 543–46, 300 coppers; 301: 473–80, 500 coppers; 304: 387–402, 800 coppers); these texts give arias only, not the dialogue. 294 There are several, all containing musical notation, reproduced in Su wenxue congkan. See, for instance, vol. 295, pp. 543–46 (300 coppers). 295 Fu Xueyi 傅雪漪, “Cong ‘Fangxian’ tan Jing Yi qiang he Baiben Zhang—Dui ‘Li Jiarui wen’ zhi wo jian” 從 ‘訪賢’ 談京弋腔和百本張—對 ‘李家瑞文’ 之我見 (Talking about the relationship of Baiben Zhang and Jing Yi qiang starting from “Visiting the worthy”—My view of the [two] articles by Li Jiarui [reprinted recently in the journal]), Zhongguo yinyue 中國音樂 (Chinese music) 1993.2: 48, describes nine different chops used by Baiben Zhang and tries to date their use. 296 See Su wenxue congkan, 290: 355; 316: 391; and 309: 133; respectively. Fu Xihua, “Baiben Zhang xiqu shuji kaolüe,” p. 317, lists these and the further variant, “look close now, once you take it home there will be no exchanges” 當面看明, 拿回不換. 297 For instance, Su wenxue congkan, 316: 393, indicates that liu 六 in this instance should be read the same as lu 路.

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annotating which actor sang which version, and that this was a great help to beginners learning to sing that play.298 Judging from the number of items in the catalogues and the number of their playscripts bought by collectors, Baiben Zhang was responsible for putting many hundreds of Jingju playscripts into circulation.299 They were prominent enough to get written into a zidi shu.300 But Baiben Zhang was just the most successful of a number of outfits in the business of supplying manuscript copies of Jingju plays to the public.301 The best represented of these in Su wenxue congkan is the Bieye Tang 別埜堂.302 Instead of “don’t look for a lower price” their motto was “not the same as anyone else” (yu zhong bu tong 與眾不同).303

298 Qi Rushan, Qi Rushan huiyi lu, p. 222 (Qi Rushan quanji, 10: 6236). Chen Moxiang, “Guanju shenghuo sumiao,” part three, in Pan Jingfu and Chen Moxiang, Liyuan waishi, p. 407, is more sanguine about the worth of these manuscripts to amateur singers (ximi). 299 Qi Rushan, Qi Rushan huiyi lu, p. 223 (Qi Rushan quanji, 10: 6237), claims that the Guoju Xuehui collected over two hundred Baiben Zhang playscripts. Fu Xihua, “Baiben Zhang xiqu shuji kaolüe,” pp. 328–29, records that in 1929 Liu Fu 劉復 (1891–1934; a.k.a., Liu Bannong 劉半農) discovered more than eighty packets (bao 包) of Baiben Zhang playscripts on sale in Liuli chang in Beijing. The packets included over two thousand scripts, of which around 570 were Jingju playscripts; all were lost during the war of resistance against the Japanese. Qi Rushan, Qi Rushan huiyi lu, p. 222 (Qi Rushan quanji, 10: 6236), claims that Baiben Zhang got rich ( facai 發財) from selling playscripts. 300 In “Guang Huguo si” 逛護國寺 (Visiting Protect the nation temple), Qing Chewang fu chaocang quben: Zidi shu ji 清車王府鈔藏曲本: 子弟書集 (Qing dynasty songbooks copied and collected by Prince Che: Collected cadet stories; Nanjing: Jiangsu guji, 1993), pp. 328–29, a character visiting the temple finds Baiben Zhang with copies of plays (xiben 戲本) on display to the east and a rival, Tongle tang 同樂堂, doing the same to the west. The main character spends time looking through Baiben Zhang’s samples and finally orders some copies. Tongle tang, on the other hand, is just briefly mentioned. For the original Chinese text and a translation of this section of the zidi shu, see Wan, Regional Literature and the Transmission of Culture, pp. 35–36. On the importance of Baiben Zhang and similar producers of manuscripts of oral performing literature in Beijing, see Zhenzhen Lu, “The Production of Zidishu in Manuscript and Print during the Qing and Republican Eras: A Survey of the Extant Corpus,” CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature 37.2 (December 2018): 95–127. 301 Chen Jiying 陳紀瀅, Qi Ru lao yu Mei Lanfang 齊如老與梅蘭芳 (Qi Rushan and Mei Lanfang; Taibei: Zhuanji wenxue, 1967), pp. 29–30, says there were more than ten such outfits in Beijing. Fu Xihua, “Baiben Zhang xiqu shuji kaolüe,” p. 317, lists the names of three other “copyshops” besides Baiben Zhang. 302 Sun Chongtao, Xiqu wenxian xue, p. 168, describes Bieye tang and Baiben Zhang as very similar and wonders if there was any relationship between them. 303 There at least sixteen of their manuscripts in Su wenxue congkan. For an example, see 287: 427. For an example of a multi-fascicle playscript that breaks mid-sentence from one fascicle to the next, see 304: 425–48.

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There were also outfits that rented out their manuscript copies of playscripts.304 There is some doubt about the quality of those manuscripts.305 Many of the manuscript copies of Jingju scripts in Su wenxue congkan have notations or other indications of when they were copied and/or by whom or for whom. The largest group that seems to be connected to the same individual is a set of fourteen texts that each have the name or chop of Xu Zhenhua 徐振 華 and/or the hall names Xuxian tang 徐顯堂 or Zhicheng tang 致誠堂. Copies with dates are dated to the late Guangxu and Xuantong reign periods, and in some of the serial plays the episodes are also individually dated, with sometimes substantial delays between episodes and before the copy of the entire play was finished.306 One can imagine that Xu was an afficionado with connections, who liked to have playscripts copied out for him but was not in a great hurry for them to be finished. Other manuscripts reproduced in Su wenxue congkan are signed by a variety of hall (tang) names or personal names of the copyists. The dates that copyists have written on them run from as early as 1829 to as late as 1923,307 with the majority of the dates falling in the Guangxu period. Some of 304 Su wenxue congkan, 295: 13, reproduces the first page of a playscript that has the words “Those who borrow and don’t return are petty persons” 借去不還小人之輩 in the upper right corner. See Li Jiarui 李家瑞, “Qingdai Beijing mantou guan zulin changben de gaikuang” 清代北京饅頭館租賃唱本的概況 (An overview of the renting of songbooks in the steamed bun shops of Qing dynasty Beijing), in Zhongguo chuban shiliao bubian 中國 出版史料補編 (Supplemental collection to Historical material on publishing in China; Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1957), pp. 134–38, on how scripts for oral performing literature were commonly available for rent in Beijing steamed bun shops throughout the Guangxu period. Li quotes threats that appeared on their covers inveighing against mistreatment of the rented scripts or appropriation by the competition. Nan dao nü chang 男盜女娼 (May your sons become brigands, your daughters become prostitutes) occurs frequently. The daily rental fee was nine coppers (p. 135). 305 For instance, Chen Moxiang, “Guanju shenghuo sumiao” part 3, in Pan Jingfu and Chen Moxiang, Liyuan waishi, p. 407, describes the third and lowest kind of opera addict (ximi) as someone who “buys some play texts copied by Baiben Zhang, and without any discrimination, treats them as fixed standards” 買些百本張抄的戲本, 不加甄別, 奉為金 科玉律. 306 A copy of Jiulian deng 九蓮燈 (Nine lotus lamp; not in Xikao) with Xu Zhenhua’s chop that contains twelve episodes (ben) is reproduced in Su wenxue congkan, 299: 83–404. All but two of the episodes are individually dated by the copyist. Although all of the dates fall within the 23rd year of the Guangxu era, they stretch from the 26th day of the second month to the 13th day of the fifth month. The playscript has two notes (pp. 168 and 245) that give reasons for delays in the copying, and one (p. 309) that seems to be addressed to Xu that mentions the Shengpingshu and Nanfu. 307 See Su wenxue congkan, 309: 325, and 308: 33, respectively. The editorial introduction (tiyao 提要) for one play dates the copy to 1825 but I see nothing in the manuscript itself that backs that up.

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the copyists’ notes mention that the copying was done or finished by lamplight (dengxia chao 燈下抄; dengxia chaowan 燈下抄完),308 others that the text has been collated and fixed ( jiaoding 校訂).309 Sometimes how long it took to do the copying is noted,310 other times there are phrases that express happiness that the work is done or invoke a blessing on the enterprise.311 Others indicate that this copy is not the first one that the copyist made.312 Sometimes someone (in most cases it is not clear who) did some editorial work to establish a better text (ding 訂) and recorded that fact in a note that is full enough to include that person’s name and date.313 Evaluative comments (piyu 批語) are rare,314 but pronunciation glosses are pretty easy to find.315 Sometimes the manuscripts reproduced in Su wenxue congkan contain additional information on the costume a character should wear or the blocking of a scene, of the kind not generally to be found in printed playscripts. Sometimes this kind of information is part of the original copy and written in the same hand as the rest of the text,316 other times it has been added in a different hand as an appendix,317 or in marginal or interlineal comments.318 Overall, the quality of the calligraphy for these manuscripts is high; the characters are quite large and there is a quite a bit of blank white space on the pages, unlike actor’s scripts that tend to squeeze as much as possible onto the page. Interpretative or evaluative comments of the kind one finds on playscripts 308 E.g., Su wenxue congkan, 299: 245; and 301: 335, respectively. This could connote that the copying was done during the copyist’s leisure time or, conversely, that it was done in a hurry to meet a deadline. 309 E.g., Su wenxue congkan, 296: 199. 310 E.g., a note, Su wenxue congkan, 301: 361, indicates the copying for this almost thirty-pagelong play was finished in a morning (yizao chaowan 一早抄完). 311 Most of these phrases include the word ji 吉 (auspicious). For examples, see Su wenxue congkan, 307: 46 ( ji 吉); 294: 313 (daji 大吉; greatly auspicious), and 344: 173 ( jili 吉立; auspiciously established). Such phrases are also sometimes used in notes indicating when the copying began (e.g., 316: 64). 312 Su wenxue congkan, 342: 264, has a note to this effect. 313 See Su wenxue congkan, 303: 85, signed Yang Xiushan 楊秀山, a name not otherwise known to me. 314 In the Jingju manuscripts in Su wenxue congkan, I only found three examples: 306: 238; 314: 518; and 332: 5. 315 There are four in a single play. See Su wenxue congkan, 324: 287, 296, 299, and 300. 316 E.g. 285: 485 (costume) and 495 (blocking). See 314: 273 and 279 for percussion notation in the same play. 317 E.g. 290: 262–63. 318 A common thing to add is the aria type (banshi 板式) when not already specified in the manuscript. See, for example, 289: 476. Marginal notes to a play about the Boxers concern the use of colored lights and lighting effects (see 339: 46 and 84).

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meant more for reading are rare.319 Only a very small proportion of the manuscripts give any indication of the source of the playscript being copied, with the claim that the copied texts are the same as those used by famous actors being most common.320 Sometimes it is simply asserted that the text follows that of a particular troupe.321 Other times it is made clear that the text was dictated (shuo 說) to the copyist by a named person.322 3.2 Printed Copies In the middle of the Qing dynasty we begin to see printings of playscripts from popular theater (huabu),323 followed in the nineteenth century by printings of Jingju plays.324 Earlier instances, such as the early editions published by the Beijing publisher and bookseller, Baowen tang 寶文堂 (established in the 1860s325), were printed from carved woodblocks (muke ban 木刻版) by the technique known as xylography.326 In those early Baowen tang prints, stage directions are put in cartouches (carved to print in “negative,” as unprinted 319 I found only three in the Jingju section: 306: 238; 314: 518; and 332: 5. 320 The actors include Lu Shengkui (name written as 盧盛魁), 297: 590; Yu Jusheng (written as 俞菊生), 301: 361 and 304: 137; Sun Juxian, 329: 5; Jin Xiushan 金秀山 (1855–1915), 290: 101; and Mei Lanfang, 342: 448. In the case of Lu Shengkui and Yu Jusheng, they are further identified by the troupes they were part of. In the case of Jin Xiushan and Mei Lanfang, the identification of the source of the text is supposedly reinforced by the adverb zhun 准 (without fail, assuredly), while in the case of Sun Juxian the text is claimed to be his “true text” (zhenci 真詞). 321 See 336: 46 and 343: 135 (Chuntai ban), and 335: 407 (Shuangkui ban 雙奎班). 322 See 310: 171 (Li Lingxian 李靈仙), 343: 399 (Li Lingxian), 313: 144 (Qiao Yuquan 喬玉 泉), 330: 523 (Ma He 馬何), 332: 341 (Wu Jinlin 吳金林), and 336: 193 (Jitai 吉泰). Qiao Yuquan 喬玉泉 (?–1946) was a lead percussionist (gushi 鼓師) who participated in phonograph recordings made from 1924–1931 (see http://history.xikao.com/person/乔玉泉, accessed December 12, 2019). I have not been able to find information on the others. 323 The 1770 edition of Zhui baiqiu is recognized as being pathbreaking in the number of huabu plays it included. 324 Yan Quanyi, Qingdai Jingju wenxue shi, p. 503, focuses on the Tongzhi reign period (1862– 1874) as the time when the demand in the public for Jingju playscripts to help them watch and learn plays (tingxi xuexi 聽戲學戲) prompted disciples of actors to allow playscripts to circulate more widely and commercial outfits to buy and publish (goumai bing kanke 購買並刊刻) them; this happened to such an extent that “the majority of the popular plays of the time all saw the appearance of relatively set playscripts” 這時大多流行劇目 都有了相對固定的劇本問世. 325 Zhongguo xiqu zhi: Beijing juan, p. 867, gives two different dates that have been put forward: 1862 and 1867. 326 Jile shijie 極樂世界 (Realm of ultimate bliss) was published by the Juzhen tang 聚珍 堂 of Beijing, a firm closely associated with printing with movable type early on. On the firm, see Ellen Widmer, “Honglou meng ying and its Publisher, Juzhen tang of Beijing,” Late Imperial China 23.2 (December 2002): 33–52, particularly “A Portrait of Juzhen tang,”

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white within blocks of black) and spaces are left between sentences or phrases rather than using punctuation.327 Su wenxue congkan reproduces almost one hundred printed Jingju playscripts (fourteen of which come from Baowen tang), forty-three lithographed illustrated scripts (some of which include more than one play), and twenty-eight other printed playscripts, many of which use movable type. The earliest printed anthology of Jingju plays, Li Shizhong’s 李 世忠 Liyuan jicheng 梨園集成 (Compendium of plays), was published in 1880.328 The earliest collection of Jingju by one author was published in the same year, and what seems to be the first Jingju play by a specific author to be printed separately was published in 1881 (as will be seen in chapter 2, these plays were written earlier than their publication dates). These early editions fit the model for the printing of chuanqi plays, in which the authors and people connected to them were more likely to put up the money to cover the costs of printing than commercial printers.329 In the case of Jingju, that situation did not last long, and commercial publication of Jingju play texts became the dominant mode of publication. With the rise of the new printing technologies of lithography and modern movable type, the center of Jingju playscript publication shifted from Beijing to Shanghai. Several lithographed series or collections of plays were printed at the end of the Qing dynasty. They tended to copy from each other. A title of one of them, published by Wenyi shuju 文宜書局 in Shanghai, was Zhenzheng Jingdu toudeng mingjue quben 真正京都頭等名角曲本 (True and correct capital top-level famous-actor playscripts).330 Such a title made claims about the

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pp. 37–47. She mentions Jile shijie, but identifies it as a chuanqi and not a Jingju play; for how, in a limited sense, it is both, see chapter 2. For a sample page, see Su wenxue congkan, 307: 183. Kathryn A. Lowry, The Tapestry of Popular Songs in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century China: Reading, Imitation, and Desire (Leiden: Brill, 2005), p. 52, notes the use of blank spaces instead of punctuation in popular song texts of the Ming and Qing. On Li Shizhong and this collection, see chapter 2. On how the funding for the majority of chuanqi plays seems to have come from the playwrights and those connected to them, see Li Zhiyuan, Ming Qing xiqu xuba yanjiu, p. 174. See Zhu Chongzhi, Zhongguo gudai xiqu xuanben, pp. 260–61. A number of similar collections have been scanned and made available online by The Institute for the Study of East Asian Culture at Tokyo University (http://shanben.ioc.u-tokyo.ac.jp/; see below) but none of them can be matched up with Zhu’s description. In issue 1536 of Youxi bao 游戲 報 (Entertainment), which appeared in 1901, there is an advertisement for a performance by Tan Xinpei that describes him as “Jingdu neichengfu zhenzheng toudeng mingjue Xiao Jiaotian” 京都內城府真正頭等名角小呌天. Like the title of the play collection, it emphasizes Beijing (and perhaps by referring to the inner city [neichengfu] the fact that Tan performed at the court), his authenticity, and his being first-class and famous. On the ad, see Cai Peifen, “Wan Qing fushi hui,” p. 161.

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correctness of the editions and their close connection to famous actors associated with Beijing. The set originally contained at least seventy-two plays. On the title pages of the individual plays the series title appears to the right, with the name of an actor (or sometimes two) slotted in after mingjue (famous actor).331 Two actors tie for the honor of having their name appear in the most number of play title pages (nine): Wang Guifen 汪桂芬 (1860–1906) and Zhou Chunkui 周春奎 (c. 1840–c. 1920).332 Zhou was actually from Tianjin. The title pages are followed by an illustration showing a scene in which the characters are in costume standing as they would appear on stage.333 In the middle of the title page is the name of the play preceded by the characters huitu 繪圖 331 For a numbered list of seventy-two of the plays that also includes the names of the actors, see Zhu Chongzhi, Zhongguo gudai xiqu xuanben, pp. 260–61. According to that list, twenty-three of the plays list two actors, while one (#49, the title page of which is reproduced in Su wenxue congkan, 293: 335) does not follow the pattern and has no actors’ names. It is possible that that play does not really belong to the set. As Zhu points out (p. 27), there is no overall table of contents for this set (it appears to me that the individual plays were not originally bound together, see below). The title Zhu uses to refer to the set, Zhenzheng Jingdu toudeng mingjue quben, seems to have been produced by leaving the actors’ names out of the lines that appear on the right of the title pages of the individual plays. Some of the plays have jiaoben 腳本 (playscript) rather than quben (e.g., Su wenxue congkan, 301: 543 [#33 on Zhu’s list]) at the end of that line. There are a total of twentyseven plays on Zhu’s list that are included in Su wenxue congkan, but the fact that another eight (285: 411–20; 298: 127–34; 301: 5–16; 303: 547–59; 312: 21–30; 314: 465–80; 319: 349–58; and 326: 215–22) clearly look like they belong in the set but are not on Zhu’s list seems to indicate that Zhu’s list cannot be considered complete and that there were at least eighty in the set. Zhu does not give any information on the location of the copies of the plays he was working with, but he writes of the set, p. 260, as being a “book” (shu 書) that has seventy-eight chapters ( juan 卷) and is bound in nine fascicles (ce 冊). Perhaps the copy examined was bound together privately (or perhaps by the press) after the plays had appeared individually. 332 See the tabulations offered in Zhao Shanlin 趙山林, Zhongguo xiqu chuanbo jieshou shi 中國戲曲傳播接受史 (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin, 2008), p. 497, which are based on Zhu Chongzhi’s list, reproduced (without acknowledgement of source) on pp. 496–97. Zhao comments that the actors in the titles of the plays in this set are “practically all famous actors who had performed in Shanghai” 基本都是在上海演出過的名角. He notes, however, the absence of Tan Xinpei from the list and finds that puzzling ( feijie 費 解), but it turns out that one of the set included in Su wenxue congkan (301: 5–16; Qin Qiong mai ma 秦瓊賣馬 [Qin Qiong sells his horse]; Xikao #111) but not in Zhu’s list does have Tan’s name (he is referred to as Xiao Jiaotian 小叫天). 333 For example, see Su wenxue congkan, 301: 6, which shows four characters with stage beards standing by the stage entrance (shangchang men 上場門), where the curtain has been drawn to one side to facilitate their entrance. One of the characters has a facepattern painted on his face and three of them have almost exaggeratedly thick thick-soled boots. Like the rest of the text, the picture has been reproduced lithographically.

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(illustrated).334 The play begins on the following page, which contains the title of the play on the far right preceded by the characters jiaozheng 校正 (collated and corrected) and Jingdiao 京調 (capital melody), and followed generally at the end by the characters quanben 全本 (complete text).335 Stage directions are printed in lines of smaller characters aligned slightly to the right with a little blank space to the left; the text is unpunctuated and usually not otherwise divided. There were also smaller sets of illustrated lithographed plays produced in the late Qing. One that was presumably published before Zhenzheng Jingdu toudeng mingjue quben also includes the characters jiaozheng and Jingdiao before and after the titles of the thirty individual plays in the set.336 The texts use spaces instead of punctuation (spaces are also used to show the caesura or phrasing in arias). At least two other sets claim a direct connection to the Sanqing Troupe, the longest lasting of the Hui troupes in Beijing.337 334 There are other printed series of playscripts that highlighted the fact that they were illustrated. For instance, there was a series of texts that Yan Quanyi, Qingdai Jingju wenxue shi, p. 504, calls Huitu Jingju liushi er zhong 繪圖京劇六十二種 (Illustrated Jingju, 62 volumes), which he says were published between 1875 and 1908 by the (Shanghai publisher) Xiang e xingyun lou 響遏行雲樓. 335 For example, see Su wenxue congkan, 301: 7. The exceptions are the multi-part plays. The titles for the separate parts end with a qianben 前本 or a houben 後本 in the case of twopart plays (there are four of these) and shangben 上本, zhongben 中本, or xiaben 下本 for three-part ones (there is one, Silang tanmu). 336 Zhu Chongzhi, Zhongguo gudai xiqu xuanben, p. 260, calls the collection Jiaozheng Jingdiao and places it before Zhenzheng Jingdu toudeng mingjue quben, perhaps implying chronological order of appearance. He lists the titles of thirty plays. No publisher or date is cited for the set by Zhu, who once again refers to the collection as a book and gives information as to the number of chapters (thirty, which again matches the number of play titles) and fascicles (thirteen). For an example from this set reproduced in Su wenxue congkan, see 293: 429–36. 337 Zhu Chongzhi, Zhongguo gudai xiqu xuanben, pp. 261–62, gives their names as Huitu Jingdu Sanqing ban Jingdiao 繪圖京都三慶班京調 (Illustrated Capital Sanqing Troupe Beijing melody) and Jingdu Sanqing ban Jingdiao jiaoben 京都三慶班京調腳本 (Capital Sanqing Troupe Beijing melody playscripts), and gives the extant playtitles—about half of the first set (twenty-nine), less of the second (twenty-one). The second set is listed as published by the same press as Zhenzheng Jingdu toudeng mingjue quben, Wenyi shuju 文 藝書局 (the publisher for the first was Guanlan ge 觀瀾閣 of Shanghai). Yet another set of late Qing lithographed, illustrated Jingju playscripts, Huitu Jingdu Sanqing ban zhen­ zheng Jingdiao quanji 繪圖京都三慶班真正京調全集), is mentioned in Ma Shaobo et al., Zhongguo Jingju shi, 1: 159, where it is dated to both 1900 and 1906 (the latter seems correct) and the publisher is given as Zhuji shuju 鑄記書局 (located in Shanghai). It is said that the anthology was string bound (xianzhuang 線裝) in ten sections (ben 本/ji 集) and included a total of thirty-six illustrations. The titles of the individual sections seem to mimic the pattern set in Zhenzheng Jingdu toudeng mingjue quben, except that

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While not apparently parts of sets, and not illustrated, there are a number of other interesting printings of Jingju plays reproduced in Su wenxue congkan. On the title pages of woodblock editions of playscripts published by Jinchun here the phrase toudeng mingjue is used to introduce not plays but a number of plays (either four or five) supposedly connected to the same actor (the enumeration of the ten section titles is clearly in error since there is no section ten and instead there is a section title falsely labeled as that for the whole collection). One section is devoted to Tan Xinpei; it includes five plays, none of which appear in Zhu Chongzhi’s list for Zhenzheng Jingdu toudeng mingjue quben, but one of which was identified by myself as belonging to that set, Qin Qiong mai ma. This anthology seems to combine the ideas of linking the plays to (1) a specific troupe and (2) specific actors. On the same page, Ma Shaobo et al., Zhongguo Jingju shi, 1: 159, gives the date of Huitu Jingdu Sanqing ban zhenzheng Jingdiao quanji as 1900. No example of these “Sanqing” plays seems to have been reproduced in Su wenxue congkan. Guojia tushu guan cang zhenben zaju chuanqi difang xi quyi chatu 國家圖書館 藏珍本雜劇傳奇地方戲曲藝插圖 (Illustrations from precious copies of zaju, chuanqi, local theatre traditions and oral performing literature held by Chinese libraries) 18 vols. (Beijing: Guojia tushu guan wenxian suowei fuzhi zhongxin, 2006), vols. 13–14, contain illustrations from the following late Qing and early Republican era printed sets of Jingju plays: Beijing miben xiqu tukao 北京秘本戲曲圖考 (Illustrated research on Beijing secret/private play texts; fifty-four play titles, pp. 5977–6033); Gailiang Jingdiao tukao 改 良京調圖考 (Illustrated research on Jingju playscripts; eighty-two play titles; pp. 6057– 6144); Jingdu Yishun he ban Jingdiao zaju 京都義順和班京調雜劇 (Plays of the Yishun He Troupe of Beijing; four play titles; pp. 6203–208); Gonghe liyuan xin xiben 共和梨園 新戲本 (New play texts of the Republican era; 135 play titles; pp. 6277–446); Sanqing ban xiqu quanji 三慶班戲曲全集 (Complete collection of the plays of the Sanqing Troupe; fifty-one play titles; pp. 6447–6504); and Zhenzheng Jingdiao 真正京調 (True and correct Jingju; eighteen play titles; pp. 6559–6580). Illustrations from fifteen separately published plays are also included (pp. 6035–56, 6145–6202, 6209–76, and 6505–58). The following titles are available on the Tokyo University site cited above: Zhenzheng Jingdiao 真正京 調, forty-two plays; Huitu Jingdiao 繪圖京調, sixty-eight plays; Huitu Jingdu Sanqing ban Jingdiao 繪圖京都三慶班京調 (publisher: Shanghai jicheng tushu gongsi 上海集成 圖書公司), fifty-eight plays; Huitu Jingdu Sanqing ban Jingdiao jiaoben 繪圖京都三慶 班京調腳本 (date given as 1912), fifty plays; Zhonghua diyi deng gonghe ban xiqu jiao­ ben 中華第一等共和班戲曲腳本 (publisher: Shanghai gailiang xiaoshuo shuju 上海 改良小說書局; date: 1915), forty-six plays; and Huitu Jingdiao daguan 繪圖京調大觀 (publisher: Shanghai Shijie shuju 上海世界書局; date: 1926), 103 plays. These were all originally part of Nakasawa Kikuya’s 長澤規矩也 (1902–1980) private collection and are available on a separate site that uses the name of the collection: Sokōdō 雙紅堂 (http:// hong.ioc.u-tokyo.ac.jp/list.php). These are all lithographic editions and are quite rare in China, and have been under-utilized by scholars until recently. For an exception, see Ding Shumei 丁淑梅, “Shuanghong tang cang Qingmo Minchu Jingdiao zhezi xi jinxi yanjiu— Yi Qingding zhu, Bala miao, Xiao shangfen wei li” 雙紅堂藏清末民初京調折子戲禁 戲研究—以慶頂珠, 八蠟廟, 小上墳為例 (Research on banned plays in the late Qing early Republican Jingdiao zhezi xi held in the Sokōdō collection—Using Presenting the pearl [Xikao #36], Bala Temple [Xikao #211], and Little visit to the gravesite [Xikao #74] as examples), in Fu Jin, ed., Mei Lanfang yu Jingju de chuanbo, pp. 692–705.

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tang 錦春堂 of Shanghai, prominence is given to the idea that the scripts not only come from famous troupes (mingban 名班) but are also based on manuscript copies (chaoben 抄本).338 Su wenxue congkan reproduces what appears to be the cover page for a “complete set” (quanbu 全部) of plays by a publishing house called Jicheng tushu gongsi 集成圖書公司 of Shanghai, which claims that theirs are both “secret” (miben 秘本)339 and “reformed” (gailiang 改良) texts.340 Other publishers tried to trump the assertions of closeness and accuracy other presses made by claiming that their play texts were secret texts or manuscripts dictated by actors. Some of these printed texts make the claim that they were transmitted orally (kouchuan 口傳),341 while others claim they were recorded from dictation (koulu 口錄).342 There are also movable-type editions of Jingju playscripts reproduced in Su wenxue congkan. The only ones that are roughly datable are those that use Beiping instead of Beijing in their addresses, and thus must date to after 1927 when the capital was shifted to Nanjing. In them the stage directions tend to be enclosed in parentheses and the only other punctuation is a kind of period used to mark off both clauses and sentences. A major innovation over the other Jingju play texts reproduced in Su wenxue congkan is their common use, on the cover pages, of photographs of unnamed actors in costume or ordinary dress.343 Two Baowen tang typeset editions have an interesting motto on their cover page: wenming xiaoqian 文明消遣 (an enlightened pastime).344 Another new 338 In Su wenxue congkan there are three playscripts that are clearly from Jinchun tang and two that seem likely to have been printed by them. Sometimes instead of mingban you get Jingban 京班 (Capital troupe). For examples, see 312: 99 (mingban) and 299: 15 (Jingban). In these editions, stage directions are brief and appear in cartouches, spaces are used instead of punctuation, and the characters are cut crudely. 339 The idea behind the phrase miben is that the play text is both the private and secret text (of a particular actor). 340 See Su wenxue congkan, 302: 455, where it appears right before the reproduction of an illustrated play that does not contain the buzzwords miben or gailiang and is largely indistinguishable from other illustrated lithographic playscripts from that era. Perhaps the cover page for the collection was an attempt to repackage older material. 341 See Su wenxue congkan, 347: 35, for the cover of a printed playscript that describes itself as produced from an orally transmitted manuscript (kouchuan chaoben 口傳抄本). 342 For an example where the phrase occurs on both the cover and the first page, see Su wenxue congkan, 298: 135 and 137, and for a cover page that felt the need to print the phrase twice, see 340: 435. 343 See Su wenxue congkan, 331: 47, for an example of the former, and 345: 21 for an example of the latter (the photo is of two actresses in ordinary dress). 344 See Su wenxue congkan, 331: 47, and 345: 21. As will become even more apparent in chapter 3, Xikao and the works that imitated it promoted themselves primarily as reference works, but there are isolated examples among them that present themselves as pastime reading. For, instance, an ad for Xixue huikao in Xiju yuekan 1.1 (June 1928), which

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thing about these editions is that the first page of the plays themselves often gives alternate names for the play.345 On the cover page of an edition from another press that also gives its address as Beiping, the photo on the cover is flanked by text that gives a brief summary or highlights of the play’s plot.346 By collating the version of another play published by the same press with earlier ones, we find out that some of the “naughty bits” preserved in manuscript and woodblock versions got deleted in this movable text one,347 perhaps because of the more exposed (to prosecution) nature of a modern printing press. The lithographic sets of Jingju plays published in Shanghai at the end of the Qing dynasty and beginning of the Republican period claim that their scripts come directly from the actors who made them famous but offer no real proof that this is the case or even include a preface that makes such a claim. Looking at these sets, it becomes immediately clear that they are plagiarizing from each other. Actors did begin to have a direct connection to the publication of their plays during these years, but this activity took the form of the publication of individual plays rather than collections of them. The actors who did this tended to be those most connected to or supportive of the idea of changing China through theater. Tian Jiyun 田際雲 (1864–1925), a leader in Jingju circles and largely responsible for the prohibition of the xianggong industry in Beijing,348 was involved in the printing and reprinting of one of his plays, Yuenan wang­ guo can 越南亡國慘 (The tragic history of the fall of Vietnam). That play uses Vietnam’s loss of independence as an example China needs to learn from and avoid. We hear from a newspaper account that 3,000 copies were printed in the first edition and, with only 500 yet unsold, Tian wants to print another 10,000 ran right before the table of contents, other than some details about binding and price consists solely of the following: “Dear friends! After going to hear plays, how do you pass the time? Please buy Xixue huikao, published by Dadong shuju” 諸君! 聽戲以後, 怎麼消 遣? 請購大東書局出版戲學彙考. 345 See, for instance, Su wenxue congkan, 331: 49. 346 See Su wenxue congkan, 307: 17. The press is Zhonghua yinshu ju 中華印書局 of Beijing. 347 The play is Xiao fangniu (Xikao #71). Compare the versions in the Zhonghua yinshu ju edition (Su wenxue congkan, 345: 10), the Prince Che version (340: 506–507), and the Baowen tang woodblock edition (340: 478) with regard to the talk about the male character changing into a bee and stinging the female on her vagina when she goes to the privy, etc. 348 Xianggong 相公 is the most common term for young actors who waited on patrons in the studios of their masters or in restaurants. Their services could be sexual and can be considered a form of male prostitution. Xianggong are one of the main focuses of the genre of huapu, for which see the Introduction. The xianggong industry was officially abolished in 1912. For a photograph of a young man whose caption, “Un ‘sian-kôn’ ” labels him as a xianggong, see Jean Jacques Matignon, Superstition, crime et misère en Chine (Superstition, crime, and misery in China; Lyon: A. Storck et cie, 1899), Fig. 38.

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copies because he was going to perform the play soon.349 Wang Xiaonong 汪 笑儂 (1858–1918) and members of Xin Wutai were also involved in the publication of their plays so that they would circulate more widely.350 In the history of the textualization of nanxi and zaju playscripts, it was only gradually that changes of scene or act were explicitly represented by separating the text into segments and labeling them with scene or act titles and/or numbering them. The same is true with Jingju. Most of the Jingju manuscripts in Su wenxue congkan are not divided into scenes,351 although the practice of dividing the scripts for longer plays or play cycles into ben (episodes) began quite early. In Liyuan jicheng, meaningful segments of the plays are called hui 回,352 a common enough measure in Chinese traditional fiction and oral per349 See the March 19, 1910 Shuntian ribao item, “Xiben changxiao” 戲本暢銷 (A play text is a best-seller), reproduced in Fu Jin, ed., Jingju lishi wenxian huibian: Qingdai juan, 5: 643. The reporter goes on to say that “in the future when everyone has a copy, when they go to watch the play everything will be clear to them” 將來人個一本, 那麻看戲時便可一目了然. 350 Many of Wang Xiaonong’s plays were published in periodicals, beginning perhaps with his Guazhong lanyin 瓜種蘭因 (Seed of the melon, cause of the orchid), which was serialized in two newspapers in 1904 (see chapter 2). We will look at the 1911 publication of Xia Yueshan’s 夏月珊 (1868–1924) Heiji yuanhun in chapter 4 below. Wu Qiufan 吳秋帆, ed., Lü Yueqiao zhenben Ximi zhuan 呂月樵真本戲迷傳 (True version of Lü Yueqiao’s Story of an opera addict; Shanghai: Gonghe tushu guan, 1917; related to but different from Xikao #323), contains a preface in which Lü Yueqiao’s involvement with the publication is mentioned. 351 Among the rather small number of manuscript play texts in Su wenxue congkan that are divided into scenes, there is an example that divides the play up into scenes (chu 齣) such that each starts on a new page (288: 417–54); one that skips to the top of the next line for each new scene, numbers them, and calls them chang 場 (285: 499–516); one that uses running text but inserts scene (chang) numbers (289: 411–44); one that inserts scene (chang) numbers in running text but also includes scene markers in the upper margin (284: 449–60); and one that uses the character xia 下 (exit) with extended flourishes to indicate when the stage is cleared of characters (303: 5–150). 352 See Yan Quanyi, Qingdai Jingju wenxue shi, p. 504. Shi Zhaohou 石兆厚, “Du Liyuan jicheng” 讀梨園集成 (Reading Liyuan jicheng), originally published in Wenxue jikan 文學 季刊 (Literature quarterly) 1.2 (1934): 416–23, and reproduced in Zhongguo jindai wenxue lunwen ji (1919–1949): Xiju juan 中國近代文學論文集 (1919–1949): 戲劇卷 (Collection of articles on early modern Chinese literature [1919–1949]: Volume on theater; Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue, 1988), pp. 362–72, lists the five plays in the collection that are divided into hui (they have 6, 21, 19, 11, and 6 hui, respectively). The majority of these hui have two-character titles. Shi notes how unusual it is to use hui as a subdivision in a play (p. 422 of original, p. 370 of reprinted version). However, shorter Chuqu plays published in Hankou during the nineteenth century are also divided into hui with their own titles. Longer Chuqu plays were printed in more than one fascicle (ce/juan 冊/卷) and divided into chang 場 (scenes/acts), also with their own titles, that are also numbered (after the initial introductory sections, not explicitly numbered, which tend to include some mix of scenes labeled “Xiaoyin” 小引 [Short introduction], “Baochang” 報場 [Announcement

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forming literature texts. Jingju play text manuscripts, besides using ben and hui to talk about these kinds of divisions, also used pian 篇.353 As we will see in chapter 2, early printings of Jingju plays by literati authors tended to imitate the structure of chuanqi plays and their division into scenes (chu 齣) and conventions regarding the use of specific scenes, particularly the first ones. The last half of the nineteenth century saw the rise of mass-market newspapers such as Shenbao 申報 (founded 1872)354 and influential periodicals such as Liang Qichao’s Xin xiaoshuo (founded 1902),355 as well as journals specializing in Chinese theater, the first of which is the short-lived Ershi shiji da wutai 二十世紀大舞臺 (The great stage of the 20th century), shut down after two issues in the same year it was founded (1904). Playscripts began to be printed in these media, a trend that would become more important as time went by (see chapters 4 through 6). Particularly noteworthy is the use of these media to publish play texts that were “reformed” (gailiang 改良) and intended to reform China.356 There is one example for which we know more background

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scene] and “Dengchang” 登場 [Taking the stage]). All of the longer plays end with a scene that is labeled “Tuanyuan” 團圓 (Reunion). Five of these plays are reproduced in Xuxiu Siku quanshu 續修四庫全書 (Continuation and revision of the Quadripartite Imperial Library; Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 2002), 1,782: 639–724, under the title Xinjuan Chuqu shizhong 新鐫楚曲十種 (Newly carved ten Chuqu). On why it is not good to use such a title for them, and how the plays are transitional between chuanqi and later Jingju playscript practices, see Qiu Huiying 丘慧瑩, “Qingdai Chuqu juben gaishuo” 清代楚曲劇本 概說 (An overview of the play texts of Chuqu of the Qing dynasty), Xiqu yanjiu 72 (2007): 218–31. For examples, see Su wenxue congkan, 331: 57–110 and 285: 471–99 (which also breaks the pian into chang 場 or scenes). On this newspaper see Barbara Mittler, A Newspaper for China?: Power, Identity, and Change in Shanghai’s News Media, 1872–1912 (Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2004). For an example of a play text serialized in this newspaper, see “Xin shiba che” 新 十八扯 (Modernized Eighteen bits [cf., Shiba che 十八扯 (Eighteen bits; Xiao #139)]), October 31–November 10, 1912. An early and pathbreaking article is Lee and Nathan, “The Beginnings of Mass Culture.” In the late Qing, in the periodicals discussed in the article, the term for “fiction,” xiaoshuo 小說, was generally used to include dramatic literature. For a list of twenty such publications of this kind of play, many of them Jingju, in Shanghai periodicals from 1903–1909, see Chen Jia 陳佳, “Wan Qing Shanghai baokan yu Jingju chuanbo” 晚清上海報刊與京劇傳播 (Shanghai periodicals of the late Qing period and the transmission of Jingju), master’s thesis, Shanghai Normal University, 2009, pp. 65–66. Two were published in Xin xiaoshuo (which was actually inaugurated in Yokohama but moved to Shanghai the next year) and four in Ershi shiji wutai. Four were written by Wang Xiaonong, who will be discussed as a playwright in chapter 2. The list is incomplete (for instance, the fact that one of the plays by Wang Xiaonong was published in two different periodicals is not noted). Zhou Qifu 周啟付, “1840–1919 nian xiqu jumu jilu” 1840– 1919 年戲曲劇目輯錄 (Compilation of Chinese indigenous play texts from 1840–1919),

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than usual. The play was written by Liang Juchuan 梁巨川 (personal name Ji 濟; 1858–1918; father to Liang Shuming 梁漱溟 [1893–1988]).357 The newspaper that serialized it reports that Liang spent two months working on the script and was worried that it “would not be singable” (bu heqiang 不合腔). The author of the report says that after the New Year’s season is over, the newspaper will serialize the play and “entrust it to enlightened actors” 轉托梨園明 白人 to perform (it was eventually performed by a bangzi troupe).358 Prior to 1912, the publication of single Jingju play texts as books seems to have been Zhonghua xiqu 20 (1997): 391–97, lists 127 play texts that were published in periodicals before 1912. 357 Guy S. Alitto, The Last Confucian: Liang Shuming and the Chinese Dilemma of Modernity (Berkeley: University of China Press, 1979), is about the son but includes a fair amount about the father. Alitto describes one of Liang Juchuan’s projects as the “rewriting of local folk operas and rearranging them for the stage in Peking” and notes that he “devoted little time to anything but opera in the years from 1913–1918” (p. 62). 358 The title of the play is “Nüzi aiguo” 女子愛國 (Women who are patriotic). See “You bianle yiben xi” 又編了一本戲 (Another play has been written), Jinghua ribao, issue 509, January 16, 1906, in Fu Jin, ed., Jingju lishi wenxian huibian: Qingdai juan xubian, 4: 300– 301. The writer mentions that Liang is a relative of the owner of the newspaper but that doesn’t matter (if only he had more such relatives is the idea). An editor’s note on p. 301 indicates that the serialization began in issue 635 of the following lunar year (1907). The play was later serialized in the first two issues of Chunliu 春柳 (Spring willow; 1918–1919). At the end of one of the four installments (ben 本) of the play (issue 2, p. 164), there is a note from the playwright that includes an apology and a wish: “As for the tunes and main beats and subsidiary beats, and the rules of blocking, I don’t understand any of that. I hope that great actors of a famous troupe will carefully consider what needs to be edited or changed. The important thing is that [the arias] should be singable, whether the language is vulgar doesn’t matter” 惟腔調板眼走場規矩一概不懂, 還請名班大家, 斟 酌填減更改, 求其合式能唱為度, 詞句粗俗無妨也. You Fukai 游富凱, “Wan Qing Beijing xiqu gailiang huodong yanjiu—Yi Liang Ji yu Nüzi aiguo wei zhongxin” 晚清北 京戲曲改良活動研究—以梁濟與女子愛國為中心 (Research on the theater reform movement in Beijing in the late Qing—With a focus on Liang Ji and Nüzi aiguo), You feng chu ming niankan 有鳳初鳴年刊 (First cry of the phoenix annual) 11 (2015): 86–107, pp. 91–92, notes that the serialization of the play in Jinghua ribao ran from issue 635 to 664, that the installments had an introduction that mentioned that the play had already been performed, and that each installment included this statement: “It would be fortunate if other troupes, for the moment, do not mount this play” 他班暫勿排演是幸. Publication of the play as a separate volume was promised but does not seem to have occurred. You also notes that there is a Yangliu Qing woodblock print that depicts a scene from the third of the play’s four installment (p. 93). “Nüzi aiguo” was included in Zhang Geng 張庚 and Huang Jusheng 黃菊盛, eds., Zhongguo jindai wenxue daxi: Xiju ji 中國近 代文學大系: 戲劇集 (Compendium of early modern Chinese literature: Drama collection), 2 vols. (Shanghai: Shanghai shudian, 1996), 1: 33–72. The editors appear to have been unaware of the Chunliu serialization (p. 33).

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rare, the only examples being two works by early literati playwrights (for which see chapter 2).359 3.3 Play Format: Division into Scenes If changing scene is thought of as primarily a matter of changing locale in space or time, the use of a bare stage and the conventions associated with it made changing scenes in Jingju very easy.360 Scene changes were also less restricted by musical conventions than was the case with theatrical traditions built around song-suites such as zaju or chuanqi drama, which were typically divided into zhe 折 or chu 齣 featuring a single song-suite.361 In fact, we can say that in Jingju the demarcation of scenes is almost purely a matter of the entrance and exit of characters,362 with a new scene beginning after the 359 A published letter by one Zhang Zhishi proposed that a play text about a female educator who committed suicide should be printed and given out at performances of the play, but that does not seem to have been done. For the letter, see “Zhang Zhishi kuxin quan nüxue” 張志士苦心勸女學 (Zhang Zhishi encourages women’s education), Jinghua ribao, issue 563 (March 22,1906), in Fu Jin, ed., Jingju lishi wenxian huibian: Qingdai juan xubian, 4: 305. The play was entitled “Huixing nüshi” 慧興女士 (Miss Huixing; not in Xikao). You Fukai 游富凱, “Yi dangshi ren yan dangshi shi—Lun wan Qing gailiang xinxi Huixing nüshi de xiju gousi yu yanchu shi” 以當時人演當時事—論晚清改良新戲慧 興女士的戲劇構思與演出史 (Using contemporary persons to perform contemporary events—On the dramaturgy of the reformed new play Miss Huixing of the late Qing and its performance history), Xiju xuekan 28 (2018): 84, notes that our only access to texts of the play are versions published in two periodicals in 1906 and 1909. 360 See Ma Shaobo et al., Zhongguo Jingju shi, 3: 684, on the loss of “freedom in the handling of space” (shikong ziyou 時空自由) that came as a consequence of abandoning the jian­ chang 檢場 system (use of prop men to come out on stage to move props and scenery) in the PRC. On the handling of time and space on the Jingju stage, see, for instance, Wei Tze-yün, “The Treatment of Time and Space on Peking Opera Stage,” Tamkang Review 12.3 (Spring 1982): 285–93. 361 It is true, of course, that some major scenes in chuanqi drama, such as scene 10 of Mudan ting, can be said to fall into two sections, each of which have their own song-suite, and which can and have been performed separately. 362 Zeng Yongyi 曾永義, “Shuo ‘paichang’ ” 說 ‘排場’ (On stage blocking), “Jingju de paichang” 京劇的排場 (On stage blocking in Jingju), reproduced in Zeng Yongyi xueshu lunwen zixuan ji: Jiabian xueshu linian, pp. 98–99, says that Jingju does not use the labels of zhe 折 or chu 齣 but instead uses chang 場, “and as long as an actor playing a character takes the stage, then that is the beginning of a scene; when all of the actors playing characters exit the stage, then that is the end of the scene” 只要有一名角色登場, 便是一場 的開始; 臺上所有的角色都下場, 即為此場之結束. His student, Wang Anqi 王安祈, agrees. In her “Guanyu Jingju juben laiyuan de jidian kaocha—Yi Chewang fu quben wei shizheng” 關於京劇劇本來源的幾點考察—以車王府曲本為實證 (Some research into the sources of Jingju playscripts—Using Prince Che playscripts as evidence), Minsu

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stage has been cleared.363 Some plays have very few clearances of the stage; a character can leave a previously established locale to go to another, yet-tobe-established locale without exiting the stage. Thus you can get whole plays that are technically just one scene.364 You can also get plays in which the stage is emptied every few lines in the play text (this is often the case with martial plays).365 Dissatisfaction among some theater reformers with what they saw as the “fragmented” (sui 碎) nature of the scenes in traditional Jingju, along with the experimentation with the use of scenery that began in the late 19th century, produced plays that used “act divisions” ( fenmu de fangfa 分幕的方法).366

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quyi 131 (2001): 118, she observes that Jingju “does not have to deal with the restrictions of song-suites, and purely relies on the ‘entering and exiting of the characters’ to demarcate the scenes” 不受套曲的限制, 純粹以 ‘人物之上下’ 為場次的區分. See Birch, Scenes for Mandarins, p. 41, for how scene division went the other way in nanxi and chuanqi drama, from actor based (clearing the stage) to content based. A different matter is what kinds the scenes could be divided into. See Zeng Yongyi, “Shuo ‘paichang,’ ” pp. 84–88, for a discussion of Zhang Jing’s 張敬 (1918–1997) classification of chuanqi play scenes into the following types: dachang 大場 (big scene), zhengchang 正場 (orthodox scene), duanchang 短場 (short scene), guochang 過場 (transitional scene), wenchang 文 場 (civil scene), wuchang 武場 (martial scene), wenwu quanchang 文物全場 (combined civil and martial scene), naochang 鬧場 (farcical scene), tongchang 同場 (scene with many characters but allotment of singing uneven), and qunxi 群戲 (scene with many characters but allotment of singing more even), and Zeng’s summary of the principles involved: (1) importance to the plot, (2) presence of important characters, (3) kind of song-suite used, (4) complexity of stage action, and (5) use of linking props. Gao Zhenlin 高禎臨, Ming chuanqi xiju qingjie yanjiu 明傳奇戲劇情節研究 (Research on the plot elements of Ming dynasty chuanqi plays; Taibei: Wenjin chubanshe, 2005), has divided into categories “consequential plot elements” (guanjian qingjie 關鍵情節; pp. 87–125) and “non-consequential plot elements” ( fei guanjian qingjie 非關鍵情節; pp. 143–67), and in appendices has charted their occurrence in the plays of Liushi zhong qu 六十種 曲 (Sixty plays), a famous and influential collection of chuanqi plays published in the late Ming (pp. 247–71). See for instance, Qi Rushan, Guoju yishu huilao, p. 519 (Qi Rushan quanji, 6: 3845), on Nü qijie 女起解 (Transporting the female prisoner; Xikao #70) as a one-scene play with seven different locations (he complains that a filmed version of the play with scenery completely destroyed the essence of the play). Similarly, a note of his to Mei Lanfang 梅蘭芳, “Xinbian Jun Xiren juci” 新編俊襲人劇詞 (The text of the newly compiled Handsome Aroma; not in Xikao), Xiju yuekan 1.6 (November 1928), p. 2 (separate pagination), remarks that the play is just a single scene yet it runs for two hours. This is most evident in editions of plays in which the scenes are explicitly divided, such as is the practice in Zhang Bojin 張博謹, ed., Guoju dacheng 國劇大成 (Compendium of national opera), 15 vols. (Taibei: Guofang bu, 1969–1974). See Ouyang Yuqian, Zi wo yan xi yi lai, p. 68. Since Jingju plays were as much vehicles for actors to emote and show off their skills as they were attempts to tell complete stories, it is not surprising to come across many scenes that are not essential to plot development.

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Unlike chuanqi drama, until the second half of the 20th century it was very rare for the scenes in a Jingju to be given titles, if we exclude parts of plays that were performed as extracts or segments that could be added or deleted depending on time constraints and position on the program (i.e., parts of the play that a particular version of the play would be said to “include” [dai 代/帶]).367 3.4 Musical Notation Traditionally, Jingju musicians were not trained to read music.368 A system for musical notation named for the syllables/symbols used to represent the first See Wichmann, Listening to Theatre, pp. 20–23, on the importance of the “emotionalprogression structure” in Jingju. Xu Chengbei, Jingju yu Zhongguo wenhua, p. 450, claims that “in reality Jingju lacks any strict or complete sense of structure” 京劇實際上並不 存在嚴整的結構. Li Zigui, Yi Jiangnan, p. 35, tells how in the production of one of the episodes of Limao huan taizi (Xikao plays #460, 465, 473, and 481 represent four episodes of a version of this play) an extra scene was added because the part a famous actor was performing, Kou Zhu 寇珠, was not originally big enough. On the introduction of the idea of mu 幕 into China and how mu (act) and chang (scene) were generally not distinguished, see Zhao Dechang 趙得昌, “Qingmo Minchu xiqu gailiang yu Xifang xiju wenhua de yingxiang (shang)” 清末民初戲曲改良與西方戲劇文化的影響 (上) (The reform of xiqu at the end of the Qing and beginning of the Republican era and the influence of western theatrical culture [part one]), Xiqu yishu 2001.3: 76–77. 367 Some exceptions, which all occur in plays written by early Jingju literati playwrights, are discussed in chapter 2. For an anonymous script with named scenes, see the manuscript copy of Chun Qiu pei 春秋配 (The marriage between Li Chunfa and Jiang Qiulian; Xikao #193), reproduced in Su wenxue congkan, 331: 251–348. 368 Cheng Shijie 程世傑, “Jingju kan pu banzou hui ‘wu guo wu min’ ma?” 京劇看譜伴奏 會 ‘誤國誤民’ 嗎? (Is looking at musical notation and performing in Jingju something that “deceives the state and the people”?), Zhongguo Jingju 2004.9: 33, quotes Xu Lanyuan on how in the past those who could use cipher notation ( jianpu 簡譜) were very rare (liaoliao wu ji 寥寥無幾) in general and even more so among professional Jingju performers, and that even among Jingju musicians who knew the older gongche 工尺 system of notation, it was rare to find any who could completely write down the notes for the instrumental lead-ins (guomen 過門) and arias. In this situation, you had to listen over and over to others play and then find the notes yourself on your instrument. For the original, see Xu Lanyuan 徐蘭沅, dictation, and Tang Ji 唐吉, ed., Xu Lanyuan caoqin shenghuo 徐蘭 沅操琴生活 (The life of Xu Lanyuan as huqin player; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 1998). p. 4. The first published attempt to use cipher notation to record Jingju music that I know of appeared in Youxi zazhi 遊戲雜志 (original English title: The Pastime) 2 (December 1913) and is a transcription of an aria (including the instrumental lead-in) from Hongyang dong 洪羊洞 (Hongyang cave; Xikao #2) with cipher notation above and gongche notation below. The transcription is by Yao Dajiu 姚達九 and supposedly playable on both the Jingju fiddle and a piano or organ. Page 3 of the photo section of the issue contains a photo with a total of three images of Yao, all in the same room (the caption speaks of huashen 化身 [transformations]). The photo is of a room in which the Yao on the left is

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two notes of the scale, gongche 工尺,369 was in use long before the birth of Jingju and regularly used in the Qing to record the musical contours of arias in manuscript and printed editions of Kunqu plays.370 Perhaps because the music of Jingju was comparatively simple, and perhaps because of a lesser dependence on texts in general, in Su wenxue congkan there are far more playscripts with musical notation for Kunqu plays than for Jingju plays. But there are some of the latter, including five produced by Baiben Zhang.371 The system that was standard in the West (referred to in China as wuxian pu 五線譜 or five-line score) was used at least by 1915 to transcribe the music for an entire Jingju

playing the huqin, the Yao in the middle is playing an organ, and the one on the right is the reflection of the middle one in a mirror. Later attempts to provide such transcriptions include Shen Jiansheng 沈鑒聲, Fengqin huqin xiaodiao daguan 風琴胡琴小調大觀 (Grand compendium of musical notation for minor melodies for organ and Jingju fiddle; Shanghai: Zhiyin yueshe, 1927–1928), and Xu Zhihao 許志豪 and Xu Youqian 許幼謙, eds. Fengqin huqin Jingdiao qupu daguan 風琴胡琴京調曲譜大觀 (Grand compendium of Jingju musical notation for organ and Jingju fiddle; Shanghai: Dadong shuju, 1931). 369 For an introduction to this system, see Chen Zemin 陳澤民, Gongche pu rumen 工尺譜 入門 (An introduction to gongche musical notation; Beijing: Huayue chubanshe, 2004). 370 See Yu Weimin 俞為民, “Xiqu gongche pu de yange yu yanbian” 戲曲工尺譜的沿革與 演變 (Continuities and changes in the gongche system of musical notation for xiqu), Xiqu yanjiu 69 (2005): 231–66. 371 For example, see Su wenxue congkan, 295: 543–46. In the Baiben Zhang catalogue examined above, all of the plays with musical notation were Kunqu plays. There are also six non-Baiben Zhang Jingju playscripts (all manuscript) that have musical notation in Su wenxue congkan. For an example, see 297: 477–80. In the palace copies of plays published in Gugong zhenben congkan, the majority of the Jingju play texts do not have musical notation, while those that do give it only for qupai. An early publication focused on providing Jingju arias with gongche notation seems to be Jingdiao gongche pu 京調工尺譜 ( Jingju with gongche notation), published in 1914 in Shanghai (see Chen Jie, Minguo xiqu shi nianpu, p. 19). According to WorldCat listings, it was reprinted in 1916. The publisher’s name is variously listed as Tianbao shiyin shuju 天寶石印書局, Tianbao shiyin ju 天寶 石印局, or Tianbao shuju 天寶書局. Zhongguo yinyue shupu zhi:—Xian Qin—1949 nian yinyue shu quanmu 中國音樂書譜志: 先秦—一九四九年音樂書譜全目 (A record of Chinese works and notation of music—A full bibliography from pre-Qin to 1949; Beijing: Renmin yinyue, 1994), items 1232–40, lists a fair number of manuscripts and some printed Jingju play texts with gongche notation.

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play,372 but that example is not nearly as well known as the set of transcribed arias made in 1929 in preparation for Mei Lanfang’s U.S. tour.373 Qupai are sung to set scales while for pihuang arias, as long as they are accompanied only by stringed instruments, the music can quickly be transposed to whatever key the lead singer prefers. In Jingju, over the years, the earlier preference for the higher registers for even male roles has fallen away, so that young actors today have gotten used to singing in lower registers and find it hard to reach the higher notes that have to be hit when singing qupai.374 In both Kunqu and Jingju, there are metered and meterless arias. The percussion orchestra, and particularly the lead percussionist, keeps the beat for the former. A rich array of percussion patterns (luogu dianzi 鑼鼓點子) also 372 See Kong Peipei 孔培培, “20 shiji chu liangbu zhongyao de Jingju wuxian pu quben— ‘Tianshui guan’ yu ‘Pihuang qupu’ yanjiu” 20 世紀初兩部重要的京劇五線譜曲本 ‘天 水關’ 與 ‘皮黃曲譜’ 研究 (Two important Jingju texts with five-line musical notation from the early 20th century—A study of “Heavenly Water Pass” [Xikao #13] and “Musical Scores for Pihuang”), Yinyue yanjiu 音樂研究 (Music research) 2010.5: 16–25, and Wang Bingqing 王冰清, “Yi pu guanxing—Zeng Zhimin xiqu gailiang shijian yanjiu” 以譜 觀行—曾志忞戲曲改良實踐研究 (Looking at practice through musical notation— Research on Zeng Zhimin’s reformation of xiqu praxis), master’s thesis, Zhongguo Yishu Yanjiu Yuan, 2014, which is specifically on this version of Tianshui guan (which uses both gongche and wuxian pu for both the melodic and percussion music in the play; published in 1915) and its transcriber. For the arias, the main and subsidiary beats (ban 板 vs. yan 眼) are indicated using plus signs for the former and commas for the latter. 373 Arias that Mei Lanfang was expected to sing on his tour of the United States in 1930 were transcribed by Liu Tianhua 劉天華 (1895–1932) and published under the title Mei Lanfang gequ pu 梅蘭芳歌曲譜 (Selections from the repertoire of operatic songs and terpsichorean melodies of Mei Lanfang [original English title]). The book is reproduced in Mei Lanfang quanji (2000), vol. 8. Western notation never really caught on for recording Jingju music. Xu Chengbei, Jingju yu Zhongguo wenhua, p. 396, claims that that system was no good for recording the all important “flavor” (yunwei 韻味) of the arias. Instead the gongche system was superseded by “cipher notation” ( jianpu 簡譜), in which the notes of the scale are recorded using numbers (do = 1, re = 2, etc.). For an introduction to that system, see Wichmann, Listening to Theatre, “Appendix 1: Musical Notation,” pp. 275–76. 374 There is quite a bit of discussion in Chen Moxiang, Huoren daxi, about how in Kunqu you have to sing notes whose pitch is set (see p. 35.239 on how in Kunqu even the a cappella introductory arias [yinzi 引子] have to be sung according to a set scale even though the lead instrument in Kunqu, the dizi, is not played) and how younger actors can’t sing as high as the older ones (e.g., pp. 32.218 and 60.408). This was also a concern for Su Shaoqing 蘇少卿 (1890–1971). For discussion of this problem in three items originally published in 1945 and reproduced in Su Shaoqing xiqu chunqiu, see pp. 87, 89, and 463. Tao Xiong 陶 雄, Huanghua ji 黃花集 (Chrysanthemum collection: Guangzhou: Huacheng chubanshe, 1983), “ ‘Zaiwu’ mo wang ‘zaige’ ” ‘載舞’ 莫忘 ‘載歌’ (When ‘dancing’ don’t forget ‘singing’), pp. 99–100, begins with a description of a jing actor only singing two characters out of the five lines of a qupai during a performance.

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accompany most movements on the Jingju stage. An onomatopoeic system (luogu jing 鑼鼓經) was developed that allows one person to verbally reproduce sounds that simultaneously represent all those produced by the percussion orchestra for each percussion pattern and that can replace the percussion orchestra for the purpose of personal training or group rehearsals. All of the patterns have names. If you want to include the percussion parts in a playscript you can write in the names of the patterns or use one of a variety of ways of transcribing the patterns themselves.375 As with gongche notation, percussion notation is relatively rare in early Jingju play texts.376 Play Texts That Record Stage Movement in Detail (Chuantou, Paichang, Shenduan pu, etc.) In the history of Chinese indigenous theater there were two situations in which it was particularly important to make and use detailed records of stage movement (shenduan 身段). One is that the movements had to be coordinated among large casts of actors. This was the case with certain types of palace performance and explains why the Qing dynasty produced two types of play texts not found outside the palace: chuantou 串頭 (which only quote enough text to work as cues for the highly detailed stage directions that they mostly consist of)377 and paichang 排場 (which focus on tableaus involving large numbers of performers).378 Another is when the stage movements required of the actors 3.5

375 For an introduction to these systems, see Po-wei Weng, “If You Can Recite It You Can Play It: The Transmission and Transcription of Jingju (Peking Opera) Percussion Music,” CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature 35.2 (December 2016): 89–113. 376 For an example of a palace Jingju manuscript with some very simple percussion notation (both pattern names and onomatopoeia [the only example of this second type is just four characters long: bala bala 叭拉叭拉]), see the copy of a zongben version of Shuang Bao an 雙包案 (The case of the two Judge Baos; Xikao #108) in Gugong zhen­ ben congkan, 673: 140–44. At the top of the first page, there is the note: “Changes have been made. When being copied, remove the percussion” 改妥寫時撤鑼鼓. The note was probably addressed to whomever would make the andian ben (which typically are quite minimalist). 377 Not much has yet been written on chuantou. The only article that I know of that focuses on them is Xu Jianguo 徐建國, “Guangxu shiqi Qinggong ‘chuantou ben’ tanlun” 光緒 時期清宮 ‘串頭本’ 探論 (A discussion of chuantou versions of plays from the Guangxu reign period from the Qing palace), Xiju 2015.6: 27–35. Xu emphasizes that this type of playscript was not prepared or used outside the palace, and that the plays or scenes involved were martial. Ding Xiuxun, Kunqu biaoyan xue, p. 141, talks of the related term, shenshi chuantou shen 勢串頭身, which he glosses as “a record of stage movements” (shenduan biaoyan jishu 身段表演記述). 378 Two of the volumes in Gugong zhenben congkan, vols. 695–96, are devoted to photoreprints of these two kinds of texts. There is a certain amount of overlap between

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were very complicated. Kunqu performers use a wide variety of bodily motions to “annotate” almost every character of the text of the arias that they sing.379 Because that can be very complicated, written versions of plays that try to record a lot of those movements (shenduan pu 身段譜 [rosters of stage movement]) were and continue to be compiled.380 Until fairly recently, this kind of chuantou and paichang, and there are examples for which both labels are used (e.g., 695: 28 and 169: 182). Paichang can also contain charts (yangzi 樣子) showing the positions (ziyang 字樣) that actors take when they collectively form such things as huge auspicious characters (for examples, see 695: 140, 325; 696: 127, 132–33, 136, 143, 146–51, 156–58, 162–63, 166, 169, 176–78, 181, 194–96, 203–204, 207–208, 217–18, 222, 228, 254, 274–75, 282–83, 286, 291–96, 323–24, 326–27, and 330), pyramids (696: 260, 283, 286, 324–35, and 328), a battle formation plan (696: 62), and domino sets (696: 299–305, and 309–21). Some of the plays in vol. 695 are Jingju plays but all of those in vol. 696 are not. For a color reproduction of three auspicious characters to be produced on stage by actors (the color and better quality allow you to see which of the actor’s names were changed by pasting on slips with their names), see Putian tongqing: Qingdai Wanshou shengdian 普天同慶: 清代萬壽盛 典 (Shared celebration covering all under heaven: Qing dynasty major anniversary celebrations; Beijing: Gugong chubanshe, 2015), p. 313. For an “aerial view” of four auspicious characters (tian zi wan nian 天子萬年 [a thousand years to the emperor]) being spelled out by a large crew of performers in a section depicting a procession in the long painted scroll Kangxi di Nanxun tu 康熙帝南巡圖 (Illustration of the Kangxi emperor’s southern inspection tour), see Qingshi tudian: Qingchao tongshi tulu 清史圖典: 清朝通史圖 錄 (Qing history illustrated: Illustrations providing a comprehensive history of the Qing court), 12 vols. (Beijing: Zijin cheng, 2002), 3: 93. For a set of illustrations prepared by Zhu Zaiyu 朱載堉 (1536–1611) showing how a crew of sixteen dancers should spell out, consecutively, the four characters of tianxia taiping 天下太平 (peace to all under heaven), see Siku quanshu tudian 四庫全書圖典 (Illustrations from the Imperial Quadripartite Library), 12 vols. (Beijing: Commercial Press, 2017), 2: 844–64. Zhu’s work on recording dance movement also comes up in the notes to chapter 6. 379 Zou Huilan 鄒慧蘭, Shenduan pu koujue 身段譜口訣 (Stage movement rosters and oral formulae; Lanzhou: Gansu renmin, 1985), p. 177, says of Kunqu: “Every sentence, every word, all have [set] stage movements to express the sentiment” 每一句, 每一個字, 都 有身段表情. Mei Lanfang, Wutai shenghuo sishi nian, 1: 174, said, “The stage movements of Kunqu are all performed to accompany the singing. It’s as if you are adding footnotes to the lyrics” 崑曲的身段, 都是配合着唱的. 遍唱遍做, 仿佛在替唱詞加注解. Even Kim Hunter Gordon. “A Performance-Based Study of Kunqu” (Ph.D. diss., Royal Holloway, University of London, 2016), who argues that dance in Kunqu has been promoted most strongly only since the 1980s and often with “a view to ICH [intangible cultural heritage] and international status” (p. 147), does say “words sung in Kunqu are occasionally accompanied by a mimetic act that responds literally to the word itself …” (p. 193). 380 The last six volumes of Liu Wenfeng 劉文峰 and Wang Wenzhang 王文章, eds., Fu Xihua cang gudian xiqu qupu shenduan pu congkan 傅惜華藏古典戲曲曲譜身段譜叢刊 (Collectanea of musical scores and stage movement rosters for classical xiqu collected by Fu Xihua), 100 vols. (Beijing: Xueyuan chubanshe, 2013), all contain photo-reprints of manuscript shengduan pu for Kunqu zhezi xi. A separate volume of abstracts and introductory material for the collectanea has been published: Wang Wenzhang 王文章, ed.,

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play text circulated only in manuscript, except for the rare examples that were printed in typeset form in periodicals.381 As far as I can tell, there are no traditional shenduan pu for Jingju, probably because Jingju stage movements are less complicated and, despite some traditionalists (represented fictionally in Chen Kaige’s Bawang bie ji by Yuan Siye 袁 四爺 [Yuan the Fourth]), there has been less emphasis on exact reproduction of the “tradition” (at least until new media that record sound or images or both [still and moving] made that more attractive and feasible). Instead there was a reliance, prior to the Republican period, on memory and aids to memory, Fu Xihua cang gudian xiqu qupu shenduan pu congkan tiyao 傅惜華藏古典戲曲曲譜 身段譜叢刊提要 (Abstracts of the works in Collectanea of musical scores and stage movement rosters for classical xiqu collected by Fu Xihua; Beijing: Xueyuan chubanshe, 2012). As we will see in chapter 6, more modern versions of shenduan pu, both for Kunqu and Jingju, tend to take the form of shuoxi 說戲 (telling the play) or lectures. For a rare example of a book chapter that makes extensive use of shenduan pu, see Chen Fang 陳 芳, Huabu yu yabu 花部與雅部 (Popular and refined theater: Taibei: Guojia chubanshe, 2007), “Cong ‘Soushan Dache’ shenduan pu tanjue Kunju biaoyan de ‘Qian[long], Jia[qing] chuantong’ ” 從 ‘搜山打車’ 身段譜探抉崑劇表演的 ‘乾 [隆], 嘉 [慶] 傳 統’ (Excavating the performance tradition of the Qianlong and Jiaqing reign periods in Kunju from the shenduan pu for “Searching the Mountain and Striking the Carriage”), pp. 199–275. 381 For an example of a typeset shenduan pu, see Wenmou 問某, ed., “Qianlong nian chaoben ‘Huadang’ gongche luogu shenduan quanpu” 乾隆年鈔本 ‘花蕩’ 工尺鑼鼓身段全譜 (A Qianlong reign period manuscript with gongche musical notation, percussion notation, and stage movement notation of “Ambush in the Reeds”), Juxue yuekan 2.1 (1933): 1–20 (the typeset version appears on pp. 3–20). The original manuscript was collected by Cheng Yanqiu and is photo-reprinted in Beijing daxue tushu guan cang Cheng Yanqiu Yushuang yi xiqu zhenben congkan 北京大學圖書館藏程硯秋玉霜簃戲曲珍本叢刊 (Collectanea of rare versions of xiqu texts from Cheng Yanqiu’s Yushuang yi held in the Beijing University Library) 44 vols. (Beijing: Guojia tushu guan, 2014), 17: 437–55, where it is given the title of “Caolu ji” 草廬記 (The thatched hut), the name of the chuanqi play of which it is the 40th scene. The scene is of particular interest because it is a martial one. It was adapted for Jingju performance under the title Luhua dang 蘆花蕩 (Among the reeds; Xikao #259 and 352). Fu Xueyi 傅雪漪, “Huiqing huisheng wei houshi fa—Tan Kunqu shen gong pu” 繪情繪聲為後世法—談崑曲身宮譜 (Portraying emotion and sound; models for later generations—On shenduan pu with musical notation), Xiqu yishu 1997.1: 11–16, claims that among shenduan pu, Shenyin jiangu lu 審音鑒古錄 (A record of investigating sounds and antiquity; 1834) is the only one that was ever printed (p. 12). That collection of Kunqu zhezi xi has more stage directions than usual, but they are not really that dense or detailed. Gordon, “A Performance-Based Study of Kunqu,” p. 32, is of the opinion that shenduan pu date from the late Qing and early Republic (pp. 160–71 is on shenduan pu). Gordon is very skeptical of claims that Kunqu performance tradition has not much changed since the Ming and Qing dynasties, a view that he claims has become very prominent ever since Kunqu was listed as an international intangible heritage of mankind by UNESCO in 2001.

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such as koujue 口訣 (oral formulae, typically rhymed or otherwise made easy to memorize) or xiyan 戲諺 (theater maxims).382 These circulated orally or in “secret” manuscripts such as “Liyuan yuan” 梨園原 (The origins of theater) and focus not on the performance of individual plays but on widely applicable performance techniques and knowledge (the oldest datable preface in the 1918 printing of “Liyuan yuan” dates to 1819).383 In 1935 Qi Rushan published Guoju shenduan pu 國劇身段譜 (Roster of stage movements for National Drama) as a book. It is very different from previous shenduan pu in that it was not concerned with recording the stage movements for any particular play but instead tried to present encyclopedic coverage of all traditional stage movements, divided very “scientifically” if quite impractically, according to the body part concerned (not all shenduan, and particularly ones that are more complex and dynamic, can be fit into such a schema). Although it appeared in 1935 with eight prefaces—all (except for one from Hu Shi 胡 適 [1891–1962]) from either Jingju educators (two384), actors (three), or amateur performers/­scholars of Jingju (one)—it was a synchronic work (one could almost say an ahistorical one, since as with much of Qi Rushan’s work he is 382 The difference between Kunqu and Jingju with regard to textual material recording stage movements is presented very clearly (probably unintentionally) in Zhang Weipin 張偉 品, “Shenduan pu yu shenduan pu jue” 身段譜與身段譜訣 (Shenduan pu and oral formulae on stage movements), Zhongguo Jingju 2004.4: 28–29, in which all the shenduan pu mentioned have to do with Kunqu and all the koujue or xiyan mentioned are related to Jingju. 383 Books that collect or collect and explain xiyan include Xia Tian, Xiyan yiqian tiao (1985); Yu Xuejian, Xiyan shangxi (1989); Su Yi 蘇移, Zhongguo Jingju juyan xuanzhu 中國京劇 劇諺選注 (Selected and annotated sayings on performance concerning Chinese Jingju; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 1998); and Yang Fei, Liyuan yanjue jiyao (2002). Liyuan yuan was originally compiled for Kunqu performers. For a typeset copy of the text (with a critical introduction), see Zhongguo gudian xiqu lunzhu jicheng, 9: 1–28; for a photo-reprint of the 1918 edition, see Minguo Jing Kun shiliao congshu, 12: 199–271. Zou Huilan, Shenduan pu koujue (1984), is largely about trying to transmit and develop an oral tradition that she learned from Qian Baosen 錢寶森 (1893–1963), which she compares to the content of Liyuan yuan. In the book, a preface by Xu Jichuan 許姬傳 (1900–1990) talks about how these oral traditions were kept secret in Beijing, how Qian Baoshen learned them from someone who came from the South, and how the transmission had to take place in the middle of the night (p. 1). Qian was a wujing actor and Jingju teacher. See also Qian Baosen 錢寶森, dictation, Pan Xiafeng 潘俠鳳, ed., Jingju biaoyan yishu zalun 京劇表演藝術雜 論 (Miscellaneous essays on Jingju performance art; Beijing: Beijing chubanshe, 1959). 384 One of these is Xiao Changhua 蕭長華 (1878–1967), a famous actor who was even better known as an educator (there is a section on him in chapter 2). That is one reason that I have chosen to class him here as an educator; another is that at the time he wrote the preface he was teaching at Fuliancheng and his preface appears immediately after one written by the boss of that opera school.

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pretty obsessed with finding ever earlier sources for elements of the Chinese theatrical tradition) that only very rarely deals with anything that is specific to Jingju.385 3.6 Textualization of Parts of Plays Besides play texts, Jingju plays were also textualized in ways that only represented one aspect of the play—often in a minimal, abstracted way—or that concentrated on only one element of the play. Play titles are a part of plays that can be textualized. When talking about trying to get a handle on the repertoires of Jingju earlier in this chapter, the problem of the many alternate names used for plays (and how they were sometimes created to avoid censorship) was mentioned. This phenomenon could also cause problems for those called upon to select theater programs, who might be fooled by a title and pick the wrong kind of play for performance. Even though that might suggest that not everybody was familiar enough with the repertoire, the names of plays circulated widely in numerous forms that could range from literary games386 to 385 It does at least use one term that is largely restricted to Jingju: xusheng 鬚生, an alternative term for laosheng. The work typically distinguishes how different role types performed shenduan, but the role-type categories used are those more generally applicable across different Chinese theater traditions. For the use of xusheng, see Qi Rushan 齊如 山, Guoju shenduan pu 國劇身段譜 (Roster of stage movements for National Drama; Beiping: Beiping Guoju xuehui, 1935), p. 16b (Qi Rushan quanji, 1: 392). This book was first serialized in Xiju congkan 戲劇叢刊 (Collected publications on theater; one of two periodicals published by Guoju Xuehui), issues 2–3 (1932) and was the fourth in a series of ten works entitled Qi Rushan juxue congshu 齊如山劇學叢書 (Qi Rushan’s collection of books on Guoju). The fifth, published also in 1935 by Guoju Xuehui, was entitled Shangxia chang 上下場 (Entrances and exits; it first appeared in Xiju congkan; the book edition is photo-reprinted in Qi Rushan quanji, 1: 291–345), also deals with shenduan. For a convenient list of all ten of the works in the collection, see Chen Shumei 陳淑梅, “Jiu Jingcheng, xin shuguang—Lun 1930 niandai de Qi Rushan yu Beiping Guoju xuehui ji qi qikan” 舊 京城, 新曙光—論 1930 年代的齊如山與北平國劇學會及其期刊 (Old capital, new dawn—On Qi Rushan and the Beiping Guoju Xuehui of the 1930s and their publications), doctoral thesis, Zhongyang University, 2015, p. 4 (the sixth volume in the set has not been identified, a fact that is not very prominent in Chen’s list, but is more strongly pointed out in Zhang Zifan, ‘Juxue’ benwei de queli, pp. 189–90). The first item of the fanli in the first volume of the set, Zhongguo ju zhi zuzhi 中國劇之組織 (The organization of Chinese theater; preface 1929), p. 1 (Qi Rushan quanji, 1: 11), indicates that it was prepared as an aid for foreigners (waibin 外賓). 386 Juntian lixiang 鈞天儷響 (Resounding parallel couplets from the center of heaven), a work that seems to have been privately published by Tan Zhilin 譚芝林 in 1901, consists (apart from its three prefaces, one by the author) of over 800 couplets composed entirely of mostly Jingju play titles (with some Kunqu play titles mixed in) arranged by the number of characters in the titles: two characters (220 titles), three characters (1,058 titles), and four characters (428 titles). The text of this work is included in Fu Jin, ed., Jingju lishi

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being embedded in narratives.387 Lists of plays that troupes were prepared to perform were compiled and shown to patrons to select from, while for performances for which the program was already set (often only the day before), lists of the plays to be performed on a particular day were kept backstage for the actors; these could also be displayed to the audience and might be written or printed out on small slips of paper so that audience members could pay for the opportunity to see them or have a copy to keep.388 Programs developed from just the titles of the plays to more complicated documents that included such things as plot summaries and the lead actors or the cast389 (xidan, the name for the simple lists, could also refer to the more complicated documents, which also might be called shuoming shu 說明書 or jiemu dan 節目單). At least by the Republic, lists of plays to be performed were supposed to be submitted in advance to governmental agencies. By the 1870s in Shanghai, lists of plays to wenxian huibian: Qingdai juan, 2: 259–90, and discussed in Jiang Deming 姜德明, Liyuan shushi 梨園書事 (Books about theater; Beijing: Beijing chubanshe, 2015), pp. 161–63. In general, three-character titles are preferred for Jingju plays; although three charactertitles are also preferred for chuanqi play titles, the zhezi xi that mostly came from them tend to have two-character titles, which was the preferred method for naming the scenes in chuanqi plays. In environments that privileged yabu (Kunqu and Yiyang) performance such as the Qing palace, Jingju plays known by three-character titles outside the palace could by given two-character names, as is readily apparent in the volumes of collective lists (tigang 題綱) of luantan plays [vols. 691–94] and copies of single [danchu 單齣] plays [vols. 671–79] included in Gugong zhenben congkan), although it is also possible to argue that behind all of this is a more general “rule” that three-character names were the predominant form used for complete plays and serial plays, while two-character titles were used for zhezi xi (which might later function as complete plays) in both traditions. Pan Jingfu and Chen Moxiang, Liyuan waishi, pp. 19.227–28, depicts characters playing a game that involves matching one play title with another of parallel construction (seventeen play titles occur). 387 Sushi shi, Ru ci guanchang, a novel into which hundreds of play titles were worked into the text, was mentioned in the footnotes to the Introduction. 388 [Li] Taohen [李] 濤痕, “Lun xidan” 論戲單 (On theater programs), Chunliu 1 (1918): 39, says that xidan can be “rented” (zu 租; looked at before taken away) or bought, with the earliest versions always having a couple of mistakes or plays represented by just empty circles, which are corrected in later versions and printed on smaller sheets of a different color of paper (yellow instead of red). Li says that programs were only sold in Beijing. He thinks that programs need to have the content (shishi 事實) of the plays printed on them because not everyone is “in the know” (neihang 內行). Wang Zhengyao, “Jingju lao xidan que shenme?” 京劇老戲單缺甚麼? (What is lacking in old Jingju xidan?), Qingdai xiju wenhua kaobian, pp. 188–89, concludes that what is missing is any explicit indication that the performances are of Jingju. 389 L. C. Arlington, The Chinese Drama from the Earliest Times until Today (New York: B. Blom 1930), p. 53, describes the “programmes” as “printed on slips of red paper … handed to the audience containing the names of the plays and the leading actor in each piece….”

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be performed on certain days at certain theaters began to appear in Shenbao (later expanded into full-scale ads that included the names of the stars and/or plot summaries or other descriptions of the plays meant to attract attention), and even in Beijing the practice of only posting notices of which troupe was playing at which theater developed into posters that included play titles. There were as many kinds of abstracts (tigang 提/題綱390) for the plays as there were aspects that production personnel wanted to keep track of. One major category included abstracts prepared as reference material to be used during rehearsals and performances. These were probably used pretty widely for commercial performances from quite early on, but fewer of them have been preserved than those prepared for palace performances. Musicians used musical accompaniment abstracts (banzou tigang 伴奏提綱) that outlined the musical structure and choices for the performance of particular plays.391 Abstracts could be drawn up to help keep track of who needed to wear what kind of costume (xingtou tigang 行頭提綱) or what props needed to be moved or made ready for each scene ( jianchang tigang/qiemo tigang 檢場/砌末提 綱).392 Some abstracts give information about both costumes and props.393 390 Palace documents prefer 題綱. Xiong Jing 熊静, “Qingdai neifu quben shiming” 清代 内府曲本釋名 (Explication of the names of play texts in the palace during the Qing dynasty), Xiju 2013.2: 33–34, concludes that although both forms are used in palace documents, the latter form, which is not used outside the palace, predominates, but in palace usage the two forms are interchangeable and have no difference in connotation. 391 See Kong Xiangchang 孔祥昌, “Qiantan ‘Jingju jumu banzou tigang’ ” 淺談 ‘京劇劇目 伴奏提綱’ (An introductory discussion of ‘musical accompaniment abstracts for Jingju plays’), Xiqu yishu 2001.2: 92–98. 392 In the back matter (pp. 17a–20b) of the earliest edition of Taohua shan there is a list of the props needed scene by scene entitled “Qiemo” 砌末 (see the HathiTrust scan of the Harvard University copy of this 1709 edition, pp. 616–24). On the different kinds of abstracts, see Qi Rushan, “Gezhong tigang” 各種題綱 (The various types of abstracts), Qi Rushan huiyi lu, pp. 239–41 (Qi Rushan quanji, 10: 6243–45). Ma Tongju 馬同駒, “Mantan xiqu houtai gongzuo ji qita” 漫談戲曲後臺工作及其他 (Leisurely talks on backstage work and other things), in Jingju yishu zai Tianjin, p. 407, explains that in Tianjin it was once the case that most of the prop men were illiterate, so when they were learning their trade, they “basically drew graphic representations to take the place of writing to record all [they needed to remember]” 一般都畫出圖案來代替文字記錄; he claims that documents of this sort were still preserved up to the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. For examples of prop abstracts for three Jingju plays, see Qiaweng 恰翁, “Wutai zhi qing­ jie yundong” 舞臺之清潔運動 (The campaign to clean up the stage), Xiju yuekan 3.9 (July 1931): 5–8. 393 Both costumes and props were included in the lists entitled “Chuanguan” 穿關 (Costumes and plot [the lists do not actually include plot information]) at the ends of Ming palace copies of zaju plays. Song Junhua 宋俊華, “Zhongguo gudai xiju fushi yanjiu” 中國古代 戲劇服饰研究 (Studies in the costume of Chinese traditional theater), doctoral thesis,

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Stage or scene abstracts (changmian tigang 場面提綱) might be no more than a scene-by-scene list of the characters and the actors playing them, prepared to be hung by the side of the stage entrance (shangchang men),394 or could be more like ledgers that can also include the props to be used in each scene. As will come up in chapter 2, writing up a somewhat detailed abstract was often the first step in composing a new play, whether that was done by the playwright alone or by a designated scribe taking part in collective play composition sessions. Sometimes such somewhat more worked-out abstracts would be all that is left of a play that was once written out.395 Some plays, of course, Zhongshan University, 2002, makes extensive use of 102 playscripts photo-reprinted in the fourth collection of Guben xiqu congkan that have these lists. The collections of modern costume plots that have begun to be published in China in the past several decades (see above) also cover both costume and props. 394 On placement of such tigang, see Fang Wenxi, Liyuan hua, pp. 127–28 (photo-reprint in Minguo Jing Kun shiliao congshu 8: 161–62). Arlington, The Chinese Drama, p. 30, describes two backstage documents, both placed on tables: one is “a plan or map … of the piece being played…,” and the other “a list of the players’ names, each player being placed under his own particular line of play, commencing with the leading dramatic players down to the sups.” For reproductions of single-play tigang of this sort suitable for backstage display used in the palace, see Gugong zhenben congkan, 694: 105–351. Early commercial tigang of this kind are hard to find. Wang Wenzhang 王文章, ed., Jingju dashi Cheng Yanqiu 京 劇大師程硯秋 ( Jingju master Cheng Yanqiu; Beijing: Wenhua yishu, 2003), pp. 41, 83, 87, and 155, contain color reproductions of tigang for five plays that Cheng premiered between 1924 and 1940. The names of the actors who played roles in the play pasted on red slips beneath character names have been partially preserved. Zheng Shaorong 鄭劭榮, Zhongguo chuantong xiqu koutou juben yanjiu 中國傳統戲曲口頭劇本研究 (Research on oral playscripts in traditional Chinese indigenous theater; Beijing: Guangming ribao, 2015), p. 127, reproduces in black and white and small format a backstage tigang for Mei Lanfang’s Bawang bieji on which the red slips for the actors’ names appear to be almost complete. Mei Lanfang, in Wutai shenghuo sishi nian, 3: 196, says that he took down the backstage tigang for the premiere of this play to preserve as a souvenir. On the question of the use of similar documents to be displayed backstage in early modern English theaters (none have survived), see Paul Werstine, Early Modern Playhouse Manuscripts and the Editing of Shakespeare (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), pp. 109 and 201. 395 See Fang Xiaoru 方肖孺, “Wucai yu tigang” 五彩輿提綱 (Abstract for The five-colored carriage), Xiju yuekan 3.3 (December 1930): 1–5 (Su wenxue congkan, 18: 503–507), for an example of an abstract that was published when no full version of a play was available. This abstract consists of mostly entrances, exits, and arias. On this type of abstract in general, see Qi Rushan, Qi Rushan huiyi lu, “Gezhong tigang,” pp. 239–40 (Qi Rushan quanji, 10: 6243–44). In chapter 2, in the section on Shen Xiaoqing 沈小慶 (c. 1809–c. 1857), there is a description about how he supposedly stayed up most of the night to write an abstract for a play that he then took several more days to finish. For an overview of the development of such abstracts in Jingju and also their history and use in chuanqi playscripts, see Dai Yun 戴雲, “Tan Jingju tigang” 談京劇題綱 (On Jingju abstracts), in Du Changsheng, ed., Jingju biaoyan lilun tixi jiangou, pp. 468–83.

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never got more fully written out than their abstracts. For some types of traditional Chinese theater, up to a certain stage of their development, it would be more common to work from abstracts than full texts.396 During the heydays of wenming xi and shizhuang xi in the early 20th century, when there was tremendous pressure to produce new plays quickly, plays went into production with only an outline for each scene worked out ahead of time. Such plays were called mubiao xi 幕表戲 (scene outline plays)397 or 396 How could such a system work? Isabelle Duchesne, ed., Red Boat on the Canal: Cantonese Opera in New York Chinatown (New York: Museum of Chinese in America, 2000), pp. 32–34, contains photos of abstracts used in Cantonese opera before full scripts became common. The text explains (p. 33) that “a system of codified hand gestures—some 25 ‘hand shadows’ (sau jing)—allowed actors to secretly signal the percussionist who conducts the orchestra. These signals indicate which type of declamation, melody and action the actor is about to perform….” Zheng Shaorong, Zhongguo chuantong xiqu koutou juben, p. 127, quotes Zhou Chuanying 周傳瑛 (1912–1988), Kunju shengya liushi nian 崑劇生涯 六十年 (Sixty years of Kunju life; Shanghai: Shanghai wenyi, 1988), p. 78, about how, for one play in 1943, an abstract (he calls it a mubiao) containing information about the plot (qingjie 情節) and the characters was hung on a wall. Those among the actors who could read the document, while it was read out and explained to the others. The leader of the troupe then, using the document, presented a detailed lecture, which the actors listened to as they got made up. The final sentence of the quote gives the impression that this was all that happened before the actors took the stage: “Having gone through this process, everyone took on their characters and took the stage to perform” 經過這番過程, 個人 便認角色上場做戲了. 397 On mubiao xi in Shanghai-style Jingju, see Yan Quanyi, Qingdai Jingju wenxue shi, p. 421; for mubiao xi in spoken drama, Zhongguo jin xian dai huaju tuzhi 中國近現代話劇圖志 (A pictorial record of Chinese spoken drama in the early modern and modern periods; Shanghai: Shanghai kexue jishu wenxian, 2008), pp. 80–83. The mubiao for an early huaju is reproduced in Wang Weimin 王衛民, ed., Zhongguo zaoqi huaju xuan 中國早期話劇 選 (Selected early spoken drama; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 1989), pp. 697–708. Li Zigui, Yi Jiangnan, p. 20, describes how in his experience Luoyang qiao 洛陽橋 (Xikao #183) when performed as Jingju had no full script but was instead a mubiao xi. He adds that there was only an outline of the plot (gushi tigang 故事提綱) and it was up to the actors to make up their own dialogue and otherwise improvise. If this was true for the Xikao text, that might explain the choppiness of its language and flow. Megan Evans, “The Emerging Role of the Director in Chinese Xiqu,” Asian Theatre Journal 24.2 (Fall 2007): 476, translates a passage on performing mubiao xi from Li Zigui 李紫貴, Xiqu biao dao yan yishu lunji 戲曲表導演藝術論集 (Collected essays on the art of performance and directing in traditional Chinese theater; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 1992), pp. 12–13. Ouyang Yuqian, Zi wo yan xi yi lai, p. 37, says that up to around 1913 he always performed from complete scripts but demand for new plays began to change that. Zhong Ming 鐘鳴 describes how three of Mei Lanfang’s shizhuang xi used abstracts rather than full playscripts, in Qingmo Minguo Jingju bianyan xinxi chuyi 清末民國京劇編演新戲芻議 (A modest appraisal of the compilation and performance of new Jingju plays in the late Qing and the Republican era; Beijing: Xueyuan chubanshe, 2015), p. 90, and Zhang Siqi 張斯琦 reports that for the Shanghai premiere of Feng huan chao 鳳還巢 (The phoenix returns to its nest; not in

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tigang xi 提綱戲.398 There could also be a combination of fully written out scenes for the leading actor, while the less important scenes remained, in writing, at least, as abstracts. Arias were extracted from plays and printed separately, although this did not really begin to be a big thing until after the appearance of Xikao. That was when first sound recordings and then radio broadcasts greatly increased the audience for Jingju at the same time that it deprived that audience of the whole context of the performances of which the arias were originally a part (see chapters 3 and 6). Competition, Innovation, Printing, and a Preliminary Look at the Question of Libretto Fixity The end of the Qing and advent of the Republic brought increasing competition among actors to present new plays but also new versions of old plays. Actors vied to establish their own “schools of acting” (liupai 流派). Within these schools, many actors were also known for subtly varying their performances of the same play, sometimes as a way to supposedly keep others from imitating them,399 at other times as part of an attempt to match the performance to a specific audience or performance setting or as part of a continual quest to improve the quality of their performance of that particular play.400 3.7

Xikao), Mei Lanfang had someone “tell the play” (shuoxi 說戲) to the supporting actors and “hang an abstract backstage” (後臺懸一提綱). See the January 26, 1929 item from the “Meixun” volume, p. 200, in Mei Lanfang Hushang yanchu ji 梅蘭芳滬上演出紀 (A record of Mei Lanfang’s performances in Shanghai), 2 vols. (Shanghai: Zhong Xi shuju, 2015). 398 On tigang xi, see Huang Wenhu 黃文虎, “Guanyu tigang xi” 關於提綱戲 (About tigang xi), Xiju bao 1957.3: 27; and Zheng Shaorong, Zhongguo chuantong xiqu koutou juben yan­ jiu, pp. 108–50 and 186–214. 399 Tan Xinpei is perhaps the actor most closely associated with this kind of practice; see Xu Muyun, “Lao Tan gaici,” p. 20, but Yuan Shihai, Yihai wuya, p. 255, talks about it as a more general phenomenon. 400 See, for instance, Li Wanchun 李萬春 (1911–1985), “Wo zenyang yan Wu Song yu Guan Yu de” 我怎樣演武松與關羽的 (How I have performed Wu Song and Guan Yu), in Jingju tanwang lu xubian 京劇談往錄續編 (Records of talks about the past of Jingju, second volume; Beijing: Beijing chubanshe, 1988), p. 491, on his performance of Zou Maicheng 走麥城 (Fleeing to Maicheng; Xikao #322) over several decades. He also discusses several different versions of the end of the play that he saw others perform. Liu Zengfu 劉 曾復, Jingju xinxu 京劇新序 (A Jingju ‘New preface’; Beijing: Beijing Yanshan, 1999), p. 186, quotes Yang Xiaolou on how much change there has been since the version of his Changban po 長坂坡 (Long Slope; Xikao #141) was written out for performance in the palace (he says “I don’t know how many times I changed it” 不知改過多少回了). Liu estimates that Yang probably performed Changban po 200 times over the course of his life.

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These changes were typically conceived as happening on purpose rather than through sloppiness. There are many stories of actors being able to replicate exactly intricate series of stage motions if they so wished.401 Although there continued to be substantial differences between performance and playscripts even when both were supposed to be the same version of a play,402 and playscripts in circulation that were supposed to be the same play often differed radically,403 there were factors that progressively pushed for the fixation of the texts of plays and closure of gaps between text and performance.404 Strong censorial regimes with high demands and the resources to implement them, whether it was the Qing court and its control of palace performances405 or the PRC and its attempted control of all drama 401 For instance, according to Ye Tao, Zhongguo Jingju xisu, p. 43, Qian Jinfu 錢金福 (1862– 1942; he is the father of Qian Baosen), a performer of jiazi hualian and wujing roles, once made a bet that he could repeat the same routine exactly and laid down a coating of ashes so that his footsteps could be checked. According to the story, the footsteps from the two versions of the routine matched up exactly. 402 Partly this was a result of deficiencies in the way play texts were produced. Pamela C. White, “Peking Opera Today: Some Views of Performers,” CHINOPERL Papers 11 (1982): 121–22, reports the experience of an amateur who had been performing since 1935: “He has some scripts of opera texts which he said he uses to review his part, but the books are not very reliable, in his opinion, and the memory of the group is better. The books sometimes leave out passages in the text.” Partly this was the result of the difficulty of representing a complex performance art such as Jingju on paper. Chen Changben 陳昌本, “Guanyu Jingju yishu de jicheng yu chuangxin” 關於京劇藝術的繼承與創新 (On the transmission and renewal of Jingju), in Zhengqu Jingju yishu de xin fanrong, p. 50, says, “There are some plays that, even if you have a playscript, if there are no actors who can pass down the play through the process of a teacher personally teaching pupils, there is danger that the play will disappear from the stage” 有些戲, 雖然有本子, 但如果沒有演員通過師 帶徒傳下去, 也有失傳的危險. 403 Liu Guohe 劉過鶴, “Fenhe wan zhi lishi de zhuanbian” 汾河灣之歷史的轉變 (The historical evolution of Fenhe wan), Juxue yuekan 1.4 (1932), p. 1 (separate pagination), says, “It is very easy to find playscripts [for this play] in Beiping, but of the eleven play texts that I have obtained, there are no two that are completely the same” 北平本子最容易找. 然 而我得到十一個本子, 總沒見兩本一字一句全相同的. 404 All along there were, of course, conservative elements at work in the way that plays were taught from master to disciple, with high emphasis on imitating your teacher and transmitting his art and reluctance to change what you were taught. See, for instance, Xu Chengbei, Jingju yu Zhongguo wenhua, p. 189. An anecdote about Yu Shuyan being harshly rebuffed by Tan Xinpei when Yu pointed out a mistake in Tan’s version of a play is recounted in the section on Tan in chapter 2. 405 See Wu Jiangqiu 吳絳秋, dictation, Yu Miao 于淼, ed., “Cixi taihou kan xi lun shangfa” 慈禧太后看戲論賞罰 (Empress Dowager Cixi’s dispensing of rewards and punishment while watching plays), Zhongguo Jingju 1997.1: 63, on Cixi’s insistence that the written scripts be followed in performance. Although the Qing state desired to regulate dramatic performance throughout the empire this was a task beyond it. But within the palace the

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performance, insisted that texts be written out, approved, and not changed during performance, even in the case of chou actors.406 One of the constant complaints in the newly emerging genre of theater reviews in the newspapers ( juping 劇評) was that the performance reviewed left out portions of the play that the reviewer expected to be performed.407 Even critics who favored the reform of Jingju could argue that the texts of opera, since they represent the efforts of previous actors, should not be changed.408 Better systems of communication, more widespread travel, and the development of more extensive touring routes for Jingju performers, also led to a certain amount of stabilization and fixation of performances and playscripts.409 The publication of

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situation was different. Yan Quanyi, Qingdai Jingju wenxue shi, pp. 391–92, claims that the Qing court’s insistence on the textualization of the plays performed at the palace brought about both the “regularization” (guifan 規範) and preservation of Jingju playscripts in ways that previously had just not happened. With regard to play titles, we have already in this chapter mentioned the attempt by the puppet Japanese regime in Beijing in the 1940s to get rid of alternate play titles. Niu Biao 鈕驃 (1933–), “Tan Jingju choujiao yishu” 談京劇丑角藝術 (On the art of the chou actor in Jingju), in Zhengqu Jingju yishu de xin fanrong, p. 476, clearly talking of the past decades in the PRC without explicitly saying so, relates how the adlibbing of remarks to produce laughter (zhuagen douqu 抓哏逗趣) by chou actors has been seen as “committing a mistake” ( fan cuowu 犯錯誤) and they have “only been allowed to parrot what is in the script without changing a single word” 只許一詞不變地照本宣科. He expresses the hope that this will change. Niu is himself a chou actor and teacher of chou actors. This trend is very clear in the theater reviews that first began to appear in Shenbao, in particular in the pieces signed with pennames that have been associated with Xikao. See theater reviews reproduced in Cai Shicheng, ed., Shenbao Jingju ziliao xuanbian, pp. 47–48 (Jian’er 健兒), 54–55 ([Wang] Dungen [王] 鈍根), 73, 78, 101, 107–108, and 157 (Xuanlang 玄郎). The chapter on reform of traditional theater (xiqu gailiang lun 戲曲改良論) in Muyou sheng, Haishang liyuan zazhi, contains an item called “Lingren bu yi gaibian xiqu zhong ciju” 伶人不宜改變戲曲中詞句 (Actors should not change the texts of plays), pp. 5/5– 6, that begins “Although the texts of Jingju [plays] can be rough and vulgar, every sentence and every word were all carefully pondered by people before you. There are places that must by no means be changed, yet recently actors are constantly carelessly changing the texts of plays” 京調詞句雖粗俗, 然一句一字皆前人酌定. 有萬不能改變者, 而近來 伶人往往率然改戲中詞句. The author complains about changes made by Sun Juxian to Sanniang jiaozi (Xikao #3) and concludes that “This is the reason actors are looked down upon by others” 此伶人之所以賤視於人也. Qi Rushan, Qi Rushan huiyi lu, p. 291 (Qi Rushan quanji, 10: 6305), records Shang Heyu as saying that it was easier to join a troupe in Beiping than in the countryside, because the performance practices of the rural troupes differed far more greatly from each other than was the case in Beiping. He says to perform the same play with a rural troupe you would have to carefully compare performance versions (duixi 對戲), while to perform the same play with a Beiping troupe all you had to do was “talk it through a bit” (dalüe shuo yi shuo 大略說一說).

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Jingju play texts that proclaimed they had been edited (whatever the reality) surely spread the idea that the scripts of plays were something that could or should be fixed.410 The fairly widespread notion that Western actors were not allowed to change the texts of the scripts they acted411 also surely had some effect. The increasing numbers of increasingly more organized and vocal Jingju addicts (ximi) was another stabilizing force, since they would vocally protest departures from how they thought plays should be performed.412 These same ximi represented one of the main markets for published playscripts. Before the practice of projecting the texts of arias in theaters began to become common in the 1950s, ximi would read playscripts before going to see a play413 or take published texts to the theater to help them follow the singing of the arias.414 410 The prevalence of the words zheng and jiao in late Qing lithographic editions of Jingju plays should be evident in the section on them above. The most ambitious attempt to really edit the texts of Jingju plays at the time remained in manuscript form and did not circulate widely: Jinan Huishan Minghu Xian youxi zhuren 濟南慧山明湖閒游戲主人 (pseud.), “Gaizhi pihuang xinci” 改制皮黃新詞 (Adapted and supplemented new texts for Jingju; preface dated 1899). The prefatory material is reproduced in Fu Jin, ed., Jingju lishi wenxian huibian: Qingdai juan, 7: 449–56. It includes a very lengthy and detailed liyan 例言 (editorial principles) of forty-one items, which lists the kind of problems the collection was trying to correct. It is one of two texts focused on in Yan Quanyi 顏 全毅, “Qingdai Jingju juben xuanbian de shuangbi” 清代京劇劇本選編的雙璧 (Two jades among anthologies of Jingju plays of the Qing dynasty), Wenshi zhishi 文史知識 (Knowledge about literature and history) 2006.6: 110–15. 411 See, for instance, the August 2, 1911 installment of Zheng Zhengqiu’s 鄭正秋 (1888–1935) column, “Fenmo chang zhong zhi zahuo dian” 粉墨場中之雜貨店 (Theatrical general store), in Minli huabao 民立畫報 (The people stand up pictorial), reproduced in Fu Jin, ed., Jingju lishi wenxian huibian: Qingdai juan, 6: 661–62, where Zheng says, “When it comes to new playscripts in western countries, actors are not allowed to change a word” 西國新劇本, 優伶不得更動一字. 412 See, for instance, Li Fusheng, Zhonghua Guoju shi, p. 480, and Donald Chang et al., “How the Chinese Actor Trains,” Educational Theatre Journal 26.2 (1974): 183–91, p. 186. 413 The idea of familiarizing yourself with the script of a play before going to a performance was a common one among Kunqu fans. Xu Chengbei, Liyuan zou ma, p. 64, talks about reading plays in the PRC collection of Jingju playscripts Jingju huibian 京劇彙編 (Collected Jingju scripts) before or after he went to see them in the theater. 414 Again, the practice was more common in the case of Kunqu, which makes greater demands on the listener. On the bringing of Zhui baiqiu to the theater to read arias in it during performances, see Liang Zhangju 梁章鉅 (1775–1849), “Wenban wuban” 文班武 班 (Civil and martial theater troupes), Langji xutan 浪跡續談 (Continued talks on the traces of waves), reproduced in Fu Jin, ed., Jingju lishi wenxian huibian: Qingdai juan, 8: 36: “When I was in Beijing there were metropolitan officials who loved nothing but Kunqu and who, whenever they watched plays, would spread out a copy of Zhui baiqiu on their side tables and use their fingers to count out the beats. Everyone looked upon them as famous experts. I laughed at them above all others …” 在京師日, 有京官專嗜崑腔者, 每觀劇, 必攤綴白裘於几, 以手按板拍節, 群目之為專門名家. 余最笑之…. Hsü, The Chinese

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Published playscripts tended to echo one another when they did not actually copy from each other, and began to play an increasing role in the training of young actors in the more modern opera schools. We end up in a situation that is certainly in accord with our general expectations: the earliest printed playscripts, such as those that appeared in Xikao, are far more influential than the early manuscript versions of plays.415 We can expect the advent of printed editions of Jingju plays to have had at least four important effects: (1) lowering of the cost of providing oneself with playscripts, (2) increasing the number of playscripts in circulation, (3) stabilizing the written texts for the plays as opposed to the performance versions, and (4) seeing the written texts of the plays that were so popular on stage made it clear how deficient they were as literature and provided an incentive for literati to consider improving the situation by participating in their editing and production. It is of course true that there is no need for the script of a play to be a literary work for productions of it on the stage to be effective pieces of theater. This is all the more true if one is dealing with musical theater, and with genres as insistently musical as certain forms of Western opera in which all text must be sung.416 But the increased circulation of textualized versions of Jingju plays Conception of the Theatre, p. 287, also translates this passage but breaks off before Liang’s final comment. Wilt L. Idema, “Traditional Dramatic Literature,” in Victor H. Mair, ed., The Columbia History of Chinese Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), p. 795, implies that the nineteenth-century market in Jingju scripts “for the benefit of the merchants and officials who flocked to the capital from all over the empire” was related to the practice of taking scripts to the theater to help follow the arias. Paul A. Robinson, “Reading Libretti and Misreading Opera,” Opera, Sex, Desire, and Other Vital Matters (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), p. 47, notes that “before Wagner the house was not darkened during the performance, with the result that members of the audience could follow their librettos.” Such librettos were on sale at the entrance of opera theaters. 415 See, for instance, Wang Anqi’s study of the textual history of Qionglin yan 瓊林宴 (Banquet in Qionglin Park; Xikao #41) in her “Guanyu Jingju juben laiyuan,” pp. 153–63, and her conclusion that the variety represented in the early manuscript versions of the play has vanished and modern performances are “almost exactly identical” ( jihu wan­ quan yizhi 幾乎完全一致) to the versions published in Xikao and Xixue huikao. 416 Speaking of this last kind of opera, Robinson, “Reading Libretti and Misreading Opera,” pp. 30–31, says, “Put another way, a libretto is not a text as we ordinarily understand that term. Because the meaning of opera is at bottom musical—because its essential argument is posed in musical language—any interpretation of opera derived exclusively, or even primarily, from the libretto is likely to result in a misreading.” But he goes on (p. 31) to concede that things are different for different types of opera. We should also remember that the supremacy of the composer over the librettist in western opera is not all that old. According to Anselm Gerhard, The Urbanization of Opera, pp. 37–38, “Between 1830 and 1850 his [Eugéne Scribe (1791–1861), a librettist] annual income (not counting the yield on

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brought out with increasing clarity how bad some of the texts were,417 something not as evident when one relied on one’s ears during performances.418 As Jingju developed and matured, playscripts became more important to it and acquired increasing fixity. Originally, actors were permitted (and sometimes required) to do a certain amount of improvisation on stage, especially when it came to dialogue.419 This kind of improvisation was not limited to invested capital) varied between 100,000 francs and 180,000 francs, and in 1855 it rose to a record height of 232,070 francs” but “… the shift in the relative positions of composer and librettist was acknowledged to be complete in 1852, when Verdi signed a contract for a new opera with the management [of the Paris Opéra] before he had even spoken to the librettist of his choice—Scribe—about a possible subject.” In Jingju, the opposition was not between librettist and composer but between playwright and actor/singer. Wang Anqi, Wei Jingju biaoyan tixi fasheng, p. 340, stresses that Jingju playgoers were generally satisfied if while attending a play they could hear “some flavorful sung passages” 有幾段 有韻味的唱 and see “some scenes of special physical acting or martial fighting” 幾場 有絕活的身段武打), and would not be inclined to “ponder the logic of the plays” 推敲 戲劇邏輯. She also points out (p. 341) that Jingju addicts’ appreciation of plays focused more on the arias than the entire play. 417 Weng Ouhong’s job at Zhonghua Xixiao in 1936 included trying to correct problems in Jingju scripts. In Weng Ouhong bianju shengya, p. 23, he describes some of the corrections he tried to make and how when he showed them to students their teachers got mad at him. 418 This is analogous to what Yu Dagang 俞大綱, “Guoju xueli” 國劇學理 (The principles of National Drama), Yu Dagang quanji, lunshu juan, 1: 309, says about Jingju and subtitles. After pointing out that the poor quality of the writing in its scripts is the weakest thing about Jingju, he says that showing the text as subtitles in theaters and on TV “exposes” (baolu 暴露) that weakness. Zou Yuanjiang 鄒元江, Xiju ‘zenshi’ jiangyan lu 戲劇 ‘怎是’ 講演錄 (Lectures on ‘what is’ theater; Changsha: Hunan jiaoyu, 2007), p. 5, speaking of the lyrics of one play, Jiangjie 江姐 (Sister Jiang; premiered in 2000), remarks, “In the past when there were not any electronic subtitles, we had no idea how much filler there was in these lyrics, how vulgar they were, how full of slogans, nor did we pay much attention to what they meant; we were just pleased by their beautiful melodies” 過去沒有電子 字幕, 我們不絕得這些詞有多麼水, 多麼俗, 多麼口號化, 也沒有太多關註其唱詞 是何意, 而是非常喜歡其優美的聲腔. On the other hand, Wang Yuanfu, Guoju yishu jilun, p. 285, uses the need continually to adjust subtitles to the performance styles of individual actors to illustrate why “Jingju plays do not have set, standard texts” 國劇沒有 一種標準的劇本. 419 On improvisation in Jingju in general, see Wang Yuanhua 王元化 and Jiang Xiwu 蔣錫 武, “Guanyu jixing biaoyan de duihua” 關於即興表演的對話 (A dialogue on improvisation), Yitan 3 (2004): 1–7. Places in playscripts where actors were expected or allowed to improvise (within certain limits, of course) were referred to as being “alive” (huo 活) and most instances concerned dialogue and not arias. The scope could be the dialogue of an entire play, such as in a manuscript of Da huagu 打花鼓 (Playing the patterned drum; Xikao #56) reproduced in Su wenxue congkan, 324: 549–73, which ends with this direction: “[all of] the dialogue is live” (bai shi huode 白是活的), or just one phrase or term, as in a manuscript of Wusong ling 蜈蚣領 (Scorpion Ridge; Xikao #410), in which the mention of the name of a theater in the dialogue has an annotation in small characters:

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chou actors,420 although it was generally they who were most famous for it.421 There are also many stories about actors of generations long gone improvising “this is live dialogue and can be changed as you wish” (huo bai suishi genggai 活白隨時 更改; Su wenxue congkan, 319: 202). Liukou 流口 (lit.: flowing mouth) was also used to describe dialogue that was not set and could or should be improvised. For instance, at the end of a manuscript of Ba che 八扯 (Eight bits; not in Xikao; Su wenxue congkan, 340: 262), there is the stage direction: “As for the unfixed dialogue at the end of the play, say whatever you like, as you will, as you will” 此戲收尾子流口白愛說甚麼說甚麼隨便隨 便. There were also set phrases or sequences that were either supposed to be done exactly the same whatever the play (si gaikou 死蓋口) or had to be adapted to the circumstances of particular plays (huo gaikou 活蓋口). See Gu Qun et al., Zhongguo Jingju guanshang, “Gaikou” 蓋口, p. 399, and Yu Handong, Zhongguo xiqu biaoyan yishu cidian, “Gaikou” 蓋 口, p. 819. [Zheng] Guoyi [鄭] 過宜, “Fenhe wan kaozheng juben” 汾河灣考證劇本 (A researched playscript of Fenhe wan), Xiju yuekan 1.9 (March 1929), p. 1 (separate pagination), blames the disparities between different versions of this play on the overlooking of gaikou. It is also common to see in play manuscripts the formula “XX would also be fine” (XX yeke XX 也可). These include Chewang fu and Baiben Zhang manuscripts (see Su wenxue congkan, 294: 81 and 296: 595, respectively, for examples) and involve not just dialogue (see 292: 225, for an example). The printed anthology of Jingju scripts, Liyuan jicheng, also has places where a choice is given to the actor/reader. See Shi Zhaohou, “Du Liyuan jicheng,” p. 369. There were also certain Jingju plays in which the structure was very loose to begin with and printing a set version is somewhat problematic. See the shukao 述考 comments on Tanqin xiangma (Xikao #107; pp. 962–63), which compares this play to “new-style plays”: “But I believe that in the case of this play it is not appropriate to set the text, and that according to local customs, every locality should have its own way of performing it, and all of them should take the showing off of local customs as primary, the same as in new-style plays; that would really be interesting” 惟大錯以為此劇宜不 限定腳本. 隨南北風俗, 各地各樣作法, 均以採取本地風光為主. 如新劇一般, 倒 也有趣, and to Xin sishi ba che 新四十八扯 (New Forty-eight bits; Xikao #451; p. 4725). There were theatrical traditions that did not use scripts or set texts at all. These kinds of plays were called huoben 活本 (live text) or shuici xi 水詞戲 (watery text plays) in which the actors are said to fangshui 放水 (add water) when they improvise. For an example of the use of these terms, see the entry on Duan Diankun 段殿坤 (1900–1959) in Zhongguo xiqu zhi: Hubei juan 中國戲曲志: 湖北卷 (Record of Chinese traditional theater: Hubei volume; Beijing: Wenhua yishu, 1993), pp. 553–54. 420 See Liu Si 劉嗣, Guoju jiaose he renwu 國劇角色和人物 (Role-types and characters in guoju; Taibei: Liming wenhua, 1972), on onstage improvisations by the jing actor Hao Shouchen 郝壽臣 (1886–1961; pp. 271–72) and the laodan actor Gong Yunfu 龔雲甫 (1862–1932; pp. 413–14). Fang Wenxi, Liyuan hua, p. 92, uses the term wu zhun gaozi 無准 稿子 (no set script) and quotes Zhang Kaizi 張豂子 (Zhang Houzai) to the effect that all the actors have “set scripts” (yiding zhi jiaoben 一定之腳本) or “reliable scripts” (kekao benzi 可靠本子) excepting the wanxiao dan 玩笑旦 (comic female roles) and xiao hua­ lian 小花臉 (chou), who lack zhungao 准稿 (set scripts) because they speak Pekingese ( Jingbai 京白) and “when they mount the stage can cut or add as they like, changing things as they like” 上場可以隨意增減, 隨意變通, but that this is surely more a matter of degree than of kind. 421 See, for instance, Liu Si, Guoju jiaose he renwu, pp. 379–80, on onstage improvisations (mostly political comments) by the chou actor Liu Gansan 劉趕三 (1817–1894).

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on stage to slow things down until a missing actor has arrived422 or changing the accepted text to put another actor onstage on the spot.423 Older generations of actors were also known for not being limited to just one way of performing a play but were said to have known several.424 All of this produced a situation in which someone might say, in the 1920s, “one learns that a play is not a fixed quantity.”425 Despite the recent trend to treat Jingju plays as literature,426 printed Jingju plays, similar to printed libretti for Western opera, did not become “reading

422 Xu Muyun, Liyuan waiji, p. 136, recounts an anecdote about Yu Sansheng having to sing sixty to seventy lines beginning “Wo hao bi …” 我好比 … [I am just like …]) when the actor playing the female lead was late getting to the theater. 423 See Liu Si, Guoju jiaose he renwu, pp. 350–51, for an instance of this. 424 Qi Rushan, Qi Rushan huiyi lu, p. 291 (Qi Rushan quanji, 10: 6305), says that in reference to his claim that “old actors on the contrary were commonly not afraid to change the texts [of plays]” 老腳倒往往不怕改詞句, Shang Heyu said, “That is true; they weren’t like those young persons who can only perform one version of the text; the older generation of actors, when they sang Kongcheng ji [Xikao #1], who among them couldn’t perform two or three versions? As for the actors of today, they all can only perform one version, and even if only one character is different, then they considered it incorrect….” 那是不錯的, 不像他們年輕的人, 只會一種詞句, 老一輩的腳, 唱 “空城計,” 那一位不是會兩三 種詞句呢, 如今的腳, 都是只會一種, 差一個字, 他就以為不對. 425 Allen, Chinese Theatres Handbook, p. 38. 426 There has been a small rush of books and articles that focus explicitly on Jingju plays as literature since the turn of the millennium. These include Yan Quanyi, Qingdai Jingju wenxue and Yan Changke 顏長珂, “Jingju wenxue jianlun” 京劇文學簡論 (A brief discussion of Jingju literature), Zhonghua xiqu 24 (2000): 1–25. Wu Yuhua 吳毓華 and Song Bo 宋波, Jingju: Jingcheng xiqu wenhua de zhenghe 京劇: 京城戲曲文化的整合 ( Jingju: Synthesis of the traditional theater culture of the capital; Beijing: Zhongguo shudian, 2002), has a chapter on “Jingju de juben wenxue” 京劇的劇本文學 (The literature of Jingju playscripts), pp. 149–64. Prior to that, there was only Qian Mu 錢穆, “Zhongguo Jingju zhong zhi wenxue yiwei” 中國京劇中之文學意味 (The literary flavor of Chinese Jingju); written after 1949 when he moved to Hong Kong; included in Weng Zaisi, ed., Jingju congtan bainian lu, pp. 86–91 (in which he begins by admitting that at first glance Jingju can’t be considered literature); and Xu Lingxiao 徐凌霄, “Pihuang wenxue yanjiu” 皮黃文學研究 (Research into the literature of Jingju), Juxue yuekan 3.8 (1934): 1–15 (separate pagination) and idem., Pihuang wenxue yanjiu. A collection of theatrical literature, Zhang Geng and Huang Jusheng, eds., Zhongguo jindai wenxue daxi: Xiju ji, 1: 551–845, includes fifteen Jingju plays (five are Xikao versions and Xikao versions were consulted in the case of another three plays). Guo Jingrui, Chewang fu quben yu Jingju xingcheng, although not explicitly about Jingju playscripts as literature, expends considerable effort attacking the idea that there is an inverse relationship between the literary and performance values of a playscript. See in particular the section in the conclusion on this topic, pp. 215–20.

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material” (duwu 讀物) for any substantial proportion of the population427 and have a reputation similar to that for Western librettos.428 This did not mean that they were not widely circulated and influential, just that they did not become texts to be read for pleasure or published with fine illustrations in lavish editions, as had happened with the publication of chuanqi plays in the late Ming.429 It also took a long time for Jingju playwrights who asserted their identity as playwrights to have any real impact on the stage. The early stages of that development will be investigated in the next chapter. 427 Zhuang Xuechan 莊雪嬋 (Catherine Capdeville-Zeng), Fengchang zuoxi 逢場作戲 (Performing wherever there is the opportunity; Nanjing: Nanjing daxue, 2009), p. 230, writing in the first decade of the 21st century, noted that many of the amateur Jingju singers she interviewed did not consider Jingju playscripts to have any “literary worth” (wenxue jiazhi 文學價值). 428 We have noted above that Western opera librettists such as Scribe were once well-paid literary men, but the common take is that “opera plots are emblematically silly” (Berger, The NPR Curious Listener’s Guide to Opera, p. xiii). Hutcheon and Hutcheon, Opera: Desire, Disease, Death, p. 7, would blame the reader: “If opera librettos do ‘read badly,’ the problem is with the reader, not the text: the assumptions that guide the reading of a novel or even a play are simply inadequate for reading librettos….” 429 On printed editions of plays as reading material, see Carlitz, “Printing as Performance” and Idema, “The Many Shapes of Medieval Chinese Plays,” pp. 328–30. Idema says of the illustrations to these plays, p. 328, “Such illustrations would depict scenes from the story of the play, not highpoints of the performance of the play; while in some cases their artistic value may be considerable, their value for the history of performance, unfortunately, is negligible.” Li-ling Hsiao, The Eternal Present of the Past: Illustration, Theatre, and Reading in the Wanli Period, 1573–1619 (Leiden: Brill, 2007), is of the opposite opinion. She is most believable when discussing the illustrations to the prologues to chuanqi plays, which often explicitly place the figures depicted on a stage. She does point out (as have many others), on p. 254, that the fanli to the 1606 Wanyue xuan 浣月軒 printing of Lanqiao yuchu ji 藍 橋玉杵記 (Story of the jade pestle by the blue bridge) attributed to Yang Zhijiong 楊 之炯 (for the falseness of the attribution, see Guo Yingde, Ming Qing chuanqi zonglu, p. 303) claims that the illustrations can be used as a guide for the costumes to be worn by the actors. The fanli can be found in Wu Yuhua 吳毓華, ed., Zhongguo gudai xiqu xuba ji 中國古代戲曲序跋集 (Collection of prefaces and colophons to premodern Chinese theater; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 1990), p. 117. The item in question is #6 and the text reads: “Benzhuan zhuchu huixiang, yi bian zhao ban guanfu” 本傳逐齣繪像, 以便照扮冠服 (This play [zhuan 傳, more appropriate to narratives than plays, is used here] provides illustrations for each scene so as to provide a model for headgear and costume).

Chapter 2

Textualization and Authorship before Xikao (Research into Plays) The importance of Xikao will be made abundantly clear in the next chapter. In its time and for long after it was the largest and most influential collection of printed Jingju playscripts,1 a work that some have claimed as one of the bestsellers of the Republican period.2 The first chapter presented an overview of the kinds of plays in the Jingju repertoire and the forms that they took. In this chapter we will begin a diachronic history of the very gradual emergence of professional Jingju playwrights and the accommodation of Jingju textualization to more and more modern forms of media. This history will extend over this and the remaining chapters and will take us from the question of authorship in classical Chinese indigenous theater prior to the appearance of Jingju all the way up to the present status of Jingju textualization, authorship, and professionalization of playwriting. In this chapter we will see how plays written by literati who took up playwriting without a clear understanding of Jingju or contacts in the world of Jingju to help adapt their work failed to establish themselves on the Jingju stage, while the plays of actors who learned how to write plays and literati who either learned what the stage required or found those who had that knowledge to help them fared better. The relationships between written and staged versions of plays are variable and complex even in theatrical traditions that privileged the work of the playwright and did their best to reproduce the playwright’s written work on stage as “faithfully” as possible.3 In the case of Jingju, at least during the time 1 In chapter 3 it will be made clear that while the majority of plays in Xikao are Jingju, the collection also includes bangzi and Kunqu plays. 2 See chapter 3 for this claim. 3 Peters, Theatre of the Book, p. 286, notes a developing distinction in eighteenth-century Europe between “the ‘acting play’ and the ‘reading play.’ ” To give an idea of how difficult it is to record in writing all information involved in a performance, we can think about fully transcribing detailed pronunciations of the smallest unit of alphabetic languages, “letters.” Gelb, A Study of Writing, p. 243, describes how in “analphabetic notation” systems as devised by Otto Jesperson (1860–1943) and Kenneth L. Pike (1912–2000), twelve signs and three spaces are used by the former to express “u” and more than thirty signs are used in the latter to express “t.” On writing in general as a “performance text,” see Sarah C. Humphreys, “Towards an Anthropology of Reading,” in Sarah C. Humphreys and Rudolf G. Wagner, eds., Modernity’s Classics (New York: Springer, 2013), p. 188.

© David L. Rolston, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004463394_004

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period covered in this chapter (primarily the decades before the founding of the Republic), performance conditions and traditions were far more important than the desires and wishes of the “playwright,” who was just as often anonymous or just a recorder of decisions made by the troupe working up the play. Jingju playscripts (as for the majority of indigenous traditional Chinese theatrical traditions) have almost always tended to be very laconic, giving only the bare minimum of stage directions.4 Actors or readers who want to turn such a playscript into a real “play,” either on the stage or in their minds, have a lot of filling in to do. Whether the playscript was being transmitted to them orally or through written versions, Chinese actors, through their training, were well prepared to do precisely that with comparatively little need of direction from other troupe members. Competent readers of playscripts were typically longtime viewers of Jingju who could rely on that experience to fill in what was left off the page. There were many different theatrical traditions in China. When it comes to individual traditions’ degree of textualization of the plays performed, they can be placed on a wide spectrum with no textualization on one end and high textualization on the other. A rural performance tradition with a limited and comparatively simple repertoire such as that of the yangge 秧歌 plays of Dingxian, Hebei, could be transmitted orally without recourse to playscripts or any written material,5 while a tradition favored by literati such as Kunqu could be 4 To give a better idea of this, we can briefly compare the opening sequence of two versions of one play, Silang tanmu (Xikao #22). In the Xikao version, the play begins with a threecharacter stage direction ([lao] sheng shang yin [yinzi] [老] 生上引 [引子]): “the [lao]sheng actor [playing Silang or Yang Yanhui 楊延輝] enters and recites the ‘opener’ ” (p. 179). To get up to this same point in the play (i.e., the recitation of the ‘opener’), A. C. Scott, “Ssu Lang Visits His Mother,” Traditional Chinese Plays, Volume 1 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1967), needs thirty-five lines of stage directions (pp. 33–34). The contrast between script and performance is even greater when it comes to martial plays. In the Xikao version of Tiao huache 挑華車 (Turning aside the carts sliding down the hill; #304), the core of the play, the turning aside of the carts by Gao Chong 高寵 and his ensuing death, is handled with a five-character stage direction: tangma tiaoche si 蹚馬挑車死 (he spurs his horse, turns aside the carts, and dies; tang is now written with a different character: 趟). The running time for this sequence in performance is as much as eight minutes. For an estimation that 40–90% “of human communication occurs through nonverbal channels,” see Kerim Yasar, Electrified Voices: How the Telephone and Radio Shaped Modern Japan (New York: Columbia University Press, 2018), p. 33. 5 In his introduction to Chinese Village Plays from the Ting Hsien Region (Amsterdam: Philo Press, 1970), p. xvii, Sidney Gamble states that the actors in Dingxian did not use any written play texts and that the forty-eight plays recorded from dictation by the actors and translated in the volume represent “the repertoire of the company.” For the Chinese transcriptions of the plays, see Li Jinghan 李景漢 and Zhang Shiwen 張世文, eds., Dingxian yangge xuan 定縣秧 歌選 (Selected Dingxian yangge; Beiping: Zhonghua pingmin jiaoyu cujin hui, 1933; reprint,

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very text-dependent.6 When it comes to the yangge plays of Dingxian, you can’t really talk about who “wrote” the plays: what we now have were transcribed from the mouths of performers and the basic stories and “texts” of the plays are largely shared with other performance traditions. Jingju began as a relatively simple performance tradition that borrowed most of its repertoire from other popular traditions and from Kunqu, but over time its status rose, and the degree of literati input became more intense and important even while many of the plays in the repertoire still continued to circulate only in oral form.7 Playwrights whose plays were so important to Kunqu such as Tang Xianzu, Hong Sheng 洪昇 (1645–1704), and Kong Shangren 孔尚任 (1648–1718), tried in various ways to defend their play texts as they wrote them against what they considered to be the depredations of revisers and actors, and their plays have been far more often read as literature than they have been performed entire on stage.8 The most successful Jingju playwrights, on the other hand, Taibei: Dongfang wenhua, 1971). On this type of theater, see Chao Wei-pang, “Yang-ko: The Rural Theatre in Ting-hsien, Hopei,” Folklore Studies 3.1 (1944): 17–38. Dingxian is important to the study of rural theater in China because it was the first place where scholars went in and tried to record the repertoire “scientifically.” Dingxian was also the site of attempts to introduce huaju into the countryside by Xiong Foxi, on which see Liu, “Mixed-Blooded Child.” In the 1990s, when fieldwork was done in Dingxian again, it was found that fifteen plays in the yangge repertoire had been missed. For transcriptions of what could be recovered from the memory of surviving actors at that time, see Dong Xiaoping 董曉萍 and Ou Dawei 甌達 偉 (David Arkush), Xiangcun xiqu biaoyan yu Zhongguo xiandai minzhong 鄉村戲曲表演 與中國現代民眾 (Village theater and the modern Chinese masses; Beijing: Beijing shifan daxue, 2000). 6 Generally, this high degree of textualization is a matter of pride for Kunqu enthusiasts, but performers could be unhappy with such a heavy reliance on texts. In Chen Moxiang, Huoren daxi, p. 6.30, someone knowledgeable about both amateur and professional performance traditions for Kunqu says, “those in the troupes have a two-sentence slogan: ‘before you go onstage don’t read Zhui baiqiu [a very popular collection of the texts of zhezi xi], before you play the Kunqu flute don’t read Nashu ying [qupu; the first extensive set of musical notations for Kunqu plays and zhezi xi]’; that is because the melodies in Nashu ying are too stereotypical—when sung on stage they are not moving to listen to; as for the songs in Zhui baiqiu, they have been cut and the places to breathe are not correct” 他們戲班卻有兩句口 號: ‘上場莫看綴白裘, 吹笛莫看納書楹 [曲譜],’ 只因納書楹的腔兒太板, 臺上唱着不 動聽, 綴白裘的曲子, 有割裂地方, 介口不準成. 7 Even in the case of Jingju huibian, which was published 1957–1985, seven of the 498 plays included are annotated as having been dictated (koushu 口述). See the reprint edition, Jingju chuantong juben huibian 京劇傳統劇本彙編 (Collected traditional Jingju playscripts), 30 vols. (Beijing: Beijing chubanshe, 2009). For the plays marked as having been transcribed in that edition, see 1: 41; 6: 382; 9: 192; 10: 205; 22: 247; 25: 33; and 30: 263. 8 Tang Xianzu was famous for saying that he would rather “wrench the voices of everyone under heaven” 拗折天下人嗓子 than have the text of his Mudan ting be changed. For the background of that quote, see Wang Jide 王驥德, Wang Jide Qulü 王驥德曲律 (Wang Jide’s

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found ways to work together with actors and accommodate the latter’s desires, and their plays have never really been treated as reading matter. However, even though there were barriers to the textualization of Jingju, such as a longtime lack of open literati participation in playwriting and lack of familiarity with Jingju stagecraft of many who did, a low literacy rate among actors, and a general fear that the circulation of written versions of plays one relied on for a living would increase the competition and hurt one’s financial income,9 Jingju playscripts were common and important from early on,10 even if it took a long time for them to begin to be printed and to reach a larger audience than actors, collectors, and patrons. 1

Authorship and Textualization of “Classical Chinese Indigenous Theater”

“Classical Chinese Indigenous Theater” (gudian xiqu 古典戲曲) is basically used to refer to theater whose scripts were thought to have some or even high

Rules of prosody), Chen Duo 陳多 and Ye Changhai 葉長海, annot. (Changsha: Hunan renmin, 1983), “Zalun” 雜論 (Miscellaneous discourses) item 74, pp. 226–28. Writing much later than Tang, Hong and Kong tried in the fanli to their most famous plays to argue that they had already taken into account the needs of performers and that further changes were not necessary. They had also taken the precaution to write in close collaboration with music masters to make their arias singable. 9 See the idea mentioned in chapter 1, in the discussion of du you 獨有 (“privately owned”) plays, that some actors would rather see their plays burned at their death than passed on to others. With reference to Western playwrights, Chartier, “The Stage and the Page,” Publishing Drama, pp. 51–73, discusses the “stigma of print” applied to printed plays (owing to the reluctance of dramatists to see plays printed that were written for the stage). “Stigma of print” has usually been used to refer to the reluctance of aristocratic literary amateur writers to see their work appear in the vulgar medium of print. See Peters, Theatre of the Book, p. 206. 10 Qi Rushan, Qi Rushan huiyi lu, p. 156 (Qi Rushan quanji, 10: 6170), relates that when he began to collect playscripts for the Guoju Xuehui after it was established, he thought he would find many in homes where the men had been actors for generations but found that transmission had been mostly oral (kouchuande 口傳的) and “those who had scripts were very few” 有本子的人很少. Regardless of this initial disappointment, according to the list drawn up of its holdings (see below), the association was able to collect a substantial number of Jingju playscripts. For a description of the training of xianggong that mentions the reading of playscripts (“reading plays from playscripts, this is called ‘reading text’ ” 對本讀劇, 謂之念詞), see Xu Ke 徐珂 (1869–1928), comp., Qingbai leichao 清稗類 鈔 (Categorized copyings from Qing informal records), Vol. 11 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1986), pp. 5102–103.

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literary value but also to playscripts that were old. In general usage, it excludes Jingju and other more modern and popular forms of Chinese theater. There are manuscripts found at Dunhuang, where they had been walled up for about a millennium, that some believe are playscripts.11 There are also texts transmitted from an even earlier time that were connected to large-scale dance performances that seem to have some narrative content, which some have thought are playscripts.12 These have survived by chance, are often very hard to decipher, and had little influence on or connections to later theater scripts. We can perhaps not be faulted for imagining that a variety of written manuscript playscripts of different formats and content were produced in the early stages of Chinese drama, but if indeed these existed, they have not survived. The earliest extant playscripts have been taken as a set of thirty printings of separate zaju plays printed in the Yuan dynasty, referred to in the scholarship as Yuankan zaju sanshi zhong 元刊雜劇三十種 (Thirty zaju printed in the Yuan dynasty).13 Yuan zaju were structured around the song-suites that formed the core of the acts of the plays and were sung by one actor. The Yuan printings range from nothing but the song-suites, as in the case of Zhao-shi gu’er 趙氏孤 兒 (The orphan of the Zhao family),14 to also including stage directions that seem designed to help the main actor know where the song-suites fit into the play and, sometimes, also give hints about how to act the main role.15 Modern 11 For an evaluation of several manuscript texts found at Dunhuang as to whether or not they are playscripts, see Qi Shijuan 戚世雋, Zhongguo gudai juben xingtai lungao 中國 古代劇本形態論稿 (Essays on the ecology of playscripts in premodern China; Beijing: Beijing daxue, 2013), pp. 63–92. 12 See Qi Shijuan, Zhongguo gudai juben xingtai, pp. 48–63, for such a text known as “Gongmo wu” 公莫舞 (Gongmo dance), which he concludes is not a playscript. 13 There is quite a lot of difference among the set in terms of format. The title of a play might mention Hangzhou, but if so that is the only information in the plays themselves about who the publisher(s) might have been. 14 For a translation of this printing of the play, see Stephen H. West and Wilt L. Idema, trs. and eds., The Orphan of Zhao and Other Yuan Plays: The Earliest Known Versions (New York: Columbia University Press, 2015), pp. 57–72 (pp. 73–111 translates the Yuanqu xuan 元曲選 [Selected Yuan Plays; 1615–1616] edition of the play for comparison). The introduction of this book introduces the Yuan printings as well as the late Ming editions that were designed more for a reading audience. 15 Wilt L. Idema, “Some Aspects of Pai-yüeh-t’ing: Script and Performance,” in Tseng Yong-yi (Zeng Yongyi), ed., Proceedings of the International Conference on Kuan Han-ch’ing (Taibei: Xingzheng yuan wenhua jianshe weiyuan hui, 1993), pp. 3–23, investigates the stage directions in the Yuan printing of Baiyue ting 拜月亭 (Pavilion for praying to the moon). A translation of the Yuan printing is available in Stephen H. West and Wilt L. Idema, eds. and trs., Monks, Bandits, Lovers, and Immortals: Eleven Early Chinese Plays (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2010), pp. 77–104.

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scholars have speculated that the purpose of these scripts was similar to that of the subtitles later provided to help audiences understand the text of arias in movies and live performances. Sung Chinese is typically much harder to understand than spoken Chinese; it is also the case that these printed playscripts seem to have been produced in Hangzhou for a playgoing audience that was less familiar with the Northern variety of Chinese used on the stage than the original audience for them in the North.16 None of the Yuan printings of zaju plays contain attributions of authorship. Modern Chinese editions of the printings manage to provide authors for all but three of them by relying on such works as Zhong Sicheng’s Lugui bu, which gives a bit of information on hundreds of Yuan zaju playwrights and their plays.17 The most prominent of these playwrights is Guan Hanqing 關 漢卿 (c. 1245–1322), to whom sixty-seven plays have been attributed, of which eighteen are extant.18 The information that Zhong gives about Guan is very scant,19 but this did not prevent Tian Han 田漢 (1898–1968) from writing a very influential huaju play that presents him as a Shakespeare-like actor-playwright composing and presenting his most famous play and resisting pressure to revise it.20 In reference works on Yuan zaju, plays are organized by author, with the anonymous ones listed last. Of the 1,354 Yuan and Ming zaju titles listed in Zhuang Yifu’s Gudian xiqu cunmu huikao, for instance, only one third are presented as anonymous.21 For most of the Yuan dynasty, the civil service 16 See, for instance, West and Idema, eds. and trs., “Introduction,” Monks, Bandits, Lovers, and Immortals, p. xxi. Komatsu Ken 小松謙 and Kim Bunkyō 金文京, Huang Shizhong 黃仕忠, tr., “Shilun Yuankan zaju sanshi zhong de banben xingzhi” 試論元刊雜劇三十 種的版本性質 (On the nature of the editions in Yuankan zaju sanshi zhong), Wenxue yichan 2008.2: 7, also stresses the idea that viewers of the plays in Hangzhou would need such an aid. 17 The Zhongguo gudian xiqu lunzhu jicheng edition, 2: 85–274, collates the extant versions (pp. 141–262 is taken up by 1,335 collation notes!). 18 West and Idema, eds. and trs., Monks, Bandits, Lovers, and Immortals, p. 1. 19 A mere ten characters in the Zhongguo gudian xiqu lunzhu jicheng edition, 2: 104, which only give his native place, profession (doctor), and cognomen (hao 號). 20 On the creation of the play, see Rudolf G. Wagner, “A Guide to the Perplexed and a Call to the Wavering: Tian Han’s Guan Hanqing (1958) and the New Historical Drama,” The Contemporary Chinese Historical Drama (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), pp. 1–79. 21 While Zhuang Yifu separates out the attributed Yuan zaju from the attributed Ming zaju, he does not do so for the anonymous works he lists for the Yuan and Ming. Seven of the plays are listed under pennames that Zhuang was unable to identify and two more under authors for whom only the surname is known. None of the authors is identified as female, but some were monks. Zhuang follows the traditional practice of listing monks and then women at the end of lists of known authors. These are followed by authors for whom only a penname is known.

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examinations, which had become so important as the gateway to an official career, were shut down. That, plus a quota system that favored Central Asians and discriminated against Han Chinese, made it very difficult for the latter to achieve the traditional goal of government service. A popular explanation for the flourishing of drama in the Yuan and the high quality of the playwriting at the time was that frustrated literati turned to playwriting as a way to make use of their talents. Late-Ming editors and publishers of collections of zaju plays promoted the plays as the products of masters of literature and as objects for reading. While the writing in the Yuan printings can be quite rough (it is not easy to know whether this is a function of the quality of the original writing or a lack of editorial effort in the production of the editions), editions of zaju with dialogue and stage directions were mostly based on Ming-dynasty palace performance versions and were heavily edited when published by literati in the late Ming. The most famous and influential of these collections was Zang Maoxun’s 臧懋 循 (1550–1620) Yuanqu xuan 元曲選 (Selected Yuan Plays; 1615–1616), which appeared when these plays had almost completely disappeared from public stages. Zang’s versions came to dominate the popular and even scholarly view of what Yuan zaju were about. His edition was a luxury one with two finely cut woodblock illustrations for each of the one hundred included plays. In his two prefaces, in an effort to raise the cultural cachet of the plays, Zang promoted the patently ahistorical idea that the Yuan dynasty ran civil service examinations in which candidates had to write plays.22 On the first page of each play, the playwright’s name is either indicated or there is a blank space where it should be (twenty-one times or 21% of the total).23 The plays are arranged in no clear order; the only thing that can really be said is that the collection begins with a play written by one of the authors of zaju better known for the quality of his poetry than for dramatic his skill, Ma Zhiyuan 馬智遠 (c. 1260–1325).24 There was a pretty consistent attempt in the Ming dynasty to separate playwrights from professional actors, with some, such as the imperial Ming prince Zhu Quan 朱權 (1378–1448), publicizing the idea, rather counter-intuitively, that it was the amateurs who were the real “professionals”: 22

23 24

See Patricia Sieber, “Early Song-Drama Collections, Examination Requirements, and the Exigencies of Desire: Li Kaixian (1502–68), Zang Maoxun (1550–1620), and the Uses of Reproductive Authorship,” Theaters of Desire: Authors, Readers, and the Reproduction of Early Chinese Song-Drama (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), pp. 83–122. The syntax for the attributions is “Written by ____ of the Yuan” (Yuan ____ zhuan 元____ 撰), with the name of the playwright inserted when known (or left blank if unknown). See, for instance, the item on him by Shiao-ling Yu in Nienhauser, ed., Indiana Companion, 1: 611–12.

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Zhao Zi’ang [a.k.a., Zhao Mengfu; 1254–1322] said, “The zaju performed by playboys of good family are called ‘professionals’ work’ and those performed by sing-song girls and common actors are called ‘amateur’s playacting.’ Respectable people value their shame and performances have therefore become rarer and there are few nowadays; but to call those performed by sing-song girls and common actors ‘professional’ [i.e., expert] is very wide of the mark.” Someone asked why this should be so. He replied, “Zaju come from the pens of learned scholars and refined literary men, who are all people of good standing. Were it not for our compositions, how could sing-song girls and common actors perform? When one goes into the matter, one realizes the nature of things and that is why they are considered ‘amateur.’ ” Guan Hanqing said, “It is not their professional skill—it is all our trade. They merely perform the services of slaves, providing amusement and striving to please the likes of us. And the playboys’ performances all consist of our loves and romances.” Although this was said as a joke, it indeed fits the true facts, so I quote it here.25 子昂趙先生曰: “良家子弟所扮雜劇, 謂之 ‘行家生活.’ 娼優所扮者, 謂之 ‘戾家雜劇.’ 良人跪其恥, 故扮者寡, 今少矣, 反以娼優所扮者謂之 ‘行家,’ 失之遠也.” 或問其何故哉? 則應之曰: “雜劇出於鴻儒碩士, 騷人墨客所 作, 皆良人也. 若非我輩所作, 娼優豈能扮乎? 推其本而明其理, 故以為 ‘戾家’ 也.” 關漢卿曰: “非是他當行本事, 我家生活, 他不過為奴隸之役, 共 笑獻勤, 以奉我輩耳. 子弟所扮, 是我一家風月.” 雖是戲言, 亦合于理, 故 取之.26

The first copies of zaju plays with dialogue that have come down to us were written and published by Zhu Youdun 朱有燉 (1379–1439), grandson of the founder of the Ming and an imperial prince who might have put so much effort into writing and mounting his plays to prove that he had no political ambitions (he became an adult after another imperial prince, the Yongle emperor, usurped the throne from the Jianwen emperor). The printed copies proclaim that they have “complete dialogue” (quanbin 全賓), but the details of skits called for in the stage directions have been left for actors to fill in.27 As the performance of regular zaju plays became restricted to the imperial palace and 25 Translation based on that in Wilt L. Idema and Stephen H. West, Chinese Theater, 1100– 1450: A Source Book (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1982), p. 129. 26 Zhu Quan, “Zaju shi’er ke” 雜劇十二科 (The twelve kinds of zaju), Taihe zhengyin pu, in Zhongguo gudian xiqu lunzhu jicheng, 3: 24–25. 27 Zhu and his playwriting are the subject of Wilt L. Idema, The Dramatic Oeuvre of Chu Yu-tun (1379–1439) (Leiden: Brill, 1985).

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princely courts, a trend largely completed by the late Ming, new zaju became progressively divorced from performance28 and from the earlier, rather strict rules for composition that characterize zaju of the Yuan.29 Zhuang Yifu’s figures for Yuan and Ming zaju tend to blur this fact, but the figures that he gives for Qing dynasty zaju (it should be remembered that plays from the 1840 to 1911 are in a separate category and are not separated by genre) are striking in that for the total of 401 plays that he lists, only 20 or 5% are unattributed. The next earliest playscripts that have come down to us are of the genre nanxi (a.k.a., xiwen) and were preserved in the imperially commissioned Yongle dadian 永樂大典 (Great compendium of the Yongle era; completed 1407), which was never printed and only existed in a limited number of manuscript copies, none of which survived intact. This work originally contained twentyseven chapters devoted to this kind of playscript, which in turn contained a total of thirty-three plays. Only the last of the chapters, which contains three plays, survived. The Yongle dadian was a huge reference work compiled for consultation by the emperor and officials. For such a work to contain so many complete copies of playscripts was unprecedented and never imitated thereafter. In the case of two of the plays, authorship is attributed, right after their titles, to a “Gu Hang shuhui” 古杭書會 (Writers’ club of old Hangzhou), while in the case of the third, the fact that the play is a revision of an older play by the “Jiushan shuhui” 九山書會 (Writers’ club of Jiushan; Jiushan is in Wenzhou, 28 Xu Wei, whom we have already met as author of Nanci xulu, was a prominent author of the newer kind of zaju plays. Yuming He, “Difficulties of Performance: The Musical Career of ‘The Mad Drummer,’ ” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 68.2 (December 2008): 77–114, looks into whether one of his zaju, Kuang guli 狂鼓吏 (The mad drummer), was performable/was performed. There are plays that are labeled as zaju in the Kunqu repertoire. Wu Xinlei, ed., Zhongguo Kunju da cidian, gives information on twenty-nine plays or zhezi xi of this sort in a separate section, pp. 61–65 (for “Mad Drummer,” see p. 64), but while the textual connections between these plays and zaju plays are often quite close, performance continuity is much more problematic. Qi Shijuan, “Mingdai wenren zaju— Zhuan wei antou yuedu er she de juben” 明代文人雜劇—專為案頭閱讀而設的劇本 (Literary zaju of the Ming dynasty—Playscripts especially prepared for desktop reading), Zhongguo gudai juben xingtai, pp. 178–201, quotes Yagisawa Hajime 八木澤元 (1905–) to the effect that among the authors of such plays, there were three fanwang 藩王 (imperial princes) and seven shangshu 尚書 (presidents of one of the six metropolitan boards). 29 Tseng Yong-yih (Zeng Yongyi) 曾永義, Mingdai zaju gailun 明代雜劇概論 (An overview of Ming dynasty zaju; Taibei: Xuehai chubanshe, 1979), divides the composition of such zaju into three periods, from the beginning of the dynasty to the end of the Chenghua reign period (1368–1487), from the Hongzhi reign period through the Jiajing reign period (1488–1566), and from the Longqing reign period to the end of the dynasty (1567–1644). According to his calculations, in the first period, 80% of the zaju written accorded with the accepted rules for zaju composition (what Zeng calls chenggui 成規), which declines to 60% in the second period, and to 10% in the third (pp. 68–69).

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a center of nanxi production) is explained by the first speaker in the play (in both nanxi and chuanqi plays, in the first scene the mo actor, taking on the persona of the troupe leader if he was not the leader in reality, comes on stage first to introduce the play, sometimes with the help of replies to his questions from members of the troupe backstage). We don’t know as much as we would like about these writers’ clubs but it is clear that they produced both fiction and playscripts.30 The earliest extant printed edition of a nanxi or chuanqi play, a version of Baitu ji 白兔記 (The white rabbit) that was excavated in 1967 from the tomb of someone who died in the mid-Ming and was in the company of popular texts published in Beijing in the Chenghua reign period (1465–1487), also attributes its authorship to a writers’ club. When the mo asks the members of the troupe backstage to whom they are indebted to for the play, the reply is as follows: We are indebted for it to the talents of the Yongjia [i.e., Wenzhou] writers’ club, who underneath candle and window ground their ink thickly, dipped their brushes full of ink, and compiled this text, a first-rate story of filiality and righteousness. Indeed, read/watch it a thousand times and each of the thousand times it will be good, each time it is acted each time it is new. 虧了永嘉書會才人在此燈窗之下, 磨得墨濃, 斬 [蘸] 得筆飽, 編成此一本 上等孝義故事. 果為 [然] 是千度看來千度好, 一番搬演一番新.31

30 31

On writing clubs, see Stephen H. West, “Shu-hui,” in Nienhauser, ed., Indiana Companion, 1: 708–10. For the relevant pages in a photo-reprint of the play, see Xinbian Liu Zhiyuan huanxiang Baitu ji 新編劉知遠還鄉白兔記 (Newly compiled Liu Zhiyuan returns home, the white rabbit), in Ming Chenghua shuochang cihua congkan 明成化說唱詞話叢刊 (Collectanea of Ming dynasty Chenghua reign period shuochang texts; Taibei: Dingwen shuju, 1979), pp. 817–18. The two emendations (斬 to 蘸 and 為 to 然) follow the collated and recarved edition, Chenghua Xinbian Liu Zhiyuan huanxiang Baitu ji 成化新編劉知遠還鄉白兔 記 (Newly compiled Liu Zhiyuan returns home, the white rabbit of the Chenghua reign period; Yangzhou: Jiangsu Guangling guji keyin she, 1980), p. 3a. The prefatory piece to this edition, “Jiaobu shuoming” 校補說明 (Explanation of the collation and emendations), p. 1a, describes the original as “our nation’s earliest printed edition of a chuanqi play” 我國最早的傳奇刻本. This same piece, after describing the deficiencies of the original edition, claims (p. 3b) that it must only have been produced for performance (a dubious claim, I think), that it reflects the characteristics of oral performance literature (there is less problem with this claim), was created by people who were not literati and published by a popular commercial publisher, and unlikely to have been cherished by a book collector. For an alternate translation of the lines from the play, see Wilt L. Idema,

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Zhuang Yifu lists the titles of 335 nanxi, all of which he dates to the Song, Yuan, or early Ming dynasties. In stark contrast to the proportion of zaju that Zhuang Yifu lists as unattributed (one third), 82% of the nanxi that he lists are unattributed (he does not, however, include attributions of authorship to writers’ clubs).32 In the conventional narrative, nanxi developed into chuanqi through the more intense and open input of literati authors as exemplified by the writing career of Gao Ming 高明 (d. 1359), who passed the civil service examinations and served as an official in the late Yuan and who authored the famous Pipa ji. Modern scholars (including Zhuang Yifu) tend to classify Pipa ji not as a chuanqi play but still a nanxi, but the traditional account still has heuristic value. Gao Ming reworked earlier nanxi versions of the story of Cai Bojie and Zhao Wuniang in order to make the male lead come off better. In its prologue, the play presents itself as concerned with morals rather than entertainment, and the mo who appears in the scene presents himself not as troupe leader but more as the author of the play looking through old texts by lamplight and pondering the real reason for writing plays.33 The classic traditional anthology of chuanqi plays, despite the fact that it includes one zaju play, Xixiang ji 西廂記 (Story of the western wing, which combines five separate zaju plays and has some similarities to a chuanqi play in structure and other matters), and twenty-six plays that could be considered nanxi, is Mao Jin’s 毛晉 (1599–1659) Liushi zhong qu 六十種曲 (Sixty plays), first published in the late Ming in six installments (tao 套), each under a different title.34 Relying on information in Zhuang Yifu and other scholarly works, Katherine Carlitz compiled a chart of the authors of the plays in Lishi zhong qu (playwrights are not identified in the original printing, but later reprints have added them,35 and scholars have addressed this issue). Of thirty-eight men identified as the authors of plays in the collection, nineteen are basically just “The Wen-ching yüan-yang hui and the chia-men of Yüan-Ming ch’uan-ch’i,” T’oung Pao 67.1–2 (1981): 102. 32 In contrast to the zaju plays that he lists, among the nanxi plays that he lists Zhuang Yifu does not include any playwrights known only by penname, nor are any of the nanxi playwrights identified as women or monks. 33 For an English translation of the play, preceded by an excellent introduction, see Jean Mulligan, tr., The Lute: Kao Ming’s Pipa ji (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980). 34 For summary information, and the labeling of twenty-six of the plays as xiwen (i.e., nanxi), see Zhu Chongzhi, Zhongguo gudai xiqu xuanben, pp. 230–31. 35 The 1958 Zhonghua shuju edition of Liushi zhong qu lacks author names for only six plays and only one playwright is identified by penname only. As with Yuanqu xuan, there is no clear rationale behind the order in which the plays appear in the collection. Four of the five plays included by Tang Xianzu are printed together in the same tao, but the fifth

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names, but eight others were holders of the highest civil service examination degree.36 Only seven of the sixty plays in Liushi zhong qu are not attributed to a named author in later reprints. All sixty plays were quite famous when the anthology first appeared. If we look at the data in Zhuang Yifu’s Zhongguo gudian xiqu cunmu huikao on chuanqi plays, as with the data on Ming and Qing zaju, the anonymous chuanqi plays are not sorted out as to whether they belong to one dynasty instead of the other, and all plays dated to 1840–1911 are placed in a different category without regard to genre. The ratio between attributed plays and unattributed ones is 1788 to 782 (i.e., only 44% of the plays are unattributed).37

36 37

is widely separated from them and the last play in the anthology is another version of Mudan ting. See Carlitz, “Printing as Performance,” pp. 270–72. The number of Ming chuanqi that Zhuang Yifu attributes only to an otherwise unknown penname is seventy-nine, while the number for Qing dynasty zaju is 106. For plays attributed to an author of whom only the surname is known, there are eight for the Ming and only five for the Qing. Those five include one woman. All told, Zhuang identifies eleven female playwrights of chuanqi plays for the Qing and only two, both of them courtesans, for the Ming. The person who has done the most work on female playwrights of the Ming and Qing is Hua Wei 華瑋, who has compiled an anthology, Ming Qing funü xiqu ji 明清 婦女戲曲集 (Collected xiqu plays by women of the Ming and Qing dynasties; Taibei: Zhongyang yanjiu yuan Wenzhe yanjiu suo, 2003), and a scholarly monograph, Ming Qing funü zhi xiqu chuangzuo yu piping 明清婦女之戲曲創作與批評 (Playwriting and play criticism by women of the Ming and Qing dynasties; Taibei: Zhongyang yanjiu yuan Wenzhe yanjiu suo, 2003). None of the plays in the anthology are anonymous or pseudonymous (there are ten plays by five authors); one of them, Fanhua meng 繁華夢 by Wang Yun 王荺 [1749?–1819?], was translated into English by Qingyun Wu as A Dream of Glory [Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2008]). The situation with regard to Chinese female authors of both traditional novels and Jingju plays is very different. We know of only one novel written before the twentieth century by a woman, Gu Taiqing’s 顧太卿 (1799–1877) Honglou meng ying 紅樓夢影 (Shadows of the Honglou meng), originally published under the rather masculine pseudonym of Yuncha waishi 雲槎外史 (it took until 1989 for a scholar to find new material that linked this pseudonym to Gu, who is independently famous for her poetry). On the question of female authorship and readership of traditional Chinese novels, see Ellen Widmer, Beauty and the Book: Women and Fiction in Nineteenth-Century China (Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2006; chapter 6 is on Honglou meng ying). There is a separate narrative genre that was actually dominated by women, both as authors and readers: so-called “women’s tanci.” That genre is the subject of most of the chapters of Hu Xiaozhen 胡曉真, Cainü cheye wei mian—Jindai Zhongguo nüxing xushi wenxue de xingqi 才女徹夜未眠—近代中國女性 叙事文學的興起 (Female literary geniuses awake through the night—The rise of female narrative literature in early modern China; Beijing: Beijing daxue, 2008). Hu’s preferred term for the genre is nüxing tanci xiaoshuo 女性彈詞小說 (female tanci fiction). On the long and complicated processes behind the development of the concept of authorship in traditional Chinese vernacular fiction, see David L. Rolston, “Creating Implied Authors

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Guo Yingde’s 郭英德, Ming Qing chuanqi zonglu 明清傳奇總錄 (Complete record of Ming and Qing chuanqi plays; 1997) separates the chuanqi plays it records into time periods. We can provide information on those time periods so that we can see some historical trends that the data from Zhuang Yifu does not reveal. Table 2.1

Authorial attributions of chuanqi plays in Guo Yingde, Ming Qing Chuanqi zonglu

Periods

Number of plays attributed to authors with full names

Number of plays attributed to authors with surname only

Number of Total Percentage Number anonymous plays of of plays anonymous attributed to plays plays authors by penname only

1465–1586 1587–1620 1621–1651 1652–1680 1681–1718 1719–1775 1776–1820 1821–1911 Totals excluding last perioda Totals including all periods

36 86 88 132 49 77 93 151 561

1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1

1 8 9 2 9 3 20 42 52

20 12 12 10 30 33 21 167 138

712

1

94

305

58 106 109 144 88 113 134 360 1112

34.5% 11.3% 11.0% 00.7% 34.1% 29.2% 15.7% 46.0% 19.5%

752 22.8%

a The last period was treated differently. Only a list with minimal information was provided (pp. 1195– 1217) and there are many titles that might not be chuanqi. A debatable inclusion, for instance, is Guanju daoren’s Jile shijie, which will be discussed below.

and Readers,” Traditional Chinese Fiction Commentary: Reading and Writing between the Lines (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997), pp. 105–30. Huang Yufu, Jingju, qiao he Zhongguo de xingbie guanxi, pp. 129–30, notes that it is not until the 1950s that the idea of female Jingju playwrights is “not something to be thought strange” (bu zu wei guai 不 足為怪). She also notes (p. 134 n. 3) that for a Jingju actress such as Jin Yuemei 金月梅 (1890–1926) to herself have composed plays (zibian 自編; such language not assuring that anything was actually written out) was “extremely rare” ( ji wei hanjian 極為罕見). She references the item on Jin in Wu Tongbin and Zhou Yaxun, eds., Jingju zhishi cidian, p. 533, which lists eleven plays by her. Zeng Bairong, Jingju jumu cidian, does not list all of the titles, and for those that are listed, Jin Yuemei is not given credit for writing any of them.

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Chuanqi authors later than Gao Ming would work their own pennames into the opening scenes of their plays, as Tang Xianzu does in his Mudan ting 牡 丹亭 (The peony pavilion; author’s preface dated 1598) and Kong Shangren does in his Taohua shan 桃花扇 (Peach blossom fan),38 and provide not just one preface, as Tang Xianzu does for his Mudan ting, but a vast array, as Kong Shangren does for his Taohua shan (five separate prefatory pieces, all signed with his penname, Yunting shanren 雲亭山人). While Tang Xianzu works his penname (his studio name, Yuming tang 玉茗堂), simply and directly into the prologue scene for Mudan ting, where it serves to identify the prologue speaker as the author, Kong Shangren’s introduction of his penname into the prologue for Taohua shan is more complicated. There the prologue speaker, breaking all precedent, is a character in the play, the old master of ceremonies (lao zanli 老 贊禮),39 speaking in persona but much later in his life than in the play proper. He has just seen the first half of the play and is preparing to see the second half. When asked by a backstage speaker who wrote the play, he replies, “It has always been the case that famous playwrights have not attached their names [to their plays]” 從來填詞名家, 不著姓氏, but he guesses that the playwright must be a descendant of Confucius, to which a backstage voice (not clearly characterized as a member of the acting troupe) responds with the claim that 38 Hsiao, The Eternal Present, p. 272, has pointed out that in his prologue to Chundeng mi 春燈謎 (The New Year’s lantern riddle), Ruan Dacheng 阮大鋮 (1587–1646) makes the prologue speaker into himself by having that speaker mention the name of his studio. Neither Gao Ming nor Tang Xianzu nor Kong Shangren goes as far, however, as did Dong Jieyuan 董解元 (fl. 1190–1208) in his zhugongdiao 諸宮調 (all-keys-and-modes) version of the story of the romance of Zhang Junrui 張君瑞 and Cui Yingying 崔鷹鷹 most commonly known under the title of the zaju version, Xixiang ji. It begins with an extensive introduction not to the story but to “Dong” himself. Zhugongdiao was a type of shuochang performance that featured one performer who sang the short song-suites and narrated the short prose narratives that buffered the song-suites. It is considered to have had an important role in the development of zaju drama. Over the rather brief period in which zhugongdiao texts were written and printed, the trend was for them to become more and more literary. The genre was forgotten and when Dong Jieyuan’s zhugongdiao was printed in the Ming dynasty it was taken for a play. Jieyuan is not a personal name (Dong’s is unknown) but was originally used to refer to those who passed the provincial level civil service examinations. Since many writers and performers took such titles to give themselves a certain cultural cachet, it is unclear whether Dong actually passed the exams. For an English translation of the zhugongdiao with a fine introduction, see Li-li Ch’en, Master Tung’s Western Chamber Romance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976). 39 Unlike the rest of the major characters in the play, who are named and based on historical figures, the old master of ceremonies’ name and surname are never given. However, although he does not present himself as the playwright in either prologue (there is a second one that appears before the second half of the play), he is clearly one of the characters that Kong Shangren invested with his own feelings and outlook most directly.

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the author must then be Yunting shanren.40 The prologues of chuanqi can often work as authorial prefaces,41 chuanqi plays were often published with prefaces by the playwrights and others,42 and commentary editions of chuanqi plays were an important part of the book market in the Ming and Qing.43 Most of the plays that got commentary editions were chuanqi plays and not zaju, the main exception being the set of five zaju plays that make up Xixiang ji.44 Most famous among drama commentaries is Jin Shengtan’s 金聖嘆 (1608– 1661) commentary edition of that play, which is a good example of how the commentators of these editions tended to concentrate on the plays as reading material and not as plays.45 Although the interlineal comments in these editions do not tend to be explicitly attributed to the playwright, in some cases

40 See page 2 of the scan of original edition cited above. 41 On these prologues in general, see Wen Lihong 溫麗虹, “Ming Qing chuanqi kaichang ci yanjiu” 明清傳奇開場詞研究 (A study of the texts of the introductory sections of chuanqi of the Ming and Qing dynasties), master’s thesis, Henan University, 2012. 42 Prefaces, prefatory material, and colophons for works of xiqu are collected in a single volume in Wu Yuhua, ed., Zhongguo gudai xiqu xuba ji, and four-volumes in Cai Yi 蔡毅, ed., Zhongguo gudian xiqu xuba huibian 中國古典戲曲序跋彙編 (Collected prefaces and postfaces to classical Chinese drama), 4 vols. (Jinan: Qi Lu shushe, 1989). Zhu Youdun was the first playwright whose prefaces for his plays have come down to us. Li Zhiyuan, Ming Qing xiqu xuba yanjiu, pp. 313–27, provides a list of prefaces and colophons missed by Qu Yuhua and Cai Yi. A new, expanded, and improved collection of this kind of material is being prepared by Chen Xizhong 陳羲中. 43 See Zhu Wanshu 朱萬曙, Mingdai xiqu pingdian yanjiu 明代戲曲評點研究 (A study of the commentary editions of xiqu in the Ming dynasty; Hefei: Anhui jiaoyu, 2004; the first appendix, pp. 328–34, is a preliminary list of editions produced in the Ming), and Zhang Yonggan 張勇敢, “Qingdai xiqu pingdian shilun” 清代戲曲評點史論 (A history of commentary editions of xiqu in the Qing dynasty), doctoral thesis, East China Normal University, 2014 (the appendix, pp. 263–72, lists summary information on commentary editions of 330 plays in chronological order). 44 How many commentary editions there were and how important they were can be seen from the fact that a book just on those that appeared in the Qing dynasty has been published: Wei Le 魏樂, Xixiang ji pingdian yanjiu: Qingdai juan 西廂記評點研究: 清代卷 (A study of the commentary editions of Xixiang ji: Qing dynasty section; Beijing: Shehui kexue wenxian, 2015). 45 This was precisely Li Yu’s criticism. In Li’s comments on theater in his Xianqing ouji he says that Jin Shengtan managed to apprehend the “secrets of the writing” (wenzi zhi sanmei 文字之三昧) of the play (which, incidentally, Jin rather freely changed to fit his own ideas of how the play should be written, not hesitating to change even some of the most famous lines of the original), but what he commented on was “the Xixiang ji fondled by the literati and not that enacted on stage by actors!” 文人把玩之西廂, 非優人搬弄之 西廂也. See the “Tianci yulun” 填詞餘論 (Additional comments on playwriting) section of Li Liweng quhua, p. 103.

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they have been taken as the playwright’s.46 Luxury editions of chuanqi plays that were well illustrated and clearly designed for reading were prominent.47 Beginning in the late Ming, when new zaju plays began to be written more for reading than for the stage, reading editions of them also began to appear. Another trend was for playwrights to write and publish sets of their zaju under a common title that could point to the identity of the author of the set.48 While chuanqi and zaju plays still were not included in their author’s collected works until the twentieth century, the public profile of individual playwrights could be quite high. Some chuanqi and zaju playwrights even wrote autobiographical plays,49 while Tang Xianzu appears in a number of plays by other playwrights, including one that shows him writing his plays and interacting with his readers.50 Famous authors such as Tang Xianzu might also be condemned to hell for the harm his plays supposedly did.51 Among the theatrical genres that are commonly spoken of as “classical Chinese drama,” we can see from the information presented above that it is only in the case of nanxi that the majority of plays of that genre that we know of have not been attributed to a playwright, but that even some of those plays 46 See, for instance, Li Baomin 李保民, ed., Yunting shanren pingdian Taohua shan 雲亭 山人評點桃花扇 (Yunting shanren commentary edition of Taohua shan; Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 2012), which attributes the commentary to Yunting shanren (i.e., Kong Shangren). 47 See, for instance, Carlitz, “Printing as Performance.” 48 The first of these listed by Zhuang Yifu is Xu Wei’s Sisheng yuan 四聲猿 (Four cries of the gibbon; his “Mad Drummer” is one of them), which contains four plays. Zhuang Yifu lists three more sets of Ming zaju and eight sets of Qing zaju, all attributed to named authors (for one of these sets, Zhuang does not list the titles of the five plays included in it). Zhuang lists only one such set of chuanqi plays. 49 Zhou Yude 周育德, “Wenren zibai ju” 文人自白劇 (Confessional plays by literati), in Wu Gan 吳敢 et al., eds., Gudai xiqu luntan 古代戲曲論壇 (Forum on premodern Chinese indigenous theater; Macao: Aomen wenxing, 2003), pp. 383–85, says that when it comes to writing oneself into one’s own plays, Liao Yan 廖燕 (1644–1705) was the most “extreme” ( jiduan 極端). Liao wrote zaju. On him and his plays, see Zhuang Yifu, Gudian xiqu cunmu huikao, p. 730. 50 See Qiancheng Li, “Dreams, Drama, Metadrama: Tang Xianzu and/in Jiang Shiquan’s Linchuan meng (Dream of Linchuan),” CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature 34.1 (July 2015): 1–21. 51 On the idea that playwrights would be supernaturally punished for writing morally dangerous plays (a category that Mudan ting was often placed in), see Zhao Weiguo 趙維國, Jiaohua yu chengjie: Zhongguo gudai xiqu xiaoshuo jinhui wenti yanjiu 教化與懲戒: 中國 古代戲曲小說禁毀問題研究 (Conversion and punishment: Research on the question of the prohibition and suppression of drama and fiction in pre-modern China; Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 2014), pp. 132–46 (for a morality book that describes how Tang Xianzu was sent to hell for writing Mudan ting, see p. 139).

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do self-attribute themselves to groups of literati writers (the writing clubs). In the case of Jingju, before the twentieth century, with the exception of a small number of literati playwrights whose plays did not do well on the stage and to whom we will turn next, plays are rarely publicly attributed to specific authors. Instead of organizing scholarly research and reference works around playwrights, which has been the case with zaju and chuanqi, Jingju plays have primarily been classified according to their historical settings, despite the fact that those can often be very superficial and were even changed at the whim of different performers. 2

Two Kinds of Early Literati Jingju Playwrights and the Common Fate of Their Plays

It might seem odd to begin with literati playwrights of Jingju, considering the fact that one of the major differences between Jingju and chuanqi is how long it took for literati playwrights to have much influence on what was performed in the case of the former. This was so because of how long it took for it to become popular or necessary for literati to write scripts and also because of the difficulty that they originally encountered in producing plays fit for the stage (a function of their general alienation from actors). Still, the earliest Jingju playwrights whose playscripts are available to us were literati who were not professional playwrights and who seem to have had weak or not very helpful ties to theater professionals. In this section I will look at four playwrights: Yu Zhi 余治 (1809–1874), Xixin daoren 洗心道人 (Man of the way with washed heart/Man of the way who washes the hearts of others; fl. 1876), Guanju daoren 觀劇道人 (Man of the way who watches plays; a.k.a., Duoyuan zhuren 惰園主人 [Lord of Lazy Garden; fl. 1840]), and Ji Yintian 紀蔭田 (1764–?).52 Collectively they represent 52 Literati-written bangzi playscripts predate those for Jingju, just as the one genre predates the other. For instance, Lü Gongpu’s 呂公溥 (1727–1805) Mile xiao 彌勒笑 (The Maitreya Buddha’s laugh) is an adaptation of a chuanqi play for bangzi that exists in a manuscript copy dated 1781. A preface by the author says of bangzi that “those who sing it find it easy to sing; those who listen to it find it easy to understand, unlike songs for the red clapper [i.e., Kunqu] that make you want to lie down [and go to sleep]. But the problem is that the dialogue is too vulgar, the plots too contrived, and it is not suitable for banquets” 歌者易歌, 聽著易解, 不似聽紅板曲輒思臥也. 但嫌說白俚俗, 關目牽 強, 不足供雅筵. This part of the preface is quoted in Fan Lan 樊蘭 and Cui Zhibo 崔 志博, “Lun Qing zhongye xiqu de ‘yasu’ ronghe—Yi ‘Mile xiao’ dui ‘Meng zhong yuan’ de gaibian wei kaocha zhongxin” 論清中葉戲曲的 “雅俗” 融合—以 “彌勒笑” 對 “夢 中緣” 的改變為考察中心 (On the integration of “refined and vulgar” in the drama of

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two paradigmatic literati choices: using popular literary or performance forms to enlighten the masses (Yu Zhi and Xixin daoren); and using those forms as a pastime or literary game, combined with the desire to raise the status of a popular genre by showing that what was lacking was talented writers willing to take the plunge (Guanju daoren and Ji Yintian). In contrast to the three kinds of playwrights to be examined later in this chapter, the early literati playwrights tended to write about stories that had not previously been turned into plays, while the other playwrights tended to adapt material from other theatrical traditions or even from Jingju itself. I treat all four playwrights as “early” because they wrote their plays before the publication of the first collection of Jingju plays, Li Shizhong’s 李世忠 (d. 1881) Liyuan jicheng 梨園集成 (Compendium from the pear garden), published in 1880.53 I want to begin with the two playwrights of the four that

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the mid-Qing—Taking the adaptation of Mile xiao from Affinity within a Dream as the focus of investigation), Xiqu yishu 2013.4: 103. Lü retains a number of features that had become specific to chuanqi playscripts, e.g. collecting together lines from Tang dynasty poets ( ji Tang 集唐) to make up a quatrain that concludes each scene, such as is done in Mudan ting, and including a large number of scenes (forty-two in the case of Mile xiao). Lü Gongpu did not have success in the examinations or as an official, but his father passed the jinshi degree and Lü himself was a fairly well-known poet; the very famous poet Yuan Mei 袁枚 (1716–1797) wrote a preface for one of his collections of poems. Lü’s play seems never to have circulated widely and the only existing copy is held by the Lü family. Lü’s preface to his play includes the following: “I live in mountains in a casual way; I have no way to entertain my mother, so every time something moves me to write an aria, I teach the young ones how to sing it by keeping the beat with their hands and without musical accompaniment, and this takes the place of actually staging the play” 山居落拓, 無以娛 慈親計, 每即景為詞, 教兒童拍手清歌, 以當登場. Besides the authorial preface, the manuscript of the play has attached at its end a commemorative prose piece under the penname Woyun 臥雲 and two dedicatory poems by Lü’s friend Ru Luntang 茹綸堂. On Lü and his family, see Wang Yongkuan 王永寬, “Mingmo zhi Qingdai Xin’an Lü-shi jiazu shixi yu zhipai kaolüe” 明末至清代新安呂氏家族世系與支派考略 (A brief investigation into the genealogy and branches of the Lü clan of Xin’an from the late Ming through the Qing dynasty), Zhongzhou xuekan 中州學刊 (Zhongzhou journal) 2012.1: 145–50. On Lü’s play and the play he adapted, see Guo Yingde, Chuanqi zonglu, pp. 1040–41 and 905–908. Two of Liyuan jicheng’s forty-eight plays are Kunqu plays. Li Shizhong was a surrendered Taiping general. He reportedly appears as a character in the third installment of the Jingju play Tie gongji under the name Li Changshou 李長壽. After he surrendered to the Qing in 1858, he was given an official post and created almost a private kingdom for himself centered in Chuzhou 滁州 in Anhui, where he maintained his own theater troupes (three, each with over one hundred members). In 1864, in the face of mounting evidence that he was going to be punished for his infractions, he resigned his post, donating at the same time a huge amount of silver to fund the government’s suppression of the Taiping Rebellion but still retaining a substantial amount for his own use. He ran an opera school

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wrote the most, Yu Zhi and Guanju daoren. The earliest extant collection of Jingju playscripts by one author is Yu Zhi’s Shuji tang jinyue 庶幾堂今樂 (Music of the day from Near to a [Moral State] Hall), published posthumously in 1881. Only one play in this collection was successful on the stage and appears in Xikao (#9), Zhusha zhi 硃砂痣 (The cinnabar birthmark).54 What seems to be the first Jingju playscript to be printed separately, Guanju daoren’s Jile shijie 極 樂世界 (Realm of ultimate bliss; not in Xikao), was published in 1881.55 While

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(keban) and often took his remaining theater troupe on the road, reportedly earning a lot of money from the performances. He eventually oversaw the printing of Liyuan jicheng (published in Anqing in Anhui), but he had regularly been getting into trouble since his resignation from office and was summarily executed the next year. On Li Shizhong, see Huang Jusheng 黃菊盛, “Cong Taiping xiangjiang dao xiban laoban: Liyuan jicheng bianzhe Li Shizhong kao” 從太平降將到戲班老闆: 梨園集成編者李世忠考 (From surrendered Taiping general to theater troupe owner: An investigation of the compiler of Liyuan jicheng, Li Shizhong), Xiqu yanjiu 29 (1989): 132–44. The plays in the collection are supposed to be ones his troupes used. Huang speculates about the origin and compilation of the play anthology this way: “It is very likely that he [Li] took advantage of the teaching that was going on at the opera school, had actors dictate, and got some men to write down what was said, recording it and turning it into a book” 很可能是他利用科班 教學之便, 由藝人口述, 另邀集一些人操觚代筆, 記錄成書的 (p. 141). Some scholars claim that a certain amount of editing was done to the texts of the plays and Li himself is often credited with that. He signed his name to both prefaces to the collection (Using Li Shizhong for the first one and Songya 松崖 for the second; on the many names Li used, see Huang’s article, p. 134). There is a photo-reprint of Liyuan jicheng in volume 1,782 of Xuxiu Siku quanshu, pp. 145–635. Punctuation is not used, and arias and dialogue are written in the same-size characters, unlike what had become the convention for chuanqi plays (Fang Wenxi, Liyuan hua, p. 6 [40], explains that dazi 大字 [big characters] is a way to refer to the text of arias). Stage directions are given in smaller characters printed in double lines. The first line of the table of contents stresses that the plays are “newly composed” (xinzhu 新著). For a summary description, see Zhu Chongzhi, Zhongguo gudai xiqu xuanben, pp. 258–59. It is assumed in the literature on him that Yu Zhi wrote Jingju plays. As indicated in the notes below, in the paratextual material to Shuji tang jinyue Yu does say that his plays are pihuang. As noted in the Introduction, there were many forms of traditional Chinese theater that used the pihuang musical system, but Jingju is the only one called pihuang. Yu’s playscripts are very simple and lack markers that would make it easy to determine what juzhong they were written for. We do know, however, that when his plays were performed in Shanghai (see below) they were performed at Jingju venues by Jingju troupes. This play was mentioned in chapter 1 above. It was completed in 1840 but sat for a long time unpublished. It is very long (eighty-two scenes) and its structure is strongly influenced by both zaju and chuanqi drama practice (in the author’s own preface he calls the play a chuanqi and in item 3 of his fanli 凡例 explains how he has decided to follow some aspects of beiqu 北曲 (the musical system of zaju). On the paratextual material in the play, see below. The play makes use of two stories in Pu Songling’s 蒲松齡 (1640–1715) Liaozhai zhiyi 聊齋志異 (Strange tales from Liaozhai). Liana Chen has written on Jile shijie and another play based on one of those stories, mentioned in the title of her article,

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their plays were published either in the same year or a year later than Liyuan jicheng, Yu Zhi had died quite a few years earlier and his collection has a preface written by him dated 1860, and the author’s preface to Jile shijie is dated 1840. Both of these playwrights turned to Jingju because they recognized that it was the most popular theatrical form of the day. Both were not very successful as playwrights, although that was not the fault of writing too little: Yu Zhi’s Shuji tang jinyue includes twenty-eight (short) plays that together with the front matter take up more than 900 pages when scanned;56 scans of Jile shijie are over 600 pages long.57 “Homeward Odyssey: The Reframing of ‘The Rakshas and the Sea Market,’ ” Minsu quyi 140 (June 2003): 279–306. Scans of the play are available in Zhongguo suwen ku 中國 俗文庫 (Chinese popular literature database), and the HathiTrust project (see below). That a woman (Shixiang nüshi 試香女士) is credited with writing commentary for the play is quite striking (that commentary was written for the play in itself is unusual). Manuscript copies of this play are held by Zhongguo Yishu Yanjiu Yuan. Zhongguo yishu yanjiu yuan tushu guan chaogao ben zongmu tiyao 中國藝術研究院圖書館抄稿本總 目提要 (Abstracts for manuscripts held in the library of Zhongguo Yishu Yanjiu Yuan), 14 vols. (Beijing: Guojia tushu guan, 2014), 7: 343–44, describes the mss., which are photoreproduced in Wang Wenzhang 王文章, ed., Zhongguo jindai difang xiqu juben congkan, Diyi ji 中國近代地方戲曲劇本叢刊, 第一輯 (Compendium of Chinese local indigenous theater playscripts of the early modern period), 70 vols. (Beijing: Xueyuan chubanshe, 2017), 19: 205–21: 157 (they contain a cover-page note [19: 207], several prefaces, and marginal comments that do not appear in the printed version). A manuscript copy is also part of the palace holdings; for a photo-reproduction, see Gugong bowu yuan cang Qing gong Nanfu Shengpingshu xiben, 267: 127–407. 56 Scans of the twenty-eight plays are available both in the Zhongguo suwen ku database and in the Sōkōdō collection (http://hong.ioc.u-tokyo.ac.jp/list.php?p=7&order=si_ no&jump_data=, accessed December 11, 2016), which also has a scanned copy of the first fascicle, containing only front matter and eighty pages long all by itself. 57 Scans of copies of the original edition of Jile shijie held by Harvard University (653 scanned pages, of which pp. 166–79 and 618–48 repeat previous pages) and by the University of California at Berkeley (638 scanned pages; the last page of scene 40 and the first of scene 41, missing in the Harvard copy, can be found on pp. 294–95 of this scan) are both part of the HathiTrust project. Curiously enough, the authorship of the Berkeley copy is wrongly attributed to Chen Moxiang, a very prolific Jingju playwright of the twentieth century who will be treated in detail in chapter 4. In Chen’s two novels, the authorial persona is also named Guanju daoren, perhaps in reference to the author of Jile shijie (a play Chen was familiar with). The Chinese Text Project website repeats this error (http:// ctext.org/searchbooks.pl?if=gb&author=陳墨香, accessed December 12, 2016). The scans of Yu Zhi’s plays in the Zhongguo suwen ku database and the copies of Jile shijie in the HathiTrust project scan each “half page” as one page (Chinese woodblock printed books and the early typeset editions that were modeled on them position the page numbers at the place where each printed leaf is folded before being bound together with the other pages; in Western scholarship the first half page is referred to as recto and the second as verso; an “a” is added to the page number of the first and a “b” to the second when they are

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The only bit of personal information we know about the author of Jile shijie, besides the penname used on the title page (Guanju daoren) and the one signed at the end of the author’s preface (Duoyuan zhuren), is his age at the writing of the preface. This is given at the end of it as fifty-four sui, which would make his birth year 1786 or 1787.58 Unusually for the time when it was published, 1881, the text of Jile shijie was typeset instead of printed from woodblocks.59 The Beijing publishing house that printed it, Zhuzhen Tang 聚 珍堂, was well known for its typeset editions and for publishing works of vernacular literature.60 The edition is provided with a lot of things we would not expect to find in an edition of a Jingju play: a (dated) preface from the playwright, a fanli 凡例 (set of editorial principles),61 a table of contents listing the scenes and their titles (there are eighty-two scenes, an unusually large number cited individually). The Sōkōdō collection scans of Shuji tang jinyue show two half pages in each page, the recto side of one page on the left and the verso of the previous page on the right. 58 In premodern China, a person was considered to enter his or her first year of life at birth and second year of life beginning on the first day of the next lunar year. See Endymion Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, Fourth Edition (Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2015), pp. 160–61. A post-scene comment to Scene 70 remarks that the author of the play turned to Daoism in his later years. The colophon to the play, which says that it was written after reading a copy of it borrowed from an Yiyuan zhuren 意園主人 (Master of Thoughtful Garden), describes the author doing such things as “drawing his sword and dancing around” (bajian qiwu 拔劍起舞) and “feverishly writing with energetic brush” ( fenbi jishu 奮筆急書; the last two characters appear as well in the author’s own description of his writing of the play in item 7 of the fanli [see below]). 59 Ads did appear in Shenbao for two different typeset (qianban 鉛板 [版]) collections of five and four plays, respectively, from the same unnamed “publisher.” Readers are told in the ads that the collections can be purchased from the character-carving shop (kezi dian 刻字店) located across the street from Shenbao Guan (the ad for the first collection appeared on December 9, 1878, p. 5, and the last for the second appeared on December 30, 1878, p. 6). All the plays are said to be “up-to-date Jingdiao [plays] copied from famous Jingdiao troupes of the capital” 從京都名班中抄來時式京調. Previous to this, ads that seem to have been posted by the same person(s) for a separate collection of five Jingdiao plays had appeared, but it is not clear that those plays were typeset and the arrangements for buying them differ. Slightly different versions of the ads (see February 2, 3, and 8, 1877, all on p. 6) change only where to ask for the collection. 60 See Widmer, “Honglou meng ying and its Publisher,” pp. 33–52, particularly “A Portrait of Juzhen tang,” pp. 37–47. There does not seem to be any evidence, however, for the claim that Jile shijie was written in 1815 (p. 47). Between the last scene of the play and the final colophon is a list of titles from the press (see p. 649 of the scan of the Harvard copy). Of the sixteen titles listed, the majority are vernacular literature. 61 The preface and fanli are included in Wu Yuhua, ed., Zhongguo gudai xiqu xuba ji, pp. 574– 75; both of them, and the colophon (by Ying daoren 譻道人) and a brief comment by Shixiang nüshi as well, are included in Cai Yi, ed., Zhongguo gudian xiqu xuba huibian, pp. 2145–47.

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for one Jingju play or serial play installment; the scenes have two-character titles whereas scenes in early Jingju playscripts, when demarcated at all, were typically only numbered), post-scene comments attributed on the title page to a Shixiang nüshi 試香女史 (lit.: Female historian tester of incense),62 a list of books from the same publisher (printings of Jingju plays will not include such lists until the Republican era), and a ba 跋 (colophon). As is common in texts aimed at a very literate audience, there is no punctuation. Neither the musical modes (xipi, erhuang, etc.) nor aria-types are indicated, and the lines in the arias are all ten characters long (some Jingju aria-types use that length, but not all); aria text is not so much distinguished by speech prefixes (chang 唱 [sings] rarely appears in the stage directions63) or size of character as by beginning aria text on a new line, a format that insures more blank space on the page than for most Jingju playscripts.64 The author’s preface to Jile shijie begins with a lament: “Now that plays have come to be performed as erhuang they are vulgar” 戲至二簧陋矣!65 He goes on, however, to say that erhuang is not vulgar because of its music but because of its lack of playwrights such as Wang Shifu 王實甫 (c. 1250–1300), author of Xixiang ji; Tang Xianzu, author of Mudan ting;66 or Hong Sheng, author of 62

Not all scenes have post-scene comments (more than thirty lack them). Those for Scene 32 include two signed Su sheng 蘇生 (Master Su?; Su is both a surname and a place name). The commentator’s work on the text is described as can ping 參評 on the title page. Ping refers to making comments; can to taking part (in something) and could be modifying ping (take part by commenting); or it might refer to helping out with the production of the playscript in some way. 63 A search for chang in the HathiTrust files did not inspire confidence, because in one instance a different character that resembles chang, ou 嘔 (only slightly, to be sure), showed up; I have not attempted to figure out how many instances of chang were missed. Search of the University of California copy produced one less instance (seventeen) than the search of the Harvard copy (ou was also taken as chang). Both searches produced only eight instances, in such a long play, of chang prefixing singing, and only one that involved the interpolation of dialogue within an aria. The stage direction prefix for dialogue, bai 白, is also used far less than is typical in Jingju playscripts, perhaps because all dialogue is indented. 64 Such treatment of the arias is in contrast to lines of dialogue, indented one step from the top margin, and stage directions, which are in smaller size and aligned to the right. 65 For an alternate translation of the beginning and ending of this preface, see Liana Chen, “Ritual into Play: The Aesthetic Transformations of Qing Court Theatre,” doctoral thesis, Stanford University, 2009, p. 201, n. 4. She has also written of this play in her “Homeward Odyssey,” which deals both with Jile shijie and another theatrical adaptation of the same Pu Songling story published in 1900. 66 The text has Lihun ji 離魂記 (The departure of the soul), a mistake for Huanhun ji 還 魂記 (The return of the soul), an alternate title for Mudan ting. By 1840, when the preface was written, more scenes from the play’s first half (through the heroine’s death in

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Changsheng dian 長生殿 (The palace of eternal life); and concludes by modestly saying that he does not know how well his own writing will compare with that of these three plays,67 but “I will be content if, compared to what actors perform, it [his play] will be able to cover over their vulgarity” 較之梨園所 演者, 即以為能掩其陋也可. In typical literati fashion, he presents his play as having been written “to delight myself by means of delighting others” 以娛人而自娛. The last item in the fanli for Jile shijie identifies the main source material for the play, a story from Pu Songling’s 蒲松齡 (1640–1715) Liaozhai zhiyi 聊 齋志異 (Strange tales from Liaozhai), “Luocha haishi” 羅剎海市 (The rakshasas and the sea market),68 about a literatus whose worth is not recognized in China but who does better in a fantastic world abroad; the play also borrows from another tale in the collection titled “Yecha guo” 夜叉國 (Kingdom of yechas; rakshas and yechas are both supernatural beings). The kind of literati wish-fulfillment combined with satire and criticism of the Chinese bureaucratic world found in Pu Songling’s stories is pushed even farther in Jile shijie, whose author is described in the colophon as someone who was “unsuccessful his entire life” (zhongshen kundun 終身困頓). The play’s main figure, Ma Jun, is an incarnation of Qu Yuan 屈原 (c. 340–c. 278), the archetypal man of talent whose worth was not recognized by his ruler and was supposed to have drowned himself in the Miluo River in despair.69 At the end of Jile shijie, Ma Jun has come to know that he is Qu Yuan and is given the title of King of Miluo and admitted to the Realm of Ultimate Bliss of the play’s title. This is the kind of story one expects would appeal to an audience (or readership) of literati. Although Guanju daoren decided to write a Jingju play, his models remain primarily Yuan zaju and especially Ming and Qing chuanqi. His respect for Yuan zaju is clear in the front matter to the play (less so in the writing of it), but formally speaking the play itself is transitional between chuanqi and Jingju. Its full title, Jile shijie chuanqi, identifies it as a chuanqi (as also happens in the Scene 20, “Lihun” 離魂) were in the Kunqu performance tradition than for the rest of the play (scenes 21–55) in which the heroine’s soul returns to life; Scene 20: “Lihun” 離魂 was and still is prominent among the zhezi xi developed from scenes of the play. 67 This time he refers to Tang Xianzu’s play as Mudan [ting]. 68 The post-scene comment to Scene 80 notes the scene’s indebtedness to Pu Songling, referred to as Yishi [shi] 異史 [氏] (Historian of the Strange), a title Pu gives himself in Liaozhai zhiyi. Liana Chen discusses the original story and its adaptation in Jile shijie in “Ritual into Play,” pp. 190–94 and 194–99 and in “Homeward Odyssey,” pp. 283–89 and 290–93. 69 On Qu Yuan’s importance in Chinese culture, see Laurence A. Schneider, A Madman of Ch’u: The Chinese Myth of Loyalty and Dissent (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980).

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front matter), and the play follows many conventions associated with chuanqi, such as beginning with a prologue, introducing the leading male role in the second scene and the leading female role in the third,70 and naming the scenes (which all start on a recto71 page). Although the writing in Jile shijie seems to have been strongly influenced by expectations that had arisen for novels rather than plays,72 that Guanju daoren hoped his play would be performed is evident from certain items in the fanli. In the first item he mentions that troupes only have eighteen actors and recently this has become insufficient.73 He notes that in addition to the tiedan 貼旦 role-type he has added the xiaodan 小旦 (both are secondary female roles)74 and used the za 雜 (miscellaneous) role-type for the rest, concluding 70 Post-scene comments to Scenes 2 and 3 point out this adherence to chuanqi conventions. On the conventions in chuanqi’s first three scenes, see Li Yu, Li Liweng quhua, “Jiamen” 家 門 (Prologues), “Chongchang” 沖場 (Rushing onto the stage), and “Chu jiaose” 出腳色 (Arranging entrances of the characters), pp. 98–101. 71 The distinction between recto and verso half-pages in traditional Chinese woodblock editions is explained in a note above. 72 Only in the post-comment for Scene 29 does Shixiang nüshi compare Jile shijie to other plays: Li Yu’s 李漁 Fengzheng wu 風箏誤 (The kite’s mistake) and Wang Shifu’s Xixiang ji. She asserts that Jile shijie surpasses the former and asks the reader if one of the characters in Jile shijie surpasses one in Xixiang ji, using terminology used by fiction commentators such as fan 犯 (repetition; Scene 10), shi 實 (full; Scenes 10 and 32), and xu 虛 (empty; Scene 32). On the use of these terms, see the indexed entries for them in Rolston, Traditional Chinese Fiction and Fiction Commentary, pp. 392, 413, and 422. In the Scene 29 comment she uses the title that Jin Shengtan 金聖嘆 (1608–1661) gave to Xixiang ji for his commentary edition of the play, [Di] liu caizi [shu] [第] 六才子 [書] (The sixth work [by and for] geniuses), and in a post-scene comment to Scene 57 says that Jile shijie has carried on the writing techniques of fiction writers (baiguan jia 稗官家) in general and Shuihu zhuan 水滸傳 (The water margin; for which Jin Shengtan also published a commentary edition), in particular. It is interesting that she does not mention Li Yu’s Shen zhong lou 蜃 中樓 (The mirage tower), to which Jile shijie was probably somewhat indebted (see Chen, “Homeward Odyssey,” p. 293 n. 22). Zhang Yonggan, “Qingdai xiqu pingdian shilun,” p. 230, speaks of Guanju daoren using “the ways of writing fiction” (xiaoshuo bifa 小說筆法) to create his play and cites some of the same post-scene comments that I have. 73 There were descriptions of the role-type system of Kunqu that stressed the number of role-types a troupe would have (there is often the idea that having an actor specializing in each is enough). The most famous of these involved twelve role-types, and is described by Li Dou in his Yangzhou huafang lu, for which see Gu Lingsen 顧聆森, “Jianghu shi’er se” 江湖十二色 (Twelve role-types of the Jianghu), in Wu Xinlei, ed., Zhongguo Kunju da cidian, p. 566. For the idea that a troupe would have eighteen actors/role-types, “Shiba ding wangjin” 十八頂網巾, see Wang Zhenglai 王正來, “Jiaose jiamen” 角色家門 (Character types), in Wu Xinlei, ed., Zhongguo Kunju da cidian, p. 565. As we know from the Introduction, Jingju troupes were much larger than Kunqu troupes. 74 He is not the first to use both in the same play, although there were some systems that used only one or the other. See Wu Xinlei, ed., Zhongguo Kunju da cidian, pp. 565–66.

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that the question of allotment of roles can “wait for performers to settle” 俟排 演者斟酌. The second item is also about role-types, while the third and fourth are about singing and pronunciation, respectively (both take zaju as a model, albeit a model that cannot be completely followed). Items five and six are about use of rhymes, item seven about the use of introductory poems or arias (yinzi 引子). The logic of this last item is not as clear as it might be, but it ends up as an apology for not supplying such poems and arias for all of the scenes. This leads to another apology, this time for the fact that “in many instances the stage directions and dialogue are not detailed [enough]” 科白亦多未詳. Guanju daoren writes that “for those who want to stage [the play], they can fill them in” 有欲演者, 當為補之, and explains that the problem was because he was “in the midst of excited composition” 得意急書之際. Compared to most chuanqi playscripts and the vast majority of Jingju ones, the stage directions are actually quite detailed and a bit reminiscent of what one finds in palace playscripts (see below).75 Particularly striking are the instructions to set the stage beforehand, given at the beginning of Scenes 18, 29, 76, and 82. Such directions also occurs in the middle of Scene 82, which say “At this time use a cloud curtain [most likely a curtain with cloud designs on it] to block [the view of the spectators] in order to facilitate arrangement of the setting” 此時用雲慢遮住 以便安排場面. What exactly the “setting” is must await a later stage direction, which describes how the curtain should be opened to the accompaniment of pyrotechnics (huocai 火彩). There follows a detailed description (eighty-two characters long) of what has been set up behind the curtain: characters from the play arranged in three levels (ceng 層), which are described from the top down. The scene includes a plaque (paifang 牌坊) with the words “Realm of Ultimate Bliss” set up prior to the scene, and a lot of special props that have appeared in earlier scenes. These include, for instance, four banners with the words “hero” (yingxiong 英雄), “lover” (ernü 兒女), “wealthy and honored” ( fugui 富貴), and “immortal” (shenxian 神仙), respectively, first brought onto the stage in the middle of Scene 1 and described in detail in notes appended after the end of that scene; for the bulk of the play they had signified what Ma Jun lacked but now signify what he has achieved. Such additional description of props used in the scene also occurs at the end of Scenes 8 (a stele), 43 (a curtain with the mirage tower and beautiful women painted on it),76 and 71 75 76

Another similarity to palace playscripts is the number of characters played by za actors. Chen, “Homeward Odyssey,” p. 293, n. 22, talks about the mirage tower in this scene and its possible antecedent in Scene 5 of Li Yu’s Shen zhong lou. In that scene, Li Yu also has a stage direction instructing that the mirage tower (shenlou 蜃樓) be set in place backstage (xifang 戲房) beforehand, but giving few details about what the mirage tower looks like or how it might be made. Instead he stresses the importance of revealing it suddenly so as

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(a set of fantastic treasures). The use of props with the names of locations also appears in Scenes 8 and 76); this is something found in palace playscripts but rarely elsewhere. Despite Guanju daoren’s efforts, there is no record of a performance of his play as he wrote it, or even of scenes from it.77 Not long after its printing, however, there were Jingju adaptations of it under a different title, Long ma yinyuan 龍馬姻緣 (The marriage affinity between dragon [i.e., Ma Jun] and horse [his eventual wives]; not in Xikao), performed in the palace in the 1890s.78 Neither that version, nor the one written for Cheng Yanqiu in the 1920s by Luo Yinggong 罗瘿公 (1872–1924), is presently in the performance repertoire or in collections of Jingtu plays. to “make the viewers be startled by its extraordinary nature and envious of how wondrous it is” 使觀者驚奇羡巧. At the point when the tower is revealed (through the puffing out of smoke; the stage directions indicate that four actors playing water creatures “inhale smoke and puff it out” [chiyan, tu 吃煙吐]); we get some description of it from the male lead (for whom it has been made), but nothing more in the stage directions. See Li Yu 李漁, Li Yu quanji 李漁全集 (Collected works of Li Yu), 20 vols. (Hangzhou: Zhejiang renmin, 1992), 4: 222 (opening stage directions) and 224 (revealing of the tower and male lead’s reaction). 77 Su Yi, Jingju erbai nian gaiguan, p. 33, attributes this failure to “the [play’s] structure failing to get free of the old ways of chuanqi” 結構沒有脫離傳奇的舊套. 78 Chen, “Ritual into Play,” p. 190, records that according to Shengpingshu records kept in the First Historical Archives in Beijing, there were performances at court of the play by the Tongchun 同春 (Shared spring) Troupe (August 26, 1893, and March 4, 1894) and by the Fushou 福壽 (Prosperity and long-life) Troupe (January 21, 1897). In the early 1920s, the first play that Luo Yinggong wrote for Cheng Yanqiu, which premiered in 1922, was a version of Long ma yinyuan. According to Yan Quanyi, Qingdai Jingju wenxue shi, p. 182, the only copies of Luo’s playscript are held in Cheng Yanqiu’s old residence and are either single-role copies and/or incomplete ones (yanyuan fenben canben 演員分本殘本). Long ma yinyuan is the title of one of the plays included in the repertoire of the Tongchun Troupe in a 1908 filing (see Fu Jin, ed., Jingju lishi wenxian huibian: Qingdai juan xubian, 3: 373, where it is indicated that the play has two installments [ben]). Tao Junqi, Jingju jumu chutan, p. 426, reports that it is rumored (chuan 傳) that the earlier version of Longma yinyuan was written by Li Yuru 李豫如 (1858–??), a literati painter who once lived with the actor Yu Yuqin 余玉琴 and became a professional Jingju playwright, someone we will discuss below. Yan Quanyi, Qingdai Jingju wenxue shi, p. 180, takes as fact the idea that Li wrote the earlier version for Wang Yaoqing and describes how it makes the most use of scenes 2–10 and 65 of the original play. Zeng Bairong, ed., Jingju jumu cidian, p. 1227, says that there is a copy of at least the first installment of the earlier version of the play in the archives of the Forbidden Palace; there is a fourteen-scene manuscript about Ma Jun entitled Long ma yinyuan in Gugong zhenben congkan, 685: 1–27, but it is labeled as a Qinqiang play. For more information on that manuscript and a plot summary (which does not mention Jile shijie), see Bai Baixiao 白㿟皛, Gugong bowuyuan cang xiben yanjiu 故 宮博物院藏戲本研究 (Research on the play texts held by the Museum of the Forbidden Palace; Beijing: Gugong chubanshe, 2017), pp. 1717–21.

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If Guandao juren’s reaction to the vulgar nature (as he saw it) of Jingju play texts was to try and write a more literary playscript for the genre, Yu Zhi was interested in Jingju because it would help him reach a larger audience for his very didactic plays. In this he resembles Jiao Xun 焦循 (1763–1820) and his fondness for huabu theater over Kunqu,79 except that Jiao was not a playwright. Yu Zhi was originally a country schoolteacher who had no success even passing the local district civil service examinations, but who gained a fairly wide reputation as a social activist crusading on behalf of a number of causes, among them abolishing the practice of female infanticide80 and the performance of lewd plays.81 Of the twenty-eight plays by him now extant, all to be found in Shuji tang jinyue, two (one apiece) treat these topics.82 As opposed 79 Jiao wrote two books on theater, Jushuo 劇說 (Comments on theater; 1805) and Huabu nongtan 花部農譚 (Rustic talk about popular theater; preface 1819). They are included in Zhongguo gudian xiqu lunzhu jicheng, 8: 73–220 and 221–31, respectively. The former is a collection of comments on theater from a wide variety of sources (a list of them, drawn up by Jiao, is on pp. 77–80). In a headnote (p. 81) at the beginning of the work proper, Jiao describes how he did the work for this book while he was too sick to work on the classics or histories. Jiao is most famous for his approval of popular drama over Kunqu in Huabu nongtan, in particular his preference for a local version of Pipa ji that punishes the male lead, named Sai Pipa 賽琵琶 (Rival to Pipa ji); see pp. 230–31 of Huabu nongtan; for a translation see Fei, ed. and tr., Chinese Theories of Theater, pp. 92–94. Early twentiethcentury writers looked to Jiao as an early proponent of using popular drama to educate the people, a topic that became very prominent early in that century. See, for example, Xinshi 心史, “Shuo yanxi zhi jiaoben” 說演戲之腳本 (On playscripts for performance), Juchang yuebao 劇場月報 (Theater monthly) 1.3 (1915), pp. 3–9 of the “Lunshuo” 論說 (Essays) section. On p. 3, Xinshi writes about recently reading Huabu nongtan and realizing that there were “Confucian scholars who paid attention to the education of society” 儒之留意社會教育. 80 A book by Michelle King, Between Birth and Death: Female Infanticide in Nineteenth-Century China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014), is largely about Yu but devotes only a few pages to his plays (pp. 58–66). 81 The portions of the 1869 edition of Yu Zhi’s Deyi lu 得一錄 (Record of small insights; Suzhou: Dejian zhai) having to do with theater and Jingju are available in Fu Jin, ed., Jingju lishi wenxian huibian: Qingdai juan, 8: 65–83. They include many pieces on the problem of lewd plays, including his “Yongjin yinxi mudan” 永禁淫戲目單 (List of indecent plays to be forever banned), p. 72. 82 King, Between Birth and Death, p. 68, lists the topics of all twenty-eight and discusses the one on female infanticide, Yuguai tu 育怪圖 (Illustration of Giving Birth to a Monster [King’s translation]), on pp. 59–60. In it a soul is sent to be reborn as a girl by the King of Reincarnation (Zhuanlun Wang 轉輪王); before the soul is reincarnated, an infernal judge in the king’s retinue declares, “Male or female both are a life” 是男是女皆性 命; p. 1b), but the girl is drowned soon after birth despite the warning that this will be recorded by the deities. Sure enough, the soul is sent back to earth as a monster to take the life of the person who drowned the female baby (pyrotechnics are to be used when the soul is turned into a snake-monster, p. 6b). The fetus first refuses to come out of the

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to Guanju daoren, Yu turned to popular theater as a vehicle for reaching a basically illiterate audience. In a nianpu 年譜 (year-by-year chronicle) of his life compiled in 1875,83 the first mention of his playwriting occurs in an entry for his fifty-first year (p. 67; Yu’s age is given according to the Chinese system, which is typically one year higher than the Western system). According to the same nianpu, Yu mounted a stage to give a speech in his forty-first year (p. 65) and wrote a work on the “Village Compact” (xiangyue 鄉約) system in his forty-eighth year (p. 67). The latter was a government-supported system that traced its roots back to the Song dynasty and was revitalized in the Ming by Wang Yangming 王陽明 (1472–1529).84 At the center of Qing dynasty xiangyue practice were regular lectures on moral maxims compiled by emperors and womb, recounting how it was drowned the last time and proclaiming that it intends to mess around (shuazi 耍子) a bit more (p. 11a), but baby/monster is eventually born (no stage directions reveal how this should be performed). The baby/monster bites off the tongue of the mother-in-law who was behind the original drowning (p. 12a; detailed stage directions) and is taken away at the end of the play by Guanyin (p. 15a). A different branch of the same family prospers after it saves a baby meant to be drowned. The play ends with a member of the family (played by a chou actor) first talking to himself about his regrets over the first female infanticide (he now says that even 17 or 18 girl babies would be just fine) and then talking to himself about the upcoming wedding (of the saved girl) that will bring him enough money to buy an official post. He concludes that it is good to raise girls but drowning them will bring retribution, then exits with the perhaps not serious comment that the snake is coming (pp. 22a–b; perhaps his conscience is not completely at peace). The play on lewd plays is Fengliu jian 風流鑒 (Mirror for the romantic). In it, the daughter of a man who loves to watch lewd plays elopes (she is taken by her father to the temple and sees a lewd play that he selected for performance; a young man she has never met is also moved by the play and the two decide to elope, p. 3b). The young couple are caught by a neighbor who is mad at the girl’s father for seducing his wife. At their trial, the girl blames her father and the young man blames his teacher, whom he says always has a copy of Xixiang ji and Honglou meng on his desk (pp. 6b–7a). At the end of the play, Mr. Zhou, neighbor to the girl’s family and relative of the young man, agrees to put in a good word for the couple (who have been sentenced, respectively, to be married off by the state and put in a cangue for a month) and sums things up for the audience (and readers) by saying, “Honored spectators, everyone look here. What family lacks children? If you let them watch lewd plays, well well, here is an example of what will happen” [stage directions have him point to the two lovers] 列位大家看看, 那一家沒有子女, 若放他看了 淫戲, 喏喏, 看看榜樣 (p. 9a). 83 “Yu Xiaohui nianpu” 余孝惠先生年譜 was compiled by Wu Shicheng 吳師澄. It is included as an appendix in Chen Ye 陳燁, “Xiqu jia Yu Zhi yanjiu” 戲曲家余治研究 (A study of the Chinese indigenous theater playwright Yu Zhi), master’s thesis, Tongji University, 2008, pp. 60–71. “Xiaohui” 孝惠 (filial and wise) is a posthumous title (sishi 私 謚) given Yu Zhi by his followers (see the last line of the nianpu, p. 71). 84 See Kandice Hauf, “The Community Covenant in Sixteenth Century Ji’an Prefecture, Jiangxi,” Late Imperial China 17.2 (December 1996): 1–50. This article is on the covenant established by Wang Yangming’s followers in Ji’an in the Jiajing reign period.

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officials.85 That Yu Zhi seems to have turned more and more to theater later in life might be because of a realization that the xiangyue lectures were not up to countering the effect of bad plays. In his essay “Jiaohua liang dadi lun” 教化 兩大敵論 (The two great enemies of the moral transformation [of the people]; the two “enemies” being lewd books and plays), Yu quoted what he described as a “popular saying” (suyu 俗語): “One hundred xiangyue lectures are not up to one performance of a lewd play” 鄉約講說一百回, 不及看淫戲一回,86 and several times wrote that xiangyue lectures were ineffective.87 The nianpu says that in 1859, when Yu was fifty-one, he gathered together ( ji 集) the new plays of Shuji Tang (Shuji tang xinxi 庶幾堂今戲)88 and went to different places 85 See Victor H. Mair, “Language and Ideology in the Written Popularizations of the Sacred Edict,” in David Johnson et al., eds., Popular Culture in Late Imperial China, pp. 325–59. For a translation of the Sacred Edict (Shengyu 聖諭; sixteen short maxims composed by the Kangxi emperor) and the official vernacular version that further vernacularized an earlier expanded version by the Yongzheng emperor, see the scanned copy in the HathiTrust project of F. W. Baller, The Sacred Edict with a Translation of the Colloquial Rendering, rev. ed. (Shanghai: American Presbyterian Mission Press, 1907). Yu Zhi included an illustration of a xiangyue lecture in his Jiangnan tielei tu 江南鐵淚圖 (A portrait of iron tears [shed in] Jiangnan; c. 1864), reproduced in King, Between Birth and Death, fig. 2.5 (p. 65). 86 This piece appears in the extracts from Yu Zhi’s Deyi lu, Fu Jin, ed., Jingju lishi wen­xian huibian: Qingdai juan, 8: 74–77 (the quote can be found on p. 75). The material also includes Yu Zhi’s set of quotations, “Ruxian lun jinyue” 儒先論今樂 (Previous Confucian worthies on “the theater of the day”), pp. 60–69 (which will be referenced below). On what jinyue meant for Yu Zhi, see Wu Chengjia 吳承家, “Yu Zhi xiqu lilun yu piping de ‘jinyue’ guan” 余治戲曲理論與批評的 ‘今樂’ 觀 (The idea of “the theater of the day” in Yu Zhi’s thought on and criticism of Chinese indigenous theater), Xiqu yishu 2011.2: 74–78. 87 The front matter of Shuji tang jinyue contains an excerpt from a letter that Yu wrote, “Shang dangshi shu” 上當事書 (Letter to those in authority). The full version had eight proposals, including one about xiangyue lectures (item 2) and another about oral performing literature (item 7); see Yu Zhi 余治, Zun xiaoxue zhai wenji 尊小學齋文集 (Collected writings from Zun Xiaoxue Studio; Suzhou: Dejian zhai, 1883; there is a HathiTrust scan available), pp. 3/5a–15b. The front matter to Shuji tang jinyue only includes selections from the introduction and the eighth proposal, which is about theater. In the latter Yu says of the xiangyue program, “expenses have been great but the results have not” 所費 甚鉅, 收效無多 (p. 24a). He compares that to the effectiveness of theater in spreading ideas and moving people, for which he claims “you don’t need to spend any money” 可 不費一錢 (p. 23b), and “compared to the effect of xiangue, how could it be less than one-hundred fold” 較之鄉約之功, 何啻百倍 (p. 25a). See Wong Kwok-Yiu, “Reform Spirit and Regional Theaters: Yu Zhi’s (1809–1874) Shuji tang jinyue and the Xiqu Reform Movement,” Monumentica Serica 65.2 (December 2017): 379–80, for how one of Yu’s plays showed the ineffectiveness of xuangyue lectures for someone brought up before a judge. 88 This is probably referring to the earliest publication of (some) of his plays, which is described in items in the front matter of Shuji tang jinyue. It is possible that for this first

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in Jiangsu (Yu was a native of Wuxi) to perform them experimentally (shiyan 試演). The same item numbers the plays at “several tens” (shushi zhong 數十 種; p. 67). The entry for 1873, when Yu was sixty-five, records that in that year he took the plays that he had “collected” in 1859 and performed them in such places as Jiaxing and Huzhou in Northern Zhejiang to official acclaim,89 but his energy was beginning to fade (p. 70).90 The last item in the nianpu, which covers 1874, notes that since 1866 Yu had written (zhuan 撰) an additional twenty-plus plays. These are his dying words as recorded in the nianpu: If there is still a desire in my heart, it concerns the new plays from Shuji Tang. They are sufficient to change social customs and to inspire moral feelings in men’s hearts, and they are the only things that I can’t forget. You should tell this to those of like heart, and if there can be found those

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printing, the only one that happened in his lifetime, Yu Zhi chose to stress the newness of the plays in the title of the collection through xinxi rather than through jinyue, the latter related to an allusion to Mencius upon which Yu Zhi’s studio name, “Shuji Tang” is based (Mencius IB.1, in which the king apologetically tells Mencius that what he loves is “contemporary music” [ jinyue] and Mencius responds that if the king shares his love for contemporary music with his people his governance will “be near to” [shuji] perfection). The separately paginated colophon to Shuji tang jinyue by Zheng Guanying 鄭官應 (1842– 1922), the last item before the plays themselves, describes how Yu Zhi “took in young boys with no support and had old actors teach them” 收僮豎無告 [靠] 者, 令梨園老優教 之 before taking them on the road, and adds that they “repeatedly ran into financial difficulties and met up with scorn” 資用屢困, 謗譏閒 [間] 作 (p. 1a). According to Chen Ye, “Xiqu jia Yu Zhi yanjiu,” p. 48 n. 1, this piece was included in Zheng’s collected works. Zheng seems to have been the main benefactor behind the printing of Shuji tang jinyue. Information on the cover and following page of the Sokōdō scanned copy says Shuji tang jinyue was printed and edited (yinding 印訂) by the Tongshan zhai shanshu ju 同善齋 善書局 (Morality book division of Shared Good Works Studio) of Hangzhou, while the woodblocks are stored at Dejian zhai 得見齋 in Suzhou; the title pages for all but one of the individual plays give information about who “donated money for the publication” ( juanke 捐刻) of that play. Sixteen of the twenty-eight have the words “Daihe zhai tong­ ren dai ke” 待鶴齋同人代刻 (Printed on behalf [of Yu Zhi] by Zheng Guanying [Daihe zhai was Zheng’s studio name] and like-minded people); all the others have juanke where daike appears. Wong, “Reform Spirit and Regional Theaters,” pp. 370–71, n. 22, draws attention to a short piece dated July 4, 1874, from Shenbao, “Hushang jiang shangyan shanxi” 滬上將上演 善戲 (Morality plays will be performed in Shanghai), reproduced in Fu Jin, ed., Jingju lishi wenxian huibian: Qingdai juan, 4: 68, about upcoming performances of Yu Zhi’s plays (eight are listed by name) “all rewritten for Kunqu; both lyrics and tunes are very good” 俱改崑腔, 詞曲既佳. Wong takes this notice as evidence that the plays were actually performed that way in Shanghai by the troupe named, for which I have found no corroboration.

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with great power willing to support them from on high and have them be distributed to the theaters/troupes, then my wishes for this life [will be achieved]! 區區之心無所戀, 惟此庶幾堂今戲, 足以轉移風俗, 激發人心, 為極不忘 耳. 二三子為我轉告諸同人, 倘得有大力者登高提倡, 頒入梨園, 則生平 之愿也. (p. 71)

Yu Zhi’s disciples and supporters worked to gather together the playscripts.91 A Shenbao item, “Yi yan xinxi” 議演新戲 (Discussions about performing new plays; May 11, 1880), says that the process took more than half a year. The original idea was to have Yu’s plays performed in Tianjin, Zhenjiang, and Shanghai, but it appears that only in Shanghai was a two-pronged program worked out. That program was announced in Shenbao about two weeks later in an item entitled “Yanjin yinxi gaoshi” 嚴禁淫戲告示 (Announcement of a strict ban on lewd plays; May 24, 1880): the theaters were supposed to pledge to no longer perform lewd plays and agree to perform versions of Yu Zhi’s plays, of which they were given copies.92 The printing of Shuji tang jinyue was supported by the collection of donations. From the appearance of the announcement of the ban until February 18, 1881, Shenbao published information on four different plays explicitly linked to Yu Zhi plays that were part of this project: Kuixing xian 魁星現 (original title Wenxing xian 文星現; both mean “The apparition of the God of Literature”); Yinyang xian 陰陽獻 (original title Yinyang yu 陰陽 獄; about the earthly and supernatural punishment of Hong Xiuquan 洪秀全 [1814–1864], leader of the Taiping Rebellion; the title of the Shanghai production perhaps meant to emphasize the fate of the women “offered” up to Hong); Yiquan ji 義犬記 (The righteous dog); and Yan shoulu 延壽錄 (Extending longevity).93 In this time period there is also news of a production of Yu Zhi’s Yimin ji 義民記 (The righteous person) not linked to the official plan to have his 91 This process is described in the separately paginated untitled colophons to Shuji tang jinyue by Wangchui lou zhuren 望炊樓主人 and Zheng Guanying, which are the last items before the plays themselves. It is Wangchui lou zhuren’s colophon that tells us that Yu Zhi wrote a total of forty plays (p. 1a), and both indicate that Yu had nine of his plays published in his lifetime (see the first page of both colophons). 92 This plan is basically the same as outlined by Yu Zhi in the eighth item of his “Shang dangshi shu,” which is included, as noted above, in the front matter to Shuji tang jinyue (24b–25a). 93 See, for instance, sample notices in Shenbao from the theaters involved about these productions published on June 28, 1880 (Kuixing xian); July 6, 1880 (Yinyang yu); July 17, 1880 (Yiquan ji); and July 30, 1880 (Yanshou lu).

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plays performed.94 By August of 1881, however, there began to be complaints in Shenbao that the ban on lewd plays was not being enforced. Reports and reminiscences of the program generally argue that the performances of Yu Zhi’s plays were well attended (with an assist from the generous use of colored lights from candles on stage95) but express regret that the ban was not enforced and the whole project came to nought.96 Writers in the Republican era sometimes put Yu Zhi forward as a reformer and example to be at least partially followed,97 but the predominant take in the PRC has been that he was too conservative and preachy, and that as soon as the Shanghai government stopped pushing his plays they disappeared from the stage.98 There was, however, one play by him that, in adapted form, that won a place in the Jingju repertoire it has

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Zhao Shanlin et al., Jindai Shanghai xiqu xinian chubian, p. 91, mentions the titles of two Yu Zhi plays performed in Shanghai at this time beyond those I have listed: Yimin ji (given as Zhimin ji 治民記 but clearly a mistake for Yimin ji) and Nan zhong fu 難中福 (Good luck in the midst of bad). The title of the second fits the content of many of Yu Zhi’s plays but not enough to be certain which one it might be based on. Reference books such as Zeng Bairong, Jingju jumu cidian, p. 1063, summarize a play of this title, but although it is set during the Taiping Rebellion, as with many of Yu Zhi’s plays, the description does not fit any of the plays in Shuji tang jinyue. See the discussion of “lantern plays” (dengcai xi) in chapter 1. This aspect of the production of Kuixing xian is stressed, for instance, in a July 28, 1880, Shenbao notice from the theater which also, ironically, announces that the theater will be performing Shuangding ji 雙釘記 (The story of two nails; Xikao #135), a play about adultery and murder that was often on lists of banned plays (see Li Desheng, Jinxi, for bans of the play in the Qing dynasty [p. 61] and PRC [p. 193]). For the first two Shenbao articles, and a variety of Shenbao items that assess the project, see Fu Jin, ed., Jingju lishi wenxian huibian: Qingdai juan, 4: 173–74 (May 11, 1880), 174–75 (May 24, 1880), 195 (November 2, 1881), 206–208 (May 2, 1880), and 523 (December 20, 1900). Not included is the last mention of Shuji tang jinyue in Shenbao on November 29, 1940, which claims that when Kuixing xian was performed “there was no empty seat” (wu yi kongzuo 無一空座) upstairs or down. Fan Yanqiao 范煙橋, “Qishi wu nian qian pihuang ju gaijin zhe Yu Zhi” 七十五年前皮簧 劇改進者余治 (Reformer of pihuang plays from seventy-five years ago, Yu Zhi), Banyue xiju 半月戲劇 (Theater bimonthly) 4.9 (1943), no pagination, treats him as a reformer (as in the title) and, despite regret that Yu was “too old and rotten [in thought]” (tai chenfu 太 陳腐), thinks that his spirit ( jingshen 精神) is worth emulating. See, for example, Yan Quanyi, Qingdai Jingju wenxue shi, p. 215.

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managed to retain to the present.99 That play is Zhusha zhi.100 It and all but one of the other plays were copied into the Prince Che collection, but it is unclear if those copies have anything to do with performance.101 99 In a December 3, 1893, notice in Shenbao, Tianxian Chayuan 天仙茶園 in Shanghai claimed that its new play, Tie gongji (Xikao #334 includes the first three installments [of seventeen]) was based on (unnamed) plays by Yu Zhi. Among Yu Zhi’s extant plays there are several set during the Taiping Rebellion (see Yan Quanyi, Qingdai Jingju wenxue shi, pp. 204–206), but it is hard to find specific material from them that ended up in Tie gongji. The same theater, around the same time that it was producing versions of Yu Zhi plays, also mounted a play called Nan zhong fu 難中福 (see the announcement by Tianxian Chayuan in Shenbao, December 28, 1881), which has been identified as by Yu Zhi in a reference work cited above. It was printed together with Tie gongji and other anti-Taiping plays (see the April 19, 1894, Shenbao notice of publication in an illustrated edition). Yan Quanyi, Qingdai Jingju wenxue, p. 415, mentions that Tie gongji made use of Nan zhong fu, but does not link that title with Yu Zhi. 100 On this play’s stage life, see Yan Quanyi, Qingdai Jingju wenxue shi, p. 215, and Chen Ye, “Xiqu jia Yu Zhi yanjiu,” pp. 37–39 and 44–45. It was performed in the palace as early as 1869 (see Wong, “Reform Spirit and Regional Theaters,” p. 372, n. 42) and appears in Chuntai ban ximu; see the photo-reprint in Yan Changke, “Chuntai ban ximu bianzheng,” p. 143 (lowest of three photos; another play with the same title as one of Yu’s other plays is on the same list, Huitou an 回頭岸 [A turn of the head and you are on the far shore], highest of the three photos on p. 143). Zhusha zhi also appears in a list of theater programs in Shenbao (October 3, 1872) in the year that newspaper began publication. Included in Gugong zhenben congkan are a playscript with only the last six scenes, 675: 1–10; a scene abstract (tigang) that is a separate document, 694: 211 (listing six scenes with the characters and names of actors for each); another abstract that is part of a collection of abstracts, 690: 206; abstracts that are among collections of abstracts that list character names, actor names, and role-types, but not scenes: 690: 126 (but also indicating which actors do not appear in the second half of the play and total running time), pp. 163 and 181 (both also including total running time), and p. 206 (includes scenes). 101 See the summaries in Guo Jingrui 郭精銳 et al., Chewang fu quben tiyao 車王府曲本 提要 (Abstracts for the performance scripts in the Prince Che collection; Guangzhou: Zhongshan daxue, 1989), in the order in which the plays appear in Shuji tang jinyue, #1 (p. 532), #2 (p. 559), #3 (p. 551), #4 (p. 564), #5 (p. 530), #6 (p. 431), #7 (p. 575), #8 (p. 562), #9 (p. 561), #10 (p. 574), #11 (p. 568), #12 (p. 562), #13 (p. 560), #14 (p. 561), #15 (p. 206), #16 (p. 563), #17 (p. 560), #18 (p. 544), #19 (p. 541), #20 (p. 551), #21 (p. 532), #22 (p. 397), #23 (p. 535), #24 (p. 540), #25 (p. 543), #26 (p. 532), #27 (absent), #28 (p. 546). As is the case with almost all Jingju reference works, the plays are in order of their historical setting. This reference work assigned plays to the Three Kingdoms period (#15), Song dynasty (#6 and 22), Qing dynasty (#1, 5, 21, 24, and 27), and historical setting not clear (all others). Zeng Bairong, Jingju jumu cidian, p. 1067, puts play #15 in the Qing dynasty under the idea that the Yellow Turbans of the play really refer to the Taiping rebels. For photo-reprints of manuscript copies made not long after the collection was found and now held in the Shoudu Library in Beijing, see Qing Chewang fu cang quben, vols. 6 (“Song dynasty” plays), 11 (“Qing dynasty” plays), and 12 (dynastic setting not clear). There are two versions of Zhusha zhi, both clearly based on Yu Zhi’s play but with slight differences; one is labeled a quanchuanguan 全串貫 and the other a zongjiang 總講; both terms indicating that

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I have not found any evidence that Shuji tang jinyue was ever reprinted. The edition we have has a lot of paratextual material: (1) a preface signed by the famous classical scholar and reviser of the nineteenth-century novel Sanxia wuyi 三俠五義 (Three heroes and five gallants), Yu Yue 俞樾 (1821–1907); (2) A preface dated 1860 and signed by Yu Zhi;102 (3) a document entitled “Tici” 題 辭 by Yu Zhi;103 (4) a dialogue entitled “Da ke wen” 答客問 (Response to questions from a guest) between Yu Zhi and an unnamed interlocutor;104 (5) Yu the playscript contains all of the characters’ parts and both arias and dialogue. On these terms and their synonyms, see Luo Yan 羅燕, Qingdai gongting chengying xi ji qi xingtai yanjiu 清代宮廷承應戲及其形態研究 (A study of Qing dynasty plays performed for special occasions and their ecology; Guangzhou: Guangdong gaodeng jiaoyu, 2014), p. 84. Many of the manuscripts have both “Weisheng” 尾聲 (Coda; a qupai now played at the end of a performance rather than to conclude an item on the program, as earlier) to mark the end of the program and “wan” 完 (complete) written at the end of the entire play, but in one case (#9) that language appears after the first installment of the play as well. All Chewang fu manuscript versions of Yu Zhi plays have a simple layout: arias and dialogue are in same-size characters but differentiated by stage directions such as chang and bai. Stage directions are small and set to the right or small and in double rows set in brackets. Punctuation is absent or minimal (all of this presumes that these twentieth-century copies accurately reflect the originals). 102 He says that his plays are about “transforming ignorant rural people” (huadao xiangyu 化 導鄉愚) and “don’t emphasize prosody and [fitting the words to the] music” (wu dang shenglü 無當聲律), and recognizes that he is a “rustic” (xialiba ren 下里巴人) whose plays are not fit for connoisseurs (Zhoulang 周郎). He also explains the allusion behind his studio name, Shuji Tang. 103 This title makes you expect that it will contain poems commemorating the publication of the book, but the item is nothing of the sort. It has two parts. In the first part, Yu Zhi recounts elements of his life and ideas in a loose ballad-type style with lots of doublecolumn small-character notes. In it he says, that he could not fight on the battlefield for his nation but did what he could using tongue and brush (p. 7a), that he recently decided to write plays and his only concern was that they would be easy to understand (yixiao 易 曉), that he did not “dare to imitate the literati” (gan xiao wenren 敢效文人) and their ways (p. 8a) and had to disregard the shame (“thicken his face” laozhe lian 老着臉) and mix with actors (p. 8b). In the second part, he quotes earlier scholars on theater; the contents are basically the same as his “Ruxian lun jinyue” (see above), with some of the items in different order and his own comments put into double-column small-characters. 104 The guest is unnamed but seems to be someone, or based on someone, who was wellknown to Yu, someone interested/skilled in medicine. The guest argues that in writing plays in vulgar style, Yu Zhi has lowered himself, while Yu Zhi counters that like a good doctor he is interested in writing and performing plays that cure “common illnesses” (tongbing 通病; when Yu Zhi gets around to listing these, he treats separately the first two, lack of filiality and too many plays that encourage brigands [pp. 19a–20b], and then lumps together a list of supposedly more minor ones that includes abortion and female infanticide [pp. 20b]); all of these are contrasted with “exotic illnesses” (yibing 異病) or “strange illnesses” (guaibing 怪病) that do not affect the masses. Yu criticizes old plays ( jiuxi 舊 戲) and chuanqi for attending more to the latter kind of illnesses, only trying to “exhort”

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Zhu’s “Shang dangshi shu” 上當事書 (Letter to those in authority);105 (6) a list of “editorial principles” (liyan 例言) with six items, presumably written by Yu Zhi;106 (7) a set of short prefaces for the eighteen plays in the “first collection” (chuji 初集) written (bianci 編次) by Jiyun shanren 寄雲山人 (one of Yu Zhi’s pennames); (8) a set of short prefaces for the twelve plays in the “second collection” (erji 二集) written (bianci) by Wangchui lou zhuren 望炊樓主人 and modeled on the prefaces for the first collection;107 (9) an untitled colophon by Wangchui lou zhuren;108 and (10) an untitled colophon by Zheng Guanying 鄭官應 (1842–1922).109 The two colophons are about the collecting, editing, and printing of the plays. The individual plays have their own title pages and

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(quan 勸) rather than “punish” (cheng 懲) and presenting villains so extreme that audience members will think that they are so much better than them that they don’t need to reflect on their own conduct. The plays that are discussed (and said to be inadequate) include famous chuanqi plays such as the Pipa ji and popular plays such as Qingfeng ting 清風亭 (Gentle Breeze Pavilion; Xikao #77; a summary of which is printed in small characters on p. 19a). This proposal and its attempted implementation are discussed above. The first item recognizes the popularity of Zhui baiqiu but says its items are mostly Kunqu, while his plays are pihuang and “easy to understand when they enter the ear” (ru er yi ming 入耳易明). Item two stresses how his plays are short and complete. Item three stress that his plays are about “real events [such as happen] right before one’s eyes” (yanqian shishi 眼前實事), unlike chuanqi. Item four says that his plays lack the illogicality ( fei qing fei li 非情非理) of most “classical plays” (gudian ben 古典本). Item five criticizes spending a lot of money on performances (implying without saying so that his can be mounted cheaply) and stresses the goal of his plays (i.e., they are effective but cheap). The last item recognizes that his plays treat things not to be found in old plays but involve things that should exist (shi suo bi you 事所必有) and claims that this will make them new and attractive to audiences and would also gain the approval of the ancients (i.e., playwrights of old). Wangchui lou zheren explicitly says this in his colophon (p. 1b). Among the details given in this colophon are that the original printing of some of Yu’s plays was done very quickly (hence badly) because of the need to have them for performances (p. 1a); that some of the plays in Shuji tang jinyue amalgamate more than one of Yu Zhi’s plays (p. 1a–b); that there are alternate names for some of the plays (e.g., Yuguai tu is said to have the alternate name of Hongshe ji 紅蛇記 [The red snake]; p. 1b); that there are differences between the content and compilation of the first and second collections and he and Yu Zhi originally planned to bring out a third collection; and that he was unable to find copies of six plays by Yu listed by title in the table of contents of the original printing (p. 1b). Some of this information is given in double-column small-characters notes. Among the details Zheng provides is the idea that the original printing had nine plays and was “small format” (xiaoban 小板; p. 1a). He mentions plans to distribute the newly printed plays to theaters [in Shanghai] and compel them to perform one or two, and strictly prohibit lewd plays. Some of the paratextual items in Shuji tang jinyue are available in Wu Yuhua, ed., Zhongguo gudai xiqu xuba ji, pp. 592–93 (#1), pp. 586–88 (#2 and

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pagination. Unlike Jile shijie, Shuji tang jinyue does not claim to have commentary and the plays have neither commentary nor annotation; some paratextual material has additional material in double-column small-characters, but these are not so much commentary as annotation, and seem to have been written, in most cases, by the authors of those pieces. Available scanned copies do not have any illustrations, but Michelle King reproduces one titled “Stage for exhorting morality” (Quanshan tai 勸善臺) that she says was included in the edition. Its representation of the stage itself is nothing special; of interest are the couplets and phrases with moral content written on the stage pillars and above the stage, on hanging plaques to either side of the stage and from the lintel over the theater entrance, and on two stone steles to either side of that entrance.110 Each of Yu Zhi’s plays is only a fraction of the length of Jile shijie even though each tells a complete story. In the second item of his liyan, Yu complains that chuanqi plays are too long, while performing extracted scenes (what would later be called zhezi xi) leaves the audience in doubt about the whole story (bu zhi qi yuanwei 不知其原委). He says that his plays are about affairs that can be performed from beginning to end in one sitting (yihui 一回), and are not divided into sections (duanluo 段落) that can be extracted. Unlike Jile shijie, in Shuji tang jinyue the plays are not explicitly divided into scenes even though they are not one-scene plays. In fact, there is no evidence that Yu Zhi is imitating chuanqi playscripts; they are a model he is clearly trying to avoid. We can take the case of Zhusha zhi, Yu Zhi’s most successful play, as an example. The story is set when China suffered invasions from the Jin dynasty. Later printings of versions of the play divide it into six scenes, leaving out the first one in Yu’s edition.111 In that deleted scene, a husband who is sick tells 6), and in Cai Yi 蔡毅, ed., Zhongguo gudian xiqu xuba huibian, pp. 2257–79 (#2, 3, 6, 4, 1, 9, 10, 7, and 8, in this order). 110 The illustration and translations of the text in it are available in King, Between Birth and Death, fig. 2.4 (p. 62; the only place that the illustration is said to come from in Shuji tang jinyue is the list of figures and tables on p. viii). 111 An undated but clearly Republican era typeset booklet containing one other play with a photo of an actor on the cover, available on the Sōkōdō website, has a version of what I am calling Scene 0. This version presents itself as a “complete version” (quanben 全 本), something it clearly considers a selling point, and does not divide the play into scenes. Laosheng actor Gao Qingkui 高慶奎 (1890–1942) premiered an expanded version with the title Quanbu Zhusha zhi 全部硃砂痣 (Complete Zhusha zhi) in 1929 (see Zhou Mingtai, Wushi nian lai Beiping xiju shiliao Houbian, p. 361, program #1027). An April 12, 1931 Shenbao announcement of a performance of Gao’s version in Shanghai gives an alternate title of Tianjiang qilin 天降麒麟 (Heaven grants a qilin [a mythical animal, sometimes referred to as a unicorn in English, that popularly symbolizes a fine son]); it

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his wife he has agreed to sell her to a local squire to be his wife so that she will have support and he will have money for medicine (Scene 0). When she is delivered to the squire he notices she is very sad, finds out the truth through an abbreviated guessing game, and immediately decides to send her back with twice the money he paid for her (Scene 1). When the wife returns with this news her husband’s illness is immediately cured (!) and the two decide, despite the lateness of the night, to hurry to give their thanks (Scene 2). When they arrive they find out that the squire has no heir, and the husband says that he will buy an appropriate boy for him when he travels to Sichuan to collect debts (Scene 3). In Sichuan, a very old woman and her “son” (abandoned on the road as an infant that she is raising, having no husband or children) are introduced. Because she doubts she has the resources or will to live until the child is old enough to support her, she decides to sell him (Scene 4). The husband comes across the child being offered for sale and buys him (Scene 5). When the child is given to the squire, it gradually becomes clear that he is the squire’s own son, lost long ago in Sichuan when Jin troops invaded and his wife was killed.112 claims that the play is based on a secret copy (miben 秘本) from the palace and includes such content as the squire’s son growing up to become top scholar, achieving success on the battlefield, and reuniting with his mother; more than thirty scenes long, it will still be performed in a single evening. Non-expanded versions of Zhusha zhi with explicitly numbered scene divisions include the xikao.com online revised version of the Xikao version and the Guoju dacheng version (10: 399–409). They and the Gugong zhenben congkan manuscript leave out Yu’s first scene, but the latter only labels its first scene as the opening scene (touchang 頭場) and does not label or otherwise emphasize the other scenes. Both Chewang fu manuscript versions include the opening scene but do not divide the play into scenes, with the exception that one of them is divided into three parts that follow scene breaks (clearing of the stage) in Yu Zhi’s version. 112 The date when the infant was picked up by the already old woman is given three times in Yu Zhi’s play as the 51st year of the Longqing 隆慶 reign period (pp. 8b, 9b–10a, and 15a), an impossible date on at least two counts. That reign period (1567–1572) was in the Ming dynasty, long after the demise of the Jin dynasty, and was very short (there being no reign periods as long as fifty years before those of the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors in the Qing dynasty). The Gugong zhenben congkan manuscript changes the first mention of the date to a vague “that year” (na nian 那年; p. 4 lower right [each page has two registers, upper and lower, each reproducing two half pages, verso and recto; the “gutters” where the original pages were bound are not reproduced and no original page numbers are in evidence) and for the other two (pp. 5 upper left and 9 upper left) gives the eighth day of the fourth month of the seventh year of the Xuanhe reign period of the Song dynasty (1125). For the first two mentions of the date, the Guoju dacheng version has “that year” (pp. 403–404), but for the third mention has the same month and day as for the third mention above but omits the year (p. 409). The online Xikao version omits the first mention of the year entirely, but gives the month and day (no year) in both the second and third instances (different from Xikao itself, which only gives the month and day once). This is the only play by Yu Zhi set in the Song dynasty; what puts it in that dynasty is not

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The proof is the birthmark of the play’s title on the correct foot (Scene 6).113 A six-character summary of the play, given after the title and at the beginning of the short preface in the paratextual material, sums up the intention of the play: “Exhorts keeping families together” (Quan quan ren gurou ye 勸全人骨肉也).114 Although none of those scenes seem to have ever been extracted by actors to perform separately, the first scene of Yu’s play was often left out.115 As with Jile shijie, in Yu Zhi’s plays arias are set off from the dialogue by not being indented, but are also distinguished from the dialogue and stage directions by being printed in bold. Like Jile shijie, musical modes and ariatypes are not indicated. Bespeaking its more popular intended audience, Shuji tang jinyue does not include punctuation in the front matter, but does for both the impossible reign date but the mention of invading Jin troops. Only one of Yu’s plays deals with a major historical figure (Yue Fei); it would have been easy to set Zhusha zhi in the aftermath of the Taiping Rebellion and it is possible that Yu Zhi had that in mind and expected some to realize that. As noted above, one reference work takes the historical setting of a play Yu set in the time of the Yellow Turbins of the Han dynasty as really that of the Taiping Rebellion. 113 Unlike many of Yu Zhi’s plays, no one comes forward to repeat its message at the end of this one. 114 Because the play appears in the second collection, the short preface was written by Wangchui lou zhuren. The two sets of short prefaces are taken as one unit, in terms of pagination. The short preface for Zhusha zhi can be found on p. 7b; it is seventy-eight characters long and ends with the same formula as the others for the second collection: “This is why the master wrote Zhusha zhi [other prefaces substitute here the names of their plays]” 先生以是作硃砂痣. 115 The yin pei xiang version of Zhusha zhi, with a running time of 1:18:42, is based on an audio recording made in 1961 starring the laosheng actor Tan Fuying and includes all seven scenes in Yu Zhi’s play. The running time given in abstracts photo-reprinted in Gugong zhenben congkan, 690: 126, 163, and 181, is 1:10 (sike shifen 四刻十分); the second abstract does list the scenes (the last six of Yu Zhi’s version). Su wenxue congkan, volume 323, includes three undated manuscript copies: one for the wife’s lines alone (pp. 315–16, ten columns of text per half-page), one for all seven scenes (pp. 317–65, five columns of text per half-page; three of the scenes are numbered and two of the others have titles; the birthmark identifying the son is on his shoulder rather than his foot, a stage direction has him remove his clothes to show it, p. 363), and one long manuscript (pp. 367–518, six columns of text per half-page) that begins with the invading Jin troops and the sending of the god of literature to be born as the squire’s son (now revealed to be a Prefect) and ends with the top graduate son’s marriage and reunion with not only his birth mother (whose grave was dug up by two filial sons who find her alive!) but also the foster mother (equivalent to the seven scenes of Yu Zhi’s original play, pp. 462–87). This last manuscript also includes the onstage presentation of a matchmaker coming to talk to the husband, something that also appears in the yin pei xiang version). A set of undated manuscripts (nine columns of text per half-page), which are single-actor scripts for minor roles of the first installment of a version of the play titled Qilin bao 麒麟報 (Reward by qilin), are also included in this volume of Su wenxue congkan (pp. 519–30).

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dialogue and arias in the play (commas or periods for the former and small round or black circles for the latter. Punctuation for the ten-character lines in the arias carefully breaks each of them into three phrases (i.e., 3, 3, 4), which match how they should be sung. The stage directions in Shuji tang jinyue are generally simpler than those in Jile shijie (e.g., no curtains or costumes, no descriptions of props at the end of a scene). They are in double-column small characters set off from the rest of the text by being put in brackets, with separate stage directions in a sequence set off from each other by being enclosed in their own brackets.116 Unlike Jile shijie, role-types rather than character names are used in the stage directions and za is used only rarely (the casts needed for the plays are quite small). In a simple play like Zhusha zhi the stage directions are rare and short, but in a more complicated (staging-wise) play such as Tu niu bao 屠牛報 (Retribution for [privately] butchering an ox), in which two butchers, ignoring both the law and a good person’s exhortation, privately slaughter a plow ox to make soup to sell and are killed by the ox’s avenging ghost, further punished in hell, and then reincarnated to suffer ill treatment as oxen. In one single sequence of six lines of text, when the ox ghost butchers his two butcherers, there are twenty separate stage directions, one as long as fifteen characters (p. 6b). There is the spurting of blood (penxue 噴血) when the ghost sticks a knife in one of the men’s ears, and before long the ghost uses his horns to “puncture the belly and make the intestines spill out” (pofu changchu 破腹腸出) of the other victim. Another stage direction describes the scene as “like the situation in Panchang dazhan” 如蟠腸大戰壯.117 In the Three Kingdom’s play Panchang dazhan 盤 腸大戰 (Battling fiercely with intestines wrapped around; Xikao #494) the hero is stabbed in the stomach on the battlefield and his intestines fall out. Undaunted, he wraps them around his body and keeps fighting. It is very rare for a stage direction to compare the mise en scène of one play to that of another (whereas one can imagine such a thing might be common in a director’s oral comments); in this case it is quite effective, provided the reader is familiar with the other play. Tu niu bao is also interesting in that it contains some musical annotation using the gongche system (pp. 9b–10a; the only instance of this in Shuji tang jinyue). This occurs after the two butcherers have been reincarnated as oxen 116 For an example of three different stage directions being treated this way, see p. 22a of Yuguai tu. 117 These stage directions, and the practice of using brackets not only to separate stage directions from the rest of the text but also to separate individual stage directions from each other survive in the Chewang fu manuscript version; see 12: 354, upper right to middle, for an example.

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and the oxherds are playing music and singing to each other. Besides short stretches of instrumental music notated using gongche symbols, absent any notation indicating beats and measures (dianban 點板), stage directions also indicate the names of qupai that are played and short and long musical interludes (xiao/da guoban 小/大過板) for which notation is not given. No notation is given for the arias; the page layout would make this awkward, since notations are traditionally added to the right of the characters, stretching out horizontally in the case of melisma or slanting downward. We observed that one of Yu Zhi’s plays did make it into the Jingju repertoire, but we should also note that it underwent a lot of change in the process.118 We have also observed that some found Yu Zhi’s emphasis on using theater to reach (and transform) the masses congenial, while the more progressive found his value system too conservative and “superstitious.”119 Scholars more interested in performance have criticized Yu Zhi, on the one hand, for not being able to write singable Jingju arias120 (surely the reason for the extensive revision of arias in the performance versions of Zhusha zhi developed by professionals) and, on the other, for writing plays that “lack even the most elemental dramatic conflict” 連最基本的戲劇衝突都沒有.121 According to Sun Shulei 孫書磊, Yu Zhi’s problem was not one of the common ones of literati playwrights, such as using too many allusions (dao shudai 掉書袋) or showing off their learning (mainong caixue 賣弄才學), but writing that was too plain and awkward (puzhuo 樸拙).122 Surely that plainness made his plays attractive to 118 For instance, in the lines of the first several arias in the Gugong zhenben congkan version of Zhusha zhi, no more than roughly half of the characters in the original lines survive the transition, often not in their original order. The Chewang fu manuscript versions are much closer to Yu Zhi’s original. 119 When Zhusha zhi was revised for volume six of the Xiuding Pingju xuan 修訂平劇選 (Selected revised Pingju plays), 12 vols. (Shanghai: Zhengzhong shuju, 1945–1948; reprint, Taibei: Zhengzhong shuju, 1958), a project conducted by the Nationalist government (see chapter 4), it was superstition that was the main concern and the revisions were extensive (the logic behind them recounted in detail in the appended item, “Xiugai jingguo” 修改 經過 [The process of revision], pp. 21–25). 120 See, for instance, Guo Jingrui, Chewang fu quben yu Jingju de xingcheng, p. 127. 121 See Yan Quanyi, Qingdai Jingju wenxue shi, p. 183. As an example of this lack of conflict, we can point to an instance in Zhusha zhi, whose plot should be familiar. When the squire, who is all set to enjoy his first night with his new bride, hears her story, he immediately decides to return her to her husband without even the briefest reflection or hesitation. This differs from the treatment in the yin pei xiang version mentioned above, in which the squire’s reaction and decision process are much more complex and by no means instantaneous (see 26:50–27:54). 122 Sun Shulei 孫書磊, “Shilun Yu Zhi de Jingju yundong yu sixiang ji qi xiandai qishi” 試 論余治的京劇運動與思想及其現代啟示 (On Yu Zhi’s Jingju activities and thought,

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officials, while the focus in them on transmitting didactic messages to the exclusion of all else made them not very attractive to general audiences.123 Because it has been put forward by some as the earliest Jingju play written by a literatus now extant,124 it is fitting to mention briefly Cuo zhong cuo 錯 中錯 (Mistakes within mistakes), by Ji Yintian 紀蔭田 (personal name Shusen 樹森), which was printed in 1829.125 The reason why some reject it as a Jingju play is that it is too early (see the Introduction on the consensus of when Jingju matured).126 Like Jile shijie, Cuo zhong cuo retains a lot of features associated with chuanqi, including a large number of scenes (36) that take the form of a typical chuanqi scene, are referred to by the term most commonly used in chuanqi (qu 齣), and have two-character scene titles; a prologue (“Kaichang” 開場 [Play opener]) that introduces the play and is not included in the scene count;127 and the introduction of the main male character in the first scene as well as his modern significance), Jiangnan daxue xuebao 江南大學學報 (Journal of Jiangnan University) 2010.1: 118. 123 Oddly enough, three of Yu Zhi’s plays (#8, 13, and 11) were attractive enough to a German sinologist, Alfred Forke (1867–1944), that he took the effort to translate them. See his Elf chinesische Singspieltexte aus neuerer Zeit: Nebst zwei Dramen in westlicher Manier (Eleven Chinese song-dramas from more recent times: Along with two dramas in a Western manner), Martin Gimm, ed. (Stuttgart: F. Steiner, 1993), pp. 325–46, 347–74, and 375–90. On differences between plays by literati and by actors, see Lu Yingkun 路應昆, “Wenren xiqu lüeyi” 文人戲曲略議 (Some remarks on traditional Chinese drama written by literati), Zhonghua xiqu 22 (1999): 367–84. 124 See, e.g., Yan Quanyi, “Zui zao wenren chuangzuo de Jingju juzuo Cuo zhong cuo” 最早 文人創作的京劇劇作錯中錯 (The earliest Jingju play created by a literatus, Cuo zhong cuo), Qingdai Jingju wenxue shi, pp. 147–62. 125 Yan Quanyi, Qingdai Jingju wenxue shi, p. 148, is mistaken to say that only one copy exists. There are several held in China, more in Japan, and at least one the U.S. (held by Harvard). This last copy has been scanned as part of the HathiTrust project and is 485 pages long. Unfortunately, some pages are missing (e.g., the post-scene comment for Scene 6 starts in mid-sentence and some pages appear twice (pp. 443 and 453 reproduce p. 58a of the fourth fascicle). Also, not enough care was taken to ensure that the original pagination is not cut off. 126 See Huang Yishu 黃義樞, “Cuo zhong cuo zuozhe kaobian” 錯中錯作者考辨 (On the true author of Cuo zhong cuo), Xiqu yanjiu 42 (October 2010): 263, where the fact that Ji grew up south of the Yangzi and lived most of his life in Sichuan is presented as additional evidence. 127 The fumo 副末, who is very old (the stage directions have him wear a white beard), introduces himself as someone living at the end of the Song dynasty and having experienced the rule of four different courts. He says, “Yesterday in Gongqing Garden I saw a chuanqi play named Cuo zhong cuo; it was precisely a story from the Song dynasty. Not only was its narration authentic and true to life, but it also dragged me in to play a part, that of the red-faced knight-errant” 昨在共慶園中看了一本傳奇, 名為錯中錯, 就是宋朝故事, 不但敘來確鑿逼真, 並把俺也拉一角色, 扮作紅臉俠士 (p. 1a); this is a clear echo of the prologue to Taohua shan. One difference between them is that in Taohua shan the old master of ceremonies presents himself not only as a witness and participant in the

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after the prologue (but unlike most chuanqi, the second scene after the prologue is not used so much to introduce the female lead as to introduce the second male lead). Like the majority of chuanqi, Cuo zhong cuo is divided into two parts or juan, but in terms of how it is bound, each juan is further divided into two parts (fascicles).128 Like Jile shijie and Shuji tang jinyue, Cuo zhong cuo has a full complement of paratextual material, albeit material less interesting than for those plays. It was not until Yan Quanyi started writing about Jingju literature that anyone wrote much about Cuo zhong cuo. Even though the author’s penname, Yinghai Mian chizi 瀛海勉痴子 (Mian chizi of Hejian), appears at the beginning of the play proper, and scholars of Chinese theater had already guessed the real name of the person behind that penname back in the 1930s, Yan Quanyi identified him as Zhang Daochang 張道昌, author of one of the paratextual pieces (which refers to the author in the third person). Two scholars, Di Xiaoping 邸 曉平 and Huang Yishu 黃義樞, not only have since verified independently the author’s name and published some basic information about him, but Huang has gone further and shown that Jin was a grand-nephew of the famous Ji Yun 紀昀 (1724–1805),129 who oversaw the Siku quanshu project and the editing of the abstracts for the books included in it (and is a major cultural figure with his own TV miniseries). That the author served as a prefect should be clear from the play’s paratextual material, but Di and Huang have provided other details, including Ji’s never having got further in the civil service examinations than becoming a stipendiary student ( jiansheng 監生).130 The first breakthrough in tracking Ji down was the same for both scholars: following a clue in the paratextual material that the playwright had written another book, Chishuo 痴說 events of the play but also as an elder contemporary of the audience, while the Cuo zhong cuo fumo presents himself and the story of the play as of the Song dynasty, at a remove from the audience. Another difference is that the fumo in Cuo zhong cuo can be understood to speak as the actor who plays both the prologue figure and a character in the play, Zhan Qingyu 湛清宇 (adding in the prologue that he is grateful no one in the audience last night recognized him). Another difference between the Cuo zhong cuo prologue and those of most chuanqi plays, including Taohua shan, is that the former conveys no real idea at all of the play’s plot, which is so over-complicated that it would be difficult to summarize without just being embarrassing. For a summary of the play, see Zeng Bairong, ed., Jingju jumu cidian, pp. 765–66 (nothing very useful is said about the source text being summarized, beyond the fact that it is held by Zhongguo Xiqu Xueyuan). 128 Each of the four parts has its own separate pagination; page citations will ignore this fact, all that need be kept in mind is that the breaks come between scenes 10 and 11, 18 and 19, and 28 and 29. 129 Huang Yishu, “Cuo zhong cuo zuozhe kaobian,” p. 262. 130 Huang Yishu, “Cuo zhong cuo zuozhe kaobian,” pp. 260–62, and Di Xiaoping 邸曉平, “Cuo zhong cuo zuozhe kao” 錯中錯作者考 (On the author of Cuo zhong cuo), Zhongguo gudian yu wenhua 中國古典與文化 (The Chinese classics and culture) 2011.1: 30.

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(Crazy sayings). This is a collection of quotes published in 1821 by the same publisher as the play, which has an author’s preface and eighteen colophons by other writers.131 The cover of Cuo zhong cuo only gives the date of its printing (1829), the title, and the holder of the woodblocks. Nothing is said about the genre of the play, its author, or whether it has commentary. The paratextual material, in the order in which it appears, is (1) a preface by Guo Bintu 郭彬圖 dated 1829;132 (2) an introductory note, “Xiaoyin” 小引, by Zhang Daochang; (3) a section, “Tici” 題詞, containing commemorative poems and prose pieces by Xiong Taizhan 熊太占, Zhou Daoli 周道立, Huang Boxuan 黃伯暄, Zhou Dong­ xing 周東星, and Ying Xijie 應錫介; (4) a random note, “Ouzhi” 偶識, by the author; (5) a character list, “Cuo zhong cuo zhengza jiaose” 錯中錯正雜腳色 (Characters of Cuo zhong cuo arranged according to major and minor roles);133 (6) the table of contents, “Chuduan zongmu” 齣段總目;134 (7) a colophon by Zeng Shourui 曾守銳; and (8) a colophon by Ying Xijie dated to the year of 131 Huang Yishu, “Cuo zhong cuo zuozhe kaobian,” pp. 259–60, writes of a source that attributes another play, Zhikan ji 芝龕記 (The sesame altar box), to Ji Yintian, but he found no evidence to corroborate that idea and instead speculates that what might be behind the reference is that Ji Yintian revised a play of the same title by another author. On the author of a known play of this title, of which a printing from 1752 exists, see Guo Yingde, Ming Qing chuanqi zonglu, pp. 953–56. 132 This preface refers to the author as “Mr. Yintian” 蔭田先生 and identifies the play as a chuanqi. It quotes the author as referring to his play as a “playful work” (youxi zhi zuo 游 戲之作), but refutes this by claiming that “everything [the author] has said in his entire life has been about the manners and morals of the time” 凡平生吐屬悉有關於世道人 心; Guo further stresses the length of Ji’s official career (forty years) and explicitly rejects the idea that the play can be “looked at as a playful work of brush and ink” 以筆墨游戲 目之. 133 The male characters, in order of importance, are listed in an upper register, and the female ones in a lower one; role-types are given for each. In cases where a role-type appears more than once, it is prefixed by “another” (you 又). At the end of each list are unnamed supernumerary characters, listed in groups of indeterminate number. This document is a little reminiscent of the list of characters for Taohua shan drawn up by its author, “Taohua shan gangling” 桃花扇綱領 (The warp and weft of Taohua shan), but the latter uses a number of parameters in a very interesting fashion while the Cuo zhong cuo list is rather simple yet still rather opaque (is the zheng/za contrast really as simple as the difference between major versus minor characters, as appears to be the case?). 134 The use of both chu and duan is intriguing. The latter is sometimes used as a substitute for chu or chang to mean “scene,” but also is used to indicate parts of a play that include more than one scene. It is possible that it is just filler here, useful for turning chu into a two-character phrase. Also of interest is the listing of the scenes in the first half ( juan shang 卷上) in an upper register and those in the second half ( juan xia 卷下) in a lower register, as this visually shows how symmetrical this aspect of play’s structure is.

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printing.135 None of the paratextual pieces address the fact that the play was written for a non-prestigious theatrical genre. It is only in Guo’s preface that we learn the name of the commentator, Xu Xiyun 徐西雲. Xu’s commentary includes marginal comments (meipi 眉批), interlineal comments ( jiapi 夾批) to the right of the passage they comment on, and extensive post-scene comments (one for Scene 18, the last scene of the first half, is eight half-pages long and primarily concerned with identifying segments [zhi 支, duan 段], a big concern in fiction commentary, in that first half).136 As with the commentary on Jile shijie, the influence of fiction pingdian commentary is strong and the play is treated as a written narrative rather than a playscript.137 Of those who contributed paratextual material and commentary other than Ji himself, we know that Guo Bintu, Zeng Shourui, and Xu Xiyun were holders of the metropolitan jinshi degree and Xiong Taizhan of the provincial juren 舉人 degree.138 In Cuo zhong cuo, neither the arias nor the dialogue are indented; the two are the same size and distinguished from each other by putting the former in bold. While the paratextual material lacks all punctuation, in the play there is both regular punctuation and emphatic punctuation (commas or dots to the right of characters or sequences of characters that the commentator or editor wants the reader to pay attention to); both are absent from the editions of Jile shijie and Shuji tang jinyue examined above. The stage directions in Cuo zhong cuo are in smaller characters printed to the right in a column. They are generally short and uninteresting but can include somewhat psychological descriptions of a character that are a little reminiscent of the kind that occur in huaju playscripts written under the influence of European playwrights such as Ibsen. 135 This colophon ends with some description of the author and his writings and then turns to the play, from which Ying thinks readers “can get an idea of the author as a person” 亦 可想見先生之為人矣. He concludes with a rhetorical question: “Who says it is [but] a chuanqi?” 傳奇云乎哉. Wu Yuhua, ed., Zhongguo gudai xiqu xuba ji, does not include anything from the edition, but Cai Yi, ed., Zhongguo gudian xiqu xuba huibian, pp. 2241– 48, includes items 4, 1, 2, 7, 8, and 3 (in this order). Items 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, and 8 are included in Fu Jin, ed., Jingju lishi wenxian huibian: Qingdai juan, 7: 407–13. 136 See “chih” and “tuan” (zhi and duan in pinyin) in “Appendix I: Finding List of Terminology Used by Chinese Fiction Critics,” in David L. Rolston, ed., How to Read the Chinese Novel (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), pp. 344 and 353, respectively. 137 Zhang Yonggan, “Qingdai xiqu pingdian shilun,” p. 162, says of the commentary to this play, “In the eyes of Mr. Xu, Cuo zhong cuo is not arias, and it also is not a play, but instead ‘writing’ pure and simple. Even if there is a comparatively creative aspect in the structure of the play as a play, that cannot arouse his interest as a commentor” 徐氏眼中, 錯中錯 不是曲, 亦不是戲, 而是地地道道的 ‘文’, 即使較有創新意義的文體結構也不能引 起他的評點興趣. As an example of “a creative aspect,” Zhang mentions the imitation of Taohua shan’s prologue in the “Kaichang,” about which Xu is silent. 138 See Huang Yishu, “Cuo zhong cuo zuozhe kaobian,” pp. 258 and 262.

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For example, when the villain, Mao Anfu, first takes the stage, a stage direction reads: “Mao Anfu, with powder-white face make-up and flattering attitude, with pretended refinement and wearing Confucian robe and headgear, swaggers onto the stage” 毛安附, 粉臉諂態, 假斯文, 儒服巾, 搖擺上 (Scene 1, p. 2a). In the stage directions, the verbs chang and bai are not used, and characters are referred to not by role-type but by name, in full form at first entrance and abbreviated form after that. There are no indications of musical mode or ariatype, and scenes always begin on a recto half-page. Many of these last features are shared with Jile shijie and the plays in Shuji tang jinyue. Cuo zhong cuo does not appear to have had much of a stage life; my comments on it should make it pretty clear that it was written more for readers than for the stage. That Yan Quanyi could believe that only one copy of the play is extant, while just plain wrong, might still be said to point toward its limited circulation and reputation. It does not help that this edition does not manage to present the play as interesting in a way that would get someone’s attention (there is nothing like Guanju daoren’s claim to be raising the literary quality of a despised theatrical genre or Yu Zhi’s claim to have produced plays that could transform the vast illiterate and uneducated population), or that its structure strikes one as overwrought (as any attempt to summarize it makes abundantly clear).139 A manuscript copy of the play was once held by the palace and ended up in the hands of Shang Xiaoyun 尚小雲 (1900–1976),140 but I have not come across any record of it being performed in the palace or of its present location. There is a bangzi play of the same title, but entirely different content and plot.141 139 Huang Yishu, “Cuo zhong cuo zuozhe kaobian,” p. 255, compares the play to Ruan Dacheng’s Chundeng mi, a complicated but quite shallow play. Before Huang, Aying 阿 英 (penname of Qian Xingcun 錢杏邨) and Yan Dunyi 嚴敦易 (1905–1962) made such a comparison, in Aying, “Ba neifu chaoben Cuo zhong cuo chuanqi” 跋內府抄本錯中錯 傳奇 (Colophon written on a palace manuscript of Cuo zhong cuo), Juyi rizha 劇藝日扎 (Daily notes on theatrical arts; Shanghai: Chenguang chuban gongsi, 1951), reproduced in Ke Ling 柯靈, ed., Aying quanji 阿英全集 (Collected works of Aying), 12 vols. (Hefei: Anhui jiaoyu, 2003), 8.270, and Yan Dunyi, “Zuizao de erhuang kanben Cuo zhong cuo” 最 早的二黃刊本錯中錯 (The earliest printed erhuang play, Cuo zhong cuo), Yuan Ming Qing xiqu lunji 元明清戲曲論集 (Essays on Yuan, Ming, and Qing xiqu; Zhengzhou: Zhongzhou shuhua she, 1982), pp. 220–24. Both use an alternate title for Ruan’s play, Shi cuoren 十錯認 (Ten misrecognitions), which Aying claims Cuo zhong cuo’s structure imitates and Yan Dunyi claims was the model for a sequence in it. On Ruan and his play, see Guo Yingde, Ming Qinig chuanqi zonglu, pp. 383–86. 140 See Aying, “Ba neifu chaoben Cuo zhong cuo chuanqi.” This colophon is dated to June 18, 1950. 141 See Zeng Bairong, ed., Jingju jumu cidian, p. 1206, which attributes its “authorship and performance” (bianyan 編演) to Tian Jiyun. A version of this play is included in Xikao (#472) under the alternative title Cu zhong cu 醋中醋 (Jealousy within jealousy),

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Cuo zhong cuo is a very non-specific title, used, for instance, to translate the title of Shakespeare’s A Comedy of Errors. Liangshi yin 兩世因 (Karma over two generations) is an even more obscure example of an early Jingju playscript written by a literatus. It appears to exist in one manuscript copy only.142 It does not have quite the array of paratextual material that the other literati plays discussed above do, but it does have (1) an authorial preface signed Xixin daoren 洗心道人; (2) a colophon dated 1876 and signed by a friend of the author, Wuwu jushi 悟誤居士 (Layperson who is aware of his mistakes), who describes how after being parted with his friend for some years he recently ran into him in Guangzhou, when his official career took him there and the playwright was a private secretary (mu[you] 幕 [友]) to an official in the local salt monopoly administration; and (3) a table of contents that indicates the rhyme-categories and musical or performance modes for each of the scenes (not numbered or labeled chu in this document, but so designated at the ends of the scenes themselves).143 manuscript copy written out on pre-lined paper dated to 1887 is included in Su wenxue congkan, 344: 33–73. Scans of three different typeset versions, all using the title Cuo zhong cuo and all following the Xikao text, are available in the Sōkōdō collection. All three were published together with some other plays. The covers of two of these publications label the plays as bangzi qiang, and give the impression they are particularly associated with Xiao Cuihua because photos of him in costume and identified by name appear on them. For those two versions, Cuo zhong cuo is given top billing on the cover and appears before the other plays. One cover refers to Beijing and the other to Beiping (the change was made in 1928, both were probably published not long before or after that year). The covers claim that the texts are “true” (zhen 真) or “standard” (zhun 準). 142 That copy was owned by Wu Xiaoling and has been photo-reprinted in Wu Shuyin, ed., Suizhong Wu-shi cang chaoben gaoben xiqu congkan, 34: 259–376. 143 See ibid., pp. 277–78. Of the eighteen scenes, seven are labeled xipi (#1, 3, 7, 12–14, and 16), one is labeled xipi plus fan 反 [inverse] xipi (#15), two are labeled erhuang (#5 and 9), two are labeled fandiao 反調 [inverse] erhuang (#8 and 10), one is labeled erhuang plus xipi (#2), and another is labeled suona 嗩吶 [a reed instrument] erhuang plus xipi (#11). The rest are labeled either shuobai 說白 (dialogue) without any qualifier (#6 and 17), one has the qualifier zhanchang 戰場 [battlefield], #4) and another has the qualifier zashua 雜耍 (variety performances, #18). As might be expected, there are no rhyme-categories listed for these four scenes. The annotation for Scene 9, the last scene of what we expect is the play’s first half (unlike the other chuanqi plays discussed above, the two halves are not demarcated through how the play is bound or divided into juan), indicates that the same rhyme-category is used twice, the second time modified by the character xiao 小 (minor). The same kind of information is given for each scene on its first page. In the case of Scene 9, we are also told that in between the two sections using the same rhymecategory, a rhythmic style of presentation unaccompanied by melodic instruments is used, shu[ban] 數[板] (counted-out measures; a term more often used in shuochang genres than in Jingju, which prefers ganban 乾板 [“dry” measures]). It is not very clear

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While some of the plays discussed above have, in the paratextual material, indicated the source for the play, Liangshi yin is unique for not only pointing out the source, but also quoting it verbatim as the first item after the title page,144 and takes up a fair amount of space (pp. 1a–5a [260–69]). The source is labeled “Stone Lion Alley” (“Shishi xiang” 石獅巷), from a collection titled Jixiang hua 吉祥花 (Auspicious flowers). The playwright’s preface begins by lamenting how the original purpose of theater was to “lead people to go toward goodness and avoid evil” 導人趨善避惡, but this function has been forgotten in favor of performing what is “new, strange, or exciting” (xin qi renao 新奇熱鬧) and even lewd or violent (yin luan 淫亂), leaving out or hurrying through the part of a play where “retribution” (guobao 果報) is apportioned. The author relates how, when reading a “morality book” (quanshan shu 勸善書) named Jixiang hua, he came across “Stone Lion Alley.” That story tells the origins of a shrine to Cai Douyuan, a traveling merchant who finds out, with the help of a deity named Stone Lion who can assume that form, that his numerous troubles in this life are caused by the harm he did to many people in his past life, and what will save him from that bad karma is performing good works. After a number of adventures in which he does good and becomes rich, Cai brings the stone lion back with him to his hometown, where the deity occasionally reveals itself. The story proper ends with the claim that a festival in honor of Stone Lion was still celebrated there in the beginning of the Daoguang reign period (1821–1850). The author says that it was traveling to the locality and inquiring into the truth of the story that persuaded him to turn it into a play (earlier in the preface he had already claimed that theater was better than morality books because the audience for the second had to be literate but even women and why the rhyme-category for the second half of the scene is “small.” In “classical” Chinese theater (i.e., zaju and chuanqi), the same rhyme-category was supposed to be used for all arias that comprised the backbone of either the zhe 折 (act) in zaju or chu 齣 (scene) of chuanqi (the rules for chuanqi were less strict, in that some chuanqi scenes are made up of two song-suites that use different rhyme-categories). Song-suites are not used in Jingju, but different aria types can be combined in sequence to create effects similar to those created by song-suites; the “rules” are certainly more flexible (to the disgust of the stereotypical fan of Kunqu). 144 The title page, besides the title (which includes the label quanguanchuan 全貫串), has text written on it that begins “This text was not easy to get, if it does not meet up with someone who knows its worth I will not let it out of my hands” 此本得之不易, 不遇試家不可釋 手. Either because of wear or because the ink was originally light, the rest of the message is not easy to decipher, so it is not clear whether the holder of the manuscript is hoping to get a good price for it or to find someone who will put it to good purposes. The label quanguanchuan was probably not added by the original author but by the same person who wrote this note on the same title page; interestingly enough, whether or not the plot is “well strung together” (guanchuan 貫串) is a major concern in the playwright’s preface.

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children [the proverbially illiterate] could understand the first). The rest of the author’s preface is basically a defense, in a rather amazing amount of detail, of all the filling in (e.g., naming characters who are unnamed in the source story) he had to do in the process of turning the story into a play. In Cuo zhong cuo the source is labeled the “original text” (yuanwen 原文). Its author of is not mentioned in the playscript, but only a little bit of research is necessary to come to the conclusion that he was Shao Binru 卲彬儒, who not only wrote a collection of moral tales titled Jixiang hua that contains “Stone Lion Alley,” but also wrote five such works.145 There is a copy of a woodblock edition of Shao’s Jixiang hua with a preface not by the author dated 1870 and held at Harvard, which was scanned for the HathiTrust project. A comparison of the format of the story in that edition with the version in Liangshi yin shows that the latter carefully reproduces the original story, even, mostly, the number of characters per line and where they fall in each line. This is true not only for the narrative account of the story, but also for the indented appended comments that point out, at some length, the moral of the story.146 As mentioned above, Xixin daoren and Wuwu jushi ran into each other again in Guangzhou. Jixiang hua is strongly focused on Guangdong, the province where Guangzhou is located. Jixiang hua has a fanli whose first item proclaims that the material in the collection represents “instances of [good people] obtaining good fortune” (huofu zhi shi 獲福之事), which the compiler and commentator, Shao Binru, obtained from either books or genealogies or his own eyes or ears. As a reason for restricting the material to Guangzhou,147 145 On Shao and his career, see He Dan 賀丹, “Shao Binru quanshan xiaoshuo yanjiu” 卲彬儒 勸善小說研究 (A study of the didactic fiction of Shao Binru), master’s thesis, Nanchang University, 2014. He Dan relates how Shao gave up studying for the civil service exams to travel about and present lectures on the Sacred Edict (p. 18). For information on Shao’s five collections of stories and extant editions of them, see pp. 18–27 ( Jixiang hua is covered on pp. 22–24). The first and third ( Jixiang hua) of the five collections can be dated to 1870, while the fifth was printed in 1872. 146 Each line of characters is exactly the same for two half-pages, off by one character for the next three half pages, exactly the same for the following two half-pages, off by one character in the same direction as before for another half-page, and off by one character in the opposite direction for the rest of the narrative. The appended comments are reproduced with exactly the same characters, indentation, and number of characters per line as the original. 147 The HathiTrust scan is confusing. The book was bound into four fascicles: the first contains the front matter and first juan, the second contains juan 2 and 3, the third contains only juan 4, and the last contains juan 5 and 6. The fascicles were scanned in the opposite order (from number four to number one). The front matter, for example, begins on p. 258 of the scan, and “Stone Lion Alley” on p. 126. Item 5 of the fanli relates that the composition of the book occurred in 1870 and only took seven months; item 6 is about the

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the second item claims that it is only when the place where the events happened is close by that what one can see or hear about them is “comparatively accurate” ( jiaoque 較確). We have seen above that what the playwright found most appealing about “Stone Lion Alley” was how its content was backed up by locals when he went to visit the setting of the story. In long comments in his preface about how he adapted the story as a play, Xixin daoren shows an attitude that smacks, in its own way, of “evidentiary research” (kaoju xue 考據學), something that also flavors Jixiang hua in general and “Stone Lion Alley” itself. The playwright and Shao Binru share the hope that stories such as this one will help transform the hearts and minds of the people for the better.148 Wuwu jushi reveals that Xixin daoren is surnamed Wang and that he is from Xijin 析津, which can be another name for Beijing. Guangdong province had its own variety of traditional theater forms (including one that is a musical “cousin” to Jingju in that it uses the same basic musical modes, xipi and erhuang), but the stage directions to Liangshi yin show a greater familiarity with Jingju than any of the literati playscripts we have looked at in this chapter so far, and perhaps this is related to the possibility that Xixin daoren grew up in Beijing. It is clear that the playscript was written for an audience whose dialect still used the “entering tone” (rusheng 入聲) that had long dropped out of Mandarin and, unlike Kunqu or Cantonese opera, is not part of the prosody of Jingju.149 Among the playscripts examined in this chapter, Liangshi yin is the first to indicate musical modes and aria-types. Besides the table of contents, which gives the musical modes used in each scene, that information is repeated at the beginning of each scene and often made clear again when each aria comes up within the scene. The simple designations of xipi (used for seven scenes) and erhuang (used for two scenes) are supplemented by inverse or otherwise special versions of them (four scenes). For someone familiar with comments appended to each story, and item 7 indicates that the woodblocks for the edition were paid for by donations by members of a charitable society (which is reminiscent of how Yu Zhi’s plays were published), gives the location where a set of the woodblocks is stored, and offers their loan to anyone who would like to increase the dissemination of the stories. 148 Xixin daoren modestly says in his preface that even if his play is performed (literally, “scored for music and song” [pu yi xian ge 譜以弦歌]), “it will not necessarily be able to transform local customs and manners” 未必易俗移風, but Wuwu jushi affirms that the play will have precisely this effect. 149 Scene 14, p. 349, has an extended marginal comment that explains that rhyme words in this scene such as de, bao, and he 德薄和 need to be read with a level tone as in local Beijing speech to rhyme properly. This instruction is repeated in small-character annotations after the three characters listed, and given after each of two further instances of the first of them (see pp. 350 and 351).

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the quite different sound palates of xipi versus erhuang, knowing that an aria is in one of those musical modes rather than the other is very useful information. When it comes to the aria-types used for each aria, the stage directions in the playscript cover an interesting spectrum that ranges from highly specific to fairly flexible. For instance, one aria-type, man erliu 慢二六 (slow twosix meter),150 which is good for narrative recounting of past events that the audience is already aware of, is specified twice in the playscript in full detail (Scenes 14, p. 350 and 15, p. 359), whereas in the case of other arias, spaces or open black circles might be left between the musical mode, if it is given,151 and before the word “meter” (ban 板);152 such spaces can also be left where information about number of main beats (ban 板) and supplementary beats (yan 眼) per measure might be given153 the purpose behind doing this seems to be to give the reader or performer a certain amount of freedom, within certain parameters, when selecting from the possible aria-types.154 Jingju arias are typically constructed from couplets in which the first line ends with a certain amount of musical suspense that is resolved in the second line. When the second line of a couplet (or the last line of an aria) is delayed or sung by a different character, the stage directions in the play often designate that line as a “concluding line” (weiju 尾句; e.g., Scene 1, p. 285155), a useful bit of information rarely explicitly indicated in Jingju stage directions. 150 Wichmann, Listening to Theatre, provides detailed musical analysis, using cipher notation ( jianpu 簡譜), for almost all of the aria-types used in Jingju. Translation of aria-type names in this book mostly follow her translations with some adaptations (e.g., I use “twosix meter” instead of her “two-six-meter”). For a comparative chart of the major aria types that are metered, see Wichmann, Listening to Theatre, Figure 7, p. 66. She does not provide a similar chart for the free meter aria-types but does discuss them as a group (pp. 67–71). Guy, Peking Opera and Politics in Taiwan, Table 2, pp. 173–74, following Wichmann’s translation of the aria-type names, does provide in the same table comparative material on both metered and non-metered forms, divided according to musical mode. Both Wichmann and standard works on Jingju music such as Liu Jidian 劉吉典, Jingju yinyue gailun 京劇音樂概論 (An overview of Jingju music; Beijing: Renmin yinyue, 1981), provide examples to show the differences between the way different role-types sing the same aria-type. On the difference between man erliu and kuai 快 (fast) erliu, see Wichmann, Listening to Theatre, p. 64. 151 In the playscript, in scenes where is it obvious which musical mode is being used (e.g., it has been specified at the beginning of the scene as being the same throughout the scene), then the musical mode can be left out when an aria-type is being specified in the stage directions (e.g., Scene 1, p. 285). 152 The majority of aria-type names end with the word ban. 153 For an early example, see Scene 2, p. 286. 154 Similarly, stage directions describing actions to be done on stage often provide alternatives, typically prefixed by “or” (huo 或). An example is given below. 155 Moju 末句 (last line) is used with the same meaning once (Scene 15, p. 361).

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The stage directions in the manuscript of Liangshi yin are quite detailed, particularly in the case of the supernatural battle sequence in Scene 4.156 Besides giving information about costume and make-up,157 they can also describe how props and scenery should be set up (she 設) on stage before the characters appear,158 or how the stage should be cleared at the end of the play (p. 375). Stage directions are written in double-column small-characters, while both aria text and dialogue are written the same size and neither is in bold.159 Stage 156 This is the scene described as a “battlefield” in the table of contents (and at the beginning of the scene). The stage directions indicate that the action includes forward and backward somersaults ( jindou/dao jindou 金斗/倒金斗; e.g., pp. 301–302), somersaults of your own choosing (suiyi jindou 隨意金斗) over a table on stage (p. 302), and “spitting of water” (penshui 噴水; p. 302). 157 The stage directions give a strong sense of the passing of time between some of the scenes by explicitly saying how the main character moves from not wearing a beard (bu gua ran 不掛髯; Scene 1, p. 279) to wearing a black beard (Scene 5, p. 307), then finally a mixed black and white beard (huabai ran 花白髯; Scene 15, p. 358), all without changing his role-type. The advancing age of the main character’s mother, played by a laodan actor, is shown not only through changes in her hair from black (Scene 1, p. 286) to mixed black and white (Scene 5, p. 307) to white (Scene 15, p. 356), but also by having her first appear “not leaning on a cane” (bu fu zhang 不扶杖) in Scene 2, p. 286), but leaning on one when she appears later (Scene 5, p. 307). In contrast to these changes, and perhaps to help the audience better identify the characters despite them, the stage directions stipulate that the dress of these two characters does not change from scene to scene until the penultimate scene, by which time the main character has risen high in wealth and status, necessitating a costume change (Scene 17, p. 374). 158 The most complicated example appears at the beginning of the first scene (p. 279), which involves a “false mountain” ( jiashan 假山) on whose summit five or six people can stand (these turn out to be supernatural creatures) and which is hollow inside (that functionality is made use of on p. 282). The precise moment when the false mountain should be removed, which occurs shortly before the scene ends, is noted in a stage direction using the verb che 撤 (to remove; p. 285; this verb occurs often in palace playscripts). Other examples of stage directions using she 設 involve a piece of furniture (ligui 立櫃; Scene 2, p. 289) for storing things and for setting up a bed with curtains (Scene 9, p. 322). Scene 8 makes use of a hollow stone lion that can hold a person (p. 317). In Scene 14 a curtain (weiman 圍幔) blocks the audience’s view while a dirt hillock made from cloth, with one of two described mechanical options for revealing “gold” concealed within it, is set up mid-scene. The stage directions also indicate how the gold, while being taken from the two vessels it is buried in, can be transformed into “five poisonous insects” (wu duchong 五毒蟲) by pulling hidden triggers (pp. 351–52). 159 There appears to be at least one example of the bolding of characters (more difficult to do consistently in a manuscript than a printed text) to distinguish how text should be performed, in the yinzi of the main character at his first appearance (p. 279). In Jingju, yinzi are reserved for important characters (in terms of dramatic import or status or both); the first part of a yinzi is typically recited, while the final part is sung to a set, meterless, melody. It is this second part that appears to have been purposely bolded here (in a

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directions are relied upon to make clear what in the text is spoken in dialogue, what is recited as poetry, and what is sung as aria. There are places where minor characters are allowed to ad-lib (e.g., Scene 1, p. 283, sui bai 隨白 [talk as you will]) and choices are sometimes offered (e.g., the stage directions say that the number of parcels of silver to be taken out on stage can be either five or [huo 或] ten, Scene 1, p. 284). It is not rare to find, in the stage directions, technical terms whose literal meaning is misleading (e.g., fugui yi 富貴衣, clothes of wealth and honor; an auspicious name for a patched beggar’s robe in Jingju parlance; see Scenes 3, p. 291, and 11, p. 331).160 Lists of the role-types that appear in each scene are given at the beginning of it. That is surely helpful to reader and performer alike, but would be more useful if the characters’ names were also given. In the stage directions, characters are referred to by their role-types only, which is not very convenient for the reader but was standard practice for playscripts. A rather unusual amount of attention is devoted in the stage directions to the manipulation of portable objects on stage; these can even include having an object be turned over to a prop man ( jianchang) on stage (e.g., Scene 1, p. 280 [involving a travel trunk]). Sound effects are described in more detail than is common, and can also indicate who makes them (i.e., changshang 場上161 [the orchestra; which would be on stage]; e.g., Scene 1, p. 281). Liangshi yin has some commentary, but it is not attributed to anyone and is both rare and very practical in orientation. There are only a few marginal comments; a couple of them are just phonetic annotation (e.g., Scene 12, p. 340) and a longer one is on rhyme (Scene 14, p. 349). Most of the comments are doublecolumn small-character interlineal annotations that typically either make clear the pronunciation of the character they follow, point out puns, or indicate that the character used is a different orthography for a supposedly more familiar, one. A traditional method for distinguishing alternate pronunciations manuscript, every time the brush has been dipped in ink the characters written first are darker, but that does not likely explain the bolding in this instance). 160 The young men who wear these robes in Jingju are played by xiaosheng actors and are characters who are only temporarily poor (they are destined to achieve high status). The second character to wear such a robe in Liangshi yin fits this description, but not the first one, who is of permanently low status and played by a chou actor. Some details not typically found in later playscripts include directing the actor to block his face from view when first entering the stage, then dropping the sleeve to reveal the face dramatically (most commonly done with painted-face characters; zhemian 遮面; e.g., Scene 4, pp. 299–300), or pointing out that a character is not entering or exiting by the usual door (daoshang/daoxia 倒上/倒下; e.g., Scene 4, p. 297). 161 In the stage directions, the same phrase, changshang, seems to have its literal meaning (on the stage; e.g., when the onstage “bed” is removed [che] in Scene 9, p. 323).

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of the same character, putting a small circle at the corner of the character that is associated with the tone contour to be used, is found in Liangshi yin,162 the only instance in a Jingju playscript with which I am familiar. Whereas some play texts mentioned above elevate a word to the beginning of the next line to show respect, that happened primarily in the paratextual items. In the manuscript of Liangshi yin the same kind of respect is indicated by leaving a blank space before the word to be honored. In other texts it is more common for words related to the emperor and his government to be so honored, but in Liangshi yin it is deities such as the Jade Emperor, Heaven, or even the Stove God, that are, in both the paratextual material and the dialogue or arias. Although Liangshi yan is divided into eighteen named scenes, which is reminiscent of the structure of a chuanqi play, it is not otherwise similar to that dramatic form. For example, there is no prologue scene, and the final scene does not try to do the things that the final scene does in a chuanqi play. Instead that scene attempts to present an instance of the celebrations for the official birthday of the Stone Lion, mentioned as still happening in the recent past in “Stone Lion Alley.”163 162 For instance, the character cháng 長, read with that pronunciation, means “long,” but read with the alternative pronunciation of zhǎng means “elder.” In the dianfa 點發 system (see Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual: Fourth Edition, “70.9 Punctuation,” p. 927), a dot or a small circle is placed at the upper left corner of a character to show that the character should be read with the rising tone (third tone of modern Mandarin; the lower left corner is used for the (two) level tones, the upper right for the departing tone, and lower right for the entering tone). For an example of the character chang annotated in Liangshi yin to be read zhǎng, see Scene 14, p. 351. For readily available examples of this use of dianfa, see any edition of James Legge’s The Chinese Classics that includes the Chinese texts. This system was also used in Japan to indicate the tonal pronunciation of all characters (as opposed to just alternative pronunciations). For a reproduction of the first page of such a text published in 1727 by Okajima Kanzen 岡島冠山 (1674–1728), which notes “the four tones of each character are indicated by dots” and gives the Chinese characters for the four tones (ping, shang, qu, ru 平上去入) in a box showing which corner of a character represents which tone, see Peter F. Kornicki, Languages, Scripts, and Chinese Texts in East Asia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), Fig. 3.5 (p. 97). 163 No characters who appeared previously in the play appear in this scene; those who take part are presumably members of local charitable and religious societies who support the celebration. The master of ceremonies is played by a chou actor; the rest, of no specified number but simply referred to as zhongren 眾人 (the crowd), are played by za actors; all are said to be wearing “ordinary dress” (bianyi 便衣). After initial greetings and burning of incense, the “master of ceremonies” calls the performers to begin. The stage directions describe the acts to be performed as “variety acts” (shijin zashua 十錦雜耍) but allow considerable freedom as to what is to be performed and how much, even stating that it need not include lion dances. After the performances are over, the crowd is ushered off

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A lot of care went into the production of the manuscript of Liangshi yin. Both the playwright and his friend who contributed a colophon were hopeful that the play would be performed, but it appears to have been no more successful on the stage than the other Jingju plays written by literati examined in this chapter.164 The problem seems to have been a lack of connection with actors and an inability or unwillingness to write the kind of play that they would want to perform and audiences would want to see. Xixin daoren seems to have been from Beijing and the stage directions in his play show the highest level of understanding of Jingju among these early literati playwrights, but living in Guangzhou isolated him from the centers of Jingju stage creativity in the nineteenth century.165 We can compare these literati playwrights who had no real connections in the theater world to Li Zhongyu 李仲豫 (also known by his courtesy name, Yuru 毓如; 1859–c. 1930), an eccentric individual known both for his plays166 and for his painting and calligraphy.167 He has been described as “one of the Qing dynasty Jingju playwrights whose plays have been preserved in the most complete manner and who was well known to later people” 留存劇本最完整, 最為後人熟知的清代京劇作家之一.168

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stage to go enjoy refreshments. The stage directions conclude by calling for the cleaning of the stage ( jingchang 凈場) by the prop men ( jian 檢) and the statement “This is what is called Liangshi yin” 此之謂兩世因. Reference works on the repertoire of Jingju do not mention Liangshi yin. A play with this title is mentioned by Li Liangcai 李良才 (1860–1932), co-founder of the famous and longlived Yisu She 易俗社 (Society to Change Social Customs; founded 1912), in his “Zhenbie jiuxi cao” 甄別舊戲草 (Distinguishing old plays, a draft), published in 1917 in the periodical published by Yisu She, Yisu she zazhi 易俗社雜志. In that article Liangshi yin is placed, along with around sixty other plays, in Li’s category of “plays about monsters and anomalies” (guaiyi xi 怪異戲), a category of plays whose social effects he is not very pleased with. The article is reproduced in Zhongguo xiqu zhi: Shaanxi juan 中國戲曲 志: 陝西卷 (A record of Chinese traditional theater: Shaanxi volume; Beijing: Zhongguo ISBN zhongxin, 1995), pp. 819–21 (the list of plays occurs on p. 820). As was the case with Yu Zhi, one can imagine that the very conservative ideology and strongly superstitious content of Liangshi yin would be an impediment to wide circulation, regardless of its possible strong appeal to certain types of people. For an example of how a play by a literatus, Liang Juchuan, was performed by a bangzi troupe through the agency of the newspaper it was first serialized in, see chapter 1 (where Liang’s apologies for not understanding music or blocking are quoted). See, for instance, Yan Quanyi, Qingdai Jingju wenxue shi, pp. 354–66. See, for instance, Lü Houlong 呂厚龍 and Wu Gansheng 吳贛生, “Daya dasu Li Yuru” 大 雅大俗李毓如 (The greatly refined and greatly vulgar Li Yuru), Zhonghua wenhua huabao 中華文化畫報 (Chinese culture pictorial) 2012.7: 106–111, which reproduces many examples of Li’s paintings, calligraphy, and seal carving. Yan Quanyi, Qingdai Jingju wenxue shi, p. 354.

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Li was from Yangzhou, and when he was quite young his father was a district magistrate. At eleven years of age Li moved to Beijing, where he became enamoured with the theater and actors. His father bought him an official post, secretary in the Board of War, but before long he lost it because “when at work he always had a playscript in hand, thinking about stage blocking and weighing different rhetorical choices” 公務之中, 常手執劇本, 構思排場, 推敲詞句.169 He is best known for the serial play he wrote for Yu Yuqin 余玉琴 (1867–1939), a dramatization of the novel Ernü yingxiong zhuan 兒女英雄傳 (Heroic lovers; c. 1850), by the Beijing bannerman Wenkang 文康. His was an adaptation of an earlier version, but Li’s version was a great success and two of the eight installments continue to be performed today.170 The character in the play that Yu played combined several formerly separate role-types.171 Wang Yaoqing 王瑤卿 (1881–1954), universally recognized for how he revolutionized the performance of female roles. began by playing the more straightforward qingyi role in the play, but eventually made the role that Yu played his signature role. Li Zhongyu was not only good at writing plays for specific actors (for a time he resided with Yu Yuqing), but also good at collaborating (his version of Ernü yingxiong zhuan was written in collaboration with Hu Henian 胡鶴年, son of a famous dan actor, Hu Xilai 胡喜祿 [1827–1890]).172 Li Zhongyu appears as a character in Chen Moxiang’s Huoren daxi 活人大 戲 (Living actor big plays; on this novel see chapter 5). He is first mentioned in passing, primarily as a holder of the second highest civil service degree ( juren) and author of the serial play Ernü yingxiong zhuan (p. 3.13). He then appears in the title couplet for chapter 5 and is introduced more fully by the narrator. 169 Ma Shaobo et al., eds., Zhongguo Jingju shi, 1: 578. 170 These are Yuelai dian 悅來店 (Yuelai Inn; not in Xikao) and Nengren si 能仁寺 (Nengren Temple; not in Xikao). 171 Ma Shaobo et al., eds., Zhongguo Jingju shi, 1: 578. 172 Yan Quanyi, Qingdai Jingju wenxue shi, p. 354. Fu Xihua 傅惜華, “Pihuang juben zuozhe caomu” 皮黃劇本作者草目 (A draft list of the authors of pihuang plays), Dagong bao 大 公報, “Jutan” 劇壇 (Forum on theater) column, serialized from April 9 to June 18, 1935 and reprinted in Wang Wenzhang, ed., Fu Xihua xiqu luncong, p. 365, lists three of Li Zhongyu’s plays as collaborations with Hu, whom Fu reports was too short and fat to be an actor and became a doctor instead. Jishui 吉水 (see below), “Jin bainian lai pihuang juben zuojia” 近百年來皮黃劇本作家 (Pihuang playwrights of the last one hundred years), Juxue yuekan 3.10 (1934): 1–13, reprinted in Zhongguo jindai wenxue lunwen ji: Xiju juan 1919–1949, pp. 373–93, lists Hu Henian separately, in the category of actor-playwrights (p. 10, lower register, Juxue yuekan version) and notes that Hu was a doctor but was “actually an actor” (shi ling ye 實伶也), adding that because he was short and fat his father did not make him “join a troupe” (ru ban 入班). Jishui lists three elementary texts that Hu was able to read and notes that “thirty years ago that was enough to crow about among actors” 三十年前 梨園中足以自雄.

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We find out that when his father was prefect of a prefecture not too far from Beijing, he helped Tan Xinpei evade arrest by hiding him in his residence; this is said to have happened when Li Zhongyu was ten years old. We are told that Li knows more actors than Tan Xinpei alone and is on the best terms with Yu Yuqin, and that when a high official wanted to pay a return call he searched all over in the places where officials usually live but in the end found out that Li is living with Yu Yuqin (pp. 5.24–25). On the day that the narrative describes, Chen Moxiang’s uncle has brought him to the theater and Li Zhongyu shows up and is introduced. When Li is asked what plays he is writing now he responds that Yu Yuqin and his troupe premiered a play that he wrote in the spring and he is working on another play that will star Yu (p. 5.25). Li and the uncle converse a while, the theater program ends, and everyone goes their separate ways. The main point seems to be just that Li Zhongyu is on very close terms with actors (a point that Chen continually makes in this novel with reference to himself). Under a penname, Li Zhongyu also wrote a very short huapu (flower roster) that evaluates twenty child actors, with a preface dated to 1898.173 In any case, in Li Zhongyu we have a literati playwright who is successful at writing plays for actors because he knows them well and writes specifically with them in mind.174 This is very different from the literati playwrights discussed above (Li was writing several decades after them and will resonate

173 This item, Jubu mingtong shenglu 鞠部明僮勝錄 (Record of winning child actors), written under the penname Liaoran xiansheng 了然先生, is reproduced in Zhang Cixi, ed., Qingdai Yandu liyuan shiliao, pp. 1087–92, a collection that provides very little information about sources and their original format (e.g., the text of an illustrated huapu is given without noting that the original was illustrated). Jubu mingtong shenglu is divided into civil (wen 文) and military (wu 武) sections of ten actors each. For each of the twenty child actors, the same format is used: the actor is identified by studio name and personal name, his age is given, and he is evaluated by a couplet of two four-character lines, the only variation being that the actor at the head of each section gets a quatrain of four-character lines. Since this work is short, one can imagine that the original was in manuscript and flaunted Li Zhongyu’s calligraphic skills. In the preface, Li mentions that he came to the capital more than twenty years ago and has seen his fellow poetry club (she 社) members prosper, while he has been forced to “sell calligraphy and paintings” (yongshu maihua 傭 書賣畫; p. 1087). As is so common with literati writings of this sort, he concludes by saying that it is possible to see the work as no more than “a game” (youxi 游戲). That Li does not seem to have written prefaces for his plays suggests that he saw them as belonging to a different class of writing, one for which prefaces were not appropriate or needed. 174 Yan Quanyi, Qingdai Jingju wenxue shi, p. 357, describes Li Zhongyu’s plays as “typical commercial theater” 典型的商業戲劇 for “urban commoners” 市民百姓 and notes that Li is unusual among amateur Jingju playwrights in that “he practically never uses his plays to show off his literary talent” 幾乎不在劇作裡展示文采 (p. 360).

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with some features of the playwrights we will look at in chapter 5, which will include Chen Moxiang. 3

Early “Ordinary” Actors as Playwrights

Actors need plays to perform, but the kinds of literati playwrights we have just looked at failed to meet the needs of Jingju actors of the second half of the nineteenth century. As for the early repertoire of Jingju, the vast majority of the plays were actually adaptations of Kunqu or bangzi plays, a task that did not represent as great a challenge to ordinary actors as the creation of entirely new plays might have. I am using “ordinary” to distinguish the vast majority of early actors from those who were originally amateur singers of Jingju with a grounding in traditional literature but who later became professional actors and playwrights (one of the subjects below). Ordinary actors got an education that was all about learning how to perform plays and that slighted traditional literature. Even young actors whom literati patronized in Beijing until xianggong were outlawed with the founding of the Republic, many of whom were packaged as refined the way that famous courtesans were, might become accomplished (to a degree) in calligraphy and painting, but not in literary composition. We do not know the details of how early Jingju plays were composed or adapted from other theatrical traditions. To begin with, early Jingju plays were not yet the fixed commodity they would become after they began to be performed in the palace and published, when notions of copyright and performance rights took shape, first in practice, and later (in the twentieth century) in law.175 Early “playwriting” among actors seems to have been largely a collective endeavor, with one person in charge of recording the results (that person and the process of recording were referred to as “wielding the brush” [zhibi 執 筆]). Although the process of putting together plays (daxi 打戲,176 also known as cuanxi 攢戲177) was largely an oral one, the production of a master script 175 These developments will be looked more thoroughly in chapter 4. The question of copyright will become increasingly important as Jingju playwriting became increasingly professional. 176 See Niu Biao 鈕驃, “Xiao Changhua xiansheng mantan ‘daxi’ ” 蕭長華先生漫談 ‘打 戲’ (Mr. Xiao Changhua talks in a leisurely fashion about daxi; dated to 1954), in Xiao Changhua 蕭長華, dictation. Niu Biao 鈕驃, ed., Xiao Changhua xiqu tancong 蕭長華戲 曲談叢 (Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 1980), pp. 134–44. 177 See Zheng Shaorong, Zhongguo chuantong xiqu koutou juben, p. 106 (unlike most other writers, Zheng lists the preparation of the actors’ separate parts as coming before the writing of the master script), and Megan Evans, “The Evolving Role of the Director in Xiqu Innovation,” doctoral thesis, University of Hawai’i, 2003, p. 23.

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(referred to using several terms, of which zongjiang 總講 is most common) was considered very important. These master scripts with all the parts were not to be circulated; the scripts distributed to the actors were restricted literally to their own lines, with only a special symbol that indicated the end of your lines and the need to wait for others on stage to finish theirs before beginning your next line. These single-actor scripts were known by a number of terms of which dantou 單頭 was a common one. The person in control of the main script was the one who “clutched the main script”: bao zongjiang/benzi/zongben de 抱總 講/本子/總本的 (as with zhibi, these terms could refer to both the person or the process; in the case of the latter the de would be left off).178 Recognizing that they themselves were not literate enough to polish texts of the plays to the requisite minimum level, actors enlisted literati to help out with that.179 There are many claims that such and such an actor wrote such and such a play that got no further than the claim itself; to list them all would be of little interest. Instead, I will concentrate on four actor-playwrights: Wang Hongshou 王鴻壽 (1848–1925;180 stage name San mazi 三麻子 [Pockmarked Face the Third]), known for composing his own plays and for specializing in the role of Guan Yu; Xiao Changhua 蕭長華 (1878–1967), equally famous as an educator and as an actor; Wang Yaoqing, known for matching text to music rather than composing text; and Tan Xinpei, known not for performing new plays or for literary skills but for adapting old plays to meet a new style of singing. Of these four, in the three early lists of Jingju playwrights by Jishui 吉水 (might be

178 For bao benzi/zongjiang de, see Evans, “The Evolving Role of the Director,” p. 24; for bao zongben, see Chen Moxiang, Huoren daxi, p. 59.400. Unlike Western theater from at least early modern England on, traditional Chinese theater did not make use of a prompter. Early modern English prompters (also called bookkeepers) monitored performances with a full marked-up copy of the playscript in front of them and had responsibilities that approached those of a director or stage director. They also could play an important role in ushering play texts through the censorship system of the time (i.e., the Master of Revels). See, for instance, Werstine, Early Modern Playhouse Manuscripts, pp. 202–208. Werstine notes that the term “promptbook” appears to date from 1772 (p. 141 n. 1). 179 In Niu Biao, “Xiao Changhua xiansheng mantan ‘daxi,’ ” Xiao is recorded as saying, “In the old society, actors had no opportunity to study, and their cultural level was pitifully low” 在舊社會裡, 藝人得不到念書求學的機會, 文化水平都低得可憐 (p. 134), and those enlisted to help out were “literati who had failed the exams and old pedants” 落第的文 人、老學究們 (p. 135). 180 His birth year is also given as 1850. I follow here the memoir of his student, Li Hongchun, in Liu Songyan, ed. Jingju changtan, p. 36, which also gives 1924 instead of 1925 for his death year. Biographical details about Wang’s early life in the next paragraph also come from this work (pp. 36–42), even though Li can be fuzzy about dates.

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a penname used by Chen Moxiang; 1934), Jiao Juyin 焦菊隱 (1905–1975; 1938), and Fu Xihua 傅惜華 (1907–1970; 1935), only Wang Hongshou, appears.181 None of these four would be considered “ordinary” actors according to the general understanding of that qualifier. Wang Hongshou barely meets my definition, since he was born to a family living in Nantong (a city on the Lower Yangzi) that owned two opera troupes (one that performed Huidiao and another that performed Kunqu) and it was by hanging out with the actors of those troupes that Wang first learned to perform. But when he was still young, his father, an official in charge of grain transport, was indicted in 1863 on charges (most inflated, others partially made up) serious enough that his whole family was ordered to be executed and his estate confiscated. Wang is said to have been the only family member to escape, which he did by hiding in one of the opera troupes’ clothing trunks (yixiang 衣箱) and by covering up his own name and using the stage name of San mazi. Wang joined the Tongchun 同春 Troupe, which was maintained by one of the leaders of the Taiping Rebellion, Chen Yucheng 陳玉成 (1837–1864). Its members were expected to fight on the battlefield and then celebrate victories 181 Wu Xinmiao 吳新苗, Qingdai Jingju shiliao xue 清代京劇史料學 (The study of historical material on Jingju in the Qing dynasty; Beijing: Zhongguo wenshi, 2017), p. 154, identifies Jishui as Chen Moxiang. Jishui’s “Jin bainian lai pihuang juben zuojia” lists thirty-three playwrights, divided into two groups: twenty literati and amateur actors (plus one bangzi playwright) and twenty actors (most recent born in 1876). Jiao Juyin 焦菊隱, in the section titled “Minjian xiqu de qingjie ji zuozhe” 民間戲曲的清節及作者 (Plots of commercial Chinese indigenous theater plays and their authors) in his “Jinri zhi Zhongguo xiju” 今日之中國戲劇 (Chinese theater today; a translation of his 1938 French doctoral thesis) in Jiao Juyin xiju sanlun ji 焦菊隱戲劇散論集 (Collection of Jiao Juyin’s miscellaneous writings on Chinese theater; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 1985), pp. 309–18, lists thirtythree playwrights (most recent born in 1874). Fu Xihua, “Pihuang juben zuozhe caomu,” lists 200 plays by forty authors (most recent born in 1882). Wang Hongshou is the thirtyfirst playwright listed by Jiao Juyin (p. 318), who says of him that “almost all of the plays involving Guan Yu, either their editing and improvement or their complete reworking, have come through him” 幾乎所有與關羽有關的劇目, 或整理加工, 或整個改變均 經他手. Jishui (p. 11 of the original; p. 390 of the reprint) includes a paragraph that concentrates on the influence of Wang’s art, but also says that one of the actors influenced by him, Li Xinfu 李鑫甫 (1883–1923), “also dared to change the text of old plays and did not completely rely on San mazi’s original texts, and the elegance and fluency of the places [he changed], perhaps were beyond what San mazi could achieve” 亦敢於改舊詞, 不盡 依三麻子原文. 其雅馴之處, 或三麻子所未及. None of the four were given separate biographies in the section for playwrights in Ma Shaobo et al., eds., Zhongguo Jingju shi. A more recent list of early Jingju playwrights, Tian Gensheng’s “Jindai Jingju zuozhe (bianjuzhe) ji jumu biao” 近代京劇作者 (編劇者) 及劇目表 (List of early Jingju authors [playwrights] and their plays), Jindai xiju de chuancheng, pp. 98–102, includes Wang Hongshou and Wang Yaoqing.

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on the stage. Because good teachers were found to teach the troupe, some the fathers of later famous actors while others became famous themselves, the quality of acting was high. These teachers developed for the Tongchun Troupe a very long serial play (in forty-six installments) that chronicled the rebellion, Hong Yang zhuan 洪楊傳 (The story of Hong Xiuquan 洪秀全 [1814–1864] and Yang Xiuqing 楊秀清 [1821–1856]).182 The last installments of this serial play narrated the defeat of the rebellion and were put together after the troupe had become a regular commercial troupe. After the play was finished, Wang Hongshou left the troupe and before too long headed north. According to Wang’s disciple, Li Hongchun 李洪春 (1898–1990), it was in Tianjin in 1870 that Wang was advised to specialize in performing Guan Yu.183 He went on to perform thirty-one plays in which Guan Yu was the main character, twenty-five of which he composed.184 We are fortunate to have Li 182 Hong was the leader of the rebellion and Yang its commander-in-chief. According to Li Hongchun, Jingju changtan, pp. 39–42, over the years Hong Yang zhuan was modified to deal with politically sensitive matters and shortened to thirty-six installments. When the Tongchun Troupe was summoned to the palace to perform the play, rumors began to circulate that it was seditious, and serious trouble was only averted by the famous actor Tian Jiyun putting in a good word for the troupe with the Empress Dowager Cixi. In thanks, the leader of the troupe gave a copy of the master script for the play to Tian, who had his troupe perform some of it under the name of Tie gongji. The first installment of Tie gongji premiered in 1893, while Li Hongchun would have the planned performance in the palace of Hong Yang zhuan take place in 1895 or later, so there is some confusion concerning dates. Yan Quanyi, Qingdai Jingju wenxue shi, p. 416, attributes Tie gongji to Wang Hongshou and Zhao Songshou 趙嵩綬, a master drummer (gushi 鼓師), and says that it was based on prose and dramatic accounts of the defeat of the Taipings. Su Yi, Jingju erbai nian gaiguan, p. 159, writes Zhao’s personal name with different characters (Songshou 松壽) and identifies him as a drummer for the troupe maintained by a different Taiping leader, Li Xiucheng 李秀成 (1823–1864). Some identify Wang Hongshou as one of the authors of Hong Yang zhuan. See, for instance, Tao Xiaoyan 陶筱延 and Cui Yongjiu 崔永 久, “Taiping tianguo ticai de xiqu jumu shuping” 太平天國題材的戲曲劇目述評 (An account and evaluation of Chinese indigenous plays about the Taiping Rebellion), Yipu 藝圃 (Garden of the arts) 1992, supplemental issue 1: 90. 183 Li Hongchun, Jingju changtan, p. 42. 184 Wang Zhengyao, Qingdai xiju wenhua shilun, p. 134, says of Wang that he not only was the one who “originated” (kaichuang 開創) the performance of the Guan Yu plays on the Jingju stage today, but also was the person who created the role-type of hongsheng (which is almost entirely devoted to the performance of Guan Yu). The thirty-one plays are listed in Li Hongchun, Jingju changtan, pp. 239–40. Mu Fanzhong 穆凡中, “Guanxi qianbei—Ye tan Mi Xizi he Wang Hongshou” 關戲前輩—也談米喜子和王鴻壽 ([Performers of] Guan Yu plays of former generations—I also talk about Mi Xizi and Wang Hongshou), Zhongguo xiju 中國戲劇 (Chinese theater) 2007.6: 43, says that twenty-five of these were composed by Wang. Mi Xizi 米喜子 (1780–1832) was the first actor to become famous for performing Guan Yu and is the actor that Pan Jingfu and Chen Moxiang’s Liyuan waishi

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Hongchun’s dictated memoirs, in which he describes learning to perform Guan Yu under Wang’s tutelage and relates, often scene by scene, what is important about how they are to be performed, but not so fortunate in that Li has little to say about how Wang actually wrote the plays,185 nor do we have anything about that process directly from Wang or his associates (despite a tendency to attribute the creation of plays to one person, we know this was rarely the case). While Li Hongchun’s versions of many of those same plays have been published,186 none identified as Wang’s have been, and so although Wang lived long enough to leave behind phonograph recordings and we can hear him sing,187 Li Hongchun’s memoirs afford the closest access to him, yet tell very little about his approach to playwriting. Wang Hongshou first learned to perform Huidiao, and performed in that style for a long time before switching over to Jingju. He represents a southern tradition of performing Jingju and was the teacher of Zhou Xinfang, among others. He was also not an ordinary actor in that he twice served (albeit for a short time only each time) in official posts given to him by friends of his father (one of whom was Yuan Shikai)188 and was known as a superb calligrapher.189 His Guan Yu plays are said to have treated almost all episodes of the Sanguo yanyi that feature him. Three

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begins with. It was once a popular idea that Wang Hongshou learned to perform Guan Yu from Mi, but that is impossible, since the older man had been dead for more than ten years before the younger one was born (p. 42). Both men were from the South and performed Huidiao before they learned to perform pihuang. Li Hongchun, Jingju changtan, p. 46, also credits Wang for “composing and staging” (bianpai 編排) such popular and influential plays as Shazi bao. The emphasis has been more on how he performed them and where he got his ideas. For instance, Wang Zhengyao, Qingdai xiju wenhua shilun, p. 135, recounts how Wang got a set of thirty-six illustrations of Guan Yu from a good friend of his father, Dexin 德馨 (governor of Jiangxi from 1884–1895; one of the men who gave Wang an official post), and how imitating the postures in the paintings influenced his performances. Wang’s meeting with Dexin is dated to 1882 by Mu Fanzhong, “Guanxi qianbei,” pp. 42–43. Li Hongchun 李洪春, Dong Weixian 董維賢, and Changbaoyan 長白雁, eds., Guan Yu xi ji 關羽戲集 (Collected Guan Yu plays; Shanghai: Shanghai wenji, 1962). The collection contains twenty-seven plays. Twenty-two sides of records published under his stage name are listed at http://old records.xikao.com/person.php?name=王鸿寿, accessed June 17, 2017), ten of which are identified as fakes (yanpin 贗品). They are dated variously from 1905 to 1915; the twelve identified as authentic dating variously from 1905 to 1913. Of these twelve only two sides from the same play, dated to 1913, have recordings posted at the site (they are from a play later made famous by Zhou Xinfang, Xu Ce paocheng 徐策跑城 [Xu Ce runs the city wall; Xikao #61]). The audio quality of both tracks is quite poor. For information on ten recordings dated to 1912, see Li Chunwei, ed., Jingju da xikao, pp. 284–85. Li Hongchun, Jingju changtan, pp. 45–46. Li Hongchun, Jingju changtan, pp. 50–51.

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Kingdoms plays were very important in the repertoire of Jingju (see chapter 1); Sanguo yanyi directly provided the dialogue for many of them, and was the favorite reading material of many actors.190 Xiao Changhua was a very influential performer of chou roles,191 but in Jingju circles he is as well-known as an educator. He began teaching at the Fuliancheng opera school the year that it was opened (1905), and continued teaching there until 1940. From the beginning he taught not only chou roles but also the other role types. He was an advocate of learning whole plays, not just your own part.192 From 1914–1922, he no longer was concurrently a member of an opera troupe and devoted himself entirely to teaching. After 1949 he taught at Zhongguo Xiqu Xueyuan and its predecessors, eventually becoming president of the school in 1961.193 He is less well known as a playwright; in fact 190 Jingju actors said to have read this novel very carefully include Yu Sansheng 余三勝 (1802–1866; see Wu Tao 吳燾, Liyuan jiuhua 梨園舊話 [Old talk about theater; c. 1870– 1900], in Zhang Cixi, ed., Qingdai Yandu liyuan shiliao, p. 815); Tang Yunsheng 唐韻笙 (1903–1970; see Liu Songkun, Liyuan yiwen, p. 167), and Song Yuchun 宋遇春 (1911–1993; see Liu Songkun, Liyuan yiwen, pp. 257–58). Yuan Shihai, Yihai shengya, p. 134, describes how when he went to visit the famous jing actor Hao Shouchen 郝壽臣 (1886–1961), he saw there a copy of the novel with the dialogue of Cao Cao and Zhang Fei marked in red. 191 He is the founder of one of the few “schools of performance” (liupai) for the chou roletype. See Huang Jun and Xu Xibo, eds., Jingju wenhua cidian, pp. 303–304, which lists only three, one of which is for wuchou (martial chou roles). 192 For instance, in his “Lüetan Qunying hui” 略談群英會 (A brief discussion of A Meeting of Heroes), in Xiao Changhua, dictation, Niu Biao, ed., Xiao Changhua xiqu tancong, p. 48, he says “I have long been an advocate of reading lots of ‘master scripts’ and of ‘general study’ (being able to perform all the characters in a play, regardless of whether you get a chance to perform them)” 一向主張: 演戲要多讀 ‘總講,’ 學 ‘普通學’ (戲裡的每個角色都會, 但是不見得都演). 193 The details about Xiao’s educational career presented here are based on Niu Biao 鈕驃, “Xiao Changhua xiansheng jianyao nianbiao” 蕭長華先生簡要年表 (A concise yearly chronology of Mr. Xiao Changhua), Xiqu yishu 1988.4: 18–20. A more detailed account of his life is available in He Shixi 何時希, “Xiao Changhua xiansheng shengping” 蕭長 華先生生平 (The life of Mr. Xiao Changhua), in Jingju tanwang lu sanbian, pp. 212–40. This last work is based on a manuscript that Xiao gave He in 1936 and only covers through 1926. He and Xiao tried to extend the work by having Xiao dictate to him from notes he had made on calendars, but that project was never finished. In Niu Biao’s “Houji” 後記 (Afterword) to Xiao Changhua, dictation, and Niu Biao 鈕驃, ed., Xiao Changhua xiqu tancong, pp. 156–57, he explains that this book for the most part reprints previously published pieces and was slated for publication in 1963, but that was delayed (it finally appeared in 1980), adding that a lengthy memoir that Xiao wrote in his own hand suffered an even worse fate when during the Cultural Revolution, in 1966, it was confiscated and never returned. Ersi 爾四, “Yiling qishi nian, taoli man tianxia—Xiao Changhua de er san shi” 藝齡七十年, 桃李滿天下—蕭長華的二三事 (Seventy years an actor, peach and pear [i.e., students] all over the world—Two or three things about Xiao Changhua), in Niu Biao 鈕驃, ed., Xiao Changhua yishu pinglun ji 蕭長華藝術評論集 (Collected essays

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it would be more accurate to consider him an adapter of old plays rather than a creator of new ones. Xiao Changhua’s father was an actor, but not his grandfather. His father ended up performing with the Sanqing Troupe; Xiao was given his name and adopted as a godson (courtesy son) by the famous Sanqing Troupe actor and playwright, Lu Shengkui 盧勝奎 (1822–1899). He did have a chance to study in an old-style private school (sishu 私塾) from 1886–1888194 before he began to study acting when he was 11 years old. Lu Shengkui is best known for his work on a long serial play adaptation of a substantial portion of Sanguo yanyi, Sanguo zhi 三國志 (Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms; see below). The most important piece of playwriting that Xiao did was, during the first period of mourning for the Guangxu emperor and the Empress Dowager Cixi in 1908 when plays could not be performed, to adapt the texts for portions of Sanguo zhi that he had been given for the students of Fuliancheng to perform. Xiao Changhua himself described this process in a piece he dictated in 1961,195 saying that he got interested in Three Kingdom plays when he was first studying acting; he got to hear his teacher and a Sanqing Troupe laosheng actor named Zhou Changshan 周 長山 discuss the novel and had the chance to watch his teacher teach a senior student to perform a particular Three Kingdoms play, and “it was almost as if I had made a friend” 仿佛交朋友似的. He got the idea to get his hands on a master script (zongjiang) and a few years later got his wish and ended up with copies of two segments: Qu Nanjun 取南郡 (Taking Nanjun; four installments) and Chibi aobing 赤壁鏖兵 (Fierce battle at Red Cliffs; eight installments). When Lu Shengkui died, his wife had given them to Zhou Changshan, who lent them to Xiao’s teacher. The copying was done by the students, among whom Xiao says that he liked copying things the best. He took the opportunity to make on the art of Xiao Changhua; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 1990 [this piece was originally published in 1957]), p. 28, notes that Xiao’s diary was composed of many thick volumes that covered sixty years. Presumably, these also were lost in the Cultural Revolution. 194 This education, short as it was, stood him well. He Shiyi, who met Xiao in 1936, notes in his “Xiao Changhua xiansheng shengping,” p. 213, that Xiao was often called xiucai (“flourishing talent,” used of winners of the first degree in the civil service examinations). 195 “Wuye tiaodeng xiu shiju—Zhengli Jingju Chibi aobing de huiyi” 午夜挑燈修史劇—整 理京劇赤壁鏖兵的回憶 (Trimming the lamp at midnight while editing an historical play—Recollections of editing Fierce Battle at the Red Cliffs), in Xiao Changhua, dictation, Niu Biao, ed., Xiao Changhua xiqu tancong, pp. 57–80. A later playwright whom we will look at in chapter 5, Fan Junhong 范鈞宏 (1916–1986), wrote down his thoughts about reading this piece: “Tan ‘tou’—‘Wuye tiaodeng xiu shiju’ duhou sanji” 談 ‘透’—‘午 夜挑燈修史劇’ 讀後散記 (Talking about “to the point”—Scattered thoughts on reading “Trimming the lamp at midnight while editing an historical play”; originally published in 1961), in Niu Biao, ed., Xiao Changhua yishu pinglun ji, pp. 54–70.

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an extra copy for himself.196 By 1908, the Sanqing Troupe had disbanded and these installments were no longer being performed in complete form. Xiao, working both from the scripts and continually referring to the novel in imitation of how Lu Shengkui made the first version, made a new version of the Red Cliffs segment. A book about Fuliangcheng described the result this way: “Although there were old texts to work from, the play was cut, augmented, and polished [by Xiao Changhua] so that it was all the more brilliant. The language of the entire play was completely based in the original text of the Sanguo yanyi, someone lacking truly deep scholarship would not have been up to the task” 雖 系舊有腳本, 亦由 [蕭長華] 增刪潤色, 乃益見精彩. 全劇詞句, 率用三國原文, 非有淵博之學識, 詎能當此.197 After the initial 100 days of national mourning was over in 1909, Xiao Changhua’s versions of the two segments of Lu Shengkui’s Sanguo zhi premiered and were a great success. His versions of separate installments such as Qunying hui 群英會 (The gathering of heroes; Xikao #42), set the standard for later versions. Chibi aobing and five other plays by him were published in 1958.198 Wang Yaoqing was a performer of female roles (dan) who was at the center of a number of very important changes in Jingju. He is said to have been the first to reject the wearing of stilts (qiao) to simulate bound feet on stage; the originator of a new female role-type, huashan, that combined elements from several previously distinct role-types; the first performer of dan roles to star in the all-important final item on a performance program (dazhou); the first dan actor to lead his own troupe; the first dan actor to establish his own school of performance (liupai); and the first Jingju actor to formally take a female disciple.199 He is known for constantly revising existing plays (either 196 Ibid., pp. 57–58. 197 Tang Botao 唐伯弢, “Jiaoshou Xiao Changhua” 教授蕭長華 (Teacher Xiao Changhua), in Fuliancheng sanshi nian (xiuding ban) 富連成三十年 (修訂版) (Thirty years of Fuliancheng [revised and expanded edition]), Bai Huawen 白化文, ed. (Beijing: Tongxin chubanshe, 2000), pp. 78–79. 198 Xiao Changhua yanchu ben xuanji 蕭長華演出本選集 (Selected acting versions of plays by Xiao Changhua; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 1958). 199 For the last claim, see Huang Yufu, Jingju, qiao, he Zhongguo de xingbie guanxi, p. 78. For the others, see, for instance, Ma Shaobo, et al., eds., Zhongguo Jingju shi, 3: 207, and Wu Tongbin 吳同賓, “Jingju bainian gaige zongheng tan” 京劇百年改革縱橫談 (Wideranging talk on one hundred years of reform in Jingju), in Zhengqu Jingju yishu de xin fanrong, p. 360. Huang Yufu, Jingju, qiao, he Zhongguo de xingbie guanxi, pp. 191–96, includes a very useful appendix: “Yu Yuqin he Wang Yaoqing yishu shenghuo nianbiao” 余玉琴 和王瑤卿藝術生活年表 (Chronological chart of the artistic life of Yu Yuqin and Wang Yaoqing). Yu was a more traditional actor of an earlier generation with whom Wang was somewhat in competition and thus presents an interesting contrast to him.

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old plays or new plays written by other people)200 rather than creating new ones, although he did compose/write the music for new plays written by others, which is what I wish to concentrate on here. Wang, of course, is also known for being the teacher of Mei Lanfang and other famous male performers of female roles, all of whom he helped individualize their singing styles (of the four, his helping Cheng Yanqiu find a new way of singing after his voice was not up to singing in a traditional style201 speaks to how crucial this kind of help was). Wang was first summoned to perform in the palace in 1904. After three actors senior to him were unable to fit lyrics written by Empress Dowager to Jingju, it was Wang who finally succeeded, for which he was rewarded with thirty taels of silver.202 Wang Yaoqing’s father, a Kunqu actor of female roles, was the one who moved the Wang family to Beijing. According to Wang Yaoqing’s own account, his father originally tried to prevent him from becoming an actor and instead, when he was six, found him a teacher so that he could become literate and go into trade. Before too long, however, a fellow actor persuaded Wang’s father that he should have Wang Yaoqing learn the family trade, and that same actor began to come to Wang’s place to teach him.203 Wang’s stage career was com200 See Su Yi, Jingju erbai nian gaiguan, pp. 111–12, who says that during his lifetime Wang revised as many as seventy to eighty dan plays, and pp. 164–65, where Su notes that more than sixty of Wang’s play manuscripts still exist, most are revisions or adaptations, many date from the late Qing and early Republican periods, and a lot were collaborations with Chen Moxiang. In chapter 5 we will see that in the case of the latter plays, it is very clear that Wang was responsible primarily for setting Chen’s lyrics to music. For a brief discussion of how Wang “fixed” a play written by Luo Yinggong for Mei Lanfang, see the section titled “Wei Mei Lanfang gai Xishi juben” 為梅蘭芳改西施劇本 (Revising the playscript Xishi for Mei Lanfang) in Yao Baoxuan 姚保瑄, “Gumei xuan jianwen lu” 古瑁軒見聞錄 (A record of things seen and heard at Gumei Studio [Wang Yaoqing’s residence]), in Shi Ruoxu 史若虛 and Xun Lingxiang 荀令香, eds., Wang Yaoqing yishu pinglun ji 王瑤卿藝 術評論集 (Collected essays on the art of Wang Yaoqing; Beijing: Zhongguo yishu, 1985), pp. 233–34. 201 See, for instance, the section titled “Cheng Yanqiu xinqiang chuzhong” 程硯秋新腔出眾 (Cheng Yanqiu’s new style of singing stands out) in Liu Naichong 劉乃崇, “Wang Yaoqing yu sida mingdan” 王瑤卿與四大名旦 (Wang Yaoqing and the four great male performers of female roles), in Shi Ruoxu and Xun Lingxiang, eds., Wang Yaoqing yishu pinglun ji, pp. 177–80, especially p. 178 (this article was originally published in 1981). 202 See Ding Ruqin 丁汝芹, Qinggong xishi—Gongting yanju erbai nian 清宮戲事—宮廷 演劇二百年 (Theatrical affairs in the Qing palace—Two hundred years of palace theater performances; Beijing: Zhongguo guoji guanbo, 2013), pp. 204–205. This incident is also mentioned by the narrator in Chen Moxiang, Huoren daxi, p. 51.348. 203 Wang Yaoqing 王瑤卿, “Wo de younian shidai” 我的幼年時代 (My youth), Juxue yuekan 2.3 (1933): 17–49 (Wang’s piece appears in the lower register of these split pages). Wang thinks that the way this teacher had students first learn to recite the whole play in elevated

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paratively short, when compared to his four famous disciples. He began to have major trouble with his voice in 1925 and rarely performed on stage after that. He then concentrated on teaching instead of performing. In 1931 he began to teach at Zhonghua Xixiao, in 1951 became the president of what would become Zhongguo Xiqu Xueyuan (a bust of him and of another president of the academy, Tian Han, greet you on entering the main gate of the present campus). In the 1930s he was an advisor at the Nanjing Zhonghua Xiqu Yinyue Yuan Beiping Yanjiu Suo 南京中華戲曲音樂院北平研究所 (Nanjing Chinese indigenous theater music research academy, Beiping research institute; hereafter Xiqu Yinyue Yuan Beiping Yanjiu Suo), and seems to have shown up pretty regularly, unlike some advisors).204 There he collaborated with the playwright Chen Moxiang, who has described Wang setting the music for plays while working at the institute and at Wang’s home during Chen’s frequent visits (see chapter 5). Probably because of the difficulty of writing about music and, unlike the case of Kunqu, because it took a long time for Jingju music to become widely notated (see chapter 6) and even after it began to be notated the aspects of the speech (yunbai 韻白) before learning to sing the arias was quite unusual, and admits that even at the end of this process for his first play, “as for what this play was about, I did not have the slightest clue” 戲中的滋味, 我是一點也沒有明白. At the end of “Wo de younian” are the words “Recorded by Shao Mingsheng” 邵茗生筆記, indicating that the piece was dictated by Wang and written down by Shao. There is no doubt that this is the case with the continuation piece, “Wo de zhongnian shidai” 我的中年時代 (My middle years), Juxue yuekan 2.4 (1933): 1–13 (these pages are not split into upper and lower registers); just after the title it is indicated that Wang dictated (zishu 自述) the piece and Shao wrote it down for him (daiji 代記). These two pieces cover Wang’s life until shortly before he was called to perform in the palace (1904) and end with a promise to tell about that later. According to Liu Naichong 劉乃崇, “Wang Yaoqing xiansheng zhuanlüe” 王瑤卿先 生傳略 (A concise biography of Wang Yaoqing), Xiqu yishu, 1981.3: 41, and Huang Yufu’s chronological chart, p. 192, Wang began to study acting when he was nine. Incidentally, all of Wang Yaoqing’s scholarly writings (not many) were either dictated or co-written. 204 The mother institution, here called Nanjing Zhonghua Xiqu Yinyue Yuan, had two subsections, one that was nominally located in Nanjing but actually was in Beijing, and another that was supposed to be in Beijing all along. The latter, although it had a president, Mei Lanfang, and a vice-president, Qi Rushan, consisted of nothing more than a committee and did not get up to much. The research institute published Juxue yuekan and the academy ran an opera school, known as Zhonghua Xixiao for short. The director of the research institute at its founding was Jin Zhongsun 金仲蓀 (1879–1945) and the vice-director was Cheng Yanqiu. Later Jin would become principal of the opera school and Cheng Yanqiu would become director of the research institute. Jin Zhongsun, in an article signed Huilu 悔盧 and titled “Nanjing Xiqu Yinyue Yuan chengli zhi jingguo” 南京 中華戲曲音樂院成立之經過 (The course of the establishment of Nanjing Xiqu Yinyue Yuan), in the inaugural issue of Juxue yuekan, explains the complicated history of the academy and recounts the hiring of personnel for the research institute.

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music thought to be most precious were not fully notated, scholars writing on Wang Yaoqing’s contributions to Jingju tend to be vague when it comes to his composition of music for new plays and revisions of the music for old ones. Even in the 1932 special issue of Juxue yuekan on music (1.7), although a version of a play held by Wang Yaoqing is included along with music for some of the arias that is credited to him transcribed using Western musical notation, no discussion is included concerning what is new or different about Wang’s musical contributions to the play.205 I have only come across two fairly detailed accounts of how Wang worked on setting the music for specific Jingju plays: one is a play written by Chen Moxiang for Cheng Yanqiu in the 1930s,206 and the other is an adaptation of a Sichuan opera version of the story of Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai in the 1950s.207 The first is very brief and includes no musical examples in notation, while the second is longer and includes almost thirty musical examples. Wang Hongshou, the son of an official, probably had some schooling before his family met with calamity and he had to become a professional actor. As we have seen, before they became actors, Xiao Changhua and Wang Yaoqing both got to study briefly. Tan Xinpei was different. Before he was seven, in 1853, Tan followed his father from his home in Hunan to Beijing to become an actor when his hometown was attacked by the Taiping rebels.208 He had no formal schooling, but became very influential209 and was crowned “King of the Actors” (lingjie dawang 伶界大王) by a Shanghai theater owner, Huang Chujiu 黃 楚九 (1872–1931). He represents a transitional phase between the more 205 The play is Nü qijie (Xikao #70). 206 Cheng did not perform it; it was premiered by students of Zhonghua Xixiao under Wang Yaoqing’s direction. See Yao Baoxuan 姚保瑄, “Wang Yaoqing gaibian Kongque dongnan fei qianhou” 王瑤卿改變孔雀東南飛前後 (A full account of Wang Yaoqing’s adaptation of Southeast Fly the Peacocks), Zhongguo xiju 1988.10: 34–35. 207 Huang Kebao 黃克保, “Wang Yaoqing xiansheng zenyang sheji Jingju Liuyin ji de changqiang—Zhongguo xiqu yanjiu yuan lao yiren fangwen ji” 王瑤卿先生怎樣設計 京劇柳蔭記的唱腔—中國戲曲研究院老藝人訪問記 (How did Wang Yaoqing set the music for the arias of The Shade Under the Willows?—A record of interviews with old performance artists at Zhongguo Xiqu Xueyuan), Xiju bao 1955.4: 31–38 (part 1), 1955.5: 45–49 (part 2), and 1955.6: 21–23 (part 3). 208 Su Yi 蘇移, ed., Zhongguo Jingju shi (1790–1949) 中國京劇史 (1790–1949) (The history of Chinese Jingju [1790–1949]; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 2016), p. 88. There is a chronology of Tan’s artistic life, Song Xueqi 宋學琦, “Tan Xinpei yishu nianbiao” 譚鑫培藝術年表 (Yearly chronological chart of Tan Xinpei’s art), in Dai Shujuan 戴淑娟 et al., eds., Tan Xinpei yishu pinglun ji 譚鑫培藝術評論集 (Collected essays on the art of Tan Xianpei; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 1990), pp. 352–92 (originally published in 1985). 209 There was a saying, “wu qiang bu xue Tan” 無腔不學譚 (no singer doesn’t model himself on Tan). See Su Yi, ed., Zhongguo Jingju shi (1790–1949), p. 90.

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straightforward singing styles of his teachers and the more media-savvy styles of star innovators of the Republican era such as Mei Lanfang. Like Wang Yaoqing, Tan combined role-types previously kept separate, but unlike Wang and Mei Lanfang, he was not photogenic and did not look like a star.210 Nonetheless he won the patronage of Empress Dowager Cixi, who gave him an official title of the fourth-rank (sipin 四品),211 and there are stories of high officials kneeling to him and begging him to perform.212 He continued performing until the end of his life, but in the Republican period suffered great humiliation, including the forced revocation of his title of king of the actors.213 210 His teacher, Cheng Changgeng, not long before he died is supposed to have urged Tan to perform as a laosheng rather than a wusheng because the beards that the latter wear would help to cover up his thin cheeks and hog-like mouth. Cheng also is supposed to have complained that Tan’s singing voice was too “sweet” (gan 甘) and was like the “sound of a doomed state” (wangguo zhi yin 亡國之音), and that after Cheng’s own death the “masculine style” (xiongfeng 雄風) would disappear. See Ma Shaobo et al., eds., Zhongguo Jingju shi, 1: 414, quoting Mu Rugai’s 穆儒丐, “Tan Xinpei benji” 譚鑫培本紀 (Basic annal for Tan Xinpei), Lingshi 伶史 (A history of actors; Beijing: Han Ying tushu guan, 1917), pp. 9–10 (pp. 31–32 of the Minguo Jing Kun shiliao congshu reprint). Zhou Chuanjia 周 傳家, “Jian bu duan, li hai luan de shitu qingjie—Cheng Changgeng yu Tan Xinpei shitu guanxi xintan” 剪不短, 理還亂的師徒情結—程長庚與譚鑫培師徒關係新探 (An emotional bond between teacher and student that can’t be cut or put in order—A new look at the teacher-student relationship between Cheng Changgeng and Tan Xinbei), Xiqu yishu 1997.3: 14–16, recounts this meeting between the two of them using more than three full columns of text (but greatly softens Cheng’s comments about Tan’s looks). The first six characters of the title make use of dialogue spoken by Du Liniang in Mudan ting that comments on her attempt to comb her hair and order her thoughts (punning on si 思 [thoughts] and si 絲 [strands of hair]). 211 Su Yi, ed., Zhongguo Jingju shi (1790–1949), p. 89. The same page recounts the story that Cixi, not knowing how to pronounce Xin 鑫, said that surely one “gold” ( jin 金) was enough and changed his name to Tan Jinpei 譚金培. 212 The most famous example circulated in a number of versions. Ren Erbei, “Zhongtang wei wo qing’an” 中堂為我請安 (Only if the grand secretary gives me a Manchu salute), Youyu ji, item 292 (pp. 246–47), recounts how, in 1908 at a private performance celebrating the 50th birthday of Yuan Shikai where Tan played the role of play-arranger (xi tidiao), Natong 那桐 (1857–1925), a bannerman who served in high positions under the Qing, agreed to Tan’s condition (reportedly said jokingly) that if Natong would go down on one knee in a Manchu salute to him he would perform extra. Ren gives six additional versions of the incident. Gu Shuguang, “Natong yu Tan Xinpei: Zhuixun yizhuang liyuan yiwen de zhenxiang” 那桐與譚鑫培: 追尋一樁梨園軼聞的真相 (Natong and Tan Xinpei: Trying to track down the true facts about a theater anecdote), Liyuan wenxian yu youling yanjiu, pp. 171–77, traces the origins and circulation of this story, and concludes that it is highly unlikely that Natong actually saluted Tan. Nevertheless, the wide circulation of the story indicates its appeal. 213 Many accounts of Tan’s life stress the “humiliations” (ru 辱) he suffered at the end of his life. See, for instance, Yao Shuyi, “Tan Xinpei yisheng rong ru” 譚鑫培一生榮辱 (The

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Unlike Mei Lanfang and the other new stars of the Republican era, Tan Xinpei did not have a “brain trust” of literati to write new plays for him.214 Instead, he adapted old plays and acquire a reputation for changing the texts in them,215 either for artistic reasons,216 to accommodate unexpected changes in a performance,217 to test fellow actors,218 or to prevent his real versions from being stolen.219

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glory and humiliations in Tan Xinpei’s life), Cheng Changgeng, Tan Xinpei, Mei Lanfang, pp. 209–25, in particular the final section, “Tan Xinpei shouru yunming” 譚鑫培受辱 殞命 (Tan Xinpei suffers humiliation and loses his life); see p. 222 for the revocation of the title. Lu Xun, “Lüelun Mei Lanfang ji qi ta (shang)” 略論梅蘭芳及其他 (上) (On Mei Lanfang and other things [part one]), Lu Xun quanji, 5: 579, says of Tan Xinpei (in contrast to Mei Lanfang): “Although there wasn’t anyone to do public relations for him or come up with ideas for him, and he was thus unable to win world fame, there was also no one who came to write plays for him. To my mind, their not coming was colored, to some extent, by ‘not having the courage’ [to write for him]” 雖然沒有人給他宣傳, 替他出主意, 得 不到世界的名聲, 卻也沒有人來為他編劇本. 我想, 這不來, 是帶著幾分「不敢」 的. Most of Lu Xun’s essays are heavily polemical, and thus need to be read carefully, but this is still a very interesting observation to make. Guo Jingrui, Chewang fu yu Jingju de xingcheng, p. 211, claims that Tan “went further [than other actors] in paying attention to the literary character of his playscripts, and invited literati to revise them and correct problems in them” 進一步注意劇本的文學性, 請文人改削,對不協者再加釐定, but does not back up this claim. See, e.g., Cai Wanqing 蔡綰青, “Tan xi gaici” 譚喜改詞 (Tan [Xinpei] liked to change the text), Xiju chunqiu 42 (1944): 12. Cai says that sometimes Tan changed the text for the better and sometimes not. See Qian Tang 錢唐, “Jingju de shengming zai chuangxin—Cong Tan Xinpei gaige Kongcheng ji tanqi” 京劇的生命在創新—從譚鑫培改革空城計談起 (The life of Jingju is in innovation—Starting from Tan Xinpei’s revision of Kongcheng ji [Xikao #1]), in Dai Shujuan et al., eds., Tan Xinpei yishu pinglun ji, pp. 216–21 (originally published in 1980). Xu Muyun, “Lao Tan gaici,” also talks about Tan’s changes to Kongcheng ji (pp. 22–23), and lists general reasons for them. Zhang Xiulian 張秀蓮, “Tan Xinpei linchang yingbian” 譚鑫培臨場應變 (Tan Xinpei adapts to unexpected changes on the stage), Yaowen juezi 咬文嚼字 (Chewing on words and characters) 2003.7: 33, describes how Tan changed text in an aria when he was already on stage and realized that the prop man had given him the wrong weapon. Li Hongchun, Jingju changtan, p. 31, relates how, after Wang Xiaonong joined Tan Xinpei’s Tongchun Troupe, in a performance program Tan moved his play ahead of Wang’s to see if the audience would leave after his own play was over. He was mad when they didn’t, so two days later he got Wang to perform together with him but right before the performance changed the rhyme categories of all of the arias. Beyond his expectations, Wang had no trouble with that change, which impressed Tan greatly. Xu Muyun, “Lao Tan gaici,” p. 20, says of Tan, “when he met up with professionals coming to steal his plays by listening to them, … he was able on the spot to change the words and the melodies” 遇內行有人偷聽, … 他也會臨時改詞改腔的. On the idea that professionals were not supposed to watch other professionals perform (to prevent theft of plays

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In 1940, Liu Juchan 劉菊禪 published Tan Xinpei quanji 譚鑫培全集,220 a title that one would ordinarily translate as “The Collected Works of Tan Xinpei,” except that the volume actually contains nothing written by Tan himself; the closest things are aria texts he was famous for singing, included in the last item on the table of contents: “Tan-shi yiliu changpian” 譚氏遺留唱片 (Phonograph recordings left behind by Mr. Tan221). Texts of any kind written by Tan are rare.222 Because he was not well educated, and worked primarily from memory, particular to them), see Wang Anqi, “Jingju mingling guan changpian,” pp. 202–207. A major concern of this article is Yu Shuyan’s attempts to learn Tan’s plays when Tan was not willing to teach them. 220 Liu Juchan 劉菊禪, Tan Xinpei quanji 譚鑫培全集 (Collected writings on Tan Xinpei: Shanghai: Shanghai xibao she, 1940). This collection has been photo-reprinted as vol. 10 of Pingju shiliao congkan and in Minguo Jing Kun shiliao congshu, 1: 1–68. Liu Juchan also published Silang tanmu quanji 四郎探母全集 (Complete collection of Silang tanmu; Shanghai: Shanghai xibao she, 1938). That it was photo-reprinted as v. 11 of Pingju shiliao congkan but bound together with Tan Xinpei quanji might lead one to think that it is part of Liu’s Tan Xinpei quanji, but it is one of two plays published in similar format by Liu Juchan, and Tan Xinpei is not prominent in it. 221 Arias from six plays, with both gongche and jianpu notation are included. The material is not divided up according to the sides of the records. Chai Junwei, ed., Jingju da xikao, pp. 1–4, gives information on sixteen recordings attributed to Tan, five of which are identified as really recording the voice of Tan’s son, Tan Xiaopei 譚小培 (1883–1953); annotations to the last three describe the voices of the singers as incompatible with Tan’s voice. The earliest recordings actually by Tan Xiaopei are dated to 1904; those considered as really of Tan’s voice date from 1908 and 1912. Twenty-two sides of records published under Tan’s name are listed at http://oldrecords.xikao.com/person.php?name=譚鑫培, accessed June 17, 2017). The seven identified as fakes (yanpin) include five sides recorded by Tan Xiaopei. Wang Anqi, “Jingju mingling guan changpian,” pp. 208–209, discusses why Tan might have let his son record for him. 222 An endorsement slightly over one hundred characters long appears on the first page of Beijing changpan, a booklet that introduces recordings that Pathé made in Beijing that has been discussed in the footnotes to the Introduction. Gu Shuguang, “Jingju changpian xue de zhenxi shiliao: Beijing changpan” 京劇唱片學的珍稀史料: 北京唱盤 (Precious historical material for the study of Jingju phonographs: Beijing changpan), Liyuan wen­ xian yu youling yanjiu, p. 385, points out that Gu’s teacher, Wu Xiaoru, took the text as having been composed by Tan and pointed out the “many grammatical errors” in it (wenli duo you qiantuo zhi chu 文理多有欠妥之處); Gu himself thinks that the text “was very likely written by the record company, who had Tan copy it out [in his own hand]” 很可 能是唱片公司寫就, 讓譚照抄一遍. He continues: “No matter what, this is an example of Tan’s own calligraphy. To be able to see today an example of text written by Tan is quite rare” 不管怎樣, 這倒是譚氏的書法手跡. 今日能看到譚氏手書, 也算難得. A search done on June 22, 2017 of the Shanghai Library “Jindai qikan” 近代期刊 database for periodicals up to 1949 produced only seven items for Tan Xinpei as author; all are plays associated with him, one of them labeled “miben” 秘本 (private version). A search of WorldCat the same day produced thirty-five items, almost all of which were playscripts or musical transcriptions.

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his versions had lots of mistakes in them. For example, internal contradictions might be created because he sometimes made structural and content changes in one part of a play without regard to how they would conflict with other parts of the play.223 Because he was not very literate, he would confuse characters.224 Some have written that he was well aware of this lack and was willing to ask for help, but there is a famous incident with his disciple, Yu Shuyan 余叔岩 (1890–1943), that reveals a different side. When Yu told Tan that he thought that in Tan’s version of Wupen ji 烏盆計 (The black pot plot; Xikao #4), in a line about coming home in the rain, the character wei 胃 (appetite) was surely a mistake for the character mao 冒 (forge ahead)225 and suggested that the problem was a scribal error (biwu 筆誤) in the manuscript for the play text, Tan got extremely angry and retorted, “If you are so capable, what are you doing studying with me?” 你既有這大的本領, 還向老夫請教幹嗎? According to the anecdote, Yu continued to sing the aria Tan’s way until the latter died.226 4

Literati Who Became Actors and Also Wrote Plays

Near the beginning of this chapter we looked at some literati Jingju playwrights who had no luck on the stage, and it appears that the main reason was that they did not collaborate with actors. An example of a literatus who did develop a friendship with an actor and wrote plays for him is Yang Jingqiu 楊鏡秋, who became a fan of Mei Qiaoling when he came to Beijing to take the metropolitan civil service examinations (getting his jinshi degree in the Xianfeng reign period). They eventually became good enough friends that Yang wrote two plays for Mei’s troupe; after he went to Fujian to take up an official post and

223 Xu Muyun, “Lao Tan gaici,” p. 23, discusses an example. 224 Chen Moxiang, Huoren daxi, p. 45.309, records a conversation with Tan Xinpei at which Wang Yaoqing and Chen himself were present. An unnamed person tells Tan that in a certain play he should not pronounce the character lu 戮 (to slaughter) as chuo 戳 (to pierce). Tan replies that he had only learned the play orally and had never read the playscript. When Chen reminds him of another play that uses the character lu, Tan says that because he was asked to perform that play before Empress Dowager Cixi, “wo cai na benxi xuede” 我才拿本子學的 (I only then used a play text to study [my part]). Chen Moxiang wrote about Tan mistaking chuo for lu and an example of Tan changing text without taking context into account in his “Tan Xinpei bu wen” 譚鑫培不文 (Tan Xinpei was not literate), Juxue yuekan 1.6 (1932): 4. 225 Maoyu 冒雨 (forging ahead in the rain) makes perfect sense, 胃雨 makes no sense. 226 For the anecdote, see Ren Erbei, “Fenming shi ge mao zi” 分明是個冒字 (Clearly it should be the character mao), Youyu ji, item 296, pp. 249–50.

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ran out of money, Mei helped him out financially.227 Unfortunately, those two plays did not do so well on stage. Su Yi writes that the plays got “good reviews” (haoping 好評) but adds, “When Yang wrote plays, although he was praised for the refinement and beauty of his lyrics, in terms of dramaturgy, he was unable to free himself from the well-worn ruts of chuanqi plays, and the two plays did not stay in the performance repertoire” 楊氏作劇, 雖以文詞雅美著稱, 但在場 子編排上, 未脫傳奇窠臼, 故該二劇未得傳演下來.228 Another way that literati got to know actors better and to write plays was to join amateur Jingju clubs, many of which prided themselves on performing plays written by their members.229 An amateur performer who was recognized as a playwright is Qiao Jinchen 喬藎臣 (1863–1926),230 who also played an important role as interlocutor between Jingju stars such as Tan Xinpei and representatives of Pathè when they came to Beijing to record them.231 A 1906 newspaper report describes a play written by Qiao that was commissioned by an amateur opera club. Besides discussing the plot of the play, which it says was written “especially to stir up patriotic thought and sweep away slave mentality” 專為振起愛國思想, 掃除努力性根, it describes how the play will first be performed privately, then in rented theaters (with proceeds to be donated), after which the script will be given to other troupes to perform.232 Some amateur performers were recognized by actors for their knowledge of Jingju and were willing to help actors improve their performances and playscripts. An example

227 Mei Lanfang, Wutai shenghuo sishi nian, 1: 18–20, relates how he originally heard about Yang from his grandmother but had a muddled understanding that colored a story about him included in an earlier version of his memoirs, adding that this was corrected for this version using new information provided by a reader. 228 Su Yi, Jingju erbai gaiguan, p. 157. 229 Cao Guanli 曹官力, “Xiuxian yu shiye: Qingmo Minchu de Jingju piaojie (1871–1924)” 休閑與事業: 清末民初的京劇票界 (1871–1924) (Leisure and enterprise: The world of amateur Jingju from the end of the Qing dynasty to the beginning of the Republic), master’s thesis, National Taiwan University, 2011, pp. 68–69, describes the setting up of a division devoted to playwriting (chuangju bu 創劇部) in an amateur Jingju club established in 1913. This thesis also has a section on plays written exclusively by and for the clubs (“Xinbian jumu de zhuanshuxing” 新編劇目的專屬性), pp. 88–91. 230 Ma Shaobo et al., eds., Zhongguo Jingju shi, 1: 579–80, discusses four of his plays and stresses his public-mindedness. 231 Qiao’s role is recognized in Tan Xinpei’s endorsement for the recording project, discussed above. 232 See “You chu xinxi” 又出新戲 (Another new play is to be produced), Jinghua ribao 743 (September 20, 1906), in Fu Jin, ed., Jingju lishi wenxian huibian: Qingdai juan: Xubian), 4: 321.

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would be the high official and holder of the jinshi degree, Sun Chunshan 孫春 山 (1836–1889).233 Literati who first became amateur performers and later became professionals make up a substantial proportion of early Jingju playwrights. Examples include Shen Xiaoqing 沈小慶 (1805–1855), Zhang Erkui 張二奎 (1814–1859),234 Xue Yinxuan 薛印軒 (fl. 1845),235 Lu Shengkui 陸勝奎 (1822–1889), Sun Juxian 孫菊仙 (1841–1931),236 Wang Xiaonong 汪笑儂 (1858–1918), and Ouyang Yuqian 歐陽予倩 (1889–1962). Of these, it is possible to think of Shen Xiaoqing and Lu Shengkui as more famous as playwrights than as actors, so they will be treated in the next section. Wang Xiaonong and Ouyang Yuqian stand out among playwrights who began as amateur literati performers but then became professional actors because of their crucial roles in the history of Jingju. Both were associated with Shanghai, the center of innovation in Jingju from the end of the Qing dynasty well into the twentieth century. Both men were well educated. Wang Xiaonong was Manchu and studied to become an official,237 even attending a school that 233 For examples of Sun correcting senior actors, see Gong Hede 龔和德, “Shilun Huiban jin Jing yu Jingju xingcheng” 試論徽班進京與京劇形成 (A preliminary discussion of the entry of Anhui troupes into Beijing and the formation of Jingju), in Zhengqu Jingju yishu de xin fanrong, pp. 186–87. On how he helped improve playscripts, see Yan Quanyi, Qingdai Jingju wenxue shi, pp. 279–80 and 347. 234 Zhang Erkui’s brother was an official. He tried to keep his identity as an amateur singer a secret but when the truth came out his brother lost his official post and Zhang Erkui was forced to become a professional actor. When he was young and sent to a private school (sishu), although his mind was apparently more on acting rather than on study, Zhang did acquire a solid literary foundation that later helped him write new plays such as the serial play Peng gong’an 彭公案 (Court cases of Judge Peng; not in Xikao) and adapt existing plays for pihuang performances, the most famous of which is Silang tanmu. See Wang Zhengyao, Qingdai xiju wenhua kaobian, pp. 232–34. On Zhang’s dates and recently discovered sources on him, see Ren Rong 任榮, “Zhang Erkui shengping shishi kaobian— Jianlun xiqu shi zhong de ‘Zhang Erkui xianxiang’ he ‘koushu shiliao’ de yunyong” 張二奎 生平史實考辨—兼論戲曲史中的 ‘張二奎現象’ 和 ‘口述史料’ 的運用 (Establishing the facts about Zhang Erkui’s life—Plus arguments concerning the “Zhang Erkui phenomenon” and the use of “orally dictated historical material”), Xiqu yishu 2015: 55–63, especially p. 59. 235 Xue wrote Yangui tan (Xikao #169a), identified in the notes to chapter 1 above as the first “contemporary clothing” Jingju play. The first notice of this play occurs in the 1845 edition of Dumen jilüe. See Zhou Mingtai 周明泰, Dumen jilüe zhong zhi xiqu shiliao 都門紀略中 之戲曲史料 (Historical material on Chinese indigenous theater in Dumen jilüe; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 2015 [originally published in 1932]), p. 126. 236 On a play co-written by Sun, see Cai Peifen, “Wan Qing fushi hui,” p. 163. 237 Gu Shuguang, “Wan Qing Minguo de Manzu pihuang juzuojia shulun” 晚清民國的滿 族皮黃劇作家述論 (An introduction to the Manchu pihuang playwrights from the late Qing and Republican eras), Liyuan wenxian yu Youling yanju, pp. 65–75, discusses nine

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stressed translation where he came in contact with foreign learning.238 He became a district magistrate but lost that post and instead became an actor.239 He was popularly referred to as a lingyin 伶隱 (recluse hiding among actors). He associated with literati as a fellow literatus,240 and in 1902 was honored

such playwrights: Shanqi 善耆 (1866–1922), Zhuang Qingyi 莊清逸 (?–1931), Linpei 霖 沛 (?–?), Yu Wu 毓五 (?–?), Lishan 立山 (?–1900), Song Maoru 松茂如 (?–?), Wang Xiaonong, Tang Yunsheng, and Jing Guxue 景孤血 (1910–1978). Shanqi was of the imperial family and a tenth-generation prince who loved to perform Jingju and wrote some plays he liked to perform but have not been transmitted. Zhuang Qingyi was a member of the imperial house who was an amateur Jingju performer and ended up writing plays for famous actors such as Shang Xiaoyun. Linpei was also a member of the imperial house and an amateur performer. He wrote only one Jingju play. Yu Wu was a member of the imperial house who was first an amateur performer and then became a professional actor, wrote a number of plays, and taught Xiao Changhua. Lishan’s career took him as high as President of the Board of Revenue but he was thrown in prison and executed because of disagreement over support of the Boxers. He wrote plays for pleasure. Song Maoru was an amateur actor who became a professional, but had no success on the stage and worked in troupe administration instead. He is known for revising one famous serial play and overseeing a new staging of another one. The last two were very young when the dynasty fell. Tang turned professional when he was young and became a famous laosheng actor active in the Northeast, establishing his own school of performance and writing some of the plays he made famous. Jing Guxue was a literatus who was the disciple of Fan Fanshan 樊樊山 (1846–1931) and also wrote some Jingju plays; see Jishui, “Jin bainian lai pihuang juben zuojia,” upper register, p. 6 (of the Juxue yuekan version). Jishui lists him as one among many literati playwrights who did not know enough about what actors really wanted. 238 Gu Shuguang, “Weixin pai yu guocui jia: ‘Lingyin’ Wang Xiaonong de maodun rensheng” 維 新派與國粹家: ‘伶隱’ 汪笑儂的矛盾人生 (Reformist and conservative: “Actor-recluse” Wang Xiaonong’s contradictory life), Liyuan wenxian yu Youling yanju, p. 81. 239 According to Zhang Kuo 張彍, “Wang Xiaonong Jingju gailiang sixiang yanjiu” 汪笑儂 京劇改良思想研究 (A study of Wang Xiaonong’s thought about the reform of Jingju), master’s degree, Zhongguo Yishu Yanjiu Yuan, 2012, p. 5, Wang passed the juren 舉人 examination in 1879 and his father bought him the position of district magistrate, a post he lost because he seems to have offended local elites and failed to bribe his seniors. Gu Shuguang, “Weixin pai yu guocui jia,” p. 79, is not convinced that Wang ever actually became district magistrate. 240 Sun Baoxuan 孫寶瑄 (1874–1924), “Wangshan lu lingqu riji” 忘山廬聆曲日記 (Diary of listening to arias from Forgotten mountain hut), Yitan 5 (2007): 203–204, in the entry for the ninth day of the third month of 1901, tells of meeting friends at a newspaper office and hearing Wang being described as “good at writing poetry and prose” (gong shiwen 工 詩文). That day, Sun and a number of his friends went to “pay a visit to” ( fang 訪) Wang. On Sun and his diary, see Zhao Shanlin 趙山林, “Wangshan lu lingqu riji yuncang de xiqu xinxi” 忘山廬聆曲日記蘊藏的戲曲信息 (Information on Chinese indigenous theater in Wangshan lu riji), Wenxue yichan 2009.2: 50–55.

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as “literary top-of-the-list” (wen zhuangyuan 文狀元241) in a roster of actors ( jubang 菊榜);242 compare Wang Yaoqing, selected as the head of an actor roster for his looks and acting skills (se yi 色藝) from among the ranks of students of private studios.243 Ouyang Yuqian’s grandfather was the prefect of Guilin Prefecture and, like many progressive intellectuals of his era, Ouyang studied in Japan (for all but a short period, during the years 1902–1909), where he finished a secondary degree and went on to study business and literature. He would later publish translations of Japanese plays and articles on theater and an article on the difficulties of translating plays into Chinese.244 He ran a number of organizations devoted to theater reform before 1949, and was president of Zhongyang Xiju Xueyuan 中央戲劇學院 (Central Theater Academy) from 1950–1962. He published on a variety of topics, including dance,245 and because he published a lot of autobiographical material we know more about him than we do about Wang.246

241 The traditional civil service examinations were divided between the most prestigious type, designed to pick civil officials, and a less prestigious type designed to pick military officials. 242 Zheng Yimei 鄭逸梅 (1895–1992), “Li Boyuan wei Wang Xiaonong kai jubang” 李伯元 為汪笑儂開菊榜 (Li Boyuan on behalf of Wang Xiaonong started up a chrysanthemum roster), Zhanggu xiaozha 掌故小札 (Minor notes on anecdotes; Chengdu: Ba Shu shushe, 1988), pp. 100–101, attributes the motivation to honor Wang this way to the famous fiction author and periodical editor Li Boyuan 李伯元 (1867–1906) and other editors and literati, as a way to counter the fact that Wang was always ranked after performers of female roles (he was a laosheng actor). Cai Peifen, “Wan Qing fushi hui,” p. 172, quotes Zheng and a similar account by Sun Yusheng 孫玉聲, “Wang Xiaonong” 汪笑儂, Tuixing lu biji 退醒 廬筆記 (Jottings from Retire and sober-up hut), in vol. 6 of Minguo biji xiaoshuo daguan Diyi ji 民國筆記小說大觀第一輯 (Grand compendium of jottings from the Republican era, First collection; Taiyuan: Shanxi guji, 1996), p. 142. There is a pretty wide consensus as to the importance of this event in Wang’s rise to fame. 243 See Wang Zhaoyu, “Qingdai zhong hou qi Beijing ‘pinyou’ wenhua,” p. 68. 244 See Ouyang Yuqian 歐陽予倩, “Fanyi juben de kunnan” 翻譯劇本的困難 (The difficulties of translating plays), Xiju 戲劇 (Theater) 1 (1929): 343–45. 245 Ouyang Yuqian’s collected works take up six volumes. On his influence on Chinese dance after 1949, see Wang Kefen 王克芬, “Ouyang Yuqian yu Zhongguo dangdai wudao—Yi enshi Ouyang Yuqian de dundun jiaohui” 歐陽予倩與中國當代舞蹈—憶恩師歐陽予 倩的惇惇教誨 (Ouyang Yuqian and contemporary dance—In memory of the generous instruction of my teacher, Ouyang Yuqian), Beijing wudao xueyuan xuebao 北京舞蹈學 院學報 (Academic journal of the Beijing academy of dance) 2005.4: 3–5. 246 Besides his “Zi wo yan xi yi lai,” which has been frequently cited above, and the piece on his career in film that will be mentioned below, he also wrote “Wo zenyang xuehui le yan Jingxi” 我怎樣學會了演京戲 (How I learned to perform Jingju; 1958) and “Wo zipai ziyan de Jingxi” 我自排自演的京戲 ( Jingju plays I staged and performed; 1958), in Ouyang Yuqian quanji, 6: 239–65 and 266–69, respectively.

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While Wang Xiaonong published a fair amount of poetry in newspapers,247 he only published one piece on Chinese theater as far as we know; it is either a transcription of a lecture or the notes from which he lectured ( jiangshou 講 授). His title was given as “Gailiang xiqu lianxi suo suozhang” 改良戲曲練習所 所長 (head of the institute for the reform and practice of Chinese indigenous theater),248 a position he appears to have held at two such organizations, one in Jinan and the other in Tianjin. The lecture was perhaps given to inaugurate the one in Tianjin.249

247 A selection of almost 100 of his poems is included at the end of Wang Xiaonong xiqu ji: Jingju 汪笑儂戲曲集: 京劇 (Collected Chinese indigenous theater plays by Wang Xiaonong: Jingju; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 1957), 289–316. 248 Wang Xiaonong 汪笑儂, “Xiqu jiangyi” 戲曲講義 (Lecture on Chinese indigenous theater), Jiaoyu zhoubao 教育週報 (Education weekly) 24 (1913): 37–40 (part 1). Zhao Haixia 趙海霞, Jindai baokan juping yanjiu (1872–1919) 近代報刊劇評研究 (1872–1919) (Research on theater reviews in modern periodicals [1872–1919]; Jinan: Qi Lu shushe, 2017), pp. 218–19, quotes from a preface by Tsuji Chōka published in Shuntian ribao, June 17, 1914, for a book of this title by Wang Xiaonong in two volumes, which Zhao says supposedly had eighty chapters (pian 篇). Fu Qiumin 傅秋敏, “Lun Wang Xiaonong de xiqu gailiang huodong” 論王笑儂的戲曲改良活動 (On Wang Xiaonong’s theater reform activities), Xiju yishu 戲劇藝術 (Theater arts) 1988.3: 52, also claims that Wang wrote such a work with eighty sections. Zhou Xinfang 周信芳, “Yi Wang Xiaonong” 憶 汪笑儂 (Remembering Wang Xiaonong; originally published in 1957), in Li Zhongcheng 黎中城 and Shan Yuejin 單躍進, eds., Zhou Xinfang quanji 周信芳全集 (Complete collected works of Zhou Xinfang), 22 vols. (Shanghai: Shanghai wenhua, 2014), 15: 177, says that this work was published serially in Tianjin jiaoyu bao 天津教育報 (Tianjin education newspaper) when Wang was living in Tianjin, in which case it probably was not very long. I have not yet been able to have access to this newspaper, nor have I found an extant copy of the book Tsuji Chōka wrote the preface for. 249 For the date the Tianjin organization was inaugurated, see Chen Jie, Minguo xiqu shi nianpu, p. 10. On Wang and this organization, see Suzuki Naoko 鈴木直子, “Ō Shōnō to Tenshin gigeki kairyō sha: Minkoku shoki no tsūzoku kyōiku no ikkan to shite gikyoku kairyō” 汪笑儂と天津戯劇改良社: 民国初期の通俗教育の一環としての戯曲改 良 (Wang Xiaonong and Tianjin Xiju Gailiang She: The role of popular education in theater reform in the early Republic), Ningen bunka sōsei kagaku ronsō 人間文化創成科學 論叢 (Collected essays on creation in the humanities) 11 (2008): 1–10. According to Liu Songkun, Liyuan yiwen, p. 186, Wang was invited to become the head of a similar organization based in Jinan in 1910. Wu Tongbin, “Jingju bainian gaige zongheng tan,” p. 362, briefly describes the activities of the organization but says that its “real accomplishments and effects” (shiji shouxiao 實際收效) were not great.

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Based on current information Wang wrote at least forty-seven plays,250 including plays that used traditional historical settings and characters,251 and plays that used European “history” to talk about contemporary events in China.252 It is hard to come up with a precise number of plays for him, since some were never completely written out, as is also the case for some of Ouyang Yuqian’s plays. Both he and Ouyang were involved for some time in productions of wenming xi, a theatrical genre that did not stress fully worked-out playscripts.253 They collaborated on a play at least once.254

250 Chen Fang 陳芳, “Jingju ‘Wang [Xiaonong] pai’ tanze” 京劇 ‘汪 [笑儂] 派’ 探賾 (Exploring the subtleties of the ‘Wang [Xiaonong] school of performance’ in Jingju), Huabu yu yabu, pp. 403–19, provides a chart with summary information on the forty-seven plays. She identifies twenty-three of them as “newly written” (xinbian 新編), another twenty as “adapted” (gaibian 改變), and four as lacking enough information to decide. Yan Quanyi, Qingdai Jingju wenxue shi, p. 463, points out that many of Wang’s new plays were probably never completely written out. Wang’s plays were outstanding for both the length of lines in the arias and the length of single arias. See Liu Songkun, Liyuan yiwen, p. 156. 251 An example is Dangren bei (Xikao #453), which has been interpreted as being about the collapse of the 1898 reform movement and proscription of its main adherents (and execution of those who did not flee to safety abroad). See Zhao Shanlin, “Wangshan lu lingqu riji,” pp. 52–53, and an introduction by [Liu] Huogong’s [劉] 豁公 (c. 1890–1969+) to the printing of a different play of Wang’s, Xi’er ji 洗耳記 (Washing out his ears; about a recluse, Xu You, who washes out his ears after being offered the throne by the sage emperor Yao; not in Xikao), in Xiju yuekan 1.10 (April 1929): 1: “Wang once wrote the play Dangren bei in order to attack the tribal head of the Manchus for arresting and killing the reform party” 嘗編黨人碑劇, 以刺滿酉捕殺民黨. Gu Shuguang, Liyuan wenxian yu Youling yanju, pp. 82–83, presents pretty strong evidence that the play was not actually written by Wang but instead adapted from a playscript by a Hang Renlian 杭人連, who gave it to Wang to adapt for pihuang performance. The connection between the content of some of the plays that Wang set in the past and contemporary events was felt so strongly that they have been called “current event new plays” (shishi xinju 時事新劇). See Zhao Shanlin et al., Jindai Shanghai xiqu xinian chubian, p. 253. 252 Most famously, his Guazhong lanyin uses a fictional war between Poland and Turkey to talk about the precarious state of China. Rebecca Karl talks about the connotations in China of Poland’s fate at the time (split up between Russia, Austria, and Prussia and ceasing to exist as an independent state) in her Staging the World: Chinese Nationalism at the Turn of the Twentieth Century (Durham: Duke University Press, 2002), pp. 27–49, and also translates the first installment of the play in an appendix, pp. 203–20. 253 Ouyang Yuqian describes performing wenming xi at Xin Wutai in “Ziwo yan xi yi lai,” and wrote about the genre in “Tan wenming xi” 談文明戲 (On wenming xi), Ouyang Yuqian quanji, 6: 180–238 (first published in 1958). 254 See Liu Songkun, Liyuan yiwen, p. 158.

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Wang Xiaonong played a major role in the first Chinese journal devoted to theater, Ershi shiji da wutai (1904);255 some of his plays were serialized in periodicals around the same time that they were mounted on stage;256 and a collection of eighteen of his plays was published after 1949.257 He and Ouyang are often spoken of as both playwrights and directors.258 Ouyang not only directed for the stage but also for film.259 Ouyang Yuqian’s Honglou meng plays competed with those of Mei Lanfang.260 He was involved in attempts to modernize Jingju at Linggong Xueshe 伶工學 社 (Academy for Actors) in Nantong from 1919 to 1921261 and one to modernize local opera in Guilin during the War of Resistance Against Japan,262 performed and wrote plays for both xiqu and huaju, was behind a journal on theater,263 and held a number of important positions in the theater world after 1949.264 255 Photo-reprinted in Fu Jin and Cheng Lujie, eds., Qingmo Minguo xiju qikan huibian, 1: 1–200. 256 For instance, the first installment of Guazhong lanyin premiered on August 5, 1904, and was serialized in Jingzhong ribao 警鐘日報 (Alarm bell newspaper) from August 21–30 and in Anhui suhua bao on September 10, September 24, and October 9 (issues 11–13) in the same year. 257 Wang Xiaonong xiqu ji. In the front matter, in “Bianji shuoming” (Explanation of editing), p. 2, it is noted that huaju playscripts by Wang were available but they only contained abstracts or scenarios, and so were not included. 258 On Wang and directing, see Yan Quanyi, Qingdai Jingju wenxue shi, p. 466; on Ouyang and directing, see Gao Yu 高宇, “Ouyang Yuqian yu jindai xiqu daoyan xue” 歐陽予倩與近 代戲曲導演學 (Ouyang Yuqian and the discipline of directing in Chinese indigenous theater in the early modern period), Xiju yishu 1989.4: 37–49. 259 He did not act in films but did write many screenplays. His memoir about his life in film, Dianying banlu chujia ji 電影半路出家記 (A record of my mid-career shift into film) was published separately in 1984 and is included in Ouyang Yuqian quanji, 6: 356–414. 260 See Jing Shen, “Theatrical Femininities: A Comparison of Mei Lanfang’s and Ouyang Yuqian’s Honglou meng Plays,” Southeast Review of Asian Studies 34 (2012): 60–86. 261 See Qin Shao, “The Mismatch: Ouyang Yuqian and Theater Reform in Nantong, 1919– 1921,” CHINOPERL Papers 18 (1996): 39–65; Shao also wrote about Ouyang Yuqian in her Culturing Modernity: The Nantong Model, 1890–1930 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004). 262 See Qiu Zhensheng 丘振聲 and Yang Yinting 楊蔭亭, Ouyang Yuqian yu Guiju gaige 歐陽予倩與桂劇改革 (Ouyang Yuqian and the reform of Guilin theater; Nanning: Guangxi renmin, 1986), and Carolyn FitzGerald, “Mandarin Ducks at the Battlefield: Ouyang Yuqian’s Shifting Configurations of Nora and Mulan,” CHINOPERL Papers 29 (2010): 45–104. 263 Ouyang Yuqian was not the editor of Xiju 戲劇 (Theater), but was head of Guangdong Xiju Yanjiu Suo 廣東戲劇研究所 (Institute for research on theater in Guangdong Province), which published it, and was one of the main contributors to it. The journal was published from 1929 to 1931. 264 A volume of research materials on Ouyang is Su Guanxin 蘇關鑫, ed., Ouyang Yuqian yanjiu ziliao 歐陽予倩研究資料 (Research material on Ouyang Yuqian; Beijing: Zhongguo

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Although he does not seem to have preserved copies of all the plays that he wrote,265 collections including some of his plays have been published.266 His collected works were published in six volumes.267 Wang Xiaonong’s plays are striking for how long the arias can be, while Ouyang Yuqian, probably under the influence of Western and Chinese spoken drama, tried to limit the number of scenes in his plays. 5

Early “Professional” Playwrights

It would not be until well into the Republican period that we get playwrights who really rely on playwriting for their living (even if most did not like to speak about their “rates”), and insist on getting paid and on having their authorial rights respected. There are, however, some earlier figures who were known primarily as Jingju playwrights. Shen Xiaoqing is such a person. Yan Quanyi introduces him this way: Unexpectedly there appeared an actor who because of the plays that he created became very famous, his fame coming almost entirely from the plays that he gave to the Jingju stage that have been performed without cease to the present. He was the martial male actor for the Songzhu Troupe, Shen Xiaoqing, the author of the famous series of plays “The Eight Great Captures.”

xiju, 1989). It includes “Ouyang Yuqian nianbiao” 歐陽予倩年表 (Yearly chronology for Ouyang Yuqian), pp. 12–70, and “Ouyang Yuqian zhuyi xinian biao” 歐陽予倩著譯系年 表 (Chronological list of Ouyang Yuqian’s writings and translations), pp. 473–514, both compiled by Su Guanxin. 265 Su Guanxin, “Ouyang Yuqian zhuyi xinian biao,” p. 473, lists the titles of eighteen Jingju plays that Ouyang Yuqian says in his “Zi wo yan xi yi lai” (first published in 1929) that he wrote, staged, and performed; Su notes that only a minority of them were preserved and dates the earliest to 1915 (p. 474). By 1929 Ouyang had stopped performing (like Mei Lanfang, to whom he was compared, he performed female roles), but he wrote four more Jingju plays, the last of them in 1946. According to Su’s list, he wrote more scripts for huaju (forty) than for Jingju (twenty-two), and from 1934 through 1958 wrote nine screenplays. 266 See, for instance, Ouyang Yuqian juzuo xuan 歐陽予倩劇作選 (Selected plays by Ouyang Yuqian; Beijing: Renmin wenxue, 1956) and Ouyang Yuqian xiqu xuan 歐陽予倩戲曲選 (Selected Chinese indigenous plays by Ouyang Yuqian; Changsha: Hunan renmin, 1982). 267 Ouyang Yuqian quanji has been referenced in notes many times above.

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例外地出現一個因編創劇本而鳴聲大噪的演員 , 他的名氣幾乎完全來 自他為京劇舞臺留下了至今盛演不衰的眾多劇目 , 這就是嵩祝班武生 演員沈小慶, 京劇著名的 ‘八大拿’ 系列劇目作者.268

“Eight Great Captures,” referring to sets of eight plays269 in which an outlaw figure is “captured” by the lieutenants of an upright judge, has been discussed as a type of play in chapter 1. Yan goes on to call Shen a “professional Jingju playwright” 職業的京劇劇作家.270 Shen was born into a family that had produced officials and enjoyed a traditional education until his family declined, after which he became an actor at the age of 15.271 He is said to have written more than thirty plays.272 Huang Tianba 黃天霸, the main lieutenant under Judge Shi, is the main character in his most famous plays; Shen played this role himself. In most cases he adapted existing plays rather than creating new ones.273 Another influence on his plays was a form of professional storytelling without musical accompaniment, ping­ hua 評話.274 Shen (or a classmate of his, accounts differ) is said to have used playing cards to work out the cast of a play when he was in jail.275 268 Yan Quanyi, Qingdai Jingju wenxue shi, p. 218. 269 Zeng Bairong, ed., Jingju jumu cidian, Bawang zhuang 霸王莊 (Hegemon king’s manor; not in Xikao), p. 1008, lists several attempts to list which plays make up the eight. 270 Yan Quanyi, Qingdai Jingju wenxue shi, pp. 218–40. See p. 218 for the quotations. 271 Yan Quanyi, Qingdai Jingju wenxue shi, p. 219. 272 Yan Quanyi, Qingdai Jingju wenxue shi, p. 224. 273 See, for instance, Guo Jingrui, Chewang fu quben yu Jingju de xingcheng, p. 137. 274 See, for example, Su Yi, Jingju erbai nian gaiguan, p. 154. Pan Jingfu and Chen Moxiang, Liyuan waishi, p. 6.74, dramatizes Shen going to a storytelling session and thinking the Judge Shi story that he just heard would make a good play. Earlier (p. 6.72), we were told that Shen’s father was a minor official who enjoyed making friends and did not accumulate any money, so that upon his father’s death Shen’s family decided to have him become an actor. Shen is the major figure in chapter 6 of this novel, which describes him deciding to write a play on the episode performed at the storytelling session in order to get revenge on someone responsible for putting him in jail. He spends half the night working up a tigang 提綱 (abstract) for the play, which is quoted and consists of a list (supposedly in order of appearance) of the thirty-two characters that he comes up with for the play. He finishes the play in a couple of days (p. 6.82). 275 The play in question is Ehu cun 惡虎村 (Evil Tiger Village; Xikao #208), the very same one that Liyuan waishi describes Shen first working up a tigang for and then finishing off in a few days. Xue Xiaojin 薛曉金, “Qianyan” 前言 (Forward), in Xue Xiaojin 薛曉金, ed., Jingju chuantong juben huibian, Xubian, Shi gong’an xilie wuxi 京劇傳統劇本彙編, 續編, 施公施公案新傳系列武戲 (Collection of traditional Jingju playscripts, Continuation, Judge Shi series of military plays; Beijing: Beijing chubanshe, 2012), p. 3, quotes a version of the story in Jishui, “Jin bainian lai pihuang juben zuojia” (upper register, p. 9, of the Juxue yuekan version), in which Shen is the playwright, and another account from a

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Incidentally, another playwright who got into trouble and wrote Judge Shi plays, Shi Songquan 史松泉 (dates unknown), is worth mentioning by way of contrast with Shen. Shi was a metropolitan official accused of a serious crime who bribed someone to say that he had already died. He is supposed to have had good relations with members of the Fushou 福壽 Troupe, especially Chen Delin 陳德霖 (1862–1930), who often performed before Empress Dowager Cixi. The story goes that he wrote Shi gong’an xinzhuan 施公案新傳 (A new account of Judge Shi) in twelve installments for the Fushou Troupe to perform and asked Chen to be sure to perform it in the palace and to tell the empress dowager that so-and-so had written it (not daring to use his own name). The hope was that if the empress dowager really liked the play, his own name could come up, and winning her favor in this way would help him resuscitate his career. Chen Delin was not convinced that this was a good idea and discussed it with a eunuch, who concurred. In the end, the plan was abandoned.276 Some think this story is probably fictional.277 The play survives in a manuscript version with a preface dated to 1895 that is signed by Shi using his own name.278 In that preface, Shi begins by saying that in the spring of the year he was at leisure in his garden when the idea came to him to write a play cycle based on the novel, which will “provide [something for the] actors to perform” 以備梨園演唱 and “allow those on stage to completely display their skills, both civil and martial” 使登場者可以盡文武之技. He claims that his version is very different from the versions performed by the various troupes, and “although the plot elements are many” 事跡雖繁, “what comes before and after is tied together by a single thread” 前後貫成一線 and “the logic is clear” (qingli tongxun 情理通訊). After stressing the play’s good moral effects, discussing some elements of Pekingese, and apologizing for whatever wrong characters there might be, he ends, in true literati manner, by belittling the play as nothing more than a “game” (youxi 游 戲).279 The stage directions have an unusual amount of detail about clothing and makeup. For instance, the first three characters to take the stage in the first

276 277 278 279

descendant of the classmate in which the classmate is the playwright. The two-volume set edited by Xue has more than thirty plays, some having multiple installments. The source of the manuscripts that were edited and typeset is noted (one is from the Shengpingshu); at each play’s end is a note about its history that provides information similar to that given for each play in Zeng Bairong, ed., Jingju jumu cidian. See Qi Rushan, Jingju zhi bianqian, p. 29b (Qi Rushan quanji, 2: 870). At the end of the anecdote, Qi laments that no one performs the play anymore. See, for instance, Yan Quanyi, Qingdai Jingju wenxue shi, p. 367. What may be the only surviving manuscript copy was once held by Wu Xiaoling and is reproduced in Wu Shuyin, ed., Suizhong Wu-shi cang chaoben gaoben xiqu congkan, 34: 1–257. Wu Shuyin, ed., Suizhong Wu-shi cang chaoben gaoben xiqu congkan, 34: 2–3.

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scene are played by laosheng, wusheng, and jing actors, respectively. We are told the color of their robes, what kind of beard they wear, and the color of the face pattern for the jing actor. The preface and scenes are devoid of punctuation. It is clear that the play was not written with readers in mind.280 Lu Shengkui and his serial play Sanguo zhi (and that serial play’s close connection to Sanguo yanyi) was mentioned above,281 as was his being an amateur actor who decided to turn professional. There are competing stories about where he came from; not even his disciple, Xiao Changhua, was clear about such details.282 Lu seems to have come to Beijing either to take the metropolitan exams or to find work. There are reports that he held the second-level degree, juren.283 Some identify him as a worker or a craftsman,284 but Xiao Changhua thinks that he was some sort of a secretary before Cheng Changgeng, leader of the Sanqing Troupe, invited him to join the troupe to help with the staging and writing of plays and participate in performances.285 Lu’s Sanguo zhi was quite a sensation when it premiered but was not performed that long by the Sanqing Troupe, because many of the senior actors who premiered roles in it died and only Qunying hui (Xikao #42) was regularly performed.286 We can end this section with what seems to have been the only professional Jingju playwright of the period, someone only known by his surname and birth order: Liu San 劉三 (Liu the Third; he was also known as Niu San 牛三 [Niu the Third]). His birth and death dates are not clear but he can be taken as a contemporary of Mei Qiaoling. According to Jishui, after getting the juren degree he came to the capital but never managed to advance any further in the civil 280 Instead of readers, the preface (p. 2) mentions “those who sit and listen” (zuotingzhe 坐聽 者). 281 Yan Quanyi, Qingdai Jingju wenxue shi, p. 297, notes that Lu Shengkui also made use of the standard history of the period, Sanguo zhi 三國志 (The chronicle of the Three Kingdoms) and its most famous commentary. Yan thinks that the serial play premiered no earlier than 1877 and no later than 1879 (the year Cheng Changgeng died; p. 314). 282 Niu Biao 鈕驃, “Xiaolao dui shiliao de jidian dingzheng” 蕭老對史料的幾點訂正 (Several corrections concerning historical material from Xiao Changhua), in Niu Biao, ed., Xiao Changhua xiqu tancong, p. 152. 283 Yan Quanyi, Qingdai Jingju wenxue shi, p. 293, cites two such claims. 284 See Jishui, “Jin bainian lai pihuang juben zuojia,” p. 9 (lower register) and Jiao Juyin, “Minjian xiqu de qingjie ji zuozhe,” p. 317. 285 Niu Biao, “Xiaolao dui shiliao de jidian dingzheng,” p. 152. Although never of the first rank, Lu was an important laosheng actor for the troupe. Guo Jingrui, Chewang gu yu Jingju de xingcheng, p. 135, claims that he was born into a family that had produced officials and his stage name of Lu Shengkui implied that he was better (sheng 勝) than Zhang Erkui. Ma Shaobo, et al., eds., Zhongguo Jingju shi, puts Lu’s biography among the actors (1: 398–400) and not among the playwrights. 286 Xiao Changhua, “Wuye tiaodeng xiu shiju,” p. 58.

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service examinations, despite repeated attempts. He liked theater and became friends with actors, and this led to him being hired (pin 聘) to write plays for the Sixi Troupe and to live with the troupe. Jishui says that he relied on the actors for his clothing and food for the last twenty years of his life, and that when he died at sixty, they took care of burying him.287 As is common with literati frustrated in their expected official careers, Liu liked to satirize those who had high office. In his plays he liked to write about courtesans, whom he presented as far superior to officials.288 Yan Quanyi claims that most of Liu San’s plays were “tailored specifically” 度身定作 for Mei Qiaoling.289 In contrast to Li Zhongli, Liu San has been grouped among Jingju playwrights who wrote in a more literary manner (wencai pai 文采派) and used both parallelism and allusions in their playwriting.290 Fu Xihua lists seven of Liu San’s plays and notes that all but three were still being performed.291 Jishui gives the reasons for his success as a playwright this way: “he watched plays for a long time, and also read many chuanqi plays; all of the plays that he wrote were fit to perform, this is not something that Yu Zhi could achieve” 觀劇久, 又多讀傳奇, 凡所撰著, 多便於演唱, 非余治所及.292 Jiao Juyin claimed that he was “the first literatus to collaborate with actors” 文 人當中第一個與伶人合作的人.293 287 Jishui, “Jin bainian lai pihuang juben zuojia,” p. 2 (upper register). 288 See, for instance, Guo and Gao, “Moral Conflicts,” pp. 514–16 (“Liu San and His Courtesan Stories”). 289 Yan Quanyi, Qingdai Jingju wenxue shi, p. 327. 290 Yan Quanyi, Qingdai Jingju wenxue shi, p. 323–24. 291 Fu Xihua, “Pihuang juben zuozhe caomu,” p. 360. In Jiao Juyin, “Minjian xiqu de qingjie ji zuozhe,” p. 313, the same number is given. Fu’s list of seven plays appears also in Jishui, “Jin bainian lai pihuang juben zuojia,” p. 2 (upper register). Yan Changke, “Chuntai ban ximu bianzheng,” p. 137, notes that all seven plays that Jishui attributes to Liu San are listed in the repertoire of the Chuntai Troupe. 292 Jishui, “Jin bainian lai pihuang juben zuojia,” p. 2 (upper register). The section on Liu San in Guo Jingrui, Chewang fu quben yu Jingju xingcheng does not quote Jishui (instead Ma Shaobo et al., eds., Zhongguo Jingju shi, pp. 1: 575–56, which misquotes what Jishui says about Liu San’s courtesy name and native place, seems to have been consulted); Guo also compares Liu San and Yu Zhi (pp. 127–28). 293 Jiao Juyin, “Minjian xiqu de qingjie ji zuozhe,” p. 313.

Chapter 3

The Production of a Mass-Market Collection of Jingju Playscripts: Xikao (Research into Plays) Shanghai, where Xikao was produced in the beginning years of the Republic, was not the center of the traditional Jingju world but it was a place that had become increasingly important not only as a place where Jingju was experimented with but also as a location where actors from Beijing came to make money and where more and more material on Jingju, from journals to collections of playscripts, was being published. Natives of Shanghai, in general, were less comfortable with the type of Chinese spoken in traditional Jingju, and it made sense that projects aimed at introducing the repertoire of Jingju and its plays such as Xikao should have originated there.1 Shanghai was also the center of publishing during the Republic.2 Xikao was a very popular and influential publication. Playgoers did take copies of it to the theater and did refer to them as they watched plays,3 people 1 Idema, “The Many Shapes of Medieval Chinese Plays,” p. 324, argues that it was probably no accident that “most of the Yuan-time printings of Yuan zaju are not from Dadu [modern Beijing, capital of the Yuan dynasty and a center of early zaju production and performance] in the north, but from Hangzhou in the south,” because for many of the people in Hangzhou “the northern dialect in which zaju was performed must have been a second language.” Similar remarks can be found in West and Idema, eds. and trs., “Introduction,” Monks, Bandits, Lovers, and Immortals, pp. xxi–ii, as well as an analogy made between the purpose of these texts and the subtitles for arias projected in modern Chinese theaters. In Xu Lingzhao’s Gucheng fanzhao ji, two characters in Beijing at the end of the Qing talk about producing a theater guidebook. One of them figures that the guidebook could be produced in about half a year, and “although it would not be able to create much of a stir in Beijing, in Shanghai and Hankou and such places, it could be quite attractive” 雖然不能在北京出很大的風頭, 到 上海漢口那些地方, 也是可以熏得住人了. Some notes for the guidebook, which seem to be presented fairly satirically, are quoted. See the first installment, Zhonghua xiqu 22 (1999): 14–19. 2 Qiliang He, “News about Killing, News that Killed: Media Culture and Identities in 1920s China,” doctoral thesis, University of Minnesota, 2006, p. 104, quotes statistics to the effect that “Shanghai published two-thirds of the titles in China from 1911 to 1949, while Beijing, which ranked second, only published 7%.” 3 An April 11, 1914 item in Shuntian shibao, Zeng Zhimin 曾志忞, “Geju gailiang baihua” 歌 劇改良百話 (Numerous talks on the reform of opera), quoted in Zhang Jingwei 張靜蔚, ed., Sousuo lishi: Zhongguo jin xian dai yinyue wenlun xuanbian 搜索歷史: 中國近現代音 樂文論選編 (Searching for history: Selected writing on music in early modern and modern China; Shanghai: Shanghai yinyue, 2004), p. 67, describes how since it began to be published,

© David L. Rolston, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004463394_005

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who wanted to go see plays but couldn’t make it to see them read the playscripts in it as a substitute,4 actors mentioned it in plays,5 and later collections of Jingju playscripts imitated its format or copied material from it.6 As we will see, it was reprinted many times. For many people, the word xikao signified a whole genre of texts, one that a dictionary of popular literature has called “A category of texts related to Chinese traditional theater. It [the term] refers to books that print either Chinese traditional theater play texts or the texts of arias [of plays]. Most of them include introductory, research or evaluative sections” 戲曲圖書類型之一. 指刊載戲曲劇本或唱詞的書籍, 多帶 Xikao “has been disseminated widely” ( faxing dasheng 發行大盛) and how “there are play fanatics who, whenever they are in the theater, hold in their hand a volume, and half open it and half incline their ears [to the singing]” 有戲迷者, 每在劇場手持一卷, 半開卷, 半 側耳. As we will see below, the publisher of Xikao ran ads in Shenbao saying that if you love plays you should read Xikao before you go to see them. Guo Shuqun 郭樹群, “Jiewen huangzhong dalü” 詰問黃鐘大律 (Please tell me about the huangzhong scale), in Guo Shuqun 郭樹群 and Zhou Xiaojing 周小靜, eds., Yinyue xue wenji 音樂學文集 (Collection of essays in musicology; Shanghai: Shanghai yinyue xueyuan, 2005), p. 231, says, “Li Jinhui [1891–1967] once also became enamoured of xiqu. He would spend the entire morning copying the play program for the day and looking up the playscripts in Xikao, which he would take as a ‘textbook,’ from the first play to the last one …” 黎錦暉對於戲曲的好尚亦曾一 度入迷, 一早上抄好戲碼, 從戲考上查出戲文, 作為 ‘課本,’ 打頭一齣到末一齣…. Li Jinhui 黎錦暉 became famous for both the textbooks that he wrote and the recordings that he made. On him, see Shi Tongwen 史通文 (Andreas Steen), Zai yule yu geming zhi jian— Liusheng ji, changpian he Shanghai yinyue gongye de chuqi (1878–1937) 在娛樂與革命之間: 留聲機, 唱片和上海音樂工業初期 (1878–1938) (Between entertainment and revolution: Phonographs, phonograph records, and the early period of the Shanghai music industry [1878–1937]), Wang Weijiang 王維江 and Lü Shu 呂澍, trs. (Shanghai: Shanghai cishu, 2015), pp. 266–77 (see p. 267 for Li and Xikao) and 428–42. Li is a major figure in Andrew F. Jones, Yellow Music: Media Culture and Colonial Modernity in the Chinese Jazz Age (Durham: Duke University Press, 2001). 4 Guo Guangjia 郭光甲, Cong tonggong dao jingli: Yige lü Ri huaqiao de sishu 從童工到經理: 一個旅日華僑的自述 (From child laborer to manager: The self-narrative of an overseas Chinese in Japan; Changchun: Beijing funü ertong, 1985), p. 111, describes how once he was in Japan and unable to go see Jingju he would read play after play in Xikao. 5 In Xiao Changhua’s version of Liansheng dian 連升店 (Inn of successive promotion; not in Xikao), Xiao Changhua yanchu juben xuanji, p. 281, the snobbish landlord mistakes the poor scholar’s Confucian text for a volume of Xikao. 6 Zhongguo xiqu zhi: Shanghai juan, “Xikao” p. 744, for instance, claims that “As for the various xikao for Jingju that appeared after it, there are many, and they mostly imitate the format of this book [Xikao] or borrow material from it” 其後所編各種戲考, 名目繁多, 大多仿此書 體例或汲取此書資料. Chen Jie, Minguo xiqu shi nianpu, p. 24, uses almost identical language. We should note the use of the name of the work, Xikao, to speak of a type of work that it inaugurated. The plot summaries of plays in Xikao were widely copied by later collections of Jingju playscripts, including Hu Juren 胡菊人, ed., Jingxi kao 京戲考 (Shanghai: Shanghai tushu gongsi, 1937), Xiuding Pingju xuan (1945–1948), and Guoju dacheng (1969–1974).

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有介紹, 考評文字.7 The type of xikao that printed primarily aria texts would

become popular as phonograph records and the playing of them over the radio became popular (see below and chapter 6). Unlike the collections of playscripts published by the PRC, those in Xikao were not edited to bring them in line with any particular ideology.8 It has been used as a basic source of editions of Jingju plays in scholarship in Taiwan for some time, and is becoming prominent in the wider world of Jingju studies on the Mainland,9 where it is at the center of the largest and most active website offering Jingju play texts.10 Besides heavy use by amateur Jingju singers and actors, Xikao has also been consulted by Jingju playwrights.11 It has been praised for its volume, its breadth of coverage, and its representativeness of Jingju in general,12 and of Jingju in its day.13 It is clearly an important milestone

7 Wang Wenbao 王文寶 et al., eds., Zhongguo su wenxue cidian 中國俗文學辭典 (Dictionary of Chinese popular literature: Changchun: Jilin jiaoyu, 1990), “Xikao” 戲考, p. 199. 8 For instance, Lu Yingkun and Hai Zhen, Changjiang xiqu, p. 336 n. 1, justifies the choice of Xikao versions of plays as base texts for analysis because they “were not edited by modern-day persons” (wei jing jinren zhengli 未經今人整理). 9 Interest in Xikao in both Taiwan and the Mainland has been spurred by modern photoreprints (Taiwan 1980 and Shanghai 1990 [see below]). The influential Taiwan scholar Wang Anqi 王安祈 and her students cite Xikao regularly. See, for instance, her “Guanyu Jingju juben laiyuan.” For an example of Mainland scholars using Xikao, see the previous note. Zhang Geng and and Huang Jusheng, eds., Zhongguo jindai wenxue daxi: Xiju ji, includes sixteen Peking opera plays. Xikao provides the base text for five of them and was used in the collation of three more. 10 See discussion below and in chapter 6 of xikao.com. 11 Qi Rushan, for instance, consulted the Xikao edition of Meilong zhen 梅龍鎮 (Meilong Town; Xikao #31) when he compiled his version of Youlong xi feng 游龍戲鳳 (The wandering dragon flirts with the phoenix); see Qi Rushan huiyi lu, p. 119 (Qi Rushan quanji, 10: 6133), and Liang Yan, “Qi Rushan juxue chutan,” p. 171. Yao Baolian 姚寶璉 and Yao Baoxuan 姚寶瑄, “Mei Lanfang juzuo biannian” 梅蘭芳劇作編年 (Mei Lanfang’s plays, year by year), Mei Lanfang quanji (2000), 4: 470, describes Mei Lanfang’s new version of this play, but does not mention Qi Rushan and instead stresses the adaptation as largely about changing a huadan play in which the actor wore stilts (caiqiao 踩蹺) to simulate bound feet so that Mei, who was not skilled at wearing them, could perform the role. 12 See, for instance, the preface by Huang Shang 黃裳 to the Shanghai Shudian reprint of Xikao, Xikao daquan (see below), p. 2. There were, of course, complaints about the inclusion of certain plays and the exclusion of others. For an example, see Jiao Juyin 焦菊隱, “Jinri zhi Zhongguo xiju,” p. 312. 13 This claim is made, for instance, in the preface to the Liren Shuju reprint of Xikao (p. 2). In Mao Zedong’s library at Yan’an he had several tens of installments of Xikao that were constantly borrowed by the theater people there and were eventually given to them for their use. See Wang Fan 王凡 and Dongping 東平, Hongdu tonghua: Wo de shaonian Yan’an wangshi 紅都童話: 我的少年延安往事 (Children’s stories from the Red Capital:

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in the history of the progressive textualization of Jingju and thus properly stands at the very center of this book. 1

The Publication History of Xikao

Xikao consists of forty installments originally published separately, from 1912 to 1925.14 In the first complete edition, each of the installments consist of a table of contents, ten pages of photographs of actors,15 and an average of thirteen playscripts16 with an introduction (shukao 述考) for each that typically Recollections of being young at Yan’an; Changsha: Hunan wenyi, 2008), p. 183. See also Wang Peiyuan, Yan’an Luyi fengyun lu, p. 218. 14 On anthologies of traditional Chinese theater prior to Xikao, see Zhu Chongzhi, Zhongguo gudai xiqu xuanben. One of the trends traced in that book is the switch from the literaticentric anthologies of the Ming to, by the mid-Qing, actor- and production-centered anthologies with comparatively little literati input (see pp. 23–28 for a summary of this argument). For reasons that will become clear below, it is only quite recently that the date for the first installment of Xikao, 1912, has become acknowledged. The one older reference work that contained a lot of information on the publication dates of the individual installments is Zhongguo jindai xiandai congshu mulu 中國近代現代叢書目錄 (Catalogue of Chinese collectanea from the early modern and modern periods; Hong Kong: Commercial Press, 1980), pp. 494–502, but it does not give the date of the first installment, although it clearly gives February 1913 as the date for the original publication of installment two. Installment 35 is dated to 1923, but it includes a play, Daozhou cheng 道州城 (The city of Daozhou; Xikao #478, alternately known as Shen Yunying 沈 雲英 after the name of the heroine) that is described as a play exclusively performed by Cheng Yanqiu (Cheng Yanqiu zhuanyou xi 程硯秋專有戲) in Zeng Bairong, ed., Jingju jumu ci­dian, p. 953, and whose premiere is dated to 1926 in Zhou Mingtai, Wushi nian lai Beiping xiju shicai Houbian, p. 1018 (see p. 866, item 864, for the program, in which this play is the final item). 15 The only exception is installment 1, which contains twelve pages of photos (the history of this installment, as we will see, is quite complicated). 16 The first two installments contain the most plays, twenty; installment 33 contains only five. The figure of an average number of thirteen plays per installment is based on the numbering of the plays in the Liren Shuju edition. The eleventh volume of that set contains a forty-two page “Xikao zong mulu” 戲考總目錄 (Complete table of contents of Xikao) that reproduces the lists of plays from the installments in the Dadong Shuju edition, correcting the problem with installment 35 (see below). The five-volume edition of the first twenty installments includes one more play not included in the Dadong Shuju reprint (see below). In the reprints of the installments in the Liren Shuju edition, the plays have been given numbers that do not appear in either the original Zhonghua Tushu Guan editions or the Dadong Shuju reprint, but in installment 22 of the Liren Shuju edition the same play number (#345) is shared by two different batches of episodes from the same serial play, but get their own numbers (345 and 346) in Xikao zong mulu, causing the internal numbers and the “Xikao zong mulu” numbers to begin to differ by one. The

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(1) relates (shu 述) the contents or plot of the play and (2) includes the results of the examination (kao 考) of such things as the historical background of the play or the history of its performance on stage (with an emphasis on performances in Shanghai; henceforth these introductions will be referred to as shukao). The average number of pages per installment excluding the section with the photographs is 150.17 The first installment of Xikao was actually originally published by Shenbao Guan 申報館, of Shanghai (on August 10, 1912), a fact that seems to have been

17

gap increases to two in installment 24, when the same thing happens with the sharing of the same number (#354) by two different batches of episodes from the same serial play but the giving of two different numbers (355 and 356) in Xikao zong mulu. However, the difference between the two totals, the 523 of Xikao zong mulu, and the 521 that appears in the number given to the last play in the reprint of the last installment, is not enough to affect the average number of plays per installment (oddly enough, neither figure, 523 or 521, matches the one of 518 used in the English preface to the Liren Shuju reprint). The picture is further complicated because there is a playscript that only appears in the Zhonghua Tushu Guan edition and two others that only appear in the Dadong Shuju edition (see below). Xikao itself, or ads for it, never give a concrete number for how many plays it includes. A separate, complete table of contents to the collection was published by Zhonghua Tushu Guan, Xikao quanmu 戲考全目 (see below), but the plays are not numbered in it; the back cover just says the collection contains “as many as 500 plus several tens of plays” (wubai shushi chu zhi duo 五百數十齣之多). See the appendix for a complete list of the plays in Xikao and their serial numbers as used in this book. These figures are based on the Liren Shuju edition. The longest installment in that reprint is installment 4 (176 pages), followed by numbers 1 and 5 (both 166 pages), while the shortest is installment 22 (only 106 pages) followed by number 25 (134 pages). The last page of the last play in the Liren Shuju reprint (exclusive of volume 11), is p. 6002. It so happens that the reprint of installment 10 in the Zhonghua Tushu Guan five-volume reprint edition discussed below includes one play not to be found in the Liren Shuju edition, Yangui tan (Xikao #169a), while its version of installment 19 contains two plays, Jiulong shan 九龍 山 (Nine Dragon Mountain; Xikao #320) and Panhe zhan 盤河戰 (Battle at the Pan River; Xikao #321), not to be found in the Zhonghua Tushu Guan five-volume reprint. The writer of the shukao to Yangui tan refers to himself as Dacuo (more on Dacuo below). Another difference is that the order of Xian Xichuan 獻西川 (Offering up Western Sichuan; Xikao #257) and Zhaojia lou 趙家樓 (The Zhao family tavern; Xikao #258) is reversed in the Zhonghua Tushu Guan reprint. Although Zeng Bairong, ed., Jingju jumu cidian, only lists the Dadong Shuju reprint in its list of reference works, p. 1299), in the individual entries on plays in this volume, there is evidence that both the Dadong Shuju reprint (see, for instance, the entry on Wanli xunfu 萬里尋夫 [Searching for her husband over ten thousand li; Xikao #273], pp. 111–12. which says that that play appears in installment 35 [it appears in installment 16 of the Zhonghua Tushu Guan editions]) and the Zhonghua Tushu Guan reprint (see the entry for Yangui tan, p. 1210) were consulted. Although there was supposed to be general coordination of approach among the entries for Jingju jumu cidian, this is not always true in the case of individual entries.

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largely forgotten until recently.18 That press most famously published Shenbao 申報,19 the most influential and long-lived Shanghai newspaper and the periodical where the term Jingju first appeared in print (see the Introduction), but Shenbao Guan was also known for publishing fiction.20 18

Matsuura Tsuneo, “Xikao zai Minguo chunian de wenhua diwei,” p. 761, references ads run in Shenbao about the installment but missed the first one, which appeared on June 30, 1912 (see 117: 898 of the Shanghai Shudian 1983 photo-reprint of Shenbao). That ad claims that Xikao is at the printers and should appear soon. The ad continued to appear with only minor changes until July 7, 1912 (118: 69) when a promise was made, in larger and bolder characters that the work would appear by the end of the month. The ad run on July 28, 1912 (118: 279) now says that August 5 would probably be the date of publication, which was followed on the next day (118: 290) with an affirmation in large characters that that date would be met. The date was changed to August 10th in a new ad that first ran on August 1, 1912 (118: 319), with the excuse that the printing of the photographs was the cause of the delay. It is also in this ad that, for the first time, it is made clear that what will be published is just a first installment (diyi ce 第一冊). The ad also gives a list of the contents of the installment, which basically matches the contents of the Zhonghua Tushu Guan reprint of this installment in terms of contents but differs in the order of the plays. Matsuura Tsuneo, “Xikao zai Minguo chunian de wenhua diwei,” p. 761, notes that a Songbin 頌斌 (author of a preface to Xikao, see below) is credited for doing collation work ( jiaokan 校勘) on the Shenbao Guan version held at the Shanghai Municipal Library (their online catalogue also contains this claim). Finally, an ad that began to run on August 11, 1912 (Matsuura Tsuneo, p. 761, is in error when he dates this ad to “the following year” [cinian 次年]), announced that the first installment had indeed been published. Luckily, the Shenbao Guan version of the first installment of Xikao is included in the microfilm of an incomplete set of Xikao installments (includes installments 1–15, 17–25, 28–29, 32, 34–35, and 40; installments 23, 28, and 29 are Dadong Shuju versions) by Quanguo tushu guan wenxian suowei zhongxin 全國圖書館文獻縮微中心 (The center for China library document microfilming), catalogue number CJ-7182 (published 2007). The publication page at the end of the Shenbao Guan installment is only dated to August 1912 and not to any particular day in that month. 19 Because it is used in several names for the most important river in the Shanghai area, Shen 申 was used to refer to Shanghai itself. 20 Novels published in typeset editions by Shenbao Guan in the late nineteenth century include Rulin waishi 儒林外史 (Unofficial history of the scholars; separate editions in 1874 and 1881), Yesou puyan 野叟曝言 (The old codger airs his tongue; 1882), and Fengyue meng 風月夢 (A dream of wind and moon; 1883). See Ouyang Jian 歐陽健 and Xiao Xiangkai 簫相愷, eds., Zhongguo tongsu xiaoshuo zongmu tiyao 中國通俗小說總目提 要 (Bibliography of popular Chinese fiction; Beijing: Zhongguo wenlian, 1990), pp. 505, 501, and 690, respectively. An 1877 catalogue of Shenbao Guan’s publications is reproduced in Yin Mengxia 殷夢霞 and Li Shasha 李莎莎, eds., Zhongguo jindai guji chuban faxing ziliao congkan xubian 中國近代古籍出版發行史料叢刊續編 (Collectanea of material on early modern publication and distribution of texts, continuation), 24 vols. (Beijing: Beijing tushu guan, 2008), 10: 407–526. Shenbao Guan also published, in its Shenbao guan congshu 申報館叢書 (Shenbao collectanea), a “flower register” (huapu), Fengcheng pinhua ji 鳳城品花記 (Record of flower evaluations in the Imperial City).

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After the appearance of the first Shenbao Guan installment, despite ads proclaiming that a second one had been published,21 no more installments seem to have appeared from Shenbao Guan. As we will see below, a contributor to the first installment, someone using the penname Wuxia Jian’er 吳下健 兒 (Strong fellow from the Suzhou area) who had been publishing articles on Jingju in Shenbao, published in 1913 the first of a promised three volumes of Xikao xinbian 戲考新編 (Xikao newly compiled; only the first volume seems to have been published) with another Shanghai publisher (Shizhong shuju 時中 書局) that could be seen as in competition with Xikao. It is possible that this is the reason that Shenbao Guan stopped publication of Xikao, even though, as we will see, an ad for Xikao xinbian ran in Shenbao itself. In any case, the first installment of Xikao that Shenbao Guan had published was republished with its type reset by another Shanghai publisher, Zhonghua Tushu Guan 中華圖書 館 (lit.: China Library),22 and followed by the other thirty-nine installments, each selling for the same price as the Shenbao Guan first installment, a quarter of a yuan in silver (dayang erjiao wufen 大洋二角五分). Before the sequential publishing of all forty installments had finished in 1925, at least the first twenty installments were reprinted in the years 1916–1917 in a set of five hardbound volumes with four installments each at a cost of 1.2 yuan (yi yuan er jiao 一元 21 22

Matsuura Tsuneo, “Xikao zai Minguo chunian de wenhua diwei,” p. 761, references an ad of this sort that ran in Shenbao from April 29–May 23, 1913. See 121: 760 in the Shanghai Shudian reprint for the first of these identical ads. There are a number of differences between the Shenbao Guan version of the first installment and the Zhonghua Tushu Guan or Dadong Shuju reprintings of it. The three prefaces and a liyan 例言 (editorial principles) of the Shenbao Guan version that are not to be found in the later reprintings of the installment do appear, unchanged, in the front matter of the first volume in the five-volume Zhonghu tushu guan reprint of the first twenty installments (see below), but the identification of Songbin 頌斌 as having collated and corrected the text disappears, and someone named Suichu 燧初 is now said to have done the collation and fixing ( jiaoding 校訂) of the text of the installment. Matsuura Tsuneo, “Xikao zai Minguo chunian de wenhua diwei,” p. 767, speculates that both names refer to the same person. The order of the plays in the Shenbao Guan version is closer to (but not the same as) that given in the Shenbao ads than to that of the later reprints. While it is actually common for the playscripts to begin or end differently between the Shenbao Guan version and the reprints, the bulk of the play texts are the same. A note at the end of Wen Zhaoguan 文昭關 (Civil Zhao Pass; Xikao #11 [#9 in Shenbao Guan version]) that the role-type designation laosheng 老生 should be changed to wai 外 has been followed in the reprints. While the Shenbao Guan version has the words Diyi ce 第一冊 (First installment) on its cover and on its publication page, in the table of contents and on the first page of the playscripts, Juanyi 卷一 (Chapter 1) appears instead. This second way of speaking of the installments does not appear in the reprints, with the exception of the Zhonghua Tushu Guan version of the second installment. Other differences will be mentioned below.

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二角) per volume.23 Unlike the separate installments published by Zhonghua Tushu Guan, which contain no prefatory material whatsoever, the first volume of this reprint includes the three prefaces and the statement of editorial principles of the Shenbao Guan first installment, all of which we will examine below. When the last installment was published by Zhonghua Tushu Guan in 1925,24 it included an ad for a reprinting by the same press of the whole set in “soft covers bound into volumes” (pingzhuang huiding 平裝彙訂) to be sold for the price of twelve yuan.25 About the same time, a 70-plus page booklet consisting of a complete list of the contents of the installments, including the photographs in each of them, was published by the press and entitled Xikao quanmu 戲考全目 (Complete contents of Xikao).26 It had an ad on its back cover solic23 Ironically, the most complete set of this printing that I have been able to find is held by my home institution, the University of Michigan. A copy of the volumes containing installments 1–4 and 17–20 are held in the Xiqu Yanjiu Suo 戲曲研究所 (Research Institute for Traditional Chinese Theater) at Zhongguo Yishu Yanjiu Yuan 中國藝術研究 院 (Academy of Chinese Arts) in Beijing. On the page giving information about publication at the end of each volume, the date of publication is followed by the words zaiban huiding 再版彙訂 (reprinted as combined volumes). The next line says jingzhuang Xikao gong sice huiding yi ji 精裝戲考共四冊彙訂一集 (Hardback Xikao with four installments bound together as one volume). The dates of publication are given as October 1916 for volumes 1–3 and 5, and August 1917 for volume 4. I have not been able to come up with an explanation for why volume 4 is dated later. There is nothing in the five volumes published in 1916–17 that either promises that more volumes will appear or explicitly says that only the five volumes will be published. The number of plays that one of the prefaces claims the collection holds does not match either the total number of plays in the five volumes or that of the collection as a whole (see below for more details about what that preface says). 24 The original publication page in the reproduction of the original Zhonghua Tushu Guan edition of installment 40 in the microfilm that includes the Shenbao Guan version of installment one (see below) dates the appearance of installment 40 to June 1925. 25 See the copy of this installment held in Xiqu Yanjiu Suo. Curiously, this ad does not appear in the microfilmed version mentioned in the previous note. 26 Xiqu Yanjiu Suo holds a copy. Reference works that refer to the Zhonghua Tushu Guan Xikao as consisting of “forty-one” (sishi yi 四十一) or “forty plus” (sishi ji 四十幾) installments, such as Zhongguo da baike quanshu: Xiqu yishu, p. 494, are probably counting Xikao quanmu as an installment. What I am using as the main title for Xikao quanmu actually only appears in smaller characters on the left side of the title page, while what is given in the first line on the right, where one would expect the main title to be, is first an alternate title for the collection (Guqu zhinan 顧曲指南) followed by the main title, Xikao, then diyi ce mulu 第一冊目錄 (Table of contents of the first installment), which is only appropriate for the table of contents of that one installment. Xikao quanmu is not dated. It is also referred to as a yuyue mulu 預約目錄 (Table of contents for subscribers). A note printed in the upper left-hand corner of the publication page at the end of the last installment says “This fortieth installment of Xikao has already surpassed its allotted number of pages. Bowang fang xing 博望訪星 [Zhang Qian visits the Herdboy and the

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iting subscriptions for a planned edition to be published by the same press four months later in ten hardbound volumes, each with four installments, at a cost of sixteen yuan for the set. A discounted price was offered for advance orders. The ad gives details about how to order copies outside Shanghai and also indicates that the press is looking for people to help sell the set outside the city.27 As we will see, this edition never seems to have actually been published. Zhonghua Tushu Guan was founded by Ye Jiuru 葉九如 not long after the establishment of the Republic.28 Unlike some of its contemporaries in Shanghai, Zhonghua Tushu Guan does not seem to have relied financially on the publication of textbooks as much as reference books;29 the press’

27 28

29

Weaving Maid; not in Xikao], for lack of space, cannot be included. We especially make this announcement and hope for your forgiveness” 戲考第四十冊以逾原定頁數, 博望 訪星一齣, 遂以限篇幅, 不克刊入, 特此聲明, 抱憾之處, 維希鑒亮 [sic]. Since Xikao quanmu lists the missing play, which can only be found in Kunqu and not Jingju reference works, as appearing in installment 40, it would seem that Xikao quanmu was published before the last installment was sent to the printer. An ad in Libai liu 109 (May 14, 1921) for installment 31 of Xikao says that the table of contents for installments 1–30 has been printed and is available on request to those willing to pay the postage, but I have not found a copy of such a work. A copy is held in the Xiqu Yanjiu Suo. See Zhu Lianbao 朱聯保, Jin xian dai Shanghai chuban ye yinxiang ji 近現代上海出版 業印象記 (Sketches of the publishing industry in early modern and modern Shanghai; Shanghai: Xuelin chubanshe, 1993), p. 94. A catalogue of their publications from prior to 1915 has been reproduced in Zhongguo jindai chuban faxing shiliao congkan bubian 中 國近代出版發行史料叢刊補編 (Supplement to Collectanea of historical material on publishing and distribution in early modern China; Beijing: Xianzhuang shuju, 2006), pp. 503–60. The front page of the catalogue has a picture of their main distribution center (zong faxing suo 總發行所). The list includes literary-language fiction (pp. 534–39), vernacular fiction (pp. 547–50), chuanqi plays and tanci (pp. 550–51), and xiqu (p. 546). The latter contains a total of nine titles, including Xikao (twelve installments already published), Xinju kao (see below), two collections of scores for Kunqu plays, and two books of qin-zither scores. The last page of the catalogue lists the services that the press can provide, from etching metal plates to printing photographs. See Matsuura Tsuneo, “Xikao zai Minguo chunian de wenhua diwei,” p. 758. The last pages of volumes 1–2 of the 1916–1917 edition five-volume edition of Xikao contain a full-page ad for a photo-reprint of a special edition of the Shiji 史記 (Records of the Grand Historian) published by Zhonghua Tushu Guan. Volumes 3–4 contain no ads for books. Beginning with volume four (installment 13), the texts for new plays only begin on odd pages (i.e., if the preceding play ends on an odd page, the following even numbered page will be blank). In volume 4, clipart appears on most of these blank pages. Volume five, however, instead runs full-page ads for specific books from Zhonghua Tushu Guan’s catalogue, at least in installments 17 and 18. These include ads for a wide variety of books, including a lot of fiction, but only one book on drama: Xinju kao 新劇考 (Research on new plays; between plays in installment 18). There is also an ad for a book written by Wang Dacuo, author of most of the introductions to the plays in Xikao, entitled Luchuang qiyu

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most influential publications were magazines (zazhi 雜志). Those magazines included Ziyou zazhi 自由雜志 (Freedom magazine; two issues, September and October 1913),30 Youxi zazhi 游戲雜志 (own English title: The Pastime; November 1913–May 1915, nineteen issues),31 Libai liu 禮拜六 (Saturday; 100 綠窗綺語 (Elegant words from the green window; the author is identified as Lilao 櫪 老 of Qingpu 青浦 [a suburb to the west of Shanghai]; the ad appears between plays in installment 17). An ad run at the front of issue 196 (January 13, 1923) of Libai liu (see below on this journal) lists fifty-three titles published by Zhonghua Tushu Guan but Xikao is not included. The press also published a guide to Beijing, Beijing zhinan 北京指南, in 1918. 30 On the publication pages for the two issues of this periodical, the distributor is listed as Shenbao Guan and the printer as Zhonghua Tushu Guan, but reference works such as Zhu Lianbao, Jin xian dai Shanghai chuban ye, p. 94, give Zhonghua Tushu Guan as the publisher. On Ziyou zazhi, see Haiyan Lee, “ ‘A Dimestore of Words’: Liberty Magazine and the Cultural Logic of the Popular Press,” Twentieth-Century China 33.1 (November 2007): 53–80. Liberty Magazine is her translation for the title of the magazine. The magazine included one new-style play playscript about the recent history of Poland, “Leixue ying­ xiong” 淚血英雄 (Blood crying hero), that includes arias “in imitation of Jingju” ( fang Jingdiao 仿京調), one of which imitates the first aria in Silang tanmu; three short pieces that match Jingju play names together to make parallel couplets (containing fifty-four, thirty-eight, and twelve play names, respectively); one that does the same thing with Kunqu play titles (128 titles); a piece that makes use of play names; a longer piece labeled “yuyan xiaoshuo” 喻言小說 (allegorical fiction) titled “Guan Hankou Xin da wutai yanju ji” 觀漢口新大舞臺演劇記 (A record of watching performance of plays at the New big theater in Hankou; the conceit being that the uprising at Wuchang during the 1911 Revolution is being performed in this mythical theater) by Tong Ailou 童愛樓 (pp. 5–7 of the “Xiaoshuo congbian” 小說叢編 [Collected fiction] section of issue one); and another, “Xianren tiao” 仙人跳 (The immortal dances), by Rongfang 蓉芳, that works play titles into its text (pp. 4–5 of the “Xiaoshuo congbian” section of issue one). 31 Among other things, this periodical included installments of chuanqi plays and a tanci that seem to be intended more for reading than performance in its “Fiction” (“Xiaoshuo” 小說) section and performance playscripts for Jingju and Kunqu (the latter with musical notation) in a separate section entitled “Yuefu” 樂府 (originally referred to the Imperial Music Bureau in the Han dynasty, perhaps used here to connote a connection with performance), and lectures in theater studies (xixue jiangyi 戲學講義) as well. For a description of its contents, see Zhongguo jindai wenxue daxi: Shiliao suoyin ji er, p. 47. The table of contents for each issue given in this work only lists the section titles. More detailed information on the contents, and especially the photographs, appears in ads for separate issues that ran in Libai liu. The Jingju playscripts in Youxi zazhi, unlike the Kunqu playscripts, often include a photograph of actors costumed as characters in the play. These photos are often also to be found in Xikao, where they do not tend to be placed close to playscripts for the plays. For instance, the photo illustrating Wujia po (Xikao #75) in issue one (published November 1913) also appears as page 7 of the photo section of installment 4 of Xikao (published November 1913) and the photo illustrating Kongcheng ji (Xikao #75; this version also includes Shi Jieting [Xikao #136]) in issue two (published December 1913??) also appears as page 3 of the photo section of installment 5 of Xikao (published January 1914). The photos are reproduced in the Liren Shuju edition of Xikao

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issues from June 6, 1914 to April 29, 1916, and another 100 issues from March 3, 1921 to February 10, 1923),32 Nüzi shijie 女子世界 (Women’s world; 1914–1915, six issues), and Xiangyan zazhi 香艷雜志 (Fragrance and elegance; 1914–1917, published as a monthly in a total of nineteen issues).33 The first three magazines were edited or co-edited by Wang Dungen 王鈍根 (1888–1950), who, as we will see, was also involved in the production of Xikao. Wang and Libai liu are particularly associated with a popular form of fiction of the period, “mandarin duck and butterfly fiction” (yuanyang hudie pai xiaoshuo 鴛鴦蝴蝶派小說).34 Wang championed the idea of reading fiction for leisure, in contrast to people (11: 27 and 33, respectively). Some of the photos of Jingju actors in the photo section of the magazine also appear in Xikao. Most of the Jingju play texts in Youxi zazhi are attributed to one “Chunsheng” 春聲, but one (Wujia po) is attributed to Zhang Defu 張德福, who participated in putting together Xikao (see below). The Jingju plays in Youxi zazhi lack introductions of any kind. If we compare the Xikao and Youxi zazhi versions of the first five plays included in the latter, the play texts attributed to Chunsheng are largely the same but differ in many details from the Xikao versions and sometimes in the number of scenes (the Youxi zazhi issue 5 version of Zhusha zhi [Xikao #9], for instance, is several scenes shorter than the Xikao version), while the one attributed to Zhang Defu is the same as the one in Xikao. The photo sections of this magazine include many photos of actors, but they tend to be new-style play (xinju) actors. 32 See Luan Meijian 欒梅健, “Libai liu pai da benying de zhongyao yingzao zhe—Wang Dungen pingzhuan” 禮拜六派大本營的重要營造者—王鈍根評傳 (The important constructor of the base camp of the “Saturday” school of writing—An evaluative biography of Wang Dungen), in Cao Huimin 曹惠民, ed., Xiandai tongsu wenxue “Youmo dashi”—Cheng Zhanlu: Fu Wu Shuangre, Wang Dungen, Feng Shuluan pingzhuan ji daibiao zuo 現代通俗文學 “幽默大師”—程瞻廬: 附吳雙熱, 王鈍根, 馮叔鸞評傳及代表作 (The “master of humor” of modern popular literature—Cheng Zhanlu: With evaluative biographies of Wu Shuangre, Wang Dungen, and Feng Shuluan along with their representative works; Nanjing: Nanjing chubanshe, 1994), p. 213. An announcement in issue 100 explains that the periodical will have to halt publication because of disruptions and difficulties produced by the war. A reprint is available: Libai liu 禮拜六 (Saturday), 200 vols. (Yangzhou: Jiangsu Guangling guji keyin she, 1987). Peijie Mao, “The Saturday: Popular Narrative, Identity, and Cultural Imaginary in Literary Journals of Early Republican Shanghai,” doctoral thesis, Stanford University, 2009, p. 73, speculates that part of the reason for the stop in publication was Wang Dungen being distracted by “his ventures into the industrial world at that time.” 33 Reproduced in six volumes in the Zhongguo jin xian dai nüxing qikan huibian (er) 中國近 現代女性期刊彙編 (二) (Compendium of Chinese women’s periodicals from the early modern and modern periods [second series]; Beijing: Xianzhuang shuju, 2007). On the dates and number of issues published, see Ma Qinqin 馬勤勤, “Xiangyan zazhi chuban shijian kaoshu” 香艷雜志出版時間考述 (An investigation of the times of publication of Xiangyan zazhi), Hanyu yan wen yanjiu 漢語言文研究 (Research into the Chinese language and script) 2013.3: 60–66. 34 On this type of fiction, see Perry Link, Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies: Popular Fiction in Early Twentieth-Century Chinese Cities (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981). For

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such as Liang Qichao, who sought to transform China through fiction.35 It has been estimated that the circulation of Libai liu in 1914–1916 was 20,000– 30,000 copies per issue, and about 50,000 per issue in 1921–1923.36 In an ad that appeared in 1919 in the back matter of the just-published installment 29 and the reprint of the seventh installment of Xikao, the claim is made that the installments of Xikao that have already been published sell up to 30,000 copies a year.37 These figures can be compared to those for the Shenbao, which has been said to have had a circulation of 50,000 “by the early 1920s.”38 Many of the individual installments of Xikao were reprinted again and again by Zhonghua Tushu Guan, some as often as twenty-one times.39 Most of the periodicals published by Zhonghua Tushu Guan contained articles or pieces related to theater in general or Jingju in particular.40 The shukao

35

36 37

38 39

40

translations of stories that appeared in Libai liu, see Timothy C. Wong, Stories for Saturday: Twentieth-Century Chinese Popular Fiction (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2003). For a translation of a piece Wang wrote to explain the idea and purpose of publishing Libai liu, see Wang Dungen, “Remarks on the Publication of Saturday,” Gilbert C. F. Fong, tr., in Kirk Denton, ed., Modern Chinese Literary Thought: Writings on Literature, 1893– 1945 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995), pp. 243–44. For the original text, “Libai liu chuban zhuiyan” 禮拜六出版贅言 (Some unnecessary words on the publication of Saturday), see Huang Lin 黃霖, and Han Tongwen 韓同文, eds., Zhongguo lidai xiaoshuo lunzhu xuan 中國歷代小說論著選 (Selected writings on fiction in China through the ages), 2 vols. (Nanchang: Jiangxi renmin, 1982–1985), 2: 408–10. See Perry Link, Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies, pp. 253–54. Mao, “The Saturday,” pp. 64–65, discusses the claims for the circulation of Zhonghua Tushu Guan’s four magazines in an ad that appeared in issue 32 (January 9, 1915) of Libai liu, which is reproduced as Figure 1.7. The ad is entitled “Tuiguang yingye bu ke bu deng guanggao!!!” 推廣營業不可不登廣 告!!! (To grow a business you cannot not advertise!!!); three different prices for taking out full-page ads are given, with the highest (140 yuan per year per page per installment) for having the ad inserted between the photographs at the head of the volume, next highest (120 yuan), for the back of the front cover or either side of the back cover, and lowest (90 yuan) for insertion in “empty space after a play” 每齣戲後所餘之空白頁; since each play begins on an odd page, when a play ends on an odd page there will be an open page on the following even page). Following the ad in installment 29 there is an English version entitled “SWEET ARE THE USES OF ADVERTISEMENT!!!” The ad rates seem pretty comparable to those posted for ads in Libai liu on the publisher’s page of issue 74 (October 30, 1921) of that magazine. Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, Fourth Edition, 67.3.1.1, p. 867. Zhongguo jindai xiandai congshu mulu, pp. 494–502, lists the reprintings of the installments published by Zhonghua Tushu Guan known to the compilers. From that information we can see that installment 2 was reprinted twenty-one times. The claim in Wang Qiugui’s preface to the Liren Shuju reprint of Xikao (p. 2) that some installments were reprinted as many 31 times presumably includes Dadong Shuju reprints. Xiangyan zazhi, for instance, contained a regular section on actresses, “Nüling yuedan” 女伶月旦 (Periodic evaluation/ranking of actresses), that was inaugurated by Tiaoshui kuangsheng 苕水狂生, author of Haishang liyuan xin lishi 海上梨園新歷史 (A new history of the theater in Shanghai; Shanghai: Hongwen shuju, 1910). The introduction to the first installment of the section (in the first issue) says that Tiaoshui kuangsheng did not

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to Daiyu zanghua 黛玉葬花 (Daiyu buries flowers; Xikao #220; p. 2075) refers the reader to a photo of Mei Lanfang in this play published in Youxi zazhi by “our press” (benguan 本館). This is perfectly to be expected, concerning the importance of theater in the life of leisure in Shanghai, where these periodicals were published. It is also understandable in light of the close connections between the editors of these two periodicals and the theater world. Wang Dungen has already been mentioned as connected with Xikao and we will learn more about him later. His fellow editor of Libai liu after it was revived in the 1920s was Zhou Shoujuan 周瘦鵑 (1895–1968), who wrote the 1949 sequel to the popular novel on Jingju, Qiu haitang. Wang Dungen’s co-editor for Youxi zazhi and editor of Nüzi shijie, Chen Diexian 陳蝶仙 (1879–1940; a.k.a., Tian xu wo sheng 天虛我生 [Heaven gave birth to me in vain]), was an amateur Jingju actor and a playwright.41 Besides Xikao and Xinju kao 新劇考 (Research material on new plays; 1914),42 which was on new-style spoken drama, Zhonghua Tushu Guan also either published or was the Shanghai distributor for several books on traditional Chinese theater or Jingju: an illustrated edition of Zhui baiqiu;43 Feng Shuluan’s 馮叔鸞 cover actresses in his book and is now “making up for that fault” (buguo 補過). In the photo section of the first issue, there is a photo of Tiaoshui kuangsheng (in the caption his name is shortened to Tiaokuang 苕狂) in stage costume for what is probably a wusheng role, so he was probably an amateur actor. 41 A picture of Chen and his “second son” dressed as characters in the play Yuejia zhuang 岳家莊 (Yue family manor; Xikao #140) appears in installment 17 of Xikao; one of two of his sons, a daughter, and a nephew dressed as characters in Limao huan taizi (Xikao plays #460, 465, 473, and 481; represent four episodes of a version of this play) and one of the sons and the nephew as characters in Zhulian zhai (Xikao #79 and 497) appear in installment 33. All three photos are reproduced in the Liren Shuju edition, volume 11, pp. 109, 183, and 184, respectively. Chen is also credited with “correcting” (gaizheng 改 正) the texts of Kunqu plays published in Youxi zazhi and identified as the author of the first chuanqi play serialized in that magazine (the first installment appeared in issue 1). He also wrote fiction. On him, see Patrick Hanan, “The Autobiographical Romance of Chen Diexian (Pen Name: Tian Xu Wo Sheng),” Chinese Fiction of the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), pp. 199–216. Hanan has also translated one of Chen’s novels as The Money Demon: An Autobiographical Romance (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1999). See also, Eugenia Lean, “The Butterfly Mark: Chen Diexian, His Brand, and Cultural Entrepreneurship in Republican China,” in Christopher Rea and Nicholas Volland, eds., The Business of Culture: Entrepreneurship in China and Southeast Asia (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2014), pp. 62–91. Chen is also sometimes listed as co-author of Ru ci guanchang/Ximi zhuan (a novel that works hundreds of play titles into its narrative that was mentioned in the footnotes to the Introduction) and as the author of a collection of anecdotes, Lao Shanghai jianwen 老上海見聞 (Things seen and heard in Shanghai; first published in 1925), that includes items on courtesans and actors. 42 More on this book below. 43 I have not been able to establish the date of this reprint.

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Xiaohong xuan jutan 嘯虹軒劇談 (Talks about theater from Xiaohong Studio; 1914); Xihui 戲彙 (Collected plays; 1918);44 Xixue daguan 戲學大觀 (Grand prospect of theater studies; 1918);45 Xixue zhinan 戲學指南 (Guide to the study of theater);46 and Xiqu zhinan 戲曲指南 (Guide to Chinese indigenous theater).47 44 45

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WorldCat only lists one copy (held at Harvard), with the full title of Huitu kaozhu Xihui 繪 圖考注戲彙 (Collected plays, illustrated, researched, and annotated). WorldCat lists a book of this title that was published in 1926 by Qiushi zhai shuju 求石 齋書局 of Shanghai and “overseen” ( jianding 鑒定) by Mei Lanfang and gives only one holding, the national library in Taiwan. An ad from Zhonghua Tushu Guan in Shenbao first run on January 28, 1918 announced the publication of Xixue daguan, claiming that the press had “once again invited famous men to edit [it]” ( fu qing mingjia bian 復請名 家編) and describing it as “having play texts, having explanations, having [lists of] characters, having evaluative comments, having illustrative drawings, having copper engraved illustrations” 有劇本, 有說明, 有角色, 有評語, 有插畫, 有銅圖, published in multiple booklets (ce 冊), each selling for two jiao. In a survey of the books on sale around Xiangguo Temple in Kaifeng finished in 1934, a book with this title but published by Dacheng Shuju 大成書局 is listed. See Zhang Lüqian 張履謙, “Xiangguo si minzhong duwu diaocha” 相 國寺民眾讀物調查 (A survey of the mass reading material available [at the bookstores near] Xiangguo Temple), in Li Wenhai 李文海 et al., eds., Mingguo shiqi shehui diaocha huibian: Wenjiao shiye juan 民國時期社會調查彙編: 文教事業卷 (Collected social surveys from the Republican era: Volume on literary educational professions; Fuzhou: Fujian jiaoyu, 2005), pp. 461–534 (Xiju daguan is recorded on p. 494). Finally, an ad for a book of this same title but edited by Xia Qiufeng 夏秋風, Zhu Qinbu 朱勤補, and Chen Gengyu 陳耕漁 appears on the verso side of the page announcing the photo section in issue 1 (1915) of Xiju congbao 戲劇叢報 (Combined theater journal) published by the same publisher as for the journal, Xinju Xiaoshuo She 新劇小說社 (Xia’s photo appears on a page of photos of “like-minded people behind the scenes” [neibu tongren 內部仝人] of the organization that published the journal). WorldCat gives listings for a book of this title published by Dadong Shuju in 1931. A work of this title is mentioned for the first time in Shenbao in a Zhonghua Tushu Guan ad of October 15, 1917 that announces the appearance of the first booklet (ce 冊) and gives the kind of detail the press tends only to give to its own books: it is said to include dialogue (shuobai 說白), “explanations” (shuoming 說明), and gongche notation accompanying the aria lyrics. It is also presented as pedagogical: this book “was compiled for the average learner of singing plays” 為一般學習唱戲者而作, and “is especially precious for the way that scene by scene and section by section it adds detailed explanations so as to make clear the path of study, as if it was a compass leading one on” 尤妙在逐場逐節詳加說 明以示徑途如獲南車之引; the press does not seem to claim to be the publisher, only the distributor ( jingshou chu 經售處). By July 10, 1920, there are ads in Shenbao that say a total of ten booklets have been published, and by March 21, 1931, Dadong Shuju ads are saying that it had been published in a “complete sixteen booklets” (quan shiliu ce 全十六 冊). It is possible that the book was a project begun by Zhonghua Tushu Guan taken over and finished by Dadong Shuju. WorldCat entries under this title include one for a book published in 1934 based on phonograph recordings (that it includes more than Jingju justifies the title) published by Yuxin shuju 育新書局 of Shanghai and another implying that this was an alternate title for the

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An ad from the press for Xikao in Shenbao first run on July 5, 1918 lists the last four of these books right after Xikao.48 There is no record of reprintings of Xikao by Zhonghua Tushu Guan, either in separate bound volumes including more than one installment, in soft or hard cover, after 1925.49 Zhonghua Tushu Guan seems to have gone into a decline at least by 1930. According to Ye Jiuru’s reminiscences recorded in the early 1950s, the press closed down after the Japanese attacks on Shanghai in 1932,50 but by 1931 they must have sold the right to reprint Xikao to Dadong Shuju 大東 書局, another Shanghai publisher, in time for the latter’s edition, which came out that year. There was enough demand for Dadong Shuju to print a second edition in 1933.51 The reprints took the form of both individual installments and a complete set of bound volumes with ten installments per volume,52 with individual installments selling for three tenths of a yuan (sanjiao) and each bound volume for three yuan. book connected with Mei Lanfang mentioned in the previous footnote. There is, however, an entry for a book of this title with just one installment (ce 冊; unclear if there were any more) that includes gongche notation compiled (and published?) by the Xixue Yanjiu She 戲學研究社 (Society for theater research) in 1918 “corrected” ( jiaozheng 校正) by the famous actor Feng Zihe 馮子和 (1888–1942; name given as Feng Chunhang 馮春航). 48 The ad privileges Xikao by listing it first and giving a paragraph of information on it, which is followed by the titles and prices of the four other texts. 49 The latest dates for printings of individual installments in Zhongguo jindai xiandai congshu mulu is 1925. Matsuura Tsuneo, “Xikao zai Minguo chunian de wenhua diwei,” p. 765, says he was unable to find evidence that Zhonghua Tushu Guan did reprint Xikao after 1926, but gives no evidence that any reprinting took place in that year. 50 See the archival document labeled “Shuye lishi” 書業歷史 (History of the book publishing industry) reproduced as the fourth appendix in Xu Jingbo 徐靜波, Shitou ji: Shanghai shiyin shuye yanjiu, 1843–1956 石頭記: 上海石印書業研究, 1843–1956 (Story of stone: Research on the Shanghai lithographic printing industry, 1843–1956; Suzhou: Suzhou daxue, 2014), pp. 281–87. In the document, when Ye recounts the history of Zhonghua Tushu Guan and lists some of its publications (p. 285), he lists Xikao by the title of the later collections of primarily aria texts, Da Xikao 大戲考, and includes two other items related to Jingju that actually seem to have been published by Dadong Shuju. He says that when Zhonghua Tushu Guan folded, he was already old and had no interest in staying in the industry. His remarks on Dadong Shuju are quite brief (just four sentences; p. 286). He dates the founding of that firm to 1921. 51 See Matsuura Tsuneo, “Xikao zai Minguo chunian de wenhua diwei,” pp. 765–66. Based on the publication dates of individual installments and bound volumes, Matsuura believes that Dadong Shuju began to reprint Xikao at the rate of ten installments a month in September 1931, and that they reprinted the whole set all at once in September of 1933. He is less interested in the Dadong Shuju reprints than the Zhonghua Tushu Guan versions. I have come across Dadong Shuju reprints dated to 1934. 52 The copies of Xikao held by Zhongguo Xiqu Xueyuan, for instance, include both types (single installments and volumes of four installments bound together) for both printings.

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The Dadong Shuju reprints contain no preface or statement of editorial principles either in the installments published separately or in the bound volumes. Nor have I been able to find ads for the reprints that give insight into how they wanted to package or promote Xikao to consumers. It appears that in their editions, as opposed to the earlier Shenbao Guan and Zhonghua Tushu Guan ones, only two of the installments include photographs of actors. Those are installments 1 and 11, which are first installments to appear in the bound volumes that include installments 1–10 and 11–20, respectively. The photos do not correspond to the photographs of the original Zhonghua Tushu Guan versions for those installments.53 The Zhonghua Tushu Guan versions (original and reprint editions) of installment 10 of Xikao include one play not in the Dadong Shuju reprint,54 53

Of the 105 Dadong Shuju reprints of Xikao installments held by Zhongguo Xiqu Xueyuan, only one, installment 11, has photos (there are three copies, the order of the photographs differs between one of them and the other two). Fewer are tinted than in the Zhonghua Tushu Guan installments. The photos for installment 11 of the latter edition are available, along with those of installments 9, 10, and 12, in volume 3 of the five-volume set from Zhonghua Tushu Guan. In these volumes, despite the fact that the photos for each of the installments appear together at the front of the volumes, the separate pagination of the photos for the sets for the different installments has been retained. Incidentally, no original pagination appears on the photos from Xikao reproduced in volume 11 of the Liren Shuju edition. That volume lacks those for the Zhonghua Tushu Guan installment 11, but happens to include those for the corresponding installment of the Dadong Shuju edition (pp. 241–48). There is no overlap between the two sets of photos. Of the eight pages of photos in the Dadong Shuju set, half come from other Zhonggua Tushu Guan installments (page one appears in installment 1, p. 7; page three appears in both installment 4, p. 7, and installment 20, p. 4; page seven appears in installment 7, p. 2, caption altered to indicate the actor is now dead; and page eight appears in installment 7, p. 4), while the other half includes those of actors in plays not yet famous or actors under names not used when the Zhonghua Tushu Guan version of installment 11 came out. For instance, there is a photo of Cheng Yanqiu starring in Wenji gui Han 文姬歸漢 ([Cai] Wenji returns to the Han; not in Xikao), which did not premiere until 1925 (see Zhou Mingtai, Wushi nian lai Beiping xiju shicai Houbian, p. 1018 [for the actual program, see p. 853, item 826; this play is the final item]). Wang Qiugui (C. K. Wang) 王秋桂, “Chuban shuoming” 出版說 明 (Explanation of publication), in volume 11 of the Liren Shuju edition of Xikao, p. 3, points this out, as well as the fact that Xun Huisheng was still known as Bai mudan 白牡 丹 up until at least 1926 but is called Xun Huisheng in the caption to the photo of him that appears in the Dadong Shuju version of installment 11. As for the photos in installment 1 of the Dadong Shuju edition, which are also reproduced in black and white in volume 11 of the Liren Shuju reprint of Xikao (pp. 233–40), half of the pages of the photos are the same as in the first Zhonghua Tushu Guan installment (page two same as p. 1; page three same as p. 2; page five same as p. 5; page six same p. 4), while half of the rest are the same as photos in Zhonghua Tushu Guan installment 14 (page one is the same as p. 1, page eight is the same as p. 5). Most of the captions differ, if only slightly. 54 Yangui tan (Xikao #169a), appears between plays #169 and #170 (installment 10).

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while the latter’s version of installment 19 adds two plays not found in the former’s version.55 More surprising, however, is that the Dadong Shuju version of installment 35 contains none of the plays in the Zhonghua Tushu Guan version of that installment but instead repeats the last thirteen plays of installment 16. It would seem that Dadong Shuju was unable to find a copy of the original version of installment 35 and tried to cover up that fact using easiest way solution they could think of.56 Although Dadong Shuju reprinted the collection several times and it was clearly a money-maker for them, they did not put as much effort into its production and marketing as for their own publications on Jingju.57 There are more ads for the latter in their editions of Xikao than the other way around.58 However, although Zhonghua Tushu Guan claimed to have printed tens of thousands of copies of each installment of Xikao, the 55 Jiulong shan (Xikao #320) and Panhe zhan (Xikao #321) of the Dadong Shuju version of installment 19 are not to be found in the Zhonghua Tushu Guan version of that installment. 56 The Shanghai Shudian reprint of Xikao, Xikao daquan, does not correct for this problem. Liren Shuju recognized the problem and used a Zhonghua Tushu Guan version of installment 35 for their photo-reprint of that installment. See Li Qiugui, “Chuban shuo­ ming,” p. 4. Zhongguo jindai xiandai congshu mulu, p. 501, records that installment 35 was not reprinted by Zhonghua Tushu Guan. 57 The only ad I have found for Dadong Shuju books that includes Xikao among the books or periodicals they produced themselves appears on the book plate page for the first volume (ce 冊) and at the end of the fourth volume of their Fengqin huqin Jingdiao qupu daguan (Su wenxue congkan, 32: 442, and 33: 355, respectively), published in March 1931. The total number of installments, forty, and the price for each, sanjiao, is the only information given besides the title. 58 See the footnotes on individual titles below. That Dadong Shuju ran ads for their own books in some of their reprinted versions of Xikao is almost completely obscured in the modern reprint of Xikao by Liren Shuju (the four exceptions appear in installment 23, pp. 4394 [book on boxing], 3502 [Xixue zhinan, see below], 3506 [book on boxing], and 3514 [book on how to play the qin]) and completely non-evident in the Shanghai Shudian reprint, although both contain a fair amount of clipart inserted onto blank pages between plays. The text of the Liren Shuju edition, with the exception of installment 35 (see below), reproduces that text of the Dadong version as it appears in editions with ten installments bound together to make a volume. Volume two is from the 1931 printing and the other three are from the 1933 second printing of this format (see Li Qiugui, “Chuban shuo­ming,” p. 3). In the separately published Dadong Shuju installments held at Zhongguo Xiqu Xueyuan, the following installments, all from 1931 (or not dated), contain ads for Dadong’s own books: installment 2 (for Erhuang xunsheng qupu; see below), installment 4 (for Zhongguo sizhu zhinan 中國絲竹指南 [Guide to Chinese traditional silk and bamboo music]), installment 8 (Xixue huikao, see below), installment 9 (Xiju yuekan; see below), installment 29 (Xiju yuekan and Zhongguo sizhu zhinan), and installment 32 (same as 29). Of the four-volume Dadong reprint editions, Zhongguo Xiqu Xueyuan has two copies of volume 3 (both 1933) and one of volume 4 (1933), none of which have ads, and two copies of volume 3 (both 1931), each of which have just one ad (for Xixue huikao).

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vast majority of installments of Xikao in libraries today are from Dadong Shuju reprintings.59 One reason might be that the original Zhonghua Tushu Guan installments were printed on paper that quickly became very fragile. Dadong Shuju, along with Shangwu Yinshu Guan 商務印書館 (a.k.a., Commercial Press), Zhonghua Shuju 中華書局, and Shijie Shuju 世界書局,60 was one of the four biggest publishers in the Republican period.61 It was founded in 1916, with Wang Junqing 王均卿 (1880–1914), an editor of Zhonghua Tushu Guan’s Xiangyan zazhi, as one of the four initial stockholders and managers.62 By 1924 it had branches in Beijing, Liaoning, and Changsha, and by 1931, when it began reprinting Xikao, it had distribution centers or branches in sixteen cities. As with the three other big presses, it published a lot of elementary and middle school textbooks.63 It also printed such things as paper money and stamps for the Guomindang government.64 Du Yuesheng became a member of its board of directors and, with Tao Baichuan 陶百川 (1901–2002), took over its daily management in 1944.65 It stayed in operation until 1949.

59 For instance, the library of Zhongguo Xiqu Xueyuan contains 108 separate copies of installments of Xikao but only three of these were printed by Zhonghua Tushu Guan, the rest being Dadong Shuju imprints. 60 On these three publishing houses in the Republican era (all located in Shanghai), how their editorial staffs functioned, and how they transitioned during the early Maoist period, see Robert Culp, The Power of Print in Modern China (New York: Columbia University Press, 2019). 61 A picture of the offices of the press (Dadong shuju dalou 大東書局大樓) can be found in Zhong Fulan 仲富蘭, Tushuo Zhongguo shehui shenghuo bianqian: Liyi, xiangqing, zongjiao 圖說中國社會生活變遷: 禮儀, 鄉情, 宗教 (Using illustrations to talk about changes in the social life of China: Etiquette, provincialism, and religion; Shanghai: Xuelin chubanshe, 2001), p. 105. 62 See Ye Zaisheng 葉再生, Zhongguo jindai xiandai chuban tongshi 中國近代現代出版通 史 (A comprehensive history of publishing in early modern and modern China), 4 vols. (Beijing: Huawen chubanshe, 2002), 2: 423. Wang’s picture appears in the photo section of the first issue of Xiangyan zazhi. A caption describes him as the “director” (zhuren 主 任) of the magazine. 63 Zhu Lianbao, Jin xian dai Shanghai chuban ye, p. 33, notes that it was the fourth biggest publisher (after the three listed above) of such textbooks among privately owned presses. 64 See Zhu Lianbao, Jin xian dai Shanghai chueban ye, p. 33, and Ye Zaisheng, Zhongguo jindai xiandai chuban tongshi, 2: 423–24. The latter, pp. 426–32, lists what it considers the “most important” (zhuyao 主要) publications put out by Dadong Shuju, but only three of the drama titles listed below appear (namely, Zhongguo xiqu gailun, Quhai zongmu tiyao, and Xiju yuekan). 65 See Ye Zaisheng, Zhongguo jindai xiandai chuban tongshi, 2: 424–25.

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Dadong Shuju was a very active and influential publisher of works on theater, especially Jingju.66 These works included a monthly journal and a number of books. The journal, which was published from 1928–1932 (thirty-six issues), was titled Xiju yuekan 戲劇月刊 (own English title: The Theatre Monthly), but despite its title was largely about Jingju.67 Dadong Shuju also published leisure and entertainment periodicals.68 Books it published on theater included 66

Of the thirty-five volumes of the zonglei 總類 (general category) of Su wenxue congkan, thirty or 86% consist of material originally published by Dadong Shuju. Li Xingwei 李星 威, “Xiqu chuban yu shangye wenhua: Xiju yuekan yanjiu, 1928–1932” 戲曲出版與商業 文化: 戲劇月刊研究, 1928–1932 (Xiqu publishing and commercial culture: Research on Xiju yuekan, 1928–1932), master’s thesis, National University of Singapore, 2009, pp. 35–41, discusses Dadong Shuju as a publisher of twelve titles concerning xiqu, based on their booklist published in 1931 in Xiandai xuesheng 現代學生 (Modern student) 1.6 (1931): 1–77, to celebrate fifteen years in publishing, but does not mention their reprinting of Xikao (which appears in the booklist). 67 A total of three volumes with twelve monthly issues each were published but in 1931 the periodical began to have difficulties. There was a month’s delay before 3.7 (May 1931) appeared, and then a more serious gap of eight months between issues 3.10 (August 1931) and 3.11 (April 1932). The last issue, 3.12 (October 1932), a special issue on Tan Xinpei, consisted largely of material that had been prepared for some time before the journal had to temporarily stop publishing. In that issue the editor explains why this will be the last issue. This kind of disruption might explain why the journal does not contain any ads for Xikao, which Dadong began reprinting in late 1931. Copies of the journal are reproduced in Su wenxue congkan, volumes 5–23. The first six volumes are from when these issues were reprinted in 1931 (for some it is the fourth printing). Zhang Xiaoxia 張笑俠, “Jieshao Xiju yuekan diyi juan huibian” 介紹戲劇月刊第一卷彙編 (Introducing the bound volume of volume 1 of Xiju yuekan), Xiju yuekan 2.12 (August 1930; reproduced in Su wenxue cong kan, 17: 134), besides announcing the plan to publish the issues of the first volume of the journal as a bound volume, claims that those in charge of Dadong Shuju are very supportive of writing on theater, mentioning that besides the journal the press has also published six books on theater. The editor of Xiju yuekan was Liu Huogong, who was also involved in Xixue huikao and other publications on Jingju. His last “Words from the Editor” ( Juantou yu 卷頭語), which appeared in issue 3.12 (October 1932), announces the end of the publication of the journal, claiming that its circulation had risen to more than 13,000, a figure that had already appeared in an ad for the journal in issue 3.6 (see Su wenxue congkan, 20: 16 and 23: 19, respectively, for reproductions). Liu Zengfu, “Yi tingxi yu xuexi,” p. 181, attributes part of a change in his views about Jingju to his reading of periodicals on theater printed by Dadong Shuju. 68 These included Xingqi 星期 (The week; 1922), Youxi shijie 游戲世界 (Entertainment world; 1921–1923), and Zilan huapian 紫蘭花片 (Purple orchid petals; 1922–1924); they also distributed Banyue 半月 (Twice monthly). See Link, Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies, pp. 257–58. They also published a magazine for dancers, Wulü 舞侶 (Dance companion). See the ad for this publication in the 1931 reprint of Xiju yuekan 1.5 (originally published November 1928; 1931 reprint reproduced in Su wenxue congkan, 9: 244). The editors for these periodicals included Zhou Shoujuan. Yuan Hanyun contributed articles for Banyue. See Zhu Lianbao, Jin xian dai Shanghai chuban ye, p. 34.

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a 1921 reprint of a book, Mei Lanfang 梅蘭芳, originally published by Zhonghua Shuju in 1918;69 Zhongguo xiqu gailun 中國戲曲概論 (An overview of traditional Chinese theater; 1926) by Wu Mei 吳梅 (1884–1939);70 Jubu congtan 菊 部叢譚 (Collectanea of material on theater; 1926);71 Xixue huikao 戲學彙考 (Collected research in the study of theater; 1926) edited by Xu Zhihao 許志豪 and Ling Shanqing 凌善清;72 Quhai zongmu tiyao 曲海總目提要 (Annotated bibliography of The Sea of Plays; 1928) with prefaces by Hu Shi and Chen Diexian;73 Jingdiao qupu daguan 京調曲譜大觀 (All-encompassing collection of Jingju [aria] scores; first volume appeared 1930);74 Erhuang xunsheng pu 二黃尋聲譜 (Scores for seeking out the sounds of Jingju; 1929–1930);75

69 It was compiled by the Meishe 梅社, a Mei Lanfang fan club. See Zhao Shanlin et al., Jindai Shanghai xiqu xinian chubian, p. 296. 70 An ad for this work appears in Xiju yuekan 1.1 (originally published June 1928, 1931 reprint reproduced in Su wenxue congkan, 5: 312). 71 Edited by Zhang Xiaocang 張肖傖 (1891–1978). An ad for this work appears in Xiju yuekan 1.1 (originally published June 1928, 1931 reprint reproduced in Su wenxue congkan, 5: 212). Besides writings on theater, the work also contains photographs of actors. It is reproduced in Pingju shiliao congkan, v. 7. 72 Three ads appear for this book in Xiju yuekan: 1.1 (originally published July 1928, Su wenxue congkan uses a 1931 reprint); 1.8 (February 1929), and 3.5 (February 1931). They are reproduced in Su wenxue congkan, 5: 366 and 388; 9: 17; and 19: 278; respectively. A copy of Xixue huikao from the third printing (1929) is reproduced in Su wenxue congkan, vols. 1–5. The book was reprinted under the title Xixue quanshu 戲學全書 (Complete book of the study of theater; Shanghai: Shanghai shudian, 1993). 73 An ad for this book in Xiju yuekan 1.1 (originally published June 1928, 1931 reprint) claims that this book is a “good friend to dramatists” 戲劇家的良友. Another ad just after the publication page of issue 1.6 (1928) of the same journal claims that reading it can prevent dramatists (xiju jia 戲劇家) from neglecting or forgetting the classics (dian 典) or their theatrical ancestors (zu 祖), can nourish literary scholars (wenxue jia 文學家), and increase the general knowledge ( jianshi 見識) of ordinary persons (putong ren 普通 人). For reproductions of these two ads, see Su wenxue congkan, 5: 386 and 8: 184. Quhai zongmu tiyao was discussed in the footnotes to chapter 1. 74 An ad appears for volume one in Xiju yuekan 1.5 (November 1928; reproduced in Su wenxue congkan, 7: 342). Another ad in issue 3.4 (1931) mentions that three volumes have been published (covering fourteen plays each for a total of forty-two) and a fourth is due soon (reproduced Su wenxue congkan, 29: 7). 75 This title is included in an ad for Dadong Shuju’s books on theater in Xiju yuekan 1.12 (originally published in June 1929, 1931 reprint, reproduced in Su wenxue congkan, 11: 8–9). An ad in Xiju yuekan 3.5 (February 1931; reproduced in Su wenxue congkan, 19: 277), mentions that it includes an original volume and a supplement (zheng xu ji 正續集). A copy of a 1930 reprint of the former and a copy of the original printing of the latter, also from 1930, are reproduced in Su wenxue congkan, v. 31. This work was mentioned in the Introduction, in the section on phonograph records.

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Xixue zhinan 戲學指南 (Guide to the study of theater; 1931);76 and Fengqin huqin Jingdiao qupu daguan 風琴胡琴京調曲譜大觀 (Grand compendium of Jingju musical notation for organ and Jingju fiddle; 1931) edited by Xu Zhihao 許 志豪 and Xu Youqian 許幼謙.77 We can see from the dates of these publications that Dadong Shuju, which continued publishing until 1949, was approaching the end of a near frenzy of publication projects concerning Jingju when they began reprinting Xikao in 1931.78 Dadong not only published and sold books but also sold printing and other services.79 Xikao was very influential and spawned many imitators, as we will see below. Among collections of Jingju plays, it remained unsurpassed in terms of the number of plays included until the appearance of Guoju dacheng 國 劇大成 (Compendium of national opera), whose fifteen volumes, published from 1969–1972, contain 745 plays.80 The shadow of Xikao falls very heavily on Guoju dacheng, which copied almost all of the plays in it and even made heavy use, without attribution, of its introductions to those plays.81 Xikao itself was brought back into print in Taiwan in 1980 by Liren Shuju 里仁書局 under the original title (with the alternate title of Guqu zhinan 顧曲指南 [A guide to the 76

There is a regular ad for this book in a Dadong reprint of installment 23 (see p. 3502 of the Liren Shuju edition) and a fold-out one in Xiju yuekan 3.6 (March 1931; reproduced in Su wenxue congkan, 20: 56). A copy of the work itself is reproduced in Su wenxue congkan, vols. 23–28. 77 Reproduced in Su wenxue congkan, vols. 32–33. 78 Dadong Shuju book catalogues titled simply Tushu mulu 圖書目錄 (Book catalogue) from c. 1931 and c. 1932 have been photo-reprinted in Minguo shiqi chuban shumu huibian, 6: 597–684 and 7: 1–131. Most of the works mentioned above as being published by the press appear in them. In the 1931 catalogues (the same as the one published in Xiandai xuesheng mentioned above), Xikao is listed as have been published in forty installments, each selling for three jiao (p. 53 [p. 655 of photo-reprint]), while in the 1932 catalogue, it is being sold in four volumes of ten installments selling for three yuan apiece (p. 57 [p. 71 of photo-reprint]). 79 See the listing of these services in an ad for the press at the end of the 1932 Dadong Shuju book catalogue mentioned in the previous note, p. 117 (p. 131 of the photo-reprint). 80 While the plays are numbered 1–592 in the original twelve volumes, and 1–158 in the three supplementary volumes, because of problems in the numbering between volumes 5–6 (numbers got skipped) and volumes 8–9 (numbers were used twice), there are less plays than 750 (592 + 158). 81 Only thirty-three or 6.3% of the plays in Xikao are not to be found in Guoju dacheng. Two were surely left out because of their salacious content (#135 and 469), five because they are bangzi plays (#358, 379, 470, 477, and 512), twelve because they are installments of four serial plays not included in Guoju dacheng (#334, 340, 345a, 345b, 400, 412, 420, 393–396), and seven probably because they do not appear in the Dadong Shuju reprint (#169a, 473, 475, 477, 478, 479, and 480). That leaves only eight plays whose absence is not easily explainable.

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appreciation of plays] in parentheses),82 and in the PRC in 1990 by Shanghai Shudian 上海書店 under the title Xikao daquan 戲考大全 (lit.: Xikao greatly complete).83 82

Wang Qiugui 王秋桂, ed., Xikao (Guqu zhinan) 戲考 (顧曲指南), 11 vols. (Taibei: Liren shuju, 1980). Volumes 1–10 each contain reproductions of four installments of the Dadong Shuju version (excepting installment 35, which uses the Zhonghua Tushu Guan version). This division into volumes does not echo that of the originals used, which were four volumes with ten installments a piece, dating from 1931 and 1933 (see above). A consecutive pagination system runs through the ten volumes, from p. 1 for the cover of installment 1 to p. 6002, the last page of the last play of installment 40. Volume 11 includes Wang’s “Chuban shuoming” (4 pp.), an abbreviated version (2 pp.) in English, a preface by Meng Yao 孟瑤 (3 pp.), a table of contents of all of the installments (42 pp.), a table of all the photographs reproduced in the Liren Shuju edition (21 pp.) and the photographs themselves (248 pp.), and an index to the plays that includes the alternate names given for them (23 pp.). On the alternative title of Guqu zhinan, see below. 83 Xikao daquan 戲考大全, 5 vols. (Shanghai: Shanghai shudian, 1990). Only the hands-on or production editor (zeren bianji 責任編輯), Liu Zhengyi 劉爭義, is listed. By 1995, there had already been two printings, for a total of 2,000 copies. This edition reproduces the texts for the plays from Dadong Shuju versions but does not give any information as to their dates or format. The separate pagination for each play of the original is also not reproduced (where that would appear the pagination for the five volumes appears: vol. 1: 1284 pp.; vol. 2: 1102 pp.; vol. 3: 1086 pp.; vol. 4: 1106 pp.; vol. 5: 1122 pp.). Unlike the Liren Shuju edition, the covers of the individual installments are not reproduced, nor are the original tables of contents. Instead, each volume has a newly-typeset table of contents listing the plays (and their alternate titles) in that volume. Volumes 1–4 have four pages of color photos right after the title page. Aside from four pages of face patterns (twelve per page), the rest of the photos are of actors in costume that appear to have been taken in photography studios and not on stage. Many of their captions, but not all, begin with a short label of what kind of person the character is (e.g., xiaxiao nü 俠孝女 [gallant and filial young woman], nüjiang 女將 [female general], nüxia 女俠 [female gallant], ji 妓 [courtesan], fanfu 犯婦 [female convict], nüni 女尼 [female nun]). There is no overlap between these photos and those in either the Zhonghua Tushu Guan or Dadong Shuju editions of Xikao, both of which have tinted photos but none in color. The provenance of the pictures is not made clear. One is of a play, Modengjia nü 摩登伽女 (Matanga girl), that premiered in 1929. After the pages with color photos in volume one there is an essay on Xikao by Huang Shang 黃裳 (3 pp.) that might or might not have been commissioned for this edition. The last volume ends with “Xikao fenlei mulu” 戲考分類目錄 (The plays of Xikao divided by category; 6 pp.), and a stroke order index to the plays (19 pp.). On the publication page, there is a paragraph, “Yingyin shuoming” 影印說明 (Explanation of the photo-reprinting) that claims that the edition reproduces the Zhonghua Tushu Guan edition, which is patently false. The claim in the new title that this is a complete Xikao is also false, in that the faulty installment 35 of the Dadong Shuju edition was used. The content of “Xikao fenlei mulu” is borrowed without attribution from Zheng Zhenduo 鄭 振鐸 (1895–1957), “Zhongguo xiqu de xuanben” 中國戲曲的選本 (Anthologies of traditional Chinese theater), first published in a special edition of Xiaoshuo yuebao 小說月報

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What Is Xikao? The Title(s)

The title of Xikao is composed of two characters, xi 戲 (plays) and kao 考 (research, investigate). No justification for or explanation of the title is given in the front matter of the original version of the first installment published by Shenbao Guan, nor in Zhonghua Tushu Guan’s version of that first installment, nor in any of the later separate installments from that press or the reprintings of them from Dadong Shuju. While the first of the hardbound volumes containing four installments each published by Zhonghua Tushu Guan does contain the three prefaces and “Editorial Principles” (“Liyan” 例言) of the Shenbao Guan first installment, and Zhonghua Tushu Guan did publish a number of ads for Xikao in Xikao itself and their other publications, none of these address the meaning of the title. The modern reprints84 and the rather meager early scholarship on the collection85 also does not address this ques(Fiction monthly), Zhongguo wenxue yanjiu 中國文學研究 (Research on Chinese literature; 1927). For a convenient reprinting of this article, see Zheng Zhenduo gudian wenxue lunwen ji 鄭振鐸古典文學論文集 (Collected articles on classical Chinese literature by Zheng Zhenduo; Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 1984), pp. 510–53 and pp. 546–52 for the list itself (the title “Xikao fenlei mulu” was made up for the Shanghai Shudian edition). Zheng says it took him two to three days effort to draw up the list (p. 545). 84 The Liren Shuju reprint includes an English title on the covers and title pages of its volumes, “A Collection of Peking Opera Texts,” but this cannot be considered an attempt to translate the Chinese title of the collection. 85 As far as I know, my “Xikao zhong de xiandai yishi” 戲考中的現代意識 (Modern consciousness in Xikao), which appeared in Xiqu yanjiu 74 (2008): 12–26; in Du Changsheng, ed., Jingju yu Zhongguo wenhua chuantong: Di er jie Jingju xue guoji xueshu yantao hui lunwen ji, pp. 230–40; and in Cao Lin and Yu Jiangang, eds., Kua wenhua zhong de Zhongguo xiqu, pp. 491–507), was one among what remains a very small number of academic articles in any language that take Xikao as its topic (attentive readers will notice many deficiencies in it that have hopefully been improved upon in my later publications and in this book). All three versions were published under my Chinese name, Lu Dawei 陸大偉. Another article, of course, is Matsuura Tsuneo, “Xikao zai Minguo chunian de wenhua diwei,” first presented at a conference in 2009 that I attended. From it I received both a lot of stimulation and solid information. Both Matsuura and I, in these two articles, remark on the use of kao in the title of Xikao to try and elevate the project, and trace the use of xikao in titles before Xikao. Since that first article, I have published other ones (in Chinese) on Xikao, but they address narrower topics and will be cited elsewhere in this book when appropriate. Recently, Jian Guideng 簡貴燈 submittted an article on Xikao to the eighth “Jingju xue” conference (held in May 2019) titled “Minguo Jingju ‘xikao’ bianzhi tizhi kaoyuan” 民國京劇 ‘戲考’ 編制體制考源 (An investigation into the origins of the format for the compilation of ‘xikao’ in the Republican period), and from it I found out that he has another article (on the “author” [zuozhe 作者] of Xikao) in manuscript and has published a separate one on Wuxia Jian’er, “Shenbao juping jia ‘Wuxia Jian’er’ kao—Jianlun qi zai

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tion in detail. That being the case, we are left to make an informed guess, based on the contents and format of Xikao, and the history of the two characters used separately and together.86 In 1919, the ad soliciting advertisements to be placed in installments of Xikao and giving the charges for such ads also appeared in an English version after the Chinese one in both the most recently published installment 29 and reprints in the same year of earlier installments.87 In the English version, Xikao is given the English name “THE PLAY,” which is not helpful. Xi, although it can have other meanings, clearly means “play” in this context. As we have seen, Xikao can be said to contain over 500 playscripts. The xi in Xikao has generally been taken to refer to Jingxi or Jingju, as can be seen, for instance, in the English title of the Liren Shuju reprint88 or claims that the collection is completely Jingju (quan shi Jingju 全是京劇).89 While that might be true of the majority of the plays, it is not true of all of them. In the Introduction we saw that, on the fringes, the dividing line between Jingju and other traditional Chinese theater traditions could be very blurry, especially in the case of traditions from which Jingju borrowed heavily such as Hanju, bangzi, chui­qiang, and Kunqu,90 but in Xikao itself some plays are identified

86 87 88 89 90

xiqu piping shi shang de yiyi” 申報劇評家 ‘吳下健兒’ 考—簡論其在戲曲批評史上 的意義 (An investigation of Shenbao theater critic Wuxia Jian’er—Plus a discussion of his importance in the history of Chinese indigenous theater criticism), Xiada Zhongwen xuebao 廈大中文學報 (Journal of Chinese Studies, Xiamen University) 2018.5: 48–55. Jian mentions some of my work on Xikao, but not the most recent items and misrepresents my position on the possibility of the identity of Wuxia Jian’er and Wang Dacuo. See the note above on the English title of the Liren Shuju reprint. The Shanghai Shudian reprint does not try to translate its title into English. The title given the English version of the ad was given in a footnote above. See the note above on the English title of the Liren Shuju reprint. Zhu Lianbao, Jin xian dai Shanghai chuban ye, p. 94. There are instances in Jingju plays in Xikao in which characters begin singing bangzi and switch to xipi. See, for instance, Da shaguo 打沙鍋 (Hitting the earthenware pot; Xikao #399), in which Cao laoxi 曹老西 sings a bangzi manban 慢板 (slow meter) aria then switches to the xipi aria form liushui ban 流水板 (flowing water meter; p. 4060), and later sings arias explicitly marked as xipi (p. 4062). In Ying jie lie 英傑烈 (Brave, courageous, and valiant; Xikao #250), other characters sing xipi but the lead female character sings bangzi (the stage direction for her first aria labels that aria as bangzi daoban 綁 [sic] 子 倒板 [bangzi inverse meter] and indicates that all her arias below are bangzi [yixia jie shi bangzi 以下皆是綁 [sic] 子]; p. 2295).

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in their introductions as examples of Kunqu91 or bangzi.92 The collection even has both xipi and bangzi versions of the same play, Fenhe wan 汾河灣 (The bend of the Fen River). The bangzi version (#127) appears first, in installment 8, and is not labeled as bangzi in the shukao,93 which is entirely given over to recounting the plot of the play and briefly mentioning a popular tradition about one of the characters and what happens later to him (p. 1221). When the xipi version (#324) was included in installment 20, however, things were quite different. The title, both in the table of contents of the installment and on the first page of the playscript, is now modified by the words xipi, and the first business of the shukao is to explain why there are the two versions in Xikao (p. 3033). The short answer is that the best xipi version, that of Tan Xinpei and 91 The shukao introductions are fond of pointing out if a play was originally Kunqu but has been modified for Jingju performance but retains Kunqu elements (for example, see the shukao for Ningwu guan 寧武關 [Ningwu Pass; Xikao #506], p. 5677). In the case of Sao song xia shu 掃松下書 (Sweeping under the pine, delivering the letter; Xikao #248), although the shukao does not explicitly label the play as Kunqu (it is), it does so indirectly by talking about how Kunqu is now in decline and for Kunqu plays to be performed in Jingju ( Jingqiang 京腔; I think here the author just means by a Jingju troupe) is a novelty to the ears and eyes (ermu yi xin 耳目一新; pp. 2267–68) and thus welcomed by spectators (guanju zhe 觀劇者). In another instance (Chunxiang nao xue; Xikao #268), the shukao claims that the play has been adapted for Jingdiao 京調 (p. 2439) but what follows is the familiar Kunqu play that would be made famous again in Beijing by Han Shichang 韓世昌 (1897–1976) and Mei Lanfang in the early twenties (they are not mentioned in the shukao). Chen Moxiang, “Guanju shenghuo sumiao,” part seven, in Pan Jingxia and Chen Moxiang, Liyuan waishi, p. 471, talks of a play (Huozhuo Sanlang 活捉三郎 [Taking the soul of Third Son; second half of Xikao #444) that, even though there have long been adaptations for more popular traditions, continued to be performed as Kunqu in Beijing. For another instance in which a shukao statement about theater traditions gives one pause, see the shukao to Da yingtao 打櫻桃 (Throwing cherries), p. 2123, where the claim is made that “chuiqiang is what is called bangzi qiang in [the repertoire of] Anhui troupes” 吹腔即徽班中所謂梆子腔也. 92 For instance, the first line of the shukao for He fengqun 合鳳裙 (Matching the phoenix skirt; Xikao #379, p. 3779) identifies it as a bangzi play (Shi ju xi bangzi diao 是劇系梆子 調). There is no entry for this play in Tao Junqi, Jingju jumu chutan or Zeng Bairong, ed., Jingju jumu cidian. In the shukao the play text is compared to two erhuang plays, Riyue tu 日月圖 (Picture of the son and moon; Xikao #195) and Qiao yinyuan 巧姻緣 (The unexpected marriage affinity; not in Xikao) both of which concern the same story and characters. Xikao plays #134, #479, and #512 are identified in their shukao as Qinqiang plays. 93 Only the shukao for installments 1–2 and 32 are attributed to someone other than Wang Dacuo, Wuxia Jian’er (see below for problems with installment 32). When shukao from installments 1–2 are quoted from they will be identified as by him. Those from installment 32 will be identified as appearing in the installment and not attributed to either Wuxia Jian’er or Wang. Unattributed references to shukao comments should be understood as coming from Wang Dacuo. Since the ads for the collection generally attribute all of the shukao to Wang Dacuo, the shukao in the three installments with no attribution (installments 13–15) will be dealt with as if they were by Wang Dacuo.

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Wang Yaoqing,94 was not available when installment 8 was published.95 The shukao is largely concerned with comparing the language of the two versions, coming to the conclusion that in the xipi version the diction is more “careful and appropriate” (xini dedang 細膩得當) than the bangzi version. In other shukao, we find both criticism of bangzi plays96 and an acknowledgement that if sung “intensely” ( jiyue 激越) they can be “moving to the ear” (dongting 動聽).97 Xikao also contains quite a number of plays from a reformist bangzi organization, Yisu She 易俗社 (Reform customs society; established 1912), but in their case it appears that it was their reformist message that was most important and the fact that they were bangzi plays was secondary.98 94 There was actually no lack of xipi play texts of the play in Beijing. See [Zheng] Guoyi, “Fenhe wan kaozheng juben.” 95 The photos that preface installments 8 and 14 seem to tell a story related to the decision to include both versions of Fenhe wan. Page 3 of the photos in installment 8, the one with the bangzi version, is one of Tan Xinpei and Wang Yaoqing dressed as characters in the play. This is a strangely rare instance of a match between the playtitles represented in the photos in an installment and the titles of the playscripts included in that installment (something repeated when the Jingju version was included in installment 20 and page 4 of the photos for that installment has Wang Fengqing 王鳳卿 [1883–1959] and Mei Lanfang dressed as characters in the play). To forestall misunderstanding (if only belatedly), in the photos that preface installment 14, the one on page 5 shows Tan Xinpei and Wang Yaoqing dressed for the same play and standing most certainly in the same photography studio, but striking different poses and with a caption below it that states “This photo and the Fenhe wan in installment 8 are not the same” 此片與第八冊中之汾 河灣不同). It is possible, of course, that the caption just has to do with the two photos, but I prefer to see it as referring to the fact that the photo and the script represent two different versions of the play. The photos in installments 8 and 14 are reproduced in vol. 11 of the Liren Shuju edition of Xikao, pp. 53 and 93, respectively. 96 In the shukao to Mei jiang xue 梅降雪 (Plum falling snow; Xikao #358), the writer says “The plays of the bangzi tradition are mostly very vulgarly composed…. This play [Mei jiang xue] has no beginning or ending, and is so extremely vulgar that it is laughable” 綁 [sic] 子中戲, 每多俚撰…. 此劇無首無尾, 其俚俗煞是可笑; p. 3495). Similarly disparaging remarks about bangzi plays can be found in the shukao to Cuihua gong 翠花 [華] 宮 (Imperial banner palace; Xikao #484; p. 5359) and Bintie jian 賓 [鑌] 鐵劍 (The finely smelted sword; Xikao #470; p. 5093). 97 Shukao to Hongmei ge 紅梅閣 (The red plum loggia; Xikao #242), p. 2221. 98 The title of the society comes from a line in the Xiaojing 孝經 (Classic of filial piety): “For changing the tenor and customs [of society], nothing is better than music” 移風 易俗莫善於樂. The 1919 fifth version of the society’s constitution/bylaws (Yisu she zhangcheng 易俗社章程) is reproduced in Pu Boying 蒲伯英, “Nantong Xi’an xiju jiaoyu di bijiaoguan” 南通西安戲劇教育底比較觀戲劇 (A comparison of theatrical education at Nantong and Xi’an), Xiju 戲劇 (Theater) 2.3 (1939): 6–7 (articles in this journal have separate pagination), reproduced in Zhongguo zaoqi xiju huakan 中國早期戲劇 畫刊 (Early Chinese theater pictorials), 40 vols. (Beijing: Quanguo tushu guan wenxian suowei fuzhi zhongxin, 2006), 36: 128–29. The first item explains the choice of name.

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Luckily, the situation of having published both a bangzi and a xipi version of the same play in the collection and the feeling that this needed some kind of explanation provoked the writer of the shukao for the xipi version to make the following proclamation about the kinds of plays that could be included in Xikao, something to be found nowhere else in the work or ads written to sell it: Now, as for the format of Xikao, it is only about selecting all kinds of playscripts and making them public. No matter whether they are luantan99

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On Yisu She in general, see Yang Gongyu 楊公愚 and Ji Ying 姬穎, “Xi’an Yisu she de sishi qi nian (zhailu)” 西安易俗社的四十七年 (摘錄) (47 years of the Yisu She of Xi’an [excerpts]), in Jindai wenxue lunwen ji: Xiju, minjian wenxue juan, 1949–1979 近代文學 論文集: 戲劇, 民間文學卷, 1949–1979 (Collected articles on early modern literature, volume on theater and folk literature, 1949–1979; Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue, 1982), pp. 215–28, and Yisu she Qinqiang juben xuan 易俗社秦腔劇本 (Selected Qinqiang plays from Yisu She; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 1982). An article titled “Zhenbie jiuxi cao,” by one of the founders of Yisu She, Li Liangcai, referenced in chapter 2, has been partially translated as “Examine the Old Plays,” in Fei, ed. and tr., Chinese Theories of Theater, pp. 124–28. For the text from which the translation was made, see Chen Duo 陳多 and Ye Changhai 葉 長海, eds., Zhongguo lidai julun xuanzhu 中國歷代劇論選注 (Selected and annotated writing on theater in China over time; Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 2010 [revised edition]), pp. 570–76. The article was published in 1913 in the society’s own journal, Yisu zazhi 易 俗雜志. Installment 34 of Xikao is the one with the most (four) bangzi plays, three of which are Yisu She plays (#466, 470, and 471). The following installment has two photos of Yisu She actors. Another Yisu She play in Xikao is Xi yinyuan 戲姻緣 (A playful marriage affinity; #512). The shukao for all four stress both the progressive nature of the plays and how successful they have been with audiences. The one for Xi yinyuan, p. 5789, is critical of the ham handedness (hange 扞格) of the society, as outsiders to Shanghai, in attempting to set the play in modern Shanghai, excusing the inclusion of it because it will allow readers “to see what new plays from Shaanxi are like” 以見陝省新劇之狀況. The shukao for Cixiao tu 慈孝圖 (Picture of compassion and filiality; #477; p. 5229) laments that no famous actors of Shanghai or Beijing have decided to perform the play but expresses confidence that this will change in the next several years. A branch of Yisu She was opened in Wuhan and producing its own journal by 1921 (see Chen Jie, Minguo xiqu shi nianpu, p. 60) and organizations with similar titles and aims that were also privately established but enjoyed some governmental support, such as the Shandong Yisu Xinju She 山東易 俗新劇社 (Shandong society for new plays to change customs) established in 1917 (see Chen Jie, Minguo xiqu shi nianpu, p. 37), were set up. As in many works on traditional Chinese theater, the precise meaning of the term luantan in the shukao in any particular instance is hard to pin down. It is commonly used both to refer to a wide range of popular traditions in opposition to Kunqu and as a synonym for pihuang. For an example in which the term seems to be used both ways, see the shukao for Biemu cibei 別母刺背 (Parting from mother and tattooing the back; Xikao #447, p. 4681). According to the first page of the first play of this installment (installment 32), this shukao is attributed to Wuxia jian’er and not Wang Dacuo (the named author of the vast majority of the shukao in Xikao). For an example of a shukao using the term Jingju, and where

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or Qinqiang, there are none that can’t be included. All along there has been no restriction to just the category of pihuang. 蓋本考體例, 但取各種腳本一一披露. 無論亂彈秦腔, 無不列載. 本不限 於皮黃一類. (p. 3033)100

While we can see in these lines a strong assertion that Xikao could include whatever kind of traditional Chinese theater playscripts the editors might want to select, we can also read “between the lines” a strong expectation that the xi in Xikao does or should mean Jingju.101 Another aspect of the title Xikao that is not spelled out directly in the title itself is that the xi of the title does not include the new-style spoken dramas, it is clear that a distinction is being made between it and luantan, see the one for Juding guanhua 舉鼎觀畫 (Lifting the tripod and looking at the painting; Xikao #355; p. 3473). This is part of an explanation for why there are alternate Jingju versions of the same play and why the collection, after already publishing a version of Juding guanhua in the very first installment (under the title Shuangshi tu 雙獅圖 [Picture of a pair of lions; Xikao #18]), is publishing this alternate play text. The terms Jingju and Jingxi are not used very often in the shukao. For another instance where Jingju is used, one in which the writer is confident that “playgoers will be able to distinguish the Jingju and Kunqu versions of the play on their own” 京劇崑劇, 顧曲諸君, 自能分晰, see the shukao for Bawang bie ji 霸 王別姬 (Farewell my consort; Xikao #336; pp. 3177–78). For examples of use of the term Jingxi, see the shukao for Baishe zhuan 白蛇傳 (The white snake; #363; p. 3527). It is also used on the back cover of Xikao quanmu. 100 Among all the discursive writing that appeared in Xikao (the shukao, and the prefaces and liyan to the first Zhonghua Tushu Guan hardbound volume) or its ads, the closest that any of them come after this comment to addressing what kinds of theatrical traditions are included in the collection is in the Songbin preface, which promises that after you read the collection, conceived of in it as containing over two hundred plays, “when you go to watch plays, then new songs and old will be all arranged in your breast [i.e., present in your memory], and you will be able to understand the songs even from the Northwest or the Southeast” 觀劇則新歌舊曲, 即羅列於胸中, 而秦腔越謳, 亦了解其節奏). 101 This could get explicit: an ad for Xikao in Libai liu 71 (October 9, 1915) describes the collection as a “wanquan zhi Jingju kaoben” 完全之京劇考本 (a complete resource for Jingju/a complete set of texts with which to do research on Jingju [it is hard to know the exact intended meaning of kaoben]). The online successor to Xikao, xikao.com, about which we will say more below, although more explicitly devoted to Jingju than Xikao, decided to follow, at least to some extent, Xikao’s inclusion of Kunqu and bangzi plays. Item 4 of the “Statement of Principles” (“Fanli”) to their “Zhongguo Jingju jumu jianbiao” 中國京劇劇目簡表 (Concise listing of the repertoire of Chinese Jingju), http://xikao. com/net/list.htm, accessed May 29, 2008, began (it is no longer accessible) by saying that the list focuses on Jingju (yi pihuang wei zhu 以皮黃為主), but goes on to justify including commonly performed Kunqu plays such as Chunxiang nao xue and certain bangzi plays because they “all have been welcomed by ordinary people” 均為一般人氏所歡迎. Three bangzi plays are listed and all three were included in Xikao (#183, 249, and 501).

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spoken of at the time as xinxi 新戲 or xinju 新劇. Although advocates of the latter would designate Jingju and other traditional forms of Chinese theater as jiuju 舊劇 or jiuxi 舊戲 in opposition to their favored new form, that the latter was thought in need of explanation or qualifiers at the time Xikao was published can be seen from the fact that for Xikao an unqualified xi was enough, while for a work on spoken drama published at the same time by Zhonghua Tushu Guan already mentioned, their Xinju kao (1914), xi/ju needed to be qualified.102 But, as pointed out in the Introduction, we should keep in mind that the common conceptions today, that there both was and is great clarity about what was new and what was old, and about what was xiqu (music drama) and what was huaju (spoken drama), and the equally persistent idea that there were strong and uncrossable boundaries separating them, are all ahistorical. Kao had long been used in titles of books that investigated phenomena or texts generally considered by educated readers to be worthy of sustained scholarly research. In such titles kao might appear as the last character by itself (Research into _____)103 or followed by other characters such as zheng 證 (evidence; cf. kaozheng xue 考證學, a.k.a., kaoju xue 考據學 [evidentiary studies], an important intellectual movement in the Qing dynasty).104 The Qing saw the production of a couple of works on drama that had kao in their titles, but these circulated in manuscript and were not printed until the Republican period.105 102 As we will see below, a prepublication ad referred to this work as Xinxi kao but the title was changed to Xinju kao when it was actually published. 103 For example, a search for the word kao in the titles of the online version of the Siku quanshu turns up a total of ninety-five titles, fifty-one of which have kao as the last character. A famous example of a work that ends in kao would be Wenxian tongkao 文獻通 考 (General history of institutions and critical examination of documents and studies) by Ma Duanlin 馬端臨 (1254–1323), which was continued by two separate works with xu 續 (continuation) in their titles plus an extension to cover the Qing dynasty (Qingchao wenxian tongkao 清朝文獻通考). See Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, Fourth Edition, 51–2.3–4, pp. 647–48. 104 A search for kaozheng in the online version of the Siku quanshu turns up five titles. Other popular combinations of kao with other characters in Siku quanshu would include kaoyi 考異 (investigation of variants; twelve titles) and kaolüe 考略 (concise investigation; five titles). On kaoju xue and theater studies in the Qing dynasty, see Xun Wenkai 徐文凱, “Shilun Qingdai kaoju xue dui xiju de yingxiang” 試論清代考據學對戲劇的影響 (A trial discussion of the influence on theater of evidentiary studies in the Qing dynasty), Qi Lu xuekan 齊魯學刊 (Shandong scholarly journal) 2004.1: 24–27. 105 The ten volumes of Zhongguo gudian xiqu lunzhu jicheng contain only two titles that have kao in them, the anonymous mid-Qing Chuanqi huikao biaomu 傳奇彙考標目 (Playtitles in Gathered investigations into chuanqi plays), 7: 189–299, and Jinyue kaozheng 今樂考證 (Investigations into modern music [plays]), by Yao Xie 姚燮 (1805–1864), which takes up all of volume 10 (321 pp.). Despite the title of the first work, it is not the table of contents for Chuanqi huikao, and only got that name because it was copied into a manuscript copy

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At that time kao began to appear prominently in the titles of works concerning drama, perhaps most famously in Song Yuan xiqu kao 宋元戲曲考 (Research into the theater of the Song and Yuan dynasties) by Wang Guowei 王國維 (1877– 1927). That work, however, although completed in 1912, was not published serially until 1913–1914 and not as a book until 1915,106 after the first installments of of that work. Although composed sometime in the middle of the Qing, Chuanqi huikao circulated in manuscript until it was finally printed in 1914 by Gujin Shushi 古今書室 of Shanghai. All of the extant manuscript copies (and the printed edition) are clearly incomplete. Some believe that this work was an earlier incarnation of Yuefu kaozheng 樂 府考證 (Research into plays), another mid-Qing work (compiled 1715–1722) that existed only in incomplete manuscript copies before it was printed in 1928, by Dadong Shuju. The items in both are of the same general format and approach as the bibliographic essays in Siku quanshu zongmu tiyao 四庫全書總目提要 (Annotated catalogue of the Imperial Library) except that they also include fairly detailed abstracts of the plots of the plays. When Yuefu kaozheng was published, because it was mistaken for another work, no longer extant, it was renamed Quhai zongmu tiyao. Both works are very long and surely for that reason neither is included in Zhongguo gudian xiqu lunzhu jicheng. Yao Xie’s work consists of two introductory sections on the origins of various aspects of Chinese theater, followed by lists of play titles and what he could find about them, but does not feature summaries of their plots. It was not published until 1935, when it was photo-reproduced by Peking University. In this work, Yao mentions a work called Qukao 曲考 (Researches into plays). A recent article, Peng Qiuxi 彭秋溪, “Lun Yao Xie wei jian guo ‘Qukao’ yuanshu—Jiantan ‘Qukao’ de xingzhi” 論姚燮未見過 “曲考” 原書—兼談 “曲考” 的性 質 (Yao Xie never saw the original Qukao—With an additional discussion of the nature of Qukao), Xiqu yu su wenxue yanjiu 戲曲與俗文學研究 (Research in xiqu and popular literature) 1 (2016): 81–91, besides arguing that Yao never saw an actual book of this title, concludes that the work was one that was only planned but never finished by Jiao Xun. Yao Xie’s collection of plays, Jin yuefu xuan 今樂府選 (Selected modern plays), was over 500 juan long and has never been published. For its contents (265 plays, 1,775 scenes), see Zhu Chongzhi, Zhongguo gudai xiqu xuanben, pp. 254–57, and an appendix detailing the contents in Wei Mingyang 魏明揚, “Yao Xie yanjiu” 姚燮研究 (A study of Yao Xie), doctoral thesis, Huadong Normal University, 2006, pp. 181–255. Chen Duo and Ye Changhai, ed., Zhongguo lidai julun xuanzhu, does not contain a single item with the word kao in its title. Yu Weimin 俞為民 and Sun Rongrong 孫榮榮, eds., Lidai quhua huibian: Xinbian Zhongguo gudian xiqu lunzhu jicheng: Qingdai bian 歷代曲話彙編: 新編中國古典戲曲 論著集成: 清代編 (Collected discussions of qu over the ages: Newly compiled compendium of writings on traditional Chinese theater: Qing dynasty section; Hefei: Huangshan chubanshe, 2008), a work in five volumes each over 700 pages long, besides works already mentioned, has only one additional work with kao in its title, “Xixiang ji kaoshi” 西廂記 考實 (An investigation into the true state of The Western Wing), by Mao Qiling 毛奇齡 (1623–1716), 1: 592–95. 106 It was serialized in Dongfang zazhi 東方雜志 9.10–11, 10.3–6, 8–9 (April 1913–March 1914). See Yuming He, “Wang Guowei and the Beginnings of Modern Chinese Drama Studies,” Late Imperial China 28.2 (December 2007): 129. In the article she outlines the process whereby Wang was taken to be the father of the modern study of Chinese drama, a claim

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Xikao had already appeared.107 It was originally published under the title Song Yuan xiqu shi 宋元戲曲史 (History of Song and Yuan drama) and not retitled as Song Yuan xiqu kao until a different publisher republished it in 1922.108 Articles on individual Jingju plays whose titles ended in kao appeared in newspapers at least as early as 1910.109 The first modern published work to join together xi and kao that I am aware of is Haishang liyuan zazhi 海上梨園雜志 (Miscellaneous notes on theater in Shanghai), edited by a writer using the penname Muyou sheng 慕優生, published in Shanghai in the fourth month of 1911.110 In this work, the ninth chapter

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he made in the preface to Song Yuan xiqu shi/kao. She also discusses how, just prior to Song Yuan xiqu shi/kao, Wang also wrote three articles whose titles ended in or included the word kao (p. 143), the earliest of which to appear was, “Song daqu kao” 宋大曲考 (Research into the “Daqu” of the Song dynasty), published in 1910. The three articles and Song Yuan xiqu kao have been conveniently reprinted in Wang Guowei ji 王國維 集 (Collected writings of Wang Guowei) 3 vols. (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue, 2008), 3: 3–110, 284–301, 301–36, and 347–60, respectively. For Wang’s claim that “the ancients never did this kind of scholarship” 古人未嘗為此學, see 3: 3. Regina Llamas has also written about Wang: “Wang Guowei and the Establishment of Chinese Drama in the Modern Canon of Classical Literature,” T’oung Pao 96 (2010): 165–201. A book produced to help you take the test for master’s programs in art, 2005 nian yishu shuoshi (MFA) zhuanye xuewei yanjiu sheng ruxue zige quanguo liankao kaoshi dagang zhinan 2005 年藝術碩士 (MFA) 專業學位研究生入學資格全國聯考考試大綱指 南 (General guide to the national entrance exam for the masters in art [MFA] for 2005; Beijing: Zhongyang yinyue xueyuan, 2005), p. 20, has a multiple choice question that asks you to identify the author of Song Yuan xiqu kao in which one of the wrong answers is Wang Dacuo, author of most of the shukao in Xikao and often taken as its editor. See Sieber, Theaters of Desire, p. 25. She calls this second title “traditionalist” and translates it as Evidential Studies of Song and Yuan Drama, noting that the second title was especially valorized by its use in the posthumous edition of Wang’s works in 1927. These appeared in books and in periodicals. For examples of the former, Aili laoren 哀梨 老人, Yuefu xinsheng 樂府新聲 (The new sound of plays; Shanghai: Guohua shuju, 1905), contains three pieces whose titles consist of the names of plays followed by the word kao. For an example of the latter, see the anonymous “Shuangding ji kao” ‘雙釘記’ 考 (An investigation of Shuangding ji; Xikao #135), Guohua bao 國華報 (National news), issue 17 (December 2, 1910), text reproduced in Fu Jin, ed., Jingju lishi wenxian huibian: Qingdai juan, Xubian, 4: 519–20. The publisher was Zhenkui She 振瞶社 of Shanghai). The chapters in this book have independent pagination. In page citations, the chapter number are given first, then the page number, separated by a slash. This book only has one preface, signed Silu 思魯. After remarking that the last ten-plus years have seen an abandonment of the old for the new, that Shanghai is the France (not Paris) of China where fabulous sums have been spent on the construction of theaters, and where there is “no longer any difference between male and female in the world of actors” (lingjie wu nannü 伶界無男女) and actors look down on the salaries of officials of the first rank, he goes on to say that literary men

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is titled “Xikao” and contains brief items on sixty-two plays over twenty-nine pages. Two of the plays are identified as other than Jingju, and another as an adaptation from Kunqu.111 Although most of the plays are old-style, one newstyle play is also included.112 The vast majority of these sixty-two items in the “Xikao” chapter of Haishang liyuan zazhi do very little more than list alternate names for the play and present a concise summary of the plot. There is little that we ordinarily would consider “research.” But it appears that the compiler or the original writer of these pieces (whom we will presume is male and just one person) thought that providing plot summaries and in particular figuring out the historical setting constituted research. In the case of bangzi plays, he expresses his frustration with them from this point of view: “It is the case with bangzi plays that they are put together quite randomly, so that the number of them where there is no way to research their historical settings is many” 蓋梆子腔戲, 隨意編串, 故無從考其 時代者多也.113 He is also interested in explaining why things happen in a play, and is frustrated when there is no way for him to do that. After summarizing one Jingju play, he lists a couple of things that the play is not itself clear on, are producing a wide variety of writings about theater but that they are all scattered in various newspapers and other media, but now Muyou sheng has gathered it all together into one collection. Only occasionally are sources or authors given for the material that appears in the book and none are given for the material in the “xikao” chapter, nor is there anything in the book that explains the rationale for the chapter or for titling it “Xikao.” The text of Haishang liyuan zazhi was included in Fu Jin, ed., Jingju lishi wenxian hui­ bian: Qingdai juan, 2: 505–659. For the preface, see p. 505, and for the xikao chapter, see pp. 618–32. A couple of years later, there appeared a different work, compiled (zhuanshu 撰述) by Lu Zhiling 陸指伶 and Lu Xinling 陸信伶 and edited by Zhu Shuangyun 朱雙 雲 (1889–1942): Zengtu mingling quben diyi ce 增圖名伶曲本第一冊 (Added illustration Famous actors playscripts, volume one; Shanghai: Yinhong she, 1913), which, according to WorldCat, has a section labeled “xikao.” 111 Su San qijie 蘇三起解 (Transporting Su the Third; Xikao #70 [ Jingju version]) is identified as a bangzi play and Huayuan zeng zhu 花園贈珠 (Giving the pearl in the garden; Xikao #179) can be identified as a bangzi play from the compiler’s comments on that form of theater in the item (p. 9/3). For an identification of a play as an adaptation of a Kunqu play, see the paragraph on Xia shu sao song 下書掃松 (Delivering the letter and sweeping under the pine; Xikao #248 [order of the two halves of the title is reversed]; p. 9/16). In the chapter, Jingju troupes are referred to as “Jingban” 京班 (Capital troupes; e.g., p. 9/22) and Peking opera as Jingju or Jingxi (both are used in the same sentence, p. 9/16). 112 The play, Xinglü gailiang 刑律改良 (Reform of the penal system; not in Xikao), gets the longest summary in the chapter (pp. 18–20). It premiered in 1907 (see Zeng Bairong, ed., Jingju jumu cidian, p. 1085) and is one of the plays in the series of scene illustrations and summaries titled “Shijie xinju” published in Tuhua ribao (August 1909–August 1910) that was mentioned in the Introduction. 113 Muyou sheng, Shanghai liyuan zazhi, pp. 9/2–3.

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then throws up his hands and says: “[These things] all cannot be researched. Playgoers should just laugh at them and that’s that” 皆不可考. 觀劇者當惟一 笑置之而已. He identifies this as not just a problem with this particular play, saying: “In Jingju there are many plays that just can’t be researched” 京劇中每 多不可考證之戲.114 The kind of research that he does present, besides identifying types of plays and their origins, includes identifying details in a play as not to be found in orthodox historical works115 or as made up in fictional works;116 pointing out that a character’s name as given in the play differs from its fictional source;117 or identifying the real model for a character in a play.118 He can also tell the reader to go look elsewhere for more detailed information.119 There are perhaps as many as ten remarks that address elements of the performance content or history of a play, and the names of three actors are mentioned (one twice).120 There are also a few personal comments, such as complaints about how evil Cao Cao is121 or about how “ignorant men and women” (yufu yufu 愚 夫愚婦) perversely like to watch superstitious plays.122 The same year that Muyou sheng’s book appeared with its chapter titled “Xikao,” a column titled “Xikao” began to appear in Shenbao on September 8, 1911, under the penname Wuxia Jian’er.123 Forty of the sixty-two plays covered 114 These comments come from the paragraph on Heifeng pa (Xikao #37), p. 9/5. 115 See the item on Fa Zidu 伐子都 (Punishing Zidu; Xikao #145), which says that a number of details are “all missing in the official histories” 皆為正史所無 (p. 9/13). 116 See the item on Changban po (Xikao #141), p. 9/9. 117 See the item on Hua hudie 花蝴蝶 (Colored butterfly; Xikao #221), p. 9/25, which says, “I have no idea what that is based on” 不知何所據. 118 See the Shuangding ji (Xikao #135) summary, p. 9/24. 119 See the Guo wu guan 過五關 (Passing through five passes; Xikao #310) summary, p. 9/28. 120 San mazi 三麻子 (stage name of Wang Hongshou 王鴻壽 [1850–1925]) is mentioned with approval, pp. 9/16 and 21. Wang’s playwriting was discussed in chapter 2. 121 See the summary for Zhuofang Cao 捉放曹 (Arresting and releasing Cao Cao; Xikao #6), p. 9/15. 122 See the summary of Mulian jiu mu 目蓮救母 (Mulian saves his mother; Xikao #38). pp. 9/10–11. 123 See 114: 140 of the Shanghai Shudian 1983 photo-reprint of Shenbao. Cai Shicheng, ed., Shenbao Jingju ziliao xuanbian, does not include this inaugural piece in the “Xikao” column. The earliest column included in Cai’s selection is from September 25, 1911 (pp. 32–33). Neither Cai’s collection, nor Ni Baixian 倪百賢, ed., “Shenbao xiqu wenzhang mulu suoyin” 申報戲曲文章目錄索引 (Index to articles on xiqu in Shenbao), Shanghai xiqu shiliao huicui 上海戲曲史料薈萃 (Collection of historical material on theater in Shanghai) 1 (1986): 127–47 (covers 1912–1918), nor Ni Baixian 倪百賢 and Wang Chaofeng 王潮鳳, eds., “Shenbao xiqu wenzhang suoyin,” Shanghai xiqu shiliao huicui 4 (1987): 1–244 (covers 1872–1949) note that the Wuxia Jian’er “Xikao” pieces actually appeared in the “Xikao” column. The only item in Ni Baixian and Wang Chaofeng, eds., “Shenbao xiqu wenzhang suoyin,” recorded as part of the “Xikao” column is an item signed Bian 便 that

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in the “Xikao” chapter of Haishang liyuan zazhi are also covered in the Shenbao columns, but there is no textual overlap between them.124 The first of the Shenbao columns begins with a paragraph of self-introduction by Wuxia Jian’er, followed by the heading, “Xusheng xi” 鬚生戲 (Whiskered male [lao­ sheng] plays), followed by an introduction to Li Ling bei 李陵碑 (The stele commemorating Li Ling; Xikao #21). The introduction begins by listing the play’s alternative titles (two), recounts its plot, briefly identifies Li Ling and the symbolism underlying the use of the stele in the play, describes the fan erhuang 反 二黃 (inverse erhuang) aria of Yang Jiye 楊繼業 (the highpoint of the play), and concludes by rating Liu Hongsheng 劉鴻聲 (1875–1921), who once was held to be the equal of Tan Xinpei,125 as the best actor in the role of Yang. This first “Xikao” column appeared in a supplementary section of the Shenbao edited by Wang Dungen and titled “Ziyou tan” 自由談 (Free talk) that itself had only started to appear about two weeks earlier.126 On the day it appeared, the “Ziyou tan” section included the following columns, identified by their headings and asterisks above and below those headings: “Youxi wenzhang” 游戲文章 (Entertainment writing), “Haiwai qitan” 海外奇談 (Strange news from abroad), “Kangkai beige” 慷慨悲歌 (Tragic song), “Chanmian beice” 纏綿悲惻 (Lingering sorrow), “Jianjian wenwen” 見見聞聞 (Witnessed or heard), “Rechao lengma” 熱嘲冷罵 (Hot mocking and cold cursing), “Xikao,” and “Xiaoshuo” 小說 (Fiction).127 In the “Ziyou tan” section the next day, only the “Youxi wenzhang,” “Haiwai qitan,” “Xikao,” and “Xiaoshuo” columns reappeared, joined by four new columns.128 After that, some columns would come and go while others appeared almost every day. Solicitations for contributions to be printed in “Ziyou tan” do not specifically mention theater.

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appeared on August 21, 1913 (123: 654 in the Shanghai Shudian reprint). It is listed on p. 26 and is better thought of as one of the articles in the “Juben kaoshi” series (see below). The selections by Cai Shicheng and the two lists of theater articles in Shenbao all reference the Shanghai Shudian reprint of Shenbao. Of the sixty-two plays in the “Xikao” chapter of Haishang liyuan zazhi, all but seven appear in Xikao. See the entry on him in Wu Tongbin and Zhou Yaxun, eds., Jingju zhishi cidian (zengding ban), p. 261, which also points out that the sheng in Liu’s name should be written with a different character also pronounced sheng: 昇. The new section was inaugurated on August 24, 1911. See Luan Meijian, “Libai liu pai da benying de zhongyao yingzao zhe,” p. 212. Much later, Lu Xun would publish short essays in the “Ziyou tan” section of Shenbao. Denise Gimpel, Lost Voices of Modernity: A Chinese Popular Fiction Magazine in Context (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2001), p. 207, translates “Ziyou tan” as “Unfettered Talk.” See 114: 139–40 of the Shanghai Shudian reprint. Shanghai Shudian reprint, 114: 159.

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At the end of the first installment of the “Xikao” column there is a note, “not yet finished” (wei wan 未完). What was not finished was not the introduction to Li Ling bei, but the series on xusheng/laosheng plays. After thirtynine installments on a total of forty such plays, the next installment begins with the heading “Heitou xi” 黑頭戲 (Black-head plays; plays that star hua­ lian actors who sing a lot, the prototypical example being Judge Bao, whose face pattern looks very black).129 After a total of twenty-four columns on twenty-four such plays, the next installment has the heading “Qingshan xi” 青衫戲 (Black-tunic plays; qingshan is basically a synonym for qingyi, mature dignified female roles).130 After two installments on two plays, that series is interrupted by three installments on the same play (with no new heading),131 after which the qingshan plays resume for another twenty-four installments on the same number of plays before yielding to a series of four installments on four plays announced by the heading “Laodan xi” 老旦戲 (older women plays).132 The next heading is for “Wusheng xi” 武生戲 (martial male plays), and its section includes twelve installments on the same number of plays up until November 7, 1911, when there is a break.133 The series picks up again with another seventeen installments on the same number of plays beginning on March 4, 1912.134 The format is now slightly different, in that the names of the play and any alternative names are set off in a separate line from the paragraph

129 See 114: 840 (October 18, 1911), in the Shanghai Shudian reprint. 130 See 115: 167 (November 11, 1911), in the Shanghai Shudian reprint. 131 All three of the interrupting installments have a note: “Qingshan xi zhanting” 青衫戲 暫停 (Plays featuring qingshan will temporarily be postponed). See 115: 197, 211, and 225 (November 13–15, 1911), in the Shanghai Shudian reprint. Beginning with the November 27, 1911 installment (115: 395 in the Shanghai Shudian reprint), the font size of the column tends to be smaller than the other “Ziyou tan” columns. This continues in most of the rest of the “Xikao” columns by Wuxia Jian’er for that year. 132 See 115: 577 (December 10, 1911), in the Shanghai Shudian reprint. 133 A notice in Shenbao (January 2, 1912) acknowledges public desire for the series to start up again, and an explanation that Jian’er is busy with gongshi 公事 (public affairs) and will continue the column in the new lunar year. Another notice ten days later (January 12, 1912) says pretty much the same thing. 134 See 116: 534 in the Shanghai Shudian reprint. During the break between December 10, 1911 and when the series started up again the following year, a three-part serialized shuoming shu 說明書 for a “new play” (xinju 新劇) printed under the name of Shouju 瘦菊 ran in the “Xikao” column (116: 346, 354, and 362 [February 3–5, 1912], in the Shanghai Shudian reprint). In the Republican era a number of articles on theater were published under the name of Shouju; there are also a number of writers then who used Shouju as their personal names and included their surname (examples include Zheng 鄭, Zhu 朱, and Feng 馮).

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that comprises the main text of the installments.135 Instead of Wuxia Jian’er, just Jian’er begins to appear quite frequently;136 one of these columns is not attributed at all.137 The next section has a new heading, “Wujing xi” 武凈戲 (Martial painted face role plays),138 and has nine installments on nine plays; it is followed after a short hiatus by a section with the heading “Zhiwei sheng xi” 雉尾生戲 (Pheasant-feather young male role plays [i.e., xiaosheng])139 with seventeen installments on the same number of plays. It is followed by a section with the heading “Wudan xi” 武旦戲 (Martial female role plays)140 with fifteen installments on the same number of plays. The heading of the next section is “Huadan xi” 花旦戲 (Flowery/Patterned female role plays),141 with twenty-five installments on the same number of plays. After that there is a final section for “filling in” (bu 補) more xusheng plays (nineteen installments on eighteen plays)142 that eventually peters out on October 3, 1912,143 with a brief flurry of activity centered around the date of publication of the Shenbao Guan first installment of Xikao on August 10, 1912.144 The only role-type that did not get its own heading is the chou role-type. Except for one installment that treats two different plays,145 one play that gets two installments,146 and one play that is allotted three installments,147 each installment deals with one play. All told, there are a total of 209 Wuxia Jian’er “Xikao” columns (including one unattributed column that is clearly part of the whole series). Together they treat 207 plays.148 This does not agree with the claim in the first Shenbao ad for Xikao, 135 There is a one-time reversion to the all-in-one block style on April 23, 1912 (117: 222 in the Shanghai Shudian reprint). 136 The first appears on March 12, 1912 (116: 602 in the Shanghai Shudian reprint). 137 See March 29, 1912 (116: 746 in the Shanghai Shudian reprint). 138 See March 22, 1912 (116: 684 in the Shanghai Shudian reprint). 139 Begins on April 11, 1912 (117: 106 in the Shanghai Shudian reprint). 140 Begins on April 28, 1912 (117: 270 in the Shanghai Shudian reprint). 141 Appears on May 14, 1912 (117: 430 in the Shanghai Shudian reprint). 142 Begins on June 9, 1912 (117: 687 in the Shanghai Shudian reprint). 143 See 119: 29 in the Shanghai Shudian reprint. 144 Installments appear on August 9–12, 1912 (118: 399, 409, 419, and 429 in the Shanghai Shudian reprint). 145 See 114: 174 (September 10, 1911) in the Shanghai Shudian reprint. 146 See 117: 858 and 868 (June 26–27, 1912) in the Shanghai Shudian reprint. 147 See 115: 197, 211, and 225 (November 13–15, 1911) in the Shanghai Shudian reprint. 148 Matsuura Tsuneo, “Xikao zai Minguo chunian de wenhua diwei,” p. 761, says that a total of 108 of these Wuxia Jian’er “Xikao” installments, introducing a total of 107 plays, ran in Shenbao from September 8 to December 26 of 1911. That would seem to leave out, at the least, the three columns that treat one play, but that decision might be justified considering that although they do appear in the column, they are different from the other items in that they are really a review of the play as composed and performed by Xin Wutai. These three columns are reproduced in Cai Shicheng, ed., Shenbao Jingju ziliao xuanbian,

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run June 30, 1912, that since the column began the previous year in the seventh month (the lunar calendar must be meant here) until the present, over three hundred plays had been covered in it.149 Three hundred does happen to be the number of plays expected to be covered in Xikao xinbian if it had been finished. The following year, on February 28, 1913, new installments of the “Xikao” column suddenly appeared, attributed not to Wuxia Jian’er but to a Bianbian 便 便.150 The first is devoted almost entirely to showing how details of the original source of the story of the play were not kept in the performance practice for it. No attempt is made to recount the plot, but it does end with a list of the actors who are best at playing the lead role. Between the name of the column and title of the play, there is an interesting line of text that functions as a subheading in much the same way that the names of categories of plays according to the role-types of their main characters roles had for Wuxia Jian’er: Juben kaoshi 劇本考實 (An examination into the facts of the playscript).151 Between this first example and July 11, 1913,152 seventy-one of these articles appeared, treating sixty-four plays.153

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pp. 36–39. Matsuura continues by noting that in the following year (1912), from March 5 to June 15, the “Xikao” column introduced eighty-eight plays in the same number of articles. He then mentions that the column continued intermittently after that, but does not give figures. Fu Jin, ed., Jingju lishi wenxian huibian: Qingdai juan, 4: 653–717, reproduces the text of 107 “Xikao” columns (from September 8–December 26, 1911). The sections on the “Xikao” columns in Han Meimiao 韓美苗, “Wan Qing Shenbao zhong de xiqu shiliao yanjiu” 晚清申報中的戲曲史料研究 (Research on the historical material on xiqu in Shenbao in the late Qing), master’s thesis, Shanxi Normal University, 2014, relies on the reproduction of the installments in Jingju lishi wenxian huibian: Qingdai juan. See 117: 898 in the Shanghai Shudian reprint. Matsuura Tsuneo, “Xikao zai Minguo chunian de wenhua diwei,” p. 761, gives the date of the first of these ads as July 1, 1912. After the middle of June, these articles are signed Erwo 二我 instead of Bianbian. Qin Yanqun 秦燕春, Qingmo Minchu de wan Ming xiangxiang 清末民初的晚明想像 (The late Ming imaginary in the late Qing and early Republic; Beijing: Bejing daxue, 2008), p. 370, thinks Bianbian is Qian Jingfang 錢靜方. See 120: 620 in the Shanghai Shudian reprint. See 123: 151 in the Shanghai Shudian reprint. In Ni Baixian and Wang Chaofeng, eds., “Shenbao xiqu wenzhang suoyin,” these articles are all prefixed by the heading “Juben kaoshi.” There is an item with the heading “Xikao” on August 21, 1913 (123: 654 in the Shanghai Shudian reprint), signed Bian 便 that is of the same basic format and presumably by the same writer. The “Juben kaoshi” headings are also preserved for the Bianbian articles in the series on Kunqu plays reproduced in Zhu Jianming 朱建明, ed., Shenbao Kunju ziliao xuanbian 申報崑劇資料選編 (Selected material on Kunju in Shenbao; Shanghai: Shanghai Kunju zhi bianji bu, 1992), pp. 6–10. Li Feng 李峰, “Kunqu yu Shenbao yanjiu” 崑曲與申報研究 (Research on the relationship between Kunqu and Shenbao), master’s thesis, Suzhou University, 2012, pp. 34–37, is about this column. They are not, however, compared to the Wuxia Jian’er “Xikao” column, although the thesis (p. 11) does quote a June 3, 1929 piece in Shenbao by Renxin 忍鑫,

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1912 also saw the inauguration of other columns in the “Ziyou tan” section of Shenbao relating to theater, particularly Jingju. Beginning on September 29, 1911, a column titled “Xiyong” 戲詠 (Poems on theater) began to print, in installments, twenty quatrains, each on a specific Jingju play.154 On January 22, 1912, a new column, “Xiping” 戲評 (Play reviews), began to appear sporadically,155 under a variety of pennames, including [Wuxia] Jian’er.156 A new column attributed to Jian’er, “Xiju zhinan” 戲劇指南 (A guide to theater), appeared first on June 23, 1912,157 and one called “Jutan” 劇談 (Talks on plays), sometimes attributed to Jian’er, first appeared on July 25, 1912.158 On October 9, 1912,159 there appeared for the first time a column entitled “Liyuan tansou” 梨園談

154 155 156

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“Ji bannian lai zhi Kunqu” 記半年來之崑曲 (A record of Kunqu in the last half year), which says, as part of a lament on the present state of Kunqu, “As for the text and stage directions of Kunju, they are all in classical Chinese, so it is naturally hard for it to become popular. The audience, in the end, is composed more of neophytes than of those in the know, refined people are few and vulgar ones many. As for the aria text and dialogue of Jingju, they are simple and easy to understand, and if neophytes have a copy of a xikao in their hands, then they can get at least 10–20% [of what is going on]. But in the case of Kunju even if you compare [what you hear with what’s in] a musical score, the majority is still hard to understand” 崑劇曲詞及介白, 均為文言, 自難大眾化. 聽客究屬外行多 而内家少, 雅人鮮而俗客多. 京劇之唱句說白, 淺顯通俗, 外行猶可手執戲考, 領 悟一二. 若崑劇則即使對證曲譜, 大都仍難了解. In the original, it is impossible to know whether the writer is speaking of Xikao as one specific publication or of xikao as a class of publications that imitated Xikao. See 114: 510 and 646, in the Shanghai Shudian reprint, for the first and last installments, respectively. See 116: 250 in the Shanghai Shudian reprint. The next does not appear until April 22, 1912 (117: 211 in the Shanghai Shudian reprint). They tend to review new-style plays. The first appeared May 10, 1912 (117: 390 in the Shanghai Shudian reprint). “Ziyou tan” lacks a “Xikao” column from Wuxia Jian’er for this date. On July 25, 1912 (118: 249 in the Shanghai Shudian reprint), the name of the column is changed to the synonymous “Jutan” 劇談. See 117: 828 in the Shanghai Shudian reprint. This column includes comments on the assignment of characters to specific role-types in three plays. For example, the first complains that Chen Shimei 陳世美 (written as Chen Simei 陳思美 in the column) in Zha Mei an 鍘美案 (The case of decapitating Chen Shimei at the waist; Xikao #113) should not be played by a laosheng actor because he is such a bad fellow. A total of eight installments of this column were published, the last on August 25, 1912 (118: 559 of the Shanghai Shudian reprint). See 118: 249 of the Shanghai Shudian reprint. On October 31–November 10, 1912, the column for the first time included the text of a play, Xin Shiba che (clearly related to Xin Sishi ba che [Xikao #451]), in nine installments. Previous to this, on May 2, 1912, the “Ziyou tan” section of the paper had serialized a “new play” (xinju 新劇) on the fate of Poland as a separate column. See 117: 310 of the Shanghai Shudian reprint for the first installment. See 119: 89 of the Shanghai Shudian reprint.

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藪 (Thicket of talk about theater), attributed to Xuanlang 玄郎 (for whom, see below). If we compare what the initial Shenbao “Xikao” column says about Li Ling bei and the shukao for that play in Xikao (#21), also attributed to Wuxia Jian’er, they are very similar and it is clear that the latter copies from the former. In the shukao the same alternative titles are given, a sentence in the column identifying the story as one set in the Song is dropped, the recounting of the plot is slightly expanded while the vast majority of the language of the “Xikao” column installment is kept, but the comments about the fan erhuang aria and Liu Hongsheng in the latter are cut. Comparing the first twenty-five plays treated in the Shenbao “Xikao” column with the shukao for those plays in Xikao, we find that for plays in the first two installments of Xikao (all of whose shukao are attributed to Wuxia Jian’er), the first part (the play summaries) are often almost exactly the same, and while the remarks on performance and actors in the second part are more prone to truncation or expansion, they are always clearly related to the “Xikao” column versions. For the eleven of the twenty-five plays not in those first two installments, one can find no connections between the Shenbao “Xikao” essays on them and the corresponding shukao in Xikao. One of those eleven, play #453, is in installment 32, the only other installment whose shukao are attributed to Wuxia Jian’er. If we also compare the only other play that appears in both that installment and in the Shenbao “Xikao” column, play #448,160 the answer is the same: there is no connection between the two. How do the titles of the five-hundred-plus playscripts included in Xikao compare with those treated in the Shenbao “Xikao” columns signed by Wuxia Jian’er? Only twenty-three of those titles, or about 11%, cannot be found in Xikao.161 Of these, five must be quite obscure, since their titles (or the alternate titles listed for them in the columns) cannot be found in Zeng Bairong, ed., Jingju jumu cidian. If we divide the 524 playscripts in Xikao into five segments with one hundred playscripts in each,162 and then a sixth segment with the remaining twenty-one plays, and then record the number of plays in those segments that are treated in the Shenbao “Xikao” columns signed by Wuxia 160 Xikao plays #448, 449, and 100 contain episodes of the same larger play. Even if we also look at the shukao for all three Xikao shukao, there is still no overlap between them and the Shenbao column that treats the play. 161 One play title covered in the “Xikao” column, Jingzhou cheng 景州城 (Jingzhou City), turns out to be a previously unencountered alternative title for Luo Sihu 羅四虎 (Luo Sihu; Xikao #210). 162 Plays #101–200 actually include 101 plays, because of the addition of #169a, and plays #301–400 actually have 102 plays, because plays #345 and #354 both have two parts (#345a and #345b; #354a and #354b).

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Jian’er, we can see the percentage of overlap begins high, 82% for the first one hundred plays, and then gradually drops off: 40% for the second, 29% for the third, 21% for the fourth, 9% for the fifth, and under 1% for the final twentyfour.163 One reason for the decline in overlap as time went on is that Xikao, as new installments came out over more than a decade, increasingly ended up containing plays that premiered or became famous after 1912, something not possible for the “Xikao” columns. Another reason is the “Xikao” columns lack the Kunqu and bangzi plays of Xikao. As we have seen, the first installment of Xikao was published in 1912 by the publisher of Shenbao, the Shenbao Guan. Ads announcing its forthcoming publication, titled “Ni ai kan xi ma” 你愛看戲麼 (Do you like to watch plays?),164 began to appear in Shenbao on June 29 and ones announcing that the first installment had been published began to run a couple of months later, on August 11.165 The privileging of xusheng plays that we have seen in the Shenbao “Xikao” column is carried over into the Shenbao Guan version of the first installment of Xikao, since the first page of the section with plays is prefaced by the heading: “First category, xusheng” (Diyi lei xusheng 第一類鬚生).166 The following year, from April 29 to May 23, ads in Shenbao appeared proclaiming that a second installment of Xikao from Shenbao Guan had been published,167 but it does not seem that the installment was ever actually published by them, even though an ad in Shenbao that ran intermittently during June 3–17 of the same year claims that Wuxia Jian’er had previously edited (bianji 編輯) two installments of Xikao for Shenbao Guan and that they are selling at the rate of 12,000 copies a month.168 In any case, Zhonghua Tushu 163 It should be remembered that Xikao contains two different playscripts for a small number of plays, so that when one of these plays is treated in the “Xikao” columns, it would be counted as occurring twice in Xikao for the purposes of this comparison. 164 The ad continues: “First buy a copy of Xikao and then go take a look [at them]” 先買一本 戲考去看看瞧. 165 See 118: 409 of the Shanghai Shudian reprint. Although he was mistaken as to the date of the first appearance of this ad, which he gives as July 1 of “the next year” (which would be 1913), I first became aware of the ad from Matsuura Tsuneo, “Xikao zai Minguo chunian de wenhua diwei,” p. 761. 166 One of the plays in the first installment, Sanniang jiaozi (Xikao #3), features a dan as well as a xusheng role, and is thus perhaps an odd choice for an installment devoted to xu­sheng plays, but in the shukao for it (p. 20), Wuxia Jian’er comments that he was most moved by Sun Juxian’s portrayal of the xusheng role in it. 167 The dates for the run of the ad come from Matsuura Tsuneo, “Xikao zai Minguo chunian de wenhua diwei,” p. 761. For the first one, see 121: 760 of the Shanghai Shudian reprint. 168 Matsuura Tsuneo, “Xikao zai Minguo chunian de wenhua diwei,” p. 762, gives the date of June 4 for the ad. For the first appearance of the ad, see 122: 452, and for the last, p. 641 of the same volume. All the ads highlight the price of the first volume of Xikao xinbian, liang

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Guan picked up the project, republishing the first installment and continuing to publish new ones.169 From all indications, the shukao in the two Shenbao Guan installment(s), and those in the first two installments of the Zhonghua Tushu Guan reprint,170 are all by Wuxia Jian’er and their contents did not change when they were reprinted.171 Extant copies of the first volume of Xinbian xikao are dated to May of 1913, but the ads in Shenbao give the publication date as June 5. The work was published by Shizhong tushu 時中圖書 in Shanghai. Three volumes were planned, each with essays on one hundred plays and selling for two jiao, but it appears that only the first one (shangce 上冊) was ever published.172 I have not seen anything that explains why Shenbao Guan doesn’t seem to have ever published its promised second installment of Xikao, or why only the first volume of Xikao xinbian appeared; perhaps these two things were connected to the fact that neither the Shenbao Guan nor Zhonghua Tushu Guan can be expected to be happy with the kind of competition that Xikao xinbian represented,173 although an ad for it was run in Shenbao. Items attributed to Jian’er stopped appearing

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jiao, by putting those two characters in larger and darker type, while in the later version this is also done for the words indicating the main place to go buy the book. From everything I have seen to date, it seems that the Zhonghua Tushu Guan first installment just reprints the Shenbao Guan one (see above for the Shenbao ads that list the contents of it). As noted above, the only difference seems to be the notion that a Songbin did collation work ( jiaokan 校勘) on the Shenbao Guan version. All we know about the second Shenbao Guan installment, which comes from the ad for Xikao xinbian, is that it contained twenty plays like the first one (as is also true of the Zhonghua Tushu Guan version). As noted above of the other installments, only the shukao of installment 32 are also attributed to Wuxia Jian’er. Oddly enough, an ad for Xikao at the back of Xinju kao (prefaces dated the fifth month of 1914) announcing that six installments have already been published directs those who want to buy copies to go to Shenbao Guan, not the publisher of Xinju kao, Zhonghua Tushu Guan. The text of this ad is almost exactly the same as the Libai liu 71 (October 9, 1915) one, except that the number of installments said to be already out differs. I have not yet seen a copy of Xikao xinbian. Material on the volume available on WorldCat indicates that it consists of two parts, one only one-page long (a preface or other introductory matter?) and a longer one ninety-four pages long. This latter part must contain the one hundred “xikao” (at an average of less than one page per play), which are said to introduce the main characters and plot of each play. Names of seven of the plays covered in the volume are given, all of which appear in Xikao (three in installment 1, one each in installments 2, 3, and 16). See Matsuura Tsuneo, “Xikao zai Minguo chunian de wenhua diwei,” p. 762, who points out that the first ad in Shenbao for the Shenbao Guan installment 1 includes a warning “This material is copyrighted, others may not copy or reprint it” 版權所有, 他家不得 抄襲翻印. For the original, see the June 30, 1912 issue (117: 898 of the Shanghai Shudian reprint).

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in Shenbao after October 3, 1912. Installment 32 of Xikao, the only other installment besides the first two in which the shukao are attributed to him, was first published in October of 1922.174 On the reliability of the attribution of the shukao in installment 32, see below. The ads run in Shenbao detailing the contents of the first installment of Xikao from Shenbao Guan divide those contents into three categories, in the following order: (1) mingling xiaoying 名伶小影 (small photos of famous actors), (2) xikao (the introductory essays for the plays; referred to in Xikao itself as shukao), and (3) quben 曲本 (the playscripts).175 To publish all three together was certainly a great innovation in the world of Jingju.176 Some have speculated as to which was more important.177 Although today we may be most interested in the plays, consumers at the time might have felt a more practical need for the shukao. Whereas in late nineteenth-century Beijing the Jingju audience was expected to be able to recognize what play in the traditional repertoire was going to be performed from the props on display outside the theater,178 that was definitely not the case in Shanghai in the early twentieth century, where 174 See Zhongguo jindai xiandai congshu mulu, p. 501. 175 See, for instance, the version that appeared August 1, 1912 (118: 319 of the Shanghai Shudian reprint). In the Shenbao Guan version of the first installment itself, the table of contents does divide the installment into three sections, but they are (1) “prefaces” (xuyan 序言), (2) “portraits of famous actors” (mingling xiaoxiang 名伶肖像), and (3) “playscripts” ( juben 劇本). Unlike any of the later reprints, the Shenbao Guan version of the first installment also prefaces the plays themselves, after each shukao, with the heading quben 曲本 (opera script). 176 It turned out to be an idea that was quickly imitated. The following year saw the appearance of Zengtu mingling quben Diyi ce (1913), a lithographic work of 118 pages that contained five different types of material: (1) mingling xiaoying 名伶小影照片 (small portraits of actors), (2) mingling quben 名伶曲本 (famous-actor playscripts), (3) zhuanji 傳記 (biographies), (4) xikao 戲考, and (5) jutan 劇譚 (play discussions). I have not been able to find news of a second installment; the first one is rare and I have not yet seen a copy. There are two entries in WorldCat, both describing the work as lithographed and with illustrations (chatu 插圖), but one mentions photographs (zhaopian 照片), which are not often found in lithographed editions. The work presumably has both photos of actors and illustrations of characters or scenes. 177 See Matsuura, “Xikao zai Minguo chunian de wenhua diwei,” pp. 769–70. 178 Certain props were associated with particular plays, and before the practice of posting notices in newspapers caught on in Beijing, the main way a theater would advertise an upcoming play would be to display props from it outside its doors (baimen 擺門). See Liao Canhui 廖燦輝, Ping ( Jing) ju jianchang yanjiu 平 (京) 劇檢場研究 (A study of prop men in Jingju; Taibei: Wenhua daxue, 2002), pp. 56–57. A later refinement to the practice of baimen was to write the surname of the most famous actor to appear by the props on display. Ye Tao, Zhongguo Jingju xisu, p. 208, notes that this was done for Tan Xinpei and the wusheng actor Yu Jusheng 俞菊笙 (1838–1914).

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relative newcomers were being introduced to Jingju in both more conservative forms featuring guest actors from Beijing and forms designed to cater to their tastes; a great variety of experimentation was going on with hybrid forms and there was great demand for new and up-to-date plays.179 The fact that Xikao, which contained also photographs and playscripts, was given a title that referred to neither directly but instead to the third component can be taken as proof that it was that aspect of the collection that was at least initially seen as most important. It seems likely that the perceived value of the essays on the plays is what justified the initial investment by the Shenbao Guan in bringing out the first installment of Xikao, and of Wuxia Jian’er and Shizhong Shushi in bringing out the first volume of Xikao xinbian. An ad for the latter reads: Theater specialist Jian’er formerly edited two installments of Xikao for Shenbao Guan, and 12,000 copies were sold in a month. From this one can see how the level of theater appreciation in society has improved, and how much of an aid Xikao is to theatergoers. But each installment of it only contains twenty plays, and it comes one installment after another, which rather leaves readers waiting with great expectation. Jian’er has therefore changed the format and separately compiled xikao for their delectation. Each volume treats one hundred plays, the explanations are detailed, and even those who are just roughly literate, if they carry this xikao when they go to watch plays, there will definitely not ever be anything about the contents of the plays that will not be clear. 顧曲家健兒曾為申報館編輯戲考二冊, 一月之間銷行萬二千部. 是可見 社會上顧曲程度之進步, 而戲考實為便利觀劇者. 惟每冊只載二十齣, 179 Some believed that even Beijingers could get confused. In a work published in Beijing, Guanju jianyan, pp. 18a–b, Qi Rushan said, “As for the text of plays, it is not the case that they can’t be used to move people. But as for the famous plays nowadays, how many people can figure out completely what the texts are by hearing them?” 按戲詞說也未嘗不 可以感動人. 但是現時名齣全能聽出戲詞來的可能有及個人呢. A piece published in a newspaper widely read in Beijing, “Ji gailiang Beijing shi (qi)” 記改良北京市 (七) (A record of reformed Beijing [part 7]), Shuntian shibao, September 21, 1907, text reproduced in Fu Jin, ed., Jingju lishi wenxian huibian: Qingdai juan, 5: 441–43, after complaining about how problematic the xidan given out in the theaters are, says: “Therefore, as for those who don’t go to see plays often, they stare with their two eyes at the stage, and all they see is one group of people entering the stage and another leaving, not knowing the name of the play, nor of the characters. They stare like imbeciles for a long time, without a clue as to what is going on. This is most laughable!” 所以不常看戲的人, 兩眼望着戲臺上, 但見 一幫進, 一幫出, 既不知道甚麼戲名, 又不知道是甚麼角色, 傻看半天, 莫名其妙, 最為可笑.

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Chapter 3 分期續出, 頗勞閱者懸盼. 健兒於是別定體裁, 另著戲考新編相餉. 每冊 刊載戲一百齣, 解釋詳細, 雖粗識文字者, 攜此戲考觀劇, 亦無不明白之 戲情.180

The earliest ads for the first installment of the Shenbao Guan Xikao similarly stress how the items in the “Xikao” column in Shenbao have been very well received, mention the playscripts and photographs almost as an afterthought, and give the impression that the production of Xikao as a separate work is largely a matter of collecting and republishing the xikao that appeared in Shenbao. They also stress the idea that the book will be very “helpful” (bianli 便利).181 It was in the early Republican era, precisely when Xikao was first being published, that Shanghai saw the development of the practice of providing explanatory material (shuoming shu 說明書)182 for even popular performance forms such as Jingju and film.183 These materials began to be made available in the theaters and published in periodicals,184 including periodicals published by the theaters themselves.185 The earliest article on a play published in Shenbao that 180 See, for instance, 122: 452 (June 3, 1913) of the Shanghai Shudian reprint. The original is unpunctuated. 181 See, for instance, 117: 898 (June 30, 1912) of the Shanghai Shudian reprint. 182 In the Republican period, bibliographic essays or abstracts on plays that included plot summaries were also referred to as tiyao 提要, a usage probably borrowed from the imperial project that compiled Siku quanshu zongmu tiyao. Examples include Quhai zongmu tiyao (1928; see above) and a series of articles entitled “Jingju tiyao” 京劇提要 ( Jingju play bibliographical abstracts) by Chen Moxiang 陳墨香 published in Juxue yuekan in 1934–1936. 183 Pavis, Dictionary of the Theatre, “Programs,” pp. 287–88, talking of the Western world, says, “Actual programs handed out or sold to the audience before a show date back to the late nineteenth century.” Leo Ou-fan Lee, Shanghai Modern: The Flowering of a New Urban Culture in China, 1930–1945 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999), pp. 89–90, and 357 n. 18, discusses film programs from the Republican era, especially those prepared for foreign films. 184 A special column entitled “Shijie xinju” in Tuhua ribao (August 1909–August 1910) that featured illustrated scene summaries for current plays was mentioned in the Introduction. 185 Xu Xingjie and Cai Shicheng, eds., Shanghai Jingju zhi, pp. 174 and 183, partially reproduce summaries for plays being performed at Xin Wutai in the newspaper published by that theater, Xin wutai ribao 新舞臺日報 (New stage daily). In the first excerpt you can see the date: December 18, 1917 (the play described premiered around 1911). Arthur H. Smith, writing in “The Village Theatre” chapter of his Village Life in China (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1970 [originally published 1899]), says (p. 46), “Cheap and printed books, in the forms of tracts, containing the substance of these plays, are everywhere sold in great numbers as an aid in familiarizing the people with the plots.” Unfortunately, his description of this material is not precise or concrete enough to show exactly what he has

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is explicitly labeled as a shuoming shu dates from February 3, 1912. It appears in the “Xikao” column but is not attributed to Jian’er, and instead of being on a traditional play is about a “new play” (xinju). It would seem that shuoming shu were thought to be especially important for such new plays or for new versions of old plays.186 A Shanghai periodical dedicated to new plays ran an unsigned piece titled “Shuoming shu wan bu ke shao” 說明書萬不可少 (Shuoming shu by no means can be done without).187 Shuoming shu for Jingju seem to have come into use more slowly in Beijing. The earliest example I know of dates from 1917 and was prepared for a Mei Lanfang performance of Chang’e ben yue 嫦娥奔 月 (Chang’e flees to the moon; Xikao #489) for Westerners in Beijing.188 But a book containing essays that can be thought of as shuoming shu for over forty plays had already appeared in Beijing in 1914, even if it was privately printed.189 Already in 1922 you get a Shenbao performance review in which the reviewer complains that a play program prepared by the theater lacks a plot summary and this situation can “very easily cause people to feel like they have fallen into a very long fog” 極易使人如墜五里霧中.190 The contemporary desire for explanatory material that could be taken into the theater or read before going to see a play, as well as the clear desire of publishers of the different versions of Xikao to meet that desire, should help us understand why what is basically a collection of playscripts with introductions prefaced by photos of actors was named Xikao when that only really spoke to in mind and I have not seen references elsewhere to the use of such printed introductory materials this early and especially in a rural setting. 186 For instance, the “Jutan” 劇談 (Discussions of plays) section of Juchang yuebao 1.2 (December 1914) contains shuoming shu for three new plays, and Gechang xinyue 歌場 新月 (Crescent moon theater) 1 (1913) has one on a new “complete text” (quanben 全本) version of Hudie bei 蝴蝶盃 (Butterfly cup; Xikao #120) from Xin Wutai. Both of these periodicals were published in Shanghai. 187 Appears in the “Zazu” 雜俎 (Miscellany) section of Xinju zazhi 新劇雜志 2 (July 1914). 188 Zucker, The Chinese Theater, pp. 105–107, supplies a copy of this synopsis/translation of the play, which was used at a 1917 performance for the American College Club in Beijing. 189 Zhuang Yintang 莊蔭棠, Guanju bixie Diyi ce 觀劇必攜第一冊 (Must be taken with you to the theater, volume one). This book is fifty-six pages long. Only this volume of what was presumably to be a multi-volume work ever appeared. 190 See the anonymous November 9, 1922 Shenbao piece, “Ji Tianchan zhi diwu ben Limao huan taizi” 記天蟾之第五本狸貓換太子 (A record of the fifth episode of Wildcat Exchanged for Crown Prince [Xikao #460, 465, 473, and 481 represent four episodes of a version of this play] at Heavenly Toad Theater), in Cai Shicheng, ed., Shenbao Jingju ziliao xuanbian, pp. 223–24. The reviewer goes on to say that this is true because people “have not necessarily previously read the original book that the play is based on; even if they have, they won’t necessarily remember it, and even if they remember it, it won’t necessarily be exactly the same in content as the present performance” 從未必看此劇之原書, 即看, 亦未必記得; 即記得, 亦未必與現所演者事實盡同也.

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one part of the work, and why translating the title is so awkward.191 Not long after the “Xikao” columns appeared in Shenbao, the Xikao installments began to be published, and the first volume of Xikao xinbian became available, a wide variety of works with titles that very likely were influenced by Xikao began to appear. In 1912 a book titled Gailiang xin xikao 改良新戲考 (Reformed, new, xikao) appeared.192 Although the title includes xikao, the essays in it are mostly reviews of performances or about actors. The material in it is thus rather different from either the “Xikao” column in “Ziyou tan” or Xikao.193 In March of 1913, a series of articles in Xiaoshuo yuebao 小說月報 (Fiction monthly), which treated both works of fiction and plays, printed the first one on a play. Beginning with that initial column, a total of fifty-two plays were covered in separate items in this series until the last one appeared in October of 1918. While the majority of the plays are chuanqi plays, there are some Jingju titles as well. The title of each essay ends with kao or (in one instance) kaozheng.194 1914 saw the inaugural issue of Xiju xinwen 戲劇新聞 (Theater news), published in Beijing, which ran a regular column titled “Jukao” 劇考 (Investigations of plays).195 We have already mentioned Zhonghua Tushu Guan’s Xinju kao of 1914.196 In the advance ads for this book published in Libai liu earlier that year, the book 191 We have already quoted the English title of the Liren Shuju edition of Xikao. Yue, Shanghai and the Edges of Empires, p. 278, renders the title, given as Xikao daquan after the Shanghai Shudian reprint, as “Complete Anthology of Operas, with Scholarly Notes.” Ye, Ascendant Peace in the Four Seas, p. 126 n. 163, has “Researches into Opera.” 192 Yinyan 隱岩, Gailiang xin xikao 改良新戲考 (Shanghai [?]: Jiashi shuju, 1912). 193 The table of contents is reproduced in Fu Xiaohang 傅曉航 and Zhang Xiulian 張秀蓮, eds., Zhongguo jindai xiqu lunzhu zongmu 中國近代戲曲論著總目 (Comprehensive bibliography of writings on traditional theater in China in the modern period; Beijing: Wenhua yishu, 1994), p. 8. 194 The majority of the essays, thirty-seven, are signed with the penname Maodong Yixie 泖 東一蟹 or just Yixie 一蟹, two are signed Xinshi 心史, and the rest are unsigned. For the titles and publication dates, see Fu Xiaohang and Zhang Xiulian, eds., Zhongguo jindai xiqu lunzhu zongmu, pp. 157–61. 195 Chen Jie, ed., Minguo xiqu shi nianpu, p. 16. 196 Fan Shiqu 范石渠 and Zhu Naiwu 朱耐吾, Xiju kao diyi ji 新劇考第一集 (Research material on new plays, first collection; Shanghai: Zhonghua tushu guan, 1914). Authorship is attributed to Feng Shuluan in Matsuura Tsuneo, “Xikao zai Minguo chunian de wenhua diwei,” p. 760, but I do not know why. Perhaps because three of the seven plays treated therein are based on translations of foreign works (two novels and one Shakespeare play), the cover has pictures of western musical instruments. The prefatory section consists of a statement of editorial principles (“Bianji dayi” 編輯大意) with nine items and two “notices” (qishi 啟事) followed by six prefaces, the last of which is by one of the authors, Fan Shiqu; these are followed by ten pages of tinted photos of xinju actors. The photos are

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was originally titled Xinxi kao 新戲考 (Research material on new plays; also can be parsed as Xin Xikao: The new Xikao) and was explicitly said to be modeled on the format of Xikao.197 It consists of introductory material on seven plays. An ad for this book run in volume 5 of the 1916 Zhonghua Tushu Guan hardbound reprint of Xikao, however, justifies Xinju kao not on the example of Xikao, but on what is said to be the case in Europe:

very reminiscent of those in the Xikao installments. Only one of them shows actors in costume for one of the plays treated in the volume, Henhai 恨海 (Sea of regret). For each play covered the main part of the book gives the overall plot (“Benshi” 本事), which in most cases begins with a short paragraph on the source or background of the play; material on each scene that includes the characters appearing in it (“Changzhong renwu” 場中人 物); a description of the setting and blocking of the scene in outline form (“Changzhong qingjing” 場中情景); and then a summary of the action that takes place in the scene (“Shishi” 事實). The sections on the plays can be quite long (three are thirty or more pages). As opposed to the world of Jingju, where a premium was put on publishing “complete” and “true” playscripts, the second item under “Bianji dayi” in Xinju kao complains that printed texts of xinju “take the words and actions of the characters and record them one after the other in great detail” 將登場人之言語動作, 一一詳記, causing “readers to always be troubled by their prolixity” 讀者每苦其繁. Xinju kao’s solution is presented as “comparatively convenient and concise to read” ( jiao bian jian yue 較便簡閱). The third item of “Bianji dayi” also defends the decision not to include the scripts for the plays (they are too long, our treatment is more convenient). This work has been re-published in a typeset edition with a lot of scholarly apparatus (the back matter includes an article on the relationship of the book and the performances of new plays in Shanghai, collation notes, and an index): Zhao Ji 趙驥, ed., Xinju kao 新劇考 (Shanghai: Wenhui chubanshe, 2015). 197 The ads appeared at the back of Libai liu, issues 1 (June 6, 1914) through 3 (June 20, 1914). After the headline the ad begins “Since new style plays have developed, they have been quite well received by society, so this press has taken Xikao as a model and invited a famous stalwart in the field of new drama to compile a book, Xinxi kao, in order to satisfy those in the world who love to study new plays” 自新劇發達, 頗蒙社會歡迎, 本 館因照戲考例, 特倩新劇著名鉅子編篡新戲考一書以餉世之愛研究新劇者. The “stalwart” referred to must be Zhu Naiwu. In his preface, Fan Shiqu admits that he is not a playgoer but joined the project at Zhu’s request and wrote up the book based on Zhu’s notes. While it is clear that there were plans that Xinju kao, like Xikao, would be published in multiple installments (see item 9 of “Bianji dayi,” which states that this first collection should be followed by others; “Notice one” [Qishi yi 啟事一] thanks those who provided material for this collection and apologizes that there wasn’t room to include everything; “Notice two” [Qishi er 啟事二] solicits new contributions and offers to pay or compensate with copies of the book), only the first installment (Diyi ji 第一集) ever appeared. The second and third prefaces to Xinju kao are quite critical of jiuju (old plays). A very brief notice of the forthcoming appearance of Xinju kao using the title Xinxi kao also appeared in the fifth issue of Youxi zazhi, in a full-page listing of several of the press’s other publications on a blank page between a score for a qin-zither piece and one for a Kunqu play.

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In Europe when plays are performed, every time a famous play appears, it is always the case that several weeks previously their playscripts are published in the newspaper or printed as special publications in order to disseminate the play198 and cause playgoers to have, with regard to the characters, scenes, events, and message of the play, a deep impression in their brains and a deep familiarity in their breasts, and moreover to have a deep thirst to see the play, and only then the people of the theaters perform it. That is why as soon as the play appears on the stage it causes an overwhelming impression throughout the entire country. From this we can know that the fame of plays and the emotions of playgoers necessarily depend on printed material to introduce them to each other and bring them together. This is why it was not possible for Xinju kao not to have been written. 歐洲演劇, 每一名著之新劇出, 必先於數禮拜之前將其劇本登諸日報或 專刻印刷品, 以傳播於世, 使觀劇者於劇中人物情景及其事實宗旨, 皆深 印於腦際, 爛熟於胸中, 且企慕之至渴, 然後劇場中人始取而演之. 故一 旦登臺必傾動全國 . 是知劇之聲譽與觀劇者之感情必賴印刷品以介紹 之, 溝通之.199

The fact that Xinju kao does not print the playscripts for the seven plays it treats and thus does not fit the European model is not addressed in the ad.200 198 According to Peters, Theatre of the Book, “It was fairly normal in the first decades of the seventeenth century for a play to be published perhaps two to five years after it had been performed …” (p. 49), but “By the later eighteenth century, publication of a play in advance of performance was no longer uncommon” (p. 74), while “By the nineteenth century, although there were bookselling concessions in many theatres, it was no longer standard practice (as it had come to be in the eighteenth century) to sell copies of plays in the theatre during the first run” (p. 75). 199 The ad is printed between two of the plays included in installment 18 of the reprint. While this ad shares a lot of text with the one printed in Libai liu before the book was published, this part is new. The new part that I have translated above in turn represents an expansion of material in the first of the six prefaces in Xinju kao, the one signed Juanhe 倦鶴. That preface introduces the idea that the pre-performance publication of playscripts in Europe has such strong effect by saying that having seen how western drama has such a deep impact on its audiences, the preface writer “carefully investigated the reason” 詳 考其由. The preface writer then compares the European situation to the Chinese one, which he describes as: “all that is done is to add a simple explanation to a list of the scenes” 儘於幕表戲目中插入一簡單說明. 200 Nor is it in the Juanhe preface. As we have seen, the Xinju kao compiler in general does not think that the actual scripts of the plays are as useful as his treatment of them. Although never explicitly stated, the fact that all of the material in Xinju kao is written in literary

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Other titles that appeared not long after using kao in their titles and largely consisting of essays on individual plays include a series titled “Huangqiang zouban shi xikao” 荒腔走板室戲考 (Research on plays from the Can’t keep a tune studio), which appeared over the years 1929–1931 in Xiju yuekan 戲劇 月刊 (Theater monthly) and was signed with the penname Chengzhi 成之201 and one by Hongshui 洪水 titled “Nanqiang beidiao shi lengmen xikao” 南腔 北調室冷門戲考 (Research on obscure plays from Southern tunes and northern melodies studio) that appeared in Xiju xunkan 戲劇旬刊 (Theater thrice a month) in 1936;202 and books such as Jingju kaozheng baichu 京劇考證百 齣 (Research on one hundred Jingju plays) of 1919,203 Hunan xikao 湖南戲考 (Hunan xikao) of 1920,204 and Pingju ximu huikao 平劇戲目彙考 (Collected research on the Jingju repertoire) of 1933.205 When a play was published in

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Chinese and one of the author’s jobs was to polish the style of the material, it is possible that the more vernacular style of the plays themselves was not considered very literary by those putting Xinju kao together. While the translators of foreign materials are named, the playwrights are not. The first of the series appeared in issue 1.10 (March 1929) and the last in issue 2.5 (January 1930). The column only appears once, in issue 8 (April 21, 1936), p. 16, and covers three plays. Zeng Bairong, ed., Jingju jumu cidian, p. 72, mistakenly gives the issue number as the ninth issue of the seventh volume. Written by Liu Huogong 劉豁公 and published by Zhonghua Tushu Jicheng Gongsi 中 華圖書集成公司 of Shanghai. The same press in the same year published a volume entitled Xinju kaozheng baichu, Fu jiaoshou fa 新劇考證百齣, 附教授法 (Research on one hundred new-style plays, with material on how to teach them) that was compiled by Zheng Zhengqiu and [Zhang] Mingfei [張] 冥飛 (1841–?). The material given on this press in Zhu Lianbao, Jin xian dai Shanghai chuban ye yinxiang ji, p. 96, is spotty, only listing two books whose dates cover 1918–1923. Xinju kaozheng baishu has been reprinted in typeset form with scholarly apparatus: Zhao Ji 趙驥, ed., Xinju kaozheng baichu 新劇考 證百齣 (Beijing: Beijing: Xueyuan chubanshe, 2016). Liu Huogong also published a collection of Kunqu plays performed by Mei Langfang, Mei Lanfang xin quben 梅蘭芳新曲本 (Mei Lanfang new playscripts), with this press in 1920. Zhonghua Tushu Jicheng Gongsi, which appears to have published books from 1918–1924, has a name that is very close to that of the publisher of Xikao, Zhonghua Tushu Guan, and shared at least one author with that press, Wang Dungen. According to WorldCat, they were still publishing books in 1930. Edited by Zhao Shaohe 趙少和. This was basically a play anthology but besides including the play texts it also included criticism of problems in the plays (pimiu 辟謬), corrections and supplementations of them (buyi 補遺) and notes (beikao 備考). See Chen Jie, Minguo xiqu shi nianpu, p. 55. Written by Yang Pengnian 楊彭年 and published by Xinji shuju 新記書局 of Shanghai, it covers 975 plays and is reprinted in vol. 7 of Minguo Jing Kun shiliao congshu. More recent titles would include Zhuang Yifu, Gudian xiqu cunmu huikao and Zhao Jingshen 趙 景深, ed., Yuan Ming bei zaju zongmu kaolüe 元明北雜劇總目考略 (Concise research on the repertoire of northern zaju plays of the Yuan and Ming dynasties; Zhengzhou: Zhongzhou guji, 1985). Volumes whose titles have kao in them have also been compiled

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a journal, the introductory matter before the text of the play proper might include an introductory section called “xikao.”206 Collections of playscripts that also included explanatory material might also have kao in their title, such as Dadong Shuju’s Xixue huikao of 1926207 and Mingling xinju kaolüe 名伶新劇 考略 (Brief research on the new plays of famous actors) of 1939,208 while other for the repertoires of a number of local theater traditions. There was at least one collection of bibliographic essays on Jingju plays that did not have kao in its title: Gujin xiju daguan 古今戲劇大觀 (Grand prospect of theater old and new; Shanghai: Zhongwai shuju, 1921). It covered more than 240 plays. For more information on it, see Feng Jinniu 馮金牛, “Jiuban xiqu shiliao tiyao” 舊版戲曲史料提要 (Bibliographic abstracts on old publications concerning the history of traditional Chinese theater), Shanghai xiqu shiliao huicui 5 (1988): 151–52. As we will see, daguan appears prominently in works similar to Xikao. 206 For example, see Hu Hanzhu 胡憨珠, “Shi Jieting” 失街亭 [Xikao #136], Xiju yuekan 1.1 (July 1928), reproduced in Su wenxue congkan, 5: 329–30; and the description of a fancy edition of the playscript of Mei Lanfang’s Daiyu zanghua (Xikao #220), which a fan compiled and printed for distribution at the premiere of the play, in a January 16, 1936 Shenbao piece, Meihua guanzhu 梅花館主, “Mei Lanfang chuyan Daiyu zanghua” 梅蘭 芳初演黛玉葬花 (The premiere of Mei Lanfang’s Daiyu buries flowers), in Cai Shicheng, ed., Shenbao Jingju shiliao, pp. 462–63. Xiju yuekan published a number of playscripts that were labeled “kaozheng juben” 考證劇本 (Researched play texts). [Zheng] Guoyi, “Fenhe wan kaozheng juben” has already been mentioned. Others appear in issues 2.4 (December 1929) and 2.8 (April 1930). 207 This work contains 110 playscripts divided according to the role types of the leading role. It includes, in their own labeled sections, two Kunqu and four Qinqiang plays for female leads (dan). The two main functions of shukao essays in Xikao, to talk about which actors perform the play well and to investigate the plot of the play (summarize it and look into its origins), have been explicitly split into two sections, one labeled shanchang mingling 擅 長名伶 (famous actors who are good at [performing this play]), the other labeled ju­qing kaolüe 劇情考略 (brief research into the plot). If anything, remarks in the former are even more Shanghai-centric than those in Xikao, since they not only highlight Shanghai actors but also mention specific Shanghai theaters (as, for instance, in the shanchang mingling section for Bawang bie ji in juan 10, reproduced in Su wenxue congkan, 5: 36). As in Xikao, there are also many places in the latter where the writer can only throw up his hands and admit he does not know where some plot element comes from; for an example, see the comments for Wanhua xi 浣花溪 (Flower washing brook; Xikao #131) in juan 7, reproduced in Su wenxue congkan, 4: 122: “It’s a pity I don’t know the source of that!” 惜其 出處不知所本耳. In contrast to the lack of prefaces in Xikao, this work has twelve, two by the editors and the rest by shining lights of the world of Jingju, including Mei Lanfang and Cheng Yanqiu. At the time of its third printing in 1929, it was selling for six yuan in a two-volume hardback edition and for just under five yuan in a paperback ten-volume edition. It was reprinted as Xixue quanshu 戲學全書 (The complete book of theater study) by Shanghai Shudian in 1993. 208 Compiled by Liu Yansheng 劉雁聲 and others, it was published by Liyan Huakan She 立 言畫刊社 of Beijing, and covers 160 plays. It is over 250 pages long and features an index to the names of the plays in it.

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texts that promised to teach you how to sing and act Jingju included the words xikao in their main or alternate titles.209 During this period, xikao continued to be used for the name of columns in periodicals.210 Collections of plays with introductory essays following the model of Xikao and including xikao in their titles continued to appear.211 It is hard to compile a complete list of them, but such a one would include Xikao daquan 戲 考大全 (Greatly complete xikao) of 1931,212 Zuixin xikao 最新戲考 (The latest xikao) of 1934,213 Pingxi kao diyi ji 評戲考第一集 (Xikao for pingju 評劇 plays, volume one) of 1936,214 Jingxi kao 京戲考 ( Jingju xikao) of 1937,215 Zuijin xinbian xikao daquan 最近新編戲考大全 (Most recent greatly complete newly 209 E.g., Wang Yan 王岩, ed., Changxi zhinan: Zuixin nanbei mingling miben xikao 唱戲 指南: 最新南北名伶秘本戲考 (Guide to singing Jingju: Most recent secret texts of famous actors from north and south xikao; Shanghai: Xingmin chubanshe, 1940 [seventh printing]). 210 For instance, Chen Jie, Minguo xiqu shi nianpu, p. 67, claims that Xi zazhi 戲雜志 (Theater magazine), inaugurated in 1922, had a column of this name. “Xikao” does not appear among the section titles in the tables of contents for each issue, but this label was used in its margins, and more than ten individual items in it included “xikao” in their titles. 211 An ad appeared in Banyue jukan 半月劇刊 (Bimonthly theater journal) 1.7 (November 1936): 27, announcing the imminent publication of a Jingju anthology to be titled precisely Xikao and published by the same press as the journal, Luobinhan 羅賓漢 (Robin Hood) of Shanghai, but the work does not seem to have been published. The ad is reproduced in the reproduction of Banyue jukan in Minguo zhenxi duankan duankan: Shanghai juan 民國珍稀短刊斷刊: 上海卷 (Rare short-term and cut-off periodicals of the Republican period, Shanghai volumes), 65 vols. (Beijing: Quanguo tushu guan wenxian suowei fuzhi zhongxin, 2006), 2: 531. The full title for the collection, Gongche Xiyue jianpu Xikao 工 尺西樂簡譜戲考, stresses that it was to contain both traditional gongche and Western cipher musical notation. 212 Compiled by Liu Huogong 劉豁公 and published by Wenhua Meishu Yinshua Gongsi 文華美術印刷公司. It was published in six volumes with a total of 1200 pages. 213 Compiled by Hu Hanzhu 胡憨珠 and Liu Bilin 劉璧麟 and published by Dawen Shudian 大文書店 of Shanghai. It contains six plays. An ad for the book that first appears in Shiri xiju 十日戲劇 (Theater tri-monthly) 1.13 (1937): 19, stresses that the plays are “complete” 首尾完全. 214 Compiled by Pingji lu zhuren 萍寄廬主人 and published by Wenhui Tushu Ju 文匯圖書 局 of Shanghai. It contained thirteen playscripts. Pingju is a local Hebei theater tradition that took shape around 1910. 215 Compiled by Hu Juren 胡菊人 and published by Shanghai Tushu Gongsi 上海圖書公 司 of Shanghai. It consisted of six volumes ( ji 集), was 1400 pages long, and included 118 plays. 1937 is not the date of the first edition. There is an ad for the book that appeared in Shenbao on September 13, 1936, in a column titled “Chuban jie” 出版界 (The world of publishing), but the title is given there as Mingling miben Jingxi kao 名伶秘本京戲考 (Secret texts of actors Jingju xikao), a title also used for a later and different publication (see below). Jingxi kao was later reprinted under the title Xikao daquan 戲考大全 (Xikao greatly complete) by Hongye Shuju 宏業書局 of Taibei in 1970.

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compiled xikao) of 1937,216 Zuixin xiangzhu xikao 最新詳注戲考 (The latest, thickly annotated, xikao) of 1937,217 Mingling miben Jingxi kao 名伶秘本京戲 考 (Secret texts of actors Jingju xikao) of 1943–1944,218 Jingju daguan 京劇大觀 (Grand prospect of Jingju) of 1947,219 Jingju xin xikao 京劇新戲考 (New xikao of Jingju) of around 1950,220 Guoju xikao 國劇戲考 (National drama xikao) of 1955,221 Pingju kao 平劇考 ( Jingju xikao) of 1956–1957,222 Quanchu Jingxi kao 全齣京戲考 (Complete plays Jingju xikao) of 1969,223 Pingju xikao 平劇戲考

216 Published in four volumes by Dawen Shuju 大文書局 of Shanghai. It includes forty-two plays and touts its inclusion of “research into the sources of the stories of the plays” 故事 考證. 217 Compiled by Liu Juchan 劉菊禪 and published by Pingju chubanshe 平劇出版社 of Shanghai. As a set it contained ten volumes (ce 冊), which were also available separately. The first volume is on Jingju in general and the rest of the volumes each contain one play. The play titles are typically prefaced by the words quanbu 全部 (complete). An ad for this book in Liu’s Silang tanmu quanji describes the ten volumes as the first collection (diyi ji 第一輯), so it is possible that there was originally a plan to publish more than the ten volumes. Liu Muyun 劉慕耘, Xixue guwen 戲學顧問 (Theater studies consultant; Shanghai: Zhongyang shudian, 1937), p. 99, tells an anecdote about two amateur actors who are going to perform Zhuofang Cao (Xikao #6). The actor playing Chen Gong 陳宮 wants to duixi 對戲 (compare versions) with the actor playing Cao Cao 曹操 before they take the stage but the latter doesn’t think that is necessary. On stage it turns out that they are indeed working from different versions of the play. The actor playing Chen Gong is asked what version he is using and he replies “old actor Liu Juchan’s Xiangzhu xikao” 老 伶劉菊禪之詳注戲考). Zhuofang Cao is the third in the series. 218 Compiled by Fengming She Piaofang 鳳鳴社票房 and published by Qunyi Shuju 群益書 局 of Ganxian 贛縣 (Jiangxi Province). Xun Huisheng is credited with checking over the text ( jianding 鑒定). It contains more than sixty plays. An ad for a book with the same title appeared in Shenbao (first appearance September 13, 1936). 219 Compiled by Liuxiang guanzhu 留香館主 and published by Chunming Shudian 春明書 店 of Shanghai. The title page includes the words Mingling miben, Biaozhun xikao 名伶秘 本, 標準戲考 (Secret texts of famous actors, Standard xikao). The same publisher apparently published two more books, undated, with different main titles but the same eight characters on their title pages: Jingdiao daguan 京調大觀 (Grand prospect of Jingju), compiled by Xiju Yanjiu She 戲劇研究社, and Xiao xidian 小戲典 (Little theater classic), compiled by Jiang Guyu 江顧羽. 220 Published by Dongya Shuju 東亞書局 of Shanghai in six volumes. 221 Compiled by Guan Hongbin 關鴻賓 and Lin Wanhong 林萬鴻 and published in ten volumes by Shanghai Shubao She 上海書報社 and the Shangshe 商社 (an amateur Jingju club) in Taibei. 222 Compiled by Shi Ling 石玲 and published by Qiyuan Shubao She 啟源書報社 in Taibei. It includes more than seventy plays. 223 Compiled by Liuxiang guanzhu 柳香館主 and published by Zhengwen Chubanshe 正文 出版社 of Taibei. It includes one hundred playscripts. In the outer margins of both the odd and even pages in the volumes are the words Jingju daguan 京劇大觀.

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( Jingju xikao) of 1964,224 and Xinjiao Guoju da xikao 新校國劇大戲考 (Newly collated National drama big xikao) of 2011).225 The same basic model of Xikao is also followed in recent books such as Yangzhou xikao 揚州戲考 (Yangzhou xikao) of 1999.226 Back in 1921 a new-style play was published that had the words xin xikao 新戲考 on its title page.227 There were also at least one series of plays published under the series title Xixue Jingxi kao 戲學京戲考 (Theater study Jingju xikao) in the 1940s and early 1950s,228 two sets of playscripts featuring illustrations published in 1920 and 1921 and titled Beijing miben xiqu tukao 北京

224 Compiled by Li Baishui 李白水 and published by Wenhua Tushu 文化圖書 of Taibei. It includes twenty-six playscripts with musical notation. These are the same twenty-six plays that appear in Meihua guanzhu 梅花館主, ed., Pingju jiaoben 平劇腳本 ( Jingju playscripts; Taibei: Donghai shuju, 1957). 225 Compiled by Li Lizhong 李立中 and published by Chengwen Wenhua 丞陽文化 of Tainan. WorldCat items label it as the first collection (diyi ji 第一集) but there is no indication that later collections came out. The WorldCat items also identify the audience as elementary and junior high school students. 226 Wei Ren 韋人, Yangzhou xikao 揚州戲考 (Investigations of the theater repertoire of Yangzhou; Nanjing: Jiangsu guji, 1999). The first part of this book is on the different local theater traditions of Yangzhou, but the majority of the volume is playscripts prefaced by introductory essays. A different model is followed in Shanghai xikao 上海戲考 (Shanghai: Shanghai wenyi, 2012), which primarily provides information on xiqu plays associated with or produced in Shanghai in a variety of xiqu traditions. 227 Yan Wulang 顏五郎, Hongling yan 紅菱艷 (The voluptuousness of the red water chestnut; Shanghai: Hongwen tushu guan, 1921). On a Jingju of this title, see Zeng Bairong, ed., Jingju jumu cidian, pp. 823–24. 228 I assume that the series was first published by Jiating Shushe 家庭書社 of Shanghai in the 1940s (examples that are dated are from 1942, 1947, and 1948) and republished by Xixue shuju 戲學書局 of Shanghai in the early 1950s (examples that are dated are from 1953–1954); only in two cases are copies of plays from both presses extant. Some, but not all, of the plays have series numbers, but those that I have seen (111, 210, 316, 334, 401, 405, 411, 516, 604, 803) appear pretty random and it is hard to believe that over 800 plays were published in the series. Xixue Shuju gave the series another title, Gailiang Jingxi ben 改良京戲本 (Reformed Jingju texts), while also keeping the old one. Most are prefixed by the words quanbu 全部 (complete). There was also a series of typeset playscripts for local opera published in Fuzhou whose titles end with the words xikao. Vols. 112–13 of Su wenxue congkao reproduce eleven of these. They were all printed by the Jixin Tang 集 新堂 but none are dated. They use spacing instead of punctuation, are quite short, and contain nothing except the texts for the single play that appears in their titles. Strangely enough, in the case of eight of these texts, the playscripts contain no stage directions or dialogue and look more like the text for a shuochang genre than a play. Among them there are three in which the opening lines include a reference to the “play” itself as a xikao (see 112: 15, 159, 185).

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秘本戲曲圖考 (Illustrated research on Beijing secret play texts), and Jingdiao tukao 改良京調圖考 (Illustrated research on Jingju playscripts), respectively.229 As popular as it was to publish plays in collections with xikao in their titles,230 a new genre developed that would make even greater use of the word and for many redefine the expectations that it generated when it appeared in a book title. As Jingju arias became more widely accessible through the new media of phonograph recordings and radio broadcasts, a market for printed collections of their lyrics arose, since the visual elements that accompany the singing in a performance and help in their interpretation are missing.231 Although the earliest example of the genre does not include xikao in its title,232 those thereafter all did. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s it sufficed to include just the word xi (play) in a title, without specifying that the contents were either completely or 229 Beijing miben xiqu tukao was published by Shen He Ji Shuju 沈鶴記書局 and Gailiang Jingdiao tukao by Xieji Shuju 燮記書局, both of Shanghai. The illustrations from these works are reproduced in Guojia tushu guan cang zhenben zaju chuanqi difang xi quyi chatu quanji, pp. 6057–6144 and 5977–6033 (this collection is divided into eighteen volumes but uses sequential pagination). I have not yet had access to the originals, but sometimes the illustrations only take up a portion of the reproduced pages and either the introduction to or beginning of a play can be glimpsed. Gailiang Jingdiao tukao prints the introductions (labeled kao 考) in a separate register above the illustrations. Sometimes these introductions copy from shukao in Xikao (compare, for example, the introduction to Douniu gong 斗牛宮 [Douniu palace], p. 6033, and the shukao to this play in Xikao [#459, p. 4811]). As with Wang Dacuo, often the author of these introductions can only say, “As for this play there is actually nothing to research” 此戲本無考 (e.g., pp. 5986, 5990, and 6009). 230 The first category in Feng Jinniu, “Jiuban xiqu shiliao tiyao,” pp. 151–54, is “Juben, xikao” 劇 本, 戲考 (Playscripts, xikao). 231 Although these collections as a rule reproduced the text of whatever was on the records, which might include dialogue, the majority of the recordings were only of arias. For a short essay on why such collections were useful, see Liu Zengfu 劉曾復, “Wo xuyao changci” 我需要唱詞 (I need aria texts), in Chai Junwei, ed., Jingju da xikao, pp. 1–2. On how early phonograph recordings were, in general, difficult to decipher, requiring extra effort and training to consume, see Jonathan Sterne, The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003), p. 247, where he says, “early versions of sound reproduction technology constantly required human assistance in order to reproduce recognizable sounds.” Mark Katz, Capturing Sound: How Technology has Changed Music, rev. ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010), p. 2, speaks of visual aids provided with early phonographs to help the listener. On how transcripts were prepared to help with the consumption of phonograph recordings and radio versions of performances in Japan, see Yasar, Electrified Voices. 232 Su Shaoqing 蘇少卿, ed., Changpian juci huibian 唱片劇詞彙編 (Collected aria texts for phonograph records; Shanghai: Xiansheng chubanshe, 1929). This work was published in two volumes and contained more than 1,200 pages. Ma Shaobo et al., Zhongguo Jingju shi, 2: 165, dates the work to 1930 and indicates that it included the texts for recordings made by over 100 Jingju actors. Jingju, however, is not the only theatrical tradition represented in it.

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predominately composed of Jingju arias (as we will see shortly, it is the nonJingju theater traditions that have to use qualifiers). This paragraph and the next list the titles in this genre that appeared in the 1930s and 1940s, respectively. It will become apparent how far publishers were willing (or forced) to go to separate themselves from the competition and attract consumers’ attention. Titles that appeared in the 1930s, judging from what is still available in libraries, are: Da xikao quanji 大戲考全集 (Complete collection, great xikao; 1935),233 Xin xikao dawang 新戲考大王 (New great king of the xikao; 1936),234 Xinji da xikao xubian 新集大戲考續編 (Newly collected great xikao, continuation; 1936),235 Xiao xikao 小戲考 (Little xikao; 1937),236 Xin xikao quanji 新戲考全集 (New complete collection xikao; 1937),237 Da xikao 大戲考 (Great xikao; 1939),238 and Da xikao, fu suoyin 大戲考, 附索引 (Great xikao, with index; 1939).239 The following titles appeared in the 1940s, again according to surviving copies in libraries: Xin da xikao quanji 新大戲考全集 (New great xikao complete collection; 1940),240 Xin, xin xikao 新, 新戲考 (New, new xikao; 1940),241 Xin da xikao 新大戲考 (New great xikao; 1941),242 Xin xikao dawang disi ji 新戲考

233 Published by Xiansheng Chubanshe 先聲出版社 of Shanghai. 234 Published by Huazhong Chubanshe 華中出版社 of Shanghai, edited by Xiju Yanjiu She 戲劇研究社. 235 Published by Xiansheng Chubanshe 先聲出版社 of Shanghai. The volume appeared after the 12th reprinting of the original by the same press. 236 Published by Juyin Boyin Tuan 菊癮播音團 of Shanghai. This small book contains the arias of only two plays. 237 Published by Xin Xikao Hezuo Chubanshe 新戲考合作出版社 of Shanghai. Edited by Xixue Yanjiu She 戲學研究社. The 23rd printing came out in this year. 238 Published by Xiansheng Chubanshe 先聲出版社 of Shanghai. Edited by Meihua guanzhu 梅花館主 and Xu Xilin 徐樨麟. 239 Published by Qiming Shuju 啟明書局 of Shanghai. Editing attributed to Meihua guanzhu 梅花館主, Xu Xilin 徐樨麟, Zheng Zibao 鄭子褒, and Shao Zifan 卲子藩. 240 Published by Da Xikao Chubanshe 大戲考出版社 of Shanghai. The 30th printing appeared in this year. 241 Published by Xin, Xin Xikao Chubanshe 新, 新戲考出版社 of Shanghai. The 5th printing appeared in this year. Xie Qizhang 謝其章, “Minguo ‘Da xikao’ rucang ji” 民國 ‘大戲考’ 入藏記 (A record of the collecting of Da xikao of the Republican era), Bolan qunshu 博 覽群書 (Wide perusing of the various kinds of books) 2007.1: 109–11, claims that Da xikao was reprinted twenty-one times in the Republican era and that he paid 1,050 yuan for a copy of the 18th printing. The author claims that it was from these books that he finally understood that the bits he grew up hearing adults sing were from operas. 242 Published by Xin Da Xikao Chubanshe 新大戲考出版社 of Shanghai. The 29th printing appeared in this year.

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大王第四集 (New xikao great king, fourth collection; 1943),243 Xiuzhen xikao daquan 袖珍戲考大全 (Pocket-size xikao greatly complete; 1946),244 Da xikao 大戲考 (Great xikao; 1947),245 Da xikao suoyin 大戲考索引 (Great xikao index; 1947),246 Da xikao 大戲考 (Great xikao; 1947),247 Biaozhun xikao 標準戲考 (Standard xikao; 1948),248 Da xikao shiba ban quanji 大戲考十八版全集 (Great xikao 18th edition, complete collection; 1948),249 and Xin xikao 新戲考 (New

xikao; 1949).250 What is striking in this decade is the use of the same title by multiple presses. Record companies also produced collections of this type. Two examples, neither of which can be dated, put the name of the company into their titles: Desheng gongsi xikao 得勝公司戲考 (Xikao for Desheng records) and Gaoting xikao 高亭戲考 (Gaoting records xikao; Shanghai: Gaoting changpian gongsi). Ads for phonographs also informed customers that they could buy this kind of xikao in the store where they bought phonographs.251 During the 1930s and 1940s, collections of aria texts for local theater traditions also began to appear. The earliest of these seems to have appeared in 1936 and reprinted arias from a northern local tradition, Bengbeng xi kao 蹦蹦戲考 (Bengbeng [an alternate name for pingju 評劇] xikao), but soon after a number of titles for southern local theater traditions using dialects commonly spoken 243 Published by Xixue Yanjiu She 戲學研究社 of Shanghai. An alternate title, Mingling miben xiuzhen xin xikao 名伶秘本袖珍新戲考 (Famous actor secret text pocket-size new xikao), also appears in the book. 244 Published by Ertong Chubanshe 兒童出版社 (n.p.). Edited by Jingju Yanjiu She 京劇研 究社. It has two alternate titles, Jingju daguan 京劇大觀 (Grand prospect of Jingju) and Mingling juci 名伶劇詞 (Famous actor play texts). 245 Published by Dasheng Wuxian Dian Changji Hang 大聲無線電唱機行 of Shanghai. Edited by Zheng Zibao 鄭子褒. Reproduced in Pingju shiliao congkan. 246 Published by Dasheng Wuxian Dian Changji Hang 大聲無線電唱機行 of Shanghai. Edited by Shao Zifan 卲子藩. 247 Published by Qingcheng Shudian 青城書店 of Shanghai. An alternate title, Xiuzhen da xikao 袖珍大戲考 (Pocket-size great xikao) also appears in the text. 248 Published by Daming Shuju 大明書局 of Shanghai. Edited by Zhou Naixi 周乃曦. The alternate title Mingling miben 名伶秘本 (Famous actor secret texts) also appears in the text. This volume was reprinted in this year. 249 Published by Dasheng Wuxian Dian Changji Hang 大聲無線電唱機行 of Shanghai. 250 Published by Shen He Ji Shuju 沈鶴記書局 of Shanghai. Edited by Shen Yi 沈毅. The alternate titles Xiuzhen Pingju daguan 袖珍平劇大觀 (Pocket-size Jingju grand prospect) and Xiao xikao 小戲考 (Little xikao) appear in the text. This volume was reprinted in this year. 251 For instance, an ad in Xiju xunkan 2.3 (1939): 15, for a Shanghai shop on the busy Si malu 四馬路 (Fourth Street) that sells both records and record players, proclaims that the fourth printing of Xin, xin xikao 新, 新戲考 (New, new xikao) is available from them and praises the collection for containing 25% more material than all other xikao.

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in Shanghai began to appear.252 An even more southern tradition, local theater from Guangdong, was also the focus of such works.253 Beginning in the 1950s, at least on the Mainland,254 there begins to be a distinction made between collections explicitly restricted to Jingju and those restricted to local theater traditions, distinctions that make their way into the titles of the collections, while unqualified collections tend more and more to include examples from more than one tradition. Titles belonging to the first of these three groups include: Dazhong Jingxi kao 大眾京戲考 ( Jingju xikao for the masses; 1953),255 Xin Jingxi kao 新京戲考 (New Jingju xikao; 1953),256 Jingju xin xikao 京劇新戲考 ( Jingju new xikao; 1956),257 Jingju xiao xikao 京劇小戲 考 ( Jingju little xikao; 1958, reprinted in 1990),258 Jingju xin xikao 京劇新戲 考 ( Jingju new xikao; 1965),259 Jingju da xikao 京劇大戲考 ( Jingju great xikao; 2004),260 and Xinbian Jingju xiao xikao 新編京劇大戲考 (Newly compiled Jingju little xikao; 2004).261 The largest of these is Jingju da xikao (2004), in a large format and containing more than 700 pages. The only collection of Jingju aria texts that bucks the trend and does not include xikao in its title is Jingju 252 These include Shaoxing xikao 紹興戲考 (Shaoxing theater xikao; Shanghai: Yuesheng chubanshe, 1939); Shengju xikao 嵊劇戲考 (Sheng [near Shaoxing] theater xikao; N.p.: Liusheng shushe, 1941), Shenqu xin xikao 申曲新戲 (Shanghai opera new xikao; Shanghai Meihua shuju, 1946), Huaji da xikao 滑稽大戲考 (Comic drama great xikao; Shanghai: Yang Xiaosheng, 1946), Yueju da xikao 越劇大戲考 (Yueju great xikao; Shanghai: Yinhua chubanshe, 1948), Huju da xikao 滬劇大戲考 (Shanghai opera great xikao; Shanghai: Yinhua chubanshe, 1949), Huju xiao xikao 滬劇小戲考 (Shanghai opera little xikao; Shanghai: Yinhua chubanshe, 1949), and Sheng Yue ju Shaoxing xi kao: Wuxian dian liu­ sheng ji boyin souluo mingling changpian huibian 嵊越劇紹興戲考: 無線電留聲機播 音搜羅名伶唱片彙編 (Sheng, Yue and Shaoxing theater xikao: Collected from recordings by famous actors from radio broadcasts and phonographs; Shanghai: Yimin shuju, Republican era). 253 See Guangdong da xikao 廣東大戲考 (Guangdong great xikao; Shanghai: Changcheng tushu gongsi, 1941) and Guangdong da xikao: Sanshi liu nian ban 廣東大戲考三十六年 版 (Guangdong great xikao 1947 edition; Shanghai: Guangdong boyin jie lianyi she, 1947). 254 Collections of aria texts titled Da xikao continued to be published in Taiwan. Examples include Biaozhun da xikao 標準大戲考 (Standard great xikao; Taibei: Guoguang shuju, 1954) and Guangbo da xikao 廣播大戲考 (Broadcast great xikao; Taibei: Xinlu shuju, 1954). A little over half of the latter is devoted to Jingju. 255 Published by Huiwen Shudian 匯文書店 of Shanghai. 256 Published by Changming Shuju 倡明書局 of Shanghai. 257 Published by Lili Chubanshe 勵力出版社 of Hong Kong. 258 Published by Shanghai Wenyi 上海文藝 of Shanghai. 259 Published by Shanghai Wenhua 上海文化. Edited by Zhongguo Changpian She 中國唱 片社 and Shanghai Renmin Guangbo Diantai 上海人民廣播電臺. 260 Published by Xuelin Chubanshe 學林出版社. Edited by Chai Junwei 柴俊為. 261 Published by Shanghai Wenhua Chubanshe 上海文化出版社 and edited by Chai Junwei 柴俊為.

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daguan 京劇大觀 ( Jingju grand prospect) and its enlarged revision, Xinbian Jingju daguan 新編京劇大觀 (Newly compiled Jingju grand prospect).262 Of the aria text collections from local theater traditions since 1949, those most welcome in Shanghai continue to be the most prominent ones there, particularly Yueju 越劇263 and Huju.264 Over the decades, a Shanghai publisher has published a series of xikao in basically the same format that includes not only the southern traditions most closely connected to Shanghai, but a number of northern ones as well.265 In the last example of the genre published in the Mainland that does not specify opera type, Xinbian da xikao 新編大 戲考 (Newly compiled great xikao; 1981), a relatively small proportion of it is devoted to Jingju, but Jingju is still given pride of place at the beginning of the collection.266 The surprising persistence of the words kao and especially xikao in works connected to traditional Chinese theater that contain little or nothing that can be characterized as “research” is surely related to a general drive in the twentieth century to elevate the social standing of Chinese indigenous theater and its performers. Not only did works appear that promised to teach you how to

262 Published by Beijing Chubanshe 北京出版社 in 1985 and 1989, respectively. The first edition had excerpts from over 200 plays and the expanded edition material from 400 plays, with 438 alternate names given for a total of 838 play names. A 1958 Baowen Tang Shudian 寶文堂書店 publication, Jingju daguan 京劇大觀, however, is an anthology of Jingju playscripts and not aria texts. The only other recent text in the genre known to me that does not use xikao in its title is Kanci tingxi 看詞聽戲 (Read text listen to plays; Beijing: Zhongguo guangbo dianshi chubanshe, 1982). 263 Besides the various collections of aria texts for Yueju published during this time period, 1953 saw the publication of at least four Yueju plays by Shijie Shuju 世界書局 of Shanghai in a series called Yueju xikao. 264 Stock, Traditional Opera in Modern Shanghai, p. 180, translates the title of Huju xiao xikao, as “Short Examinations of Huju Dramas.” 265 From 1958 to 2008, Shanghai Wenyi Chubanshe 上海文藝出版社 published a series of books with uniform titles that begin with the name of the theatrical tradition and end with xiao xikao 小戲考 (little xikao). The ones for southern traditions include Huju 滬劇 (Shanghai opera; 1959), Yueju 越劇 (Zhejiang opera; 1982), Xiju 錫劇 (Wuxi opera; 1963 and 1985), and Huaiju 淮劇 (Huai opera; 2008). Those for northern traditions include pingju 評劇 (Hebei opera; 1985), Hanju 漢劇 (Wuhan opera; 1991), and Yuju 豫劇 (Henan bangzi; 1987). 266 Published by Shanghai Wenyi Chubanshe 上海文藝出版社 and edited by Zhongguo Changpian She 中國唱片社. The first eighty-nine pages are devoted to Jingju, but they are followed by 273 pages devoted to Kunqu and local theater traditions. It superseded Zhongguo changpian da xikao 中國唱片大戲考 (Chinese phonograph record great xikao; Shanghai Shanghai wenhua, 1958).

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study theater (xixue 戲學),267 but not long after Xikao began to appear, works and journals with titles or section titles proclaiming a (new) science of theater (xixue 戲學; juxue 劇學) also began to appear in substantial numbers.268 These included the “Lectures on Theater Studies” (“Xixue jiangyi” 戲學講義) column in Youxi zazhi (1913–1915),269 the “Juxue luntan” 劇學論壇 (Theater studies forum) section in Jubu congkan 菊部叢刊 (Theater collectanea; 1918),270 Xixue daquan 戲學大全 (Great complete study of theater; 1920),271 Xixue huikao 戲學彙考 (Collected research in theater studies; 1926),272 columns titled “Juxue mantan” 劇學漫譚 (Leisurely talks on theater studies; 1928) and “Juxue manhua” 劇學漫話 (Leisurely talks on theater studies; 1930) in Xiju yuekan,273 Xixue zhinan 戲學指南 (Guide to the study of theater; 1931),274 Xixue guwen 戲學顧問 (Theater studies consultant; 1937),275 and Juxue yuekan 劇學月刊 (Theater studies monthly; 1932–1936).276 It was also during these years that traditional Chinese theater began to be taught in university;277 organizations such as the Xixue Yanjiu She 戲學研究社 (Society for the study of theater 267 E.g., Zhang Defu 張德福, dictated, Hu Hanzhu 胡憨珠 et al., recorded, Xuexi baifa 學戲 百法 (One hundred ways to study theater; Shanghai: Dongya shuju, 1924). 268 This phenomenon will be looked at in more detail in chapter 4. 269 The column was written by Feng Shuluan under the penname Ma Er xiansheng and appeared in issues 9–16 of Youxi zazhi. 270 Compiled by Zhou Jianyun 周劍雲 and published by Jiaotong Tushu Guan 交通圖書館 of Shanghai. Reprinted in Pingju shiliao congkan, vol. 6. 271 Compiled by Liu Da 劉達 (a.k.a., Liu Huogong 劉豁公), collated ( jiaochou 校讎) by Xia Yueshan 夏月珊, and published by Shengsheng Meishu Gongsi 生生美術公司 of Shanghai. 272 Compiled by Xu Zhihao 許志豪 and Ling Shanqing 凌善清 and published by Dadong Shuju of Shanghai. 273 “Juxue mantan” was by Zhu Naigen 朱耐根 and appeared in issue 1.4 (September 1928), while in “Juxue manhua,” Zhang Cixi 張次溪 recorded the dictation of Fang Wenxi 方問 溪. That column appeared in issues 2.5–7, 9, 11 (January to July 1930). 274 Published by Dadong Shuju of Shanghai in sixteen volumes and 1,300 pages. A book about half that size of the same title was published by Zhongyang Shudian 中央書店 of Shanghai in 1939. Zhonghua Tushu Guan 中華圖書館 also seems to have published a book of this title edited by Wenhua Kaiming She 文化開明社. What appear to be individual installments from that work are dated between 1923 and 1928. It is possible that like Xikao itself, Xixue zhinan was first published by Zhonghua Tushu Guan and then reprinted by Dadong Shuju. A volume on theater with the word zhinan had first appeared much earlier in two volumes that appeared one year apart, in Xu Muxi 許慕曦, Xiju zhinan 戲劇指南 (A guide to theater; Shanghai: Dongfang shuju, 1914–1915). 275 Compiled by Liu Muyun 劉慕耘 and published by Zhongyang Shudian 中央書店 of Shanghai. 276 Published by Dadong Shuju of Shanghai. 277 Wu Mei 吳梅 (1884–1939), an authority on Kunqu and chuanqi drama, began teaching at Peking University in 1917.

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studies),278 Shanghai Xiqu Yanjiu Hui 上海戲曲研究會 (Shanghai society for the study of traditional Chinese theater),279 and Beiping Guoju Xuehui 北平國 劇學會 (Society for the study of national drama of Beijing) were established; and there was even a publishing house named Xixue Shuju 戲學書局 (Theater study book publishers).280 While Xikao, unlike later works, did not include the word xixue in any of its titles, it did occasionally address its readers as yanjiu xixue zhujun 研究戲學諸君 (honored scholars of the study of theater),281 and an ad for it mentions the rise of juxue.282 In today’s internet-dominated world, Xikao has not been forgotten. There is a website, xikao.com (a.k.a., Zhongguo Jingju xikao 中國京劇戲考), that has been in operation since 2001 and is devoted, among other things, to making Jingju playscripts available online. Over the years more than one hundred volunteers have typed up more than 1,100 playscripts to be placed on the site,283 where they are available in PDF versions that can be downloaded. The plays in different collections have been given serial numbers, with those in Xikao given pride of place.284 When last checked (December 16, 2019), 423 of the Xikao playscripts were available for batch downloading (the site gives the total 278 They published Xiqu zhinan 戲曲指南 (A guide to theater) in 1918 in Shanghai. An organization with the same name published Xin xikao dawang disi ji in 1943 (see above). 279 Their activities included publishing Tong Jingxin 佟晶心, Xin jiu xiqu zhi yanjiu 新舊戲 曲之研究 (Studies in new and old Chinese traditional theater; Shanghai: Xiqu yanjiu hui, 1926; reprint, Shanghai: Wenhua shuju, 1927; reprint of the Wenhua shuju edition, Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 2015). 280 This press was located in Shanghai. From their extant publications, they seem to have been in operation from 1931 to 1954. They published (or reprinted) a series of Jingju plays under the series title Xixue Jingxi kao (see above). 281 See the shukao for Juding guanhua (Xikao #355), p. 3473. 282 See the ad in issue 71 (October 9, 1915) of Libai liu. 283 Unless otherwise noted, the statistics given here are those found on the site on December 16, 2019. 284 The original system assigned, in a section of the site (http://scripts.xikao.com/list/com prehensive), a four-digit number to all of the plays, with the lowest numbers used, 1001– 5000, allotted to Xikao playscripts, with each of the five four-digit ranges given over to one of the volumes of the faulty (see above) 1990 Shanghai Shudian reprint. This system was later switched to one using eight digits, in which the first three digits identify the collection used (Xikao is 010, the lowest number used and first on the list; the title of the collection has been changed from that of the reprint, Xikao daquan, to the original title of Xikao and the contents of installment 35 changed from the plays repeated from earlier installments in the Dadong Shuju reprint to those in the original Zhonghua Tushu Guan edition). The next two digits are used to identify the installment (01–40), and the last two digits identify the order of that play’s appearance in the installment (the twenty plays of installment one, for instance, are numbered 0100101–0100120). I last verified that this new system was still in use on December 16, 2019.

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number of playscripts in Xikao as 527, with the 423 completed play texts listed as representing 80% of that total, a percentage that far surpasses comparable figures for any of the source collections used that include more than 40 plays).285 The bulk of the shukao for the Xikao plays are included along with the playscripts when posted on the site, but they have been split into two sections: “Juqing” 劇情 (Plot summary) and “Zhushi” 註釋 (Notes) and it is not always the case that the entire text has been transcribed. Since the site relies on volunteers to do the work, less popular plays and truncated versions of plays in Xikao seem to be the last to have been added to the site. There is also a “Xikao blog” connected to the site.286 While the title Xikao pointed in a modern direction toward a world in which plays could be a disciplinary object of study, the alternative title for the collection, Guqu zhinan 顧曲指南 (A guide to the appreciation of plays), managed to point simultaneously toward the past, connoisseurship, classical drama, and popular consumption. This alternative title never appeared on the covers or title pages of either individual installments or bound volumes of Xikao, but did appear intermittently on the table of contents pages and first pages of the playscripts in certain installments, beginning with the Shenbao Guan version of the first installment.287 Guqu is a classical allusion that refers to a comment made about Zhou Yu 周瑜 (d. 210), who was said to be very good at recognizing mistakes in musical performance.288 The process of guqu (gu [pay attention to, regard] qu [songs]), or phrases used to talk about people who guqu such as guqu zhe 顧曲者 (those who guqu), guqu zhi jia 顧曲之家 (specialists in guqu), or guqu zhi jun 顧曲之君 (honored guqu zhe), were ordinarily used to refer to 285 See the subsite “Dabao xiazai” 打包下載 (batch downloads), http://scripts.xikao.com/ download (the statistics, when checked on December 16, 2019, had not been revised since October 26, 2018). 286 This is a separate site (http://blog.xikao.com/) run by the main person behind xikao.com. When checked on July 13, 2017, there were 1317 articles and 1760 comments posted. 287 The ad for Xikao first run in the back matter of issue 6 of Libai liu (July 11, 1914) describes Xikao as a guqu zhi zhinan 顧曲之指南 (guide to listening to theater). 288 The phrase guqu 顧曲 (lit.: to pay attention to a song) comes from a line in the biography of Zhou Yu 周瑜 (d. 210) in Chen Shou 陳壽, Sanguo zhi 三國志 (The chronicle of the Three Kingdoms): qu you wu, Zhoulang gu 曲有誤, 周郎顧 (when there is a mistake in the song, young master Zhou will catch it out). This allusion was traditionally used to talk about expertise in songs or arias, but since Xikao does not stress the music of the plays whose scripts it printed, it appears that qu just means “play” in the alternate title, and I have translated its use as an alternative name for Xikao accordingly. The illustration and photo section of Zhou Jianyun, ed., Jubu congkan, includes a drawing of Zhou listening to two women performing (one is playing the xiao [vertical flute] and the other is singing) titled “Zhoulang guqu tu” 周郎顧曲圖 (Illustration of young master Zhou evaluating music).

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careful and expert listening or to experts in song,289 and became particularly closely associated with Kunqu.290 But ever since the first installments of Xikao appeared, while there had been a rather strong attempt to portray the audience for both printings of it, and of the more popular kind of plays included in it, as guqu zhe,291 there had also been an effort to make it clear that Xikao was not just for them.292 In the collections themselves, while some of the exclusiveness of the term is retained, a more popularist idea also sometimes is involved, in which the reference widens from the arias only to the plays as wholes and functions basically as a synonym for another term used in the shukao to refer to Xikao’s audience: guanju zhe 觀劇者 or guanju zhujun 觀劇諸君 (play watchers/​honored play watchers).293 Zhinan literally means “point to the south” or “compass” but was also used to mean “guide.” The early twentieth-century publishing industry published a wide range of guides, geographical or cultural, that used it in their title. A “Guide to Theater” (Xiju zhinan 戲劇指南) was published in two volumes in 1914–1915.294 It included summaries of plays. We have seen that the 1931 work, Xixue zhinan, also used zhinan in its title. There were other guides to Jingju published during these years. They include Guqu jinzhen 顧曲金針 (The golden needle for play appreciation) in two volumes of 1928–29295 and Pihuang xi zhimi 皮黃戲指迷

289 Wuxia Jian’er himself was referred to as a guqu jia in an ad that first appeared in Shenbao on June 3, 1913 (see 122: 452 of the Shanghai Shudian reprint). 290 See, for instance, the entry by Wu Xinlei 吳新雷, “Guqu” 顧曲, in Wu Xinlei, ed., Zhongguo Kunju da cidian, pp. 265–66. 291 In ads for Shenbao Guan’s Xikao published in Shenbao, both the prospective audience (see the ad first run on June 30, 1912 [117: 898 of the Shanghai Shudian reprint]), and the prospective buyers who seem upset at the delay in publication (see the ad first run on July 29, 1912 [118: 290]), are referred to as guqu jia. 292 The ad for Xikao first run in issue 71 of Libai liu (October 9, 1915) says that Xikao will also be treasured by professional and amateur actors. 293 For an example of the former, see the shukao for Caihua ganfu 採花趕府 (Plucking flowers, Forced out of the mansion; Xikao #330; p. 3082); for the latter, see the shukao for Yinjia bao 殷家堡 (Fortress of the Yin family; Xikao #274; p. 2490). 294 Xu Muxi, Xiju zhinan. The volumes were fifty-eight and sixty-nine pages, respectively, in length. The title was used again in 1946 in a work published by Shancheng Shufang 山城 書坊. See Zhongguo xiqu yanjiu shumu tiyao 中國戲曲研究書目提要 (Annotated bibliography of works of traditional Chinese theater; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 1992), p. 153. 295 Compiled by Xue Yuelou 薛月樓 and published by Xin Tianjin Baoshe 新天津報社. The golden needle of the title refers to an embroidery needle used to embroider a pair of Mandarin ducks. The common conceit is that the embroiderer would only let you see the finished embroidery and not how she did it (i.e., the needle). Here the author of the book is promising to give you the needle (i.e., show you how to sing Jingju).

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(Pointer to the mystic ford for Jingju) of 1929.296 The visibility of the alternate title of Xikao of Guqu zhinan, however, remained quite low.297 3

What Is Xikao? Looking for the Master Plan

Until the modern reprints of Xikao of 1980 and 1990, of all the editions and reprintings of the collection or its individual installments before then, only two, the Shenbao Guan version of installment one, and the 1916–1917 reprinting by Zhonghua Tushu Guan of installments 1–4 as a single hardbound volume, contain any prefaces or other general statements on the use or purpose of the work, and the prefaces and liyan that the latter contains are reproduced without change from the former. Those items, along with the advertisements for Xikao published in Shenbao and by Zhonghua Tushu Guan, provide the only attempts to contextualize the project by people involved in its preparation, publication, or re-publication.298 Although we can certainly be glad to have even them, we will see that they are disappointing in that they leave unaddressed or unsatisfactorily addressed a variety of questions for which we would like answers. The prefaces, none of which are dated, are attributed to Jingli chuisheng ke 鏡裡吹笙客 (The guest who plays the mouth organ in the mirror; not otherwise identified), Songbin 頌斌 (courtesy name of Jin Qiang 金鏘; he was involved in the preparation of the Shenbao Guan version of installment one299), and 296 Compiled by Lü Xianlü 呂仙呂 and published by Xiandai Shuju 現代書局 of Shanghai. The zhimi of the title is a reference to zhidian mijin 指點迷津 (point out the mystic ford). 297 The Liren Shuju reprint makes the alternate title more prominent than in the original edition or the Shanghai Shudian reprint by including it in parentheses on the title pages and spines of its volumes. 298 The Liren Shuju 里仁書局 (1980) and Shanghai Shudian 上海書店 (1990) photoreprints, either basically or entirely reproduce a Dadong Shuju reprint edition. As mentioned above, the Liren Shuju edition has a preface by Wang Qiugui in Chinese, of which an abbreviated English version is also given, while the front matter of the Shanghai Shudian reprint only contains an essay by Huang Shang. 299 This person has been mentioned above, in the footnotes to this chapter. A photo of Jin Qiang is included in the “Zhu wenjia xiaoxiang” 諸文家肖像 (Portraits of the writers) section of issue two of Ziyou zazhi (October 1913). Above the portrait is “Songbin,” while underneath we are told Jin’s name, age (26 sui 歲), native place (Qingpu 青浦) and present residence (Zhujia jiao 朱家角). One of the sections of this issue of the magazine, “Haiwai qitan” 海外奇談 (Strange news from abroad) contains several pieces signed Songbin. As mentioned above, “Haiwai qitan” was one of the names of a regular column in “Ziyou tan.” Jin’s photo also appears on page four of the photo section of the first issue of Youxi zazhi, but the caption there just says “Songbin.”

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[Wang 王] Dungen 鈍根 (editor of the “Ziyou tan” section of Shenbao in which the “Xikao” column appeared and credited on the first page with text of all subsequent installments as having edited [bianji 編輯 or bianci 編次] them).300 The liyan is unsigned but most likely also by Wang. The Jingli chuisheng ke preface begins by claiming that “All the world’s a stage and all the world’s events are one big play” 世界一大劇場也, 世事一 大戲劇也,301 and then gives a summary history of theater in China, emphasizing that in the mid-Qing the literati favored Kunqu but that the famous actors of the capital acquired that fame by performing local traditions such as Qinqiang, xipi, and erhuang. He next claims that northerners listen to (ting 聽) plays, concentrating so intently on fine points of the text and music that they resemble wooden puppets (mu’ou 木偶); while southerners watch (kan 看) plays, getting so wrapped up in the plot and action, as if in the very midst of it, that they resemble plaster statues (nisu 泥塑). For the writer, it’s not that the watchers of plays don’t also listen to them, or that the listeners of plays don’t also watch them, only that northerners are more demanding ( jiangqiu 講求) than southerners. Returning to the previous theme that Kunqu has given way to Qinqiang and pihuang, he says that this is the reason why (Wang) Dungen has gathered together what has not been previously collected (sou yi ji yi 搜遺 輯逸) and made “this kao” (zi kao 茲考). He praises Dungen for using writing that resembles that of Sima Qian to reveal the ups and downs of the world, and for collecting the pieces and editing their texts. The photographs too are wondrous enough to provoke poets to write poems about them. He foresees that as soon as the volume has left the presses it will make its way throughout the realm, and that for his part, he will hold it in one hand and read while drinking wine and that will certainly be a pleasure. He concludes by returning to his opening statement to claim that he also is someone within a play. This preface says very little about Xikao itself. It seems primarily motivated by a desire to praise Wang Dungen for the collection, to claim or at least imply that it has been rigorously edited to meet the strict demands of northern theater “listeners,” and to justify the project of collecting and publishing playscripts for forms of drama less prestigious than Kunqu. Its reference to the 300 Cai Yi, ed., Zhongguo gudian xiqu xuba huibian, 4: 355–58, reproduces the prefaces and the liyan, but for some reason puts Wang Dungen’s preface and the liyan first before the other two prefaces. It is also rather mystifying why the collection does not identify Dungen as Wang Dungen, and takes Guqu zhinan as the proper name and places Xikao in parentheses after it (p. 355). 301 This, of course, is a common enough idea, especially after Shakespeare began to circulate in China. The second preface to Xinju kao begins: “The great clod is [but] a stage, the affairs of the world are [but] a playscript” 大塊一舞臺也, 世事一劇本也.

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collection as “this kao” might simply be shorthand for “this Xikao,” but it also might be identifying the work as a member of a genre. The second preface is a little over a third as long as the first one. It begins by claiming that just as those who cannot distinguish the five colors will be unable to appreciate the beauty of a beautiful woman even when she is right in front of them, and those who cannot distinguish the five tones will not be able to appreciate the beauty of the finest music even when it is played for them, those who do not understand the plots and texts of plays will not be able to appreciate them even when they are performed in front of them in the theater. All they will see is the costumes and the actors’ comings and goings, and all they will hear is miscellaneous sounds from the orchestra. The solution is this book, which is said to have “arranged more than two hundred plays” 羅 列諸劇二百餘齣, “traced their origins” 溯其源流, “examined the background of the events in them” 考其事蹟, and “appended their playscripts” 附以曲本. The promise is made that if you first read this book before going to see a play, then “no matter whether it is new songs or old arias, they will all be spread out in your breast” 新歌舊曲, 既羅列於胸中, and no matter whether it is “arias from the Northwest or the Southeast, you will understand their composition” 秦腔越謳, 亦了解其節奏. A rhetorical question is asked: How can the benefit to “aficionados of theater” (guqu zhe 顧曲者) be slight? An admission follows: His whole life he has had the same obsession as Zhou Yu (he too is a guqu zhe), but reading this book has caused him to “deeply acclaim how it brings one to a complete halt because of its perfection” 深嘆觀止. This kind of praise does not sound like something that a person actually involved in the production of the book would say about it. This preface stresses the practical benefits of Xikao (it will help you appreciate theater, which is posited as something that cannot automatically be appreciated without prior preparation), in ways that become quite explicit in later works modeled on or influenced by Xikao. It does not mention the photos, as the first preface did, but does explicitly mention the playscripts, claiming that there are more than two hundred of them. It continues to give priority to the introductions, describing the plays as “appended” to them. What are we to make of the figure of “more than two hundred” given for the total number of plays in the collection? The preface was reprinted in the five-volume Zhonghua Tushu Guan reprint of the first twenty installments, but the first volume with its four installments has less than eighty plays, and the five volumes with their twenty installments contain over 330. As we have seen above, “a little more than two hundred” would be a good way to describe the 207 plays covered in the Shenbao “Xikao” column by Wuxia Jian’er, and perhaps that is the source of Songbin’s number. In this short preface the term guqu zhe is used both to

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refer to experts and ordinary theater goers in need of such a book as Xikao. At one point it lists, of the kind of persons the book will help “young scholars and women of good family” 劬學士夫, 名媛閨秀. The third preface is by Wang Dungen, who was closely connected with both the Shenbao “Xikao” column by Wuxia Jian’er and Xikao. As editor particularly of Libai liu, he was a very influential man on the Shanghai literary scene, well known for advocating a literature of leisure and play (something to read on your day off, Saturday). In the “Ziyou tan” section of Shenbao during the years of the “Xikao” column, the first of the columns was almost always the “Youxi wenzhang” 游戲文章 (“Playful writing”) one. This attitude is very clear in his preface to Xikao. Wang’s preface is basically another justification of a form of literature thought to be trivial. The preface opens with an unnamed interlocutor (huo 或) asking Wang why he does not write (zuo 作) books about “seeking the truth from facts” 實事求是,302 but instead compiles books such as Xikao, which will only “lead people to play about with things and lose their ambition and dull their root” 導人玩物喪志鈍根.303 Wang takes up this pun on his name (dungen means “root of obtuseness”),304 replying that he is by nature too obtuse to be able to distinguish between “facts” (shishi 實事) and “drama” (xiju 戲劇), claiming that Xikao is precisely a book of “facts.”305 A substantial portion of this fairly long preface is given over to arguing not only that drama (and a book such as Xikao) is as full of facts as books about facts, but also that the former surpasses the latter and even life itself, because it can fill in the gaps. Returning to himself, he says that although he is not versed (an 暗) in drama he loves it dearly (ku hao 酷好), and says he would rather pursue in it the pleasures 302 More recently, shishi qiu shi was famously used in the Reform Period in the PRC to justify the new pragmatic policies pushed by Deng Xiaoping. 303 Wang’s more famous piece announcing the inauguration of Libai liu in the first issue of that magazine (June 6, 1914), “Libai liu chuban zhuiyan” (mentioned above), also begins with an unnamed interlocutor asking him a question, why name the magazine “Saturday”? 304 The phrase is used in Buddhism. It is used, for instance, by a fellow member of the literary society Nanshe 南社 (Southern society), Liu Yazi 柳亞子 (1887–1951), in his 1904 “announcement of the inauguration of publication” ( fakan ci 發刊辭) of the first Chinese journal devoted to theater, Ershi shiji da wutai. See the quotation of the piece in Guo Shaoyu 郭紹虞, ed., Zhongguo lidai wenlun xuan 中國歷代文論選 (Selected writings on literature in China over the ages), 4 vols. (Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 1980), 4: 338, and 341 n. 32. 305 In Wang’s preface to Ziyou zazhi, he makes a similar claim when he asserts that the seemingly frivolous writing in that magazine is actually “writing to save the world” ( jiushi wenzi 救世文字). See Lee, “ ‘A Dimestore of Words,’ ” p. 54.

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denied him in life. He says that through drama his feelings of righteousness are stirred up and he becomes Yue Fei; his feelings of love are stirred up and he becomes Li the Third (Emperor Minghuang of the Tang, known for his love of Yang Guifei [Imperial consort Yang]), and so forth (he gives two more examples). But, he can only “sing wildly whatever comes to mind” xinkou kuangge 信口狂歌. He asks himself, how can I be willing to remain outside the door of a theater instead of entering it and truly savoring its delights? There is a solution: Wuxia Jian’er showed him the playscripts from his own collection so that he can “study” (yanjiu 研究) them, and he decided to publish them and call the collection Xikao, in order to have them corrected ( jiuzheng 就正) by the “drama experts” (xiju jia 戲劇家) of the present age. This whole process will increase his knowledge of theater and that of all the other people who are not versed in theater but dearly love it. He then returns to the idea that Xikao should be thought of as a book of “facts,” and goes further to say that to desire to do a thing and to desire to act the thing on stage are the same; to do the thing and to perform the thing are the same; and to have done the thing and to have performed the thing are the same. He claims that to be in the world of facts and in the world of theater are the same and they cannot be distinguished; the proof is that “the majority of people today like to read Xikao” ( jinren duo xi guan Xikao 今人多喜觀戲考). He ends with the idea that the first preface began with: “All the world is a stage.” Like the first preface, Wang’s is largely concerned with justifying the act of publishing popular drama. It is not clear how the process will help him sing better, unless by providing him with the texts of the arias. He is the only preface writer to present himself as on the production rather than the consumption side of Xikao, but he spends the most time presenting himself as another consumer of (and recipient of benefit from) the book. When conceiving the scope of the book, he only talks of theater in general and not of particular kinds of Chinese theater. It is important that he identifies Wuxia Jian’er as the source of the playscripts published in Xikao, but he does not say how many plays were involved. The only thing he says about the size of the collection, ququ juanzhi 區區卷帙 (little volume), seems more appropriate for an installment of Xikao rather than the whole collection. One thing that is clearly undersized is the liyan. Liyan (also known as fanli) are often very important documents that address aspects of the work they appear in one at a time, but the liyan to Xikao only has two items. The first addresses the order of the plays (or lack of it). We are told that the book (shu 書) was “put together according to the notes that Wuxia Jian’er wrote out off the top of his head” 就健兒所之信筆記述而成, and for this reason it does not follow the model of arranging the plays according to their historical setting.

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Although Liyuan jicheng is not named, it was both the largest publication of Jingju plays before Xikao and the first collection of Chinese plays to arrange them according to their historical settings. The second item points out that, on the one hand, playscripts “evolve over time” (suishi jinhua 隨時進化) and both the texts of the arias and the dialogue differ according to the actor, while on the other hand, the knowledge ( jianshi 見識) of the editorial personnel (bianji ren 編輯人) is limited and thus unavoidably there will problems with the texts presented in the book. Experts (guqu jia) are invited to be so gracious as to send letters with corrections in order to make improvements both to the texts and the plot summaries. We see in the liyan a recognition of, and apology for, the lack of any clear organizational principle of Xikao, the difficulty of publishing playscripts for a type of drama whose scripts were in constant flux, and the fact that the editing of the plays is pretty substandard. It is interesting that Wuxia Jian’er’s essays should be described as “off the top of his head [brush]” (xinbi 信筆), since that is precisely how they can appear to the reader. They certainly are not the products of the kind of directed and focused research expected today of anything with the word kao in its title. That corrections were solicited for the improvement of future reprints or editions, while seeming to vouchsafe the scholarly intentions of the project, seems never to have borne any fruit: none of the reprints show evidence of any attempt to correct errors in the original. Although we can suspect that the liyan was written by Wang Dungen, it shows no sign of the flights of fancy and humor that were his trademark. As we have seen, the first ad for Xikao, which was for the Shenbao Guan version, appeared even before installment 1 was published. It stresses Xikao’s rich contents (neirong shen fu 內容甚富) but presents it as basically a transformation of Jian’er’s “Xikao” columns, and presumably comments made about the latter are also meant to describe the former. Besides claiming that the latter treated over three hundred plays (a claim not borne out by reality), we are told that as for the scope of the kind of plays involved, “with regard to all of the plays presently in performance, they have almost exhaustively been sought out and included” 所有時下演唱之戲, 搜羅殆盡. The playscripts included in Xikao are said to be the “most popular” (zui liuxing 最流行) and a promise is made that they will be accompanied by photos of famous actors who are skilled at (shanchang 擅長) performing them. Guqu jia are advised to buy a copy.306 306 This ad first appeared on June 30, 1912 (see 117: 898 of the Shanghai Shudian reprint of Shenbao). The first installment has twelve pages of photographs with a total of twentyfour separate photos (four of the pages have four photos on them). All but three of the photos show the actors in ordinary dress rather than stage costume. Only one of those

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The next Shenbao ad is specifically about the publication of the first installment of Xikao and mentions the photographs because their printing is said to be the reason for the delay in publication. We are told that that since the first ad appeared several dozen guqu jia have been showing up daily to ask about the exact date of publication.307 The next ad explains that the publication date has been moved back because a photo of Yang Xiaolou (who was performing in Shanghai at the time) is being added. The contents of the installment are exhaustively listed.308 The remaining ads in Shenbao do not attempt to characterize Xikao or its audience beyond repeating the claim that its contents are very rich. The Shenbao ad for Xikao xinbian does not say much about Xikao beyond claiming that it sold more than 1,200 copies in a month and is of great benefit to “playgoers” (guanju zhe), and identifying Wuxia Jian’er himself as a guqu jia.309 The first ad for the Zhonghua Tushu Guan Xikao appeared in the press’ own publication, Ziyou zazhi, which was mostly composed of material previously published in the “Ziyou tan” supplement to Shenbao. The same ad appears in both issues of the magazine, which were published in September and October, respectively, of 1913. The caption heralds the publication of the third installment of Xikao, and begins this way: Theater as a medium is the most able to affect people, therefore the nations of Europe and America look upon it as equally as important as public education. Unfortunately, the playgoers of our nation have never understood this and en masse have looked upon it as a tool for entertainment or diversion. Although this is the case, it is not the fault of playgoers. It is the case that with regard to the idea behind the plot incidents of plays, some should be understood straightforwardly, while others should be taken as meaning the opposite [of what they appear]. There has never been anything that explained this. How fitting, then, that except for a small number of those expert at playgoing [guqu zhe], the rest can only dumbly listen and blindly watch, looking only for the superficial appearance and neglecting the essence? Since the publication of the first two three photos identifies the play the actors are dressed for; it is for a play that does not appear in installment 1. 307 This ad first appeared on July 29, 1912 (see 118: 290 of the Shanghai Shudian reprint of Shenbao). 308 This ad first appeared on August 1, 1912 (see 118: 319 of the Shanghai Shudian reprint of Shenbao). 309 This ad first appeared on June 3, 1913 (see 122: 452 of the Shanghai Shudian reprint of Shenbao).

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installments of Xikao, playgoers are able to follow developments and seek out their sources. Scholars and actors have all praised them as the standard. Therefore, although it has not been long since they were published, they have already been reprinted several times. From this we can see their value! 戲曲一道, 感人最深, 故歐美各國視等教科並重. 惜乎! 我國觀劇者, 素不 解此. 群視為游戲消遣之具. 雖然, 此非觀劇者之過. 蓋劇中之清節用意, 或宜正面觀, 或宜反面觀. 素無表示說明之品. 宜乎! 除二三老於顧曲者 外, 皆盲聽瞽視, 求行跡而不取精華也. 自本考一二冊發行一來, 觀劇者 已得尋流溯源, 而學者與演劇者亦無不奉為圭皋. 故發行未久, 已疊數 版. 亦可以見其價值矣.310

The rest of the ad gives a glimpse of the contents of installment three. After two issues, the name of Ziyou zazhi was changed to Youxi zazhi and the first issue under that title appeared in November of 1913. It ran an ad for Xikao in its third issue announcing that the fifth installment was out and number six was being edited. The text of the ad claims that recently the vulgar and ungrammatical (culi bu tong 粗俚不通) lines in the arias of old playscripts have all been gradually improved (gailiang 改良) by famous actors, who have also done the same with the dialogue, with the result that “when they [famous actors] imitate the feelings of the characters, there is no instance in which their speech is not just like life and their spirit has not been completely reproduced” 其描摹入情處無不口吻如生神情畢肖. The problem is that those improved playscripts are hard to get hold of. The ad claims that Xikao has been successful in getting them from famous actors of Beijing and Shanghai, and finds that they are superior to the “vulgar editions of the commercial publishers” ( fangjian suben 坊間俗本). We are told that “Mr. Wang Dacuo” (Wang Dacuo xiansheng 王大錯先生) has been engaged to write kao 考 for these improved scripts, which will reveal the details of their sources and development (chuchu yuanwei 出處原委), their plots ( juqing 劇情), the surface and deeper intentions (yongyi zhengfan 用意正反) behind the plays, and the wonders (miao 妙) of the singing and acting (changzuo 唱作) of them by famous actors. Here we see that the relative importance and priority between shukao and playscript has been flipped from how it was portrayed in the Shenbao ads. Now the playscripts come first and the shukao are added to them. The ad ends (after some sentences about installments 5 and 6) with an assertion that Xikao not only is “a guide for guqu zhe” (guqu zhe zhi zhinan 顧曲者之指南), but has also won 310 The original is unpunctuated.

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acclaim from the most fashionable (zui shimao 最時髦) theater artists and famous actors (yiyuan mingjue 藝員名角).311 In the same year as that last ad came out, 1914, Libai liu, also edited by Wang Dungen, began to run ads for Xikao. The earliest of these has a headline asserting that installment 7 will be even better than the previous ones. This ad first appeared in issue 2 (June 13, 1914) of the magazine, inside the front cover, and basically repeated the main text of the one in the third issue of Youxi zazhi. The only thing that differs in the next Libai liu ad is an attempt to deal with the fact that the previous ad was wrong to say that installment 7 had already appeared.312 Delays seem to have continued to plague the project, because it is more than a year before a new ad appears in Libai liu with news that installment 8, which had been described as “at the press” in the previous ad, has finally appeared, along with installment 9. In this ad, the vague “theater” (xiju 戲劇) of the previous ads has been replaced with “Jingju” ( Jingju 京劇), which is described as having flourished for almost 100 years. Besides stressing the rarity of true versions (zhenben 真本) of the playscripts of famous actors, as had been done in the earlier ads, “examinations of the reality of the sources and development of the plays” 劇中本事源流之考實 are said to be equally rare. Once again locating the right playscripts is put first. It is said that once the press found them, it invited Dungen and Dacuo to edit (bianci 編次) them and “compose the shukao” (zhuan kao 撰考). The audience for the collection is spoken of as including guqu jia, but now also yanxi jia 演習家, which could include both professional and amateur actors.313 The next ad for Xikao does not appear in Libai liu until 1921, after that magazine shut down and was revived, and it is to announce the publication of installment 31, whose appearance had been both much delayed and is much anticipated. Indeed, the previous installment seems to have been published back in 1919.314 Unlike the previous ads, this one is written in the first person. The writer praises this installment as even better than the most recent ones and spends the first half of the ad praising the rarity of some of the photos. In the second half he lists several of the plays in the installment, adding some details for each in terms of its plot, authorship (one is a Wang Xiaonong play), patrons, actors who have performed it, or source of the playscript (one is said 311 The ad appeared in the front matter of the issue, between the table of contents and the photo section. 312 The ad first appeared in issue 6 (July 11, 1914), inside the front cover. 313 The ad first appeared in issue 71 (October 9, 1915), in the front matter. 314 See Zhongguo jindai xiandai congshu mulu, p. 500. In the interim, a complete table of contents of installments 1–30 was compiled and, according to the 1921 Libai liu ad, was available from the press.

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to be a Mei Lanfang “true version” [zhenben]).315 No prediction is made about when the next installment will appear.316 In 1914–1916, in ten of the twelve issues of Xiangyan zazhi that were published, ads for Xikao that were just shy of being full page appeared. They have the same basic text as the Xikao ads in issue three of Youxi zazhi, the only difference being which installment is announced as just published.317 In the end, the prefaces and ads for Xikao looked at above present a fairly fuzzy picture of the project. Partly that is because personnel changed over time (Wang Dacuo replaced Wuxia Jian’er, if they are not the same person [see below]), the publisher changed from Shenbao Guan to Zhonghua Tushu Guan, the role of some of the personnel got more important or was presented as more important (Wang Dungen), and the focus seems to have changed over time from the initial one in the “xikao” written by Wuxia Jian’er to accompany the photographs and playscripts praised so strongly in the later ads. Between the publication of the first installment and the last one, more than ten years passed and the project seems to have fallen behind schedule more than once. The fuzziness is also partly a function of the media involved (advertisements) or how some of the media were used (the prefaces and the liyan focus on some points to the exclusion of others, tend to be vague and, in the case Wang Dungen’s preface, refuse to be very serious). If we look at the collection itself, can we see signs of a master plan? As the liyan says, the plays are indeed not arranged by their historical settings. Nor, after the first installment, especially in its Shenbao Guan version, are they arranged by the role-types of the lead characters, as in the case of Wuxia Jian’er’s Shenbao “Xikao” column. They do not even follow the prohibition, when arranging programs featuring multiple zhezi xi, of never arranging zhezi xi extracted from the same larger play in an order different than they had in that larger play. Such “infractions” not only occur in the collection (although 315 This ad appeared in the back matter of issue 109 (May 14, 1921) and front matter of issue 140 (December 19, 1921). 316 An announcement published in the 1919 reprint of installment 7 trying to persuade businesses to advertise in Xikao has been mentioned in the footnotes above. It is only really designed to show that Xikao has a wide audience. 317 Publication pages for this periodical lack dates. The ads appear in issues 1–9 and 12 (see pp. 114, 328, 630, 738, 958, 1172, 1408, 1632, 1820, and 2462 of the reprint). The installments announced as newly available are 5 (issues 1–2), 7 (issue 3), 9 (issue 4), 10 (issues 5–7), 11 (issues 8–9), and 12 (issue 12). As with Ziyou zazhi and Youxi zazhi, Wang Dacuo wrote the calligraphy for many of the pages at the start of different sections in Xiangyan zazhi. The signatures take the forms of Wuxia Wang Dacuo, Dacuo, Wang Ding, and Dacuo Wang Ding (see the discussion of Wang below).

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not in any individual installment), but are also pointed out in the shukao.318 Zhezi xi that together tell a fairly complete story and have long been performed together are broken up and appear in different installments in a different order from how they are performed.319 It is not until plays #48 and #49 that zhezi xi commonly performed one after the other appear together (in the right order) in a Xikao installment.320 The episodes of a serial play (liantai benxi) can also appear out of order.321 Sometimes it only gradually becomes clear that certain plays are really two episodes of a serial play, and the shukao can be confused about how many episodes have been included in the collection.322 It is not

318 For comments that point out that plays following after the present play have already been included in previous installments, see pp. 2337 (the plays involved are #256 and 200), 2398 (#262 and 197), 2769 (#303 and 85), and p. 3889 (#387 and 41). Unnoted in the shukao is that plays #176 and 177, both of which deal with the same characters, appear in reverse chronological order (characters in play #176 refer back to events in play #177). 319 For instance, Shi Jieting (Xikao #136), Kongcheng ji (Xikao #1), and Zhan Ma Su 斬馬謖 (Executing Ma Su; Xikao #137) tell the story of Zhuge Liang 諸葛亮 dispatching his general, Ma Su 馬謖, with specific instructions on how to hold the important site of Jieting, but Ma does not follow those instructions, forcing Zhuge Liang to use the “ruse of the empty city” to save himself and to execute Ma Su when he shows up. These three plays are performed so often together that there is an acronym for them that uses the first character in each of their titles: Shi Kong Zhan 失空斬. Another trio, Da baoguo 大保國 (Greatly protecting the state; Xikao #66), Tan Huangling 嘆 [探] 皇陵 (Sighing [Paying a visit] at the imperial mausoleum; Xikao #97), and Er jin gong (Xikao #81), commonly referred to as Da Tan Er 大嘆 [探] 二, is also broken up and their order changed in Xikao. 320 The plays, Duan taihou 斷太后 (Judging the case of the empress dowager; Xikao #48) and Da longpao 打龍袍 (Beating the dragon robe; Xikao #49) tell the story of Judge Bao encountering the mistreated mother of the present emperor and punishing the latter’s (apparently inadvertent) unfiliality by beating the emperor’s robe. These two plays appear in installment 3. 321 Episodes 7–10 (Xikao #345) of Shanhai guan 山海關 (Shanhai pass) appear in installment 22, but episodes 1–2 (Xikao #400), 3–4 (Xikao #412), and 5–6 (Xikao #420), appear in installments 27–29, respectively. That episodes 7–10 are assigned one number rather than two is probably because a single pagination sequence (pp. 1–22) is used for all four (in Xikao each play typically gets its own pagination starting over from p. 1) while episodes 9–10 have been left out of the table of contents of the installment, even though they start on an odd page (p. 3313) with their own shukao exactly like the other pairs of episodes. 322 Qu Nanjun 取南郡 (Taking Nanjun; Xikao #267) is not identified as from a serial play. A play of the same name appears in the table of contents of installment 38, but on the first page of the play, it is labeled as the first episode (touben 頭本) of the serial play. The shukao for it also gives the plot of the second episode without making it clear that #498 includes it, and refers to #267 as the third episode (p. 5572). But in the next installment, #510 is labeled as episodes 3–4 of Qu Nanjun and the shukao (p. 5759) now refers to #498 as the first and second episodes of the play.

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until play #120 and installment 7 that episodes from the same serial play not treated as part of the same entry323 are printed one after the other in Xikao.324 Certain installments seem to be relatively dominated by different kinds of plays, and this might be part of some kind of plan. For instance, in installment 1 almost half of the plays are Three Kingdoms plays325 and the majority of the lead characters of all of the plays are laosheng roles;326 in installment 13 there are three Huang Tianba 黃天霸 plays;327 in installment 22 a lot of space is given to plays about the fall of the Ming;328 in installments 30–32 there are five Honglou 紅樓 ([Dream of the] Red Chamber) plays;329 and there are six plays that are Kunqu or Kunqu adaptations in installments 31–33.330 But these examples cover only a minority of the installments and in none of them is there real evidence that these differences between the installments are part of any long-range plan. Within installments, pairs of plays will sometimes appear to have been put together because of similarities or contrasts between them. Examples of similarity include printing together two farces that both involve foreign princesses falling in love with Chinese men,331 a pair of plays about lewd women,332 or a pair of consecutive plays that both involve a mother or stepmother ordering her son or stepson to kill his wife.333 Sometimes particular pairs of plays appear to be together in Xikao because of some fortuitous similarity in their titles rather than their having a common origin or treating the same stuff material.334 323 The majority of the episodes from serial plays in Xikao appear grouped together in sets of two each beginning with an odd number (e.g., 1–2, 3–4, 5–6, etc.). 324 In the table of contents for the installment, only Hudie bei 蝴蝶盃 (The butterfly cup; Xikao #120) is listed, but in the installment separate plays labeled the qianben 前本 (first episode) and houben 後本 (second episode) appear, each beginning on an odd page (pp. 1067 and 1089) with its own shukao. 325 Plays #1, 5–6, 8, 12–15, and 19. 326 Plays #1, 2, 4–11, and 14–20. 327 Plays #208, 210, and 211. 328 Two plays on the transition, #345 and 348, take up one-third of the pages of the installment. 329 Plays #424, 431, 433, 438, and 452. 330 Plays #444, 457, 458, 461, 462, and 464. 331 Plays #164–65. 332 Play #306–307. 333 Play #421–22. 334 For instance two completely different plays, one a farce (#301) and the other a Three Kingdoms play (#303), have names—Longfeng chengxiang 龍鳳呈祥 (Dragon and phoenix present auspicious omens) and Longfeng pei 龍鳳配 (The matching of dragon and phoenix)—that begin with long (dragon) 龍 and feng 鳳 (phoenix). It can also be pointed out that play #303 is part of a larger play that links it and other zhezi xi performed under the title Longfeng chengxiang. Play numbers #308 (last play in installment 18) and #309 (first play in installment 19) are both identified as having titles that contain

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Contrasting pairs are perhaps rarer, but we can point out the example of following a play about someone lending his wife to someone else with a play about a husband parting from his wife,335 and other examples could probably be produced, if one was willing to put in the effort. But the most important thing is that in all of these examples it is hard to see any guiding editorial hand arranging the order of the plays so as to achieve any particular effect. The kind of play that appears in the installments of Xikao changes over time, but it seems this is not because of some plan to do so but instead is a reaction to developments that took place after Xikao first began to be published. One example of this is that as time goes on, more and more of Mei Lanfang’s plays are included, reflecting the fact that when Xikao first appeared in 1912 he was just beginning to become famous and had not yet developed a repertoire truly his own.336 The delay in the appearance of serial plays and their eventual prominence later might also reflect the increasing prominence of those plays in Shanghai and even Beijing. In two instances, installments 23–26 and 33–36, episodes from the same serial play appear as the opening item in runs of four straight installments. In installment 27, ten episodes from the same serial play take up seventy-three pages, almost half of the entire installment. That gives these installments a quite different feel from the earlier ones. Serial plays were not put on by amateur actors and were generally considered more viewer-friendly than traditional Jingpai plays. It is not hard to find comments in the shukao that refer to previous installments in Xikao, but these typically do no more than refer back to a play included in such and such an earlier installment that is connected some way or another to the play that is the subject of the shukao. As often as not, references of this type are to the plot summary of the play included earlier so as to save the shukao writer some ink. Very few of the shukao comments make anything near a sweeping statement that involves all of Xikao or even a large number of the plays in it beyond claiming that a certain play is longer than any of the individual plays already included in Xikao.337 References in the shukao to plays that the placename Jizhou, and only in the Datong Shuju version, two plays with titles beginning with “jiulong” 九龍 (nine dragons) occur one after the other in installment 19 (plays #319–20). 335 Play #285–86. 336 On how Mei Lanfang and his plays appear in Xikao, see Lu Dawei 陸大偉 (David L. Rolston), “Mei Lanfang zai Xikao zhong de yingzi” 梅蘭芳在戲考中的影子 (The image of Mei Lanfang in Xikao), Wenhua yichan 文化遺產 (Cultural heritage) 2013.4: 34–40, and Fu Jin, ed., Mei Lanfang yu Jingju de chuanbo, pp. 117–29. 337 The shukao to the fifth episode of Hong Bi yuan 宏碧緣 (The marriage affinity between Luo Hongxun 駱宏勛 and Hua Bilian 花碧蓮; Xikao #374) makes the claim that the entire serial play Hong Bi yuan is the longest to be included in the collection since Xikao

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will be included in future installments are also quite rare. They typically refer only to the very next installment.338 The only exceptions involve a serial play339 and one case of a promise never kept.340 We can conclude that if the shukao show a kind of conception of Xikao as constituted by the installments already published, they show very little sense of what the final shape or contents of the entire collection will be. In sum, there does not appear to have been any real plan for Xikao except to publish installments that would be attractive to a large audience. Although different choices among the three basic components of Xikao—the photographs, the shukao, or the playscripts—seem to have been the main attraction for different constituencies and their spokespersons among the producers and consumers of the collection, the contents of individual installments seem to have been largely conditioned by what was available at the time of editing. While this lack of editorial control would make the collection less attractive for (ben kao 本考 [this kao]) began to be edited (p. 3689). Hong Bi yuan is the first serial play to have more than two episodes in Xikao, and the total length of the seven episodes included is indeed quite long. At 330 pages for all seven, they dwarf the ten episodes of the next serial play included in Xikao, Sanmen jie 三門街 (Three gate street; Xikao #392–96), which only take up seventy-four pages. The length of Hong Bi yuan is brought up in the shukao because it is clear that the writer feels the need to justify allotting so much space to it. The justification is that the play has been very popular. 338 I have found only three references to the “next installment” in the shukao; all involve twopart plays where the second part follows in the next installment and this is announced in the shukao for the first part. See p. 1294 (shukao to play #133 mentions play #153 in the next installment), p. 4142 (shukao to play #406 mentions play #418 in the next installment), and pp. 5695–96 (shukao to play #508, in installment 39, mentions play #516 in installment 40). The last instance is the only one of the three in which the exact number of the installment the second part will appear in is mentioned. Not only that, the news is given in two places, after the title and alternate title of the play (p. 5695) and in the shukao proper (p. 5696). 339 The one instance in the shukao where a reference is made to a future installment beyond the very next one concerns Shanhai guan, the serial play mentioned above whose episodes appear out of order: episodes 7–10 occur in installment 22, 1–2 in installment 27, 3–4 in installment 28, and 5–6 in installment 29. The shukao to episodes 9–10 (p. 3313) refers the reader ahead to installment 29 for events that occur in episodes 5–6. It was surely the unusual circumstance of episodes being published out of order that explains the need to refer to an installment so far in the future. It is not clear whether at the time the shukao for installment 22 was written the writer knew more about the contents of upcoming installments beyond the fact that they would contain the remaining episodes of this serial play. 340 The shukao to play #135 promises that a certain matter will be addressed when the second part (houben 後本) to the present play is published, but that never happened. Reference works on Jingju don’t mention a second part of the play. Instead, what seems to be the case is that play #135 is incomplete.

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certain purposes, this openness to popular341 and practical pressures342 makes it all the more valuable for the purposes of the present project, since it assures that the result, rather than emanating from the vision of one person or a small handful of people, is more representative of what was going on at the time. The separate volume listing the table of contents for the entire collection, prepared about the same time as the last installment appeared in 1925 or even a little earlier, described the collection this way: “Whether xusheng [mature dignified male roles], huashan [lively young or mature female roles], damian [painted-face roles], laodan [old woman roles], zhengdan [proper young or mature female roles], xiaosheng [young dignified males], choujiao [undignified males], etc., for every type of play there are none that are not included” 凡 鬚生, 花衫, 大面, 老旦, 正旦, 小生, 丑角等, 各種戲劇, 無不具備.343 Although there are examples of plays in Xikao that, judging from their shukao, were included even though they are no longer staged, the same shukao point out that they were once popular and claim or imply that they could be so again.344 How many of the plays in Xikao are still performed? A rather subjective way to approach this question would be to ask how many I have seen onstage since 341 Decisions about including certain plays are occasionally attributed in the shukao to the desires of readers as evidenced in letters sent to the press. For instance, the shukao for the first and second episodes of Lianhuan tao 連環套 (The linked plot; Xikao #448; p. 4693) describes the inclusion of these episodes in Xikao (and presumably the fourth episode that makes up Xikao #449) as a response to strong demand for the entire play (quanben 全本), said to have been coming in for two years from “readers of Xikao” (du Xikao zhe 讀 戲考者). Why just the last two years instead of the entire eight years since what is actually the third episode of the play appeared in Xikao (play #100, not labeled as an episode)? The shukao does not address the question directly but implies that this is due to recent interest among playgoers (guanju zhe 觀劇者) in complete plays as opposed to excerpts. 342 We noted above that the separately published table of contents for Xikao has installment 40 including one more play than actually appeared, and that an ad in that installment apologizes for that omission citing a shortage of space. 343 This text appears on the back of the volume. It is quoted without attribution in Zhongguo xiqu zhi: Shanghai juan, “Xikao,” p. 744. 344 See the shukao for plays #72 (p. 635), #162 (p. 1559), #231 (p. 2149), #349 (p. 3349), #371 (p. 3643), #459 (p. 4811), #501 (p. 5621), and #502 (p. 5631). In these cases the idea is that the play is not presently performed, and especially not performed in Shanghai. A common way the shukao talk about these plays’ disappearance from the stage (see #349, 501, and 502) is to speak of them as becoming lost to the world like “The Air of Guangling” (Guangling san 廣陵散), a famous qin-zither tune that Xi Kang 嵇康 (223–262), at his execution, said would die with him. In some cases, such as plays #469 and #483, the shukao stress (pp. 5070 and 5333, respectively) that the play being presented is a fuller version of a play still performed. Ironically, play #502, Nao tiangong 鬧天宮 (Causing an uproar in the heavenly palace), is now one of the most often-performed Jingju plays, especially for tourist Jingju performances in Beijing or abroad.

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I first began to go to performances. Unfortunately, to come up with such a figure I have to rely on an increasing faulty memory, a memory that is open to “infection” from exposure to performances on TV, video, VCD, or DVD. It also would be good to be able to say exactly where and when I saw performances, but it is only in later years that I began to even try to keep track. Times when I got to see the most plays are quite various. In the two years I spent in Taiwan (1980–1982) I quickly became a fan and worked in an opera school the last half year, during which time I could get into any performance free and made full use of that privilege. Earlier trips to the PRC (a month in 1982 and almost a year in 1986, when I resided in Nanjing but made trips to Beijing and Shanghai and saw plays there) allowed me to see a lot of productions. Summer research trips to Beijing for months at a time at least every other year since the late 1990s have supplemented the earlier periods, but the number of Jingju plays mounted every week in Beijing has plummeted in recent years (if you ignore the tourist Jingju offerings, which present the same plays over and over again). For what it is worth, I am pretty sure that I have seen onstage productions of 40% of the plays in Xikao. The percentage drops pretty precipitously from the first twenty installments to the second twenty (from 52% to 20%), with the contrast being even starker if you compare the first two installments (80% and 85%, respectively) with 20% for the last twenty installments.345 Primary reasons for this are that the first two installments are particularly full of “workhorse” plays that have generally maintained a place in the Jingju repertoires of both Taiwan and the PRC, and a large number of plays in the second half that are serials or comparatively experimental or hybrid plays. Another admittedly subjective way to look at the circulation and importance of the plays in Xikao is to tabulate the notes I have made on the individual plays. As I have worked on this book project, using cards for each play, I kept notes on a “master card” about different sources where I came across the name of the play, from reproductions of wood-block print illustrations to lists and other kinds of reference material that reflect the Jingju repertoire for different historical periods and places. Any material specific to that play that was more complicated and not better filed elsewhere was written up on separate file cards and kept with the master card. 305 of the plays in those files (58.32%) 345 The figures by installment are as follows: 1 (80.00%), 2 (85.00%), 3 (61.11%), 4 (75.00%), 5 (82.35%), 6 (73.68%), 7 (60.00%), 8 (40.00%), 9 (72.22%), 10 (47.06%), 11 (18.75%), 12 (31.25%), 13 (23.81%), 14 (31.82%), 15 (41.18%), 16 (50.00%), 17 (20.00%), 18 (42.86%), 19 (46.15%), 20 (38.46%), 21 (22.22%), 22 (20.00%), 23 (45.45%), 24 (11.11%), 25 (00.00%), 26 (12.50%), 27 (07.69%), 28 (20.00%), 29 (22.22%), 30 (00.00%), 31 (15.28%), 32 (23.08%), 33 (80.00%), 34 (00.00%), 35 (25.00%), 36 (25.00%), 37 (22.22%), 38 (36.36%), 39 (14.29%), and 40 (14.29%).

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do not have a card of this last type, with the range running from no cards at the least to fifty-five cards at the most.346 As one might imagine, the information recorded is far from exhaustive, being limited to what seemed most useful.347 Ideally, one would like to disaggregate this information, as it does concern different periods and different sources, but here I will not do so but just use some statistics from that material to give an idea of how many of the plays did not circulate widely or leave much impact. Forty-five plays (8.59%) lack annotations on their master cards, another thirty-six (6.87%) have only one, twentytwo (4.20%) have only two, and twenty-four (4.58%) have only three.348 If we combine those four figures, we get 127 (24.24%) with three or fewer annotations. However, seventeen of those are serial play installments other than the first installment. If we eliminate these from consideration, then the revised figure would be 110 plays in Xikao (20.99%) that appear not to have left very big footprints outside of their publication there.349 4

Who Put Xikao Together?

Three names should already be familiar: Wuxia Jian’er, Wang Dungen, and Wang Dacuo. Wuxia Jian’er was the person who wrote over two hundred items in the “Xikao” columns in the “Ziyou tan” supplement to Shenbao edited by Wang Dungen. The shukao for the Shenbao Guan version of installment 1 of Xikao, as well as installments 1, 2, and 32 of the Zhonghua Tushu Guan edition, and Xikao xinbian, are all attributed to him. The shukao for the rest of the installments are attributed to Wang Dacuo except for 13–15, which are not attributed to anyone. Wang Dungen is listed as the editor for all of the installments of Xikao and wrote a preface for the collection. Of the other two prefaces, one was written under a penname that I have been unable to link with anyone, while the other was by Jin Qiang, someone who might also have done 346 The play with fifty-five cards is Bawang bie ji (play #336), which besides being famous in its own right benefits from playing such an important part in Chen Kaige’s movie of the same name. The second highest, with fifty-three cards, is Silang tanmu (play #22), which besides being famous and much loved has been controversial because of Silang’s decision to live on as the son-in-law of the ruler of a “barbarian” dynasty opposed to the Song dynasty. 347 Sometimes there are more than the usual number of cards for a play because there is something unusual or inexplicable about it that I was purposefully gathering information on. 348 Thirty-eight plays (7.27%) have twenty or more annotations. 349 The figures in this paragraph reflect the state of my files on January 19, 2010.

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editorial work on the first installment. A number of other names are associated with different installments and aspects of the preparation of Xikao. Wuxia Jian’er, as explained above, is a penname. He begins the very first Shenbao “Xikao” with an introductory paragraph about how Shanghainese like new plays because they use the local dialect and dislike old plays (i.e., Jingju) because they use the speech of Beijing. He says he “has been stuck in Shanghai for thirty years, but am naturally addicted to old plays” 涃跡申江於今三十載, 素嗜舊劇. He does not indicate where his native place is, although his use of Wuxia 吳下, a way to refer to the greater Suzhou area, might indicate that he is from there. If we guess that he was already a young man of twenty when he came to Shanghai (if he had come as a child I think he would have used different language), he would have been around fifty years old in 1911, when he first began to publish under the penname Wuxia Jian’er in Shenbao. Wuxia Jian’er’s first “Xikao” article in Shenbao is only the tenth signed item on traditional theater to appear in that newspaper since it began publication,350 and with the appearance the next day of his second “Xikao” article, he became the first writer on traditional theater publishing in the newspaper to publish more than one piece under the same name. During the time his “Xikao” column was being published, only twenty-three items (two of them two-part) on traditional Chinese theater were published in Shenbao under names other than his, five of them signed by Wang Dungen. During that same time period, he published twenty items on traditional theater (four of them two-part) in Shenbao outside of his “Xikao” pieces. These have been discussed as pathbreaking in the development of theater reviews in China and Wuxia Jian’er has been seen as among the first to move from embryonic professional theater critic to full-scale professional theater critic.351 After the last “Xikao” item Wuxia Jian’er published, there are twelve more items (one two-part) under that penname, the last one appearing on October 3, 1912. Shortly before that last item, on September 26, the first of 196 (some two-part) theater articles352 signed with the penname Xuanlang 玄郎 began to appear in Shenbao. 350 According to Ni Baixian and Wang Chaofeng, “Shenbao xiqu wenzhang suoyin,” pp. 1–8. 351 See Zhao Tingting 趙婷婷, “Shenbao pinglun jia ziwo jiangou” 申報評論家自我建構 (The establishment of personal identity in [theater] critics in Shenbao), in Du Changsheng, ed., Jingju yu xiandai Zhongguo shehui, p. 696. She says, relying on Ni Baixian and Wang Chaofeng, “Shenbao xiqu wenzhang suoyin,” that there are 255 articles signed by Wuxia Jian’er that were published in Shenbao. I don’t know if she noticed that Ni Baixian and Wang Chaofeng’s index missed at least one of his items, a “Xikao” item that appeared on March 21, 1912. Zhao Tingting also published an article on a similar topic, “Shenbao juping jia lichang de zhuanbian” 申報劇評家立場的轉變 (The shift in the standpoint of the theater critics in Shenbao), Xiju yishu 2008.1: 50–54, 80. 352 According to Ni Baixian and Wang Chaofeng, “Shenbao xiqu wenzhang suoyin.”

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Ziyou zazhi published material from “Ziyou tan.” The first issue, which was published in September 1913, has on the fifth page of a section called “Zhu wenjia xiaoxiang” 諸文家肖像 (Portraits of the writers) a photo of a man in traditional garb labeled above as Wuxia Jian’er.353 Underneath the photo, we are told that this person’s real name is Gu Qianyuan 顧乾元, courtesy name Jianxing 健行. Wuxia Jian’er is identified as one of his cognomens (biehao 別號) and Xuanlang 玄郎 as another. His native place is given as Kunshan in Jiangsu.354 If there was displeasure at Shenbao Guan with Wuxia Jian’er for publishing Xikao xinbian with a different press when Shenbao Guan was publishing Xikao, this might explain why Xuanlang’s named disappeared from Shenbao on July 9, 1913, about a month after the last ad run in Shenbao for Xikao xinbian. Nothing else seems to have been published under the penname Wuxia Jian’er until 1918, when a short work of fiction appeared under that name,355 and 1922, when installment 32 of Xikao, whose shukao are again attributed to Wuxia Jian’er, appeared. It has been argued that Wuxia Jian’er and Wang Dacuo are the same person. This idea has been particularly influential on Taiwan, and is probably due to the influence of Wang Qiugui’s (C. K. Wang) 王秋桂 preface to the Liren Shuju edition of Xikao, which makes such a claim, but Wang offers no proof for the contention nor does he address the question why the attribution of the shukao of installment 32 would revert to Wuxia Jian’er and then back to Dacuo for the rest of the installments.356 Among the shukao in that installment there are two whose author uses one of Wang Dacuo’s pennames, Lilao 櫪老,

353 Only one of the pieces in Ziyou zazhi, “Daizui ren fu dong ciguo shu” 帶罪人赴東辭國 書 (Farewell letter to China from a convicted criminal about to go to Japan; the “I” of the letter being the defeated commander of the Qing forces in Hubei and Hunan during the 1911 revolution), is signed with a penname (Jian 健) easy to connect to Wuxia Jian’er. It appears in the “Youxi wenzhang” section of issue two (October 1913), pp. 8–9. 354 Matsuura Tsuneo, “Xikao zai Minguo chunian de wenhua diwei,” p. 766, includes most of this information, but secondhand through the work of Fujino Naoko 藤野真子. 355 It was published under the penname Wuxia Jian’er in Xiaoshuo xinbao 小說新報 (New paper [publishing] fiction) 4.3 (1918). See Tarumoto Teruo 樽本照雄, Xinbian zengbu Qingmo Minchu xiaoshuo mulu 新編增補清末民初小說目錄 (Newly compiled, augmented, bibliography of late Qing early Republican era fiction; Jinan: Qi Lu shushe, 2002), p. 745, item w0620. 356 The identification is made in the very first paragraph of the preface, without any discussion whatsoever. For an example of a Taiwan work that makes the same identification, see Niu Chuanhai 牛川海, “Xikao” 戲考, in Zhang Qiyun 張其昀, ed., Zhonghua baike quanshu 中華百科全書 (Encyclopedia of China; Taibei: Zhongguo wenhua daxue, 1981), p. 5380.

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as a self-reference,357 and another in which the author calls himself Dacuo.358 But instead of taking this as evidence that Wuxia Jian’er is Wang Dacuo, I think it is better not to take the attribution of the shukao to Wuxia Jian’er that seriously. The shukao in that installment exhibit a lot of inconsistencies in approach and format and might not be from the same hand, period.359 We have already seen above that only two of the thirteen plays in the installment also appear in Wuxia Jian’er’s Shenbao “Xikao” column, and that contrary to the case with the first two installments, the shukao for those two overlapping plays in installment 32 have no connection to the corresponding Shenbao column pieces. Besides that, the mention of letters received requesting the inclusion of a complete version of Lianhuan tao on the one hand, and the provision of three more episodes from that play in the installment (see the shukao to play #448) on the other, would seem to make it unlikely that the shukao for the episodes were either written a long time ago or were by someone who now had only a peripheral connection with the Xikao project. Furthermore, when the Wang Dacuo who was an associate of Wang Dungen wrote some of the calligraphy for a volume of illustrations of beautiful women, Gujin baimei tuyong 古今百 美圖詠 (Illustrations with poetic captions of beautiful women from the past

357 See the shukao to Languan xue 藍關雪 (Snow at Languan; Xikao #450; p. 4715), and to Jingchai ji (The thorn hairpin; Xikao #457; p. 4781). 358 See the shukao to Bai fu wei ji 白傅遺姬 (Imperial tutor Bai [Juyi] sends off his concubine; Xikao #454; p. 4754). 359 Installment 32 includes plays #447–459. Only two of thirteen plays in the installment, #448 and #453, also occur in Wuxia Jian’er’s “Xikao” column in Shenbao. There is no overlap in their treatment, which is radically different between the newspaper column and the shukao. The editing of plays #447–449 is particularly bad. Problems in these plays include using the character ban 拌 (stir up) for ban 扮 (to impersonate or play the part of), a usage not found in other installments, lots of typos (e.g., guang 光 for er 兒, [p. 4686], and chai 釵 for xu 敘 [p. 4696]), and making the text jump to the top of the next line (tihang 提行) in mid-sentence (p. 4690). The author of the shukao to play #447 (p. 4681) calls himself Mengchu 蒙初, a self-reference not found in any of the other shukao in Xikao. The shukao for play #450 contains one of Wang Dacuo’s common self-references (Lilao) and is very much in his style. In play #451 the text of most of the arias is run together without any punctuation. As already noted, the shukao to play #454 uses the self-reference Dacuo. Plays #455–56 and #458 substitute the one ban for the other, but #457 does not and its shukao contains a self-reference as Lilao. Play #459 does not use either ban but instead uses shi 飾, a commonly used synonym for the correct ban. From all indications, the plays in installment 32 are very much a mixed bag and the shukao most certainly were not written by the same person, including the person to whom they are attributed, Wuxia Jian’er.

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and present; 1917) with a preface by Wang Dungen,360 some of his signatures include “Wuxia” above his name.361 Matsuura Tsuneo 松浦恆雄 identifies Wang Dacuo as Wang Ding 王鼎, a fellow member with Wang Dungen of the Nanshe 南社 (Southern Society), and someone who had his picture taken with the editorial staff of Libai liu and published fiction in that magazine.362 Under that photo, where the individuals are identified, Wang Ding is referred to as “Dacuo Wang Ding.” A variety of reference works also identify Wang Dacuo as Wang Ding.363 However, the native place of the Wang Ding who was a member of Nanshe is given as Huai’an in Jiangsu Province in one of the prime collections of research material on the Nanshe,364 while the Wang Ding who wrote calligraphy for Youxi zazhi (see 360 Published by Zhonghua Tushu Guan of Shanghai. 361 The editor of the book is Qiu Shouping 邱壽平 and the illustrator is Ding Song 丁悚. The poems about the women were composed by Chen Diexian. For an example of Wang Dacuo signing himself with Wuxia at the beginning of the signature, see p. 10a, the inscription of a poem for an illustration of a female archer. I was first introduced to Gujin baimei tuyong by Xiaorong Li, who later published an article on the genre that the book belongs to: “Who are the Most Beautiful Women of China?—The ‘One Hundred Beauties’ Genre in the Qing and Early Republican Era,” Frontiers of Literary Studies in China 7.4 (2013): 617–53. On p. 33 she notes that Wang Dacuo also wrote a preface for Gujin baimei tuyong (which she refers to here as Gujin baimei tu), and that in his signatures therein he also signs himself as Wang Fei and Wang Ding. 362 See Matsuura Tsuneo, “Xikao zai Minguo chunian de wenhua diwei,” p. 763. The picture, captioned “Collective portrait of the colleagues of the editorial section and their associates of the press” 本社編輯部同人合影, appears in the front matter of issue 38 (February 20, 1915) of Libai liu. Wang Ding is seated next to Wang Dungen. Mao, “The Saturday,” p. 73, reproduces the photo but labels it as coming from issue 33 of the same year and describes the piece that Wang Dacuo wrote for the inaugural issue of the journal (p. 28) and a short piece of fiction of his that appeared in issue 3 (p. 227). Wang also published another short piece of fiction, “Ren ri” 人日 (People Day) in issue 38. A search for “Dacuo” 大錯 in the Jindai qikan database on July 16, 2017 produced twenty items, two of which are clearly for someone else (a Ming dynasty monk and someone surnamed Xue). Three are the three in Libai liu mentioned above, another three appeared in other journals from Dadong Shuju (Ziyou zazhi and Youxi zazhi), and four are from a novel serialized in Shiri xin 十日新 (New every ten days; chapter 2 mistakenly replaced by another copy of chapter 1 and the last chapter, chapter 4, promising the novel will continue in the next issue). 363 See, for instance, the entry on Libai liu in Wei Shaochang 魏紹昌 et al., eds., Zhongguo jindai wenxue cidian 中國近代文學辭典 (Dictionary of the literature of modern China; Zhengzhou: Henan jiaoyu, 1993), p. 120. 364 Zheng Yimei 鄭逸梅, Nanshe congtan 南社叢談 (Collected material on the Southern society; Shanghai: Shanghai renmin, 1981), p. 582, lists Wang Ding as a member of the society and lists other names that he used, but none of them are Dacuo. His native place is given as Huai’an 淮安 in Jiangsu Province.

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below) identifies himself as from Wuxia, and the Wang Dacuo of Xikao seems to have come from Qingpu. Although it might perhaps be possible that Wuxia Jian’er and Wang Dacuo are the same person, the evidence is very slim. It seems more possible that Wang Dacuo is Wang Ding, but that in itself is not very helpful, since we in the end know more about Wang Dacuo than Wang Ding.365 So I will continue to refer to Wuxia Jian’er by that name, and Wang Dacuo by that name, and distinguish shukao attributed to the one from those attributed to the other. But there is the possibility that there were three Wang Dacuos who were all related, more or less closely, to Xikao: (1) the Wang Dacuo of Xikao, (2) a Wang Dacuo who was a native of Suzhou who published things other than Xikao, and (3) the Wang Dacuo also known as Wang Ding. These three are not necessarily different persons. Perhaps they only reflect three different slices of the career and interests of one person. The first Wang Dacuo was a native of Qingpu 青浦, not far to the west of Shanghai, who called himself Dacuo 大錯366 and Lilao 櫪老367 and published other items under this last name.368 In his shukao, he uses Lilao as a self-reference more often than Dacuo, especially in the later installments. Matsuura Tsuneo has speculated that Dacuo was a penname newly coined for early installments of the Zhonghua Tushu Guan Xikao.369 If so, one can imagine that the pressure to use the new penname would recede with time. In the shukao this Wang Dacuo makes no bones about being a southerner but also talks about going to Beijing in the past and seeing famous actors perform there. The earliest of these “sightings” must have been in 1879 or before, since he says that he saw Cheng Changgeng, who died in that year, perform the play in 365 For instance, although Wang Ding is supposed to be a member of Nanshe, he does not get a biography in Zheng Yimei, Nanshe congtan. 366 For some examples in Xikao shukao attributed to Wang Dacuo of self-references as Dacuo, see p. 524, 943, 962, 1415, 2075, 4757, 5069, and 5551. 367 For some examples in Xikao shukao attributed to Wang Dacuo of self-references as Lilao, see p. 2111, 2171, 2189, 2252, 2283–84, 2331, 2429, 2544, 2629–30, 2635–36, 2689, 2716, 2793– 94, 2837, 2906, 3143, 3488, 3725, 3931, 3937, 4189, 4229, 4400, 4495–96, 4511, 4655. 368 We have noted above that installment 17 of the hardbound Zhonghua Tushu Guan edition of Xikao has an ad for Luchuang qiyu by Lilao of Qingpu. This is a collection of literarylanguage fiction written by Wang Dungen and Chen Diexian previously published in Youxi zazhi and Libai liu. Lilao was just the editor and wrote a short preface (“Bianyan” 弁言) explaining the book’s origin. He signed himself Guran li Lilao 古冉里櫪老 (I have not been able to identify Guran li). Qingpu is also referred to as Zhuxi 珠溪 in connection with this book, which was published by Zhonghua Tushu Guan in October of 1914 and photo-reprinted by Huanan Normal University of Guangzhou in 2008. 369 Matsuura Tsuneo, “Xikao zai Minguo chunian de wenhua diwei,” p. 763.

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question.370 If Wang Dacuo did see Cheng in 1879 and he was twenty years old at the time, then he would have been about fifty-four in 1913, when the first of the Xikao installments whose shukao are attributed to Wang Dacuo appeared. The visits to Beijing apparently continued through the years, with one taking place “last winter.”371 This Wang Dacuo often disparages his own scholarship, but these remarks tend to come when he knows he should research (kao) something about a particular play but is at a loss how to do so.372 He can be quite emotional. He says that while narrating the death of Lin Daiyu 林黛玉 he could not stop his tears,373 and while working on a play about Yue Fei’s unjust death, his hand shook so violently he could not hold his pen.374 Most of the time this Wang Dacuo just claims responsibility for putting together the introductory essays. His favorite term for this is biankao 編考 (edit/compose the [shu]kao),375 but there are instances where he seems to be talking of himself as the editor of Xikao itself or as being responsible for making editorial decisions. For example, in the shukao to play #474 (Xu Mu ma Cao 徐母罵曹 [Xu Shu’s mother curses Cao Cao]) in installment 35 (p. 5197), which appeared in July of 1923, he says: “I, Dacuo, have edited Xikao for almost ten years” 大錯編戲考將十年, and mentions that “for a long time [I] had the desire to buy this playscript [the one the shukao is attached to] but was unable to do so” 久欲購求此腳本而不得. The first installment with Wang’s name on it was installment 3, which came out in October of 1913. On another occasion he talks of his work as bianji xiju 編輯戲劇 (editing plays), in a shukao in which he claims to have the power to exclude from Xikao plays featuring huadan actors 370 See the shukao to Dang Youwang 擋幽王 (Blocking King You; Xikao #371; p. 3643). He also mentions seeing in Beijing performances by Mei Qiaoling 梅巧玲 (1842–1882; miswritten as Mei Qiaolin 梅巧林; p. 2371), Gong Yunfu 龔雲甫 (1862–1932; pp. 3293, 5197), and Liu Gansan 劉趕三 (1817–1894; pp. 962–63 and 3349), but Cheng Changgeng died earlier than they did. 371 See pp. 4579 and 4635, both in installment 31, which, as we have seen above, appeared in 1921 but was considerably delayed (perhaps for as long as two years). 372 For examples see pp. 2331, 2635–36, and 4655, instances where he admits that his “learning” (xueshi 學識; zhishi 知識) is “shallow and vulgar” ( jianlou 簡陋; qianlou 淺陋) before apologizing about not being able to identify an allusion or source for something in the plays. 373 See the shukao to Daiyu fen gao 黛玉焚稿 (Daiyu burns her manuscripts; Xikao #424; p. 4400). 374 See the shukao to Fengbo ting 風波亭 (Wind and Wave Pavilion; Xikao #280; p. 2544). 375 For an example, see p. 3488. In some instances, it is clear that Wang is talking about writing the shukao that the comment appears in. In the shukao to Xunyang lou 潯陽樓 (Xunyang tower; Xikao #225; p. 2111), for example, he uses “Lilao bian ci jukao” 櫪老編 此劇考 ([while] composing the shukao to this play) to preface his reaction to the play’s contents.

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that are too racy.376 The only case in a shukao of the author claiming to have changed anything in a playscript (the kind of work we associate with editing playscripts) occurs in an installment whose shukao are attributed to Wuxia Jian’er.377 In common discourse about Xikao, however, Wang Dacuo is often taken as the work’s editor, pure and simple.378 The second Wang Dacuo was a native of Suzhou, and seems to have been a devotee of fellow Suzhou native Jin Shengtan 金聖嘆 (1608–1661), the famous commentator on the Shuihu zhuan 水滸傳 (The water margin) and Xixiang ji 西廂記 (The western wing). This Wang seems to have agreed with the idea that Jin Shengtan also had something to do with the most famous commentary edition of the Sanguo yanyi 三國演義 (Romance of the Three Kingdoms).379 But instead of imitating Jin’s style of commentary, which emphasized the writing in 376 In the shukao to the huadan play Mai yanzhi 賣胭脂 (Selling rouge; Xikao #408), Wang Dacuo exhorts actors performing this play, “you must by no means, when catering to the desires of society, over describe [the sexual aspects of the play], then that will be okay” 切 勿迎合社會上心理, 形容過甚也可). In the same shukao he also says, “When I, Lilao, edit theater, my main principle has always been to go for what is pure and correct, so that it can be used as an aid to popular education” 櫪老編輯戲劇, 宗旨向取純正, 作為通 俗教育之助. 377 The play is Bai fu wei ji (Xikao #454). The shukao author says (p. 4754) that the original title, Bai xiang qian ji 白相遣姬 (Prime minister Bai [Juyi] sends off his concubine) was inappropriate because Bai Juyi (772–846) never was prime minister. Unfortunately, neither was he ever imperial tutor, as claimed in the changed title. This play appears in installment 32, whose shukao are attributed to Wuxia Jian’er, but as can be seen in the discussion of that installment above, that attribution need not be taken overly seriously. In one of the shukao not attributed to Wuxia Jian’er, the author contemplates editing a play text that is corrupt because of being “copied and recopied” (zhanzhuan chaolu 輾轉 抄錄), but he decides not to because, “as for the melodies of arias, I indeed am lacking in knowledge; all I can do is ‘copy the gourd to make another gourd’ [copy the original exactly], not daring rashly to make changes” 於曲調一節, 實少研究, 祇得依樣葫蘆, 不敢貿然竄易. He continues that if anyone has any questions, they should take them up with a guqu jia, implying that he is not one. Almost every installment of Xikao has the name of a person in charge of checking the arias. Why wasn’t that person consulted? We will see below a different understanding of what that person’s job entailed (the most prominent of the names is Zhang Defu 張德福). 378 Wu Tongbin and Zhou Yaxun, eds., Jingju zhishi cidian (zengding ban), p. 211, in an entry on Xikao, says simply “edited by Wang Dacuo” (Wang Dacuo bian 王大錯編). 379 On Jin Shengtan see Rolston, Traditional Chinese Fiction Commentary, chapters 1 and 2, especially. On a preface to the Mao Lun 毛綸 (1605?–1700?) and Mao Zonggang 毛宗崗 (1632–1709 or later) commentary of the Sanguo yanyi falsely attributed to Jin Shengtan but very influential nonetheless, see p. 43. Wang Dacuo in his edition of Sanguo yanyi follows the practice of calling the Mao commentary on the novel an “external book of [Jin] Shengtan” (Shengtan waishu 聖嘆外書). In his preface to Caizi Du shi jie 才子杜詩 解 (Explanations of the poems of the genius Du Fu), Wang Dacuo lists the Sanguo yanyi preface by Jin Shengtan as one of Jin’s works that is readily available. See the quotation of

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Shuihu zhuan and its literary effects, Wang, like author of the shukao for Xikao, is primarily interested in researching (kao) the origins and sources of elements of the story in an edition of Sanguo yanyi that he published.380 The title of the Sanguo yanyi commentary he wrote is particularly revealing: Kaozheng Sanguo zhi yanyi 考證三國志演義 (Investigations into the sources for The Romance of the Three Kingdoms). The publisher’s page identifies Wang Dacuo as from Suzhou (Wuxian 吳縣), and gives an alternate name for him as Wang Feiwang 王非王.381 In his fanli for the work, which he signed as kaozheng zhe 考證 者 (the researcher), Wang Dacuo claims that the novel is completely based on “orthodox history” (zhengshi 正史; item 1), and in an “abstract” (“Tigang” 提綱) for the work, claims that reading it will be equivalent to reading the canonical history on the period, Chen Shou’s 陳壽 (233–297) Sanguo zhi 三 國志 (Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms), and the novel at the same time. In his preface he says that the problem is that the novel, while very accessible, is scorned by scholars as fiction on the one hand and taken too literally by the people on the other, a situation he hopes to correct with his edition. In the fanli he reserves the right to express his own opinion on things (item 10) as well as investigating sources, but rarely exercises that privilege. In the text of the novel itself, in his Kaozheng Sanguo zhi yanyi Wang Dacuo periodically inserts sections in which he quotes or refers to portions of the novel and discusses the historical sources and background for them. These sections are labeled “Kaozheng” and are indented but printed in characters

the preface in Yang Zichen 楊子沈, Jin Shengtan quanzhuan 金聖嘆全傳 (The complete biography of Jin Shengtan; Changchun: Changchun chubanshe, 1998), pp. 288–89. 380 In one of the shukao for Xikao comments on the literary quality of a play text use terminology favored by Jin Shengtan and other pingdian commentators on fiction. In the shukao for Tiannü sanhua (Xikao #485), p. 5372, the author comments on the literary qualities of the script in a way that sets it apart from ordinary Jingju playscripts: “From this you can see that playscripts composed by famous literary men will necessarily have fine literary organization, as distinct from ordinary [ones]” 即此可見名手所編劇本, 畢竟有文法, 異於尋常也. 381 The edition I have seen is Quantu Kaozheng Sanguo zhi yanyi 全圖考證三國志演義 (Fully illustrated Investigations into the sources for The Romance of the Three Kingdoms; Shanghai: Dongfang tushu guan, 1928). Despite the title, there are no illustrations, even though they are mentioned in Xu Heling’s 徐鶴齡 preface. According to the publisher’s page, the book was available as twelve paperback volumes for five yuan or as three hardbound volumes for seven yuan. In his preface, signed Dacuo, Wang apologizes that he himself does not own many books ( jia xian cangshu 家鮮藏書) and welcomes corrections. According to Minguo shiqi zong shumu (1911–1949): Wenxue lilun, shijie wenxue, Zhongguo wenxue, 2: 686, item 08377, there was a different 1928 edition from Baixin Gongsi 百新公 司 and a 1933 one from Dazhong Shuju 大眾書局, both of Shanghai and both illustrated.

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of the same size as the text of the novel.382 Wang’s project is not purely academic, however. In his preface, he begins by claiming that the particular characteristics (texing 特性) and level of patriotism (aiguo xin 愛國心) of a nation’s citizens are directly related to their “historical consciousness” (lishi guannian 歷史觀念). He praises the Germans and Japanese as having a deep historical consciousness and strong sense of patriotism and faults Indians for lacking these, saying that India has “lost the prerequisites of being a nation” 失其國家 資格 and warning that China is in danger of suffering India’s fate. The shukao in Xikao often show a deep familiarity with the text of Sanguo zhi yanyi,383 but that would not be unusual, since even many actors were said to be well versed in it; at least one shukao simply refers the reader to the novel for a plot detail.384 The Wang Dacuo who was so interested in Jin Shengtan also published a punctuated edition of the Xixiang ji and edited a collection of Jin’s comments on Du Fu’s (712–770) poetry. In the preface to the former dated 1913, he signs himself as Wang Dacuo of Suzhou (Wumen 吳門).385 He justifies using modern punctuation because without it the play cannot circulate broadly (puji 普及) despite the beauty of its language. He acknowledges that Xixiang ji deals with “romantic love” 兒女香艷之文情, but claims that the play is really a medium for transmitting “the highest truths of Zen enlightenment” 禪宗覺悟之至理 and that the purpose is to “punish [evil] and exhort [goodness]” (chengquan 懲勸). In his 1919 preface to the volume on Du Fu’s poetry with Jin Shengtan’s commentary, Caizi Du shi jie 才子杜詩解 (Explanations of the poems of the genius Du Fu),386 Wang says that ever since his hair was bound up (shufa 束髮) as a child he loved to read Jin Shengtan’s commentaries, but was disappointed that only the ones on Shuihu zhuan and Xixiang ji were available. He was convinced that Jin had also done a commentary on Du Fu’s poems and searched for twenty years before finding out that although Jin never finished that project he had completed a certain amount and his comments were still extant. Wang claims that in moving from fiction to drama to poetry, Jin Shengtan had begun at the bottom and was working his way to the top (zi xia er shang 自下

382 The Maos’ interlineal commentary, on the other hand, is printed in small characters. 383 For example, see the shukao to the third and fourth episodes of Qu Nanjun (Xikao #510; p. 5759). 384 See the shukao to San jieyi 三結義 (Three swear brotherhood; Xikao #391; p. 3937). 385 The preface is reproduced in Wu Yuhua, ed., Zhongguo gudai xiqu xuba ji, pp. 658–59. The book is identified there as having the full title of Wang Dacuo jiaodian Xixiang ji 王大錯 校點西廂記 (The western wing punctuated by Wang Dacuo). The publisher is given as Wenyuan Shuju 文淵書局. The preface is dated to 1914. 386 Caizi Du shi jie was published by Zhenhua Shuju 振華書局 of Shanghai in 1919.

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而上).387 Unfortunately, in the recent reprinting of the book, Wang’s preface,

which is only dated with a cyclical date, is misdated to 1679 (less than twenty years after Jin Shengtan’s death, among other problems).388 This Wang Dacuo does not seem to share the same native place with the first one, but seems to have shared an interest in “research” (kao) with him. When we turn to our third Wang Dacuo, the one also named Wang Ding, it is possible that “they” have a connection with Fujian, since both are listed as editors of collections of letters from natives of Pucheng, a city in the northern part of that province.389 These collections are both dated to the Guangxu period, which would make them the earliest publications by Wang known to me. This Wang Dacuo was involved in editing or writing material for newspaper supplements and periodicals edited by Wang Dungen and published by Shenbao Guan or Zhonghua Tushu Guan, including the “Ziyou tan” supplement to Shenbao,390 Ziyou zazhi (which reprinted a lot of material from the former), Youxi zazhi (which continued the former), and Libai liu.391 This Wang is said to have been on the editorial staff of Youxi zazhi and to have had his photo appear among those of the editorial staff of that periodical,392 but that is not true.393 His calligraphy, however, is featured very prominently in

387 As noted above, the preface is available in Yang Zichen, Jin Shengtan quanzhuan, pp. 288–89. 388 For the misdating of the preface in the reprint see Zhong Laitian 鍾來田, ed., Du shi jie 杜詩解 (Explanations of Du Fu’s poetry; Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 1984), “Qianyan” 前言 (Preface), p. 6. Yang Zichen, Jin Shengtan quanzhuan, p. 289, also dates the preface to 1679. Years were dated according to a cycle that repeats every sixty years. Between 1679 and 1919 the same cyclical date could also point to 1739, 1799, and 1859. On this issue, see Zhang Guoguang 張國光, Gudian wenxue lunzheng ji 古典文學論爭集 (Collection of articles on contentious issues in classical Chinese literature; Wuhan: Wuhan chubanshe, 1987), p. 324. 389 See Nanping shi guji wenxian lianhe mulu 南平市古籍文獻聯合目錄 (A comprehensive list of writing related to Nanping city [in Fujian]; Fuzhou: Sheying yishu, 2006), p. 282. Both works share the same title, Chidu hanhai 尺牘函海 (Sea of letters). 390 Zheng Yimei 鄭逸梅, Yihai yishao xubian 藝海一勺續編 (Continuation of A Dipperful of the Arts; Tianjin: Tianjin guji, 1996), pp. 72 and 85, lists Wang Dacuo among the contributors to “Ziyou tan.” 391 On Wang Ding and Wang Dacuo and Libai liu, see above. On Wang Dacuo providing calligraphy for the cover of Libai liu after issue 71, see Zheng Yimei, Yihai yishao xubian, p. 61. 392 See Zheng Yimei, Yihai yishao xubian, p. 86, for this claim. 393 Both issues of Ziyou zazhi have pictures of what are most certainly contributors to the magazine, but of those pictured (not all are men), only Tong Ailou 童愛樓 is identified as involved in the editing (his name is also listed as editor on the publication page of both issues). Wang Dungen is only identified as the editor of “Ziyou tan.” Neither set of photos has a general caption at its head, so it is not correct to think they picture the editorial staff. Instead, in the table of the contents for both issues, the section with the photos is named

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both it and Youxi zazhi. These magazines are both divided into sections, listed in the table of contents of each issue, that are prefaced with a sheet having nothing but the section title in different styles of calligraphy, signed by the calligrapher. The vast majority of the calligraphy is by Wang Dacuo, who signs himself variously as Wang Feiwang of Wuxian, Dacuo, and Feiwang in Ziyou zazhi, and as Wang Ding of Wuxia, Dacuo Wang Ding, Feiwang, Dacuo, and Wang Feiwang of Wuxia in Youxi zazhi. This Wang Dacuo contributed to a new version of the oldest Chinese dictionary, Shuowen jiezi 說文解字 (Explaining single-component graphs and analyzing compound characters),394 and thus it seems likely that he is the same Wang Dacuo who published an essay on the origin of Chinese characters.395 In the dictionary, Wang Dacuo/​Wang Ding is also identified as a native of Wuxia 吳下.396 A Wang Dacuo (information often is not sufficient to decide which of the three) was also involved in publishing a variety of books in Shanghai in the 1910s and 1920s (but also one as late as 1941). These include editing collections

“Zhu wenjia xiaoxiang” 諸文家肖像 (Portraits of the writers). Wang does not have a picture in either photo section (nor in Youxi zazhi). He does have a piece entitled “Zhutou shan shuo” 豬頭山說 (On Pig’s head mountain), signed Dacuo, in the “Youxi wenzhang” 游戲文章 (Entertainment writing) section of the first issue (pp. 35–36). As mentioned above, “Youxi wenzhang” was the name of the first column in “Ziyou tan” when Wang Dungen was editing it. 394 See Beijing tushu guan putong guji zongmu 北京圖書館普通古籍總目 (Complete catalogue of the ordinary traditional texts held in the Beijing Library), Dishi juan: Wenzi xuemen 第十卷: 文字學門 (Volume 10: Study of Chinese characters; Beijing: Shumu wenxian, 1995), p. 58, item 0689. The title is given as Xinti Shuowen da zidian 新體說文大 字典 (New format Shuowen jiezi dictionary). WorldCat lists such a book (Shanghai: Qiugu zhai shutie ju, 1931), but gives Japanese Romanization of the title because the only holding is in the Diet Library in Japan. 395 The essay is titled “Wenzi yuanliu kao” 文字源流考 (Research into the origins and development of Chinese characters) and was appended to Chen Hexiang 陳和祥, Zhen cao li zhuan siti da zidian 真草隸篆四體大字典 (A dictionary of Chinese characters in four writing styles; Shanghai: Saoye shanfang, 1929). See Liang Xinyi 梁信義 and Li Zhongcheng 李鍾誠, eds., Wen shi gongju shu 200 zhong 文史工具書 200 種 (200 kinds of reference books for literature and history; Harbin: Heilongjiang jiaoyu, 1986), p. 72. See the next note for the identification of this Wang Dacuo as Wang Ding. Since it was the same publishing house, Saoye Shufang of Shanghai, that advertised that it had published a Shufa zhinan 書法指南 (Guide to calligraphy) by Wang Dacuo in 1921, we can assume that this Wang Dacuo is also Wang Ding. 396 On the first page of each juan 卷 (chapter) after the first juan one of Shuowen da zidian 說文大字典, according to the 1980 Tianjin Guji Shudian 天津古籍書店 reprint, Wang Ding is identified as Wang Dacuo and his native place is given as Wuxia.

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of Zheng Xie’s 鄭燮 (1693–1765) writings397 and of court case stories,398 and writing prefaces for a novel about the loss of Korea to the Japanese,399 a novel about the Taiping rebellion published by Zhonghua Tushu Guan,400 a collection of short jottings-type fiction,401 and a collection of Kunqu aria scores.402 It is most likely that all three (or four) of these Wang Dacuos are the same man. Not only do they share one name (Wang Dacuo), but the second and third Wang Dacuos also share a second name, Wang Feiwang. The major problem is that the native place of the first Wang Dacuo was Qingpu, the second one Wuxian, and the third variously Wuxia or Huai’an. 397 See Minguo shiqi zong shumu (1911–1949): Wenxue lilun, shijie wenxue, Zhongguo wenxue, p. 1259, item 15923. The book is titled Pingzhu duanju Zheng Banqiao jiashu 評註斷句鄭 板橋家書 (Commented and punctuated Zheng Banqiao’s letters home), published by Jianwen Shushe 建文書社 of Shanghai in 1926. 398 Jindai qi’an xinbian 近代奇案新編 (Newly edited modern court cases; Shanghai: Baixin shuju, 1941). 399 The novel is Yingxiong fuchou ji 英雄復仇記 (The revenge of the heroes), written by Yang Chenyin 楊塵因 (?–1961) and published by Yixin shushe 益新書社 in 1929. See Hua Sen 華森 and Wen Rong 文熔, eds., Zhongguo gong’an wuxia xiaoshuo jianshang daguan 中國公案武俠小說鑒賞大觀 (Grand compendium for the appreciation of Chinese court case and martial arts novels; Beijing: Zhongguo lüyou, 1994), p. 347. 400 Titled Hong Yang yanyi 洪楊演義 (Hong Xiuquan and Yang Xiuqing), it was written by Chen Yemei 陳也梅 and published by Zhonghua Tushu Guan in 1920 and reprinted in 1924. See Minguo shiqi zong shumu (1911–1949): Wenxue lilun, shijie wenxue, Zhongguo wenxue, p. 723, item 08907. The 1920 reprint of installment 17 of Xikao in the microfilm that includes the Shenbao Guan version of the first installment contains an ad for this novel that stresses the photographic portraits included in the novel and the idea that it can be compared to the Sanguo yanyi. 401 Zhang Jing’an 張靜庵, ed., Xixia ge yesheng 棲霞閣野乘 (Notes from Xixia belvedere; Shanghai: Zhonghua shuju, 1913). See Minguo shiqi zong shumu (1911–1949): Wenxue lilun, shijie wenxue, Zhongguo wenxue, p. 665, item 08113. 402 The collection, Kunqu cuicun 崑曲粹存 (Preservation of the best of Kunqu), was compiled by the Kunshan Guoyue Baocun Hui 崑山國樂保存會 (Kunshan society for the preservation of national music) and published by Chaoji Shuzhuang 潮記書莊 in Shanghai in 1919. The title page dates the collection to 1911, but in his preface, dated 1919, Wang says that editorial work continued from then until his writing of the preface. Wang praises Kunqu as “the most central and correct prime sounds of China for the last three hundred plus years” 吾中國三百數十年來, 大中至正之元音, and claims that Kunqu has risen and fallen in tandem with China’s fortunes. He praises the work of the society on the scores and the “research and correction” (kaozheng 考正) involved, and the scores themselves as “complete without gaps, not to be spoken of in the same year with ordinary commercial scores with their patched together and miscellaneous nature” 完成無缺, 非 坊間尋常曲譜, 剽散零亂者, 所可同年而語, but admits he is “incompetent when it comes to music” 不能音律. On this collection of Kunqu scores, see the entry on it in Wu Xinlei, ed., Zhongguo Kunju da cidian, p. 900 (where the title is given as Kunqu cuicheng 崑曲粹成).

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Wang Dungen, as we have seen, is credited in the installments, and in some of the prefatory material for Xikao, as the general editor for Xikao.403 We have also seen that he was a busy and influential writer and editor in the early years of the Republic. Before the 1911 revolution that overthrew the Manchus, Wang ran a newspaper, Zizhi xunbao 自治旬報 (Self-government thrice-monthly), in his native Qingpu. This brought him to the attention of his fellow Qingpu native, Xi Zipei 席子佩 (1867–1929), who was running Shenbao. Xi hired Wang to inaugurate and edit a new supplement for the paper, “Ziyou tan,” which began to appear on August 24, 1911. He continued to edit the supplement until early in 1915, when he either resigned in a disagreement with the paper over the “21 Demands” imposed on China by Japan404 or just decided his magazine projects were successful enough.405 We have mentioned some of the periodicals he edited or co-edited for Zhonghua Tushu Guan, especially Libai liu.406 He also co-edited two other periodicals with Liu Huogong 劉豁公 (c. 1890–1969+),407

403 Whereas reference works and scholars tend to attribute the authorship of Xikao to Wang Dacuo, perhaps because his voice, in all of those shukao, comes through the loudest, some not connected with the project called Wang Dungen the editor of Xikao. In the catalogue for the Guoju Xuehui, for instance, the latter Wang is given as the editor. See Fu Xihua, Beiping guoju xuehui tushu guan shumu, zhongjuan 中卷, p. 5 (Qi Rushan, Qi Rushan quanji, 5: 3217). Incidentally, what the Guoju Xuehui possessed at the time seems to have been volumes 1, 3, and 5 of the Zhonghua Tushu Guan hardbound set. 404 He announced his decision in issue 44 of Libai liu (April 3,1915). For the idea that there was a dispute between him and the managers of Shenbao, see Luan Meijian, “Libai liu pai da benying de zhongyao yingzao zhe,” p. 213. 405 See Lee, “ ‘A Dimestore of Words,’ ” p. 54, which cites Link, Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies, p. 165. 406 One can get a sense of his investment of time in Xikao versus Libai liu by noting that he once used busyness in connection with Libai liu as an excuse for missing the deadline for an installment of a tanci he was writing and publishing in Youxi zazhi while he never made such a claim with respect to his editorial work on Xikao. The notice appears where the installment would have in issue 5 of the magazine, after the two chuanqi installments. 407 On Liu, see the item on him in Ma Shaobo et al., eds., Zhongguo Jingju baike quanshu, p. 527. On the idea that he was still alive in 1969, see Cao Guanli 曹官力, “Jindai Shanghai piaojie de shengcheng” 近代上海票界的生成 (The birth of amateur opera singing circles in early modern Shanghai), Xiju yanjiu 戲劇研究 9 (2012): 53 n. 41. A photo of him dressed to play a laosheng part appears in the illustrations and photos section of Zhou Jianyun, ed., Jubu congkan.

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both of which published fiction.408 Wang was also a pretty good cartoonist.409 He was asked rather regularly to write prefaces for books, and these include at least two books on theater.410 Baibi congshu 百弊叢書 (Collectanea of the various [social] maladies), which Wang edited in 1919, contains sections on the maladies to be found in the operation of theaters and entertainments centers and complaints about actors.411 One of Wang Dungen’s biographers describes traditional Chinese theater as something he became more interested in later in life,412 and in his oft-quoted or referenced announcement of the inauguration of Libai liu he disparages traditional theater (xiqu) as noisy (xuanxiao 喧囂) and claims that whereas there are people who don’t like to “watch theater” (guqu 顧曲) “there has never been anyone who doesn’t like to read fiction” 未有不愛讀小說者.413 Even so, for some years before writing that piece he had been a director (paixi 排 戲) and stage manager (zhichang 值場) of a theater group whose members 408 These were Xinsheng 心聲 (Sound of the heart), published from December 1922 to August 1924, and Shuobu jingying 說部精英 (The best of fiction), published from 1925– 1926. See Luan Jianmei, “Libai liu pai da benying de zhongyao yingzao zhe,” p. 214. Both Liu and Wang were members of the Nanshe. Among other writers, Xinsheng published works by Sun Yusheng under the penname Haishang sushi sheng 海上漱石生. Liu Huogong’s image appears on page 3 of the photo section of Youxi zazhi’s first issue. Wang Dungen and Chen Diexian were honorary editors of Xianshi leyuan ribao 先施樂園日報 (Xianshi pleasure garden newspaper), a periodical published from August 9, 1918 to the spring of 1927. See Zhongguo jindai wenxue daxi: Shiliao suoyin ji er, pp. 264–66. 409 For example, see his cartoon of a woman kicking a policeman that appeared in the Shenbao “Ziyou tan” supplement on March 30, 1912 (see the Shanghai Shudian reprint, 116: 754). Barbara Mittler has also reproduced it in A Newspaper for China, p. 305. Another shows a painted-face role sticking a spear into a clown actor’s head, in the July 16, 1912 issue of the Shenbao (Shanghai Shudian reprint, 118: 159). 410 These are the already mentioned Jubu congkan, and in Liu Da 劉達 (Liu Huogong 劉豁 公) and Kuhai yusheng 苦海餘生, eds., Xiju daguan 戲劇大觀 (Grand prospect of theater), both published by Jiaotong Tushu Guan 交通圖書館 of Shanghai in 1918. 411 Baibi congshu 百弊叢書 (Collectanea of the various [social] maladies; Shanghai: Zhonghua tushu jicheng gongsi, 1919). In Wang’s preface he notes that being very busy he did very little of the editing himself, instead farming out the work to associates. The section on theaters, for instance, was actually edited by Liu Huogong. The book has been published in a repackaged, modernized form as Baibi fangyan 百弊放言 (Unrestrained speech on various [social] maladies; Beijing: Dazhong wenyi, 2003). For how the worst problem in the theaters is the performance of lewd plays, how prohibited plays are still performed in the concessions in Shanghai by changing their names, a list of eight things actors do to bedevil their fellow actors during performances, and the idea that actors are unable to accommodate others because they come from poor households and lack education, see pp. 233, 235, and 237 of Baibi fangyan. 412 Luan Meijian, “Libai liu pai da benying de zhongyao yingzao zhe,” p. 215. 413 Wang Dungen, “Libai liu chuban zhuiyan.”

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typically performed for free.414 The photo section of issue 1 (page 5) of Youxi zazhi includes a photo of Wang “collaboratively performing” (heyan 合演) a new-style play (xinju). But he did not have the best opinion of ordinary actors, whose knowledge he called “ossified” (chenjiu 陳舊).415 Besides the names of Wuxia Jian’er, Wang Dacuo, and Wang Dungen, there are six other persons whom Xikao credits for work on the collection. Collation work ( jiaoding 校訂) is attributed to a Suichu 燧初 (for installments 1–2, 4–5, 7–8, 10–32, and 39), a Suichu 遂初 (installment 40), and a Zhenzhi 振支 (installments 6 and 9). The two Suichu presumably point to the same person. Matsuura Tsuneo has speculated that perhaps Songbin and Suichu are the same person, since the former is supposed to have collated the Shenbao Guan version of the first installment and the latter to have done so for the Zhonghua Tushu Guan version of that installment. Matsuura also suggests that Zhenzhi is Zhang Zhaolin 張兆琳, also known as Zhang Zhenzhi 張振之, who appears in the same photo of the editorial staff of issue 38 of Libai liu that Wang Ding/ Wang Dacuo does.416 He was also the author of a book on contemporary Chinese society.417 We do not know what kind of collation work Suichu and Zhenzhi are supposed to have done, since the texts do not show much evidence of having been collated or edited. There are three names, Defu 德福 (installments 4–12), Zhiqiang 志強 (installments 16–31), and Zhihao 志豪 (installments 37, 39–40), to whom “rectification of arias” (zhengqu 正曲) is attributed in Xikao (installments 1–3, 13–15, 32–36, and 38 have no attributions). Defu is certainly Zhang Defu, whose photo appears as the last one in installment 4 (the first installment to include his name on the first page of the playscripts) with the caption, “Rectifier of 414 See the December 12, 1913 Shenbao item, Kang Da 康達, “Ziyou wutai chongding jianzhang guanggao” 自由舞臺重訂簡章廣告 (Announcement that the “Free Stage” has revised their bylaws), in Cai Shicheng, ed., Shenbao Jingju ziliao xuanbian, pp. 166–67. Several items in the bylaws distance the practice of this group from how things were usually done. These reforms include allowing both men and women to join (but not to perform together on stage), no difference in treatment between star actors and extras, and performing only new or newly-revised plays. 415 See comments Wang appended to a March 30, 1913 Shenbao item, Xuanlang 玄郎, “Xinxin wutai yan Song Jiaoren yuhai” 新新舞臺演宋教仁遇害 (New New Stage performs “The Assassination of Song Jiaoren”), in Cai Shicheng, ed., Shenbao Jingju ziliao xuanbian, p. 121, where he objects to professional actors trying to impersonate the recently assassinated Song Jiaoren 宋教仁 (1882–1913). 416 Matsuura Tsuneo, “Xikao zai Minguo chunian de wenhua diwei,” p. 767. In the photo in Libai liu, Zhang Zhaolin is standing behind Wang Dungen. 417 Zhang Zhenzhi 張振之, Muqian Zhongguo shehui de bingtai 目前中國社會的病態 (The abnormal state of Chinese society today; Shanghai: Minzhi shuju, 1929).

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arias for Xikao, Zhang Defu” 本考正曲者張德福.418 He also stands out because the last pages of the fourth and fifth volumes of the Zhonghua Tushu Guan hardbound set of installments 1–20 and some separately published installments, either when initially published or reprinted, contain an ad for him titled “Introducing music teacher Zhang Defu” (“Jieshao qushi Zhang Defu” 介紹曲師張德福).419 In this ad he is described as a famous teacher who was once a member of the Dangui Teahouse troupe in Shanghai, who became so busy teaching that he had no time to continue with the troupe. The ad claims that he can teach all role-types and is unequaled in Shanghai for having taught countless students, some of whom became professional actors and have been welcomed by audiences. The ad continues that those who are infatuated with theater (pi’ai xiju 癖愛戲劇) themselves or are guardians of younger persons whom they would like to take up the profession, can get in touch with Zhang at a certain address or through Zhonghua Tushu Guan. There is also a 1924 book on how to learn Jingju that he dictated.420 Zheng Yimei 鄭逸梅 (1895–1992) even claims that Zhang was central to the whole Xikao project: There was also Xikao, published by Zhonghua Tushu Guan. The general manager of the press, Ye Jiuru, invited Zhang Defu to write out each play text, and would pay him per play. It so happened that Zhang was originally a singer of painted-face roles, and it was after his voice changed that he began to make money in this way. Wang Dacuo edited and arranged the play texts, until forty-plus installments appeared. This is the source of the Da xikao of the present day. Each installment sold for two and onehalf jiao. I used to have a complete set, but lost it in the process of moving house, which is a great pity. 其他尚有戲考, 中華圖書館出版, 由該館經理葉九如, 請張德福把每個戲 本寫出來, 按 本給以酬勞. 原來張是唱花臉的, 倒嗓後才做這玩藝兒, 王

418 The photo is reproduced in volume 11 of the Liren Shuju edition of Xikao, on p. 30 of the photo section. 419 This ad also appears in the reproductions of installments 11, 13, 18–19, 21–22, and 24 in the microfilm that includes the Shenbao Guan version of installment 1. The versions of installments 11, 19, and 21 are reprints. 420 Zhang Defu, dictated, Hu Hanzhu et al., recorded, Xuexi baifa. Chen Jie, Minguo xiqu shi nianpu, p. 86, says that Zhang and Hu collaborated in the same way to write Jingxi gongche zhinan 京戲工尺指南 (A guide to the gongche musical notation system for Jingju), and that Zhang wrote another on his own, Changxi zhinan 唱戲指南 (A guide to singing plays), all published by the same press in the same year.

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This is an interesting story, one that resonates with the special treatment given Zhang in Xikao.422 But it can’t be corroborated and the picture of Zhang writing out the playscripts does not accord with the facts, that books under his name were dictated and his name does not appear anywhere in the early installments of Xikao. Of the other names, Zhiqiang 志強 and Zhihao 志豪, in the table of contents of Xikao separately published by Zhonghua Tushu Guan, Xikao quanmu, a photo in installment 15 is identified as “Ben kao bianji Zhao Zhiqiang” 本考編 輯趙志強 (editor of this publication [i.e., member of the editorial staff], Zhao Zhiqiang). The photo’s caption says only “Amateur actor Yingyi sheng’s portrayal of Huang Zhong” (Piaoyou Yingyisheng zhi shi Huang Zhong 票友應宜 生之飾黃忠). It seems, therefore, that Zhiqiang is Zhao Zhiqiang, but nothing more is known of him to me. I think it possible that Zhihao is Xu Zhihao 許志 豪, co-editor of Fengqin huqin Jingdiao qupu daguan, Xixue huikao, and Jingxi luogu mijue 京戲鑼鼓秘訣 (Secret oral formulas for the percussion music of Jingju; 1928). The shukao, most written by Wang Dacuo, show concern about some of the less easily defended aspects of the plays selected for inclusion in Xikao. Many of the problems singled out as concerns are precisely the kinds of things that got plays banned under the Qing, the Republic, the Guomingdang in Taiwan, and the Communists in the PRC: sex, dodgy morality, and superstition, but it is only in the case of sex (more specifically huadan plays, as we saw above) that there is any evidence of attempts by the shukao writers themselves to censor the plays. By my count, 116 Xikao plays have significant sexual content, most of it illicit in some fashion or other. The most common way of dealing with this in the shukao is to present this material as cautionary.423 The hope is expressed 421 Zheng Yimei 鄭逸梅, Zheng Yimei xuanji 鄭逸梅選集 (Harbin: Heilongjiang renmin, 1991), p. 755. 422 As noted above, one of the Jingju playscripts included in Youxi zazhi, Wujia po, is attributed to Zhang Defu and its text there and that for the same play in Xikao (#75) are the same. The Xikao installment the playscript appears in was published in the same month as the issue of Youxi zashi, and was also the first installment to list [Zhang] Defu’s name as part of the production staff. 423 The plays’ treatments of sexual indulgence and its consequences are “a great caution” (dajie 大戒, p. 5609), an “awakening” ( juexing 覺醒, p. 2115; huanxing 喚醒, p. 5821), and a “warning to the world” ( jingshi 警世, p. 1161).

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that “viewers will savor what happens to them [the illicit lovers] and not mistake [their love as] divine love” 觀者味其結果, 而勿誤為神聖之愛情 (p. 1191). While the writer of a shukao can recognize that it is natural for a young man to be moved by beauty (p. 4189) and express sympathy for a loss of propriety in the face of temptation (p. 2165), sexual segregation of the traditional kind (nan nü bu qin shoushou 男女不親授受 [no direct contact between males and females]) is upheld as the best way to avoid trouble.424 Displeasure with “the present fashion for freedom” (ziyou zhi feng 自由之風中) is expressed, and a young man who flirts heavily with a young woman running a shop is said to have “been poisoned by freedom” (zhong ziyou zhi du 自由之毒; p. 4189). Another way that sex is handled in the shukao is to focus on how actors realize the parts. Actors who “portray [sexuality] to too great a degree” (xingrong tai guo 形容太過; p. 1864) are condemned, while those who “portray [sexuality] just right” (xingrong de qia dao haochu 形容得恰到好處; p. 3059 [here the actor involved is Mei Lanfang]) are praised. Shukao authors often seem to be quite embarrassed by the amount of “superstition” (mixin 迷信) in the plays.425 Anti-superstition campaigns would only get stronger as the century went on, culminating in the widespread mobilization of a variety of resources in the PRC, but superstition was already seen as a major obstacle to progress when Xikao was being published. As befits someone writing in the early years of the Republic, Wang Dacuo is basically opposed to superstition, associating it with “ignorant men and women” (yufu yufu 愚夫愚婦; p. 4093) and “a past era of superstition” (cong­ qian mixin shidai 從前迷信時代, p. 5493). He praises the anti-superstition play Tongnü zhan she 童女斬蛇 (The maiden decapitates the snake; Xikao #405) as “a staff brought upside the head” (dangtou banghe 當頭棒喝) of “ordinary believers in superstition” (yiban mixin jia 一般迷信家), “whose sight will cause awareness” (chumu jingxin 触目警心) and “clear away harmful customs” (pochu wuyi zhi jixi 破除無益之積習; p. 4111). But there is the problem that the plays selected for Xikao are generally full of “superstition” and unlike later regimes, Wang Dacuo is not willing to edit out the superstitious parts.426 While he can 424 This is based on a famous saying in Mencius IVA.17, nan nü shoushou bu qin 男女授受 不親. 425 Definitions of what is superstitious and what is not are of course quite subjective, and change with time. Wang Dacuo, for instance, says of the content of one play that “those in the know” (shizhe 識者) will laugh at certain aspects of it as “superstitious and baseless” (mixin wuji 迷信無稽), but if you look up the material in a certain book, you will find that “all of the things really happened” ( jun you qi shi 均有其事; p. 5334). 426 For instance, the Guomindang-sponsored Xiuding Pingju xuan versions of Fenhe wan and Ku zumiao 哭祖廟 (Crying in the imperial shrine) cut supernatural material that appears

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be critical of the government’s use of superstition to instill fear to make people behave (shendao shejiao 神道设教; p. 4093), he often uses very similar language to talk of a supposedly moral intention behind the inclusion of supernatural material when justifying its presence in a play (e.g., p. 303). He blames some of the superstition in plays on the influence of Empress Dowager Cixi and the palace (pp. 5333, 5493), trivializes it by calling it “window dressing” (dianzhui 點綴; pp. 3764, 4544) or “funny” (huaji 滑稽; p. 5683), and even uses the tack employed so prominently in the PRC of valorizing “good [or at least non-harmful] superstition” by calling it “mythology” (shenhua 神話; p. 5459). Most interestingly, perhaps, is his claim that even the plays of European countries deal with the supernatural, and that the more developed science, stage mechanics, and scenery have gotten, the more appropriate it is to stage “plays about the supernatural” (shenguai xi 神怪戲; p. 5494). The shukao do not seem to be very concerned about one category of objectionable material that often enough called down censorship: crudity of events and language. While there is no lack of crude events427 or language428 onstage in the Xikao versions of them (plays #324 and 430; see the “Xiuding jingguo” essays for each, 6: 51 and 12: 40, respectively), and the supposedly “faithful” and “conservative” PRC Jingju huibian series cuts superstitious material from its version of Shuang he yin 雙和印 (The double matching of the chop; Xikao #342). 427 E.g., hiding in the privy and pretending to take a dump (p. 2953), squatting and peeing (p. 3351), putting a dead illegitimate baby in a chamber pot (p. 3556), boiling a cut-off head (p. 4213), having hands and feet cut off (p. 5252), having one’s intestines torn out and wrapping them around yourself so that you can keep on fighting (p. 5519), bringing parts from a bone marrow operation out on stage (p. 5824), and cutting flesh off one’s arm (not the buttock, at least) for use in medicine (p. 5872). Of course, since the stage is basically empty and stage actions are more symbolic than realistic, what happens there would generally be less crude than what reading the playscript alone would prompt one to imagine. On how the play with the intestines, Jiepai guan 界牌關 (Safe-conduct Pass Pass; Xikao #494), also known as Panchang zhan 盤腸戰 (Fighting with one’s intestines wrapped around one), was later cleaned up, see Tao Junqi, Jingju jumu chutan, p. 146. Emblematic of how most anything goes in the Reform Period, a performance of the play, intestines and all, was part of a contest for young actors held in 2000–2001 and made available on VCD by Beijing Botong Dianzi Chubanshe 北京伯通電子出版社 (no date). 428 E.g., talk of fucking (cao 肏, p. 2529), motherfucking/motherfuckers (tama de 他媽的, p. 2372; taniang de 他娘的, p. 3501; cao ni ge niang 肏你個娘, p. 3862), students talking of fucking their teacher’s wife and their teacher’s anus (cao shiniang 肏師娘 and cao xiansheng piyan 肏先生屁眼; p. 5077), anuses (pigu yan 屁股眼, p. 2327), pricks ( jiba 雞 巴, p. 2759), twats (bi 毛 radical plus 必 phonetic, p. 2809), and calling oneself Ms. Shit of Shitgate (Fenmen Shi-shi 糞門屎氏, p. 2812). Some of this gets “cleaned up” in the Guoju dacheng versions (e.g., on p. 2809 “twat” appears in chousao bi yangde 臭騷 [mistake for 臊?] 毛 radical 必 phonetic 養的; raised by a stinking twat], which is changed in Guoju dacheng, 9: 462, to chou yinfu yangde 臭淫婦養的 [raised by a stinking slut]).

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in the plays included in Xikao, the shukao make no comment on the former and the only remark on the latter is rather approving.429 The shukao show perhaps unexpected respect for the accomplishments of actresses430 but also a kind of horror at the notion of actors and actresses performing together (p. 635) and a low opinion of women as consumers of theater (generally lumping them together with children as the only audience for passé and gimmicky performances; see pp. 1586, 1713, and 1888). The shukao are critical, as we have seen, of “freedom” in general, and also critical of superficial and fashionable notions of “women’s liberation” ( funü jiefang 婦女解放; p. 5039), and what is seen as the misuse of the discourse of “ ‘freedom and equality’ (ziyou pingdeng 自由平等; p. 2931) of the sexes” since the founding of the Republic. Be that as it may be, shukao can also be supportive of women that it considers to be truly liberated (p. 5039) and can even speak of men being supportive of women’s liberation (p. 4757).431 While we have seen that there is a lot of sympathy in the shukao for the idea of using plays to reform the nation as instanced, for example, in the practice of including the plays of the Yisu She in Xikao, there is no real evidence that this was a strong concern underlying the compilation of the collection. The final point of view of the shukao seems to be that the plays are entertainment, that they are in the end fictional, and that it is okay to consume them as such despite the shukao authors’ passion for tracking down the “facts” behind the plays. Both Wuxia Jian’er and Wang Dacuo use a favorite saying of Su Shi’s based on the Zhuangzi, gu wang ting zhi 姑妄聽之 ([why don’t we] for the moment recklessly listen to it [as if it were true])432 to say that there is no harm in suspending disbelief and enjoying the plays, at least for the moment.433 429 See the shukao to Zijing shu 紫荊樹 (The Chinese redbud tree; Xikao #254; p. 2325), which says, “In the language [of this play] there is crudity and vulgarity, but those places are precisely where it shines and is most fitting” 辭句間粗俗鄙俚, 即其出色當行處. 430 Actresses are praised as having been able to attain the secrets (sanmei 三昧) of Tan Xinpei (p. 391) or being able to carry on the art of Wang Xiaonong (p. 4503), two artists who are highly regarded in the shukao. 431 Guoju dacheng, 7: 11, makes use of the play summary from the shukao for Bai fu wei ji (#454) but deletes language in it about women’s liberation. On the “modern” in Xikao, see Lu Dawei, “Xikao zhong de xiandai yishi.” 432 In its fuller form, gu wang ting zhi is preceded by a parallel phrase, gu wang yan zhi 姑妄 言之, in which the verb “to listen” is now “to speak.” On the background of the saying, see Zhu Zuyan 朱組延, Yinyong yu cidian 引用語辭典 (A dictionary of allusions; Chengdu: Sichuan cishu, 1994), p. 136. 433 All instances use the line about “listening,” but some also use the line about “speaking” (see previous note). For an example in a shukao attributed to Wuxia Jian’er, see p. 205 (“listen” only); for examples attributed to Wang Dacuo, see pp. 2573 and 4079 (both “speak” and “listen”) and 3774 (“listen” only).

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Where Did the Playscripts Come From?

In the Introduction and subsequent chapters we saw that printings of Jingju plays both before434 and after435 Xikao stressed that what was being published were the “secret/private versions” (miben 秘本)436 or “true versions” (zhenben 真本) of some famous actor.437 We have also seen that the ads for Xikao stress the idea that the playscripts in the collection are precisely that kind of playscript.438 One ad run in a variety of publications claims that all of 434 See the discussion of the Zhenzheng Jingdu toudeng mingjue quben series of plays in chapter 1. For an example of the cover of a 1897 wood-block printing of play with miben in the title, see Zhou Xinhui 周心慧, ed., Xinbian Zhongguo banhua shi tulu 新編中國版畫 史圖錄 (Newly compiled history with illustrations of Chinese wood-block prints), 11 vols. (Beijing: Xueyuan chubanshe, 2000), 11: 121. The full title is Xinke huitu miben Shazi bao quanzhuan 新刻繪圖秘本殺子報全傳 (Newly printed illustrated secret, full version of Retribution for killing [her] son). A name (actually pseudonym: Lingyan qiaozi 靈岩樵 子) is given for the person who edited ( jiaokan 校勘) the work. The publisher is Jingwen Tang 敬文堂. 435 See the discussion of works influenced by Xikao above. During the period Xikao was just beginning to be published, a pre-publication ad in the back matter of the first issue of Youxi zazhi (November 1913) announced a collection of Jingju playscripts that is either described as and/or titled Mingling xiben 名伶戲本 (Famous actor playscripts) to be published by a Hongsheng Shushe 宏聲書社. The ad includes this language: “The press has put tremendous effort into searching out playscripts. As for zhenben in the world of actors, they have always been kept secret and not shown to others, and all the kinds available in the market have been transmitted by roundabout processes and are full of mistakes, to the extent that they are not even worth a laugh from those in the know. These [plays] have been produced through requests to friends and acquaintances in Beijing and Tianjin, true texts have been found, to the number of forty-eight, whatever famous and fine plays [there are] have completely been included. Truly this collection will be sufficient to present the true appearance of the playscripts of famous actors. People have already been hired to make manuscript copies and illustrations, and publication should happen before the end of the lunar year” 本社搜求劇曲煞費心力. 蓋伶界之真本, 素 來秘不示人, 而市售各種皆輾轉舛訛, 不值識者一笑. 茲由京津知友轉相委求, 覓 得真曲, 計四十八齣, 凡著名佳劇悉隸於內. 洵足見名伶劇本之廬山真面目也. 刻 已倩人抄寫插圖. 限陰曆歲杪出版. I can’t verify that the work described in the ad was ever published. 436 While miben literally means “secret version,” it also has the connotation of “private version.” 437 Lowe, Adventures of Wu, 1: 218, describes the “library” of a typical amateur opera club: “some copies of the original plays in book form, privately circulated by making handmade copies of them which people, the amateurs, treasure so much for being some famous professional’s ‘genuine lines.’ ” 438 For instance, the ad for installment 31 in Libai liu 109 (May 14, 1921) stresses that the version in the installment of Bolang chui 博浪錘 (Bolang mallet, Xikao #436) is Wang Xiaonong’s miben and that of Qingwen sishan 晴雯撕扇 (Qingwen tears fans; Xikao #438)

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the playscripts come directly from famous actors.439 These claims are invariably accompanied by assertions that such playscripts are hard to get hold of.440 Both claims (that we’ve got them and it wasn’t easy) are clearly involved in an attempt to raise interest in what is being sold. If we look to see what the shukao say about this question, we see claims that some of the playscripts are miben or zhenben of famous actors, but also at least one instance in which the source is not an actor and some where the source is left unspecified.441 In any event, the is Mei Lanfang’s zhenben. The copywriter laments that there is not space to say anything about the rest of the plays in the installment, but says they are all mingjia jiaoben 名家 腳本 (playscripts from famous actors). In the case of these two plays, installment 31 also makes such a claim about Bolang chui (in the table of contents and at the beginning of the playscript, pp. 4541 and 4573) but not for Qingwen sishan. A claim that play #41 is Tan Xinpei’s zhenben in the ad for the third installment of Xikao that ran in Ziyou zazhi does not occur in the shukao for that play (Tan is mentioned twice in the shukao, once in reference to the way he sings a certain passage, and again to attribute the prominence of this play to him). 439 A particularly broad claim occurs in ads for Xikao that ran in Libai liu, Youxi zazhi, and Xiangyan zazhi: “As for the play texts included in this [xi]kao, none have not been obtained from famous actors in Beijing and Shanghai” 本考所列曲本無不從京滬名 家處徵求而來. This is mentioned in the ads as something that greatly distinguishes Xikao from “commercial vulgar editions” ( fangjian suben 坊間俗本) of plays. It should be noted, of course, that mingjia is a vague term, meaning only that the person is famous. I translate it as “famous actors” here because when sources for playscripts are named in the ads and the shukao (and in other Jingju publications), the names given are in almost all cases those of actors (but see below for the one exception). 440 Writing from the point of view of a Jingju fan who wanted access to play texts, Liu Zengfu, “Wo xuyao changci,” pp. 1–2, says, “In the past in the world of Jingju, playscripts, that is to say the texts for plays, were the private property of actors, and others had a hard time getting to see them” 過去京劇界, 劇本, 也就是戲詞, 是演員的私有財產, 別人是難 以見到的. Tsuji Chōka, Zhongguo ju, item 5 of the fanli (p. 2), explains that his book’s quotations from the plays of Sun Juxian, Tan Xinpei, Mei Lanfang, and Shang Xiaoyun are all from “playscripts secretly preserved by famous actors” 名伶秘藏之詞本. He describes their willingness to share them as ge’ai 割愛 (chopping off what one loves), and says being able to include them in his book makes him feel “extremely honored” 極 為光榮. The text quoted from plays appears on pp. 126–45. As pointed out above, troupes often had people whose prime responsibility was to keep track of and guard the complete versions (zongjiang) of their plays. These people were known as bao zongjiang de 抱總講 的 (lit. “he who clutches the complete version”). 441 There is actually only one example of the former, in the shukao to play #474 (p. 5197), where the source is just described as “the Jinghu player for Gong [Yunfu]” 龔[雲甫] 之 琴師. Interestingly enough, the writer specifically says he “was able to borrow” ( jiade 假 得) the playscript from this person. Anonymous actor sources for playscripts are referred to in the shukao as “such-and-such actor in Beijing” (Beijing mou yiyuan 北京某藝員; play #451; p. 4725), “a famous actor of Beijing” (Beijing ming yiyuan 北京名藝員; play #387, p. 3889), and “a retired old actor from an Anhui troupe” (tuiyin zhi Huiban lao yiyuan 退隱之徽班老藝員; play #483, p. 5333). On one occasion, besides asserting that the

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number of shukao that say anything about the source of the playscript or how it was obtained is fewer than twenty.442 There are only two examples in which vague language describing the search for good versions (the favorite language is mide 覓得 [search and obtain]) is replaced by language that makes clear that what is being talked about is a commercial transaction.443 It is striking how many instances there are in which the writer of a shukao describes how he has been trying for years to get a good copy of the play and only now has gotten one.444 This would seem to lead one to conclude that the collection is less an ideal one of precisely the playscripts that it should contain than a practical one of playscripts it could contain. Scholars have attributed the relative anonymity of the authors of Jingju plays to a variety of factors, such as a lack of literati input because the genre was not respected,445 or the fact that authorship of the plays was very

442

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playscript is that of a famous actor, mention is made of the intermediary who procured the playscript. That intermediary is described only as “a friend in Beijing” (Jing you 京 友; play #324). There is one instance in which the playscript is said to be based on the zhenben of two famous actors, Tan Xinpei and Liu Hongsheng (play #355, p. 3473). The shukao explains that this playscript replaces an inferior version of the same play that had appeared in installment one. I have found thirteen instances: the shukao for plays #324, 351, 355, 387, 405, 436, 439, 400, 451, 474, 483, 509, and 510. In two instances, the claim that a playscript is the miben of a famous actor is not made in the shukao but instead beneath the title of the play on the first page of the playscript before the shukao (plays #351 [p. 3373], #436 [p. 4573]); in the second instance, the claim is also made in the table of contents of the installment (p. 4541). In a third instance the claim that a playscript is the zhenben of a famous actor was made in Xikao quanmu (p. 39; play #324). One uses the phrase “obtain through purchase” (gou qiu 購求; play #474, p. 5197); the other first recounts how Yang Xiaolou had had a lot of trouble obtaining a copy of the play, then relates that Xikao’s publisher “did not begrudge substantial capital and had been able to buy it” 不惜重資購得; (play #439, p. 4601). Frustration at not being able to get Tan Xinpei and Wang Yaoqing’s version of Fenhe wan (play #324, p. 3033), and how a bangzi substitute (play #127) had been included in an earlier installment, have been mentioned above. Another shukao relates that the writer had been trying to get the right version of the play that follows for almost the entire ten years that he has been compiling (bianzhuan 編撰) Xikao (play #474, p. 5197). Both the shukao for the second version of Fenhe wan (p. 3033) and the Libai liu 71 (October 9, 1915) ad for Xikao describe the process of trying to obtain good playscripts using the same phrase zhanzhuan 輾轉 to show how complex, tedious, indirect, and involving of many hands and players it is. The situation was very different for the authors of “classical Chinese drama” (chuanqi and Ming-Qing zaju). Sieber, Theatres of Desire, p. 75, referring to statistics published in 1994 by Lin Heyi 林鶴宜, Wan Ming xiqu juzhong ji shengqiang yanjiu 晚明戲曲劇種及聲腔 研究 (Research on theatrical types and musical modes of the Late Ming; Taibei: Xuehai chubanshe, 1994), pp. 286–91, concludes: “Her figures show that late Ming elite males no

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collaborative,446 but it is possible that the anonymity of early playwrights is more related to the circumstance of actors trying to keep their favorite plays longer wrote plays anonymously or under assumed names” and notes that “many of these men had passed the jinshi examination themselves, many others passed at least the provincial level.” We saw in chapter 2 that Carlitz, “Printing as Performance,” pp. 271–72, presents statistics on the authors of the plays in Liushi zhong qu that show eight of them had jinshi degrees. She also points out, p. 286, that Wang Jide 王驥德 (d. 1624), in his Qulü 曲 律 (Rules of play-making), includes a chapter entitled “Lun xu dushu” 論須讀書 (On the necessity to read books). Besides exhorting playwrights to read classic dramatic literature, Wang would also have them read the “Guofeng” 國風 (Airs of the States, the first section in the Shijing 詩經 [Classic of Poetry]), “Lisao” 離騷 (Encountering sorrow), and Tang dynasty poetry. Qiu Huiying 丘慧瑩, Qianlong shiqi xiqu huodong yanjiu 乾隆時期戲 曲活動研究 (Research on the theatrical activity of the Qianlong reign; Taibei: Wenjin, 2000), pp. 11–27, presents a chart with biographical information on 144 playwrights of the Qianlong period. In her analysis of that data, pp. 41–48, she notes that they include three members of the imperial family and eighteen holders of the jinshi degree. We have also noted that reference works on classical Chinese drama are arranged by playwright. When Weng Ouhong, Weng Ouhong bianju shengya, p. 301, says, “… in the world of traditional Chinese theater, there was actually a naturalized ‘injustice’—the name of the playwright was never mentioned” 戲曲界原有一個先天的 “不公道”—從來不提及劇本作者的 姓名, what he had in mind was surely Jingju playwrights, of which he was one. On Weng Ouhong, see chapter 5. 446 Hsü, The Chinese Conception of the Theatre, p. 109, gives an extreme but useful statement of this position: “Legend, and through it the world of the Chinese drama, is the product of collective imagination. The plays are not, like the modern Western dramas, works of individual minds offered to and accepted or rejected by the audience, they are conceived by the whole people and reviewed by them, the real authors, over and over again.” Hsü’s picture of Western theater as being “works of individual minds” is but a popular Western conceit that manifests itself in our obsession with novelists, composers of the music for operas, and film directors as lonely but all-powerful autonomous creators of the products that come out under their name. Western theater, of course, was also very collaborative. Peters, Theatre of the Book, p. 389 n. 53, quotes a source on the high rate (perhaps half) of co-authorship of early modern English plays. Jerome McGann, “The Socialization of Texts,” in David Finkelstein and Alistair McLeery, eds., The Book History Reader (London: Routledge, 2002), pp. 41–42, notes that “multiple versions of many Shakespeare works … is not merely common in the case of theatrical work, it is the rule,” and “Furthermore, it is equally typical that alterations in the texts of plays are the consequence of the collective efforts of the theatrical company.” For an interesting approach to trying to sort out literati and actor elements in the composition of traditional plays in Sichuan opera, see Du Jianhua 杜建華, “Chuantong xi jianghu ben de wenhua tezheng ji qi difang xiqu fazhan de yiyi—Yi Chuanju Liaozhai xi wei li” 傳統戲江湖本的文化特徵及其地方戲曲發 展的意義—以川劇聊齋戲為利 (The characteristics of “jianghu playscripts” and their significance in the development of local theatrical traditions—Using Strange Tales from Liaozhai Studio plays as examples), Da xiju luntan 1 (2003): 106–14. Jianghu 江湖 (“rivers and lakes”) refers to the world of transient commerce and interactions at the lower level of culture in which traveling theater troupes operated. This article can be said to be primarily about how to deal with anonymously authored playscripts.

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out of written circulation.447 Besides, even though somebody had to compose the plays, since Jingju plays do not seem to have been consumed as reading material or taken as dramatic literature,448 the focus in the world of Jingju was on the actor and not the playwright,449 the only exceptions being the rare literati-actor who wrote and performed his own plays (zibian zipai 自編自排) such as Wang Xiaonong and Ouyang Yuqian (see chapter 2). Even though Xikao appeared precisely in the years that first began to see intense collaboration between literati authors and actors, and also the beginning of talk about royalties for playwrights,450 when the shukao talk of who compiled (bian 編)451 Mei 447 Yan Quanyi, Qingdai Jingju wenxue shi, p. 218, for instance, has argued that “The creative production of the actors was mainly for commercial performance, the majority of the repertoire consisted of variations of traditional plays…. They [plays] were very seldom published, in far more cases they were taken as rare texts and secret documents by troupes or actors and strictly, secretly, and defensively preserved. Because of this, the majority of the actual playwrights in the troupes are regularly not known of by people” 演員的創作主 要是為營業性演出, 劇目大多以傳統戲中翻演…. 它們很少刊刻出版, 更多時候 作為戲班或者演員孤本密籍來嚴密防守. 因此, 清代眾多戲班的實際編劇者常 常不為人知. Even a “modern” playwright such as Qi Rushan stresses the recyling of old plays when composing new ones. See his Guoju gailun, “Liyong jiu xi” 利用舊戲 (Make use of old plays), pp. 57–58 (Qi Rushan quanji, 3: 1363–64). 448 Reading literature in pre-modern China was typically conceived of as a dialogue between author and reader, with the reader organizing his reading around thoughts and images of the author and what he was trying to express. It was common for authors to provide prefaces or notes to facilitate that kind of reading, and this is largely the function of the first half of the prologues in chuanqi plays. Jingju playscripts, after an early transitional period in which elements from chuanqi drama were borrowed, did not contain metatheatrical prologues in which the author addressed the audience/reader more or less directly, and there are only a handful of Jingju plays that contain prefaces from their authors (see chapter 2). In the notes to chapter 1, Youxi zhuren’s editorial work in his Gaizhi pihuang xinci (1899) was discussed. Yan Quanyi, Qingdai Jingju wenxue shi, p. 506, points out that this work “has basically been completely forgotten by those who came after” 幾乎為後 人完全遺忘, and sums up Youxi zhuren’s approach as avoiding the incomprehensibility of Kunqu on the one hand and the vulgarity of rural bangzi theater on the other (p. 507). 449 Or even the play. In the “Sanshi nian lai lingjie zhi nashou xi” series run in Tuhua ribao that has been mentioned a couple of times, the focus is on the actor and not the play; their text mentions the play that is illustrated and appears in the title of the particular installment only as an example of one of the signature plays of a particular actor, who is also named in the title and shown in the illustration. Ma Shaobo et al., eds., Zhongguo Jingju shi, 3: 156, quotes something Tian Han said in a speech in 1950: “In the old society [playgoers] watched the actors and did not watch the plays” 舊時代看人不看戲. 450 See the section on copyright and performance rights in chapter 5. 451 On how the process of developing a new play was called daxi (lit. “hit the play”) or da benzi (lit. “hit the script”), see chapter 2. The use of terms such as Bian[ ju] 編[劇] (found in many shukao) and other more modern terms such as zuo[ ju] 作[劇] when talking about playscript composition comes from outside the world of Jingju.

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Lanfang’s new plays, the majority of times the plays are just attributed to Mei himself. In the two exceptions, in one the authorship of one of Mei’s plays is attributed to anonymous literati in Beijing452 and in another to Fan Fanshan 樊樊山 (1846–1931).453 This is in great contrast to the kind of prominence and centrality Mei’s prime playwright, Qi Rushan, would later enjoy. Of the early Jingju playwrights we know of, whether literati, who tended to write unperformable plays or plays that did not get much purchase in the performance repertoire,454 or the professional “in-house” playwrights for some of the bigger troupes,455 their names do not appear in the shukao in Xikao, even when their plays get included in the collection. 6

The Photos

From material already presented, and especially the Jingli chuisheng ke preface and the ads for Xikao, it is evident that for some the photos in each installment of Xikao were an important part of the project and major selling point.456 452 See the shukao to play #489 (p. 5459). 453 See the shukao to Daiyu zanghua (play #220; p. 2075; the playscript is not Mei’s version, but the shukao does talk about Mei’s version). Fan’s personal name (ming 名) is Zengxiang 增祥 (Fanshan [laoren 老人] is his cognomen [hao 號]); he achieved the jinshi degree in 1877 and wrote two Jingju plays but neither ever made it to the stage. Fan Fanshan, along with Yi Shifu 易實甫 (1858–1920), is mentioned in the 1921 ad for Xikao installment 31 that ran in Libai liu (see above), but there they are mentioned as examples of “various prominent literari figures in Beijing” 諸位大名士在北京 who like to watch a different play, Guifang xi 閨房戲 (Fun in the bedroom; Xikao #437), said in the ad to have been performed by Mei Lanfang and the huadan actor Xiao Cuihua 小翠華. This play is not now associated with Mei Lanfang, perhaps because, in the words of Zeng Bairong, ed., Jingju jumu cidian, pp. 781–82, the “contents are obscene, and by Liberation there was already no-one who performed it” 內容淫穢, 解放後已無人上演. In Wutai shenghuo sishi nian, 2: 88, Mei Lanfang says, concerning the authorship of his Daiyu zanghua, there are “all different kinds of false stories” 種種誤傳, but it was actually Qi Rushan who “worked up the abstract” (da tigang 打提綱) and others who did the rest. Fan Fanshan is not mentioned (Yi Shifu is said to have contributed some material after the play was performed). In the Liaolao 了了 biography of Mei Lanfang in [Liu] Huogong, ed., Mei lang ji, p. 1, Fan is described as a mingshi 名士 (famous man) who “compiled” (zuan 纂) both Chang E benyue and Daiyu zang hua and “gave” (zeng 贈) them to Mei. 454 An example of the former might be the pseudonymous author of Jile shijie, while Yu Zhi might be a good example of the latter. For more detail, see chapter 2. 455 A Liu San wrote plays for the Sixi Troupe for his living. For him, see chapter 2. 456 For instance, the ad for installment 31 in Libai liu that appeared both in issues 109 (May 14, 1921) and 140 (December 19, 1921) stresses first the photos, claiming that the one of Tan Xinpei “has never before been seen by outsiders” 外邊從來沒有見過的, another is

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By the years when Xikao was first published, it had become very popular to include a selection of tinted photographs in the front matter of installments of books or issues of periodicals.457 We have also seen that many of these publications, including Xikao itself, included photographs of their editorial staff or contributing writers.458 Photos of friends, colleagues, and acquaintances of the editorial staff might also be included.459 It has also been noted that in Xikao little or no effort seems to have been made, with reference to individual installments, to coordinate the selection of the photos and of the plays. It is very rare that one can find, in the same installment, photos of actors dressed to perform plays whose playscripts are included in that installment.460 In fairness, it can be said that no promise to do

457

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“extremely hard to find” 很不容易覓到的, and another is “even more fantastic” 更了不 得; only then does it go on to praise the plays. When the Shenbao Guan version of installment 1 was being prepared, ads were placed in Shenbao (first appeared July 12, 1912) soliciting a photo of Wang Guifen (a photo of Wang is the first to appear in the installment), which was followed by another ad soliciting photos of actors, in ordinary or stage dress (first appeared August 20, 1912); an “appropriate reward” 相當之酬報 was promised for a photo of Wang, and rewards in the form of books or newspapers published by Shenbao Guan were promised in the second ad. Yiting Ethan Zheng, “Selling Modernity: A Study of All-Story Monthly (Yueyue xiaoshuo 月月小說) in the Late Qing Context,” doctoral thesis, Washington University, 2008, p. 34, identifies Xin xiaoshuo (first published in Japan) as the first Chinese periodical to include photos in the front matter. The second chapter of the thesis is on the use of photographs in Yueyue xiaoshuo. For the technological choices available when it came to including high quality photos in books and periodicals in the early Republican era, see Yunfei Zhu, “Picturing Meishu: Photomechanical Reproduction of Art in Chinese Periodicals before WWII,” Trans-Asia Photography Review 10.1 (Fall 2019): 1–22. The “Ziyou tan” supplement to Shenbao in 1913 began including photographs of contributors to the supplement. The caption above the photo would begin with “tou gao zhe” 投 稿者 (contributor) followed by the person’s name or penname. Personal details, including, sometimes, present age and how to get in touch, were given below the photo. For an example, see the July 2, 1913 edition (Shanghai Shudian reprint, 123: 27). Xiangyan zazhi also included photographs of women in its photo sections labeled tougao XXX nüshi 投稿 XXX 女士 (Contributor, Ms. XXX). Mention has been made above of the inclusion of photos in Xikao of Wang Dungen’s fellow editor, Tian xu wo sheng (Chen Diexian), and in the Introduction of photos of Yuan Kewen, whom it appears Wang Dacuo knew. A footnote above references ads soliciting contributions of photos. One of these is credited as having been taken (she 攝) by Xinxin zhaoxiang guan 心心照相館 (Double heart photography studio) of Shanghai (see p. 3 of the photo section of installment 36; reproduced Liren Shuju edition, 11: 205) and others as donated (zeng 贈) by that studio (see pp. 4–5, 6–10 of the photo section of installment 36 and 1–5, 7–10 of installment 37; reproduced Liren Shuju edition, 11: 205–207, 209–17, 219–22). There is a half-page ad for this same studio in installment 37 (p. 5479). That both a playscript for Fenhe wan and a photo of actors dressed as characters from that play are included in both installment 8 and installment 20 has been mentioned

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so was ever made. The only statement implying any relationship between the photos and the playscripts appearing in any of the ads or prefatory material for Xikao is a claim in an ad for the Shenbao Guan version that the photos would be “portraits of famous actors who are good at performing the plays involved” 擅長本劇之名伶肖像.461 The authors of the shukao, whether Wuxia Jian’er or Wang Dacuo, seem to have had little input on the selection of the photos, and there is only one mention of an actor’s photo in all of the shukao to the plays, and that photo is said to be found not in Xikao but in Youxi zazhi.462 In the notes to chapter 2, we saw that illustrations were very prominent in printed editions of chuanqi drama and at least one of these editions presented the illustrations as an aid to performance. We also saw, in chapter 1, that in the late-nineteenth century, as Jingju playscripts were mass printed for the first time, there were series of playscripts whose titles highlighted the fact that they were illustrated (even if that was often only a matter of one illustration per playscript). Eventually their hand-drawn illustrations were replaced by photographs of actors in costume.463 There were also experiments with including a large number of photographs along with play texts as an aid for mounting (and explained) above. Looking just at the photos for installments 1–20 as found in the Zhonghua Tushu Guan hardbound edition in five volumes (which represent a complete and relatively easily accessible sample), in the photos for the first three installments, only the caption of one includes the name of a play, but for the next seventeen installments, ninety-three captions identify the play the actors are dressed for, for an average of almost five an installment. The total of instances in which the same installment includes matches between any of the play titles in those ninety-three photos and playscripts for those plays, including the two Fenhe wan instances mentioned, is six, or a little over 6% (the other matches are for Xikao plays #100, 189, 208, and 304). Eight of the play titles in the ninety-three captions are of just two plays (each occurring four times), while another eighteen involve only six different plays (each occurring three times). I think it is only in the case of Fenhe wan that we have reason to think that a conscious decision was behind the “matching.” It has been noted above that between the plays covered and the photos included in the contemporaneous Xinju kao, there is only one match. 461 The ad first appeared in the June 30, 1912 edition of Shenbao (Shanghai Shudian reprint, 117: 898). The actors who appear in the first three photos, Wang Guifen, Tan Xinpei, and En Xiaofeng 恩曉峰 (1887–1949), are indeed mentioned in the shukao to the plays in the installment (see pp. 67, 27 [first of several], and 91). The first two are referred to by their nicknames, Wang Datou 汪大頭 (Big-headed Wang) and Tan Beile 譚貝勒 (Lord Tan [beilei was a Manchu title used for members of the imperial house or Mongolians]). 462 See the shukao to Daiyu zang hua (play #220, p. 2075). The picture referred to is of Mei Lanfang as Daiyu, the heroine of the play. 463 E.g., Su wenxue congkan, 331: 47–56, reproduces a Baowen Tang published playscript of Nantian men 南天門 (South gate of heaven; Xikao #60) with a photo of an actor in costume (not identified) on its cover. The edition is not dated, but since the address of Baowen Tang is given as Beiping, it must date from between 1928 and 1949.

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productions. The most ambitious of these was likely the 1911 publication of Heiji yuanhun tushuo 黑籍冤魂圖說 (Wronged spirit of an opium addict illustrated and explained; not in Xikao). A complete script for this new-style Xin Wutai play was not available. Instead, the table of contents calls the version of it presented in the edition a shuoming shu 說明書, a term used at the time to include plot summaries. The book provides scene summaries for all twentythree scenes of the play and photographs of the staging of important moments in most of the them.464 Item 5 of the fanli (editorial principles) of the edition says that those outside of Shanghai who would like to mount productions of the play can do so by consulting the photographs.465 The front matter includes a large photograph of the “playwright and [main] actor” (bianyanzhe 編演者) of the play, Xia Yueshan 夏月珊 (1868–1924), of Xin Wutai, and seven pages of photographs of people connected with the play in ordinary dress.466 The idea of publishing Heiji yuanhun tushuo might have originated in a column titled “Shijie xinju” 世界新劇 (New plays of the world) that typically 464 Thirteen scenes have one photo, four have two photos, and seven have no photos. Mathew D. Johnson, “Regional Cultural Enterprises and Cultural Markets in Early Republican China: The Motion Picture as Case Study,” Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Cultural Review 16 (September 2015): 111, Figure 4, reproduces from another source what Johnson labels a “print advertisement and promotional photograph” for a film made of the play, which he says was released in 1916 or 1917 (p. 134 n. 6). However, the photo is actually the one for scene 21 that appears in Heiji yuanhun tushuo, cropped to obscure that the actors are standing on a stage. 465 See Hong Peijun, “Huadeng chu shang,” p. 93, on a newspaper account of representatives being sent from Ningbo to Shanghai to copy playscripts for Heiji huanhun and other Xin Wutai plays for performance in Ningbo. Hong thinks this is proof that Xin Wutai did use scripts, but perhaps what was copied was no more than the kind of material published in Heiji huanhun tushuo. 466 The front matter and scene summaries of this edition (but not the photographs!) are included in Zhang Geng and Huang Jusheng, eds., Zhongguo jindai wenxue daxi, Xiju ji, 1: 677–705. Xia Yueshan, along with his younger brother Xia Yuerun 夏月潤 (1878–1931), Pan Yueqiao 潘月樵 (1869–1929), and others, established Xin Wutai in Shanghai in 1908 (the publisher of Heiji yuanhuan tushuo is listed as Xin Wutai). Hong Peijun, “Huadeng chu shang,” p. 137, gives the date the Xin Wutai production premiered as November 16, 1908. Recently, the entire text of Heiji yuanhuan tushuo was reproduced in Fu Jin, ed., Jingju lishi wenxian huibian: Qingdai juan, 9: 563–639. It clearly identifies Zheng Zhengqiu (author of the preface for the volume) as the author for the text in the book. Some of the plays published in Juxue yuekan include photographs of actors dressed for their parts and acting parts of the play. See, for instance, (Xu 徐) Lingxiao 凌霄, ed., “Yuejia zhuang (Fu juqing zhi jiaodian ji jinyao de biaoxian tu wufu)” 岳家莊 (附劇情之焦點及緊要的表 現圖五幅) (Yue family manor [Xikao #140] with five photos of the focal points of the plot and important acting points), Juxue yuekan 1.1 (1932): 63–84. See chapter 6 for what seems to be the apogee of this idea of using photographs to illustrate a playscript (a 1981 edition of a play with over one hundred photos illustrating stage action).

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ran on the sixth page of Tuhua ribao 圖畫日報 (Pictorial daily) published by Huanqiu She 環球社 of Shanghai from its first issue to its 341st (1909–1910). Despite the title of the column, the plays, which number nine, are actually all Xin Wutai productions. The nine plays have as few as twenty installments and as many as forty-six and an average of thirty-three. Each installment has a scene title two characters in length, a summary of the plot written above, and a drawing of the scene below. The nine plays include Heiji yuanhun, with a total of thirty-seven installments; however, the first installment does not depict the first scene and give a summary of its plot but instead presents the playwright, Xia Yueshan, directly addressing the reader in a text carefully written to simulate oral delivery of the kind then very popular and known as yanshuo 演說 or yanlun 演論.467 Xia argues that people continue to smoke opium because they can’t see the truth about it, so he says that he has put on this new play (instead of calling it a play, however, he calls it a “photo” [zhaoxiang pian 照 相片]) which will show the opium addict before smoking opium, while smoking opium, and his final fate. Three hand-drawn images of Xia appear under the text, with no background, and with captions that identify the middle one (seated, prosperously dressed) as a non-opium smoker who is a good citizen, the one on the left (dressed in rags) as the opium smoker, and the one on the right (dressed in worse rags) as the wronged soul of the opium smoker.468 The text for Xia’s speech is not included in Heiji yuanhun tushuo, but the second photo in that book, coming right after the large one of Xia Yueshan in ordinary dress, reproduces the content of the hand-drawn illustration under the speech in Tuhua ribao by patching together three studio photos of Xia, in costume.

467 According to Cai Peifen, “Wan Qing fushi hui,” p. 181, the first occasion on which more than one hundred people gathered in Shanghai’s Zhang Yuan 張園 (The Zhang Garden) to hear lectures was in 1897 and before long doing so became a “necessary component of life” 生活中不可或缺的一部分. This kind of speaking style was mimicked in new-style plays and certain actors became widely known for their skills at (or propensity for) yan­ shuo or yanlun onstage. The introduction to Dangren bei (Xikao #453), a Wang Xiaonong play that premiered in 1901, in Zhang Geng and Huang Jusheng, eds., Zhongguo jindai wenxue daxi, Xiju ji, 1: 644, says this play inaugurated the “tradition of the ‘lecturing lao­ sheng’ ” (“ ‘yanlun laosheng’ yipai” ‘演論老生’ 一派). A photo on p. 7 of the photo section of installment 6 of Xikao shows Pan Yueqiao and Liu Yizhou 劉藝舟 (1875–1936) in modern dress with a caption that says both are good at yanshuo (reproduced Liren Shuju edition, 11: 47). Liu Yizhou also gave regular lectures. For instance, on May 26, 1912, he gave one in Shanghai on the topic “Guomin zhi zeren” 國民之責任 (The responsibilities of citizens). See Chen Jie, Minguo xiqu shi nianpu, p. 3. 468 The thirty-seven installments were run on the sixth pages of issues 87 to 123. For the first installment, see Tuhua ribao, 2: 438 (issue 87).

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The scope of the photos in Xikao is very broad.469 Most are recent, some very much so.470 Only two photos are explicitly labeled as representing the past. One is the first one in installment one, which is of Wang Guifen. Its caption calls him “the number one xusheng of days past” 昔日之第一鬚生,471 in contrast to the caption for the second photo, one of Tan Xinpei, which describes him as “the number one xusheng of the present day.” By the time of the Dadong Shuju reprint of Xikao in the 1930s, what was of “days past” and what was of “the present day” had changed, and the captions for the reproduction of these two photos in the Dadong Shuju version of the first installment put them in the same category: “posthumous images” (yiying 遺影), Tan having died in 1917.472 In fact, the eight photos of the Dadong Shuju installment all contain images of the dead, and all but two of the captions contain the words yiying.473 The emphasis in the photo sections is on actors and not on plays. A majority of the images are of actors in plain dress and besides professional male actors, amateur actors, child actors, and actresses are also included. Although the third photo of the first installment is of En Xiaofeng 恩曉峰 (1887–1949), who is identified as “China’s premiere actress” (Zhongguo diyi nüling 中國第 一女伶), the actresses tend to appear in the final pages (sometimes taking up the entire final half474) of the photo sections of the installments. The first ad for Xikao in Shenbao spoke of the photos as “portraits of famous actors” (mingling xiaoxiang 名伶肖像), but by the time the second version of the ad appeared that rather generic reference had been changed to “portraits of male and female famous actors” (nannü mingling xiaoxiang 男女名伶肖像)475 and 469 I have still not been able to locate copies of the photos for installments 31 and 39. 470 A photo in installment 12 has a banner dated to April 1915 (reproduced Liren shu edition, 11: 90). 471 The second photo appears on page 5 of installment 18 (reproduced Liren Shuju edition, 11: 123), which reads “Jia Biyun of eight years ago” 八年前之賈璧雲. This photo is also unusual in that the collector of the photo (a Tianshou 天受) is identified. 472 As pointed out above, the photos of pages one and two of the first Zhongghua tushu guan installment are reproduced as pages two and three of the photo section of the first Dadong Shuju installment, and the photo on their first page is reproduced from Zhonghua Tushu Guan’s installment 14. In that installment the photo’s caption still makes the claim that Wang was once the “number one xusheng” but “past days” has now become the more specific “of the beginning of the Guangxu reign period” (Guangxu chu 光緒初). 473 The photos on pages seven and eight (Liren Shuju edition, 11: 239–40) are of Tan Xinpei (dead) and Wang Yaoqing (did not die till 1954) dressed as characters in two different plays. 474 For instance, the actors shown in the last six pages of the photos for installment 16 are all labeled as actresses in the captions. 475 Matsuura Tsuneo, “Xikao zai Minguo chunian de wenhua diwei,” p. 768, says that according to the information available in Zhongguo jindai qikan pianmu huilu 中國近代期刊篇

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there was the additional claim of “courtesans with both incomparable looks and talent with their snowy skin and flower-like countenances shining in their ranks” 並有色藝雙絕之歌妓雪膚花貌掩映其間.476 Despite that claim, however, only one of the women in the photos is explicitly identified in the caption as a courtesan.477 Actresses, child actors, and amateur actors are often, but not always, labeled as such in the captions to their photos.478 目彙錄 (Catalogue of the contents of Chinese modern periodicals; Shanghai: Shanghai renmin, 1965–1984), periodicals began to include photographs in their front pages in 1902, and the first photo of a Chinese actor appeared in the November 1910 issue of Xiaoshuo yuebao and the actor was actually an actress. 476 For the earliest printing of the first version of the ad, see the June 30, 1912 edition, and for the earliest printing of the revised version, see the July 20, 1912 edition (Shanghai Shudian reprint, 117: 898, and 118: 120, respectively). 477 See page 3 of the photo section of installment 27 (reproduced Liren Shuju edition, 11: 169). The woman in the photo is identified as a nü jiaoshu 女校書 (courtesan) who also performs (kechuan 客串) huadan roles. Although not labeled as a courtesan, a photo of one of the most famous courtesans of the late Qing, Sai Jinhua 賽金花 (Rival of Jinhua; 1875–1937; identified in the caption as the Fu Caiyun 傅彩雲 of the novel Niehai hua 孽 海花) appears on the last page of the photo section of installment 15. 478 Actresses when labeled are labeled as kunjiao 坤角, kunling 坤伶 (kun meaning here female, jiao and ling both mean actor) or nüling 女伶 (female actor). The first instance can be found on page 9 of the photo section of installment 2. Sometimes actresses not labeled as such in the captions to their photos are so labeled in the table of contents to the installment (compare, for example, the captions to the last photo page and the listing of the photos in the table of contents to installment 14). There are even two different photos of the same actress (she is not labeled as an actress) holding a baby (page 6 of installment 15 [she is in Manchu dress] and page 8 of installment 19 [she is in ordinary dress; reproduced Liren Shuju edition, 11: 134]). Child actors, when labeled, are labeled as youling 幼伶 or tongling 童伶 (you meaning young and tong meaning child). The first instance of a photo so labeled does not come until installment 14 (page 7). The comparatively small amount of space they are allotted in the photo sections surely underplays their cultural importance at the time. The photos include those of actors whose stage names include the claim that they became famous when they were young (for instance, the photo of “Wusui hong” 五歲紅 [Famous at five years old] shows a young boy not all that much older than five years; see page 3 of the photo section of installment 7). There are also photos of actors identified as “students” (xuesheng 學生) at a modernized opera school (see page 5 of the photo section of installment 17 and page 4 of installment 18 [reproduced Liren Shuju edition, 11: 113 and 122]). Amateur actors tend to be identified by the verb kechuan 客串 (lit.: performing as guest) with only the surname given in the earlier installments (for the earliest example see page 9 of the photo section of installment 4 [Liren Shuju edition, 11: 29]) but eventually are identified more commonly as piaoyou and their full names given. Amateurs are also identified by adding jun 君 (a term of respect) after their names (for example, the photos for installment 34 on pages 1–2, 4, and 6 of the photo section, all follow this practice). Xikao quanmu gives the title for the photo section for installment 22 as “Piaoyou mingling xiaoxiang” 票友名伶肖像 (Portraits of famous amateur actors), but this would only be true of the first photo, which is of Yuan Kewen.

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The inclusion in Xikao of so many photos of actors, and the mixing of photos of male and female actors, and professional and amateur actors, in itself constitutes an attempt to raise the social status of actors in general. In the photos and their captions we can also see efforts taken to raise actors’ status further. These include calling actors yiyuan 藝員 (artists) and showing actors engaged in civilized (wenming 文明) activities such as reading.479 One actress is described as having been favored by the President of the Republic,480 while an actor (Wang Xiaonong) is labeled “recluse among actors” (lingyin 伶隱).481 As should already be clear, although the common understanding is that Xikao is a collection of Jingju plays, it also includes bangzi and Kunqu plays. Although none of the photo captions identify the plays actors are costumed for as belonging to either of those theatrical traditions, and indeed none of the play titles do belong to those traditions, several photos of actors in Xikao are labeled as bangzi actors.482 Jingju actors, on the other hand, are not labeled as such in their photo captions. The photos also included actors identified as performers of new-style theater (xinju 新劇).483 As befits the Shanghai-centered nature of Xikao, actors are more often identified in their photo captions as

479 Xia Yuerun and Feng Zihe (a.k.a., Feng Chunhang 馮春航) are both shown absorbed in books (see page 5 of the photo section of installment 8; [reproduced Liren Shuju edition, 11: 55] and page 6 of installment 20). Captions in Xikao describe the subjects of photographs as engaging in “civilized weddings” (wenming jiehun 文明結婚; page 9 of the photo section of installment 34; reproduced Liren Shuju edition, 11: 201) and “civilized photography” (wenming sheying 文明攝影; page 7 of the photo section of installment 23; reproduced Liren Shuju edition, 11: 153). The latter shows one of the actresses using a telephone. That photo reappears in installment 30 (see page 7 of the photo section; reproduced Liren Shuju edition, 11: 179), where it has been cropped to just show the actress with the telephone. Other signs of “modernity” in the photos include bicycles (see page 1 of the photo section of installment 3; reproduced Liren Shuju edition, 11: 11) and the use of special effects such as reproducing two separate images of the same actor in the same photo (see page 3 of the photo section of installment 20, which includes the name for this technique, shen wai shen 身外身 [body outside the body]). 480 The actress is Qin Xuefang 琴雪芳 (1905–1931) and her photo with its caption appears on page 7 of the photo section of installment 34 (reproduced Liren Shuju edition, 11: 199). This example was discussed in the Introduction. 481 For example, see page 1 of the photo section of installment 24 (reproduced Liren Shuju edition, 11: 157). 482 Qinqiang is used instead of bangzi. For examples, see page 2 of the photo section of installment 12 and page 6 of installment 19 (reproduced Liren Shuju edition, 11: 82 and 135, respectively). A photo of students from the bangzi organization Yisu She is also included (see page 10 of the photo section of installment 38, reproduced Liren Shuju edition, 11: 232). 483 Just in the photos for installment one there are two instances (see pages 9 and 12).

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coming from the north (primarily Beijing, Tianjin, and southern Manchuria) than being from or based in Shanghai.484 We can conclude that the photos in the installments of Xikao were included as separate attractions and were only occasionally coordinated with the plays in the installments.485 In chapter 6 we will look at some publications that managed more interesting connections between the photos and playscripts they contained. In the next chapter we will begin by looking at the ways new attempts to textualize Jingju criticized Xikao and tried to surpass it. 484 Geographical tags in the photo captions include Beijing 北京 (e.g., for an example see page 5 of the photo section of installment 16), Jing-Jin 京津 (Beijing-Tianjin; e.g., see page 1 of installment 16; reproduced Liren Shuju edition, 11: 99), Fengtian 奉天 (modern Shenyang; e.g., see page 5 of installment 17; reproduced Liren Shuju edition, 11: 113), Jing-Feng jian 京奉間 (Beijing-Fengtian area; e.g., see page 6 of installment 17; reproduced Liren Shuju edition, 11: 114), Nanbei 南北 (North and South; e.g., see page 7 of installment 22; reproduced Liren Shuju edition, 11: 143) and Haishang 海上 (Shanghai; page 4 of installment 8; reproduced Liren Shuju edition, 11: 54). That only a few photo captions explicitly refer to Shanghai is likely because unlabeled actors would be presumed to be connected to Shanghai in some fashion, whether or not they were born or grew up there. 485 There is one instance in which no name is given for the actor (the caption says shiming 失 名 [name lost]) and only the name of the play is given (see page 4 of the photo section for installment 11). The photos also contain a few musicians (one of which is Zhang Defu; see above; another appears on p. 10 of the photo section of installment 11).

Chapter 4

After Xikao: The Rise of Theater Studies, Copyright, and New Censorship Regimes The years in which Xikao was published, 1912–1925, and the rest of the Republican period, were years of great intellectual ferment, much of which was fed or stimulated by the introduction of new ideas and approaches toward theater thought to be prominent in the West. By the 1930s, two research institutes mainly devoted to the study of Jingju would be established, both of which would have their own academic publications. Jingju would, perhaps unexpectedly, survive severe criticism in the New Culture Movement to become, for many people, in China and abroad, a symbol of the nation. New kinds of playwrights, the subject of chapter 5, would come into being, and new media, the focus of chapter 6, would provide news ways to disseminate Jingju. Xikao was in the middle of it all, even though it would be largely neglected in the PRC until recent decades. In the Republican period, though, it was both closely connected with traditional Chinese theater and with attempts to modernize how theater was produced and consumed. 1

Evaluation of Xikao

Xikao, as we have seen, was not only an important text in itself but it also gave its name to a whole new genre of texts.1 For some people it actually, when they

1 What exactly the genre was considered to be, from a collection of play summaries/introductions to one of playscripts to one of aria texts, depended on the writer and time period. A piece in Shenbao (June 21, 1922), Yifan 一帆, “Zhong Ou tongxin (Yidali)” 中歐通信 (義 大利) (News between China and Europe [Italy]), talking about what kind of information would be disseminated to reporters before performances in Italy, said that they included “xikao yu ximu” 戲考與戲目 (xikao [here the idea seems to be play summaries/introductions] and theatrical programs). Another item in the same newspaper (April 24, 1924), Jikuan Xusheng 寂寞徐生, “Xiaoshuo congtan (shiyi)” 小說叢談 (十一) (Collected comments on fiction [number 11]), explained that Yinbian yanyu 吟邊燕語 (Lit. “Voice of swallows next to intonation”; this is the name under which Charles and Mary Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare [1807] was translated by Lin Shu 林紓 [1904]) was “actually a western xikao” (shi xi Xiyang zhi xikao 實係西洋之戲考).

© David L. Rolston, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004463394_006

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could not physically go to performances, replaced going to see plays.2 It was taken by Chinese and Japanese as a standard “go-to” reference work,3 and one way to say that someone was very knowledgeable about Jingju was to say that 2 Guo Guangjia, Cong tonggong dao jingli, p. 111, says, “After I arrived in Japan, I was no longer able to see Jingju, but I constantly read Xikao, ‘Fourth Son Visits His Mother,’ …, etc., I read them play by play” 到日本以後, 看不到京劇了, 但我常看戲考, 什麼 “四郎探 母” … 等一齣一齣地看. Gu Shuguang, Liyuan wenxian yu Youling yanju, “Lu Xun, Zhou Zuoren xiong­di xiqu guan de yitong” 魯迅, 周作人兄弟戲曲觀的異同 (Similarities and differences between Lu Xun and Zhou Zuoren’s views on Chinese indigenous theater), p. 412, recounts how Zhou Zuoren, in the later part of his life, “went so far as to be very interested in books that recounted the narratives of plays (such as Xikao), but did not actually like to go see plays” 甚至對戲文故事書 (類似戲考) 都很感興趣, 但偏不喜歡看戲. 3 The kind of Chinese who consulted Xikao, cited it, or considered it a good reference, ranged from people not very connected to Jingju, such as Zhu Ziqing 朱自清 (1898–1948), Chunhui ruhua 春暉如畫 (Spring glory like a painting; Yanji: Yanbian renmin, 1996), p. 308, “as for the collection of theatrical playscripts, it is comparatively easy, because there are so many installments of Xikao that have already appeared that can be relied on” … 至於戲劇劇本底搜 輯, 卻比較容易, 因為已有許多冊戲考做我的憑借; to actors such as Li Huiliang 厲慧良 (1923–1995) who, according to Wei Ziwei 魏子畏 and Li Chang 厲暢, Li Huiliang zhuan 厲慧 良傳 (Biography of Li Huiliang; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 1997), p. 57, “immediately searched out Xikao” 立即找來戲考 when he wanted to put on Jiugeng tian (Xikao #95); to directors and scholars of Chinese indigenous theater such as Wu Zuguang, whose “Wo he Jingju Sanda Tao Sanchun” 我和京劇三打陶三春 (The Jingju version of “Three Beatings of Tao Sanchun” and me), Yi beizi: Wu Zuguang huiyi lu 一輩子: 吳祖光回憶錄 (A generation: The memoirs of Wu Zuguang; Beijing: Zhongguo wenlian, 2004), p. 290, recounts how he found out information about related plays from “the old four big volumes of Xikao published by Dadong Shuju of Shanghai” 古老的上海大東書局出版的四大套 ‘戲考’; and scholars such as Dai Bufan 戴不凡, “Zoushang xin de daolu shang qu xunqiu fazhan—Dao xiqu yishu gexin jia Mei Lanfang tongzhi” 走上新的道路上去尋求發展—悼戲曲藝術革新家梅蘭芳同志, Renmin ribao, August 30, 1961, p. 7, who says that “all you have to do is to take a check in the old Xikao published in the early Republic” 只要去查一下民國初年出版的老戲考 to find out about one particular play. As early as the opera school at Nantong that Ouyang Yuqian ran, new-style opera schools, which did have libraries (as opposed to old-style opera schools), held copies of Xikao. See Jingju gaige de xianqu 京劇改革的先驅 (Forerunner of the reform of Jingju; Nanjing: Jiangsu renmin, 1982), p. 88. Japanese travelers to China who used Xikao to help them understand Chinese plays include Akutagawa Ryūnosuke 芥川龍之介 (1892– 1927) and Tanizaki Junichirō 谷崎潤一郎 (1886–1965). For Akutagawa, see the translation of his account of his travels in China, Cheng Shengbao 陳生保 and Zhang Qingping 張青 平, trs., Zhongguo youji 中國游記 (Travels in China; Beijing: Beijing shiyue wenyi, 2006), p. 27; for Tanazaki, see Nishihara Daisuke 西原大輔, Guqi Runyilang yu Dongfang zhuyi: Dazheng Riben de Zhongguo huanxian 谷崎潤一郎與東方主義: 大正日本的中國幻想 (Tanazaki Junichirō and orientalism: The imagination of China in Taishō Japan), Zhao Yi 趙 怡, tr. (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2005), pp. 142 and 146–47 (frustration on watching plays in Mukden and Tianjin), and p. 151 (improvement with the help of Xikao and Japanese scholar of Jingju Tsuji Chōka). Nishihara is primarily relying on Tanazaki’s own account of his playgoing in China, which can be found in Tanizaki Junichirō zenshu 谷崎潤一朗全集 (Collected works of Tanizaki Junichirō) 25 vols. (Tokyo: Chūō Kōron Shinsha, 2015), 22: 70–74.

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that person was a “living xikao” (huo xikao 活戲考).4 It became an important part of life;5 there are mentions of it in plays and works of fiction.6 In chapter 3 we noted the strong influence that Xikao exerted on later works on Jingju, especially anthologies of Jingju plays. But at the same time as these works borrowed from Xikao they also wanted to make clear that they surpassed it. Common points of complaint were that the versions of plays in Xikao were incomplete, inferior, and in need of editing, and the collection itself was not scientific enough. Although Xikao is not always explicitly named in these complaints, it is generally pretty clear what collection the complainers have in mind.

4 For instance, Zhao Zhiyuan 趙致遠, Wode sanwei laoshi: Hou Xirui, Qiu Shengrong, Hou Baolin 我的三位老師: 侯喜瑞, 裘盛戎, 侯寶林 (My three teachers: Hou Xirui, Qiu Shengrong, Hou Baolin; Beijing: Wenhua yishu, 2006), p. 347, describes Ding Zhenyuan 丁 振遠, a playwright with the Tianjin Jingju Youth Troupe 天津市青年京劇團, as “known in theater circles and outside them as a “living xikao” 活戲考 completely familiar with all kinds of plays. In a variation, Xu Muyun 徐慕雲, “Gudu gongwei liyuan mishi” 古都宮闈梨 園秘史 (Secret history of theater in the palace of the old capital), installment 78 (Shenbao January 8, 1939), doesn’t describe Wang Fushou 王福壽, an actor who performed before Empress Dowager Cixi, someone for whom it is said “there is no play he can’t perform” (wu xi bu hui 無戲不會), as a huo xikao but as “just like one great big xikao” 髣髴是一部大戲 考. The installments of Xu’s novel were published as a book under the same title in 2010 by Sanlian Shudian 三聯書店 of Beijing. 5 A May 20, 1932 Shenbao piece, “Lüke tou Jiang zisha” 旅客投江自殺 (A traveler commits suicide by throwing himself into the Yangzi), is about a passenger on a boat. The effects he left behind are said to have included “three volumes of Xikao” (Xikao sanben 戲考三本). 6 For a mention of Xikao in a Jingju play, see the version of Liansheng dian (not in Xikao) included in Xiao Changhua yanchu juben, where the snobbish innkeeper sees the poor exam taker has a book with him and asks where he got a copy of Xikao from (p. 281). For an example of a huaju play that mentions Xikao, see the description of the setting for a scene in a 1940 play, Chen Baichen’s 陳白塵 (1908–1994), Deng yin feng ci 等因奉此 (Following precedent; original title: Jinzhi xiaobian 禁止小便 [Urinating not allowed]), in Qian Gurong 錢谷融 et al., eds., Zhonghua xiandai wenxuan 中華現代文選 (Anthology of modern Chinese literature; Shanghai: Shanghai jiaoyu, 1985), p. 423, which says that on the desk on stage, besides traditional writing materials, there is a “large copy of Xikao” (daben Xikao 大本戲考). It is possible that what is meant is one of the later collections of aria texts that were commonly called Da xikao 大戲考, but a note identifies the text as “a collection of Jingju plays, to which are attached plot summaries, research, and criticism” 京劇劇本彙編, 附有劇情提要, 考證 和評論等. As we saw in chapter 3, Dadong Shuju published the forty installments of Xikao in four volumes of ten installments each, which would make for thick volumes. For an example of a mention of Xikao in a work of fiction (once again the book is described as present in the interior of a room), see Hu Jisheng 胡寄生, “Gezi longzhong de youji” 鴿子籠中的游記 (Travels in a pigeon cage), which appeared in the column “Xiaoshuo banyue kan” 小說半月 刊 (Fiction printed bi-monthly) in Shenbao, November 4, 1923.

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When Xixue zhinan (1931) claims in item 3 of its fanli that its plays are “all complete versions” 均係全齣7 and ads for it say “each and every play has its beginning and its end, and most certainly cannot be compared with [the situation in] ordinary books on theater, which only excerpt a section” 每一齣, 有 首有尾, 絕非普通戲書, 只節錄一段可比,8 it seems a good bet that it is Xikao that the text is trying to distance itself from. When Xidian 戲典 (Classics of theater/Theater reference; 1937), in an ad for itself inside its front cover, says of its plays that they are “complete from beginning to end without the least bit missing” 首尾完全不稍缺 and that it has “full version playscripts: different from ordinary Xikao-type books” 全齣劇本: 不同普通 ‘戲考’ 等書,9 then the reference is explicit.10 Even prior to the appearance of Xikao, manuscript and printed versions of Jingju plays alike had tried to sell themselves as quanben 全本 (complete versions),11 even when performance practice for some of those plays was pre7 8

Reproduced in Su wenxue congkan, 23: 225. See the fold-out ad for this book in Xiju yuekan 3.6 (March 1931), reproduced in Su wenxue congkan, 20: 6. 9 Lingying guanzhu 聆英館主, ed., Xidian 戲典 (Shanghai: Zhongyang shudian, 1937). Within the volume, the title is sometimes given as Quanchu Xidian 全齣戲典 (Complete play Theater reference) or Quanchu fenmu Xidian 全齣分幕戲典 (Complete play, divided into scenes, Theater reference). 10 An ad that ran in Banyue jukan 1.7 (November 1936): 27, for a Jingju anthology produced about the same time and with a similar title, Lu Jiying 盧繼影, ed. ( jiaoding 校訂), Mingling miben Da xidian 名伶秘本大戲典 (Famous actor secret/private text Great drama classic; Shanghai: Luohan chubanshe, 1936–1937), says that unlike “ordinary xikao” (putong xikao 普通戲考), in this collection each play is “complete from beginning to end” (shouwei wanquan 首尾完全) and that “in them not a single line in the dialogue or arias has been left out” 中間說白唱句無一句遺漏. The ad is reproduced in the reproduction of this journal, Minguo zhenxi duankan duankan: Shanghai juan, 2: 531. This anthology was published in two sections (bu 部), and this ad is primarily to announce the imminent availability of the second part. It would seem that plays in Lu’s Da xidian were also published separately. WorldCat has entries for as many as 45 different plays edited by Lu and published separately by Luohan Chubanshe 羅漢出版社in the late thirties and early 1940s. There are ads for two such editions of plays that do not figure in the WorldCat entries in the first issue of Jingxi zazhi 京戲雜志 (Jingxi journal; this publication was edited by Lu Jiying and published by Luohan Chubanshe), published October 18, 1935, pp. 12 and 13. 11 At least ten manuscripts of Jingju plays in Su wenxue congkan have quanben in their titles (see 294: 271; 310: 171; 314: 421; 330: 483; 334: 5 and 279; 335: 407; 337: 345; 338: 233). In Liyuan jicheng, each one of the forty-eight plays has a label affirming that it was complete (twenty-three were labeled quanqu 全曲 [lit. full arias]; twenty-two were labeled quanben, and two were labeled quanbu 全部 [complete]; see Shi Zhaohou, “Du Liyuan jicheng,” p. 370), and it was almost as common for the illustrated lithographic printings of Jingju of the late Qing to also proclaim themselves as quanben.

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cisely to present shortened versions only. Although some of the earliest ads for Xikao stress that it includes the complete version of such and such a play,12 both shukao13 and the table of contents of individual installments14 in the later parts of the collection label plays as quanben, and the author of at least one of the shukao recognized that there was now a strong trend to mount full versions of plays formally performed only in shorter excerpts,15 it seems the damage had been done by the end of the second installment. That installment includes the play Li Ling bei (Xikao #21), in which the loyal hero, Yang Jiye 楊 繼業, patriarch and founder of the Yang family of generals, is left at the end with no other recourse but to commit suicide by knocking his head against a stele commemorating Li Ling, the Han dynasty general who surrendered to the Xiongnu. But in the version in the second installment, not only does the play never get to that point, the stele itself is never even mentioned. The importance of Yang hitting his head on the stele can be seen in one of the alternate titles for the play, Peng bei 碰碑 (Bumping the stele). But at least the wonderful fan erhuang aria that Yang sings, surely one of the highlights of the play, is preserved.16 The final scene of Li Ling bei as given in fuller versions is very dramatic. Yang arrives at a temple to Su Wu 蘇武, a Han dynasty envoy to the Xiongnu who is as famous for not surrendering to them as Li Ling is for surrendering to them. An alternate title of the play, mentioned in Xikao itself, is Su Wu miao 蘇武廟 (The temple to Su Wu). In older versions of the scene, as 12

See the ads in Ziyou zazhi for installment three, on the version of Qunying hui (Xikao #42) included in it. 13 See, for example, the shukao for play #469 (p. 5070) and #483 (p. 5333), both of which state that the plays are no longer performed in the complete form being offered to the reader. 14 Starting with play #280, the titles of seven plays (the others are #295, 309, 311, 314, 316, and 372) are followed by the words quanben. 15 As noted above, the shukao to play #448 acknowledges letters have been coming in asking that the complete version of Lianhuan tao should be included in Xikao. The writer goes on to say, “Moreover, recently the thought [on this matter] in the world of actors has progressed, and most of them have changed to mounting complete versions” 況近來 伶界思想逐步改進. 歷史上文武舊戲, 多改排全本 (p. 4693). In two shukao (that for play #387, p. 3889; and for #415, p. 4251) this basic idea is expressed in language that differs only in one character: “When [people] have not yet had a look at the entire leopard, it is inevitable that there should be some feeling of lack” 未窺全豹, 不免有稍/些缺陷. 16 It so happens that I once encountered a version of Li Ling bei that was more truncated than the Xikao version but for different reasons. In 1992 I saw a Tourist Peking opera version of the play at what could be considered the modern “home” of the genre, the Liyuan juchang 梨園劇場 in Beijing. It cut the second half of the play, but rather than to save space (if that is why Xikao included such a truncated version, it is not clear), this decision was presumably taken to spare the mostly foreign audiences made up of tour groups from precisely the arias that Jingju fans wait so patiently for.

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instanced in Jingxi kao,17 for instance, the spirit of Su Wu himself appears to Yang Jiye and “enlightens” (dianhua 點化) him. In later, anti-superstition versions, Su Wu does not appear but the scene is still set at the temple to him. But, while it is perhaps disappointing to go to or read a play that is known as “Li Ling’s Stele,” “Bumping the Stele,” or “The Temple to Wu Su” and to find no hint of the stele or the temple, it is in fact all too common in Jingju for playtitles more suitable for longer versions of a play to also be used for shorter versions when that is no longer really appropriate, or even for plays to have titles that no one seems to be able to explain.18 Although the Xikao version appears to be incomplete by its own conventions (at the end of the plays in Xikao there is almost always either a wan 完 [the end] or a tongxia 同下 [all exit] while there is nothing of the sort at the end of its Li Ling bei), it is not hard to find versions of the play that stop at precisely the same place.19

17

Liuxiang guanzhu, ed., Jingxi kao, 6: 190 (this version is divided into six scenes and this is the final scene). 18 For instance, Xiaoyao jin 逍遙津 (Carefree Ford; Xikao #59) is the story of Cao Cao suppressing a conspiracy by Emperor Xian to get out from under Cao’s thumb. Emperor Xian is forced to witness the death of his empress and two sons for his trouble. Not only does none of the action take place at such a ford, the ford is not even mentioned in the play. Presumably the name has continued to be used long after it made any literal sense because of the ironic overtones of having such a title for such a story. There are alternate titles that refer more directly to the content of the play, such as Bai bi gong 白逼宮 (lit. The white pressuring of the throne [the “white” refers to Cao Cao, whose face pattern is a dull white]), Cao Cao bi gong 曹操逼宮 (Cao Cao pressures the throne), or Sou zhao bi gong 搜詔逼宮 (Searching out the edict and pressuring the throne), but these are not used nearly as often as Xiaoyao jin. The shukao for this play (p. 490) has this to say about Xiaoyao jin as the title for this play: “As for the title of the play being Xiaoyao jin, these three characters, that is most strange and odd. It especially makes one search for an explanation without finding one” 維劇名取逍遙津三字, 則最離奇. 殊令人索解不得. For other examples of shukao that protest the inappropriateness of play titles without changing them, see the shukao for plays #267 (p. 2429), #343 (p. 3263), and #381 (pp. 3793–94). 19 The version in Guoju dacheng, 8: 355–59, is copied from the Xikao version, even to the extent of reproducing all but the last sentence of the shukao (which explains that Li Ling surrendered to the Xiongnu and that is why Yang Jiye curses him), adding only a wan 完 (the end) at the end. The Jingju xuanbian 京劇選編 (Selected Jingju plays; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 2003) version of the play (15: 31–56), includes the last scene but notes at the beginning of it (p. 42) that when the play is performed separately some stop at the end of the previous scene (a second note adds that in the final scene the appearance of the ghost of Su Wu, being superstitious, has been removed). In the version of the play in Jingju qupu jicheng 京劇曲譜集成 (Compendium of Jingju plays with musical notation), 10 vols. (Shanghai: Shanghai wenyi, 1992–1998), 2: 1–47, the final scene has been quarantined from the main part of the play as the third of three appendices (pp. 43–47; the first two appendices also deal with supernatural material in earlier versions of the play).

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As bad as the truncation of the Xikao version of Li Ling bei appears to be at first, what happens to the next play in Xikao, Silang tanmu 四郎探母 (Fourth son visits his mother; #22), is perhaps more striking, since it is one of the most famous plays in the repertoire. Xikao’s version breaks off just after the scene in which Silang is reunited with his mother (at least avoiding the charge of false advertising), skipping entirely the rest of the play (a total of five scenes: one in which Silang meets his wife, one in which Silang parts with his family, one in which Silang heads home, one in which he is captured, and the climactic scene in which he is just barely saved from execution).20 A modern playgoer would also probably criticize Xikao’s version of this play for lacking, at the very beginning, the two things perhaps most strongly connected to Tan Xinpei, the “opener” (yinzi 引子) that Qi Rushan thought Tan was the first to have given Yang Yanhui 楊延輝 (Fourth Son)21 and the phrase “south flying goose” (nan 20

21

In a version of the complete play without musical notation, such as Jingxi kao, 3: 134–147, the cut scenes are scenes 9–12 (pp. 143–47). Each page in this edition is split into three registers. If we count how many of these registers or thirds of a page are devoted to the non-cut versus cut parts, the ratio is 25:12 or 48% (almost half). If we compare the two parts in a version of the play with musical notation, such as the 1979 Xinbian Guoju juben congshu 新編國劇劇本叢書 (Collectanea of newly edited Guoju playscripts), 36 vols. (Taibei: Liming wenhua, 1979–1983) version, the ratio is 63:23 pages or 36.50% (a little more than a third). The discrepancy between these two measurements is due to the fact that the arias in the first several scenes are particularly long. The summary of the play in the shukao is particularly terse, but presumably this is because the play was so well known. The shukao does not show any sign that the text that follows is greatly abbreviated. For the purpose of this study, since the play is so well known, we will act as if the entire play had been included in Xikao since almost any reader would have been able to fill in the outlines of the missing scenes. In the case of Jinqian bao 金錢豹 (Gold-cash panther; play #215), Xikao does not include the end of the play and the shukao (p. 2043) justifies this, saying that there is nothing special ( jingcai 精彩) in the ending. In another instance, the shukao to Jian jiuling 監酒令 (Overseeing the drinking game; Xikao #174; pp. 1683–84), the writer complains about the ending of the play text, which is echoed by comments in the “Xiuding jingguo” section of the Xiding Pingju xuan version of the play, which goes on to say, “but as for [even] the Jingju plays of the masters, the endings are frequently like this” 然京劇大家之戲, 其煞尾往往如此; 12: 69). Qi Rushan, Tan si jiao, p. 9 (Qi Rushan quanji, 4: 2185), claims that it was Tan who changed the opener from “Trapped in Youzhou, thoughts of my aged mother constantly stick in my heart” 被困幽州, 思老母常掛心頭 to (literally) “The golden well locks the paulownia, long sighs vainly follow gusts of wind” 金井鎖梧桐, 長歎空隨幾陣風, and presents this as an example of changes that he made to plays that he should not have done (Qi finds that the “earlier” opener fits the entire play better and is a better match for Princess Tiejing’s opening lines). Unfortunately, the very opener that Qi says Tan stole from Kunqu appears in the Liyuan jicheng (1880) version of the play (p. 1a of the play [the plays have independent pagination in this collection], Xuxiu Siku quanshu, 1782: 559). Jin Yaozhang, ed., Zhongguo Jingju shi tulu, p. 31, reproduces the beginning of a palace copy of Silang

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lai yan 南來雁), whose last syllable Tan stretched out over four measures and is still the place in Yang Yanhui’s opening aria that is mostly likely to win applause.22 Unlike the case with Li Ling bei, however, with Xikao’s version of Silang tanmu there is no contradiction between the title of the play and its contents. In fact, the final scene of Silang tanmu had been, for some time before Xikao, performed separately under the title of Huiling 回令 (Returning the [arrow of] command)23 and Silang tanmu was also performed under the title of Tanmu Huiling 探母回令 (Visiting mother; Returning the [arrow of] command).24 So there was a certain “detachability” or separate identity of the final scenes of the play,25 and perhaps there originally was the intention to include Huiling in one of the later installments of Xikao. In any case, the very Jingju anthology that we have seen praise itself for the completeness of its versions, and implicitly criticize Xikao for being deficient in that respect, Xixue zhinan, breaks off its copy of Silang tanmu in exactly the same place as Xikao. Xixue huikao, which we will see shortly was also very critical of Xikao, does the same. There was perhaps a tendency in the first installments26 of Xikao to try tanmu performed by Tan Xinpei (referred to as Jiaotian at the beginning of the script) that uses the same opener as Xikao but does have the phrase “south-flying goose.” 22 This phrase can be heard in the 1912 recording of the aria that Tan Xinpei made for Pathé (Baidai 百代). It is lacking in the Liyuan jicheng version of the play. 23 For instance, Su wenxue congkan, 312: 475–500, reproduces a Baiben Zhang copy of Huiling (the Baiben Zhang catalogue discussed in chapter 1 above lists this offering on p. 330), and the Tuhua ribao column “Sanshi nian lai lingjie zhi nashou xi,” 7: 320 (issue 327), is about how the early Shanghai dan actor Wang Guifang 王桂芳 performed Huiling. 24 This is the title, for instance, of the Tan Xinpei palace version of the play whose beginning is reproduced in Jin Yaozhang, ed., Zhongguo Jingju shi tulu, p. 31, mentioned above. 25 Wu Xiaolin 吳笑林, “Tan Tanpai Tanmu Huiling” 談譚派探母回令 (On Tan [Xinpei] style Tanmu Huiling), Xiju yuekan 1.5 (November 1928), separate pagination (reproduced Su wenxue congkan, 7: 223–26), says, “The play Tanmu Huiling was one of the most strenuous among Tan’s plays, twice so as Zhulian zhai 珠簾寨 [Xikao #79 and 497]. Mr. Tan would not lightly perform it. Even if he performed it, he would not often include Huiling” 探母回令一劇為譚派劇中最重頭者. 倍於珠簾寨. 譚氏不輕演此. 即演亦不常帶 回令. Gu Shuguang 谷曙光, “Xin shanben ‘Xinhai gengshu jumu’ kaolun” 新善本 ‘辛 亥庚戍劇目’ 考論 (On the newly discovered rare item “Repertoire for 1911 and 1910”), in Du Changsheng, ed., Jingju yu xiandai Zhongguo shehui, pp. 747–54, is about a collection of play programs for Tan Xinpei performances from 1910–1911. The one for October 19, 1910 (p. 748), is Silang tanmu dai [dai] Huiling四郎探母代[帶]回令 (Silang tanmu including Huiling). 26 The two examples we have discussed come from installment two. The only other striking examples of what appear to be truncated versions of plays in Xikao occur in installment three and six. Compared to the Jingju qupu jicheng, 6: 123–204 version, the Xikao version of Qunying hui (play #42) lacks scenes 11–18 (pp. 178–95), but the Guoju dacheng version (3: 389–407), which is divided into two different episodes (ben), ends exactly the same way as the Xikao version (this time both end with the character wan). The shukao summary also

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to limit the space allotted to any one play and to get as many plays as possible into each installment that favored including shorter rather than longer versions of plays, but although the shukao do not attempt to do so, such a decision could be justified in terms of performance practice and the difference later anthologies want to posit between themselves and Xikao with regard to this factor is not as great as they claim. A second major complaint made against Xikao is that it printed inferior versions, because the original play texts procured were in substandard shape and/ or the editorial staff of Xikao did not properly edit and typeset them.27 A piece on two Jingju plays published in Shenbao in 1924 blames the mistaken characters (cuozi 錯字) that appear in the versions of the two plays in Xikao on the woodblock and lithographic print versions of them that the writer assumes were used as sources (as opposed to Xikao’s own claims about the sources of

27

ends in the same place as the playscript it introduces. Qunying hui is a long and complex play with detachable parts. Unlike Li Ling bei, the title Qunying hui refers to the beginning scenes of the play, so there is no problem with the title not matching the content. The other example, Jiugeng tian 九更天 (Xikao #95) is more like Li Ling bei. In the play a loyal servant, Ma Yi 馬義, is helped to save his master, who is under sentence of execution for the murder of a headless corpse that was found in his house (there is an adulterous sister-in-law behind this attempt to frame him), by the supernatural extension of the night before the execution to almost twice the normal length (nights are usually divided into 5 two-hour watches, Jiugeng tian can be translated as the night of nine watches). To prove the sincerity of his testimony, Ma Yi has to endure a variety of tortures, including most prominently rolling on a bed of nails. The title Jiugeng tian, as well as the alternate names for the play, Ma Yi jiu zhu 馬義救主 (Ma Yi saves his master), Gun dingban 滾釘 板 (Rolling on the bed of nails), and Fu tian liang 弗天亮 (The postponed dawn), all point to the second half of the play. The Xikao version, however, ends long before that, with Ma Yi killing his daughter so that he can offer her head to the local magistrate (who promised that he would release Ma’s master if the head of the headless corpse was found). While Ma Lianliang would later make the rolling on the bed of nails scene famous, the shukao in Xikao (p. 860), says “ordinarily, everyone only performs [this play] to the point where [Ma Yi] kills his daughter and stops” 尋常大都皆演至殺女為止. The Guoju dacheng version of the play (10: 555–561) follows Xikao (even to the extent of copying the play summary from the shukao), while the Jingxi kao version (2: 66–78) and Xidian (2: 38–60) versions continue on for many more scenes and end with the execution of the bad guys. The process of setting the type involves an extra step and an invitation to new types of errors not to be seen in woodblock or lithographic editions. The need to reuse the same type (of which any printer would only have a limited supply) is said to have been responsible for such errors as characters that are upside down or laying on one side. See Zhang Xuemin, The History of Chinese Printing, Chen Jihua et al., trs. (Paramus, NJ: Homa & Sekey Books, 2012), p. 385, where it is said that such errors are “a most persuasive evidence to tell moveable type editions from others.”

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its plays), but also complains that these wrong characters were not corrected (gaizheng 改正) when they were collated and typeset (paijiao 排校).28 As for whether the playscripts in Xikao are inferior versions, we have already discussed in chapter 3 the claims made in and for Xikao that it relied on the secret texts (miben) of famous actors. We have also seen that later Jingju anthologies of the Republican period worked such claims into their titles. It is, of course, a fantasy to think that a play text owned by actors who were not very literate and who became famous not for the texts they performed but for how they performed them will be in good shape just because they were owned by an actor (this assumes an equation between performance and text that did not exist29). But later play anthologies in competition with Xikao and clearly wishing to surpass it seem to often have had more direct input from famous actors than seems to have been the case with Xikao. For instance, among the authors of the twelve prefaces for Xixue huikao there are several actors, including Ouyang Yuqian, who complains that Xikao and other such books published on theater are all “patchwork in their research, and unworthy of being called finely wrought and systematic specialized works” 片段之研究, 不足稱為精密, 有系統之專書.30 An ad for Xixue huikao said of it: “The collection of the material [for it] lasted over three years, and as for those in charge of the compilation, there were altogether fifteen specialists, and actors were requested to look over and revise the entire text” 搜羅材料, 歷時三年有餘. 主持編務, 共有 十五專家, 全部稿件, 復請伶工修改.31 The preface by He Haiming 何海鳴 says that the “play texts of the ‘play research’ [volumes] of recent years in circulation from the commercial publishing houses” 近年坊間劇考劇本之印行者 are 28 Zhongxin 中心, “Ping Hongyang dong Kongcheng ji juben” 評洪羊洞空城計劇本 (On the play texts for Hongyang dong [Xikao #2] and Kongcheng ji [Xikao #1]), Shenbao, February 11, 1924. 29 The narrator of Chen Moxiang’s Huoren daxi (who is a version of Chen himself; see chapter 5), pp. 51.344–45, is skeptical about the value of Xikao for performers, but also of the value for them of texts such as Zhui baiqiu and Nashuying qupu 納書楹曲譜 (Musical notations from Nashuying; 1792). On Ye Tang’s 葉堂 Nashuyin qupu, see Joseph S. C. Lam, “Notational Representation and Contextual Constraints: How and Why did Ye Tang Notate his Kun Opera Arias?” in Bell Yung and Joseph S. C. Lam, eds., Themes and Variations: Writings on Music in Honor of Rulan Chao Pian (Cambridge, Mass.: Dept. of Music, Harvard University; Hong Kong: Institute of Chinese Studies, University of Hong Kong, 1994), pp. 31–44. Unlike Zhui baiqiu, which is thought to have been strongly connected to stage performance, Ye Tang was not very interested in Kunqu as it was performed on stage. In the notes to chapter 1, we noted that Chen was critical of over-reliance on Baiben Zhang manuscripts of plays. See Chen’s “Guanju shenghuo sumiao,” part three, Liyuan waishi, p. 407. 30 Reproduced in Su wenxue congkan, 1: 35. 31 Xiju yuekan 1.1 (July 1928), reproduced in Su wenxue congkan, 5: 366.

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“not only disorganized and mongrel, without the least bit of organization, the play texts that they print are full of gaps and errors” 不特凌亂錯雜, 毫無整 理, 即所刻劇詞亦脫略訛誤多, but Xixue huikao “was edited using a scientific approach” 用科學方法編輯.32 Xixue zhinan went Xixue huikao one better by inviting as the person who collated and corrected ( jiaozheng 校正) it a well-known actor, Feng Chunhang 馮春航 (stage name Feng Zihe 馮子和 [1888–1942]). His preface and the fanli to Xixue zhinan both agree that it is not enough to come up with the secret texts of actors, despite the claim in the ads for Xikao that modern actors have cleaned up their playscripts. In Feng’s preface he relates how after the death of Tan Xinpei there were many counterfeit play texts ( jiatuo zhi ben 假托之 本) in circulation and he was worried about the “falling from circulation of his true sounds” 其真音失傳. Luckily, a friend from Beijing brought several “texts of true transmission” (zhenchuan ben 真傳本) that even had gongche musical notation by Mei Yutian 梅雨田 (1869–1914; Tan’s private huqin player and Mei Lanfang’s uncle). “But because of the process of copying, in them there were [many] incorrect characters” 維傳抄之中, 間有訛字 that needed correcting.33 Item 4 of the fanli to Xixue zhinan claims “Jingju play texts of old have been full of incorrect characters and ungrammatical/illogical phrases” 京劇曲本, 向 多訛字及不通之詞. After claiming that all of the texts in its collection are “the private texts of famous actors” 名伶秘本, the writer goes on to claim that it is only after they “have been polished and corrected by literati, that their sentences are really worth reading” 經文人點竄改正, 其詞句皆裴然可觀.34 We have seen in chapter 3 that the authors of the shukao in Xikao were generally content to point out deficiencies in their playscripts rather than to go ahead and change them. If we are more interested in the playscripts as they

32

Reproduced in Su wenxue congkan, 1: 19–20. He Haihong is otherwise unknown to me. Liu Zengfu, Jingju xinxu, p. 340, speaks of Xixue huikao as “new-style work for guidance in the study and research of Jingju” 指導學習, 研究京劇的新式著作. 33 Reproduced in Su wenxue congkan, 23: 224. 34 Reproduced in Su wenxue congkan, 1: 137. Of course, just because a play text has been written by a literatus is no guarantee that it won’t have errors in it, or that once an error has been pointed out that it would be changed. Qi Rushan had Xiang Yu 項羽, on his first entrance in Bawang bie ji, recite a poem that ends “Han zhan dong lai Chu ba xi” 漢占 東來楚霸西 (Han has taken control of the East and Chu lords it over the West) when the truth was precisely the opposite (see scene 2 of the play in Mei Lanfang yanchu juben xuanji 梅蘭芳演出劇本選集 [Selected Mei Lanfang performance playscripts; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 1961], p. 103). The mistake probably came about because Xiang Yu took for himself the title of “Xi Chu bawang” 西楚霸王 (Overlord of Western Chu). At least scene 2 is no longer regularly performed (only scene 8 is).

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circulated than in what literati could do to them,35 then such a “conservative” (or lazy) attitude is precisely what we want, even if we can certainly regret the often poor quality of the proofreading in Xikao.36 Such a conservative and 35

36

There were those that blamed some of the deficiencies in Xikao on literati. Weng Ouhong, Weng Ouhong bianju shengya, p. 319, after criticizing the idea that Xikao could make up for the lack of playscripts in circulation, said, “Actually, as for the Xikao published in Shanghai, it is most certainly not composed of true actors’ texts held privately by them, they were instead all produced to fill up a quota by literati without anything better to do who took the outlines of plays as they are performed on stage, then as they wished made up, any which way, lyrics for the arias” 原來上海出版的戲考, 並不是演員的私房真 本, 都是一些無聊文人看了舞臺上演出的輪廓, 以意為之, 胡亂地填些戲詞, 濫竽 充數. We have seen above that the liyan in volume one of the Zhonghua Tushu Guan hardbound set apologizes for problems in the editing, but what we see in the texts goes far beyond what is conceded there. It is possible that many of the problems were introduced when the text was typeset. Characters are sometimes upside down or sideways (see p. 5034 for examples of both) and chunks of text can be transposed (see pp. 4794–96). There are a lot of sight loans (replacing characters with other characters similar in appearance) and phonetic loans (replacing characters with characters that sound similar). For instance, in the shukao to Youyuan jingmeng 遊園驚夢 (Xikao #464; p. 4965), in a phrase explaining how, when Mei Lanfang performs, the shows are sold out that should read mai zuo wei zhi yi kong 賣座為之一空 (the seats on sale because of it were completely/immediately sold out), the shukao version has two sight loans: du zuo wei zhi yi shi 讀座為之一室 (lit. the read seats were because of it completely/immediately rooms). Many of the phonetic loans show that the typesetting was done by southerners, since no distinction is made between characters pronounced with a retroflex and those without [for instance, on p. 4904, zhi 直 (straight) is written for zhe 這 (this) in a phrase that should read zao zhe huanghan 遭這荒旱 (meet up with this drought). Finally, there is no lack of absurdities. On just one page (p. 4966) of the Xikao version of Youyuan jingmeng, for instance, the original line of “how can it be proper to reveal my whole body” 怎便把全身現 gets turned into “how can it be proper to reveal my golden teeth” (zen bian ba jin ya xian 怎 便把金牙現) and a line about little bells (xiao jinling 小金鈴) tied on the flowers to protect them out of “extreme pity” (teng sha 疼煞) for them has been changed so that it is now about “little golden lotuses [bound feet]” (xiao jinlian 小金蓮) that are “really hurting” (tong sha 痛煞). Xikao.com, which committed itself to putting a lot of the Xikao texts online, has frequently had to deal with the question of whether they should correct obvious errors in the text but have generally come down on the side of preserving the original. See, for instance, the entry in the blog of Xiaodouzi 小豆子 (one of the main organizers of xikao.com), “Xikao de Blog,” for February 26, 2006, “Niuwang” 牛王 (http:// blog.xikao.com/?m=200602, accessed 4/12/2007), written after editing Bajiao shan 芭 蕉扇 (The plantain leaf fan; Xikao #499) on the question of why Niumo wang 牛魔王 (Demon bull king) was written as Niuma wang 牛媽王 (Ox mother king) in the play; the conclusion is that it was probably because mo 魔 and ma 媽 are homophones in the Shanghai dialect, and the decision to not change it followed “the principle of preserving the original appearance” 本着保留原貌的作法. The possible reasons given in the “Xiuding jingguo” essay (11: 34) in the Xiuding Pingju xuan version of Jiang xiang he 將相 和 (General and minister reconciled; Xikao #344) for the problems in the Xikao version of

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non-interventionist approach is a great advantage of Xikao over the later major Jingju collections published under more ideologically driven regimes such as Guoju dacheng in Taiwan37 or the radically edited Jingju congkan 京劇叢刊 (Collectanea of Jingju plays)38 or the supposedly more conservative Jingju huibian 京劇彙編 (Compendium of Jingju plays)39 of the PRC. Xikao also has the advantage that it was published right in the heyday of Jingju, as the old that play are that it is not really Wang Xiaonong’s “true text” (zhenben 真本) or that the mistakes were made when the text was typeset (paiyin cuowu 排印錯誤), there being the presumption that Wang, as a highly educated man, would not make such mistakes. Not all of Zhonghua Tushu Guan or Wang Dungen’s publications were sloppy about proofreading. Youxi zazhi printed “lists of errata” (kanwu biao 勘誤表) in later issues to correct typos in earlier ones. On sloppiness in the early phases of the printing of plays in the west, see Peters, “Preparation, Editing, Correction,” Theatre of the Book, pp. 38–40, where she says, for instance, “Care in the preparation of the printed text [of commercial editions of plays] must have seemed a waste of time” (p. 38) and “It is conventional to note that plays were generally less carefully printed than most other genres” (p. 39). 37 In Zhang Bojin’s preface for volume twelve of Guoju dacheng, the last one before the three supplementary volumes, he wrote: “Speaking from the point of view of social education, [national drama] is not only the most convenient, most economical, and most effective of educational materials, it is also the most important fulcrum for reforming public morals and the best tool for promulgation. For those who desire to spread political education, there is no other way to do it; for those who desire to transform the people and establish good customs, there is no other way to do it….” 從社會教育之立場言之, 不儘為最簡 便, 最經濟, 最有效力之教材; 亦轉移風氣之最大樞紐, 宣傳廣播之極好工具. 欲 宣傳政教者, 捨此莫由, 欲化民成俗著, 捨此莫由…. It is important to note that Guoju dacheng was published by the Ministry of National Defense (Guofang Bu 國防部). The collection is far more squeamish than Xikao, leaving out two of the most popular late Qing early Republican period plays, Shazi bao (Xikao #469) and Shuangling ji (Xikao #135), presumably because they are based on real sensational cases of adulterous women killing to protect their lovers. 38 Published from 1953–1959 by Xin Wenyi Chubanshe 新文藝出版社 of Shanghai and then Zhongguo Xiju Chubanshe 中國戲劇出版社 of Beijing, Jingju congkan comprises 50 volumes and 160 plays, all of which have been revised to accord with official policy. For the contents of the collection, see Ma Shaobo et al., Zhongguo Jingju shi, 3: 315–17. 39 Published 1957–1985 by Beijing Chubanshe 北京出版社 of Beijing, Jingju huibian contains 109 volumes and 499 plays. According to Ma Shaobo et al., Zhongguo Jingju shi, 3: 24, it was supposed to “preserve” (baoliu 保留) the “original appearance” (yuanmao 原 貌) of the plays but the same work admits that the plays were edited (3: 101). It does not include Shazi bao or Shuangling ji, both of which were prohibited from performance in the PRC but very popular in the late Qing and early Republican era. Objectionable material is edited from the versions of plays included in the series. For instance, superstitious material was cut and language changed in the Jingju huibian version of Shuang he yin (Xikao #342; see the entry on this play in Zeng Bairong, ed., Jingju jumu cidian, p. 873). The table of contents of Jingju huibian can be found in Ma Shaobo et al., Zhongguo Jingju shi, 3: 317–22.

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stars such as Tan Xinpei were dying off and the new stars such as Mei Lanfang were on the rise.40 The later Jingju anthologies of the Republican period are more explicit than Xikao in presenting themselves as designed to help amateurs learn to perform the plays,41 although they sometimes link that motive for buying them with the other one of providing a resource one can take to the theater to help one understand the performances there.42 To that end, they often include musical notation and essays and comments on performance. In contrast to Xikao, which does not use orthography or page layout to distinguish arias from dialogue, relying only on stage directions, and which does not generally divide its plays into scenes,43 later Republican era Jingju collections pride themselves on using paragraphing and font size to distinguish arias from dialogue and 40 Lu Dawei 陸大偉 (David L. Rolston), “Xikao zhong renwu hangdang de bianhua” 戲考 中人物行當的變化 (Changes in role-type allocation in Xikao), in Du Changsheng, ed., Jingju biaoyan lilun tixi jiangou, pp. 793–810, charts changes in the ratio of male vs. female roles in the plays included in the Xikao installments over time, while Lu Dawei, “Mei Lanfang zai Xikao zhong de yingzi,” traces the increasing importance of Mei Lanfang in the installments of Xikao. 41 For instance, item 3 of the fanli for Xixue huikao says of that book, “When those who want to learn [plays] read it, in truth it is just like getting exhaustive and sincere instruction from several tens of venerable actors” 學者讀之, 實不啻得數十老伶工為之竭誠指導 (reproduced in Su wenxue congkan, 1: 137), while the ad for Xixue zhinan mentioned above says that using that work can save you the bother of going to an amateur opera club or hiring a teacher. 42 Xidian, for instance, on the title page of the first volume, has this comment about itself: “Guiding teacher to learn plays; must carry to watch plays” 學戲導師, 觀劇必攜, and at the beginning of the first play labels itself “Must carry to watch plays Xidian” 觀劇必攜 戲典. In the notice that appears in most of the revised versions of Jiuju jicheng 舊劇集 成 (Old plays collected), a series of plays in sixteen installments with one or two plays per installment that began in 1939 and began to be reprinted in revised editions in 1942 (at different times the original and revised series was printed by at least two different presses in Tianjin: Boya Shuju 博雅書局 and Huaxin Shuju 華新書局; later reprinted by various presses in Taiwan and the PRC under different names), there are complaints about how the xikao/Xikao (might refer to the genre or to the publication of that name) so readily available are “inadequate for use” 不切合實用 and “differ greatly from what is performed on stage” 與臺上所演迥異, while the original editions of Jiujiu jicheng could satisfy the needs of a number of audiences: “actors can use them to perform, piaoyou can use them study how to perform, researchers can use them as research material, afficionados can use them as a guide; they can cause readers to instantly understand and save on mental effort, and there is no more need to look through or read those miscellaneous xikao on sale” 伶人可以之演劇, 票友可以之演習, 研究家可作參考, 嗜好者可作指 南, 使讀者一目了然, 少費腦筋, 不必再翻閱市上繁雜之戲考. The revised editions are claimed to be “even more logical and even more suitable for use” 更合理更適用. 43 The reprints of the Shenbao Guan version of installment one by Zhonghu Tushu Guan actually edit out the rudimentary scene divisions that the earlier version did have (see,

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divide their playscripts into scenes.44 They are generally more consistent than Xikao in giving the role-types for characters and the aria-types for arias. Ironically, it seems that many of the publications that criticized Xikao for presenting inferior texts were published by the very publisher that would later reprint Xikao, Dadong Shuju of Shanghai. Besides the books mentioned in chapter 1, these publications include a journal, Xiju yuekan. That periodical published many Jingju playscripts from a variety of sources and with a variety of scholarly and explanatory apparatus. In publishing actor’s scripts, the editor promised that they would have less mistakes than those in Xikao.45 As critical as many new works were of Xikao, none of them were able to really surpass it in influence. Xikao had managed to present what many seemed to see as a very valuable resource. The continual displeasure, dissatisfaction, and desire to surpass it is useful for not only putting its deficiencies into high relief but also showing how much Xikao continued to be “in the way” and not forgotten, even as circumstances and practices, both on stage and in the textualization (broadly understood) of Jingju, changed radically. How new approaches to drama and theater, new media and changes in uses of old media, and the appearance of new audiences after the appearance of Xikao affected the textualization of Jingju are the subjects of chapters five and six.

for instance, pp. 5 and 6 of the Shenbao Guan version of Sangyuan ji zi 桑園寄子 [Abandoning the son in the mulberry garden; Xikao #7]). 44 Item 5 of the fanli of Xixue huikao points out that it does both, in contrast to what it calls “all the Jingju play texts published commercially” 坊間所有京調劇本 (reproduced in Su wenxue congkan, 1: 138). Item 4 of the fanli for Xixue zhinan even lists the different font sizes that will be used for the arias (changci 唱詞), dialogue (baikou 白口), explanations (shuoming 說明 [stage directions]), and musical notation (gongche 工尺; reproduced in Su wenxue congkan, 23: 226). Xixue xikao cites as its model an edition of Zhui baiqiu, while the editor’s introduction (“Xiaoyin” 小引) to Xidian says that its model is “the format of the newly popular modern-style spoken drama” 現代新興話劇的形式. 45 See the remarks by the editor (Liu Huogong) at the head of the issue (Juantou yu 卷頭 語) for issue 1.4 (October 1928), reproduced in Su wenxue congkan, 7: 9. The scholarly publishing of Jingju play texts was raised to an even higher level in the later periodical, Juxue yuekan, which solicited newly edited or reformed scripts and published guidelines on how to prepare them. These guidelines were published in two parts, under the title of “Jiu juben zhengli gaiyao” 舊劇本整理概要 (The essentials for editing old plays), in 1934 at the head of issues 1.4 and 1.8, and included, in the first part, “the five get rid-ofs” (wu qu 五去): getting rid of “deities” (shen 神), “antiquity” (gu 古), “filth” (hui 穢), “prolixity” (rong 冗), and “lack of development” (zhi 滯).

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New Approaches That Arose at Least Partially in Reaction to Xikao

The fact that the very title of Xikao (particularly the inclusion of the word kao) presents it as an academic enterprise is important, regardless of whether the collection itself really exemplifies an approach to the plays that we would consider academic. The years in which it was published saw both the beginnings of the teaching of Chinese indigenous theater on college campuses and serious attempts to try and create a modern discipline of theater studies. Xikao itself is almost completely innocent of any sign of any attempt to coherently conceptualize itself or its subject, much less any whiff of theorization, but it did seem to provoke others to move in those directions, if for no other reason than to set themselves off as different from and better than it. Although it would seem that Xikao itself is also innocent of the idea of copyright, the shu­ kao for the plays do pay some attention to the question of the “authorship” of at least some of the plays it published. The shukao, for instance, mention how the publisher expended considerable funds to procure certain playscripts from particular (generally unnamed) people, playscripts that they present as more genuine than others, but do not seem concerned at all about whether those people really had the right to sell them. 2.1 The Rise of Xixue/Juxue Xixue 戲學 and juxue 劇學, both meaning “theater-ology,” were new terms that appeared in Chinese discourse at the end of the Qing dynasty and became prominent in the Republican period. We have already seen how they appeared in the titles of texts that imitated Xikao. Eventually the preference for twocharacter terms would be abandoned and the main way to speak of “theaterology” would become xiju xue 戲劇學, but that term would only become common much later. Just as “ology” can be tacked onto nouns to talk about a discipline of study of the subject indicated by those nouns, so can xue. This option was always possible in the Chinese language, but seems to have been strongly reinforced and made popular in a new way under the influence of the increasingly widespread introduction of elements of modern Western discourse (sometimes through Japanese intermediation) into China beginning in the late Qing. It is not yet as easy to search for the earliest appearance of terms in Chinese as it hopefully will be in the future, but there are some searchable resources that can give us some idea. Since both xi and ju have meanings that have nothing to do with theater, those have to be sorted out. The earliest unambiguous reference to xixue that I have come across appears in a notice that first appeared in Shenbao on April 7, 1890 concerning classes at the Anglo-Chinese School (Ying Hua

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Shuguan 英華書館) in Shanghai. The Anglo-Chinese School was founded in 1865 and the instructors included English expats and overseas Chinese.46 The 1890 notice mentions that the School is located behind the “Foreign Theater” (waiguo xiyuan 外國戲園),47 and asks “those interested in the study of theater” (you zhi xixue zhe 有志戲學者) to register with W. A. H. Moule (Mu Yueli 慕 悅理), who is described as a “famous scholar” (mingshi 名師) and the product of “English higher institution(s) of learning” (Yingguo da shuyuan 英國大書 院).48 It would not be until 1911 that there would be a second mention of xixue in Shenbao.49 The first book mentioned above to use xixue in its title, Xixue daguan, appeared in 1917,50 and the first organization for the study of theater that includes xixue in its title, Xixue Yanjiu She 戲劇研究社 (Society for the study of theater), existed at least by 1918,51 the same year that xixue appeared in an ad in Shenbao for Xikao.52 The most important early publication that included xixue in its title, however, was surely Feng Shuluan’s “Xixue jiangyi” 戲學講義 (Notes for a lecture on xixue). 46 The first principal was John Fryer (Fu Lanya 傅蘭雅; 1839–1928). On the school, see Li Yiting 李亦婷, “Wan Qing Shanghai de waiyu peixun ban—Yi Ying Hua shuguan he Shanghai Tongwen guan wei ge’an de yanjiu” 晚清上海的外語培訓班—以英華書 館和上海同文館为個案的研究 (Foreign language classes in late Qing Shanghai—A study taking the Anglo-Chinese School and Tong Wen College of Shanghai as case studies), Dushi wenhua yanjiu 城市文化研究 (Studies in urban culture) 2013.1: 268–80. 47 This was the way that the Lyceum Theater (Lanxin Da Xiyuan 蘭心大戲院) was often referred to at the time. The first version of the theater burned down and a new one was built at the location described in this notice in 1874. On the early history of this theater, which was originally where an amateur expat theater group performed, see, for instance, Chen Linghong 陳凌虹, “Qingmo Minchu wenming xi juchang xinkao” 清末民初文 明戲劇場新考 (A new investigation of wenming xi theaters in the late Qing and early Republican period), Xiju 2015.1: 40–53, especially pp. 42–44 (for a drawing of the interior circa 1874, see p. 43). See also Ō hashi Takehiko et al., Zhao Yi, tr., Shanghai zujie yu Lanxin da xiyuan. 48 The following year, Moule would become principal of the school (see Li Yiting, “Wan Qing Shanghai de waiyu peixun ban,” p. 273). He was the son of a missionary long resident in China, Archdeacon Arthur Evans Moule (1836–1918). 49 A notice to its stockholders posted by the company behind Xinxin Wutai 新新舞臺 (New New Theater) saying that xixue jia 戲學家 (the meaning is clearly theater specialists) had been hired to “compose and stage” (bianpai 編排) new plays appeared on August 19, 1911. 50 A claim is made in an ad in Xixue daquan (1920) that it was the “only book devoted to xixue” 關於戲劇學唯一專書). The ad notes that Xia Yueshan (famous actor and playwright) collated ( jiaozheng 校正) it and the royalty page also identifies Xia as the collator ( jiaochou zhe 校讎者). 51 When it published Xiqu zhinan. 52 The ad appeared on February 5, 1918, and included the phrase “the more mankind evolves, the more juxue must become more developed” 人民愈進化則劇學必愈發達.

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A new phenomenon of the early twentieth century was the publication of “notes” for lectures that were prepared for university courses,53 but the author of “Xixue jiangyi,” Feng Shuluan 馮叔鸞 (1884–after 1940), was a writer and editor and not yet a professor,54 and it would not be until 1917 that Wu Mei started teaching Chinese drama at Peking University.55 Installments of a serialization of Feng’s lectures first appeared in a supplementary section to Da gonghe ribao 大共和日報(Great Republic Daily), in 1913,56 but then a complete serialization in eight installments ran in issues 9–16 in Youxi zazhi (one of the magazines published by Zhonghua Tushu Guan) in 1914–1915.57 This is quite a substantial work that runs over sixty pages divided into ten chapters on these topics: xixue, 53 “Lecture notes” were published in China in Chinese as early as the 1860s, but only in Christian missionary publications. 54 For Feng Shuluan’s dates and his career, see Zhao Xingqin 趙興勤 and Zhao Wei 趙韡, “Feng Shuluan shengping kaoshu ji qi xiqu yanjiu de xueshu jiazhi—Minguo shiqi xiqu yanjiu xuepu zhi shijiu” 馮叔鸞生平考述及其戲曲研究的學術價值—民國時期戲 曲研究學譜之十九 (The life of Feng Shuluan and the academic value of his research on xiqu—Academic roster of research on xiqu in the Republican period number 19), Shehui kexue luntan 社會科學論壇 (Social science forum) 2015.3: 178–96, pp. 181–82 (birthdeath dates), and 179–81, 183 (his careers in politics, publishing, and teaching; the fact that he joined the puppet government of Wang Jingwei 汪精衛 [1883–1944] might account for the fact that it is only lately that he has become a focus of research). He took over teaching xiqu at Nangfang Daxue 南方大學 (Southern University) when Yuan Hanyun became sick (p. 183). For a list of the plays and theater articles and books that he wrote, see pp. 185–87 (fifty items are listed [each installment of serialized pieces is counted as a separate item]). He also had extensive experience on the stage as an amateur actor, although he claimed to have never studied with a teacher (p. 183). On Feng as playwright and actor, see Yao Yunjie 姚贇㛃, “Feng Shuluan xiju chuangzuo ji yanchu kaoshu” 馮 叔鸞戲劇創作及演出考述 (An investigation and account of Feng Shuluan’s dramatic output and his acting), Xiqu yanjiu 99 (2016): 143–63. 55 According to Li Jian 李簡, “Ershi shiji zaoqi de Beida Zhongguo xiju jiaoxue” 二十世 紀早期的北大中國戲劇教學 (The teaching of Chinese theater at Peking University in the early part of the twentieth century), Da xiju luntan 1 (2003): 14, Wu Mei (who only believed in Kunqu and looked down on Jingju and other more popular forms of xiqu) taught Chinese drama (prosody) from 1917–1922. Xu Lingxiao, Pihuang wenxue yanjiu, p. 22, counters complaints about the teaching of Yuan drama at Peking University and quotes Chen Duxiu’s claim that the universities of U.S., the nations of Europe, and Japan all had theater curricula (the term xiqu is used). 56 Only one installment, dated to the 28th day of the fifth lunar month (July 2) of 1913 can be found in the Jindai qikan database, but since that one is labeled a continuation, there must have been at least one other. There are similarities between some of the content of this installment and the most closely related section of the later Youxi zazhi serialization, but it is clear that if the two serializations can be thought of as the same work, a lot of reorganization happened between the first and second versions. 57 The exact dates that the different issues appeared do not appear in the publication pages at the back of each issue.

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different kinds of plays, Jingju, famous Jingju actors, new plays, specialists in new plays, actresses (of both old and new plays), amateur performers, the psychology of performance (yanxi xinli xue 演戲心理學), and theater anecdotes.58 After a preface and the table of contents, “Xixue jiangyi” begins its first chapter with a definition of xixue: “Xixue is the discipline of the study of all of the principles and techniques of theater” 戲學者, 研究演戲之一切原理及其 技術之學科也. The chapter distinguishes between “ordinary knowledge” (zhi­ shi 知識) about theater, and xixue. Feng claims to be the first to use the latter term or to write about it. In the last part of the chapter the original definition of xixue is expanded by including the idea that xixue has its own “methods” ( fangfa 方法) and says that the difference between ordinary knowledge and “real knowledge” (xuewen 學問) is that the latter is scientific: it is systematic (you tiaoli 有條理).59 The term juxue seems to have appeared later than xixue. The earliest usage I have found comes from 1911, in an advertisement for a book that includes illustrations that were produced by juxue jia 劇學家 (specialists in theater studies).60 But the term juxue would eventually overshadow xixue, particularly 58 59

60

The importance given to the piece by the journal can be seen, besides the allocation of so much space to it, from the provision of a photograph including Feng that appeared in the front matter of issue 16 with a caption identifying him as the author of “Xixue jiangyi.” Zhao Xingqin 趙興勤 and Zhao Wei 趙韡 have an article just on Feng Shuluan’s xixue: “Feng Shuluan ‘xixue’ de fengfu neiyun ji wenhua zhigui—Minguo shiqi xiqu yanjiu xuepu zhi ershi” 馮叔鸞 ‘戲學’ 豐富內蘊及文化旨歸—民國時期戲曲研究學譜之 二十 (Feng Shuluan’s xixue’s rich implications and cultural objectives—Academic roster of research on xiqu in the Republican period number 20), Zhongguo kuangye daxue xue­ bao 中國礦業大學學報 (Journal of the China University of Mining) 2014.4: 77–85. See also Liu Kunsheng 劉坤生, “Shilun Feng Shuluan ‘Xiaohong xuan juhua’ he ‘Xixue jiangyi’ zhong de xiju meixue sixiang” 試論馮叔鸞 ‘嘯虹軒劇話’ 和 ‘戲學講義’ 中的戲劇美 學思想 (The theater aesthetics of Feng Shuluan’s ‘Comments on plays from Xiaohong xuan’ and ‘Lecture notes on Xixue’), Neimenggu nongye daxue xuebao 內蒙古農業大學 學報 (Journal of the Agricultural University of Inner Mongolia) 2011.5: 396–97, p. 399. Xiaohong xuan was Feng’s studio name; his comments on theater published in Youxi zashi were published in a column entitled “Xiaohong xuan juhua.” Feng Shuluan was also well known as a writer of fiction. On that aspect of his life, see Cao Huimin 曹惠民, ed., Xiandai tongsu wenxue “Youmo dashi,” pp. 244–85. The ad first appeared on July 2, 1911. It introduces a number of books available at Haizuo Shuju 海左書局 in Shanghai. It is unclear whether that bookstore published them or was only offering them for sale. The title of the particular book is Xinju hua 新劇畫 (Illustrations of new plays). The illustrations sound as if they were similar to the ones in the series “Shijie xinju” in Tuhua ribao, but I have not been able to find any record that such a book was actually published. Xixue is used once in one of the shukao in Xikao, the one for play 355 (p. 3473), where the author of the shukao refers to his readers as yanjiu xixue zhujun 研究戲學諸君 (honored gentlemen who study xixue).

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through the influence of Juxue yuekan (1932–1936), the journal published by Xiqu Yinyue Yuan Beijing Yanjiu Suo, but also through the set of books written by Qi Rushan under the name of Qi Rushan juxue congshu 齊如山劇學叢書 that was published by the “competition,” Beiping Guoju Xuehui 北平國劇學會 (Society for the study of national drama of Beijing).61 In between Feng Shuluan, on the one hand, and Juxue yuekan and Qi Rushan juxue congshu, on the other, there was the “Guoju yundong” 國劇運 動 (Movement [to establish a true] national theater) of the 1920s led by Yu Shangyuan 余上沅 (1897–1970). It did not speak of its methodology or goals using either xixue or juxue, but its leaders had studied theater abroad. The 61

See Cao Nanshan 曹南山, “ ‘Mei Cheng zhengdang’ de muhou jiaoliang: Cong Xiju cong­ kan yu Juxue yuekan guankui yishu liupai zhi zheng” ‘梅程爭黨’ 的幕後較量: 從戲劇 叢刊與劇學月刊管窺藝術流派之爭 (The backstage trials of strength between the parties supporting Mei Lanfang and Cheng Yanqiu: A circumscribed view of the struggle over artistic styles from the point of view of Xiju congkan and Juxue yuekan), Xiju 2016.13: 55–66. Xiju congkan is the more academic of the two periodicals published by Beiping Guoju Xuehui. In chapter 4, the fact that Jubu congkan 菊部叢刊 (Theater collectanea; 1918) had a section entitled “Juxue luntan” 劇學論壇 (Theater studies forum) was mentioned but it was not pointed out at that time that this section is the very first one to appear in the volume (it appears immediately after the lengthy section including photographs). For alternative histories of the rise of juxue, see Zhang Yifan, “Baokan de lishi gongji: ‘Juxue’ guannian de tichu yu jiangou” 報刊的歷史功績: ‘劇學’ 觀念的提出與建 構 (The historical contribution of newspapers and journals: The broaching and construction of the concept of juxue), ‘Juxue’ benwei de queli, pp. 56–73, and Jiang Ji 江棘, “Juxue zhi xing” 劇學之興 (The rise of juxue), Chuanguo “julong zhi yan”: Kuawenhua duihua zhong de xiqu yishu (1919–1937) 穿過 ‘巨龍之眼’: 跨文化對話中的戲曲藝術 (1919– 1937) (“Through the Dragon’s Eyes”: The art of Chinese indigenous theater in intercultural dialogue [1919–1937]; Beijing: Zhongguo renmin daxue, 2015), pp. 198–203. The two main research institutes in Beijing are two of seven research and/or pedagogical organizations located in Beijing listed in Fu Yunzi 傅芸子, “Zhongguo xiqu yanjiu zhi xin qushi” 中國 戲曲研究之新趨勢 (New trends in the study of Chinese indigenous theater), Xiju cong­ kan 3 (December 1932): 4b, one of which is an opera school (another institution mainly concerned with teaching, Guoju Chuanxi Suo 國劇傳習所 [Institute for the transmission and practice of Guoju; this name echoes a more famous body established to preserve Kunqu: Kunqu Chuanxi Suo] is listed under Beiping Guoju Xuehui instead of separately) and another is devoted to the study of Kunqu. One includes the word juxue: Zhongguo Juxue Hui 中國劇學會 (Organization for Chinese theater studies). After the list, Fu Yunzi lists and evaluates several periodicals published by the organizations, praising Xiju cong­ kan and Guoju huabao but mentions Juxue yuekan almost as an afterthought. On Guoju huabao, which was heavily illustrated and aimed at a broader audience than Xiju congkan, which is rather “stuffy” and pedantic (the latter is typeset but imitates woodblock texts), see Zhang Junshi 張俊士, “Guoju huabao ji qi wenwu xue jiazhi” 國劇畫報及其文物學 價值 (Guoju huabao and its value for the study of material culture), Zhonghua xiqu 40 (2009): 182–93, which provides, for instance, a list of all the photos of stages in the periodical (pp. 187–88).

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movement was short-lived, primarily because it wanted to meld elements of traditional and new Chinese theater, anathema to native scholars and activists influenced by the New Culture Movement and its nearly complete rejection of old theater. The people who gave Yu Shangyuan and his co-activists the most trouble were precisely their own students.62 Although Yu Shangyuan and the other founders of the “Guoju yundong” were very cosmopolitan, they also stressed the idea that China needed its own kind of theater. Stronger elements of nationalism also surfaced in the Republican era with regard to the need for establishing Chinese theater as an object of study. Some of this was related to the fact that the emergence of the discipline, and particularly the study of pre-modern Chinese theater, had been influenced strongly by Japanese scholars, who in some cases had succeeded in writing modern-style monographs before their Chinese colleagues.63 Neither Xiqu Yinyue Yuan Beijing Yanjiu Suo nor Beiping Guoju Xuehui managed to last through the troubled decade of the 1930s. There was a publishing house/bookstore named Xixue Shuju 戲學書局 (Theater studies press) that began publishing in the 1930s and carried on into the 1950s, but it primarily 62 See Siyuan Liu, “The Cross Currents of Modern Theatre and China’s National Theatre Movement of 1925–1926,” Asian Theatre Journal 33.1 (Spring 2016): 1–36. See also, Zhang Yifan, ‘Juxue’ benwei de queli, pp. 11–28. 63 Hsiao-Chun Wu, “Ascending the Hall of Great Elegance: The Emergence of Drama Research in Modern China,” doctoral thesis, University of California, Los Angeles, 2016, pp. 98–103, discusses Chinese displeasure with Aoki Masaru’s 青木正兒 Chūgoku kinsei gikyoshi 中國近世戲曲史 (History of Chinese theater in the modern period; 1930). She also compares the movement to study indigenous Chinese theater in the Republican period with the contemporaneous Folksong Movement, which concentrated on collecting folksongs and which had more institutional support (pp. 109–18). In the first of a twopart series of lectures entitled “Guoju de tedian” 國劇的特點 (The special characteristics of national drama) broadcast over Zhongyang diantai 中央電臺 (Central Radio Station) in 1937 and that was published at the time, Qi Rushan complained that not enough Chinese respect Chinese theater or do research on it. One of the reasons he gives for why this needs to change is basically nationalist in nature: “Let it also be said that, as for foreigners, those who have begun to engage in the study of Chinese theater are already quite many, but if Chinese scholars do not instruct and guide them, those foreigners, I am afraid, will take wrong or evil paths. This would not only cause damage to national drama, it would also affect national prestige” 再說外國人士, 入手研究中國戲劇的已 經很多, 倘本國的學者不加以指示領導, 那外國人士, 恐怕要走了差路, 入了魔道. 這不但於國劇有損, 且於吾國名譽有關. The first part of the lecture was broadcast on January 29, 1937, and the text of it was published in Guangbo zhoubao 廣播周報 (Radio broadcast weekly) 123 (1937): 28–29. In the second lecture, broadcast on April 9, 1937, and published in issue 133 (pp. 65–67) of the same periodical, Qi claimed that Guoju “promotes pacificism and is against war” 提倡和平, 反對戰爭的, “is completely on the side of justice” 專尚公正是非, and is not “authoritarian” (zunjun 尊君).

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printed playscripts and primers for playing the Jinghu and Jingju percussion for a mass audience interested in learning to perform plays (in the case of this outfit, it would make more sense for their name to be 學戲書局 Xuexi Shuju rather than Xixue Shuju).64 Institutes for the study of xiqu and the training of actors and other theater personnel were established by the PRC. One of the most prominent of these, Zhongguo Xiqu Xueyuan, was long known primarily for its training of Jingju actors and not for the scholarship produced there. In the new millennium, there has been a concerted push to boost scholarship there by hiring scholars from other institutions and through the hosting of a series of bi-annual international conferences (eight to date65) that are at the center of a long-term program to establish a new discipline: Jingju-ology (Jingju xue 京 劇學). There has only been mixed success toward that goal. A major problem is that the conferences, and the publication of the papers from them, are not well-planned to achieve the kind of progress necessary to establish a real discipline (the conferences are not really set up to create dialogue and synthesis: the papers are not organized into real panels and even when scholars are asked to act as discussants, they typically only just summarize what was just said; the standards for the inclusion of papers in the conference volumes and their editing has only recently begun to get very rigorous).66 64

Their publications (if indeed we are talking of the same organization throughout) stretch from 1936 to 1955. In some of the WorldCat records for their publications, Xixue Shuju is only indicated as the distributor and the publisher is given as Jiating Shuju 家庭書社 or Xiaoxing Shudian 曉星書店. Their longest-lived project was Pingju huikan 平劇彙 刊 (Collection of Jingju playscripts), published in 41 installments, with each installment being one play (the provision of different apparatus and both gongche and cipher notation make each longer than their equivalents in Xikao) from 1936 till the death of the first editor, Li Baishui 李白水 (issues 1–32), and revived in 1941 by Shen Naikui 沈乃葵. 65 The first was held in May of 2005. For a report on this conference, see He Baotang 和寶堂, “Jingju de lishi, xianzhuang yu weilai ji Jingju xue xueke jianshe xueshu yantao hui ‘jishi’ ” 京劇的歷史, 現狀與未來及京劇學學科建設學術研討會 ‘記實’ (“A true record” of the academic conference on the history of Jingju, its present and future state, and the establishment of a discipline of Jingju-ology), Zhongguo Jingju 2005.7: 4–7. The following eight pages (pp. 8–15) contain excerpts of interviews related to the topic of the conference and the conference itself. 66 The amount of scholarship published every year has, however, been increasing at a great rate. According to Yang Xiuling 楊秀玲, “Jin ershi nian Jingju shumu yanjiu zhi xiankuang” 近二十年京劇書目研究之現況 (The present state of research on books on Jingju published in the last twenty years), in Du Changsheng, ed., Jingju biaoyan lilun tixi jiangou, p. 1329, from 1949–1964, 87 books on Jingju were published (average of 5.4 per year); from 1965–1976, nothing much was published (the situation is described as a “book drought” [shuhuang 書荒]); from 1977–1989, 138 books were published (10.6 per year); and from 1990–June 2008, 455 books were published (25.3 per year).

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The Development of Stronger Conceptions of Copyright, Authorship, and Performance Rights In chapter 1 the concept of du you xi, plays that were considered to “belong” to the performer who made them famous, was mentioned, as was the fact that during the decade-plus of Xikao’s initial publication there were debates about how copyright applied to plays. One argument against not prioritizing the rights of the playwright made at that time was a supposed need to widely disseminate good plays so that their educational effects could be multiplied.67 On the other hand, compared with the play troupes of the nineteenth century, in which there was a more corporate spirit, the late Qing brought with it an emphasis on the individual Jingju star and the real possibility, which became even more real in the Republic, that one could become rich through becoming a star (at the same time as the status and livelihood of minor members of play troupes declined). Mei Lanfang was one of those new stars (he was continually criticized for the high ticket prices for his performances). He was urged to sue Huang Runqing 黃潤卿 for performing Mei’s Tiannü sanhua 天女散花 (Heavenly maiden scatters flowers; Xikao #485; premiered December 1, 191768) when Huang toured Shanghai in 2.2

67 See, for instance, pp. 7–9 of the “Shangque” 商榷 (Debate) section of Xinju zazhi 新劇 雜志 (New play magazine) 1 (May 1914), which is reproduced in Minguo zhenxi duankan duankan: Shanghai juan, 51: 25,139–41. Junyue 君躍, “Jiaoben zhuanli shuo” 腳本專利 說 (On exclusive rights over playscripts), pp. 7–8, argues for the rights of the playwright, while Shouju 瘦菊, “Juben zhuanli yu puji” 劇本專利與普及 (Exclusive rights over playscripts versus the need for wide dissemination), pp. 8–9, argues that new plays are written to educate society and they should not be taken as the exclusive property of their authors. 68 Xie Sijin and Sun Lihua, Mei Lanfang yishu nianpu, p. 63. Sophia Tingting Zhao, “Reorienting the Gaze in Mei Lanfang’s Lyrical Theatre: Performing Female Interiority,” Asian Theatre Journal 33.2 (Fall 2016): 395–419, pp. 408 and 416 n. 22, points out that the play was performed in a Beijing residence of the former Qing high official Natong a few days earlier, on November 29, before an audience that included prominent Japanese businessmen such as Ōkura Kihachirō 大倉喜八郎 (1837–1928). Ōkura, founder and head of a prominent zaibatsu and head of the board of directors of the Imperial Theatre in Tokyo, was behind the invitation of Mei Lanfang to perform in Japan in 1919. On the occasion of the 1917 performance, Ōkura was being hosted by a group of Chinese governmental and business elites at Natong’s residence. For the entry in Natong riji 那桐日記 (Natong’s diary), see Fu Jin, ed., Jingju lishi wenxian huibian: Qingdai juan, 7: 786. Natong’s residence was both the site of private performances that he sponsored and private performances organized by others. For a photo of what Natong’s garden looks like now, and a discussion of the stage that was once in it and some of the performances on it, see Liang Xinli 梁欣 立 and Ren Zhen 任震, Beijing gu xilou 北京古戲樓 (Old stages in Beijing; Bejing: Guojia tushu guan, 2015), “Najia huayuan xitai” 那家花園戲臺 (The stage in the garden of the Na family), pp. 26–27.

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1918.69 There is no record of what Mei thought about the question, but he did not try and sue Huang Runqing. The tension between personal interest and the national good would continue throughout the Republican period. In its beginning years the Republican government particularly stressed “popular education” (tongsu jiaoyu 通俗教 育), and among the media for such popular education, theater was considered to be very important, considering the state of literacy at the time (there is a clear continuity between this understanding of the power of theater and that of Chen Duxiu, discussed in the Introduction). In 1915 an organization entitled the Tongsu Jiaoyu Yanjiu Hui 通俗教育研究會 (Bureau70 for research on popular education) was established under the control of the Ministry of

69

See Goldstein, Drama Kings, p. 118. Elements of the debate are recorded in Zhou Jianyun, Jubu congkan, “Juxue luntan” 劇學論壇 (Forum on the study of theater), pp. 43–49 (Pingju shiliao congkan reprint pp. 151–57). Over and above Goldstein’s fine summary, it might be added that it is Japanese copyright law that is mentioned (p. 45), an argument is made that Mei was not performing the play in Shanghai and Huang was performing a service by performing it there (pp. 44–45), and the authorship of the play is attributed to Qi Rushan and Li Shikan 李釋戡 (1888–1961) (p. 45) rather than to Qi alone. Prior to 1918 the play in question had been published in Da wutai 大舞臺 (The big stage), a periodical inaugurated in November of 1917 that closed down in the spring or summer of 1918 (see Zhongguo jindai wenxue daxi, Shiliao suoyin ji, 2: 259–60). Elsewhere in Jubu cong­ kan there is a photo of Huang Runqing in costume for Tiannü sanhua (unpaginated in original, p. 66 by the pagination of the Pingju shiliao congkang reprint); in the “Fenmo yuedan” 粉墨月旦 (Evaluation of actors) section, p. 24 (Pingju shiliao congkan reprint p. 418), Zhou Jianyun compared Huang Runqing’s version of the play with the one that was published in 1918 by Meishe 梅社 (The Society for Mei Lanfang), Mei Lanfang 梅 蘭芳 (privately published but printed by Commercial Press). The play would be printed again for Mei Lanfang’s tour of Hong Kong in 1922. The installment in Xikao that includes this play was not published until 1924. For an example of an actor complaining about what other actors were doing to his play, in this case Ouyang Yuqian’s Daiyu zanghua (Xikao #220), see Ouyang Yuqian, “Zi wo yan xi yi lai,” pp. 55–56; see also Mei Lanfang, Wutai shenghuo sishi nian, 2: 91–92. 70 Hui 會 would ordinarily be translated as “association” or “conference,” but since this is an official institution, I have translated the term as “bureau.”

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Education.71 It had a section devoted to theater72 that had two further subsections, one for reviewing/evaluating (shencha 審查) plays and another for writing new ones that promoted useful values73 that were made available for free to whomever would perform them.74 One of Mei Lanfang’s early plays, 71

For the “constitution” (zhangcheng 章程) for the Bureau, see the second appendix in Sun Taiyu 孫太雨, “Minguo shiqi shehui jiaoyu fagui yanjiu (1912–1945)” 民國時期社會教 育法規研究 (1912–1945) (Research on laws and regulations concerning social education in the Republican period [1912–1945]), master’s thesis, Shenyang Normal University, 2013, pp. 61–62. An abbreviated version of this document, as well as other documents related to the Bureau, can be found in Zhongguo xiqu zhi: Beijing juan, pp. 1292–96. Similar units were established locally (Chen Jie, Minguo xiqu shi nianpu, p. 23, mentions their establishment in Nanjing and Tianjin the same year). Sun Taiyu (p. 39) presents a chart listing the number of these organizations per province and the total number of “researchers” (yanjiu yuan 研究員) in them. The province with the most of each, Henan, had thirty such organizations and a total of 1,956 researchers. Although it was at least nominally national in scope, the title of the Bureau in Beijing is sometimes prefixed by the word “Beijing.” 72 In an ad for Xikao in Shenbao first run on February 5, 1919, the text proclaims that “theater is one kind of social popular education” 戲劇為社會通俗教育之種. 73 For the criteria thought to warrant approval (rewards goodness and punishes evil, well written, uses material from foreign works that can improve morals and customs, effective on the stage, and reforms bad aspects of old plays and improves morality) and those thought to warrant prohibition (promotion of lewdness, violence, absurdity, and pernicious beliefs), see Chen Geng 陳庚, Chuancheng yu xinbian: Jindai hua jincheng zhong de Beijing xiju shichang yanjiu (1912–1937) 傳承與新變: 近代化進程中的北京戲劇 市場研究 (1912–1937) (Transmission and change: A study of the theatrical market of Beijing in the midst of modernization [1912–1937]; Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue, 2016), pp. 235–36. 74 A typeset copy of a Tongsu Jiaoyu Yanjiu Hui play entitled Danji tui huiqi 單騎退回紇 (A single horseman [Guo Ziyi] forces the Turks to retreat) is photo-reprinted in Sun Ping and Ye Jinsen, eds., Fuliancheng xiqu wenxian huibian, 21: 377–447. On the first page, under the title, the Bureau is credited as having written (bian 編) the play. A separate introductory section entitled “Shishi” 事實 (facts [of the play]) just says “See the Tangshu [History of the Tang]” ( jian Tangshu 見唐書). At the beginning of each scene the characters who appear in the scene are listed (the role-types of major characters are also given, in the case of minor characters who appear in groups, how many of each is specified). At the end of the play is a separate page with the conditions of use for the play labeled “Pay attention” (Zhuyi 注意). They are separated into three items. The first affirms that as for all of the Bureau’s plays, “anyone whomsoever can perform [them]” 無論何人皆得演 唱, provided that prior to performance application is made to the local police and notice is sent to the Bureau. The second item says that if there are elements of the “aria text” (changci 唱詞) or “transitional scenes” (guochang 過場) not “suited” (bian 便) to performance they can be changed but that a copy of the play with the changes has to be sent to the Bureau. The third item states that revisions to the play text cannot go against the “main idea” (zongzhi 宗旨) of the play or include the reckless addition of absurd or licentious language or “transitional scenes.” The first notice in the “Jujie xiaoxi, Dumen juxun” 劇界消息, 都門劇訊 (News from the theater world, Theatrical dispatches from Beijing)

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Tongnü zhan she (Xikao #405), was written by the latter subsection and was selected by Mei because of its anti-superstition message.75 The men who actually wrote the plays were not given official credit for them in the playscripts, but Su Shaoqing 蘇少卿 (1890–1971), a famous amateur Jingu performer and long-time Jingju critic and educator, who worked for the play review subsection, identified Pan Jingfu 潘鏡芙 (1876–1928), Chen Moxiang’s co-author of Liyuan waishi, as one of the researchers in the Bureau who did nothing but write plays (bianxi zhuanyuan 編戲專員) and as the author of Tongnü zhan she.76 When the Bureau was first set up, the model for producing “new” plays column of issue 5631 of Shuntian shibao (September 16, 1919), p. 3, says that the Bureau had separately given the play to both Fuliancheng and an actor but that priority was being given to Fuliancheng (one reason given for doing this is that the actor involved was just a supporting actor [peijiao 配角; i.e., not a star]). 75 In the chapter on this play in Wutai shenghuo sishi nian, 3: 81–112, Mei Lanfang first describes getting interested in a case of people manipulating local superstition about a huge snake for their own profit, doing some field work investigation into the story, and then finding out that among the playscripts “compiled and printed” (bianyin 編印) by the Bureau, there was one concerning this case (p. 84; Mei also mentions the other source for the play, a Six Dynasties story [p. 85]). In the chapter, Mei does mention that Luo Yinggong helped revised the play (p. 86) but does not mention Qi Rushan. The shukao for the play in Xikao attributes the play solely to Mei Lanfang, saying that it is an example of “Mei Lanfang uniquely employing his craftful mind, [and was] personally compiled and staged [by him]” 係梅蘭芳匠心獨運, 手自編排, while Qi Rushan is given full credit for the play in Wang Xiaofan 王曉梵, ed., Qi Rushan xiben 齊如山戲本 (Qi Rushan play texts; Shenyang: Liaoning jiaoyu, 2010), pp. 108–32. The original Bureau version of the play was published in Chunliu 1.6 (May 1919): 1a–27a (pp. 567–95 of the version that binds all the issues into one volume). A cursory comparison of the two printings revealed no differences between the language used in them, the only differences concern typographic conventions (e.g., the Chunliu version uses spacing rather than periods or commas to mark sentence and phrasal breaks; the only punctuation it uses are the parentheses that enclose stage directions). The chapter in Wutai shenghuo sishi nian includes a scene by scene description by Mei Lanfang of how he performed the play (pp. 87–98). 76 See Su Shaoqing 蘇少卿, “Anle wo jutan lu—Minchu zhi gailiang xi” 安樂窩劇談錄— 民初之改良戲 (A record of talks on theater from Cozy Nest—Reformed plays in the early part of the Republic), originally published in Zhongguo yitan huabao 中國藝壇畫 報 (China forum of the arts pictorial), issue 68 (1939), p. 2; reproduced in Su Shaoqing xiqu chuqiu, p. 368. Speaking of another play written by the Bureau, Su writes in terms that are not far off the situation with Pan Jingfu and Mei Lanfang: “at the time the law about publications had not yet been established [he perhaps is referring to the 1928 law concerning authors’ rights mentioned below], those who wrote plays did not emphasize their own names, and actors were happy enough to take credit for what was good [about the play], saying that the play was written by themselves; as for who the original playwright was, they were mostly unknown” 當時出版法未立, 編劇人亦不重視己名, 伶 人喜掠其美, 謂曰自編, 原編戲人為誰, 多無知者. Su says that the playwriting subsection in the Bureau wrote more than one hundred plays but only several tens were

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seems to have favored finding old plays and revising them, but the Bureau was bothered by how hard it was to find “correct playscripts” (zhengque zhi ben 正 確之本) to work with, listing the kind of complaints that a reader of this book will find very familiar (i.e., actors are illiterate, plays are transmitted orally, actors don’t know what playscripts are, oral transmission has introduced errors into the plays, etc.). They say that even if you got the government to order the copying and submission of play texts, they would not be worth working from. They came up with a three-part strategy to find better playscripts by looking into three sources: (1) the Nanfu (i.e, the Shengpingshu), whose play texts are described as including “texts that are extremely fine and accurate” 文字詞句極 精確, (2) the actors guild, and (3) “surveys” (diaocha 調查 [in this instance, the term means primarily collecting information about performances and going to theaters and watching performances]).77 The Tongsu Jiaoyu Yanjiu Hui also sponsored a number of scholarly publications, including a short (twenty-four page) collection of five essays by Qi Rushan in 1917 under the title of Bianju qianshuo 編劇淺說 (Shallow talks on playwriting). The collection begins with an essay entitled “Lun bianxi daode zhuyi yu meishu zhuyi bingzhong” 論編戲道德主意與美術主意並重 (When writing plays, morality and aesthetics are equally important). There is no preface or introduction, and instead of a real copyright page the final page just gives the date, identifies Qi as a researcher with the Bureau, and identifies the Bureau as the publisher.78 Qi’s personal name, Zongkang 宗康, is used, instead actually performed. As for his own subsection, he notes that besides the plays sent up for review that were written in Beijing, a lot were written by Yisu She of Shaanxi. He mentions that the actor Tian Jiyun was a fellow member of the play review subsection. Other Tongsu Jiaoyu Hui plays appeared in issues 1.4 (March 1919), 1.7 (September 1919), and 1.8 (October 1919; incomplete, the journal went out of existence before the serialization could be finished) of Chunliu. 77 The need for playscripts, the problems with finding them, and the solutions the Bureau came up with are described in three separate items in the “Special Documents” (“Zhuanjian” 專件) section of Jingshi jiaoyu bao 京師教育報 (Journal of Education in the Capital [own English title: Peking Educational Review]) 27 (March 15, 1916): 1–6. The three items are on the Bureau’s decisions on “collecting indigenous theater playscripts” 戲 曲腳本瑰集, “reforming theater” 改良戲劇, and “surveying theater” 調查戲劇. These strategies of the Bureau have been discussed in Wang Yanan 王亞南, “Minguo shiqi de xiqu shencha jizhi ji jinhui xingtai yanjiu” 民國時期的戲曲審查機製及禁毀形態 研究 (Research into the forms of indigenous theater inspection and censorship in the Republican period), Xiju 戲劇 (Theatre) 2014.2: 111. 78 A HathiTrust scan of a copy of the book held at the University of California, Berkeley, East Asiatic Library, is available (the pages have been scanned in reverse order). The four articles that follow the first one (title given above) all later appeared in Chunliu issues 1–3 (1918–1919), while the first article appeared in Beijing huabao 北京畫報 (Beijing

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of his courtesy name, Rushan. The Bureau seems to have been in existence for a little under a decade.79 Later, Qi Rushan would be instrumental in the establishment of the Beiping Guoju Xuehui, which had an exhibition hall (chenlie guan 陳列館) and a library (catalogues for both were compiled and were cited as early as the notes for chapter 1). According to Chen Jiying 陳紀瀅 (1908–1997), the holdings of the library could be borrowed and copied and even if those copies were sold the association did not care, since the goal of the association was to spread Guoju.80 One reason for this, of course, was the fact that the association was founded using public money. Of the two periodicals published by the association, Xiju congkan 戲劇叢刊 (Collected publications on theater) did not publish plays, while Guoju huabao 國劇畫報 (National drama pictorial) did, if not many.81 Juxue yuekan was also published by an organization founded with public funds, Xiqu Yinyue Yuan Beijing Yanjiu Suo. Both Guoju huabao illustrated) 2.2 (1927). All five were recently included in Qi Rushan wencun, pp. 318–30, without a word about their source or publication history. 79 See Jia Ruihua 賈惢華 and Jia Junlan 賈俊蘭, “Tanhua yixian de Minchu Tongsu jiaoyu yanjiu hui chutan” 曇花一現的民初通俗教育研究會初探 (A preliminary investigation of the Tongsu Jiaoyu Yanjiu Hui of the early Republic that vanished so quickly), Cangsang 滄桑 (Vicissitudes) 2006.4: 120–21. 80 Chen Jiying, Qi Ru lao yu Mei Lanfang, pp. 134–36, describes the play texts collected by the association and ends (p. 136) with a description of the lending policy and the reasons for it. I have not seen play texts that acknowledge that they were copied from the library’s holdings, but there is a manuscript copy of Feng huan chao (not in Xikao) reproduced in Sun Ping and Ye Jinsen, eds., Fuliancheng xiqu wenxian huibian, 24:29–76, that on its first page has the same seal often used for play texts in this collection that gives the name of the opera school, but below the seal the words “suoyou” 所有 (property of) have been added, and underneath all of that is a note: “1937.6 zhuanlu Guoju chenlie guan miben” 1937.6 轉錄國劇陳列館密本 (June 1937, copied from a secret copy held in the exhibition hall of the Guoju Xuehui). The fact that the western year is used and not the year of the Republic might indicate that this note was written after 1949. Feng huan chao, a vehicle for Mei Lanfang, premiered in 1928. 81 The former published longer, more scholarly items, while the latter published heavily illustrated, more popular items. Zhongguo yishu yanjiu yuan Tushu guan chaogao ben zongmu tiyao, 10: 241, reproduces a page from and gives some information about an item entitled “Xiuding Pingju xuan” 修訂平劇選 (Selected revised Pingju plays) that was written on manuscript paper from Guoli Bianyi Guan 國立編譯館 (National Bureau of Editing and Translation; established in 1932) and 94 fascicles (ce 冊) long. The end of the eighth fascicle lists the names of four persons who worked on the revision of the material in that fascicle, and also says that Qi Rushan and Mei Lanfang “collated and edited” ( jiaoding 校訂) it. The reproduced page is quite messy. I have not personally inspected this item and only know what is given in the abstract. The title is similar to two GMD series of revised plays, one before 1949 that used Guoju instead of Pingju in its title, and one done in Taiwan that used the same title.

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and Juxue yuekan published plays with notices about copyright or performance rights being reserved, but those published in the former were, with one exception, versions no longer performed (either Kunqu versions of Jingju plays or old versions of Jingju plays from the palace or Qi Rushan’s personal collection),82 while in the case of the latter, only one play was published with a notice about copyright and performance rights being reserved.83 The lack of other notices might be explained by the general notice about performance rights, in very large characters in a box with elaborate borders, that appears on the page immediately after that one play. That notice is posted in the name of the Institute. It says that plays written by the Institute will be published in the journal and if there is interest in the theater world in performing them that will be “welcomed in all cases” (wuren huanying 無任歡迎), but in order to keep up the quality of the performed versions of the plays (which is said to depend on factors beyond the playscript itself such as the particular actors involved and stage design), performers will need to get written permission from the Institute. Of the forty or so plays published in the journal, only the one with the copyright notice was written by a member of the Institute, but even in that case the fact that the playwright84 was a member of the Institute and that the play was written for and by the Institute, is not made explicit. 82

The exception was Feng huan chao, which had premiered in 1928. It was serialized in 37 installments, beginning from the first issue (October 14, 1932), which was still not enough to finish the play (the last installment breaks off in the middle of the last scene). It is the only play published in this periodical to have a notice of copyright attached; it speaks only of copyright and prohibition of reprinting, but nothing about performance rights. With each installment, the play is attributed to Qi Rushan but also identified as coming from Mei Lanfang’s studio, Zhuiyu xuan 綴玉軒. 83 The play is Chen Moxiang’s Kongque dongnan fei (see below), which was printed in the second issue (separate pagination). The notice, printed in a box at the end of the play, says that the play cannot be performed or reprinted without the consent of the Institute (that published the journal). 84 The introduction to the play, which is written in a collective voice, is attributed to Liu Shouhe 劉守鶴 (a regular contributor to the journal), while the two directors listed are Wang Yaoqing and Cheng Yanqiu. In a piece by Jin Zhongsun that appeared in issue one of the journal (Huilu, “Nanjing Xiqu Yinyue Yuan chengli zhi jingguo”; referenced in the notes to chapter 2 above), when the research institute was first mentioned, Jin listed three of the four people named at the beginning of the play as members of the Institute (Liu Shouhe is the exception). As will be explained below, in the section on Chen Moxiang, the play was originally to be performed by Cheng Yanqiu but ended up being performed by the students at the opera school connected to the academy of which the institute was part. Below we will see that Chen stressed the idea of leaving musical and staging details up to professionals. In the introduction to the play, Liu Shouhe stresses that although the story, which comes from a ballad traditionally dated to the Later Han dynasty about a man forced to divorce his wife by his mother and the suicides of the formerly married

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Later compilations of play texts such as Xiuding pingju xuan and Guoju dacheng, published under governmental auspices by the Guomindang (GMD) before 1949 and after, and the two series of play texts published by the PRC, Jingju huibian (old plays, for reference purposes), and Jingju congkan (revised plays suitable [at least originally] for performance), were surely subsidized to a large extent and meant to spread knowledge of and performance of Jingju, but do not seem to have been distributed to performance groups the same way as the plays written by the Tongsu Jiaoyu Yanjiu Hui. As early as the Song dynasty, individual private publishers had been able to petition the government to receive an official patent granting publication rights to them to print specific works,85 but it was not until 1906 that the first modern publication law (which was modeled on a Japanese one of 1899) was promulgated in China, but it was primarily about government control of publication rather than protection against piracy, which was not addressed until a 1910 amendment to the law.86 By that time, the Qing dynasty was on its last legs, and not much progress was made on the protection of copyright in the Republican period before the capital was moved to Nanjing.87 After an initial couple, has already many spoken drama treatments, they felt it worthwhile to produce a “music drama” (yueju 樂劇) version. 85 Hok-lam Chan, Control of Publishing in China, Past and Present (Canberra: Australian National University, 1983), p. 20. 86 Chan, Control of Publishing in China, p. 25. Prior to the advent of modern copyright laws, Chinese publishers could only petition the government or particular officials with whom they had connections to try and get intervention against the pirates, or print injunctions against piracy (such as ru you fanyin, nandao nüchang 如有翻印, 男盜女娼 [if you reprint this book (without permission), may your male descendants become robbers and your female ones become prostitutes]), that would not have much real force. On this latter practice, which the author compares to similar attempts to prevent the pirating of secret medical formulas and calls “a method when there is no method” 無辦法中之 辦法, see Lüdou guanzhu 綠豆館主, “Juben yu mifang” 劇本與秘方 (Playscripts and secret prescriptions), Liyan huakan 133 (April 20, 1941): 14. 87 Wu Yonggui 吳永貴, ed., Minguo shiqi chuban shiliao huibian 民國時期出版史料彙 編 (Collection of historical material on publishing in the Republican period) 22 vols. (Beijing: Guojia tushu guan, 2013), and Wu Yonggui 吳永貴, ed., Minguo shiqi chuban shi­ liao xubian 民國時期出版史料續編 (Supplement to Collection of historical material on publishing in the Republican period) 20 vols. (Beijing: Guojia tushu guan, 2016), contain photo-reprints of the Japanese law as made available in the first issue of Tushu yuebao 圖 書月報 (Book monthly), published in May 1906 (Huibian 16: 109–21 [original pagination 7–19]), and 1928 and 1930 laws on publishing and copyright, as well as a number of works designed to help publishers and authors understand those laws. William P. Alford, To Steal a Book: Intellectual Property Law in Chinese Civilization (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995), skips right over the 1910 law (p. 50). For a more detailed overview in English of the laws on publication in the late Qing and Republican period, see Lee-hsia Hsu

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near-decade of near-peace (the so-called “Nanjing decade”), the war against the Japanese invasion, civil war between the Nationalists and Communists, and then the enmity between the Nationalists on Taiwan and the Communists on the Mainland, made sure that the emphasis would be on censorship rather than protection of copyright. The Republican government, even after 1928, never prioritized the enforcement of laws against piracy. It remained largely up to private organizations such as actors’ guilds88 and booksellers’ guilds89 to try to enforce both performance rights and copyrights for plays. Authors who felt that their work was being unfairly copied or performed to the financial advantage of the copyright infringers and the financial disadvantage of themselves could petition local officials for redress, something that, for instance, Li Yu 李漁 (1611–1680) had done near the beginning of the Qing dynasty,90 but unlike the West, these petitions did not tend to take the form of formal legal suits nor did rulings on them influence new legislation, as had been an important pattern in the development of Western laws about copyright and performance rights.91

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Ting, Government Control of the Press in Modern China, 1900–1949 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974). In the notes to chapter 3 it was mentioned that, in 1920, in the sixth item of the fanli of Tsuji Chōka’s Zhongguo ju, Tsuji expressed his gratitude to a number of actors for permission to quote from their plays. He, “News about Killing,” p. 116, claims that the Shanghai actors’ guild “prohibited plagiarizing other theaters’ plays” but sums up the failure of a 1922 plea for redress by a theater whose play was plagiarized by saying that the “complaint was destined to be futile considering that no law or regulation of the day provided dramatic troupes’ monopoly of any repertoires.” On the attempts by the Shanghai Booksellers’ Guild to restrict infringement of copyright in both Shanghai and Beijing, see Fei-Hsien Wang, Pirates and Publishers: A Social History of Copyright in Modern China (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019), particularly chapters five and six, pp. 158–251. In this book, Wang shows how ideas about copyright in China tended to privilege the means of production (the publisher) than the creator of content (the author), and the tendency for copyright protection and censorship to be linked together. On Li Yu’s attempt to get a powerful local official to stop the plagiarization of his vernacular short stories, see Zhao Weiguo, Jiaohua yu chengjie, pp. 284–95. In the West, the notion of authorial copyright developed after an earlier system of “book privileges” that, according to Peters, Theatre of the Book, p. 222, “were initially put in place to protect printers and publishers, and applied only incidentally to authors or other kinds of potential proprietors.” Speaking of Europe and England, Peters says, “It was generally assumed, well into the seventeenth century, that the possessors of play texts had a right to give them to publishers or withhold them from the press, with or without the playwright’s permission. With the rise of the professional theatre, this meant that company managers were often the ones who brought plays to the press …” (p. 29). After the rise of professional theater and the association of performed plays with certain troupes, “it was considered wrong not to have the company’s or dramatist’s permission to publish …”,

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From the end of the Qing, it had become customary to include a “copyright page” (banquan ye 版權頁) at the end of a book or periodical that included information about the author and publisher and a claim that “Copyright is personally owned, unauthorized reprinting will be investigated” 版權所有, 翻印 必究.92 This general practice was borrowed from Japan, but did not include the

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“But there was no general legal requirement to do so” (p. 30). “By the later seventeenth century, it was generally assumed that it was dramatists, not companies, who had the right to sell their plays to publishers…. Eighteenth-century play texts were far more likely to be authorial than theatrical versions” (p. 44). In France, in 1790, “the National Assembly formally granted dramatists complete performance copyright for any plays, whether printed or unprinted, declaring that dramatic authors had two distinct rights, that of performance and that of publication, and that selling publication by no means terminated performance rights” (p. 77). Dramatists could earn substantial money from performances or publication, with Beaumarchais earning “an astonishing 41,500 livres from the eightmonth run of Le Marriage de Figaro” (p. 81) and Racine probably earning “about 1,500 livres a year from the various editions of his plays” (p. 55). As early as the Song dynasty, publications began to include information about the publisher (typically the holder of the woodblocks) that might include warnings against unauthorized reprints in notices called paiji 牌記 that were designed to get the reader’s notice. On paiji and designs for them, see Chen Yan 陳艷, “Guji paiji sheji yanjiu” 古籍牌記設計 研究 (Research on the design of paiji in traditional books), master’s thesis, Beijing College of Printing, 2016; for reproductions of them from the Qing, see Qingdai banke paiji tulu 清 代版刻牌記圖錄 (Reproductions of paiji from Qing dynasty woodblock books), 14 vols. (Beijing; Guojia tushu guan, 2007). On paiji it was more common to write fanke bijiu 翻 刻必究 than fanyin bijiu 翻印必究 (the meaning is the same, but ke refers primarily to woodblock printing while yin more easily includes more modern and technological forms of printing). On pre-modern warnings against reprinting that were included in printed editions, see Li Mingjie 李明傑, Zhongguo gudai tushu zhuzuo quan yanjiu 中國古代圖 書著作權研究 (Research on authorial rights with regard to pre-modern Chinese books; Beijing: Shehui kexue wenxian, 2013), pp. 404–18. Not mentioned by Li is the fact that some of these warnings come off as meek and imploring (for instance, on the title page for an 1826 edition of the novel Huiwen zhuan 迴文傳 [The palindrome] that the edition attributes to Li Yu, there is this note: “This studio borrowed money to produce this reprint; it will be fortunate if those of like mind refrain from reprinting it” 本齋假資重 刊, 同志幸勿翻刻 [see Qingdai banke paiji tulu, 4: 242]); the warning can be prefaced by a statement of the price of the volume (see, for instance, a 1898 example in Qingdai banke paiji tulu, 12: 92), and in the case of morality texts (shanshu 善書) there can instead be an invitation to reprint the work (see Qingdai banke paiji tulu, 4: 242, for an example). On Meiji era Japanese notions of and enforcement-regimes for copyright, and their relationship to Chinese conceptions and practice, see Wang, Pirates and Publishers, chapter one, pp. 21–61. Wang rightly stresses that traditional Chinese ideas of copyright focused on who owned the blocks (cangban 藏板) that editions were printed from. The blocks and their storage represented the greatest capital outlays when it came to woodblock printing.

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requirement to officially register the publication that was at the heart of the Japanese system.93 Beginning at least with the very first issue of the very first Chinese journal devoted to theater, Ershi shiji da wutai (1904), Jingju play texts began to be printed in that media.94 Issues of copyright (the right to reprint) and performance rights (the right to stage a play) became more and more explicit as time went by, at least with regard to what happened to material that the periodicals published (it is far less clear whether, even when they acknowledged the sources for play texts that they printed, that they had bothered to ask those sources for permission to reprint them in the first place).95 When the earlier version of Feng Shuluan’s “Xixue jiangyi” was published in Da gonghe ribao in 1913, under the title there was this warning: “It is not permitted to reprint [this item in another periodical without permission]” 不許 轉載.96 In 1919 a reprinted play was labeled as a “play text reserved for the use of” (zhuanyong 專用劇本) a particular troupe.97 In the 1920s, journals began to publish “style sheets.” These were originally just labeled “A notice from this publication” (“Benkan qishi” 本刊啟事). The earliest “one” of these that I have seen in a Chinese theater journal appeared in the second issue of Xiju 戲劇 93 In the Guangxu reign period you do begin to see claims that the book in question has already been registered (shu jing cun an 書經存案; for an example from 1897, see Qingdai banke paiji tulu, 12: 52). More rare yet is the inclusion of a special seal as a form of trademark or guarantee—the only example reproduced in Qingdai banke paiji tulu [12: 20] is also dated to 1897, and includes the words, “[this] seal is proof” 圖章為記). 94 A Wang Xiaonong play (attributed to him) was reprinted in the first issue. That same year, 1904, Wang’s Guazhong lanlin was serialized in two newspapers (see chapter 2). 95 With regard to the publication of plays as separate volumes, either separately or in collections of plays by the same playwright, it was more common for performance rights to be claimed in the case of spoken drama playscripts. See, for instance, the entries for Hong Shen juben chuangzuo ji 洪深劇本創作集 (Collected playscript creations by Hong Shen; 1928) and Foxi xiju 佛西戲劇 ([Xiong] Foxi’s plays; 1930) in Zhang Zexian 張澤 賢, Zhongguo xiandai wenxue xiju banben wenjian lu, 1912–1949 中國現代文學戲劇版 本聞見錄, 1912–1949 (Records seen or heard of editions of modern dramatic literature, 1912–1949; Shanghai: Shanghai yuandong, 2009), pp. 36 and 126 (includes an intensifier: juedui jinzhi 絕對禁止 [absolutely forbid]). Both Hong and Xiong did graduate degrees in theater in the U.S. 96 It is hard to find other examples in the supplement to this periodical of articles or other kinds of material so labeled. Another piece by Feng Shuluan on Tan Xinpei is not so marked, for instance. It is possible that Feng or the editorial staff of the newspaper (or its supplement) thought that the lecture was going to be a major publication. While Youxi zazhi did make quite a big deal of the lecture, it did not bother to mark its installments with such a warning. 97 See issue 1.5 (April 1919) of Chunliu (the troupe is Chunliu She 春柳社). The play is labeled as belonging to the category of “new-style” (xinju 新劇) playscript.

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(Theater) that appeared on June 30, 1921.98 On the same page, there are three notices, but the third one just announces that an expected installment will not appear until the next issue. The issues discussed in the first two notices (the first lists seven separate items) include what kind of language (literary vs. vernacular) and punctuation to use, but of more importance is the announcement that the journal (1) retains the right to “edit” (ququ shanjie 取去刪節) submissions (later “style sheets” will offer authors the option of declaring that their submission should not be so edited99), (2) when a submission is published the copyright (zhuzuo quan 著作權) is transferred to the journal (later “style sheets” will present the option of the author retaining copyright), (3) reprints of submissions in other journals need to indicate that they are reprints, and (4) anything labeled “reprinting prohibited” ( jin zhuanzai 禁轉 載) cannot be reprinted.100 This particular journal specialized in publishing and discussing Western drama; that orientation might have been responsible for their relatively early attention to these issues, but later style sheets (they are often entitled “Zhenggao jianyue” 徵稿簡約 [Brief regulations concerning submissions] or the equivalent101) tend to differ only in terms of detail. But it is not until the first issue in the second volume (published January 20, 1922) of Xiju that a play is printed in the journal with explicit notice of who holds the copyright (banquan 版權) and performance rights (paiyan quan 排演權) and who to contact about permissions (it is explicitly stated that it does not matter if the troupe is amateur or professional or the performance is for profit or nonprofit, permission must be obtained).102 Another journal that also focused on

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Two notices from the society that published the journal appear at the end of issue one, but they only talk about the kinds of material the journal wished to publish and the issue of compensation for printing them. For an example of this kind of language, see a “style sheet” posted in the first issue (June 1928) of Xiju yuekan entitled “Zhengwen jianzhang” 徵文簡章 posted by the editor, Liu Huogong, which says “if the submitter is not willing to have the submission edited by an editor, that should be made clear on the submission” 如投稿人不願編輯人刪改, 須 於稿上註明. For discussions about prohibiting zhuanzai in the late Qing, see Chen Ping 陳萍, “Cong wan Qing baokan de zhuanzai shijian huodong kan Woguo xiandai banquan zhidu de jianli” 從晚清報刊的轉載實踐活動看我國現代版權制度的建立 (Looking at the establishment of copyright in China from the movement to deal with reprinting material across journals), Chuban guangjiao 出版廣角 (Broad views on publishing) 2014.14: 72–73. Besides “Zhengwen jianzhang” 徵文簡章, variations include “Tougao jianyue” 投稿 簡約. The play happens to be a spoken drama entitled Aiguo fu 愛國賦 (Ode to patriotism) by Chen Dabei 陳大悲 (1887–1944).

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spoken drama and was also entitled Xiju ran a report in 1929 on two separate cases in which dramatists were sued for plagiarism.103 The consciousness of copyright issues in Jingju circles lagged behind that in spoken drama circles. When the Xiju yuekan special issue on Mei Lanfang (issue 1.6 [November 1928]) published Bawang bie ji (Xikao #336) it was not published under either Mei’s name or Qi Rushan’s, but under one Mengheng 夢蘅,104 who in a note prefacing the playscript begins by attributing the play to Mei but ends, after complaining about the versions of the play available and describing that he found a good manuscript that he had Mei himself look over, with an account of how he heard that Liu Huogong was looking for Mei Lanfang playscripts for the special issue and so offered it up for publication. Nothing is said about whether Mei was asked about publishing the play in the journal, nor about performance rights for the play. In fact, the note ends by saying that the appearance of the playscript in the journal will be of help to professional actors (liyuan zidi 梨園子弟) who want to perform the play. Ironically, out of all the plays printed in Xiju yuekan, the only ones explicitly said to be copyrighted are two by the editor, Liu Huogong (they appear in issues 2.11 [July 1930] and 3.1 [October 1930]).105 It is also Liu who printed a private ad in Xiju yuekan in which he lists out his fee schedule as “brush-for-hire” (from two yuan a character for shop signs [shizhao 市招] to from 30 to 300 yuan for an epitaph [mu(zhi) ming 墓(志) 銘]).106 In the Republican era, many Jingju plays were published in periodicals (see chapter 6 below), but not that many were published with notifications that copyright and performance rights were reserved. The two plays by Liu Huogong seem to have been new plays whose stories had not previously been 103 See Niyi 尼一, “Wu du you ou zhi juzuo chaoxi an” 無獨有偶之劇作抄襲案 (A pair of cases of plagiarism involving playwrights), Xiju 1.5 (December 5, 1929), p. 186 (pagination added when the volume was bound together). The playwrights involved are Eugene O’Neill (1888–1953) and R. C. Sheriff (1896–1975). 104 Someone named Chu Mengtian 儲夢蘅 was active in the 1930s but I have no reason, at present, to believe the two are the same person. 105 The plays are Huanxi yuanjia 歡喜冤家 (Karmic enemies/lovers) and Xin Ma Yan 新罵 閻 (New Cursing King Yama; the latter play is about someone cursing King Yama of the underworld for the unfair treatment of Sun Yatsen by a Guangdong warlord). The notices appear at the very end of the plays and are in parentheses as if they were stage directions. The first halves of these notices make claims of copyright (without mentioning performance rights explicitly), but the second halves say that those interested in performing the play (the one for the first play has an additional “whether they are private persons or a theater” 無論私人或戲院) need to negotiate with Liu himself. 106 The ad appears in the back matter, four pages before the copyright page, of issue 3.5 (February 1931).

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dramatized, but they also seem to have been written without any input from professional actors nor to have won a place on the stage. I have seen three other Jingju playscripts published in Republican era periodicals that proclaimed that copyright and/or performance rights were reserved—two were of traditional plays that had been revised by a famous actor,107 while the third was written by Chen Moxiang, whom we will look at in more detail in chapter 5 as both representative of and remarkable among Republican era literati playwrights. After 1949, with the defeat of the Nationalists, the Republic of China was forced to retreat to Taiwan. Both the Republic of China on Taiwan and the PRC got to be known for widespread infringement of intellectual property rights. In Taiwan counterfeit copies of books originally included both Mainland and Western works, with the former being published with the names of their authors slightly changed.108 The problem with the counterfeiting of Mainland works improved as relations between the two Chinas improved, while the problem with the counterfeiting of Western (and particularly American) 107 Both plays were serialized in Xiju zhoubao 戲劇週報 (Theater weekly), one page at a time (!) beginning with the first issue (October 9, 1936) and continuing through the last issue I have seen, issue 13 (January 1, 1937). The plays are Da Yan Song 打嚴嵩 (Beating Yan Song; Xikao #44), and Lianhuan ji 連環計 (The interlocking plot; Xikao #291; there are copies of versions of both plays in the Prince Che collection of manuscripts). In the case of the second play, the playscript is labeled a minggui miben 名貴秘本 (precious secret copy), terminology usually applied to playscripts associated with famous actors; the playscript is attributed to Wu Yuehua 伍月華 (dates unknown to me), actor, playwright, and collector of playscripts. Copyright (banquan 版權) and performance rights (paiyan quan 排演權) are said to be reserved (baoliu 保留) and reprinting or further publication ( fanyin zhuan­ zai 翻印轉載) is forbidden. No contact information is given for those wishing to perform the play; this seems to indicate less interest in enforcing the claimed performance rights than the prohibition against reprinting. The version of Da Yan Song is labeled Qipai yuanben 麒派原本 (Qi[ling tong 麒[麟童]; i.e., Zhou Xinfang] school original version) and is attributed to [Zhou] Xinfang. This time only copyright is reserved but there is the same prohibition against reprinting or further publication. The editing ( jiaozheng 校正) of both play texts is credited to Baixue/Bai Xue 白雪 (I have not been able to judge which is correct), who is not listed on the copyright page but was given the honor of publishing the lead article in the initial issue. Both Wu and Zhou are listed as among the advisors for the journal (along with Mei Lanfang and three other actors) on the copyright page in the back matter. Ma Lianliang’s version of Da Yan Song and Zhou Xinfang’s version of the play were both very influential. There are yin pei xiang versions of both. In 2014, Zhou Xinfang was honored with the publication of his collected works: Li Zhongcheng and Shan Yuejin, eds., Zhou Xinfang quanji, 22 volumes. The first 12 volumes are play texts, vols. 13–14 are his scholarly writings, and vols. 15–16 contain musical notations of his arias, vols. 17–20 contain previously uncollected material (yiwen 佚文), and vols. 21–22 contain performance ads. 108 The more political among works published in the PRC were just banned from public sale in Taiwan.

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books improved under constant demands for the enforcement of copyright from outside Taiwan.109 In the PRC, the importation of Western works was progressively curtailed until they were pretty much generally banned during the Cultural Revolution. In the Reform Period, demand for Western works, both in the original and translation, climbed steadily, along with the counterfeiting and unauthorized reproduction of such works. Enforcement of international copyright standards has improved with China’s entry into the WTO but is still far from ideal. Speaking more specifically about Jingju, because the vast majority of the Republican era “stars” ended up in the PRC, there was great interest in Taiwan in the new plays produced by those stars. In Taiwan these plays could be heard in shortwave broadcasts, modified phonograph and cassette versions produced and sold in Taiwan, and smuggled copies of original recordings. Although it was dangerous to do so, innovations from those recordings were worked into Taiwan productions of Jingju. The improvement of relations allowed for more direct contact with both PRC recordings (audio and video) and actors and playwrights. In the early years of the PRC, the model of authorship of Jingju plays changed from one of individual authorship110 to collective authorship (which reached its apogee in the Cultural Revolution) to a return again to crediting individual playwrights. It was not until 1990 that a copyright law that paid any attention to the rights of authors was passed (prior to that, the main point of contention was how writers were to be renumerated111). After the Cultural Revolution there was one famous court case concerning the attribution of playscripts. It 109 The unauthorized reproduction of PRC works in Taiwan tends to be overlooked in descriptions of the history of intellectual property rights in the ROC on Taiwan. See, for instance, the chapter on Taiwan in Alford, To Steal a Book, pp. 95–111. 110 A speech summarizing the second national conference on the repertoire for xiqu, with regard to “zhuzuo quanyi he chuban wenti” 著作權益和出版問題 (problems of attribution of authorial rights and publishing), said that the names of those who dictate plays need to be included, and that they, along with those who write up (zhengli 整理) the plays and those who adapt them (gaibian 改編) need to be recompensed (gei baochou 給報 酬). See Liu Zhiming 劉芝明, “Dadan fangshou, kaifang xiqu jumu—Zai Quanguo di’er ci xiqu jumu gongzuo huiyi de zongjie fayan” 大膽放手, 開放戲曲劇目—在全國第二 次戲曲劇目工作會議的總結發言 (With great courage liberate the xiqu repertoire— Summary speech given at the Second national conference on xiqu repertoire work), Xiju bao 1957.9: 10–15 (p. 15), reproduced in Zhongguo xiqu zhi: Beijing juan, pp. 1425–36 (see especially p. 1434). 111 See Laikwan Pang, “Authorship versus Ownership: The Case of Socialist China,” in David A. Gerstner Cynthia Chris, eds., Media Authorship (New York: Routledge, 2013), pp. 72–86, who stresses how the Maoist system was very different even from the USSR one.

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was brought by Ma Shaobo 馬少波 (1918–2009) in the 1990s. Ma was a vicepresident ( fu yuanzhang 副院長) and Party Secretary of the premiere Jingju company, Zhongguo Jingju Yuan 中國京劇院. During his tenure there he participated in the development of three Jingju plays, Baimao nü 白毛女 (White haired girl), Chuchu maolu 初出茅廬 ([Zhuge Liang’s] first departure from the hermit’s hut), and Manjiang hong 滿江紅 (Whole river red), for which he was given credit as co-author in publications of the plays or theater programs in the 1950s. In the early 1960s Ma was investigated by the company as part of a campaign to “rectify [work] habits” (zhengfeng 整風); the work he did on the plays was not considered enough, he was accused of appropriating the work of others, and his right to be called a co-author of the plays cancelled.112 In 1995, Ma went to court to have that decision nullified and won, but when the company published a booklet for their 40th anniversary in the same year, Ma’s co-authorship was still not credited,113 so Ma went to court again.114 The lower court’s decision, which was upheld on appeal, was that Zhongguo Jingju Yuan had to stop selling the anniversary booklet (recall of all copies was considered

112 For a summary of the information collected during the investigation with regard to the three plays, see Xiaolin 曉琳, “Sanshi nian qian gong’an you wei liao—Ma Shaobo zheng ‘quan’ shengfu weibu” 三十年前公案猶未了—馬少波爭 ‘權’ 勝負未卜 (An unresolved case from thirty years ago—The success or failure of Ma Shaobo’s suit over his “rights” is still not clear), Zhongguo lüshi 中國律師 (Chinese lawyer) 1998.10: 22–25, p. 25. For instance, in the preparation of the first draft of one of the plays, Ma was found to have only changed 42 characters. 113 See Du Zhenyu 杜振宇, ed., Zhongguo Jingju yuan: Jianyuan sishi zhounian jinian ce, 1955–1995 中國京劇院: 建院四十週年紀念冊, 1955–1995 (Zhongguo Jingju Yuan: Commemorative booklet for the fortieth anniversary of the founding of the Company, 1955–1995; Beijing: Zhongguo Jingju zazhi she, 1995), p. 81 (Baimao nü), 54 (Chuchu maolu), and 43 (Manjiang hong). 114 Ma never seems to have objected to the fact that the third play was published in 1990 in Fan Junhong Lü Ruiming xiqu xuan 範鈞宏呂瑞明戲曲選 (Selected plays for xiqu [of the five, one is for Hebei bangzi 河北梆子 and the rest Jingju] by Fan Junhong [1916– 1986] and Lü Ruiming [1925–]; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 1990) without any reference to Ma’s claim to be one of the authors. In the collection of his plays published in 1992, not one of the three plays that Ma claimed authorial rights over was included. See Li Huizhong 李 慧中, ed., Ma Shaobo xiju daibiao zuo 馬少波戲劇代表作 (Representative plays by Ma Shaobo; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 1992).

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impractical), had to print an apology to Ma,115 and had to pay Ma 5,580 yuan in damages (a little over half the amount Ma asked for).116 2.3 New Censorship Regimes The topic of censorship117 has come up several times in previous chapters, particularly with reference to its effects on the repertoire in chapter 1. The Qing court’s insistence that private performers and troupes performing in the palace submit beforehand complete play texts, and Empress Dowager Cixi’s predilection for consulting the scripts for plays she watched and objecting to changes that she did not like (she would accept and even reward changes that flattered herself or the dynasty) have both been noticed. It would seem that most every dynasty wanted to control what people read and watched, and with 115 Ma originally wanted the apology printed in a mass-audience periodical, but the court decided that it was more appropriate to publish it in Zhongguo xiju; see Zhongguo Jingju Yuan 中國京劇院, “Wei woyuan qinfan Ma Shaobo tongzhi zhuzuo quan shi xiang Ma Shaobo tongzhi daoqian” 為我院侵犯馬少波同志著作權事向馬少波同志道歉 (An apology to comrade Ma Shaobo with regard to the affair of the Company’s infringement of comrade Ma Shaobo’s authorial rights), Zhongguo Xiju 2000.9: 14. The notice is dated August 23, 2000. For an overview of the case, see Guo Zehua 郭澤華, “Yiqi sheji xingzheng chufen jueding de zhuzuo shuming quan jiufen—Ma Shaobo su Zhongguo Jingju Yuan qinfan shuming quan an” 一起涉及行政處分決定的著作署名權糾紛—馬少波訴中 國京劇院侵犯署名權案 (Contention over a case of authorial attribution involving an administrative decision—The case of Ma Shaobo’s suit over authorial attribution against Zhongguo Jingju Yuan), in Luo Dongchuan 羅東川 and Ma Laike 馬來客, Zhishi chan quan ming’an pingxi 知識產權名案評析 (Commentary and analysis of famous cases concerning intellectual property; Beijing: Jingji zhibao, 2001), pp. 54–62. 116 For a chronological list of Ma Shaobo’s writings, see the appendix in Wang Guojiao 王國 嬌, “Ma Shaobo xinbian lishi Jingju yanjiu” 馬少波新編歷史京劇研究 (A study of Ma Shaobo’s newly written historical Jingju plays), master’s thesis, Shanxi Normal University, 2014, “Ma Shaobo zhuzuo nianbiao” 馬少波著作年表 (Chronological list of Ma Shaobo’s writings), pp. 51–52. For some rather harsh criticism of Ma, see Li Wei, Ershi shiji xiqu gaige de sanda fanshi, p. 235. For another example of another controversy over authorship of versions of a play, this time involving a less prestigious form of xiqu than Jingju, see Wilt L. Idema, The Metamorphosis of Tianxian pei: Local Opera under the Revolution (1949–1956) (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2015), p. 46. 117 In Chinese scholarship, the main term has been jinhui 禁毀 (lit.: prohibit and destroy). Plays were indeed prohibited/banned and copies of playscripts and woodblocks for the printing of playscripts destroyed, but censorship also includes sorting plays into categories (worthy of commendation, okay as is, okay with minor revision, okay with major revision, and unredeemable) and treating those categories differently. Peng Qiuxi 彭秋溪, “Jin bainian yi lai Zhongguo gudai chajin juqu wenti de yanjiu” 近百年以來中國古代 查禁劇曲問題的研究 (Research into the problem of the inspection and prohibition of plays in pre-modern China in the last one hundred years), Xiqu yanjiu 103 (2017.3): 134–53, strongly laments the fixation on jinhui to the exclusion of the kinds of terms used in the eighteenth century in the drama campaign headquartered in Yangzhou (p. 149).

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the increasing awareness of the supposed power of theater to either wreck or improve popular customs and morality, the laws about theatrical performance and the number of prohibited plays, as well as efforts to have supposedly beneficial plays performed (see, for instance, the official effort to have Yu Zhi’s plays performed in Shanghai toward the end of the nineteenth century, discussed in chapter 2118) increased dynasty by dynasty. But Jingju’s first rise to prominence occurred in the nineteenth century, precisely the time when the central power of the Qing state went into severe decline. Qing policies on theater were enforced most strictly in the palace (with the exception that some emperors and one empress dowager felt free to consume in secret, in the palace, plays they tried to forbid to commoners119); next most strictly in the inner city of the capital, where banner families and troops were supposed to live; less so yet in the outer city, where Han Chinese lived and the commercial theaters were located; and outside the capital, largely up to the individual whims of individual local officials. Whereas the Qianlong emperor had been able to oversee a nation-wide “Literary Inquisition” that was remarkably successful in weeding out a large proportion of written works that the dynasty held to be offensive, when the same emperor turned to trying to similarly police local theater, that campaign was undertaken with little fanfare and ended in defeat before long because of mistaken assumptions (the belief that popular performance content was reliant on play texts, which need only be collected, sorted out into good and bad, and edited or suppressed, as necessary, for content to quickly improve) and passive resistance. Ding Shumei 丁淑梅, however, has argued that Qing dynasty efforts to censor theater, because of the increased number of edicts sent to the provinces, unprecedentedly strict organization, and the incorporation of public concern about ill effects of theater, surpassed the efforts of previous dynasties, and forced theater producers into either “using

118 Although one can find, in the late Qing era, reports of governmental organizations giving rewards for new playscripts expected to have beneficial effects (for a report on the honoring of the troupe for a play, Nüzi aiguo 女子愛國 [The patriotic young woman] and plans to honor another troupe for a different play, see “Liyuan ren sixiang jigao” 梨園人 思想極高 [Actors’ thought very high minded], Jinghua ribao issue 630 [May 28, 1906], reproduced in Fu Jin, ed., Jingju lishi wenxian huibian: Qingdai juan xubian, 4: 310), and talk of the government sponsoring the writing of playscripts for such purposes (for an example describing plans to write an anti-superstition play, see “Gailiang xiben” 改良戲 本 [Reforming playscripts], Jinghua ribao issue 520 [February 7, 1906], reproduced in Fu Jin, ed., Jingju lishi wenxian huibian: Qingdai juan xubian, 4: 302), the scale of such activity is small even compared to the early years of the Republic, when the Tongsu Jiaoyu Yanjiu Hui was active (see above). 119 See, for instance, Ye, Ascendant Peace in the Four Seas, pp. 10 and 212.

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subservience to official discourse as camouflage” 借助臣服於官方話語的偽裝, or turning theater into “a game of pure entertainment” 純粹的娛樂游戲.120 After the Boxer Rebellion, the Qing government was forced to promise to work toward the establishment of a constitution and to enact a number of reforms. As we saw with regard to publication law, Japan was the model closest to hand. The success, in war, of Japan against China in 1894–1895, and then against Russia in 1904–1905, was attributed to the Meiji Reformation and subsequent reforms. In the late Qing, there was a clear attempt to tighten controls on theater performance instantiated in the requirement, for instance, that programs for performances had to be submitted beforehand to the police or other governmental offices.121 Given the penchant for theaters and troupes to try to avoid prohibitions of the performance of certain plays by performing them under alternate names (yiming; see the section on play names in chapter 1), a list of the names of the plays to be performed might not be very useful, as was recognized by a 1906 proclamation from the police in Tianjin that stipulates that when troupes provide the requested list of their “commonly performed plays” (changyan ximu 常演戲目), when a play has more than one name they must use the “old name” ( jiuming 舊名).122 There were calls that, instead of 120 Ding Shumei, Zhongguo gudai jinhui xiju shilun, pp. 287–88. She also emphasizes the scare that Qianlong’s rather secretive campaign against local theater put into theater producers, p. 291. 121 In the mention in periodicals of such regulations, the exact amount of lead time between submission of the programs and their performance seems to depend on the locality concerned, and can be as short as the morning of the performance (see the seventh item in a list of rules concerning theaters promulgated by the prefect of Yangzhou in Jiangnan jingwu zazhi 江南警務雜志 [Jiangnan police affairs journal] 12 [1911]: 120–21, reproduced in Fu Jin, ed., Jingju lishi wenxian huibian: Qingdai juan xubian, 4: 584–85), or the day before the performance (see the notice from the police department in charge of the outer city in Beijing published in issue 630 [May 28, 1906] of Jinghua ribao, reproduced in Fu Jin, ed., Jingju lishi wenxian huibian: Qingdai juan xubian, 4: 311). 122 See the item “Chajin yinxi ji mixin xi” 查禁淫戲及迷信戲 (Censor lewd and superstitious plays), Jinbao 津報 (Tianjin daily), issue 286 (August 3, 1906), p. 6, reproduced in Fu Jin, ed., Jingju lishi wenxian huibian: Qingdai juan xubian, 4: 354. For more detail about circumstances in the late Qing period as reported in contemporary newspapers, see Zhang Tianxing 張天星, Wan Qing baozai xiaoshuo xiqu jinhui shiliao huibian 晚清報載小說戲 曲禁毀史料彙編 (Compilation of historical material on the prohibition and destruction of fiction and drama in the late Qing period in newspapers and journals; Beijing: Beijing daxue, 2015). It covers the years from 1869 to the end of the dynasty in 836 pages, and it is provided with an index of the names of persons, books, plays, and songs that appear in the compilation. The problem of changing the name of novels and plays to avoid censorship is discussed in a section of the introduction, which also presents charts giving original and later names (pp. 12–14). The chart on fiction covers eighteen works (the highest number of alternate names for any single work is seven), the other chart covers

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just submitting play names, the playscripts for plays to be performed be submitted for review,123 but no such regulation was put in place before the end of the dynasty. In Beijing, the (possible) attendance and oversight of performances by court eunuchs and censors was replaced by the presence of public security personnel, but there were complaints that improper plays were still being performed despite their presence.124 The Qing had promulgated prohibitions against performing stories based on current affairs as early as 1801,125 but in the late Qing plays about contemporary social events (cases of adultery and murder, for instance) performed in contemporary dress (shizhuang) became popular. Some playwrights, such as Wang Xiaonong, wrote plays critical of the Qing government by hiding his messages in plays set in the past (Wang’s Dangren bei [The stele recording the names of the proscribed faction; Xikao #453] is an example) or in foreign lands (Wang’s 1904 Lanzhong lanyin [not in Xikao], set in Europe, is an example). Wang Xiaonong was not punished for writing such plays, but his plays were often banned not long after they premiered (Lanzhong lanyin is an example of this).126

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thirty plays (the highest number of alternate names, ten, is for a notorious play, Shazi bao, Xikao #469). “Shuo xi benzi ji yi gailiang” 說戲本子急宜改良 (On why playscripts should be quickly improved), Jinghua ribao 京話日報 issue 106 (1904), in Fu Jin, ed., Jingju lishi wenxian huibian: Qingdai juan, 6: 113–14, claims that “all nations take this [play texts] as a very important thing, therefore the plays that are written all have to go through examination and correction by important officials in ministries of culture before they are allowed to be rehearsed and performed” 各國把這件事, 看作了很要緊的一端, 所編的戲文, 都 要經文部大臣鑒定, 然後準排演. For instance, “Shou xi yuanzi de xunbing yao xuan mingbai ren” 守戲園子的巡兵要選 明白人 (As for the police stationed in theaters, people of good understanding need to be chosen), Jinghua ribao issue 582 (April 10, 1906), reproduced in Fu Jin, ed., Jingju lishi wenxian huibian: Qingdai juan xubian, 4: 306, first recounts how the old system of sending people from the Censorate eventually became ineffective, then complains that the police (both xunbing 巡兵 and xunguan 巡官 are used in the piece) stationed in theaters are not doing anything when the theaters they are in perform lewd plays. See Fan Pen Chen, “Forbidden Fruits: Ethnicity and Gender in Proscriptions on Performances in Late Imperial China,” CHINOPERL Papers 25 (2003–2004): 35–85, p. 51. Wang Zhongsheng 王鐘聲 (1880–1911), an actor, troupe leader, and founder of a school for actors, was executed in Tianjin in 1911 after the 1911 Revolution broke out but before the Republic was proclaimed. Playscripts for his plays (which were never completely written out in the first place) have not survived. He was engaged in revolutionary activities but charges against him (he was arrested more than once) tended to focus on his “immoral” lifestyle or the supposed lewd nature of his plays. On his arrests and execution, see Wang Fengxia 王鳳霞, “Wang Zhongsheng xinkao” 王鐘聲新考 (A new investigation into Wang Zhongsheng), Xiju yishu 2008.6: 76.

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The Republic of China was founded in 1912. From then till the Northern Expedition succeeded and the capital was moved to Nanjing in 1928, the central government was quite weak. Yuan Shikai prevented Sun Yat-sen from continuing as president, and thwarted Sun’s party, the GMD, from taking power despite winning a majority in a national election held in 1913. Yuan became increasingly dictatorial, which provoked a “Second Revolution” by the GMD, which was unsuccessful. Yuan proclaimed himself emperor in 1916, which provoked armed rebellion against him in the provinces; within months Yuan was forced to abdicate and then died not long after. Until 1927, Beijing was ruled by militarists who did not command much power elsewhere in the country. We have seen that in the first part of the Republic, one organization, the Tongsu Jiaoyu Yanjiu Hui was responsible both for reviewing new plays before performance and for creating new plays.127 The playscripts for new plays had to be submitted to the police, which also had to be notified beforehand which plays would be performed at upcoming performances. Guides to Beijing and to Chinese theater (which basically means Jingju) from the period, such as Jin Xiaomei 金嘯梅, Beijing youlan zhinan 北京游覽指南 (Guide to touring Beijing; 1926);128 Tsuji Chōka, Zhongguo ju (Chinese theater; 1920); and Adolf Eduard Zucker, The Chinese Theater (1925); all quote from the police regulations governing theatrical performances in Beijing.129 The last two works mention prohibited plays. Zucker says that the police, who gave him a copy of the regulations for theaters and performances, also gave him a list of forbidden plays (two of which he discusses at some length);130 Tsuji Chōka, Zhongguo ju lists the titles of 26 prohibited plays.131 Qi Rushan once claimed that in late Qing Beijing, despite numerous police proclamations banning lewd and 127 They also could recommend that good plays receive awards. For instance, Mulan cong jun 木蘭從軍 (Mulan joins the army; Xikao #417) received such an award in 1916. See Hu Feixuan 胡非玄, “Shixi Beiyang zhengfu shiqi de xiju guanli” 試析北洋政府時期的戲 劇管理 (Management of theater by the Beiyang Regime), Xinxiang xueyuan xuebao 新鄉 學院學報 (Xinxiang College journal) 2018.1: 52. 128 Published by Xinhua Shuju 新華書局 of Shanghai. 129 In a separate section entitled “Theater and the Police” (“Xiju yu jingcha” 戲劇與警察), Tsuji Chōka, Zhongguo ju, pp. 225–33, lists the 23-item set of regulations for theaters (same as given in Jin Xiaomei, Beijing youlan zhinan) but also includes an eight-item set of regulations for theater troupes. The sixth item in the latter (p. 232) stipulates that even in the case of private performances (tanghui), and no matter how early or late, the troupe has to inform the police before the performance. 130 Zucker, The Chinese Theater, pp. 157–58 (the two plays discussed are Shuangding ji [Xikao #135] and Shazi bao [Xikao #469]). 131 Tsuji Chōka, Zhongguo ju, pp. 148–49. In 1922, the Beijing police sent a list of 37 plays that it had banned to the Tongsu Jiaoyu Yanjiu Hui. On that list and its contents, see Chen Geng 陳庚, Chuancheng yu xinbian, pp. 237–38.

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violent plays (he numbers them at about forty), those plays continued to be performed (albeit in slightly less egregious forms), while with the arrival of the Republic, they were completely and successfully banned. He attributes the failure of the late Qing regime to a lack of earnestness on the part of the police, and the success of the new Republic to changes in theater audiences such as the entrance into public theaters of female spectators.132 But the Beijing theater regulations also show concern that in the case of plays that are okay for performance it is prohibited to add indecent content on stage.133 Another worry was that racy scenes would be performed on their own and not in the context of their complete plays, which would short circuit the entire play’s moral lesson.134 Although it is clear that the main concern of the censors was indecent content, plays could also end up in lists of plays to be banned because of superstitious content135 or being too inhumane.136 Contrary to what would be more and more common in the rest of the Republican period, plays banned for political reasons are not prominent in lists of banned plays until much 132 Qi Rushan, Wushi nian lai de Guoju, p. 116 (Qi Rushan quanji, 5: 2788). 133 See item nine in the regulations for theaters, Tsuji Chōka, Zhongguo ju, p. 227 (the term used for “indecent” is weixie 猥褻). 134 According to Chen Jie, Minguo xiqu shi nianpu, p. 11, a proclamation issued in August in 1913 in Fengtian (Mukden), besides listing twenty banned plays, indicated that two plays, Zhan Wancheng 戰宛城 (Battle at Wancheng; Xikao #152) and Cuiping shan 翠屏 山 (Kingfisher Screen Mountain; Xikao #47), “must be performed in full” (xu yan quanchu 須演全齣), so that they would “warn against evil” ( jie’e 戒惡) and “punish lewdness” (chengyin 懲淫). In the ends of both of those plays, an adulterous woman is punished with death. 135 No plays seem to have been put in the list of banned plays in Tsuji Chōka, Zhongguo ju or the 1922 list mentioned above for superstitious content, but such content is listed among unwanted content in item 5 of the list of rules for troupes (see Tsuji Chōka, Zhongguo ju, p. 232). 136 In a list of 33 plays forwarded to the Zhili (Hebei) provincial police for consideration to be banned, the vast majority (28) are presented as “indecent” (yinxie 淫褻), and one is labeled “offensive to national prestige” (bu he guoti 不合國體; the play is Tiegong ji [Xikao #334]), but the remainder are labeled “inhumane” (can wu renli 慘無人理). See “Zhili Tixue si ju Xiqu gailiang she cheng Diyi ci pingyi yingxing jinyan xiqu yi qing Xunjing daoxing qu chazhao wen” 直隸提學司據戲曲改良社呈第一次評議應行禁演戲曲 移請巡警道行區查照文 (Hebei Education Intendant’s transferral to the provincial police of the first discussion of which indigenous Chinese plays to prohibit from performance from the Society for the Reform of Indigenous Chinese Theater), Tongsu jiaoyu yanjiu lu 通俗教育研究錄 (Record of research on popular education) 6 (December 25, 1926): 35–37. The “Society” was administered by the Hebei Education Intendant’s office. Its bylaws were published in issue 3 (September 25, 1912) of this journal, which was published in Shanghai. The list of 33 plays was promulgated in Tianjin on April 4, 1913, with the categories slightly modified (e.g., can wu renli has become canren 殘忍). See Chen Jie, Minguo xiqu shi nianpu, p. 10.

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later in the Republican period. This is despite the fact that anti-Yuan Shikai plays such as Song Jiaoren yuhai 宋教仁遇害 (Song Jiaoren is Assassinated; not in Xikao) were performed and forced to close in Shanghai,137 and in Beijing, the actor Liu Yizhou 劉藝舟 (1875–1936) was arrested by Yuan Shikai.138 The beginning of this period was marked by “contemporary costume” (shizhuang) plays that were about social problems and wenming xi that often had political aspects. But as noted above, contemporary costume plays became less popular and wenming xi less political as time went on. Speaking much later, Mei Lanfang described audiences from around 1915 as interested only in entertainment (zhao lezi 找樂子) and “happy endings” 大團圓的結局.139 We should note that because of the suspicious nature of some of the political and military leaders of this period, the censorship of plays could be entirely capricious. After he became President in 1923, Cao Kun had plays about Cao Cao 曹操 (particularly Dagu ma Cao 打鼓罵曹 [Beating the drum and cursing Cao Cao; Xikao #5] and Zhuo fang Cao 捉放曹 [Arresting and releasing Cao Cao; Xikao 137 Song was shot at close range in a railway station on March 20, 1913 and died soon after. Huang Chujiu, owner of Xinxin Wutai in the International Concession, put together a play about the event with the help of Sun Yusheng that premiered on the 28th of the same month, with Zhou Xinfang playing Song Jiaoren. Huang Chujiu soon began to feel pressure to stop performing the play in the form of anonymous threatening phone calls and letters with bullets in them. On the 30th Huang got notice from the concession police to close down the play (the excuse was “This play is a work that riles up the hearts of the people. For the sake of the peace of the concession and the stabilization of the situation, the play cannot continue to be performed” 此劇為蠱惑人心之作, 為了租界的治安和局 勢的穩定, 不得繼續上演). The closing of the play caused as much turmoil as the performance, and Huang was able to get permission to reopen the production for a couple of performances. For details (written in a rather “novelistic” fashion), see Zeng Hongyan 曾 宏燕, Shang·Dao: Huang Chujiu zhuan 商·道: 黃楚九傳 (Industrialist, Daoist: Biography of Huang Chujiu; Shanghai: Shanghai renmin, 2015), pp. 109–15. 138 Chen Jie, Minguo xiqu shi nianpu, p. 13, notes that Liu performed a play critical of Yuan Shikai in Hankou in 1913. Item 342 in Ren Erbei, Youyu ji, pp. 283–84, describes how Liu was arrested by Yuan Shikai and not able to get out of jail until after Yuan’s death, after which he went to Hankou and worked up a play about Yuan entitled Huangdi meng 皇 帝夢 (A dream of being emperor) in which he played Yuan. A local military commander who was a member of Yuan’s party ordered that Liu be arrested, but Liu was tipped off and able to get away, still dressed in imperial garb. The title of the anecdote comes from a line in an aria that Liu sang in the play: “When the Xuantong Emperor abdicated,/ Our desire to be emperor was sparked” 宣統退位, 孤的龍心動. The source for the anecdote is Mei Lanfang 梅蘭芳, “Xiju jie canjia Xinhai geming de jijian shi” 戲劇界參加辛亥革命的機 件事 (Several anecdotes about the theatrical world’s participation in the 1911 Revolution), in Mei Lanfang wenji 梅蘭芳文集 (A collection of the writings of Mei Lanfang; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 1962), pp. 202–203 (pp. 198–206 is devoted to Liu, and with regards to this anecdote, includes more detail than Ren Erbei gives). 139 Mei Lanfang, Wutai shenghuo sishi nian, 2: 48.

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#6]) banned, because he thought that performers were trying to criticize him through Cao Cao. In 1928, when there was pressure on the Manchurian warlord Zhang Zuolin 張作霖 (1875–1928) to leave Beijing, he had Mei Lanfang’s Feng huan chao 風還巢 (The phoenix returns to its nest; not in Xikao) banned because he thought its title was aimed at telling him to leave Beijing and return to his “nest” in Fengtian (taking feng 風 [phoenix] to refer to Fengtian 奉天 [Mukden, present day Shenyang]).140 There would be somewhat similar interference in theater censorship by GMD officials later.141 The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was founded in 1921. Although the GMD was originally heavily influenced by the Soviet Union,142 when the Northern Expedition reached Shanghai it slaughtered all of the communists it could get its hands on, and from then on, except for intermittent periods in which it cooperated with the CCP against the Japanese, the CCP was its main enemy. After the capital was moved to Nanjing, China enjoyed almost a decade of relative peace and a higher level of national integration than had been the case, although warlords continued to control sections of the country and the CCP established Soviets in South China that were the subject of multiple military encirclement campaigns that finally managed to force the main CCP forces to evacuate to Yan’an. Before the official establishment of the Republican government in Nanjing, there were isolated insistences of local governments demanding that, prior to performances of plays, the playscripts had to be submitted for review,143 but after the capital was moved to Nanjing, this became the norm, although it took a little while for “theater review committees” (xiju/xiqu shencha [weiyuan] hui 戲劇/戲曲審查[委員] 會) to be established.144 Performances by amateurs 140 Chen Shiguo 陳仕國, “Minguo jinxi yu xiju xingtai” 民國禁戲與戲劇形態 (The prohibition of plays and the forms of theater in the Republican period), Xiju yishu 2014.6: 100. 141 See Ai Lizhong 艾立中, “Guomindang Beiping shi zhengfu de xiqu shencha” 國民黨北 平市政府的戲曲審查 (Indigenous theater inspection in the Guomindang Beijing government), “Beijing shehui kexue 2016.4”: 90–91. 142 Bruce Dickson, “The Adaptability of Leninist Parties: A Comparison of the Chinese Communist Party and the Kuomintang [Guomin dang],” doctoral thesis, University of Michigan, 1994, labels the GMD as a Leninist party and points out that in 1924, “Sun Yat-sen reorganized the party along Leninist lines with the support of Soviet advisors” (p. 4). 143 For instance, Chen Jie, Minguo xiqu shi nianpu, pp. 101–102, quotes a local Zhejiang decision on December 27, 1927 that required “whenever a play is performed it is necessary to inform the police so that they can come monitor the performance, and the script has to be submitted for review” 凡演戲須報警莅場監視並呈送劇本審定之. 144 For instance, Chen Jie, Minguo xiqu shi nianpu, p. 106, records the establishment of such a committee under the Henan Provincial Bureau of Education (Jiaoyu ting 教育廳) early in 1928, but then on p. 115, describes the establishment in October of 1929 of a similar

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(piaoyou) could also be under the purview of these committees.145 Along with the playscripts to be presented before performance for review, “explanatory programs” (shuoming shu) also had to be presented.146 According to Chen Geng 陳庚, from its establishment in 1932 to the outbreak of the War of Resistance (1937), the Beijing committee reviewed 282 plays and rejected 38 (13% [some of the rejections were temporary or technical]). The committee divided the plays into jiuju 舊劇 (old-style plays), huaju 話劇 (spoken drama), pingxi/ju 評 戲/劇,147 and baihua ju 白話劇 (vernacular play).148 It is not apparent that any of the 38 rejected plays were rejected for explicitly political reasons,149 despite

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committee in the Hunan Provincial Government in Changsha as the first “official” (guan­ fang 官方) committee of this kind. The Beijing municipal committee was planned and its guidelines published in 1928, but it was actually not until November 1, 1932 that the committee was formally established. See Chen Geng, Chuancheng yu xinbian, pp. 243–44. Figure 6.1 (p. 209) presents an organizational chart of this committee and its members (the “Inspection Subcommittee” [Shencha zu 審查組], with five members, is the biggest of the three subcommittees). This is true, for instance, of the one for Beijing (see Chen Geng, Chuancheng yu xinbian, p. 246). Chen Geng, Chuancheng yu xinbian, pp. 258–59, gives examples of plays that were rejected for lacking shuoming shu. This form of indigenous Chinese theater was well known at the time for salacious content. The most famous actress of this form of theater at the time, Li Guizhen 李桂珍 (1907–1942), stage name Baiyu shuang 白玉霜, was run out of town from Beijing in 1934 by the mayor because of how she appeared in one play that she performed (and got the reputation of being a “lewd actor” [yinling 淫伶]). See Sun Hongxia 孫紅俠, Lingren yishi 伶人逸事 (Actor anecdotes; Beijing: Wenhua yishu, 2012), pp. 96–97. On the play, which was called Qiangbi Tuolong 槍斃駝龍 (The execution of “Hunchback Dragon”), see Li Desheng, Jinxi, pp. 112–13. Of the 38 plays rejected by the Beijing committee, 18 were pingxi, representing more than half of all the playscripts inspected by the committee. Chen Geng, Chuancheng yu xinbian, pp. 262–67. Details for individual plays are given only for the plays inspected in 1936 (see Tables 6.2–5), and the reasons why individual plays were rejected are only rarely given even for these plays (three were rejected for lack of shuoming shu, one for treating incest and other problems [Cao Yu’s 曹禺 Thunderstorm (Leiyu 雷雨)], one for “reflecting contemporary events” [yingshe xiandai shishi 影射現 代事實], and one for submitting a work of fiction rather than a script [this is the only instance of a play labeled as a baihua ju). Two of the rejected plays were submitted by the famous huadan actor, Yu Lianquan 于連泉 (a.k.a., Xiao Cuihua), and were surely deemed to be indecent. In the committee’s work, jiuju seems to work pretty much as a synonym for Jingju. Chen Geng says that of the total plays inspected by the Beijing committee, 144 (almost exactly half) were Jingju. During this period, plays could also be rejected for being too superstitious, as happened in 1934 with a production of Xiyou ji 西游記 (Journey to the West) that was rejected for performance in Nanjing because “its content had to do with deities and demons, and could not avoid the charge of fostering superstition” 內容涉及神怪, 有提倡迷信之嫌. See Chen Jie, Minguo xiqu shi nianpu, p. 158.

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the fact that one of the criteria for rejecting plays was “to be against the will of the Party [GMD]” (weifan dang yi 違反黨義).150 Prior to its occupation of parts of China outside of Manchuria, Japan tried to prohibit a number of plays written in protest of the 1931 occupation of Manchuria that it was later able to prohibit in the parts of China that Japan came to control.151 In 1933, when a play, Tongku Shanhai guan 痛哭山海關 (Crying in Pain over Shanhai Pass), ostensibly about the use of that pass in 1644 by the Manchus to go take Beijing, was mounted in Nanjing shortly after the occupation of that pass by the Japanese, it was the Nanjing Guomindang government that forced performance of the play to stop.152 All in all, the censorship system of this period of the Republic does not seem to have been seen as too onerous or absurd in Jingju circles.153 150 With regard to the appearance of this language in the charge to the Beijing committee, see Chen Geng, Chuancheng yu xinbian, p. 244, and in the charges to other such committees, see Chen Jie, Minguo xiqu shi nianpu, p. 115 (Nanjing municipal government, 1929) and p. 137 (Zhejiang Provincial government, 1931). Such language also appears in the copyright and publication laws of this period. In the copyright law of 1928, the phrase is preceded by qualifier xian 顯 (clearly, manifestly) in article (tiao 條) 22 of the law, which outlines the conditions under which something cannot be registered for copyright protection. See Fazheng Xueshe 法政學社 (Society for law and government), Zhuzuo quan fa Chuban fa xiangjie 著作權法出版法詳解 (Detailed explications of the Copyright Law and the Publication Law [title as given on royalty page]; Shanghai: Guangyi shuju, 1936), pp. 20–21 (separate pagination), reproduced in Wu Yonggui, ed., Minguo chuban shiliao xubian, 1: 356–57. The publication law of 1930 says that works that “intend to destroy the Guomindang of China or the ‘Three People’s Principles’ ” 意圖破壞中國國民黨或三民 主義, cannot be published. See article 19 of the law, Fazheng xueshe, Zhuzuo quan fa Chuban fa xiangjie, pp. 56–57 (Wu Yonggui, ed., Minguo chuban shiliao xubian, 1: 392–93). 151 See, for instance, the items for Kang Jinbing 抗金兵 (Resisting the Jin troops) and Shengsi hen in Li Desheng, Jinxi, pp. 156–58, on the efforts of the Japanese advisor to the Shanghai Shehui Ju 上海社會局 (Bureau for Social Affairs in Shanghai) to stop the performance of these two plays in Shanghai (Beijing also had a Shehui ju; the committee for inspecting plays was under its jurisdiction). These plays were premiered by Mei Lanfang in 1933 and 1934, respectively, in response to the loss of Manchuria. The plays in this section of Li’s book are labeled “Plays banned in the occupied areas during the War of Resistance (1931–1945)” 抗日戰爭時期淪陷區禁戲 (1931–1945), but Shanghai in 1933–1934 was not yet occupied by the Japanese and the War of Resistance is more commonly thought to have begun in 1937. 152 See Chen Jie, Minguo xiqu shi nianpu, p. 148, where it is implied that it was the criticism of Chinese traitors to the Ming that caused the closing of the play. 153 Chen Moxiang, Huoren daxi, p. 30.339, presents a discussion of the inspection system with regard to an unnamed play written by one of the discussants. There is disagreement over whether the censors understand the fine parts of theater, and whether that really matters, but the disagreements are mild and civil. On the other hand, Yuweng 漁翁, “Zenyang cai neng wanjiu xianzai de Pingju de weiji” 怎樣纔能挽救現在的平劇的危 機 (How can Jingju be saved from its present crisis?), Xiju xunkan 12 (1936): 5, complains that the members of the inspection committees are “without talent or learning” 無才學,

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Besides demanding that playscripts be submitted before the performances of new plays would be allowed and sending people to see that performances followed approved scripts,154 another innovation in play supervision during this period was to produce lists of plays that were okay for performance, instead of just lists of prohibited plays,155 although these lists differed from place to place.156 This was also the time when performance rights (yanchu quan 演出 權) and rules for the republication of material in periodicals (zhuanzai 轉載) were first written into law157 and when radio broadcasts began to be regulated.158 After the Marco Polo Bridge Incident on July 7, 1937, the Republic was at war with Japan, which fairly quickly occupied major sections of Eastern China, forcing the central government to move first to Hankou and eventually to Chongqing. GMD censorship of publications and performances increased to a new level. New developments included the institution of random inspections

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“their number includes many who are not particular in terms of morals” 間多不管人格, and their “trouble making is more than ample while their instruction is inadequate” 掏 亂有餘, 指導不足, and advocates that all theaters and actors be nationalized and all the theater scholars ( juxue jia 劇學家) from every part of the country be organized into a Bureau of Theater Oversight (Xiju Jiancha Hui 戲劇監察會). Ai Lizhong, “Guomindang Beiping shi zhengfu de xiqu shencha,” p. 91, recounts how Shang Xiaoyun was “warned” ( jinggao 警告) in 1936 when it was found out that some of the dialogue and lyrics in the performance of his new play, Yuanye guandeng 元夜觀燈 (Enjoying the lanterns on the Lantern Festival; not in Xikao), departed from the approved script. For instance, the lists of “permitted” (zhunyan 準演) plays produced by the inspection committees for Fengtian included over four hundred plays in 1933 and that for Henan Province listed 136 plays in the following year. See Chen Jie, Minguo xiqu shi nianpu, pp. 149 and 158, respectively. A report on a list for Nanjing of 108 plays produced by the Nanjing Shi Xiju Shencha Weiyuan Hui 南京市戲劇審查委員會 (Committee for the inspection of theater in Nanjing) in 1934, “Shoudu jinxi yilan” 首都禁戲一覽 (An overview of banned plays in Nanjing), Ying yu xi 影與戲 (Cinema and theater) 1.10 (1937): 15, ends with this caveat: “but other places do not ban [plays] according to this list” 但別地並不照此表取締. See articles 1 and 21 of the copyright law of 1928, Fazheng xueshe, Zhuzuo quan fa Chuban fa xiangjie, pp. 2–3, and 19–20 (Wu Yonggui, ed., Minguo shiqi chuban shiliao xubian, 1: 338–39 and 355–56). Article 1, after listing the five categories of material that can be copyrighted, explains that as for the third of these, yuepu 樂譜 (written musical compositions) and juben 劇本 (playscripts), there is the additional level (beyond publication rights) of “rights to exclusive public performance or staging” 專有公開演奏或排演之權. In the explication of this section, there is the claim that both yuepu and juben are “purely for the purposes of performance or staging, which makes their nature different from other authored works” 純為演奏或排演之用. 其性質與其他著作物不同. See Jones, Yellow Music, p. 188. According to him, in 1936, new strict rules from the Ministry of Transport and Communication (Jiaotong bu 交通部) were put in place in an effort (not very successful) to control the content of radio broadcasts.

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of the performance of plays that were approved for performance; trial performances of plays (shiyan 試演) at which a censor was present before they were allowed to officially open; new criteria for works to be prohibited (e.g., miuwu yanlun 謬誤言論 [false discourse], fandong yanlun 反動言論 [reactionary discourse],159 dichu Guojia zhengce 抵觸國家政策 [offend against government policies], and fensan kangzhan liliang 分散抗戰力量 [dissipate the power to resist [the Japanese]); and the 1942 elimination of the earlier largely independent committees for the inspection of theater and the transfer of their responsibilities to, on a national level, the “Central Inspection Committee for Books and Periodicals” (Zhongyang Tushu Zazhi Shencha Weiyuan Hui 中央圖書雜 志審查委員會) and organizations of the same type for each province. There were still programs to try to get playwrights to write the kind of plays that the government wanted performed, but they were not very successful, resulting in a “playscript famine” ( juben huang 劇本荒).160 The intense regulation and the concomitant self-censorship that went along with that produced a kind of artificial way of writing and constructing plays that erred on the side of safety

159 Extended explanations of miuwu yanlun and fandong yanlun were provided. For instance in Zhongyang Chuban Shiye Guanli Weiyuan Hui 中央出版事業管理委員會 (Central Committee for the Oversight of the Publication Industry), comp., Chuban fagui huibian 出版法規彙編 (Collected laws and regulations on publishing; Chongqing: Zhengzhong shuju, 1944), photo-reprint in Wu Yonggui, ed., Minguo shiqi chuban shiliao huibian, 15: 143–345, the definition of miuwu yanlun is broken into seven subsections that list prohibited attitudes or actions (e.g., being deliberately “pessimistic” [beiguan 悲觀]) and the definition for fandong yanlun includes eight subsections, one of which lists emphasizing class differences (see pp. 139–40 of the original and pp. 289–90 of the photo-reprint). This section is followed (pp. 141–42 of original and pp. 291–92 of photo-reprint) by one on the standards for inspecting “popular publications” (tongsu shukan 通俗書刊) in which the fourth of four criterions for rejecting publication is “emphasizing extreme differences in wealth among classes and having the flavor of deliberately stirring up class struggle” 強 調貧富懸絕之情形有鼓吹階級鬥爭之意味. The first concerns descriptions of relations between males and females (the traditional term huiyin 誨淫 [teaching lewdness] is used), the second is about what could be called civil disobedience (the traditional term huidao 誨盜 [teaching brigandry] is used), while the third is about using the supernatural without the intention to “exhort goodness and punish evil” (quanshan cheng’e 勸善懲 惡). For a translation of the definitions of miuwu yanlun and fandong yanlun, see Ting, Government Control of the Press in Modern China, pp. 20–22. 160 In a piece published in 1961, in a poetry journal, Lao She tried to persuade writers of newstyle poetry (xinshi 新詩) to write xiqu playscripts. Skirting the issue of political correctness, he mused, “We have over four hundred types of juzhong, … even if all poets would help out, that would still not be enough” 我們有四百多個劇種, … 即使我們所有的詩 人都去幫忙, 也還是不夠用. See Lao She 老舍, “Kankuan yidian” 看寬一點 (Look [at poetry] more broadly), Shikan 新刊 (Poetry journal) 1960.4: 63–66, p. 64.

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known as xiju bagu 戲劇八股 (theatrical eight-legged essays).161 Perhaps it was the increased complexity of the inspection process, the increased volume, a desire to standardize the process to a greater degree than before, or the fact that this time period was more recent, but handbooks for inspection work and related reference works have survived, while we do not have such things for earlier periods.162 161 Most of these topics are covered in Fu Qiumin 傅秋敏, “Juben shencha” 劇本審 查 (Playscript inspection), 1937–1945: Guojia yishi xingtai yu Guotong qu xiju yundong 1937–1945: 國家意識形態與國統區戲劇運動 (1937–1945: National ideology and theatrical movements in the GMD controlled areas; Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue, 2010), pp. 89–123 (especially pp. 93–111). “Eight-legged essays” were the kind of essays written for the traditional civil service examinations, a style of writing which had fallen into very bad odor by the time that system was abandoned, in 1905. Later, stereotypical writing in the PRC would be called dang bagu 黨八股 (Party eight-legged essays). 162 A number of works were compiled to help censors do their work. Several examples are included in Wu Yonggui’s two collections of materials on Republican era publishing. Most appear to be internal governmental publications and can be stamped “secret” (mi 密), or “top secret” ( jimi 極密). One that is not marked secret is: Shencha fagui jiyao 審查法 規輯要 (A concise collection of laws and regulations for inspection), part of a Zhejiang sheng tushu zazhi shencha chu zhidao congshu 浙江省圖書雜志審查處指導叢書 (Collectanea of instructions for the Zhejiang Province Book and Periodicals Inspection Office), published in 1944, and photo-reprinted in Wu Yonggui, ed., Minguo shiqi chuban shiliao huibian, 15: 513–600. It includes a total of 20 different articles/sections. The 1942 proclamation eliminating the old committees is explained on page 16 (p. 532 of reprint), in the 5th section. Article 5 in the same section (same page) stipulates that even playscripts that have been published have to be inspected before being performed. In the second article of the next section, p. 17 (p. 533 of reprint), it is explained that four copies of the script and shuoming shu for a play to be performed have to be submitted at least 10 days before performance, and details as to where the four copies will end up are given (one will be archived, one will eventually be returned, one will go to the central committee, and the last to the local committee). The penalty for not performing a playscript as emended during the inspection process can be as harsh as the disbandment of the troupe (pp. 18–19 [pp. 534–35 of the reprint]). An example of one of these works that is stamped “secret” is dated to 1941 and is part of a Zhongyang tushu zazhi shencha weiyuan hui zhidao congshu 中央圖書雜志審查委員會指導叢書 (Collectanea of instructions for the Central Book and Periodicals Inspection Committee): Shencha shouce 審查手 冊 (Inspection handbook). It is over one hundred pages long and is photo-reprinted in Wu Yonggui, ed., Minguo shiqi chuban shiliao huibian, 15: 371–512. From a form to use for inspections (insert between pp. 34–35 and photo-reprinted p. 421) we find that inspections of shorter works (under one hundred thousand characters) were to be finished within three days and longer ones within five days. The section on what attitude and level of self-cultivation (xiuyang 修養) an inspector should have notes that the workload is heavy and has time-constraints but that inspectors should believe that they are there to help publication rather than to impede it, and they should continue to seek to improve their learning and should buy reference works outside their field of specialization to help them in their work, but the kind of works mentioned are either GMD or governmental

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Despite the fact that the GMD was at war with Japan at the time and resources were strained, this period is precisely the one in which the Republican government finally decided to invest substantial resources into producing revised Jingju playscripts. This kind of work began before the outbreak of the war in July of 1937, with the publication of a set of forty plays mentioned in chapter 1 above, Minzhong xiaoshuo xiqu duben. The plays were originally selected and edited and revised for use as teaching material at Zhonghua Xixiao, but then the decision was made to publish them as separate pocket-book-size books in four different batches that were published at different times between May 1935 and June 1937, for wider use and a wider audience. Li Fusheng 李浮生 presents the project as a governmental one, and with an emphasis on the revision of the play texts,163 but the press, Shijie shuju 世界書局, was a private company publications (the first two categories are the “posthumous teachings” [yijiao 遺教] of Sun Yat-sen and the writings of Chiang Kai-shek). The goal is for this “theory” (lilun 理論) to “silently dissolve into your brain so that it can be employed in your writing” 默化於腦中, 運於筆下 (pp. 16–17, pp. 400–401 in the photo-reprint). The last part of the work reproduces 14 “directives” (zhishi 指示) concerning the content of works to be inspected that date from 1939 to 1941. The 11th says that temporarily, the works of Lenin and Stalin should not be prohibited, the 12th and 13th prohibit use of derogatory terms (qingmie chengwei 輕 衊稱謂) for “border nationalities” (bianjiang minzu 邊疆民族) and “shaming language” (wuru zhi wenzi 侮辱之文字) with regard to Islam (huijiao 回教), respectively. The 14th is about inspecting playscripts and film scripts that protest about too much “decadence” (tuifei 頹廢) and criticism of “social ills” (shehui zui’e 社會罪惡) and calls instead for an emphasis on “ideal life” (lixiang shenghuo 理想生活), “promotion of goodness” (yang­ shan 揚善) and using records of “successful heroes” (chenggong zhi yingxiong 成功之英 雄) as the basis for scripts in order to increase confidence in the GMD and the will to fight (pp. 120–24 of original and pp. 508–12 of the photo-reprint). 163 Li Fusheng, Zhonghua Guoju shi, pp. 481–82. I have only been able to examine the first three batches of plays (the first 32 plays). Li gives a list of 40 play titles, while Matsuura Tsuneo 松浦恆雄, “Shitan Minguo yi lai xiqu kanxing juben zhi bianqian—Yi Minzhong xiaoshuo xiqu duben wei zhu de kaocha” 試談民國以來戲曲刊行劇本之變遷—以 民眾小說戲曲讀本為主的考察 (A preliminary look at changes in the publication of play texts from the Republican era on—Taking Minzhong xiaoshuo xiqu duben as main example for investigation), Taida Dongya wenhua yanjiu 臺大東亞文化研究 (Taiwan University research on East Asian culture) 3 (October 2015): 211–40, pp. 227–28, has only been able to come up with 38. Matsuura provides a name that does not appear in Li’s list (Zhan Wancheng [Xikao #152]), while there are three titles in Li’s list that do not appear in Matsuura’s. One of them, Pinggui bie yao 平貴別窯 (Xue Pinggui says farewell at the kiln; Xikao #486), can be verified as part of the set by reference to a WorldCat holding listing for it, but that is not the case for the other two, Gan sanguan 趕三關 (Pursuit through three passes, Xikao #196 [it and #486 are parts of the same long play, Hongzong liema]), and Zhan Fancheng 戰樊城 (Fighting at Fancheng; Xikao #150). Matsuura Tsuneo does not seem to have been aware of what Li Fusheng wrote about Minzhong xiaoshuo xiqu duben, but he does note (p. 226, n 40) that Weng Ouhong, Weng Ouhong bianju shengya, pp. 21–22, mentions being asked by Jin Zhongsun, who became director of the school after Jiao Juyin

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based in the International Concession in Shanghai (the series was printed at its branch printing plant in Beijing), and Zhonghua Xixiao (and its mother institution, Zhongguo Xiqu Yinyue Yanjiu Yuan), while originally started up with Boxer indemnity funds repatriated to China, maintained a rather large degree of independence from the GMD government and does not seem to have been regularly provided with governmental funding year by year.164 In any case, editorial work is more prominent than revision in the collection, although the extensive fanli that accompanies each play has one item (the 4th one), that says: As for the section entitled “play text,” it is the product of taking all the places in the original text or stage directions that are incomprehensible, not lively enough, or in conflict with modern ways of thinking and either revising or changing them. “劇詞”一項, 係將原來詞句, 或原來穿插, 凡有 不可解, 不生動, 或與現代思潮過於抵觸之處, 一律修訂或改變而成.165 stepped down, to “compile” (bianxie 編寫) volumes for a “small-scale indigenous theater collectanea” (xiqu xiao congshu 戲曲小叢書; could possibly refer to Minzhong xiaoshuo xiqu duben; later, in the 1950s, this title was used for a separate series of Jingju play texts printed as separate books; Jiao Juyin, “Jinri zhi Zhongguo ju,” p. 312, also seems to be talking about the project). Of the three plays that Weng lists, one is included in Minzhong xiaoshuo xiqu duben, but two: Zhan Fancheng and Qingyang tu 慶陽圖 (Portrait in Qingyang Palace [less obscure titles for the play refer to the execution of Li Guang and the revolt of Li Gang]; Xikao #255), are not. Matsuura thinks that this gives a clue as to the identity of two of the plays in Minzhong xiaoshuo xiqu duben he was unable to identify (it appears he is right about the first but not the second). 164 The establishment of the institute and the school was under the influence of a longstanding desire to have national theatrical organizations for theater research and performance on the model of different understandings of such institutions in Europe (and particularly the Paris Opéra), so it would make sense if both the institute and school were funded not just in the beginning but also year after year by governmental funds, but it seems that the situation was more complicated than that. Matsuura Tsuneo, “Shitan Minguo yi lai xiqu kanxing juben,” pp. 20–21, discusses this issue and cannot come to a definite conclusion, describing the institutions as having both private and national aspects. It is not hard to find evidence that the GMD government was interested in publishing popular reading material and liked to include “minzhong” (popular) in their titles. For instance, see what appears to be an internal governmental publication, Jiaoyu Bu Shehui Jiaoyu Si 教育部社 會教育司 (Ministry of Education Bureau of Social Education), Minzhong duwu gexiang zhongyao faling 民眾讀物各項重要法令 (Important ordinances of all types for popular reading material), prepared and printed in 1939, photo-reprinted in Wu Yonggui, ed., Minguo shiqi chuban shiliao huibian, 15: 577–600, but the appended lists of publications do not include this set of plays (see p. 600 for a list of textbooks with minzhong in their titles). 165 Matsuura Tsuneo, “Shitan Minguo yi laixiqu kanxing juben,” pp. 233–37, discusses examples of the editing/revision of the plays in Minzhong xiaoshuo xiqu duben that involve

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Some of the innovations of this set of plays will be discussed in chapter 6, but it should be noted here that one of them is the inclusion of a short essay entitled “Zongping” 總評 (General comments) after each play. These essays, instead of commenting on how the play is performed, stress their contemporary value. For instance, the essay after the first play in the set166 Nantian men 南天門 (South gate of heaven; Xikao #60), says: As for this kind of situation in which someone sacrifices their own life for others, this truly is the appearance of a spirit without fear! If today, we can take this spirit and extend it, and make it extend to all of the citizens of the nation, then, our nation, our society, will never again have the phenomenon of contention between people, and in the near future there will be the good news of the descent from heaven of a peaceful and flourishing world! 像這種為他人犧牲的情形, 實在是一種大無畏的精神的表現! 在今日, 我 們若能把這種精神推而廣之, 使它能夠普遍到全國的國民, 那麼, 我們的 國家, 我們的社會, 將永遠不會再有你爭我奪的現象, 太平盛世的福音不 久就要從天下降了!167

Revision is much more prominent in a later large-scale project to publish revised (censored) versions of Jingju plays under the Republic. That is the project that ended with the publication of Xiuding Pingju xuan 修訂平劇選 (Selected revised Pingju plays), a twelve-volume set with four plays in each volume. The project was actually begun in 1939 and was first housed under the committee overseeing the publication of textbooks ( jiaoke shu 教科書) in the Ministry of Education (in 1942 that committee was consolidated into removal of superstitious content, removal of indecent content, removing “unnecessary” repetition, and “making [certain] characters more moral” 人物善良化. 166 The plays are not numbered, but this is the first play in the advertisement for the first set (pi 批) of the plays on programs (xidan 戲單) for the school’s performances. For a reproduction of one of these programs, one from May 8, 1936, that lists the 14 plays in the first set, see p. 72 of the fourteenth installment of the detailed catalogue of the Kyushu University Library’s “Hama Bunko” 濱文庫 (Hama literary archive; Hama is Hama Kazue 浜一衛 [1909–1984], a scholar of Chinese theater who collected relevant material in China in the 1930s) holdings of changben 唱本 (traditional theater play texts) compiled by Nakatazomi Satoshi 中里見敬 and others, available at https://www.lib.kyushu-u .ac.jp/ja/collections/hamabunko, accessed June 27, 2018, p. 72. 167 See the discussion of these essays in Matsuura Tsuneo, “Shitan Minguo yi lai xiqu kanxing juben,” pp. 230–31, which includes the text I have quoted. Matsuura, in this article, also gives a lot of attention to the process by which the plays were written down and revised.

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the Guoli Bianyi Guan 國立編譯館 [National Institute for Compilation and Translation]). The original plan was to revise and publish one hundred plays. Li Fusheng says that the focus of revision was on the content of the plays,168 which is indeed the main topic of the essays included after each play on the process and work of revision for that play entitled “Xiuding jingguo” 修訂經 過 (Process of revision).169 In 1939, I doubt that anyone involved in the project would expect that the volumes produced would only begin to be published in 1945,170 and that it would only include 48 plays. Both the initial publication and its reprint in 1958 were published by Zhengzhong Shuju 正中書局, a press with very close connections to the GMD government, and that was founded in 1931 by Chen Lifu 陳立夫 (1900–2001), who was Minister of Education from 1938–1944. Probably the most famous person to participate in the revision project was Liang Shiqiu 梁實秋 (1903–1987).171 Writing on Jingju plays that were banned during the War of Resistance tends to focus on plays that came under Japanese pressure to stop performance that praise Chinese resistance to (and condemn collaboration with) historical invaders such as the Jurchens and Mongols, who become figures for the Japanese. Many of them were never actually banned when they premiered, but were banned in areas that came under direct or indirect Japanese control.172 Those areas included Manchukuo (1932–1945), Japanese occupied areas of China (1937–1945), and areas controlled by the Wang Jingwei 汪精衛 (1883– 1944) puppet government (1940–1945). Both the GMD-controlled areas and the Japanese-controlled areas produced propaganda plays attacking the other side

168 Li Fusheng, Zhonghua Guoju shi, pp. 483. 169 These essays have been referenced several times in chapters above with regard to the content of specific plays. 170 The last volume was not published until 1948. 171 Li Fusheng, Zhonghua Guoju shi, p. 483. Li gives the contents of the twelve volumes of Xiuding Pingju xuan on pp. 483–84. 172 The two plays written in 1933 and 1934 but covered in the section on the War of Resistance in Li Desheng, Jinxi, were mentioned above and are also of this type. A total of nine plays are covered in that section and all of them were anti-Japanese (although they often included indirect criticism of Chinese who supported the Japanese). To be fair, many of these plays were later banned in areas that came under Japanese control (including Manchukuo, which was nominally independent but controlled by Japan). The problem of indecent and superstitious plays continued during this period, and the Shanghai concessions were a handy place to try and avoid GMD censorship. For controversies between the censorship regimes of China and the International Concession in Shanghai with regard to film content, see Michael C. Wall, “Censorship and Sovereignty: Shanghai and the Struggle to Regulate Film Content in the International Settlement,” Journal of American-East Asian Relations 18 (2011) 37–57.

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(directly or indirectly) that were banned by the other side.173 There seems to have been more concern about huaju than Jingju plays. Lists of books prohibited on either side feature huaju plays but not Jingju plays, probably because the former tended to be written by people more accustomed to publishing their writings.174 The Japanese puppet government of Manchukuo and elsewhere was, of course, concerned with what kind of Jingju plays were being performed. We have seen, in chapter 1, that the Japanese puppet government of Beijing, in 1944, put a lot of effort into sorting out original from later names of plays, to help censor them. They also tried to keep track of how many troupes there were in the city. Actors could die in prison for not following the rules.175 The War of Resistance was a big challenge to commercial Jingju performance, as was the civil war between the GMD and CCP that finally ended in 1949. Even after the GMD retreated to Taiwan, it maintained a state of martial law on the island all the way up to 1987. Among the varieties of indigenous Chinese theater performed in Taiwan, Jingju maintained a near monopoly of governmental support until the 1990s. During that period the main Jingju 173 For laws concerning the prohibition by the GMD of publications from Japanese-occupied areas of China by Wang Jingwei and his collaborators, see, for example, Shencha fagui jiyao, pp. 52–54 (pp. 568–70 of the photo-reprint). For the names of several propaganda plays produced by the government of Manchukuo, see Chen Shiguo, “Minguo jixi yu xiju xingtai,” p. 103. 174 Tian Han’s collection of his huaju plays, Tian Han xiqu ji 田漢戲曲集 (Collection of Tian Han plays [note that xiqu appears in the title but all of the plays are huaju]; Shanghai: Xiandai shuju, 1930–34 [published in five separate installments and in a revised edition]) appears not only in a list of works prohibited by the Japanese occupation government in Beijing but also as a book that “needs revision” (ying shangai 應刪改) in a GMD list of prohibited works. See the over-one-hundred-page document marked “secret” (mi 密) produced by the Xinmin Zhongyang Zhidao Bu 新民中央指導部, Jinzhi tushu mulu 禁止 圖書目錄 (List of prohibited works; the fanli includes a limited amount of katakana but everything else in the document is composed of Chinese characters) dated 1939, photoreprinted in Wu Yonggui, ed., Minguo shiqi chuban shiliao xubian, 1: 495–619, p. 82 (p. 582 of the photo-reprint) and what also seems to be an internal document of almost thirty pages from the Zhongguo Chuban Ren Zhuzuo Quan Baohu Xiehui Choubei Chu 中國 出版人著作權保護協會籌備處 (Preparatory Department of the Association for the Protection of Copyright among Publishers) that transmits material from the Zhongyang Xuanchuan Weiyuan Hui 中央宣傳委員會 (Central Committee for Propaganda), Chajin yi si jiu zhong shumu ji Zuihou jueding wuzhong banfa 查禁一四九種書目及最後決定 五種辦法 (A list of 149 prohibited works and five recently-decided regulations), photoreprinted in Minguo shiqi chuban shiliao xubian, 1: 453–82, p. 23 (p. 477 of the photoreprint). In the case of Tian Han’s plays, three are faulted for highlighting class struggle. 175 For the case of Chen Yunting 陳運亭, who died in jail in Harbin in 1937 for not getting permission for a performance of Silang tanmu (Xikao #22), see Li Desheng, Lihua yizhi chunye yu, p. 290.

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troupes were either attached to branches of the military or to the national opera school, Fuxing Juxiao (originally private but then taken over by the government).176 Guoju dacheng, a fifteen-volume collection of over 700 Jingju plays177 that were only very lightly edited,178 was published in 1969–1974 by the Guofang Bu 國防部 (Ministry of National Defense). A set of five revised plays in five volumes (one play per volume), Xiuding Guoju xuan 修訂國劇選 (Selection of revised guoju plays) was published in 1978.179 The categories of Jingju plays that were prohibited before the end of the Martial Law period and the ensuing liberalization were similar to those of the GMD on the Mainland. There was again the preference for publishing lists of plays that could be performed. What was new was that these lists were produced by the central government instead of local ones. Important lists were 176 On the importance of Jingju to the GMD in Taiwan in those years, see Guy, Peking Opera and Politics in Taiwan. I was lucky enough to get the chance to return to Taiwan in 2017 to visit the campus of Fuxing Juxiao after an absence of over thirty years, when the school, now known as Guoli Taiwan Xiqu Xueyuan 國立臺灣戲曲學院 (College of Chinese indigenous theater of Taiwan), was celebrating its 60th anniversary. The campus was unrecognizable to me, both in its appearance, and its offerings, which no longer privilege Jingju. On the history of the school, see two works published in celebration of the 60th anniversary, one of which focuses on oral history, Wang Xueyan 王雪彥 et al., eds., Taiwan xiqu yi jiazi—Chuangxiao 60 zhounian koushu lishi jilu 臺灣戲曲一甲子—創校 60 週年 口述歷史輯錄 (Sixty years of Taiwan indigenous theater—A collection of oral histories celebrating the 60th anniversary of the founding of the school; Taibei: Guoli Taiwan xiqu xueyuan, 2017), and the other of which collects images, Tian Dairu 田代如, ed., Yaxiang kuibao liangxiang, Xiqu wenwu duo baoge—Guoli Taiwan xiqu xueyuan chuangxiao liushi zhounian xiaoshi wenwu huibian 壓箱瑰寶, 亮相: 戲曲文物多寶格—國立臺灣戲曲 學院創校六十週年校史文物彙編 (Treasures at the bottom of trunks show themselves off, objects related to Chinese indigenous theater so precious—Collection of school history objects in celebration of the 60th anniversary of the founding of Guoli Taiwan Xiqu Xueyuan; Taibei: Guoli Taiwan Xiqu Xueyuan, 2017). For an idea of the present state of the school, see Wang Xueyan 王雪彥, ed., Xiqu yi jiazi, huayu zai qianqiu 戲曲一甲子, 化 育載千秋 (Sixty years of xiqu, an eternity of transformation; Taibei: Guoli Taiwan Xiqu Xueyuan, 2017). When the school was founded, it only taught and performed Jingju (and a small number of Kunqu plays closely associated with Jingju performers), now it also has departments that specialize in the teaching of gezai xi 歌仔戲 (there seems now to be more of a preference to pronounce zai as zi) and Kejia xi 客家戲 (Hakka plays). 177 As noted in chapter 3, this collection was very reliant on Xikao. 178 Instead of revising plays, the collection tends to just leave out plays with objectionable material (see below). 179 The title of the collection echoes that of the much bigger Xiuding Pingju xuan. It was compiled by the Jiaoyu Bu Guoju Juben Zhengli Weiyuan Hui 教育部國劇劇本整理委 員會 (Committee for editing Guoju playscripts of the Ministry of Education) and published by the Guoli Bianyi Guan. Electronic copies are available (of plays 2–5 only) at the website of the latter: http://www.nict.gov.tw/.

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compiled in 1966, 1976, and 1981.180 Perhaps because these lists were made available, according to the play censorship regime in Taiwan, following an unwritten policy only spelled out in 1981 (and in effect until 1990), only “newly composed or adapted Guoju playscripts” 創作或改變國劇劇本 had to be submitted for inspection before performance.181 It is possible that this was the actual practice in the past in the GMD-controlled areas of the Mainland, despite the fact that the laws were not written that way. In any case, a 1946 Beijing city government regulation about needing a permit to perform plays says that it does not cover “Guoju plays without scripts that have been in circulation for years” 無劇本, 多年流傳之國劇, but that it does cover “Guoju plays that are adaptations under new names and newly compiled plays” 改名另編與 新編之國劇.182 Writing in 1949 not long after Beijing had been surrendered to the PLA, Jing Guxue 景孤血 (1910–1978) wrote that under the old regime, the

180 The content of these lists is given in Appendices D–F in Nancy A. Guy, “Peking Opera and Politics in Post-1949 Taiwan,” doctoral thesis, University of Pittsburgh, 1996, pp. 274–398. Qiu Yishan 邱乙珊, “Taiwan jieyan shiqi jinxi chutan—Yi Guoguang jutuan jinxi huiyan jumu wei li” 臺灣戒嚴時期禁戲初探—以國光劇團禁戲匯演劇目為例 (A preliminary exploration of prohibited plays during the martial law period in Taiwan—Using the repertoire in the Guoguang Troupe’s ‘Prohibited Plays Series of Performances’), master’s thesis, Taiwan Normal University, 2012, p. 15, mentions a 1956 Taibei newspaper article that claims that there was an official list of as many as 300 approved Jingju plays from around 1950. According to Wang Yanan, “Minguo shiqi de xiqu shencha jizhi,” p. 110, in 1946 the separate theater committee inspection system was abolished, with the publication of play texts to be handled as an ordinary publication and complaints about the content of plays to be forwarded to the police. It is presently unclear to me how long that situation persisted. 181 See the second article in “Jiaoyu bu guoju juben jiancha banfa” 教育部國劇劇本檢查辦 法 (Procedure for the inspection of guoju playscripts, Ministry of Education), provided as an appendix in Qiu Yishan, “Taiwan jieyan shiqi jinxi chutan,” pp. 107–109. Playscripts approved for performance are added to the list of approved plays and good (youliang 優良) plays can be recommended to troupes for performance (article 10). The time it should take for inspection (starting from when the playscript and accompanying material is received) is fourteen days for plays of ten scenes or under/running time under an hour, and one month for longer plays (article 9). The inspection committee is supposed to be composed of 15–21 persons who serve for terms of three years (article 7) and who are paid for their work but not given any official position for it (article 11). The scripts are supposed to accord with the format of revised plays (Xiuding Guoju xuan 修訂國劇 選 [five plays, first published in 1978; see above]) prepared by the Ministry (e.g., include “plot summary, character role-types, makeup, costume, props, lyrics [probably meant to include dialogue], aria types, etc.” 劇情說明, 腳色行當, 扮像, 服裝, 用具, 唱詞與板別 等 [article 5]). 182 Ai Lizhong, “Guomindang Beiping shi zhengfu de xiqu shencha,” p. 93, citing an archival document.

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censors were only concerned with newly composed plays and that no one paid any attention to the old ones.183 During the martial law period in Taiwan, plays that were considered too pessimistic could still be kept off the stage. This could include famous plays such as Bawang bie ji (Xikao #336; the prohibition was gotten around by changing the name of the play184) and an adaptation for Jingju of Dou E yuan 竇娥 冤 (Injustice to Dou E). In the case of the latter play, permission was denied because unlike in Ming chuanqi and Jingju versions of the story, this adaptation wanted to follow the plot of the original Yuan play, in which the heroine, Dou E, dies unjustly. After the ending was changed the play was performed.185 A rather new problem, however, was the prohibition in Taiwan of performing new plays and new versions of old plays developed in the PRC. It was a great temptation for Taiwan performers to perform the Mainland versions, given the vastly superior resources devoted to Jingju there, but this had to be done very carefully in order to avoid censorship.186 In the early 1990s, relations between the worlds 183 Jing Guxue 景孤血, “Xiwang Pingju yanyuan zidong shencha juben” 希望平劇演員自 動審查劇本 (I hope that Jingju actors will of their own accord inspect playscripts), Xi shijie 戲世界 (Theater world), issue 422 (March 5, 1949), p. 3. Gu says: “As for the inspection of playscripts at that time [under the GMD], it was the ‘new’ that was the target. All ‘new’ composed [playscripts] had to be sent in for inspection, as for the old ones, no one cared” 那時檢查劇本, 是以 ‘新’ 為對象. 只要是 ‘新’ 編的就得送去檢查, 舊的沒 人管. 184 See Wang Anqi, Taiwan Jingju wushi nian, p. 95. The new title was Yu ji hen 虞姬恨 (Consort Yu’s regret). 185 It was Guo Xiaozhuang 郭小莊 and her “Yayin xiaoji” 雅音小集 (Elegant sound small ensemble) that wanted to mount this adaptation. I was in Taiwan during the controversy. The reasons that have been proposed for the rejection of the original script for the production, according to Qiu Yishan, “Taiwan jieyan shiqi jinxi chutan,” p. 18, include the idea that the play “failed to reward the good” 善無善報, that it was making a reference to the recent “Meili dao Incident” 美麗島事件 (a protest against the GMD’s one-party rule on International Human Rights Day led by the staff of a magazine named Meili dao [Beautiful Island] harshly suppressed by the government), and Guo Xiaozhuang’s own opinion that it was all about conservative opposition to innovation. 186 When I was in Taiwan in the early 1980s, I bought a shortwave radio to listen to broadcasts of Jingju from the PRC. My landlord, who was from Guizhou and had come to Taiwan as a soldier, was convinced that the government had taken precautions so that PRC shortwave broadcasts could not be heard in Taiwan. I did not show him that he was wrong about that. When discussing the criteria for prohibiting plays during this period in Taiwan, Wang Anqi, Taiwan Jingju wushi nian, p. 89, lists four: political sensitivity, harm to morality, superstition, and “bandit” (fei 匪; this term and wei 偽 [false] were used at the time to refer to the communist regime on the Mainland) plays. As for this last category, the government’s actual policy (as opposed to written regulations) is described as “one eye open one eye shut” 睜一只眼閉一只眼. Wang recounts how, in the 1960s, Xu Lu starred in a very successful (at the box office) production of Hongmei ge (Xikao #242) that

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of Jingju on the Mainland and Taiwan had warmed enough that Mainland troupes began to perform in Taiwan.187 As for plays that had been banned earlier for other reasons, the remaining national troupe, Guoli Guoguang Jutuan 國立國光劇團 (National Light of the Country Troupe) performed a series of three performances of them involving ten plays that was made available on 2 DVD s in 2006 and entitled Jinxi huiyan 禁戲匯演 (Combined performance of prohibited plays).188 turned out to be based on the recent Mainland version of the story named after the heroine of the play, Li Huiniang 李慧娘, so the production was shut down. For background on Li Huiniang and its importance, see Maggie Greene, Resisting Spirits: Drama Reform and Cultural Transformation in the People’s Republic of China (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2019). Wang Anqi 王安祈, “Guozu, lisan, toudu jiaohu zuoyong xia de Jingju Manjiang hong” 國族、離散、偷渡交互作用下的京劇《滿江紅》 (The Jingju play Entire River Red through the lens of nationality, diaspora, and smuggling), Xiju yanjiu 18 (July 2016): 58–60, recounts an instance in 1983 of a Taiwan troupe daring to enter a lightly-edited, name-changed version of a Mainland play (the one in the title) in an official competition and getting no points for a very successful production. The same article contains a lot of discussion of the “smuggling” (toudu 偷渡) of Mainland plays into Taiwan, through audio and video recordings, before the end of the martial law period. When I worked at Fuxing Juxiao, there was always a lot of private talk about how to make use of PRC material without getting caught or punished for doing so. 187 See, for instance, Zheng Xin, “Fanhua guo jing.” 188 The performances took place on January 13–15, 2006, and the plays were (1) Wudi dong 無底洞 (Bottomless cave; not in Xikao), (2) Chungui meng 春閨夢 (Spring dream in the boudoir; not in Xikao), (3) Zhan jingtang 斬經堂 (Execution in the scripture hall; Xikao #421), (4) Tanmu xiantu 探母獻圖 ([Silang] visits his mother and offers a map; revised version of Xikao #22), (5) Da piguan 大劈棺 (The great chopping open of the coffin; Xikao #90), (6) Zhuangbie 壯別 (Valiant parting; not in Xikao), (7) Guangong shengtian 關公升 天 (Lord Guan ascends to heaven; Xikao #322), (8) Chisang zhen 赤桑鎮 (Chisang Town; not in Xikao), (9) Rang Xuzhou 讓徐州 (Yielding Xuzhou; Xikao #271), and (10) Zhaojun chusai 昭君出塞 (Bright Consort heads for the steppes; not in Xikao). The program for the performances included the reasons why these plays had been prohibited. See Qiu Yishan, “Taiwan jieyan shiqi jinxi chutan,” where the reasons for banning these plays, zhengzhi jinji 政治禁忌 (political sensitivity; concerns plays #1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 9 and 10 [#1, 6, and 8 are PRC adaptations of old plays]), fanghai fengsu jiaohua 妨害風俗教化 (harmful to morality; concerns plays #3 and 5), and liyuan jinji 梨園禁忌 (taboo among actors; concerns plays #3 and 7) are laid out. Although plays in the last category had been prohibited under different regimes for different reasons, they were not officially prohibited in Taiwan. Actors just did not like to perform them. In the case of Zhan jingtang, it was said to be unattractive to actors because it involved a mother ordering her son to kill his wife, and in the case of Guangong shengtian, it was because that play involved the death of Guan Yu and was considered unlucky for the troupe that performed it (on the worship of Guan Yu among actors, see Yao Shuyi, Wan Qing xiqu de biange, pp. 241–85). Zhan jingtang (#3) is the only one of the ten that is classified under more than one of the three categories.

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It took almost thirty years for the CCP to establish the PRC. The CCP won by ignoring the fact that China lacked the kind of conditions (industrialization, a proletariat of sufficient numbers, etc.) that Marx thought was necessary for a true communist revolution and adapting their policies to win over the kind of people who constituted the majority of the population, those who lived off of the land (“peasants”189). This involved a shift, largely led by Mao, from a concentration on the cities to one on rural China. After a series of failures to seize urban areas through armed revolts, the CCP began to establish “Soviets” in rural areas that got bigger and bigger. Eventually, the GMD encirclement campaigns forced the abandonment, in 1934, of the largest of the Soviets, the Jiangxi Soviet, and the “Long March” that finally arrived in Yan’an in 1935. Yan’an became the main base of the CCP, a place to which a lot of leftist intellectuals fled, and the place where the Party finally had time and resources to work out in more detail its cultural policies. For decades the CCP favored cadres who worked in the countryside over those who did underground work in the cities and was suspicious of the more cosmopolitan cities. In the PRC, one of the main concerns of the household registration system was to prevent people from flocking to the cities. In Mao’s very influential 1942 “Talks at the Yan’an Forum on Art and Literature” 在延安文藝座談會的講話, he stressed that the pressing need at that time was to use arts and literature to “spread widely” (puji 普及) the Party’s message.190 Not long before, there had been debates on what artistic and literary forms were best to use that came to a consensus that minzu xingshi 民 189 For one take on the problems with the use of the word “peasant” in writings on China, see Charles W. Hayford, “The Storm Over the Peasant: Orientalism and Rhetoric in Construing China,” in Shelton Stromquist and Jeffrey Cox, eds., Contesting the Master Narrative (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1998), pp. 150–72. For a more general overview of this question for China prior to the PRC, see Xiaorong Han, Chinese Discourses on the Peasant, 1900–1949 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005). The definition used by Han for “peasant,” one that Han characterizes as “neutral and close to the meaning of the Chinese word nongmin,” is “freeholders, partowners, tenants, and hired laborers who worked on the land for a living” (p. 4). As for the meaning of nongmin 農民 in the PRC, see Mindi Schneider, “What, then, is a Chinese Peasant? Nongmin Discourse and Agroindustrialization in Contemporary China,” Agriculture and Human Values 32.2 (June 2015): 333–35, for an overview. During the PRC, the household registration (hukou 戶口) policy had important effects on deciding who was a nongmin. According to Schneider, “Nongmin can refer to anyone with rural hukou, meaning anyone who was born in a legally defined rural area, regardless of whether he or she actually lives there for most of the year” (p. 334). 190 The talks were first published in Jiefang ribao 解放日報 (People’s liberation daily), October 19, 1943. Many editions of the talks in Chinese are available. For an English translation, see Bonnie McDougall, Mao Zedong’s “Talks at the Yan’an Conference on Literature

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族形式 (traditional Chinese forms) were the best vehicles to reach the most

people.191 These two things were instrumental in preventing the abandonment of old theatrical forms such as xiqu and Jingju, something that had been argued for by both communist and non-communist reformers alike since almost the beginning of the twentieth-century. The CCP ended up taking the reform of traditional theater as fundamental to its success over the GMD,192 and after the establishment of the PRC, to the transformation of the Chinese population. The periods in which the CCP developed and implemented its own policies on the arts and literature are the Yan’an Period (1939–1945), the “[First] Seventeen Years” (1949–1965), the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), and the “New Period” (Xin shiqi 新時期; 1977–present). Changing historical conditions and factionalism have caused radical shifts in policy, but a near-obsession with the power of traditional theater has been constant up until recent decades, when those forms of theater began to lose audience attention to newer and more powerful forms, particularly the internet and social media. Despite a rather substantial amount of information to the contrary, there was a quite firm belief among conservative scholars such as Qi Rushan and the GMD that Jingju, for the most part, embodied the kinds of values that they wanted to see instilled in the Chinese people. The situation was quite different for the CCP, since the number of Jingju plays that quite clearly favored their kind of revolution was quite limited, and disparagement of “peasants” was rampant in the repertoire.193 There was also the problem that the vast majorand Art”: A Translation of the 1943 Text with Commentary (Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1980). 191 See for instance, Zheng Dahua 鄭大華, “Kangzhan shiqi ‘wenyi de minzu xingshi’ de tichu jiqi taolun” 抗戰時期 ‘文藝的民族形式’ 的提出及其討論 (The broaching and debate on the topic of “Chinese art and literary forms”), Zhongguo wenhua yanjiu 中國 文化研究 (Research on Chinese culture) 2018.2: 95–109. Li Wei, Ershi shiji xiqu gaige de sanda fanshi, treats the “Yan’an model” (Yan’an fanshi 延安範式), with its use of theater as a governmental tool, as one of the three models investigated in his book (the other two are named after Mei Lanfang and Tian Han, respectively; the “Yan’an model” is the model that receives the most criticism in the book). 192 Brian James DeMare, Mao’s Cultural Army: Drama Troupes in China’s Rural Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), p. 10, quotes a comment by David Holm, Art and Ideology in Revolutionary China (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 319: “the drama movement was undoubtedly one of the most powerful propaganda weapons in the Communists’ arsenal, and one which gave them a considerable advantage with their rivals when it came to communicating with the civilian peasant population and with their own troops.” 193 Ma Shaobo et al., eds., Zhongguo Jingju shi, 2: 246, reports that at a meeting in Yan’an on March 22, 1943 of the committee on literary affairs at which theater strategy was debated, it was estimated that 70–80% of traditional plays “propagandized ‘feudal’ order” 宣傳封

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ity of the audience for Jingju was rather conservative in its tastes, preferring plays to be performed in ways that had become “classical” and without major changes to their content.194 Once the CCP gained control of China and could institute its policies nationally, it began a widespread campaign to reform traditional theater. A national office, the Xiqu Gaijin Ju 戲曲改進局 (Bureau for the improvement of Chinese indigenous theater), often shortened to Xigai Ju 戲改局, which Cheng Yanqiu once called the “Xizai Ju 戲宰局 (Bureau for Slaughtering Plays),195 was established under the Ministry of Culture (Wenhua Bu 文化部) to coordinate the campaign,196 but in the end only 26 plays (seventeen or 65% were Jingju197) were “officially prohibited” 命令禁演 and only rather fuzzy guidelines were given to the localities over whom only weak and inconsistent control was exerted. Worse, theater producers became afraid that they could easily get in trouble when guidelines and policies were so unclear, and the solution that they tended to take was to perform or imitate Jingju productions that won

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建秩序 and “confused the truth” 顛倒是非黑白, while many also contained superstitious and obscene content. Such resistance is a constant refrain in DeMare, Mao’s Cultural Army, which covers the Yan’an and the Seventeen Years periods (1935–1965). Incidentally, Demare’s focus is on the hybrid dramatic forms that included elements of xiqu that he refers to as geju 歌劇 (p. 22). Geju, commonly used to refer to Western opera, was one of the terms used to refer to Jingju in Yan’an, but in the index to Demare’s book only four page references are listed under the only term that refers to Jingju in the index, “Peking opera.” See Cheng Yongjiang 程永江 (Cheng Yanqiu’s son), Cheng Yanqiu shishi changbian 程硯 秋史事長編 (Collection of historical material on Cheng Yanqiu, uncut version; Beijing: Beijing chubanshe, 1999), p. 767 (quoting from a letter of apology written in 1957 about the incident). Cheng Yongjiang 程永江, ed., Cheng Yanqiu xiju wenji 程硯秋戲劇文集 (Collected writings on theater of Cheng Yanqiu; Beijing: Wenhua yishu, 2003), “Houji” 後記 (Final note), p. 563, mentions talking with his father in 1957 about the latter being accused of making such a remark, and quotes a line left out of the letter that identifies the incident as occurring in 1951. On the establishment of the Bureau, which happened on November 3, 1949, and the planning committee set up on July 18 of the same year, see Yang Xiufeng 楊秀峰, ed., Zhongguo xiqu dashi jiyao (1949–2009) 中國戲曲大事輯要 (1949–2009) (Collected concise information on important events in Chinese indigenous theater [1949–2009]; Beijing: Wenhua yishu, 2018), pp. 9–10 and 3–4 (this two-volume book is arranged chronologically). The list of 26 plays, with the reasons for the prohibition of seven of them, is attached as an appendix to the announcement of the lifting of the ban (see below) published on May 5, 1957 by the Ministry of Culture, Zhongguo xiqu zhi: Beijing juan, pp. 1439–40. The plays are divided into four categories: Jingju (15 plays), pingju (7 plays), Chuanju (Sichuan opera; 2 plays), and “Shaoshu minzu dichu jinyan de xi” 少數民族地區禁演的戲 (Plays prohibited in minority areas; both are Jingju [one is about a Chinese attack on and occupation of part of Korea and the other is about slaughtering Mongols at the end of the Yuan dynasty]).

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national awards and other forms of state approval.198 Unlike what happened under the GMD, the preparation and promulgation of lists of performable plays did not become an integral part of theater censorship in the PRC. All of this led to a severe lack of plays that troupes felt safe to perform, a situation that Cheng Yanqiu began, for instance, to worry over as early as 1950.199 Eventually, a lenient policy was instituted in 1957 that included the lifting of the ban on the 26 plays,200 but official and restrictions were reinstituted during the Anti-Rightist Movement (1957–1959) that followed after the Party was shocked by the amount of criticism it got in the Hundred Flowers Campaign (1956–1957). According to an editorial in Renmin ribao 人民日報 (People’s Daily) of July 25, 1957, Mei Lanfang and some other actors with official posts

198 The best article to date on early theater censorship in the PRC is Siyuan Liu, “Theatre Reform as Censorship.” The best one published in the Mainland is Fu Jin 傅謹, “ ‘Xigai’ yu zhengfu gongneng de zai sikao—Da Ankui xiansheng” 戲改與政府功能的再思考— 答安葵先生 (A re-evaluation of ‘drama reform’ governmental functions—In response to Mr. [Wang] Ankui), Xiqu yanjiu 62 (2003): 184–96. The pressure to imitate models that were from other theatrical traditions, along with policies that brought performing troupes of different kinds to participate in national and regional play exhibitions, encouraged local traditions to abandon some of the characteristics that made them different from prestigious forms such as Jingju. 199 Cheng Yanqiu 程硯秋, “Zai Quanguo xiqu gongzuo huiyi shang jieshao Xibei xiqu diaocha gaikuang ji xiqu gaige zhong de wenti” 在全國戲曲工作會議上介紹西北戲曲 調查概況及戲曲改革中的問題 (Introduction to the state of the survey of theater in the Northwest and several questions concerning theater reform, National Conference on theater work; dated November 27, 1950), in Cheng Yongjiang, ed., Cheng Yanqiu xiju wenji, p. 225, spoke of a “playscripts famine” ( juben huang 劇本荒) that needed to be taken care of. 200 Liu Yi-fang, “Old Plays: A Treasury Reopened,” China Reconstructs 6.2 (1957): 6–9, heralded this move and also announced state assistance “for individual artists who have financial difficulties” (p. 9); those difficulties presumably being related to the lack of plays to perform. Chin, “The Politics of Drama Reform in China after 1949,” p. 128, says that after the relaxation, “Many troupes performed mostly ‘poisonous weeds’ to pursue higher and higher profits.” For reproduction of play programs containing plays from the list of 26 banned plays from late May to early June, 1957, see Ni Xiaojian, ed., Juyuan liuhen, pp. 113– 16. For the announcement published on May 5, 1975, from the Ministry of Culture, of the lifting of the ban on 24 of the plays (the announcement notes that the ban on 2 of the 26 had previously been lifted), see Zhongguo xiqu zhi: Beijing juan, pp. 1439–40 (a list of the 26 banned plays and the reasons for banning them is attached as an appendix). The decision to ban the plays is criticized on the grounds of the procedures used and because the ban “harmed the development of Chinese indigenous theater arts” 妨礙戲曲藝術的 發展 but not specifically for being connected to the lack of plays to be performed. The decision to lift the ban is justified as in accord with the policy of “let one hundred flowers bloom and one hundred schools contend” 百花齊放, 百家爭鳴.

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called upon actors to voluntarily not perform “bad plays” (huaixi 壞戲) on the 21st of that month.201 Prior to the list of 26 banned plays, a list of fifty-five banned plays was published in 1949, not long after the surrender of Beijing, by a People’s Liberation Army committee charged with oversight of cultural affairs in the transition (the Xigai Ju would only be established later that year). The first two categories, “promote superstition” 提倡神怪迷信 (twenty-three plays [42%]) and “promote salacious thought” 提倡淫亂思想 (thirteen plays [24%]) are very similar to GMD categories and the third, “promote thoughts of national disloyalty and the invasion of other nationalities” 提倡民族失節及異族侵略 (four plays [7%]), is also fairly similar to GMD categories and coverage. The last three, however, cannot be found among GMD categories: “praise of slavish morality” 歌頌奴隸道德 (three plays [5%]), “support ‘feudal’ oppression” 表揚封建壓迫 (five plays [9%]), and “extremely worthless or without fixed scripts” 極無聊或 無固定劇本 (seven plays [13%]).202 Private theater troupes were tolerated in the PRC at the beginning but by the end of the 1950s, the vastly increased number of troupes consisted of nationalized troupes or troupes that were newly created by the government, both of which lived more off of government subsidies than box office receipts. There was a certain model of what modern and “scientific” troupes and acting consisted of (with some influence from Stanislavsky and Soviet models of theater) that included such things as introducing and strengthening the role of directors, adding professional playwrights to the staff of troupes,203 and the production of and working from fully written out playscripts that were to be closely followed during performance (ad-libbing and improvisation, formerly very 201 Wu Xiaoru 吳小如, Niaokan Fuliancheng 鳥瞰富連成 (A bird’s eye view of Fuliancheng; Shenyang: Liaoning jiaoyu, 1998), p. 58, noted that Yu Lianquan performed three of the formally banned plays in Beijing not long before the start of the Anti-Rightist Movement (Yu’s performances of two of the three plays that Wu lists are included in the set of xidan cited in the previous note) and ended up being labeled a “rightist”; he calls Yu’s performance of the plays an “extraordinarily unwise, stupid action” 非常不明智的蠢舉. 202 The announcement of these fifty-five “Old Plays with poisonous content” 含有毒素舊 劇 published in Beiping xinmin bao 北平新民報 (Beiping new people’s newspaper), March 25, 1949, is quoted in Zhongguo xiqu zhi: Beijing juan, pp. 1313–14. All of these “old plays” are Jingju. According to Ma Shaobo et al., Zhongguo jingju shi, p. 3: 14, the criteria for prohibition at the time were (1) “propagandizes for feudal morality and superstition that anesthetizes and terrifies the people” 宣傳麻醉與恐嚇人民的封建奴隸道德與迷信, (2) “propagandizes for lewdness, harshness, adultery, and murder” 宣傳淫毒奸殺, and (3) “has language or actions that defame or insult working people” 有醜化和侮辱勞動 人民的語言和動作. 203 See, for instance, Wichmann-Walczak, “Jingju (Beijing/Peking Opera) as International Art,” p. 162.

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important, were strongly discouraged). With the nationalization of troupes and the insertion of personnel who were more “red” (hong 紅) than “professional/specialist” (zhuan 專) into the troupes, censorship became internalized within the troupes (or it could be said that the troupes became part of the censorship regime) to a greater extent than ever before and the oversight of performed content took on different forms and operated in ways that were less codified and consistent, while things that were written out, such as provisions in the different constitutions, were subject to varying interpretation and means of execution and suing the state to enforce the letter of the “law” was, in the beginning, not really contemplated, and while recently has become theoretically possible, is still unlikely to succeed. As already mentioned in the Introduction, another governmental activity of the late 1950s and early 1960s was the effort to figure out precisely how many indigenous theater traditions ( juzhong) there were in China. The number rose from an estimate of “up to around one hundred” 約及百種 from Tian Han in 1950204 to over three hundred, fed by the idea that having a huge number of them was good thing and the desire of almost every locality to have their own, even if it was the same as a neighboring locality’s.205 Both this project and the roughly concurrent one of minzu shibie 民族識別 (the sorting out and naming of the ethnic nationalities in China),206 tried to employ scientific principles to reach conclusions, but human factors tended to get in the way of that. Just as the Han have a dominating presence among the nationalities, Jingju commands a similar status among the various types of indigenous Chinese theater.207 The PRC mobilized far more resources and exerted far more pressure to bring about what it wanted in the world of traditional Chinese theater than had ever been done, even if what it wanted was not always as clear as might be nor the methods used as efficient as would be ideal. An unprecedented drive to collect playscripts and to revise existing plays occurred in the first seventeen years of the regime. The latter began to be published in an extended series entitled Jingju huibian 京劇彙編 (Compendium of Jingju plays; publication began in 1957, suffered a hiatus during the Cultural Revolution, and was finished in 1985; 204 See Fu Jin 傅謹, “Canghai sangbian: Ershi shiji Zhongguo xiju bantu jubian” 滄海桑田: 二十世紀中國戲劇版圖巨變 (From dark sea to mulberry fields: Tremendous changes in the field of Chinese theater in the twentieth century), Wenyi yanjiu 2006.9: 90–91. 205 See the footnote to the first appearance of the term juzhong in the Introduction. Fu Jin, “Canghai sangbian,” p. 93, speaks of a “movement to create juzhong” (zao juzhong yun­ dong 造劇種運動) going on at the time. 206 On this project, see Mullaney, Coming to Terms with the Nation. 207 See Fu Jin, “Canghai sangbian,” p. 93, on how the Xigai Ju took Jingju (and huaju) as models during the theater reform campaign.

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total of 499 plays in 109 volumes) and the latter in a different but also extensive series entitled Jingju congkan 京劇叢刊 (Collectanea of Jingju plays; 1953–1959, comprising 160 plays in 50 volumes). The plays in the former were supposed to be unedited and to provide a resource for scholars and playwrights, while the plays in the latter were theoretically supposed to be ready to be performed by any competent Jingju troupe. The PRC also tried to influence the mix of three kinds of plays that were being produced and performed as Jingju: “traditional plays” (chuantong xi 傳統戲), “newly compiled historical plays” (xinbian lishi xi 新編歷史戲), and “modern plays” (xiandai xi 現代戲). The general concern was that there were too many of the first category and too few of the last, which led to attempts to set quotas that boosted productivity of the last category208 and a large-scale conference and exhibition of performances of this kind of play was held in 1964. It was at this event that Jiang Qing delivered a speech that was not officially published until the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, “On the Revolution in Jingju” (“Tan Jingju geming” 談京劇革命).209 About two years before the Cultural Revolution, Liu Shaoqi 劉少奇 (1898–1969) proposed to restrict the proportion of traditional plays being performed to 20%, which was lowered to 10% in September of 1965.210 In the Cultural Revolution, the proportion of Jingju plays performed that belong to the category of modern plays would reach almost 100%. Jiang Qing is popularly considered as one of or as the main force behind the Cultural Revolution. She certainly consistently claimed credit for many aspects of the creation of yangban xi,211 and the fall from power of the “Gang of Four” (Jiang, and three men who had been promoted by Mao Zedong and were based in Shanghai: Zhang Chunqiao 張春橋 [1917–2005], Yao Wenyuan 姚文元 [1931–2005], and Wang Hongwen 王洪文 [1935–1992]) and their trial was one of the main markers of the end of the Cultural Revolution. Jiang had married Mao back in Yan’an but had been pretty silent for decades (some have speculated that she had had to agree to stay out of politics for a certain period of time before she was allowed to marry him). In 1965, the Gang of Four began 208 An editorial, “Xiju gongzuo zhe yinggai wei biaoxian xiandai shenghuo er nuli” 戲劇工作 者應該為表現現代生活而努力 (Theater workers should strive on behalf of reflecting modern life), Renmin ribao, August 7, 1958, p. 7, quoted in Zhongguo xiqu zhi: Beijing juan, pp. 1460–62, calls for an increase in the production of modern plays in Jingju and other indigenous theater forms of 20%. 209 Jiang Qing’s emphasis on the importance of playscripts was mentioned in chapter 1. 210 See Chin, “The Politics of Drama Reform in China after 1949,” p. 181. 211 Xing Fan, Staging Revolution: Artistry and Aesthetics in Model Beijing Opera during the Cultural Revolution (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2018), p. 220, notes that directors of yangban xi “did not have absolute authority,” and gives an example of how Jiang Qing’s “directives” for a particular play were handled (pp. 220–22).

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a concerted attack on a Jingju play written by Wu Han 吳晗 (1909–1969), Hai Rui baguan 海瑞罷官 (Hai Rui dismissed from office; premiered in 1959 for the 10th anniversary of the founding of the PRC) that many have taken as the opening salvo of the Cultural Revolution. Three years earlier, however, their initial attempts to criticize Hai Rui baguan had not had much success, but they were more successful (but not up to the standards of the 1965 attack on the play), with their attack on a Northern-style Kunqu play, Li Huiniang 李慧娘, written by Meng Chao 孟超 (1902–1976), a revision of an earlier play, Hongmei ge 紅梅閣 (The red plum loggia; Xikao #242), that took its name from its ghostly heroine.212 In both instances, a political faction used a play as a means to fight for their political preferences, and in both cases the playwrights, Wu Han and Meng Chao, were as much targets of attack as the plays. This fact is striking evidence of how, largely under the influence of PRC theatrical policies, Jingju moved from actor-centric toward playwright-centric,213 although in the cases of these two men, they were literary men and not professional theater workers. Both men were politically well-connected (Meng Chao, who had done underground work for the CCP in the 1940s and had become fairly well known as a writer, had been encouraged to write Li Huiniang by Kang Sheng 康生 [1898–1975], head of the CCP security and intelligence apparatus;214 and Wu Han, a famous historian and deputy major of Beijing, had been asked by Mao to write about Hai Rui215). Their plays were published in the official 212 Meng Chao, this play, and its fate, are at the core of Greene, Resisting Spirits. 213 On this general shift, see Wang Anqi 王安祈, “Yanyuan zhongxin xiang bianju zhongxin de guodu—Dalu xiqu gaige xiaoying yu dangdai xiqu xingzhi zhuanbian de guancha” 「演員劇場」向「編劇中心」的過渡—大陸「戲曲改革」效應與當代戲曲質性轉 變之觀察 (The Transition from “Actor-Centered” to “Playwright-Centered Drama”: An Investigation of Mainland Drama Reform and the Transformation of the Nature of Contemporary Theater [English title provided in original]), Zhonguo Wen Zhe yanjiu jikan 中國文哲研究集刊 (Bulletin of the Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy) 19 (2001): 251–316 (in Wang’s “Guozu, lisan, toudu jiaohu zuoyong xia de Jingju Manjiang hong,” pp. 70–72, she notes that many readers misunderstood what she meant by actorcentered drama and added some further explanation). My focus on the importance of Meng Chao and Wu Han as playwrights is different from Wang’s approach (she mentions neither man). 214 Kang Sheng and Meng Chao were from the same locality and became related through marriage, but Kang Sheng would later turn on Meng Chao. 215 On Meng Chao, see the book by Maggie Greene mentioned above. On Wu Han, see Mary G. Mazur, Wu Han, Historian: Son of China’s Times (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2008). Much has been written on the importance of Wu’s play, which was published in English translation with analysis and background discussion twice: James R. Pusey, Wu Han: Attacking the Present through the Past (Cambridge: East Asia Research Center, Harvard University, 1969) and Clive Ansley, The Heresy of Wu Han: His Play “Hai Rui’s Dismissal” and Its Role in China’s Cultural Revolution (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1971). It has been said that Mao did not ask Wu Han to write a play about Hai Rui and that

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PRC journal devoted to playscripts, Juben 劇本 (Playscripts)216 and/or as books in 1960–1962.217 Jiang Qing’s attack on Li Huiniang in 1963 had to be subtle in a way that was not necessary in the later open attacks on that play and Hai Rui baguan. In 1963, the attacks that Jiang Qing organized on Li Huiniang did not mention Meng Chao, and the prohibition against “ghost plays” (guixi 鬼 戲) that she was behind did not even mention the play by name.218 Both plays did indeed contain some criticism of CCP policy (there was a long tradition in Chinese literature of using literary works to criticize the faults of rulers, and of interpreting literature from that point of view), but not to the extent claimed by Jiang Qing, especially after the attacks on Meng Chao got personal. As opposed to the focus on playwrights in Gang of Four attacks on Hai Rui baguan and Li Huiniang, Jiang Qing and her associates themselves favored the attribution of authorship of yangban xi to collective groups whose individuals are not named.219 This was at the same time that Jiang Qing continually claimed credit for the development of individual yangban xi (she never took

it was Ma Lianliang who asked him to do that (see, for instance, Ma Shaobo et al., eds., Zhongguo Jingju shi, 3: 388). 216 Hai Rui baguan was first published as a separate volume: Hai Rui baguan: Lishi ju 海瑞 罷官: 歷史劇 (Hai Rui dismissed from office: A history play; Beijing: Beijing chubanshe, 1961), while Li Huiniang was first published in Juben 1961.7–8: 72–92. For the publication of Li Huiniang as a book, see the next footnote. 217 When Li Huiniang was published as a book in 1962, Meng was prominently given credit for the playwriting (and Lu Fang 陸放 [1932–] was given credit for the music) and an essay by Meng on the writing of the play was included: Li Huiniang 李慧娘 (Shanghai: Shanghai wenyi, 1962; reprinted by the same press in 1980 with an additional colophon about the reprinting). When Hai Rui baguan was published as a book, Wu Han’s name as playwright was equally prominent and a preface and introduction by him was included: Hai Rui baguan: Lishi ju 海瑞罷官: 歷史劇 (Hai Rui dismissed from office: An historical play; Beijing: Beijing chubanshe, 1961). 218 For the proclamation on the acceptance of the proposal from the Ministry of Culture, issued on March 29, 1963 (the proposal itself is included in an appendix), see Zhongguo xiqu zhi: Beijing juan, pp. 1501–503. 219 On the rejection of “personal attribution” (geren shuming 個人署名) in favor of “collective attribution” ( jiti shuming 集體署名) in the case of the yangban xi, see Zhang Jiemo 張節末 and Ding Shiwei 丁詩薇, “Lun yangban xi de fei zuozhe xing” 論樣板戲的非 作者性 (On the author-less nature of yangban xi), in Fu Jin 傅謹, ed., Jingju de wenxue, yinyue, biaoyan: Diliu jie Jingju xue guoji xueshu yantao hui lunwen ji 京劇的文學, 音樂, 表演: 第六屆京劇學國際學術研討會論文集 (The literature, music, and performance of Jingju: Collected essays from the sixth academic conference on Jingju-ology; Beijing: Zhongguo xiqu xueyuan, 2015), pp. 232–49.

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such credit in programs or published versions of the plays, however220).221 It appears that for the duration of the Cultural Revolution, Jiang Qing came near to monopolizing the complete resources, human and otherwise, of the world of Jingju in China so as to employ them in the project of creating and perfecting (the plays went through long and very complicated processes of revision222) a relatively small number (not eight, as popular sayings had it223) of yangban xi. Theater troupes and organizations that she did not feel were helpful were disbanded and their personnel transferred; plays that she did not approve of, although not officially proscribed, were not publicly performed. Great efforts were taken to standardize performance versions of the yangban xi; these included making film versions and publishing astonishingly detailed “performance versions” (yanchu ben 演出本) of the plays.224 220 Yu Huiyong 于會泳 (1925–1977), whom Yawen Ludden has given a lot of credit for the development of yangban xi from the musical side, and who served as Minister of Culture at the end of the Cultural Revolution, was not given official credit for his work in programs or publications of yangban xi. On Yu, see Yawen Ludden, “Making Politics Serve Music: Yu Huiyong, Composer and Minister of Culture,” TDR: The Drama Review 56.2 (Summer 2012): 152–68. 221 It could be said that Jiang Qing was acting more as a director (or producer) than playwright. When Ma Shaobo et al., eds., Zhongguo Jingju shi, 3: 621, claims about yangban xi that “with regard to art production, the directorial system was replaced by the will of superior officials” 在藝術生產上以長官意志代替導演制, the authors presumably had Jiang Qing in mind (she is a constant figure in the description of the development of yangban xi in this work, but also in other accounts as well). 222 Weng Ouhong, the original playwright commissioned to create Hongdeng ji 紅燈記 (The red lantern), described in his Weng Ouhong bianju shengya, pp. 576–82, the long and difficult process of getting Jiang Qing to agree on a version that she liked after she saw the first dress rehearsal. He says that altogether the process involved as many as “two hundred instances of making changes” (erbai ci 二百次; p. 578). When the play was performed and published, Weng was not credited as the playwright. 223 The most popular was “Eight hundred thousand people [could only] watch eight plays” 八億人看八台戲. That saying is used in the title of Barbara Mittler’s “ ‘Eight Stage Works for 800 Million People’*” (the asterisk leads the reader to a note on the saying on p. 391). Ludden, “Making Politics Serve Music,” p. 154, points out that at least 18 works were called yangban xi. 224 For instance, the performance version of Hongdeng ji based on the May 1970 version (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1972) is 374 pages long, while a printing of a “regular version” of the same version of the play by the same press in 1970 that even includes musical notation is only 105 pages (both are attributed to Zhongguo Jingju Tuan). It is also true that not all of the editions of other yangban xi labeled as yanchu ben by this press are as detailed as the 1972 one for Hongdeng ji. The one for Dujuan shan 杜鵑山 (Azalea mountain; 1975), for instance, only has just over two-hundred pages and lacks the two additional sections, on “dance” movements and stage design, that, just counting those that I have seen, the extended yanchu ben editions for Hongdeng ji, Shajiabang 沙家浜 (Shajiabang),

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Whereas it is often the tendency in authoritarian regimes to just “bury” works that they don’t approve of, it was common in the PRC before the New Period, and especially during the Cultural Revolution, to circulate copies of works that were otherwise banned to serve as “negative educational material” ( fanmian jiaocai 反面教材) for study sessions and other activities, often making such works known in far greater detail and more widely than would have otherwise been the case. Such works were often labeled “poisonous weeds” (ducao 毒草).225 The yangban xi were, of course, published over and over again and in a wide variety of formats. After the Cultural Revolution, they disappeared from the stage and bookstores,226 only to re-surface (on stage, at least227) in response to a certain kind of nostalgia for them, both on the part of those who suffered through the Cultural Revolution and those that were born after it. Mao Zedong died on September 9, 1976, and the Gang of Four was arrested in October of that year, but it took a while to revive the performance of traditional plays and to restart theater companies and troupes that had been shut down. It was not until 1978 that 41 traditional Jingju plays were proposed for Zhiqu Weihu shan 智取威虎山 (Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy), and Longjiang song 龍江頌 (Ode to Dragon River) have. 225 Three such plays, two of which are Jingju, are collected in Da ducao ju ji 大毒草劇集 (Collection of big poisonous weed plays; Hong Kong: Zhongguo wenhua zhongxin, 1977). Such reprinting of problematic plays could also use more innocuous titles, such as one used for one of the many collections including Hai Rui baguan published at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution: Yao Wenyuan 姚文遠, ed., Hai Rui baguan wenti cankao ziliao 海瑞罷官問題參考資料 (Reference material for the problem of Hai Rui baguan; Shanghai: Shanghai renmin, 1966). 226 On my first trip to the Mainland, in 1982, I managed to buy a lot of books (they were very cheap then), enough to pull loose one of my wife’s ribs from its mooring (she helped me lug the books around in suitcases). Finding absolutely no copies of yangban xi scripts for sale in bookstores, I went directly to one of their publishers, Renmin Yinyue Chubanshe 人民音樂出版社 (People’s Music Publishing). They had some but they were covered in an incredibly thick layer of dust. 227 For instance, a notice of the performance for students at Peking University of Shajiabang appears untitled at the foot of the page of Zhongguo Jingju 1997.1: 44; it says that the performance is valuable for spreading knowledge of Jingju and transmitting patriotism to the next generation. Yangban xi included a lot of changes to the music and orchestral practices of Jingju, making them not easy to perform by troupes used to performing regular Jingju. It so happens that I have only seen one revival of a yangban xi onstage, which took place within the last decade. The actors acted to a live percussion orchestra but sang to recorded music (this was a professional performance, in one of the most important venues for Jingju in Beijing). Beginning in the late 1990s, on my trips to Beijing, I often went to weekly meetings of a piaofang. Occasionally someone would perform arias from yangban xi, for which special accommodations had to be made by the orchestra provided to back up the singers, or excuses made. It was often clear that the orchestra did not enjoy playing for those singers.

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consideration for revival.228 The reappearance of traditional Jingju plays on the stage caused a lot of excitement that continued in the first years of the 1980s, but then rather quickly began to die down. Even some of the 26 banned plays were performed, provoking a 1980 notice that they were still banned and should not be performed.229 Eventually, the idea that even those plays could be revised and return to the stage gathered strength, so that by the 1990s (at the latest), some of them appeared on the stage again, with the claim that they had been revised (not always so evident in the productions), and one of the banned plays, Huozhuo Sanlang 活捉三郎 (Taking the soul of Third Son; second half of Xikao #444), was being taught to children in opera schools and videos made available of them performing the play.230 Practices that had been banned, such as using small wooden stilts to simulate bound feet (caiqiao), have also reappeared.231 Commercial concerns (what will get people to buy tickets?) have become paramount. Subsidies to all state performance troupes have declined, but government support for Jingju troupes is among the highest. The government wants troupes to be more reliant on box office receipts, and has been pushing them to achieve that goal with varying success.232 Reorganization and changes in how the entire 228 See “Wenhua bu Dangzu guanyu zhubu huifu shangyan youxiu chuantong jumu xiang Zhongyang Xuanchuan bu de qingshi baogao” 文化部黨組關於逐步恢復上演優秀 傳統劇目向中央宣傳部的請示報告 (Report on a request for instruction concerning the step-by-step revival of the performance of good traditional plays from the Party Organization in the Ministry of Culture to the Ministry of Propaganda), May 1, 1978, quoted in Zhongguo xiqu zhi: Beijing juan, pp. 1562–65. The first appendix, with the list of 41 plays for consideration, appears on pp. 1564–65; a third appendix (p. 1565) gives the list of the 26 plays banned in the early 1950s. 229 See “Wenhua bu guanyu zhizhi shangyan ‘jinxi’ de tongzhi” 文化部關於制止上演 ‘禁 戲’ 的通知 (Announcement from the Ministry of Culture regarding stopping the performance of “banned plays”), June 6, 1980, quoted in Zhongguo xiqu zhi: Beijing juan, pp. 1602–603 (it also includes a list of the 26 plays as an appendix). 230 A performance of this play by students (their ages are given as twelve and fourteen) of Beijing Xiqu Xuexiao 北京戲曲學校 (Beijing Chinese indigenous theater school) was published with a recording of another play as a VCD by the Shanghai branch of Zhongguo Changpian Gongsi 中國唱片公司 in the 1990s (no date appears on the disk or its jewel case, but it is number four in the same series, “Jupu xinmiao” 菊圃新苗 [New sprouts from the garden of theater], as another VCD whose date of publication is given as 1999 in a WorldCat listing). 231 See, for instance, Xu Beicheng, Jingju yu Zhongguo wenhua, pp. 421–22. 232 Ma Haili, Urban Politics and Cultural Capital: The Case of Chinese Opera (Farnham, Surrey, England: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2015), for instance, traces in detail the financial strain on a local tradition, Yueju in Shanghai. Elizabeth Wichmann-Walczak has been studying the reformation of one particular Jingju company in the New Period, but so far has only published “ ‘Reform’ at the Shanghai Jingju Company.”

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system is managed has allowed more collaboration across theater companies, and made it easier for playwrights attached to theater companies to write for other companies and for theater companies to use playscripts written by “outsiders.” These changes were fundamental to the success of Cao Cao yu Yang Xiu 曹操與楊修 (Cao Cao and Yang Xiu). The lead actor, who played Cao Cao, Shang Changrong 尚長榮 (1940–; he is the son of Shang Xiaoyun), was head of the Shanxi Jingju Company in 1987. He was depressed by the lack of good new plays to perform when a friend recommended to him a play that had been published just that year, in the October issue of Juben, by a dramatist named Chen Yaxian 陳亞先 (1916–), who was employed by the Xiju Gongzuo Shi 戲 劇工作室 (Office for theater work) in Yueyang in Hunan Province (for more on him, see chapter 5). Shang secretly went to the Shanghai Jingju Company about the project (he thought his own company in Shanxi was not up to such a project), and the play, which was first mounted in 1988 and then restaged in 1995, eventually won many awards.233 Chen Yaxian’s career exemplifies the greater collaboration between script writers on one side of the Taiwan Strait and theater companies on the other that has become possible. After the success of Cao Cao yu Yang Xiu, two his scripts were mounted by the Guoguang Troupe in Taiwan.234 Chen also wrote one of the installments and co-wrote another of the six installments of the “New Year’s serial play” (Hesui liantai 233 On the creation of the play, see Elizabeth Wichmann-Walczak, “Three Kingdoms at the Dawn of the 21st Century: The Shanghai Jingju Company’s Cao Cao and Yang Xiu,” in Kimberly Besio and Constantine Tong, eds., The Three Kingdoms and Chinese Culture (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007), pp. 111–22, particularly the narrative of the conception and early development of the project, pp. 120–21, note 4, which is based on interviews with Shang Changrong. 234 According to WorldCat, DVD s for the two plays, Yanluo meng: Tiandi yi xiucai 閻羅夢: 天地一秀才 (A dream of King Yama: A first-degree holder between heaven and earth), and Li Shimin yu Wei Zheng 李世民與魏徵 (Li Shimin and Wei Zheng), were published in 2002 and 2005, respectively. The first of these is labeled a “Siwei Jingju” 思維京劇 (“a thinking Jingju”), which seems to echo how the director of Cao Cao yu Yang Xiu, Ma Ke 馬科 (1930–), characterized that play (see Wichmann-Walczak, “Three Kingdoms,” p. 117 [she translates what Ma said as “thinking,” but does not give the characters for what he said). A selection of Chen’s plays has been published: Dangdai Hunan xiju zuojia xuanji: Chen Yaxian juan 當代湖南戲劇作家選集: 陳亞先卷 (Selected plays by contemporary Hunan playwrights: Chen Yaxian volume; Changsha: Hunan wenyi, 1999). Chen has written a memoir, Cisheng cijia: Da shidai zhong de xiao xushi 此生此家: 大時代中的小敘 事 (This life and this family: A small narrative in the midst of a great era; Beijing: Shangwu yinshua guan, 2010), but it focuses on his life through the War of Resistance and does not cover his playwriting. He has also written for television (he was the lead script writer for Qianlong wangchao 乾隆王朝 [The reign of the Qianlong emperor], a forty-episode miniseries first shown in 2002 and published as a two-volume book the next year [Beijing: Zuojia chubanshe, 2003]).

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benxi 賀歲連臺本戲), Jingju Zaixiang Liu Luoguo 京劇宰相劉羅鍋 (The Jingju Prime Minister Hunchback Liu), a very creative but popular production that was put on by the Beijing Jingju Company with the help of actors and theater people from a variety of theater companies and other units whose first two installments premiered in 2000.235 Another new phenomenon is “privately-run artistic companies” 民營藝術 院團.236 Although the number of these entities has been increasing, privatelyrun companies that concentrate on performing Jingju are still few.237 If and when their numbers increase, that will certainly complicate the censorship regime in ways that were not necessary when all (or almost all) of the troupes belonged to the government. There also seems to be more of a dependence, 235 The playscripts and other information about the series is available in Xu Hengjin, ed., Hesui liantai benxi. The modifier “Jingju” was surely added because the series of plays was preceded by a very popular television miniseries of the same name. At the end of this volume are two pieces, “Fanxing fengcai” 繁星風采 (Splendor of the massed stars), pp. 423–38, and “Zaixiang Liu luoguo dashi ji” 宰相劉羅鍋大事記 (A chronology of important events concerning Zaixiang Liu Luoguo). In the case of the first of these, it begins with the names and professional identities (sometimes only the latter, see below) of the playwrights (neither home institution nor professional identity is given for one of these, see below), directors, music composer, stage designer, lighting designer, and costume designer, a total of fourteen persons, are given. Only one of them is from Beijing Jingju Company (Chen Yaxian and two of the other playwrights are only identified as “Hunan juzuo jia” 湖南劇作家 [Hunan playwright]). All of the directors are huaju directors (one of them, Wei Xiaoping 魏曉平, is the one without home institution or professional identity in the list; he was not long returned from ten years in France at the time). The rest of “Fanxing fengcai” concerns the lead actors. We find out what their favorite colors are but not their home institutions (the very first one, however, Chen Shaoyun 陳 少雲, is from the Shanghai Jingju Company). 236 Wang Wenzhang 王文章, “Zai Shoujie quanguo minying yishu yuantuan youxiu jumu zhanyan de fabu hui de jianghua” 在首屆全國民營藝術院團優秀劇目展演新聞發布 會的講話 (Speech at the news conference for The First National Performance Exhibition of Excellent Plays by Privately-Run Artistic Companies), Zhongguo wenhua bao 中國文 化報 (Journal of Chinese culture), June 18, 2010, included in Liu Zhongxin 劉忠心 et al., eds., Xiju gongzuo wenxian huibian (1984–2012): Lingdao, zhuanjia jianghua juan 戲劇工 作文獻彙編 (1984–2012): 領導, 專家講話卷 (Collected documents concerning theatrical work [1984–2010]: Volume of lectures by leaders and specialists; Beijing: Wenhua yishu, 2015), p. 291, says that presently there are more than 6800 such entities in China. 237 The first such entity in Shanghai was reported on in 2009: Xinying 忻穎, “Shanghai shoujia minying Jingju tuan chengli” 上海首家民營京劇團成立 (The first privately-run Jingju troupe in Shanghai is established), Shanghai xiju 2009.10: 19. Apart from Guoying/ gongying (national/publicly run) and minying (privately run), there is a middle position of minying gongzhu 民營公助 (privately run but with public subsidy). See Cui Changwu 崔長武, “Jingju de shichang ‘banxiang’ ” 京劇的市場 ‘扮相’ (The “appearance” of the market for Jingju), Zhongguo Jingju 2000.4: 8.

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when it comes to censorship in general, on secret directives rather than open proclamations.238 The primary concern of the censors in the PRC is now the internet. The demand that performances of traditional theater be completely scripted is not enforced as strictly as it once was, allowing some troupes to employ improvisation and to rely on scenarios (tigang, mubiao, etc.) rather than complete scripts, but that has happened primarily in the case of certain rural, local traditions, such as Huaiju 淮劇 (Huai opera),239 and not in the case of Jingju performances. Publication of Jingju playscripts by governmental organizations and presses has increased and diversified in the New Period, but has not taken the form of large-scale collections such as Jingju huibian and Jingju congkan, although the former was recently reprinted in a new format under the title of Jingju chuantong juben huibian 京劇傳統劇本彙編 (Collected traditional Jingju playscripts).240 Perhaps the largest new collection, in terms of plays included, is Jingju xuanbian 京劇選編 (Collected Jingju plays; 1980–2003), compiled by Zhongguo Xiqu Xueyuan and published by Zhongguo Xiju Chubanshe 中國戲 劇出版社 (China theater Press) in 20 volumes containing a total of 99 plays. An innovation in the governmental intervention in the world of Jingju performance and education is a program to teach school children how to sing Jingju that began in 2008 and has stimulated the creation of a variety of books and media material to be used by teachers and students (see chapter 6).241 238 A recent paper, Qiuqing Tai, “China’s Media Censorship: A Dynamic and Diversified Regime,” Journal of East Asian Studies 14 (2014): 185–209, was written on the basis of “1,403 secret directives issued by the Chinese propaganda apparatus” (p. 185). 239 See, for instance, Qi Yanxiang 祁彦香, “Qiantan mubiao xi de yiyi—Yi Jianhu Jinyue Huaiju tuan wei li” 淺談幕表戲的意義—以建湖金樂淮劇團為例 (A shallow discussion of the importance of mubiao xi—Taking the case of the Jinyue Huaiju Company of Jianhu as an example), Yinyue daguan 音樂大觀 (A comprehensive view of music) 2012.11: 281–82. 240 The collection was published in 30 vols. by Beijing chubanshe in 2009, and since then a small number of additional volumes have appeared as part of a continuation (xubian 續編). 241 See the posting from March 26, 2008 on the website of the Ministry of Education, “Jiaoyu bu: Jingju jin zhong, xiao xue shi benlai jiuyou de jiaoxue yaoqiu” 教育部: 京劇進中 小學課堂是本來就有的教學要求 (Ministry of Education: There originally was an educational demand for Jingju to enter elementary and middle schools) about a press conference about the institution of the program (which only was to be implemented in 10 provinces or province-level cities that year) that took place the day before http://www .moe.gov.cn/jyb_xwfb/xw_fbh/moe_2069/moe_2070/moe_2125/moe_1977/tnull_776 .html, accessed June 29, 2018. For a case study of the implementation of the program in one school, see Yang Yaqin 楊雅琴, “Jingju jin ketang de jiaoxue shijian yanjiu—Yi

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These different regimes of censorship, from the Qing dynasty down to the present, have all tried to fix and regulate the performance of Jingju because they all saw it as a powerful and influential force. All of the regimes wanted performances to be based on written-out playscripts that would be followed in performance, since that would, they thought, make censorship and control easier. The level of intervention of these regimes into Jingju practice and processes of textualization increased from regime to regime as more resources were available and media technology changed, but none of them were able to completely achieve their goals.242 Society has become increasingly complex because of those same changes in media technology. Shijiazhuang shi Di sishi zhongxue wei li” 京劇進課堂的教學實踐研究—以石家 莊市第四十中學为例 (Research on the pedagogical practice in taking Jingju into the classroom—Taking Shijiazhuang Elementary School Number 40 as example), master’s thesis, Hebei Normal University, 2018. 242 Attempts to ban or force the revision of Silang tanmu under either the GMD or the CCP ultimately failed. See, for instance, Kang Baocheng 康保成, “Silang tanmu yuanliu kao” 四郎探母源流考 (An investigation of the source and influence of Silang tanmu), Xiju yishu 2016.6: 31.

Chapter 5

New Kinds of Playwrights In chapter 2, two kinds of Jingju playwrights were prominently discussed, literati playwrights with no strong connections to the theater world and little success on the stage but whose plays were published in editions with their prefaces, and playwrights who were also actors. The two playwrights I wish to concentrate on in the first part of this chapter came from good families, had extended experience as amateur actors, but never became professional actors. Instead, they seemed to have earned a substantial or even the majority of their income from their playwriting. The playwriting career of the first one, Chen Moxiang, is purely a phenomenon of the Republican era, while that of the second one, Weng Ouhong 翁偶虹 (1908–1994), continued for decades after the establishment of the PRC. Chen was not open about being paid for his playwriting, Weng was. Weng eventually had a fully professional identity as a playwright. In the remainder of the chapter we will look at professional playwriting in the PRC and Taiwan. 1

Chen Moxiang: The Most Prolific Jingju Playwright of the Republican Era

Chen Moxiang was born into a traditional official family resident in Beijing. His father, Chen Xuefen 陳學棻 (1836–1901) passed the jinshi examination in 1862 and held important metropolitan and provincial posts (he was appointed President of the Board of Public Works just before he died). Chen himself had a brief official career (his first appointment, in the Board of Personnel, was given him in recognition of his father’s service during the Boxer Rebellion), but his true love was the theater. He grew up watching Jingju and other forms of xiqu (primarily Kunqu and gaoqiang 高腔 [one of the names that Yiyang went under in Beijing]) both in commercial theaters and at private performances (some of which were organized by his own family and relatives), got to know famous actors, and decided to become an amateur performer of Jingju. According to his own accounts, he originally had an almost allergic reaction against plays featuring dan actors but changed his mind when he first saw Wang Yaoqing perform when both of them were still quite young. He eventually performed dan roles that were almost precisely the parts Wang Yaoqing refused to perform (because they were too closely connected to sex and immorality). He

© David L. Rolston, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004463394_007

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gradually began to revise and write plays for the various piaofang that he performed with, and then equally gradually began to write plays for professional actors, most famously and prolifically for Xun Huisheng (some attribute Xun’s ascension to real stardom to the plays Chen wrote for him1). Chen is interesting not only for how prolific he was (he is said to have written over 100 plays2) but also because he finally managed to get credit for his playwriting on a theater program.3 But he never talked explicitly about earning money directly through his playwriting, unlike Weng Ouhong (see below). 1 See, for instance, Rao Songqiao 饒嵩喬, “Jingju mingbian Chen Moxiang” 京劇名編陳墨 香 (Famous Jingju playwright Chen Moxiang), Hubei dang’an 湖北档案 (Hubei archive) 2008.4: 41. Li Lingling 李伶伶, Xun Huisheng quanzhuan 荀慧生全传 (Full biography of Xun Huisheng; Beijing: Zhongguo qingnian, 2010), pp. 427–48, explores, in a fair amount of depth, the question of which of the two was more indebted to the other. 2 Su Yi, Jingju erbai nian gaiguan, makes such a claim for Chen (p. 398). For reasons that will become clear below, it is hard to produce an accurate and complete list of Chen’s plays. The one article that does try to list out Chen’s plays, Liu Naichong 劉乃崇, “Ji Jingju zuojia Chen Moxiang” 記京劇作家陳墨香 (Remembering Jingju playwright Chen Moxiang), Xiju lun­ cong 戲劇論叢 (Collected articles on theater) 1958.1: 234–35, lists fifty, to which an article by Chen’s son, Chen Sixiang 陳嗣香, “Ji xianfu Chen Moxiang” 記先父陳墨香 (Remembering my late father, Chen Moxiang), Wenshi ziliao xuanbian 31 (1986): 131, added another five. Rao Songqiao, “Jingju mingbian Chen Moxiang,” p. 42, says that as many as forty-five of the fiftyfive plays were written for Xun Huisheng. For a list of forty-one plays written by Qi Rushan, who can be seen as the model for the literati playwrights who wrote plays for the new breed of Jingju stars of the early Republican period (and who claimed credit for getting Chen to start writing plays [see below]), see Liang Yan, “Qi Rushan juxue chutan,” pp. 292–93. Some were written before and some after the Republican period. In Qi’s Wushi nian lai de Guoju, p. 87 (Qi Rushan quanji, 5: 2759), he says that Chen was an old friend of his who had more knowledge of “the miscellaneous affairs of the world of theater” 戲界零碎事情 than he did, but that before Chen started writing plays he was scared of the idea and came to talk to him. Qi writes that he strongly encouraged Chen to go ahead and write plays, implying that he was at least partly responsible for Chen’s decision to write plays. Qi does not indicate when this visit by Chen to him took place. 3 The description of how and when Chen’s name as playwright was included in a play program occurs in Chen’s Huoren daxi, p. 71.486. Chen writes (adapts might be more accurate) a play for the actress Hua Huilin 華慧麟 (1913–1964) and Hua’s adopted father complains that when new plays premiere only the actor’s name is written out, not the actor’s teacher or the playwright, so on the xidan Wang Yaoqing is credited as daoyan 導演 (director) and Chen as bianju 編劇 (playwright). Chen was less lucky when it came to getting credit for his plays when they were published. When extracts from Chen’s Chaitou feng 釵頭鳳 (Song to the tune of “The Phoenix Hairpin”) were published in Xiju yuekan 1.6 (November 1928): 149– 52 and his Kongque dongnan fei was published in Juxue yuekan, he was given credit as playwright (as noted above, at the end of the second play there is even a large highlighted notice of both authorial and performance copyright being reserved, but the holder of both rights is not Chen but the research institute he was working for), but when his plays were published in anthologies of plays that Xun Huisheng performed, Xun Huisheng yanchu juben xuanji 荀慧

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Chen Moxiang wrote a lot about Jingju; most significant for present purposes are the articles he wrote for Juxue yuekan and other journals, especially the ten-part series “Guanju shenghuo sumiao” 觀劇生活素描 (Sketches from my life of watching plays);4 a novel that he co-wrote with Pan Jingfu, Liyuan waishi, that appeared in a 20-chapter version in 1925 and a 30-chapter version in 1930 and that traces the history of Jingju from Mi Xizi 米喜子 (1780–1832) to

生演出劇本選集 (Selected performance playscripts of Xun Huisheng; Shanghai: Shanghai wenyi, 1962) and Xun Huisheng yanchu juben xuan 荀慧生演出劇本選 (Selected performance playscripts of Xun Huisheng; Shanghai: Shanghai wenyi, 1982), Chen Moxiang’s name was only mentioned in Xun’s 1962 preface (reprinted in the 1982 volume), in a sentence that just says that Xun received Chen’s “help” (xiezhu 協助) in the case of most of the earlier plays, while the prefaces to the individual plays give all the credit to Xun and never mention Chen. In the discussion of the new “complete” plays that Xun began to perform in Shanghai and then continued to perform in Beijing in a summary of Xun’s life first written in 1928 but recopied and changed in 1959, “Bansheng zhi shi” 半生之事 (The affairs of the first half of my life), made available in He Baotang 和寶堂, ed., Xun Huisheng wenji 荀慧生文集 (Collected writings of Xun Huisheng; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 2014), pp. 321–25, no mention is made of Chen’s contributions. The early literati Jingju playwrights of the second half of the 19th century had their plays published under their own names or a penname, but their plays were almost uniformly ignored by actors, whereas Chen’s plays were very successful on the stage (as we will see, a higher percentage of Weng Ouhong’s plays were never performed, but that was because the troupes or actors they were written for dissolved, died, or got distracted with other things). A March 1, 2017, search of WorldCat for Chen Moxiang as author turned up only twenty-one entries, just five of which concerned plays; two of them were for a play published before Chen was born, Jile shijie (discussed in chapter 2) whose author used the same pseudonym, Guanju daoren 觀劇道人 (Man of the way who watches plays) that Chen did. It so happens that Chen once gave Xun a copy of this very play, on Xun’s 30th birthday. For the other three WorldCat items concerning plays, Chen shares authorship credit with Xun (the entries are for three different plays). The remaining items refer to novels that Chen wrote or co-authored or to items written or co-written by a scientist whose name is written the same way (six entries). 4 The ten parts were first published, a part at a time, in Juxue yuekan beginning in issue 2.3 (March 1933) and concluding in issue 3.8 (August 1934). During that time span there are 8 issues with no installments, with the largest hiatus (four issues) coming before the last one. All except the last part are reprinted on pages 371–520 in Pan Jingfu and Chen Moxiang, Liyuan waishi. On the existence of a manuscript version of parts 6–10, and a photo-reprint of the first page of part 5, see Zhongguo yishu yanjiu yuan Tushu guan chaogao ben zongmu tiyao, 7: 14. In part five (Pan Jingfu and Chen Moxiang, Liyuan waishi, p. 433), Chen writes about this work: “as for biography, it can’t be considered biography; as for fiction, it doesn’t resemble fiction” 奇不算傳奇, 小說不象小說. In the ninth part of “Guanju shenghuo sumiao” (Pan Jingfu and Chen Moxiang, Liyuan waishi, p. 509), Chen distinguished that work from Liyuan waishi by saying that the former was about “myself” (ziji 自己) while the latter was about “others” (renjia 人家); only the first part of “Guanju shenghuo sumiao” is really autobiographical.

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Tan Xinpei 譚鑫培 (1847–1917);5 and a seventy-one-chapter novel that he wrote on his own, Huoren daxi.6 Huoren daxi was serialized in an illustrated periodical, San liu jiu huabao 三六九畫報 (Pictorial that appears every date that ends with 3, 6, or 9; 1939–1945), in which Chen published a lot of material and for which he was a specially-invited editor/contributor (teyue bianji 特約編輯). The serialization began on January 3, 1941, but stopped on May 6, 1942, five days after Chen died, with only 44 of the 71 chapters published.7 Through the efforts of the editor of Xin Tianjin huabao 新天津畫報 (New Tianjing pictorial), Pan Xiafeng 潘俠鳳 (1914–1993), an important figure in the history of Jingju in his own right,8 the manuscripts for the remaining chapters were obtained from Chen’s family and the rest of the novel was serialized in Xin Tianjin hua­ bao beginning with chapter 45 on June 25, 1942. While a certain number of Jingju historians were aware of the chapters published in San liu jiu huabao and sometimes cited them, to my knowledge those serialized in Xin Tianjin huabao were never cited, and it appears that their very existence was unknown or forgotten until recently, when the novel appeared for the first time in book form, in 2015, through the efforts of Li Shiqiang 李世强,9 Huoren daxi has 5 On the history of this novel see Shi Yu 師予, “Guanyu Liyuan waishi he Chen Moxiang” 關於 梨園外史和陳墨香 (Concerning Liyuan waishi and Chen Moxiang), in Pan Jingfu and Chen Moxiang, Liyuan waishi, pp. 521–27. 6 Although there is a specific puppet genre called huoren daxi, the term is more commonly used to refer to plays performed by human actors. It is used this way, for instance, by Chen in the first part of his “Guanju shenghuo sumiao” (Pan Jingfu and Chen Moxiang, Liyuan waishi, p. 382). Some have argued that certain peculiar features of traditional Chinese stagecraft are explainable as leftovers from marionette puppetry. Huoren daxi, p. 62.424, quotes someone who endorses this idea. It is possible that by the use of this title Chen is implying that people are like puppets, but if so, I don’t think that that idea is very strong in the novel. 7 It is not clear why San liu jiu huabao did not continue the serialization to the end. 8 On Pan, see Zhou Heng 周恆, “Jingju ‘huo zidian’: Pan Xiafeng” 京劇 ‘活字典’ 潘俠鳳 (The ‘living dictionary’ of Jingju, Pan Xiafeng), Zhongguo Jingju 1998.3: 46–48. 9 Li Shiqiang, ed., Huoren daxi. Just pages from the end of the novel (pp. 71.488–89), the narrator (=Chen) says that he had accumulated lots of manuscripts about a type of character of questionable morals that he says he specialized in performing as an amateur (and that other amateurs stayed away from, see p. 20.210) who likes to refer to “herself” as “saozi wo” 嫂子 我 (I, sister-in-law) that he decided to turn into a twenty-chapter “storyteller novel” (pinghua xiaoshuo 平話小說; this is the same term he uses with reference to the other two novels he was involved with) that was published in Tianjin. If the novel was indeed published, I have not yet been able to track down any details about it beyond what is written in Huoren daxi, which says of the raw material that the “tone is offensive” but still has its own “appeal,” but the names have been made up and chronology obscured so that the novel is not a good place to look for “material on theater” (liyuan ziliao 梨園資料), which was and continues to be the main “selling point” for Liyuan waishi and Huoren daxi. Chapter 5 of Goldman, Opera and the City, is about “I, Sister-in-law” plays.

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yet to be seriously mined by scholars for information about Jingju,10 unlike Liyuan waishi.11 Since Huoren daxi is to a large extent autobiographical it is interesting both for what it says about Chen and what he writes about others. One always wonders what is being suppressed in an autobiography, but the question of whether Chen is going to suppress material that makes him appear bad is explicitly addressed in the novel (e.g., p. 20.124) and one review spoke of Chen presenting himself “nakedly” (chi luoluo di 赤裸裸地) in it.12 The main character in the novel is precisely Chen Moxiang himself, who is almost always referred to in the third person (the novel also several times self-reflexively refers to both itself and to Liyuan waishi). It follows his life from the point of view of his relationship to xiqu and xiqu actors, from his birth up to the 1930s. 10 A search done on December 20, 2019 of the Chinese Academic Journal database (Zhongguo qikan quanwen shuju ku 中國期刊全文數據庫) of “活人大戲” turned up only nine references to the novel. Some of these articles treat the novel as a historical source, but none show very serious engagement with it. A search on the same day of databases of doctoral dissertations and master’s theses done in the PRC from the same provider only turned up five master’s theses and one doctoral thesis that mentioned the novel; again the references were very simple. The results of a search, also on the same day, of Duxiu 讀秀, a database that allows access to a wide variety of texts that have been digitized, produced 147 hits, but the vast majority were either not to the book of that name or simply list it among Chen’s works, and a lot for them were from the novel itself. A couple of items on Republican era fiction mention the novel in more detail (they tend to be critical of the novel as a work of fiction) but say next to nothing about its content. Bai Zengrong, ed., Jingju jumu cidian, p. 1265, cites the novel as a reference with regard to a particular play, but does not include it in its list of reference works (whereas Liyuan waishi does appear in the list, p. 1291). I have written in Chinese under my Chinese name (Lu Dawei 陸大偉) about what we can learn about Chen Moxiang’s ideas about playwriting from an examination of Huoren daxi: “Minguo zui chenggong de Jingju bianju jia Chen Moxiang zai ta changpian xiaoshuo Huoren daxi tan bianju de qiaomen chubu shuli” 民國最成功的京劇編劇家陳墨香在他長篇小說活人大戲談編劇的竅門 初步梳理 (A preliminary sorting out of what the most successful Jingju playwright of the Republican era, Chen Moxiang, said about how to write plays in his novel, Living Actor Big Plays), in Fu Jin 傅謹, ed., Jingju liupai de chuancheng yu chuangxin—Diqi jie Jingju xue guoji xueshu yantao hui lunwen ji 京劇流派的傳承與創新—第七屆京劇學 國際學術研討會論文集 (The transmission and creation of schools of performance in Jingju—Collected essays from the seventh academic conference on Jingju-ology), 2 vols. (Beijing: Wenhua yishu, 2019), 2: 3–21. 11 To scholars of Jingju writing today, Liyuan waishi has been considered largely historical in nature and cited as evidence about the things described in it, as discussed in the Introduction. 12 See an installment of the column “Sishu tang tanxi” 四樹堂談戲 (Talking about plays in Four Tree Studio) entitled “You Chen Moxiang zhi si shuoqi” 由陳墨香之死說起 (Beginning with the death of Chen Moxiang), San liu jiu huabao 15.6 (1942): 20.

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The first part of the novel concentrates on how Chen became knowledgeable about Jingju (and Kunqu and other theatrical genres prominent in Beijing such as gaoqiang) as he was growing up, under the tutelage of his father13 and other relatives, and that of his teacher, Gao Xizhe 高熙哲, a disciple of his father’s. After seeing Wang Yaoqing perform,14 he decides to find a teacher and learn to perform himself. He eventually abandons his official post to concentrate on this pursuit. When he gets older and the amount of money spent on amateur acting becomes quite considerable he decides (several times, the last time for good) to stop performing on stage and concentrate on writing plays and publishing articles on theater. He accepts a position at Xiqu Yinyue Yuan Beijing Yanjiu Suo when it is opened.15 The last major event described in the novel is the party for the 50th birthday of Wang Yaoqing in the last chapter. Although in the novel it takes a long time for Chen to make friends with Wang, by the last chapter they have been neighbors, close friends, and collaborators who have been seeing each other most every day for more than a decade. The structure of the novel is very loose and capacious and allows Chen to go on at length about a great variety of topics. As the novel winds down, almost 13

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15

In the novel, Chen’s father describes, for instance, being invited to see plays performed in the palace and noting that the quality, in some respects, was not up to what you could see outside the palace (8.43) and says that the Chen family once had two opera troupes of its own (6.31), one that performed Kunqu and one that performed luantan. Chen presents his father as supportive of notorious plays such as Shuangding ji (Xikao #135), plays that Chen later specialized in performing, as educational (they punish evil and exhort viewers not to commit such evil) and is quoted as being of the opinion that with luantan the obscenity is only superficial but with Kunqu it lies in the very marrow (9.47). In part one of “Guanju shenghuo sumiao,” which covers the first twenty years of Chen’s life, he also describes the first time he saw Wang Yaoqing perform (Pan Jingfu and Chen Moxiang, Liyuan waishi, p. 382). Modern readers of Chen’s work are probably bound to wonder whether sexual attraction was part of Chen’s relationship with Wang Yaoqing and Xun Huisheng. Qi Rushan says that both Chen and Luo Yinggong began their acquaintance with actors in xianggong tangzi but that Chen’s relationship with the theater world became more “direct” (zhijie 直接) than Luo’s. The way that Moxiang in Huoren daxi keeps his distance from Wang Yaoqing (only goes to watch his plays, never goes backstage to see him) for such a long time is somewhat reminiscent of Qi Rushan’s reluctance, in the beginning, to meet privately with Mei Lanfang (who is a product of a xianggong tangzi), but Qi does send letter after letter to Mei Lanfang about his acting. In any case, in both “Guanju shenghuo sumiao” (part 1, Pan Jingfu and Chen Moxiang, Liyuan waishi, p. 387) and Huoren daxi (pp. 132–33; Chen calls the studios sitang 司堂 here), Chen disclaims the idea that his new interest in dan actors had anything to do with sex or that he had any interest in the world of xianggong. Chen Sen’s Pinhua baojian is mentioned many times in Huoren daxi as a counter-example to what Chen thinks he is about as a person and in his fictional works (see pp. 8.39–41, 9.46, 28.186, and 71.491 [the last page of the novel]). This institution was discussed in chapter 4.

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independent digressions become even more prominent. Although there are several instances in which Chen’s knowledge of xiqu is purposely shown to be inadequate, these occur early on in the novel16 and his opinions, as presented in the novel, are almost always valorized. His willingness to fight with others over matters of Jingju fact, however, clearly diminishes.17 One of the things in the novel that seems to have not yet gotten any attention in the scholarly world is the fact that one of the last chapters in the novel, chapter 69, is almost completely taken up with a kind of lecture on Jingju playwriting given by Chen to his colleagues in Xiqu Yinyue Yuan Beiping Yanjiu Suo that is very detailed and practical. His comments are not in the least theoretical18 but instead very directly reflect the precise circumstances in which new plays were produced for the stars of Jingju in the Republican era. This is very valuable and unusual material and should be given due attention along with Mei Lanfang’s and Qi Rushan’s reminiscences about how their plays came together19 (very little has come down to us about how the other two famous dan performers and their literati playwrights produced their plays). Scholars who do not seem to have been aware of the chapter have lamented that Chen did not write about his collaboration with Xun Huisheng nor try to sort out and summarize his ideas on playwriting.20 16

In a later example, (p. 12.63) his remarks are characterized as “amateur” (waihang 外行) by a senior actor that he respects greatly, Yu Yuqin (Yu’s return late in the novel, in chapter 65, speaks to his significance to Chen’s development). Scholars of Jingju such as Liu Naichong have praised Chen as “practically indistinguishable from professionals of the world of xiqu” 簡直與戲曲界的内行没有甚麼分别了 (Liu Naichong, “Ji Jingju zuojia Chen Moxiang,” p. 237). 17 In the tenth and last part of “Guanju shenghuo sumiao,” Juxue yuekan 3.8 (August 1934): 6, Chen does claim that when he was around twenty he was very arrogant and thought that he knew all there was to know about theater, but was stumped by a question and after that did not “brag” (shuo dahua 說大話). This incident does not appear to have been included in the novel. 18 In Chen’s introduction to his lecture for the opera school, “Shuodan,” Chen says that “as for wanting me to speak about the principles and theory of plays, that is something I can’t even dream of” 要說戲的原則理論, 我夢都夢不到. For bibliographic information on the publication of this lecture, see the note on it below. 19 Mei Lanfang talked the most about how his new plays were put together in Wutai sheng­ huo sishi nian. Qi Rushan in 1917 published a short book on playwriting, Bianju qianshuo, which was mentioned above, but wrote most about his work with Mei Lanfang and playwriting in general after he moved to Taiwan. Mei tends to downplay Qi’s contributions to their plays while Qi himself seems to exaggerate them and belittle Mei’s contributions. 20 See Yan Quanyi 顏全毅, “Chen Moxiang Jingju chuanzuo xulun” 陳墨香京劇創作敘 論 (On Chen Moxiang’s Jingju creative work), Xiqu yishu 2015.3: 24–25, where he says, “Because Chen Moxiang’s own interests changed [from playwriting] to research and excavating details and allusions, and his collaborative relationship with Xun Huisheng broke

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Chen’s “lecture” in Chapter 69 is set up at the very end of the previous chapter: One day Moxiang21 came to the xiqu institute and everyone began to talk about the construction of plays and the question of whether the lyrics should be vulgar or refined. Before he knew it, Moxiang, in an endless stream, set forth many ideas.22 If you want to know what they concerned, that will be revealed in the next chapter. down [Yan dates this to 1935], he was not very willing to say a lot about the circumstances of his collaboration; moreover, he died early, so he never did sort out and summarize the circumstances of his creative work [writing plays] and not even a detailed list of his plays exists” 由于陳墨香本人後來興趣轉向研究和發掘細節典故, 與荀慧生有合 作破裂, 不愿多談合作情况, 加上其去世早, 没有對自己的創作情况作一梳理總 結, 甚至連一个詳細編目都未存於时 [sic]. According to Chen Sixiang, “Ji xianfu Chen Moxiang,” p. 132, Chen did not himself keep copies of the plays he wrote but gave them all to the actors he wrote them for. 21 This is how Chen typically refers to himself in the novel. In this section, I will generally use Chen Moxiang or Chen to refer to the historical person, and Moxiang to refer to Chen as presented in the novel. 22 Chen Moxiang and Weng Ouhong were not only both members of the Xiqu Gailiang Weiyuan Hui 戲曲改良委員會 (Committee for the improvement of xiqu) that was established in 1934 and attached to the opera school and not the research institute, Chen was the first chair of the committee and was succeeded in that position by Weng. A description of how Chen used to bubble out his ideas early in his tenure as chair in a two-part commemorative piece that Weng wrote after Chen died, “Ku Chen Moxiang xiansheng” 哭陳墨香先生 (Crying for Mr. Chen Moxiang), Sanliujiu huabao 15.4 (May 13, 1942): 22 (part 1), is a bit reminiscent of Moxiang’s description here. According to Weng, the committee would meet once a month and discuss what changes needed to be made to particular plays and that early on Chen used to contribute a lot but later, perhaps out of disappointment with the committee, did not speak much (guayan 寡言). A photo said to have been taken in 1931 reproduced in Ma Shaobo et al., eds., Zhongguo Jingju baike quanshu, p. 597, is described as showing the members of the committee; Chen is standing off to the right and separated from the rest of the members, perhaps because he was the chair (two older and more prestigious men, Cao Xinquan 曹心泉 [1864–1938], and Putong 浦侗 [a.k.a., 紅豆館主 1877–1952; member of the Qing imperial house and respected amateur Jingju performer/educator] stand in the place of honor, the center of the first row). Sixteen figures, including Mei Lanfang, appear in the photo. In Weng’s description of the committee’s meetings, he only lists the names of four other men, none of whom appear in the photo. Weng speaks of their attendance using the term liexi 列席, which could imply that they were not regular members of the committee. Weng also does not appear in the photo, and in his memoir, Weng Ouhong bianju shengya, he gives the year when he joined the committee as 1936 (p. 22), so he might have just sat in on early meetings of the committee. In Huoren daxi Chen never explicitly names or describes the activities of this committee. In the novel, when Chen is first described as joining the research institute, it says that he “took up the responsibility of revising plays” 担了改編

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Chapter 5 一日墨香來在戲曲院, 眾人談起戲中穿插并詞句的雅俗, 墨香不覺滔滔 不絕, 發了許多議論, 且待下回說出便見见分曉. (68.470)23

The chapter title couplet for chapter 69 doesn’t directly present the chapter as one long discourse on playwriting, but it can be translated so as to refer to playwriting: “Mounting the stage [makes] actors shine;/ Holding the writing brush relies on men of letters” 登場顯伶人, 執筆仗文士 (69.471). In Jingju circles zhibi 執筆 typically refers to the person who writes down the collective decisions of a collaborative playwriting group in the form of a playscript. It is not a term that Chen uses to refer to playwrights, but it at least has this kind of connection to playwriting. The opaqueness of the chapter title has perhaps influenced the perhaps unexpected neglect of the chapter. Chen was not a stranger to giving lectures. At least one source has it that he also held the position of lecturer in the culture section (wenhua ke jiaoshi 文 化科教師) at the opera school run by the institute24 and one of his lectures to the school, “Shuodan” 說但 (On actors of female roles), given on January 29, 1932, was recorded (biji 筆記) by the principal of the school, Jiao Juyin, and published in issue 1.4 (April 1932) of Juxue yuekan.25 Although Chen’s remarks on playwriting in chapter 69 are not presented as a formal lecture with a formal audience, his remarks are unbroken from beginning to the end, and even after he comes to an end, we are only told “When everyone had finished listening, they all nodded their heads [in agreement/approval]” 眾人聽了, 一起點 頭 (69.477). Although the novel is full of lengthy dialogues in which there is a lot of give and take back and forth between Chen and persons he respects (and some 戲本的責任 (p. 64.439). In Huilu (Jin Zhongsun), “Nanjing Xiqu Yinyue Yuan chengli zhi jingguo,” when the members of the research institute are listed, it just says at the end that they are “separately responsible for research or editing responsibilities” 分任研究 編輯各務. 23 This last part resembles the chapter-ending formulas that were used in traditional vernacular novels. As noted above, Chen referred to the genre of his novels as pinghua xiaoshuo (storyteller novel). 24 See the entry on Chen in the “Liyuan bainian suoji” section on the xikao.com website, http://history.xikao.com/person/陈墨香, accessed March 2, 2017. One of the innovations of the school, besides accepting co-ed students, was the provision of culture courses. 25 The lecture uses separate pagination. In his introduction, Chen explains that his speech is the third in a series of lectures by members of the research institute and does not present himself in the speech as also a member of the faculty of the school. As noted above, he was a member of a committee housed in the school and not the research institute. From his remarks in the lecture, it is clear that it was attended by the students of the school and members of the research institute. In the speech he refers to himself as Moxiang and not I, the same way that he does in Huoren daxi.

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whom he does not), there is a complete absence of this in chapter 69. Another oddity is that every section of the lecture is finished off with a couplet or quatrain introduced by the phrase “Truly it is” (Zhengshi 正是). When the editor of the book version divided the lecture into paragraphs, he did not pay sufficient attention to this feature, and consequently broke two sections in half.26 The inclusion of such couplets and quatrains occurs in the other chapters in the novel but with far less frequency. This is the only chapter in which they occur at the end of every section. In the final section of the lecture, Moxiang apologizes for its lack of organization and discounts the value of what was said, but is also explicit with reference to the topic of the lecture, and it is worth quoting in full: As for these methods for writing plays that I have talked about today, I have just said whatever occurred to me, just like the old method that I have of not [first] working up an abstract when writing a play;27 this can be taken as being without method.28 But there is some learning here that 26

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To show the structure of the lecture better, the first and second paragraphs of the book version (p. 69.471) should be combined to make one paragraph, as should also happen to the twentieth and twenty-first paragraphs of the book version (p. 69.477). That way the total number of sections (20) and paragraphs would be the same. References to the content of the lecture will provide both section number (as outlined above) and the paragraph numbers in the book version (these numbers do not appear in the book, of course; the reader will have to tick them off themselves). First working up an abstract is a common step in the description of how, in the Republican period, plays were written collaboratively by men of letters and actors, and can be found in descriptions of Chen’s own practice. For example, Chen’s son, Chen Sixiang, who presents himself as very knowledgeable about how his father wrote plays, in his “Ji xianfu Chen Moxiang,” p. 131, says that with Chen’s playwriting, the process “typically” (dazhi 大 致) began with selecting the material (ticai 題材) to write up the play from, then “settling the abstract” (dingxia tigang 定下提綱). Chen Moxiang and Xun Huisheng’s collaboration on plays is presented this way in Xun Huisheng 荀慧生, “Bianju suotan” 編劇瑣談 (Random remarks on playwriting), Juben 1959.7: 92, and Liu Naichong, “Ji Jingju zuojia Chen Moxiang,” p. 237, where Liu says that Chen would first come up with an abstract (tigang 提綱); then talk with Xun (and Wang Yaoqing) about the personalities of the characters, the division of the play into scenes, the use of special skills (chang zuo nian da 唱 作念打) by the actors, with Chen acting as scribe (zhibi 執筆) to write out the first draft; after discussion and revision a performance version would be produced; revisions would continue to be made during rehearsal and performance until a final form (dingben 定本) had been achieved. In “Bianju suotan,” Xun describes his relationship to Chen as “just like a sword fitting into its sheath” 真像刀對鞘一样 (he doesn’t say, however, who was the sword and who the sheath). It is common in traditional Chinese aesthetics to speak of how a student has to first learn the laws/methods ( fa 法) of creation but then must eventually move beyond them to

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can serve as a reference for the various great playwrights. Where I have spoken correctly, I hope that you will remember [those parts]; where I have spoken incorrectly, they can be dismissed with a smile. If you really want to find the gateway to playwriting, not only should what I have said be discounted, even Li Yu’s 李漁 [1611–1680] [writings on theater in his] Yijia yan 一家言 [My own school of thought] should not be allowed to constrain you. You still must start from watching a lot of plays and reading a lot of books, but once you really fathom the essence of it, then even watching plays and reading books are not necessary. 我今天講的編戲法, 想起甚麼来就說甚麼, 仍是我那編戲不立提綱的老 法子, 檢直是無法罷了, 不過也有一知半解, 可以備諸大編戲家作个考 證. 我說的是處, 請諸君留点意, 我說的不是處, 諸君只可付之一笑. 諸君 若真要找編戲門徑, 慢說我說的不算數, 就是李笠翁一家言, 也不能拘 泥. 諸君還得從多看戲, 多讀書下手, 待得真摸着頭腦, 連看戲讀書也不 用了.

The narrator then quotes this couplet: “To cross the river one needs a raft,/ But once you reach the shore you don’t need a boat” 渡河須用筏,/ 到岸不須 船 (69.477). This seems overly polite, mystical, and not awfully helpful, but the body of the lecture itself takes a different tack. The first section of the lecture (paragraphs 1–2 of the book version) also refers to Li Yu and his collected works. What Moxiang surely has in mind is the material on theater in Li’s collection of essays, Xianqing ouji 閑情偶記 (Random repository of idle thoughts), which were eventually extracted and printed together under the title Li Liweng quhua 李笠翁曲話 (Li Yu on drama) and published separately in 1925.29 That material has been praised as the most practical and detailed manual for playwriting ever produced in pre-modern China and is something that Moxiang is using as a standard for remarks on playwriting, but one which, in the first paragraph, he claims is out of date, even if it still must be read. It is presumably out of date because it was about writing the genre of plays in fashion at the time it was written, chuanqi 傳奇, which were typically so long that only extracted

29

“laws/methods that are not methods” (wufa zhi fa 無法之法). It is not clear whether the reader is supposed to hear echoes of this discourse behind Moxiang’s remarks here. In the first part of Chen’s series “Guanju shenghuo sumiao,” which is the most autobiographical of the ten parts, Chen describes becoming acquainted with this work when he was young, saying: “It was very detailed and I loved it so much that it never left my hands, and I would day and night mull over its contents” 甚是詳細, 墨香愛不釋手, 日夜揣摩 (Pan Jingfu and Chen Moxiang, Liyuan waishi, p. 384).

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scenes were being performed regularly (Li Yu advocated the writing of shorter chuanqi plays to avoid this) and whose arias were very different from the main types used in Jingju. Be that as it may, the first examples of plays that Moxiang mentions are all chuanqi plays, perhaps because they had far more prestige than Jingju plays. In the first part of his “Guanju shenghuo sumiao,” Chen does say that, after first seeing Wang Yaoqing perform, he read all of his father’s collection of chuanqi plays and it was this that taught him about how plays are put together (chuancha 穿插) and prepared him to be able, when watching Jingju plays, to “also know the good from the bad in playwriting” 也曉得編撰 的是非了.30 While Li Yu put structure ( jiegou 結構) first in his “manual” on playwriting, the topic of the beginning half of the first section (paragraphs one and two of the edited book version) of Moxiang’s lecture is the idea that for a play the thing of utmost importance is the motivating intent (liyi 立意), which relates to the third topic that Li Yu writes about in his “manual,” “Li zhunao” 立主腦 (Establish the controlling idea).31 The second half introduces what could be taken as a new topic, the “selection of the material from which to write the play” (bianxi qucai 編戲取材), but it can be said to be closely related to the topic of the first half. Moxiang says that if you can “make up a story from your own imagination” 幻想一個故事 that is the best,32 but if not then you can 30 Pan Jingfu and Chen Moxiang, Liyuan waishi, pp. 384–85. 31 See Chen Duo, ed. and annot., Li Liweng quhua, p. 19, where Li says, “Establishing the main idea is nothing else than the main idea behind the author’s writing” 立主脑非他, 即作者立言之本意. Li’s use of li zhunao is actually more complicated than this makes it appear, but this gloss has become important in itself. 32 Moxiang does not explain why making up the story is best. Li Yu prided himself on making up the stories he told in his plays and fiction. Chen Moxiang, however, with his passion for literary research, loved to scour literary works for material to write plays on and sometimes wrote at length on how he made use of such sources. See, for instance, the piece he wrote on the source for his Chaitou feng in his “Moxiang juhua” 墨香剧话 (Moxiang’s comments on plays) column in Juxue yuekan 1.9 (September 1932): 3–5. A lot of Chen’s plays were adaptations of existing plays. Chen Sixiang, “Ji xianfu Chen Moxiang,” p. 132, divided Chen’s plays up into three groups depending on the originality of the material: (1) plays that he made up (sibian ju 自編劇), (2) plays begun by friends that he finished, and (3) “complete plays” (Chen Sixiang uses the term zhengben xi 整本戲; another popular term is quanben xi 全本戲) created by adding beginnings and ends to zhezi xi so that an entire story is told in one performance. He quotes his father as having said that the third category is the easiest to do (the first play that Chen wrote for Xun Huisheng, a complete version of Yutang chun 玉堂春 [Spring of Jade Hall; Xikao #82] that he worked up in 1926 and premiered in Shanghai that year, is an example of this type) while it was plays of the first type that he says involved fewer restraints. Chen Sixiang offers Chen’s Chaitou feng and Kongque dongnan fei, both of which are theatrical adaptations of extant poems, as examples of this type of play. None of the three categories involve newly made-up

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look to “fiction” (xiaoshuo 小說) or “real events” (shishi 實事33). With regard to Jingju,34 Moxiang notes that only ten percent of plays come from imagination or real events and ninety percent from fiction and particularly stresses the importance of Sanguo yanyi. This does not tell us much about Chen’s own practice, since the bulk of his plays are either built on literary works (not necessarily fiction) or are adaptations (gaibian 改編, zhengli 整理, xiuding 修訂) of traditional plays (from the repertoires of Jingju, Kunqu, and bangzi), and few of his plays use Sanguo yanyi material. The announced topic of the second section (paragraph three) is chuancha 穿插, the interweaving together of material in a play or narrative, but it is really about overusing formulas and stealing material from other plays. Moxiang says that there is an “old rule: you cannot directly copy old texts” 舊例, 不可直鈔舊 文, but ends up advocating copying that is not done too “stiffly” (shengying 生 硬) and that creates something new, which he describes as “copying the old but ending up creating something new” 鈔舊而翻新. The following section (paragraph four) is about not including too many scenes in which a character comes out on stage alone and introduces him/herself.35 Section four (paragraph five) could be said to be about whether it is all right to adapt earlier plays or material to provide a happier ending. Moxiang begins by criticizing the Jingju versions of Guan Hanqing’s 關漢卿 (c. 1245– 1322) famous play Dou E yuan 竇娥冤 (Injustice to Dou E) in which she is saved from execution,36 which Moxiang feels “lacks strength” (meijing 没勁). He then turns to two plays that Chen wrote himself, Chaitou feng and Kongque dongnan fei 孔雀東南飛 (Southeast fly the peacocks), which he credits Xun Huisheng and Wang Yaoqing, respectively, for talking him into sticking with or even building up the tragic elements of their sources. The concluding couplet

stories of the kind that Li Yu had in mind and that Moxiang’s language in this section of the lecture seems to imply. 33 Huoren daxi and Liyuan waishi are often described as “fiction based on real events” (shishi xiaoshuo 實事小說). 34 The term actually used is luantan 亂彈. 35 Referred to in the first sentence as chutou 出頭, and then explained as danchang deng­ tai 單場登臺. The practice of characters giving themselves lengthy self-introductions addressed to the audience when they first come on stage (zibao jiamen 自報家門) that so characterizes traditional Chinese plays was denounced by many Chinese theater reformers in the early twentieth century as “unnatural.” 36 Dou E was first saved from execution in a Ming dynasty chuanqi play, Jinsuo ji 金鎖記 (The golden locket). The title that Moxiang uses to speak about the Jingju versions, Zhan Dou E 斬竇娥 (Executing Dou E; related to Xikao #80), is one that Cheng Yanqiu (1904– 1958) once used and in which, despite the literal meaning of the title, she is not executed.

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reads: “Actors are good at plays,/ Scholars are [only] good at writing” 伶人善 戲,/ 儒者知文. Section five (paragraph six) seems to be basically about how things change over time. He concludes by saying that both playwrights and actors need to figure out what the audience wants, but that does not mean that the best thing is to just give them that. Section six (paragraph seven) is about the use of the different vocal forms that can be employed to enhance the status of and attract attention to characters when they first take the stage, either singly or in groups. The section contains a lot of detail (this is the second longest paragraph in the chapter), but Moxiang does not try to lay out any principles very explicitly. The important variables are variety and appropriateness for the particular character. Section seven (paragraph eight) talks about the differences between writing plays (bianxi 編戲), staging them (paixi 排戲), and overseeing their performance (bachang 把場).37 Moxiang begins by saying that even a good playscript will not be successful without good staging, and also claims that while writing plays can be done by men of letters, staging needs to be done by professional actors. He does say that he is capable of helping out when it comes to staging, and ends with the idea that the collaboration of scriptwriter, stager, and actor is essential. Section eight (paragraph nine) is about the problem of introducing material that will slow things down into a sequence in which it is important that the pace should be quick. Section nine (paragraph ten) is about what kind of detail the playwright has to put into the playscript and what should be decided on by those who are staging or performing the play. Moxiang says that things such as the musical mode and aria types need to be left up to those staging the play, while the selection of qupai should be left to the orchestra, with the exception that the playwright needs to know the difference between some of the most important qupai and employ them correctly. He says that for military scenes the playwright should only say who wins and who loses, who lives and who dies. Separate abstracts for the military scenes and for costuming can be used but this information should not be “mixed into” (hunzai 混在) the playscript. If there is something you don’t understand, ask a veteran actor. The plot (qingxu 情緒) should be clear from the arias, dialogue, and the way sequences are woven together 37

As with jianchang, bachang can refer to both something that is done and the people who do it. The scholarship on Jingju has not focused on bachang or those famous for their effectiveness at it. Moxiang lists three bachang whom he thinks are outstanding: Gao Dengjia 高登甲, Wu Kunfang 吳堃芳, and Li Yu’an 李玉安. He says that Gao was the best at it, and worked for Cheng Yanqiu, while the other two worked for Xun Huisheng.

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(chuancha 穿插) and should not be explained through marginal notes. If material needs to be borrowed from martial scenes in other plays, veteran actors will know that immediately; there is no need to write out what play to borrow from. As for stage directions (kejie 科介) in general, they do not need to be over-detailed; veteran actors will know what to do just from reading the playscript. The conclusion is that “petty detail” (suosui 瑣碎) in a playscript is the mark of an “amateur” (yangmao 羊毛), and will get a bad reaction (from the actors) no matter how well written. Section ten (paragraph eleven) is about handling material onstage (ming­ chang 明場) versus offstage (anchang 暗場), although the first part is actually about entrances and exits: we are told that referring to characters by their names rather than role-types (in the stage directions) will prevent ambiguity if more than one actor of the same role-type is on stage at the same time, major characters should not appear for the first time in the first scene38 but should be allowed to do something striking at the end of the play, and a character’s exit should not immediately be followed by the reappearance on stage of the same character. With regard to material handled offstage, Moxiang stresses the need to make sure that such offstage content is clear to the audience by presenting it more than once through the mouths of different characters, and to make some things happen offstage so as to tighten up the pace of what does get presented onstage. Section eleven (paragraph twelve) is about taking care to give important characters the stature (shenfen 身份) that they need, and ways to do that. Section twelve (paragraph thirteen) moves from (1) a discussion of which rhyme categories (and characters of what tone) are harder to sing for dan actors; to (2) how the order of the characters in standard two-character phrases can get switched about so that they will sound better when sung,39 producing language that men of letters scorn as ungrammatical (butong 不通); to (3) the real subject of the paragraph: what qualifications a Jingju playwright needs. These are the ability to sing Jingju and a wide familiarity with both plays old and new and classical and vernacular literature of all kinds. Moxiang admits that this might be “too extreme” (guohuo 過火), but stresses that this is what the Jingju playwright needs to aim for.40 The next section (paragraph fourteen) returns to the question of rhyme categories and the use of characters of certain tones, outlining where there is flexibility and where there is not. 38 39 40

Moxiang says that an exception to this, Silang tanmu, should not be imitated. The example given is bianjiang 邊疆 (border), which is transposed to jiangbian 疆邊 in one aria. These requirements were fulfilled, of course, in Chen himself.

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Section fourteen (paragraph fifteen) is about the process of writing plays. Moxiang says that the established principle (laoli 老例) is for the playwright to first write out an abstract, divide up the scenes, pick which actors play which characters (paihao jiaose 派好脚色),41 decide who meets whom and where, who says what, who recites what, and who sings what, so that one already has a mental draft before starting to write the play. As at the end of the lecture, Moxiang also claims here that this is precisely what he does not do; instead, he says that he first fixes on a story and then writes the play out, following his brush (xinbi 信筆). Moxiang records a conversation he says that he had with Wang Yaoqing in which Wang criticized that approach and Moxiang replied by likening his approach to Yue Fei’s rejection of set battle formations (which Yue felt limited him) in favor of more flexible strategy (yezhan 野戰). Moxiang concludes the section by saying that for him to compare his ability at playwriting to Yue Fei’s capability in battle should not be taken seriously and appends this couplet: “You should listen to his [Wang’s] correct discourse,/ And not listen to my wild words” 須聽他正論,/ 莫信我狂言. Section fifteen (paragraph sixteen) is about how to deal with the increasing demand for actors to change costume multiple times during plays (to show off their costumes?), a trend that Moxiang is critical of but that he thinks playwrights need to handle well. Section sixteen (paragraph seventeen) urges avoiding having a character suddenly (within ten or so scenes) change from a baby (which would be represented on stage by a wooden doll, xishen 喜神) to a young man (xiaosheng 小生), as the audience will laugh at this. Moxiang says that the laughing can be somewhat controlled (channeled in a favorable direction) by having a chou actor joke about it, but to forget about the audience not laughing. Section seventeen (paragraph eighteen) is about the principle of limiting, in any one scene, the amount of dialogue actors have to say when they also have to sing a lot (and vice versa). Moxiang complains that Wang Yaoqing likes to break this “rule” because he likes to “tempt danger” (nongxian 弄險). Section eighteen (paragraph nineteen) claims that plays make sport of the gods and that they have made a contribution to the campaign to eliminate superstition of the last thirty years. Moxiang laments the revision of one play that he thinks misunderstood this aspect of the original play, and protests what he says is the general misunderstanding of this aspect of plays.

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There is ambiguity as to whether actors are being assigned or allotted characters or the characters are being allotted role-types. The former assumes that the play is being written for specific actors, which would describe the majority of Chen’s plays.

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Section nineteen (paragraphs twenty and twenty-one) returns to the Pipa ji, which was mentioned in the first section as an example of a play with a good motivating idea. The prologue to that play famously said that “to please people is easy but to move them is hard” 樂人易, 動人難, but in this section Moxiang’s concern is to argue that it is also hard to please people, offering as proof the fact that a play that he wrote to please people, Huhua ling 護花鈴 (The flower protector), took a lot of effort, but is not as famous as one of his that moved people, Chaitou feng. Moxiang then quotes the poem that Li Yu used to finish his play, Fengzheng wu 風筝誤 (The kite’s mistake), in which Li fully embraces the importance of comedy and his mission to make people laugh. After some more comments about the uses and importance of comedy, Moxiang ends with a couplet that returns to the idea that it is also hard to please people. The final section (paragraph) has already been described above. Although neither the content of the sections of the lecture nor their organization evidences much care or planning, the lecture is carefully set up so that the beginning and ending resonate, while the recurring references to Li Yu provide a kind of structural underpinning that invites the reader to compare what Chen has written on playwriting with what Li Yu wrote on the same subject. Unfortunately, Chen’s lecture is nowhere near as well written, engaging, well thought out, and comprehensive as what Li Yu managed to produce. Chen’s lecture, however, does give us some insight into Chen’s practice as a playwright, and in particular about his collaboration with those even more acquainted with the stage and music than he (I am thinking most particularly here of the paragraphs in which he outlines the things that should be left to those who will stage the play and that the playwright need not bother himself with). By all accounts, his practice of intense and often daily collaboration with Xun Huisheng and consultation with Wang Yaoqing was the key to the stage success of his plays and can be said to set him apart from literati playwrights with less strong connections with performers whose plays did not do as well on the stage. It is unfortunate that the lecture in Huoren daxi was written long after strains in the relationship between Chen and Xun Huisheng led to the end of their collaboration in 1935–1936. When Chen died, Xun failed to go pay funeral condolences to Chen’s family.42 42 Xun did later send the box office receipts for a performance of Chen’s Chaitou feng to Chen’s family. For discussion of (1) Xun’s decision to do that and not to go mourn Chen; (2) the idea that the break was influenced by, among other things, Chen’s worry about Xun turning to other playwrights; (3) Chen’s disapproval of how Xun was raising his son, Xun Lingxiang 荀令香 (1921–1992), whom Chen was tutoring; (4) the influence of articles in the press accusing Xun of being ungrateful; and (5) the question of which of the two owed more to whom, see Li Lingling, Xun Huisheng quanzhuan, pp. 427–48. In Chen’s

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Despite the large number of articles that Chen published, none of them directly addresses playwriting in general43 and few give much insight with regard to particular plays that he wrote. When they do touch on his own work as a playwright the focus tends to be on the historical material that he used when writing a particular play. He did sometimes mention his own activities connected to plays and actors, but these mentions tend to remain just that, mentions, and are rarely the focus of a piece. When one of his own plays is the focus of an article, he can leave out most of the details about his own contributions, put the credit for the play’s success solely on the main actor who performed it, and give the impression that very little collaboration was involved. This, for example, is the case with a piece he wrote on the “complete” (quanbu 全部) version of Yutang chun 玉堂春 (Spring of Jade Hall; Xikao #82 [not Chen’s version]) that he put together for Xun Huisheng in 1926;44 or he can write only writings, he blames animosity among the four famous performers of female roles on their supporters and hangers-on and not on the actors themselves, and instead goes out of the way to portray amicable relations among them. He describes himself as very happy when Xun Huisheng’s son formally became Cheng Yanqiu’s disciple (Huoren daxi, p. 64.442); the event is also described in Zhang Tidao 張體道, “Xun Lingxiang baishi ji” 荀令香拜 師記 (A record of Xun Lingxiang taking a master), Juxue yuekan 1.1 (January 1932): 111–26 (there is a photo of the attendees on p. 579 of Li Lingling’s biography and on the following page those in the photo are identified and some of those who came but didn’t get in the photo are also listed; the former include, besides master and disciple, Liu Shouhe, Chen Moxiang, Xun Huisheng, Jin Zhongsun, and the latter Xu Lingxiao, Cao Xinquan, and Shao Mingsheng). With regard to Chen’s playwriting for Cheng Yanqiu, in the last of Chen’s letters (the nineteenth) quoted in [Yang] Caocao [杨] 艸艸, “Guanyu Xunju de jifeng xin” 關於荀劇的幾封信 (Some letters concerning Xun [Huisheng’s] plays), Xiju yuekan 3.8 (June 1931), pp. 1–11 (separation pagination), p. 11, Chen describes how Cheng personally came to Xun’s to talk about Xun “lending” (xiangjie 相借) him and applauds Xun’s supporters for being the first to “break the distinction between rival camps” 把門 户打破 (Yang’s article is also available in He Baotang 和寶堂, ed., Xun Huisheng yishu pinglun ji 荀慧生藝術評論集 [Collected writings on the art of Xun Huisheng; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 2016], pp. 148–54, without indication of source). In Huoren daxi, Chen writes of himself as “never adhering to any one party” 向無門戶之見. He admits that he was Xun’s “intimate advisor” (xinfu 心腹) but that he had his disagreements with Xun and that what he wanted was for him and actors to “study theater together on a basis of equality” 同心考證戲曲, and not to “submit to one actor” 投降伶人, “gratefully submit to that actor’s commands” 甘心受他的指揮, and be “completely loyal to that actor” 替一個伶人盡忠 (p. 64.442). 43 An exception is a brief article he wrote, “Xici buke tai wen” 戲詞不可太文 (The words in a play should not be too literary), Beijing huabao 北京畫報 (Beijing pictorial), August 16, 1928, that has not yet been available to me. An article that that Xun Huisheng published on playwriting in 1959 has been mentioned above. 44 Moxiang 墨香, “Ji Xun Huisheng paiyan quanbu Yutang chun shimo” 記荀慧生排 演全部玉堂春始末(Full account of the staging of the complete Yutang chun by Xun

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about the “meaning” of the play he wrote, as in the case of an article he wrote about his Yuzao gong 魚藻宫 (Yuzao Palace).45 Nineteen letters that Chen wrote but did not himself publish are perhaps more interesting. They appeared in a piece edited by Yang Caocao 杨艸艸 published in 1931.46 Only the first one is dated to a specific year (1926); the content of some of the others covers events that occurred after that year. Letters 11 and 12 mention the success of the complete versions of several plays performed by Xun Huisheng in Shanghai and Beijing (that had been adapted by Chen). In these two letters Chen writes, “Adapting old [plays] is superior to writing new [ones], this is not only true in Shanghai” 翻舊勝於編新, 不止滬上為然, and “Adapting old [plays] is easier than making new ones” 翻舊既較作新為 易 (p. 152). In some of the letters (e.g., numbers 6 and 9; pp. 150–51), Chen is asking Yang’s advice about plays or asking him to improve the quality of the writing (runbi 潤筆) in them. Unfortunately, Yang does not include his side of the correspondence. Besides the lecture on playwriting, what does Chen Moxiang say about playwriting in Huoren daxi? The first two-thirds of the novel are about Chen watching plays and then performing in plays as an amateur. In the process he gets to know many actors. What the novel describes as his “first try at playwriting” (shibi 試筆) takes the form of his “polishing” (runse 潤筆) a Shanghai-style playscript that was too “rough” (cuzao 粗燥), for an actor friend, Li Xinfu 李鑫 甫 (1883–1923; p. 18.101).47 The first playscript that Moxiang describes as one that he wrote is one about the female leader of troops, Qin Liangyu 秦良玉 Huixiang), in Sha Youtian 沙游天, ed., Liuxiang ji 留香集 (Collection for Xun Huisheng; Beijing: Jinghua yinshu ju, 1927), reprint in He Baozhang, ed., Xun Huishen yishu pinglun ji, p. 108. It is true that this play was anomalous in that Xun and his collaborators in Shanghai adapted Chen’s script for performance with no apparent input from Chen Moxiang 墨香, “Zhang Mingfei zhi Yuanxiao mi” 張冥飛之元宵謎 (Zhang Mingfei’s “Lantern Festival Riddle”), Juxue yuekan 1.3 (March 1932): 4, is similar. Yuanxiao mi is an example of one of Chen’s plays that he adapted from a script written by a friend. In the piece, Chen writes about Zhang’s play that “Xun’s supporting actors all felt that the play was not suitable for the stage, so Xun got someone else to edit it, thus producing the version now used” 荀之 配脚, 均謂其不合舞臺化, 荀乃另托人删定, 遂成今本, but does not mention that he was the person Xun turned to. Chen concludes the piece with an assertion that Zhang’s merit in beginning the play should not be forgotten. 45 Moxiang 墨香, “Yuzao gong zhi dayi” 魚藻宫之大義 (The great meaning of “Yuzao Palace”), Zhonghua huabao 中華畫報 (China pictorial), 2.185 (1932). 46 [Yang] Caocao [杨] 艸艸, “Guanyu Xunju de jifeng xin.” 47 It is not always easy to date things in the novel but this event would appear to have happened at the end of the Guangxu reign period (1874–1908). Moxiang distinguishes between what he did on this script (gaizheng 改正) and real “creation” (chuangzuo 創作) but says the “intention” (yongxin 用心) behind both is the same.

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(1574–1648), that he says that he gave to Wang Yaoqing but that Wang never performed (p. 21.138).48 There are many chapters in which the focus is very much on Chen’s performance on stage but which also contain several instances of him adjusting playscripts for performance that involve not only changing text but also the staging.49 He becomes involved in amateur theater clubs that pride themselves on writing their own plays. A member of one of those clubs lists Moxiang’s qualifications to write the play that the club wants to perform: (1) he can perform,50 (2) he has seen a lot of rarely seen plays (lengxi 冷戲), (3) he can perform military plays (rare among amateur performers), (4) he has read a lot, (5) he has a lot knowledge about plays, and (6) he has a lot of experience (pp. 44.300–301).51 During this time period he also does some work on a play for Wang Yaoqing very quickly (just three days; p. 26.171). It is not until Chapter 61, however, that Moxiang mentions the play that inaugurated Chen Moxiang’s decade-odd term as main playwriter for Xun Huisheng: a complete version of Yutang chun that Chen gave Xun to perform in Shanghai (p. 61.414). It takes Moxiang only one sentence to describe the giving 48

In letter 6 in [Yang] Caocao, “Guanyu Xunju de jifeng xin,” p. 4, Chen describes the play as “an amusement that I did at the time that was passed around and eventually ended up in the hands of Shang Xiaoyun, has already been transformed, and is not what it once was” 一時游戲, 輾轉入小雲之手, 已經改易, 已失其真. The play premiered in 1924. A play of Chen’s performed by Gao Qingkui 高慶奎 (1890–1942) is said to have been written by 1924. See Chen Sixiang, “Ji xianfu Chen Moxiang,” p. 130. It was titled Ku Qinting 哭秦 庭 (Crying in the Qin court) and also premiered in 1924. Rao Songqiao, “Jingju mingbian Chen Moxiang,” p. 41, says that the two plays were very successful and instantly made Chen famous (yipao daxiang 一炮打響). In Huoren daxi, Moxiang says that when he gave the first play to Wang Yaoqing he also gave him some plays that were written by Pan Jingfu, his collaborator on Liyuan waishi. As mentioned above, for some time Pan was employed as a playwright by the Tongsu Jiaoyu Yanjiu Hui. Rao Songqiao, “Jingju mingbian Chen Moxiang,” p. 41, claims that around 1920, Chen took Pan Jingfu as his teacher, but Chen does not mention this in his own writings, as far as I am aware. Chen Sixiang, “Ji xianfu Chen Moxiang,” p. 130, says that Chen got a lot of help from Pan when he was writing his first two plays. Huoren daxi, p. 21.134, quotes someone saying that while Pan loves xiqu, “he doesn’t understand it at all” (yiqiao butong 一竅不通). Su Yi, Jingju erbai nian gaiguan, p. 355, says of Pan that “he was too mired in [the idea of making plays accord with] official history” 過分拘泥於正史, and his plays “constantly needed improvement from professional theater artists” 往往須經藝人加工. 49 In one instance (p. 31.207) he describes what he did with one play as “directing” (daoyan 導演). Although he agreed with the idea that “piaoyou teaching piaoyou is blind foolishness” 票教票, 瞎胡鬧, in the novel he even agrees to the request of a piaoyou to study acting with him (p. 58.397). 50 Many have pointed out that Chen’s experience as a piaoyou gave him a leg up over playwrights such as Qi Rushan and Luo Yinggong. See, for example, Yan Quanyi, “Chen Moxiang Jingju chuanzuo xulun,” p. 30. 51 The speaker stops numbering these after the third one.

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of the play and another to describe his hearing how successful it was. Before long (on the same page), Xun “invites [Moxiang] to become his main playwright” 約為主筆.52 Earlier in the novel, Moxiang had described Qi Rushan and Luo Yinggong as mangzi 忙子 (parasitical hangers-on)53 of Mei Lanfang and Cheng Yanqiu, and compared them both to the men who dance attendance (bangxian 幫閑) on Ximen Qing in the novel Jin Ping Mei (p. 25.164). The only time that the subject of Moxiang being paid for his services to Xun Huisheng comes up in Huoren daxi (or in Chen’s other writing) is in reference not to his playwriting but to his tutoring of Xun’s son (p. 63.432),54 but it is clear that Chen was forced to support his family off what he could earn from his pen, by writing plays for actors and publishing articles and fiction.55 In the opinion of Wu Qiechang 吳契厂, because Chen “was not good at managing his affairs, and came close to running out of food, his writing of plays for the actor Xun [Huisheng] was in order to try and make a living; he was in the end a poor scholar supporting himself by his pen, and not a famous actor’s parasitical hanger-on” 惟不善治生, 虽落魄幾至斷炊, 為荀伶編劇, 勉資生活, 依然是 寒士鬻文, 不是戲忙子.56 52

Rao Songqiao, “Jingju mingbian Chen Moxiang,” p. 41, describes the process this way: Xun “invited [Chen] to his own home and established a place for him to write plays” 到自己 家裡設館編戲 as if Chen was his live-in playwright, but that does not accord with how Chen describes what happened in his writings. 53 Moxiang’s mangzi is surely short for xi mangzi 戲忙子, parasites who attach themselves to Jingju stars whom they do scut work for. On this term, see the section on it in Xu Muyun, Liyuan waiji, pp. 163–65. 54 Moxiang mentions that he turned down an offer to be a live-in tutor for someone’s son for fifty dollars a month. Xun’s reaction is that he couldn’t pay that much. Moxiang, however, does agree to tutor Lingxiang. In the eighth part of “Guanju shenghuo sumiao” (Pan Jingfu and Chen Moxiang, Liyuan waishi, p. 487), Chen describes how, in 1923, after Xun returned to Beijing, “because Huisheng was not very literate, he invited me to come every month to lecture to him about Honglou [meng] [Dream of the red chamber] and other works of fiction” 慧生因字眼不深文理有限, 請墨香每月給他講些紅樓[夢]之類小說, and goes on to say that although (at that point) their relationship was not as close as that between Luo Yinggong and Cheng Yanqiu, they saw a lot of each other. 55 This is very different from how the 28-episode TV miniseries Xun Huisheng presents things. It has Chen rejecting Xun’s offers of renumeration for his playwriting (Xun lists a number of things he is willing to give: housing, paddy field, land, money 房、田、地、 錢), saying: “A thousand ounces of gold is easy to come by, a true friend is hard to find” 千 金易得, 知音難求 (1:56:06). According to Chen Sixiang, “Ji xianfu Chen Moxiang,” p. 135, when one of Sixiang’s classmates wanted to learn how to become a professional playwright from his father, his father helped him learn to write for newspapers and journals instead. 56 Qiechang 吳契厂, “Chen Moxiang xiansheng shishi yougan” 陈墨香先生逝世有感 (Thoughts on the death of Mr. Chen Moxiang), Liyan huakan 189 (1942): 17.

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Soon Moxiang is spending his days at Xun Huisheng’s place and his evenings at Wang Yaoqing’s and the novel provides some details about the writing of a number of plays. Moxiang decides to stop performing himself in favor of writing plays, a process that he describes this way: “I was able to drop mounting the stage to perform but not able to drop writing plays for them [Xun Huisheng and Wang Yaoqing], … which also could be described as an obsession” 抛得 下登臺演戲, 抛不了替他們編戲, … 仍算是一個魔頭. Moxiang says that although Xun Huisheng started acting new plays after the three other famous male performers of female roles, “because he very energetically sought them, in the space of several years … he had as many as more than thirty, all of which Moxiang had written for him” 却努力求多, 數年間… 竟有三十餘齣, 都是墨香 給他動筆 (p. 61.422).57 Moxiang modestly says that because he had written so many plays, he was “bound to be successful some time or other” 總有蒙着 了的時候 (62.423). He continues to write plays but feels that although “I can’t be considered old, my energy is much reduced compared to before, and I can only just manage to get things done, so they lack the spirit that they once had” 雖然不老, 精神也遠不如前, 一切只能對付, 没有以前的勇氣了 (p. 63.430). He joins the research institute where, among other things, he collaborates in the writing of plays with Wang Yaoqing and comes into closer contact with Cheng Yanqiu, who is the director of the institute. He writes Kongque dongnan fei with Cheng Yanqiu in mind for the lead but someone objects that it is just a family play and “doesn’t concern the Army or the Nation” (wuguan junguo 無關軍國) and it is given to the opera school students to perform instead, but even they almost do not perform it because someone objects that it is not “reformed” (gailiang 改良) enough (p. 65.443). In the account of the last major play that he wrote for Xun Huisheng, Kan yuchuan 勘玉钏 (Investigating the jade bracelet; 1934 premiere), Moxiang says that he had to “squeeze out time” 抽出功夫 to write it and describes disagreement over whether the first character in the title he chose for the play was too obscure (pp. 68.469–70). The changing relationship of literati and Jingju actors was one of the most important factors in the development of Jingju in the twentieth century. Chen Moxiang is widely recognized as a very representative playwright of the

57 Xun’s private manuscript copies for 91 of his own plays were donated by his family to Beijing Xixiao in 2000. Cheng Baowen 程寶文, “91 bi 15 de gantan” 91 比 15 的感嘆 (Sighing over the ratio of 91 versus 15), Liyuan zhoukan, March 27, 2000, p. 4, laments the fact that only 15 of them had been performed in the last two decades. Su Yi, Jingju erbai nian gaiguan, p. 289, places Xun Huisheng first among the four famous performers of female roles in terms of developing and performing new plays.

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Republican era.58 On a spectrum from the early literati playwrights whose plays were published in fancy editions with prefaces and commentary but not performed (such as the author of Jile shijie, with whom Chen shared a pseudonym), to highly successful professional playwrights who also acted in and directed plays and even organized and ran theater troupes such as Weng Ouhong, Chen Moxiang falls in the middle, a place that was dominated in the Republican era by playwrights who were parts of the “brain trust” (naoku 腦 庫) of famous actors. Like Weng, but unlike Qi Rushan and Luo Yinggong, Chen was interested in true collaboration between himself and actors. Unlike Weng (or Qi Rushan), Chen did not write much about his playwriting, so the “discovery” of his “lecture” on playwriting in his novel Huoren daxi should be cause for celebration, however much we might regret his failure to organize his thoughts more efficiently or how far he remained from his model, Li Yu’s remarks on theater. We can see in Chen’s career significant movement toward the professionalization of Jingju playwriting, a goal that his retention of major elements of the old literati-playwright model surely worked to prevent him from attaining. 2

Weng Ouhong: The Most Prolific/Famous Jingju Playwright

Weng Ouhong 翁偶虹 (1908–1994) was even more prolific than Chen Moxiang,59 but his career as a Jingju playwright (for more than fifty years) lasted much longer.60 At the end of a piece that Weng wrote lamenting the death of Chen, he claimed that as for Jingju playwrights in Beijing, there was really only Chen and himself.61 As mentioned above, they were once members of the same 58

For instance, Yan Quanyi, “Chen Moxiang,” p. 31, claims that Chen is “widely recognized as the representative playwright of the Republican era” 被公認為民國代表性的京劇 作家. He credits Chen for both “greatly raising the literary character” 在文學性上有極 大提升 of Jingju playscripts and his plays as being “professional and performable” (dang­ hang keyan 當行可演; p. 23). 59 The appendix to Liu Haoyang 李浩洋, “Weng Ouhong juzuo yanjiu” 翁偶虹劇作研 究 (Research on Weng Ouhong’s plays), master’s thesis, Zhongguo Yishu Yanjiu Yuan, 2015, “Weng Ouhong chuangzuo biao” 翁偶虹創作表 (List of Weng Ouhong’s plays), pp. 52–55, lists ninety-one plays, forty-four of which were written in the Republican period. Weng himself estimated that he wrote over one hundred plays (see Weng Ouhong, Weng Ouhong bianju shengya, “Qianyan” [Foreword], p. 4 (has separate pagination). 60 Li Wei, Ershi shiji xiqu gaige de sanda fanshi, p. 55, says that Weng “could be called the most prolific playwright” 堪稱歷史上最多產的劇作家. 61 Weng Ouhong, “Ku Chen Moxiang xiansheng,” Sanliujiu huabao 15.5 (May 16, 1942): 20 (part 2), ends this way: “As for Beijing Jingju playwrights, there are [really only] two, one “black” and the other “red”; the “black” one is [Chen] Moxiang, and the “red” one is [Weng] Ouhong” 劇編劇者, 就是兩個人, 一黑一紅, 黑者墨香, 紅者偶虹也. The

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committee, and the two of them collaborated on at least one play.62 Unlike Chen, Weng did not write an autobiographical novel about himself, but near the end of his life he did write a very substantial (almost six-hundred pages!) memoir about his career as a playwright whose first chapter begins with the claim that he has been a “professional playwright” (zhiye bianjuzhe 職業編劇 者) all his life.63 Like Chen, Weng was an amateur performer of Jingju64 but unlike Chen, he did not try to present himself as an amateur playwright who never performed for money. He was also quite open about how much money he got for the plays he wrote65 and in the Republican period even worked out an arrangement whereby he would get a certain amount of money from each ticket sold when his plays were performed.66 Although he early on became “mo” in Chen Moxiang’s name is the “mo” that means [black] ink (the character is the same as the one for black but with an earth radical below), while the “hong” in Weng Ouhong is homophonous with the character for “red” (hong 紅); another connection is that Weng once went by the name of “Ouhong” 藕紅 (Red as lotus; he published a number of articles under this penname). In his Weng Ouhong bianju shengya, pp. 48–50, Weng describes a couplet that was published as part of a competition that linked himself and one of his plays with Chen and one of Chen’s plays. 62 On their collaboration, see Weng Ouhong, Weng Ouhong bianju shengya, p. 141. 63 Weng Ouhong, Weng Ouhong bianju shengya, p. 1. “All his life” is an exaggeration; he wrote his first two plays shortly after the Mukden Incident in 1931, when he was in his early twenties (Weng Ouhong, Weng Ouhong bianju shengya, p. 20). Besides his memoirs, among the many pieces Weng published on Jingju, I have found only two that concern playwriting: “Ouhong shi bianju zhaji” 偶虹室編劇劄記 (Notes on playwriting from Ouhong Studio), Banyue xiju 6.3 (1947) (no pagination), and “Bianju daoyan yu yanyuan zhi jian de moqi” 編劇與導演, 演員之間的默契 (Secret/non-verbal connections/agreement between playwright and director and actor), Shaanxi xiju 陝西戲劇 (Shaanxi theater) 1982.7: 46–49 (part one). Both might have been planned as the start of a series. 64 Unlike Chen, for whom I have only been able to find one photo of him in costume and that one of uncertain provenance (it is also sometimes identified as someone else), photos of Weng in costume appeared with some frequency in Republican era periodicals. For an example with two such photos, see [Ha] Shahuang [哈] 殺黃, “Weng Ouhong xian­sheng teji” 翁偶虹先生特輯 (Special page on Mr. Weng Ouhong), Banyue xiju 3.4 (1941) (no pagination, appears right before the table of contents page in the front matter). Besides the personal fame that Weng achieved (see below), another reason for the relative abundance of pictures of him in costume is that he specialized in jiazi hualian roles and was also a well-known writer on and expert on face painting and face patterns. 65 He does have a tendency to stress the times when he turns down money offered to him (for an example, see Weng Ouhong, Weng Ouhong bianju shengya, p. 239). 66 In the 1940s Weng arranged to receive the revenue generated by a surcharge of ten fen (cents) on the tickets for the performances of a play that he wrote (the surcharge generated over 100 yuan for the premiere). See Weng Ouhong, Weng Ouhong bianju shengya, p. 217. He donated the surcharge from the second night’s performance to the family of a recently deceased playwright (p. 118). The adding of this kind of surcharge is mentioned again later on (p. 260), with reference to a different set of performances, where this is

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the resident playwright for the students of Zhonghua Xixiao, later agreed to become the “house playwright” for a theater in Shanghai for a bit more than a year, and was the on-staff playwright for a number of troupes and Jingju organizations in the PRC, claiming that he had made the transition from “literati playwright” (wenren bianju 文人編劇) to “cultural worker” (wenyi gongzuo zhe 文藝工作者) in the “New China,”67 he maintained a higher degree of independence than most in-house playwrights of either the Republic or the PRC (at least up until recent decades, when famous playwrights have been able to win a certain amount of freedom from their organizations [danwei 單位] and even become the near-equivalents of “free agents”).68 Early on, Weng became especially famous for two things, writing a rather salacious play about lewd monks named Huoshao Honglian si 火燒紅蓮寺 (Fire burns Red Lotus Temple) that made use of Shanghai-style stagecraft (so-called caitou 彩頭) and directing opera school students in its performance,69 and organizing a troupe of the opera school students to take on tour and perform his own plays after the opera school was forced to shut down.70 In the case of this troupe’s performances, his described as “according to precedent” 仍援舊例. Of these three mentions of the surcharge, the first mention is surely because it was something new, the second because of what was done with the money; in the case of the third mention, Weng uses some of the money to thank people who helped out with the productions (p. 260). 67 Weng Ouhong, Weng Ouhong bianju shengya, “Qianyan” (Foreword [has separate pagination]), pp. 4–5. 68 Jingju, and xiqu in general, went into a sort of crisis mode after the initial rise in popularity of traditional plays right after they were allowed to return to the stage after the Cultural Revolution. As these theatrical traditions faced more and more competition from other media, reforms were undertaken that often freed troupe personnel to collaborate with other troupes (becoming more like free agents). Also, there is the example of the playwright Liu Huaizheng 羅懷臻 (1956–), who originally wrote only for the Huaiju troupe for which he was an actor, but eventually branched out to write for a variety of xiqu genres, including Jingju and Kunqu. When a collection of his plays and writings on theater was published, Luo Huaizhen xiju wenji 羅懷臻戲劇文集, 6 vols. (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin, 2008), the first volume included his plays for the most prestigious genres, Jingju and Kunqu. Increased interaction of theatrical genres and a tendency for the more national forms to serve as models for the more local ones had been going on for a long time, but reached a new level in the PRC with performance festivals at which different genres performed, the sending up of local troupes to perform in the capital, and new media that allowed for a deeper penetration of the national forms into local areas and increased interaction among all Chinese theater traditions. 69 Weng Ouhong, Weng Ouhong bianju shengya, pp. 36–40, describes Shanghai-style caitou plays, the difficulties of trying to do such a play in Beijing, without the necessary physical and human resources, and how he oversaw the production of the play. 70 According to the account in Weng Ouhong, Weng Ouhong bianju shengya, p. 115, the students came to Weng to ask him to organize the troupe. In order to register the troupe with the actors’ guild, Weng has to be accepted by them as a professional (neihang 內行). He

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name appeared as playwright not only in the theater programs but also in ads for the performances.71 When he was the resident playwright for a Shanghai theater, ads for productions of his plays speak of him as a “backstage hero” (muhou yingxiong 幕後英雄) and a “master playwright” (bianju dashi 編劇大 師).72 A fair number of his plays were published with his authorship credited both before and after the Cultural Revolution.73

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is skeptical about the chances of that, but someone points out that the hualian actors had already accepted him as one of their own and included his name on a plaque with their own names given to the guild (p. 188). The application is successful (p. 119). For instance, a February 3, 1941, Shenbao ad for a play starring Li Yuru credits Weng as both the author and director (biandao 編導). See an ad posted by the theater, Tianchan Wutai, in Shenbao that ran for the first time on July 20, 1946. In Weng Ouheng, Weng Ouhong bianju shengya, p. 290, Weng relates how even before he arrived in Shanghai, a student of his sent him the news that the theater, in advertisements, was using such language to describe him. After he arrives, he notes that the announcements for upcoming plays outside the theater also highlighted his name as playwright (p. 302). The theater wanted him to take on broader responsibilities but he was able to restrict them to writing or revising plays for performance at the theater. He describes his position as “resident playwright” (zhuban de bianju 住班的編劇; p. 292). Ironically, even though the theater paid substantial money to bring Weng to Shanghai and keep him there, precisely because of his fame as a playwright, the theater decided to, over Weng’s objections, market one of the plays that Weng wrote for them as a miben (secret copy) of a Nanfu (palace) play (see pp. 300–304). Weng understands his position as in-house playwright with the theater excludes him from writing plays for other actors, but a representative of the theater who is a friend of Zhou Xinfang invites both of them to a dinner at which he proposes that Weng do some play writing for Zhou, and assures Weng that that would be okay (pp. 320–21). For other reasons, Weng never does write a play for Zhou, whom he admired greatly and was eager to write for. In his memoir, Weng Ouhong bianju shengya, p. 301, Weng complained about how in the world of xiqu the names of the authors of plays were not mentioned (p. 301). A selection of eight of Weng’s plays was published under his name in 1994, Weng Ouhong juzuo xuan 翁偶虹劇作選 (Selected plays by Weng Ouhong; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 1994) and reprinted in the first volume of a four-volume collection of Weng’s writings, Weng Ouhong wenji 翁偶虹文集 (Collected writings of Weng Ouhong; Tianjin: Baihua wenyi, 2013). The plays were written from 1939 to 1985. Five of those plays were published as separate volumes between 1949 and the Cultural Revolution, often with credit given to co-authors (in the anthology, their contributions are addressed in the pieces on the plays in the foreword). Of the five, Jiang xiang he 將相和 (Peace between general and prime minister) and Hongdeng ji 紅燈記 (The Red Lantern; adapted from Huju) were each published several different times, according to WorldCat. During the Cultural Revolution, credit for the writing of the latter, both in Chinese and English translation, was changed to Zhongguo Jingju Tuan 中國京劇團 (National Jingju Troupe). Three of Weng’s plays were published in the premiere journal for publishing playscripts, Juben: Li Kui tanmu 李 逵探母 (Li Kui visits his mother) in the seventh issue of 1957, Xiangma zhuan 響馬傳 (Story of the mounted bandits) in the ninth issue of 1959, and Hongdeng ji in the eleventh issue of 1964 (all but the first of these also appear in the anthology). In the thirty volumes

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Even more than Chen Moxiang, Weng Ouhong stressed the deference due to the actors that the playwright writes for. It does not seem that he ever wrote a play without first having a specific set of actors (or one star) in mind to perform it. One big advantage that he had over Chen Moxiang is that he very quickly learned how to direct the plays that he wrote as part of the process of finalizing the playscripts and he learned to himself handle many of the more technical aspects of putting together a Jingju production, things that we have seen that Chen Moxiang was content to leave up to the professionals. The first part of Weng’s memoir, after the foreword,74 is about how he learned what he needed to learn to prepare himself to be able to write Jingju plays. He compares that to the process of preparing to open up a shop and gradually acquiring the necessary stock to sell. According to his memoir, he was born to a bank clerk who worked in the mornings and then went to see plays in the afternoon, someone who learned how to perform as a xiaosheng but whose family traditions, despite the fact that an in-law was a professional actor, forbade him to mount the stage and perform. Weng’s father wants Weng to concentrate his studies on English but Weng disappoints him in being more interested in Chinese literature and writing parallel prose. The in-law acts as the “programmer” (xi tidiao) for private family performances that can feature well-known performers, but Weng is especially impressed with how the in-law (his uncle) performs as a tongchui hualian (which stresses singing) and is surprised when his father agrees with his request to learn to sing from his uncle after school. Before too long, however, Weng confesses to the uncle that he really wants to learn to perform as a jiazi hualian (which stresses physical acting and dialogue) and the uncle finds him of playscripts in Sun Ping and Ye Jinsen, eds., Fuliancheng cang xiqu wenxian huibian, only a very small number indicate who the playwright is; one of these, in volume five, indicates that it was written by Weng. It is for a play, Wuren yi 五人義 (Five righteous men; a.k.a., Shisan taibao fan Suzhou 十三太保反蘇州 [13th “Prince” (nickname of Zhou Wenyuan 周文元, one of the righteous men of the first title) rebels in Suzhou]) that Weng wrote for Ye Shengzhang 葉盛章 (1912–1966; first chou actor to lead his own troupe) in the late 1940s, several years after the demise of Fuliancheng. Ye was both the son of the head of this opera school, Ye Chunshan, and a graduate of Fuliancheng, so that probably explains how this play became connected with Fuliancheng, rather than the editors’ claim that the plays in this collection were performed by Fuliancheng. Weng Ouhong wenji just collects the contents of four separate books of Weng’s writings that were published after the Cultural Revolution. It contains no new material. 74 The foreword begins with an overview of the Jingju playwrights who preceded him. He divides them up into three basic groups, actor-playwrights (he does not distinguish between “regular” actors and amateur actors who became professional actors, as I did in chapter 2); literati-playwrights in general, and literati who are able to collaborate with actors (the best category, he implies, and the category that he implies that he belongs to).

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a teacher. He is allowed to perform plays sitting at a table (qingyin zhuo 清音 桌) when he is fifteen years old.75 Weng attends a high school where the students perform Jingju; he secretly begins to act on stage himself at that school, other schools, and even theaters. One day he sees his father in the audience and expects trouble but instead his father encourages him. He graduates from high school and gets a job in an elementary school that neither interests him nor pays well. He decides that he can earn as much money by publishing articles and fiction in newspapers and journals and decides to quit the school job and write in the mornings and perform the rest of the day. Besides singing on stage, he continues to perform qing­ yin zhuo, learning to perform even martial plays in that fashion. Since in that style of performance actors not busy at any one moment had to help out with the percussion accompaniment, he learns how to play the small gong (xiaoluo 小鑼). He learns how to do the face paint for the roles he performs by having a professional paint half of his face and finishing the second half himself (in a year he can do the whole pattern himself). He spends a lot of time interacting with actors and scholars of Jingju and reading dramatic literature both Chinese and Western. All of these activities he describes as accumulating “stock” for his “store.” He laments the reputation of Jingju plays as poor dramatic literature, and decides that only playwriting can lift Jingju to a world-class level, but still has no intention of writing plays himself, despite the fact that the memoir has been at pains to show how he has gained a lot of experience and knowledge that will stand him well in the future. He is spending most of his income from writing on his performing (he notes that he is as good as a certain performer who gets 10 yuan a performance but he has to offer up that much to be able to perform each time). He maintains this life of writing in the morning and performing at night from 1927–1935.76 Weng has managed to make the acquaintance of and earn the respect of the head of Zhonghua Xixiao, Jiao Juyin. Jiao would like Weng to become a cultural studies teacher at the school, but those classes are taught in the afternoon and would cut into the time Weng can perform, so he declines,77 but he does agree to do “external work” for the school. He gets to know some of the students through “puff” pieces that he writes about the school as part of his external job.

75 These two paragraphs are based on material in chapter one of the memoir, pp. 1–6. 76 This paragraph is based on the last half of the first chapter of Weng Ouhong bianju shengya, pp. 6–16. 77 He later agreed to teach one class, at the students’ request. See Weng Ouhong bianju shengya, pp. 76–79.

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A place is reserved for him at student performances, which he begins to attend. Through these two channels he gets to know some of the students. In the case of a new version of a play performed by the students, he comes up with suggestions to improve the last part of it that he shares with Jiao, who asks him to write plays for the students. He writes two new plays on topics of his choosing, one is picked to be rehearsed next, but those plans are disrupted by Jiao’s resignation and departure for Europe to study there. The new head of the school, Jin Zhongsun 金仲蓀 (1879–1945), is also interested in Weng. Weng is asked to submit articles to be published in Juxue yuekan (he published five, all on lianpu, all in 1935, all under the name of Ouhong 藕 紅)78 and in 1936, when he is just 26 years old, is made director of the newly established Xiqu Gailiang Weiyuan Hui 戲曲改良委員會 (Committee for the improvement of xiqu) that is housed in the opera school. Weng’s job, besides running meetings of the committee, is to correct problems in specific traditional plays and to correct common errors in playscripts. Towards the latter goal, he comes up with a list of phrases commonly misread or misconstrued by the students, each with corrections, that he posts. This upsets the teachers, who think that Weng’s real target is them. Jin picks one of the specific plays that Weng worked on and asks Weng to work on it some more with a view of having students perform it. The teacher assigned to direct the rehearsals does not like what Weng has done to the play and tests Weng by making him sing an aria line that Weng has written to have eight characters of text instead of the usual seven. Weng passes that test and that is how the students are taught to perform it but they treat that whole matter as a joke that reflects badly on Weng. The next several plays also involve instances in which the teachers assigned to direct the plays keep testing Weng directly or through the students, demanding more from him than would be asked of one of their own number. In the case of one of these plays, none of the teachers assigned to direct it has performed it or even seen it performed, and Weng ends up playing a role in the direction of it. School is shut down for half a year because of the Marco Polo Bridge Incident in 1937. When the students come back, instead of five teachers to handle the rehearsals and direction, there is only one. That teacher is illiterate, and at his suggestion, Weng ends up with the responsibility for directing the civil scenes in the play. This civil/martial division of duties works out well (although this teacher also continually tests Weng to see if he knows what he is doing) and the play is ready in half a month. Weng says that he is jealous of the 78 Abstracts about seven different sets of lianpu that Weng compiled but never published can be found in Zhongguo yishu yanjiu yuan tushu guan chaogao ben zongmu tiyao, 13: 107–13.

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teachers because they can immediately act out what they want the students to do. It is at this time that Weng says that he begins his life-long practice of visualizing a small stage in his mind whenever he writes plays.79 Weng Ouhong’s confidence and skills grow until, when the opera school is closed in 1940, he is ready to organize and lead a troupe for the students, whom he writes plays for, directs the rehearsals, and arranges for and oversees performances. Some of the students develop into stars in their own right and he writes plays for them. He comes to know actors trained in Fuliancheng and elsewhere and writes plays for them. Instead of trying to get the actors to be totally reliant on his playwriting he pushes some of them to help out with the writing and he shares the credit for authorship of those plays with them. He is hired to be playwright for the Tianchan Wutai 天蟬舞臺 (Tianchan Theater) in Shanghai (unlike Beijing theaters, Shanghai theaters had their own troupes of actors; theater and troupe were one unit),80 where he was handsomely paid for his labor and stays for two years (1946–1947). After 1949 he similarly works as a playwright for Jingju troupes and organizations in Beijing,81 ending up as a playwright for the national troupe, Zhongguo Jingju Troupe, from which he is forced to resign in 1974.82 Because of the turmoil of both the second half of the Republican era, marked by Japanese invasion and civil war between the Nationalists and Communists, and because of the high turnover in the acting personnel of troupes, feuds between actors and, once the troupes begin to be nationalized after 1949, government decisions that can break up teams of actors, as well as changing political policies that meant that a topic for a play might be okay one day but not the next,83 a fairly high proportion of 79

This paragraph is based on material in chapter two of the memoir, pp. 17–33. He writes of this practice of visualizing a stage in his head again on p. 179. 80 He was far from the first playwright to be hired by a Shanghai theater. For instance, a November 7, 1938 Shenbao piece by Xiu 筱, “Huangjin Da Xiyuan yaoqing Feng Chunhang [a.k.a., Feng Zihe] bianju” 黃金大戲院邀請馮春航編劇 (Great Gold Theater has hired Feng Zihe to write plays), announced that Feng had been hired as “bianju zhuren” 編劇主 任 (director of play writing). He is said to have been hired with a retainer (baoyin 包銀) of 150 yuan a month. See Cai Shicheng, ed., Shenbao Jingju ziliao xuanbian, p. 444. 81 For instance, he was the resident playwright (zhuanzhi bianju 專職編劇) for Xin Zhongguo Shiyan Jingju Tuan 新中國實驗京劇團 (The New China Experimental Jingju Troupe) for 1949–1951. 82 He is told that his request to retire has been approved when he had not requested to retire (Weng Ouhong, Weng Ouhong bianju shengya, p. 585). 83 After 1949, Weng describes being assigned to clean up now objectionable parts of traditional plays (for example, see Weng Ouhong, Weng Ouhong bianju shengya, p. 420). After 1949 he had two major physical-mental breakdowns that left him unable to write for long periods. He ascribes the first of these to stresses left over from the Republican period, but the breakdown itself actually came after he had been sent down, with colleagues, to

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the plays Weng wrote never got performed.84 Unlike Chen Moxiang and Qi Rushan, who wrote most of their plays for one star, Weng Ouhong wrote plays for almost twenty different individual stars, for four sets of more than one star, and for six different troupes.85 Although both Chen Moxiang and Weng Ouhong never had the chance to formally study playwriting (degree programs in playwriting for xiqu are now available at Zhongguo Xiqu Xueyuan and elsewhere),86 they did make reference to earlier writers on playwriting (both mention ideas and techniques discussed by Li Yu in his Li Liweng quhua;87 Weng Ouhong likes to use traditional terms for techniques useful in both plays and fiction made famous by Jin Shengtan88). We have seen that Chen Moxiang declined to teach a friend of his son to write plays, because he did not think it a good way to earn money, go research a historical figure whom the government thought would make a good protagonist for a new play (pp. 420–24). The second breakdown was less serious, but it happened after his work on the script for the second color Jingju film after Shengsi hen came to naught (p. 545). He describes political interference/input on his playwriting coming from figures such as Zhou Enlai (pp. 431, whom he appears to respect) and Jiang Qing (p. 577–78, 581–82) and an unnamed “leader” (p. 582; both of whom he does not respect). After he joins Zhongguo Jingju Yuan and until after the Cultural Revolution, the need to be “politically correct” and the enforced collaborations on playscripts with other playwrights (at one point he describes a play that he wants to write by himself with obvious relish, p. 495) is very different from his playwriting before 1949, which featured collaboration with actors instead. 84 In Weng Ouhong, Weng Ouhong bianju shengya, “Qianyan,” p. 4, Weng says that he wrote over one hundred plays, only 60% of which got performed. The memoir is full of examples of plays that were written out and even began to be rehearsed but then got shelved, but this seems to intensify after 1949 (speaking of the plays he wrote in 1959–1962, Weng says that “as for the majority, they could not be performed” 多數不能演出; p. 516). 85 These figures are based on the information given for the 91 plays listed in the appendix to Li Haoyang, “Weng Ouhong juzuo yanjiu,” pp. 52–55. 86 Because it is short, Chen Moxiang’s “lecture” on playwriting in Huoren daxi would make an interesting piece to talk about in a class on Jingju playwriting. Weng Ouhang’s Weng Ouhang bianju shangya is a very interesting historical document but because the historical contexts for his plays were so specific and so different from present circumstances, it is hard to imagine that the book would be of much practical use to contemporary playwrights. 87 On Chen Moxiang and Li Yu, see above; for an example of Weng Ouhong, Weng Ouhong bianju shengya, using terminology associated with Li Yu, see pp. 493–94 (“li zhunao” 立主 腦 [establish the “main brain”]). 88 For instance, Weng uses terms for techniques such as “caoshe huixian fa” 草蛇灰線法 (Weng Ouhong bianju shengya, p. 433) and “beimian fufen” 背面傅粉 (p. 444). For usage of these two terms in traditional Chinese fiction criticism, see Rolston, ed., How to Read the Chinese Novel, “Finding List for Terminology,” items for “ts’ao-she hui-hsien” (p. 353) and “pei-mien p’u [fu] fen fa” (p. 350).

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but Weng Ouhong was successful in teaching some playwriting skills to actors whom he collaborated with, such as Li Shaochun 李少春 (1919–1975).89 3

Playwriting after Weng Ouhong

Fan Junhong 范鈞宏 (1916–1986) also wrote plays for Zhongguo Jingju Yuan,90 but he differs from Weng Ouhong in that he began his playwriting and publishing after the establishment of the PRC and he was probably the first to write fairly systematic lectures and articles on Jingju playwriting. He wrote or collaborated on the writing of over thirty plays, three of which were not for Jingju.91 Seven of his plays were published in Juben (from its inaugural year, 1952, to 1986, the year he died), eleven were published in collections of plays he wrote or collaborated on,92 and at least twenty-six were published separately.93 Like Chen Moxiang and Weng Ouhong, Fan Junhong was first a piaoyou with some experience on stage, but unlike them, he did become a professional actor, and even once led a troupe.94 He did not publish novels about 89

See, for instance, Weng Ouhong, Weng Ouhong bianju shengya, pp. 346–47, 371 (where he tells Li that he especially needs to read a lot to improve his playwriting). 90 On Fan’s playwriting and writing about playwriting, see Yi Lijun 易麗君, “Fan Junhong juzuo julun yanjiu” 范鈞宏劇作劇論研究 (A study of Fan Jun’s playwriting and writing about playwriting), master’s thesis, National Tsinghua University, 2010. 91 For a list of thirty-three plays attributed to him (as sole playwright or co-playwright), see Ji Junhu 吉俊虎, “Fan Junhong yanjiu” 范鈞宏研究 (Research on Fan Junhong), master’s thesis, Shanxi Normal University, 2012, pp. 12–13. Yi Lijun, “Fan Junhong juzuo julun yanjiu,” pp. 25–29, in the summary section on Fan’s plays, lists two more plays than Ji does. The second play on Ji’s list was written for pingju, the fifth for “either bangzi or pingju” 梆 子評劇通用 (printed versions of Fan’s plays do not always indicate aria-type, one of the clearest ways to distinguish types of indigenous Chinese theater), and the tenth was for Hebei bangzi. They were published in 1952, 1953, and 1960, respectively. 92 These were Fan Junhong xiqu xuan 范鈞宏戲曲選 (Selected plays for Chinese indigenous theater by Fan Junhong; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 1988), and Fan Junhong Lü Ruiming xiqu xuan (1990); the latter was mentioned above. 93 The number 26 comes from a search of WorldCat conducted July 1, 2018. From that search, it would appear that Fan wrote a play for Qinqiang (published in 1950) and one for Henan bangzi (published in 1954) that are not included in Ji Junhu’s list. WorldCat also has a listing for a recording of the famous Henan bangzi version of Hua Mulan 花木蘭 by Chang Xiangyu 常香玉 (1923–2004) that gives Fan credit for helping with the adaptation (no date is given in the listing for the recording, but it was made into a movie in 1956). 94 According to Yi Lijun, “Fan Junhong juzuo julun yanjiu,” p. 24, Fan came from a “welloff” ( fuyu 富裕) household in Beijing, loved Jingju from early on, performed as early as when he was ten, became the disciple of a professional actor when he was in middle school, turned professional when he was eighteen, and got to know many famous actors.

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theater, as Chen Moxiang did, nor his memoirs, as Weng Ouhong did,95 but he did do something they did not do: publish two collections of pieces on playwriting: Xiqu bianju lunji 戲曲編劇論集 (Collected discourses on playwriting; 1982)96 and Xiqu bianju jiqiao qianlun 戲曲編劇技巧淺論 (Shallow talks on playwriting techniques for xiqu; 1984).97 Many of the pieces began as lectures at Zhongguo Xiqu Xueyuan 中國戲曲學院 (National Academy of Chinese Theater Arts) or other institutions teaching Chinese indigenous theater.98 According to the online site “Liyuan bainian suoji” entry on him (accessed July 1, 2018), he graduated from college in 1934, so perhaps he became a professional actor on graduation. Before joining Zhongguo Jingju Yuan when it was established in 1955, Fan was the head of the section in Zhongguo Xiqu Yanjiu Yuan 中國京劇研究院 (Institute for Research on Jingju) in charge of editing Jingju congkan (p. 25). 95 There is, however, a biography of Fan Junhong, written by a fellow playwright at Zhongguo Jingju Yuan: Hao Yinbo 郝蔭柏, Fan Junhong pingzhuan 范鈞宏評傳 (A critical biography of Fan Junhong; Beijing: Zhongguo wenlian, 2016). It includes four pages of photos of Fan in costume in the front matter (in the last of them, Fan is shown with his wife), there are summary charts of information on (1) his plays beginning from 1952 (pp. 291–94; of the 43 plays listed, 29 were co-authored, and only three, all among the earliest plays on the list, are not presented as Jingju), reproduced from another source; (2) his published articles (pp. 294–95); (3) his books (p. 295), and (4) lectures that he gave (pp. 296–97). The second and last of these are marked as not complete (bu wanquan tongji 不完全統計). Most striking, in comparison to the fate of Weng Ouhong’s plays, is the fact that of Fan’s 43 plays, only one was never performed, and only twelve were never published. Hao does describe how Fan “wrote” his first play long before 1952. The chart of Fan’s plays was prepared by someone else, and Hao does not address why this first play was excluded; presumably the list only includes plays that Fan wrote after he became a professional playwright. That first play was written in 1937, for a famous actor-friend of Fan’s, Gao Qingkui, at the time down on his luck because of voice problems and living with Fan. The play was one that Gao performed but for which there was no play text for his version; Gao only remembered his own part, so Fan filled in everything else (p. 19). Fan was 21 years old at the time. 96 Published by Shanghai Wenyi Chubanshe. 97 Published by Zhongguo Xiju Chubanshe of Beijing. 98 See, for instance, the “description of content” (“Neirong shuoming” 內容說明) in the front of Xiqu bianju jiqiao qianlun, which says “For many years he [Fan] has been hired by various Chinese indigenous theater teaching institutions and seminars on writing and directing Chinese indigenous theater playscripts to lecture on techniques of playwriting” 多年來, 他應聘於各地戲曲院校與戲曲編導講習班, 授編劇技巧. This piece also says that the present collection is about “structure” ( jiegou 結構), while two planned volumes (which never appeared), will be about “language” (yuyan 語言) and “convention” (chengshi 程式), respectively. Fan began to publish articles with almost the same title as the book (tan 談 [talks] appears where lun 論 [discourse/article] does), as early as the beginning of 1982 (installments 10 through 31 were published in Juben from the first issue of 1982 to the last issue of 1984; the earlier installments appeared in a periodical subsidiary to Juben called Xiao juben 小劇本 [Short playscripts] concerning which information is hard to come by [see below]). The introductory piece, “Kaipian” 開篇, in the Xiqu bianju jiqiao qiantan volume (p. 1), begins by saying that it was the “Editorial Board”

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It was also in the 1980s (1980 to be exact), that the first department to teach playwriting for Chinese indigenous theater was established, the Xiqu Wenxue Xi 戲曲文學戲 (Department of Chinese indigenous theater literature; Xiwen Xi for short), housed in Zhongguo Xiqu Xueyuan. As of July 2018, the department had a faculty of 1799 and a substantial number of students.100 Of the playwrights who have been part of the faculty of the department, at least seven have published collections of their plays.101 Over the years, textbooks for teach(bianji bu 編輯部) of Juben that commissioned (yue 約) him to write such a series for serial publication. The end of some of the pieces in Xiqu bianju lunji, besides information about prior publication, indicate that the piece is based on a specific lecture or series of lectures at a specific site (see, for instance the ends of items one through five; all were at Zhongguo Xiqu Xueyuan, three include the year [all 1981] that the lectures were given, and the other two were published in periodicals in 1980, so were probably given that year or soon before). 99 Information on the department can be found on the official website for Zhongguo Xiqu Xueyuan: https://www.nacta.edu.cn/zzjg/xqwxx/index.htm, accessed July 1, 2018. In the introduction to the department, the claim is made that it is “the only educational unit whose main responsibility is to foster the development of the talent to create Chinese indigenous theater [playscripts]” 唯一一家以培養戲曲創作人才為主要任務的教學 單位. 100 Information on the numbers of students in the Department is sometimes given in Zhongguo xiju nianjian 中國戲劇年鑒 (Yearly almanac for Chinese theater), published almost yearly since 1981. In the later 1980s the numbers jumped from under 20 (1984–1985 and 1987–1988 academic years) to around 30 (1988–1989 and 1989–1990 academic years). I do not presently have exact figures for recent years, but would estimate that they have not declined. 101 They are Xie Boliang 謝柏梁 (chair of the department): Xie Boliang xiqu juzuo ji 謝柏梁 戲曲劇作集 (Plays by Xie Boliang; Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 2011); Hu Die 胡疊: Hu Die xiqu juzuo ji 胡疊戲曲劇作集 (Plays by Hu Die; Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 2015); Chen Yunsheng 陳雲升: Chen Yunsheng juzuo xuan 陳雲升劇作選 (Selected plays by Chen Yunsheng; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 2016); Zhong Ming 鐘鳴: Zhong Ming juzuo ji 鐘鳴劇 作集 (Collected plays by Zhongming; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 2016); and Han Meng 韓 萌: Han Meng xiqu juben ji 韓萌戲曲劇本集 (Collected playscripts for Chinese indigenous theater by Han Meng; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 2016). All are part of a series that has variously been entitled Zhongguo xiqu xueyuan Xiwen xi jiaoshi xiqu juzuo congkan 中 国戲曲學院戲文系教師戲曲劇作叢書, Zhongguo xiju xueyuan Xiwen xi jiaoshi xiqu juzuo congkan 中国戲劇學院戲文系教師戲曲劇作叢刊, and Guoxi Xiwen xi jiaoshi xiqu juzuo congkan 国戲戲文系教師戲曲劇作叢刊, all of which could be translated as “Collectanea of xiqu works by faculty of the Xiwen Xi of Zhongguo Xiqu Xueyuan” (the variations in the second and third version have to do with the name of the academy, the third character in the second version is surely a typo [this version appears in WorldCat entries], and the third version, which can be found in the “Jiaoxue chengguo” 教學成 果 (Accomplishments in teaching) section of the official website for the academy, uses a popular abbreviation for the Chinese name of the academy). More recently the title of the collectanea has morphed into Zhongguo xiju xueyuan Xiwen xi jiaoshi xiqu juzuo congkan 国戲劇學院戲文系教師創作與史論叢刊 (Collectanea of creative and literary history

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ing this kind of playwriting have been developed102 and conferences and workshops on playwriting held.103

works by faculty of the Xiwen Xi of Zhongguo Xiqu Xueyuan). What appears to be the first title published under this last variant, Wu Xinmiao 吳新苗, Wenben, wutai yu xiqu shi yanjiu 文本, 舞臺與戲曲史研究 (Studies on text, stage, and the history of Chinese indigenous theater; Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue, 2017), includes a “General Preface” (“Zongxu” 總序) for the collectanea by its editor, Xie Boliang 謝柏梁. It mentions, as belonging to the collectanea, 2011 collections of plays (same press as the others from that year) by former departmental faculty member Hao Yinbo 郝蔭柏 and a different department faculty member Kuisheng 奎生 and a collection that combines the work of faculty and students of the department, Xie Boliang 謝柏梁, ed., Guoxi wenmai: Zhongguo xiqu xueyuan Xiwen xi shisheng juzuo julun ji 國戲文脈: 中國戲曲學院戲文系師生劇作劇 論集 (The literary pulse of Zhongguo Xiqu Xueyuan: A collection of plays and articles by the teachers and students of Xiwen Xi of Zhongguo Xiqu Xueyuan; Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 2008; includes 12 plays by faculty, including visiting faculty [kezuo jiaoshou 客座 教授; Luo Huaizhen is among their number], five of which are Jingju, and fifteen plays by students who got their degrees from the department, only one of which is Jingju). Since Wu Xinmiao’s book came out a new collection of plays by a department faculty member has appeared: Yan Quanyi 顏全毅, Yan Quanyi xiqu juzuo ji 顏全毅戲曲劇作 集 (Collected xiqu plays by Yan Quanyi; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 2019). 102 Such as Fan Junhong’s volumes; Zhang Peng 張彭 et al., Xiqu bianju chutan 戲曲編劇 初探 (A first exploration of xiqu playwriting; Jinan: Shandong remin, 1981); Yan Changke 顏長珂, Xiqu juzuo yishu tan 戲曲劇作藝術談 (Talks on the art of xiqu playwriting; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 1988); Zhou Chuanjia 周傳家 et al., Xiqu bianju gailun 戲曲編 劇概論 (An overview of xiqu playwriting; Hangzhou: Zhejiang meishu xueyuan, 1991); Chen Yaxian 陳亞先, Xiqu bianju qiantan 戲曲編劇淺談 (Shallow talks on xiqu playwriting; Taibei: Wenjin chubanshe, 1991); Guan Yong 貫涌, Xiqu juzuo fa jiaocheng 戲曲 劇作法教程 (A curriculum for teaching methods to write xiqu plays; Beijing: Wenhua yishu, 2002; this text is unusual in that it devotes an entire chapter, number seven, on stage directions, pp. 329–57); Hao Yinbo 郝蔭柏, Xiqu juben xiezuo jiaocheng 戲曲劇本 寫作教程 (A curriculum for writing xiqu playscripts; Beijing: Wenhua yishu, 2009; at the ends of each section there are lists of topics to think about, recommended readings, and sometimes, list of plays to watch [guanmo 觀摩]); Hu Shijun 胡世均 (former member of Xiwen Xi), Bianju lilun yu jiqiao tanyou 編劇理論與技巧探幽 (An investigation into the secrets of playwriting theory and technique; Beijing: Wenhua yishu, 2017); and Yang Xiaohui 楊曉輝, Jingju changqiang xiezuo 京劇唱腔寫作 (Composing Jingju aria music; Shanghai: Shanghai shiji, 2017). 103 Selected papers from one held in Taiwan but with Mainland scholars participating was published as: Liang’an xiqu bianju xueshu yantao hui lunwen ji 兩岸戲曲編劇學術研 討會論文集 (Collected articles from the both sides of the Taiwan Straits conference on playwriting for Chinese indigenous theater; Taibei: Theater Department, Taiwan University, 2004). In the “General Preface” to the departmental collectanea by Xie Boliang mentioned above (p. 2), he mentions a playwriting workshop that the department has been holding since 2016 (that year I was invited to give a lecture to the participants, younger professional xiqu playwrights from across China).

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Another center of xiqu playwriting instruction in China is the Xiju Wenxue Xi 戲劇文學系 (Theater literature department) at Shanghai Xiju Xueyuan 上 海戲劇學院 (Shanghai Academy of Theater). According to the official website (xw.sta.edu.cn, accessed July 3, 2018), the faculty of the department had 13 professors, 9 associate professors, 10 lecturers, and 2 visiting professors (one of whom is Luo Huaizhen). Of their faculty, Song Guangzu 宋光祖 (1939–2013) can be considered both most prolific and influential (in his time).104 Despite the efforts put into producing new playwrights, there is great skepticism about how well China has succeeding in reaching that goal105 and concern that the state of play writing is in a state of crisis because of the fall in the number of playwrights on staff at theater companies. A recently published collection of “white papers” on this problem from theater companies across China concludes with an essay whose title begins “Daole zui weixian de shihou” 到了最危險的時候 (We’ve arrived at the most dangerous time).106 From this collection we learn that on the staff of the companies in the Beijing area, there is a total of only 22 professional playwrights presently employed, including only one for Beijing Jingju Yuan, and just three at Zhongguo Jingju Yuan.

104 Song wrote Xiqu xiezuo jiaocheng 戲曲寫作教程 (A curriculum for xiqu composition; Beijing: Renmin ribao, 1992); Xiqu xiezuo lun 戲曲寫作論 (Essays on xiqu composition; Shanghai: Baijia chubanshe, 2000); and Xiqu xiezuo chuji jiaocheng 戲曲寫作初級教程 (An entry-level curriculum for xiqu composition; Beijing: Wenhua yishu, 2009). There is an article on him and his teaching: Zhang Hong 張泓, “Ping Song Guangzu xiqu xiezuo kecheng tese” 評宋光祖戲曲寫作課程特色 (On the special characteristics of Song Guangzu’s teaching of xiqu composition), Xiju yishu 2010.3: 86–91, and a collection of his and his students plays: Song Guangzu 宋光祖 et al., Shisheng xiqu ji 師生戲曲集 (Collection of xiqu plays by teacher and students; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 2006; includes nine plays, three of which are Jingju). 105 For an example, see Guan Erdong 管爾東, “Lun xiqu juben chuangzuo de xianzhuang yu duice” 論戲曲劇本創作的現狀與對策 (On the present situation with regard to the creation of xiqu playscripts and strategies to deal with that situation), Xiqu yanjiu 95 (2015): 47–58. One of the sections has this heading: “The scarcity and predicaments of xiqu playwriting talent” (“Xiqu bianju rencai de duanque yu kunjing” 戲曲編劇人才的短缺與困 境), pp. 49–52. 106 See Li Xiaoqing 李小青, “Daole zui weixian de shihou: Lai zi Quanguo juben chuanzuo he juzuo jia xianzhuang xinxi jiaoliu hui de baogao” 到了最危險的時候: 來自全國劇 本創作和劇作家現狀信息交流會的報告 (We’ve arrived at the most dangerous time: A report from the national conferences on exchanging information on playscript creation and the situation of playwrights), in Ji Guoping 季國平, ed., Zhongguo juben chuangzuo baipi shu 中國劇本創作白皮書 (White papers on playscript creation in China; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 2014), pp. 285–92, which includes a section entitled “The precipitous decline in the ranks of playwrights” 編劇隊伍嚴重衰落. The conferences mentioned in Li Xiaoqing’s paper title were held in 2009, 2011, and 2013, respectively.

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Since we have looked at two Zhongguo Jingju Yuan playwrights (Weng Ouhong and Fan Junhong) already, and this is the only national-level company, I would like to take a closer look at the white paper on that company.107 It begins by laying out the history of playwriting at that company (the playwrights were originally housed in the “Wenxue Zu” 文學組 [Literature section], of which Fan Junhong was associate director). Ten names (including the director and associate director of that section) are listed as among the first generation of playwrights for the Company (Weng Ouhong, of course, is among their number). Four names are then listed as members of the second generation. The productivity of those two generations is then proven. The first generation is said to be comprised of people who loved Jingju from when they were very young, and include some who were piaoyou and even became professional actors (which echoes what has been said above about Weng and Fan). The first generation is said to have been helped by or collaborated with actors who, without the title of playwright, did a lot of playwriting work. Five men are listed primarily as administrators in the Company and not playwrights, but who also wrote plays (these include Tian Han and Ma Shaobo). In the section on developing new talent, it is said that in contrast to the first generation of playwrights, those in the second generation had been assigned to the company after graduating from college. Their literary skills and familiarity with Marxist thought is said to be good, but their knowledge of Jingju weak or even nonexistent. Efforts were taken to make good that deficit (including, for instance, workshops that included lectures by Weng and Fan). Now, however, all of the members of the second generation have retired and, as mentioned above, there are only three playwrights actively working for the Company, and they have additional responsibilities. To meet the need for new plays for the allimportant annual competitions and to fulfill other commitments, playwrights from outside the Company are relied on (a list of six such playwrights is given). As for whether hiring graduates of Xiwen Xi has been helpful, the Company has accepted a total of eleven graduates from that department, “but for a variety of reasons, most have left the Company or taken up other responsibilities” 由於種種原因, 大多數或離開劇院, 或轉行從事其他工作.108 Although, since after the Cultural Revolution, playwrights (and other professionals) have been 107 Peng Wei 彭維, “Guojia Jingju yuan bianju rencai yu jumu chuanzuo diaoyan baogao” 國 家京劇院編劇人才與劇目創作調研報告 (Report on an investigation and research on playwriting human resources and repertoire creation at the National Jingju Company), in Ji Guoping, ed., Zhongguo juben chuangzuo baipi shu, pp. 3–12. This paragraph is based on information given in this paper and page citations will only be given for direct quotations of language from it. Peng’s article was separately published in Juben 2014.1: 56–60. 108 Peng Wei, “Guojia Jingju yuan bianju rencai yu jumu chuanzuo diaoyan baogao,” p. 12.

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employed at one of four different levels, from the lowest, fourth level, to the highest, first level, in the white paper that terminology is not used.109 The pride that the Zhongguo Jingju Yuan white paper has in its senior, famous playwrights, such as Weng Ouheng, is also very evident in the onehundred-plus-page booklet published to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the Company in 1995.110 That booklet includes a chart listing twenty-six prizes that the company’s plays have won,111 although instead of a column to list the playwrights, there is one labeled “zhuchuang renyuan” 主創人員 (principal creators) and some of the prizes are for direction and only six of the awards were specifically awarded for the playscript or play writing ( juben 劇本, bianju 編劇). There is a set of prizes for playwriting named after Cao Yu that has been given out periodically for decades, but there are four separate categories, xiqu, geju, huaju, and ertong jumu that do not compete with each other, and announcements of the awards for xiqu plays do not indicate which

109 For an example of an article introducing this system of levels in employment that was reintroduced in 1979, see Jie Jiale 頡嘉樂, “Shitan zhicheng de dingmin he fenlei” 試談職稱 的定名和分類 (A provisional discussion of the definition of professional titles and their categories), Keji guanli yanjiu 科技管理研究 (Research and technology management) 1985.2: 40–43. It is possible to find lists of the requirements to achieve the first through third levels of playwrights in the national system, but not for the fourth. See http://www. baike.com/wiki “Guojia yiji bianju” 國家一級編劇 (First-level playwright, national system), https://baike.baidu.com/item/国家一级编剧, etc. (substitute the correct Chinese number when searching, the text after “item/” in the url will change accordingly; accessed July 2, 2018). 110 The bilingual introduction to the Company lists its playwrights from the founding to the present: Du Zhenyu, ed., Zhongguo Jingju yuan, pp. 7–9. A list of thirteen of the Company’s playwrights is given, and in the presentations of the plays created or adapted by members of the Company, pp. 31–80, credit is given prominently to the playwrights (typically, the playwrights are the first to be listed in the information on the plays). There is, however, one instance of a play being credited collectively to the “Wenxue Zu” (p. 68 [two persons are credited as zhibi]). The categories are bianju 編劇 (e.g., p. 31), gaibian 改變 (e.g., p. 31), juben zhengli 劇本整理 (e.g., p. 37; the play on this page also has Wang Yaoqing listed as guwen 顧問 [advisor]). The plays are divided into three categories: (1) “chuangzuo gaibian lishi ticai jumu” 創作改變歷史題材劇目 (newly-created plays working with historical material), (2) “zhengli gaibian chuantong jumu” 整理改變傳統劇目 (edited and adapted traditional plays), and (3) “chuangzuo gaibian xiandai ticai jumu” 創作改變 現代題材劇目 (newly-created plays working with contemporary material). Information about playwrights is most detailed for the first category, and is sometimes skipped for the second and third categories. The third category is the only one that has plays that date from the Cultural Revolution, but even for those, playwright information tends to be given. For instance, in the case of Hongdeng ji (p. 84), credit for the playwriting is given to Ajia 阿甲 (1907–1994) and Weng Ouhong. 111 Du Zhenyu, ed., Zhongguo Jingju yuan, p. 122.

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tradition ( juzhong) the plays were written for.112 There is also a Tian Han prize for playwriting that is also awarded periodically that has been around for a shorter time. In the case of that prize, playwrights writing huaju and xiqu plays are competing with each other, and three different levels of prizes are awarded. The type of Chinese theater the plays were written for is indicated, but not in a very systematic fashion.113 In the Zhongguo Jingju Yuan commemorative booklet’s list of prizes, neither of these two prizes figure, nor are these prizes mentioned in the white paper on Zhongguo Jingju Yuan. Also, neither work mentions the grades or levels of individual playwrights. The long-term trend in playwriting in the PRC was for it to become more professionalized and for stage actors to not do much playwriting. Many actors today, even the most famous, are not even able to personally design new music for new plays, as they once were able to do (this has also become professionalized). If the star system is revitalized, it is possible that actors might have more control and more personal creativity so that they could create their own liupai (styles/schools of performance). Whether or not new liupai have been created in the PRC has been used as a gauge of the health of Jingju. The consensus is that not many new liupai have been created in the PRC. What other new trends are there in Jingju playwriting? Female playwrights, once almost invisible in Jingju,114 have become more prominent,115 especially 112 For an announcement of the winners of the Cao Yu award for the years 1992–1993, see Zhongguo xiju nianjian 1995–1996, pp. 32–33. 113 A list of awardees for the eighth set of prizes can be found in Zhongguo xiju nianjian 1995–1996, p. 33. None of the 13 plays listed are explicitly labeled as Jingju. This particular round of prizes, no playwright won a first-level prize. 114 In the Ming and Qing dynasties a fair number of women wrote zaju and chuanqi plays but they were more often read than performed. A good introduction is Hua Wei, Ming Qing funü zhi xiqu chuangzuo yu piping. Jin Yuemei 金月梅 (1890–1926) was an early Hebei bangzi and Jingju actress from Tianjin. When she was eight she was sold into a household that taught her how to read. She was a courtesan before she became an actress. Wu Tongbin and Zhou Yaxun, eds., Jingju zhishi cidian (revised edition), p. 313, lists the literati she associated with (she ended up marrying one of them). The entry claims that she was good at performing new plays and that most of the scripts were written by herself. The titles of eleven of her plays is given. A later female Jingju playwright, Li Yuru 李玉茹 (1924–2008), also began as an actress. An anthology of eight plays by her has been published: Li Ruru 李如茹, ed., Li Yuru yanchu juben xuanji 李玉茹演出劇本選集 (A selection of performance playscripts by Li Yuru; Shanghai: Shanghai wenyi, 2010). 115 An example of a female Jingju playwright who has received a fair amount of attention would be Zou Yiqing 鄒憶青 (1938–), a playwright assigned to Zhongguo Jingju Yuan. She is interviewed in Tanxi shuoxi: Baiwei mingjia koushu bainian Jingju chuancheng shi 談戲說戲: 百位名家口述百年京劇傳承史 (Talking of plays, speaking plays: An oral history of the transmission of Jingju according to one hundred masters), 2 vols. (Shanghai: Shanghai wenhua, 2015), 2: 158–62, and Nanwang de jiyi: Zhongguo Jingju yuan yishu jia

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in Taiwan.116 The most influential Jingju playwright in Taiwan, Wang Anqi 王 安 (1955–), is a woman who is not only a playwright but also the artistic director of the national Jingju troupe and a very respected scholar and professor.117 She and her collaborators have injected a new “female” perspective into the plays they have written.118 Although there are now prominent female theater koushu shi 難忘的記憶: 中國京劇院藝術家口述史 (Hard to forget memories: An oral history of Zhongguo Jingju Yuan) Vol. 1 (Beijing: Zhongguo wenhua, 2016), pp. 264–91. 116 Hopefully, this is not a sign of the marginalization of playwriting in Taiwan. When I was an at-large student in the Chinese Department at Taiwan University in 1981–1982, it was often the case that in classes with thirty to forty students there would only be a couple of male students. There was even a widely circulating story that one particular male student had lied to his parents about his decision to get a degree from the department instead of in the hard sciences. For a convenient survey of Taiwan Jingju playwriting and playwriters from 1945–1975, in which male playwriters such as Qi Rushan, Yu Dagang 俞大綱, (1908–1977), Wei Ziyun 魏子雲 (1918–) and Zhang Daxia 張大夏 (1916–) predominated, see Wang Anqi 王安祈, “Taiwan Jingju xin jumu” 臺灣京劇新劇目 (New Jingju plays in Taiwan), Xiju 2003.3: 17–19. 117 There is a biography of her, Zhang Qifeng 張啟豐 and Zeng Jiankai 曾建凱, Wang Anqi pingzhuan 王安祈評傳 (A critical biography of Wang Anqi; Beijing: Zhongguo wenlian, 2016), that draws heavily on Wang’s own writings about how she became a playwright and her career as a playwright. For an example of the latter, see Wang’s “Yige Jingju bianju de zixue jingli” 一個京劇編劇的自學經歷 (The course of self-study of a Jingju playwright), in Liang’an xiqu bianju xueshu yantao hui lunwen ji, pp. 149–79. Wang did a doctoral decree under Zeng Yongyi on Ming dynasty theater. She published her first collection of Jingju plays in 1991. Another Taiwan female Jingju playwright, Liu Huifen 劉慧芬, was originally an actor. She has retired from acting and has an academic position and has published a book on playwriting, Jingju juben bianzhuan lilun yu shiwu 京劇劇本編撰理論 與實務 (The theory and practice of writing Jingju plays; Taibei: Wenjin chubanshe, 2005) and a collection of her plays has appeared: Xiqu juben bianjuan “sanbu qu”: Yuanchuang, gai­bian, xiubian: Liu Huifen xiqu juben xuanji 戲曲劇本編撰 “三部曲”: 原創, 改編, 修 編: 劉慧芬戲曲劇本選集 (A “trilogy” of xiqu playwriting: Original composition, adaptation, and revision: A selection of Liu Huifen’s xiqu playscripts; Taibei: Wenjin chubanshe, 2010). A 2010 Taiwan Normal University master’s thesis has been written about her playwriting: Huang Jiaping 黃嘉平, “Jingju laoxi de xiubian yu gaibian yanjiu—Yi Liu Huifen ‘Guoguang’ juzuo wei fanwei” 京劇老戲的修編與改變研究—以劉慧芬 ‘國光’ 劇作為範圍 (Research on the revision and adaptation of old Jingju plays—Taking Liu Huifen’s “Guoguang” plays as parameter). 118 See, for instance, Wang Wenling 王文伶, “Guoguang jutuan xinbian Jingju de nü­xing shuxie yanjiu” 國光劇團新編京劇的女性書寫研究 (Research on female writing in the newly written plays of the Guoguang Troupe), master’s thesis, Taibei Municipal University of Education, 2011, and the last part of the title of a collection of four of Wang Anqi’s plays: Jiangchun, zhuxiu, liang jimo: Jingju, nüshu 絳唇, 珠袖, 兩寂寞: 京劇, 女 述 (Crimson lips, pearl-like sleeves, both all alone: Jingju, female writing; Taizhong: INK, 2008). These four plays premiered between 2004 and 2006. The second and third of them were co-written with Zhao Xuejun 趙雪君. For summary details on the four plays, see p. 19. Among other things, the volume contains essays on the plays by Wang Anqi and

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directors (most are associated with huaju, but as has been the case for a long time, huaju directors are often called in to direct xiqu plays) in the PRC, there are no prominent female Jingju directors yet. As mentioned above, reformation of Jingju troupes has opened up new possibilities for collaboration. There has also been a tendency for playwrights originally associated with local theater forms to begin to write for more prestigious ones, as in the case of Luo Huaizhen 羅懷臻 (1956–).119 This is probably related to how distinctions between different types of indigenous theater in China have tended to become less sharp as there has been more interaction among them, interaction that has been facilitated by new media and increased chances for collaboration (and the potential commercial draw of such collaboration). A “small theater” (xiao juchang 小劇場) movement for xiqu plays seems finally to have gained some momentum in the PRC, and that is a great opportunity for new playwrights to experiment.120 Jingju plays have also begun to be more self-reflexive, as is the case with Wang Anqi’s “trilogy of plays about actors” (lingren sanbu 伶人三部) in Taiwan,121 and Sheng Heyu’s 盛和煜 Zhao Xuejun, and by the director, Li Xiaoping 李小平, in a section called “Bian dao li­nian” 編導理念 (Concepts informing the playwriting and direction). As explained on a separate page before the table of contents, the main title of the collection comes from a line by Du Fu. 119 As mentioned in one of the notes above, Luo was originally a Huaiju actor who began by writing plays for Huaiju but later wrote plays for a variety of Chinese indigenous theater genres, including the more prestigious Jingju and Kunqu. For an introduction to Luo and a translation of perhaps his most famous play for Huaiju, see Wenwei Du, “Golden Dragon and Mayfly: A Huaiju Play by Luo Huaizhen,” CHINOPERL Papers 31 (2012): 113–62. 120 Since 2007 there has been a venue with five small theaters for such plays (huaju and xiqu) in Beijing: Fanxing Xiju Cun 繁星戲劇村 (Cluster of stars theater village). On the little theater movement in Taiwan, see Lü Jiarong 呂佳蓉, “Taiwan Jing Kun xiqu xiao juchang yanjiu (2004–2011)” 臺灣京崑戲曲小劇場研究 (2004–2011) (On the little theater movement in Jingju Kunqu and Chinese indigenous theater in Taiwan), master’s thesis, National Chengchi University, 2013. 121 These three plays have been published along with another one, in Wang Anqi 王安祈, Shuixiu, huahun, yanzhi—Juben ji 水袖, 畫魂, 胭脂—劇本集 (Water sleeves, the spirit of a painting, rouge—A collection of plays; Taibei: Duli zuojia, 2013). Wang has included separate essays for each play that present a “self-autopsy” (zipou 自剖) of the process of their creation. The second phrase in the title of the collection, huahun 畫魂, refers to the name of the fourth play, which is labeled as a geju 歌劇 (opera) in the table of contents. Although Wang has not done this in the table of contents of the collection, elsewhere she has labeled the first play in the trilogy, Meng Xiaodong 孟小冬, as a “Jingju gechang ju” 京 劇歌唱劇 (play with Jingju singing) to distinguish it from the other two plays in the trilogy, Bainian xilou 百年戲樓 (One hundred-year old theater) and Shuixiu yu yanzhi 水袖 與胭脂 (Water sleeves and rouge), and ordinary Jingju plays. At the end of the anthology, there is a chronological list of Wang’s plays that covers twenty-four plays of hers (some co-written) that premiered from 1985 to 2013 (the list indicates that Bainian xilou was

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Mei Lanfang 梅蘭芳 (labeled as a Jingju jiaoxiang jushi 京劇交響劇詩 [Jingju symphonic dramatic poem]; premiered 2004 for the 110th anniversary of Mei’s birth)122 and Wang Xinhua’s 王新紀 Qiu Shengrong 裘盛戎 (premiered in 2015 for the 100th anniversary of Qiu’s birth)123 in the PRC. We can conclude this chapter by noting that there is indeed a profession called Jingju playwright, for which one can supposedly be trained by getting a degree in the subject. We can also note that academically-trained Jingju playwrights have not done so well, and that the number of professional Jingju playwrights has declined to the point that that is a major point of concern. But we can also note that Jingju playwrights have new forums in which to display their creativity, and new subjects to explore. co-written with two other playwrights, and that Shuixiu yu yanzhi is a combination of Jingju with Kunju [Jingju jiehe Kunju 京劇結合崑劇]; p. 285). 122 On this production, see Elizabeth Wichmann-Walczak, “Re-Acting to the Occupation: The Beijing Jingju Company’s Mei Lanfang,” in Richard King et al., eds., Sino-Japanese Transculturation from the Late Nineteenth-Century to the End of the Pacific War (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2012), pp. 239–59. She presents the director, Chen Xinyi 陳薪伊, as the true creator of the play. 123 In the fancy program for the play, Wang Xinhua appears after Lin Zhaohua 林兆華, the famous huaju director who has been involved in a number of xiqu projects lately, who was the “artistic director” (yishu zhidao 藝術執導) for the play. The playscript was published in Juben 2016.11: 46–60. The play is largely about Qiu Shengrong during the Cultural Revolution, and his relationship to the yangban xi Dujuan shan, whose script Wang Zengqi worked on. Wang Zengqi, who died in 1997, wrote a play about Qiu entitled Qiu Shengrong, and there is a character based on him in Wang Xinhua’s play (Wang’s Qiu Shengrong does not seem to have had a life on the stage). Wang’s Qiu Shengrong can be found in Wang Zengqi wenji: Xiqu juben 汪曾祺文集: 戲曲劇本 (The writings of Wang Zengqi: Xiqu playscripts; Nanjing: Jiangsu wenyi, 1993), pp. 277–332. On Wang and yang­ ban xi, see Liu Lin 劉琳, “ ‘Wenge’ shiqi de Wang Zengqi yu ‘yangban xi’ ” ‘文革’ 時期的 汪曾祺與 ‘樣板戲’ (Wang Zengqi in the Cultural Revolution and yangban xi), master’s thesis, Jilin University, 2017 (Wang also worked on the script for Shajiabang). On Wang’s Jingju plays in general, see Rong Xi 榮昕, “Wang Zengqi Jingju juben yanjiu” 汪曾祺京劇 劇本研究 (A study of Wang Zengqi’s Jingju playscripts), master’s thesis, Sichuan Normal University, 2013.

Chapter 6

New Kinds of Publication Xikao was printed using modern movable type as a commercial project, and has been spoken of as a “best-seller” in its day. Old-style lithography was still in use during the decade-plus that it took for all forty installments of Xikao to appear, but would be eclipsed by movable type and by forms of photolithography (already used to reproduce the photos in Xikao). The potential audience for printed books was quite large when Xikao was printed, and would only grow with the increasing spread of literacy over time, but would also continue to diversify. Xikao had three main components (photographs of actors, introductions to plays, and playscripts) and seemed to have been designed to satisfy at least as many different audiences: fans of actors interested in seeing photos of them (and not concerned that there was almost no co-ordination between the photos and the plays in each installment), theater-goers not that familiar with the repertoire who want to do a little preparation work before seeing certain plays (it would take time before plot summaries would begin to appear in performance programs), and people interested in access to “full” versions of plays, either to prepare even further before seeing certain plays (at the time, subtitles were not shown in theaters), as scripts to use in amateur or professional performances in which they would participate, or (perhaps least likely) as light reading (a form of literature).1 Although certain of the introductions in Xikao advocate for the plays they introduce (arguing that, for instance, although they have disappeared from the stage in recent years they should be revived), Xikao does not have the kind of “program” that we see in governmentsponsored or approved printings of play texts for performance because there was a belief that such performances would transform people and society in a positive direction (as we have seen in the case of the promotion of Yu Zhi’s plays and GMD and PRC publication of plays). With its title, and with its at least pretense to take the study of Jingju seriously, Xikao is also connected with the growing number of scholars who wanted to turn Jingju into an object of study (see chapter 4). 1 As mentioned in a note above, the notices for the revised versions of installments of Jiuju jicheng claimed that even the original versions could meet the needs of all of these types of people. It also claimed that reading playscripts was crucial to understanding plays, since if you want to understand plays, you have to watch plays, while in order to “be clear about what is going on onstage you must read ‘playscripts,’ as they are the most fundamental resource for understanding theater” 明瞭臺上之劇情而必需閱讀 ‘劇本,’ 為觀賞戲劇之根本參考.

© David L. Rolston, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004463394_008

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We are used to, in the modern West, a division between “acting” versions of plays, for which you have to pay royalties to perform and which contain information that would be of less or little interest to readers, and versions printed for readers. This dichotomy, for a variety of reasons, has generally not been that prominent in the publication of Jingju plays in China.2 One factor is that actors, even amateurs (with the help of teachers), were expected to be able to fill in rather bare-bone texts. On the other hand, provision of extensive stage directions could happen in editions clearly designed for reading, and could be understood as primarily motivated as facilitating the reader’s imagination of the mise en scène rather than aids to reproduce the play on stage. In the PRC especially, it became very popular to publish “performance versions” (yanchu juben 演出劇本) of classic plays developed by Jingju stars.3 While these editions do give the text as performed by those artists, the stage directions are very disappointing in that they typically give no clue as to what it was about the stars’ performance of these plays that made them classic. They are basically historical and “descriptive” (although, again, the amount of description is not great), whereas a different kind of “performance version” was also published, versions that were to be performed.4 These include the versions of the 2 The idea that Zhui baiqiu, for instance, was printed for actors in the eighteenth century, is very persistent, despite the fact than none of the paratextual material spells that out. There is, however, at least one example of a collection of chuanqi plays that claims that it was printed for use by performers. In the “Little Preface” (“Xiaoyin” 小引) by Outang jushi 耦 塘居士 to the “pocket” (xiuzhen 袖珍) edition from Jingshu tang 經術堂 of Liweng Shi’er zhong qu 笠翁十二種曲 (Li Yu’s twelve plays), there is the statement: “this compact edition is being printed for the convenience of boy singers’ singing practice” 縮本付刊, 取便歌兒 誦習. See Li Zhiyuan, Ming Qing xiqu xuba yanjiu, p. 199. 3 In the PRC, typeset collections of plays by famous stars with their names followed by these four characters and ending in xuan 選 (selection) or xuanji 選集 (selected collection) as titles were produced for Mei Lanfang (1954), Zhou Xinfang (1955), Xiao Changhua (1958), Xun Huisheng (1962), Hao Shouchen (1962), Cheng Yanqiu (1963), and Ma Lianliang (1963). 4 An example would be Wang Cheng 王程, Jingju Da Tan Er yanchu ben 京劇大探二演出 本 (Performance version of the Jingju [play series] Da baoguo [Xikao #66], Tan huangling [Xikao #97], and Er jingong [Xikao #81]; Beijing: Renmin yinyue, 2000). In the introduction (“Bianyan” 弁言) to the volume (pp. I–III), Wang gives a definition of “yanchu ben” 演出 本 as a text “undertaken for the real conditions of performance, that in great detail records, from the beginning to the end, the complete text to be spoken and sung, the vocal music, the melodic musical accompaniment (particularly the Jinghu), percussion patterns, fixed tune patterns, stage directions, accompanied by information on costuming and make-up and plot summary, that can be used for rehearsal and performance” 因為按演出的實際進行, 詳記 了從開場到結束的全部臺詞、唱腔、伴奏 (京胡) 、鑼鼓、曲牌、舞臺調度, 並附 有人物穿關扮相及劇情介紹, 可據以排演. Wang explains that his version is based primarily on a recording (shikuang 實況) of a staged version by a Tianjin troupe (the signature to the preface indicates that it was written in Tianjin, where Wang lives; I have not yet been

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yangban xi mentioned above and some other editions that specifically present themselves as published for that reason. In any case, as published plays, and the media and their formats and level of detail and kinds of detail, continued to diversify, and the likelihood that they would be accompanied by paratextual material that contextualized the playscript and made clearer whom its implied consumer was increased, we move away from the “one-size-fits-all” model of Xikao. Plays were published in different kinds of anthologies (with the variety increasing as time went on), as single-volume books, in periodicals, in special publications for individual actors, and with or without annotation, detailed stage directions, and musical notation. When there was a felt need to standardize the performance of particular plays, such as with the yangban xi, amateur performances of which were encouraged, or to provide extra detail so as to accommodate audiences less familiar with Jingju acting, extremely detailed versions of performance versions could be produced.5 Apart from editions aimed at performers and afficionados, there were also editions aimed at a more general public. Minzhong xiaoshuo xiqu duben of 1935–1937 was discussed above. It began as acting scripts for students but then an attempt was made to format the plays so that they would be read more as “reading material” (duben) rather than playscripts. This involved extended plot summaries written up as if they were fiction (hence the appearance of “xiaoshuo” in the title) and labels categorizing what kinds of plays the able to further identify Wang), a “teaching version” ( jiaoxue ben 教學本) from Zhongguo Xiqu Xueyuan, and the versions included in Xikao. Wang explains that the plays have been performed for a long time but the texts for them are pretty settled (only minor differences), and that he has tried to make his version follow “mainstream” (dalu 大路) practice for them, at the same time that he points out places in the plays (particularly in certain aria types such as daoban 導板, yaoban 搖板, and sanban 散板, and in the precise percussion patterns used) that are more “flexible” (linghuo 靈活; contrasted with “strict rules” 硬性規定, and said to “retain greater room for creativity” 留有比較大的發揮餘地). Wang’s stage directions include spelling out when an actor should speak more loudly (gaosheng 高聲, p. 68), and give both the names of percussion patterns and their detailed notation. 5 “Performance version” play texts of yangban xi, which could be twice as long as regular ones, were mentioned in the notes to chapter 5. For a description of these editions, see Ma Shaobo et al., eds., Zhongguo Jingju shi, 3: 455–56. I would like to thank Tarryn Chun for re-drawing my attention to these editions when she was a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Michigan in 2016–2017. For an example of a recent “performance version” of a play lavishly illustrated (on that aspect, see below) and overloaded with information that is probably not necessary for most professionals, see Zhang Yao 張堯 and Wang Zicheng 王梓丞, eds., Fenmo qushu: Jingju jingdian jumu wutai guizhi zonglan: Baishe zhuan 粉墨氍毹: 京劇經典劇目舞臺規 制縱覽: 白蛇傳 (Face paint and stage carpet: Overview of the stage regulations of the classical repertoire of Jingju: The White Snake; Beijing: Renmin youdian, 2016). Reportedly, more volumes in this series are planned to appear.

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individual plays were in intuitive categories not related to the way plays are divided up by afficionados and professionals. The “Plot” (“Gushi” 故事) section of the installment for Silang tanmu (Xikao #22) is forty pages long (36% of the total length of the volume), uses “storyteller phrases” such as huashuo 話說 (the story goes; p. 1) and bubiao, qieshuo 不表, 且說 (we won’t tell about [that] anymore, but instead speak of …; p. 16) familiar from traditional vernacular fiction, underlines personal names and place names,6 and includes dialogue between characters in the story.7 Each page has a relatively small number of Chinese characters (thirteen rows of 19 characters in each row in this section of the volume), which are fairly large and easy to read. There are four pages (pp. 103–106) of notes (a total of 19), all of which concern cultural, literary, and historical material, and none of which involve terms exclusive to the world of Jingju and Jingju performance. Each volume was sold very cheaply. The price for the original printing of the one for Silang tanmu was seven cents (qifen 七 分), which would seem to argue that the printing was subsidized. It seems clear that the idea was to produce a series that would sell well and be influential, but those hopes were not fulfilled, perhaps because the publication of the series was not finished until the eve of the War of Resistance.8 6 In the original woodblock edition of Feng Menglong’s 馮夢龍 (1574–1646) Gujin xiaoshuo 古今小說 (Stories old and new; 1620), personal names and even more indirect ways to refer to characters such as nafu 那婦 (that woman) are underlined. For an example of a text that uses one kind of underlining for names of people and another for placenames, see Wang Mengsheng, Liyuan jiahua, item 6 of the fanli. For an example of a text that uses a special system to mark zhuanming 專名 (proper nouns), and includes an explanation for the practice in its “Biaodian fuhao zhi shuoming” 標點符號之說明 (Explanation of the punctuation symbols), see Bu’an 補菴, Bu’an tanxi 補菴談戲 (Talks about theater from Bu’an; privately published, 1924), which is photo-reprinted in Minguo Jing Kun shiliao congshu, vol. 14. 7 Adaptions of fiction into drama and drama into fiction have a long history in China. For an example of a minimal adaptation of a late Ming chuanqi play into the form of the traditional Chinese novel that is undated but probably appeared before the establishment of the Republic, see Rolston, “Oral Performing Literature,” pp. 86–87. Early in the twentieth century, when play texts were hard to come by (often because they were not fully written out in the first place), there was an organization that published fictionalized versions of “new plays”: Xinju Xiaoshuo She 新劇小說社, established in Shanghai in 1914. See Liu Hecheng 柳和 城, “Xinju xiaoshuo she yu ta de chuban wu” 新劇小說社與它的出版物 (The Society for publishing new plays as fiction and its publications), Chuban shiliao 出版史料 (Material concerning the history of publishing) 2007.3: 119–25. Separate collections of prose versions of the stories of Jingju have been published. An example is Chuantong Jingju gushi 傳統京 劇故事 (Stories of traditional Jingju plays). 4 vols. (Tianjin: Tianjin shehui kexue, 1999). 8 As will be remembered from the discussion of this set above, scholars who have written on it such as Matsuura Tsuneo have been unable to find copies of the plays published in the last batch of the set. Matsuura stresses how the collection has been forgotten and how even when it influenced later collections it was not credited, and does not even appear in the list

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A different approach was taken in Jingdian Jingju juben quanbian 經典京 劇劇本全編 (Complete collection of classic Jingju playscripts; 1996),9 which

presents in a single volume quite streamlined versions of almost seventy plays that still indicate, for instance, the aria-types for the arias, claiming at the same time that the collection is complete and selective (only includes “classic” plays). It seems to have been far more successful, with a fraction of the editorial effort, than Mingzhong xiaoshuo xiqu duben in terms of the number of copies printed10 and holdings in libraries (judging from WorldCat listings). The text that is spoken or sung is the core part of any Jingju playscript, but in early performance, what constituted the text of a play was highly negotiable. In early manuscripts of plays, you can find text that has been crossed out and new text written by its side or in the margins, or annotations that say that as for a certain designated segment of the text, there is an alternative possibility that would also be okay (ye ke 也可).11 Both disappear from printed versions, and the main way to indicate variants (when they are indicated, which remains quite rare) is through annotation or collation notes, or appendices containing alternate material,12 neither of which is very prominent in printed editions of Jingju plays in general, which while they might actually be the product of reference materials in Jingju jumu cidian (see the conclusion to Tsuneo Matsuura, “Shitan Minguo yi lai xiqu kanxin juben,” p. 237). 9 Published by Guoji Wenhua Chubanshe 國際文化出版社 of Beijing. 10 The copyright page indicates that 2,000 copies were printed for the first printing (I have seen no indication that it was reprinted). As we will see below, more and more Jingju play texts are available online for free, which reduces the need for such a volume as this one. 11 For examples (two), see Su wenxue congkan, 289: 209. 12 A series that uses both is Jingju qupu jicheng. This series has no general introduction or fanli; the editorial approach for the plays can differ widely. The very first play in the first volume, Mei Lanfang’s Yuzhou feng 宙風鋒 (The universal blade; Xikao #34), has many examples of footnotes that indicate alternative ways that parts of the play have been/can be performed. Some involve how Mei himself revised his approach to the play (e.g., p. 16, n. 1), some are just presented as alternatives (e.g., p. 17, n. 1). Some involve whether parts of the play are extracted and performed as a separate zhezi xi (e.g., p. 7, n. 2). For an example of a footnote that begins “you could also” (ye keyi 也可以), see p. 24, note 1 of this same play. For an example of a footnote in the second volume, to Hongyang dong (Xikao #2), that notes how other actors sing a part of an aria, see p. 16, note 1. Li Yuru’s notes to the second play in the collection, Mei Lanfang’s Guifei zuijiu (Xikao #192), are primarily about how, in her performance of the play, she differed from Mei (they also include the kind of material on character personality and motivation that one expects in an Ibsen play or Chinese huaju plays influenced by him and Strindberg [Li’s husband, Cao Yu, was strongly influenced by Ibsen and Strindberg and their stage directions]). In volume one, an entire scene from Bawang bie ji (Xikao #336) according to the way Mei Lanfang performed it early on, is included as an appendix (p. 141). One appendix presents text the annotator thinks should still be performed but is not (3: 284–87).

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of strenuous editing for a variety of purposes, from the political to the aesthetic to the practical, tend to hide all that editorial work, besides claiming in titles or paratextual material that a playscript has been collated/edited/corrected ( jiaozheng 校正) or revised (xiuding 修訂).13 The most complex cases of annotation and commentary on Jingju play texts were published as single volumes and in periodicals, and will be discussed in the sections on those two forms of publishing playscripts below. Instances of notating how characters were supposed to be pronounced will be discussed in the section about musical notation. Because Jingju was taken, and continues to be taken, as a popular form of theater (despite the fact that in the twentieth-century literati such as Qi Rushan were writing plays for actors such as Tiannü sanhua [Xikao #485] that were criticized as too hard to understand), the glossing of vocabulary items in printed plays is quite rare, especially compared to modern scholarly editions of chuanqi plays such as Peony Pavilion.14 The glossing of technical terms related to Jingju (such as the names of percussion or movement patterns) is also not common, as compared, for instance, to scholarly editions of zaju and chuanqi plays.15

13 Just thinking about the editions of Silang tanmu (Xikao #22) that are mentioned in Lu Dawei 陸大偉 (David L. Rolston), “Jingju juben zhong wutai zhishi yanhua yu leibie chutan—Yi Silang tanmu lidai gezhong banben wei li” 京劇劇本中舞臺指示演化與 類別初探—以《四郎探母》歷代各種版本为例 (An initial exploration of the evolution and types of stage directions in Jingju playscripts—Using the various versions of Silang tanmu over time as examples), in Fu Jin, ed., Jingju de wenxue, yinyue, biaoyan, pp. 793–817, there are several that claimed to be “edited/corrected” ( jiaozheng 校正/jia­ oding 校訂), beginning as early as Liyuan jicheng and the lithographic editions of the late Qing and early Republic (pp. 799–803); there is also a 1955 edition from Taiwan that has xiuding in its title (p. 806). 14 To take volume one of Jingju qupu jicheng as an example again, such glosses are rare (in an admittedly quick search, I found less than five, two of which appeared on the same page, 1: 267, notes 1–2, both of which involve Beijing slang). A series that has not very many footnotes at all, but the majority of which involve glossing cultural terms (as opposed to Jingju terminology), is Jingju xuanbian. An example of a reference work that attempts to give readers help with understanding the kind of culturally-laden terms that appear in Jingju would be Ge Shiliang 葛士良 and Lin Ruikang 林瑞康, eds., Jingju diangu 京劇典 故 (Classical allusions in Jingju; Beijing: Wenhua yishu, 2003). 15 The most complete dictionary of such terms is Yu Handong, Zhongguo xiqu biaoyan yishu cidian.

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Single Plays Published in Anthologies

As we saw in chapters 1 and 2, a woodblock anthology of Jingju plays by multiple authors (Li Shizhong’s Liyuan jicheng) and one of the work of a single author (Yu Zhi’s Shuji tang jinyue) appeared in the early 1880s. They were followed by sets of lithographic editions of Jingju plays that were published in the last years of the Qing and the beginning of the Republic, some of which claimed to come from the same actor or troupe. These did not have the wide circulation or influence of Xikao, which combined the attractions of photographs of actors, “reference” material (the shukao that summarized the plots and sources, and might also discuss the performance history) for individual plays, and playscripts for those plays. The publishing success of Xikao and the many flaws in the conception and execution of its publication quickly called forth new anthologies of playscripts that presented themselves, explicitly or not, as improvements on the model of Xikao, as we saw in chapter 4. Many of these were aimed less at readers who wanted to be better prepared to consume live theater than amateur performers who wanted to themselves sing arias and act in plays (some advertised themselves as a way to avoid relying on actors to learn plays). Among professional actors and even among some amateur actors, manuscript versions of plays (and particularly of one’s own individual parts) continued to be important as late as the second half of the twentieth century,16 despite the availability of modern printing technology, but would eventually give way, in theater schools and theater companies, to the equivalent of mimeographed copies of entire texts,17 with room for the actors to add whatever annotation they need during the process of rehearsals and performances. 16

17

For instance, Li Jintang’s 李金棠 (1921–) father made manuscript copies of plays for him. See Li Yuanhao 李元浩, Buci bianchang yangchun: Jingju xusheng Li Jintang shengming jishi 不辭遍唱陽春: 京劇鬚生李金棠生命記實 (Not adverse to completely singing the most difficult of songs: An account of the life of laosheng actor Li Jintang; Yilan, Taiwan: Guoli chuantong yishu zhongxin, 2014), pp. 29–30. When I first went to the PRC in the early 1980s, copying machines were very rare, so to make multiple copies of papers for conferences, I would go to a “copy shop” whose staff would “cut” a manuscript version of the paper onto wax sheets that would be used to make mimeograph copies. Those wax sheets could also be typed on. For a photo-reprinted example of a playscript that was probably produced that way, see the copy of [Guifei] Zuijiu [貴妃] 醉酒 (undated) in Mei Lanfang yanchu juben huibian 梅蘭芳演出劇本彙 編 (A collection of Mei Lanfang performance scripts) 6 vols. (Beijing: Guojia tushu guan, 2015), 5: 93–98 (does not indicate aria-types). In my possession I have a playscript for Qunying hui (Xikao #42) that was probably reproduced using a later variant of this simple technology that I was given to use when teaching students how to do English subtitles at Zhongguo Xiqu Xueyuan in 2016. On its front page it is labeled “Jingju jiaocai” 京劇教材 (Jingju teaching material).

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Among the changes or improvements that later collections of Jingju plays included were the provision of dramatis personae or character lists, which would often include the characters’ role-types but would not tend to stipulate their social status or relationship to other characters in the play; such lists could also include details about each character’s costume and make-up.18 Some collections included outlines of each scene with a list of the characters that appear in each, somewhat reminiscent (probably not consciously so) of the backstage “outlines” (tigang) used in palace and commercial performances. Instead of the kind of “run-on” formatting that characterizes the formatting of almost all of the plays in Xikao, and the tendency not to explicitly divide multi-scene plays into numbered scenes that characterizes the majority of them, newer collections added most of these things and used the kind of system used in Western printed play texts by which material concerning only one actor or group of actors that act or speak in unison is included in one paragraph but then a new paragraph is used when another actor or group of actors speaks or is said to perform movements.19 The first installment of Xikao in its original version projected the idea that the collection would be divided according to the role-types of the lead characters, a system of arrangement that was carried over from the “Xikao” columns in Shenbao from which the collection developed (see chapter 3 above), but that idea was abandoned by the second installment and no other organizational system took its place. Later collections aimed at amateur singers and 18 19

Illustrations that function somewhat like dramatis personae occur in printed editions of plays as early as 1496. See Peters, Theatre of the Book, pp. 181–82. Most of these things appear in a list of things added to the plays in Xiuding Guoju xuan: renwu, fuzhuang, lianpu, fenchang, zuobiao 人物, 服裝, 臉譜, 分場, 做表 (dramatis personae, costumes, face paint patterns, division into scenes, and zuobiao). This list appears in the series preface, “Zhengli jingguo ji yaozhi” 整理經過及要旨 (Process of revision and main idea) in a copy from the series that I own: Quanbu Yuzhou feng 全部 宇宙鋒 (Complete version of Yuzhou feng [Xikao #34 is not complete]), front matter, item 2. The first three items in the list are actually combined together in a single, very detailed chart in the front matter. What zuobiao refers to is a bit of a puzzle. It surely refers to stage directions, and probably to more than usually detailed stage directions, but the stage directions in Quanbu Yuzhou feng are not really more detailed than you would find in a Xikao playscript, and there is no extra section of the text that could be called a “zuobiao.” Item 1 of “Zhengli jingguo ji yaozhi” describes “commercial” ( fangjian 坊間) playscripts as “mostly have nothing but aria texts, dialogue, and plot summaries and are thus not entirely complete” 大多僅有唱詞, 念白及劇情說明, 未 盡完備, while item 2, after the list, describes the playscripts in the series as “complete and serviceable” (wanzheng shiyong 完整適用). The plays in this series use the paragraphing system described above to divide each character’s parts from the others, but do not include a scene outline.

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performers were often arranged according to types of plays (i.e., which roletypes were featured) for their users’ convenience. Other collections were of plays associated with star actors and/or particular performance tours or performance styles (liupai), with individual playwrights,20 Jingju companies, or particular localities; the internal divisions in a single collection could also reflect such categories. Some collections that included Jingju along with other plays used titles calculated to recall earlier collections of more prestigious plays.21 Plays within a collection could also be arranged according to their historical setting, the system commonly used in Jingju reference books.22 Whereas before 20 A rather unusual example of an author publishing his plays occurs in Qian Jiuyuan, Haipai Jingju de aomiao, which basically reproduces the author’s doctoral dissertation but whose appendices include seven of the author’s plays (pp. 169–360) that were written in the year after graduation, while he was unemployed (see p. 2 of the preface). The plays, however, are not Jingju plays and do not seem to have any direct connection with the subject of the dissertation, but he was a graduate of the department in which Song Guangzu (see chapter 5) taught. 21 An example is Hou Liushi zhong qu 後六十種曲 (Later sixty plays), 10 vols. (Shanghai: Fudan daxue, 2013), which includes as many as eight Jingju plays. The title of the collection recalls Liushi zhong qu, a very influential Ming dynasty collection of (mostly) chuanqi plays. 22 Arranging a collection of Jingju playscripts by historical setting dates all the way back to Liyuan jicheng (1880), while claiming that a collection of plays was from the same troupe or associated with a single actor was prominent in the lithographic collections of the late Qing and early Republic. When Jingju huibian was reprinted in 2009 as Jingju chuantong juben huibian, the order of the plays was changed to follow their historical settings, from earliest to latest. Notes above have listed collections of yanchu ben associated with star actors published in the early PRC and of the work of specific Jingju playwrights. Examples of collections of plays printed for performance tours or regular performances to meet the demands of special audiences would include those printed for Mei Lanfang’s tour of Hong Kong in 1922 (mentioned in chapter 2 above) and by Shang Xiaoyun for a performance tour of thirty-one days in Shanghai in 1927. On the latter, see Yilou zhuren 怡樓主 人, “Fakan Qixia juben de yuanqi” 發刊绮霞剧本的緣起 (The story behind the publication of Plays of Shang Xiaoyun; Qixiao was Shang’s biehao), Xiju yuekan 1.8 (1929), separate pagination, pp. 3–4 in the section on Shang Xiaoyun’s “fan club,” Shangyou she 尚友社; this piece explains the original motivation, to help the audience understand his plays better, and the plan to distribute them free at performances; it appears that only the play being performed on a particular day was distributed, but after the tour leftover copies were put together into a collection and offered for the price of postage; on the latter, see “Shang Xiaoyun juben huikan” 尚小雲劇本彙刊 (Shang Xiaoyun’s playscripts collected), Xiju yuekan 1.12 (June 1929), separate pagination. There are two collections of plays arranged by liupai: Jingju liupai jumu huicui 京劇流派劇目薈萃 (Distinguished assemblage of plays representative of different liupai), 10 vols. (Beijing: Wenhua yishu, 1989–1996) and Zhongguo Jingju liupai jumu jicheng 中國京劇流派劇目集成 (Compendium of Jingju liupai plays of China), 40 vols. (Beijing Xueyuan chubanshe, 2006–2015). Later examples of collection of plays associated with one Jingju company would include Zhongguo Jingju

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modern times, fiction and drama was never (well, there is one exception, Song Maocheng 宋懋澄 [1569–1620], who included works of literary language fiction in his collected writings and even labeled a section with a title, “Bai” 稗, that means “fiction”23) included in a person’s collected works (quanji 全集), in the PRC not only have the published collected works of literati such as Ouyang Yuqian (1990) and Tian Han (2000) included their plays, but so have the collected works of actors such as Mei Lanfang (2000)24 and Zhou Xinfang (2014). Xikao included more than just Jingju plays and did not try to define Jingju or enforce any borders between kinds of plays (although there was clear frustration at being unable to find a good version of the Jingju version of Fenhe wan [Xikao #324] and having to use a bangzi one [Xikao #127] as a placeholder for many years). Collections before Xikao included the word Jingdiao but that was used to refer to both Jingju and bangzi (see chapter 1 above). In 1929, however, installments of a collection of plays appeared that called itself Pihuang xichu daguan 皮黃戲齣大觀 (Compendium of Pihuang plays),25 and Pingju huikan 平劇彙刊 (Collected printings of Pingju) appeared in 1936–1941 in forty-one yuan yanchu juben xuanji 中國京劇院演出劇本選集 (Selected performance editions of Zhongguo Jingju Yuan plays; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 1959) and Xin shiqi Shanghai Jingju yuan chuangzuo juben xuan (2005). An example of a collection from one source would be Dingping laoren 鼎平老人, ed., Nanfu xiju miben 南府戲劇秘本 (Secret copies of playscripts from the palace; Tianjin: Xin Tianjin bao she, 1935). For an example of a playscript collection from a geographic locality, see Hubei Jingju juzuo xuan 湖北京劇劇作 選 (Selected Hubei Jingju plays; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 1989); the idea of a Hunan-style (Epai 鄂派) of Jingju based on Zhu Shihui and creative personnel of the provincial Jingju company was discussed in the Introduction. The earliest modern collection of any substantial size of the plays of any one actor is one of Zhou Xinfang’s plays, published under his stage name, Qilin tong zhenben 麒麟童真本 (True plays of Zhou Xinfang), ten installments (Shanghai: Guocui chubanshe, 1938). 23 On Song, his fiction, and his collected works, see Patrick D. Hanan, “The Making of ‘The Pearl-Sewn Shirt’ and ‘The Courtesan’s Jewel Box,’ ” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 33 (1973): 124–53. 24 The 2016 version of Mei’s collected works does not include his plays, while the 2000 one gives over half of its eight volumes to play texts and arias of his (some of the former lack musical notation, all of the latter have musical notation). For a comparison of Mei’s two collected works and the reason why the second one (Fu Jin 傅謹, ed., Mei Lanfang quanji 梅蘭芳全集 [Complete works of Mei Lanfang], 8 vols. [Beijing: Beijing chubanshe and Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 2016]) does not include his plays, see David L. Rolston, “Research Note: Fu Jin 傅謹, ed., Mei Lanfang quanji 梅蘭芳全集 (2016),” in CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature 36.2 (December 2017): 173–74. The plays of Yu Dagang, who was a professor in Taiwan, were included in his collected works (1987). 25 The name given on the copyright page to the sixth installment, however, was Jingdiao xiqu daguan 京調戲曲大觀 (Compendium of Jingdiao theater; Beiping: Zhonghua yinshu guan, 1929).

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installments and Xiuding Pingju xuan in 1945–1948, although during these years titles that did not indicate that the plays were Jingju, such as Jiuju jicheng 舊劇集成 (1939–1945), were still used. Not long after the establishment of the PRC it became very common for collections of Jingju plays to have Jingju in their titles,26 and when Jingju plays were included in collections that were notJingju exclusive, then the sections they appeared in or the plays themselves would be labeled Jingju.27 Collections of local theater traditions other than Jingju were printed as early as 1923.28 All the collections mentioned above are typeset editions. Collections of photo-reprints of play texts that were never published have become more and more numerous. These include collections that photo-reprint playscripts that originated in the palace, most of which include Jingju playscripts. The largest scale one is also the most recent: Gugong bowu yuan cang Qinggong Nanfu Shengpingshu xiben 故宮博物院藏清宮南府昇平署戲本 (Qing dynasty play texts from the Nanfu and Shengpingshu held in the Forbidden Palace Museum; 2015–2017). Published by the Museum’s own publishing press in 450 26

Reprints of Jiuju jicheng in the PRC, for instance, included one that still used Jiuju jicheng as the main title but changed “Jingchao pai” 京朝派 (Capital-style) to Jingju in the coverpage captions (Beijing: Baowen tang, 1953–1954) and one that changed the title to Jingju wutai yanchu ben 京劇舞臺演出本 (Jingju stage performance texts; Beijing: Wenda shuju, 1954). In the 1990s, Pan Xiafeng began a new series (using some of the old plays and material) under the title Jingju jicheng 京劇集成 (Compendium of Jingju plays) that was to include thirty installments with a total of 100 plays, but he died after the appearance of the first five installments (Beijing: Xin shijie, 1992–1993; there is an advance notice of the contents of the sixth installment at the end of the fifth). A Taiwan reprint of Jiuju jicheng changed the name to Guoju jicheng 國劇集成 (Taibei: Diyi wenhua, 1956). 27 An example would be Chuantong jumu huibian 傳統劇目彙編 (A collection of traditional plays; Shanghai: Shanghai wenyi, 1959–1963), 58 volumes, 26 of which are devoted to Jingju. The “Bianji shuoming” 編輯說明 (Editorial explanation) to this collection explains its purpose (item 1: to preserve and make available the material); the date of the plays (item 2: early); the source of the plays (item 3: either dictation [koushu 口述] or ms. copies); the process of editing the plays (item 3: indecent material was cut, everything else preserved as in the original [apart from the kind of editing mentioned earlier]); and the conditions of circulation and performance (item 4: the collection is only for “internal distribution” [neibu faxing 內部發行] and the need to edit and “elevate” [tigao 提高] any play in the collection before performing it). 28 An anthology of plays from a Southwestern China theater tradition, Dianxi 滇戲, was published under that title in 30 installments by Wuben Tang Shuju 務本堂書局 of Kunming in 1923 and reprinted in 1929. Twenty of the installments from the 1929 reprint are photo-reprinted in Su wenxue congkan, vols. 98–100. The cover and format of the collection are reminiscent of Xikao. Two collections of pingju 評劇 were published in the 1930s: Pingxi daguan 評戲大觀 (Compendium of pingju: Beijing: Xuegu tang shuzhuang, 1935) and Pingxi zhinan 評戲指南 (Guide to pingju: Dalian: Dalian yingyi she, 1939).

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volumes in three batches, it is said to reproduce all 11,498 volumes (ce 冊) of playscripts held by the Museum.29 There have also been collections of photo-reprints of playscripts connected to Fuliangcheng, Fuliancheng cang xiqu shiliao wenxian huikan 富連成藏戲曲史料文獻彙刊 (Compendium of Chinese indigenous theater historical material concerning Fuliancheng; 2016) in 30 volumes,30 and to Mei Lanfang: Mei Lanfang yanchu juben hui­ bian 梅蘭芳演出劇本彙編 (Collection of Mei Lanfang performance playscripts; 2015), in 6 volumes.31 There is also a large-scale three-part set of photo-reproductions of early modern (basically the nineteenth century and the first decade plus of the twentieth century) manuscript, woodbock, and lithographic playscripts held by Zhongguo Yishu Yanjiu Yuan 中國藝術研究 院 (Academy for Research on Chinese Arts).32 29

The “Qianyan” (Forward), 450: 14 [separate pagination]), claims that all playscripts held by the Museum (except those in too poor shape, whose names appear in the master and volume tables of contents with an annotation explaining the lack of their photoreproductions) are reproduced, and that the order just follows the way they are catalogued (no attempt is made to explain the principles behind that system, and none is apparent from browsing the table of contents and volumes). Item 6 of the fanli (also in vol. 450) claims that a separate index to the plays arranged in alphabetical order has been provided, but there is no sign of it in the 450 volumes. Some of the reproduced “playscripts” (xiben) are actually scripts for oral performing genres such as zidi shu. One-fourth of the playscripts held by the Museum were already photo-reprinted in Gugong zhen­ ben congkan, but at one-fourth of the size of the 450 volume set, which also contains far more single-actor playscripts (sides) than the latter (there are a lot, for instance, in vols. 392–94), and because it includes all pages in playscripts that have writing on them, this printing includes the covers ( fengmian 封面) to the plays, which are nowhere to be seen in Gugong zhenben congkan. Finally, the 450 volumes set has taken steps to make it very clear where the texts have slips with new characters written on them, and what text those slips are covering over (see the item on this in the fanli, p. 16, and compare, for instance, 2: 117 and 118). 30 Published by Guojia Tushu Guan Chubanshe 國家圖書館出版社 and edited by Sun Ping 孫萍 and Ye Jinsen 葉金森 (one wishes that they had used more care and put more effort into the job). Despite the title, the collection is almost completely composed of playscripts, mostly in manuscript, but also some in mimeograph form, and a small number of published scripts. 31 Published by Guojia Tushu Guan Chubanshe and prepared by the Mei Lanfang Jinian Guan 梅蘭芳紀念館 (Mei Lanfang Memorial Museum), which holds the originals. The collection contains a lot of manuscripts (some with a lot of mark-up), but also scripts reproduced by mimeograph (youyin 油印) and simple letterpress (qianyin 鉛印). Many of the scripts are danben 單本 (part scripts), mostly for Mei Lanfang himself. 32 See Wang Wenzhang, ed., Zhongguo jindai difang xiqu juben congkan, Diyi ji. Vols. 16–18 contain pihuang playscripts, while vols. 19–69 contain Jingju playscripts (precisely how or why these plays have been divided into these two categories is not clear). A further two collections are projected, but neither will contain Jingju playscripts.

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Single Plays Published as Books

In chapter 1 we saw that the average length of the playscripts in Xikao was quite short (individual plays could be as short as just two typeset pages). On stage the plays might take several hours to perform, but a lot of that time was taken up by arias (a single line in one of the slower aria-types can take several minutes to finish, and in addition there are musical passages [guomen 過門] that introduce arias and come between sung lines that in performance can approach the length of a sung line) and stage business that might be accompanied by little dialogue and only very briefly described in the stage directions (this is particularly the case with martial plays, but is also striking in plays that feature pantomime). In chapter 2 we saw that many of the earliest datable printings of single Jingju plays were modeled on chuanqi plays and of extraordinary length, but it was common for shorter plays to be published in anthologies. As we know, many of these anthologies were published in installments, and in some cases the installments consisted of single plays, as in the case of Minzhong xiaoshuo xiqu duben. In the late Qing and early Republic, installments in series of lithographed playscripts only included just one play when the play was a long one, such as Silang tanmu (Xikao #22), otherwise those installments tended to bundle a couple of plays together. This continued to be the case with typeset small books of Jingju plays; an exception was the Jingju plays published by Baowen Tang in Beijing. Of the 100 printed Jingju non-collection play texts reproduced in Su wenxue congkan, approximately fourteen were printed by Baowen Tang (approximately, because some of them lack the Baowen Tang name but otherwise follow the format of their printings), and all of them are of single plays. Unfortunately, none of those fourteen copies are dated, although one of them gives the address of Baowen Tang as in Beiping rather than Beijing, and thus must have been printed after the capital was moved to Nanjing. In the first decade of the PRC, however, single plays were printed more widely as separate books because of the felt need to widely distribute plays that were thought to be good models in order to solve the problem of a shortage of “approved” plays to perform. A new publishing house, Xin Xiqu Shudian 新戲曲書店 (New Chinese indigenous theater bookstore) was set up in 1950 under the Xiqu Gaijin Ju to publish new plays or revisions of old ones for performance.33 Each was under 100 pages long and could have such things as an essay on the role of class struggle in the play, advice for mounting the play, or musical notation. Each had a stage photo (could be a closeup of an actor in costume) on the cover and sometimes photos with dialogue inside the front 33

On the establishment of this press, see Ma Shaobo et al., eds., Zhongguo Jingju shi, 3: 311.

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cover. All of the titles (five) that I have been able to find information on were published in 1950 and were Jingju, although none were labeled as such.34 This fairly new trend to publish Jingju plays as separate books perhaps reached its greatest importance in the Cultural Revolution, with the unprecedented attention given to disseminating yangban xi. Most of the separate editions from this time period (1949–1976) were printed and sold very cheaply in simple typeset editions that might have a stage photo on the cover or inside the cover before the title page. Baowen Tang was one of the most prominent presses publishing single Jingju plays before the Cultural Revolution. Of the copies of twenty-three of their publications from 1955–1960 of single plays as separate books that I have seen, the shortest was only twelve pages long and the longest was eighty-eight pages long, and the twenty-three titles had an average of forty-three pages per volume. In a compilation of summaries of Jingju plays published separately or in periodicals (but not in collections) from 1949–2010, of the twenty-three separate publications of Jingju plays from 1949–1966 listed, 34 A total of nine records for their books can be found in WorldCat. Two of them, Xin Daming fu 新大名府 (New Daming Prefecture; for old version see Xikao #126), compiled by Yang Shaoxuan 楊紹萱 (1893–1971), and Jiang Han yuge 江漢漁歌 (Fishermen’s songs along the Yangzi and Han Rivers; not in Xikao) by Tian Han, are available in the ChinaMaxx database of scanned texts. The former has front matter on class struggle and production tips and the latter has the stage photos with dialogue. The page of production tips (“Daoyan zhuyi” 導演注意 [Things to keep in mind when directing (this play)]), has eight items: the first discusses the revision of the play and warns that any revision should not “blunt the [new] political direction” 模糊政治方向 of the play; item two addresses the change of role-type of the main villain, Li Gu 李固, from chou to xiaosheng and how the woman he runs away with should show the conflict between romanticism and propriety, while their costume and that of her maid should change as their status changes; item three is about how Lu Junyi’s 盧俊義 status as a merchant should be highlighted by him emphasizing terms having to do with business; item 4 is about how Song Jiang 宋江 should show the kind of persistence a good political operative (zhengzhi lingdao zhe 政治 領導者) should have; items 5–6 deal with relatively minor characters; item 7 stresses how Yan Qing 燕青 and Chunmei 春梅, as representatives of “foundation-level revolutionaries” 基本的革命隊伍, need to change from how they acted as household servants; and the last item notes that the play uses scenery but this is “not necessarily the right idea” 惟 恐不太準確 and can be done without, but it is “extremely important to figure out a way not to use prop men” 極應設法不用檢場. In the set of four stage photos for the other play, only one really has a line of dialogue under it, the other photos have captions giving an idea of where the scene in the photo takes place in the story. All four photos show a cloth backdrop that can be blank (as in photos one and two), or on which mountains or the river can be projected (photos three and four, respectively). Big wrinkles in the backdrop are visible. A WorldCat record for Xin Baitu ji 新白兔記 (New Story of the White Rabbit) says that it contains musical notation but does not indicate how much (could be as little as a selected aria or qupai).

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four are from Baowen Tang (the earliest is from 1953).35 Baowen Tang publishes popular literature of many kinds, most of them associated with traditional genres. According to the same source, Zhongguo Xiju Chubanshe 中國戲劇 出版社 (Chinese theater press), the first PRC press devoted only to theater, founded in 1957 and still going strong, published its first Jingju playscript as a book in 1959.36 Judging from the lists of newly published theater books in the (basically) annually published Zhongguo xiju nianjian 中國戲劇年鑒 (Yearly almanac for Chinese theater), however, whose first volume dates from 1981, the number of Jingju play texts published as separate books has declined from the three new ones listed in that initial volume to only one new one (plus two

35 See Yan Quanyi 顏全毅 and Yang Yu 楊玉, eds., Gongkai fabiao de Jingju juben tiyao (1949–2010) 公開發表的京劇劇本提要 (1949–2010) (Summaries of published Jingju playscripts; Beijing: Wenhua yishu, 2015). The postface (“Houji” 後記, pp. 414–15), points out some problems with the way the collection was done (it does not point out the complete lack of entries for 1967–1971, and 2010, or the lack of separate plays published as books after 1976; of the limited number of original printings of Jingju plays as separate books from the 1950s that I happen to own, three [two from 1951 and one from 1955, which happens to be a Baowen Tang edition] are not included in this volume of summaries, and one can only be found in the section at the end of plays for which the publishing information is incomplete, p. 394 [the date is lacking and the name of the press is not quite right]). The project included making a database whose URL is given, but when searched, led only to the publisher and not to the database. Another reason to think that the records in the tiyao volume are somewhat problematic is the fact that the library of the University of Chicago itself holds twenty-four different plays published as separate books by Baowen Tang dating from 1955–1960. Another thing evident from the University of Chicago collection is that they hold seventeen different Jingju plays published as separate books by Shanghai Wenhua Chubanshe from 1956, all of which, on their copyright pages, note that they are reprints of earlier Baowen Tang editions, and there is no overlap at all between the twenty-four Baowen Tang titles and these seventeen titles. Those volumes are also interesting in that they contain prefaces, of a kind not to be seen in the Baowen Tang volumes, that can address how the individual play was edited and which do all end with the information that these volumes are based on the version of the play in Jingju cong­ kan. The print runs for these titles could be as high as 33,000 copies (according to the copyright pages, which give the print run for the original edition and the reprint). On the history of Baowen Tang, see an article by a fourth-generation manager of the press: Liu Yujing 劉玉靜, “Huiyi Baowen Tang de lishi” 回憶寶文堂的歷史 (Remembering the history of Baowen tang), Chuban gongzuo 出版工作 (Publishing work) 1984.4: 40–43. The press was amalgamated into a different press in 1956; when that press stopped operations in 1958 and its assets were distributed, the name of Baowen Tang was continued as part of Zhongguo Xiju Chubanshe. 36 Yan Quanyi and Yang Yu, eds., Gongkai fabiao de Jingju juben tiyao, pp. 33–34. This press was shut down during the Cultural Revolution but then re-established in 1980. Its first president (shezhang 社長) was Tian Han.

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reprints of plays from before the Cultural Revolution) to, a decade later, one, and a decade later, none.37 In general, however, the printing of more substantial editions of Jingju plays as separate books had to wait for an audience that needed or wanted more than the “bare bones” that were given in the Xikao versions of playscripts.38 The things that were added included front matter such as prefaces, explanation of technical issues and typographic usages, musical notation for the arias (both the sung parts and guomen) and incidental music, percussion notation, and extensive stage directions. These kinds of additions provided textualizations of elements of the play that professionals typically did not seem to require or show much interest in. They were probably also only of minor interest to most readers of the plays (a fairly small proportion of consumers of playscripts, in any case), but could be of interest to amateurs who wanted to learn to perform the plays. There are two separate editions of Silang tanmu from 1931 and 1938, respectively, that can be examined as examples of how much detail could be worked into Republican era plays printed as separate books. The 1931 version was originally supposed to be the first of a series of editions of Jingju playscripts in the same format and using the same approach named Yantai jucui 燕台菊 萃 (The cream of plays from the Beijing stage), but it turned out that there never was a second one. The edition was put together by Chen Yanheng 陳彥衡

37

The older plays published in 1980 were Bi shang Liangshan 逼上梁山 (Forced to climb Mt. Liang; a play from the Yan’an period that seems to have been published for the first time in 1977, in a periodical) and Tian Han’s Xie Yaohuan 謝瑤環, premiered in 1961; the new play was Yu Xiaoyu’s 余笑予 Yibao mi 一包蜜 (A sack of honey). The one play published in 2000 was part of a collectanea, Xiqu jiaoyu xilie congshu 戲曲教育系列叢書 (Collectanea series of educational material for xiqu; Beijing: Zhongguo xiju, 2000), and was an edition of Hongzong liema (Xikao #24, 52, 75, 129, 172, 196, 356, and 486); it had the subtitle, Wang Yaoqing xiansheng jumu jingxuan 王瑤卿先生劇目精選 (A careful selection of Mr. Wang Yaoqing’s plays; so far this is the only play published with this subtitle). 38 An exception would be Yankan daoren 揅戡道人, ed., Daiyu zanghua quben 黛玉葬 花曲本 (Play text for Daiyu Buries Flowers [Xikao #220 is Ouyang Yuqian’s play of the same title]; Shanghai: Kaizhi xin xin shuju, 1916). Most of this volume consists of writing that is flattering to Mei Lanfang of the kind that appeared in volumes devoted to famous actors, particularly nandan, in the Republican era, so it will be discussed in more detail below, in the section on such publications as included play texts in them. As for the version of the play text included in this work, it is short and consists only of Mei Lanfang’s lines (it takes up only six of the forty-five pages [7.5%] of the volume). It is followed by a “Xikao” designed primarily to help the reader understand the entire play. This text is photo-reprinted in Gu Shuguang, ed., Mei Lanfang zhenxi shiliao huikan, vol. 3, and has also been reproduced in the HathiTrust project.

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(1868–1933), famous amateur Jinghu player who once played for Tan Xinpei,39 who transcribed the musical notation using the older gongche system; Xu Jichuan 許姬傳 (1900–1990), later to become Mei Lanfang’s private secretary, who wrote the fair copy to be lithographed for publication (the edition was so complicated and for such a small audience that the idea of typesetting it was impractical40); and edited ( jiaodui 校對) by Chen Funian 陳富年 (1904–1983), Chen Yanheng’s son.41 The substantial front matter, besides a chart for converting gongche notation to cipher notation, includes prefaces from Chen Yanheng and from Xu Jichuan. The latter explains the motives for the publication: The reason that pihuang is in such dire straits lies precisely in the fact that there is no standard text [for the plays], no standard melodies for the arias, no standard musical notations [of the arias], and no standard way to sing the arias, so that errors are introduced with each transmission, and the more this happens the greater departure [from their original forms]. All of the subtle and miraculous [elements] are gathered together [only] in the bodies of a small number of senior actors, who hold close to the idea that if a person is not the ideal one then these things should not be transmitted to them. When, one day, they take with them to their deaths their inimitable arts, those who come later will not even have any hope of getting even a glimpse of them. 皮黃所以之岌岌可危, 即在無准詞, 無准腔, 無宮譜, 無固定之唱法, 以訛 傳訛, 愈趨愈遠. 所有精微奧妙萃於少數老伶之身, 往往抱定非其人勿傳 之旨, 一旦挾其絕藝而逝, 後來者未由望其肩背. 39 40

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Phonograph recordings from 1924–1926 of Chen singing laosheng and playing Jinghu for other actors (not Tan Xinpei, unfortunately), can be found under his name (in both the laosheng and wenchang categories) at the oldrecords.com website. When a Kunqu play, Tanzhuang 探莊 (Scouting out the manor) was published in Chunliu issue 2 (1919): 37–41, there was a note at the end, signed Taohen 濤痕, that said this: “When it comes to Kunqu playscripts, you must add gongche symbols to the side [of the characters in arias]. Although the original copy has them, there is no way to typeset them. In the future we can use lithography, and add the gongche symbols, so as to have them available in the future” 崑戲曲本, 必須旁加工尺字. 原本雖有之, 而無法排印. 將來 可用石印, 將工尺加入, 以後異日. The volume was published by Qianle She 潛樂社. No location for the publication is given, but given that the three collaborators were all from Beijing, it is pretty certain that that is where it was published. The original edition is quite rare; it was reprinted several times, but in Hong Kong and Taiwan only. Xu Jichuan later noted that only several hundred copies were printed by lithography. See the reprint of Xu Jichuan 許姬傳, “Tianjin shinian” 天津十年 (Ten years in Tianjin), in Jingju yishu zai Tianjin, p. 206.

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It is the musical aspects of the play and particularly the arias that is concentrated on in this edition of Silang tanmu; there is little concern with how the play is to be acted if the scantiness of the stage directions can be taken as evidence. The items in the fanli and the content of the numerous marginal comments are all concerned with how the arias should be sung. The 1938 edition, on the other hand, has broader interests, although its length of fifty-five pages is considerably shorter than the seventy-six page length of the Yantai jucui edition (although both editions make the claim that their version of the play is complete, by the use of the term quanji 全集 [complete collection] to modify the title of the play and quanbu 全部 [complete version] on the copyright page in the case of the 1938 edition, and by the use quanbu in the title in the case of the 1930 one). The 1938 edition is, for instance, more interested in acting: its stage directions are far more detailed,42 and one of the items in its fanli is especially about stage directions and stage actions— it explains the convention used in the former to speak of stage-left and stageright, etc., from the standpoint of the actor standing on the stage and facing the audience, a concept long familiar in the West but one that had not yet appeared in Jingju play texts before this edition (hence the need for the rather detailed explanation in the fanli). The edition was compiled by Liu Juchan 劉 菊禪, who explains in his preface that he was a second-generation disciple of Tan Xinpei,43 but retired from the stage and turned to teaching when an illness affected his voice. Liu explains that Xu Muyun 徐慕雲 (1898–??), editor of Xibao 戲報 (Theater), whose name and writings have been mentioned many times in the notes above,44 had invited him to write about Silang tanmu for 42 A. C. Scott’s translation of the play, which was referenced at the beginning of chapter 2 above for the amount of stage directions it includes, was based on this edition (I am thankful to one of the anonymous reviewers for this book for pointing this out to me). 43 The collection of photos of and from famous actors in the volume includes one each of/ from Tan Xinpei’s most famous descendant, his grandson, Tan Fuying. 44 Xibao later was forced to move from Shanghai to Chongqing in 1942, but then still went out of publication for five years. When it reappeared in 1946, it was Liu Juchan who wrote the announcement in the first issue, which appeared October 19, 1946, and explained why the paper had been forced to shut down for so long because of shortage of paper and other problems caused by the war with the Japanese. Like Xu Muyun, Liu also wrote a novel focused on Chinese theater. It was entitled Liyuan yishi 梨園逸史 (The forgotten history of the theater). It was serialized in Xingqi liu huabao 星期六畫報 (Saturday pictorial; at least 88 installments ran from 1946–1948) and a version of Xibao published in Hankou (chapter one only, issue three of this version of the periodical, which appeared on August 17, 1948). In the first installment in Xingqi liu huabao (appeared on p. 5 of issue 24, which was published on October 26, 1946), labeled “Yuanqi” 緣起 (Origins), Liu recounts the genesis of the novel (he traces requests that he write the novel back to 1938), which he describes as a fictional work based on facts (shishi xiaoshu 實事小說; the installment

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the journal. Beginning with the first issue of the journal, in 1936, with an introduction by Xu Muyun, and continuing through the last regular issue (issue 25 in 1937), that piece was published serially under the title “Liu Juchan narrates plays: Silang [tanmu]” (Liu Juchan shuoxi:45 Silang [tanmu] 劉菊禪說戲: 四郎 [探母]; “Tanmu” is included in the title of the introduction but does not appear after that). Because the serialization was only given at most half of a page for each installment, and Liu writes with a great amount of detail, the last installment breaks off in the middle of an aria from the first scene, Zuogong 坐宮 (Sitting in the palace; this scene can be performed separately under this name). There is a lot of overlap between the serialization and Liu’s edition of the play. At the back of most of the regular issues of Xibao there are ads for a series of play text volumes (one introductory volume and nine concerning individual plays, half of which are labeled “full versions” [quanbu]) from Liu Juchan entitled Zuixin xiangzhu xikao 最新詳註戲考 (Newest, annotated in detail, play resource; published in 1937 from Pingju Chubanshe 平劇出版社, on sale at the publisher of Xibao, [Shanghai] Xibao She, which also was the publisher for Liu’s edition of Silang tanmu).46 The first format of the ad, which ran through the first eight issues,47 begins this way: “This is the crystallization of famous teacher Liu Juchan’s heart and blood. With a copy in hand, you can resolve all the problems you can face before mounting the stage” 名教師劉菊 先生之心血結晶. 人手一本, 可以解決一切臨場的困難. There follows a list of in Xibao is labeled jishi xiaoshuo 記實小說, which means the same thing) and would be about what he personally knew about the world of Chinese theater from 1900 to the fall of the Qing dynasty. According to the account in this “Yuanqi,” one would expect that the single installment in the Hankou Xibao predated the serialization of the novel in Xingqi liu huabao. In any case, only scattered installments of the novel (a total of only a little over ten, the latest one getting the story only up to chapter 7 [a twenty chapter draft once existed, according to the “Yuanqi”]) are available, and the novel was never published as a separate book, so it is very hard to get a full sense of what Liu was trying to accomplish in it. 45 Shuoxi is a very important term in Jingju circles and basically refers to orally teaching (sometimes with gestures included) someone to act a play or a part in a play. See the section below on written and video versions of shuoxi. 46 Several years later, Liu Juchan would publish an “annotated in detail” (xiangxi zhujie 詳 細註解) edition of Shengsi hen (not in Xikao) labeled “Mei Lanfang miben” 梅蘭芳秘 本 (Mei Lanfang’s private text) that was serialized in Ximi zhuan in nine parts (the last of which did not finish off the play) from issue 2.1 (1939) to issue 3.1 (1940). The same journal serialized an edition of the play Ximi zhuan (related to Xikao #323) that began in issue 2.3 (August 5, 1939) that was labeled “annotated in detail” (xiangzhu 詳註). 47 The one for the second issue has been carefully cut or torn out of the page in the copy scanned for the Chinese Periodical Full-text Database (1911–1949), which is based on the holdings of the Shanghai Library.

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eight such problems, each caused by forgetting one of the following things: how to enter the stage (chuchang 出場), places to breathe ( jiekou 介口), the words of the play text (taici 台詞), costume names (xingtou mingcheng 行頭 名稱), which characters are pronounced as jian 尖 (“pointed”) or as tuan 團 (“rounded”), rhyme categories (zhekou 轍口), stage movements (shenduan 身 段), and hand movements (zuoshou 做手). The confidence of the initial statement is somewhat qualified toward the end of the ad, which says: “If you are a beginner, you can become a member of the “Chrysanthemum Club” [Jushe 菊 社]48 and study [there]; if you are a senior piaoyou, [the collection] can still be used as a reference” 假如你是初學, 便可以加入菊社學習, 你是老票友, 也可以 參考. Immediately above the ad, there is the announcement of the establishment of a “Pingju bu” 平劇部 (Jingju section) of the “Chrysanthemum Club” that states that Liu Juchan will “continue to be the main teacher for each play” 仍主教各劇. This first form of the ad does not list the plays to be included in the set, but the second one, which ran from the ninth to the last regular issue, lists the contents of the volumes (an introductory volume and the nine plays), but also indicates that these are only the “first batch” (diyi pi 第一批; there is, however, no sign that there ever was a second batch). The description of the collection in this form of the ad begins with this line: “You don’t have to work with a teacher but can all the same learn how to sing plays” 不必從教師照樣 可以學會唱戲, continues with a promise (in contrast to the first ad) that you don’t even have to enter an amateur opera group (piaofang), and ends with the claim: “We guarantee that even without a teacher you will become completely proficient on your own” 保證無師自通. In between it claims that “what is particularly valuable and rare” 難能可貴 is the annotations to the sides of the characters concerning their pronunciation.49 48 There is a long association between chrysanthemums and theater in Chinese that has appeared above in terms such as jubu 菊部. 49 The differences in pronunciation between Jingju and “standard” Chinese are very complicated, involving such things as a distinction between “pointed” ( jian 尖) and “rounded” (tuan 團) sounds, words with special pronunciations (shangkou zi 上口字) that are quite irregular, and those that are more regular because influenced by dialect usage (e.g., final “ng” is pronounced “n”). The speech of higher status characters (yunbai 韻白), which is more cadenced and musical, also differs from that of lower status characters, who speak something closer to Pekingese. For a discussion and explanation of pronunciation in Jingju written in English, see Wichmann, Listening to Theatre, pp. 183–213. There was a very conscious and serious attempt to reduce the distance between Jingju pronunciation and standard Chinese in yangban xi (somewhat similar tendencies, although the target language is Shanghai dialect rather than standard Chinese, can also be seen in the development of Shanghai-style Jingju). On pronunciation in yangban xi, see Fan, Staging Revolution, pp. 117–18. She also discusses the important question of the different aesthetic

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As noticed in chapter 1 above, pronunciation glosses can be found in early manuscripts of Jingju plays50 but they are quite rare in published versions, perhaps because of the difficulties in notating pronunciation before the use of romanization systems such as pinyin or the International Phonetic Alphabet, or sets of symbols that indicate the different parts of a syllable such as the zhuyin fuhao 註音符號 system, and the difficulties, in terms of page format and typesetting issues when it comes to incorporating them (or older systems such as fanqie 反切51) into a text. In Liu Juchan’s edition of Silang tanmu (and later, in his 1940 edition of Hongzong liema [a play cycle incorporating Xikao #24, 52, 75, 129, 172, 196, 356, and 486] from the same press), he instead included a section at the end of the volume which includes charts concerning characters in the play whose special pronunciation needs to be attended to when and musical values related to the choice of the rhyme categories to use for an aria in yangban xi (pp. 118–24); she cites part of the section on this topic in Wichmann, Listening to Theatre (pp. 38–44), where the topic is discussed more broadly. Fan discusses rhyme categories from the perspective of play writing, but it should also be noticed that particular actors of the Republican era had their favorite rhyme categories. Because the same rhyme-category was to be used throughout an aria, and often throughout a suite of arias, choice of rhyme category was more important than it would have been without that convention (which goes all the way back to Yuan zaju, where all of the arias in a song-suite had to use the same rhyme category). 50 In fact, Li Yu, Li Liweng quhua, “Gaodi yiyang” 高低抑揚 (High and low pitch, rise and fall [in tone/pitch]), p. 157, talks about teaching how to recite dialogue by marking up the play text manuscript with red circles. Kang Baocheng 康保成, ed., Zhongguo xiju shi yanjiu rumen 中國戲劇史研究入門 (An introduction to the study of the history of Chinese theater; Shanghai: Fudan daxue, 2009), p. 339, quotes something written by Wang Yaoqing 王瑤卿, “Wo de xiju shenghuo” 我的戲劇生活 (My life in theater), originally published in Xin xiqu 新戲曲 (New Chinese indigenous theater; serialized in issues 1.1 to 2.3 [1950–1951]) and later reproduced in Hebei xiqu ziliao huibian 河北戲曲資料 彙編 (Collected material concerning Hebei indigenous theater) about the difficulties of writing out Jingju dialogue: “The characters of Beijing speech [in Jingju performance] can’t all be written out, there is no way to write out when one should pause for breath and the places where there should be breaks and pauses, … , after you have finished learning [a speech or the speech in a play], you can yourself write it out from memory, which you yourself can use as a reference” 京白中的字也不都能寫出來, 氣口, 段讀的地方沒法 寫, … , 學好了再自己默寫出來, 自己就可以用作參考了. 51 On this system, which indicated the pronunciation of a character by using one character with the same initial to indicate the initial of the glossed character, and one with the same vowel and final and tone (the elements important when rhyming) to indicate those features of the glossed character, see Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, Fourth Edition, section 1.2.1, p. 27. There was a system of using small circles at one of the four corners of a character to indicate the tone of a character known as dianfa 點發 that was mentioned in the notes in the discussion in chapter 2 of Liangshi yin, the only play text I know to have used this system.

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performing the play. Later Republican era editions of Silang tanmu, such as the Pingju huikan one, notates jian and tuan characters,52 but notations about pronunciation are rare in play texts published in the PRC.53 In terms of stage directions, Liu Juchan’s edition of Silang tanmu has far more than any other printed version of the play that I know of. It also works in comments that include such questions as whether such and such a place in the performance is a good place to drink tea on stage (yinchang 飲場; p. 4). Quite recent innovations that can swell the length of a playscript and make it basically necessary to print the resulting “expanded” version as a separate book include the incorporation of a lot of visual material, and the addition of translated versions of the Chinese text (translations and bilingual editions will be addressed in a separate section below). An example of a recent edition of a play that contains a large amount of visual material is a 335-page edition of Tian Han’s version of Baishe zhuan54 that includes almost forty pages of front matter and ten pages of back matter, with separate sections to (1) introduce the play; (2) to describe the various costumes worn by the characters in the different scenes (this version of the play has thirteen scenes); (3) to describe the material objects and equipment that need to be gathered or prepared for a performance of the play (in order: costume, make-up, props, headpieces, lighting, sound amplification and sound effects, scenery, and special effects [referred to in abbreviated form as fu, hua, dao, kui, guang, xiang, zhuang, xiao 服, 化, 道, 盔, 光, 響, 裝, 效]);55 and (4) present the script for the play with each scene prefaced by a description of the scene, how long the scene takes to perform, a list of the characters that appear in the scene, who gets body mikes and whether the mikes remain with those characters or get swapped about, the scenery that needs to be set or manipulated, special effects, and whether any of the characters in the scene have to make quick preparations for their role in the following 52

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See item 2 in the fanli for the explanation for marking “half” jian and “full jian” characters, followed later by a chart that lists the examples of these characters that appear in the play entitled “Benju jian tuan zi xunsheng biao” 本劇尖團字尋聲表 (Chart to help find the sounds of jian and tuan characters in this play). There are some examples of using footnotes to indicate aspects of pronunciation in plays in Jingju qupu jicheng and Jingju liupai jumu huicui (see, for instance, the unusual case of four footnotes to one play concerning pronunciation in Jingju liupai jumu huicui, 6: 302, 303, 315, and 318). Zhang Yao and Wang Zicheng, eds., Fenmo qushu. A diagram of a typical theater auditorium complete with stage and backstage areas shows where the items connected with each of these categories are kept (p. 181). In the playscript, information connected to each of these categories is marked by the use of a special icon (i.e., the one for sound is an amplifier speaker). The icons, and other symbols used in the edition are introduced and explained on p. 49.

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scene.56 The title of the script (“Qiemo jianchang” 砌末檢場) highlights the fact that it contains detailed information about the props (qiemo) that need to be kept track of and manipulated on stage ( jianchang) in each scene. All of the sections of the book, including the front and back matter, are heavily illustrated with color photographs (for instance, in the last item, the script, photographs of the characters in costume are provided, while in the front and back matter photographs of people connected with the edition are provided; over forty pages of photographs of the costumes and make-up for the female lead are provided [some minor roles only get one page]).57 This edition is reminiscent of a Western production notebook or a prompt book,58 but one that has been rethought, amplified, and polished so that it is no longer an “in-house” document but instead something that other companies could use to produce the play, or so that it would look attractive on a coffee table (Baishe zhuan is large format and sells for 198 yuan).59 The performance editions (yanchu ben 演出本) of yangban xi60 can have as many pages as this Baishe zhuan edition, also include a lot of photographs and information,61 but are not as “lush” and

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For each scene, the prefatory material is followed by the actual script for the scene, which is labeled yanchu juben 演出劇本 (performance script). 57 The second editor, Wang Zicheng, is a photographer. See the introduction to him on p. 6. The first editor, Zhang Yao, is an actor with important administrative responsibilities at Zhongguo Xiqu Xueyuan. 58 Two early D’Oyly Carte production notebooks for The Mikado are available in PDF form at The Gilbert and Sullivan Archive website, http://gsarchive.net/mikado/html/, accessed August 28, 2017. 59 The Baishe zhuan edition, in its “Neirong tiyao” 內容提要 (Content abstract; p. 2), describes itself as a professional reference work for professional Jingju artists, teaching material for related courses at colleges and universities, and reading material that could increase professional knowledge related to Jingju among aficionados of traditional Chinese theater in general. This book, because it is also bound in signatures [it is bound in a recently trendy fashion that allows you take off the paper cover and see the spine and how the signatures are bound very clearly (gives you the impression that you have not only taken the “clothes” off of the book, but also its “skin,” to reveal its “spinal cord”)], will lay flat on a coffee table as a good “coffee table book” should, although its cover is not what one expect of a book of that type. 60 These editions were produced in the first half of the 1970s and have been discussed in chapter 4. 61 One difference is that the yangban xi performance editions include more stage charts showing placement of scenery, props, and actors, and actors’ movement on the stage. The edition of Baishe zhuan just has three (p. 202); they show the placement of chairs and tables in three scenes (chairs and tables are the most commonly used large props in Jingju; in one of the scenes they are used to represent a curtained bed).

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were more concerned with trying to standardize performance practice62 (the first page of the playscript in the Baishe zhuan edition [p. 214] presents the version of the play in the script as a model that can be modified to meet different performance constraints). The yangban xi performance editions contain musical notation for the arias, something not included in this edition of Baishe zhuan (which also lacks percussion notation). An example of a bilingual edition of a Jingju play published as a separate book in large format and hundreds of pages would be any of the ten volumes in the first batch in a series of such editions edited by Sun Ping 孫萍, Zhongguo Jingju baibu jingdian Yingyi xilie / English Translation Series of a Hundred Peking Opera Classics 中國京劇百部經典英譯系列 published in 2012.63 If we take the volume for Bawang bie ji as an example, it is bound with a semi-hard cover and priced at 396 yuan. It is 251-pages long and of slightly larger format than the edition of Baishe zhuan, but more than half of its pages are given over to a general introduction to Jingju that is included, page by page and word for word, in all ten of the volumes that constitute the first “batch” of this series. How bad of an idea this was seems to have become clear by the time that another installment, this time of six volumes, was published in 2016. For that second installment, the introductory material on Jingju was deleted in the five new play volumes and printed as a separate volume.64 The part of the Bawang bie ji volume given over to that play contains a fairly small number of photographs, only one of which is captioned, but it also includes six drawings illustrating the costume and make-up of some of the characters of the play. The Chinese 62 Work on the Cultural Revolution has tended to stress the filming of these plays as the ultimate attempt to “fix” them in an ideal and easily circulatable form (see, for instance, Paul Clark, The Chinese Cultural Revolution: A History [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008]. “Fixing the Model Performances on Film,” pp. 123–34), but not enough attention has yet been paid to how either the films or the performance scripts actually influenced or constrained stage productions. Some writers (for example, Tuo Wang, The Cultural Revolution and Overacting: Dynamics between Politics and Performance [Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2014]) have stressed the desire to eliminate deviation “from the script” and the punishment exacted on those who did deviate (pp. 68–69 and 69–70, respectively), while other writers have stressed the agency of both performers and receptors (see Laurence Coderre, “Breaking Bad: Sabotaging the Production of the Hero in the Amateur Performance of Yangbanxi,” in Paul Clark, Laikwan Pang, and Tsan-Huang Tsai, eds., Listening to China’s Cultural Revolution: Music, Politics, and Cultural Continuities [Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016], pp. 65–83). 63 Beijing: Zhongguo Renmin Daxue, Waiyu Jiaoxue yu Yanjiu, 2012. 64 Perhaps to mark this change, a small alteration was made in the name of the series: “Yingyi” 英譯 (English translation) was changed to “waiyi” 外譯 (foreign translation). I have seen no evidence that the change from “English” to “foreign” means that more languages than English will be involved.

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and English versions of the script are striking in that the only stage directions that they contain are the names of qupai and aria-types, and indicators of the mode of vocal delivery (sings, recites, or speaks); making both the Chinese and English scripts even more laconic than the Xikao playscripts! Someone relying on these two scripts can only guess that Consort Yu slits her throat at the end of this version of the play. The reason is that the Chinese version is based on a 1931 set of phonographic recordings starring Mei Lanfang and Yang Xiaolou.65 Musical notation (both cipher and Western five-line notation) is given for one aria only and there is no attempt to include percussion notation. Since, as explained above, the basic scripts (just the words to be spoken and sung and the typically laconic stage directions) for Jingju plays are quite short, even if the running time to perform them on stage might be long; publishing them as separate books means either that the resulting books will be quite slim, or it will be necessary to include more material (musical notation, stage photographs, translations into other languages, essays on the play’s conception, production, reception, etc.) to fill them out. Serial plays, of course, are necessarily longer, but when they were all the rage in Shanghai-style Jingju in the Republican period their scripts were rarely completely written out, as opposed to Qing dynasty palace serial plays, which were originally only for Kunqu/Yiyang qiang performance, and only began to be adapted for Jingju performance at the end of the dynasty. One of those Jingju adaptions has recently been published in a separate, five-hundred-plus page volume, as part of the “continuation” of Jingju chuantong juben huibian and not a separate book.66 Serial plays were heavily criticized early on in the PRC, but in the New Period there have been attempts to revive the form. The scripts for the most famous of those attempts was published as a separate book, Hesui liantai benxi—Jingju

65

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The “standard” version of the play in the PRC has been a nine-scene version performed by Mei Lanfang (only scene 8 is now performed). The 1931 audio recording skips scenes 1 and 9 entirely. It is hard to say how many of the differences between the scenes in the recording and extant written versions of the play were due to changes induced by the process of recording the scenes on 78 RPM disks or other factors unique to the recording studio of the time, as opposed to those of the stage. The volumes in the continuation, unlike those in the original part of this collection, are not numbered. The volume in question is Xue Xiaojin 薛曉金, ed., Zhaodai xiaoshao 昭代簫韶 (Elegant Music for an Enlightened Age [this is the English title used when two-evening length excerpts were first performed by Beijing Jingju Yuan in 2013; for a documentary on the play and the production, see http://tv.cntv.cn/video/C36771/ e6158cb4801b3ddd01913a2e0a4e5c44, accessed July 13, 2018]; Beijing: Beijing chubanshe, 2012). The original was 240 scenes long, this version is only 122 scenes.

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Zaixiang Liu Luoguo, of more than four hundred pages and thirty-two pages of color photos concerning the production.67 Another change in PRC publishing worth noting here, before turning to the publication of Jingju playscripts in periodicals after the appearance of Xikao, is the general trend away from publishing books very cheaply, in a very heavily subsidized fashion, to the more recent situation in which book costs are rising far more quickly than the rate of inflation and books appear in much larger formats than before.68 Only in the case of play texts produced by teaching institutions for the use of ordinary Jingju students, such as Jingju xuanbian, has both format and cost been kept (relatively) small.69 3

Single Plays Published in Periodicals

Publishing Jingu plays in periodicals was an attractive alternative to publishing collections of plays or individual plays as books because of the flexibility (for instance, short plays could be published entire in one issue, longer plays could be published serially) involved and because of more and more secure audiences for them as more and more journals devoted to Chinese theater came into existence. Xikao itself is sometimes spoken of as a periodical rather than 67 68

69

For publication information, see the note to the mention of this serial play above. For instance, concerning the volumes in the two series of liupai plays mentioned above, if we compare volumes of approximately the same number of pages, vol. 2 of the first one, Jingju liupai jumu huicui 京劇流派劇目薈萃 (Collection of Jingju liupai playscripts) (1990), and vol. 13 of Zhongguo Jingju liupai jumu jicheng (2006–2015), the former was published only in paperback (for 4.70 yuan) in a 5.5″ by 8″ format, while the latter was published both in paper and hardback (240 yuan) in a 8.5″ by 11.5″ format. Zhongguo Xiju Chubanshe, in a reprint series of their own books, Zhongguo xiqu yishu daxi 中國 戲曲藝術大系 (Compendium of Chinese indigenous theatrical art) whose volumes began to appear in 2010, has reprinted Li Zigui’s Yi Jiangnan, originally published in 1996 in a paperback format of 5.5″ by 8″ for 23.8 yuan, in a hardback format of 7.5″ by 10.5″ for 45 yuan. In the 1940s and again in the 1980s, collections of aria texts were published in pocket size (xiuzhen 袖珍, literally “sleeve size”) editions, one of which (from 1946) included play texts in a lower register. They will be discussed below, in the section on collections of aria texts. The twenty volumes of the collection were published in three batches. The last ten volumes published together in 2003 (volumes 11–20), were collectively sold for the price of 160 yuan or the average price of 16 yuan per volume, in the same format (5.5″ by 8″ vs. 5″ by 7.25″) as the four published in 1990 and only slightly larger than the first batch of six published in 1980. The first batch was priced less than one yuan per volume, the second for less than six yuan a volume; over these three batches, the cover, however, has changed from very simple to relatively complex. We must, of course, recognize, that what an individual yuan could buy has declined steeply over time.

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a collection of plays published in installments.70 The first journal devoted to Chinese indigenous theater, Ershi shiji da wutai (established in 1904 and forced to shut down the same year), included a Jingju play text by Wang Xiaonong; at least eight71 of his plays would appear in periodicals (and some of the eight appearing in more than one periodical) before the end of the year in which he died (1918). This would have come more naturally to him than most Jingju playwrights before him, since he was himself a literatus who also liked to publish verse in periodicals,72 and he was well-connected to journalists and other people involved with new media and new thought. It was more likely for his plays to appear whole in one issue in a journal such as Ershi shiji da wutai or Chunliu 春柳 (Spring willow; two of his plays appeared in 1918 in that journal),73 while it could take as many as six installments for one of this plays to finish 70

For instance, recently Xikao was added to the periodicals covered in the Chinese Periodical Full-text Database (1911–1949), which includes scans of 30 of the 40 installments, but these include only ten originals from either Shenbao Guan or Zhonghua Tushu Guan, the rest being Zhonghua Tushu Guan or Dadong Shuju reprints (also, five of the installments lack the copyright page that should appear at the end of each installment). 71 Eight are easily locatable in and downloadable from Chinese Periodical Full-text Database (1911–1949). One was printed anonymously (others can have variations of Wang’s name such as “Xiaonong” 孝儂). The serialization of one of his plays beginning in issue 2 of Ershi shiji da wutai was stopped midstream by the shutting down of the journal. 72 As mentioned above, the 1957 collection of his plays, Wang Xiaonong xiqu ji, has an appendix containing verse that he published and wrote. 73 Wang’s Ku zumiao (Xikao #430) and Maqian poshui 馬前潑水 (Spilling water in front of the horse; Xikao #313) both appeared in the inaugural issue (December 1918), where they are each labeled “posthumous manuscripts” (yigao 遺稿). The first play took up eight pages and the second one thirteen (they take up sixteen and twenty-four pages, respectively, in Wang Xiaonong xiqu ji). The handling of the final aria by the main character (sung by Wang Xiaonong) of the second play is interesting and unusual. It is very long (over eighty sung lines over thirty-three lines of typeset text). Spaces are used instead of punctuation (for both pauses and line breaks), which is not unusual in play texts of this era and back into the previous century, but the aria is broken into seven numbered sections by inserting the character duan 段 (section) preceded by one of seven numerals, in proper order, in parentheses (as with stage directions in this edition) placed at the end of each section. This is rare in ordinary playscripts, but is done in transcripts of phonograph recordings to show where tracks begin and end. Wang does not seem to have recorded this aria. Xiao Yuehong 筱月紅 (stage name of Cao Yinqiu 曹吟秋), an actress trained in the “Wang” school of singing, did, in 1925, record the aria, but Chai Junwei, ed., Jingju da xikao, p. 255, only notes the 1925 recording, says that only the title is known (cunmu 存 目), but then gives the complete text in forty-seven typeset lines of sometimes as many as twenty-three characters a line from a 1957 recording, without explaining the source of that recording. According to the information about Cao Yinqiu on the website Zhongguo Jingju laochangpian (http://oldrecords.xikao.com/person.php?name=曹吟秋, accessed July 15, 2018), the recording was done in 1929 on two disks. The same rhyme-category is used throughout the entire aria, so the division of the text into sections in Chunliu does

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serialization in a newspaper such as Da gonghe ribao.74 In Chunliu, a journal closely-connected to the movement to perform new-style plays (which would eventually be called huaju), his plays were labeled “old plays” ( jiuju), while the play in Da gonghe ribao, a politically oriented newspaper, was labeled “reformed play text” (gailiang xiben 改良戲本; Wang was well-known for how he used his plays and acting to criticize the Qing dynasty). When it came time to publish a collection of Wang’s plays in 1957, old periodical publications of them were a main source.75 Newspapers were strongly connected in the late Qing and early Republic with movements to modernize China, and were themselves seen as an example of modern media. Chen Duxiu was an editor of such a newspaper, and it was in that newspaper that he published the vernacular Chinese version of his famous article “Lun xiqu,” while in 1905 the leader of a troupe came to the office of a newspaper asking for help in procuring a reformist playscript to perform.76 The next year the same newspaper published an outline of a patriotic play (like Wang Xiaonong’s Guazhong lanyin, involving the impending partition of Poland [i.e., China]). The problem was that the text was not very singable, so the newspaper was soliciting someone from the theatrical world to help out with that so that the play could be finished and serialized in the newspaper.77 The problem, of course, with many of the plays being published in newspapers and journals at the time, including Liang Qichao’s, was that they were unperformable.78 Running accounts of the activities of famous not represent change of rhyme, which is often used in Chinese ballads to mark narrative shifts. 74 His Xi’er ji 洗耳記 (Xikao #376), appeared in six installments, from December 21–16, 1912. The version in Wang Xiaonong xiqu ji takes up fourteen pages. Xi’er ji was also published in Tongsu jiaoyu zazhi 通俗教育雜志 (Journal of popular education) 1 (1913): 109–116. 75 See Ma Yuemin 馬躍敏, “Jindai xiqu gailiang yundong yanjiu” 近代戲曲改良運動研 究 (A study of the movement to reform xiqu in the early modern period), master’s thesis, Henan University, 2012, p. 46. 76 See “Liyuan zhong chule mingbai ren” 梨園中出了明白人 (The theater world has produced an enlightened person), Jinghua ribao, issue 275 (May 25, 1925), in Fu Jin, ed., Jingju lishi wenxian huibian: Qingdai juan xubian, 4: 297. 77 See “Zhishi bian aiguo xinxi” 志士編愛國新戲 (A concerned person has written a patriotic new play), Jinghua ribao, issue 568 (March 27, 1906), in Fu Jin, ed., Jingju lishi wenxian huibian: Qingdai juan xubian, 4: 305–306. 78 Chen Jia, “Wan Qing Shanghai baokan yu Jingju de chuanbo,” pp. 65–67, provides a table giving concise information about “reformed Jingju playscripts” 改良京劇劇本 published in Shanghai periodicals in the late Qing, and remarks about the plays “As for these literary Jingju playscripts, they were mostly written for reading [and not performance]” 這些改 良京劇文學劇本, 多為案頭之作. Wu Yiwei 吳億偉, “Jindai Shanghai huabao xiju hua

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actors, the most famous one being the installments of “Mei xun” 梅訊 (News of Mei Lanfang) that ran intermittently in the “Ziyou tan” section of Shenbao from April 14, 1914 to February 3, 1929, could make public, in print, parts of plays that Mei was performing, especially the texts for important arias79 (prefiguring the later collections of aria texts in the da xikao genre). The number of periodicals particularly associated with theater increased greatly over time. Based on information provided by Geng Xiangwei 耿祥偉, using a rather broad definition of “periodical” (includes, for instance, what are basically play collections published in installments such as Xixue zhinan and Pingju huikan [but not Xikao, for some reason] and one-off publications for actors, tekan 特刊),80 we can see in Table 6.1 the increasing numbers of yanjiu (1884–1912)” 近代上海畫報戲劇畫研究 (1884–1912) (Research on theater illustrations in Shanghai pictorials of the early modern period [1884–1912]), master’s thesis, Taipei National University of the Arts, 2006, p. 16, based on a bibliography of fiction and drama published in periodicals from 1896–1911 by Aying, reports that a total of 162 plays were published during those years, in the following genres: chuanqi: 55; zaju: 40; huaju: 60; and difang xi (including Jingju): 92; Wu claims that this illustrates a “booming situation for the ‘reading’ of plays” ‘讀’ 劇盛況. 79 These columns are reproduced Zhang Siqi, Mei Lanfang Hushang yanchu ji, 2: 2–206. During Mei’s American tour, the variant title, “Haiwai Mei xun” 海外梅訊 (News of Mei from overseas) was used twice, March 15 and 17, 1930 (pp. 212–14). An early installment, the sixth, of April 20, 1914, p. 14 (date incorrectly recorded as April 19 by Zhang Siqi, pp. 8–9), begins with comments on a recent performance by Mei of Chang E benyue (Xikao #489), and then gives a paragraph introducing the quotation of the text for the three most important arias sung by Mei in the play: “As for Chang E benyue, ever since Mei Lanfang performed it, none of the male or female [actors] at the [various] theaters have not imitated him, as Dongshi once did of Xishi. His arias are not many but they are superb, and can deserve to be circulated together with those of Tiannü sanhua [Xikao #485; at this point Zhang Siqi’s punctuation does not follow the original and makes the text confusing]. I especially record them [the text of the arias]. When the play is performed again, they can be ‘used to follow along’ [an allusion concerning using a sketch to find a good horse is used here]” 嫦娥奔月, 自畹華演後, 海上男女劇場莫不效顰矣, 其唱詞縱 不多而精絕, 可與散花並傳, 特錄之, 此後再演按圖而索驥也. The texts (which include indication of the aria types used) for the second and third arias also include the lines of poetry that Mei recites after them. Immediately after the aria texts there follows the beginning of the serialization of the play text for Mei Lanfang’s version of Mulan cong­ jun (Xikao #417), completed in the next installment. What is quoted is labeled the “play text” ( juben 劇本), but a note goes on to explain, “What is arranged [below] is the text that Mei sings, as for his dialogue, etc., it is too prolix, and a zero is used in its place” 共 列梅所唱, 白餘過繁, 以 O 代之. In the text quoted from the play, however, zeroes do not appear, instead ellipses mark where text has been left out. Zhang Siqi notes that the play text is quoted in this and the next installment (which Zhang incorrectly dates to the 20th), but does not reproduce or describe in more detail what was quoted. 80 Geng Xiangwei, “Wan Qing Minguo xiju qikan yanjiu,” appendix 1, “Wan Qing Minguo xiqu qikan mulu huibian” 晚清民國戲曲期刊目錄彙編 (A comprehensive bibliography of

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New Kinds of Publication Table 6.1 Number of theater periodicals started up per decade, 1904–1949

Decades

Number of periodicals

Projecteda

1904–1913: 1914–1923: 1924–1933: 1934–1943: 1944–1949: Total of above: Dates unclear: Total with line above:

003 020 034 151 089 297 049 346

003 020 034 151 148 (extended) 356 049 405

a Concerns the figures for 1944–1949, which is not a full decade. The figure in this column is produced by adding the number of periodicals one would expect if the same average number were started up during each of an additional four years.

such periodicals that were started up, decade by decade, to the end of the Republican era. We should keep in mind that Jingju playscripts were published in periodicals not in Geng’s list,81 probably because Geng did not classify them as theater Chinese indigenous theater periodicals of the late Qing and Republican eras), pp. 169– 200. On tekan, see Matsuura Tsuneo 松浦恆雄, “Tekan zai Zhongguo xiandai yanju de zuoyong—Yi Minguo chunian de tekan wei zhongxin” 特刊在中國現代演劇的作 用—以民國初年的特刊為中心 (The functions of special collections in modern performance in China—Focusing on the special collections of the early Republican period), translated from the Japanese by the author and Wang Jie 王傑, Xueshu yanjiu 學術研究 (Academic research) 2010.3: 143–51. Special collections of this kind can also be labeled as zhuanji 專集/輯 (also means “special collection”). Examples have recently been reprinted in Jindai sanyi xiqu wenxian jicheng 近代散佚戲曲文獻集成 (Collectanea of uncollected material on xiqu from the modern period), 70 vols. (Taiyuan: Shanxi renmin, 2018). They include examples named after actors such as Mei Lanfang (v. 36), Shang Xiaoyun (v. 37), Xun Huisheng (v. 40), and Zhou Xinfang (v. 41), or after a particular play such as Chunqiu bi 春秋筆 (The Spring and Autumn brush; not in Xikao; v. 41]). Sometimes these collections include playscripts, arias (might include musical notation), and/or play synopses. 81 For instance, Chen Jia, “Wan Qing Shanghai baokan yu Jingju de chuanbo,” pp. 17–21, provides a table of summary information on fifty-two periodicals published in the late Qing period in Shanghai with some Jingju content, “Wan Qing Shanghai you guan Jingju baokan jianbiao” 晚清上海有關京劇報刊簡表 (Concise chart of periodicals related to Jingju from late Qing Shanghai). Of the fifty-two, eight are noted has having printed Jingju playscripts in their pages. None of those eight periodicals appear in Geng’s list.

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periodicals, but in this period it is in the latter that we see the greatest variety of approaches and more explicit editorial intervention, so my remarks will be limited to a small number of them below and to individual figures who did the editing. Let us begin with Su Shaoqing, who was mentioned earlier in this chapter. Su studied with Chen Yanheng, and has been praised as having gotten the “true transmission” (zhenchuan 真傳) of the Tan Xinpei school of singing from Chen.82 A collection of his writings (over 500 pages) as well as pieces on him (including a chronology of his life; these pieces take up over fifty pages) was recently published: Su Shaoqing xiqu chunqiu 蘇少卿戲曲春秋 (Su Shaoqing’s world of Chinese indigenous theater; 2015), but the one thing that that volume does not reflect very clearly is his editorial work on playscripts published in periodicals.83 The prime instance that I have come across is his edition of Zhuofang Cao (Xikao #6), published in Xi zazhi 戲雜志 (Theater journal), in the inaugural,84 third, and sixth issue of the journal (1922–1923), in a section labeled “Xikao” in the margins of the first installment but “Jingju” in the others (page references will be parenthetical and include issue number and page number, with an added “a” for the top register and “b” for lower register for the two first installments, and “a” for the top register, “b” for the middle register, and “c” the lower one for the last installment). Su Shaoqing’s edition of Zhuofang Cao begins with a nine-item fanli (1.45a–b). Since it pretty comprehensively introduces what is innovative in this edition of the play, I will go through all of the items. The first item claims that the intention (behind publishing the edition) concerns only “research” (yanjiu 研究), and ends with an invitation to “experts” ( fangjia 方家) to send in corrections to the journal. The language in the second item is rather awkward, 82

See, for instance, the third paragraph of Liu Zengfu’s preface (labeled preface one) to Su Shaoqing xiqu chunqiu. 83 Su was also a playwright, but his plays are not included in this volume. According to the chronology of Su’s life compiled by the editor of Su Shaoqing xiqu chunqiu, Su Yuhu 蘇 玉虎, p. 580, Su Shaoqing wrote his first play in 1917. It was for Hebei bangzi and won an award from the Ministry of Education (at this point, Su was already a member of Tongsu Jiaoyu Yanjiu Weiyuan Hui [see above]). Sun Yuhu is the maternal grandson of Su Shaoqing, which is puzzling until one takes into account that Su Shaoqing was originally surnamed Liu (see another piece by Su Yuhu in the volume, p. 533; oddly, the change in surname is not mentioned in the chronology). A photo of Su Yuhu with Su Shaoqing and his wife is included on p. 4 of the photo section of Su Shaoqing xiqu chunqiu. 84 The inaugural issue (chuangshi hao 創始號) came out in May and was preceded by an “experimental issue” (shikan hao 試刊號) in April; there was no second issue between the inaugural issue and the third one. No explanation is given for why the serialization skipped the fourth and fifth issues.

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perhaps because it is describing an innovation in the typesetting of the play: the switch to new paragraphs when the speaker/singer changes. The purpose for doing so: “to make it more convenient for students of the play to separately record [their lines] and to, moreover, make things clear” 便於學習者分錄, 且醒 眉目.85 Item three warns that technical terms (shuyu 術語) will be used when describing stage movements (zuogong 做工) and blocking (difang 地方), but they will be concisely glossed (item six characterizes “technical terms” as “hard to understand” [nanjie 難解] and promises to provide glosses for them later in the publication of the play). Item four explains that the goal of this edition is to produce a standard edition through recording where there are differences between ways of performing the play (these passages are to be marked with double lines to the side of the characters)86 and putting text that “can be expanded or cut” (ke zeng ke jian 可增可減) in parentheses.87 The next two items explain that passages marked with single lines to the side of them are those “worthy of study” (you yanjiu zhi chu 有研究之處), and which will be discussed later in the publication of the play. Item seven explains that the text will be labeled according to the type of text. The categories are not spelled out in this item, but those used in the edition are: daishu ti 代述體 (narration; the first two instances [2.46a–b] involve characters first entering the stage and are addressed not to anyone on stage but to [at least indirectly] the audience, but are still handled differently from the kinds of passages marked as internal thought); duihua ti 對話體 (dialogue);88 and beigong ti/beiyun ti/fuyu ti

85

In this item, gaikou 蓋口 is used to refer to the text of the play, presumably referring to si gaikou 死蓋口 (set text). 86 Su’s comments on the text he presents also make references to an “old version” (laoben 老 本), “other versions” (bieben 別本), and “Tan Xianpei’s text” (Lao Tan ci 老譚詞) or “Tan’s melody” (Tandiao 譚調). 87 The end of the first installment (2.50b) has a section entitled “Explanation regarding textual variants in the play text” 關於本劇異同詞之說明. The other two installments end with a “Notes” (“Zhushi” 註釋) section (3.49a–54b; 6.8c–11b) that also includes discussion of textual variants. In some cases, two options are “both okay” ( jie ke 皆可; e.g., 3.50b [notes section]) or are both good for different reasons (e.g., “to add this makes it better to sing, to not add it would be sticking to the rules” 增之好唱, 不增為守規矩也; 3.49b–50a [notes section]). He can also express a preference [e.g., on p. 3.51a, he describes one option as “unnecessary” (literally, like legs on a snake [shezu 蛇足]). 88 One passage is labeled xuda duihua ti 虛答對話體 (3.48a). The xuda (literally: empty reply) is perhaps connected to the fact that the dialogue in question is addressed to someone just killed by Cao Cao (the actor may or not still be onstage, exactly when an actor whose character has been killed onstage gets up and leaves the stage is never, to my knowledge, stipulated in stage directions in play texts and is typically left up to the discretion of the actor; in a Taiwan University student production of a play in which two

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背弓89 體/背云體/腹語體 (internal thoughts [it is not clear whether these terms are being used interchangeably or with fine distinctions between them, 1.47a includes two of each; text marked by a stage direction as to be performed as internal monologue [beigong jie 背躬介] is labeled after it as fuyu ti90). In the play text these notices are printed in the same format as stage directions (i.e., put in parentheses) but always follow after the passages they are labeling. The final item concerns what is difficult about arias and dialogue: distinguishing the tonal contours of the characters. Su says that he wanted to annotate the tonal contours for each and every character (and to include musical notation), but “being limited by space, that will have to wait for another day” 因限於篇 幅, 俟諸異日.91 At the beginning of the play, the text is said to have been “dictated” (shu 述) by Wang Yufang 王玉芳,92 and edited by Su. More to be expected in a huaju play text, the time setting (autumn in an unstipulated year at the end of the Later Han when the Mid-Autumn Festival is approaching) and geographical setting (Zhongmou District, a village nearby, and an inn) are given, but for the entire play all at once, rather than scene by scene. Su makes the usual complaint about play texts transmitted among actors (2.50b) and complains that in a certain place something “must have been left out in the process of transmission” (chuanchao yiqu er 傳抄遺去耳; p. 3.53b), but can also say about a particular phrase, “this is has become a set phrase in pihuang plays, there is no need to ask whether it makes sense or not” 已成為皮黃劇之慣語, 不必問其通 與不通矣; p. 3.50a). Despite the promise in the fanli to explain technical terms in the notes, very little space is used in them to do that, instead the notes are about textual variants and their evaluation. After one comment on variants characters died at the same time on stage, they were later yelled at by the director for not leaving the stage together but in staggered fashion), whom the speaker knows is dead. 89 Gong in beigong can be written with four different characters: 功, 供, 躬, and 弓. 90 An example of fuyu ti is the aria that Chen Gong sings after Cao Cao says his famous line about how he would rather betray everyone than let anyone betray him; it is further glossed as “only what is thought in the mind, not a line is actually spoken language” 只心 中意思, 無一句真說話也 (3.48b). 91 For an instance in which Su indicates in a note the tonal contours of two characters, see p. 3.50b (notes section). The eighth issue of this periodical does have a plain (in comparison to Su’s Zhuofang Cao) Jingju play text with gongche notation for the arias. The language in Su’s fanli item is not very clear as to whether it is talking about using gongche notation to indicate the tonal contours of the characters (not too likely) or musical notation for the arias. The section category for the play text in issue eight is “Jingju xikao” (it is the only item in that category). 92 According to Su Yuhu’s chronology, Su Shaoqing moved to Shanghai in 1921, where he studied with Wang Yufang for four years (Su Shaoqing xiqu chunqiu, p. 580). Xi zazhi was published in Shanghai.

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in a passage, Su lists the names of eight persons whom he clearly thinks of as his equals or superiors (they include, for instance, Yuan Hanyun and Liu Huogong) and asks what their opinion on the matter is (6.10a). We can put how Su Shaoqing edited/presented Zhuofang Cao in its larger context by reference to the work of two of the eight persons he solicited comments from: Yang Chenyin 楊塵因 (?–1961), probably best known as a novelist; and Hou Yishi 侯疑始 (1885–1951), disciple of the famous translator Yan Fu 嚴復 (1854–1921) and someone who published a lot about science in Republican era periodicals. All three men (Yang, Hou, and Su) appear in a list entitled “Lihua zazhi teyue zhuanshu yuan” 梨花雜志特約撰述員 (People specially commissioned to write for Pear-Flower Magazine; other names in the list worth noting include Sun Yusheng, Liu Huogong, Feng Shuluan, Zhang Mingfei 張冥飛 [b. 1894], and Zhang Houzai 張厚載 [1895–1955]). Lihua zazhi was a magazine distributed ( faxing 發行) by Dadong Shuju (which would later reprint Xikao), whose first issue appeared in 1924, but was never followed by a second one, leaving a large number of serialized items in the first and only issue unfinished. There are three pieces by Yang Chenyin in Lihua zazhi: (1) a collection of comments under his studio name (“Chunyu lihua guan juhua” 春雨梨花館劇 話 (Comments on theater from Spring Rain Pear-Blossom Hall); pp. 59–65 of the scanned version of the issue93), a title under which he also published a two-volume collection of his and others’ comments on theater and his editions of some plays (Chunyu lihua guan congkan 春雨梨花館叢刊 [Collectanea from Chunyu lihua guan; 1917]94), (2) a work of fiction under his own name and 93

The scan of this issue of the magazine in Chinese Periodical Full-text Database (1911–1949) appears to be undamaged but there is no sign of a table of contents or any introduction of the magazine from its editor or staff, who are unidentified except for the “director of the editorial board” (bianji zhuren 編輯主任), Zheng Xingmin 鄭醒民, whose captioned picture, above an inscription from Tsuji Chōka, appears in the set of photos at the beginning of the issue (that section also includes the face pattern for Dou Erdun 竇二墩 [sic.], which is shown in color and from both straight-on and profile). Citations of items in the issue will be according to the page numbers given in the scanned version (the issue is broken up into a large number of sections with separate pagination that are not labeled). There does not seem to be any direct connection between Yang Chenyin’s studio name and the name of the journal (which share the two characters lihua). 94 Yang Chenyin’s Chunyu lihua guan congkan 春雨梨花館叢刊 (Shanghai: Minquan chuban bu, 1917) includes a total of eight plays, several of which Yang wrote, co-wrote, or edited. Of perhaps most interest is the inclusion of both Mei Lanfang’s and Ouyang Yuqian’s Daiyu zanghua. Ouyang’s version is given as an appendix to Mei’s but the introduction to both discusses how, after moving to Shanghai to live, Yang got to know Zhang Mingfei, and spent time with Zhang talking about the Honglou meng and about how no one had made a Jingju play using material from it. He says that they mentioned this to Ouyang Yuqian, who was “wildly happy” (kuangxi 狂喜) and the three together wrote

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with comments from Zhang Mingfei and the editor of the journal95 and, (3) the first installment of a Jingju play of his entitled Muyang ji 牧羊記 (Herding sheep; not in Xikao).96 Other contributors to the issue include Liu Huogong (the first installment of a play), Su Shaoqing (comments on an actor), and Hou Yishi.97 Daiyu zanghua for Ouyang to perform. Yang says that after Ouyang performed the play, he felt that some of the lyrics did not “fit the music” (hepai 合拍), so he “edited it in great detail” 詳加刪改 to produce the appended version, which he says differs from the version Ouyang performed at three theaters (which he names). Yang is less interested in Mei’s version, about which he says little, beyond talking about how it differs from Ouyang’s version. At the beginning of each scene of Mei’s version, information about the stage setting and props on stage is given in separate parentheses, under the heading of bujing 布景 (scenery). The text of the scenes themselves can open with stage directions about the placement of objects on stage (as happens, for instance, at the beginning of scene 2). After the plays are appended rather lengthy comments, one batch of which is attributed to Shenying 神瑛 (such a penname refers to the previous incarnation of the “hero” of the novel, Jia Baoyu 賈寶玉). At the beginning of the first volume of the collection are four prefaces that include one by Zhang Mingfei and another by He Haiming 何 海鳴 (1884–1944), best known as a novelist but also another one of the eight people Su Shaoqing asked his question of and a name that appears on the list of commissioned writers for Lihua zazhi), followed by a collection of commemorative poems by people such as Wang Xiaonong (the first play is one of his; in the introduction to it Yang tells how he got to know Wang and how he approves of Wang’s use of plays to reform society, describes Wang giving a copy of the play to him, lists many places where Wang’s version improves upon an earlier one, and praises the play very highly, emphasizing that he put it first in the collection because it is so good), Liu Huogong, and Ouyang Yuqian. 95 The characters for “comment” after the names of Zhang and Zheng differ (pi 批 vs. ping 評) but they are synonyms. The story, which is labeled a “long piece of fiction” (changpian xiaoshuo 長篇小說) but is only one chapter long, is accompanied by both marginal comments and end comments, and perhaps the use of two different characters, both meaning “comment,” is to distinguish between the two types of comments, but this is far from clear. The story is entitled “Kuilei xiezhen ji” 傀儡寫真記 (A true portrait of puppets), and the second half of the chapter (zhang 章 is used instead of hui 回) title couplet for the one and only chapter concerns a meeting at a night performance at a theater. 96 The attribution is not to Yang Chenyin but to his studio name, and the verb used is bian 編 (compile). The first installment takes up twelve pages. Before the play, Yang explains the difference between his play and other plays written using the same source, a Tang dynasty story, “Liu Yi chuanshu” 柳毅傳書 (Liu Yi delivers a letter). He refers to his use of the story as kaozheng 考證 (establishing facts through investigation). Unexpectedly, Yang mentions two alternative names for his play. There does not seem to be any record that the play was performed under the main title or either of the two alternative titles. The main title is reminiscent of Muyang juan 牧羊卷 (Enclosure for penning in sheep; Xikao #16), but there does not seem to be any connection between the two plays. 97 The other contributors who might be of interest are Xu Muyun, Ouyang Yuqian (in the form of a letter to Yu Shangyuan), Chun Juesheng (one of the eight that Su Shaoqing asked his question of), and Shenying. We will have more to say about the last two shortly.

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Hou’s contribution is entitled “Kouyu zhai jiaoding juci” 叩玉齋校訂劇詞 (Kouyu zhai’s edited play texts), Kouyu zhai being his studio name (pp. 104–1198). The name of the edited play is less prominent: Nantian men (Xikao #60). Hou’s comments before the play begin with the idea that the play was one of Tan Xinpei’s most accomplished plays of his later years, but laments that the versions printed commercially ( fangjian suo kan 坊間所刊) of it “depart greatly” (dayi 大異) from Tan’s version, which Hou says that he personally saw (onstage) many times. He continues to say that even Yu Shuyan, “who is known for following Tan” 號稱學譚, cannot help but also be somewhat at odds (lüe you churu 略有出入) with Tan. For the version that will follow, Hou says that he has relied on what he remembers of Tan’s performances “in those days” (dang­ nian 當年; Tan died back in 1917), that he consulted with Sun Xichen 孫羲塵 (an amateur performer whom Hou says got the “true transmission” [zhenchuan 真傳] of the play from Tan), after which he then consulted with Chen Yanheng and settled his text of the play, to which he intermittently added comments, which he describes as “rather new” (po zijin mi 頗自矜秘). He says that friends had sought copies from him but he did not dare agree to provide them, but he was moved enough by the editor of the journal to allow it to be printed. He provides quotations from the “original version” (yuan 原本) and an “old version” (laoben 老本) to contrast with Tan’s version, and the changes to Tan’s version by later actors that Hou calls the “modern text” ( jinben 今本), and there is a lot of attention to textual variants in other versions yet. Hou prefaces his comments with a particle (an 按) used in classical commentary to introduce editorial remarks or commentary, and instead of printing his comments at the end of the installment, as Su Shaoqing did, they appear immediately after the part of the play text they refer to. Hou is critical of certain aspects of Tan’s version of the play, pointing out where text has been left out of the earlier edition, causing problems (p. 106) and, in one instance, acknowledges both the need for change ( fei gengyi bu ke 非更易不可), and his inability to come up with anything better (p. 110). Paragraphing and indentation is used to try and keep the various levels of the installment clear, but comment overwhelms the text and not even the treatment of the first scene (of three; 47% of the total text99) of the play has been dealt with before the installment ends. Interestingly enough, there was an attempt to finish the publication of Hou’s version, in issues three 98

99

It should be noted that the page numbers that the database attributes to an article when you search for it can differ from its page numbers in the scanned version of the issue of the periodical. In this case, for instance, the former gives the page numbers as 103–110, which is impossible in that the item has separate pagination in the original: pp. 1–8. I am using the second set of numbers. For this statistic, I have used the electronic text posted at xikao.com, for convenience.

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and four of Xiju xunkan in 1936, but those two installments just repeat material from the Lihua zazhi version and end with an editorial note: “the next section got lost in a fire, when Mr. Hou sends [new] text we will continue the serialization” 來段因毀於火, 迨候[侯]100 君來稿再續.101 But perhaps my reader is wondering if any of the eight persons Su Shaoqing asked his question of responded to him. At least one did respond to Su’s version of Zhuofang Cao, Chun Juesheng 春覺聲 (dates unknown; Chun is a very rare surname, Juesheng, however, was a very common penname in the Republican era), but Chun did not try to answer Su’s question. A three-page piece published under Chun’s name in the third issue of Xi zazhi (the next one after the first installment of Su Shaoqing’s version of the play; the same issue as carried the second installment) entitled “Zhuofang Gongtang ciju shangzheng” 捉放公堂詞句商正 (Discussion about correcting the text of Gongtang [The Court; name of the first scene of the play, in which Cao Cao, who is wanted for attempting to assassinate the prime minister, has been arrested and brought into the court of a local official, Chen Gong] in Zhuofang Cao), begins with Chun introducing himself and his history with the play, then with nine variants from the version of the play that he learned, long ago. That is the last we hear directly from Chun; the rest of the piece begins with Su Shaoqing’s expressing his respect for Chun as a senior amateur performer of Jingju, then discusses, one by one, the variants that Chun listed, most of which he says that he also found in old versions of the play (and one of which he blames on the typesetter for his installment). This is far from the kind of argument the reader expects (and usually gets) when the title of an article ends with the word shangzheng 商正 (or its more popular variant, shangque 商榷/搉); it is also unusual, in an article whose title ends with such a word, for the last word to be given over to the person being challenged, but in the same year (1922), Su published an article about the same play that ended with the word shangque, but in which he is not arguing with anyone in specific.102 100 Hou’s surname is also miswritten in the attribution of the piece to him in both installments. 101 In issue two of Xiju xunkan, He Haiming had published an “edited” (dingzheng 訂正) edition of Tan Xinpei’s Shang tiantai 上天臺 (Ascending the heavenly platform; Xikao #109). 102 Su Shaoqing 蘇少卿, “Zhuofang zhi shangque” 捉放之商搉 (Correction of [the text] of Zhuofang Cao), Xinsheng 新聲 (New sounds) 10 (1922): 40–45. He is not very polite to Tan Xiaopei for starting the trend of cutting the first scene, which Su describes as “a very obtuse thing” (bu tong zhi shi 不通之事), and implies that Tan “did not understand theater” (bu dong xi 不懂戲). Several years later, he wrote about performing the play and the processes whereby he settled on his performance text: “Yan Zhuofang Cao hou” 演捉放 曹之後 (After performing Zhuofang Cao), Jingwu 精武 (Journal of the Jingwu Tiyu Hui 精武體育會 [Pure martial physical education society; sponsor of the performance Su is

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There were many Republican era journals that reprinted Jingju play texts. Xiju zhoukan 戲劇周刊 (Theater weekly), printed in at least 38 issues between 1924–1925, included many Jingju play texts that were printed very simply, but also an edition of Zhuofang Cao serialized over issues 15–18 (1925) that also includes collation notes and editorial comments, and several plays were published in it with the word kaozheng 考證 (investigated according to evidence) at the end of their titles.103 This journal likes to call Jingju plays yueju 樂劇 (music plays). The two most influential journals devoted to traditional theater (and particularly to Jingju), Xiju yuekan and Juxue yuekan, have been mentioned several times already. An “innovation” associated with Xiju yuekan, besides the printing of playscripts from the palace104 and actor’s sides,105 was the devotion of issues to specific Jingju stars (zhuanhao 專號): issue 1.6 (November 1928) was devoted to Mei Lanfang, 1.8 (February 1929) to Shang Xiaoyun, 3.2 (November 1930) to Cheng Yanqiu and Wang Shaolou 王少樓 (1918–2003), 3.5 (February 1931) to Yang Xiaolou and Xin Yanqiu 新艷秋 (1910–2008), 3.8 (June 1931) to Xun Huisheng and Yan Jupeng 言菊朋 (1890–1942), and 3.12 (September 1932) to Tan Xinpei (the only one already dead).106 Each included plays associated with those stars.107 How Juxue yuekan solicited edited play texts and explained

103 104 105 106

107

writing about]) 52 (1926): 25–26. In this piece, Su explains the sources for his version of the play (a variety of actors who taught him) and how he decided among options or took care of problems that he thought no one else had solved. Su also describes how he marked up his acting version of the text (the emphasis is on the psychology of Chen Gong, the character he played). Su’s piece is followed by one by Shu Sheyu 舒舍予, better known by his penname, Lao She 老舍 (1899–1966), one of the eight people Su asked his question of. See the editions of Fenhe wan (Xikao #324) in issue 1.9 (1929); of Chu sanhai 除三害 (Removing the three scourges; Xikao #231) in issue 2.4 (1929); and of Wu Zhaoguan 武昭 關 (Martial Zhao Pass; not in Xikao) in issue 2.8 (1930). The first was published in the 3.2 (November 1930) issue. Guoju huabao would later serialize one in 1932. For instance, issue 2.2 (1929), prints by itself Ma Lianliang’s script for Fan Zeng 范增 for the play Hongmen yan 鴻門宴 (Banquet at Hongmen; not in Xikao). Li Tianyin 李湉茵, “Jingju zhishi xingcheng, shangye xuanchuan yu yanyuan zhongxin xianxiang—You 1917 zhi 1983 Jingju baozhi qikan tantao Jingju de fazhan” 京劇知識形 成、商業宣傳與演員中心現象—由1917 至1983 京劇報紙期刊探討京劇之發展 (The phenomena of the development of knowledge about Jingju, commercial propaganda, and taking actors as central—Looking into the development of Jingju from 1917 to 1983 in Jingju newspapers and periodicals), doctoral thesis, National Tsing Hua University, 2015, pp. 143–44, provides a chart with summary information on these special issues, plus the next one to appear, which was one for Zhou Xinfang in Xiju zhoubao (November 14, 1936). An exception is the special issue for Cheng Yanqiu, which does not include the full text of one of his plays, only aria text and plot summary for his expanded version of Fenhe wan

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how to edit them has been mentioned above,108 as well as the journal’s relationship to an institute for the study of Chinese theater that also included on its research faculty playwrights such as Chen Moxiang, and the rivalry between that institute and the one headed by Qi Rushan and Mei Lanfang (the two journals associated with that institute did not publish very many plays109). Juxue yuekan is the only journal whose versions of plays have been included into the database of published Jingju plays on the xikao.com website, which records a total of 38 plays that were published in the journal (only four of which have been transcribed for posting in the database’s collection of play texts as of December 21, 2019). Just as specialist national presses quickly came to dominate the publication of Jingju plays as separate volumes in the PRC, national periodicals similarly dominate the publication of plays in periodicals. Most prominent among these was Juben 劇本 (Playscripts), founded in 1952, shut down during the Cultural Revolution, revived in 1979, and still going strong today. Probably because its editorial board was dominated by huaju playwrights, and because huaju was generally perceived as more amenable to treating modern subjects and being more leftist in orientation in general, Jingju plays never topped more than five

(Xikao #324), Liu Yingchun 柳迎春. In Li Tianyi, “Jingju zhishi xingcheng,” the section on the inclusion of full plays (pp. 165–70) and aria text and plot summary only (pp. 170–72) in Republican era Jingju journals pays particular attention to the special issues of Xiju yuekan. 108 For alternative accounts, see Cui Jun 崔俊, “Qujiu cunxin de xiqu juben gaibian” 去舊存 新的戲曲劇本改變 (Adaptation of xiqu playscripts in order to get rid of the old and preserve the new), “Juxue yuekan yanjiu” 劇學月刊研究 (A study of Juxue yuekan), master’s thesis, Suzhou University, 2014, pp. 34–38, and Wang Xuan 王烜, “Juben zhengli de jiazhi yu sikao” 劇本整理的價值與思考 (On the importance and thought about editing playscripts), “Lun Juxue yuekan shiqi wenren yu lingren de xiqu lilun hexin—Yi Xu Lingxiao he Cheng Yanqiu wei zhu” 論劇學月刊時期文人與伶人的戲曲理論革新—以徐凌 霄和程硯秋為主 (On the revolution in the theory of Chinese indigenous theater among literati and actors of the period of Juxue yuekan—Taking Xu Lingxiao and Cheng Yanqiu as focus), master’s thesis, Nankai University, 2010, pp. 34–37. Wang Xuan’s focus on the collaboration of literati and actors is very appropriate to this journal. 109 Xiju congkan did not publish any playscripts, while Guoju huabao only published a small number, and longer plays were broken up into very small chunks during the process of serialization. For instance, the serialization of Feng huan chao began in issue 39 of volume 1 (October 14, 1932) and continued until the last issue, issue 30 of volume 2 (August 10, 1933), for a total of 32 installments, which was still not enough to finish the play. The contents of the journal are laid out, issue by issue, in the second appendix to Chen Shumei, “Jiu Jingcheng, xin shuguan,” pp. 245–314.

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percent of the total playscripts in Juben.110 Publication of plays in periodicals in journals, as was the case with their publication in series and separate volumes, was designed in the 1950s to deal with the problem of a lack of approved plays to perform. During the Cultural Revolution, playscripts for yangban xi were often published at the same time in a number of high-level national periodicals.111 A journal of dramatic literature, Xiju wenxue 戲劇文學, was inaugurated in 1979, and one entitled Juzuo jia 劇作家 (Playwright) in 2005. In the list of journals that the 2016 edition of Zhongguo xiju nianjian printed as its source for its list of plays published in periodicals in 2015 (p. 574), these three journals are listed first, second, and third, followed by more local journals such as Shanghai xiju 上海戲劇 (Shanghai theater) and Fujian yishu 福建藝術 (Arts of Fujian).112 Unlike some of the Republican era journals looked at above, these journals tend to treat the Jingju plays that they print as reading matter, keeping the stage directions pretty laconic, not providing the kind of information (such as the names of aria types) that makes it most easy to distinguish juzhong, giving no or few annotations, and rarely providing visual material related to the production of the play.113 Sometimes an issue that includes a play will include one or more essays about it, included ones written by the playwright. Especially in the early years of the PRC, there was a contradiction between wanting to get good plays performed widely and making playwriting into a real profession. The original agreement between Juben and troupes wanting to perform the plays it published was they could be performed for free, all the 110 See Lu Dawei 陸大偉 (David L. Rolston), “Juben zhong Jingju juben, Wenge qianhou (1952–1966, 1979–1988)” 剧本中京剧剧本, 文革前后 (1952–1966, 1979–1988) (Jingju playscripts in Juben, before and after the Cultural Revolution [1952–1966, 1979–1988]), forthcoming. 111 For instance, the May 1, 1970 “performance edition” (not the version with so much production material) of Hongdeng ji was simultaneously published in Hongqi 紅旗 (Red Flag), Guangming ribao 光明日報 (Guangming Daily), and Wenhui bao 文匯報 (Wenhui Daily). 112 Information on these periodicals, as well as others related to xiqu (including a small number published in Taiwan), can be found in Qu Zhiyan 曲志燕 and Luan Bo 欒波, eds., Xiqu qikan yu keyan jiaoyu jigou minglu (1949–2009) 戲曲期刊與科研教育機構名 錄 (1949–2009) (List of periodicals and educational institutions concerning xiqu [1949– 2009]; Beijing: Wenhua yishu, 2015), pp. 1–119. 113 As mentioned above, Juben was and has continued to be dominated by huaju. While the amount of supplementary material printed along with playscripts has declined in general, there was an attempt, early on, to provide drawings of scenery designs (bujing sheji tu 布景設計圖), but they were provided almost entirely for huaju plays and only rarely for Jingju (which did not, of course, originally rely heavily on scenery or mark scene changes by changes in scenery).

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Table 6.2 Numbers of Jingju plays in PRC periodicals per year, 1950–2015

Year

Tiyaoa

Year

Tiyao

Year

Tiyao

Year

Tiyao

1950 1954 1958 1962 1966 1970 1974 1978 1982 1986 1990 1994 1998 2002 2006 2010 2014

03 01 04 03 02 00 01 01 16 (05) 13 (N/A) 13 (06) 10 (01) 14 (08) 10 (N/A) 13 (N/A) (04)d (07)

1951 1955 1959 1963 1967 1971 1975 1979 1983 1987 1991 1995 1999 2003 2007 2011 2015

03 00 06 02 00b 00 01 08 19 (02) 13 (N/A) 07 (N/A) 15 (09) 10 (07) 08 (N/A) 10 (N/A) (04) (03)

1952 1956 1960 1964 1968 1972 1976 1980 1984 1988 1992 1996 2000 2004 2008 2012 N/A

00 02 10 13 00 03 07 12 (07)c 19 (10) 20 (07) 19 (04) 08 (06) 13 (N/A) 11 (N/A) 12 (N/A) (03) 10e

1953 1957 1961 1965 1969 1973 1977 1981 1985 1989 1993 1997 2001 2005 2009 2013

06 03 01 04 00 02 07 18 (05) 20 (N/A) 14 (05) 08 (03) 11 (04) 07 (N/A) 04 (N/A) 12 (N/A) (03)

a Yan Quanyi and Yang Yu, eds., Gongkai fabiao de Jingju juben tiyao. b Yan Quanyi and Yang Yu, eds., Gongkai fabiao de Jingju juben tiyao, contains no entries for 1967–1971, which is absurd. No explanation is given for why those years are skipped. c Numbers in parentheses come from the issues of Zhongguo xiju nianjian for 1981–2016, which do not give complete or completely consistent coverage. d Despite its title, Yan Quanyi and Yang Yu, eds., Gongkai fabiao de Jingju juben tiyao (1949–2010) has no entries for 2010. e Ten abstracts for plays appear at the end of Yan Quanyi and Yang Yu, eds., Gongkai fabiao de Jingju juben tiyao for which no publication information is given. This problem is mentioned in the postface to the volume.

troupe had to do was to send information on the performances to the journal to be shared with the playwright. This changed over time as greater financial incentives were publicly announced to get playwrights to submit their plays and a variety of provisos reserving performance rights in different ways began to appear at the ends of plays. Among Republican era periodicals, it was not until 1935 that one of them included in its name one of the names of Jingju. That periodical was named Jingxi zazhi 京戲雜志 (Jingju journal) and was only published for a total of twelve issues in 1935–1936. Its example was not followed by later Republican

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era periodicals, and it was not until the inauguration of Zhongguo Jingju 中 國京劇 (Chinese114 Jingju) in 1992 that a periodical with Jingju in its title was published in the PRC. It might seem that Guoju huabao was an exception, but between the narrow definition of Guoju as Jingju and the broader definition of Guoju as Chinese indigenous theater, it was the latter that describes the scope of Guoju huabao better. There were, however, a number of Taiwan periodicals that used Guoju in their titles that employed a more narrow definition of Guoju.115 4

New Media and the Recording of Image, Movement, and Sound

We have seen that in the case of playscripts meant for seasoned performers, not much detail, beyond the text to be sung or proclaimed, was needed. New consumers of playscripts, such as amateur performers who wanted to rely as little as possible on their teachers, demanded more detail. Those new audiences, over time, included more and more people who were interested in more rather than less information. As we saw in chapter 1, play texts that recorded more about stage movement than usual were called, in palace usage, chuantou, and when it came to Kunqu performance, shenduan pu. Chuantou were so movement-focused that they just gave cues about what was going on onstage in terms of such things as what was being sung (e.g., only the tune pattern title for an aria would be given, and not the lyrics of the aria). Whereas Kunqu was very textually oriented from almost the very beginning, Jingju was not, until rather recently; because of this, Jingju playscripts that are labeled chuantou or shenduan pu are either very rare or nonexistent. Once Jingju playscripts began to be published with increased detail about stage movement they were labeled by such modifiers as xiangzhu 詳註 (annotated in detail) and not as shenduan pu.116 No consensus has come 114 The last several decades has seen the insertion of “China” or “Chinese” into the titles of books or periodicals regardless of whether such a qualifier is really necessary. This is perhaps a “mirror” reflection (opposite yet similar) of the chauvinism evident in Western publishing when a book such as Ian Watt’s The Rise of the Novel turns out to not be about the rise of the novel in general but about the rise of the English novel. 115 For instance, Guoju yuekan 國劇月刊 (Guoju monthly) was published in Taiwan from 1977–1990. The periodical in Taiwan that has published the most Jingju playscripts in recent years is Xiju xuekan (inaugurated in 2010). 116 Some examples of Jingju play texts whose titles include the label xiangzhu have been discussed above. Collections of Kunqu shenduan pu can also have xiangzhu in their titles, but in their case the label of xiangzhu is a descriptor given by their modern collector, Qi Rushan. See Wang Kui 王魁, “Kunqu shenduan pu tiyao mulu” 崑曲身段譜提要目錄

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about concerning what to call Jingju play texts with added information about stage movement.117 The traditional format of shenduan pu was to write the additional material about movement on one or other side, or even both sides, of the columns of spoken or sung text, where they had to compete with musical notation, if that was provided.118 This made page layout rather complicated so, along with other reasons, shenduan pu typically circulated in manuscript and not printed copies. Lithography, which could reproduce manuscript originals to produce print copies of such complex texts, could be used, but was not used widely, probably because the market for such texts was quite small.119 Modern typesetting, in which layout is done electronically, and in which Chinese characters can be handled easily,120 has greatly reduced the technical problems of producing such complex texts.

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(An annotated bibliography of shenduan pu for Kunqu), Xiqu xuebao 戲曲學報 11 (2014): 302–305, for summary information on two such collections, one of seventeen fascicles (ce 冊) and one of five fascicles. One term that has been used very recently is xingti pu 形體譜 (lit.: body position roster). See Wang Xinxin 王新新, “Biaoyan wenxian zhengli yu yanjiu de nandian: Xingti pu de zhizuo” 表演文獻整理與研究的難點: 形體譜的製作 (The difficulties in editing and studying documents related to performance: The creation of body movement rosters), “Shitan Jingju mingjia biaoyan wenxian de zhengli yu yanjiu” 試談京劇名家表演文 獻的整理與研究 (A tentative discussion of the putting into order and study of documents relating to the performance of famous actors), in “Jingju wenxian de fajue, zhengli yu yanjiu—Diba jie Jingju xue guoji yantao hui” 京劇文獻的發掘, 整理與研究—第 八屆京劇學國際研討會 (The discovery of, editing of, and research on texts related to Jingju—The eighth international academic conference on Jingju-ology), private publication from Zhongguo Xiqu Xueyuan, 2019, pp. 166–69, which is more about how to create new “texts” recording stage movement by using elements from three previous models (Qi Rushan’s Guoju shenduan pu and Zou Huilan’s Shenduan pu koujue [see chapter 1], and Zhou Chuanying shenduan pu 周傳瑛身段譜 [Zhou Chuanying shenduan pu; Taibei: Guojia chunan she, 2003]; Zhou was a famous Kunqu performer who was mentioned in the notes to chapter 1) and adding new technology such as sanwei donghua 三維動畫 (3D animation). Texts that include both movement and musical notation can be called shen gong pu 身 宮/工譜 (gong 宮 refers to gongdiao 宮調 [scale] and gong 工 to gongche 工尺 [the most commonly used traditional music notation system]). For a comparison of the information given in a Kunqu shenduan pu and a video recording of the same play, see Xu Rui 徐瑞, “Huaining Cao Chunshan jiazu de shenduan pu lu yanjiu” 懷寧曹春山家族的身 段譜錄研究 (A study of the shenduan pu compiled by the family of Cao Chunshan of Huaining), Xiqu yanjiu 107 (2018): 125–27. Cao Chunshan is the father of Cao Xinquan; both are mentioned in the notes above. See the notes about the annotated version of Silang tanmu discussed above. In early versions of Chinese character processing programs for the computer, a continual problem was that the two-byte characters could easily get broken up into two meaningless one-byte halves when a line wrapped at the right-hand margin.

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To my knowledge, there is no Jingju play text that calls itself a shenduan pu, although we have seen that play texts with extensive stage directions were published already in the Republican period. Jingju play texts are now published in a wide variety of formats, some of which are publicized as containing more information than usual. One recent collection of Jingju play texts, Zhongguo Jingju liupai jumu jicheng 中國京劇流派劇目集成 (Compendium of Jingju liupai plays of China; 2006–2015), has been praised by its publisher as an “effective, 3D transcription of all aspects” 全方位的有效立體記錄) of the plays it includes,121 and by a scholar as “up to the present the most complete 3D editions” 迄今為止最全面的立體本.122 What are the “aspects” that the publisher has in mind? Those that he lists are “acting, music, musical accompaniment, military fighting, somersaults and hand-to-hand combat, stage design, clothing and make-up, and method of painting face patterns” 表演, 音樂, 伴 奏, 武打, 翻撲, 舞臺布置, 服裝扮相, 臉譜勾法.123 If we compare the number of Chinese characters in the Xikao version and in this collection for a play picked pretty much at random, “Su San qijie” 蘇三起解 (Transporting Su the Third; Xikao #70), we find that the Xikao version has (1) 419 Chinese characters (including punctuation) of prefatory material (shukao), and (2) 2,836 characters for the play itself; Zhongguo Jingju liupai jumu jicheng has (1) a preface 1,440 characters long; (2) prefatory material, giving the cast list with the character’s role types and costume plots, and a list of props, 177 characters long; and (3) the play itself, which is 6,038 characters long, without counting the musical notation (the percussion notation, which is primarily composed of the names of percussion patterns but also of some characters representing sounds made by the percussion orchestra, was counted).124 From these figures we can see that the Zhongguo Jingju liupai jumu jicheng play text is more than twice as long, in terms of text, than the Xikao one. While both the publisher and the scholar stress that the play texts in the collection are “3D,” the collection itself is striking in that the only visual element is the reproduction on the cover of each volume of the famous painting of the “Thirteen Stars of the Tongzhi and Guangxu Eras” (Tong Guang shisan jue 同光十三絕)125 that appears so 121 Pan Zhanwei 潘占偉, “Xueyuan chubanshe xiqu wenxian” 學苑出版社戲曲文獻 (Chinese indigenous theater texts from Xueyuan Chubanshe), in “Jingju wenxian de fajue, zhengli yu yanjiu,” p. 118. 122 Chang Lisheng 常立勝, “Jige butong Jingju juben wenxian congshu de bijiao” 幾個不同 京劇劇本文獻叢書的比較 (A comparison of several dissimilar collectanea containing Jingju play texts), in “Jingju wenxian de fajue, zhengli yu yanjiu,” p. 607. 123 Pan Zhanwei, “Xueyuan chubanshe xiqu wenxian,” p. 118. 124 See Zhongguo Jingju liupai jumu jicheng, 13: 189 for the title page, pp. 190–91 for the preface, p. 192 for the character and prop lists, and pp. 193–229 for the play text. 125 For a concise introduction to this famous and controversial painting, see Yang Lianqi 楊 連啟, “Guanyu ‘Tong Guang shisan jue xianghua’ ” 關於同光十三絕像畫 (Concerning

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frequently in modern media related to Jingju, including the film, Farewell My Concubine, where it is on prominent display in the opera school. 5

Recording More Detail in Play Texts: Adding Graphic Elements and Photographs

While looking at the circulation of Jingju through old and new media in the Introduction, we noticed that while chuanqi illustrated with woodblock prints only very rarely contain elements specific to stage performance, the lithographic editions of Jingju plays that began to appear in great numbers in the late Qing did (they included huitu [illustrated] in their titles and each play had at least one drawing that clearly included stage performance elements). Newspapers also used drawings of scenes to accompany the scene by scene summaries of plays that they published, and in the case of one play, Heiji yuan­hun 黑籍冤魂 (Wronged spirit of an opium addict; not in Xikao), when a troupe from outside Shanghai requested a copy of the play text so that they could perform it, the Shanghai theater that mounted the play produced a book version that used stage photos instead of scene drawings.126 Recording movement on the page has always been difficult, whether it has been attempted textually, as in stage directions or shenduan pu, or using visual representation such as drawings or photographs. In the twentieth and twentyfirst centuries, illustrating xiqu or Jingju stage movement through drawings has tended not to occur in play texts but in books on performance skills and routines designed primarily for class and student use such as, Xiqu shenduan biaoyan xunlian fa 戲曲身段表演訓練法 (Ways to practice Chinese indigenous theater performance movement).127 This book begins with three background chapters with no illustrations, and then moves from static images/movements (e.g., ways of looking [Figures 1–12128 are drawings of heads only; Figures 13–24 “The Thirteen Stars of the Tongzhi and Guangxu Eras Painting”), Zhongguo Jingju 2004.12. 25–27. 126 See the section on photos in chapter 3. 127 Beijing: Zhongguo xiqu, 2005. This is a textbook that is part of Zhongguo xiqu xueyuan gaodeng yishu jiaoyu congshu 中國戲曲學院高等藝術教育叢書 (Collectanea for higher level arts education from Zhongguo Xiqu Xueyuan). The author, Wan Fengshu 萬 鳳姝, is a 1959 graduate of Zhongguo Xiqu Yueyuan and after a career as actress, has been teaching at Zhongguo Xiqu Yueyuan since 1979. 128 To save space, page numbers will generally not be provided. There is a total of 1,165 figures (drawings and photos) in the main part of the volume, and an additional 14 photos in the appendix. There is a total of 107 stage diagrams in a total of 9 series, each with different titles and separately numbered. Stage diagrams will be indicated by page number only.

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are from the waist up]) to movement sequences (the book proper ends with a zouma 走馬 routine meant to show travel on horseback through difficult terrain from a particular play, with the accompanying percussion patterns given [Figures 1124–66]); from drawings of actors in rehearsal garb to actors wearing specific elements of costume or props (e.g., water sleeves, first example Figure 501; the false hank of hair that men can whirl about after their headpiece has been removed, Figures 637–50; false beard, Figures 651–84; feathers worn on headpieces, Figures 736–56; the tip of the sash worn around the waist that needs to be manipulated in the male version of a particular sequence, Figures 894–938; dusters [ fuchen 拂塵], Figures 685–735; horsewhips, Figures 822–92; and fans, Figures 959–1011 [there is also provided a separatelynumbered sequence of seven drawings showing aspects of the folding fan and how to hold one]); from abstracted, contextless, backgroundless drawings of actors129 to the addition of stage diagrams to show stage position and movement on stage; from single drawings to sequences of photographs that also, in the last example, incorporate stage diagrams (pp. 459–82). Movement is shown in the drawings of actors (which are primarily full body, but can also be isolated body parts, such as a hand [first example, Figure 41]) and stage diagrams by broken lines (curved or straight or twisting) with arrow heads showing the direction of movement and/or the final resting point (in terms of the moment depicted in the drawing).130 An exception is when the actor has jumped into the air, in which case a set of two (typically; there are examples of just one, such as Figure 398) short unbroken lines drawn under each leg, with the lines slanted to show direction of movement (first example is Figure 393; for an example using broken lines with arrow heads to show the movement of all four limbs and unbroken lines to show movement into the air, see Figure 408). In the stage diagrams, the body of the actor is represented by a small circle, half of which is black and the other half is white (the white half represents the back of the actor and the black half the front).131 Almost all of the figures and stage 129 Some of the figures (the first being Figure 232) show a practice bar such as will be familiar to those who have studied ballet; others show the actor on top of a table (Figures 433–34). 130 An exception would be, for instance, Figure 122, which depicts moving both hands in circles: each of the broken-line-circles showing the motion have two arrow heads in them, whose purpose is just to show direction of movement and not final resting place. 131 This is similar to how some modern shenduan pu, such as Zhang Yuanhe 張元和 (1907– 2003), Kunqu shenduan shi pu 崑曲身段試譜 (Experimental shenduan pu for Kunqu; Taibei: Pengying quji, 1971), depict the position of actors on stage by representing them by drawings of pairs of shoes, from which the user can discern both the actors’ position on stage and which direction they are facing, and how their feet are positioned in relation to each other. Images of shoes are used this way in traditional Chinese dance notation. See Peng Song 彭松 and Feng Bihua 馮碧華, Zhongguo gudai wupu (Gongyuan qian

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diagrams represent one actor only (the only exceptions are Figures 449–54).132 Occasionally, traditional oral formula (koujue 口訣) are included (first example appears on p. 51). The appendix to Xiqu shenduan biaoyan xunlian fa reproduces fourteen of seventeen photos of Wang Yaoqing performing specific hand gestures or postures (shoushi 手勢) that were probably made while Wang was teaching at Zhongguo Xiqu Xueyuan and were given to the author of Xiqu shenduan biaoyan xunlian fa in 1979 (p. 484). In the last four sections in the main part of the book, photographs replace the drawings of actors. The first three of these four sections are about movement vocabulary related to (1) male (particularly xiaosheng) use of the folding fan), (2) female manipulation of two long strips of silk cloth (now replaced by synthetics but whose name still reflects their original manufacture: changchou 長綢) of the kind so important in Tiannü sanhua (Xikao #485), and (3) hand postures. The fourth is the zouma routine from a particular play that integrates photos and stage diagrams mentioned above. The title for that sequence stresses that it includes the percussion notation, although previous sequences that must be precisely matched to the percussion patterns played during them have also included percussion notation. Jingju play texts have made use of drawings of actors or scenes since the lithographic play texts of the late Qing and very early years of the Republic, which each include a single drawing illustrating what appears to be a scene from the play (it is not always easy, however, to identify what precise moment within a scene is being depicted in these drawings, and they are never labeled so as to relieve uncertainty on this issue). We have seen that in the Republican period, some periodicals published play texts that were accompanied by photos clearly meant to illustrate performance elements of the play. The number of photos used to illustrate play texts increased greatly in books already mentioned such as the “performance” editions of yangban xi of the 1970s or Fenmo qushu: Jingju jingdian jumu wutai guizhi zonglan: Baishe zhuan 粉墨氍毹: 京 劇經典劇目舞臺規制縱覽: 白蛇傳 (Face paint and stage carpet: Overview of the stage regulations of the classical repertoire of Jingju: The White Snake; 2016). Both of those kinds of play texts were ostensibly produced to aid in the

16 shiji—gongyuan 1911 nian) 中國古代舞譜 (公元前 16 世紀—公元 1911 年) (Ancient Chinese dance notation [16th century BC to 1911 AD]; Beijing: Zhongguo wudao, 1989), pp. 83–100. Interestingly, according to the way Chinese shoes were made (and still are for Chinese indigenous theater), left and right shoes cannot be told apart visually; to handle this problem, the shoes in these charts include the Chinese characters for “left” and “right” placed in the hole where the foot would be inserted to distinguish left foot from right foot. 132 There is also a sequence that illustrates a strap to be used by one teacher or actor to support an actor while training, and of the strap in use (Figures 495–99).

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mounting of the plays involved, but none of them include the number of figures for particular motion sequences of the kind that appear in Xiqu shenduan biaoyan xunlian fa, probably because those sequences are the basic building blocks that appear over and over again in different plays, even in xiandai xi such as the yangban xi (although they appear greatly modified, even “broken,” in those plays; the expanded performance texts provide extra illustrative material to help actors trained to rely on old conventions to perform in these new plays133). Another set of play texts, published under the series title of Jingju jingdian pindu 京劇經典品讀 (Connoisseurial reading of classic Jingju plays; 2016), is interesting in its use of photographs. The “connoisseurial reading[s]” contemplated in Jingju jingdian pindu involves, I believe, both the readings included in the volumes and the kind of reading the volumes encourage from the reader. But most important for us at this point is the huge number of photographs included in each volume.134 Only four volumes were published in the series,135 each of which were compiled by the Beijing Shi Wen Shi Yanjiu Guan 北京市 文史研究館 (Institute for research on the culture and history of Beijing; established in 1951) and Chang’an Da Xiyuan 長安大戲院 (Chang’an Grand Theatre),136 and edited by Wu Jiang 吳江, long term head of the National Jingju Company (2000–2015) and presently a researcher at a national level research institute of the same kind as Beijing Shi Wen Shi Yanjiu Guan, along with Zhao Hongtao 趙洪濤, manager of Chang’an Da Xiyuan since it opened in 1996.137 The four volumes are each based on particular performances of the plays at Chang’an Da Xiyuan. They are published by Beijing Meishu Sheying Chubanshe 北京美術攝 133 An example of a completely new routine that the yangban xi performance scripts use stage diagrams to show the blocking for is the “group skiing dance” in Zhiqu Weihu shan 智取威虎山 (Taking Tiger Mountain by strategy) (see the reproductions of them as Figures 9.1–5 and the discussion of them and the scene in Fan, Staging Revolution, pp. 231– 36) (see p. 232, n. 59, for information on the yanchu ben). My use of the term “broken” in the main text above is meant to reference Fan Xing’s work. 134 The one for Longfeng chengxiang, for instance, has over 200 photos. 135 The four are Zhao-shi gu’er 趙氏孤兒 (Orphan of Zhao; not in Xikao), Longfeng cheng­ xiang 龍鳳呈祥 (Dragon and phoenix present auspicious omens; for the relationship of this play and two with related titles in Xikao, see the note in chapter 3), Mu Guiying guashuai 穆桂英掛帥 (Mu Guiying takes command, not in Xikao), and Suolin nang 鎖 麟囊 (The purse to encourage having excellent sons; not in Xikao). All are plays that were created or reached maturity after Xikao was published. 136 This theater, to the east of Dongdan on Chang’an Grand Avenue in Beijing, is conceived as a continuation of a famous theater of the same name opened in 1937 at Xidan on the same avenue (that theater closed in 1989). 137 On this theater and Zhao Hongtao and their part in the production of a particular kind of “Tourist Peking opera,” see Rolston, “Two Decades of Selling Peking Opera White Snakes,” particularly pp. 59–69.

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影出版社 (Art Photography Publishing House of Beijing). Up to eight cameras took photographs of each performance, and these were supplemented by studio photographs of the main performers.138 The photographs are luscious; they are to slobber over, not to teach anyone how to perform. Each volume shares the same format:139 (1) preface(s), (2) photos showing the costumes and makeup for the main characters (dingzhuang定裝), (3) sets of photos designed to narrate visually the content of the play ( jushang 劇賞)140 followed by essays designed to help appreciation (pingshu 評述) for the groups of scenes this part of each book is broken up into,141 (4) the playscript ( juben 劇本), and (5) afterword (houji 後記). The price of each volume is set at the amazingly low figure of 50 RMB, surely because their production was subsidized.142 Prefaces that appear in the four volumes speak of the four volumes already published as a kind of trial run, which seems to promise the possibility of additional volumes in the series, but no new ones have appeared, and the visibility of the series has been very low.143 Another genre that used photographs to illustrate Jingju plays was lianhuan hua 連環畫 (linked pictures), also sometimes known as xiaoren shu 小人書 138 See, for instance, the “Houji” 後記 (Afterword) to the Mu Guiying guashuai volume, pp. 318–19. 139 Not only is the format the same across the volumes, the records in WorldCat give exactly the same figure for the page numbers (319) for each of them. 140 Most of the photos have, on blank parts of the pages the photos appear on, quotations from the lyrics or dialogue of the play; the rest are not accompanied by any text beyond small indications of the name of the play and page numbers in the lower corners away from the gutter. 141 For the volume on Longfeng chengxiang, for instance, the eighteen scenes of this version of the play are divided into four sections: (1) scenes 1–3 (pp. 21–78), (2) scenes 4–8 (pp. 79–156), (3) scenes 9–11 (pp. 157–224), and (4) scenes 12–18 (pp. 225–301). The jushang sections take up the following pages and photos for each section: (1) pp. 21–52 (twentythree photos), (2) pp. 79–124 (thirty-one photos), (3) pp. 157–202 (thirty-seven photos), and (4) pp. 225–82 (thirty-eight 38 photos). Sometimes there are more than one photo on a single page; sometimes a single photo spreads over two pages with no margins or caption (e.g., pp. 118–19). 142 The series is listed as a nationally subsidized publication (Guojia chuban jijin xiangmu 國 家出版基金項目; see the WorldCat entries on the volumes). 143 Searches in the China Academic Journals database and its associated databases for PRC doctoral and master’s thesis (all of which permit full-text searches) for the series title done on August 6, 2019, came up with only one result: Zhang Chunxin 張春欣, “Guojia jijin zizhu Zhongguo chuantong wenhua xiangmu chuban xingshi yanjiu (2013–2018)” 國 家基金資助中國傳統文化項目出版形式研究 (2013–2018) (Research on the publication tendencies for projects concerning Chinese traditional culture subsidized nationally [2013–2018]), master’s thesis, Qingdao Technical University, 2018, which only includes the series in an appendix listing approved projects of 2016 (p. 68).

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(books for little [young] people). This genre originally used a series of drawings with narration and/or dialogue written out beneath the drawings to tell stories. In the PRC, there began to appear lianhua hua that used photographs from stage productions or stills from films of Jingju films to make Jingju plays or movies made from them more widely known and to fulfill the demands of consumers.144 The advantage of photographs over drawings is that a good camera operator, even in the days before digital cameras, could easily take and produce sequences of images separated by very small increments of time, and this capability has only been increased with the introduction of digital photography. The increased availability and reduction in cost of film and video production have made the reliance on either drawings or photographs to show details of motion appear more and more unnecessary,145 making a playscript such as 144 An example that uses photographs of a stage production would be Weimin 未泯, adapt., Li Huiniang 李慧娘 (this is the name of the leading female character; Beijing: Wenhua yishu, 1981), which uses 125 photos. It was published in the same year as a film of the same name, using the same lead actress, Hu Zhifeng 胡芝風 (1938–), and the same troupe she performed with, but the sets are almost completely different from those used in the film. The photographers’ names are highlighted on the title page. An example that uses stills from a film based on a play would be Sha’ou 沙鷗, adapt., Tiegong yuan 鐵弓緣 (The marriage affinity of the iron bow; Beijing: Zhongguo dianying, 1980), which features Guan Sushuang 關肅霜 (1928–1992), who made the play famous. This book was published by a press that publishes material related to films and explicitly says that it is based on the (1979) film of the same name (at the bottom of the first page after the title page). This book uses 177 still photos. Both of these books had color covers but the photos inside are all reproduced in black and white; the list prices for each are under one yuan. 145 It is possible, of course, to simulate the effect of seeing motion displayed through film by constructing a “flipbook” made of a sequence of either drawings or photos that represent equally spaced “snapshots” of separate stages within motions. Film is just a more technologically advanced “flipbook” that produces the effect of motion by displaying sequences of static images. On the Chinese Wikipedia site for Zhu Zaiyu 朱載堉 (1536–1611), a famous musicologist who also published wupu 舞譜 (graphic transcriptions of dance), two electronic “flipbooks” constructed by making slideshows from sequences from Zhu’s wupu and displaying them at high speed loops can be seen. See https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/ %E6%9C%B1%E8%BC%89%E5%A0%89, accessed August 6, 2019. The original wupu are reproduced in Li Tiangang 李天綱, ed., Zhu Zaiyu ji 朱載堉集 (Collected works of Zhu Zaiyu), 6 vols. (Shanghai: Shanghai jiaotong daxue, 2013), 4: 2652–83 and pp. 2: 1554–1617. The flipbook effect can be simulated by going to the copies of Zhu Zaiyu’s works posted on the Chinese Text Project website (for instance, go to https://ctext-org.proxy.lib.umich .edu/library.pl?if=en&file=57324&page=2, accessed August 9, 2019), and repeatedly clicking on the “next page” button. Laban dance notation (labanotation), is not very intuitive at all and is not commonly used in China. For a reproduction of the pages used for the “flipbooks” and labanotation versions of them, see the chapters on Zhu Zaiyu in Peng Song and Feng Bihua, Zhongguo gudai wupu, pp. 77–125 (Zhu is also responsible for the

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Lu Wenlong 陸文龍 (1981 [the title comes from the name of the main character, the focus on this character is the main difference between this play and Xikao #112])146 seem rather quaint and unlikely to be reproduced. This play text uses 156 colored photographs of an actor dressed as the title role on a stage in front of a back curtain to illustrate how a student of the role should act it. The photos all concentrate on the military aspects of the play; all of them show Lu Wenlong in armor and all but the first of them show him manipulating his favorite weapons, a pair of white spears. It is not clear how many of the photos were produced by asking the actor to strike the necessary pose and wait for the shot to be taken and how many were just shot with fast speed film as the actor was moving (one of them, photo #107, does show motion; one of the spears has been caught flying through the air, creating a white blur147). The play text (pp. 18–97) is divided into 14 scenes; the majority of the numbered photos (#54–152) relate to one scene only, scene four: “Bada chui chelun dazhan” 八 大錘車輪大戰 ([Lu Wenlong] greatly fights eight [generals using pairs of] big mallets [arranged around him like the] rim of a wagon wheel).148 The stage directions in Lu Wenlong are amazingly detailed, especially when it comes to the eponymous hero, but the playscript does not contain any of the narration of the play that was a part of the shuoxi tradition. Below, we will look at how photography, film, and video have been used to supplement and perhaps replace that tradition. The variety in the amount of detail concerning how the play should be acted in modern Jingju play texts is actually not as great, in at least one aspect, as is the case with musical notation, since there is the option of not including any musical notation, whereas for a Jingju play to be published today with no example of using images of shoes in dance notation mentioned above, in the note that first makes reference to Peng and Feng’s book). For an introduction to the more common ways of notating dance in China, see Zenyang ji he kan wupu changji 怎樣記和看舞譜 場記 (How to record and read graphic representations of dance and stage movement diagrams; Shanghai: Shanghai renmin, 1977). 146 Cao Zengxi 曹曾禧 and Cao Junma 曹駿馬, eds., Lu Wenlong 陸文龍 (Taibei: Fuxing juxiao, 1981). My copy of this rare book was given to me by Cao Junma in 1982. 147 This aspect of the photo doesn’t match very well the stage directions given at the place where this photo is referenced in the play text, p. 49. 148 The main title for Xikao #112, Bada chui, highlights this scene. Besides the numbered photos, Lu Wenlong also has an unnumbered series of 28 photos showing the costumes, makeup, and props of the characters in the play (not surprisingly, Lu Wenlong gets the most photos, four, each showing different costumes he wears and/or different props he carries or wields), pp. 9–15, and an unnumbered series of 32 photos labeled “Dongzuo jieshao” 動 作介紹 (Movement introductions; they are actually all quite static) that can include as many as five actors or just a hand holding a weapon, pp. 124–29.

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stage directions is not really an option. We have seen that in comparison with Kunqu, for a long time there was no strong need felt to notate the kind of music used in Jingju (for instance, musical notation in palace playscripts for Jingju, if they had any musical notation at all, was usually only for qupai and not for pihuang arias) or to notate aspects of Jingju music (early on, to save space, musical interludes before and between the lines in a pihuang aria were not typically notated). As is true with the transcription of almost any kind of music, the transcriber of Jingju music could possibly try and record a staggering amount of information, even without trying to reflect differences in the way that different performers sing the same text and aria types. Early transcriptions were quite minimal. There was also no tradition of including such things as “dynamic” labels or “articulation” markings such as are commonly used in Western music notation. In order to effect greater control over how the musical aspects of the yangben xi were performed, these kinds of indications and markings were included in the musical notation for those plays and were supposed to be strictly followed.149 On the other hand, greater detail might also be attractive to students and teachers in general. That is surely one of the motivations for the increased amount of information included in the musical notation in Zhongguo Jingju liupai jumu jicheng. If we compare the transcriptions for Su San’s famous aria from Su San qijie in it and Jingju xuanbian, for instance, we see that the former does not include the musical notations as an appendix rather than integrating it into the main text, it notates the eight measures of the musical introduction (guomen 過門) to the aria, includes five micronotes to Jingju xuanbian’s one, gives the notation for both the lead musical instrument, the Jinghu (even including notation that indicates which direction the bow is being pulled or pushed) and the singer instead of just the latter, and includes eight indications that a note should be extended by a very small amount of time compared to only one such instance in Jingju xuanbian.150 149 See Xing Fan, “Revolutionary Femininity in Performance: Female Characters in Beijing Opera,” in Ya-chen Chen, ed., New Modern Chinese Women and Gender Politics: The Centennial of the End of the Qing Dynasty (London: Routledge, 2014), p. 60. In Fan’s Staging Revolution, pp. 164–65, she writes, “In model Jingju, this flexibility [of previous performance practice] is reduced to almost nil; musicians were required to play according to the finalized comprehensive scores, and there were no exceptions.” For such a system to have a chance of success, more had to be notated than had been usual. 150 For the musical notation in Jingju xuanbian, see 12: 80; for the notation in Zhongguo Jingju liupai jumu jicheng, see 13: 205–206. The Jingju xuanbian version is based on a playscript used for teaching at Zhongguo Xiqu Xueyuan compiled by Xiao Changhua and Luo

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New Recording Media and New Ways of Telling Plays (Shuoxi)

Phonography and cinema were not invented after Xikao was published, but the science of recording sounds and images and of combining the two have only continued to improve, around the world and in China, since that collection appeared, so that we now live in a world that is full of recorded sounds and images that are open to a wide variety of post-recording manipulation, some of which will be felt to improve and some of which will be felt to distort the original recordings. Recorded sounds and images are available to us in a wide variety of forms and consumed in probably as many different ways as they are accessed. What was new in China of the PRC, however, was the way some of these media were used to help teachers teach plays, shuoxi. Unlike play texts, in which the information on how to perform the play and its dialogue and arias is primarily embedded in just one level of the text, the stage directions, the voice of the teacher, at least to me, should be prominent in any media that pretends to shuoxi. At the most basic level, these new kinds of shuoxi that feature the “voice” of the teacher could consist of radio broadcasts of master performers talking about how to perform plays, something mentioned way back in the Introduction. These examples of shuoxi would not be addressed to specific students known to the teacher and present before them, but to generalized audiences presumed to be interested in either how to perform the play or in learning how it has been performed. These broadcasts might have been based on written out drafts or notes, but no materials of that kind have survived, as far as I know. In some cases, recordings were made and preserved of the broadcasts, and some of these have recently come on the market.151 Recordings of Yuping 羅玉苹 (see 12: 56), while the Zhongguo Jingju liupai jumu jicheng version is based on a performance version (yanchu ben) by Xiao and Mei Lanfang. 151 In my collection I have four CD s based on radio broadcasts in the early 1960s from a program called “Xiqu jiaochang” 戲曲教唱 (Teaching how to sing Chinese indigenous theater) published by the same radio station as originally broadcast the program, Zhongyang Renmin Guangbo Diantai 中央人民廣播電臺 (China National Radio). The lecturers are Qiu Shengrong, Yang Baozhong, Ma Lianliang, and Jiang Miaoxiang, and the titles of the individual disks are their names plus jiaochang followed by the name of one or more plays, except in the case of the one by Qiu Shengrong, whose title is just Qiu Shengrong shuoxi (his lecture is more miscellaneous than the others, and deals with examples from a variety of plays). The disks are in need of information about the program in general and about the individual episodes of the program on the disks; some of the recordings do not seem to be complete. All four disks include a mixture of the lecturer explaining how to perform arias from particular plays, imitating the needed percussion and instrumental interludes himself, and recordings of himself performing. They are not as satisfying as I

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lectures on how to perform plays could also be archived at teaching institutions such as Zhongguo Xiqu Xueyuan; an example would be the recordings of the famous amateur performer and Jingju scholar Liu Zengfu telling how to perform plays; these could eventually see their way into print, as is the case with a volume of plays according to tapes Liu recorded (if the original tapes included Liu’s commentary, there is no trace of that in the published playscripts),152 or they could be published as audio recordings, as happened with a set of lectures Wang Yaoqing recorded in either the late 1950s or early 1960s.153 remember the radio shuoxi broadcasts in Taiwan being, but it is interesting to hear the ordinary speaking voices of these famous actors (Yang Baozhong is perhaps more famous as a Jinghu player). 152 See Jiang Jun 姜駿 et al., eds., Liu Zengfu shuoxi juben ji 劉曾復說戲劇本集 (Collection of play texts told by Liu Zengfu; Shanghai: Huadong shidan daxue, 2015). The ten-item fanli explains the process of the compilation of the book, which includes zongjiang ben 總講本 (all characters) or danci ben 單詞本 (one character only) playscripts for over one hundred plays. Unlike the manuscripts of single-role scripts mentioned in previous chapters above, the danci ben in Liu Zengfu shuoxi juben ji not only do not contain cues to know when to pause and when to speak again, they also do not contain the standard slash that shows when the focused-upon character stops speaking and someone else speaks. A CD with over 236 audio files accompanies the book. My copy of the book and of the CD were given to me when I attended a conference celebrating Liu and the release of the book held by Zhongguo Xiqu Xueyuan on August 19, 2015. For a brief report on event, see the announcement, “ ‘Liu Zengfu xiangsheng Jingju xue sixiang yantao hui’ ji Liu Zengfu shuoxi juben ji shoufa shi zai Jing zhaokai” ‘劉曾復先生京劇學思想研討會’ 暨劉曾復 說戲劇本集首發式在京召開 (“Conference on Mr. Liu Zengfu’s thought with regard to Jingju-ology” and release ceremony for Liu Zengfu shuoxi juben ji held in Beijing), Xiqu yishu 2015.3: 6. The sound files just record Liu performing the arias and dialogue, imitating the percussion patterns and musical interludes when necessary; stage directions have been added to the play texts in the book. On Liu, see Xu Peng, “Liu Zengfu as One of the Last Connoisseurs of Jingju (Peking Opera),” CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature 34.1 (July 2015): 78–80, which mentions a Chinese article that she wrote about Liu (p. 78, n. 1) and the forthcoming appearance of the book of play texts, under an earlier title (p. 78 n. 2). 153 The phonograph disks were published under the name Wang Yaoqing xiansheng shuoxi 王瑤卿先生說戲 (Mr. Wang Yaoqing tells plays) by Zhongguo Changpian 中國唱片 (China Records) and were apparently recorded during the time Wang was president of Zhongguo Xiqu Xueyuan. This set of records is only very rarely mentioned, and almost always secondhand, quoting the same source from which I first became aware of them, the posthumous publication of four poems and an introduction for them that Mei Lanfang wrote for the publication of the set of records: “Ti Wang Yaoqing xiansheng shuoxi cezi” 題王瑤卿先生說戲冊子 (Inscription for the volume of phonographs of Wang Yaoqing telling plays), Juben 1961.7–8.4 (the text, not the image of Mei Lanfang, was later reproduced in Xiqu yishu 1980.1: 37). From the note appended by Xu Jichuan (also left out of the Xiqu yishu version), we learn that Mei was approached by the organization managing the publication of the records (referred to in Ji’s note and Mei’s introduction as Zhongyang

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It is possible, of course, for teachers to use visual aids while they teach plays and for those visual aides to be made available at the same time as the teacher speaks. Fairly early in the PRC, books composed of teachers talking about specific plays and how to perform them that were accompanied by numbered photographs keyed to the text were published.154 Once the technology and resources became available, it was easy enough to produce videos and DVD s of teachers “telling plays.” These could build on the increasing interest in the oral history (koushu shi 口述史) of Jingju, evidenced recently by a number of large-scale publishing projects, some of which are accompanied by videos of authoritative Jingju figures speaking.155 There is a kind of melding of oral hisGuangbo Shiye Ju 中央廣播事業局 [Central Bureau for Broadcasting Affairs]) to write an inscription, but that Mei died before the set of records was actually published (the note was written in August of 1961; from the language of Ji’s note it is not clear whether the set had already been published by then; I have not been able to find the real publication date for the set). In 2018 the library staff at Zhongguo Xiqu Xueyuan found a cache of phonograph records that had been sitting neglected and uncatalogued that contained phonograph records dating from the first decade of the 20th century through the Cultural Revolution. During the 8th conference on Jingju-ology, I was lucky enough to be invited to tag along with some real experts on old phonograph records such as Chai Junwei to look at examples from the cache. I got to hold one of the Wang Yaoqing telling plays disks in my hand, but did not get a chance to listen to any of the sides (if the records were indeed part of a box set that included textual material such as Mei’s poems, there was no evidence of that). We were given a preliminary catalogue of the cache; it gives information on only three of the four records, but even so the information includes the names of two more plays than Mei Lanfang listed in his introduction; the second disk seems to have also had plays not listed by Mei. Not having heard the records, nor able to find any written description by anyone who has, I still expect that the kind of “telling plays” is the same as for the set of Liu Zengfu recordings, and does not include commentary or asides. For a report on the cache of phonographs, see Kong Ying 孔瑛, “Zhongguo xiqu xueyuan tushu guan cang Jingju heijiao changpian chutan” 中國戲曲學院圖書館藏京劇黑膠唱片初 探 (A first look at the Jingju vinyl phonographs held in the library of Zhongguo Xiqu Xueyuan), in “Jingju wenxian de fajue, zhengli yu yanjiu,” pp. 436–40. At the meeting, when we looked at the examples from the cache, Chai Junwei pointed out that not all of the phonograph records could be considered heijiao changpian. Kong indicates that the cache included over 1,900 records (including doubles), of which more than 1,400 concern Jingju (p. 436). 154 Two examples from the early 1960s in which famous actors dictated what they wanted to say would be Hou Xirui 侯喜瑞, Xuexi he shuoxi 學戲與說戲 (Learning and telling plays; Beijing: Beijing chubanshe, 1961) and Yu Lianquan 于連泉 (a.k.a. Xiao Cuihua 篠翠花), Jingju huadan biaoyan yishu 京劇花旦表演藝術 (The performance art of the huadan role in Jingju; Beijing: Beijing chubanshe, 1962). Hou Xirui (1892–1983), who has only been mentioned in passing above, was a famous actor of jiazi hualian roles and educator. 155 An example that does not include DVD versions of the lectures is Tanxi shuoxi (2015), and one that does include them would be Feng Jie 封傑, ed., Jingju dajia jueyi lu 京劇 大家絕藝錄 (A record of the unparalleled art of masters of Jingju; Beijing: Commercial Press, and Beijing: Beijing dianzi yinxiang, 2015–). Four volumes in the second project

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tory and telling plays in a fairly recently completed publishing project done not for Jingju but for Kunqu: Kunqu baizhong, dashi shuoxi 崑曲百種, 大師說 戲 (One hundred pieces of Kunqu, Master performers talk about their scenes; 2014).156 There were unnecessary restrictions on how the lectures were done (an example is the general ban on the use of supplementary visual material; an example of how that complicates things is how the viewer has to listen to verbal descriptions of the face patterns for specific characters that would have been much clearer if aided by showing visuals of those face patterns), but this was a huge project that Jingju can only be envious of.157 Zhongguo Xiqu Xueyuan announced in 2016 the publication of the first of five sets of a series entitled Zhongguo Xiqu Xueyuan Jingju biaoyan zhuanye zhuxiu jumu ke jiaocai 中國戲曲學院京劇表演專業主修劇目課教材 (Teaching material for elective repertoire classes for Jingju acting majors from Zhongguo Xiqu Yueyuan)158 that sometimes replicates elements of traditional shuoxi, have been published, one on wusheng actors (2015), part one of a multi-volume set on dan actors (2016), a volume on laosheng actors (2017), and a volume on chou and xiaosheng actors (2019). The format for both of these projects could have been better thought out and executed, as the content and approach of the different lectures or recorded reminiscences vary too widely. Incidentally, Tanxi shuoxi includes (1: 258–63) a chapter dictated by a playwright, Lü Ruiming 呂瑞明 (1925–), collaborator and colleague of Fan Junrong (discussed above); he is also interviewed in Nanwang de jiyi, pp. 32–67 (in which he mentions the earlier interview). Oral history has been very important in the study of Jingju but only very rarely the subject of critical exploration. For an example of an attempt to say where things seem to stand at the moment in terms of scholarship on the topic, see Xiao Xiao 肖瀟, “Jingju mingjia koushu shi yu Jingju wenhua chuancheng” 京劇名家口 述史與京劇文化傳承 (The oral history of Jingju masters and the transmission of Jingju culture), Zhongguo Jingju 2018.6: 56–59. 156 Jointly published by Hunan Dianzi Yinxiang Chubanshe 湖南電子音像出版社 and Yuelu Shushe 岳麓書社, both of Changsha. The “hundred” of the title is a round number, the set actually includes 110 lectures, each recorded on separate DVD s; the collection also contains textual transcriptions of the lectures, but as I found out when I edited a translation of one of them, what is said on the DVD s and what is transcribed in the accompanying volumes does not always match. See Stenberg, “An Annotated Translation of Zhang Jiqing’s Lecture,” p. 157. There are plans to produce a volume of translations of selected lectures from the project done by Stenberg and others. 157 For more on this project, see Kim Hunter Gordon, “Kunqu baizhong, dashi shuoxi (One hundred pieces of Kunqu, Master performers talk about their scenes): A Review Essay,” CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature 35.2 (December 2016): 143–52. 158 See the March 4, 2016, posting on the academy’s website, https://www.nacta.edu.cn/zzjg/ jjx/xbdt/37128.htm, accessed August 7, 2019. It is interesting that the title of the series indicates that the plays covered are not those required to be studied (bixiu ke 必修課). Some of the accompanying booklets spell out the standards for evaluating students (kaohe biaozhun 考核標準). The publisher is Beijing Wenhua Yishu Yinxiang Chubanshe 北京文化藝術音像出版社 (Beijing Culture and Arts Media Publishing Company).

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with textual supplements and video versions that you can watch as many times as you like. Another batch of five sets have appeared since the first batch. The two DVD s of the first set for which the teacher is Li Chongshan 李崇善 (1940–) and the play is Dayu shajia 打漁殺家 (Beating of the fisherman and Killing the [local bully’s] family; Xikao #36), are divided between one of Li teaching a “model” student how to sing the arias of the main character, Xiao En (teacher and student are sitting at a table), and a second one in which Li teaches the student to do the stage movements in a particular scene of the play (done on a stage with props but not in full costume). The accompanying text includes the playscript followed by musical notation for every character’s arias (not just Xiao En’s). There is no attempt to transcribe what is actually said by the teacher to the student. What takes place on the DVD approaches quite closely to how plays are actually taught. This is not the case with other sets in the series. The DVD for set number eight, for instance, consists of absolutely nothing but stage recordings of performances of the plays to be learned. It is clear that this series is still experimental and the best model has not yet been figured out or uniformly followed. That being said, I expect that the demand for such multi-media teaching materials will only increase, and the quality will rise to satisfy not only the demands of professional acting school students but also amateur performers. 7

New Recording Media: DVD Bonus Features, Digitization, Hypertexts, and the Web

For a long time I have been in the habit of going once a week to the main branch of our excellent public library to borrow a handful of DVD s to watch with my wife at night after my brain gets too tired to do any real work. I particularly like to look at the bonus features on DVD s and, although I rarely have time to do it, I like even more to take advantage of the option of re-watching the film or video with the subtitles on while listening to the commentary of the director and others who participated in the making of the film. A capability of DVD s, to provide separate soundtracks with different content, has not even begun to be exploited in the world of Jingju. Among the possibilities, providing the option of listening to the actors speaking and singing in English seems not only not worth the effort, but perhaps downright obnoxious. But providing, right on the DVD disks of Jingju plays and recorded performances, and available in the menu, Chinese commentary from the performers and perhaps also their teachers, and scholars, and even directors and those who produced the DVD, for those who can understand spoken Chinese, and English commentary (could be translations from Chinese commentaries or new commentary

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designed specifically to meet the needs of those who don’t understand Chinese or the Chinese of the plays), has seemed to me, over the span of years since I first thought of the idea, very worthwhile (and possibly also profitable). But such a project is not something I can do all by myself, and although I have been trying to sell the idea to a wide variety of people in Jingju circles in China, I haven’t yet found the key to organizing the necessary support. As an indication of where things presently stand, during the preparations for Zhang Huoding’s performances at Lincoln Center in 2015, I strongly advocated to the sponsors of the performance tour that copies of DVD s of Zhang Huoding’s versions of the two plays to be performed with English subtitles added be prepared and sent to the press in New York City in advance of Zhang’s arrival. This would have been easy to do: English subtitles were already being prepared for the performances, Zhongguo Xiqu Xueyuan has its own center for filming television and producing DVD s, and adding English subtitles to preexisting DVD s of Zhang’s performances would only add to their market value. At the planning meeting where I made this suggestion, it was clear that some thought that this was a good idea, but it seems that, unexpectedly, it was just too new of an idea for them, and inertia won out. In any case, I can still dream, and still try to persuade people with the necessary expertise and resources to think seriously about producing DVD s of this type.159 The lack of recordings of Jingju plays with English subtitles and the poor quality of those that are available directly contradicts the strongly felt desire in China to introduce Jingju to the English speaking world. Scholars in units in Zhongguo Xiqu Xueyuan have been mobilized in recent years to work on bilingual projects160 and there is interest in preparing English language materials on Jingju at other institutions.161 The number of translations of

159 A lot of money and resources was mobilized to produce the VCD/DVD series Zhongguo Jingju yin pei xiang jingcui, which tries to reproduce full performances of plays by famous actors for which only audio versions exist. The ostensible rationale for the project was to provide teaching versions of these plays. Imagine how much more valuable the series would be if the experts participating in the project had provided expert commentary on the plays that could be listened to while watching them! 160 An example would be Que Yanhua 闕艷華 et al., Zhong Ying wen duizhao Jingju fushi shuyu 中英文對照京劇服飾術語/Jingju Costume Terms in Chinese and English (Beijing: Xueyuan chubanshe, 2017). The title leads the reader to expect an emphasis on the terms but that is not the case, and there is no index to help the reader compare the use of the same term in different contexts. The volume lacks a clear explanation of its goals and editorial principles or a discussion of its intended audience. 161 For instance, funding has been granted for scholars at two different universities in Beijing to organize the preparation of an English language dictionary of Jingju.

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Jingju plays printed, although not always of high quality, has increased sharply in recent years.162 This book is about the textualization of Jingju. At the close of this last substantial chapter, I would like to write of the possibilities opened up by the digitization of Jingju and its new lives on the internet. The latter include, most prominently, uploaded visual files of performances, some of them legal and others not (the latter can be gone the next day after you find them), and websites devoted to Jingju. Among those sites is one that has been mentioned many times above, Zhongguo Jingju xikao 中國京劇戲考/xikao.com163 (the first mention in the main text of this book appears in chapter 3). It contains a lot of information, but began as a site to post digitized versions of play texts in Xikao to consult and download and has continued to increase its holdings of Jingju play texts in general. Websites such as this one, and even more, other, less ambitious ones, represent fairly simple uses of digital versions of Jingju. More complex and “scientific” uses are just beginning. They include digitizing old Jingju records so that they can be compared with records attributed to the same artist and to those of other artists. This has already begun to have good results in trying to sort out authentic attributions to particular famous performers from inauthentic ones, a very serious problem in the first decades of the audio recording of Jingju.164 Another example of the use of the digitiza162 Besides the Zhongguo Jingju baibu jingdian Yingyi xilie series mentioned above, a number of English translations of Jingju plays have appeared in a series that has not been mentioned yet: Zhongguo xiqu haiwai chuanbo gongcheng congshu 中國戲曲海外傳播工程 叢書 (Collectanea of the project on the foreign transmission of Chinese indigenous theater; Beijing: Waiyu jiaoxue yu yanjiu, 2013–). According to WorldCat, fifteen titles have been published in this series (the most recent is from 2015); exactly half, or seven and one-half, are Jingju (the half comes from a play with Tibetan content that combines Jingju and Tibetan opera). Recently there has been interest in what appears to be the earliest publication of an English translation of a Jingju play, G. C. Stent, “The Yellow Stork Tower [Huanghe lou 黃鶴樓; Xikao #12],” which appeared in the September 1876 issue of The Far East (pp. 57–66). On Stent as a translator, see Wilt L. Idema, “George Carter Stent (1833– 1884) as a Translator of Traditional Chinese Popular Literature,” Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, and Reviews 39 (2017): 119–33, and Wang Yan 王燕, “Jingju Yingyi zhi haoshi— Sidengde yu Jingju ‘Huanghe lou’ Yingyi yanjiu” 京劇英譯之嚆矢—司登得與京劇 ‘黃 鶴樓’ 英譯研究 (The whistling arrow [such arrows were sent to announce forthcoming armed engagement] of English translation—A study of Stent and his English translation of the Jingju play Huanghe lou), in “Jingju wenxian de fajue, zhengli yu yanjiu,” pp. 374–88. Stent also published his translation of Fenhe wan [Xikao #324] as Jen Kuei’s Return in a collection that he published: The Jade Chaplet in Twenty-four Beads: A Collection of Songs, Ballads, &c. ( from the Chinese) (London: Trübner & Co., 1874), pp. 72–111. 163 In the beginning of August of 2019, I began to have trouble accessing the site through its English name, but the Chinese name continued to work. 164 For an overview of how bad the problem was/is, see Chai Junwei 柴俊偉, “Zhongguo xiqu changpian yanpian gaishu” 中國戲曲唱片贗品概述 (An overview of fake audio

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tion of Jingju is the doctoral dissertation by Rafeal Caro Repetto, “The Musical Dimension of Chinese Traditional Theatre: An Analysis from Computer Aided Methodology” (2018), which is based on the analysis of digital files of music of Jingju.165 Perhaps at one point, film with synchronized soundtracks must have seemed to be the most complete and convenient way to record performance in real time. But the problem, of course, is that the way that we watch film (or TV) is that we are only looking through one camera at a time, and that necessarily restricts what we can see (I like best to watch Jingju performances from behind the percussion orchestra, not only because that is the part of the music that I like the best and the one for which seeing and hearing need to go together the most to get the greatest effect, but also because the new perspective of watching from backstage makes everything new). You can film something with one hundred cameras, as Lars von Trier’s film, Dancer in the Dark (2000) purports to have done,166 but when watching the film itself your view is always constrained, at any particular moment, to the view of only one of them. We can imagine that 3D technologies will only improve in the future,167 but hyperlink technology can already help us “see” texts in greater relief through recordings of Chinese xiqu), in “Jingju wenxian de fajue, zhengli yu yanjiu,” pp. 397–406. When he presented the paper at the Eighth Jingju-ology conference, Chai spoke of how he had compared digitized versions of early recordings to prove long held but still subjective conclusions that certain attributions were fake. This kind of comparison is basically the same as the main kind of comparisons used in digital humanities to draw connections between texts and between parts of the same text. A pioneer in this field in Chinese studies is Donald Sturgeon, now of Harvard and creator of the online site Chinese Text Project (https://ctext.org/), home to a seemingly countless number of digitized Chinese texts and equipped to facilitate all kinds of comparisons between them. The classical orientation of the site is evident in its Chinese title, “Zhuzi baijia” 諸子百家 (the one hundred philosophers), which refers to the writers of the Warring States Period. Although classical theater play texts (zaju and chuanqi) can be found on the site, I have not yet found one for Jingju. 165 The dissertation was done at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra of Barcelona. The dissertation and the slides presented at its defense are available at http://mtg.upf.edu/node/3910, accessed August 7, 2019), and there is a companion website where the digital files used in the project are stored (http://compmusic.upf.edu/caro2018thesis). A video of the defense of the dissertation is also available (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzFi_VW_ bv8&t=43s, accessed August 7, 2019). 166 The bonus material for the DVD (New Line Home Entertainment, 2000) takes great pains to show you how the cameras were used, but in no one shot do you get to see them all at once. 167 At least two 3D Jingju movies (I think that label makes more sense than “3D movies of Jingju” in the case of these two examples) have been made. Both of them, versions of Bawang bie ji (Xikao #336) and Xiao He yuexia zhui Han Xin 蕭何月下追韓信 (Xiao He pursues Han Xin under the moon [not in Xikao]), are part of the recent project, Jingju dianying gongcheng 京劇電影工程 (Project to produce Jingju movies). The first five of

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instantaneous comparison between them and related texts, a technique commonly used in digital humanities.168 Some time soon, perhaps, we will be able to “see,” on one screen, linked in real time, for instance, different versions of play texts for the same Jingju play together with digitized recordings of the same play and “commentary” from a wide variety of voices, all set up so that moving the cursor to any one point in one of these “texts” will make all of the others automatically and simultaneously display the most relevant parts in them. the movies in this project (the five including the two 3D ones) were completed in 2017. To get the full effect you need special projection equipment. I attended the North American premiere of the second of the films. The 3D effects mostly made me queasy, seemed to get in the way of the performance of the actors, and the production was, overall, pretty ham handed. One can imagine that in the future creative people will find ways to make more effective and new use of the technologies involved. For a different person’s thoughts about the first five films (and how to reconcile what the author believes is the inherently realistic nature of film and the inherently imagistic nature of Jingju) and a brief introduction to the project itself, see Liu Feng 劉楓, “Qianghua xiqu dianying zhong de xieyi meixue yuanze—Guan ‘Jingju Dianying Gongcheng’ zuopin yougan” 强化戲曲電影中的寫意 美學原則—觀 “京劇電影工程” 作品有感 (Strengthen the principle of imagist aesthetics in Chinese indigenous theater movies—Thoughts after watching the works that are part of Jingju dianying gongcheng), Zhongguo yishu bao 中國藝術報 (Chinese arts), August 4, 2017, p. 6. Books were published by Renmin Chubanshe of Beijing to accompany each of the films in the project (the one for Xiao He yuexia zhui Han Xin, for instance, was published in 2015). Another recent trend is the making of “digital films” (dianzi dian­ ying 電子電影) of versions of Jingju plays. An example would be the version of Zhang Huoding’s Baishe zhuan from Beijing Wenhua Yishu Yinxiang Chubanshe (2005). The main difference between such films and more conventional ones, to the present, is the exploitation of the increased ability to change scene backgrounds and incorporate special effects, but there are costs. The actors’ stage presence seems to get diminished, and the “thrill” of real-time performance is pretty much nowhere to be found. 168 For instance, in the chapter in David Scott Kastan, Shakespeare and the Book (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), on electronic versions of Shakespeare’s plays, Kastan includes (p. 126) a photo of a screen display of a “hypertext page” showing different resources linked to one page in an edition of King Lear in the “Virtual Reading Room, Columbia Text Workbench” designed by Richard Sacks, and elsewhere (p. 128) references the Hamlet project that is part of Peter Donaldson’s “The Shakespeare Electronic Archive” (see http://shea.mit.edu/shakespeare/webforms/InitFolioBrowser. aspx?PlayID=ham&PLN=0, accessed August 9, 2019). Jeff Tharsen, of the University of Chicago, has explained to me his plans for creating a website on which David Roy’s translation of the Jin Ping will be hyperlinked to the Clement Edgerton translation, various Chinese texts of the novel and their original commentary, and other resources. Digitized versions of literary texts are presently much easier to manipulate than digital files of filmed performance, despite lots of work on motion capture technologies. Robert Reid, of Concordia University in Montreal, has introduced me to hyperlinked materials for teaching traditional Japanese theater, but I don’t yet know of any such projects for Chinese indigenous theater.

Epilogue

Living with Textual Fixity Put in perhaps the simplest terms possible, the story told by this book is of the increasing textualization of Jingju and an accompanying fixity of both textual forms of Jingju and performances, spurred on most dramatically by government censorship, beginning with the late Qing court and Empress Dowager Cixi, who brought into the palace, at an unprecedented rate and frequency, Jingju performers and troupes, where fully written playscripts had to be written out and followed, and culminating with the theater reform campaign in the PRC, which forced a higher level of textualization and adherence to writtenout playscripts on Jingju and other Chinese indigenous theater traditions than ever happened before.1 Earlier censorship regimes desired complete control of what was performed but did not have the resources to realize that desire; greater effort and mobilization of resources under the PRC allowed its censorship regime to achieve degrees of compliance previous regimes could only dream about. Other policies and societal forces, such as the pushing of the use of subtitles during performances under the PRC, and the growth in the number of amateur performers who wished to be not completely reliant on professional actors to learn how to perform (and publishers who both stimulated and tried to fulfil that demand), also encouraged increasing degrees of textualization and the fixity of textual forms of Jingju. Audio recordings and video recordings of performances, which influenced how many, especially amateur performers, but also increasingly, professional or would-be professional performers, learned how to perform specific items in the repertoire, also played a

1 For some, this will sound like progress. Increasing textual (and performance) fixation through musical notation and valorization of the composer as the sole origin and controlling genius whose intentions must be respected (the main job of the conductor being to realize this) is one way to tell the story and goals of Western classical music and opera. While I do not object to such an approach to music and realize that it satisfies the needs of many, I do object to taking that approach as the best or most “scientific” (Western harmony was eventually taken as the most scientific form of music in China and Japan, and was taught, for some time, to the exclusion of native music, in Japan [on how this worked out, see Yasar, Electrified Voices, pp. 77–82]). According to Nicholas Till, “The Operatic Work: Texts, Performances, Reception, and Repertoires,” in Nicolas Till, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Opera Studies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), p. 240, Max Weber (1864–1920) “saw this increasing tendency toward notational fixation as part of the broader social trend towards rationalization and specialization in modernity.”

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very important role in this process of incremental textualization and fixity of those forms of textualization, and of performance. So, we have arrived at a point at which plays in the Jingju repertoire are performed with much less variation than was the case before, and in which impromptu and ad-libbed elements have all but disappeared.2 While this can be of comfort to those engaged in preparing subtitles (in Chinese or other languages3), since stage performances tend to differ very little from audio and video recordings done by the same performers, or even from influential recordings done by other performers,4 it also takes a lot of the “life” out of stage performances. A lot of the excitement generated in live performances by great actors of the past was based on their purposely stimulating each other to perform the same piece in different ways. Although these differences might appear quite small to those not steeped in Jingju, they were once the main focus of seasoned viewers. Their relative absence is surely one reason for the decline in audience attendance and this general problem is one of the motives behind experimentation with more flexible forms of performance such as those used in “little theater.” Not only have the lyrics and dialogue performed by actors become more and more fixed under the influence of different forms of textualization, the same processes have affected the music of Jingju, whose performance has been greatly changed by the increase in the size of the orchestras, increasing 2 As has been pointed out in previous chapters, there has been a revival of performance modes such as mubiao xi that stress improvisation and do not rely on fully written-out playscripts in theater genres ( juzhong) that perform outside the cities at performances sponsored by local groups and individuals to gain cultural and social capital. These ways of organizing performances and of performance once had their roles in Jingju, but that was long ago. 3 I personally greatly enjoy the process of working up English subtitles for performances of Kunqu and particularly Jingju, and can see myself putting even more effort into producing them after I retire from teaching. 4 Last minute changes do happen, typically forced by last-minute cast changes. Among performances for which I participated in preparing the English subtitles, this happened with Zhang Huoding’s performance of Baishe zhuan at Lincoln Center when, after the rest of the troupe had already arrived in New York, final word came that the actor playing the male lead, Xu Xian, had not been given a visa and someone who had trained for the role but had been working in administration for decades and was in New York with the troupe in that capacity had to step in and perform the role but who did not feel comfortable singing one of Xu Xian’s longest arias, which was just cut, and also with the performance of Suzhou Kunju Company’s new version of Pipa ji in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in the spring of 2019, when the actor playing Zhang Guangcai, for health reasons, did not come to Ann Arbor and his lines (he only appears in the last scene) were just cut. Even though this was a new version of the play that differed quite wildly from the zhezi xi its scenes were developed from, access to a video of the premiere greatly aided in the preparation of the subtitles (as the intended tone and pacing was not always clear from the playscript that was provided).

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reliance on musical notation during performance, and the even the use of conductors. This makes it even harder to regain the flexibility, during performance, that once characterized Jingju5 and was the delight of its audiences. However, while I am obviously not very comfortable with how Jingju is now performed, one of the delights of working on Jingju at this moment is the amazing level of access to former and contemporary textualizations of Jingju, in practically any genre and medium you can imagine (this is probably the main reason why this book is so long).6 I hope I have succeeded in sharing some of that delight with readers of this tome. 5 My son, Ben Rolston, is a jazz musician and composer who did a degree in improvised performance in the School of Music at the University of Michigan and who has published a CD of his own compositions (Fables; Envoi Recordings, 2012). My own long-term interest in jazz and what I have learned from Ben, as well as my own experience as a rock musician in bands that stressed improvisation, have all led me to see many similarities between how Jingju once worked (and hopefully will once again) and how jazz works, at its best. Having mentioned my son, I should also mention my daughter, Elizabeth, formerly a dancer who also did choreography and presently a physical therapist who works a lot with dancers (who can be relied upon to need physical therapy regularly). I was always curious how she remembered and taught the dances she choreographed, when she did not use any kind of notation. She always basically said that “body memory” was better than any kind of notation. Once, when she was teaching and had to miss a class, she did make a video for her students to watch. Finally, while I am at it, I should mention my wife Kathryn, who nightly reminds me of the differences between oral and written communication by reading novels and short stories to me as I do the dishes. 6 Some big textual projects will be published soon. In May of 2019, I was fortunate enough to be present when one of the editors for the Minguo juan 民國卷 (Republic of China section), an extension of Jingju lishi wenxian huibian, opened up a huge box of the paper page proofs for the volumes he is responsible for editing. We can also expect, hopefully before too long, the publication of Zhonguo Jingju dadian 中國京劇大典 (Grand compendium on Jingju of China); the parallel work on Kunqu, Kunqu yishu dadian 崑曲藝術大典 (Grand compendium of the art of Kunqu; Hefei: Anhui wenyi, 2016), fills up 149 huge volumes, including one that is basically an external drive with copies of audio and video files. More than a decade of work has already been put into the compilation and publishing of Zhonguo Jingju dadian and the collection has gone through a number of name changes and much delay. It will be published by Shandong Wenyi Chubanshe 山東文藝出版社 (Shandong culture and arts publishing company) of Jinan.

Appendix

List of Plays in Xikao No matter how you count them, and there are indeed different ways to count them, Xikao contains over 500 plays. Because plays that were actually pretty different could be performed under the same name, because the same play might be performed under different names, because parts of one play could be performed separately, and because it could become the custom to perform certain plays together under one of their names or under a name different from any of the included plays, the definition of what constitutes a “play” is complicated both in the Jingju performance tradition and in Xikao. In the latter, there are not a few instances in the included playscripts in which there is an overlap between the privileged name or alternate names of one play and those of another play. Sometimes this is because the name is shared by two quite different plays, sometimes because variants of the same play have been included (the “second” playscript representing a different performance tradition than the “first” one, whether it is the case that they belong to different “styles” [liupai 流派] within Jingju or because the “second” version represents a non-Jingju theatrical performance tradition). For the purposes of this book, however, the internal numbering system of the plays in the Liren Shuju photo-reprint edition of Xikao, which runs from 1 to 521 will be used, with some minor adjustments (the addition of #169a, the division of #345 into #345a and #345b, and #354 into #354a and #354b).1 Despite a certain amount of regrettable sloppiness in how the numbers were assigned, the serial numbers given the plays in the Liren Shu reprint respect the basic way that “plays” are distinguished by their formatting in Xikao (they almost always begin on a separate page with their own pagination, their own titles [even if these, in some cases are only episode numbers] and their own introductions).2 This numbering system is also not in serious conflict with the performance tradition, since all of the playscripts so designated represent items

1 See the discussion of the appearance of play #169a (my numbering) in the Zhonghua Tushu Guan edition but not in the Dadong Shuju edition reproduced in the Liren Shuju edition, and the reasons for the division of the other two plays into two parts in the notes to chapter 3. 2 There are a couple of exceptions. It was pointed out in the notes to chapter 3 that in the case of episodes 7–10 of Shanhai guan, all four episodes have one single pagination series. But episodes 9–10 are treated as a separate “play” in that they get their own title (not only main title and episode numbers but also two alternate titles) and introduction (p. 3313). Other instances in which an episode of a serial play is treated as a separate item in Xikao in terms of getting its own title and introduction but not separate pagination, see the first pages of the fourth (p. 3579) and sixth episode (p. 3725) of Hong Bi yuan.

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that actually appeared on playbills and were performed,3 whether under the name privileged in Xikao, one of the alternate names listed at the beginning of the Xikao playscripts, or other alternate names not in those lists. The five hundred-plus plays included in Xikao have a total of over 1,100 alternate titles (yiming 異名), or more than two per play.4 Why were there so many alternate names for Jingju plays?5 Some were produced by using more than one character to transcribe the same sound. For instance, the name of the play Tan huangling 嘆皇 陵 (Sighing at the imperial mausoleum; Xikao #97) was written four different ways, all pronounced the same way: 嘆皇陵, 嘆皇靈, 探皇陵, and 探皇靈).6 Another factor was the need to have auspicious names for plays for use when they were performed on auspicious occasions.7 New titles for old plays were also produced to evade pro-

3 An exception might be Biegong 別宮 (Saying goodbye to the palace; Xikao #118), which cannot be found as a separate entry in Tao Junqi, Jingju jumu chutan or Zeng Bairong, ed., Jingju jumu cidian (they do, however, have entries for Biegong Jijiang 別宮祭江). In its introduction, Wang Dacuo (p. 1057) claims that it and a separate item, Ji Changjiang 祭長江 (Making sacrifice by the Yangzi; Xikao #23) constitute “two scenes of the same play” 一本兩折 that had an overall conception (benzhi 本旨) that involved using the earlier Biegong section to offset the later Ji Changjiang section, but that because actors thought the requirements on their voices of Beigong were too great they only perform Ji Changjiang. However, it is possible to find Biegong as a separate item listed in play programs (e.g., Zhou Mingtai, Wushi nian lai Beiping xiju shiliao Houbian, p. 740, item 500 [September 10, 1921]). In the introduction to Biegong, we seem to have a kind of protest on the part of Wang Dacuo both against the fact that Ji Changjiang was printed without Biegong in installment 2 of Xikao (presumably before he was writing the play introductions for Xikao) and that actors at that time were no longer singing both sections together. In the case of another play, Shi Jieting (#136), in his introduction (pp. 1323–24), Wang Dacuo identifies it as a prefatory section (qianchu 前齣) of Kongcheng ji (#1; it is noted in chapter 3 that Zhang Defu’s version of Kongcheng ji in Youxi zazhi prints Shi Jieting as part of Kongcheng ji), and feels the need to justify including Shi Jieting as a separate item by the fact that it was left out of the version of Kongcheng ji included in installment one. It is, however, not difficult to find instances of Shi Jieting appearing as a separate item on a play program, not even followed by Kongcheng ji (for instance, Zhou Mingtai, Wushi nian lai Beiping xiju shiliao Houbian, p. 724, item 452 [February 14, 1921] has Shi Jieting as the final item on the program). In the introduction to both plays, Biegong and Shi Jieting, Wang Dacuo refers the reader to the plays included in earlier installments for plot synopses instead of writing his own. 4 Not all of these alternate titles are listed in Xikao itself, nor do they appear in the list below. 5 The ratio is much less for Kunqu, as is also the case with local theatrical traditions such as Sichuan opera. According to the first item in the fanli for Chuanju jumu cidian, that work covers 3,567 plays but only lists 665 alternate names, for a ratio that is far below even one alternate title per play. 6 One tan means to sigh while the other means to investigate or pay a visit to, while one ling refers to an imperial grave mound and the other to a spirit. 7 Examples are discussed in Chang Renchun et al., Xirong tanghui, pp. 175, 176, and 180.

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hibitions against performing them,8 or to present as new a play that was really old.9 However, the newly composed plays that began to appear in increasing numbers during the decade-plus in which Xikao was first published, such as those composed for Mei Lanfang, rarely acquired alternate names. In the list below, titles and other information in parentheses or brackets is not explicitly provided in Xikao (these include translations of play titles and select additional alternative names that are, for one reason or another, useful to know or think about). Characters in curly brackets correct or present useful alternate versions of the characters that they follow. Alternate titles not in parentheses are limited to those given in Xikao in the table of contents of the installments and/or the first pages of playscripts. The numbers at the end of each item, preceded by an asterisk, are the page ranges for the plays in the Liren Shuju reprint (the first number is the volume number, the second number is the installment number, and the final numbers are page numbers). In installments 1–2 and 13–40, new plays generally begin on an odd page; when the previous play ends on an odd page, the following even page is either blank or has clip art, with no text except for the name of the play in the outside margin. In the entries below, such “blank” pages are noted. Jingju play titles are often cryptic. The translations of them do not try to bring out all of the implied connotations. 1: 2:

3:

4:

5: 6:

Kongcheng ji 空城計 (The ruse of the empty city); alternate title: Fuqin tuibing 撫 琴退兵 (Playing the qin-zither and causing the troops to retreat) *1.1: 5–10 Hongyang dong 洪羊洞 (Hongyang cave); alternate titles: Meng Liang daogu 孟 良盜骨 (Meng Liang steals bones); Sanxing guiwei 三星歸位 (Three stars return to heaven) *1.1: 11–19 Sanniang jiaozi 三娘教子 (Third mistress teaches the son); alternate title: Jifang jiaozi 機房教子 (Teaching the son in the weaving chamber) (Shuang guangao qianben 雙官誥前本 [Two imperial notices installment one]) *1.1: 20–26 Wupen ji [houben] 烏盆計[後本] (The black pot plot [second installment]); alternate titles: Qiyuan bao 奇冤報 (Strange retribution for injustice); Dingyuan xian 定遠縣 (Dingyuan District) *1.1: 27–36 Dagu ma Cao 打鼓罵曹 (Beating the drum and cursing Cao Cao); alternate title: Qunchen yan 群臣宴 (Banquet for the various officials) *1.1: 37–45 Zhuofang Cao 捉放曹 (Arresting and releasing Cao Cao); alternate titles: Zhongmou xian 中牟縣 (Zhongmou District); Chen Gong ji 陳宮計 (Chen Gong’s plot) *1.1: 46–58

8 Zhao Shanlin et al., Jindai Shanghai xiqu xinian chubian, p. 110, quotes an 1885 Shanghai proclamation complaining about this practice. 9 See [Zhou] Jianyun, “Shanghai liyuan guanggao tan,” on this phenomenon.

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Sangyuan jizi 桑園寄子 (Abandoning the son in the mulberry garden); alternate title: Heishui guo 黑水國 (Black Water Kingdom) *1.1: 59–66 8: Qu Chengdu 取成都 (Taking Chengdu); alternate title: Shifu yan 石伏岩 (Crouching stone cliff) *1.1: 67–73 9: Zhusha zhi 硃砂痣 (The cinnabar birthmark); alternate title: Xingshan dezi 行善 得子 (Doing good, getting a son) *1.1: 74–84 10: Huangjin tai 黃金臺 (Yellow Gold Tower); alternate titles: Tian Dan jiuzhu 田單 救主 (Tian Dan saves his ruler); Soufu panguan 搜府盤關 (Searching the mansion and interrogation); Yue Yi fa Qi 樂毅伐齊 (Yue Yi attacks Qi) *1.1: 85–90 11: Wen Zhaoguan 文昭關 (Civil Zhao Pass); alternate title: Yiye baixu 一夜白鬚 (Hair turns white overnight) (Dingsheng chunqiu sanben 鼎盛春秋三本 [Annals of the contending states installment three]) *1.1: 91–98 12: Huanghe lou 黃鶴樓 (Yellow crane tower); alternate titles: Guojiang fuyan 過江 赴宴 (Crossing the Yangzi to attend a banquet); Zhuzhong cangling 竹中藏令 (Order concealed in bamboo) *1.1: 99–108 13: Tianshui guan 天水關 (Heavenly Water Pass); alternate titles: Chuchu Qishan 初 出祁山 (First expedition from Mount Qi); Qu sanjun 取三郡 (Taking three commandaries) *1.1: 109–15 14: Qixing deng 七星燈 (Seven lamps tied to one life); alternate title: Kongming qiushou 孔明求壽 (Zhuge Liang prays for long life) *1.1: 116–22 15: Zhan Beiyuan 戰北原 (Fighting on the Northern Plain); alternate title: Zhan Zheng Wen 斬鄭文 (Decapitating Zheng Wen) *1.1: 123–27 16: Muyang juan 牧羊卷 (Enclosure for penning in sheep); alternate titles: Xipeng huiqi 席棚會妻 (Meeting one’s wife in a matshed); Shuang huaishu 雙槐樹 (Twin locust trees) *1.1: 128–38 17: Qingguan ce 清官冊 (Roster of incorrupt officials); alternate titles: Shengguan tu 升官圖 (Official promotion chart); Di Kou [Zhun] yinshen 提寇陰審 (Summoning the traitor and [mock] trial in Hades) *1.1: 139–48 18: Shuangshi tu 雙獅圖 (Picture of a pair of lions); alternate titles: Juding guanhua 舉鼎觀畫 (Lifting the tripod and looking at the painting); Xue Jiao banbing 薛蛟 頒兵 (Xue Jiao summons troops) *1.1: 149–54 19: Chaisang kou 柴桑口 (Chaisang Port); alternate title: Kongming diaosang 孔明吊 喪 (Zhuge Liang goes to mourn [Zhou Yu]) *1.1: 155–59 20: Wulong yuan 烏龍院 (Black Dragon Residence); alternate titles: Zuolou sha Xi 坐 樓殺惜 (Sitting upstairs, killing Yan Xijiao); Song Jiang naoyuan 宋江鬧院 (Song Jiang causes havoc in the Residence) *1.1: 160–70 21: Li Ling bei 李陵碑 (The stele commemorating Li Ling); alternate titles: Lianglang shan 兩狼山 (Two Wolf Mountain); Su Wu miao 蘇武廟 (Su Qu Temple) (Pengbei 碰碑 [Bumping (his head) on the stele]) *1.2: 175–78 7:

Appendix 22:

23: 24:

25:

26: 27:

28:

29:

30:

31:

32: 33: 34:

35: 36:

593

Silang tanmu 四郎探母 (Fourth son visits his mother); alternate title: Sipan shan 四盤山(Sipan Mountain) (Tanmu xiantu 探母獻圖 [(Silang) visits his mother

and offers a map]) *1.2: 179–91 (p. 192 is blank) Ji Changjiang 祭長江 (Making sacrifice by the Yangzi); alternate title: Ji Jiang 祭 江 (Sacrificing to the Yangzi) *1.2: 193–94 Tan hanyao 探寒窯 (Paying a visit to the deserted kiln); alternate title: Munü hui 母女會 (Meeting of mother and daughter) (Hongzong liema siben 紅鬃烈馬四本 [The red-maned fiery horse installment four]) *1.2: 195–200 Luohua yuan 落花園 (Garden of falling flowers); alternate titles: Xingyuan hefan 杏元和番 (Xingyuan is sent to pacify the barbarians); Erdu Mei 二度梅 (Twice Plum) *1.2: 201–204 Tan Yinshan 探陰山 (Investigating Mount Yin) *1.2: 204–208 Da jinzhi 打金枝 (Hitting the princess); alternate titles: Bangzi shangdian 綁子 上殿 (Binding the son and taking him into the palace); Nan bangzi 男綁子 (Male binding of the son) *1.2: 209–14 (p. 214 is blank) Bayi tu [sanben] 八義圖[三本] (Painting of the Eight Righteous Ones [third installment]); alternate titles: Sougu jiugu 搜孤救孤 (Searching for the orphan, saving the orphan); Cheng Ying shezi 程嬰捨子 (Cheng Ying sacrifices his son) *1.2: 215–22 Yu cang jian 魚腸劍 (Dagger hidden in a fish belly); alternate titles: Zixu tou Wu 子胥投吳 (Wu Zixu turns to Wu); Chuixiao qishi 吹簫乞食 (Playing the flute and begging for food) (Dingsheng chunqiu wuben 鼎盛春秋五本 [Annals of the contending states installment five]) *1.2: 223–30 (p. 230 is blank) Diao jingui 釣金龜 (Fishing for the golden turtle); alternate titles: Zhang Yi debao 張義得寶 (Zhang Yi gets a treasure); Mengjin he 孟津河 (Mengjin River) *1.2: 231–36 Meilong zhen 梅龍鎮 (Meilong Town); alternate titles: Youlong xifeng 游龍戲鳳 (The wandering dragon flirts with a phoenix); Xia Jiangnan 下江南 (Going down to Jiangnan) *1.2: 237–46 Baimen lou 白門樓 (White gate tower) *1.2: 247–54 Huarong dao 華容道 (Huarong road) *1.2: 255–58 Yuzhou feng 宇宙峰{鋒} (The universal blade); alternate title: Jindian zhuangfeng 金殿裝瘋 (Pretending to be crazy in the golden palace) *1.2: 259–64 (p. 264 is blank) Qu shuaiyin 取帥印 (Taking the general-in-chief’s insignia) *1.2: 265–74 Qing dingzhu 慶頂珠 (Presenting the Pearl); alternate titles: Tao yushui 討魚稅 (Dunning for the fishing tax); Dayu shajia 打漁殺家 (Beating of the fisherman and Killing the [local bully’s] family) *1.2: 275–90 (p. 290 is blank)

594

Appendix

37:

Heifeng pa 黑風帕 (Blackwind handkerchief); alternate titles: Muhu guan 牧虎 關 (Raise tiger pass); Beibian renzi 背鞭認子 (Bearing a horsewhip on one’s back;

Recognizing one’s son) *1.2: 291–302 (page 302 is blank) 38: Mulian jiumu 目蓮救母 (Mulian saves his mother) (Mulian ji wuben 目蓮記五本 [Story of Mulian installment five]) *1.2: 303–306 39: Hong luan xi 紅鸞禧 (Wedding celebration); alternate title: Bangda boqing lang 棒打薄情郎 (Beating with staves the fickle young man) *1.2: 307–16 (p. 316 is blank) 40: Bai zhuangyuan jita 白狀元祭塔 (Top-of-the-list Bai sacrifices at the pagoda) *1.2: 317–20 (p. 320 is blank) 41: Qionglin yan [qianben] 瓊林宴[前本] (Banquet in Qionglin Park [first installment]); alternate titles: Dagun chuxiang 打棍出箱 (Beaten by staves, popping up from the trunk); Heilü gaozhuang 黑驢告狀 (Black donkey makes an accusation) *1.3: 325–35 42: Qunying hui 群英會 (The gathering of heroes); alternate titles: Jiang Gan zhongji 蔣幹中計 (Jiang Gan falls for the plot); Zhuge jiejian 諸葛借箭 (Zhuge Liang borrows arrows) *1.3: 336–52 43: 桑園會 Sangyuan hui (Meeting in the mulberry garden); alternate titles: Qiu Hu xiqi 秋胡戲妻 (Qiu Hu flirts with his wife); Mati jin 馬蹄金 (Gold under the horse’s hooves); Ci Chu gui Lu 辭楚歸魯 (Taking leave from Chu, returning to Lu) *1.3: 353–61 44: Da Yan Song 打嚴嵩 (Beating Yan Song); alternate title: Kaishan fu 開山府 (Kaishan mansion) *1.3: 362–76 45: Shi huangjin 拾黃金 (Picking up gold); alternate titles: Caimi zhuan 財迷傳 (Coveting riches); Huazi shijin 化子拾金 (The beggar picks up gold) *1.3: 377–80 46: Baihu tang 白虎堂 (White Tiger Hall); alternate title: Yuanmen zhanzi 轅門斬子 (The execution of the son at the gate of the headquarters) *1.3: 381–90 47: Cuiping shan 翠屏山 (Kingfisher Screen Mountain); alternate title: Shasao tou Liang 殺嫂投梁 (Killing [courtesy] sister-in-law and fleeing to Mount Liang) *1.3: 391–408 48: Duan Taihou 斷太后 (Judging the case of the empress dowager); alternate titles: Zhaozhou qiao 趙州橋 (Zhaozhou Bridge); Tianqi miao 天齊廟 (Equal to Heaven Temple) *1.3: 409–14 49: Da longpao 打龍袍 (Beating the dragon robe) *1.3: 415–21 50: Zhan Puguan 戰蒲關 (Fighting at Pu Pass); alternate titles: Chi renrou 吃人肉 (Eating human flesh); Shaqie kaojun 殺妾犒軍 (Killing one’s concubine to feed the troops) *1.3: 422–28 51: Zhan huangpao 斬黃袍 (Executing the official with the imperial yellow gown); alternate title: Zhan Zheng En 斬鄭恩 (Decapitating Zheng En) *1.3: 429–44

Appendix 52: 53: 54: 55:

56: 57: 58: 59:

60:

61: 62:

63: 64: 65:

66: 67:

68:

595

Cailou pei 彩樓配 (Match made at the embroidered tower) (Hongzong liema touben 紅鬃烈馬頭本 [The red-maned fiery horse installment one]) *1.3: 445–49 Huayou shan 滑油山 (Slippery Oil Mountain) (Mulian ji siben 目蓮記四本 [Story of Mulian installment four]) *1.3: 450–52 Fuchun lou 富春樓 (Fuchun Tower) *1.3: 453–56 Yinyang he 陰陽河 (The river dividing Hades and Earth); alternate titles: Shang Zhongqiu 賞中秋 (Enjoying the Mid-Autumn Festival); Difu xunqi 地府尋妻 (Searching for one’s wife in Hades); Xichuan qiwen 西川奇聞 (Strange tale from Xichuan) *1.3: 457–63 Da huagu 打花鼓 (Playing the patterned drum) *1.3: 464–73 Dumu guan 獨木關 (Single Plank Pass); alternate title: Xue Li tanyue 薛禮嘆月 (Xue Rengui sighs under the moon) *1.3: 474–78 Chou biao gong 丑表功 (Brothel servant brags of his accomplishments) *1.3: 479–84 Xiaoyao jin 逍遙津 (Carefree Ford); alternate title: Souzhao bigong 搜詔逼宮 (Searching out the edict and pressuring the throne) (Bai bi gong 白逼宮[The white pressuring of the throne]; Cao Cao bi gong 曹操逼宮 [Cao Cao pressures the throne]) *1.4: 489–503 Nantian men 南天門 (South gate of heaven); alternate titles: Guanghua shan 廣 華山 (Guanghua Mountain); Cao Fu dengxian 曹福登仙 (Cao Fu becomes an immortal); Zou Xueshan 走雪山 (Going through snowy mountains) *1.4: 504–12 Xu Ce paocheng 徐策跑城 (Xu Ce runs on the city wall); alternate title: Xue Gang fanchao 薛剛反朝 (Xue Gang revolts) *1.4: 513–19 Dao zongjuan 盜宗卷 (Stealing the Royal Geneaology); alternate titles: Xing Han tu 興漢圖 (Chart of restoring the Han); Huoshao zongjuan 火燒宗卷 (Burning the royal genealogy) *1.4: 520–31 Si jishi 四進士 (Four presented scholars) *1.4: 532–64 Yuanmen sheji 轅門射戟 (Shooting an arrow through a halberd at the headquarters’ gate); alternate title: Duo Xiaopei 奪小沛 (Snatching Xiaopei) *1.4: 565–72 Qu Xingyang 取滎陽 (Taking Xingyang); alternate titles: Chu Han zheng 楚漢爭 (Contention between Chu and Han); Ji Xin tizhu 紀信替主 (Ji Xin substitutes for his ruler) *1.4: 573–82 Da baoguo 大保國 (Greatly protecting the state); alternate title: Zhongxin baoguo 忠心保國 (With a loyal heart protecting the state) *1.4: 583–91 Zhong xiao quan 忠孝全 (Loyalty and filialty complete); alternate titles: Zhan Qin Hong 斬秦洪 (Decapitating Qin Hong); Jin’ao dao 金鰲島 (Jin’ao Island) *1.4: 592–602 Shuang tou Tang 雙投唐 (Two surrender to the Tang); alternate titles: Shuang dai jian 雙帶箭 (Two are shot by arrows); Duanmi jian 斷密澗 (Duanmi Ravine) *1.4: 603–15

596

Appendix

69: Feihu shan 飛虎山 (Flying Tiger Mountain) *1.4: 616–21 70: Nü qijie 女起解 (Transporting the female prisoner); alternate titles: Su San qijie 蘇三起解 (Transporting Su the Third); Yutang chun 玉堂春 (Spring of Jade Hall) (Yutang chun erben 玉堂春二本 [Spring of Jade Hall installment two]) *1.4: 622–28 71: Xiao fangniu 小放牛 (Little letting oxen out to pasture) *1.4: 629–34 72: Wei cuihua 遺翠花 (Dispatching a sprig of flowers); alternate title: Cuichun jijian 翠春寄柬 (Cuichun sends a note) *1.4: 635–46 73: Xin’an yi 新安驛 (Xin’an Posthouse); alternate title: Nü qiangdao 女強盜 (Female brigand) *1.4: 647–54 74: Xiao shangfen 小上墳 (Little Visit to the Gravesite); alternate title: Lujing ronggui 祿敬榮歸 (Lujing returns with honors) *1.4: 655–59 75: Wujia po 武家坡 (Five Family Slope); alternate titles: Pinggui huiyao 平貴回窯 (Pinggui returns to the kiln); Paopo 跑坡 (Running on the slope) (Hongzong liema liuben 紅鬃烈馬六本 [The red-maned fiery horse installment six]) *2.5: 655–73 (note that page numbers 655–59 have been used for the second time here) 76: Wansha ji 浣紗記 (Washing silk); alternate titles: Zixu tou Wu 子胥投吳 (Wu Zixu turns to Wu); Luzhong ren 蘆中人 (The person in the reeds) (Dingsheng chunqiu siben 鼎盛春秋四本 [Annals of the contending states installment four]) *2.5: 674–77 77: Tianlei bao 天雷報 (Punishment by lightning); alternate title: Qingfeng ting 清風 亭 (Gentle Breeze Pavilion) *2.5: 678–89 78: Famen si 法門寺 (Dharma Gate Temple); alternate titles: Fodian gaozhuang 佛 殿告狀 (Making an accusation in the Buddha Hall); Jingbian xiangyan 井邊相驗 (Investigation at the side of the well) *2.5: 690–700 79: Shatuo guo 沙陀國 (Shatuo Kingdom); alternate titles: Yaguan lou 雅觀樓 (Elegant View Tower); Jiebao shoucang 解寶收藏 (Delivering treasure, receiving treasure) (Zhulian zhai 珠簾寨 [Pearl curtain stockade]) *2.5: 701–10 80: Liuyue xue 六月雪 (Snow in the Sixth Moon); alternate titles: Zhan Dou E 斬竇娥 (Decapitating Dou E); Yangdu tang 羊肚湯 (Mutton tripe soup) *2.5: 711–18 81: Er jingong 二進宮 (The second entrance into the palace); alternate title: Ji gongmen 擊宮門 (Knocking on the palace gate) *2.5: 719–24 82: Yutang chun 玉堂春 (Spring of Jade Hall); alternate title: Santang huishen 三堂 會審 (Combined trial by three judges) (Yutang chun sanben 玉堂春三本 [Spring of Jade Hall installment three]) *2.5: 725–34 83: Xiao gan tian [erben] 孝感天[二本] (Filiality moves heaven [installment two]) *2.5: 735–37

Appendix

597

84: Yubei ting 御碑亭 (Pavilion for the imperial stele); alternate titles: Jinbang le 金榜 樂 (Delight at one’s name on the list of successful graduates); Wang Youdao xiuqi 王有道休妻 (Wang Youdao divorces his wife) *2.5: 738–56 85: Hui Jingzhou 回荊州 (Returning to Jingzhou); alternate titles: Meiwen ji 美人計 (Beautiful woman strategy); Longfeng chengxiang 龍鳳呈祥(Dragon and phoenix present auspicious omens) *2.5: 757–70 86: Haichao zhu 海潮珠 (The tide pearl); alternate titles: Cuizi shijun 崔子弒君 (Cuizi assassinates his lord); Bi chenpa 碧塵帕 (The green duster) *2.5: 771–76 87: Shuangyao hui 雙搖會 (Two arrive at the assignation); alternate title: Ermei duofu 二美奪夫 (Two beauties contend over one husband) *2.5: 777–90 88: Yanzhi hu 胭脂虎 (The rouge tiger); alternate titles: Yuanshuai daima 元帥帶馬 (The general-in-chief leads her horse); Jinü qinkou 妓女擒寇 (The courtesan captures the invader) *2.5: 791–803 89: Shen Li Qi 審李七 (Trying the case of Li the Seventh); alternate title: Bailing ji 白 綾記 (Story of the white scarf) *2.5: 804–809 90: Da piguan 大劈棺 (The great chopping open of the coffin); alternate titles: Hudie meng 蝴蝶夢 (Dream of the butterfly); Tian-shi piguan 田氏劈棺 (Ms. Tian chops open the coffin) *2.5: 810–21 91: Liulin chi 柳林池 (Pool by the willows); alternate titles: Han Qi shamiao 韓琪殺 廟 (Han Qi [attempts] assassination in the temple); Sanguan tang 三官堂 (Hall of the Three Officials) *2.5: 822–25 92: Lianying zhai 連營寨 (Linked encampments); alternate title: Huoshao lianying qibai li 火燒連營七百里 (Fire burns the linked encampments for seven hundred li) *2.6: 831–43 93: Zhan Changsha 戰長沙 (Fighting at Changsha) *2.6: 844–52 94: Caoqiao guan 草橋關 (Rustic Bridge Pass); alternate title: Weizhen Caoqiao 威鎮 草橋 (Vigorously garrisoning Rustic Bridge) *2.6: 853–58 95: Jiugeng tian 九更天 (The night with nine watches); alternate titles: Ma Yi jiuzhu 馬義救主 (Ma Yi saves his master); Fu tian liang 弗天亮 (The day that didn’t dawn) *2.6: 859–66 96: Zhuangyuan pu 狀元譜 (Top-of-the-list); alternate title: Dazhi shangfen 打侄上 墳 (Beating the nephew, presenting oneself at the family graves) *2.6: 867–78 97: Tan huangling 嘆皇陵 (Sighing at the imperial mausoleum) *2.6: 879–81 98: Dingjun shan 定軍山 (Dingjun Mountain); alternate titles: Laojiang de­sheng 老將得勝 (The old general wins a victory); Qu Dongchuan 取東川 (Taking Dongchuan) *2.6: 882–92 99: Baolian deng 寶蓮燈 (Precious lotus lantern); alternate titles: Ertang shezi 二堂 捨子 (Sacrificing the son in the inner hall); Dazi fangtao 打子放逃 (Hitting the son and letting go the adopted son) *2.6: 893–904

598

Appendix

100: Lianhuan tao [sanben] 連環套[三本] (The linked plot [installment three]); Dao yuma 盜御馬 (Stealing the imperial horse) *2.6: 905–12 101: Luoma hu 落馬湖 (Make Horses Fall Lake); alternate title: Wangjiang ju 望江居 (Encampment overlooking the river) *2.6: 913–26 102: Huatian cuo [qianben] 花田錯[前本] (The mistake in the flower field [installment one]); alternate title: Huajiao qu heshang 花轎娶和尚 (Marrying a monk in a patterned palanquin) *2.6: 927–42 103: Fanwang gong 梵王宮 (The Buddhist Temple) *2.6: 943–46 104: Xiao yi jie 孝義節 (Filiality, righteousness, and chastity) *2.6: 947–51 105: Jinshui qiao 金水橋 (Goldwater Bridge); alternate titles: Qin Ying diaoyu 秦英釣 魚 (Qin Ying angles for fish); Qiankun dai 乾坤帶 (Heaven and Earth hoop) *2.6: 952–58 106: Luo Cheng tuomeng 羅成托夢 (Luo Cheng appears in a dream); alternate title: Tuozhao xiaoxian 托兆小顯 (Ghostly appearance, minor apparition) *2.6: 959–61 107: Tanqin xiangma 探親相罵 (Visiting the in-laws, Mutual cursing) *2.6: 962–69 108: Shuang Bao an 雙包案 (The case of the two Judge Baos) *2.6: 970–73 109: Shang tiantai 上天臺 (Ascending the heavenly platform) *2.6: 974–78 110: Sanyi ji 三疑計 (Three doubts plot); alternate title: Shi xiuxie 拾繡鞋 (Picking up the embroidered shoe) *2.6: 979–90 111: Maima 賣馬 ([Qin Qiong] sells his horse); alternate titles: Tiantang zhou 天堂 州 (Tiantang County); Dangjian Maima 當鐧賣馬 (Pawning the metal whip and selling the horse); (Qin Qiong mai ma 秦瓊賣馬 [Qin Qiong sells his horse]) *2.7: 995–1005 112: Bada chui 八大錘 (Eight [generals using pairs of] big mallets); alternate titles: Zhuxian zhen 朱仙鎮 (Zhuxian Town); Wang Zuo duanbi 王佐斷臂 (Wang Zuo cuts off an arm) (Lu Wenlong 陸文龍 [Lu Wenlong]) *2.7: 1006–21 113: Zha Mei an 鍘美案 (The case of decapitating Chen Shimei at the waist); alternate title: Buren qianqi 不認前妻 (Refusing to recognize the first wife) *2.7: 1022–29 114: Wutai shan 五臺山 (Wutai Mountain); alternate title: Wutai huixiong 五臺會兄 (Meeting elder brother at Wutai Mountain) *2.7: 1030–35 115: Fengming guan 鳳鳴關 (Phoenix Call Pass); alternate title: Lizhan wujiang 力斬 五將 (Strongly beheading five generals) *2.7: 1036–40 116: Luo Cheng jiaoguan 羅成叫關 (Luo Cheng calls out before the city gates) *2.7: 1041–43 117: Duzhan huakui 獨占花魁 (Winning the top courtesan) *2.7: 1044–56 118: Biegong 別宮 (Saying goodbye to the palace) *2.7: 1057–60 119: Linjiang hui 臨江會 (Meeting by the River) *2.7: 1061–66 120: Hudie bei 蝴蝶盃 (Butterfly cup) *2.7: 1067–88 (qianben 前本 [first installment], 1089–1123 (houben 後本 [last installment])

Appendix

599

121: Maishen toukao 賣身投靠 (Selling oneself, becoming a servant) *2.7: 1124–34 122: Ci Wang Liao 刺王僚 (Assassinating Wang Liao); alternate title: Yu cang jian 魚藏 劍 (Dagger in a fish’s belly) (Dingsheng chunqiu liuben 鼎盛春秋六本 [Annals of the contending states installment six]) *2.7: 1135–37 123: Wulei zhen [sanben] 五雷陣[三本] (Five-thunder battle formation [installment three]); alternate title: Sun Pang douzhi 孫龐鬥智 (Sun [Bin] and Pang [Juan] battle by cunning) *2.7: 1138–41 124: Tie lianhua 鐵蓮花 (Iron lotus); alternate title: Saoxue dawan 掃雪打碗 (Sweeping the snow and smashing the bowl) *2.7: 1142–49 125: Fang mianhua 紡棉花 (Spinning cotton) *2.7: 1150–55 126: Daming fu 大名府 (Daming Prefecture); alternate titles: Yu qilin 玉麒麟 (Jade Unicorn); Lu shihui 盧十回 (Lu Junyi’s ten chapters) *2.8: 1161–88 (houben 後本 [last installment]) 1189–1220 127: Fenhe wan 汾河灣 (The bend of the Fen River); alternate title: Rengui dayan 仁貴 打雁 (Rengui shoots [at] a goose) *2.8: 1221–30 128: Yangping guan 陽平關 (Yangping Pass) *2.8: 1231–45 129: Suanliang Dengdian 算糧登殿 (Calculating rations [due] and Mounting the palace hall) (Hongzong liema qiben 紅鬃烈馬七本 [The red-maned fiery horse installment seven]) *2.8: 1246–55 130: Hongni guan 虹霓關 (Hongni Pass); alternate titles: Bodang zhaoqin 伯黨招親 ([Wang] Bodang is picked for marriage); Tifu baochou 替夫報仇 ([Attempting] Revenge for one’s husband) *2.8: 1256–64 131: Wanhua xi 浣花溪 (Flower washing brook); alternate titles: Zilin zaofan 子林造 反 ([Yang] Zilin revolts); Guan pa taitai 官怕太太 (An official fears his wife) *2.8: 1265–80 132: Du Shiniang 杜十娘 (Du the Tenth) *2.8: 1281–92 133: Yanzhi xue 胭脂褶 (The red [official] robe) (Yanzhi xue qianben 胭脂褶前本 [The red (official) robe installment one]) *2.8: 1293–1302 134: Erjie guangmiao 二姐逛廟 (Sister Two explores the temple) *2.8: 1303–11 135: Shuangding ji 雙釘記 (The story of two nails) *2.8: 1312–17 136: Shi Jieting 失街亭 (Losing Jieting) *3.9: 1323–28 137: Zhan Ma Su 斬馬謖 (Executing Ma Su) *3.9: 1329–32 138: Fengyi ting 鳳儀亭 (Phoenix Pavilion) *3.9: 1333–37 139: Shiba che 十八扯 (Eighteen bits); alternate titles: Xiao mofang 小磨房 (The little granary); Xiongmei chuanxi 兄妹串戲 (Elder brother and younger sister perform [excerpts from] plays) *3.9: 1338–46 140: Yuejia zhuang 岳家莊 (Yue Family Manor) *3.9: 1347–55 141: Changban po 長坂坡 (Long Slope); alternate title: Danji jiuzhu 單騎救主 (Riding alone in order to save the [future] ruler) *3.9: 1356–65

600

Appendix

142: Lienü zhuan 烈女傳 (A martyred woman); alternate title: Jiujian yi 九件衣 (Nine sets of clothes) *3.9: 1366–76 143: Bailiang guan 白良關 (Bailiang Pass); alternate title: Cixiong bian 雌雄鞭 (Male-Female Whip) *3.9: 1377–87 144: Mai ronghua 賣絨花 (Selling wool); alternate titles: San bu yuanyi 三不願意 (Thrice unwilling); Ronghua ji 絨花計 (The wool plot) *3.9: 1388–97 145: Fa Zidu 伐子都 (Punishing Zidu) *3.9: 1398–1406 146: Yanmen guan 雁門關 (Yanmen Pass) *3.9: 1407–14 147: Qingshi shan 青石山 (Black Stone Mountain); alternate title: Qingshi zhanyao 請 師斬妖 (Invoking a [heavenly] army, decapitating a demon) *3.9: 1415–26 148: Changting hui 長亭會 (Meeting at the Pavilion of Parting); alternate title: Wu Shen hui 伍申會 (Wu [Zixu] and Shen [Baoxu] meet) (Dingsheng chunqiu erben 鼎盛春秋二本 [Annals of the contending states installment two]) *3.9: 1427–29 149: Puyang cheng 濮陽城 (Puyang City) *3.9: 1430–39 150: Zhan Fancheng 戰樊城 (Fighting at Fancheng); alternate title: Shafu taoguo 殺府 逃國 (The slaughter of the [people in the] mansion and fleeing [of the survivor] to a different state) (Dingsheng chunqiu touben 鼎盛春秋頭本 [Annals of the contending states installment one]) *3.9: 1440–45 151: Jin man shi 進蠻詩 (Barbarian poem offered to court); alternate title: Taibai zuijiu 太白醉酒 (Li Bai [pretends to] get drunk) *3.9: 1446–52 152: Gefa daishou 割髮代首 (Cutting of hair instead of the head); alternate title: Zhan Wancheng 戰宛城 (Battle at Wancheng) *3.9: 1453–67 153: Yanzhi xue 胭脂褶 (The red [official] robe); alternate title: Shiyin jiuhuo 失印救 火 (Yanzhi xue houben 胭脂褶後本 [The red (official) robe installment two) *3.9: 1468–81 154: Ma’an shan 馬鞍山 (Horse Saddle Mountain); alternate titles: Fuqin fangyou 撫 琴訪友 (Playing the qin-zither, paying a call on a friend); Boya shuaiqin 伯牙摔琴 ([Yu] Boya smashes his qin-zither) *3.10: 1487–92 155: Gongmen dai 宮門帶 (The sash at the palace gate); alternate title: Shidao benzhang 十道本章 (Ten memorials) *3.10: 1493–1501 156: Weishui he 渭水河 (The Wei River); alternate titles: Wenwang fangxian 文王訪賢 (King Wen pays a call on a worthy); Babai nian 八百年 (Eight hundred and eight years) *3.10: 1502–507 157: Fachang huanzi 法場換子 (Replacing [someone else’s son with your own] son at the execution ground) *3.10: 1508–12 158: Shuang guangao 雙官誥 (Two imperial notices); alternate titles: Zhong xiao pai 忠孝牌 (Commemorating loyalty and filiality); Zhong xiao paifang 忠孝牌坊 (Arch commemorating loyalty and filiality) (Shuang guangao houben 雙官誥後 本 [Two imperial notices installment two]) *3.10: 1513–18 (the order of the first

Appendix

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two titles differs between the table of contents of the installment and the first page of the play) 159: Zhong xiao tu 忠孝圖 (Portrait of loyalty and filiality); alternate title: Shagou quanqi 殺狗勸妻 (Killing a god in order to exhort a wife) *3.10: 1519–28 160: Da miangang 打麵缸 (Breaking the flour vat); alternate title: Zhou Lamei 周臘梅 (Zhou Lamei) *3.10: 1529–39 161: Deyi yuan qianben 得意緣前本 (A good match installment one) *3.10: 1540–57 162: Deyi yuan houben 得意緣後本 (A good match installment two) *3.10: 1558–80 163: Suoyun nang 鎖雲囊 (A bag to capture clouds) *3.10: 1581–85 164: Shuang sha he 雙沙河 (Shuangsha River); alternate title: Rencai fuma 人才駙馬 (The talented royal son-in-law) *3.10: 1586–96 165: Chatou guan 查頭關 (Inspecting First Pass) *3.10: 1597–1606 166: Shuang Duanqiao 雙斷橋 (Meeting again at Broken Bridge); alternate title: Duanqiao ting 斷橋亭 (The Pavilion at Broken Bridge) *3.10: 1607–11 167: Mai bobo 賣餑餑 (Selling wheat cakes) *3.10: 1612–20 168: Jian Zhuge 薦諸葛 (Recommending Zhuge [Liang]); alternate title: Xu Shu zouma jian Zhuge 徐庶走馬薦諸葛 (Xu Shu leaves by horse [but first] recommends Zhuge [Liang]) *3.10: 1621–26 169: Fengyun hui 風雲會 (Meeting of wind and clouds); alternate title: Longhu dou 龍 虎鬥 (Contest between dragon and tiger) *3.10: 1627–30 169a: Yangui tan 煙鬼嘆 (Lament of the opium addict) (doesn’t appear; see Chapter 3) 170: Mianchi hui 澠池會 (Meeting at Mianchi); alternate title: Wanbi gui Zhao 完璧歸 趙 (Preserving the jade disk and returning it to Zhao) *3.11: 1635–53 171: Qing Songling 請宋靈 (Seeing the spirits [of the two] Song [emperors]) *3.11: 1654–66 172: Hui longge 回龍閣 (Returning to the capital); alternate titles: Da dengdian 大登 (The great mounting of the palace hall); Zhan Wei Hu 斬魏虎 (Decapitating Wei Hu) (Hongzong liema baben 紅鬃烈馬八本 [The red-maned fiery horse installment eight]) *3.11: 1667–72 173: Shao Mianshan 燒綿山 (Burning Mian Mountain); alternate title: Jietui taoyin 介 推逃隱 (Jietui runs away to be a hermit) *3.11: 1673–82 174: Jian jiuling 監酒令 (Overseeing the drinking game) *3.11: 1683–95 175: Zha Bao Mian 鍘包勉 (Decapitating Bao Mian at the waist) *3.11: 1696–1706 176: Luhua he 蘆花河 (Luhua River); alternate title: Lihua zhanzi 梨花斬子 ([Fan] Lihua [almost] decapitates her son) *3.11: 1707–12 177: Mashang yuan 馬上緣 (Marriage affinity on horseback); alternate titles: Fanjiang guan 樊江關 (Fanjiang Pass); Fan Lihua zhaoqin 樊梨花招親 (Fan Lihua picks a husband) *3.11: 1713–25

602

Appendix

178: Na Gao Deng 拿高登 (Capturing Gao Deng); alternate titles: Yanyang lou 艷陽樓 (Yanyang Tower); Dapo xianren dan 大破仙人擔 (Greatly defeating the immortal’s satchel) *3.11: 1726–38 179: Mingyue zhu 明月珠 (The Bright Moon Pearl); alternate title: Huayuan zengzhu 花園贈珠 (Giving the pearl in the garden) *3.11: 1739–42 180: Baima po 白馬坡 (White Horse Slope); alternate title: Zhan Yan Liang 斬顏良 (Decapitating Yan Liang) *3.11: 1743–50 181: Motian ling 摩天嶺 Heaven-Scraping Ridge) 1751–59 182: Zhao Yan jieshou 趙顏借壽 (Zhao Yan borrows long life); alternate title: Baishou tu 百壽圖 (Portrait of one hundred “long lifes”) *3.11: 1760–64 183: Luoyang qiao 洛陽橋 (Luoyang bridge) *3.11: 1765–74 184: Haotian guan 昊天關 (Haotian Pass) *3.11: 1775–78 185: Song yindeng 送銀燈 (Sending a silver lantern) *3.11: 1779–83 186: Nima du Kangwang 泥馬渡康王 (A clay horse carries Prince Kang over the river) *3.12: 1789–1801 187: Nao Jiangzhou 鬧江州 (Causing havoc in Jiangzhou); alternate titles: Song Jiang chishi 宋江吃屎 (Song Jiang eats excrement); Song Jiang zhuangfeng 宋江裝瘋 (Song Jiang pretends to be crazy) *3.12: 1802–25 188: Gaoping guan 高平關 (Gaoping Pass); alternate title: Jie rentou 借人頭 (Borrowing a human head) *3.12: 1826–34 189: Lianhua hu 蓮花湖 (Lotus Flower Lake) *3.12: 1835–54 190: Da luanjia 打鑾駕 (Stricking the empress’ carriage) *3.12: 1855–59 191: Shaohua shan 少華山 (Shaohua Mountain); alternate titles: Fugui tu 富貴圖 (Portrait of Wealth and Honor); Kaohuo luodian 烤火落店 (Warming by the fire, staying in an inn) *3.12: 1860–63 192: Guifei zuijiu 貴妃醉酒 (Consort Yang gets drunk); alternate title: Baihua ting 百花 亭 (Hundred Flowers Pavilion) *3.12: 1864–67 193: Chunqiu pei 春秋配 (The marriage between Li Chunfa and Jiang Qiulian); alternate titles: Jian luchai 撿蘆柴 (Collecting reeds and kindling); Kaoda jianchai 拷 打撿柴 (Being beaten, picking up kindling) *3.12: 1868–76 194: Shizi lou 獅子樓 (Lion Tower); alternate title: Wu Song shasao 武松殺嫂 (Wu Song kills his sister-in-law) *3.12: 1877–84 195: Riyue tu 日月圖 (Picture of the sun and moon); alternate title: Diandao yuanyang 顛倒鴛鴦 (Upside-down mandarin ducks) *3.12: 1885–88 196: Gan sanguan 趕三關 (Pursuit through three passes) (Hongzong liema wuben 紅 鬃烈馬五本 [The red-maned fiery horse installment five]) *3.12: 1889–96 197: Nanyang guan 南陽關 (Nanyang Pass) *3.12: 1897–1902 198: Gan Fengchi 甘鳳池 (Gan Fengchi); alternate title: Xia Jiangnan 下江南 (Going down to Jiangnan); Zhuona Xi Wenxian 捉拿席文賢 (Capturing Xi Wenxian) *3.12: 1903–19

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199: Xueshou yin 血手印 (The bloody handprint); alternate titles: Cangyin jiuming 蒼 蠅救命 (A fly saves a life); Fachang jifu 法場祭夫 (Sacrificing for [her] husband at the execution ground) *3.12: 1920–29 200: Yipeng xue 一捧雪 (A Double Handful of Snow); alternate titles: Shentou ci Tang 審頭刺湯 (Inspecting the head and assassinating Tang [Qin 勤]); Fanfu xiaoren 反復小人 (Wishy-washy petty person) (Yipeng xue erben 一捧雪二本 [A Double Handful of Snow installment two]) *3.12: 1930–36 201: Shuang guanxing 雙觀星 (Two gaze at a star); alternate title: Ertong guanxing 二 童觀星 (Two lads gaze at a star) *3.12: 1937–39 202: Sima bigong 司馬逼宮 (Sima [Shi] pressures the emperor); alternate title: Fei Cao Fang 廢曹芳 (Forcing Cao Fang from the throne) *4.13: 1947–58 (p. 1958 is blank) 203: Shen cike 審刺客 (Investigating the assassin); alternate titles: Fengong lou 粉宮樓 (Fengong Tower); Liubu dashen 六部大審 (Big investigation by the six ministries) *4.13: 1959–66 (p. 1966 is blank) 204: Zengbie tiaopao 贈別挑袍 (Gifts at parting, handing back the robe [on the point of his weapon]; alternate title: Guayin fengjin 掛印封金 (Hanging up the seal, packing up the silver) *4.13: 1967–72 (p. 1972 is blank) 205: Jie Zhao Yun 借趙雲 (Borrowing Zhao Yun); alternate titles: Yijiang nanqiu 一 將難求 (A [good] general is hard to find); Zhan Panhe 戰盤河 (Fighting at Pan River) *4.13: 1973–78 (p. 1978 is blank) 206: Lulin jun 御林郡 (Yulin Commandary); alternate titles: Ma Fang kuncheng 馬芳 困城 (Ma Fang trapped within city walls); Zhan Yang Bo 斬楊波 (Decapitating Yang Bo) *4.13: 1979–84 (p. 1984 is blank) 207: Wupen ji qianben 烏盆計前本 (The black pot plot installment one); alternate title: Qiyuan bao 奇冤報 (Strange retribution for injustice) *4.13: 1985–88 208: Ehu cun 惡虎村 (Evil Tiger Village); alternate titles: Sanyi juejiao 三義絕交 (Three sworn brothers swear off relations); Sanxiong jueyi 三雄絕義 (Three heroes swear off relations) *4.13: 1989–98 209: Pijiang shaqi 皮匠殺妻 (Leather craftsman kills wife); alternate titles: Baiwan zhai 百萬齋 (Baiwan Studio); Yeshi zhai 也是齋 (Yeshi Studio) *4.13: 1999–2006 210: Luo Sihu 羅四虎 (Luo Sihu); alternate title: Duhu ying 獨虎營 (Lone Tiger Encampment) *4.13: 2007–12 (p. 2012 is blank) 211: Bala miao 八蠟廟 (Bala Temple); alternate title: Zhuona Fei Degong 捉拿費德恭 (Capturing Fei Degong) *4.13: 2013–22 (p. 2022 is blank) 212: Fa Dongwu 伐東吳 (Attacking Eastern Wu); alternate title: Da baochou 大報仇 (The big taking of revenge) *4.13: 2023–26 213: Zhan Taiping 戰太平 (Fighting at Taiping); alternate titles: Hua Yun daijian 花雲 帶箭 (Hua Yun gets shot by an arrow); Taiping cheng 太平城 (Taiping City) *4.13: 2027–34 (p. 2034 is blank)

604

Appendix

214: Ci Ba Jie 刺巴傑 (Stabbing Ba Jie); alternate titles: Suanzao ling 酸棗嶺 (Sour Date Ridge); Ba Luo he 巴駱和 (Peace between the Bas and the Luos) *4.13: 2035–42 (p. 2042 is blank) 215: Jinqian bao 金錢豹 (Gold-cash panther) *4.13: 2043–48 216: Yumen guan 玉門關 (Jade Gate Pass) *4.13: 2049–52 217: Jiajia lou 賈家樓 (Jia Family Tavern); alternate title: Sanshi liu you 三十六友 (Thirty-six friends) *4.13: 2053–60 218: Yaocha ji 藥茶計 (The medicinal tea plot); alternate title: Zhan langzi 斬浪子 (Decapitating the playboy) *4.13: 2061–65 219: Lao Huang qingyi 老黃請醫 (Old Huang invites a doctor) *4.13: 2066–74 (p. 2074 is blank) 220: Daiyu zanghua 黛玉葬花 (Daiyu buries flowers) *4.13: 2075–80 221: Hua hudie 花蝴蝶 (Colored butterfly); alternate titles Yuanyang qiao 鴛鴦 橋 (Mandarin Duck Bridge); Dao yuma 盜玉馬 (Stealing the jade horse) *4.13: 2081–86 222: Baishui tan 白水灘 (White Water Beach); alternate titles: Zhuona Qingmian hu 捉 拿青面虎 (Capturing Green-Faced Tiger); Shiyi lang songli 十一郎送禮 (Eleventh Son sends presents) *4.13: 2087–89 223: Lu Su qiuji 魯肅求計 (Lu Su requests a plan); alternate title: Jie Jingzhou 借荊州 (Borrowing Jingzhou) *4.14: 2097–104 224: Tielong shan 鐵籠山 (Iron Cage Mountain); alternate titles: Shanding baiquan 山 頂拜泉 (Bowing to the spring on the mountain top); Baizhen qiquan 敗陣祈泉 (Suffering defeat, praying to the fountain); Dazhan manbing 大戰蠻兵 (Greatly fighting the barbarian troops) *4.14: 2105–210 (p. 2110 is blank) 225: Xunyang lou 潯陽樓 (Xunyang tower); alternate title: Nao Jiangzhou 鬧江州 (Causing havoc in Jiangzhou) *4.14: 2111–14 226: Qinhuai he 秦淮河 (The Qinhuai River); alternate titles: Dapiao yuan 大嫖院 (The big whoring in the brothel); Tanhuan bao 貪歡報 (Retribution for lust) *4.14: 2115–22 (p. 2122 is blank) 227: Da yingtao 打櫻桃 (Throwing cherries); alternate title: Shoushan hui 壽山會 (Meeting on Long Life Mountain) *4.14: 2123–30 228: Dingjia shan 丁甲山 (Dingjia Mountain); alternate titles: Li Kui fanzui 李逵犯罪 (Li Kui gets in trouble); Danao Zhongyi tang 大鬧忠義堂 (Causing great havoc at the Hall of Loyalty and Righteousness) *4.14: 2131–38 229: Huai’an fu 淮安府 (Huai’an Prefect); alternate titles: Na Cai Tianhua 拿蔡天化 (Capturing Cai Tianhua); Shuang daoyin 雙盜印 (Double stealing of the official seal); Beiji guan 北極觀 (North Pole Temple) *4.14: 2139–44 (p. 2044 is blank) 230: Xuebei yuan 雪杯圓 (The cup [A Double Handful of] Snow returns to its owner); alternate titles: Liulin xianghui 柳林相會 (Meeting in the willow grove); Huaigu huijia 懷古回家 ([Mo] Huaigu returns home) *4.14: 2145–48

Appendix

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231: Chu sanhai 除三害 (Removing the three scourges); alternate titles: Huntian qiu 混天球 (Ball that obscures heaven); Yingtian qiu 應天球 (Ball that responds to heaven); Dahu zhanjiao 打虎斬蛟 (Beating the tiger and beheading the kraken) *4.14: 2149–52 232: Cuo shajian 錯殺姦 (Mistaken killing of “adulterers”); alternate title: Weinan qi’an 渭南奇案 (Strange case in Weinan) *4.14: 2153–60 233: Suo wulong 鎖五龍 (Locking up five dragons); alternate titles: Suo wulong 鎖 烏龍 (Locking up Black Dragon); Zhan Xiongxin 斬雄信 (Decapitating [Shan] Xiongxin) *4.14: 2161–64 (p. 2164 is blank) 234: Zhaiying hui 摘纓會 (Banquet at which the [cap] strings are removed) *4.14: 2165–70 235: Du Bai Jian 度白儉 (Saving Bai Jian); alternate titles: Shanbao zhuang 善寶莊 (Manor of Good Treasures); Jiegu huanjin 接骨換筋 (Rejoining bones and replacing sinews) *4.14: 2171–78 (p. 2178 is blank) 236: Luo guozi qiangqin 羅鍋子搶親 (Hunchback Luo steals a wife for himself); alternate titles: Jinji ling 金雞嶺 (Golden Chicken Ridge); Xia Henan 下河南 (Going down to Henan) *4.14: 2179–88 237: Dang Liang 擋亮{諒} (Opposing [Chen You]liang); alternate title: Zhan tutai 戰 土臺 (Fighting at Tutai) *4.14: 2189–92 238: Dongjia shan 董家山 (Dong Family Mountain); alternate title: Chuangshan 闖山 (Causing trouble on the mountain) *4.14: 2193–98 (p. 2198 is blank) 239: Da gangzi 打槓子 (Hitting with a pole); alternate title: 黑松林 (Black Pine Forest) *4.14: 2199–206 240: Yuntai guan 雲臺觀 (Cloud Platform Terrace); alternate titles: Ku Mang tai 刳 莽臺 (Carving up Wang [Mang] on the platform); Na Wang Mang 拿王莽 (Capturing Wang Mang) *4.14: 2207–12 (p. 2212 is blank) 241: Wuhua dong 五花洞 (Five Flower Cave); alternate title: San’ai qiwen 三矮奇聞 (Strange story of three dwarves) *4.14: 2213–20 (p. 2220 is blank) 242: Hongmei ge 紅梅閣 (The red plum loggia); alternate title: You Xihu 游西湖 (Sightseeing on West Lake) *4.14: 2221–26 (p. 2226 is blank) 243: Ehu zhuang 惡虎莊 (Evil Tiger Manor); alternate titles: Huang Yidao 黃一刀 (Huang One Blade); Yao Erleng mairou 姚二楞買肉 Yao Erleng buys meat) *4.14: 2227–34 (p. 2234 is blank) 244: Sijie cun 四傑村 (Four Hero Village); alternate title: Yu Qian jiuzhu 余千救主 (Yu Qian saves his master) *4.14: 2235–40 245: Mawei po 馬嵬坡 (Mawei Slope) *4.15: 2245–50 (p. 2250 is blank) 246: Gucheng hui 古城相會 (Meeting at Old City); alternate titles: Zhan Cai Yang 斬蔡 陽 (Decapitating Cai Yang); Guangong xundi 關公訓弟 (Lord Guan instructs his younger brother; Gucheng quyi 古城聚義 (Joining in righteousness at Old City) *4.15: 2251–58

606

Appendix

247: Lu’an zhou 潞安州 (Lu’an County); alternate title: Yimen zhonglie 一門忠烈 (An entire family loyal and heroic) *4.15: 2259–66 248: Saosong xiashu 掃松下書 (Sweeping under the pine, delivering the letter); alternate title: Shifen wenlu 視墳問路 (Looking at the grave, asking the way) *4.15: 2267–74 (p. 2274 is blank) 249: Zixia gong 紫霞宮 (Purple Clouds Temple); alternate title: Xiongmei daomu 兄妹 盜墓 (Elder brother and younger sister rob the grave) *4.15: 2275–80 250: Ying jie lie 英傑烈 (Brave courageous and valiant); alternate title: Datie gongyuan 大鐵弓緣 (Great marriage affinity of the iron bow) *4.15: 2281–2304 (p. 2304 is blank) 251: Nanping shan 南屏山 (Southern Screen Mountain); alternate title: Jie dongfeng 借東風 (Borrowing the East Wind) *4.15: 2305–10 252: Fengseng sao Qin 瘋僧掃秦 (The crazy monk sweeps away Qin [Gui]); alternate title: Houben Fengpo ting 後本風波亭 (Later installment of Wind and Wave Pavilion) *4.15: 2311–18 (p. 2318 is blank) 253: Dao hunling 盜魂鈴 (Charm that steals souls); alternate title: Bajie xiangyao 八戒 降妖 ([Zhu] Bajie suppresses the demon) *4.15: 2319–24 (p. 2324 is blank) 254: Zijing shu 紫荊樹 (The Chinese redbud tree); alternate titles: Dazao fenjia 打皂分 家 (Beating the stove [god], splitting up the family) *4.15: 2325–30 255: Qingyang tu 慶陽圖 (Portrait in Qingyang Palace); alternate titles: Zhan Hongni 戰虹霓 (Fighting at Hongni); Zhan Li Guang 斬李廣 (Decapitating Li Guang); Li Gang fanchao 李剛反朝 (Li Gang revolts) *4.15: 2331–36 (p. 1336 is blank) 256: Yipeng xue 一捧雪 (A Double Handful of Snow); alternate titles: Soubei dailu 搜 杯代戮 (Searching for the cup, dying for one’s master); Mo Cheng tizhu 莫成替主 (Mo Cheng dies for his master); Jizhou tang 冀州堂 (Jizhou Yamen) (Yipeng xue touben 一捧雪頭本 [A Double Handful of Snow first installment]) *4.15: 2337–48 (p. 2348 is blank) 257: Xian Xichuan 獻西川 (Offering up Western Sichuan); alternate title: Zhang Song xian ditu 張松獻地圖 (Zhang Song offers up a map) *4.15: 2349–58 (p. 2358 is blank) 258: Zhaojia lou 趙家樓 (The Zhao family tavern); alternate title: Fenghuang ling 鳳凰 嶺 (Male and Female Phoenix Ridge) *4.15: 2359–64 259: Sanqi Zhou Yu 三氣周瑜 (Angering Zhou Yu the third time); alternate title: Luhua dang 蘆花蕩 (Among the reeds) *4.15: 2365–70 (p. 2370 is blank) 260: Balang tanmu 八郎探母 (Eighth son visits his mother) *4.15: 2371–82 (p. 2382 is blank) 261: Lintong shan 臨潼山 (Lintong Mountain) *4.15: 2383–92 262: Ma Yang Guang 罵楊廣 (Cursing Yang Guang); alternate title: Diyi zhongchen 第 一忠臣 (Number one loyal official) *4.16: 2397–400

Appendix

607

263: Kuai Che zhuangfeng 蒯徹裝瘋 (Kuai Che pretends to be mad); alternate title: Xi fenghou 喜封侯 (Joy at being made a marquis) *4.16: 2401–408 264: Dandao fuhui dai Xunzi 單刀赴會, 帶訓子 (A single blade [wielder] attends the meeting, with Instructing the son) *4.16: 2409–16 (p. 2416 is blank) 265: Shuiyan qijun 水淹七軍 (Flood waters overwhelm the seven armies) *4.16: 2417– 22 (p. 2422 is blank) 266: Weiyang gong 未央宮 (Weiyang Palace); alternate title: Zhan Han Xin 斬韓信 (Decapitating Han Xin) *4.16: 2423–28 267: Qu Nanjun 取南郡 (Taking Nanjun); alternate title: Erqi Zhou Yu 二氣周瑜 (Angering Zhou Yu the second time) *4.16: 2429–38 (p. 2438 is blank) 268: Chunxiang naoxue 春香鬧學 (Chunxiang causes a ruckus in the schoolroom) *4.16: 2439–46 269: Shi yuzhuo 拾玉鐲 (Picking up the jade bracelet); alternate titles: Mai xiongji 買 雄雞 (Buying cocks); Sunjia zhuang 孫家莊 (Sun Family Manor) *4.16: 2447–52 270: Da jugang 大鋸缸 (The great sawing of the cistern); alternate titles: Da bugang 大 補缸 (The great patching of the cistern); Wangjia zhuang 王家莊 (Wang Family Manor); Baicao shan 百草山 (Hundred Herb Mountain) *4.16: 2453–58 (p. 2458 is blank) 271: Sanrang Xuzhou 三讓徐州 (Yielding Xuzhou three times) *4.16: 2459–66 (p. 2466 is blank) 272: Ma Wang Lang 罵王朗 (Cursing Wang Lang) *4.16: 2467–72 (p. 2472 is blank) 273: Wanli xunfu 萬里尋夫 (Searching for her husband over ten thousand li); alternate titles: Ku Changcheng 哭長城 (Crying at the Long Wall); Mengjiang nü 孟姜 女 (Lady Mengjiang) *4.16: 2473–88 274: Yinjia bao 殷家堡 (Fortress of the Yin family) *4.16: 2489–500 275: Po Hongzhou 破洪州 (Defeating Hongzhou) *4.16: 2501–508 (p. 2508 is blank) 276: Beiwa rufu 背娃入府 (Carrying infant on one’s back, entering the mansion); alternate titles: Ru houfu 入侯府 (Entering the marquis’ mansion); Biao da laoye chi biyan 表大老爺吃鼻煙 (Honored in-law chews snuff) *4.16: 2509–18 (p. 2518 is blank) 277: Sanshang qiao 三上轎 (Three mount the bridal palanquin); alternate title: Liefu xunfu 烈婦殉夫 (Chaste wife dies for her husband) *4.16: 2519–26 278: Meiwu xian 郿鄔縣 (Meiwu District) *4.16: 2527–34 279: Miaoshan chujia 妙善出家 (Miaoshan leaves her family) *4.16: 2535–38 280: Fengbo ting quanben 風波亭全本 (Wind and Wave Pavilion complete version); alternate title: Jingzhong zhuan 精忠傳 (Story of Complete Loyalty) *5.17: 2543– 72 (p. 2572 is blank) 281: San shangdian 三上殿 (Three mount the palace hall) *5.17: 2573–80 (p. 2580 is blank)

608

Appendix

282: Jia jinpai 假金牌 (False gold tablet; alternate title: Zhuona Zhang Bingren 捉拿張 秉仁 (Capturing Zhang Bingren) *5.17: 2581–98 (p. 2598 is blank) 283: Xiangyang yan 襄陽宴 (Banquet at Xiangyang); alternate title: Ma tiao Tanxi dai Shuijing zuang 馬跳檀溪, 帶水鏡莊 (Horse jumps Tan Creek, with Water Mirror Manor) *5.17: 2599–2608 284: Tongwang zhen 銅網陣 (The Iron Mesh Trap); alternate title: Chongxiao lou 沖霄 樓 (Tower Piercing Heaven) *5.17: 2609–18 285: Zhang gudong jieqi 張古董借妻 (Zhang Gudong lends his wife); alternate title: Yipi bu 一疋布 (A bolt of cloth) *5.17: 2619–28 (p. 2628 is blank) 286: Bieqi 別妻 (Saying farewell to his wife); alternate titles: Chubing songxing 出兵送 行 (Seeing her husband when he is mobilized); Hua Danhan 花大漢 (Big Fellow Hua) *5.17: 2629–34 (p. 2634 is blank) 287: Zhan Diaochan 斬貂蟬 (Decapitating Diaochan); alternate title: Yuexia zhan Diao 月下斬貂 (Decapitating Diaochan under the moon) *5.17: 2635–40 (p. 2640 is blank) 288: Jinyan qiao 金雁橋 (Golden Goose Bridge); alternate titles: Qu Luocheng 取雒城 (Taking Luocheng); Qin Zhang Ren 擒張任 (Capturing Zhang Ren) *5.17: 2641–44 (p. 2644 is blank) 289: Zhang Liang cichao 張良辭朝 (Zhang Liang retires from court) *5.17: 2645–48 (p. 2648 is blank) 290: Jingyang gang 景陽崗 (Jingyang Ridge); alternate title: Wu Song dahu 武松打虎 (Wu Song fights a tiger) *5.17: 2649–56 (p. 2656 is blank) 291: Lianhua ji 連環計 (The interlocking plot); alternate title: Wang Yun cihuan 王允 賜環 (Wang Yun offers a linked plot) *5.17: 2657–60 (p. 2660 is blank) 292: Xia Hedong 下河東 (Going down to Hedong); alternate titles: Hedong cijia 河東 刺駕 (The attempt to assassinate the emperor in Hedong); Zhan Shouting 斬壽 廷 (Decapitating [Huyan] Shouting); Dazhan Bailong 大戰白龍 (Greatly fighting at Bailong [Pass]) *5.17: 2661–68 (p. 2668 is blank) 293: Maozhou miao 鄚州廟 (Maozhou Temple); alternate titles: Fangna Yizhi tao 訪 拿一枝桃 (Paying a call on and capturing A Sprig of Peach); Rizao sanxian 日遭 三險 (Meeting three dangers in one day); Na Xie Hu 拿謝虎 (Capturing Xie Hu) *5.17: 2669–74 (p. 2674 is blank) 294: Qu Jinling 取金陵 (Taking Jinling) *5.17: 2675–82 (p. 2682 is blank) 295: Chaoge hen quanben 朝歌恨全本 (Regret at Chaoge complete version) *5.18: 2687–714 296: Xiaofu geng 孝婦羹 (Filial daughter-in-law soup) *5.18: 2715–28 297: Ma Yanluo 罵閻羅 (Cursing [King] Yama); alternate title: Hu Di ma Yan 胡迪罵閻 (Hu Di curses [King] Yama) *5.18: 2729–38 (p. 1738 is blank) 298: Wang’er lou 望兒樓 (Tower for watching for her son) *5.18: 2739–42 (p. 2742 is blank)

Appendix

609

299: Pai Wang Zan 排王贊 (Encomiums on past emperors) *5.18: 2743–50 300: Meishan hen 煤山恨 (Coal Hill Regret; alternate titles: Chongzhen guitian 崇禎歸 天 (The Chongzhen Emperor returns to heaven); Tieguan tu 鐵冠圖 (Portrait of the Iron Cap) (Pai Wang Zao houben 排王贊後本 [Encomiums on past emperors installment two]) *5.18: 2751–54 301: Longfeng chengxiang 龍鳳呈祥 (Dragon and phoenix present auspicious omens); alternate titles: Youqi jiang jianü 油漆匠嫁女 (Lacquer craftsman marries off his daughter); Yiliang qi 一兩七 (One and seven-tenths ounces of silver). *5.18: 2755–62 302: Panshan 盤山 (Interrogation on the Mountain); alternate title: Wuyu dai 烏玉帶 (The black jade belt) *5.18: 2763–68 (p. 2768 is blank) 303: Ganlu si 甘露寺 (Sweet Dew Temple); alternate title: Longfeng pei 龍鳳配 (The matching of dragon and phoenix) *5.18: 2769–84 (p. 2784 is blank) 304: Tiaohua che, dai Niu Gao xiashu 挑華車, 帶牛皋下書 (Turning aside the carts sliding down the hill, with Niu Gao delivers a document); alternate title: Niutou shan 牛頭山 (Ox Head Mountain) *5.18: 2785–92 (p. 2792 is blank) 305: Wuren yi 五人義 (Five righteous men); alternate titles: Kankan Suzhou ren 看 看蘇州人 (Look at the men of Suzhou); Dao jingzhong 倒精忠 (The opposite of completely loyal) *5.18: 2793–802 (p. 2802 is blank) 306: Xishu 戲叔 (Flirting with younger brother-in-law); alternate title: Shusao fanmu 叔嫂反目 (Younger brother-in-law and older sister-in-law fall out) *5.18: 2803–10 (p. 2810 is blank) 307: Miren guan 迷人館 (Tavern of Seduction); alternate titles: Zuixian lou 醉仙 樓 (Tower that Intoxicates Immortals); Huachun yuan 畫春園 (Garden of Pornography); Zhuona Jiuhua niang 捉拿九花娘 (Capturing Nine Flower Mistress) *5.18: 2811–20 (p. 2820 is blank) 308: Jizhou cheng 冀州城 (Jizhou City); alternate title: Youyong wumou 有勇無謀 (Brave but lacking strategy) *5.18: 2821–30 (p. 2830 is blank) 309: Jin Daji quanben 進妲己全本 (Presenting Daji complete version); alternate titles: Fan Jizhou 反冀州 (Returning to Jizhou); Nüwa gong 女媧宮 (Nüwa Temple); Su Hu fan Shang 蘇護反商 (Su Hu revolts against the Shang [dynasty]) *5.19: 2835–60 310: Guo wuguan 過五關 (Passing through five passes); alternate titles: Ci Cao zhan­ jiang 辭曹斬將 (Saying farewell to Cao [Cao], decapitating [five] generals); Qianli xunxiong 千里尋兄 (Searching for [sworn] elder brother for one thousand li); Qianli danji 千里單騎 (Traveling one thousand li alone on horseback) *5.19: 2861–70 311: Sangu maolu quanben 三顧茅廬全本 (Three visits to the thatch hut complete visit) *5.19: 2871–94 (p. 2894 is blank)

610

Appendix

312: Shezhan chunru 舌戰群儒 ([Zhuge Liang] tongue battles the various Confucians); alternate title: Kongming guojiang 孔明過江 (Zhuge Liang crosses the Yangzi) *5.19: 2895–904 (p. 2904 is blank) 313: Maqian poshui 馬前潑水 (Spilling water in front of the horse); alternate title: Maichen xiuqi 買臣休妻 ([Zhu] Maichen divorces his wife) *5.19: 2905–20 (p. 2920 is blank) 314: Tao Jingzhou quanben 討荊州全本 (Demanding Jingzhou back complete version); alternate title: Zhiqi Zhou Yu 智氣周瑜 (Angering Zhou Qi by cunning) *5.19: 2921–30 (p. 2930 is blank) 315: Dinghua zhuan 頂花磚 (Balancing a patterned brick on [his] head); alternate title: Pa laopo 怕老婆 (Fearing his wife) *5.19: 2931–40 316: Shuangling ji quanben 雙鈴記全本 (The story of the double bells complete version); alternate title: Ma Siyuan 馬思遠 (Ma Siyuan) *5.19: 2941–60 317: Zengtou shi 曾頭市 (Zengtou Market); alternate titles: Yingxiong yi 英雄義 (Righteousness of a hero); Yijian chou 一箭仇 (Enmity caused by one arrow); Zhuona Shi Wengong 捉拿史文恭 (Capturing Shi Wengong) *5.19: 2961–64 318: Shetang guan 佘塘關 (Shetang Pass); alternate title: Qixing miao 七星廟 (Seven Star Temple) *5.19: 2965–70 (p. 2970 is blank) 319: Jiulong bei [qiben] 九龍杯[七本] (Nine dragon cup [installment seven]); alternate title: Qinghe huang magua 慶賀黃馬褂 (Congratulations for the [granting of the] yellow robe) *5.19: 2971–78 320: Jiulong shan 九龍山 (Nine Dragon Mountain); alternate titles: Shou Yang Zaixing 收楊再興 (Winning over Yang Zaixing); Zhen Tanzhou 鎮潭州 (Defending Tanzhou) *5.19: 2979–86 321: Panhe zhan 磐河戰 (Battle at the Pan River) *5.19: 2987–92 (p. 2992 is blank) 322: Touben Maicheng shengtian 頭本麥城昇天 (The ascension to heaven at Maicheng installment one); alternate titles: Zou Maicheng 走麥城 (Fleeing to Maicheng); Jingzhou shiji 荊州失計 (Mistaken strategy at Jingzhou) (Guangong shengtian 關 公升天 [Lord Guan ascends to heaven]) *5.20: 2997–3024 (p. 3024 is blank) 323: Ximi zhuan 戲迷傳 (Story of an opera addict) *5.20: 3025–32 324: Xipi Fenhe wan 西皮汾河灣 (The bend of the Fen River, xipi version); alternate title: Dingshan dayan 丁山打雁 ([Xue] Dingshan hunts geese) *5.20: 3033–44 (p. 3044 is blank) 325: Biemu luanjian 別母亂箭 (Saying goodby to [his] mother, shower of arrows); alternate title: Yimen zhonglie 一門忠烈 (An entire family loyal and heroic) (Ningwu guan san si ben 寧武關三四本 [Ningwu Pass installment three and four]) *5.20: 3045–52 326: Yiqi ling 義旗令 (Righteous banner order); alternate titles: Jiangtang douzhi 講堂 鬥智 (Battling by cunning in the lecture hall); Dao jinpai 盜金牌 (Stealing gold tablets) *5.20: 3053–58

Appendix

611

327: Mu Ke zhai, dai Shaoshan 穆柯寨, 帶燒山 (Mu Ke’s Encampment, with Setting fire to the mountain); alternate title: Mu Guiying zhaoqin 穆桂英招親 (Mu Guiying picks a husband) *5.20: 3059–66 328: Fenghuang shan, dai Xue Li tanyue 鳳凰山, 帶薛禮嘆月 (Male and Female Phoenix Mountain, with Xue Rengui sighs under the moon); alternate title: Xue Li jiujia 薛禮救駕 (Xue Rengui saves the emperor) *5.20: 3067–74 329: Yan Qing dalei 燕青打擂 (Yan Qing participates in one-on-one competitive fights); alternate titles: Shenzhou leitai 神州擂臺 (one-on-one competitive fights in Shenzhou); Da Shenzhou 大神州 (Great Shenzhou) *5.20: 3075–80 (p. 3080 is blank) 330: Caihua ganfu 採花趕府 (Plucking flowers, Forced out of the mansion) 3081–90 (p. 3090 is blank) 331: Qinglou meng 青樓夢 (A dream of the brothel); alternate title: Baizi huitou 敗子 回頭 (Loser reforms) *5.20: 3091–104 (p. 3104 is blank) 332: Songhua louhui 送花樓會 (Sending flowers, meeting upstairs); alternate title: Shuangzhu feng 雙珠鳳 (Pair of pearl phoenixes) *5.20: 3105–12 (p. 3112 is blank) 333: Kao Hong 拷紅 (Beating and interrogating Hong[niang]); alternate title: Kaoda Hongniang 拷打紅娘 (Beating and interrogating Hongniang) *5.20: 3113–18 (p. 3118 is blank) 334: Tie gongji tou er san ben 鐵公雞頭二三本 (The iron rooster installments 1–3) *5.20: 3119–37 335: Xutian shelu 許田射鹿 (Shooting deer [with arrows] at Xutian) *6.21: 3143–76 336: Bawang bie ji 霸王別姬 (Farewell my consort); alternate titles: Gaixia wei 垓下 圍 (Encircled at Gaixia); Wujiang ziwen 烏江自刎 ([Xiang Yu] slits his throat at Wujiang) *6.21: 3177–82 337: Zengpao cima 贈袍賜馬 (Presenting a robe and a horse) *6.21: 3183–90 (p. 3190 is blank) 338: Yu linglong 玉玲瓏 (Intricately carved piece of jade); alternate title: Jinü shazei 妓 女殺賊 (Courtesan slays invaders) *6.21: 3191–200 339: Sizhou cheng 泗州城 (Sizhou City); alternate title: Hongqiao zengzhu 虹橋贈珠 (The presentation of a pearl at Rainbow Bridge) *6.21: 3201–208 (p. 3208 is blank) 340: Tianbao tu, touben zhi qiben 天寶圖頭本至七本 (Portrait of Heavenly Treasures installments one through seven) *6.21: 3209–50 341: Xueye fang Pu 雪夜訪普 (Paying a visit on a snowing night to [Zhao] Pu); alternate titles: Jihui fengyun 際會風雲 (Meeting of wind and clouds); Junchen le 君臣 樂 (Lord and subject happy) *6.21: 3251–56 342: Shuang heyin 雙合印 (The double matching of the chop) *6.21: 3257–62 343: Yide baoyuan 以德報怨 (Repaying injustice with virtue); alternate title: Ren bu ru gou 人不如狗 (Men not as good as dogs) *6.21: 3263–86 (p. 3286 is blank)

612

Appendix

344: Jiang xiang he 將相和 (General and minister reconciled) *6.22: 3291–300 (p. 3300 is blank) 345a: Shanhai guan, qi ba ben 山海關, 七八本 (Shanhai Pass installments seven and eight); alternate titles: Fang Mao 訪毛 (Paying a visit to Mao Wenlong); Sha Mao 殺毛 (Killing Mao Wenlong) *6.22: 3301–12 345b: Shanhai guan jiu shi ben 山海關, 九十本 (Shanhai Pass installments nine and ten); alternate titles: Jiling 祭靈 (Sacrificing to [Mao Wenlong’s] spirit); Jianhai 間害 (Meeting death) *6.22: 3313–22 346: Qingfeng zhai 青{清}風寨 (Pure Wind Encampment); alternate title: Qu Li Kui 娶 李逵 (Taking Li Kui in marriage) *6.22: 3323–29 347: Tanglou xiangmeng 堂樓詳夢 (A dream and its explication) *6.22: 3331–38 348: Mingmo yihen 明末遺恨 (Lingering regret for the fall of the Ming); alternate title: Shougong shajian 守宮殺監 (Protecting the palace and killing [disloyal] eunuchs) *6.22: 3339–48 349: Weiyao 餵藥 (Feeding medicine [by mouth]) *6.22: 3349–53 350: Chuanzhu ji 串珠記 (A string of pearls); alternate titles: Cai Mingfeng 蔡鳴鳳 (Cai Mingfeng); Qingchao bachu 清朝八齣 (Eight scenes from the Qing dynasty) *6.22: 3355–71 351: Duanwu men 端午門 (Duanwu Gate) *6.22: 3373–77 352: Luhua dang 蘆花蕩 (Among the reeds) *6.22: 3379–81 353: Shi’er hong [touben] 十二紅[頭本] (Popular at twelve [installment one]) *6.22: 3383–96 354a: Touben Hong Bi yuan 頭本宏碧緣 (The marriage affinity between Luo Hongxun and Hua Bilian installment one) *6.23: 3401–40 354b: Erben Hong Bi yuan 二本宏碧緣 (The marriage affinity between Luo Hongxun and Hua Bilian installment two) *6.23: 3441–72 355: Juding guanhua 舉鼎觀畫 (Lifting the tripod and looking at the painting); alternate title: Shuangshi tu 雙獅圖 (Picture of a pair of lions) *6.23: 3473–82 356: San jizhang 三擊掌 (Three strikes of palms [making an oath]); alternate title: Baochuan chufu 寶釧出府 (Baochuan leaves the mansion) (Hongzong liema erben 紅鬃烈馬二本 [The red-maned fiery horse installment two]) *6.23: 3483–86 357: Xifu shan 洗浮山 (Xifu Mountain); alternate title: Chunxiong tankou 群雄探寇 (Collected heroes investigate brigands) *6.23: 3487–94 358: Mei jiangxue 梅降雪 (Plum falling snow); alternate title: Longhu jian 龍虎劍 (Dragon and tiger sword) *6.23: 3495–502 359: Bailiang lou 百涼樓 (Bailiang Tower); alternate titles: Xinglong hui 興隆會 (Auspicious meeting); Chang Yuchun jiujia 常遇春救駕 (Chang Yuchun saves the emperor); Luanshi shan 亂石山 (Tumbled Boulder Mountain) *6.23: 3503–506 360: Qiaocuo 喬醋 (Pretend jealousy); alternate title: Dui shuang que 對雙雀 (Matching gold magpies) *6.23: 3507–14 (p. 3514 is blank)

Appendix

613

361: Shuang suo shan 雙鎖山 (Twice Locked Mountain); alternate title: Junbao zhaoqin 俊保招親 (Gao Junbao picked to be husband) *6.23: 3515–20 (p. 3520) 362: Yan’an guan 延安關 (Yan’an Pass); alternate titles: Shuangyang chanzi 雙陽產 子 (Princess Double Yang produces sons); Fan Yan’an 反延安 (Return to Yan’an) *6.23: 3521–26 363: Baishe zhuan 白蛇傳 (The white snake); alternate titles: Dao xiancao 盜仙草 (Stealing the immortal herb); Xionghuang zhen 雄黃陣 (Realgar-wine battle formation) *6.23: 3527–32 364: Yan huogun 焰火棍 (Fire poker); alternate titles: Yan huogun 演火棍 (Wielding the fire poker); Da Jiao Zan 打焦贊 (Beating Jiao Zan) *6.23: 3533–38 365: Sanben Hong Bi yuan 三本宏碧緣 (The marriage affinity between Luo Hongxun and Hua Bilian installment three) *6.24: 3543–78 (p. 3578 is blank) 366: Siben Hong Bi yuan 四本宏碧緣 (The marriage affinity between Luo Hongxun and Hua Bilian installment four) *6.24: 3579–616 (p. 3616 is blank) 367: Jinma men 金馬門 (Gold Horse Gate); alternate title: Ma An 罵安 (Cursing An [Lushan]) *6.24: 3617–22 368: You Wumiao 遊武廟 (Seeing the sights at Martial Temple); alternate title: Liu Ji cichao 劉基辭朝 (Liu Ji leaves court) *6.24: 3623–30 (p. 3630 is blank) 369: Sifan 思凡 (Longing for worldly things); alternate title: Xiao nigu xiashan 小尼姑 下山 (Young nun goes down the mountain) *6.24: 3631–34 (p. 3634 is blank) 370: Erben Xuebei yuan 二本雪杯圓 (The cup [A Double Handful of] Snow returns to its owner installment two); alternate title: Yijia tuanju 一家團聚 (Whole family reunited) *6.24: 3635–42 371: Dang Youwang 擋幽王 (Blocking King You); alternate title: Fen yandun 焚烟墩 (Burning the warning fires) *6.24: 3643–48 372: Fomen dianyuan quanben 佛門點元全本 (Top-of-the-list selected within the gates of the Buddha) *6.24: 3649–72 (p. 3672 is blank) 373: Mumen dao 木門道 (Wooden Gate Road); alternate title: Zhuangshen gemai 裝神 割麥 (Impersonating spirits and cutting wheat) *6.24: 3673–84 374: Wuben Hong Bi yuan 五本宏碧緣 (The marriage affinity between Luo Hongxun and Hua Bilian installment five) *7.25: 3689–724 375: Liuben Hong Bi yuan 六本宏碧緣 (The marriage affinity between Luo Hongxun and Hua Bilian installment six) *7.25: 3725–54 (p. 3754 is blank) 376: Xi’er ji 洗耳記 (A record of the washing out of ears) *7.25: 3755–62 (p. 3762 is blank) 377: Liuchu Qishan 六出岐{祁}山 (Sixth expedition from Qi Mountain); alternate title: Huoshao Hulu gu 火燒葫蘆谷 (Burning Gourd Valley with fire) *7.25: 3763– 72 (p. 3772 is blank) 378: Laoxi piaoyuan 老西嫖院 (Cao from Shanxi spends time in the brothel); alternate title: Chen Sanliang 陳三兩 (Chen Sanliang) *7.25: 3773–78

614

Appendix

379: Hefeng qun 合鳳裙 (Matching the phoenix skirt); alternate title: Yuanyang jing 鴛鴦鏡 (Mandarin ducks mirror) *7.25: 3779–84 (p. 3784 is blank) 380: Da Dengzhou 打登州 (Attacking Dengzhou); alternate title: She hongdeng 射紅 燈 (Shooting out the red lantern) *7.25: 3785–92 (p. 37–92 is blank) 381: Liu Xiu zouguo 劉秀走國 (Liu Xiu on the run); alternate title: Guishen zhuang 鬼 神莊 (The ghostly manor) *7.25: 3793–802 (p. 3802 is blank) 382: Qu Luoyang 取洛陽 (Taking Luoyang); alternate title: Guangwu xing 光武興 (The Guangwu Emperor [Liu Xiu] on the rise) *7.25: 3803–12 383: Donggong saoxue 東宮掃雪 (Sweeping away snow in the Eastern Palace); alternate title: Zimu pao 子母砲 (Nested cannons) *7.25: 3813–18 384: Qiben Hong Bi yuan 宏碧緣七本 (The marriage affinity between Luo Hongxun and Hua Bilian installment seven) *7.26: 3823–70 385: Shoushan tai 受禪臺 (Platform for receiving abdication); alternate title: Han Xian rangwei 漢獻讓位 (Emperor Xian of the Han yields the throne) *7.26: 3871– 78 (p. 3878 is blank) 386: Xing Zhao mie Tu 興趙滅屠 (Raising the Zhao and exterminating the Tu[’an]); alternate title: Tu Zhao chou 屠趙仇 (Enmity between the Tu[’an] and the Zhao) *7.26: 3879–88 387: Heilü gaozhuang 黑驢告狀 (Black donkey makes an accusation) (Qionglin yan houben 瓊林宴後本 (Qionglin Banquet installment two) *7.26: 3889–900 388: Yanzhi pan 胭脂判 (Rouge’s case is decided) *7.26: 3901–14 389: Hanzhan Taishi Ci 酣戰太史慈 (Fighting Taishi Ci with abandon); alternate title: Shenting zhan 神亭戰 (The battle at Shenting) *7.26: 3915–30 390: Gungu shan 滾鼓山 (Rolling Drum Mountain) *7.26: 3931–36 (p. 3936 is blank) 391: San jieyi 三結義 (Three swear brotherhood); alternate title: Liu Guan Zhang 劉關 張 (Liu [Bei], Guan [Yu] and Zhang [Fei]) *7.26: 3937–60 392: Tou er ben Sanmen jie 頭二本三門街 (Three gate street installments one and two) *7.27: 3965–82 (p. 3982 is blank) 393: San si ben Sanmen jie 三四本三門街 (Three gate street installments three and four) *7.27: 3983–96 394: Wu liu ben Sanmen jie 五六本三門街 (Three gate street installments five and six) *7.27: 3997–4010 (p. 4010 is blank) 395: Qi ba ben Sanmen jie 七八本三門街 (Three gate street installments seven and eight) *7.27: 4011–26 (p. 4026 is blank) 396: Jiu shi ben Sanmen jie 九十本三門街 (Three gate street installments nine and ten) *7.27: 4027–38 (p. 4038 is blank) 397: Nuzhan Yu shenxian 怒斬于神仙 (Angrily decapitating Yu [Ji] “The Immortal”) *7.27: 4039–50 398: Xi Mudan 戲牡丹 (Flirting with Green Peony); alternate title: Chunyang xidong 純陽戲洞 (Lü Dongbin flirts in a cave) *7.27: 4051–56 (p. 4056 is blank)

Appendix

615

399: Da shaguo 打沙鍋 (Hitting the earthenware pot); alternate title: Hutu an 糊塗案 (Mixed-up court case) *7.27: 4057–64 (p. 4064 is blank) 400: Shanhai guan tou er ben 山海關頭二本 (Shanhai pass installments one and two); alternate titles: Jiyi po 激義破滿 (Stirring up righteousness and defeating the Manchus); Fubian zhucheng 撫邊築城 (Overseeing the border and building walls) *7.27: 4065–78 (p. 4078 is blank) 401: Jinyang gong 晉陽宮 (Jinyang Palace) *7.27: 4079–86 (p. 4086 is blank) 402: Zhan Tongtai 戰潼臺 (Fighting at Tongtai); alternate title: Liu Gao qiangqin 劉高 搶親 (Liu Gao abducts a wife) *7.27: 4087–92 (p. 4092 is blank) 403: Kan xiangtou 看香頭 (Curing illness from watching incense); alternate title: Dingshen zhayin 頂神詐銀 (Pretending possession to fraudulently get money) *7.27: 4093–100 (p. 4100 is blank) 404: Changsheng le 長生樂 (The joys of longevity) *7.27: 4101–106 (p. 4106 is blank) 405: Tongnü zhanshe 童女斬蛇 (The maiden decapitates the snake) *7.28: 4111–40 (p. 4140 is blank) 406: Jiuyang zhong touben 九陽鐘頭本 (Nine-yang bell installment one); alternate title: Dangkou chujian 蕩寇除奸 (Opposing the brigands and removing traitors) *7.28: 4141–78 (p. 4178 is blank) 407: Xinglu kuling 行路哭靈 (On the road, Crying at the coffin) *7.28: 4179–88 (p. 4188 is blank) 408: Mai yanzhi 賣胭脂 (Selling rouge); alternate title: Mai gaohong 賣高紅 (Selling fine rouge) *7.28: 4189–94 409: Mofang chanzi 磨坊產子 (Giving birth in the granary) *7.28: 4195–204 410: Wugong ling 蜈蚣嶺 (Scorpion Ridge); alternate title: Zhuona Wang Feitian 捉拿 王飛天 (Capturing Wang Feitian) *7.28: 4205–210 (p. 4210 is blank) 411: Kun Caofu 困曹府 (Stuck in Cao Prefecture); alternate title: Geliu taofeng 割瘤討 封 (Cutting off a boil, requesting official title) *7.28: 4211–16 412: Shanhai guan san si ben 山海關三四本 (Shanhai pass installments three and four); alternate titles: Maci 罵祠 (Cursing at the shrine [to Wei Zhongxian]); Duozhi 奪職 (Stealing power) *7.28: 4217–28 (p. 4228 is blank) 413: Shaqiao jianbie 沙橋餞別 (Farewell banquet at Sha Bridge); alternate title: Sanzang qujing 三藏取經 (Tripitaka goes to fetch scripture) *7.28: 4229–34 414: Beideng 背凳 (Balancing a bench on his back); alternate title: Pa laopo 怕老婆 (Afraid of his wife) *7.28: 4235–46 (p. 4246 is blank) 415: Huatian cuo [houben] 花田錯[後本] (The mistake in the flower field [installment two]) *8.29: 4251–66 416: Miaohui 廟會 (Meeting in the temple); alternate title: Guanwang miao 關王廟 (Lord Guan’s Temple) *8.29: 4267–74 417: Mulan congjun 木蘭從軍 (Mulan joins the army) *8.29: 4275–98

616

Appendix

418: Erben Jiuyang zhong 二本九陽鐘 (Nine-yang bell installment two) *8.29: 4299–330 419: Puqiu shan 普球山 (Puqiu Mountain); alternate title: Dao jinpai 盜金牌 (Stealing the gold tablet) *8.29: 4331–40 (p. 4340 is blank) 420: Shanhai guan wu liu ben 山海關五六本 (Shanhai pass installments five and six); alternate titles: Cijian dushi 賜劍督師 (Bestowal of the sword, overseeing the troops); Huozhu chuji 惑主出姬 (Deluding the ruler, expelling the consort) *8.29: 4341–54 (p. 4354 is blank) 421: Wu Han shaqi 吳漢殺妻 (Wu Han kills his wife); alternate title: Zhan jingtang 斬 經堂 (Execution in the scripture hall) *8.29: 4355–62 422: Qidang tong’e bao 妻黨同惡報 (The wife’s faction together shares retribution) *8.29: 4363–76 (p. 4376 is blank) 423: Zhiqu Beihu zhou 智取北湖州 (Taking Beihu County by strategy) *8.29: 4377–94 (p. 4394 is blank) 424: Daiyu fengao 黛玉焚稿 (Daiyu burns her manuscripts) *8.30: 4399–414 (p. 4414 is blank) 425: Guangong xiansheng 關公顯聖 (Lord Guan reveals his divinity); alternate title: Erben Maicheng shengtian 二本麥城昇天 (The ascension to heaven at Maicheng installment two) *8.30: 4415–38 (p. 4438 is blank) 426: Sanya yuan 三雅園 (Garden of three refinements); alternate title: Na Yu Qiaolong 拿余喬龍 (Arresting Yu Qiaolong) *8.30: 4439–60 427: Xiangfei hen 香妃恨 (The Fragrant Consort’s Resentment) *8.30: 4461–88 (p. 4488 is blank) 428: Taiping qiao [erben] 太平橋[二本] (Taiping Bridge [installment two]) *8.30: 4489–94 (p. 4494 is blank) 429: Feicha zhan 飛叉陣 (Flying fork battle formation); alternate title: Ma Yuan gui Han 馬援歸漢 (Ma Yuan surrenders to the Han) 4495–502 (p. 4502 is blank) 430: Ku zumiao 哭祖廟 (Crying in the imperial shrine) *8.30: 4503–10 431: Qingwen buqiu 晴雯補裘 (Qingwen [Skybright] mends fur) *8.30: 4511–20 (p. 4520 is blank) 432: Dadao 打刀 (Forging the sword); alternate title: Wu Yanneng 吳衍能 (Wu Yanneng) *8.30: 4512–26 433: Jia Zheng xunzi 賈政訓子 (Jia Zheng instructs his son) *8.30: 4527–38 (p. 4538 is blank) 434: Zha Licheng 詐歷城 (Deceiving Li City); alternate title: Ma Teng tuozhao 馬騰託 兆 ([The dead] Ma Teng communicates in a dream [with his son]) *8.31: 4543–52 (p. 4552 is blank) 435: Tou er ben Laoyu yuanyang 頭二本牢獄鴛鴦 (Mandarin ducks in jail installment one and two) *8.31: 4553–72 436: Bolang chui 博浪錐 (Bolang mallet) *8.31: 4573–78

Appendix

617

437: Guifang xi 閨房戲 (Fun in the bedroom); alternate title: Fengliu jiahua 風流佳話 (Romantic anecdote) *8.31: 4579–88 438: Qingwen sishan 晴雯撕扇 (Qingwen [Skybright] tears fans); alternate title: Qianjin yixiao 千金一笑 (A smile worth a thousand in gold) *8.31: 4589–600 (p. 4600 is blank) 439: Lianhua tang 蓮花塘 (Lotus Pool); alternate title: Qing anlan 慶安瀾 (Cebrating the pacification of the waves) *8.31: 4601–606 440: Hejian fu 河間府 (Hejian Perfecture); alternate title: Na Hao Wenseng 拿郝文僧 (Capturing Hao Wenseng) *8.31: 4607–14 441: Guiyang cheng 桂陽城 (Guiyang City); alternate title: Quanda Zhao Fan 拳打趙 範 (Punching Zhao Fan) *8.31: 4615–26 442: Yongliang guan 雍涼關 (Yongliang Pass) *8.31: 4627–34 (p. 4634 is blank) 443: Xuan yuanrong 選元戎 (Selecting the supreme commander) *8.31: 4635–44 444: Jiecha Huozhuo 借茶活捉 (Borrowing tea, Taking the soul [of Third Son]) (alternate title for the second half: Huozhuo sanlang 活捉三郎 [Taking the soul of Third Son]) *8.31: 4645–54 445: Yaochi hui 瑤池會 (Heavenly banquet); alternate title: Toutao Fuyan 偷桃赴宴 (Stealing peaches, attending the banquet) *8.31: 4655–64 446: Hongmen si 紅門寺 (Red Gate Temple); alternate title: Qiaona Zhikong 巧拿智空 (Cleverly capturing Zhikong) *8.31: 4665–76 (p. 4676 is blank) 447: Biemu cibei 別母刺背 (Parting from mother and tattooing the back); alternate titles: Jingzhong baoguo 精忠報國 (Completely repaying the country with loyalty); Yuemu cizi 岳母刺字 (Mother Yue tattoos characters [on her son’s back]) *8.32: 4681–92 (p. 4692 is blank) 448: Tou, er ben Lianhuan tao 頭二本連環套 (The linked plot installments one and two); alternate title: Daoma 盜馬 (Stealing the [imperial] horse) *8.32: 4693–706 (p. 4706 is blank) 449: Siben Lianhuan tao 四本連環套 (The linked plot installment four); alternate title: Daogou 盜鉤 (Stealing the hooks) *8.32: 4707–14 (p. 4714 is blank) 450: Languan xue 藍關雪 (Snow at Languan); alternate titles: Jiudu Wengong 九度文 公 (Converting Wengong [Han Yu] nine times); Xiangzi du shu 湘子度叔 ([Han] Xiangzi converts his uncle); Zou xueshan 走雪山 (Traveling through snowy mountains) *8.32: 4715–24 (p. 4724 is blank) 451: Xin sishi ba che 新四十八扯 (New Forty-eight bits) *8.32: 4725–40 452: Furong lei 芙蓉誄 (Hibiscus elegy); alternate title: Qingwen guitian 晴雯歸天 (Qingwen [Skybright] returns to heaven) *8.32: 4741–46 (p. 4746 is blank) 453: Dangren bei 黨人碑 (The stele recording the names of the proscribed faction); alternate title: Wang Anshi 王安石 (Wang Anshi) *8.32: 4747–56 454: Bai fu wei ji 白傅遺姬 (Imperial tutor Bai [Juyi] sends off his concubine); alternate titles: Bao’en ji 報恩記 (Repaying grace); Luo ma yangzhi 駱馬楊枝(Luoma

618

455: 456: 457: 458: 459: 460:

461: 462: 463: 464: 465:

466: 467:

468: 469:

470: 471:

Appendix the horse and singing “Sprig of Willow”) (Bai xiang qian ji 白相遣姬 [Prime minister Bai (Juyi) sends off his concubine]) *8.32: 4757–62 An wulu 安五路 (Pacifying the five routes); alternate title: Deng Zhi fu youguo 鄧 芝赴油鍋 (Deng Zhi braves boiling in oil) *8.32: 4763–72 (p. 4772 is blank) Bei Batian 北霸天 (Batian of the North); alternate title: Na Hua Deyu 拿花得雨 (Capturing Hua Deyu) *8.32: 4773–80 Jingchai ji 荊釵記 (The thorn hairpin); alternate title: Wang Shipeng 王十棚 (Wang Shipeng) *8.32: 4781–802 Wansha xi 浣紗溪 (Silk washing creek); alternate title: Fan Li fangmei 范蠡訪美 (Fan Li pays a visit to a beauty) *8.32: 4803–10 (p. 4810 is blank) Shanyou Douniu gong 善遊斗牛宮 (Good traveling to Douniu Palace); alternate title: Douniu gong 善遊斗牛宮 (Douniu palace) *8.32: 4811–22 Baogong chushi Limao huan taizi, touben 包公出世狸貓換太子, 頭本 (Exchange of the wildcat for the prince, Judge Bao takes office, installment one) *9.34: 4827–84 Shuiman Jinshan si 水漫金山寺 (Water floods Gold Mountain Temple) *9.34: 4885–92 (p. 4892 is blank) Zhao Wuniang 趙五娘 (Zhao Fifth Daughter) *9.34: 4893–956 (p. 4956 is blank) Hehou madian 賀后罵殿 (Empress He curses the throne) *9.34: 4957–64 Youyuan Jingmeng 遊園驚夢 (A stroll in the garden, Interrupted dream) *9.34: 4965–70 Erben Limao huan taizi 二本狸貓換太子 (Exchange of the wildcat for the prince installment one); alternate title: 包公出世 Baogong chushi (Judge Bao takes office) *9.34: 4975–5038 (p. 5038 is blank) Yanhua jing 煙花鏡 (Mirror of prostitution); alternate title: Li Yaxian 李亞仙 (Li Yaxian): *9.34: 5039–46 Bianliang tu 汴梁圖 (Map of Bianliang); alternate titles: Bianliang shagong 汴 梁殺宮(Murder in the palace in Bianliang); Yanwei zaofan 彥威造反 (Yan Wei revolts) *9.34: 5047–54 Chishui yi 池水驛 Chishui Posthouse); alternate title: Nuzhu xianghui 奴主相會 (Maid and mistress meet [again]) *9.34: 5055–68 (p. 5068 is blank) Shazi bao 殺子報 (Retribution for killing [her] son); alternate titles: Qinglian fan’an 清廉訪案 (Incorrupt official investigates case); Tongzhou qi’an 通州奇案 (Strange case from Tongzhou); Youtan ji 油醰{罈}記 (Story of the oil jar) *9.34: 5069–92 (p. 5092 is blank) Bintie jian 賓{鑌}鐵劍 (The finely smelted sword); alternate title: Putao hui 葡萄 會 (The grape festival) *9.34: 5093–100 (p. 5100 is blank) Ai xiaozi 艾孝子 (Filial Son Ai); alternate title: Xunqin tiyu 尋親奇遇 (Strange meeting while searching for his kin) *9.34: 5101–10

Appendix

619

472: Cu zhong cu 醋中醋 (Jealousy within jealousy); alternate title: Nan yinyuan 難姻 緣 (Difficult marriage affinity) *9.34: 5111–20 473: Di sanben Limao huan taizi 第三本狸貓換太子 (Exchange of the wildcat for the prince installment three); alternate title: Baogong chushi 包公出世 (Judge Bao takes office) *9.35: 5125–96 (p. 5196 is blank) 474: Xumu ma Cao 徐母罵曹 (Xu Shu’s mother curses Cao Cao) *9.35: 5197–204 (p. 5204 is blank) 475: Baoyu chujia 寶玉出家 (Baoyu leaves his family) *9.35: 5205–10 (p. 5210 is blank) 476: Xin Sanniang jiaozi 新三娘教子 (New Third mistress teaches the son) *9.35: 5211– 28 (p. 5228 is blank) 477: Ci xiao tu 慈孝圖 (Picture of compassion and filiality) *9.35: 5229–36 478: Daozhou cheng 道州城 (The city of Daozhou) *9.35: 5237–46 (p. 5246 is blank) 479: Fenghuang shan 鳳凰山 (Male and Female Phoenix Mountain) *9.35: 5247–54 (p. 5254 is blank) 480: Mogu xianshou 麻姑獻壽 (Magu offers long life) *9.35: 5255–60 481: Di siben Limao huan taizi 第四本狸貓換太子 (Exchange of the wildcat for the prince installment four) *9.36: 5265–318 482: Shuanglong hui, dai Wulang chujia 雙龍會, 帶五郎出家 (Meeting of two dragons, with Fifth Son leaves the family); alternate title: Bahu chuang Youzhou 八虎闖幽 州 (Eight ‘dragons’ charge into Youzhou) *9.36: 5319–32 (p. 5332 is blank) 483: Da xiangshan 大香山 (Great Incense Mountain); alternate titles: Miaoshan chujia 妙善出家 (Miaoshan leaves her family); Huoshao Baique si 火燒白雀寺 (Burning with fire Baique Temple) *9.36: 5333–58 484: Cuihua gong 翠花宮 (Imperial banner palace); alternate title: Zhang Jinding diao­xiao 張金定吊孝 (Zhang Jinding wears mourning) *9.36: 5359–70 485: Tiannü sanhua 天女散花 (Heavenly maiden scatters flowers); alternate title: Tiannü gong 天女宮 (Heavenly maiden palace) *9.36: 5371–82 486: Pinggui bieyao 平貴別窯 (Xue Pinggui says farewell at the kiln); alternate title: Pinggui congjun 平貴從軍 (Xue Pinggui joins the army) (Hongzong liema sanben 紅鬃烈馬三本 [The red-maned fiery horse installment three]) *9.36: 5383–88 (p. 5388 is blank) 487: Daopi sanguan 刀劈三關 (Slashing through three passes) *9.36: 5389–404 (p. 5404 is blank) 488: Qiqin Meng Huo 七擒孟獲 (Capturing Meng Huo seven times) *10.37: 5409–48 (p. 5448 is blank) 489: Chang’e benyue 嫦娥奔月 (Chang’e flees to the moon) *10.37: 5459–68 490: Sanzi jing 三字經 (Three-character classic) *10.37: 5469–80 (p. 5480 is blank) 491: Jiameng guan 葭萌關 (Jiameng Pass); alternate title: Tiaodeng dazhan 挑燈大戰 (Great fight under trimmed lantern wicks) *10.37: 5481–86

620

Appendix

492: Panguan 盤關 (Interrogation at the pass) *10.37: 5487–92 493: Biyou gong 碧游宮 (Biyou Palace); alternate titles: Dapo Zhuxian zhen 大破諸仙 陣 (Greatly defeating the various immortals battle formation); Baxian piaohai 八 仙飄海 (Eight Immortals float over the sea) *10.37: 5493–514 (p. 5514 is blank) 494: Jiepai guan 界牌關 (Safe-conduct Pass Pass); alternate titles: Panchang [da]zhan 盤腸[大] 戰 (Battling [fiercely] with intestines wrapped around one); Luo Tong saobei 羅通掃北 (Luo Tong pacifies the north) *10.37: 5515–20 (p. 5520 is blank) 495: Da Taoyuan 打桃園 (Fighting in the peach orchard); alternate title: Sanda Tao Sanchun 三打桃{陶}三春 (Fighting Tao Sanchun three times) *10.37: 5521–34 (p. 5534 is blank) 496: Xi Mudan 戲目蓮/連 (Tempting Mulian); alternate title: 後本目蓮救母 (Mulian saves his mother installment two) *10.37: 5535–46 (p. 5546 is blank) 497: Zhulian zhai 珠簾寨 (Pearl Curtain Stockade); alternate titles: Shatou guo 沙陀國 (Shatuo Kingdom); Jiebao shou Wei 解寶收威 (Escorting treasure, accepting the allegiance of [Zhou De]wei) *10.38: 5551–70 498: Tou [er] ben Qu Nanjun 頭[二] 本取南郡 (Taking Nanjun installments one [and two]) *10.38: 5571–96 499: Bajiao shan 芭蕉扇 (The plantain leaf fan); alternate title: Baiyun dong 白雲洞 (White Cloud Cave) *10.38: 5597–608 (p. 5608 is blank) 500: Zhenzhu shan 珍珠山 (The Pearl Shirt); alternate title: Zhongqiu shangyue 中秋 賞月 (Enjoying the moon at Mid-Autumn Festival) *10.38: 5609–20 (p. 5620 is blank) 501: Sanshi xiu 三世修 (Self-cultivation over three generations); alternate title: Guixiang dedao 桂香得道 (Guixiang attains the way) *10.38: 5621–30 (p. 5630 is blank) 502: Nao tiangong 鬧天宮 (Causing havoc in the heavenly palace) (Antian hui 安天會 [The bringing peace to heaven banquet]) *10.38: 5631–42 (p. 5642 is blank) 503: Wulei bao 五雷報 (Retribution by five lightning strikes) *10.38: 5643–54 (p. 5654 is blank) 504: Baochan songjiu 寶蟾送酒 (Baochan offers wine) *10.38: 5655–66 (p. 5666 is blank) 505: Xiangjiang hui 湘江會 (Meeting on Xiang River) *10.38: 5667–76 506: Ningwu guan 寧武關 (Ningwu Pass); alternate titles: Duidao buzhan 對刀步戰 (Matched swords fighting on foot); Shan leiguang 閃電光 (Flashes of lightning) (Ningwu guan touben 寧武關頭本 [Ningwu Pass installment one]) *10.38: 5677– 82 (p. 5682 is blank) 507: Zhong Kui jiamei 鐘馗嫁妹 (Zhong Kui marries off his sister) *10.38: 5683–90 508: Qianben Fanma ji 販馬記前本 (Story of selling horses installment one); alternate title: Baocheng yu 褒城獄 (Baocheng jail) *10.39: 5695–744 (p. 5744 is blank)

Appendix

621

509: Qianben Yumen guan 前本玉門關 (Jade Gate Pass installment one) *10.39: 5745– 58 (p. 5758 is blank) 510: San si ben Qu Nanjun 三四本取南郡 (Taking Nanjun installments three and four) *10.39: 5759–80 511: Taijun cichao 太君辭朝 (Taijun leaves court); alternate title: Huanghua guo zaofan 黃花國造反 (Huanghua Kingdom revolts) 5781–88 (p. 5788 is blank) 512: Xi yinyuan 戲姻緣 (A playful marriage affinity) *10.39: 5789–800 (p. 5800 is blank) 513: Shi jinchai 失金釵 (Losing the gold hairpin); alternate titles: Luohua yuan 落花園 (Garden of falling flowers); Erdu Mei 二度梅 (Twice Plum) *10.39: 5801–20 514: Zhan Daji 斬妲己 (Decapitating Daji); alternate title: Lutai ciyan 鹿臺賜宴 (Granting a banquet at Deer Terrace) *10.39: 5821–40 515: Touben Yan Ruisheng, dai Jingmeng 頭本閻瑞生代{帶}驚夢 (Yan Ruisheng [gets shot to death] installment one, with Startled by a dream) *10.40: 5853–88 516: Qi shuang hui 奇雙會 (Strange Double Reunion); alternate title: Houben Fanma ji 後本販馬記 (Story of selling horses installment two) *10.40: 5889–918 517: Mantou an 饅頭庵 (Steamed bun nunnery) *10.40: 5919–44 518: Dao ting men 倒廳門 (Riddling on either side of the gate) *10.40: 5945–52 (p. 5952 is blank) 519: Wanhua chuan 萬花船 (The richly ornamented boat); alternate titles: Jinchai ji 金釵記 (Story of the gold hairpin); Nü zhuangyuan 女狀元 (Female top-of-thelist) *10.40: 5953–72 520: Jinguang zhen 金光陣 (Golden-light battle formation) *10.40: 5973–76 (p. 5976 is blank) 521: Zheng En zuoqin 鄭恩做親 (Zheng En marries); alternate title: Fengyun hui 風雲 會 (Meeting of wind and clouds) *10.40: 5977–6002

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Index Abroad, Jingju 44–50; in the Chinese diaspora 44; commercial tours 44, 48; diplomatic tours 45–46; diplomatic use 47, 47n; tours of Taiwan 48, 664–65; Lincoln Center performances by Zhang Huoding in 2015 2n, 61–62. See also Mei Lanfang’s tours outside China Abstracts, with scenarios or plot information 531; connection with demand for new plays 199–201; first stage in playwriting 397n, 419, 497; for military scenes 495 Abstracts, without scenarios or plot information 167n, 198–99, 242n; costume abstracts 118n, 198, 199n, 545–46; musical accompaniment abstracts 198; prop abstracts 198, 199n, 545–46; combined costume and prop abstracts 198–99n; performance abstracts listing scenes, roles, and actors performing the roles 199. See also tigang, banzou tigang, xingtou tigang, jianchang tigang/qiemo tigang, chuanguan, and changmian tigang Acting versus reading playscripts 210n, 525–26; see also Performance or acting editions Actor input into/consumption of Kunqu play anthologies 164n, 166n, 525n Actor literacy IX, 264n, 267, 279–80, 432; readers of Sanguo yanyi 271n Actor versus playwright 473–74 Actor-playwrights VII, 210, 264n, 266–80, 288–91, 508n, 518, 521n; decline of 520 Actors playing more than one role-type; criticized for mixing them 139; praised for 139–40 Actors reluctant to share their plays and skills with others 121–22n, 540; keep something back when do recordings 88

Actors, only given single-role scripts 163, 164n, 266n; didn’t tend to have playscripts early on 164n Actors’ guilds; Beijing 27, 99, 139; Shanghai 57; and enforcing performance rights 436; hualian actors’ guild 507n Actors’ world as closed or open, Beijing versus Shanghai 36n Actor-tabooed plays 465n Actress as spy 78 Actresses (kunjiao 坤角, kunling 坤伶, nüling 女伶) 8, 424; warlords like to marry 58; gang leaders like to marry 64; thought not to specialize in role-types 137; regular sections on them in periodicals 304–305n; not at first permitted to act with males on stage 386n; Xikao shukao on 391; photos in Xikao 402–403 Actresses perform male characters 64 Actresses, got start in Shanghai and Tianjin 34 Adorno, Theodor 104 Ads for performances; in newspapers 75, 110–11, 118, 149n, 242n; replace display of props and star’s surnames 333n; progressively contain more information 197–98; used to study Taiwan repertoire 116 Adultery, plays about 447 Advertising and Jingju 80, 84–86, 91–92; written testimonies by actors 84n, 279n; cigarette ads 84–85; cigarette cards 84–85 Age; and role-type 132 Aiguo fu 愛國賦 (Ode to patriotism) 439n Aiqing 哀情 (nostalgia and regret); Xixue huikao topical category 160 Ajia 阿甲 519n Akutagawa Ryūnosuke 芥川龍之介; consulted Xikao while in China 407n All-female troupes 74; got start in Shanghai and Tianjin 34

712 Alternate versions included in playscripts 559–560; Qi Rushan claim that Baiben Zhang manuscripts included alternative versions of arias 173–74; comments about in edited and commented playscripts 559 Amateur actors (piaoyou 票友) 24, 44, 57, 63n, 64–65, 281–282, 419, 423n, 424, 482, 525, 539, 559–60, 565; turned professional 89n; need submit list of plays can perform before turn professional 112n; and Baiben Zhang manuscript playscripts 174– 75n; demand for playscripts spur circulation and publication of playscripts 177n, 530; consulted by actors 281–82; and Xikao 295; demand for play manuscripts 392n; photos of in Xikao 402–403; use of jun 君 to label in photo captions 403n; and performance rights 439–40; censorship of amateur plays 451–52; amateur teaching amateur 501n; rare to be able to perform military plays 501; Weng Ouhong able to make some money (less than professionals though) 505, 509; turned professional 513; and yangban xi 525; some interested in limiting direct contact with professional actors 530, 565; playscripts for  531–32; Jinghu player 539–40; playscripts promise that with them you don’t need a teacher 543; as audience for new media shuoxi  580 Amateur Drama Club of Shanghai 38n Amateur Jingju clubs 44, 64, 543; and playwriting 281, 483, 501; and play publishing 344n; demand for play manuscripts 392n; and yangban xi 476n Anchang 暗場; offstage treatment of material 496 Andian ben 安殿本; manuscript copies for imperial use 12, 167n; focus on spoken text 166–67, 192n

Index Anglo-Chinese School (Ying Hua Shuguan 英 華書館) 421–22 Angong laosheng 安工老生 132 Anhui merchants 15 Anhui troupes (Huiban 徽班) 13–16, 108, 141n, 393n Annotation in Jingju playscripts 344, 529, 542, 555–57; annotated in detail 542, 565. See also Pronunciation glosses, Cuture notes Anthologies of playscripts 530–35. See also Collections of Jingju playscripts Antian hui 安天會 (The bringing-peace-toheaven banquet) 57 Anti-Rightist Movement (1957–1959) 469 Antou zhi ju 案頭之劇 (desktop [closet] plays) XVI, 7, 218n. See also Closet plays Aoki Masaru 青木正兒 426n Applause and yelling bravo; and Kunqu 11n Aria music composition; professionalization in the PRC 520 Aria only playscripts, with musical notation 173n Aria type; added to manuscript 176n; in table of contents and scenes  255–56n, 258–59; leave certain amount of choice in specific aria type 259; include in playscripts 420, 548, 552n; required in Taiwan playscript model 463n; Chen Moxiang says leave up to actors 495; more flexible aria types 526n Arias; separate circulation 201, 561–62n Armor 67 Artistic director 523n Attribution (shuming 署名); personal (geren 個人) versus collective (jiti 集 體) 474n Audience desire for textual material 204, 205n; read playscripts before see performances 204n; take playscripts to see performances 204–205n; consulting libretti during Western opera performances 205n Audience discipline 62 Audio recording of Jingju performance elements XII Auspicious plays 142, 172n

Index Auteur theory in film XVIIn Authentic (zhenzheng 真正, zhenci 真詞, zhenben 真本, etc.); claims about playscripts 177n, 178–80, 181n, 177n, 180n, 355n, 363–64, 392–93, 394n, 416, 418n Authorship attributions in playscripts; in zaju playscripts 215–18; in nanxi playscripts 218–20; implied author in zhugongdiao 223n; implied author and pennames in chuanqi prologues 220, 223–24; in Jingju using pennames 226, 251; in Jingju using own name XII–III, 226; to Tongsu Jiaoyu Yanjiu Hui and not individual playwrights 430–31n; of Feng huan chao to Qi Rushan 434n; in play programs 483 Authorship attributions, classical Chinese theater 213–26, 394–95n; in zaju 109, 214–18; in nanxi playscripts 218–20; and the divide between nanxi and chuanqi 220; in chuanqi 220–26; sets of zaju and chuanqi plays published by author 225; zaju and chuanqi play reference works organized by plays’ authors 225–26; translators and not playwrights credited in translations 341n; drawing of playwright in Shijie xinju play summary 401; photo of playwright in Heiji yuanhun tushuo 401; Mei Lanfang on 397n, 429n; to stars rather than playwrights 396, 431n, 483–84n, 533n; collective versus individual XVII, 242, 473–75, 507n; Weng Ouhong play 508n Authorship in East Asian literature XVIIn Authorship in Xikao; rare mentions XIII, 396–97, 397n; ad highlights play by Wang Xiaonong 363 Authorship, romantic conception of the author as all controlling XVII; as a composite of functions XVIIn; theater owner held responsible for the content of plays performed and not the playwright XVI; Jingju literati playwrights publish under own name or pseudonym XIII;

713 Jingju activist playwrights publish plays in periodicals under own name XIII 183–87; of zaju plays 109; of chuanqi plays 109, 178; and Jingju plays 178, 392–93n, 394–97; authorship and textualization before Xikao 210–92; chuanqi playwrights try to prevent actors and revisers changing their playscripts 212–13n; chuanqi playscripts read as literature 212; collaboration in playwriting 395n, 507n; collective versus individual XVII, 242, 773–75 Autobiographical plays 225 Aying 阿英 (penname of Qian Xingcun 錢杏 邨) 254n, 552n Ba che 八扯 (Eight bits) 207n Ba da na 八大拿 (Eight great grabs) 153, 288–89 Ba Jin 巴金, “Di’er de muqin” 第二的母親 (My second mother) 77 Babai ba nian 八百八年 (Eight hundred and eight years) 120n Bachang 把場 (oversee performance) 495 Bad plays (huaixi 壞戲) 470 Bada chui 八大錘 (Eight [generals using pairs of] big mallets) 574n Bai bi gong 白逼宮 (White pressuring of the throne) 411n Bai fu wei ji 白傅遺姬 (Imperial tutor Bai [Juyi] sends off his concubine) 374n, 378n, 391n Baiben Zhang” 百本張 70n, 171–74, 207n, 413n; photo-copies of their playscripts 171; catalogues with prices 158n, 172–73, 413n; Kunqu appended at ends of their Jingju catalogues 172–173; at temple fairs in Beijing 172; mechanical copying 172; catalogue for zidi shu 172n; zidi shu piece that describes Baiben Zhang manuscripts on sale at temple fair 174n; musical notation optional for some plays 173; claim that some included alternative versions of arias 172–73; and amateur singers 174; musical notation 190n

714 Baibi congshu 百弊叢書 (Collectanea of the various [social] maladies) 385 Baikou xi 白口戲 (dialogue plays) 3n Baimao nü 白毛女 (White haired girl) 443 Baimen 擺門; display props outside theater as ad for specific plays 334 Bainian xilou 百年戲樓 (One hundred-year old theater) 522n Baishe zhuan 白蛇傳 (The white snake) 320n; digital film of 584n Baitu ji 白兔記 (The white rabbit) 219 Baixi ming 百戲名 (100 play names) 71n Baixue/Bai Xue 白雪 441n Baiyu shuang 白玉霜 (Li Guizhen 李桂 珍) 452n Baiyue ting 拜月亭 (Pavilion for praying to the moon) 214n Bajiao shan 芭蕉扇 (The plantain leaf fan) 417n Bala miao 八蠟廟 (Bala Temple) 137n, 181n Balanced character; and role-type 132 Ban 板 (clapper) 13n Bandi 班底, Shanghai theater house troupes that backed up stars from Beijing 26, 35 Bangqiang 幫腔 (offstage choruses) 16 Bangzi 梆子 plays 13, 23, 52, 67, 72, 109, 120n, 186n, 254n, 332, 394n, 404, 494, 513, 533; mistakenly referred to in English as clapper opera 13n; prohibited in the Qing 23n; early literati playwrights 226–27n; adaptations of chuanqi plays as  226–27n; early source for Jingju plays 266; in Xikao 313n, 316–19 Banned plays 60, 116n, 117, 181n, 241n, 445; Republican era lists of 448 Bannermen, prohibitions against going to theaters or become actor 33; and zidi shu 70 Banqiang 板腔; arias with lines with equal numbers of characters organized into couplets 9, 15 Banquan ye 版權頁 (publication page) 437 Banquan 版權 (copyright, producercentered) 439, 441n Banshi 板式/ banbie 板別. See Aria type Banxiang pu 扮相譜 (stage appearance illustrations) 65–66n Banyan 板眼. See Beat notation

Index Banzou tigang 伴奏提綱 (musical accompaniment abstracts) 198 Bao gong xi 包公戲 (Judge Bao plays) 152, 153n Bao Tianxiao 包天笑, Liufang ji 留芳記 (Record of leftover fragrance) 77n Bao Zheng 包拯. See Judge Bao Bao zongjiang 抱總講 (keeper/keeping of the master script) 163–64n, 267, 393n Baochang 報場 (announcement scene); scene label in Chuqu plays 184–85n Baogong 包公 (Lord Bao or Judge Bao) 152–153 Baowen Tang 寶文堂, woodblock playscripts  177–178; typeset editions 182, 183n, 350n, 399n, 534n, 537–38 Baoyin 包銀 system (actors under yearly exclusive contract) 139 Bare stage 187 Bawang bei 霸王碑 (Hegemon king’s stele) 104n Bawang bie ji 霸王別姬 (Farewell my consort) 52, 139n, 320n, 371, 528n, 547–48; performance abstract 199n; Qi Rushan mistake in 416n; Mei Lanfang and Yang Xiaolou audio recording 548; 3D film of 583n Bawang zhuang 霸王莊 (Hegemon king’s manor) 289n Beards (artificial); types 138n; and role-type 132; switch from none to black to gray or white to show age 261n Beat notation 173n; main and subsidiary beats (ban 板 vs. yan 眼) 191n, 259 Beckett, Samuel, attempts to enforce control of performance of his plays XVIIn Beifang Kunqu Juyuan 北方崑曲 劇院 (Northern Kunqu opera company) 10n Beigong ti/beiyun ti 背弓體/背云體 (internal thoughts expressed aloud) 555–56 Beigong 背弓/功/供/躬 (aside) 555–56 Beiguan 悲觀 (pessimistic) 455n Beijing and Jingju 1–2, 20–24, 31–33; rotation system of troupes in the Qing 23; cross-fertilization 24; native place associations in Beijing and theater 31; commercial

Index theaters 31, 32n; remains the center of Jingju training after Nanjing became capital 32–33; actors’ world as closed 36n Beijing changpan 北京唱盤 (Beijing phonograph records) 86n, 279n Beijing Jingju baike quanshu 北京京劇百 科全書 (Encyclopedia of Beijing Jingju) 106 Beijing Jingju Yuan 北京京劇院 (Beijing Jingju company) 39n, 479, 523n Beijing opera 1–2 Beijing Shi Wen Shi Yanjiu Guan 北京市 文史研究館 (Institute for research on the culture and history of Beijing) 571 Beijing Xiqu Xuexiao 北京戲曲學校 (Beijing Chinese indigenous theater school) 477n Beijing-style Jingju 26, 86; critical of Shanghai-style 137 Beimian fufen 背面傅粉 (whitening the background to bring out the foreground) 512n Beiqu 北曲 (northern-style arias) 6 Ben 本 (episodes or installments); in commercial serial plays 96; volumes in palace serial plays 168 Bender, Mark; on textualization of ethnic minority epics XVIIn Bengong 本工 (one’s own roles) 136 Benrimo 48n Benxi 本戲 (complete plays) 102n, 123, 125; synonyms: quanben 全本 (complete texts), quanben xi 全本戲 (complete text plays) 123n, 154–55, 337n, 369n, 374, 409–14, 409–424n; zhengben xi 整本戲 493n; manuscripts 409n; lithographic editions 409n Benxi 本戲 (own plays) 115n Best new play; Shuntian shibao reader selection of 78, 78–79n Bianbian 便便, (a.k.a., Bian 便); author of some Shenbao “Xikao” column items 325n, 329; might be Qian Jingfang 錢靜方 329n Biandao 編導 (playwright and director) 507n Bianjiang minzu 邊疆民族 (border nationalities 457n

715 Bianju huiyi 編劇回憶 (Memoir on composing plays) 162n Bianju lilun yu jiqiao tanyou 編劇理論與 技巧探幽 (An investigation into the secrets of playwriting theory and technique) 516n Bianju qianshuo 編劇淺說 (Shallow talks on playwriting) 432–33, 488 Bianju zhuren 編劇主任 (director of play writing) 511n Bianxi 編戲 (playwriting) 495 Bianyi 便衣 (ordinary dress) 262n Bibliographies of Chinese drama 6–7n Bibliographies of Jingju 96n, 100–102, 103n; arranged by historical setting 145, 146n Biegong 別宮 (Saying goodbye to the palace) 590n Biemu cibei 別母刺背 (Parting from mother and tattooing the back) 319n Bieye Tang 別埜堂 174 Bilingual projects 581. See also Zhong Ying wen duizhao Jingju fushi shuyu Bintie jian 賓[鑌]鐵劍 (The finely smelted sword) 318n Birch, Cyril 5n; on scene division in nanxi and chuanqi 188n Bishang Liangshan 逼上梁山 60n, 539n Blocking (difang 地方) 555 Blood, artificial; plays with stage directions that call for a lot of 159, 248n. See also Cai Body-synching 61n. See also Yin pei xiang Bolang chui 博浪錘 (Bolang mallet) 392n Bolding of text; aria and dialogue same size but aria text bold 253; of second half of yinzi 260–61n Bonus material for DVDs. See DVDs of performances and films Boo performances 65n Books about Jingju 80n Books; Jingju playscripts published as 513, 513n, 536; by early literati playwrights 187, 473–74; rare early on 186–87; annotation in 529n; documentation of playscript variants in notes or appendices 528n; increase in the PRC to widen circulation of good

716 Books; Jingju playscripts published as (cont.) plays 536; Republican era examples of addition of pgaratextual material and/or musical notation 539–46; culmination of publication volume in the Cultural Revolution 537; recent decline in yearly new editions 538– 39; factors that increase length such as including translation and visual material 545, 548; Serial plays 548–49; except for studentorientated editions costs have risen steeply 549. See also Jile shijie, Fenmo qushu, Zhongguo Jingju baibu, Zhaodai xiaoshao, Jingju Zaixiang Liu Luoguo Booksellers’ guild; and enforcing copyright 436 Boots, thick-soled 179n Border nationalities (bianjiang minzu 邊疆 民族) 457n Bound feet, simulation of. See Qiao Bowang fang xing 博望訪星 (Zhang Qian visits the Herdboy and the Weaving Maid) 300–301n Boxer Rebellion indemnity funds 59, 458 Boxer Rebellion 176n, 446; result of traditional Chinese theater’s influence 45n Boxers and theater 53n Brain trust XIV, 504; pretend to offer their services for free XIII-XIV; lack the amount of creative authority, freedom, and fame of the romantic author, similar to Hollywood scriptwriters  XVII; Mei Lanfang’s 52, 64n, 145. See also Xi mangzi Brecht, Bertolt 48–49 Bu he guoti 不合國體 (offensive to national prestige) 449n Bu’an tanxi 補菴談戲 (Talks about theater from Bu’an) 527n Bujing sheji tu 布景設計圖 (drawings of scenery designs) 563n Bujing 布景. See Scenery Cai 彩 (articificial blood) 159; Caiqian 彩 錢 (cai money; extra fee given actors to compensate for loosing [artificial] blood) 159n; Caitou xi 彩頭戲 (bloody-head plays) 159, 506n;

Index Caitou xi 彩[頭]戲 (bloody-head plays) 159, 506n Cai[qie] 彩[切] (colored scenery) 149 Caidan 彩旦 133 Caihua ganfu 採花趕府 (Plucking flowers, Forced out of the mansion) 354n Caizi jiaren 才子佳人 (literary geniuses and fair maidens); possible Jingju play content category 161 Call courtesans to the theater to accompany patrons there (jiaoju 叫局) 74, 75n Can wu renli 慘無人理 (inhumane) 449n Canhen xi 慘狠戲 (plays featuring cruelty) 158–59 Canren xi 殘忍戲 (plays featuring cruelty) 158–59 Canren 殘忍 (inhumane) 449n Cantonese opera (Yueju 越劇) 116, 200n, 349n Cao Cao bi gong 曹操逼宮 (Cao Cao pressures the throne) 411n Cao Cao yu Yang Xiu 曹操與楊修 (Cao Cao and Yang Xiu); as product of cooperation between freelance playwright and actors of multiple Jingju companies 478 Cao Cao 曹操 271n, 344n, 411, 450–51, 555–56n, 560; plays that feature him as a group 151 Cao Chunshan 曹春山 139n, 566n Cao Kun 曹錕 58; bans plays about Cao Cao 450–51 Cao Xinquan 曹心泉 489n, 499n, 566n Cao Yinqiu 曹吟秋 550n Cao Yu 曹禺 63, 63n, 452n; award named after him 520n; his stage directions 529n Caolu ji 草廬記 (The thatched hut) 194n Caoshe huixian fa 草蛇灰線法 (snake in the grass or discontinuous chalk line) 512n Caotai ban 草臺班 (travelling troupes) 159n Cards; character and scenery cards to play Jingju with 70n Carr and Meek on textualization and the revitalization of indigenous languages XVIn Categories of plays in lists of Jingju plays 154–55 CCP (Chinese Communist Party) 59

Index Censored content; lewdness 13, 158, 236, 238, 388, 449, 534n; horror 158, 159n; violence 448–49; political sensitivity 447, 464n, 465n, 537n; harmful to morality 464–65n; superstitious 449, 459n, 464n, 470; indecent 459n, 470; offensive to the nation 449; against the will of the Party (GMD) and the country 453, 455; pessimism 455n, 464; derogratory terms for ethnic minorities or Islam 457n; threatening to other nationalities 470; decadence 457n; criticism of social ills 475n; class struggle 461n; plays tabooed among actors 465n; disparagement of peasants 467; “feudalism,”  467–68n; disparagement of ethnic minorities 468n; superstitious and obscene content 468n; disloyalty to the nation 470; slavish morality 470 Censorship and control of repertoire in foreign concessions in China 99n, 450n; place where plays banned elsewhere in China could be performed 460n; film censorship controversies 460n Censorship and control of repertoire in Japanese-occupied China and Manchukuo 98–99, 203n, 453n; ban plays about 1931 occupation of Manchuria 453; Japanese advisor lobby Shanghai to ban plays thought to be anti-Japanese 453n; GMD stop performance of play thought to be anti-Japanese 453n; plays about Chinese resisting the Jurchens and Mongols taken to be anti-Japanese banned 453n, 460; Chen Yunting die in jail for performing Silang tanmu without permission 461n Censorship and control of repertoire in the Qing; programs to be submitted before performances 197, 446; proposals that playscripts be submitted instead of just titles 446–47; of lewd content 13, 240–41; enforced most strictly and efficiently in the palace 445; theater owner held responsible for the content of plays

717 not playwright XVI; most prominent term in scholarship (jinhui) and objections to its use 444n; drama campaign centered in Yangzhou 97n, 98n, 444–46n; surpass previous dynasties 445; promotion of beneficial plays 445; insist on the old name of plays be used 446; eunuch monitoring theater performances replaced by public security personnel 447; execution of Wang Zhongsheng 447n; censor plays critical of the government 447, 550n; ban current events plays 447; Qi Rushan belief that late Qing censorship of lewd and violent plays unsuccessful 448–49; stop serialization of Wang Xiaonong play 550n. See also Yangzhou Ciqu Ju, Yu Zhi Censorship and control of repertoire in the Republic XIII, 98; require playscripts for and advance notice of plays to be performed publicly 197, 448, 451; explanatory programs had to be submitted with programs and playscripts 452, 456n; inspections of performances to see that they matched approved playscript 454; penalties for not perform as in approved playscripts 456n; random inspections of performances 455–56; institution of trial performances 455; regulations supposed to also apply to private performances 448n; comparatively lenient toward plays with horrific content 158–59n; cut supernatural content in plays in Xiuding pingju xuan 389–90n; list of things to be removed (includes the deities and filth) 420n; Tongsu Jiaoyu Yanjiu Hui play inspection and promotion of good plays 429–33, 448; censorship of content greater concern than enforcement of copyright 436; theater owner held responsible for the content of plays not playwright XVI; guides to Beijing and to theater quote police regulations for performances and mention

718 Censorship and control of repertoire (cont.) prohibited plays 448; Qi Rushan belief that Republican era censorship of lewd and violent plays pretty successful 448–49; require plays to be peformed in complete versions so intended message clear 449; censor lewd, violent, superstitious, inhumane, and offensive to national prestige content 449; capricious due to political and local divisions 450; theater review committees 451–54; theater review committee reasons for rejections of playscripts and play categories 452–53; not considered too onerous or absurd in Jingju circles 453; criticism of the process and suggestions for reform 453–54n; locally differing lists of approved plays 454; changes in the Nanjing decade 451–53; changes in the War of Resistance and Civil War 454–61; new criteria for prohibiting plays 455; inspection handbooks have survived 456; even playscripts that have been published need inspection before performance 456n; inspection forms and turn-around times 456n; expectations of inspectors 456n; restrict derogratory terms for ethnic minorities or Islam 457n; greater concern about huaju plays 461n; censorship of huaju play books 461n; list of prohibited works 461n; policy that only newly composed or adapted playscripts need to be approved might have been in effect 463n; idea the inspection system was only interested in newly composed plays 463–64; too pessimistic 455n; awards for good plays 554n. See also Minzhong xiaoshuo xiqu duben, Theater review committees, Xiuding Pingju xuan Censorship and control of repertoire on Taiwan 116–17, 461–65; issue lists of plays approved to perform 116, 462–463; only newly composed or adapted playscripts need to be

Index approved 463n; prohibit PRC plays 117n, 464; Guoju dacheng censors crude language and women’s liberation language of Xikao versions of plays 391n; Guoju dacheng leaves out some Xikao plays 418n; changes from Republican practices 462; can recommend good plays to troupes 463n; playscript turnaround time 463n; compositon of inspection committee 463n; list of what information (aria types, etc.) a playscript should include 463n; denial of permission to perform Yayin Xiaoji’s Dou E yuan 464; reasons for prohibition 186; play judged to be based on PRC play (Li Huiniang) cancelled 465n; play entered into competition judged to be based on PRC play (Manjiang hong) and loses 465n; Combined Performance of Prohibited Plays (2006) 465; PRC troupes allowed to come 464–65 Censorship and control of repertoire under the CCP XIV, XVII, 98, 117, 418, 466–81; resources invested XVII; making things disappear XVIIn; Beijing 1949 list of banned plays and their categories 470; only 26 plays banned nationally 117, 468; theater reform policy confusion creates extreme shortage of plays 468–69; temporary repeal of ban of the 26 117, 468–69; self-censorship 468–70; ban of traditional plays in the Cultural Revolution lifted 117, 476–77; focus on plays with horrific content 158, 159n; suppression of adlibbing and improvisation 203n, 470–71; cut supernatural material in plays in Jingju huibian 390n, 411n; quarantine superstitious material 411n; suspicious of cities and those who did underground work in them 466; theater reform movement 468–72, 585; Cultural Revolution 472–76; disparagement of peasants 467;

Index “feudalism,” 467–68n; two of the 26 banned plays involve disparagement of ethnic minorities 468n; compared to GMD policy 469–70; emphasis not on lists of approved plays 469; promote directors and professional troupe playwrights 470, promote/insist on fully written out playscripts 470, 585; censorship internalized in troupes by insertion of more political staff members and cultural workers 471; movement to survey and create juzhong 471; collect and publish traditional playscripts for reference 471–72; publish revised playscripts 472; promotion of modern content plays 472; post Cultural Revolution treatment of the 26 banned plays 477; reliance on directives rather than campaigns 479–80; in New Period demand for full scripts before performance less strict 480; biggest concern is the internet 480; lewd content 534n; warn against change political direction of the playscript 537n Censorship and control of repertoire; scope and power in China XV, 444n; centralization of playscript inspection 455; programs to produce good playscripts not very successful 455; selfcensorship 455–56; strategies to avoid 99–100, 196, 445–46, 447n, 464; claims that Western control of performances more serious than in China 447n; demand for writtenout playscripts 481; increase penetration but never completely successful 481n. See also Jinhui Censorship and textualization/stabilization of performance practice XVII, IX, 162, 202–203n; censors demand fixed texts before performance, and check them against performances XV Chai Junwei 柴俊偽, expert on Jingju phonograph recordings 578n; on using digitization of recordings to

719 identify counterfeit phonograph recordings 582–83n Chairs, The; Jingju version Xn Chaitou feng 釵頭鳳 (The Phoenix Hairpin) 483n, 498; Chen Moxiang on the source for the play 493n Chan, Jackie (Cheng Long 成龍) 63n Chandao chuxie 闡道除邪 (Exemplifying the way, Removing evil) 168 Chang Xiangyu 常香玉 513n Chang zuo bingzhong xi 唱做並重戲 (plays that stress both singing and acting) 141n Chang 場; measure word or label for scenes 184n Chang, Michael G.; on Qing dynasty imperial tours of Jiangnan 10n Chang, P. C. (Zhang Pengchun 張彭春) 46n Chang’an Da Xiyuan 長安大戲院 (Chang’an GrandTheatre) 571; and “tourist Peking opera,” 571n Chang’e ben yue 嫦娥奔月 (Chang’e flees to the moon) 46n, 337, 552n; and Fan Fanshan 397n Chang’e 149n Changban po 長坂坡 (Long Slope) 201n, 325n Changben 唱本 (traditional theater play texts) 459n Change words to prevent theft of one’s play 122, 278 Changgong laosheng 唱功老生 132 Changgong xi 唱工戲 (plays that stress singing) 141–42 Changkao wusheng 長靠武生 133 Changkao xi 長靠戲 (armor-and-weapons plays) 141, 144 Changmian tigang 場面提綱 (stage or scene abstracts) 199 Changshang 場上 (lit.: on stage); orchestra 261 Changsheng dian 長生殿 (Palace of everlasting life) 149n, 231–32 Changxi zhinan 唱戲指南 (A guide to singing plays) 387n Chao lengfan 炒冷飯 (stir-frying cold rice) 161 Chaodai bu ming 朝代不明 (dynasty not clear) 147, 155

720 Character types in Western theater and Japan 126–27 Charity performances 65, 76 Chartier, Roger 123n, 213n Chayi chou 茶衣丑 134 Che 撤 (to remove [scenery or props]) 260n, 261n Chen Baichen 陳白塵 408n Chen Dabei 陳大悲 439n; and the term huaju 25n Chen Delin 陳德霖 143n, 290 Chen Diexian 陳蝶仙 305, 312, 375n, 376n; photos of in Xikao 305n, 398a Chen Duo 陳多; on playscripts as fundamental 163n Chen Duxiu 陳獨秀 (penname San’ai 三愛) 51, 53n, 429, 551 Chen Funian 陳富年 540 Chen Geng 陳庚; on theater ROC theater review committee work 452–53 Chen Jiying 陳紀瀅 433 Chen Kaige 陳凱歌 50 Chen Lifu 陳立夫 460; and his wife 59 Chen Moxiang 陳墨香 XVIII, 12n, 55, 77n, 229n, 265, 274n, 336n, 431, 434n, 482–504, 505n, 512; father held jinshi degree 482; amateur performer of huadan roles 482–83, 487n; number of plays written 483; copyright and performance rights assertion 441; not open about income from playwriting 482; recognized as playwright on program 483, 484n; playwriting credit often went to star he wrote for 483–84n; high percentage of his plays performed 484n; his pseudonym (Guanju daoren) is the same as that used by author of Jile shijie 484n; gave copy of Jile shijie to Xun Huisheng 484n; praised by Ri Rushan for more knowledge of miscellaneous affairs of the world of theater than himself 383n; scholarly publication and research on Jingju 484; employed by xiqu research institute to write articles and write and revise plays 487, 489–90n, 503; published lecture

Index given at the research institute 488; friendship and collaboration with Wang Yaoqing after initial reluctance to meet him 487; family had two opera troupes 487n; his father believed plays such as Shuangding ji were educational 486n; fictional and autobiographical writing on Jingju in storyteller novel (pinghua xiaoshuo 平話小說) form 484–98; writings on playwriting 488–503; lecture on playwriting in Huoren daxi 488–98, 504, 512n; unfinished/unpublished novel on performer of shaozi wo (sexual women on loose morals) characters 485n; relationship with xianggong 487n; present self and his work as different from Chen Sen and his Pinhua baojian 487n; and Li Yu’s writings on playwriting 492, 498; did not keep copies of his plays 489n; read chuanqi plays 493; on selecting stuff material 493–94; on using old material or create new material  493–94; categorizing his plays according to their sources 493– 94n; finish plays begun by other people 493n, 500n; on give happy endings to tragic plays 494; on how playwriting can be done by literati but play staging needs to be done by professional actors 495–96; amount and kind of detail needed in a playscript and what to leave to professional actors 495, 498; too much petty detail is mark of amateur playwright 496; treatment of material onstage versus offstage  496; admits that his playwriting practice of following his brush (xinbi), fighting at night (yezhan), and not beinnning with an abstract does not match his advice 497; collaboration the key to his success as playwriter 498; open about receiving money for tutoring but not for playwriting 498–99n, 502; Cheng Yanqiu ask Xun Huisheng to lend Chen

Index as playwright to him 499n; describe self as intimate advisor to Xun but want to retain independence 499n; plays written for or given to actors other than Xun Huisheng 500–501; took Pan Jingfu as his teacher 501n; skeptical about amateurs teaching amateurs but did take one acting student 501n; stages plays 501; his qualifications to be playwright as given in Huoren daxi 501; invited by Xun Huisheng to be his main playwright 501–502; Chen in TV miniseries Xun Huisheng 502n; persuades son’s friend who wants to learn to be a playwright out of that 502n; lecture Xun Huisheng about Honglou meng 502n; representative playwright of the Republic 503–504; between early literati playwrights and Weng Ouhong 504; compared to Fan Junhong 513–14. See also Guanju daoren, Guanju shenghuo sumiao, Liyuan waishi, Jishui, Huoren daxi, Xun Huisheng Chen Sen 陳森 74, 487n Chen Shaoyun 陳少雲 479n Chen Shimei 陳世美; played as laosheng 330n Chen Sixiang 陳嗣香 483n, 489n; on Chen Moxiang’s playwriting practice 491n; divides Chen Moxiang’s plays into categories 493n; on Chen Moxiang and Pan Jingfu 501n Chen Yanheng 陳彥衡 539–40, 554, 559; phonograph recordings of him 540n Chen Yaxian 陳亞先 478, 516n Chen Yucheng 陳玉成 268 Chen Yunsheng 陳雲升 515n Chen Yunting 陳運亭 461n Cheng Changgeng 程長庚 22, 84n, 114, 163n, 291, 376–77; and Tan Xinpei 277n Cheng Yanqiu 程硯秋 199n, 235, 274, 274–75n, 276, 296n, 308n, 342n, 434n, 495n, 499n, 561, 561–62n; study tour of Europe and report 45–46; live

721 radio broadcast 89; collector of playscript manuscripts 166n, 194n; rivalry with Mei Lanfang 425n; criticism of theater reform movement execution 468–69; his version of Dou E yuan 494n; closeness between him and Luo Yinggong 502n; and Chen Moxiang 503; edition of performance versions of his plays 525n Cheng Yongjiang 程永江; on Cheng Yanqiu’s apology letter for Xizai Ju comment 468n Chengnan Youyi Yuan 城南游藝園 (Southern city entertainment center), entertainment complex in Beijing 39n Chewang 車王 collection of manuscript playscripts 101n, 170–71, 188n, 207n, 242, 242–43n, 246n, 248–49n, 441n Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi 蔣介石) 56, 58n, 59, 457n Chibi aobing 赤壁鏖兵 (Fierce battle at Red Cliffs) 272–73 Child actors (youling 幼伶, tongling 童伶)  10, 14n, 79n, 107; photos in Xikao 402–403 Children in the audience 62 Children performing plays 69–70 Chimeng 痴夢 (The mad dream) 129–30n Chinese Academic Journal database (Zhongguo qikan quanwen shuju ku 中國期刊全文數據庫) 4n, 486n, 542n, 572n Chinese characters in playscripts; characters used only by actors 171; vulgar characters 171, loan characters 171 Chinese diaspora; Jingju in 44 Chinese indigenous theater traditions (juzhong 劇種) 3–5; 1950s survey of and naming of 3–4; guides to 4n; reasons for inflated numbers of 4n Chinese Text Project 573n, 583n Chinese theater and foreigners 8n; incomprehension 46 Chinese theater as university subject 351, 421, 423; teaching graduate seminars on in the US XI. See also Jingju­ology

722 Chinese theater for/fit for Westerners XVII, 45–47, 196n. See also Tourist Peking opera Chisang zhen 赤桑鎮 (Chisang Town)  465n Chishuo 痴說 (Crazy sayings) 251–52 Choice in playscripts; in manuscript playscripts XV, XVn, 259, 528; in printed playscripts XV, XVn, 528, 555; indicate alternate versions in comments, notes, or appendices 528, 555n, 559 Chongchang 沖場 (Rushing onto the stage) 233n Chou po[zi] 丑婆[子] 133 Chou 丑; role-type 67n, 134, 138n, 140–41n, 207n, 261–62n, 271, 497, 537n; one hundred chou roles 86n; roletypes that chou characters can also be played as 138n; suppression of improvisation 203; license to improvise 203; left out of Shenbao “Xikao” columns 328; first chou actor to lead a troupe 508n; oral history 579n Choudan 丑旦 133 Chouguan 丑官 (chou official) 134 Choujiao 丑腳 134, 369 Chousheng 丑生 140n Chouyuan 丑院 (chou majordomo) 134 Chouza 丑雜 (chou miscellaneous role) 134 Chrysanthemum Club (Jushe 菊社); amateur Jingju club 543 Chu jiaose 出腳色 (Arranging entrances of the characters) 233n Chu sanhai 除三害 (Removing the three scourges) 561n Chu 齣/出; measure word for scenes in chuanqi plays 168, 184n, 187, 256n; in early Jingju playscripts 255 Chuancha 穿插, play construction through interweaving 493–94, 496 Chuandai tigang 穿戴題綱 (Costume plot abstracts) 118n Chuanguan 穿關 (combined costume and prop abstracts) 198–99n Chuanju 川劇 (Sichuan opera) 116; repertoire 103, 395n

Index Chuanqi 傳奇 (lit.: transmit the strange) plays 6, 68, 338, 492–93, 552n; repertoire 6n, 97; length of 7n, 536; authorship of 109; on evaluating systems for 109n; role-type system for 129; historical settings of 146–47; predominantly about love 158; topics of plays 158n; topical categories of plays 159n; chuanqi stage directions augmented by interlineal commentary 164n; manuscript versus print copies 165n; early literati Jingju plays and 177– 78n, 185; measure word for scene in 168, 184n, 178, 187; from nanxi to chuanqi scene division moves from stage clearing based to content based 188n; early bangzi plays and 226n; need for annotation 529. See also Reading material Chuantong jumu 傳統劇目 (traditional play) 115n, 154–55, 472 Chuantou 串頭 (palace playscripts composed mostly of stage directions) 167n, 292, 292–93n, 565 Chuchu maolu 初出茅廬 (First departure from the hermit’s hut) 443 Chudiao 楚調 (alternate name for Hanju 漢劇) 19 Chuduan 齣段; measure word(s) or label(s) for scenes 252 Chūgoku kinsei gikyoshi 中國近世戲曲史 (History of Chinese theater in the modern period) 426n Chuiqiang 吹腔 (lit.: blow singing), local performance style 15, 142n; and Jingju 102, 316 Chun Juesheng 春覺聲 558n, 560 Chun Qiu pei 春秋配 (The marriage between Li Chunfa and Jiang Qiulian) 189n Chun, Prince 醇親王; owner of a private troupe 10n Chundeng mi 春燈謎 (The New Year’s lantern riddle) 223n, 254n Chungui meng 春閨夢 (Spring dream in the boudoir) 465n Chunliu She 春柳社 (Spring Willow Troupe) 438n

Index Chunliu 春柳 (Spring Willow) 550–51 Chunqiu bi 春秋筆 (The Spring and Autumn brush) 553n Chunsheng 春聲 303n Chuntai ban ximu 春臺班戲目 (Chuntai troupe playlist) 106–107, 150n, 242n Chuntai 春臺 Troupe; one of the Four Great Anhui Troupes 14, 19, 168–69 Chunxiang nao xue 春香鬧學 63n, 317n Chunyu lihua guan congkan 春雨梨花館叢 刊 (Collectanea from Chunyu lihua guan) 557 Chuqu 楚曲 (alternate name for Hanju 漢劇) 19 Chutou 出頭 (introduce characters)  494n Ci Hu 刺虎 (Stabbing the tiger) 82n Ci’an 慈安, Empress Dowager 57n Cifu 賜福 (Granting good fortune) 110n, 120n Cigarette cards and Jingju 85–86 Cinema and theater 24–25 Cipher notation (jianpu 簡譜) 189n, 191n, 343n, 427n, 540, 548 Cisha dan 刺殺旦 133 Civil plays (wenxi 文戲) 67, 142, 510 Civil troupes (wenban 文班) 204n Civil versus martial status; and role-type 132 Cixi 慈禧, Empress Dowager 272; patron of theater and Jingju 17, 24, 57, 110, 269n, 280n, 408n, 585; rumors of affairs with actors and poisoning Empress Dowager Ci’an 57n; and consumption of palace theater paintings 66n; object of a play 148n; 50th birthday celebrations 149n; request changes to playscripts 167n; and adaptation of Kun Yi plays for Jingju 169; insist plays performed as in provided texts 202n; her lyrics adapted by Wang Yaoqing 274; official in trouble write play to impress her 290; Xikao shukao on her and palace as source of superstitious content in plays 390; watch plays while consult

723 playscript 446. See also Putian Tongqing Troupe Cixiao tu 慈孝圖 (Picture of compassion and filiality) 319n Claim to be based on manuscripts 182 Clapper (ban 板) 13n Clapper opera; misguided translation for bangzi xi 13n Classify aria and dialogue (Su Shaoqing)  555–56. See also Daishu ti, Duihua ti, Xuda duihua ti, Beigong ti, Fuyu ti Clay figurines (niren 泥人) of actors 69–70 Cleaning of the stage (jingchang 凈 場) 262n Closet plays XVI, 7; later zaju 217–18 Coffee table playscripts 546–48, 571 Collected works of actors and playwrights 41n, 288, 533; Ouyang Yuqian 41n, 533; Cheng Yanqiu 46n, 468–69n; Fang Rongxiang 114n; Zhou Xinfang 161n, 285n, 441n, 533; Tan Xinpei 279; Mei Lanfang 451n, 533; Xun Huisheng 484n; Luo Huaizhen 506n; Weng Ouhong 507, 508n; Wang Zengqi 523n, Tian Han 533, Yu Dagang 533n Collections of Jingju playscripts 80; divided by role-type 141, 531–32; with lists of topical categories 159–60; with explicit scene divisions 188n; actor input 306–307n, 344n, 415–16, 422n, 433n; include photographs on Xikao model 334; and amateurs 419; and musical notation 419; for more popular audiences 526–28; divided by performance schools 532; for performance tours 532n; by locality 532; by troupes 532, 532–33n; organized by historical setting 532; that first included Jingju or synonyms 533–34; common to include Jingju in titles of collections or their sections in the PRC 534; if include installments can be taken as periodicals 552. See also Anthologies of playscripts

724 Collections of Jingju playscripts; with playwright/star in their titles 525n, 532, 532–33n; Xiao Changhua 273n,Wang Xiaonong 285n, 287, 550–51n; Ouyang Yuqian 288n; Mei Lanfang 416n, 530n, 532n, 535n; Fan Junhong 443n; Ma Shaobo 443– 44n; Lü Ruiming 443n, 513n; Chen Yaxian 478n; Xun Huisheng 483– 84n; Weng Ouhong 507n; Fan Junhong 513n; Xie Boliang 515n; Hu Die 515n, Chen Yunsheng 515n; Han Meng 515n; Zhong Ming 515n, Kuisheng 516n, Li Yuru 520n, Liu Huifen 521n, Wang Zengqi 523n; Shang Xiaoyun 532n; Wang Yaoqing 539n Collections of photos of actors 81 Collections of xiqu playscripts, from literaticentric to actor and production centric 296n Collective authorship, enforced most strongly in the Cultural Revolution XVII, 442, 519n Colored lanterns (deng-cai 燈彩) 37, 149 Colored scenery (cai 彩 [short for caiqie 彩 切]) 149 Comedy 142n, 156 Commedia del’arte 126n Commentary editions of plays; chuanqi play and Xixiang ji editions treat them as works for reading and not the stage 224, 253n; comments attributed to playwright 224–25; early literati Jingju plays 229n, 231, 232n, 253; use of fiction commentary terms 233n, 253n; Hou yishi’s comments overwhelm Jingju play text 559; comments attached to Jingju playscript 558n Commercial theaters; begin to open in the Qing 10–11, 31 Compare performance versions (duixi 對 戲) 203n, 344n Competition; Republican era competition among stars and new plays in Jingju  XII; plays for stars written in response to other star’s plays XIII; and

Index fixity of plays 201–202n; and innovation 201 Complete editions 245n, 409–14, 541; claims in lithographed playscript collection titles 180, 182 Complete plays 343–45, 524. See also Benxi Complete versions versus extracted scenes 169, 483n, 499, 501; ban on non-complete versions 449; complete versions based on stringing together zhezi xi 493n. See also Benxi, Zhezi xi Concessions in treaty cities 34 Connected picture narratives/comics. See Lianhuan hua Copyright in Taiwan; widespread infringement of PRC material 441, 441–42n Copyright in the PRC, widespread infringement 441–42; rise of collective authorship in the Cultural Revolution then return to individual authorship 442, 519n; recognition and compensation for dictators, editors, and revisers of playscripts 442n; Ma Shaobo case 442–44; Tianxian pei case 444n Copyright laws in China 123, 429n, 435–44; influence of Japanese law 437n; official patent granting publication rights 435; first publication law 435; favor producer over creator 436n, 442, 443n; modern systems require seal of registration 437–38; post-Cultural Revolution laws 442–44; compared to Western laws 436; copyright and performance rights distinguished earlier in the West 436n Copyright 266, 333n, 428–44, 453n; claimed for plays in periodicals XIII, 438–42; permission to reprint (zhuanzai) from periodicals 438; lawsuits over 123; personal rights versus public needs 123, 428, 430–32, 437n, 563–64; non-legal assertions of copyright (if you pirate this book may your son become a robber, etc.) 175n; Tsuji

Index Chōka thanks actors for permission to quote from their plays 393n; Xikao innocent of the concept 421; Tongsu Jiaoyu Yanjiu Hui plays given to one troupe/actor only 431n; Juxue yuekan general notice of copyright for institute members’ playscripts 434; notice that copyright and performance rights for Chen Moxiang play reserved 434n; book privileges in the West 436–37n; moves from theaters to playwrights in the West 436–37n; publisher’s mark (paiji 牌記) 437n; who owned blocks (means of production) versus creator 437n; knowledge of Western plagiarism cases involving playwrights 440; new plays versus revisions of old plays 440–41. See also Solely-owned or private plays Copyshops for manuscripts of playscripts 171–75. See also Baiben Zhang, Bieye Tang, Tongle Tang Costume and make-up information in playscripts 526n, 531, 545–47, 567; with photos 572; Chen Moxiang on leave costume detail out of playscripts 495 Costume plots 567; collections of 118 Costume, Jingju; based on Ming dynasty dress 145; for traditional period plays, did not change by historical period 145 Costumes used in palace performances by commercial actors 66n Courtesan novels 74–75 Courtesans; and oral performing literature 72; and Jingju 72, 74; and actor love affairs 74, 74–75n; and photography 80; photographs of in Xikao 403 Creativity, room for 526n Cuanxi 攢戲 (put together plays) 266 Cuihua gong 翠花[華]宮 (Imperial banner palace) 318n Cuiping shan 翠屏山 (Kingfisher Screen Mountain) 449n Cui-shi 崔氏 129–30n

725 Cultural Revolution 523n, 537; and Jingju XVIIn, 43; dominance of collective authorship in XVII, 442, 519n; destruction of Jingju historical material 271–72n; censorship during 467, 472–46 Cultural worker XVIII, 506 Culture notes; in Jingju playscripts 528–29n Cuo zhong cuo 錯中錯 (Mistakes within mistakes) 250–55; too early to be Jingju 250; uses chuanqi conventions 250–51; prologue echoes that of Taohua shan 250; partextual material including some by the author 251–53; authorial preface identifies as a chuanqi 252n; commentary by Xu Xiyun 253; author was an official 252n; three of the paratext authors hold jinshi degree 253; no stage life 254; perhaps influenced by Shi cuoren 254n; manuscript copy held in palace 254n Cuo zhong cuo 錯中錯 (Mistakes within mistakes; a.k.a., Cu zhong cu 醋中醋 [Jealousy within jealousy]), bangzi play 254, 254–55n Current events plays 148, 447; historical plays thought to be really about current events 286, 447 Curtain on stage to hide scenery or props 234, 260n Curtain raiser 143n D’Oyly Carte 546n Da bailian 大白臉, role sub-type for evil characters such as Cao Cao 151 Da baoguo 大保國 (Greatly protecting the state) 365n, 524n Da gonghe ribao 大共和日報 (Great Republic Daily) 423, 438, 551 Da huagu 打花鼓 (Playing the patterned drum) 206n Da hualian 大花臉 133 Da jinzhuan 打金磚 (Hitting with the gold brick) 56n Da laoban Cheng Changgeng 大老闆程長庚 (Big boss Cheng Changgeng), 1994 TV miniseries 84n

726 Da longpao 打龍袍 (Beating the dragon robe) 365n Da miangang 打麵缸 (Breaking the flour vat) 157n Da piguan 大劈棺 (The great chopping open of the coffin) 465n Da shaguo 打沙鍋 (Hitting the earthenware pot) 316n Da Shijie 大世界 (Great World); entertainment complex in Shanghai 39n Da Tan Er 大探二 365n, 525n Da Xiangshan 大香山 (Great Incense Mountain) 149n Da xikao 大戲考, used to refer to Xikao 307n; also used to refer to the genre of collections of texts for phonograph recordings 552 Da ximo 大戲魔 (The great opera demon) 71n Da Yan Song 打嚴嵩 (Beating Yan Song) 441n Da yingtao 打櫻桃 (Throwing cherries) 317n Da zhizuo 大製作 (big [money] productions to win awards) 149 Dachang 大場 (big scene) 188n Dachou 大丑 134 Dacuo, see Wang Dacuo Dadan 大旦 133 Dadong Shuju 97n, 306–307n, 310–13, 557; and Zhonghua Tushu Guan 306n; theater books and journals they published 311–13, 322n Dahun 打諢 (jokes and horseplay) 11n Dai Bufan 戴不凡, recommend check in Xikao 407n Daishu ti 代述體 (narration) 555 Daiyu fen gao 黛玉焚稿 (Daiyu burns her manuscripts) 377n Daiyu zanghua 黛玉葬花 (Daiyu buries flowers) 305, 342n, 397n, 539n; and Fan Fanshan 397n; Mei Lanfang on its authorship 397n; shukao mentions photo of Mei Lanfang as Daiyu 399n; version of the collaborative origin of Ouyang Yuqian version 557–58n

Index Dalu 大路 (mainstream practice) 526n Damian 大面 369 Dan 旦 (female roles) 107, 108, 128, 130, 264, 273, 413n, 482, 486, 496; role-types that dan characters can also be played as 138n Dance notation 193n, 574–75n, 587n. See also Wupu, Labanotation Dance; in Jingju 28n Dancer in the Dark; film purportedly filmed with one hundred cameras 583 Danchang dengtai 單場登臺 (introduce characters singly) 494n. Danchu xi 單齣戲 (single scene play); synonym for xiaoxi 124n Danchu 單齣 (single play) 197n Dang bagu 黨八股 (Party eight-legged essays) 456n Dang Youwang 擋幽王 (Blocking King You) 377n Dangren bei 黨人碑 (The stele recording the names of the proscribed faction) 148n, 286n, 401n Dangui hun 旦鬼魂 (hun soul of female ghost) 134 Dangui 旦鬼 (female ghost) 134 Danhun 旦魂 (female hun soul) 134 Danji tui huiqi 單騎退回紇 (A single horseman [Guo Ziyi] forces the Turks to retreat); made available for performance by Tongsu Jiaoyu Yanjiu Hui 430n Danjiao 旦腳 133 Dantou ben 單頭本, danben 單本, danci 單詞, danpian 單篇, danpian 單片 (playscripts with the words for only one role) 163, 163–64n; rarely contain cues or stage directions 163n; use slashes to show when the actor doesn’t speak 163n, 577n; transcribed from audio recording 577n. See also Single-role scripts Dao zong’an 盜宗案 (Stealing the Royal Genealogy) 163n Daode ju 道德劇 (morality plays); Minzhong xiaoshuo xiqu duben content category 126

Index Daoma dan 刀馬旦 (Peking opera blues), 1986 film 84n Daoma dan 刀馬旦 133, 136, 140n Daoyan 導演 (director) 483n Daozhou cheng 道州城 (The city of Daozhou; alternately known as Shen Yunying 沈雲英) 296n Dapao xi 打炮戲 (shoot-the-cannon plays), plays picked for the opening day of a cycle of plays 141n Daxi 大戲 (big plays) 20, 30, 102n, 124; can be synonym for benxi 124n Daxi 打戲 (put together plays) 266 Dayu shajia 打漁殺家 (Beating of the fisherman and Killing the [local bully’s] family) 580 Dazhou 大軸 (long, big, scroll; final play in program) 143, 273 Dazi 大字 (big characters), way to refer to the text of arias 228n Dead bodies; how to handle 555–56n Deng yin feng ci 等因奉此 (Following precedent); play that mentions Xikao 408n Dengcai 燈彩 (colored lanterns) 37 Dengchang 登場 (taking the stage); scene label in Chuqu plays 184–85n Dengmi 燈謎 (lantern riddles) 73n Dengxi 燈戲 (lantern plays) 76, 120n, 149, 241; Xixue huikao topical category 160 Desktop plays. See Closet plays Detachable scenes; prefaced by “with” (dai 代/帶) after a play title 124n, 189, 413n; in the palace 168 Dexin 德馨 270n Deyi lu 得一錄 (Record of small insights) 236n, 238n Di Xiaoping 邸曉平 251 Diagrams and charts 546n; of the stage and movement on it 546n; of the theater 545n Dialect on stage; Subai 蘇白 (Suzhou dialect) in Kunqu 12; edict making actors use Mandarin on stage 12, 21n; the three phonetic systems of Jingju stage pronunciation 19–20; in Shanghai-style Jingju 35; chou

727 roles 35n; Jingbai 京白 (stage Pekingese) 207n; need for textual help to deal with dialect barriers 215; remarks about Pekingese in playscript preface 290; Wang Yaoqing on transcribing Pekingese 544n Dialect speakers perform Jingju 65, 72 Dialect; and role-type 132 Dialogue in playscripts; early editions can leave out but Zhu Youdun includes and Ming palace editions have 166n, 214, 217; balance between singing and 497 Dianchang de xi 墊場的戲 (plays to pad out the program) 143 Dianfa 點發 (indicate tone contour by placement of circle) 261–62, 544n Dianpai 滇派 (Yunnan-style) Jingju 41, 43n Dianxi 墊戲 (padding plays); plays insertable into programs at the last minute 143 Dianxi 滇戲 (Yunnan opera) 534n Dianxi 點戲 (select a play) 72, 196 Dianzi dianying 電子電影 (digital films) 584n Diaocha 調查 (survey); of theater by the Tongsu Jiaoyu Yanjiu Hui 432 Dictation 10n, 37n, 134, 163n, 177, 182, 189n, 195n, 202n, 211–12n, 228n, 270, 271n, 272, 275n, 351n, 387n, 388, 442n, 534n, 556, 579n. See also Oral history of Jingju Difang xi 地方戲. See Local/regional opera Digital analysis of Jingju music XIV, 582–84. See “The Musical Dimension of Chinese Traditional Theatre: An Analysis from Computer Aided Methodology” Digital humanities 583n Digitization of Jingju playscripts XIV, 582–84; hyperlink technology  583–84. See also DVDs and films of performances and plays Ding Ling 丁玲 59n Ding Shumei 丁淑梅; on Qing censorship surpass previous dynasties 445–46 Ding Xilin 丁西林, Qin’ai de zhangfu 親愛的 丈夫 (Dear husband) 78n Ding Xiuxun 丁修詢 7n, 124n, 163n, 192n

728 Ding Zhenyuan 丁振遠; praised as “living xikao” 408n Dingjun shan 定軍山 (Dingjun Mountain) 139; silent film of excerpts 82n Dingxian yangge 定縣秧歌, theatrical tradition that did not use written texts 211–12 Direction; traditional xiqu actors relatively less in need of 211; Ouyang Yuqian and Wang Xiaonong as directors 287, 287n; Wang Yaoqing acknowledged as director on program 482, 483n; keeper of the master script could have directorial functions 164n Directorial notes on performance; Xin Xiqu Shudian series 536, 537n Directors; promoted in the PRC 470; power not absolute 472n; female directors 522n; huaju directors direct Jingju 523n; director as creator 523n Dishi 笛師 (dizi masters) 164n Diwang 帝王 (emperors and kings); possible Jingju play content category 161 Dizi 笛子 (horizontal bamboo flute), lead melodic instrument in Kunqu 16, 191n Dizikes, John 104 Dong Jieyuan 董解元 223n Dou E yuan 竇娥冤 (Injustice to Dou E)  494; reasons permission to perform denied 464; change to happy ending 494 Dough figurines (mianren 麵人); of actors 69–70 Douniu gong 斗牛宮 (Douniu palace) 346n Dramatis personae 567; in early playscripts 531; short list of actor names at head of palace playscripts 267n, 412n; arranged according to minor versus major and female versus male 252; includes role-types 252, 430n; provide list of role-types at beginning of scene 261 Dream of the Red Chamber. See Honglou meng Du Fu 杜甫 378n, 380–81, 522n Du Jianhua 杜建華; on how to deal with anonymously authored playscripts 395n

Index Du Wenwei; on Chinese theater on Broadway 48n Du you ximu 獨有戲目 (solely-owned or private plays) 99, 213n, 428 Du Yuesheng 杜月笙 64–65, 310; relationship with Mei Lanfang 64 Duan Diankun 段殿坤 207n Duan taihou 斷太后 (Judging the case of the empress dowager) 365n Duan 段 (section); label used to break sections of a long aria in a playscript or texts for the sides of a phonograph recording 550–51n; measure word for segments of a work 253 Duanchang 短場 (short scene) 188n Duanda xi 短打戲 (plays that feature hand-to-hand fighting and short garments) 34, 67, 141 Duanwu Festival 169 Dui’er xi 對兒戲 (pair play) 141 Duidao buzhan 對刀步戰 (Matched swords fighting on foot) 100n Duigui 堆鬼 (heap of ghosts) 144n Duihua ti 對話體 (dialogue) 555 Duixi 對戲 (compare performance versions) 203n, 344n Dujiao xi 獨腳戲 (monologue plays) 72 Dujuan shan 杜鵑山 (Azalea mountain) 475n, 523n Duke E (Eduotai 鄂多臺) 170 Dumen jilüe 都門紀略 (Concise record of the capital); lists of actors and their roles in 18n, 108–109 Duxiu 讀秀 486 DVDs and films of performances and plays; material that could be added XIV, 580–81, 582n; subtitling 580–81; digital films (dianzi dianying) of plays 584n; 3D films of plays 583, 583–84n; using large numbers of cameras 583. See also Jingju dianying gongcheng Early literati playwrights of Jingju 226–66, 396, 482; compared to chuanqi playwrights 226; compared to actor and literati-turned actor playwrights 227, 250n; influenced by chuanqi conventions 228n, 232–33, 250–51, 281; influenced

Index by zaju 228n, 232; extratextual commentary 229n, 231, 232–32n, 253, 261–62; based on sources other than plays 227; successful ones close to the world of Jingju 265–66; use of pseudonyms 484n Edit playscripts 203–204, 206n, 244, 307n, 345n, 359, 362, 392n, 409n, 414–19, 422n, 433n, 441n, 529, 534n, 540, 554–57, 559, 560n; Xiju yuekan policy on 420; in the West 418n Edited, collated, fixed (jiaozheng 校正, jiaoding 校訂, jiaodui 校對, etc.); claims in manuscript playscripts 176; claims in lithographed playscript collection titles 180, 529n, 540; claims in woodblock and typeset collections 298–99n, 307n, 333n, 345n, 351n, 381n, 386n, 392n, 409n, 416, 422n, 529; in periodical playscripts 559 Ehu cun 惡虎村 (Evil Tiger Village) 289n Eightieth-birthday celebration for the Qianlong emperor in 1790 when the first “Anhui troupe” (Huiban 徽班) went up to the capital; and Jingju 14, 102 En Xiaofeng 恩曉峰 399n, 402 Encirclement campaigns 466 Entering tone (rusheng 入聲) 258 Entertainment centers/parks (youle chang 游樂場) 38–39, 77n; periodicals published by 77n Entertainment newspapers/press 75; and spread of Jingju 42, 75, 78; and stardom 36; and reader selection of top actors and plays 78 Entertainment; importance in Chinese theater 156–57; entertain versus move an audience 498 Epai 鄂派 (Hunan-style) Jingju 40, 533n Episodes (ben 本); in serial plays 96, Er hualian 二花臉 133 Er jin gong 二進宮 (The second entrance into the palace) 119n, 365n, 524n Erchou 二丑 134 Erdan 二旦, secondary female role 134 Erhuang xi mulu 二簧戲目錄 (Catalogue of Erhuang plays) 172–73

729 Erhuang 二簧 52, 142n, 167n, 172, 255–56n, 258–59, 371n, 356; performed by Huiban and then in Jingju 15; as a term for Jingju 16, 18; alternate orthography as erhuang 二黃 16n; also known as erhuang qiang 二黃 腔 18n; erhuang as inclusive of xipi 18n; popularity 19n; suited to serious themes 19; likely to be adaptations of chuanqi plays 19; described as vulgar in authorial preface to Jile shijie 231–32. See also Fan erhuang Erkui 張二奎 282 Ernü yingxiong zhuan 兒女英雄傳 (Heroic lovers) 74n; name of novel and stage adaptation of it 264 Ershi shiji da wutai 二十世紀大舞臺 (The great stage of the twentieth century) 79n, 185, 287, 358n, 438; publish playscripts 550 Ershi shiji xiqu gaige de sanda fanshi 20 世紀戲曲改革的三大範式 (The three great paradigms of Chinese indigenous theater reform in the 20th century) 159n, 444n Ershi shiji xiqu wenwu de faxian yu quxue yanjiu 二十世紀戲曲文物的發 現與曲學研究 (The discovery of theatrical artifacts in the 20th century and the study of traditional Chinese theater) 66n Erxiao xi 二小戲 (two littles play) 141 Ethnic classification (minzu shibie 民族識 別) 4, 471 Evening performances (yexi 夜戲) 110n; banned in Bejing in the Qing but not in Shanghai 34–35n Evidentiary research. See Kaoju xue Experimental Jingju; play with role-type barriers 140 Extracted scenes versus complete versions 169 Fa Zidu 伐子都 (Punishing Zidu) 325 Facai huanjia 發財還家 (Get rich and return home) 80n Face paint 67n. See also Lianpu Face pattern/make-up; and role-type 132

730 Face-patterns 86, 152, 179n; on cigarette cards 86n; symbolize China 86; hualian roles performed by other roletypes without 139; see also Lianpu Falsetto, and role-type 132, 140–41n Fan erhuang 反二黃/簧 (inverse erhuang) 255n, 258, 326, 330 Fan Fanshan 樊樊山 283n, 397 Fan Junhong 范鈞宏 272n, 443n, 513–14, 515n, 518; gave lectures and published articles and books on playwriting 513–14; number of plays written 513, 513–14n; amateur actor who turned professional and led a troupe 513; did not only write Jingju plays 513–514n; only one of his plays not performed 514n, filled in play for actor who only remembered his own part 514n Fan Shiqu 范石渠 338–39n Fan Xing; on PRC directors’ power not absolute 472n; on broken conventions in yangban xi 571; on the group skiing dance in Zhiqu weihu shan 571n Fan xipi 反西皮 (inverse xipi) 255n, 258 Fan 犯 (repetition) 233n Fanchao 反朝 (going against the [order of the] dynasties when setting up a program) 145n Fanchuan xi 反串戲 (cross-role-type plays) 157n Fanchuan 反串 (play role-type other than one’s own) 114n, 115n, 137, 137–38n; fanchuan can become yinggong 137, 137–38n Fanda xi 翻打戲 (plays that feature somersaults and fighting) 141 Fandong yanlun 反動言論 (reactionary discourse) 455n Fang Rongxiang 方榮翔 114 Fang Wenxi 方問溪 136n, 199n, 207n, 228n, 351n Fangjin chou 方巾丑 134 Fangshui 放水 (add water); improvise  207n Fanke/yin bijiu 翻刻/印必究 (unauthorized reprinting will be investigated) 437

Index Fanmian jiaocai 反面教材 (negative educational material) 476 Fanqie 反切 544 Fanxing Xiju Cun 繁星戲劇村 (Cluster of stars theater village) 522n Farce (naoju 鬧劇; wanxiao ju 玩笑劇) 157, 366n; farcical because of plot or lack of plot (emphasis on characters imitating stars to pass the time) 175n Farewell my Concubine (Bawang bie ji 霸王別姬); 1993 film 50–51, 84n, 194, 371, 568; echoes of Mei Lanfang in 52n Female authorship and readership of fiction and tanci 220–221n Female commentator; playscripts 229n Female infanticide 236, 236–37n Female playwrights; none known for Yuan zaju 215n; several known for chuanqi and desktop zaju 221n, 520n; for Jingju 222n, 520–21, 520–22n; importance in Taiwan 521–22n Female susceptibility to lewd plays 53–54, 76 Female versus male roles, predominance of one over the other 107–109, 419n Feng Di 馮棣 (penname Pengdi 朋弟) 80n Feng huan chao 鳳還巢 (The phoenix returns to its nest) 200n, 433–34n, 562n; capricious censorship of 451 Feng jiao xue 風攪雪 (wind mixed with snowflakes), mixing different singing and performance styles 15n Feng Menglong 馮夢龍 527n Feng Shuluan 馮叔鸞 (Ma Er xiansheng 馬 二先生) 28n, 305–306n, 338n, 351n, 422–23, 438, 557 Feng Zihe 馮子和, (a.k.a., Feng Chunhang 馮 春航) 307n, 404n, 416; director in charge of playwriting for a Shanghai theater 511n Feng Zikai 豐子愷 and his daughter 61–62 Fengbo ting 風波亭 (Wind and Wave Pavilion) 377n Fengcheng pinhua ji 鳳城品花記 81n Fengliu jian 風流鑒 (Mirror for the romantic) 237n Fengqing xi 風情戲 (love plays) 160n

Index Fengshen bang 封神榜 (Roster of the invested gods), Zhou Xinfang’s serial play version 86n Fengshen yanyi 封神演義 (Roster of the invested gods), novel 169 Fengtai Photography Studio 82 Fengxue ye guiren 風雪夜歸人 (The returning person on a windy and snowy night) 78n, 91n Fengyue meng 風月夢 (A dream of wind and moon) 290n Fengzheng wu 風筝誤 (The kite’s mistake) 233n, 498 Fenhe wan 汾河灣 (Bend in the Fen River) 162n, 398–99n, 561–62n, 582n; bangzi and Jingju versions in Xikao 317–19, 394n, 533; supernatural content 389–90n Fenmo qushu: Jingju jingdian jumu wutai guizhi zonglan: Baishe zhuan 粉墨氍 毹: 京劇經典劇目舞臺規制縱覽: 白蛇傳 (Face paint and stage carpet: Overview of the stage regulations of the classical repertoire of Jingju: The White Snake) 526n, 545–47; photos in 570 Fenmu 分幕 (division into acts) 188 Fenxi 粉戲 (powder plays) 158 Festival/seasonal plays (yingjie xi 應節 戲) 110, 119–20, 149n, 168–69 Fictional representations of Jingju and theater 5–6n, 63n, 73–78, 302n, 541–42n, 558n Fictional works about actors and actresses 76–78; about Liu Xikui 76n; about Yang Xiaolou 76, 76–77n; about Mei Lanfang 76, 76–77n Figurines of actors 69–70 Films; and Jingju 35n, 80–83, 139; include more detail than playscripts XIV; feature films featuring Jingju 83–84; non-commercial 82n; of yangban xi 83n; stage recordings versus adaptations 82–83 Finding List of Terminology Used by Chinese Fiction Critics 253n, 512n First Seventeen Years 467, 468n

731 Fixity of plays; through censorship IX, XV; and textualization IX, XV-VI, 163, 201–209, 467–68, 537, 547n, 585–87; and printing 203–209; actors’ ability to reproduce series of stage movements exactly 202; emphasis on exact reduplication in teaching and censorship 202–203; wide variation among versions of the same play 202; gaps between texts and performance 202, 415; suppression of adlibbing and improvisation 203n, 470–71, 586; effects of transportation, touring, and urbanization 203, 204n; and competition 201–202 Flexibility versus strict rules 526n Flower registers 79, 107–109, 183n, 265n, 298n Folklorists and textualization XVn Footwear; and role-type 132 Foreign countries, plays about; used to allegorize China’s fate/ predicament 183–84, 286, 330n, 551 Foreign princess marries Chinese man 366 Foreign publications on Jingju 80, 146n Foreigners and Jingju XIV; don’t/ can’t understand 46–47, 62; perform 48–50; perform professionally 48, 48n Forke, Alfred 250n Four Famous Dan Actors” (si da mingdan 四大名旦) 24; two different lists 24n; Chen Moxiang blames animosity among them to their hangers-on 499n Four Great Anhui Troupes (si da Huiban 四 大徽班) 14 Fryer, John (Fu Lanya 傅蘭雅) 422n Fu Caiyun 傅彩雲 403n Fu huadan 副花旦 (secondary huadan) 134 Fu Jin 傅謹 XX; on Qi Rushan 52n; on the theater reform movement 469n; on the taking of huaju and Jingju as models in the theater reform movement 471n Fu tian liang 弗天亮 (The postponed dawn) 414n Fu Xiaoshan 傅小山 139

732 Fu Xihua 傅惜華 29n, 268 Fu 付 133 Fu 副 133 Fuchou 副丑 134 Fudan 付旦, secondary female role 134 Fugui yi 富貴衣 (clothes of wealth and honor); auspicious name for a patched beggar’s robe 261 Fujian opera (Minju 閩劇) 116 Fujian, Jingju in 40 Fujing 副凈 133 Fuliancheng cang xiqu shiliao wenxian huikan 富連成藏戲曲史料文獻彙刊 (Compendium of Chinese indigenous theater historical material concerning Fuliancheng) 535 Fuliancheng 富連成 opera school 84n, 113, 195n, 271–73, 433n, 511; as collector/producer of manuscript playscripts 166n, 508n, 535 Full versions 524. See also Complete plays Fully written out playscripts; promotion of in the PRC 470 Fumo 副末, secondary male role; opens the play in a chuanqi prologue 250n, 251n Fusheng 付生 134 Fushou 福壽 (Prosperity and long-life) Troupe 235n, 290n Fuxing Juxiao 復興劇校 (a.k.a., Foo Hsing Opera School) X, 114, 462 Fuyu ti 腹語體 (internal thoughts) 555–56 Fuzi chonghui 父子重會 (meetings between long-separated fathers and sons); possible Jingju play content category 160 Gai Jiaotian 蓋叫天 25n, 37n, 42n; and Wu Song 151–52n Gaige taimian 改革臺面 (reform of the stage); content category Qi Rushan for some of his plays 160n Gaihang 改行 (Changing professions) 71n Gaikou 蓋口 (symbols that mark up a singlerole script to help remember what the other actors are doing) 163n; text that should or should not be improvised (huo gaikou versus

Index si gaikou) 207n; short for si gaikou 555n Gailiang 改良 (improved) 503; in playscript collection titles 181n, 185 Gaizhi pihuang xinci 改制皮黃新詞 (Adapted and supplemented new texts for Jingju) 204n, 396n Gamble, Sidney 211n Gan sanguan 趕三關 (Pursuit through three passes) 457n Ganban 乾板 (“dry” measures) 255n Gang leaders and Jingju 63–65; marry actresses 64 Gang of Four 472–73 Gao bozi 高撥子, local style influenced by bangzi, performed by Huiban and then in Jingju 15, 142n. Gao Chong 高寵 211n Gao Dengjia 高登甲, expert bachang, worked for Cheng Yanqiu 495n Gao Ming 高明 53n, 220 Gao Qingkui 高慶奎 69–70n, 137n, 245n, 501n, 514n Gaoqiang 高腔 108n, 172n, 482, 487 Ge Tao 葛濤; on phonograph player terminology in Chinese 89n Geju 歌劇 (opera) 3n, 293n, 469n, 519, 522n Gelb, Ignace; on etymology of words for “writing,” XVIn; on transcribing pronunciation 210n Gender; and role-type 132 Genesis and Development of Hangdang in Traditional Chinese Theatre before the Emergence of Beijing Opera, The 131n Gengsu Juchang 更俗劇場 (Change customs theater) 53n Genre consciousness; fuzziness about fiction versus drama 156, 185n; genres should address both what and how 157–58 Genre translations, from fiction to drama and vice versus 73, 73–74n, 527; Liu Hui on 73n Genü Hong mudan 歌女紅牡丹 (Songstress Red Peony); 1931 film 82n Gezai/zi xi 歌仔戲 462n

Index Gezi longzhong de youji 鴿子籠中的游記 (Travels in a pigeon cage), work of fiction that mentions Xikao 408n Goldman, Andrea Sue; on saozi wo plays 161n, 485n Goldstein, Joshua; on names for Jingju 2n; on touring circuits 34n; on new theaters 38n; on Mei Lanfang’s US tour 45n; on Mei Lanfang/Meng Xiaodong marriage 64n; on the Mei Lanfang/Huang Runqing performance rights case 429n Gong Debo 龔德柏 55 Gong Li 鞏俐 63n Gong Yunfu 龔雲甫 207n, 377n, 393n Gong’an xi 公案戲 (court case plays) 152–53 Gongche 工尺, older system of musical notation 22n, 167n, 173n, 189n, 190–192, 248–49, 279n, 306n, 343n, 416, 420n, 427n, 540–41, 556n; difficult to typeset 541n; and Kunqu 190 Gongkai fabiao de Jingju juben tiyao (1949– 2010) 公開發表的京劇劇本提要 (1949–2010) (Summaries of published Jingju playscripts) 538n Gongting daxi 宮廷大戲 (huge palace serial plays) 168 Gordon, Kim Hunter; on the Kunqu performance tradition 193–94n; on Kunqu baizhong, dashi shuoxi 579n Government elites watch banned plays secretly 60, 445 Government elites’ input on theater productions 60 Government programs to have good plays performed; Yu Zhi’s proposal to use plays to improve society and an attempt to put it into effect in Shanghai  238n, 240–41, 241–42n, 244; incentives for good plays 53 Government requested to deal with historical inaccuracies in Jingju 55 Governmental surveys and control of theater repertoire 98–100 Governmentally revised playscripts. See Tongsu Jiaoyu Yanjiu Hui, Guoli Bianyi Guan, Xiuding Pingju xuan,

733 Guoju dacheng, Jingju huibian, Jingju congkan Grant, Ulysses S.; turned down opportunity to see Chinese theater 47 Green Gang (qingbang 青幫) 58n, 64–65 Gu Jiegang 顧頡剛 62–63n Gu Shuguang 谷曙光; on Natong kneeling to Tan Xinpei 277n Guaiyi xi 怪異戲 (plays about monsters and anomalies) 263n Guan Hanqing 關漢卿 215, 217 Guan Hongbin 關鴻賓 344n Guan Shaohua 管紹華 88n Guan Sushuang 關肅霜 573n Guan Yong 貫涌 516n Guan Yu 關羽 (a.k.a., Lord Guan) 55, 110, 120n, 132, 267, 268n, 269–70, 465n; plays that feature him as a group 151, 268n Guanchuan 貫串 (well strung together) 256 Guandong pai 關東派 (east of the pass [Shanhai guan] style) Jingju 42 Guang Huguo si 逛護國寺 (Visiting Protect the Nation Temple) 174n; translation by Margaret Wan 174n Guangdong pihuang 廣東皮黃 (Cantonese opera) 18n Guangdong; Jingju in 40 Guanghe Theater (Guanghe lou 廣和樓) 93 Guangong shengtian 關公升天 (Lord Guan ascends to heaven) 465n Guangxu emperor 71n, 88n Guanju daoren 觀劇道人 (Man of the way who watches plays) 226–237, 254; and Chen Moxiang 229n, 484n, 504 Guanju shenghuo sumiao 觀劇生活素描 (Sketches from my life of watching plays) 12n, 139n, 161n, 174–75n, 317n, 484, 487–88n, 492n, 493, 502n; compared to Liyuan waishi 484n; manuscript version 484n Guanlan ge 觀瀾閣 180n Guanyu Xunju de jifeng xin 關於荀劇的幾 封信 (Some letters concerning Xun [Huisheng’s] plays) 499n

734 Guazhong lanyin 瓜種蘭因 (Seed of the melon, cause of the orchid) 184n, 286n, 551; translation 286n; newspaper serialization 287n, 438n; censored 447 Gucheng fanzhao ji 古城返照記 (Record of sunset in the old city) 18n, 34n, 77n, 139n, 162n, 293n Gudian xiqu cunmu huikao 古典戲曲存 目彙考 (Collected research into the known repertoire of classical Chinese drama) 97, 215, 218, 220, 222 Gudu gongwei liyuan mishi 古都宮闈梨園 秘史 (Secret history of theater in the palace of the old capital) 408n Gugong bowu yuan cang Qinggong Nanfu Shengpingshu xiben 故宮博物院 藏清宮南府昇平署戲本 (Qing dynasty play texts from the Nanfu and Shengpingshu held in the Forbidden Palace Museum) 534–35 Gugong zhenben congkan 故宮珍本叢刊 (Collectanea of precious texts from the Forbidden Palace) 535n Guidebooks to theater 301; in Gucheng fanzhao ji 293n Guifan 規範 (regularization) 203n Guifang xi 閨房戲 (Fun in the bedroom) 397n Guifei zuijiu 貴妃醉酒 (Consort Yang gets drunk) 50n, 528n, 530n Guimen dan 閨門旦 133 Gujin xiaoshuo 古今小說 (Stories old and new) 527n Gun dingban 滾釘板 (Rolling on the bed of nails) 159n, 414n Guo Bintu 郭彬圖 252 Guo Jingrui; on luantan 17n Guo Qitao; on Anhui merchants and opera 15n Guo wu guan 過五關 (Passing through five passes) 325n Guo Xiaozhuang 郭小莊 464n Guo yin 過癮 (get a “fix” for “addiction” to theater) 91 Guo Yingde 郭英德 222 Guobao 果報 (retribution) 256 Guochang 過場 (transitional scene) 188n

Index Guojia Jingju Yuan 國家京劇院. See Zhongguo Jingju Yuan Guojia ju 國家劇 (nation plays); Minzhong xiaoshuo xiqu duben content category 126 Guoju Chuanxi Suo 國劇傳習所 (Institute for the transmission and practice of Guoju) 425n Guoju dacheng 國劇大成 (Compendium of national opera) 188n, 313, 418, 435, 462; and Xikao 313, 411n, 414n; censor crude language and women’s liberation language of Xikao versions of plays 391n; leave out some Xikao plays 418n, 462n Guoju huabao 國劇畫報 (National drama pictorial) 112n, 145n, 425n, 561–62n; copyright notice for only play still in performance 433–34, 565 Guoju shenduan pu 國劇身段譜 (Roster of stage movements for National Drama) 195–96, 566n Guoju Xuehui 國劇學會 (Association for the Study of National Drama) 28–29, 59n, 145n, 352, 384n; library holdings 29, 163n, 213n, 433; exhibit hall 433; publications 196n, 425; its copies of playscripts could be borrowed and copied for free 433 Guoju yuekan 國劇月刊 (Guoju monthly) 565n Guoju yundong 國劇運動 (movement for Chinese theater) 29, 425–26 Guoju 國劇 (the national drama) 26–30; definitions 28–29, 565; use of the term in the PRC 29, 29–30n Guoli Bianyi Guan 國立編譯館 (National Institute for Compilation and Translation) 433n, 460, 462n Guoli Guoguang Jutuan 國立國光劇 團 (National Light of the Country Troupe) 465, 478, 521 Guoli Taiwan Xiqu Xueyuan 國立臺灣戲曲 學院 (College of Chinese indigenous theater of Taiwan) 462n Guomen 過門 (instrumental lead-ins to and interludes during arias) 189n, 536, 539

Index Guomingdang (GMD, The Nationalists); believe Jingju supports traditional morality 467 Guqu zhinan 顧曲指南 313–14, 353–55 Guqu 顧曲 (appreciation of music or theater) 353–55, 357, 360–63 Gushi tigang 故事提綱 (plot outline) 200n Gushi 鼓師 (lead percussionist) 191, 277n, 269n Guwen 顧問 (advisor); used with reference to the writing of a play 519n Guy, Nancy; on aria types 259n; on names for Jingju 2n; on Mei Lanfang’s US tour 45n; on Jingju in Taiwan 462–63n Guzhuang xinxi 古裝新戲 (new ancientclothing plays [starring Mei Lanfang]) 154–55 Guzhuang 古裝 (ancient-clothing) plays 46n, 52, 145, 148n Guzi [lao]xi 骨子[老]戲 (bone [old] plays) 141 Hai Rui baguan 海瑞罷官 (Hai Rui dismissed from office); and the Cultural Revolution 153, 473–74, 476n Hai Rui 海瑞 153, 473–74 Hai Zhen 海震 XX; on numbers of juzhong 4n; on which character is correct for the huang in erhuang 16n Haipai 海派 Jingju. See Shanghai-style Jingju Haishang fanhua meng 海上繁華夢 (A dream of the splendor of Shanghai) 71–72n, 75 Haishang hua liezhuan 海上花列傳 74, 74–75n Haishang liyuan zazhi 海上梨園雜志 (Miscellaneous notes on theater in Shanghai) “Xikao” chapter 76, 323–25; provides alternate names and plot summaries 324; includes two non-Jingju plays and one new-style play 324 Hama Kazue 浜一衛 459n Han Bangqing 韓幫慶 74 Han Meng 韓萌 515n Han Shichang 韓世唱 317n

735 Han Xibai 韓希白 64 Handiao 漢調 18n, 19 Handsome Monkey King (Meihou wang 美猴王); plays that feature him as a group 152 Hang Renlian 杭人連 286n Hangdang 行當. See Role-type system Hanju 漢劇 (Wuhan opera) 19, 39–40, 140n, 316, 350n; role-type system  135 Hanzhan Taishi Ci 酣戰太史慈 (Fighting Taishi Ci with abandon) 96n Hao Shouchen 郝壽臣 114, 207n, 271n; edition of performance versions of his plays 525n Hao Yinbo 郝蔭柏 514n, 516n Hatano Kenichi 波多野乾一 146n, 150n Hazelton, George C. 48n He Haiming 何海鳴 415–16, 558n, 560n Head pieces 545 Hebei bangzi 河北梆子 443n, 513n, 520n, 554n; phonograph discography for 87; role-type system 135n Hebei Sheng Hebei Bangzi Juyuan 河北省河 北梆子劇院 (Hebei Province Hebei bangzi institute) 24n Hecai 喝彩. See Applause and yelling bravo Hechun 和春 (Mild spring); one of the Four Great Anhui Troupes 14 Hehou ma dian 賀后罵殿 (Empress He curses the throne) 56n Heifeng pa 黑風帕 (Blackwind handkerchief) 160n, 325n Heiji yuanhun tushuo 黑籍冤魂圖說 (Wronged spirit of an opium addict illustrated and explained) 568; scene summaries illustrated by photos  400–401; prepared for producers in lieu of full playscript 400–401; includes photo of playwright 400, 568 Heiji yuanhun 黑籍冤魂 (Wronged spirit of an opium addict) 82n, 184n; film of the play 400n Heijing 黑凈 133 Heinu yu tian lu 黑奴籲天錄 (Record of a black slave’s cry to heaven [Uncle Tom’s Cabin]) 25n

736 Heiqian 黑錢 (black money; extra fee given actors to compensate for losing [artificial] blood onstage) 159n Heitou xi 黑頭戲 (Black head plays), plays featuring Judge Bao 152, 153n, 327 Heitou 黑頭 133 Henan bangzi 河南梆子 116, 513n Henhai 恨海 (Sea of regret) 339 Hepai 合拍 (fit the music) 558n Heshen 和珅, male favorite of the Qianlong emperor; supposed patron of Wei Changsheng 13 Hillenbrand, Margaret; on censorship in the PRC XVIIn Hirabayashi Norikazu 平林宣和; on modern dance and Mei Lanfang 28n Historical inaccuracies in Jingju 55–56 Holm, David; on the CCP “drama movement” 467n Hong Bi yuan 宏碧緣 (The marriage affinity between Luo Hongxun and Hua Bilian) 367–68n, 589n Hong Kong, Mei Lanfang tour; playscripts printed beforehand 40 Hong Shen 洪深; and huaju 25n; assertion of performance rights 438n Hong Sheng 洪昇 231–32; tried to prevent actors and revisers changing his playscripts 212 Hong Xiuquan 洪秀全 240 Hong Yang zhuan 洪楊傳 (The story of Hong Xiuquan and Yang Xiuqing) 269 Hongdeng ji 紅燈記 (The red lantern) 663n; change of attribution from Weng Ouhong to collective 507n; change back to Weng Ouhong and Ajia postCultural Revolution 519n; revision process 475n; performance edition 475n Hongjing 紅凈 133, 138n Honglou meng 紅樓夢 (Dream of the Red Chamber); source of Jingju plays 150–51; lectured about by Chen Moxiang to Xun Huisheng 502n Honglou xi 紅樓戲, plays based on Honglou meng 114n, 150–51, 160n, 237n, 366n,

Index 557n; competition between Mei Lanfang and Ouyang Yuqian 287 Hongmei ge 紅梅閣 (The red plum loggia) 318n, 364–65n Hongmen yan 鴻門宴 (Banquet at Hongmen) 561n Hongshe ji 紅蛇記 (The red snake) 244n Hongsheng 紅生 132, 151, 268n; role-types that hongsheng characters can also be played as 138n; Guan yu is the most representative example 151 Hongyang dong 洪羊洞 (Hongyang cave) 189n, 415n, 528n Hongzong liema 紅鬃烈馬 (The red-maned fiery horse) 55, 457n, 544 Honorific orthography, raise honored character(s) to next line 262; leave space after honored character(s) 262; done in case of references to the emperor 262; done in case of references to deities 262; practice in paratexts versus play text 262 Horrific (kongbu 恐怖) content of plays 100n, 158, 158–59n Hou Baolin 侯寶林 71–72n Hou Liushi zhong qu 後六十種曲 (Later sixty plays) 532n Hou Xirui 侯喜瑞 408n, 578n Hou Yishi 侯疑始 557–58 Hou’er/Houzi xi 猴兒/子戲 (Monkey [King] plays) 152 Household registration system 466 Hsü Dao-Ching 56; on Chinese drama as product of collective imagination 395n Hu Die 胡疊 515n Hu Die 胡蝶 63 Hu Hanzhu 胡憨珠 343n, 351n Hu Henian 胡鶴年; actor who collaborated with Li Zhongyu on plays 264 Hu Jintao 胡錦濤 61 Hu Jisheng 胡寄生 408n Hu Juren 胡菊人 343n Hu Shi 胡適 195, 312 Hu Shijun 胡世均 516n Hu Xilai 胡喜祿 264w Hu Zhifeng 胡芝風 573n

Index Hua hudie 花蝴蝶 (Colored butterfly) 325n Hua Huilin 華慧麟 483n Hua Mulan 花木蘭 (Henan bangzi) 513n Hua Wei 華瑋 221n, 520n Huabang 花榜 (rosters of flowers [courtesans]) 75n Huabu nongtan 花部農譚 (Rustic talk about popular theater) 236n Huabu 花部 (flowery/ornamented division of Chinese theater); used in opposition to yabu 9–13, 16–17, 67, 109, 177, 177n, 236n; Qianlong emperor not originally against huabu performances 13n; not classical theater 98 Huadan plays 295; supposedly easier to perform 75n; transcribed lectures on 578n Huadan 花旦 (flowery/patterned dan) 13, 75n, 133, 136, 139–41n, 328, 452n; roletypes that huadan characters can also be played as 138n Huadang 花蕩 (Ambush in the Reeds) 194n Huaiju 淮劇 (Huai opera) 350n, 522n; return to use of scenarios 480 Huaixi 壞戲 (bad plays) 470 Huaji Jingdiao daguan 滑稽京調大觀 (Compendium of huaji Jingju) 72n Huaji 滑稽 (lit.: comic) 72n, 349n Huaju 話劇 (spoken drama) 3, 25–26, 77n, 200, 212, 215, 253, 287, 420n, 452, 519–20, 551–52n; assertion of performance rights 438–39; greater censorship concern than xiqu under GMD 461; censorship of huaju play books 461n; taken as model in theater reform movement 471n; huaju directors direct Jingju 479n Hualian 花臉 133, 141n; role-types that hualian characters can also be played as 138n; hualian roles poached by wusheng and laosheng 139–140 Huang Boxuan 黃伯暄 252 Huang Chujiu 黃楚九 276, 450n Huang Jinrong 黃金榮 64–65 Huang Runqing 黃潤卿 428–29 Huang Tianba 黃天霸 137n, 289n; plays featuring him 153, 366n

737 Huang Wenhu 黃文虎 201n Huang Wenyang 黃文暘 97n Huang Yishu 黃義樞 251 Huang Zhong 黃忠 139 Huangdi meng 皇帝夢 (A dream of being emperor) 450n Huanghe lou 黃鶴樓 71n, 140n, 582n Huangqiang 黃腔, an abbreviation of erhuang qiang 二黃腔 18n, 22–23n Huanxi yuanjia 歡喜冤家 (Karmic enemies/ lovers) 440n Huapu 花譜. See Flower registers Huashan 花衫 133–34, 136, 273, 369 Huatian cuo 花田錯 (The mistake in the flower field) 38n Huayuan zeng zhu 花園贈珠 (Giving the pearl in the garden) 324 Hubei Sheng Jingju Yuan 湖北省京劇院 (Hubei province Jingju company) 40 Hudie bei 蝴蝶盃 (Butterfly cup) 337n, 366n Huguang yin 湖廣音 (Huguang Province system of pronunciation); one of the three phonetic systems of Jingju stage pronunciation 19–20 Huhua ling 護花鈴 (The flower protector) 498 Hui 回, measure word or label for segments or scenes in Liyuan jicheng 184, 184–85n Huiban 徽班 (Anhui troupe) 14, 120n Huidao 誨盜 (teaching brigandry) 455n Huidiao 徽調 (Anhui tunes) 15, 107n, 268, 270; as alternate term for Jingju 16 Huiguan 會館 (native place associations), in Beijing and theater 31 Huijiao 回教 (Islam) 457n Huiling 回令 (Returning the [arrow of] command) 413 Huilu 悔盧, penname of Jin Zhongsun 275n, 490n Huitou an 回頭岸 (A turn of the head and you are on the far shore) 242n Huitu 繪圖 (illustrated) 180–81, 568 Huixi 徽戲 (Anhui plays) 15; repertoire 103; role-type system 135 Huixing nüshi 慧興女士 (Miss Huixing) 187n

738 Huiyin 誨淫 (teaching lewdness) 455n Hujia zhuang 扈家莊 (Hu Family Village) 167n Huju 滬劇 (Shanghai opera) 349–50n, 507n Hunan-style Jingju 40, 533n Hunbian 婚變 (divorce or neglect of the first wife when a scholar passes high in the examinations and powerful people throw their daughters at him); possible Jingju play content category 160, 160–61n Hundred Flowers Campaign (1956–1957) 469 Hunyuan he 混元盒 (Chaos box) 168–69 Huo gaikou 活蓋口 (adapt text to the circumstances of a play) 207n Huo xikao 活戲考 (living xikao) 408n Huoben 活本 (live text) 207n Huocai 火彩 (stage pyrotechnics) 234 Huopan 火判 (infernal judge dancing and spitting sparks) 144n Huoren daxi 活人大戲 (Living actor big plays), autobiographical novel by Chen Moxiang 20n, 55n, 77n, 191n, 212n, 264–65, 274n, 280n, 453n, 483n, 485–98; publication history 485; lecture on playwriting in 488–98, 512n; on playwriting outside the lecture 500–503; overlooked by scholars 495–96; as storytelling novel 490n, 491; as a novel based on facts 494n Huoren daxi 活人大戲; a way to refer to plays with human actors 20n, 485n Huoshao Honglian si 火燒紅蓮寺 (Fire burns Red Lotus Temple) 506 Huozhuo Sanlang 活捉三郎 (Taking the soul of Third Son) 317n Huqin 胡琴 (spike fiddle); the main accompanying instrument of Jingju 16n, 189–90n, 416. See also Jinghu Huzi dan 鬍子旦 (whiskers dan) 134 Hypertext and hyperlinks. See Digitization of Jingju playscripts Ibsen, Henrik 253, 528n Idema, Wilt; on Tianxian pei case 444n

Index Illustrations in texts teaching Jingju 568; static images 568–69; movement sequences 569, drawings 568n; abstracted, backgroundless drawings 569; stage diagrams 568n, 569; means of indicating movement in/with drawings and stage diagrams 569; in stage diagram use shoes to show which way the actor is facing or two-tone circles 569–70n; include percussion patterns 569–70; include oral formulas (koujue) 570; use photo sequences to show movement 568n, 570. See also Xiqu shenduan biaoyan xunlian fa Illustrations to playscripts 306n, 392n; lithographic editions have illustrations that include elements of stagecraft 179–80, 181n, 399, 570; titles of collections of playscripts that promise illustrations 180–81n, 306n, 324n, 345–46, 392n; chuanqi playscript illustration basically the same as those for fiction 209n, 225; paratextual claim that the illustrations can be a guide for performance costuming 209n, 399; drawings replaced by photographs 399; photographs on covers 399n, 536–37; lithographic drawings in Shijie xinju play scene summaries 400–401; drawings in playscripts 547; scenery design drawings (bujing sheji tu) 563; photographs in Heiji yuanhun tushuo 400–401, 401–402n, 568; photos with dialogue 536–37; photos in playscripts 302–303n, 400n, 541n, 545–46, 546n, 547 (no caption), 549, 570–74, 571–74n; photos in yangban xi performance playscripts 570; large number of photographs versus video 573–74. See also Fenmo qushu, Jingju Zaixiang Liu Luoguo, Jingju jingdian pindu, Lianhuan hua, Lu Wenlong Imperial mourning cause theaters to be closed 272–73

Index Improvisation and Jingju IX, 206–208; more common in manuscript than printed playscripts XV; forced by mistakes 278n; discouraged in the PRC 470–71, 586 Inauspicious plays 120 Individual characters in the same play could be performed as more than one roletype. See Liangmen bao Influence of theater; temple statues with flags strapped their bags 52 Inner Mongolia, Jingju in 41, 43n Innovation 201 Inscribing as the fixation of any aspect of Jingju in any media XVI Inscription and writing XVI, XVIn Intangible cultural heritage (ICH); Kunqu as 115n, 193–94n International Phonetic Alphabet 544 Internet, the; and Jingju XIV, 582 Inverse erhuang. See Fan erhuangi Inverse xipi. See Fan xipi Ionesco, Eugene Xn Islam (huijiao 回教) 457n Japanese influence on late Qing and early Republican era reforms of theater 24–25 Japanese views of and scholarship on Chinese theater 45n, 426n. See also Aoki Masaru, Hatano Kenichi, Tsuji Chōka, Hama Kazue Jazz; and Jingju 587n Jesperson, Otto 210n Ji Changjiang 祭長江 (Making sacrifice by the Yangzi) 590n Ji Tang 集唐 (collect lines from Tang dynasty poets to make up a quatrain that concludes each scene) 227n Ji Yintian 紀蔭田 (personal name Shusen 樹森) 226, 250–55 Ji Yun 紀昀 251 Jiaban 家班. See Private troupes Jiamen 家門 (Prologues) 233n Jian Guideng 簡貴燈 315–16n Jian jiuling 監酒令 (Overseeing the drinking game) 412n Jian 尖 (pointed) pronunciation 543, 545 Jian’er 健兒. See Wuxia Jian’er

739 Jianchang/qiemo tigang 檢場/砌末提綱 (prop abstracts) 198, 198–99n; using graphic representations 198n Jianchang 檢場 (prop men) 161, 263n, 495n, 546–47; system 187n Jiang Guanyun 蔣觀雲 45n, 156n Jiang Guyu 江顧羽 344n Jiang Han yuge 江漢漁歌 (Fishermen’s songs along the Yangzi and Han Rivers) 537n Jiang Miaoxiang 姜妙香 113–14; shuoxi audio recording 576–77n Jiang Qing 江青 54n, 60, 472–73; and playscripts 162; in Western theater 162; and yangban xi 472, 474–75; as director 475n; interference in playwriting 512n Jiang xiang he 將相和 (General and minister reconciled) 417n, 507n Jiang Zemin 江澤民 60–61 Jiangjie 江姐 (Sister Jiang) 206n Jiangliu ji 江流記 (River Float) 168n Jiangnan tielei tu 江南鐵淚圖 (A portrait of iron tears [shed in] Jiangnan) 238n Jianpu 簡譜 (cipher notation) 189n, 191n, 279n Jianyi xi 箭衣戲 (archery-jacket plays) 141, 144 Jiao Juyin 焦菊隱 268, 292n, 295n, 457n, 490, 509 Jiao Xun 焦循; advocate of huabu theater 236 Jiaoben 腳本 (playscript) 179n Jiaoxue ben 教學本 (teaching version) 526n Jiaqing emperor’s mother; was an actress 10n Jiating ju 家庭劇 (family plays); Minzhong xiaoshuo xiqu duben content category 126 Jiating 家庭 (family); Xixue huikao topical category 159 Jiayue 家樂. See Private troupes Jiazi hualian 架子花臉 88n, 126n, 133, 140n, 202n, 508, 578n Jiazu ju 家族劇 (family saga); Minzhong xiaoshuo xiqu duben content category 126 Jiegou 結構 (structure) 493

740 Jiemu dan 節目單 (programs) 197 Jiepai guan 界牌關 (Safe-conduct Pass Pass) 390n Jieyi 節義 (chastity); Xixue huikao topical category 159–60; content category Qi Rushan used to divide his own plays 160n Jiguan bujing 機關布景 (machine-operated scenery or props). See Machineoperated scenery Jile shijie 極樂世界 (Realm of ultimate bliss) 177–78n, 222, 226–237, 247, 396n; manuscript copy in palace collection 229n; typeset 230; commentary by Shixiang nüshi and Su sheng 蘇生 230n, 231; aria types not indicated 231; self identifies as a chuanqi 232–33; commentary compares to fiction and other plays 233; performability 233–35; possible connections to palace performance conventions 234; no performance history 235; adaptations 235; and Chen Moxiang 484n Jin bainian lai pihuang juben zuojia 近 百年來皮黃劇本作家 (Pihuang playwrights of the last one hundred years) 264n, 268n, 289–90n, 192n Jin Ping Mei 金瓶梅 502; depiction of Ming officials staying away from the pleasure quarters 6 Jin Shengtan 金聖嘆 224, 233n, 378, 378–79n, 380, 512 Jin Xiushan 金秀山 177n Jin Yuemei 金月梅 520n; female Jingju playwright 222 Jin Zhongsun 金仲蓀 275n, 434n, 457–58n, 490n, 499n, 510 Jinchun tang 錦春堂 180–81n Jindai sanyi xiqu wenxian jicheng 近代散 佚戲曲文獻集成 (Collectanea of uncollected material on xiqu from the modern period) 553n Jindou/dao jindou 金斗/倒金斗 (forward and reverse somersaults) 260n Jing Guxue 景孤血, playwright; did not know what actors wanted 283n;

Index on Republican censorship regime 463–64 Jing 凈, role-type 67n, 86n, 133, 207n, 291 Jingchai ji 荊釵記 (The thorn hairpin) 130n, 374n Jingchao pai 京朝派 (Beijing-style Jingju) 18n, 534n Jingdian Jingju juben quanbian 經典京劇 劇本全編 (Complete collection of classic Jingju playscripts) 528 Jingdiao 京調 (Capital tunes); refers to Jingju and other Beijing theater genres 21– 22, 74, 75n, 180, 230n, 317n, 345–46, 533 Jinghu 京胡 (spike fiddle); lead melodic instrument of Jingju 526n, 540; amateur player of 539–40; verbal imitation during shuoxi 576–77n. See also Huqin Jingjiao 凈腳 133 Jingju and/as literature IX, IXn, 208–209, 524; vulgar and ungrammatical (culi bu tong 粗俚不通) 362, 509, 556. See also Pihuang wenxue yanjiu, Qingdai Jingju wenxue shi Jingju as a term in English; capitalize or not 2n; ways of referring to it in English 1–5 Jingju changqiang xiezuo 京劇唱腔寫作 (Composing Jingju aria music) 516n Jingju changtan 京劇長談 (Extended talks on Jingju) 134, 164n, 267, 269–70, 278 Jingju chuantong juben huibian 京劇傳 統劇本彙編 (Collected traditional Jingju playscripts) 212n, 418, 480; censorship in 418n; continuation/ sequel volumes 480, 548; organized by historical setting 532n Jingju congkan 京劇叢刊 (Collectanea of Jingju plays) 435, 472, 480, 514n, 538n; plays revised so could be performed according to PRC standards 418 Jingju Da Tan Er yanchu ben 京劇大探二 演出本 (Performance version of Da baoguo, Tan huangling, and Er jingong) 524n Jingju dajia jueyi lu 京劇大家絕藝錄 (A record of the unparalleled art of masters of Jingju) 578–79n

Index Jingju diangu 京劇典故 (Classical allusions in Jingju) 529n Jingju dianying gongcheng 京劇電影工程 (Project to produce Jingju movies)  583–84n; accompanying books 584n Jingju gechang ju 京劇歌唱劇 (play with Jingju singing) 522n Jingju huadan biaoyan yishu 京劇花旦表 演藝術 (The performance art of the huadan role in Jingju) 578n Jingju huibian 京劇彙編 (Collected Jingju scripts) 122n, 204n, 212n, 435, 471–72, 480, 532n; censorship of superstitious material 390n, 411n. Reprinted as Jingju chuantong juben huibian Jingju in the classroom; in Chinese language textbooks 61n; in English 49–50; in foreign languages XIVn; in the Jingju enters the classroom program in the PRC 61, 480 Jingju jiaoxiang jushi 京劇交響劇詩 (Jingju symphonic dramatic poem) 523 Jingju jingdian pindu 京劇經典品讀 (Connoisseurial reading of classic Jingju plays) 571–72; contains both stage and studio photographs 572; photo captions can include dialogue from the play 572n; low priced and subsidized 572 Jingju juben bianzhuan lilun yu shiwu 京劇劇本編撰理論與實務 (The theory and practice of writing Jingju plays) 521n Jingju jumu chutan 京劇劇目初探 (A preliminary investigation of the repertoire of Jingju) 96n, 100–101, 170–71, 590n Jingju jumu cidian 京劇劇目辭典 (Dictionary of the repertoire of Jingju) 96n, 99n, 100–102, 170–71, 590n Jingju jumu gailan 京劇劇目概覽 (An overview of the repertoire of Jingju) 105, 154–55 Jingju jumu kaolüe 京劇劇目考略 (Brief research on the repertoire of Jingju) 103n Jingju jumu liupai huicui 京劇流派劇目 薈萃 (Distinguished assemblage

741 of plays representative of different liupai) 532n, 545n, 549n Jingju lishi wenxian huibian: Minguo juan 京 劇歷史文獻彙編: 民國卷 (Collected historical material on Jingju; Republican era section) 587n Jingju playscripts 522–23; importance of IX; without arias 3n; literati input increase over time 212–13, 396–97; literati playwrights use allusion too much 249; progressively larger amounts of information included XIV; documentation of alternatives in notes or appendices 528n Jingju playwrights; types XII; anonymous at the beginning 211; literati who were amateur actors, Chen Moxiang and Weng Ouhong XVII; in Republican era write for one star or many stars XIV Jingju qupu jicheng 京劇曲譜集成 (Compendium of Jingju plays with musical notation) 411n; censor (by quarantining) superstitious content 411n Jingju wenhua cidian 京劇文化詞典 (Dictionary for Jingju culture) 105, 154–55 Jingju xiao cidian 京劇小辭典 (Little dictionary of Jingju) 105, 154–55 Jingju xuanbian 京劇選編 (Collected Jingju plays) 480, 529n, 549, 575 Jingju yin pei xiang jingcui 中國京劇音配像 精粹 (Selected Chinese Jingju bodysynched plays) 61n, 581n Jingju Zaixiang Liu Luoguo 京劇宰相劉 羅鍋 (The Jingju Prime Minister Hunchback Liu) 548–49; as product of cooperation between freelance playwrights and actors of multiple Jingju companies 478–79 Jingju zhishi shouce 京劇知識手冊 (Manual of Jingju knowledge) 105, 154–55; expanded edition 105, 154–55 Jingju, alternate names; over time IXn, 1–95; Huidiao 16, 16n; erhuang 16, 18; huangqiang and erhuang qiang 18n; luantan 17; pihuang 18

742 Jingju, fanatics (ximi 戲迷) 63n, 71n, 91–94, 174–75n; demand fixity of playscripts 204; focus more on the arias 206n Jingju, history of; Republican era competition among stars and new plays XII–III, 201; plays for stars written in response to other star’s plays XIII; rising status of it and its actors IX; history of 1–50; use of multiple singing styles (shengqiang) 15–16; minor musical systems besides xipi and erhuang 19; influence of Hanju 19, 39–40; the three phonetic systems of Jingju stage pronunciation 19–20; Handiao and the change from dizi to huqin as the main accompanying musical instrument 20; idea that people in Beijing did not use Jingxi or Pingxi to refer to Jingju 20n; the term Jingju first used in Shanghai 21; Jingdiao used to refer to Jingju and other Beijing theater genres 21–22; Pingxi/Pingju used as alternate terms for Jingju after the name of Beijing was changed to Beiping and continued to be used in Taiwan 22; troupes call themselves Jingju late 22; first unit to have term for Jingju in its title 22–23; first Shanghai troupe to use Jingju in its name 23; increasingly elite audience 24; prime example of “old plays” to reformers 24; Qi Rushan’s principles for 28; principle of economy 28n; historical inaccuracies in 55, 55n, 56, 56n; influence on Western theater 48–49; influence on Hollywood cinema 49 Jingju, nature of; most influential xiqu genre IX; boom in publishing on XI; audiences for IXn; aural versus visual elements IXn; a local genre that borrowed from other genres and became a national genre XII, 2, 18–19, 30, 42–44, 50, 50n; maturation in the 19th century XII; and classical Chinese theater XII, 98; golden age in the Republican period XII; early

Index names stressed musical aspects 4; as primarily urban product 23, 50; falls between rarified and literary tradition of Kunqu and coarser more emotional bangzi 23, 396n; bangzi actors switched to performing Jingju rather than vice versus 24; imperial patronage of Empress Dowager Cixi 24; as opposite of Western theater 28; names for Jingju 30; spread out from Beijing 30–42; represents China in international marketing 50n; paintings of scenes held in the palace 66n; periodicals 79; as good for your health 91–92; memorabilia 93–94n; music 191; taken as model during theater reform movement 471n Jingju, present state decline in performance revenue 47–48 general decline 93 Jingju, teaching methods personal and hands on instruction by teacher and replacement of traditional teaching methods by new media XIV; teach full plays and not just roles 164n (Wang Hongshou) 271n, (Xiao Changhua); use of texts 205, 213n, 419n, 306n; Yu Zhi has old actors teach young boys to perform his plays 239n Jingju­ology (Jingju xue 京劇學) 427 Jingli chuisheng ke 鏡裡吹笙客 (The guest who plays the mouth organ in the mirror), wrote preface to Xikao 355–57, 397 Jingpai Jingju 京派京劇. See Beijing-style of Jingju Jingqiang 京腔; developed in Beijing from Yiyang 16; role-type system 135n Jingua ji 進瓜記 (Offering melons) 168n Jinguo ji 巾幗集 (Collected female heroes) 58n Jingxi gongche zhinan 京戲工尺指南 (A guide to the gongche musical notation system for Jingju) 387n Jingxi 京戲, alternate name for Jingju 4n, 20n

Index Jinhui 禁毀 (prohibit and destroy) 444n Jinqian bao 金錢豹 (Gold-cash panther) 412n Jinshan si 金山寺 (Jinshan temple) 167n Jinsuo ji 金鎖記 (The golden locket), adaptation of Dou E yuan in which Dou E does not die 494n Jinsuo ji 金鎖記 (The golden locket), short story by Zhang Ailing 90n Jinxi huiyan 禁戲匯演 (Combined performance of prohibited plays) 465 Jiqing ju 吉慶劇 (auspicious plays) 142–43 Jishui 吉水 (might be Chen Moxiang) 267–68 Jitai 吉泰, playscript dictator 177n Jiugeng tian 九更天 (The night with nine watches) 158–59n, 407n, 414n Jiuju jicheng 舊劇集成 (Old plays collected) 419n, 524, 534 Jiuju/xi 舊劇/戲 (old plays) 24–26, 75n, 148, 320–21, 339n, 452, 551 Jiulian deng 九蓮燈 (Nine lotus lamp) 175n Jiulong shan 九龍山 (Nine Dragon Mountain) 297n Jixiang hua 吉祥花 (Auspicious flowers) 256–58 Jixiang xi 吉祥戲. See Auspicious plays Jjinzhen 金針 (The golden needle); used to speak of a secret art 354 Jokes (dahun 打諢) 11n Jones, Andrew; on attempts to control radio broadcast content in the Republic 454n Ju/xiping 劇/戲評 (theater reviews) 203, 330–31; and Wuxia Jian’er 372 Jubang 菊榜 (chrysanthemum [actor] rosters) 75, 75–76n; special one to counter dominance of dan actors 284 Juben huang 劇本荒 (playscript famine) 455, 469, 536, 563 Juben kaoshi 劇本考實 (An examination into the facts of the playscript); subheading to some Shenbao “Xikao” column items by Bianbian 325n, 329; signature changes to Erwo 二我 329n

743 Juben 劇本 (Playscripts), periodical 474, 478, 507n, 513, 523n, 562–63; dominated by huaju playwrights  563n; articles on playwriting  513–514n Jubu congkan 菊部叢刊 (Theater collectanea) 425n, 429n Jubu mingtong shenglu 鞠部明僮勝 錄 (Record of winning child actors) 265n Judge Bao 133, 192n, 327, 359n Judge Shi 67n, 289 Juding guanhua 舉鼎觀畫 (Lifting the tripod and looking at the painting) 320n, 352n Juehuo 絕活 (unique skill or talent) 120 Jung, Rosa (Yong Zhujun 雍竹君) 49n Juping xiaoshuo 劇評小說 (theater critic/ review fiction) 76n Jushuo 劇說 (Comments on theater) 236n Juxue yuekan 劇學月刊 (Theater studies monthly) 425; general notice of copyright and performance rights reserved for institute members’ playscripts 434; notice that copyright and performance rights for Chen Moxiang play reserved 434n; instructions for editing playscripts 561–62 Juxue 劇學 424–25; in names of journals, books, articles, publishers, and organizations 12n, 57n, 161–62n, 194n, 196n, 202n, 208n, 264n, 274n, 275n, 276, 280n, 283n, 336n, 351. See also Theater studies Juzhen Tang 聚珍堂; firm closely associated with printing with moveable type 277n Juzhong 劇種 (Chinese indigenous theater traditions) 3, 520; national survey of 471 Kabuki 126n; extract scenes versus full plays 123n Kabuki theater yearly performance records (kabuki nendaiki 歌舞伎年代 記) 106 Kaikou tiao 開口跳, 134

744 Kailuo xi 開鑼戲 (open-gong plays) 143 Kaipian 開篇 (opening pieces) 72 Kan yuchuan 勘玉钏 (Investigating the jade bracelet) 503 Kang Jinbing 抗金兵 (Resisting the Jin troops) 453n Kang Sheng 康生 473 Kang Youwei 康有為 62n Kangxi emperor 10n, 13, 238n; as a big patron of theater 13–14 Kao 考 (research), in titles of works on Chinese theater before Xikao 321–23 kao 靠. See Armor Kaoba laosheng 靠把老生 132 Kaoba xi 靠把戲 (armor-and-weapons plays) 141 Kaoju xue 考據學 (evidentiary research) 258 Kapakas, F. C. 46n Kastan, David Scott; on digitized Shakespeare and use of hyperlinks 584n Kawakami troupe tour of the US 45n Keban 科班 (opera training school) 42n, 51, 164n; Li Shizhong ran opera school 227–28n Kechuan 客串 (acting) 75, 403n Kejia xi 客家戲 (Hakka plays) 462n Kejie 科介 (stage directions) 496 King of female actors (kunling dawang 坤伶 大王), selection by Shuntian shibao readers 78n King of the child actors (tongling dawang 童 伶大王), selection by Shuntian shibao readers 78n King of the world of actors (Lingjie dawang 伶界大王) 64n; selection by newspaper and magazine readers 78; granted and revoked by theater owner 276–77 King of the world of theater ( Jujie dawang 劇 界大王), selection by Shuntian shibao readers 78n King, Michelle 245 Kong Shangren 孔尚任, tried to prevent actors and revisers changing his playscripts 212, 213n; on jokes (dahun 打諢) 11n; work penname into play prologue 223–24

Index Kongcheng ji 空城計 (The ruse of the empty city) 72n, 91, 208n, 278n, 302n, 415n, 590n Kongque dongnan fei 孔雀東南飛 (Southeast Fly the Peacocks) 276, 434–35n, 483n, 493n; objections about not being reformed enough or about the Army or the Nation 503 Kou Zhu 寇珠, 189n Koujue 口訣. See Oral formulas Ku Qinting 哭秦庭 (Crying in the Qin court) 501n Ku zumiao 哭祖廟 (Crying in the imperial shrine) 389–90n, 550n Kuang guli 狂鼓吏 (The mad drummer) 218n, 225n Kuben 庫本 (palace storage or production copy of a playscript) 167n Kuilei dengchang ji 傀儡登場記 (The story of the puppets taking the stage)  77n Kuilei xiezhen ji 傀儡寫真記 (A true portrait of puppets) 558n Kuisheng 奎生 516n Kuixing xian 魁星現 (original title Wenxing xian 文星現; both mean “The apparition of the God of Literature”) 240, 241n Kun Yi 崑弋, theater tradition in Hebei and Beijing that included both Kunqu and Yiyang 10n; related to periodic trimming of the number of actors in the palace 10n; palace playscripts 167n, 169 Kunju 崑劇; modern term for Kunqu as a stage tradition 131 Kunqiang 崑腔 108n; alternate name for Kunqu Kunqu and Jingju 82n, 102, 110n, 166n, 316; easier to understand 329–30n; hybrid Kunqu-Jingju play 523n Kunqu as text-centric 164n, 211–12; criticism for this 212n; use of shenduan pu 193–94, 195n Kunqu baizhong, dashi shuoxi 崑曲百種, 大師說戲 (One hundred pieces of Kunqu, Master performers talk about their scenes) 579

Index Kunqu biaoyan xue 崑曲表演 學 (The discipline of Kunqu performance) 7n, 124n, 163n, 192n Kunqu Chuanxi Suo 崑曲傳習所 (Society for the preservation and practice of Kunqu) 115n, 425n Kunqu shenduan shi pu 崑曲身段試譜 (Experimental shenduan pu for Kunqu) 569n Kunqu yishu dadian 崑曲藝術大典 (Grand compendium of the art of Kunqu) 587n Kunqu zhezi xi, historical settings of 146–47 Kunqu 114–15n, 116, 120n, 268, 274, 320n, 332, 339n, 342n, 354, 356, 366, 383n, 404, 413n, 423n, 425n, 462n, 482, 487n, 494, 506n, 522n, 540n, 586n; as a national drama 5–8, 29n, 31, 72; taken to Beijing by exam takers and officials from Jiangnan 5; patronage by the court in the Ming and Qing dynasties 5, 31, 197n; predominance of romantic stories in 5; literati playwriting input 10; southern versus northern style 10n, 41; loss of popular audience to huabu genres 11; Kunqu items on a program as opportunity to go to the bathroom 11; ordinary people don’t understand it 11; applause and yelling bravo (hecai) not regularly done during performances of Kunqu 11n; Taiping rebellion damage Kunqu because cut off north from south 12; levels of language in Kunqu 12; Qing emperors’ and northerners’ problems with southern dialect on stage 12; considered “feminine” and well-suited to courtesans 12n; one pole of spectrum, second is bangzi, Jingju falls in between 23; rarified and literary tradition 23; woodblock prints 67; difficulty learning 72n; in Pinhua baojian 74; phonograph discography for 87n; repertoire 103; tangzi repertoire 107; personal repertoires 115n; decline in

745 personal repertoires 115; roletype system 130–31, 135, 233n; lantern plays 149; Baiben Zhang manuscripts, some with musical notation 172–73n; as sleep inducing 226n; bangzi adaptations 226–27n; versions of Yu Zhi’s plays 239n; early source for Jingju plays 266; in Xikao 317n; hard to understand 329–30n; Li Huiniang 473–74; and shenduan pu 565–66n, 566, 569n; alternate titles in 590n Labanotation 573n Lady Precious Stream (Wang Baochuan 王寶 川) 64n Laing, Ellen Johnston; on theater in woodblock prints 69n Languan xue 藍關雪 (Snow at Languan) 374n Lanqiao yuchu ji 藍橋玉杵記 (Story of the jade pestle by the blue bridge); paratextual claim that the illustrations can be a guide for performance costuming 209n, 399 Lantern plays (dengxi 燈戲) 76, 120n Lantern riddles (dengmi 燈謎) 73n Lanterns with scenes and actors from theater 69 Lao She 老舍, 561n; tried to persuade writers of new-style poetry (xinshi) to write xiqu playscripts 455n Laochou 老丑 134 Laodan 老旦 (old woman role) 130n, 133, 137–38n, 139, 207n, 328, 369 Laojing 老凈 (old jing) 134 Laosheng xi 老生戲 (laosheng play) 141 Laosheng 老生 (older, mature male role) 19, 33, 36, 42n, 49n, 64, 82n, 89n, 107, 132, 134, 136, 140–41n, 196n, 211n, 245n, 247n, 284n, 291, 299n, 327, 366, 384n, 530n, 450n; role-types that laosheng characters can also be played as 138n; poach hualian roles 139–40; can a laosheng character be bad 330n; oral history 579n

746 Laowai 老外 133 Laoye xi 老爺戲 (His Lordship plays; plays featuring Guan Yu) 151n Larger scale and more complex plays, many with martial and/or historical themes, important in the Anhui troupes’ and Jingju troupes’ repertoire 21 Legan wenhua 樂感文化 (pleasure culture) 156n Leigong xi 累工戲 (strenuous plays) 141 Leixue yingxiong 淚血英雄 (Blood crying hero) 302n Leiyu 雷雨 (Thunderstorm) 452n Lenin, Vladimir 457n Letterpress (qianyin 鉛印) 535n Level of diction; and role-type 132 Lewd plays (yinxi 淫戲) 100n, 158, 236, 238, 385n, 388–89, 397n, 468n, 534n; effects of 53–54; appear in troupe registration playlists 111–12n; manuscript and woodblock versus typeset copies (latter cleaned up a bit) 183; plays against lewd plays 237n; number of plays in Xikao with sexual content 388; concern with acting as opposed to playscript content 389; bans of 449, 470, 471n Li Baishui 李白水 345n, 427n Li Baojia 李寶嘉 63n Li Boyuan 李伯元 284n Li Chongshan 李崇善 580 Li Chunlai 李春來 37n Li Dou 李斗 130n Li Fusheng 李浮生; on Minzhong xiaoshuo xiqu duben 457; on GMD censorship focus on content 460 Li Hongchun 李洪春 267n, 269n; on huashan 134 Li Hui 李慧; on the history of the term zhezi xi 8n Li Huiliang 厲慧良; looked in Xikao to find playscript 407n Li Huiniang 李慧娘 465n, lianhuan hua version 573n; Meng Chao’s version 473–74 Li Jinhui 黎錦暉 294n Li Jintang 李金棠 530n Li Keyong 李克用 139n

Index Li Kui fu jing 李逵負荊 (Li Kui carries thorns) 129 Li Kui tanmu 李逵探母 (Li Kui visits his mother) 507n Li Kui 李逵 129, 507n Li Liangcai 李良才 263n Li Ling bei 李陵碑 (The stele commemorating Li Ling) 326, 410–13 Li Lingxian 李靈仙, playscript dictator 177n Li Liweng quhua 李笠翁曲話 (Li Yu on drama) 8n, 224n, 233n, 492, 512, 544n; and playwriting classes 512n Li Lizhong 李立中 345n Li Ruihuan 李瑞環 61, 119n Li Ruru; on names for Jingju 2n Li Shaochun 李少春 513 Li Shikan 李釋戡 429 Li Shimin yu Wei Zheng 李世民與魏徵 (Li Shimin and Wei Zheng) 478n Li Shizhong 李世忠 178, 227, 227–28n Li Shoushan 李壽山 139n Li Wanchun 李萬春 201n Li Wei 李偉; on Ma Shaobo 444n; on the Yan’an Model 467n Li Xiaochun 李小春 113–14 Li Xiaoping 李小平 522n Li Xinfu 李鑫甫 268n, 500 Li Xiucheng 李秀成 269n Li Yu 李漁 158n, 233n, 498, 504, 512; author of chapters that are thought to be the most practical manual on how to write chuanqi plays 8; urged chuanqi playwrights to write shorter plays 8, 493; turned some of his stories into plays while others are saturated with theater 73, 73–74n; on originality versus revision 95n, 161–62; on Jin Shengtan 224n; tried to enforce his copyright 436; chapters on playwriting published separately 492; Chen Moxiang’s references to 492–93 Li Yu’an 李玉安; expert bachang, worked for Xun Huisheng 495n Li Yuanhong 黎元洪 58 Li Yuru 李玉茹 63n, 507n, 520n, 528n

Index Li Yuru 李豫如 235n; see Li Zhongyu Li Zhongyu 李仲豫 263–66; known for his plays, calligraphy, and painting 263; son of official 264–64; lost post because too interested in Jingju 264; reside with actor 264–65; collaborations 264; in Huoren daxi 264–65; wrote a huapu 265; wrote preface for his huapu but not for his plays 265n Li zhunao 立主腦 (establish the controlling idea) 493, 512n Li Zicheng 李自成 82n, 100n Li Zigui 李紫貴 37n, 40n, 120n, 138, 140n, 189n, 200n, 549n; on mechanical scenery 37n Lian xiangban 憐香伴 (Cherishing the fragrant companion) 158n Liancheng bi 連城璧 (Jade worth a string of cities) 73–74n Liang Juchuan 梁巨川 (personal name Ji 濟) 186, 263n Liang Qichao 梁啟超 51n, 53n, 185, 304; wrote unperfromable plays 551 Liang Shiqiu 梁實秋 460 Liang Shuming 梁漱溟 63n, 186 Liang xia guo 兩下鍋 (two things into the wok at once); term used to describe mixing different singing and performance styles in the same play or performance program 15n Liang Zhangju 梁章鉅 204–205n Liangmen bao 兩門抱 (embraced by two role-type specialties); same role in same play can be played as different role-types 138; not permitted in the palace 138n Liangshi yin 兩世因 (Karma over two generations) 255–63, 544n; only manuscript copy extant 255; paratextual material 255–58, 262; musical mode, aria type, and rhyme-categories specified in table of contents and before scenes 255–56n, 258–59; plot source quoted 256– 58; quanguanchuan 全貫串 in title 256n; authorial defense of filling in what was missing in source 257;

747 leave certain amount of choice in stage directions 259, 261, 262n; stage directions 259–61; stage directions mark end of aria 259; list of roletypes given at beginning of each scene 261; attention to props 261; lack of performance history 263 Liangxiang xi 亮箱戲 (show-off-thecostume-trunks play) 141n Lianhuan hua 連環畫 (connected picture narratives/comics) 80; some use stage photos or film stills to present Jingju plays or films 572–73 Lianhuan ji 連環計 (The interlocking plot) 441n Lianhuan tao 連環套 (The linked plot) 369, 374, 410n Lianpu 臉譜 (face-patterns) 86, 531n, 557; painting of 509; information on in playscripts 567 Liansheng dian 連升店 (Inn of successive promotion) 294n, 408n Liantai ben xi 連臺本戲 (serial plays) 37, 96, 101–102, 106n, 116n, 124–25, 154–55, 161n, 264, 269, 272–73, 290–91, 365–68; episodes in 96; Xixue huikao category 160 Liaozhai zhiyi 聊齋志異 (Strange tales from Liaozhai) 228–29n, 232, 395n Libai liu 禮拜六 (Saturday) 76, 302, 358, 358n, 384, 384n; photo of editorial staff 375 Lighting 176n, 546; gas 35n; electric 35n, 37, 37n; lighting effects 176n Lihua zazhi 梨花雜志 (Pear-Flower Magazine) 557–59 Lihun ji 離魂記 (The departure of the soul), mistake for Huanhun ji 還魂記 (The return of the soul), an alternate title for Mudan ting. See Mudan ting Limao huan taizi 狸貓換太子 (Exchange of a wildcat for the prince) 138n, 189n, 337n Lin Daiyu 林黛玉, courtesan and actress 75n Lin Daiyu 林黛玉, of Honglou meng 377; photo of Mei Lanfang as 399n

748 Lin Shusen 林樹森 140n Lin Wanhong 林萬鴻 344n Lin Yutang 林語堂 54, 91 Lin Zhaohua 林兆華 523n Lines of business of Western opera 126n Ling Shanqing 凌善清 312, 351n Linggong Xueshe 伶工學社 (Academy for Actors) 287; library has copy of Xikao 407n Lingjie dawang 伶界大王 (King of the world of actors) 64n Lingyin 伶隱 (recluse hiding among actors) 283 Lingzi sheng 翎子生 133 Linpei 霖沛, playwright, member of imperial house 283n Lishan 立山, playwright 283n Lishi ju 歷史劇 (historical plays) 154–55, 160n; book version of Hairui baguan subtitle labels the play as 474n. See Xinbian lishi ju Lishi 歷史 (history); Xixue huikao topical category 159 Listen to plays versus watch plays (tingxi/ kanxi 聽戲/看戲) 356; northerners versus southerners 356 Literary inquisitions (wenzi yu 文字獄) 98, 445 Literati input in playwriting 416–17; much for Kunqu and Yiyang but not for huabu 10 Literati playwrights XII, 24, 473–74, 506, 508n; connections with the world of Jingju affect getting their plays into the repertoire XII, 210, 212–13; literati turned actor playwrights XII; not good at writing singable lyrics 186; zaju 216–18; literati-turned-amateuractor playwrights 281–82, 396; literati-turned-professional-actor playwrights 282–88; those able to collaborate with actors more successful 508n Lithographed playscripts 178–82, 536; Shanghai as the center 178–82; tend to copy from each other 178; claim to be associated with a particular actor or troupe 530

Index Lithography 524 Little theater (xiao juchang 小劇場) movement 522, 586 Liu Bilin 劉璧麟 343n Liu Chun 劉純 (a.k.a., Liu Boliang 劉伯 良) 121n Liu Fu 劉復 (a.k.a., Liu Bannong 劉半 農) 174n Liu Gansan 劉趕三 207n, 377n Liu Hongsheng 劉鴻聲/昇 326, 330, 394n Liu Hui 劉輝 73n, 95n Liu Huifen 劉慧芬; on rarely performed (lengmen 冷門) plays in Taiwan  119n Liu Huogong 劉豁公 77n, 286n, 311n, 341n, 343n, 351n, 384, 385n, 420n, 557, 558n; his “Ximi zhi qi” 戲迷之妻 (The opera addict’s wife) 77n; assert copyright and performance rights in journal he edited 440 Liu Juchan shuoxi: Silang [tanmu] 劉菊禪說 戲: 四郎[探母] (Liu Juchan narrates plays: Silang [tanmu]) 542 Liu Juchan 劉菊禪 279, 344n, 541–45 Liu Muyun 劉慕耘 344n, 351n Liu Naichong 劉乃崇; on Chen Moxiang  483n, 488n, 491n Liu San 劉三 (a.k.a., Niu San 牛三 [Niu the Third]) 397n; juren degree, hired to write plays for troupe and specifically for Mei Qiaoling, supported by actors when old, three of his plays still performed 291–92 Liu Shaoqi 劉少奇 472 Liu Shouhe 劉守鶴 434n, 499n Liu Tianhua 劉天華 191n Liu Xianting 劉獻廷 52 Liu Xikui 劉喜奎 57; and Cao Kun 58; play about 58n; fiction about 76, 76–77n; selected king of the actresses 78n Liu Xinwu 劉心武 63n Liu Xiu 劉秀 56n Liu Yansheng 劉雁聲 342n Liu Yazi 柳亞子 358n Liu Yi chuanshu 柳毅傳書 (Liu Yi delivers a letter), source for a play 558n Liu Yingchun 柳迎春 562n

Index Liu Yizhou 劉藝舟 401n; arrested by Yuan Shikai 450 Liu Yong 劉墉 67n Liu Zengfu shuoxi juben ji 劉曾復說戲劇本 集 (Collection of play texts told by Liu Zengfu) 577 Liu Zengfu 劉曾復 60n; on Xiju yuekan 311n; on difficulty obtaining playscripts 393n; on Xixue huikao 416n; audio recordings and published transcripts of him shuoxi 577 Liu, Siyuan; on impact of Shinpa on Chinese spoken drama 25n; on theater reform as censorship 117n, 469n Liukou 流口 (flowing mouth); dialogue that was not set and could or should be improvised 207n Liupai 流派 (schools of acting) 201, 271n, 273, 286n, 589; and textual variation 206n; number of as measure of health of Jingju 520; playscript collections organized by 532 Liushi zhong qu 六十種曲 (Sixty plays) 220, 220–221n; sequel 532n Liushui ban 流水板 (flowing water meter) 316n Liuyin ji 柳蔭記 (The Shade under the Willows) 276 Live (huo 活) versus dead (si 死) text 206– 207n. See also Liukou, Si gaikou, Huo gaikou, Huoben, Shuici xi, Fangshui Living xikao (huo xikao 活戲考) 408 Liweng Shi’er zhong qu 笠翁十二種曲 (Li Yu’s twelve plays) 525n Lixia he Huiban 里下河徽班; role-type system 135n Liyi 立意 (the motivating intent) 493 Liyuan guan 梨園館 (The theater) 70–71n Liyuan jiahua 梨園佳話 (Notable theatrical anecdotes) 16n, 527n Liyuan jicheng 梨園集成 (Compendium of plays) 178, 207n, 227, 227–28n, 412–13n, 530; includes two Kunqu plays 227n; editing in 529n; organized by historical setting 532n

749 Liyuan waishi 梨園外史, novel on Jingju history 484–85, 501n; often cited as historical source 12n, 20n, 72n, 77n, 136–37n, 139n, 174–75n, 197n, 269–70n, 289n, 431, 486; compared to Guanju shenghuo simiao 484n; as novel based on facts 494n Liyuan yishi 梨園逸史 (The forgotten history of the theater) 541–42n Liyuan yuan 梨園原 (The origins of theater) 195 Liyuan zhoukan 梨園周刊 (Traditional theater weekly) 118 Local elites, sponsor plays 40 Local/regional theater traditions in China (difang xi 地方戲); naming of 2; loss of aspects of specificity under influence of national models and national and regional exhibition performances and new media 469n, 506n; playwrights for local traditions end up writing for more prestigious, national forms 506n, 522; collections of playscripts 534; treat Jingju as 552n Long ma yinyuan 龍馬姻緣 (The marriage affinity between dragon and horse) 235 Longfeng chengxiang 龍鳳呈祥 (Dragon and phoenix present auspicious omens) 366n, 571n Longfeng pei 龍鳳配 (The matching of dragon and phoenix) 366n Longjiang song 龍江頌 (Ode to Dragon River) 476n Longtao 龍套 134 Longtu gong’an/Bao gong’an 龍圖公案/ 包公案 (Lord/Judge Bao’s court cases) 152 Lope de Vega 103 Love stories in Jingju 160n Lowry, Kathyn; on the use of blank spaces instead of punctuation in popular song texts of the Ming and Qing 178n Lu Fang 陸放; given credit for the music for Meng Chao’s Li Huiniang 474n Lü Gongpu 呂公溥 226–27n Lu Jiying 盧繼影 409n

750 Lu Lanchun 露蘭春 64 Lü Meiyu 呂美玉; and cigarette advertising 85 Lü Ruiming 呂瑞明 443n, 513n; published lectures and interviews 579n Lu Shengkui 盧勝奎/魁 177n, 272–72, 282, 291 Lü Tiancheng 呂天成 109, 159n Lu Wenlong 陸文龍; playscript that uses 156 photos to illustrate the stage movements of the eponymous hero 574 Lü Xianlü 呂仙呂 355 Lu Xiaoman 陸小曼 63n Lu Xun 魯迅 54–55, 278n Lu Yingkun 路應昆 and Hai Zhen 海震; on the meaning of luantan 17n; on origins of the xipi and erhuang repertoires 19 Lu Yingkun 路應昆; on factors distinguishing juzhong 5n; on the practice of labeling theater as yabu and huabu as largely restricted to the troupes of the wealthy salt merchants of Yangzhou 9n Lü Yueqiao zhenben Ximi zhuan 呂月樵真本 戲迷傳 (True version of Lü Yueqiao’s Story of an opera addict) 184n Lü Yueqiao 呂月樵 85n, 184n Luantan 亂彈 (lit.: sloppy plucking); new term for Anhui troupe opera, derogatory 16–17; broad usage as a term for any non-yabu type of theater 17; narrow usage as a term for bangzi performance styles 17; alternate term for Jingju 17, 109–110n, 487n, 494n; earliest performance of a play in the palace labeled as luantan, 1825 17; prohibited 23n; category in palace playscripts 167n, 197n; Xikao shukao on 319, 319–20n Lugui bu 錄鬼簿 (Record of ghosts) 109, 215 Luhua dang 蘆花蕩 (Among the reeds) 194n Lun xiaoshuo yu qunzhi zhi guanxi 論小說 與群治之關係 (On fiction and the government of the masses) 51n

Index Lun xiqu 論戲曲 (On traditional theater) 51–52, 551 Luo Baisui 羅百歲 137n Luo Di 洛地; on the term xiqu 3n; on applause and yelling bravo (hecai 喝彩) not regularly done during performances of Kunqu 11n Luo Huaizhen 羅懷臻 516n, 517; playwright for local tradition who ended up writing for more prestigious, national forms 506n, 522 Luo Sihu 羅四虎 (Luo Sihu; a.k.a., Jingzhou cheng 景州城 [Jingzhou City]) 331n Luo Yinggong 罗瘿公 235, 235n, 274n, 431n; and xianggong 487n; lack performance experience 501n; Chen Moxiang called him a xi mangzi 502; closeness of relationship to Cheng Yanqiu 502n; not interested in true collaboration with actors 503 Luocha haishi 羅剎海市 (The rakshasas and the sea market) 232 Luogu dianzi 鑼鼓點子 (percussion patterns) 191–92 Luogu jing 鑼鼓經 (onomatopoeic system for vocally reproducing the sounds of the percussion orchestra) 192; use in shuoxi audio recordings 576–77n Luogu 鑼鼓 (percussion) 75n Luoyang qiao 洛陽橋 (Luoyang Bridge) 120n, 200n Luoyue 落月 (Setting moon) 78, 89n Lüxing Jingju 旅行京劇 (tourist Peking opera). See Tourist Peking opera Lyceum Theatre (Lanxin xiyuan 蘭心戲 院) 38n, 422n Ma Fulu 馬富祿 139 Ma Haili, on financial stresses on Yueju in Shanghai 477n Ma He 馬何; playscript dictator 177n Ma Ke 馬科 478n Ma Lianliang 馬連良 113, 125n, 414n, 441n, 561n; and Hai Rui baguan  473n; edition of performance versions of his plays 525n; shuoxi audio recording 576–77n

Index Ma Shaobo 馬少波; administrator and playwright 518; copyright infringement case 443–44 Ma Su 馬謖 76, 365n Ma Xinyi 馬新貽 148 Ma Yi jiu zhu 馬義救主 (Ma Yi saves his master) 414n Ma Zhiyuan 馬智遠 216 Macartney, Lord; palace plays (tributary drama) performed for 8n Macbeth; adapted for Jingju 140–41n Machine-operated scenery ( jiguan bujing 機 關布景) 37, 149, 260n Mackerras, Colin; on the birth date of Jingju 14n; on the importance of the civil versus martial distinction in the repertoire of Jingju 142n Mai yanzhi 賣胭脂 (Selling rouge) 158n, 378n Maicheng shengtian 麥城升天 (The ascension to heaven at Maicheng) 120n Mainstream practice (dalu 大路) 526n Male performers of female roles (nandan 男 旦) 79 Male prostitution and Jingju 32, 183 Man erliu 慢二六 (slow two-six meter) 259 Manchu Jingju actors 42n, 283n Manchu playwrights 282–83 Manchukuo 460; Jingju in 41–42 Manchuria, Jingju in 41–42 Manchus 144–45 Mandarin duck and butterfly fiction 303, 303–304n, 311n Manjiang hong 滿江紅 (Whole river red) 443, 465n Manuscript Jingju playscripts 165–77, 229n, 530; dated copies 175; annotations concerning collation and editing 175; evaluative comments rare 176; annotations as to when copied and how 176; lots of blank space and good calligraphy 176; some provide pronunciation glosses 176, 175n, 258n, 261–62; extra information added at time copied or later 176; early literati play only extant in 255

751 Manuscript playscripts 101n, 165–77; choice and improvisation in XV, XVn, 259, 528; once written on scrolls 143; collections of 165–66; versus print copies of chuanqi and Jingju 165–66n; imitate print 168n Mao Jin 毛晉 220 Mao Lun 毛綸 and Mao Zonggang 毛宗崗 Sanguo yanyi commentary 378n, 380n Mao Zedong 毛澤東 59–60, 466, 472, 472–73n, 476; and Xikao 295n Mao’er xi 帽兒戲 (cap plays) 143 Mao’er xi 毛兒戲. See All-female troupes Maojing 毛凈, 133 Maqian poshui 馬前潑水 (Spilling water in front of the horse) 550–51n Marco Polo Bridge Incident 510 Marginal notes; Chen Moxiang says should be left out of playscripts 496 Mark, Lindy Li 74n Martial plays (wuxi 武戲) 11n, 34, 37, 40, 67, 142–43, 154–55, 165, 188, 510, 536; and Anhui troupes 15; quick changes of scene in 188; hard for amateurs to perform 501; and qingyin zhuo 509 Martial troupes (wuban 武班) 204n Marx Brothers 157n Marx, Karl 466 Masks of commedia del’arte 126n Masks; in Jingju 136n Masks; of theater characters, to play with 70n Mass culture in China 73n Master script (zongjiang 總講, zonggang 總 綱, zongben 總本, quanchuanguan 全串貫, quanguanchuan 全貫 串) 122n, 163, 164n, 242n, 256n, 266n, 277, 577n; keeper of 163–64n; not circulated 267 Match text to music 267 Matsuura Tsuneo 松浦恆雄; on Xikao 298n, 315n, 332–33n, 373n, 375–76, 386; on Minzhong xiaoshuo xiqu duben and revision in it 457– 59n, 527–28n; on tekan 553n Maturity; and role-type 132 May Fourth, Movement 26; activists 86

752 McGann, Jerome; on playscripts as products of collective effort 395n McLaren and Zhang; on the textualization of folk epics in China XVIIn Media; Jingju circulation in 42, 65–90 Mei jiang xue 梅降雪 (Plum falling snow) 318n Mei Lanfang Cigarettes 84–85 Mei Lanfang gequ pu 梅蘭芳歌曲譜 (Selections from the repertoire of operatic songs and terpsichorean melodies of Mei Lanfang [original English title]) 191n Mei Lanfang Jinian Guan 梅蘭芳紀 念館 (Mei Lanfang Memorial Museum) 535n Mei Lanfang yanchu juben huibian 梅 蘭芳演出劇本彙編 (Collection of Mei Lanfang performance playscripts) 535 Mei Lanfang 梅蘭芳 (labeled as a Jingju jiaoxiang jushi 京劇交響劇詩 [Jingju symphonic dramatic poem]) 523 Mei Lanfang 梅蘭芳, 1994 TV miniseries 84n Mei Lanfang 梅蘭芳, novel by Mu Rugai 77n Mei Lanfang 梅蘭芳 60n, 63n, 110n, 143n, 155, 177n, 199–200n, 274, 275n, 277, 295n, 305, 306n, 312, 320n, 341, 342n, 364, 393n, 396–397, 416, 416–17n, 419, 425n, 433–34n, 440, 450–51, 453n, 469– 70, 488, 488–89n, 528n, 535, 539n, 540, 542n, 557–58n, 561, 576n, 591; influence of Shanghai on 26n; and shizhuang xi (modern clothing plays) 27–28n; and dance in Jingju and his US tour 28n; and Wuhan 40n; and his helpers criticized for not being conversant with modern Western stagecraft and having such bad taste in scenery and lighting 46n; and Du Yuesheng 64; and Meng Xiaodong 64; fiction about 76, 76–77n; selected king of world of theater 78n; and photograpy 80n, 81–82n; filmed by Paramount Pictures 82n; his voice used for Genü

Index Hong mudan 83n; regrets about the films he made 83n; written testimony for ads 84n; and cigarette cards 85n; personal repertoire 114– 15; and Kunqu 114n, 317n; fanchuan performance 137n; cross role-type boundaries 139–40; on theater as entertainment 157n, 450; collector of playscript manuscripts 166n; and use of plot abstracts 200–201n; in Xikao 367; on authorship of Daiyu zanghua 397n; shukao mention photo of him as Daiyu 399n; and ticket prices 428; Tiannü sanhua performance rights case 428–29; authorship of Tiannü sanhua 429n; authorship of Tongnü zhan she  430–31; advisor to journal 441n; special issue on in journal 440; Qi Rushan reluctant to meet with him and communicate by letter instead 487n; play about him 523; edition of performance versions of his plays 525n; playscripts printed for 1924 Hong Kong tour 532n; audio recording of Bawang bie ji 548; introduction and poems for Wang Yaoqing xiansheng shuoxi 577–78n Mei Lanfang’s brain trust 52, 145, 429n. See also Qi Rushan, Li Shikan Mei Lanfang’s tours outside China; Japan (1919 and 1924), the U.S. (1930), and the Soviet Union (1935) 28n, 45–46, 82n; first Hong Kong tour (1922) 40n, 532n; preparations for the US tour 45n, 46, 196n; Vice-President meets Mei on US tour 47; musical scores prepared for US tour 191; Japan tours 428n Mei Qiaoling 梅巧玲 113, 140n, 280–81, 292, 377n Mei xun 梅訊 (News of Mei Lanfang) 552 Mei Yutian 梅雨田 416 Meilong zhen 梅龍鎮 (Meilong Town) 295n Melodrama 156 Meng Chao 孟超 473–74 Meng Xiaodong 孟小冬 522n Meng Xiaodong 孟小冬 64

Index Meng Yao 孟瑤 314n Mengchu 蒙初 374n Mengheng 夢蘅 440 Meter; main and subsidiary beats (ban 板vs. yan 眼) 191n, 259; Jingju and Kunqu arias divided between metered and meterless 191 Metropolitan Opera simulcasts 90n Metropolitanization (dushi hua 都市 化) 50 Meyerbeer, Giacomo Meyerbeer 162n Mi Xizi 米喜子 269n, 484 Miao Huaiming 苗懷明; on the Prince Che collection not being performance scripts 170 Miben 秘本 (secret/private copy) 122n, 181n, 182, 246n, 279n, 343n, 344–46, 349n, 392–93, 394n, 409n, 415n, 416, 433n, 441n, 507n, 533n, 542n Microphones; body mikes 545 Mikado, The 546n Mile xiao 彌勒笑 (The Maitreya Buddha’s laugh) 226–27n Military scenes; playwright can leave details to actors 495 Miller, Arthur; attempts to enforce control of performance of his plays XVIIn Mimeograph (youyin 油印) 535n Mimeographed (youyin 油印) copies of playscripts used in teaching and by actors 530, 530n, 535n Ming dynasty theater; written record dominated by elite connoisseurs and playwrights 5; fictional representations as counter-balance to literati-centric accounts 5–6n Ming Qing chuanqi zonglu 明清傳奇總錄 (Complete record of Ming and Qing chuanqi plays) 222 Ming Qing funü xiqu ji 明清婦女戲曲集 (Collected xiqu plays by women of the Ming and Qing dynasties) 221n Ming Qing funü zhi xiqu chuangzuo yu piping 明清婦女之戲曲創作與批 評 (Playwriting and play criticism by women of the Ming and Qing dynasties) 221n

753 Mingchang 明場; onstage treatment of material 496 Minghuang 明皇, Emperor 129, 359 Minguo shiqi qikan quanwen shuju ku (1911–1949) 民國時期期刊全文數據 庫 (1911–1949) (Full text database of Republican-era periodicals [1911–1949]) 4n, 21n, 279n, 375n, 423n, 550n, 557n, Minjian xiqu de qingjie ji zuozhe 民間戲曲 的清節及作者 (Plots of commercial Chinese indigenous theater plays and their authors) 268n, 292n Minzhong xiaoshuo xiqu duben 民眾小 說戲曲讀本 (Readers in fictionstyle of Chinese indigenous theater for the masses) 125–26, 457–59, 526–528, 536; content labels 125– 26, 526–27; extended plot summaries written in traditional fictional form include dialogue 526–27; underlines personal names and places 527; cultural notes 527; revision in 458, 458–59n; inclusion of general comments (Zongping” 總評) for each play that can be very patriotic 459 Minzhong 民眾 (popular); in book titles 458n. See also Minzhong xiaoshuo xiqu duben Minzu ju 民族劇 (nationality plays); Minzhong xiaoshuo xiqu duben content category 126 Minzu shibie 民族識別 (ethnic classification) 4, 471 Minzu xingshi 民族形式 (traditional Chinese forms) 466–67, 467n Mixed-sex troupes; bans on 34n, Xikao shukao on 391 Mixing multiple performance traditions (juzhong) or singing styles (shengqiang) in the same plays or performances 15, 23; known as feng jiao xue 風攪雪 (wind mixed with snowflakes) or liang xia guo 兩下鍋(two things into the wok at once) 15n

754 Mo 末 (secondary male role who opens the play and also serves as the troupe’s leader) 130, 133–34, 219 Model revolutionary opera. See Yangban xi Modengjia nü 摩登伽女 (Matanga girl) 161n Modern plays 114n, 148, 154–55, 472 Monkey King Looks West, The 44n Monkey King, The 49n, 57, 152 Moqi 默契 (Secret/non-verbal connections/ agreement) 505n Moule, W. A. H. (Mu Yueli 慕悅理) 422 Mount revision of play to mock political rival 57 Movable type printed playscripts 177n, 178, 182–83 Movement notation 192–96; detailed notation needed most for palace performance and Kunqu 192–93; for Jingju 565–68, 566n; 3D animation 566n; include musical notation (shen gong pu) 566n; 3D editions 567; flipbook 573n Movements are restrained or not; and role-type 132 Mu Guiying guashuai 穆桂英掛帥 (Mu Guiying takes command) 571n Mu Rugai 穆儒丐 77n Mu 幕 (act) 188, 189n Mubiao xi 幕表戲 (scene outline plays; scenario plays) 37–38, 199–201, 480, 481n; return of 586n Mudan ting 牡丹亭 (The peony pavilion) 125n, 231–32; “complete version” performed at Lincoln Center that took more than eighteen hours 7n; song-suites in 187n; need for annotation 529 Mulan cong jun 木蘭從軍 (Mulan joins the army); received Republican era governmental award 448n Mulian jiu mu 目蓮救母 (Mulian saves his mother) 325n Mulian 目蓮 124n, 168n Multi-color playscripts; palace produced, both manuscript and printed 168n; some kept in emperor’s private quarters 168n

Index Multiple actors play the same character in a play 130n Musical Dimension of Chinese Traditional Theatre: An Analysis from Computer Aided Methodology, The 583 Musical mode 9; erhuang versus xipi indicated in table of contents and playscript 255–56n; Chen Moxiang says leave up to actors 495 Musical notation 165, 189–92, 275–276, 441n, 454n, 525n, 526, 536, 539–41, 548, 556–67, 575, 580; Erhuang xunsheng pu 二黃尋聲譜 (Scores for seeking out the sounds of Jingju) 89n; palace Jingju playscripts typically lack 167n; what appears in palace Jingju playscripts is removed for andian ben 167n, 192n; manuscripts can have 173; musicians generally not literate in 189; prejudice against rely on during performance 189n; Western notation not commonly used 191n; include in playscript 248–49, 475n, 547; difficult to typeset 541n; shenduan pu can have 566; in Jingju playscripts 575; micronotes 575; separate line of notation for the Jinghu 575; notation of guomen 575; compared to Western notation 575; growth of size of orchestra and use of notation during performance require conductors 585n. See Gongche, Jianpu, Wuxian pu Music-drama; as an English term for xiqu 3 Muyang ji 牧羊記 (Herding sheep) 558n Muyang juan 牧羊卷 (Enclosure for penning in sheep) 558n Muyou sheng 慕優生 76 Nakasawa Kikuya 長澤規矩也 181n Nan dao nü chang 男盜女娼 (May your sons become brigands, your daughters become prostitutes); threat against borrowers 175n Nan zhong fu 難中福 (Good luck in the midst of bad) 241–42n

Index Nandan 男旦 (male performers of female roles) 79, 439n Nanfu 南府, palace theater organization  17 Nanjing decade (1927–1937) 58–59 Nanjing Zhonghua Xiqu Yinyue Yuan Beiping Yanjiu Suo 南京中華戲 曲音樂院北平研究所 (Nanjing Chinese indigenous theater music research academy, Beiping research institute) 275, 425, 458n, 487–88 Nanjing, capital of the Republic from 1928–1949 22 Nanqu 南曲 (southern-style arias); encompass nanxi and chuanqi 6 Nanshe 南社 (Southern society) 358n, 375, 376n Nantian men 南天門 (South gate of heaven) 399n, 459, 559 Nanwang de jiyi: Zhongguo Jingju yuan yishu jia koushu shi 難忘的記憶: 中 國京劇院藝術家口述史 (Hard to forget memories: An oral history of Zhongguo Jingju Yuan) 520–21n Nanxi 南戲 (lit.: southern plays) 7n, 160–61n; repertoire 97; structure and role-type system 129; from nanxi to chuanqi scene division moves from stage clearing based to content based 188n Nao gongtang 鬧公堂 (Causing an uproar in the court); xiangsheng routine 72n Nao tiangong 鬧天宮 (Causing an uproar in the heavenly palace) 369n Naochang 鬧場 (farcical scene) 188n Naoju 鬧劇 (farce) 157 Napoleon 156n Nashou xi 拿手戲 (plays that show off special skills or talent) 120 Nashuying qupu 納書楹曲譜 (Musical notations from Nashuying) 212n, 415n National drama; desire for a national drama in China XVII; prior to Jingju 5; Kunqu as a national drama 5–8; definition of a national drama 5n; Qi Rushan promotion of Jingju as 26– 30; Jingju as XVII, 1, 26–30

755 Nationalists. See Guomingdang Nationalization of theater troupes 3, 43, 470–71 Natong 那桐 277n, 428n Negative educational material (fanmian jiaocai 反面教材) 476 Neixue 內學; eunuch palace actors 17 Nengpai xi 能派戲 (show-off-ability play) 157n Nengren si 能仁寺 (Nengren Temple)  264n New media; can record more but can also distort 576; less likely to be addressed only to one’s disciple(s) 576 New Period (Xin shiqi 新時期) 467 Newspapers 65; and actor rosters 76n New-style plays (xinju/xi 新劇/戲) 24–26, 75n, 148, 320–21, 327n, 330n, 404, 551; huaju and wenming xi as examples 25; versus old plays and Xikao 320–21 New-style theaters; Xin Wutai 新舞臺 (The New Stage) 37n, 38 Niangong xi 念工戲 (plays that stress dialogue) 141n Nianhua 年畫 (New Year’s prints). See Woodblock prints Ningbo Kongcheng ji 寧波空城計 (Ningbostyle Ruse of the empty city) 72n Ningwu guan 寧武關 (Ningwu Pass) 317n Niren Zhang 泥人張 (Clay Figurine Zhang) 69 Niu Biao 鈕驃; on the repertoire of Jingju 102–103; on suppression of adlibbing 203n Niu Zihou yu Fuliancheng 牛子厚與富連成 (Niu Zihou and Fuliancheng), 1996 TV miniseries 84n Niu Zihou 牛子厚 84n Nonverbal; importance of 211n Northern ethnic groups 145 Northern Expedition (Beifa 北伐) 58 Northerners versus southerners 356 Notes on Flower Appreciation in the Phoenix City: Xiangxi yuyin 香溪魚隱, Fengcheng pinhua ji 鳳城品花 記 81n, 298n

756 Nü qijie 女起解 (Transporting the female prisoner) 188n, 324n. See also Su San qijie Nüling Liu Xikui zhi zhanshi 女伶劉喜奎之 戰史 (The battle history of the actress Liu Xikui) 76n Nüzi aiguo 女子愛國 (Women who are patriotic) 186n, 445n O’Neill, Eugene 440n Officials and the pleasure quarters 6n Offstage choruses (bangqiang 幫腔) 16 Okajima Kanzen 岡島冠山 262n Ōkura Kihachirō 大倉喜八郎 428n Old plays. See Jiuju/xi Oldrecords.xikao.com 87–88n, 279n, 550n On the Revolution in Peking Opera (Tan Jingju geming 談京劇革命) 54n, 472 One actor play multiple roles; in different plays in same program 140; in same play 125n; because the troupe is small 130; to prove capability 140 Onstage versus offstage 496 Opening pieces (kaipian 開篇) 72 Opera schools; Li Shizhong ran opera school 227–28n; modern opera schools 205, 403n. See also Keban, Zhonghua Xixiao, Fuxing Juxiao Opera; speaking of Jingju as opera 2–3 Oral epics and folk songs XVn Oral formulas 194–95, kept secret 195n Oral history of Jingju 520–21n, 578–79; and video recordings of interviews  578–79. See also Nanwang de jiyi, Tanxi shuoxi, Jingju dajia jueyi lu, Kunqu baizhong, dashi shuoxi Oral performing literature; spread of Jingju through 65, 70–73; phonograph discography for 87n Oral playscripts 199n. See also Dingxian yangge Oral transmission 213n. See also Dictation Orchestra, Jingju; size of 92 Ordinary dress (bianyi 便衣) 262n Organized crime; and Jingju 63–65 Ouhong shi bianju zhaji 偶虹室編劇劄記 (Notes on playwriting from Ouhong Studio) 505n

Index Ouyang Yuqian 歐陽予倩 112n, 139, 396, 407n, 415, 539n; grandson of prefect 284; studied in Japan and translated Japanese theater items 284; plays and collected works published 284n; plays not always completely written out 286; complained about what actors did to his plays 429n; collaborative authorship of Daiyu zanghua 557–58n Own plays (benxi 本戲) 115n Pai 排 (rehearsal) 167n Paichang 排場 (palace playscripts with lots of stage directions and other production information and a focus on tableaus) 167n, 192, 192–93n; play structure 10n; stage blocking 187n Paihao jiaose 派好脚色, pick role-types for characters 497 Paiji 牌記 437n Paixi 排戲; director 385; stage plays 495 Paiyan quan 排演權 (performance rights) 439, 441n Palace abstracts; notation of running times 167n, 242n, 247n Palace costume plots. See Chuandai tigang Palace lantern plays 149 Palace playscripts; types 167–68; collections of manuscript playscripts 165; printed 167–68; patterns of revision in multiple copies of same play 167n; as source of scripts to revise 432; serial plays 548–49; adapt serial plays for pihuang 548; circulation and influence outside the palace 168–69. See Andian ben, Kuben, Paichang, Chuantou Palace theater organizations; Nanfu 南 府 and the Shengpingshu 昇平 署 17, 169n; false claim that a play was a miben from the Nanfu 507n; publication of playscripts said to be from the Nanfu 533n Palace theater; greater resources of 8; three-tiered stages 8; big productions 8n; performances

Index for foreigners 8n; performers and teachers brought in from outside (waixue 外學) 17; earliest performance of a play in the palace labeled as luantan 17; Cixi organized her own troupe of eunuch performers 17, 169n; individual performers and entire troupes brought in from outside 17; performance lists/records 109–10; performance of specific Jingju plays 110, 201n, 235, 242; outside performers present list of plays can perform 111–12; palace troupe playlists 111, 111–12n; liangmen bao not permitted in palace 138n; copies of playscripts demanded before performance 166; focus on spoken text versus stage directions 166–67; Ming palace also demand 166n; emperors and empress dowagers consulted manuscripts of the plays during performance, and could enforce sticking to the playscript or demand changes 167, 202–203n; after Puyi abdication 42n; palace performances put on by eunuchs (neixue 內學) 169n; quality of 487n Palace visual arts; concerning Jingju 65–66 Palm puppet plays (zhangzhong xi 掌中 戲) 116 Pan Jingfu 潘鏡芙; co-author of novel on theater 12n, 77n; Tongsu Jiaoyu Yanjiu Hui playwright 431, 431–32n; relationship to Chen Moxiang 501n; loves xiqu but does not understand it, needs actors to revise his plays 501n Pan Xiafeng 潘俠鳳 485, 534n Pan Yueqiao 潘月樵 39n, 113, 400–401n Panchang dazhan 盤腸大戰 (Battling fiercely with intestines wrapped around) 248 Pang, Laikwan; on authorship versus ownership in the PRC 442n Panhe zhan 盤河戰 (Battle at the Pan River) 297n Pantomime 536

757 Pao matou 跑碼頭 (do the wharf circuit) 42n Paodai chou 袍帶丑 134 Paramount Pictures 82n Paratextual material in playscripts 525n, 526, 541, 545; preface and fanli for palace serial plays 168n; authorial prefaces for chuanqi plays 224; authorial preface and commemorative piece in literati authored bangzi playscript 227n; publishers’ prefaces 228n; in Jile shijie 228n, 230–34; in Shuji tang jinyue 228; in Cuo zhong cuo 251–53; in Liangshi yin 255–58, 262; authorial preface for Shi gong’an xinzhuan 290; chuanqi prologues as prefaces 396n; rarity for Jingju playscripts 396n; in book editions of Hairui baguan and Meng Chao’s Li Huiniang 474n; Xun Huisheng write prefaces to his plays when published as anthology 484n; in Yantai jucui 539; Liu Juchan’s edition of Silang tanmu 539; extended introduction to Jingju in Jingju baibu 547; in Xikao 567; in Zhongguo Jingju liupai jumu jicheng 567 Paris Opéra, The 458n Parlors (tangzi 堂子); private residences of Anhui troupe and Jingju actors that trained disciples to perform and engage in the secondary occupation of serving wine and waiting on patrons in the parlors and restaurants 21, 107, 111, 487n; the disciples who attended tangzi patrons serving wine and other services tended to be performers of female roles 21n; banned in the Republic 32, 183; residence names (tangming 堂名) 107; playlists for 107; training and written playscripts 213n Parts of playscripts that circulated separately 196–201 Peasants 466; disparagement in traditional Jingju 467 Peking opera as a way to refer to Jingju 1–2

758 Peking; connotations of 1–2 Pekingese, one of the three phonetic systems of Jingju stage pronunciation 19–20 Peng bei 碰碑 (Bumping the stele) 410–11 Peng Ge 彭歌 78, 89n Peng gong’an 彭公案 (Court cases of Judge Peng) 282n Pengjue 捧角 (supporting actors) 93 Penshui 噴水 (spit water) 260n Percussion (luogu 鑼鼓); keeps things in order 75n; accompanies most movement on stage 192; verbal imitation in shuoxi audio recordings 576–77n Percussion notation 171n, 539, 548, 567, 570; in palace Jingju playscripts 167n, 192n, 526n, 547; in Prince Che manuscripts 171n; beat notation 173n; onomatopoeic system 192; rare in early Jingu playscripts 192. See Luogu jing Performability of playscripts 218n, 233–35, 263, 551 Performance or acting editions (of playscripts). See Yanchu ben Performance practice, stabilization through censorship and textualization IX Performance programs; Jingju 96, 97n, 110; palace performance lists/ records 109–10 Performance rights 123, 266, 439–441, 525; proclamation of for plays in periodicals XIII, 439; Arthur Miller and Samuel Beckett attempt to enforce control of performance of their plays XVIIn; requests that other troupes not mount the play 186n, 438; Ouyang Yuqian complain about actors’ changes to his plays 429n; Juxue yuekan general notice of copyright and performance rights reserved for institute members’ playscripts 434, 483n; notice that performance rights for Chen Moxiang play reserved 434n; performance rights reserved to insure quality productions 434; written into

Index law 454; private rights versus public good 563–64 Periodicals with Jingju or its synonynms in their titles 564–65 Periodicals; Jingju and Kunqu playscripts published in XII-III, 184–86, 287, 302n, 420, 431n, 434, 438–42, 474, 507n, 513, 523n, 540n, 542, 549–65; flexibility 549; assertions of copyright and performance rights 439–441, 483n; editor assert copyright and performance rights 440, 500n; newspapers 551– 52; in tekan 553n; paratextual material 554–56; commemorative poem 558n; periodicals that printed many playscripts 561–64. See also Tekan Periodicals; statements of editorial policy 438–40, 439n; right to edit 439; compensation for submission of playscripts 439n; copyright typically transferred to journal 439; reprints need to be labeled 439; submissions can be labeled not permitted to reprint 439; explicit notice of holder of copyright and performance rights 439 Peters, Julie Stone, Theater of the Book 104; as a model XV; on book privileges and theater as copyright holder to playwright 436–37n Phonograph records and players 540n; and spread of Jingju 42, 59, 80, 86–90, 101n, 277n; phonograph recording harm your soul 86–87; counterfeit recordings 86n, 270n, 279n; source of income for actors 87n; played publicly 87, 89–90; intermediaries between actors and recording companies 87–88n, 181; phonograph discographies for xiqu (Jingju is the longest) 87–88n; first complete recording of a play 88; replace live performance 88; simulate private performances 88; books with musical notation for arias on recordings 89n, 165n; recordings

Index of musical accompaniment for arias 89n; learn to sing from recordings 89n; live broadcasts of 90; publication of the texts 201; Wang Hongshou recordings 270; publications with text of recordings (xikao) 294–95, 346–50; playscripts based on phonograph records 306– 307n; difficulty in understanding early recordings 346n; phonograph recording of Bawang bie ji 548; recording technology and changes in playscripts 548n; use of duan to label tracks 550–551n; cache of old records found at Zhongguo Xiqu Xueyuan 578n; using digital recordings to identify counterfeit phonograph recordings 582–83n Photographs; and spread of Jingju 42, 80–82; steals souls 80, 86–87; given out at performances 81; actors give to patrons 81; and the history of Jingju 81; take photo of yourself in Jingju costume 81; of actors (usually in costume) on covers of Republican era typeset playscripts 182, 399n; with multiple images of a person (shen wai shen 身外身) 189– 90n, 401, 404n; in collections of playscripts 334, 397–405; tinting 398; in periodicals 398n; technical aspects 398n; attribution of sources 398n; in front pages of periodicals 403n. See also Illustrations in playscripts Photolithography 524 Photo-reprints of playscripts 534–56. See Gugong bowu yuan cang Qinggong Nanfu Shengpingshu xiben, Fuliancheng cang xiqu shiliao wenxian huikan, Mei Lanfang yanchu juben huibian, Zhongguo jindai difang xiqu juben congkan, Gugong zhenben congkan Pian 篇; measure word or label for segments or scenes 185 Pian, Rulan Chao; on differences between the xipi and erhuang musical modes 19n

759 Piaofang/she 票房/票社. See Amateur Jingju clubs Piaoyou 票友. See Amateur actors Pihuang juben zuozhe caomu 皮黃劇本作 者草目 (A draft list of the authors of pihuang plays) 264n, 268n Pihuang jumu 皮黃劇目 (Catalogue of pihuang plays) 172–73 Pihuang wenxue yanjiu 皮黃文學研究 (Studies in the literature of pihuang; 1936) 18n Pihuang 皮黃 (composed of the second characters of xipi and erhuang) 18; other theater traditions that use pihuang 18n; alternate name for Jingju 109, 163n, 172, 228n, 356, 535n, 540, 556; appear in names of collection of playscripts 534 Pike, Kenneth L. 210n Pinggui bie yao 平貴別窯 (Xue Pinggui says farewell at the kiln) 457n Pinghua 評話; influence on Shen Xiaoqing 289 Pinghua xiaoshuo 平話小說 (storyteller novel); term used by Chen Moxiang to describe his novels 485n Pingju Chubanshe 平劇出版社 542 Pingju huikan 平劇彙刊 (Collection of Jingju playscripts) 427n, 533–34, 552 Pingju ximu huikao 平劇戲目彙考 (Collected research on the Jingju repertoire) 99n, 100, 341n Pingju/xi 評劇/戲 30–31n, 348, 350n, 513n; phonograph discography for 87n; censored for lewdness 452; appear in title of collection of playscripts 534n Pingxi 平戲/Pingju 平劇, alternate terms for Jingju after the name of Beijing was changed to Beiping 20n, 22 Pinhua baojian 品花寶鑒 (Precious mirror for evaluating flowers) 74, 487n Pipa ji 琵琶記 (The lute) 53n, 220, 236n, 244n, 498; and Huizhou merchants 15n; its prologue 498; new performance version 586n Plagiarism (chaoxi 剿襲; fanban 翻 版) 440; between early printed editions 183

760 Play format 187–89; in Western plays 531 Play, definition of 589 Playing cards; use to work out cast of play 289 Plays are not easy to understand 335n, 361–62 Plays to be promoted, guidelines for; in the War of Resistance 457n Plays to send off the audience. See Songke xi Playscript famine. See Juben huang Playscript layout and format conventions in Jingju playscripts; indicating which passages are to be sung in pihuang and which in bangzi 23n, 431n; length 536; aria and dialogue same size while stage directions smaller 228, 243n, 253n, 260; chuanqi-style aria text larger than dialogue text 228n; aria text begins new line 231; stage directions in small characters in brackets 243n, 248; aria and dialogue same size but aria text bold 253; indentation 231n, 247; aria text larger than dialogue 420; font size distinguishes elements of the playscript in Xixue huikao 420n; model on Western spoken drama playscripts 420n; include roletypes 420; include aria types 420; use of new paragraph when speakers change also pointed out in paratextual material 555; comments overwhelm the text despite use of indentation 559 Playscript secrecy 163–64, 213 Playscript source material; identified in playscript. See Jile shijie, Liangshi yin Playscript text claimed to be a famous actor’s 177n, 178–80, 181n; lack of proof 183 Playscript text claimed to be authentic. See Authentic Playscripts as fundamental 162–63 Playscripts containing the words for all of the roles. See Master scripts Playscripts containing the words for only one role. See Single-role scripts Playscripts published before performances; in Europe 339–40

Index Playscripts versus performance 536; playscripts inadequate to transmit play performance 202n, 415 Playscripts, types of 162–96; divided by length 143–44 Playwright attempts to enforce control of performance of their plays; Arthur Miller and Samuel Beckett XVIIn Playwright income 564; in the West  437n Playwright preparation 508–509; watch plays a long time, read many chuanqi plays 292, 496, 501; Wang Jide on 395n; able to sing arias and/or perform plays 496, 501; seen a lot plays, including rare ones 501; read a lot 501; very knowledgeable 501; very experienced 501; compared to shopkeeper collecting stock before opening up store 508–509 Playwright versus actor 473–74 Playwright-officials 252n Playwrights appear in other’s plays 225 Playwrights attached to troupes/in-house playwrights. See Troupe/resident playwrights Playwrights known only by penname 215n, 222 Playwriting and abstracts. See Abstracts, with scenarios or plot information Playwriting and the civil service examinations; claims about zaju 216; many chuanqi authors had highest degree 220–221 Playwriting as trivial or playful 252n, 290, 358 Playwriting in the PRC; revise old plays, create new ones XIV Playwriting, articles on 491n, 514–15n Playwriting, as collective oral enterprise 266–67, 395n Playwriting, books on/manuals of. See Bianju huiyi, Bianju lilun yu jiqiao tanyou, Bianju qianshuo, Jingju changqiang xiezuo, Jingju changqiang xiezuo, Jingju juben bianzhuan lilun yu shiwu, Li Liweng quhua, Weng Ouhong bianju shengya, Xiqu bianju chutan, Xiqu bianju gailun, Xiqu bianju jiqiao qianlun, Xiqu bianju lunji, Xiqu bianju

Index qiantan, Xiqu juben xiezuo jiaocheng, Xiqu juzuo fa jiaocheng, Xiqu juzuo yishu tan, Xiqu xiezuo chuji jiaocheng, Xiqu xiezuo jiaocheng, Xiqu xiezuo lun Playwriting, college degrees in 512 Playwriting, conferences on 516 Playwriting, departments that teach the subject. See Xiqu Wenxue Xi, Xiju Wenxue Xi Playwriting, income from 482, 502, 505, 564. See also Chen Moxiang, Weng Ouhong Playwriting, lectures on 514, 514–15n. See also Chen Moxiang Playwriting, prizes for 519–20 Playwriting; verbs traditionally used; zhuan 撰 239; modern terms (bian 編, bianju/xi 編劇/戲, bianyin 編 印, bianpai 自編排, biandao 導 演) 430n, 431n, 483n, 519, 558n. See also Daxi, Cuanxi Plot elements, consequential versus non-consequential 188n Plot summaries 336–37, 524, 526–27, 561–62n; detailed summaries better than full scripts for new-style plays 339n; replace full script when that not available 400. See also Shuoming shu, Programs Plot summaries, for Jingju in English; in Taiwan X; differences between foreign and Chinese audience needs  X; Chinese summaries laconic and do not make clear what part of the play will be performed X; for American Association of Teachers in Northern China in Beijing 46n. See Shuoming shu Plot summaries, illustrated. See Shijie xinju, Heiji yuanhun tushuo Pochu mixin 破除迷信 (smash superstition); content category Qi Rushan decided for his own plays 160n Pocket editions (xiuzhen 袖珍, suoben 縮 本) 525n, 549n Poisonous weeds (da ducao 大毒草) 100, 469n, 476 Pola dan 潑辣旦 133 Poland, play about. See Guazhong lanyin Popular education. See Tongsu jiaoyu

761 Popular performance genres; as vehicles to enlighten the masses 227; as opportunities to show off literary talent 227 Pourazar, Ghaffar (Ge Fa 格發) 49n PRC regulation of theater; nationalization of Jingju troupes 3, 43, 470–71; reform and commercialization of troupes post Cultural Revolution 477–80; freelance actors and playwrights 478–79; private troupes 479. See also Censorship and control of repertoire under the CCP Prince Che (Chewang 車王) collection of play manuscripts 169–71. 183n; not performance texts 170n; and Duke E (Eduotai 鄂多臺) 170 Print, stigma of 213n Printed playscripts 177–87; and choice and improvisation XV, XVn, 528; indicate alternate versions in notes or appendices 528; tendency to hide details of editorial work 529; annotation or glosses 529; more influential than manuscripts 205 Printing and fixity of plays 203–209; printed editions tend to echo each other 205 Printing of playscripts, effects; lower costs, increase number of copies, stabilize text, reveal quality (or lack of) of the writing 205 Private collectors (mostly actors) of playscript manuscripts 166, 441n. See also Cheng Yanqiu, Mei Lanfang Private performances (tanghui 堂會) 65, 88n, 99n, 448n, 482, 508; phonograph recordings replace 88; differences between and public performances  143n Private plays (sifang xi 私房戲). See Solelyowned or private plays Private secretary (mu[you] 幕[友]) 255 Private troupes (jiayue 家樂, jiaban 家 班) 5–6; repertoires of Ming private troupes 6n; because of emphasis on frugality there was a decline in the Qing except for princely households 11; prohibition of officials maintaining private

762 Private troupes (cont.) troupes in the Qing 11n; owned by Li Shizhong 227–28n; Wang Hongshou’s father 268; Chen Moxiang’s family 487n Privately printed playscripts 228 Production notebooks 546 Professional playwrights XII, XIV, 288–92, 482–523, 505, 511n; training and professionalization in the PRC XIV, 520; lack of in Shanghai-style theater 38n; promotion of troupe playwrights in the PRC 470; present dire lack of XIII, 517; first generation at Zhongguo Jingju Yuan 518, second generation at Zhongguo Jingju Yuan have collge degrees but Jingju knowledge not as good 518; Zhongguo Jingju Yuan now has to rely on outside playwrights 518; rating system  518–19. See Troupe/resident playwrights Program opening plays 142–43 Programs 336n; fanchao (arranging items on a program without regard for the order of their historical settings) 145n. See also Xidan Prohibitions; of bad plays 53; of performance styles (juzhong) 13, 23; of theater 53n; of officials patronizing sing-song girls and actors in the Ming 6n; of officials maintaining private troupes in the Qing 11n; severity depend on locality 34n Prompters 267n; promptbooks 546 Pronunciation glosses and markup; in playscripts 175n, 176, 258n, 261–62, 529, 543–45; indicate tone contour by placement of circle (see dianfa) 261–62, 544n; in Baiben Zhang manuscripts 173; in manuscripts 176; rare in PRC playscripts 545; Su Shaoqing wants to indicate tonal contours of all characters but just does so for some 556; markup of acting playscript 560n. See also Fanqie,

Index Zhuyin fuhao, International Phonetic Alphabet Pronunciation, Jingju 543n; and singing 234, 543n; yangban xi and standard pronunciation 543n; Shanghai-style Jingju and standard pronunciation 543n; playscript that promises special annotation concerning 543n. See also Jian, Tuan, Yunbai, Shangkou zi Propaganda troupes (xuanchuan dui 宣傳 對) 59 Props and scenery; description/lists of in playscripts 234–35 Props 536; used as advertisement for plays in Beijing 334n Proto-playscripts; early Chinese possibilities 214 Pu Songling 蒲松齡 228–29n, 231–32 Publication, private versus commercial publication 178 Punctuation in playscripts; use empty spaces in woodblock editions 178, 182n; unpunctuated printed editions 180; caesura in aria lines indicated by spaces 180; no punctuation in manuscripts 228n; paratextual material lack punctuation in early playscripts 247–48, 253; caesura in aria lines indicated by punctuation 248; regular and emphatic punctuation 253; unpunctuated manuscript 290; underline personal names and places 527; use empty spaces in printed editions 550n Puppetry and theater 485n Putian Tongqing Troupe 普天同慶班; Empress Dowager Cixi’s own eunuch troupe 17n, 169n Puyi 溥儀 42, 57 Qi Rushan juxue congshu 齊如山劇學叢書 (Qi Rushan’s collection of books on Guoju) 196n, 425 Qi Rushan xiben 齊如山戲本 (Qi Rushan play texts) 431n Qi Rushan 齊如山 275n, 425, 429n, 433n, 440, 521n, 566n; editions of

Index his collected works 3n; on late Qing resistance to the idea of plays without traditional costumes (xingtou 行頭), singing (gechang 歌唱), and music (yinyue 音樂) 3n; on ways the Four Great Anhui Troupes differed 14n; on ways to refer to Jingju 20n; background 26; and Western drama 26–27; promotion of national drama 26–30; originally critical of Chinese theater, later regretted 27; involvement with experimental Jingju 27; collections of his writings 27n; his principles for Jingju 28; different definitions of national drama 29; in Taiwan 29; image of Jingju as unchanging 30; help Mei Lanfang 46n; on Jingju influence on Hollywood cinema 49; fondness for taking credit for things 52n; and Bawang bie ji 52; on problems with play titles 96; on decline of repertoire 118–19; on xide 121n; his topical categories for his own plays 160n; his shenduan pu 195– 96; obsession for finding early sources for Chinese theater 195–96; collect playscripts 213n; consult Xikao 295n; on difficulties understanding plays 335n; as famous playwright 397; on playwriting and recycling material 396n; on Tan Xinpei and the two versions of the yinzi for Yang Yanhui 412n; mistake in Bawang bieji playscript 416n; gave radio lectures 426n; on Guoju as pacifist and not authoritarian 426n; claims authorship of Tongnü zhan she but Mei Lanfang does not mention him 431n; Tongsu Jiaoyu Yanjiu Hui researcher 432–33; believes Jingju supports traditional morality 467; as playwright 483n; on encouraging Chen Moxiang to write plays 483n; on Chen Moxiang and Luo Yinggong and xianggong 487n; reluctance to meet with Mei Lanfang and write letters instead 487n; reminiscences

763 on playwriting 488; versus Mei Lanfang 488n; lack of performance experience 501n; Chen Moxiang called him a xi mangzi 502; not interested in true collaboration with actors 503; compared to Weng Ouhong 512; criticism that his plays are too literary 529 Qian Baosen 錢寶森 195n, 202n Qian Jinfu 錢金福 202n Qian Jingfang 錢靜方 329n; see Bianbian Qian Mu 錢穆 62, 208n Qiangbi Tuolong 槍斃駝龍 (The execution of “Hunchback Dragon”) 452n Qianlong emperor 8n, 10, 37, 13–14, 445; big patron of theater 13–14 Qiao Jinchen 喬藎臣 86–87n, 281 Qiao yinyuan 巧姻緣 (The unexpected marriage affinity) 317n Qiao Yuquan 喬玉泉, playscript dictator 177n Qiao 蹺, small wooden stilts strapped to actors’ feet to simulate bound feet 13, 75n, 295n; actress wears 75n; revival in New Period 477 Qiemo 砌末. See Props Qilin bao 麒麟報 (Reward by qilin) 247n Qin Liangyu 秦良玉 500–501 Qin Qiong mai ma 秦瓊賣馬 (Qin Qiong sells his horse) 179n, 181n, 273 Qin Shou’ou 秦瘦鷗 58n, 77–78 Qin Xuefang 琴雪芳 (Ma Jinfeng 馬金 鳳) 58n, 404n Qing Chunpu 慶春圃 137n Qing dynasty imperial tours of Jiangnan 10n, 193n Qing emperors as big patrons of theater who brought troupes to the capital for special celebrations 13–14 Qing Shengping Ban 慶升平班 (Celebrating Rising Peace Troupe) playlist 102, 108 Qingdai Yandu liyuan shiliao 清代燕都梨園 史料 (Qing dynasty historical material on the theater in Beijing) 265n Qingding zhu 慶頂珠 (Presenting the pearl) 181n Qingfeng ting 清風亭 (Gentle Breeze Pavilion) 244n

764 Qingguan xi 清官戲 (incorrupt official plays) 152 Qingguan 清官 (incorrupt official) 138n Qinghai; Jingju in 43n Qingren xichu ce 清人戲齣冊 (Album of scenes by Qing painters), held in the palace 66n Qingshan 青衫 133, 327 Qingshi shan 青石山 (Black Stone Mountain) 110 Qingwen sishan 晴雯撕扇 (Qingwen tears fans) 392n Qingyi jushi 清逸居士 (Puxu 浦緒) 145n Qingyi 青衣 (demure female roles that sing a lot) 122n, 133, 136, 139, 140n, 264; plays that feature 114n, 327; roletypes that qingyi characters can also be played as 138n Qingyin zhuo 清音桌 (perform plays sitting at a table) 509 Qingzhuang xi 清裝戲 (Qing-dynastyclothing plays) 144–45 Qinqiang 琴腔, performance style designation used by the Sixi Troupe 22; alternate term for xipi 22n Qinqiang 秦腔; a variety of bangzi 梆子戲 play 13, 342n, 356, 404n, 513n; prohibition because of lewd content  13, 23n; as national drama 29n; repertoire 103; role-type system  135n; in Xikao 317n; in Xikao shukao 310 Qionglin yan 瓊林宴 (Banquet in Qionglin Park) 205n Qiongsheng 窮生 133 Qipai 麒派 (Qi[ling tong] 麒[麟童] school]), Zhou Xinfang school of performance 441n Qiu haitang 秋海棠 58n, 77–78; sequel to 305; made into play 77–78 Qiu Hu xi qi 秋胡戲妻 (Qiu Hu flirts with his wife) 162n Qiu Huiying 丘慧瑩, on Qianlong era playwrights 395n Qiu Shengrong 裘盛戎, 523n; shuoxi audio recording 576–77n Qiu Shengrong 裘盛戎, by Wang Xinhua 523; play of same name by Wang Zengqi 523n

Index Qizhuang xi 旗裝戲 (bannermen-dress plays) 144–45 Qu Nanjun 取南郡 (Taking Nanjun) 272n, 365n Qu Yuan 屈原, 232 Quanben 全本 (complete version) 245n Quanbin 全賓 (complete dialogue) 217n Quanshan cheng’e 勸善懲惡 (exhort goodness and punish evil) 455n Quanshan jinke 勸善金科 (Golden measures for encouraging goodness; palace version of the story of Mulian) 168 Quanshan shu 勸善書 (morality book) 256 Quanshan Tai 勸善臺 (Stage for exhorting morality) 245 Quanye Chang 勸業場 (Exhort commerce center) entertainment complex in Tianjin 39n Quben 曲本 (playscript) 179n Quhai zongmu tiyao 曲海總目提要 (Annotated bibliography of the sea of plays) and related texts 97–98n, 312, 321–22n Quick preparations for next scene 545–46 Qunxi 群戲 (crowd play) 141, 172n Qunxi 群戲 (scene with many characters but allotment of singing more even) 188n Qunying hui 群英會 (The gathering of heroes) 273, 291, 410n, 414n, 530n Qupai 曲牌 (tune patterns) 6, 13, 16, 142n, 249, 526n, 548, 575; sometimes have musical notation in palace copies of Jingju playscripts 167n; use set scales so Jingju performers progressively worse at singing them 191; Chen Moxiang says leave up to actors to specify 495 Qupin 曲品 (Evaluation of plays) 109, 159n Quyi/shuochang wenxue 曲藝/說唱文學. See Oral performing literature Radio broadcasts; start of attempts to regulate 454 Radio; and Jingju 80, 89–90; shuoxi broadcasts 90, 426n, 576; recordings of shuoxi broadcasts 576–77n; publication of texts broadcasted 201, 294–95

Index Rang Xuzhou 讓徐州 (Yielding Xuzhou)  465n Rankou 髯[口] (stage beard). See Beards Reactionary (fandong 反動); content of plays 100n Reading libretti 204, 204–205n Reading material (duwu 讀物); playscripts as XVI, 208–209, 396, 546n, 551, 551–52n; chuanqi and zaju editions for reading 225; illustrations 399. See Coffee table books, Jingju jingdian pindu Reading playscripts as research 182 Ready, Jonathan; on the process of the writing down of Homeric epics XVIn Real weapons on stage 37 Recorded music; used in performance of yangban xi 476n Recycle/rework/adapt old material versus creation 95–96, 161–62, 396n, 493– 94; Chen Moxiang said adaptation easier 500; Western opera 162n Regional Literature and the Transmission of Culture: Chinese Drum Ballads, 1800–1937 67n Registration of troupes in Qing Beijing 22, 23n, 111, 111–12n Regularization (guifan 規範) 203n Rehearsal 167n Reid, Robert; on hyperlinked materials for teaching Japanese theater 584 Ren Qingtai 任慶泰 82n Renqing xi 人情戲 (human-emotion plays) 158 Rental libraries 175 Repertoire, classical Chinese theater 97–98; difficulties in tabulating 96, 96–97n; surveys of 98–100 Repertoire, Jingju 95–123, 369–71, 370; categories XII; difficulties in tabulating 96, 96–97n; surveys of 98–100; solely-owned plays 99; difficulties in defining 102; Taiwan data often ignored 102n; in performance 104–112; growth in 115; adaptations versus new plays in 115; in Taiwan 116–17, 119; decline in PRC 117–19; divided by content 126, 149–50; divided by role-type or special skills 126–42;

765 divided by place in program 142–44; divided by size 143–44; divided by costumes 144–46; divided by historical setting 144–48; divided according to stagecraft 149; divided according to (fictional) source 149–53; divided by featured character 151–52; topical genres 152–53, 159–62; Baiben Zhang catalogue divided by role-types of lead actor or type of play 172n; early plays adapted from Kunqu and bangzi 266 Repertoire, Kunqu 103 Repertoire, non-classical xiqu genres 137 Repertoire, Personal 99, 113–15; submit to palace before perform 111–12; Yang Xiaolou’s palace list 112; submit list before join troupe 112; qingyi don’t need so many plays 112n; Fuliancheng students supposed to learn one hundred plus plays 113; lists 114–15; decline in number of plays known 115; know more than one version of same play 208 Repertoire, Western theater 103–104 Repertory theater, Jingju as 95 Repetto, Rafeal Caro 583 Reprint (zhuanzai 轉載), deny permission to in periodicals 438–39; begin to be covered in law 454 Republican period as the “golden age” of Jingju XII Research institutes for Jingju and xiqu 166, 406, 425n, 427, 434, 458–59n; as collectors of playscripts 166 Research; in Xikao and similar works 325, 350–52; on historical settings 324; despair as to what to research 324– 25, 377; playwrights sent down to do in the PRC 511–512n Revision of playscripts 249; notes about 537n. See Xiuding jingguo Rhyme-categories (zhekou 轍口) 543, 550–51n; specified 255, 255–56n, 496; changed to test other actor 278n Richter, Matthias; on text as essentially non-material XVIn Riftin, Boris; on theater in woodblock prints 69n Ritual plays 109, 142–43, 146

766 Ritual program opening plays (kaichang chengxiang chengying xi 開場呈祥承 應戲) 109, 142–43 Riyue tu 日月圖 (Picture of the son and moon) 317n Roberts, Margaret; on censorship in the PRC XVIIn Robinson, Paul; on libretti different from ordinary texts 205n Role-type system (hangdang 行當) of Jingju 131–42; and personality characteristics 131n; variables that distinguish role-type 131–32; synchronic chart 132–34; increasing cross-fertilization between roletypes 136, 140n, 264, 277; new role-types creating by combining elements of older ones 135; barriers to crossing 136–39; factors favoring border crossing 139–40; character change role-type in same play 138n; level of morality and role-type allotment 138n, 330n; stealing roles not in your role-type 139–40; in yangban xi 140; revision changes role-type of character 537n Role-type system (hangdang 行當) of xiqu; sheng 生 and dan 旦 in chuanqi plays 7; historical trend toward complexity 128, 135–36; obscurity of role-type names 128; compared to that of Jingju 135 Rongqing She 榮慶社, northern-style Kunqu troupe, made a successful entry into Beijing in 1918 10n Rosters; of civil service candidates 75; of actors 75, 75–76n; of courtesans 75n Roy, David; plans to digitize and hyperlink his translation of the Jin Ping Mei 584n Royalty system 123, 525 Ru ci guanchang 如此官場 (A world of officialdom [screwed up] like this; a.k.a., Ximi zhuan 戲迷傳 [Biography of an opera fanatic]) 71n, 197n, 305n Ruan Dacheng 阮大鋮, 223n, 254n Rulin waishi 儒林外史 (Unofficial history of the scholars) 298n Running time 167n, 211n, 242n, 247n, 463n, 545, 548

Index Sacred Edict. See Shengyu Sai Jinhua 賽金花 (Rival of Jinhua) 403n Sai Pipa 賽琵琶 (Rival to Pipa ji) 236n San jieyi 三結義 (Three swear brotherhood) 380n San mazi 三麻子 (Pockmarked Face the Third). See Wang Hongshou Sanda Tao Sanchun 三打陶三春 (Three Beatings of Tao Sanchun) 407n Sanguo xi 三國戲 (Three Kingdoms Plays) 150, 366 Sanguo yanyi 三國演義 (Romance of the Three Kingdoms) 270–72, 378–80; source for plays 494 Sanguo zhi 三國志 (Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms); serial play 272–73; official history by Chen Shou 353n, 379 Sangyuan ji zi 桑園寄子 (Abandoning the son in the mulberry garden) 420n Sanmen jie 三門街 (Three gate street)  368n Sanniang jiaozi 三娘教子 (Third mistress teaches the son) 119n, 203n, 332n Sanqing Ban 三慶班 (Three celebrations troupe) 272, 291; the first “Anhui troupe” (Huiban 徽班) to go up to the capital 14; troupe members’ native place more commonly Suzhou than Anhui 14; playscripts claim to be from this troupe 180, 181n Sansha dan 三殺旦 161n Sanshi nian lai lingjie zhi nashou xi 三十年 來伶界之拿手戲 (The most famous plays of actors from the last thirty years) 120, 120–21n, 413n; emphasis is more on the actors than the plays 396n Sanxia wuyi 三俠五義 (The three heroes and five gallants) 152 Sanxiao xi 三小戲 (three littles play) 141 Sao song xia shu 掃松下書 (Sweeping under the pine; Delivering the letter) 317n; order of the two scenes reversed 324n Saozi wo 嫂子我 (lewd sisters-in-law); possible Jingju play content category 161, 485n; See Goldman Sau jing; actor hand signals to the orchestra in Cantonese opera 200n

Index Scenario plays. See Mubiao xi Scene labels in Chuqu plays 184–85n. See Xiaoyin, Baochang, Dengchang, Tuanyuan Scene titles in Jingju; rare until 20th century 189; in Jile shijie 230–31; in Cuo zhong cuo 250; in Liangshi yin  255 Scenery and props 37, 149, 545, 545n, 558n; stage directions to set out beforehand 233, 233–34n, 260–61; stage directions to remove from stage 260; caution against using in playscript 537n. See also Bujing Scenes (or acts); measure words for. See Chu, Chang, Hui, Pian, Zhe, Chuduan Scenes, division into 184–85, 187–89, 419–20n, 531; skip to top of next line to show scene break 184n; numbering of 184n; use of elongated xia 下 (exit) character to show that stage has been cleared 184n; scene division and clearing of the stage in Jingju 187, 187–88n; reformers object to fragmented (sui 碎) nature of Jingju scenes and push for act divisions 188; from nanxi to chuanqi scene division moves from based on stage clearing to content 188n; rhythym of 188n; explicit division of scenes 188n; acts (mu) versus scenes (chang) 189n; start on recto page 233, 254 Scenes; types of 188n Schools of acting. See Liupai Scott, A. C., 211n; on Jingju as easy to sing 91; translation of Silang tanmu 541n Scribe, Eugéne 205–206n Se yi 色藝 (looks and acting skills) 284 Secret/private copy of playscript. See Miben Sell playscripts prior to or at performances 183–84 Serial plays. See Liantai ben xi Serialization 74; in periodicals 549; in the New Period 478–79 Sex, Shanghai audience interest in 37, 37–38n Shadow theater 169 Shajiabang 沙家浜 (Shajiabang) 475n

767 Shakespeare, William 104; and single-role scripts 163n Shamao sheng 紗帽生, 133 Shandong Sheng Shiyan Juyuan 山東省 實驗劇院 (Shandong provincial experimental drama academy) 60n Shang Changrong 尚長榮 478 Shang Heyu 尚和玉 123n, 203n Shang Xiaoyun 尚小雲 161n, 254, 283n, 393n, 478, 501n, 561; selected king of the child actors 78n; and photograpy 80n; caught not performing according to approved playscript 454n; playscripts provided for Shanghai performances 532n Shangchang men 上場門 (stage entrance) 179n Shanghai Actors’ Association (Shanghai Lingjie Lianhe Hui 上海伶界聯合 會) 57 Shanghai and Jingju 1, 34–39, 63–65; the term Jingju first used in Shanghai 21; use of dialect 35; center of production of printed material on Jingju 293; Shanghai audience need for textual aids 335 Shanghai as new media center 74, 293 Shanghai audience preferences 36 Shanghai courtesans 36, 72, 74–75 Shanghai Jingju Yuan 上海京劇院 (Shanghai Jingju company) 39n, 59n, 477–79n; collection of playscripts 533n Shanghai Jingju zhi 上海京劇志 (A record of Jingju in Shanghai) 106 Shanghai theaters have their own troupes 26, 35 Shanghai Xiju Xueyuan 上海戲劇學院 (Shanghai Academy of Theater) 517 Shanghai Xiqu Yanjiu Hui 上海戲曲研究會 (Shanghai society for the study of traditional Chinese theater)  352 Shanghai; exposure of Beijing Jingju actors there to Southern-style Jingju and cinema 26; influence on Mei Lanfang 26n; as photography center 80; with lithography and moveable type becomes publishing center for Jingju 178

768 Shanghai-style (Haipai 海派) Jingju 500, 506; impact of cinema on 25n, 26, 35, 86; characteristics 36–39; actors’ world as open 36n; new-style Shanghai-style 39; thought not to specialize in role-types 137; Monkey King plays 152n; serial plays 548 Shangkou zi 上口字 (special pronunciations) 543n Shangshou 上手 134 Shangyou she 尚友社; fan club for Shang Xiaoyun 532n Shangzheng 商正/shangque 商榷/搉, terms used in a response to another writer 560 Shanhai guan 山海關 (Shanhai pass) 365n, 368n, 589n Shanqi 善耆, playwright 283n Shanzi sheng 扇子生 133 Shao Binru 卲彬儒 257–58 Shao Mingsheng 邵茗生 275n, 499n Shaoju 紹劇 (Shaoxing opera) 349n Shazi bao 殺子報 (Retribution for killing [her] son) 148n, 159, 392n, 448n; authorship 270n; left out of Guoju dacheng and Jingju huibian 418n; most number of alternate titles 447n Shazi 殺子 (the killing of a son by a parent); possible Jingju play content category 160 She 設 (to set up [scenery or props beforehand]) 260 Shehui ju 社會劇 (social plays); Minzhong xiaoshuo xiqu duben content category 126 Shehui 社會 ([criticism of] society); Xixue huikao topical category 159 Shen gong pu 身宮/工譜 (gong 宮 refers to gongdiao 宮調, gong 工 to gongche 工尺), shenduan pu with musical notation 566n Shen Naikui 沈乃葵 427n Shen Xiaomei 沈小梅 50n Shen Xiaoqing 沈小慶; writes abstract for play 199n, 289n; playwriting 282, 288–89; and oral storytelling 289; in jail 289, in Liyuan waishi 289n;

Index wrote serial play with preface with his name 290 Shen zhong lou 蜃中樓 (The mirage tower) 233–34n Shen, Grant Guangren; on elite theater in the Ming dynasty 5n Shen, Jing; on evaluating systems for chuanqi plays 109n Shenbao “Xikao” column 290, 325–32, 325–31n, 372, 374; divided by role-types 326–29, 331–32, 531; compare column to corresponding shukao 331; obscure plays in 331, connection to Xikao 332. See also Bianbian, Wuxia Jian’er Shenbao Guan 申報館 79n, 230n, 297–300; and Zhonghua Tushu Guan 302n Shenbao 申報 185, 197, 298, 304; Shanghai newspaper in which the term Jingju first appeared in print 21, 21n; as a resource 101–102n; indexes to theater material in 325–26n Shencha 審查 (reviewing/evaluating plays) 430. See also Censorship Shendao shejiao 神道设教 (government use of superstition to instill fear to make people behave) 390 Shenduan pu koujue 身段譜口訣 (Stage movement rosters and oral formulae) 193n, 195n, 566n Shenduan pu 身段譜 (rosters of stage movement) 565–66; used mostly for Kunqu and rarely printed 192–95, 566; printed versions 194; versus oral teaching or shuoxi 說戲 (telling the play) or lectures 194n; modern shenduan pu 569n. See also Xingti pu Shenduan 身段 (stage movement) 192 Sheng Heyu 盛和煜 522–23 Sheng 生 (male roles) 130, 132, 134; poach hualian roles 139–40 Shengjiao 生腳 132 Shengju 嵊劇 (Sheng [near Shaoxing] opera) 349n Shengping baofa 昇平寶筏 (Precious raft of ascending peace) 168n

Index Shengpingshu 昇平署, new palace theater organization established in 1827 17 Shengqiang 聲腔. See Musical mode Shengsi hen 生死恨 (A hate that will last past death) 542n, 453n; 1948 film 82; new film never finished 512n Shenguai xi 神怪戲 (supernatural plays) 390 Shenguai 神怪 (the supernatural); Xixue huikao topical category 159 Shengyu 聖諭 (Sacred Edict) 238n Shenhua xi 神話戲 (mythological plays) 160n Shenhua 神話 (myth) 390; Shenhua 神話 (mythological); content category Qi Rushan used to divide his own plays 160n Shenqu 申曲 (Shanghai opera) 349n Shenshi chuantou 身勢串頭 (record of stage movements) 192n Shenting ling 神亭嶺 (Spirit Pavilion Ridge) 96n Shentou ci Tang 審頭刺唐 (Inspecting the head and assassinating Tang [Qin 勤]) 125n Shenyin jiangu lu 審音鑒古錄 (A record of investigating sounds and antiquity) 194n Shenying 神瑛 558 Sheriff, R. C. 440n Shi cuoren 十錯認 (Ten misrecognitions) 254n Shi gong’an xinzhuan 施公案新傳 (A new account of the Court Cases of Judge Shi) 290; stage directions with lots of costume and make-up details 290–91 Shi gong’an 施公案 (The court cases of Lord/ Judge Shi) 153 Shi Jieting 失街亭 (Losing Jieting) 76, 302n, 342n, 590n Shi Kong Zhan 失空斬 (combines Shi Jieting, Kongcheng ji, and Zhan Ma Su) 365n Shi Ling 石玲 344n Shi Shilun 施世綸 67n, 153 Shi Songquan 史松泉 290; official accused of a crime, wrote serial play to impress Cixi 290

769 Shi Xusheng 施旭升; on singing and the birth of modern Chinese theater 25n Shi 實 (full) 233n Shi/xi qi 試/戲妻 (the testing of the fidelity of the long-abandoned wife by the returning husband who pretends to be someone else and flirts with her); possible Jingju play content category 160–61 Shiba che 十八扯 (Eighteen bits) 157n, 185n Shijie shuju 世界書局 457 Shijie xinju 世界新劇 (New plays of the world) 38n, 324n, 336n, 400–401 Shikuang 實況 (stage recording) 526n Shinpa 新派; impact on Chinese spoken drama 25n Shishi [xin]xi 時事[新]戲 (current events [new] play) 148 Shishi xiang 石獅巷 (Stone Lion Alley) 256–58 Shishi 實事 (real events) 494 Shishi 時事 (contemporary events); Xixue huikao topical category 159 Shixiang nüshi 試香女士 229–30n Shizhong shuju 時中書局 299 Shizhong tushu 時中圖書 333, 335 Shizhuang xi 時裝戲 (plays set in modern times with characters wearing Qing dynasty or contemporary clothing) 25–26, 27–28n, 114n, 145, 148n, 155, 160n, 447, 450; and abstracts 200–201 Shizhuang xinxi 時裝新戲 155 Shouju 瘦菊 327n, 428n Shu Sheyu 舒舍予 561n. See also Lao She Shu[ban] 數[板] (counted-out measures) 255n Shuaida hualian 摔打花臉 133 Shuaipai laosheng 衰派老生 132 Shuang Bao an 雙包案 (The case of the two Judge Baos) 192n Shuang he yin 雙和印 (The double matching of the chop) 390n, 418n Shuangding ji 雙釘記 (The story of two nails) 241n, 449n, 487n Shuangkui Ban 雙奎班 (Shuangkui troupe) 177n

770 Shuangling ji 雙鈴記 (The story of the double bells) 148n, 163n, 323n, 325n; left out of Guoju dacheng and Jingju huibian 418n Shuangshi tu 雙獅圖 (Picture of a pair of lions) 320n Shuchang 書場 (venues for tanci performance in Shanghai) 72 Shuhui 書會 (Writers’ clubs) 219n; and nanxi 218–19 Shuici xi 水詞戲 (watery text plays) 207n Shuihu xi 水滸戲; plays based on the Shuihu zhuan 150–51 Shuihu zhuan 水滸傳 (Story of the water margin) 233n, 378; source of Jingju plays 150 Shuilu ban 水陸班 (water-route troupes) 40, 42n Shuixiu yu yanzhi 水袖與胭脂 (Water sleeves and rouge) 522n Shuji tang jinyue 庶幾堂今樂 (Music of the day from Near to a [Moral State] Hall) 228, 530; paratextual material 238–39n, 243–44, 247; put together and published by Yu Zhi’s disciples 239n, 240, 244n; nine plays published in his lifetime 240n, 244n; Kunqu versions 239n; performances of some of the plays part of agreement between his disciples and Shanghai government 240–42; historical settings of 242n; distance self from literati 243n; criticism of chuanqi 243n, 245; criticism of zhezi xi 245n; illustrations 245; singability of the arias 249; text too plain and awkward 249; translations into German 250n Shuji tang xinxi 庶幾堂今戲 (New plays of Shuji Tang) 238, 238–39n Shukao 述考, play introductions in Xikao. See Xikao, shukao Shuntian shibao 順天時報 (Capital daily paper), 1917 reader selection of kings of the world of theater 78n Shuo Yue quanzhuan 說岳全傳 (The complete story of Yue Fei) 152n

Index Shuobai 說白 (dialogue) 255n, 306n Shuodan 說但 (On actors of female roles); lecture by Chen Moxiang 488n, 490 Shuoming shu 說明書 (programs) 197, 336– 37; one appears in Shenbao 327n, 336–37; important for new plays 337; come late to Beijing 337; required for permission to perform 452; early English programs 337 Shuoming 說明 (explanations) 306n Shuoxi 說戲 (telling the play) 194n, 200n, 542, 574; use photos to illustrate 570; and radio 90, 576, 576–77n; and modern media 576–80, 576–79n; the voice of the teacher as central 576; audio recordings of radio broadcasts of master performers 576, 576–77n; archived audio recordings 577; published audio recordings 577, transcribed audio recordings of (stage directions added) 577; use of visual aids 578; transcribed lectures (or interviews) published as books  578–79; transcribed lectures published as books illustrated with photos 578; transcribed lectures (or interviews) published as books accompanied by DVD recordings 578–79; video recordings of shuoxi 578–80; replace in-person teaching 580. See Jingju dajia jueyi lu, Kunqu baizhong, dashi shuoxi, Liu Zengfu shuoxi juben ji, Nanwang de jiyi, Tanxi shuoxi, Wang Yaoqing xiansheng shuoxi, Zhongguo Xiqu Xueyuan Jingju biaoyan zhuanye zhuxiu jumu ke jiaocai Si da Huiban 四大徽班 (Four Great Anhui Troupes); differences between them 14 Si da mingdan 四大名旦 (Four Famous Dan Actors) 24; first used in 1921 to refer to different set of actors, most famous list did not appear until 1930 24n Si gaikou 死蓋口 (text the same whatever the play) 207n Sichuan opera. See Chuanju Sieber, Patricia; on authorship attribution in classical Chinese theater 394–95n

Index Sifan 思凡 (Thinking of worldly pleasures) 52n Silang tanmu quanji 四郎探母全集 (Complete collection of Silang tanmu) 279n, 344n, 541–45, 566n Silang tanmu 四郎探母 (Fourth son visits his mother) 211n, 302n, 371n, 407n, 412–14, 461n, 496n, 529n, 536, 539–45; and Zhaodai xiaoshao 169n; 1933 film 83; 1937 complete audio recording 88, 90n; and Zhang Erkui 282n; controversy over Silang’s loyalty to China 371n, 465n; two versions of Yang Yanhui’s yinzi 412; failure to ban or revise 481. See Tanmu xiantu, Yantai jucui, Silang tanmu quanji, Zuogong Sima Qian 司馬遷 356 Similarity between plays 162n; plagiarism 162n; mold plays (tao’er xi 套兒戲) 162n Single-role plays, more common in Kunqu than Jingju 124n Single-role scripts 163, 235n, 247n, 267, 530, 535n, 539n, 561n; Western single-role scripts 163n. See also Dantou ben Siping diao 四平調 (Siping tunes) banqiang style performed by Huiban and then in Jingju 15, 142n Sisheng yuan 四聲猿 (Four cries of the gibbon) 225n Sitang 司堂; synonym for tangzi 487n Siwei Jingju 思維京劇 (a thinking Jingju); label for a Chen Yaxian play 478n Sixi 四喜 (Four happinesses), one of the Four Great Anhui Troupes 14, 70n, 121n, 163n Slash (xiegang 斜杠), used to show when actor stops speaking or singing in single-role scripts 163n Small gong (xiaoluo 小鑼) 509 Small-scale plays (xiaoxi 小戲) 124; prominent in local drama types 21 Social status; and role-type 132 Sokōdō 雙紅堂 181n Solely-owned or private plays (du you ximu 獨有戲目) 99, 120–23; similar

771 system enforced by storyteller guild 121n Solitary genius XVIIn Song Guangzu 宋光祖 517, 532n Song Jiaoren yuhai 宋教仁遇害 (The Assassination of Song Jiaoren) 386n, 450 Song Jiaoren 宋教仁 386n, 450 Song Maocheng 宋懋澄 533 Song Maoru 松茂如, playwright 283n Song Taizong 57n Song Yuchun 宋遇春 271n Songbin 頌斌 299n, 333n; courtesy name of Jin Qiang 金鏘 355; author of a preface to Xikao 298n, 320n, 355, 357–58, 371–72 Songke xi 送客戲 (plays to send off the audience) 143n Song-Ming Chinese indigenous theater, divided into two types depending on aria type, northern style (beiqu 北曲) versus southern style (nanqu 南曲) 6 Song-suites 6, 129; one per act in zaju plays 187, 256n; some chuanqi scenes have two 187n, 256n; sets of arias in Jingju 256n Songzhu Ban 嵩祝班 (Songzhu Troupe) 288–89 Sou zhao bi gong 搜詔逼宮 (Searching out the edict and pressuring the throne) 411n Sound; sound effects in stage directions, indicated as made by orchestra 261; sound amplification 545 Source (claimed) of playscripts; famous actors 177n; famous troupes 177n Sources, for Jingju plays; and repertoire categories 150–55; proximate versus ultimate source 150; fictional versus dramatic 150 Soushan Dache 搜山打車 (Searching the Mountain and Striking the Carriage) 194n Southeast Asia, Jingju in 40 Soviet theater as model of scientific approach to theater 470 Soviets 466

772 Special effects 545 Special issues 562n; honoring actors 311, 440, 561; on topics 145n, 276 Stabilization of performance practice through censorship and textualization IX; XV, 203n Stage design material in playscripts 475n Stage direction orthography and placement; in cartouches 177–78, 182n; smaller characters, slightly to the right 180; in parentheses with periods used to mark both phrases and sentences 182. See also Playscript layout and format conventions Stage directions 192–96, 541; more detailed in PRC playscripts XIV, 567; tendency to refer to characters by role-type and not name 128–29; use character name and not roletype 248, 254; lack of interest in spelling things out 135, 164–65, 211; chuanqi stage directions augmented by interlineal commentary 164n; increase of stage directions in zaju 164n; history of in Western drama 164–65n; movement stage directions typically very brief 165, 525, 536; palace playscripts demanded before performance focus on spoken text versus stage directions 166–67; lack or limited amount in Yuan zaju printings 214; paratext apologizes not enough 234; use other play as example 248; attention to character’s psychology 253–54; indicate where choice is possible 259, 261, 262n; give information about costume and make-up 260; how stage should be cleared at end of play 260; use of technical language 261; referred to as shuoming 說明 420n; Chen Moxiang says should not be too detailed 496; flexibility 496n; Chen Moxiang advises to use names instead of role-types to avoid confusion 496; and reading 525; can include extreme detail 526; character psychology in 528n; very

Index detailed editions 539, 567; mention stage left, etc. 541; mention of yinchang 545; extremely laconic because audio recording used as base text 548; classify aria and dialogue as daishu ti, duihua ti, xuda duihua ti, beigong ti, fuyu ti (Su Shaoqing) 555–56; give time and geographical setting 556; on stage setting 558n; seasoned performers don’t need 565 Stage entrance (shangchang men 上場 門) 179n Stage photos 81n Stage pyrotechnics (huocai 火彩) 234 Stage recording (shikuang 實況) 526n Stage regulations (wutai guizhi 舞臺規 制) 562n Stalin, Joseph 457n Stanford Center in Taibei X Stanislavsky, Konstantin; as model of scientific approach to theater 470 Star system 139–40, 428, 520 Steal plays (touxi 偷戲) 122–23; change performed text to prevent theft 201; Western audience members memorize plays and sell scripts 122n; professionals not supposed to watch other professionals perform 278–279n Steineck and Schwermann; on author as a composite of functions XVII Stent, George Carter 582n Stillinger, Jack; on multiple authorship versus solitary genius XVIIn Stone Lion Alley. See Shishi xiang Strindberg, August 528n Structure, lack of in Jingju 189n Studio photos 81n Study of theater as a discipline in China. See Theater studies Su San qijie 蘇三起解 (Transporting Su the Third) 567, 575. See also Nü qijie Su Shaoqing xiqu chunqiu 蘇少卿戲曲春 秋 (Su Shaoqing’s world of Chinese indigenous theater) 554 Su Shaoqing 蘇少卿 191n, 346n, 431, 558n; edited version of Zhuofang

Index Cao 554–58, 560; Tongsu Jiaoyu Yanjiu Hui play inspector 431–32n Su wenxue congkan 俗文學叢刊 (Collectanea of folk literature) 171 Su Wu miao 蘇武廟 (The temple to Su Wu) 410–11 Su Wu 蘇武 410–11 Su Yi 蘇移; on growth in the Jingju repertoire 115–16; on Pan Jingfu 501n; on Xun Huisheng most able to mount new plays 503n Subai 蘇白 (Suzhou dialect) in Kunqu 12 Subsidization of Jingju 59 Subtitles/surtitles and Jingju IX, 204, 524, 530n; reveal how bad the text of the playscripts are 206n; English surtitles for foreign tours X; English surtitles for performances at Lincoln and Kennedy Centers XI 581; need of English subtitles for performance DVDs 580–81; and performance fixity 586 Subtitles/surtitles 215n; need for sung portions of Chinese film IX–X; Yuan printings of zaju could function as 293n Suchou 蘇丑 134 Suibai 隨白 (talk as you will), in stage directions 261 Suichu 燧/遂初 299n, credited for editing Xikao installments 386; might refer to the same person, who might be Songbin 386 Suiyi 隨意 (as you wish), in stage directions 260n Sun Chunshan 孫春山 281–82 Sun Juxian 孫菊仙 57, 122n, 139, 177n, 282, 332n, 393n; counterfeit recordings of 86n; on being recorded 87n; criticized for changing playscripts 203n Sun Ping 孫萍 535n, 547 Sun Wukong 孫悟空 57, 152; plays featuring 116n Sun Xichen 孫羲塵 559 Sun Yat-sen 孫逸仙 57–58, 440n, 448, 457n Sun Yusheng 孫玉聲 (a.k.a., Sun Jiazhen 孫 家振; pennames: Jingmeng chixian 警

773 夢痴仙 and Sushi 漱石) 36n, 71n, 75, 121n, 149n, 385n, 450n, 557 Suo wulong 鎖五龍 (Locking up five dragons) 140n Suolin nang 鎖麟囊 (The purse to encourage having excellent sons) 571n Suona 嗩吶 (a reed instrument) 255n Supernatural punishment for playwriting 225 Superstition (mixin 迷信), content of plays 100n, 325, 430–31, 459n; revision of 249n; Xikao shukao attitude on 389–90; versus myth 390; cut or quarantine 309n, 411n, 418n; plays that are antisuperstition 389, 497; ban 449, 452n, 468n, 470; supernatural content without intent to persuade to goodness to be censored 455n Supporting actors (pengjue 捧角) 93 Suzhou Kunju Company 586n Table of contents in playscripts; aria type and musical mode specified in table of contents 255–56n, 258–59 Table, perform plays (including martial ones) sitting at. See Qingyin zhuo Tableau photos 82 Tabloid press 65; and Jingju stardom 36; and spread of Jingju 42 Taihe zhengyin pu 太和正音譜 (Formulary of correct sounds of an era of great peace) 159n Taiping Rebellion 12, 34n, 240, 241–42n, 247n, 268–69, 276; surrended general Li Shizhong 227n; troupe maintained by Chen Yucheng  268–69; troupe maintained by Li Xiucheng 269n Taiwan National University and Jingju 521n; class on X; student club X Taiwan opera 116n Taiwan, Jingju in 40–41; preservation of Jingju under Nationalists 41n; attempts to nativize (bentu hua 本土化) 41n; lack of specialization in role-types seen as problem 137n;

774 Taiwan, Jingju in (cont.) policing of unauthorized use of PRC Jingju material 442, 464, 464–65n; once held near monopoly of government support 461; main troupes once attached to military branches X, 461–62; experimental Jingju 464; PRC troupes allowed to come perform 664–65; playwriting 521 Talks at the Yan’an Forum on Art and Literature 466 Tan Chuyu xiyu chuanqing; Liu Miaogu quzhong sijie 譚楚玉戲語傳情; 劉藐 姑曲中死結 (Tan Chuyu conveys his love through acting; Liu Miaogu dies for chastity when the aria comes to an end) 73–74n Tan Fuying 譚富英 90n, 247n, 541n Tan Huangling 嘆[探]皇陵/靈 (Sighing [Paying a visit] at the imperial mausoleum) 365n, 524n, 590 Tan qinjia 探親家 (Visiting the in-laws) 143n Tan Wei 譚偉; on Huidiao 徽調 (Anhui tunes) 15n Tan Xiaopei 譚小培 560n; recorded in place of his father 87n, 279n Tan Xinpei quanji 譚鑫培全集 (The Collected Works of Tan Xinpei) 279 Tan Xinpei 譚鑫培 (Xiao Jiaotian 小叫 天) 57, 113, 178–79n, 181n, 265n, 311n, 317, 318n, 326, 334n, 391n, 393–94n, 397n, 399n, 402, 416–17, 419, 438n, 485, 540n, 541, 554, 559, 561; no formal schooling 276; melded together the three phonetic systems of Jingju stage pronunciation 19–20; and Tianjin 33; got start in Shanghai and Tianjin 34; testimony for Pathé recordings booklet 86–87n; fees for recordings 87n; counterfeit recordings 87n; poach hualian roles 139–40; stage name appears at head of some palace playscripts  167n; change performed text to prevent theft 201; insist on Yu Shuyan not change aria text 202n,

Index 280; as playwright/adapter 267, 276– 80; granted official rank and name changed by Cixi 277; official kneel to him 277; reputation for changing play text 278; no brain trust 278; problems with his play texts because of his poor literacy 279–80; apparently rare example of him use a playscript 280n; and his Silang tanmu 412–413 Tan Yinshan 探陰山 (Investigating Mount Yin) 125n Tanaka Issei; on Anhui/Huizhou merchants and the transmission of opera 15n Tanci 彈詞 (lit.: plucking songs) 72 Tang Xianzu 湯顯祖 104, 220–21, 231–32; try to prevent actors and revisers changing his playscripts 212– 13n; work penname into play prologue 223; chuanqi play about him as playwright 225n; supernatural punishment for writing Mudan ting 225n Tang Yunsheng 唐韻笙 42n, 271n, 283n Tanghui 堂會. See Private performances Tangzi 堂子, parlors or private residences of Anhui troupe and Jingju actors in which disciples waited on male patrons and performed arias or playlets for them 21; banned in the Republic 32 Tanizaki Junichirō 谷崎潤一郎, consulted Xikao while in China 407n Tanmu Huiling 探母回令 (Visiting mother; Returning the [arrow of] command) 413 Tanmu xiantu 探母獻圖 ([Silang] visits his mother and offers a map); revised version of Silang tanmu 465n Tanqin Xiangma 探親相罵 (Visiting the in-laws, Mutual cursing) 143n, 207n Tanselle, Thomas; on the work as immaterial and the text as material XVIn Tanxi shuoxi: Baiwei mingjia koushu bainian Jingju chuancheng shi 談戲說戲: 百位名家口述百年京劇傳承史 (Talking of plays, speaking plays: An oral history of the transmission

Index of Jingju according to one hundred masters) 520n, 578–79n Tanzhuang 探莊 (Scouting out the manor) 540n Tao Baichuan 陶百川 310 Tao Junqi 陶君起 96n. See also Jingju jumu chutan Tao Xiong 陶雄, on Anhui troupes and martial plays 15n Tao’er xi 套兒戲 (mold plays) 162n Taohua shan gangling” 桃花扇綱領 (The warp and weft of Taohua shan)  252n Taohua shan 桃花扇 (Peach blossom fan), prop list in early edition 198n; prologue 223, 250–51, 253n Taohua wu 桃花塢, woodblock print producer 67n Teaching plays orally. See Shuoxi Teaching version (jiaoxue ben 教學 本) 526n Teaching, single-roles versus entire plays 164n; old versus new plays 163–64; commercial playscripts promise to replace teachers 165, 419n; texts replace go to opera club to learn 419n Teaching/teachable plays 119n Technical terms (shuyu 術語), glossing of 555–56 Tekan 特刊 (special publications) 552, 553n; for Mei Lanfang, Shang Xiaoyun, Xun Huisheng, and Zhou Xinfang 553n; for a play 553n Television and Jingju 80, 83–84; main way Chinese relate to Jingju 83; CCTV xiqu channel 83; TV miniseries related to Jingju 83–85; New Year’s galas and Jingju 84 Text, common sense definition of XV Texts as tangible and material rather than non-material, immaterial, or intangible XVI, XVIn Textual fixity 585–587, 587–89n; and textualization XVn, 259,g 585–587; and censorship XVII, 585; and subtitling 586; and audience decline 586; last minute

775 changes 586n. See also Choice in playscripts Textualization (transcription) and preservation and/or revitalization, in folklore studies XV-VI; and nonnative scholars XVII, XVIIn Textualization and authorship 210–92 Textualization and fixation XV; textualization can leave room for choice or improvisation XV; of performance practice IX, XII; and teaching XV; and standardization of Jingju performance tradition 540, 547; of parts of plays 196–201; 1948 claim that there are plays without playscripts that have been in circulation for many years 463n Textualization as way to deal with dialect; for Mei Lanfang Hong Kong tour playscripts printed beforehand 40n. See Dialect on stage, Subtitles/ Surtitles Textualization of theater, studies of XV Textualization reveals how bad Jingju playscripts are 205–206 Textualization studies XVI Textualization, common sense definition of XV Textualization, degree of by Chinese theater genre, spectrum from high to low 211–12 Theater (in house) periodicals 337n Theater and education 51–56, 418n, 429–33 Theater and organized crime 39 Theater in China, ubiquity of 51; belief in the power of theater 51, 445, 467, 524 Theater maxims (xiyan 戲諺) 194–95 Theater periodicals 185, 552–54 Theater review committees (xiju/xiqu shencha [wenyuan] hui 戲劇/ 戲曲審查[委員]會) 451–524; abolition 463n Theater reviews. See Ju/xiping Theater studies XIII, 302n, 351–52n, 352, 400–427 Theater, importance of in the West XVII, 340, 340n, 361, 423n Theorization XV

776 Thirteen famous actors of Yiyang 69n; Thirteen Stars of the Tongzhi and Guangxu Eras (Tong Guang shisan jue 同光十 三絕) 567–68 Thirty­Six Dramatic Situations, The 157n Three Celebrations Troupe. See Sanqing Ban Three Kingdoms plays 146, 150, 272–73, 366 Three Kingdoms serial plays 124n Tian Han 田漢 215, 537n, 538n, 539n, 545; on watching actors instead of plays 396n; his plays banned by GMD and Japanese occupation 461n; playwright and administrator 518; playwriting prize named after him 519n Tian Jiyun 田際雲, actor-playwright 183– 84, 254n; Tongsu Jiaoyu Yanjiu Hui play inspector 432n Tian, Min; on increase of stage directions in zaju 164n Tianbao shiyin shuju 天寶石印書局 190n Tianchan Wutai 天蟬舞臺 (Tianchan Theater) 507n, 511 Tianhe pei 天河配 (The match by the Milky Way) 119n Tianjiang qilin 天降麒麟 (Heaven grants a qilin) 245n Tianjin and Jingju 33–34, 42n Tianlei bao 天雷報 (Punishment by lightning) 138n, 167n Tiannü sanhua 天女散花 (Heavenly maiden scatters flowers) 45n, 552n, 570; performance rights case 428–29; criticism of being too literary 529 Tianshui guan 天水關 (Heavenly Water Pass) 191n Tianxian Chayuan 天仙茶園 242n Tianxian pei 天仙配 (Match between heavenly immortal and mortal) case 444n Tiao huache 挑華車 (Turning aside the carts sliding down the hill) 211n Tiao jiaguan 跳加官 (Dance to ensure promotion) 136n, 142n Tiaoshui kuangsheng 苕水狂生 304–305n Tie gongji 鐵公雞 (The iron rooster) 37n, 242n, 269n, 449n Tie 貼 (secondary female role) 130 Tiedan 貼旦 133, 233

Index Tiegong yuan 鐵弓緣 (The marriage affinity of the iron bow) 573n Tigang xi 提綱戲. See Mubiao xi Tigang 提/題綱. See Abstracts Titles of plays; alternate titles 96–100, 102, 116, 196, 240, 244n, 446, 446– 47n, 589–91; alternate titles and censorship 99–100, 196, 463–64; multiple titles for same play 96; problems with titles 99n, 411, 441n; alternate titles on the first pages of playscripts 183; Xikao shukao complains about a title 411n; performance works made from them 71n; literary games/works using them 196–97, 302n; numbers of characters in 107n, 196–97n Tong Jingxin 佟晶心 352n Tongchang 同場 (scene with many characters but allotment of singing uneven) 188n Tongchui hualian 銅錘花臉 133, 137n, 508 Tongchun Ban 同春班 (Shared Spring Troupe), Tan Xinpei’s troupe, registration playlist 111–12n, 278n Tongchun 同春 Troupe, owned by Taiping general 268–69 Tongku Shanhai guan 痛哭山海關 (Crying in Pain over Shanhai Pass) 453 Tongle tang 同樂堂, playscript copyshop in Beijing 174n Tongnü zhan she 童女斬蛇 (The maiden decapitates the snake) 27n, 389; Tongsu Jiaoyu Yanjiu Hui antisuperstition play authorship 430–31 Tongsu Jiaoyu Yanjiu Hui 通俗教育研究 會 (Bureau for research on popular education) 429–33, 435, 445n, 448, 501n, 554n; evaluation functions 430, 432n; playwriting activities 430–33; wrote about one hundred plays but only several tens performed 431– 32n; conditions of use and revision for Bureau plays 430–431n; criteria for censorship or promotion 430n; publications 432–33; list of banned plays sent to 448n; Hebei branch 449n. See Tongnü zhan she

777

Index Tongsu jiaoyu 通俗教育, (popular education) 429 Tongxia 同下 [all exit] 411 Topical categories of plays other than Jingju; for zaju 159n; for chuanqi plays 159n Touring circuits 34 Tourist Peking opera 47–48, 118, 370, 410n, 571n Touxi 偷戲. See Steal plays Traditional plays (chuantong jumu 傳統劇 目) 115n Tragedy 142n, 156, 156n; and the tragic 156n; Western valuation of 156 Transcribing pronunciation 210n Transcription and inscription XVI, XVIn Transcription and preservation or revitalization, in folklore studies XVI Transcription versus rewriting XVI Transcription, impossibility of transcribing all aspects of performance XVI, 210n Translation of playscripts 581–82; bilingual editions 545, 547–48; see Scott, Zhongguo Jingju baibu, Zhongguo xiqu haiwai chuanbo gongcheng congshu Translation, mistakes in translation in English subtitles and programs XI Transportation, new forms of, and spread of Jingju 42 Trigault, Nicholas 51n Trilogy of plays about actors (lingren sanbu 伶人三部) 522n Troupe playlists 102, 106–107; to perform in palace 111, 111–12n Troupe/resident playwrights XIV, 272–73, 282, 288–189, 291–92, 506–507, 511, 513, 518–20; asked to write for actor outside the troupe 507n Troupes and exclusive use playscripts (zhuanyong 專用劇本) 438 Troupes, number of actors in a troupe 7, 130; number of actors put on stage in palace theater 8; number of actors in Anhui troupes large, able to mount plays at different venues at the same time 20n; eighteen insufficient 233 Tschanz, Dietrich; on spoken drama in Shanghai schools 25n

Tsuji Chōka 285n, 393n, 448, 557n; on actors and photographs 80n; thanked actors for permission to quote from their plays 393n; helped Tanazaki watch plays 407n Tu niu bao 屠牛報 (Retribution for [privately] butchering an ox) 248–49 Tuan 團 (rounded) pronunciation 543, 545 Tuanyuan 團圓 (reunion), scene label in Chuqu plays 184–85n Twelve-category role-type system 130n, 233n Twenty-six nationally banned (in the PRC) plays 118, 159n Types of plays, Jingju 123–62; definition of “play,” 96, 589; oscillation between short and long forms 124 Types of playscripts 162–209 Typeset editions of Jingju playscripts, early 182–83;  Jile shijie 230 Typesetting, problems caused during 414n, 418n; characters upside down or on their sides 417n; sight loans and phonetic loans 417n Uncle Tom’s Cabin 25n Variety acts (shijin zashua 十錦雜耍) 262n Victims of Opium, 1916 film 82n Video, transcribed lectures (or interviews). See Oral history of Jingju, Shuoxi Vietnam, play about 183–84 Village Compact (xiangyue 鄉約) lectures 237–38; criticism of in Yu Zhi play 138n Voice of the teacher and shuoxi in new media 576; less likely to be addressed only to one’s disciple(s) 576 Voice quality; and role-type 132 Wai 外 (secondary male role) 130, 133, 134, 299n Waiguo 外國 (foreign lands); possible Jingju play content category 161 Waixue 外學, performers and teachers brought into the palace to teach eunuch actors 17, 167n

778 Wan Fengshu 萬鳳姝, 568n Wan 完 (complete) written at the end of the entire play 243n, 411; added in Guoju dacheng version 411n Wan, Margaret B. 67n Wang Anqi 王安祈 295n; on xiaoxi in Jingju 124n; on scene divisions in Jingju 187–88n; on categories of plays prohibited in Taiwan 464n; on actor-centered versus playwrightcentered drama 473n; as playwright 521 Wang Baochuan 王寶川 (Lady Precious Stream) 64n Wang Cheng 王程 524n Wang Dacuo 王大錯 38–39n, 297n, 323n, 371, 373–75, 388–90, 399, 590n; penname Lilao 櫪老 373–74; lament some plays drop out of performance 119; non-Xikao activities 301–302n; and Wuxia Jian’er 315–16n, 373–74; author of shukao in Xikao 317n; ad for third installment introduces him and his work on the shukao 362; editorial work on Xikao 363; variety of signatures to his calligraphy 364n, 375n, 382; and Wang Ding 375–76; Wang Dacuo of Qingpu 376–78; Wang Dacuo of Suzhou 378; Wang as Wang Ding 381–82; Xikao editorial responsibilities 377–78, 384n; commentary editions of Sanguo yanyi, Xixiang ji, and Du Fu’s poetry 378– 81; concerns about included plays in Xikao 388–91 Wang Ding 王鼎 375–76. See Wang Dacuo Wang Dungen 王鈍根 203n, 303–305, 326, 341n, 363, 371–72, 374–75, 376n, 381, 384–86, 391; director and stage manager of theater group 385–86; editor and writer of preface and liyan for Xikao 356, 363; opinion of ordinary actors 386 Wang Fengqing 王鳳卿 318n Wang Fushou 王福壽, praised as one great big xikao 408n

Index Wang Guifang 王桂芳 413n Wang Guifen 汪桂芬 179, 398n, 399n, 402; counterfeit recordings of 86n Wang Guowei 王國維 322–23 Wang Hongshou 王鴻壽 164n, 325n, as actor-playwright 267–71; son of official who owned opera troupes but had to flee when father and family executed 268; calligrapher 270; served twice (briefly) as an official 270 Wang Hongwen 王洪文 472 Wang Jide 王驥德 212–13n; on preparation to be playwright 395n Wang Jingwei 汪精衛 423n, 460 Wang Junqing 王均卿, 310 Wang Limei 王麗梅; on Kunqu as “feminine,” 12n Wang Mengsheng 王夢生 16n, 527n Wang Qinruo 王欽若 138n Wang Qiugui 王秋桂 (C. K. Wang) 308n, 314n, 373 Wang Shaolou 王少樓 561 Wang Shifu 王實甫 231, 233n Wang Xiaonong xiqu ji: Jingju 汪笑儂戲 曲集: 京劇 (Collected Chinese indigenous theater plays by Wang Xiaonong: Jingju) 285n, 287n, 550n Wang Xiaonong 汪笑儂 40n, 148n, 184, 278n, 282–87, 363, 391–92n, 396, 401n, 418n, 550–51; Manchu and an official 282–83; recluse among actors 283, 404; had juren degree 283n, published poetry 285, 550; gave and published lectures 485; wrote book on theater reform 285n; anthology of his plays published 285n; plays not always completely written out 286; publish plays in periodicals 438n; political criticism in his plays 447; Wang school of performance 550n; very long arias 550n; wrote commemorative poem for playscript 558n Wang Xinhua 王新紀 523 Wang Yan 王岩 343n Wang Yangming 王陽明 237

Index Wang Yaoqing xiansheng shuoxi 王瑤卿 先生說戲 (Mr. Wang Yaoqing tells plays) 577n Wang Yaoqing 王瑤卿 88n, 162n, 263, 284, 318, 394n, 403n, 570; playwright who focused on matching text with music 267, 268n, 273–76; adapter rather than creator 273–74; friendship and collaboration with Chen Moxiang 275, 374n, 487, 491n, 493–94, 497–98, 501, 503; perform in palace 274; adapt Empress Dowager Cixi’s lyrics to make them singable 274; studied to go into trade 274; combine roletypes 277; acknowledged as director on program 483n; not willing to perform salacious plays 482; credited as advisor for a play 519n; play series 539n; on notating Pekingese (Jingbai) 544n; photos of him shuoxi 570; phonograph recordings of him shuoxi 577 Wang Yufang 王玉芳 556 Wang Yurong 王玉蓉 88n Wang Zengqi 汪曾祺 523n Wang Zhengyao 王政堯, on Prince Che 170, 170–71n Wang Zhongsheng 王鐘聲 447n Wang Zicheng 王梓丞 526n, 546n Wangmao laosheng 王帽老生 132 Wanhua xi 浣花溪 (Flower washing brook) 342n Wanli xunfu 萬里尋夫 (Searching for her husband over ten thousand li) 297n Wanxiao dan 玩笑旦 133, 207n Wanxiao ju 玩笑劇 (farce) 157 Wanxiao 玩笑 (broad comedy); Xixue huikao topical category 160 Wawa sheng 娃娃生 133; role-types that wawa sheng characters can also be played as 138n Wax cylinder recordings 88n Wei Changsheng 魏長生; male Qinqiang performer of female roles of loose morals, created new ways to simulate women’s hair and bound feet 12–13; forced to leave Beijing 13

779 Wei Xiaoping 魏曉平 479n Wei Ziyun 魏子雲 521n Weiman 圍幔 (curtain used on stage to block view of scenery or props) 260n Weisheng 尾聲 (Coda), short instrumental piece used to mark the end of a play, in playscripts 243n Weishui he 渭水河 (The Wei River) 120n Weixie 猥褻 (indecent) 449n Wen Jiabao 溫家寶 61 Wen Ruhua XX Wen Zhaoguan 文昭關 (Civil Zhao Pass) 299n Wenchang 文場 (civil scene) 188n; civil (melodic) half of the orchestra 450n Wenchou 文丑 134, 139 Weng Ouhong bianju shengya 翁偶虹編劇生 涯 (My life writing plays) 70n, 206n, 395n, 417n, 458, 475, 489n, 504–505n, 506–507n, 508–12, 513n; as material for playwriting class 512n Weng Ouhong 70n, 482, 504–13, 518–19; literati playwright how was an amateur actor XVIII; correct playscripts 206n; complains [Jingju] playwrights’ names are forgotten 395n, 507n; on literati input on playscripts 417n; and Minzhong xiaoshuo xiqu duben 457–58n; on Hongdeng ji 475n; open about earning income from playwriting 482, 505; lower percent of plays performed than Chen Moxiang 483; chair of Xiqu Gailiang Weiyuan Hui 489n, 510; on Chen Moxiang 489n; number of plays written 504n; why so many of his plays did not get performed 511–12; most prolific Jingju playwright 504; connections and comparison to Cheng Moxiang 504–505n, 512; collaborated with Chen Moxiang on one play 505; wrote memoir that focuses on his career as a playwright 505; claimed to have been a professional playwright all his life 505; wrote two articles on playwriting 505n; amateur performer of hualian roles

780 Weng Ouhong (cont.) who was interested in and did get paid for perfomances 505, 509; well-known performer of hualian roles and expert on lianpu 505n, 510n; got surcharge for tickets of performances of his plays 505, 505–506n; resident playwright for Zhonghua Xixiao student troupe and staff playwright for theater companies but retained a certain amount of independence 506; organized a troupe of Zhonghua Xixiao students after the school closed and took them on tour 506, 506–507n, 511; able to register the student troupe because his name had been included in a list of hualian performers by their guild 506–507n; advertised as a master playwright by the Shanghai theater that hired him to be resident playwright 507, 511; credited as playwright and director 507n; his plays published as separate booklets and in an anthology 507; wrote for fairly wide spectrum of actors 508, 512; competent in staging and technical aspects of playwriting 508; divides playwrights into three groups (actor playwrights, literati playwrights in general and those able to collaborate with actors) 508–509n; on preparing to become a playwright like shopkeeper collecting stock for his store 508; father against him become actor so performs secretly till found out 508– 509; graduates high school and gets job teaching but decides to quit and write articles for publication in the morning and act in the afternoon and evenings 508–509; learns to play xiaoluo and paint his face 509; gets paid (if less than professionals) for acting 509; offered job teaching culture courses at Zhongghua Xixiao but conflicts with acting but agrees to do external work 509; asked to

Index correct and then to write plays for Zhonghua Xixiao and help stage them 510–511; Zhonghua Xixiao teachers resent implied criticism of them and keep testing him but are won over by his competence 510–11; visualizes small stage in his head as he writes plays 511; collaborates with actors writing plays and gives them credit 511, 513; political interference on his playwriting 512n; used Jin Shengtan’s techniques 512; successful in teaching playwrighting skills to others 513; compared to Fan Junhong 513–14 Wenji gui Han 文姬歸漢 ([Cai] Wenji returns to the Han) 308n Wenkang 文康 74n, 264 Wenming xi/xinxi 文明戲/新戲 (civilized plays/new civilized plays) 148, 450; as examples of new plays 25; participation of Jingju actors and singing of Jingju arias in 25; supposedly easier to perform 75; and abstracts 200–201; and Ouyang Yuqian 286; and Wang Xiaonong 286 Wenren bianju 文人編劇 (literati playwright) 506 Wenwu laosheng 文武老生 132, 136 Wenwu quanchang 文物全場 (combined civil and martial scene) 188n Wenxi 文戲 (civil plays) 67, 154–55 Wenyi gongzuo zhe 文藝工作者. See Cultural worker Wenyi shuju 文宜書局 178 Wenyi shuju 文藝書局 180n Wenzi yu 文字獄. See Literary inquisitions Western drama in China 38n Western gaze, Chinese theater and XVII, 46 Western ideas of drama in China XVII Western mechanized printing technology (lithography, etc.) and the creation of mass audiences 73 Western music, thought to be more scientific in China and Japan 585n Western opera libretti, sold and consulted at performances 205n

Index Western opera 3, 126n; repertoire of 104; addicts of 92; recycle old material 161n; supremacy of composer over librettist recent 205n; librettist income 205–206n; increasing notational fixity 585n Western theater, associate gravitas and seriousness of purpose to 156 What’s on the stage is real/true 53–54 White Snake, see Fenmo qushu Wichmann, Elizabeth (Elizabeth Wichmann-Walczak, Wei Lisha 魏 莉莎), on names for Jingju 2n; direct English language productions of Jingju 49–50, 59n; on the “emotional-progression structure” in Jingju 189n; on Jingju music and aria types 259n; on reform at Shanghai Jingju Company 477n; on Cao Cao yu Yang Xiu 478n; on the “Jingju symphonic dramatic poem,” Mei Lanfang 523n Wilder, Thornton 48 Without fixed scripts 無固定劇本, category of play to be banned 470 Woodblock printing (muke ban 木刻版), xylography 177 Woodblock prints, spread of Jingju through 42, 65–69, 186n; portrayal of stages in 68; of children performing plays 68–69, 84n World as stage 356, 359 Wu erhua 武二花 133 Wu Han 吳晗 153, 473–74; asked by Mao Zedong to write on Hai Rui 473 Wu Jiang 吳江 571 Wu Jinlin 吳金林, playscript dictator 177n Wu Kunfang 吳堃芳, expert bachang, worked for Xun Huisheng 495n Wu laosheng 武老生 132, 136, 139 Wu Mei 吳梅 312, 351n, 423n Wu Qiechang 吳契厂, on Chen Moxiang 502n Wu shi zi tong 無師自通 (without a teacher able, by oneself, to penetrate [all the secrets]), a claim made in some commercial playscript collections 165

781 Wu Song 武松, plays that feature him as a group 151, 151–52n Wu Xiaoling 吳曉鈴 255n Wu Xiaoru 吳小如 90n, 279n; on Yu Lianquan perform banned plays 470n Wu xiaosheng 武小生 133, 139 Wu Xingguo 吳興國 140–41n Wu Xinmiao 吳新苗 268n, 516n Wu Yuehua 伍月華 441n Wu Zhaoguan 武昭關 (Martial Zhaoguan) 14, 561n Wu Zhenxiu 吳震修 46n Wu Zuguang 吳祖光 78n, 91n; as supporter of actors 93; consulted Xikao 407n Wubai chu ximing 五百齣戲名 (500 play titles) 71n Wuban 武班 (martial troupe); name for Anhui troupes 15n Wucai yu 五彩輿 (The five­colored carriage) 199n Wuchang 武場 (martial scene) 188n Wuchou 武丑 134, 139, 271n; role-types that wuchou characters can also be played as 138n Wudan 武旦 133, 328; role-types that wudan characters can also be played as 138n Wudi dong 無底洞 (Bottomless cave) 465n Wuhan Hanju Yuan 武漢漢劇院 (Wuhan Hanju company) 40n Wuhan shishi: Huiyin tang 武漢時事: 誨 淫堂 (Current event in Wuhan: Hall for the proselytization of lewdness) 53–54 Wuhan; fourth most important city for Jingju 39 Wuhang 武行 134 Wujia po 武/五家坡 (Wu Family Slope) 162n, 302–303n, 388 Wujing 武凈 133, 202n, 328 Wuju 婺劇; a local theater tradition in Jinhua, Zhejiang, one of the last places where there is a professional troupe that uses Huidiao 15n Wukong xi 悟空戲 (Sun Wukong plays) 152n. See also Hou’er/Houzi xi

782 Wupen ji 烏盆計 (The black pot plot) 144n Wupu 舞譜 (dance notation) 569–70n, 573–74n Wuqiang 武強 woodblock prints 67n Wuren yi 五人義 (Five righteous men; a.k.a., Shisan taibao fan Suzhou 十三太 保反蘇州 [13th “Prince” rebels in Suzhou]) 508n Wusheng 武生 (male martial role) 37n, 114n, 123n, 133, 136, 137n, 140n, 141n, 291, 328; role-types that wusheng characters can also be played as 138n; poach hualian roles 139– 40; oral history 579n Wusong ling 蜈蚣領 (Scorpion Ridge) 206n Wutai guizhi 舞臺規制 (stage regulations) 562n Wutai shenghuo sishi nian 舞臺生活四十年 (Forty years of life on the stage) 52, 488; on Tongnü zhan she 431n Wutong yu 梧桐雨 (Rain on the pawlonia) 129 Wuxi 武戲 (martial plays) 142, 154–55; hard for amateurs to perform 501 Wuxia Jian’er 吳下健兒 (Strong fellow from the Suzhou area) 203n, 299, 372–74, 376, 391, 399; photo of him whose caption identifies him as Gu Qianyuan 顧乾元 and Xuanlang as penname 373; and Xikao xinbian 299, 315–16n, 335–36, 373; source of playscripts and notes for Xikao 359–60; author of shukao in Xikao 317n, 319n, 332–334, 333n, 258; Shenbao “Xikao” column self-introduction 326, 372; author of other theater pieces in Shenbao “Ziyou tan” section 330, 330n; and the development of theater reviews 372, 372n; wrote fiction 373n; and Wang Dacuo 315–16n, 373–74, 374n. See also Shenbao “Xikao” column Wuxia ju 武俠劇 (martial arts plays); Minzhong xiaoshuo xiqu duben content category 126 Wuxian pu 五線譜 (five-line score), Western musical notation, used to transcribe Jingju music 190–91, 276, 548

Index Xi Jinping 習近平 61–62 Xi mangzi 戲忙子 parasites who do things for star actors 502 Xi tidiao 戲提調 (someone who puts theater programs together for others) 32, 277n, 508 Xi Xiaobo 奚嘯伯 89n Xi yinyuan 戲姻緣 (A playful marriage affinity) 319n Xi Zipei 席子佩 384 Xi’er ji 洗耳記 (Washing out his ears) 286n, 551n Xia Renhu 夏仁虎; on similarities between Kunqu and Yiyang 10n Xia Yuerun 夏月潤 122n, 400n, 404n Xia Yueshan 夏月珊 184n, 351n, 400–401, 422n Xian Xichuan 獻西川 (Offering up Western Sichuan) 297n Xiandai xi/ju 現代戲/劇. See Modern plays Xiang Yu 項羽 139n, 416n Xianggong 相公, common term for young actors who served and performed for male patrons in parlors and restaurants 21, 183, 487n; trained in the arts and literature 266 Xiangma zhuan 響馬傳 (Story of the mounted bandits) 507n Xiangsheng 相聲 (lit.: appearance and sound; often translated “crosstalk”) 70–72; pretend to perform Jingju plays in 70–71 Xiangyan paizi 香煙牌子, see cigarette cards Xiangyue 鄉約. See Village Compact Xiangzhu 詳註. See Annotation in Jingju playscripts, annotated in detail Xianqing ouji 閑情偶記 (Random repository of idle thoughts) 8n Xiansuo 弦索, local theater tradition, prohibited in the Qing 23n Xiao Changhua 蕭長華 195n, 283n, 291, 294n, 575; little formal education 272; on playwriting 266n; as playwright 267, 271–72; edition of performance versions of his plays 273n Xiao Cuihua 小翠華 (a.k.a., 篠翠花; Yu Lianquan 于連泉) 144n, 255n, 397n, 252n; labeled rightist 470n; shuoxi

Index lectures transcribed and published  578n Xiao fangniu 小放牛 (Little letting oxen out to pasture) 144n, 183n Xiao He yuexia zhui Han Xin 蕭何月下追韓 信 (Xiao He pursues Han Xin under the moon), 3D film of 583n Xiao hualian 小花臉 134, 141n, 207n Xiao huamian 小花面 134 Xiao juben 小劇本 (Short playscripts)  514n Xiao Jun 蕭軍 63n Xiao shangfen 小上墳 (Little visit to the gravesite) 181n Xiao Yuehong 筱月紅. See Cao Yinqiu Xiao 小, as marker for secondary actor of a role-type 130 Xiaochou 小丑 134 Xiaodan 小旦 133, 141n, 233; can refer to actors specializing in less proper but sexually attractive female roles 21 Xiaojing 小凈 133 Xiaolin bao 笑林報 (Forest of laughter) 75n Xiaoluo 小鑼 (small gong) 509 Xiaoren shu 小人書. See Lianhuan hua Xiaosheng 小生 (young dignified males) 107, 114n, 130, 132, 140n, 261n, 328, 369, 497, 508, 537n; secondary male lead 134; roletypes that xiaosheng characters can also be played as 138n; without falsetto 140n; oral history 579n Xiaoshuo 小說 (fiction) 76, 494 Xiaoxi 小戲 (small-scale plays) 143n; prominent in local drama types  21 Xiaoyao jin 逍遙津 (Carefree Ford) 122n, 411n Xiaoyin 小引 (short introduction), scene label in Chuqu plays 184–85n Xiaozhou 小軸 (short scroll) 143 Xiashou 下手 134 Xiayi 俠義 (chivalry); Xixue huikao topical category 159 Xiazi guangdeng 瞎子逛燈 (Blind one takes in the lanterns) 143n Xibao 戲報 (Theater) 541–42 Xibao 戲報 110. See also Xidan Xichu huace 戲齣畫冊 (Album of play paintings), held in the palace 66n

783 Xidan 戲單 (theater tickets, programs) 62n, 74, 75n, 413n; begin be printed by theaters 110; development from simple to complicated 197; collections of 110–111n, 114–15; lists of plays for guests to select to be performed 197; complaint about inadequacy 335n; including formerly banned plays 469n; for Zhonghua xixiao 459n; give credit to playwright and director  383. See also Shuoming shu, Jiemu dan Xide 戲德 (theater morality) 121n Xie Boliang 謝柏梁 515–16n Xie Yaohuan 謝瑤環 539n Xiepi chou 鞋皮丑 134 Xiezi 楔子 (demi-act) 129 Xigai 戲改 (theater reform), under the Nationalists 98; under the PRC 98, 468–72, 585 Xiju bagu 戲劇八股 (theatrical eight-legged essays) 455–56 Xiju congkan 戲劇叢刊 (Collected publications on theater) 196n, 425n, 433, 562n Xiju de xiaoshuo 戲劇的小說 (theater fiction) 77n Xiju Wenxue Xi 戲劇文學系 (Theater literature department) 517 Xiju xue 戲劇學 421. See also Theater studies Xiju xuekan 戲劇學刊 (Theater studies journal) 565n Xiju Yanjiu She 戲劇研究社 344n, 347n, 348n Xiju yuekan 戲劇月刊 (The Theatre Monthly) 561; policy on editing playscripts (five things to get rid off) 420; special issues 440 Xiju zhoukan 戲劇周刊 (Theater weekly) 3n, 561 Xiju 錫劇 (Wuxi opera) 350n Xiju/xiqu shencha [wenyuan] hui 戲劇/戲 曲審查[委員]會 (theater review committees) 451–524 Xikao as genre(s) 330n, 406, 539n, 554, 556n; someone knowledgeable about plays was called a “living xikao” 408n

784 Xikao daquan 戲考大全. See Xikao, 戲 考 (Research into plays), editions; Shanghai Shudian Xikao fenlei mulu 戲考分類目錄 (The plays of Xikao divided by category) 314–15n Xikao quanmu 戲考全目 297n, 300, 320n, 394n, 403n Xikao xinbian 戲考新編 (Xikao newly edited) 100, 299, 329, 332–33n, 333, 335, 361, 373 Xikao 戲考 (Research into plays) 59, 63n, 66n, 70n, 80n, 100, 119, 120n, 146–47, 200n, 203n, 208n, 210, 246n, 293–405, 530–31, 539, 548, 557, 567, 576; roletypes system in 131–35; editorial staff not interested in unifying role-type terminology 135; role-type terms that do not appear in 135n; arrange plays by role-type 141n; as a bestseller 210, 293, 304, 524; laconic stage directions 211n; taken to theaters 293, 293–94n; replace going to the theater 293–94, 407; mentioned in plays 294n; imitated 294, 334, 338–52, 530; create genres 294–95; no explicit ideology 295, 416–18, 524; use in research 295; and xikao.com 295; consulted by playwrights 295; photoreprints 295n; dates of installments 296n, 300n; average size and content of installments 296–97; editing of 298–99n, 333n, 356, 359–60, 363, 368–69, 374n, 386, 388, 414–19; ads and clipart on blank pages 301–302n, 309n; does not include xinju 320–21; reprints of installments 304; rates for advertising in 304n; meanings of the two titles (Xikao and Guqu zhinan) 315–55; scholarship on 315–16n; which of its three components most important 334–36; English translations of the title 315n, 316, 338n; the master plan 355–71; solicit

Index corrections 359; delays in between issues 363–64; changes in personnel and their importance and installment content 364, 367; serial plays in 365–68; play supposed to appear in last installment did not appear because of lack of space 300–301n, 369; include plays for all roletypes 369; respond to reader requests 369, 374, 410n; performance history of included plays 369–71; neglect in the PRC 406; appears in plays and fiction 408n; spoken of as a periodical 549, 550n, 552 Xikao 戲考 (Research into plays), ads for; in Shenbao 298n, 299, 360–61; in Libai liu 301–302n, 333n, 352n, 354n, 363–64, 392–93n, 394n, 397n; in other Zhonghua Tushu Guan publications 361–63; Jingju performers as part of the audience 363 Xikao 戲考 (Research into plays), criticism and attempts to surpass 408–20, 530; not scientific enough XIII; some of the plays are incomplete 409–14; Xikao claims of completeness 410; print inferior versions 414–19 Xikao 戲考 (Research into plays), editions; Dadong Shuju reprint 102n, 307, 407–408n, 420, 550n; no paratextual material 308; problem with installment 35 296n, 309; lack or add plays 308–309; lack of real investment in the book 309; as separate installments and in fourvolume sets 308, 309n; photos in 402 Xikao 戲考 (Research into plays), editions; Liren Shuju reprint 296–97n, 313–14, 355n, 589, 591; English title 315n Xikao 戲考 (Research into plays), editions; Shanghai Shudian reprint (Xikao daquan 戲考大全) 309n, 314, 352n, 355n; compared to Liren Shuju reprint 314n; at end has play title index and a list of the plays divided by categories 314n; false claims 314n

Index Xikao 戲考 (Research into plays), editions; Shenbao Guan installments 297– 300, 328, 335, 550n; first installment versus Zhonghua Tushu Guan version 299n, 332, 419–20n; second installment 332 Xikao 戲考 (Research into plays), editions; Zhonghua Tushu Guan reprints 550n; five-volume reprint 297–98n, 299–300, 308n; planned other reprints 300–301 Xikao 戲考 (Research into plays), non-Jingju plays 316–20; bangzi plays 313n, 317–20; plays with some bangzi arias 316n; Kunqu plays 317n; plays claimed to have some Kunqu elements 317n; claims that all the plays are Jingju 316, 320n; use of luantan in the shukao 319, 319–20n; bangzi and Jingju versions of same play 317–19 Xikao 戲考 (Research into plays), numbering system for the plays XIIIn, 296–97n, 589–91; total number of plays 300n, 589–91 Xikao 戲考 (Research into plays), pages on which plays in it appear 27n, 37n, 37–38n, 39n, 45n, 46n, 50n, 52n, 55, 56n, 57, 63n, 71n, 76, 82n, 91, 100n, 110, 119n, 120n, 125n, 134, 137n, 138n, 139n, 140n, 143n, 144n, 145n, 148n, 149n, 156n, 157n, 158n, 158–59n, 160n, 162n, 163n, 167n, 169n, 179n, 181n, 183n, 185n, 188n, 189n, 191n, 192n, 194n, 200n, 201n, 206n, 207n, 211n, 241n, 242n, 244n, 248, 254n, 270n, 273, 278n, 286n, 289n, 291, 295n, 296n, 297n, 299n, 305n, 313n, 317, 318n, 319n, 320n, 317, 318n, 319n, 320n, 324n, 325, 330n, 331, 332, 337n, 342n, 346n, 354, 365, 366, 367n, 368n, 369n, 371, 374, 374n, 377, 380n, 388n, 389, 390n, 391n, 392n, 393n, 397n, 399, 407n, 410n, 411n, 412n, 413n, 415n, 417n, 418n, 420n, 431, 441n, 447n, 448n, 449n, 457n, 458n, 459, 461n, 464, 465n, 473, 477, 487n, 493n, 494n, 499, 524n, 528, 530n, 531n, 533, 536, 537n, 539n, 544,

785 550–51n, 552n, 554, 558n, 559, 560n, 561n, 567, 571n, 574n, 580, 582n, 590 Xikao 戲考 (Research into plays), paratextual material 300, 355–60 Xikao 戲考 (Research into plays), participants; See Wang Dungen, Wang Dacuo, Wuxia Jian’er, Songbin, Xuanlang, Suichu, Mengchu, Zhenzhi, Zhang Defu, Zhihao, Zhao Zhiqiang Xikao 戲考 (Research into plays), photographs in 296, 298n, 334, 360–61n, 397–405, 530; ads mention or stress 360–61; not coordinated with playscripts 302n, 524; shared photos with Youxi zazhi 303n; refer to different photo in periodical from same publisher 305; much fewer in Dadong Shuju reprint 308, 308n; use of tinting 308n; in Liren Shuju reprint 308n; Shanghai Shudian reprint ones new 314n; matches between photos and plays in two installments rare 318n, 398–99; and photography studios 318n; praise of 356; wait for photo of Yang Xiaolou 361; claims for their rarity 397–98n; solicit them 398n; mention of a photo in one shukao 399; focus is on actors and not plays 402; many are in plain dress 402; attributions of 402n; of courtesans 403; actresses 402–403; amateur actors 402–403; child actors 402–403; captions try to raise status of actors 404; include bangzi, Kunqu, and xinju actors 404; Shanghai-centric 404–405; include some musicians 405n; multiple image of same person (shen wai shen 身外身) 404n Xikao 戲考 (Research into plays), shukao 207n, 296–97, 317–19, 320n, 323n, 332–33n, 334, 342n, 352n, 353, 363, 365, 369, 377–80, 397n, 399n, 410, 412–13n, 414, 421, 424n, 524, 530, 567, 590n; attributions to Wang Dacuo, Wuxia Jian’er, or others 317n, 371, 376; attributions for installments 32,

786 Xikao 戲考 (Research into plays) (cont.) 373–374; ad for third installment introduces Wang Dacuo and his work on the [shu]kao 362; comments on bangzi 318, 318–19n; Xikao not limited to pihuang 319–20; on luantan versus Jingju 319–20n; use of terms for Jingju 319–20n; references to other installments 367–68; attributes play to Mei Lanfang 431n Xikao 戲考 (Research into plays), shukao, attitudes toward problematic content of plays in Xikao 388–91; sexual content 388–89; superstition 389– 90; crude events and language 390– 91; on actresses and males and females performing together 391; on sexual equality 391; entertainment is enough 391; interest in facts behind the plays as opposed to suspension of disbelief 391; one mention of a photo 399 Xikao 戲考 (Research into plays), sources of playscripts 392–97; difficulty in getting good playscripts 317–18, 362, 392n, 394; claims to have gotten them from famous actors 362, 392–93; ad claims one of the plays is true Mei Lanfang script 364; Wuxia Jian’er as source of playscripts 359–60; anonymous sources 393, 393–94n; purchase playscripts 394–95; authorship attribution in shukao 396–97 Xikao 戲考 (Research into plays), users; literary men 407n; actors 407n; playwrights 407n; scholar 407n; opera schools 407n; Japanese visitors to China 407n; traveler-suicides 408n Xikao 戲考, publications of parts of playscripts that had been recorded and/or might be played on the radio 86n, 90n, 294–95, 346–50 Xikao, as a term in other works. See Haishang liyuan zakao, Shenbao “Xikao” column Xikao.com 352–53, 582; playscripts posted 246n, 559n; policy on

Index including non-Jingju plays based on Xikao 320n; editorial policy 417n Ximi qichuang 戲迷起床 (The opera fanatic gets out of bed) 72n Ximi yaofang 戲迷藥方 (Opera fanatic medical prescription), xiangsheng routine 72n Ximi zhi qi 戲迷之妻 (The opera addict’s wife) 77n Ximi zhuan 戲迷傳 (Biography of an opera fanatic) 542n Ximi zhuan 戲迷傳 (Biography of an opera fanatic), alternate title, Ru ci guanchang 如此官場 (A world of officialdom [screwed up] like this) 71n Ximi 戲迷 (Opera fanatic), xiangsheng routine 72n Ximo 戲魔 (opera demon) 71n Xin Antian hui 新安天會 (New Bringingpeace-to-heaven party) 57n Xin Baitu ji 新白兔記 (New Story of the White Rabbit) 537n Xin Daming fu 新大名府 (New Daming Prefecture) 537n Xin Ma Yan 新罵閻 (New Cursing King Yama) 440n Xin qingnian 新青年 (New youth), drama issue 26n Xin Shiba che 新十八扯 (New Eighteen bits) 330n Xin Shijie 新世界 (New World), entertainment complexs in Beijing and Shanghai 39n Xin shiqi 新時期 (New Period) 467 Xin Sishi ba che 新四十八扯 (New Fortyeight bits) 207n, 330n Xin Wutai 新舞臺 (The New Stage) 37n, 38, 57n, 82n, 184, 286n, 328n, 337n, 400–401 Xin Xiqu Shudian 新戲曲書店 (New Chinese indigenous theater bookstore) 536–37 Xin Yanqiu 新艷秋 (New [Cheng] Yanqiu; stage name of Wang Yuhua 王玉 華) 122n, 561 Xin Zhongguo Shiyan Jingju Tuan 新中 國實驗京劇團 (The New China Experimental Jingju Troupe) 511n

Index Xinbi 信筆, following one’s brush 497 Xinbian guzhuang xi/ju 新編古裝戲/劇 (newly compiled ancient-clothing plays [not the same as guzhuang xinxi]) 154–55 Xinbian guzhuang xi/ju 新編古裝戲/劇 (newly compiled ancient-clothing plays) 148 Xinbian lishi ju 新編歷史劇 (newly compiled historical plays) 148, 472 Xinbian lishi xi/ju 新編歷史戲/劇 (newly compiled historical plays) 154–55 Xinglü gailiang 刑律改良 (Reform of the penal system) 324n Xingti pu 形體譜 (body position roster) 566n Xingtou tigang 行頭提綱 (costume abstracts) 118n, 198, 198–99n Xingtou 行頭 (theater costume) 3n, 67n Xinju/xi kao 新劇/戲考 (Research on new plays) 301n, 321, 333n, 338–340, 356n Xinju/xi 新劇/戲. See New-style plays Xinjuan Chuqu shizhong 新鐫楚曲十種 (Newly carved ten Chuqu) 185n Xinxin Wutai 新新舞臺 (New New Theater) 386n, 450n Xinxin Zhaoxiang Guan 心心照相館 (Double heart photography studio) 398n Xiong Chengyu 131n Xiong Foxi 熊佛西 212n; criticized Mei Lanfang and his helpers for being not conversant with modern Western stagecraft and having such bad taste in scenery and lighting 46n; assertion of performance rights 438n Xiong Taizhan 熊太占 252 Xipi 西皮 (lit.: western skin), one of the two major musical systems of Jingju 18, 52, 142n, 167n, 172n, 255–56n, 258–59; more suited to martial themes 19; suitable for lively, cheerful stories 19n; xipi plays more likely to be adaptations of bangzi plays 19. See Fan xipi Xiqu (Chinese indigenous theater) IX, 3, 519–20 Xiqu bianju chutan 戲曲編劇初探 (A first exploration of xiqu playwriting) 516n

787 Xiqu bianju gailun 戲曲編劇概論 (An overview of xiqu playwriting) 516n Xiqu bianju jiqiao qianlun 戲曲編劇技巧 淺論 (Shallow talks on playwriting techniques for xiqu) 514; includes reprints of previously published articles, two further volumes were supposed to be on language and convention (chengshi) 514, 514–15n Xiqu bianju lunji 戲曲編劇論集 (Collected discourses on playwriting) 514, 514–15n Xiqu bianju qiantan 戲曲編劇淺談 (Shallow talks on xiqu playwriting) 516n Xiqu Gaijin Ju/Xigai Ju 戲曲改進局/戲改 局 (Bureau for the improvement of Chinese indigenous theater) 468, 536; mocked as Xizai Ju 戲宰局 (Bureau for Slaughtering Plays)  468 Xiqu Gailiang Weiyuan Hui 戲曲改 良委員會 (Committee for the improvement of xiqu); Chen Moxiang and Weng Ouhong both served as chairman 489n, 510; discuss play revisions 489n Xiqu jiaoyu xilie congshu 戲曲教育系列叢 書 (Collectanea series of educational material for xiqu) 539n Xiqu juben xiezuo jiaocheng 戲曲劇本寫作 教程 (A curriculum for writing xiqu playscripts) 516n Xiqu juzuo fa jiaocheng 戲曲劇作法教程 (A curriculum for teaching methods to write xiqu plays) 516n Xiqu juzuo yishu tan 戲曲劇作藝術談 (Talks on the art of xiqu playwriting) 516n Xiqu qikan yu keyan jiaoyu jigou minglu (1949–2009) 戲曲期刊與科研教 育機構名錄 (1949–2009) (List of periodicals and educational institutions concerning xiqu [1949– 2009]) 563n Xiqu shenduan biaoyan xunlian fa 戲 曲身段表演訓練法 (Ways to practice Chinese indigenous theater performance movement) 568–71

788 Xiqu Wenxue Xi 戲曲文學戲 (Department of Chinese indigenous theater literature) 515; faculty and their play collections 515, 515–16n; Zhongguo Jingju Yuan has hired eleven graduates but most now gone 518 Xiqu xiezuo chuji jiaocheng 戲曲寫作初級 教程 (An entry-level curriculum for xiqu composition) 517n Xiqu xiezuo jiaocheng 戲曲寫作 教程 (A curriculum for xiqu composition) 517n Xiqu xiezuo lun 戲曲寫作論 (Essays on xiqu composition) 517n Xiqu Yanjiu Suo 戲曲研究所 (Research Institute for Traditional Chinese Theater) 300–301n Xiqu Yinyue Yuan Beiping Yanjiu Suo 戲 曲音樂院北平研究所 (Chinese indigenous theater music research academy, Beiping research institute) 275, 425, 457–58n, 487–88 Xishen 喜神, wooden doll used onstage for a baby 497 Xiuding Guoju xuan 修訂國劇選 (Selection of revised guoju plays) 462, 531n; model for format in Taiwan 462n Xiuding jingguo 修訂經過 (Process of revision), essays for each play in Xiuding Pingju xuan 439n, 412n, 417n, 460 Xiuding Pingju xuan 修訂平劇選 (Selected revised Pingju plays) 249n, 417–18n, 433n, 435, 459–60, 462n, 534; censorship of superstitious content 389–90n Xiwen 戲文 (lit.: play text) 7n Xixiang ji 西廂記 (Story of the western wing) 220, 231–32, 233n, 237n, 378, 380; commentary editions 224 Xixin daoren 洗心道人 (Man of the way with washed heart/Man of the way who washes the hearts of others) 226, 255–63; was private secretary to an official in Guangdong 255; believed purpose of theater is to lead to goodness 256; and evidentiary research (went to location cited in plot source) 258; surnamed

Index Wang 258; familiarity with Beijing and Jingju 258 Xixue huikao 戲學彙考 (Collected research in the study of theater) 415–16, 419–20n; arranged by role-type 141n; topical categories in 159–60 Xixue jiangyi 戲學講義 (Notes for a lecture on xixue) 422–24; prohibition against reprinting 438 Xixue Shuju 戲學書局 (Theater study book publishers) 352, 345n, 426–27 Xixue Yanjiu She 戲學研究社 307n, 347n, 348n, 351–52, 422 Xixue 戲學 421–24; definition 424; in the names of journals, books, articles, publishers, and organizations 143n, 159–60, 182–83, 205n, 302, 306, 307n, 309n, 311n, 312–13, 342, 344n, 345, 347–48n, 351–52, 354, 388 Xixue 戲學. See Theater studies Xiyan 戲諺 (theater maxims) 194–95 Xiyin/xiyinzi 戲癮/戲癮子 (addiction to theater) 91 Xiyou 西游 (Journey to the West) plays 151– 52; rejected for performance because of supernatural content 452n Xizai Ju 戲宰局 (Bureau for Slaughtering Plays) 468 Xu Ce paocheng 徐策跑城 (Xu Ce runs the city wall) 270n Xu Chengbei 徐城北, on the use of the term Jingju 4n; on Tianjin as more Beijing than Beijing 34n Xu Fuming 徐扶明, on serial plays 124n Xu Jichuan 許姬傳 195n, 540, 577–78n Xu Lanyuan 徐蘭沅 90n Xu Lingxiao 徐凌霄 423n, 499n, 562n; and Yueju 樂劇 (musical theater) 3n; author of novel that includes a lot about theater 18n, 77n; and huaju 25n Xu Lu 徐露 58n, 464–65n Xu Mu ma Cao 徐母罵曹 (Xu Shu’s mother curses Cao Cao) 377 Xu Muxi 許慕曦 351n, 354n Xu Muyun 徐慕雲 541, 558n; author of serialized novel on theater in Beijing in the Qing court 408n Xu Peng; on Liu Zengfu 577n Xu Xiyun 徐西雲 253

Index Xu Youqian 許幼謙 313 Xu Yuanlan 徐蘭沅 189n Xu Zhenhua 徐振華, and hall names associated with him (Xuxian tang 徐 顯堂 or Zhicheng tang 致誠堂) 175, 176n Xu Zhihao 許志豪 312–13, 351n, 388 Xu Zhimo 徐志摩 63 Xu 虛 (empty) 233n Xuanchuan dui 宣傳對 (propaganda troupes) 59 Xuanlang 玄郎 122n, 203n, 331, 372–73, 386n Xuantong emperor 42 Xuda duihua ti 虛答對話體 (one-sided dialogue) 555n Xue Dingshan 薛丁山 151n Xue family of generals, novels based on, as source of Jingju plays 151n Xue Pinggui 薛平貴 55, 162n Xue Rengui 薛仁貴 151n, 162n Xue Xiaojin 薛曉金 548n Xue Yinxuan 薛印軒 282 Xue Yuelou 薛月樓 354n Xuexi baifa 學戲百法 (One hundred ways to study Jingju) 351n, 387n Xuexi he shuoxi 學戲與說戲 (Learning and telling plays) 578n Xun Huisheng 荀慧生 (a.k.a., Bai mudan 白牡丹) 113, 144n, 308n, 344n, 483, 495n, 561; switched from bangzi to Jingju 24; and Chen Moxiang 487n, 488, 491n, 493n, 494, 498–503; did not give full credit to Chen Moxiang 483–84n; on Chen’s playwriting 491n; TV miniseries on him 502n; editions of performance versions of his plays 525n Xun Lingxiang 荀令香, son of Sun Huisheng 498–99n, 502 Xunyang lou 潯陽樓 (Xunyang tower) 377n Xusheng 鬚生 132, 196n, 326, 328, 332, 369, 402 Yabu 雅部 (elegant/refined division of Chinese theater) 109; used in opposition to huabu 9–13; largely restricted in the Qing dynasty to the troupes of the wealthy salt merchants of Yangzhou 9n; supported by the

789 imperial house and conservative elites 17 Yakugara 役柄 role system of kabuki 126n Yama, King 440n, 478n Yan Changke 顏長珂 516n; on “Chuntai ban ximu,” 106–107; on female roles dominating over male ones 107 Yan Fu 嚴復 557 Yan Jupeng 言菊朋 561 Yan Quanyi 顏全毅, on erhuang as the earliest name for Jingju as a [separate] type of play 18; on creativity in Chinese theater 95n; on amateur demand for playscripts spur circulation of playscripts 177n; on Cuo zhong cuo 251; on low profile of Jingju playwrights 396n; on Chen Moxiang 488, 501n; collection of his plays 516n Yan Ruisheng 閻瑞生 (Yan Ruisheng) 39n Yan Ruisheng, 1921 film 82n Yan shoulu 延壽錄 (Extending longevity) 240 Yan Zhao lihen 燕趙梨痕 (Theater tears from the Beijing and Hebei area) 77n Yan’an mode (Yan’an fanshi 延安範 式) 467n Yan’an Period 467, 468n Yan’an Pingju Yanjiu Yuan 延安平劇研究院 (Yan’an Pingju Institute) 23n Yan’an 466 Yanchang ximu cishu diaocha biao 演唱戲目 次數調查表 (Survey of the frequency of the performance of plays) 97n Yanchu ben 演出本 (performance or acting editions [of playscripts]) 273n, 483–84n, 525–26, 532n, 534n, 536, 546, 546–47n, 576n; definition of 526n; for yangban xi 475, 475–76n, 546, 571n, 526; historical and descriptive versus for performance 525 Yanchu quan 演出權 (performance rights) 454. See also Performance rights Yandang shan 雁蕩山 (Yandang Mountain), a play with no singing or dialogue created in, 1952 3 Yang Baosen 楊寶森 163n Yang Baozhong 楊寶忠 49n; shuoxi audio recording 576–77n

790 [Yang] Caocao [杨]艸艸 499n, 500 Yang Chenyin 楊塵因 557, 557–58n Yang Guifei 359 Yang hua’er 洋畫兒 (foreign paintings). See Cigarette cards Yang Huasheng 楊華生 72n Yang Jingqiu 楊鏡秋, literati playwright, not successful 280–81 Yang Jiye 楊繼業 326 Yang Maojian 楊懋建; on what the Four Great Anhui Troupes were known for 14n Yang Pengnian 楊彭年 99n, 100, 341n Yang Shaoxuan 楊紹萱 537n Yang Sili 楊四立 113 Yang Xiaohui 楊曉輝 516n Yang Xiaolou 楊小樓 44n, 123n, 361; fiction about 76, 76–77n; list of his plays submitted to the palace 112; fanchuan performance 137n; poach hualian roles 139–40; changes he made over decades to one play 201n; audio recording of Bawang bie ji 548 Yang Xiuqing 楊秀清 269 Yang Xiushan 楊秀山 176n Yang Yanhui 楊延輝 (Fourth Son) 211n, 412–413 Yang Yuelou 楊月樓 57n Yang Zhenqi 楊振淇; on use of northern standard Chinese in Kunqu 12n Yangban xi 樣板戲 (model revolutionary operas) 54, 60, 474–76, 523n, 537; film versions 83n, 475, 547n; roletypes in 140; number of 475; performance editions 475, 475–76n, 526, 546, 546–47n; musical differences 476n; use of recorded music for recent performance 476n; nostalgia for 476n; desire to standardize and/or fix 526, 575n; attempts to eliminate deviation 547n Yangjia [jiang] xi 楊家[將]戲, plays based on this novel 150–51 Yangjia jiang yanyi 楊家將演義 (Popularized story of the Yang family of generals), source of Jingju plays 150–51; palace dramatic version 168

Index Yangliu Qing 楊柳青 67 Yangui tan 煙鬼嘆 (Lament of the opium addict) 145n, 148n, 282n, 297n Yangzhou Ciqu Ju 揚州詞曲局 (Yangzhou bureau to [revise] plays) 97–98n Yangzhou huafang lu 揚州畫舫錄 (Record of the pleasure boats of Yangzhou) 130n Yangzhuang xi 洋裝戲 (Western-dress plays) 144–45 Yangzi 樣子 (charts used in the palace to show complicated blocking) 193n Yanlun laosheng 演論老生, laosheng actor good at performing lectures in plays 401n Yanlun 演論/yanshuo 演說, popular lectures, often political, later used to refer to lecture-like speeches in plays 401 Yanluo meng: Tiandi yi xiucai 閻羅夢: 天地 一秀才 (A dream of King Yama: A first-degree holder between heaven and earth) 478n Yanqing 艷情 (seductive love); Xixue huikao topical category 160 Yanqing 言情 (love); content category Qi Rushan used to divide his own plays 160n Yantai jucui 燕台菊萃 (The cream of plays from the Beijing stage), a lot of paratextual material but focused on lyrics and singing 539–41 Yanyi 演義 (supplements to history); Xixue huikao topical category 159 Yao Dajiu 姚達九 189n Yao Shuyi 么書儀; on lists of Four Famous Dan Actors 24n; on numbers of playgoers 31–32; on the birth mother of the Jiaqing emperor, whom the Qianlong emperor met on one of his tours to the south and had brought back to Beijing 10n Yao Wenyuan 姚文元 472, 476n Yao Xie 姚燮 321–22 Yatai xi 壓臺戲 (keep-the-audience-fromleaving plays) 143n Yayin Xiaoji 雅音小集 (Elegant sound small ensemble) 464n Yazhou 壓軸 (pressing-down scroll; penultimate play in a program) 143

Index Ye Chunshan 葉春善 113, personal collection of playscripts 166n Ye Jinsen 葉金森 535n Ye Jiuru 葉九如 301, 307 Ye Shaolan 葉少蘭 113n, 166n Ye Shenglan 葉盛蘭 122n Ye Shengzhang 葉盛章 508n Ye Tang 葉堂 415n Ye Xiaoqing, on theater censorship campaign under the Qianlong emperor 445n Yeben 夜奔 (Fleeing by night), 2000 film 84n Yecha guo 夜叉國 (Kingdom of yechas) 232 Yeh, Catherine Vance (Ye Kaidi 葉凱蒂), on modern dance and Mei Lanfang 28n; on Beijing versus Shanghai 34; on the entertainment press and Jingju stardom 78 Yellow Jacket, A Chinese Play Done in a Chinese Manner 48n Yesou puyan 野叟曝言 (The old codger airs his tongue) 290n Yexi 夜戲. See Evening performances Yezhan 野戰, use flexible strategy 497 Yi Jiangnan 憶江南 (Remembering Jiangnan) 37n, 40n, 120n, 138, 140n, 189n, 200n, 549n Yi Shifu 易實甫 397n Yilü ma 一縷麻 (A strand of hemp) 27n Yimin ji 義民記 (The righteous person) 240, 241n Yin pei xiang 音配像 (body-synching) 61n, 247n, 441n; and attempts to revive old plays 116n; and shuoxi 581n Yinchang 飲場 (drink tea on stage) 545 Ying jie lie 英傑烈 (Brave, courageous, and valiant) 316n Ying Xijie 應錫介 252 Yinggong 應工 (roles one should perform) 136–38 Yinghang 應行 (roles an actor of a certain role-type is expected to know) 136–37n, Yinjia bao 殷家堡 (Fortress of the Yin family) 354n Yinling 淫伶 (lewd actor) 452n Yinxi 淫戲. See Lewd plays Yinxie 淫褻 (indecent) 449n

791 Yinyang xian 陰陽獻 (original title Yinyang yu 陰陽獄; about the earthly and supernatural punishment of Hong Xiuquan 洪秀全) 240 Yinzi 引子, introductory a capella piece in Kunqu 191n; in Jingju (opener) 211n, 234, 260–61n, 412 Yiquan ji 義犬記 (The righteous dog) 240 Yishu zhidao 藝術執導 (artistic director) 523n Yishu zhidao 藝術執導. See Artistic director Yishun he ban 義順和班 (Yishun He Troupe) 181n Yisu She 易俗社 (Society to Change Social Customs) 53n, 263n, 318–19n, 391, 404n, 432n Yixia ju 義俠劇 (chivalrous plays); Minzhong xiaoshuo xiqu duben content category 126 Yixiang 衣箱 (clothing trunks) 268 Yiyan 義演. See Charity performances Yiyang 弋陽 (a.k.a., Yiyang qiang 弋陽腔; Yiqiang 弋腔) 69n, 109, 197n, 482; one of two theater singing styles (together with Kunqu) patronized by the palace in the Qing dynasty, no melodic instruments, seen as fairly crude and primitive 9; literary quality of the scripts 9; named after Yiyang in Jiangxi 9n; libretto easy to transpose for Kunqu and vice versa 9–10, 10n; more elegant version preserved in the palace 9n; literati playwriting input 10; use bangqiang 幫腔 (offstage choruses) 16 Yongjin yinxi mudan 永禁淫戲目單 (List of indecent plays to be forever banned) 236n Yongle dadian 永樂大典 (Great compendium of the Yongle era), included playscripts 218 Yongzheng emperor 238n Youlong xi feng 游龍戲鳳 (The wandering dragon flirts with the phoenix) 295n Youngsters don’t/can’t understand Chinese theater 62 Youxi bao 游戲報 (Entertainment) 178n

792 Youxi zazhi 游戲雜志 (own English title: The Pastime) 302; playscripts shared with Xikao 302–303n Youyuan jingmeng 游園驚夢 (A stroll in the garden, Interrupted dream) 52n, 417n Yu Dafu 郁達夫 63n Yu Dagang 俞大綱 206n, 521n Yu Handong 余漢東 142n, 529n Yu Huiyong 于會泳 475n Yu ji hen 虞姬恨 (Consort Yu’s regret) 464n Yu Jusheng 俞菊笙 168, 177n, 334n Yu Lianquan 于連泉. See Xiao Cuihua Yu Sansheng 余三勝 208n, 271n; actor fundamental to the formation of Jingju, trained in Handiao troupe, arrived in Beijing as early as 1832 19; performed in Tianjin 33; figurines of 69n; in the Chuntai troupe playlist 107 Yu Shangyuan 余上沅 29n, 425–426, 558n Yu Shuyan 余叔岩 82n, 279n, 280; income from recordings 87n Yu Wu 毓五, playwright, member of imperial house 283n Yu Xiaoyu 余笑予, Yibao mi 一包蜜 (A sack of honey) 539n Yu Yuqin 余玉琴 235n, 264–65, 273n Yu Zhi 余治 226–27, 236–50, 254, 292, 396n; and Jingju 228n; organize and lead troupes to perform his plays 238–39; proposal to use plays to improve society 238n; attempt to put his proposal in effect in Shanghai 240–41, 241–42n, 244–45, 524; number of plays written 239, 240n; some of his plays performed in Shanghai 240–41; as a reformer 241 Yu Zhibin 于質彬, on other theater traditions that use pihuang 18n; on Qing Shengping Ban playlist 108 Yuan Hanyun 袁寒雲 (a.k.a., Yuan Kewen 袁克文) 57, 57–58n, 311n, 423n, 557; photo in Xikao 398a, 403n Yuan Mei 袁枚 227n Yuan Shihai 袁世海 81n, 125n Yuan Shikai 袁世凱 57, 270, 277n, 448, 450

Index Yuankan zaju sanshi zhong 元刊雜劇三 十種 (Thirty zaju printed in the Yuan dynasty) 214, 214–15n; no authorship attribution 215; function as surtitles 293n Yuanmen zhanzi 轅門斬子 (The execution of the son at the gate of the headquarters) 160n Yuanqu xuan 元曲選 (Selected Yuan Plays) 214n; author attributions in 216 Yuanxiao mi 元宵謎 (Lantern Festival Riddle) 500n Yucheng Ban 玉成班 (Jade Completion Troupe), registration playlist 111–12n Yue Fei 岳飛 55, 116n, 152n, 247n, 359, 377 Yuefu hongshan 樂府紅珊 (Red coral [selections of] plays) 159n Yuejia zhuang 岳家莊 (Yue family manor) 305n, 400n Yueju 樂劇 (musical theater) 3n, 435n, 561 Yueju 粵劇 (Cantonese opera) 116, 349n, 350n Yueju 越劇 (Zhejiang opera) 83n, 349–50n; in the New Period 477n Yuelai dian 悅來店 (Yuelai Inn) 264n Yuenan wang­guo can 越南亡國慘 (The tragic history of the fall of Vietnam) 183–84 Yuguai tu 育怪圖 (Illustration of Giving Birth to a Monster) 236–37n Yuju 豫劇 (Henan bangzi) 350n Yunbai 韻白 (elevated speech) 275n Yuni he 淤泥河 (Yuni River; a.k.a., Luo Cheng jiaoguan 羅成叫關 [Luo Cheng calls out before the city gate]), regarded as a tragedy 156n Yunnan, Jingju in 41, 43n Yutang chun 玉堂春 (Spring of Jade Hall) 493n, 499, 501 Yuwang chengguo 欲望城國 (Kingdom of desire [an adaptation of Macbeth]) 140–141n Yuzao gong 魚藻宫 (Yuzao Palace) 500 Yuzhou feng 宙風鋒 (The universal blade) 528n, 531n

Index Za 雜 134; in Jile shijie 233; in palace playscripts 234n, in Liangshi yin 262n Zaixiang Liu Luoguo 宰相劉羅鍋 (Prime Minister Hunchback Liu) 39n Zaju playscripts 214–18, 293n Zaju 雜劇 (lit.: variety plays) 6, 552n; decline of public performances in the Ming dynasty, importance of palace performances 7; zaju plays not written for performance in the Ming and Qing 7; repertoire 97; authorship of 109n; structure and role-type system 129; topical categories of plays 159n; measure word for act in zaju plays 178; costume and prop lists in palace versions 198n; in the Kunqu repertoire 218n; need for annotation 529 Zang Maoxun’s 臧懋循 216 Zao zhouzi 早軸子 (plays at the beginning of a program) 143 Zashua 雜耍 (variety performances) 255n Zeitlin, Judith T.; on increase in stage directions in chuanqi drama playscripts 164n Zeng Bairong 曾白融. See Jingju jumu cidian Zeng Yongyi XX, 521n; on the term zhezi xi 8n, 123n; on Siping diao 15n; on origin of role-type terms 128n; on scene divisions in Jingju 187–88n Zeng Zhimin 曾志忞 191n Zha Mei an 鍘美案 (The case of decapitating Chen Shimei at the waist) 330n Zha panguan 鍘判官 (Slicing in half the infernal judge) 125n Zhan Dou E 斬竇娥 (Executing Dou E) 494n Zhan Fancheng 戰樊城 (Fighting at Fancheng) 457–58n Zhan huangpao 斬黃袍 (Executing the official with the imperial yellow gown), Feng Shuluan’s version 76n Zhan jingtang 斬經堂 (Execution in the scripture hall) 465n Zhan Ma Su 斬馬謖 (Executing Ma Su) 365n

793 Zhan Wancheng 戰宛城 (Battle at Wancheng) 449n Zhan 占, abbreviation for tie 貼 134 Zhanchang 戰場 (battlefield) 255n Zhang Ailing 張愛玲 90n Zhang Bojin 張博謹 418n Zhang Boju 張伯駒; amateur actor and promoter of Jingju 28n Zhang Buhong 張步虹 58n Zhang Cang 張蒼 163n Zhang Chunqiao 張春橋 472 Zhang Cixi 張次溪 265n, 351n Zhang Daochang 張道昌 251, 252 Zhang Daqian 張大千 63n Zhang Daxia 張大夏 512n Zhang Defu 張德福 351; credited with work on the arias in Xikao 378n, 386–88; photo of him and ad for him as a music teacher appear in Xikao 386–87; edit playscript in Youxi zazhi 288n, 388n, 590; dictated Xuexi bafa, Jingxi gongche zhinan, and Changxi zhinan 唱戲指南 387n; credited with writing out each play for Xikao 387–88 Zhang Gang 張棡 88n Zhang Guilan 張桂蘭 137n Zhang Guixuan 張桂軒 44n Zhang Henshui 張恨水 63 Zhang Houzai 張厚載 26n, 557; supporter of Jingju in Xin qingnian 26n Zhang Huoding 張火丁 48n; Lincoln Center performances in 2015 2n, 61–62, 581, 586n; digital film of her Baishe zhuan 584n Zhang Jian 張謇 53n Zhang Jing 張敬 188n Zhang Jiqing 張繼青 115n Zhang Junqiu 張君秋 94n Zhang Mingfei 張冥飛 341n, 499n, 557–58 Zhang Mingshan 張明山 69n Zhang Peng 張彭 516n Zhang Pengchun (P. C. Chang) 張彭春 46n Zhang Siqi 張斯琦 200n Zhang Wenxiang ci Ma 張文祥刺馬 (Zhang Wenxiang assassinates Ma [Xinyi]) 148

794 Zhang Xiaocang 張肖傖 312n Zhang Xiaolin 張嘯林 64–65 Zhang Xueliang 張學良 56 Zhang Yao 張堯 526n, 546n Zhang Yifan 張一帆; on huaju 25n Zhang Yingjie 張英傑 (stage name Gai Jiaotian 蓋叫天) 25n. See also Gai Jiaotian Zhang Yuanhe 張元和 569n Zhang Zhishi 張志士 187n Zhang Zuolin 張作霖 451 Zhang, Dongshin, on zhezi xi as “actable plays,” 8n Zhangzhong xi 掌中戲 (palm puppet plays) 116 Zhanzheng ju 戰爭劇 (battle plays); Minzhong xiaoshuo xiqu duben content category 126 Zhanzi 斬子 (threatened execution of a son who breaks military discipline by agreeing to marry on the battlefield); possible Jingju play content category 160 Zhao Erxun 趙爾巽 58n Zhao Hongtao 趙洪濤 571 Zhao Songshou 趙嵩綬/松壽 269n Zhao Xuejun 趙雪君 521–22n Zhao Zhiqiang 趙志強, credited with work on the arias and general editing work in Xikao 386, 388, photo appears in Xikao 388 Zhao, Sophia Tingting (趙婷婷), on theater reviews 372n, on Tiannü sanhua 428n Zhaodai xiaoshao 昭代簫韶 (Elegant Music for an Enlightened Age) 168, 548n; palace adaptations for Jingju 169; modern staging of installments from the Jingju version 169n Zhaojia lou 趙家樓 (The Zhao family tavern) 297n Zhaojun chusai 昭君出塞 (Bright Consort heads for the steppes) 465n Zhao-shi gu’er 趙氏孤兒 (Orphan of Zhao) 214, 571n Zhe 折, measure word for act in zaju plays 178, 256n Zhekou 轍口. See Rhyme-categories

Index Zhemian 遮面 (block face with sleeve when enter stage) 261n Zhenbie jiuxi cao 甄別舊戲草 (Distinguishing old plays, a draft) 263n, 319n Zheng Faxiang 鄭法祥 152n Zheng Guanying 鄭官應 239–40n, 244, 244–45n Zheng Xingmin 鄭醒民 557n Zheng Yimei 鄭逸梅 375n, 387 Zheng Zhenduo 鄭振鐸 314–15n Zheng Zhengqiu 鄭正秋 204n, 341n, 400n Zhengchang 正場 (orthodox scene) 188n Zhengdan 正旦, role-type of the lead singer in zaju that plays female characters 129; Jingju role-type 133, 369 Zhengju 正劇 (serious plays) 157 Zhengmo 正末, role-type of the lead singer in zaju that plays male characters 129 Zhengsheng 正生 132 Zhengyue Yuhua Hui 正樂育化會 (Society for the rectification of music and the transformation of the people) 27 Zhengzhong Shuju 正中書局 460 Zhentan 偵探 (detection); Xixue huikao topical category 159 Zhenzheng Jingdu toudeng mingjue quben 真正京都頭等名角曲本 (True and correct capital top-level famous-actor playscripts) 178–80 Zhenzhi 振之 (probably Zhang Zhaolin 張 兆琳), credited with editing work on Xikao installments 386 Zhezi xi 折子戲 (extracted scenes) 7–8, 96, 107, 116n, 123, 123–24n, 125, 154–55, 528n, 586n; give role types other than the sheng and dan to shine 8, 130; term not in wide use before 1949 8; tendency to get divorced from the play extracted from 125, 245n; titles of 197n; prohibition against zhezi xi from same play out of order on same program 364 Zhi 支, measure word for segments of a work 253 Zhibi 執筆 (wielding the brush, wielder of the brush), person who records

Index oral input during playwriting sessions 266, 490, 491n, 519n Zhichang 值場 (stage manager) 385 Zhichaozi 枝巢子; on similarities between Kunqu and Yiyang 10n Zhihao 許志豪 (probably Xu Zhihao 許志 豪), credited with work on the arias in Xikao 386, 388 Zhikan ji 芝龕記 (The sesame altar box) 252n ZhiquWeihu shan 智取威虎山 (Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy) 475– 76n, 571n Zhong Chuanxing 鍾傳幸 114 Zhong Ming 鐘鳴 200n, 515n Zhong Sicheng 鐘嗣成 109, 215 Zhong Ying wen duizhao Jingju fushi shuyu 中英文對照京劇服飾術語/ Jingju Costume Terms in Chinese and English 581n Zhongguo jindai difang xiqu juben congkan 中國近代地方戲曲劇本叢刊 (Compendium of Chinese local indigenous theater playscripts of the early modern period) 535 Zhongguo Jingju baibu jingdian Yingyi xilie/ English Translation Series of a Hundred Peking Opera Classics 中國京劇百部 經典英譯系列 547–48 Zhongguo Jingju baike quanshu 中國京劇 百科全書 (Encyclopedia of Chinese Jingju) 105, 154–55 Zhongguo Jingju guanshang 中國京劇觀 賞 (The appreciation of Chinese Jingju) 105, 154–55 Zhongguo Jingju lao changpian 中國京劇老 唱片, online site 87n Zhongguo Jingju liupai jumu jicheng 中國京 劇流派劇目集成 (Compendium of Jingju liupai plays of China) 532n, 549n, 567, 575 Zhongguo Jingju shi 中國京劇史 (The history of Chinese Jingju) 47n Zhongguo Jingju Yuan 中國京劇院 30, 443, 443–44n, 511, 513, 517–20; collection of playscripts 533n Zhongguo Jingju yuan: Jianyuan sishi zhounian jinian ce, 1955–1995 中國 京劇院: 建院四十週年紀念冊,

795 1955–1995 (Zhongguo Jingju Yuan: Commemorative booklet for the fortieth anniversary of the founding of the Company, 1955–1995) 443n, 519; prominence given playwrights  519n Zhongguo Jingju 中國京劇 (Chinese Jingju) 565 Zhongguo Juxue Hui 中國劇學會 (Organization for Chinese theater studies) 425n Zhongguo Pingju Yuan 中國評劇院 (China Pingju Company) 30–31n Zhongguo suwen ku 中國俗文庫 (Chinese popular literature database) 229n Zhongguo Xiju Chubanshe 中國戲劇出版 社 (Chinese theater press) 480, 538, 549n Zhongguo xiju nianjian 中國戲劇年 鑒 (Yearly almanac for Chinese theater) 538–39, 563–64 Zhongguo xiqu biaoyan yishu cidian 中國戲 曲表演藝術辭典 (A dictionary of the performance arts of traditional Chinese opera) 142n, 529n Zhongguo xiqu haiwai chuanbo gongcheng congshu 中國戲曲海外傳播工程 叢書 (Collectanea of the project on the foreign transmission of Chinese indigenous theater) 582n Zhongguo Xiqu Xueyuan Jingju biaoyan zhuanye zhuxiu jumu ke jiaocai 中 國戲曲學院京劇表演專業主修 劇目課教材 (Teaching material for elective repertoire classes for Jingju acting majors from Zhongguo Xiqu Yueyuan) 579–80 Zhongguo Xiqu Xueyuan 中國戲曲學院 (National Academy of Chinese Theater Arts) XX, 43, 49n, 50n, 111n, 251n, 271, 275, 276n, 307–308n, 309–10n, 427, 480, 512, 515, 515–16n, 526n, 566n, 568n, 570, 575n, 581; archive audio recordings of shuoxi 577; holds cache of old phonograph records 578n Zhongguo Xiqu Yanjiu Yuan 中國戲曲 研究院 (Institute for research on Jingju) 514n

796 Zhongguo Yishu Yanjiu Yuan 中國藝術研究 院 (Academy of Chinese Arts) 300n, 535 Zhonghua Tushu Guan 中華圖書館 (lit.: China Library) 299, 301–302n; magazines published by them 302– 305, 381; books on theater published by them 305–307, 321, 351n Zhonghua Tushu Jicheng Gongsi 中華圖書 集成公司 341n Zhonghua Xixiao 中華戲校, 59n, 125, 275, 434n, 457–58, 509–511; their xidan 459n Zhongpu 忠僕 (loyal servants); possible Jingju play content category 161 Zhongren 眾人 (the crowd) 262n Zhongtou xi 重頭戲 (heavy head plays) 141 Zhonguo Jingju dadian 中國京劇大典 (Grand compendium on Jingju of China) 587n Zhongxiao 忠孝 (loyalty and filiality); Xixue huikao topical category 159; content category Qi Rushan used to divide his own plays 160n Zhongyang Xiju Xueyuan 中央戲劇學院 (Central Theater Academy) 284 Zhongzhou yin 中州音 (the central plain system of pronunciation), one of the three phonetic systems of Jingju stage pronunciation 19–20 Zhongzhou 中軸 (plays in the middle of the program) 143 Zhou Changshan 周長山 272 Zhou Chuanjia 周傳家 516n Zhou Chuanying shenduan pu 周傳瑛身 段譜 (Zhou Chuanying shenduan pu) 566n Zhou Chunkui 周春奎 179 Zhou Daoli 周道立 252 Zhou Dong-xing 周東星 252 Zhou Enlai 周恩來 60, 60–61n, 512n Zhou Jianyun 周劍雲 351n Zhou Mingtai 周明泰, Wushi nian lai Beiping xiju shiliao 五十年來北平戲劇 史料 (Historical material from the last fifty years concerning plays in Beijing) 97n, 110 Zhou Shoujuan 周瘦鵑 305, 311n

Index Zhou Xinfang quanji 周信芳全集 (Complete collected works of Zhou Xinfang) 285n, 441n Zhou Xinfang 周信芳 (stage name Qilin tong 麒麟童) 25, 86n, 90n, 94n, 140n, 161n, 270, 441n, 450n, 533n, 561n; personal repertoire 114; cross role-type boundaries 139–40; ask Weng Ouhong to write for him 507n; edition of performance versions of his plays 525n; early collection of his plays 533n Zhou Yu 周瑜, connoisseur of song 353n, 357 Zhou Yude 周育德; on the inclusion of Yiyang in the yabu division 9n; on autobiographical plays 225n Zhou Zuoren 周作人; read Xikao instead of go to see plays 407n Zhou 軸 (scroll) 143–44 Zhoulang 周郎, way to refer to connoisseurs of song and theater 243n, 353 Zhou-shi 周氏 138n Zhouzi 軸子 (major plays) 14n Zhu Chongzhi 朱崇志, on actor input into Kunqu play anthologies 164n Zhu Jiajin 朱家溍; on the meaning of luantan 17n; on the labels on banxiang pu 66n; on Yang Xiaolou’s list of plays for the palace 112 Zhu Naigen 朱耐根 351n Zhu Naiwu 朱耐吾 338–39n Zhu Quan 朱權 159n, 216–17 Zhu Rongji 朱鋊基 60–61 Zhu Shihui 朱世慧 40, 140n, 533n Zhu Youdun 朱有燉 217 Zhu Yuanzhang 朱元璋 53n Zhu Zaiyu 朱載堉 193n, 573–74n Zhu Ziqing 朱自清; relied on Xikao 407n Zhuang Qingyi 莊清逸; playwright, member of imperial house 283n Zhuang Yifu 莊一拂 97, 215, 218, 220, 222 Zhuangbie 壯別 (Valiant parting) 465n Zhuanyong 專用劇本, playscripts whose use was reserved for a particular troupe 438 Zhuanzai 轉載, reprint items in periodicals 438, 441n

Index Zhuanzhi bianju 專職編劇. See Professional playwrights Zhuban de bianju 住班的編劇. See Troupe/ resident playwrights Zhuge Liang 諸葛亮 91, 151, 365n Zhugongdiao 諸宮調 (all-keys-and-modes) 223n Zhui baiqiu 綴白裘 (A patched cloak of white fur) 67, 177n, 212n, 415n, 525n; read before see performance 204n Zhuji shuju 鑄記書局 180n Zhulian zhai 珠簾寨, (Pearl Curtain Stockade) 139n, 305n Zhuofang Cao 捉放曹 (Arresting and releasing Cao Cao) 325n, 554–57, 560, 561–62n Zhusha zhi 硃砂痣 (The cinnabar birthmark) 303n; Yu Zhi play that made it into the repertoire 228, 241–42, 242–43n, 245, 249n; scene divisions in 245–47; performance versions 245–47; Yu Zhi’s prefaces 247n; yin pei xiang version 247n, 249n; manuscript versions 247n; single-role scripts 247n; stage directions 248; performability 249; Xiuding Pingju xuan edition 249n Zhuyin fuhao 註音符號 system 544 Zhuzhen Tang 聚珍堂 230 Zhuzhi ci 竹枝詞 (bamboo sprig poems) 73 Zhuzuo quan 著作權 (copyright, author-centered) 439 Zibao jiamen 自報家門 (characters’ self-introductions) 494n Zidi shu 子弟書 (cadet stories) 70, 70–71n; Baiben Zhang catalogue of 172n; piece that describes Baiben Zhang manuscripts on sale at temple fair 174n

797 Zijing shu 紫荊樹 (The Chinese redbud tree) 391n Ziyang 字樣 (figures used in the palace to show actors’ position when collectively form such things as huge auspicious characters) 193n Ziyou tan 自由談 (Free talk) 326, 384, 552; theater columns other than “Xikao” 330–31; photos of contributors 398n Ziyou Wutai 自由舞臺 (Free Stage); bylaws 386n Zongjiang 總講, zonggang 總綱, zongben 總 本. See Master scripts Zou Huilan 鄒慧蘭 193n, 195, 566n Zou Maicheng 走麥城 (Fleeing to Maicheng) 201n Zou Yiqing 鄒憶青 520n Zou Yuanjiang 鄒元江 206n Zouma 走馬 (routine meant to show travel on horseback through difficult terrain) 569–70 Zucker, Adolf Eduard; synopsis/translation of play performed for the American College Club in Beijing 46n; quote police theater regulations and discusses banned plays 448 Zuigan wenhua 罪感文化 (guilt culture) 156n Zuixin xiangzhu xikao 最新詳註戲考 (Newest, annotated in detail, play research), series of playscripts by Liu Juchan 542–43, 565 Zuogong laosheng 做功老生 132 Zuogong xi 做工戲 (plays that stress acting) 142 Zuogong 坐宮 (Sitting in the palace), first part of Silang tanmu performed as zhezi xi 542