Introduction

China’s theatre tradition is among the oldest and most varied in the world. Despite the proscriptions of authorities, it has been tightly interwoven with society and enjoyed by people of all classes. This chapter restricts itself to the Han people, who (according to the 2010 census) were 91.51 per cent of a total of nearly 1.4 billion people, with some particularly important minority traditions covered separately.

Definition

Traditional Chinese theatre is termed xiqu in Chinese. Major features of xiqu items are a plot and live actors impersonating particular personalities, with interrelationships between or among the play’s characters. The bulk of the dialogue in xiqu is undertaken either through singing or a conventionalized chanting, but comic characters often speak to the audience and a few items depend mostly on mime, being almost completely soundless.

Because singing was so important for dialogue, the term xiqu is often translated as ‘opera.’ There is, of course, logic in the translation and it is used in particular contexts below, but as a general term it gives a somewhat false impression, because the style of singing, the spectacle and the staging in Chinese xiqu are so different from western opera. Despite a rich history in China, certain types of performing arts are noted here only if they are part of xiqu, such as dance or acrobatics.

A chronological survey

Ritual performances, possibly with actors and dancers wearing costumes and makeup, existed from the earliest times. The courts of the pre-imperial period (that is, before the third century BCE) included some known to employ jesters able to impersonate dignitaries. During the Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE), there was a kind of entertainment called ‘hundred games circus’ (baixi). Among its numerous performance forms were dances with simple stories and actors impersonating people or animals.

Emperor Xuanzong (reigned 712–56), also called Minghuang, among the most prominent of rulers of the Tang dynasty (618–907), established a music school in a pear garden north of the main walled city of his capital Chang’an (present-day Xi’an). It achieved enough fame that to this day actors are sometimes called ‘children of the Pear Garden’, even though it appears that his actual aim was more to teach Buddhist music than anything we might consider theatrical. The Tang dynasty spawned another antecedent to drama, called ‘adjutant plays’ (canjunxi). These were comic skits with very simple stories, dialogue, song, acting and the beginnings of role types that were to become extremely important in later Chinese theatre.

The rise and flowering of the regional theatre in the Ming and Qing

With the overthrow of the Mongols, China was again controlled by the Han people, in the spectacular and culturally sophisticated Ming dynasty (1368–1644). In the seventeenth century, the Manchus from northeast China were able to take over the whole country and establish the Qing (1644–1911) dynasty. They expanded China’s territory considerably, their political power and culture reaching an apogee in the eighteenth century under the Qianlong Emperor (reigned 1735–95).

During this period the xiqu developed into over 300 different styles of regional theatre. Most of them began as small-scale folk theatre in the countryside, but quite a few developed into larger-scale urban genres that became well known throughout China. They differ in their dialect, music, instrumentation and in other ways, but the stories tend to be very similar, and there is some consistency also in their acting styles and costuming. They proliferated into different regions in various ways, among the most important being the absorption of elements of the art of one area into that of another through the agency of wandering acting troupes. Apart from the kunqu, to be considered later, most of the regional styles, and certainly all the small-scale ones, were mass theatre, despised by the elite.

Although the ‘southern drama’ declined greatly during the Yuan, it was reinvented in changed form during the Ming, certainly by the sixteenth century and probably earlier. A group of styles beginning in Yiyang, Jiangxi Province, resembled the southern drama in many ways, including in being accompanied only by percussion instruments. These styles became very widespread in the south and even spread to Beijing in the north.

Meanwhile, in the sixteenth century we find in north China a new array of theatre styles collectively known as bangzi qiang (usually translated ‘clapper operas’). Actually, the bangzi is a hardwood percussion instrument, struck with a stick. It is not really ‘clapped’. Yet the translation has become widespread enough to be accepted and the use of the instrument to mark accented beats is universal in clapper opera styles. Another extremely important characteristic of the clapper opera was that it followed the musical system known as banqiangti (literally ‘accented-beat tune system’). This was the opposite of the lianquti familiar in the south and in the Yuan zaju. Whereas the lianquti used pre-existing tunes and rhythm for newly written lyrics, the banqiangti did the opposite; in other words, tunes were specially written for pre-existing words. This made it possible to change the rhythm and metre frequently within the same act, enabling a wider range of emotional expression.

Kunqu

The most famous of forms evolving during the Ming is the kunqu, individual items usually known in their own time as chuanqi or ‘marvel tales’. This originated in the sixteenth century in Kunshan, very near Shanghai, mainly through the work of Wei Liangfu and his approximate contemporary Liang Chenyu (1520–94), who fashioned earlier southern dramas and the folk music of their region into a new, integrated form of drama. It follows the lianquti system, and the music is soft and gentle, with the orchestration dominated by the side-blown flute (dizi), while the rhythm is mainly in four-four time. Unlike any of the other genres of the post-Yuan era, it was an elite theatre that spawned a significant written literature.

The greatest and most famous dramatist of the Ming dynasty was Tang Xianzu (1550–1616), from Jiangxi Province. Because of his distinction and because he was contemporary with his English counterpart (he died in the same year), Tang Xianzu is often described as ‘China’s Shakespeare’. His surviving works are mostly based on dreams, the most important being the love story Mudan ting (Peony Pavilion), completed in 1598 (Figure 2.1). Tang was caught up in an early controversy in the history of kunqu. One school believed drama should be based on reason (li), restraint and the promotion of public morality. Tang represented the opposing school, which thought the basis of drama should be feeling (qing), with the focus on human passion and spontaneity.

Figure 2.1   A scene from Peony Pavilion.

A good representative of Qing dramatists was Hong Sheng (1645–1704), from Zhejiang, best known for his drama Changsheng dian (The Palace of Eternal Youth), which was completed in 1688. The only one of Hong’s eleven dramas to survive, it deals with the Tang Emperor Xuanzong, mentioned above, and his love for his favourite concubine Yang Guifei. Unfortunately, Hong was banished from Beijing and the item banned in 1689 due to its performance within two months of an empress’s death, thus breaking an official taboo. Despite this, it has remained among the most popular of Chinese dramas.

A contemporary of Hong Sheng’s was Kong Shangren (1648–1718), who was a descendant of Confucius. He is best known for his Taohua shan (Peach Blossom Fan) of 1699, a long item that tells a love story against the background of the defeat of the Ming by the Manchus. It is unusual in that it dramatizes events within living memory and Kong even seems to mourn the defeated Ming, for all its corruption, even though he tries to be fair to the Manchus, who were after all in power when he wrote. Though the Kangxi Emperor (reigned 1661–1722) was initially very favourable to Kong, after the play’s composition he cooled towards the dramatist, who was dismissed in 1700.

In sharp contrast to the Yuan zaju, operas in the kunqu style usually had many acts. Peony Pavilion, for instance, is immensely long, having fifty-five scenes in its full form. There are records of plays lasting three days and three nights. So it became customary for individual scenes or groups of scenes to be played separately from the full drama. This had become nearly universal practice by the end of the Ming.

Kunqu probably reached its apogee with Tang Xianzu and declined thereafter. Although there were some good items produced during the Qing, the genre never regained the inventiveness that had earlier characterized it. The Taiping Rebellion, which ravaged China and especially the south from 1850 to 1866, produced a devastating effect on this elite theatre and kunqu was approaching extinction by the time the Qing fell.

The Yuan drama ‘favored female players and female cross-dressing’ (Li 2003: 40). Mixed-gender troupes were common. There is evidence even of troupes functioning as family businesses, with the wife and daughters-in-law of the troupe leader involved in acting or other functions. Also, the material on actresses in the Yuan praises them both for their skills on the stage and attractiveness as courtesans.

However, from the Ming dynasty on, single-gender troupes were the norm, with all-male troupes much commoner than all-female. Confucian ideology demanded the public separation of the sexes and was very restrictive of any behaviour that authorities thought could lead to sexual immorality. Although the practice of foot-binding for women predated the Ming, it appears to have taken stricter hold at that time, making it very difficult for women to go on the stage as performers. Mixed troupes became rare, with most actresses being prostitutes, the exceptions being girls in private mansions trained in theatre.

The Pihuang system

In the eighteenth century, as kunqu declined, the growth of the regional theatre gathered momentum. For the popular theatre the main development was the combination of two styles, erhuang and xipi, collectively termed pihuang. Erhuang, of southern derivation, came dominantly to express grief, remembrance and lyricism, while xipi, which came from the north, was reserved more to show joy or vehemence. Belonging to the ‘accented-beat tune system’, a major feature of pihuang dramas was that musical accompaniment was dominated by a two-string fiddle called huqin, with a clapper termed ban beating out the rhythm.

Dramas belonging to a pihuang genre came to be found all over China. In the south the most famous genre was the Cantonese opera (yueju), which by the 1730s was known in a popular form probably fairly similar to the items still performed in Guangdong, Guangxi and Hong Kong. There were also major pihuang genres in Hubei, Hunan, Yunnan and other southern provinces.

Meanwhile in north China, the most important of the pihuang genres, namely the jingju, often translated as Peking Opera, established itself in the capital towards the end of the eighteenth century, the nineteenth seeing major development there. Rather than great dramatists, its main creators were troupes and actors. Among the former, the Four Great Anhui Troupes (Sida huiban) were pre-eminent. The actor of mature male roles Cheng Changgeng is sometimes called ‘the father of Peking Opera’ for his leadership in integrating and developing the various musical and acting components that have come to make up the Peking Opera. Jingju became strong and popular enough that in the twentieth century it was on occasion even termed guoju or national theatre, since some xiqu enthusiasts regarded it as equivalent to a form of theatre that could represent not only Beijing, but all China (Figure 2.2).

Figure 2.2   A scene from jingju Da bao guo (Defending the State), showing the royal palace.

Ideology of theatre: purpose, censorship

Though theatre originates in ritual and to some extent retains its role in religious ceremonies, the weight of opinion among thinkers in imperial China was to welcome theatre ‘as an important participant in and contributor to a well-ordered society’ (Fei 1999: x). Some societies have regarded the whole notion of artificially representing a make-believe world as inappropriate or even immoral. However, the Chinese love to watch representations of life as a form of entertainment or relaxation. They regard theatre as a way to be amused and to dream of good things, such as love and prosperity; they can be taken out of their daily humdrum existence though watching stage performances.

The content of traditional Chinese theatre

The main distinction in the content of traditional Chinese theatre is that between wen (civil) and wu (military), not between tragedy and comedy. ‘Civil’ items are about domestic matters, family life, marriage and love affairs. ‘Military’ items are about battles and wars, and include a great deal of fighting, represented by actions such as complex gymnastics and skilful catching of spears. Women are much better represented in the civil items, but there are several famous female military heroes.

With the exception of plays on strongly Buddhist themes, virtually all pre-twentieth-century operas were set in China in the remote or fairly distant past. A great many deal with historical figures and there is some connection with reality. Among many examples, I cite only two. In Peach Blossom Fan, events in many of the scenes are specifically dated (1643 to 1645). The love affair between the Tang Emperor Xuanzong and his concubine Yang Guifei that is the focus of Hong Shen’s The Palace of Eternal Youth actually took place.

In general, the Chinese prefer a happy ending. Light folk plays may emphasize problems in relations between men and women, but overall they are light-hearted and comic, and end happily. Of course, there are items with sad endings, but tragedy in the sense of the hero struggling unsuccessfully with a fatal flaw is not a feature of the Chinese tradition. Bad or negative characters will likely get their just deserts in the end in the form of punishment.

Storytelling is a very ancient art in China. It is the basis of many dramas and novels, the latter themselves being a major source for regional operas and the sophisticated genres such as jingju. An interesting point to follow from this is that the novels and the plays based on them tend to be episodic. Each chapter can be made into a short play, lasting less than an hour. The characterization of each figure is stark and simple, lacking complexity, and does not develop much. What tends to be lacking in the stories of Chinese traditional dramas is the tightly structured story rising to a climax and ending with a denouement.

Many early ‘southern operas’ of the Song were love stories or involved issues relating to marriage. The oldest extant drama script in Chinese literature is Zhang Xie zhuangyuan (Top Graduate Zhang Xie), perhaps from the early thirteenth century. It tells of a scholar with a poor wife; he comes top in the official examinations and is offered the prime minister’s daughter in marriage. He accepts her, disowning his previous wife. However, his new wife dies of grief, the previous wife comes to court and exposes her husband’s inhumane treatment of her, but this does not prevent reconciliation between them and a happy ending. The theme of the man who deserts his wife for one of a higher social status after doing well in the examinations is a typical one in traditional Chinese theatre. There are of course variants on the theme, with the wronged wife sometimes seeing her husband taken to law and punished.

The Yuan zaju are various in their content. Love interest, featuring virtuous women, courtesans or even nuns, is a very common theme. Wang Shifu’s The Story of the West Wing is a typical love story with an ultimately happy ending, although with many vicissitudes along the way. Guan Hanqing’s Injustice to Dou E is an example of a noble and self-sacrificing woman who, to save her mother-in-law from torture, confesses to a crime she never committed, is executed and then posthumously cleared through the occurrence of unnatural phenomena, including a midsummer snow-fall. Although the heroine dies unfairly, heaven can restore the balance of justice.

Part of the story is a court case. Courtroom dramas are common in Yuan zaju and in later theatre. An especially popular figure is Judge Bao. Actually, Bao Zheng (999–1062) was a real historical figure, and became lionized in Yuan and other dramas and in tradition as an icon of justice. He is presented as benevolent as well as just, and as detective as well as judge, always able to solve the cases he confronts.

Many Yuan dramas are about high politics and warfare, featuring items definitely belonging in the ‘military’ category. The warrior-heroes of the Three Kingdoms period of the third century are the protagonists of many Yuan dramas, as well as later plays. They became the source of the novel Sanguo yanyi (The Romance of the Three Kingdoms), which was itself to be a major source of plays of all genres.

Kunqu, like preceding genres originating in the south, tend to feature ‘civil’ drama over ‘military’. Tang Xianzu’s 1598 drama Peony Pavilion was mentioned above as an outstanding example of Ming dynasty drama. It illustrates very well the theme of love and the happy ending. Its main proponent is Du Liniang, the daughter of a stern Confucian bureaucrat. She falls in love in a dream, dies of love, but comes back to life through the courage and devotion of her lover; in the end he tops the official examinations and they marry.

In The Palace of Eternal Youth the Emperor Xuanzong’s beloved Yang Guifei is blamed for the outbreak of a major rebellion in 755. When they flee towards Sichuan, the troops demand her death, and the emperor commands her to commit suicide. Although the ending is happy, with the lovers reunited in the moon, this drama is one of the items that have tended strongly to put a Confucian interpretation on these unhappy events, colouring Chinese views of them throughout the ages.

On the other hand, the love affair in Kong Shangren’s Peach Blossom Fan ends sadly: after many vicissitudes the lovers are finally reunited, only to be told that the circumstances of the world in the early Qing dictate that they should separate, which they obediently do. This ending perhaps reflects Kong’s support for the ‘reason (li)’ school of thought in theatre, as against that expressing ‘feeling (qing)’, as discussed above.

Kunqu dramas are very long, and though the great majority of scenes are ‘civil’, there are a few ‘military’ ones. The converse is true of pihuang and clapper operas, which tended much more to the ‘military’ than did the kunqu and other southern dramas. In addition, they broke down the long novels and earlier dramas into much shorter episodes that could be presented individually to audiences, most of whom were illiterate. Characterization is stark, and excitement is more evident than tenderness.

The records suggest that items performed in Beijing in the late eighteenth century had mainly female protagonists, belonging to the ‘civil’ category. However, during the nineteenth century, the Four Great Anhui Companies and stars such as Cheng Changgeng changed the emphasis strongly towards heroic drama and items in which war dominated. Though the content of the developed jingju included stories from earlier kunqu dramas, its most important source was novels, among which the main one was The Romance of the Three Kingdoms. The main interest is not love but loyalty versus treachery, courage versus cowardice, strategy versus deception, and overcoming tyranny. According to one specialist (Guo 2006: 135–67), Judge Bao dramas had come to represent a thirst for increased equality before the law (Figure 2.3). By the nature of its themes, jingju became much more male-centred, with the ‘military’ dramas predominating.

Figure 2.3   Judge Bao from jingju Da longpao (The Beating of the Dragon Robe).

In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, the content of traditional Chinese theatre has shown some continuity but much change. Almost all items, including those newly written, continue to be set in China in a past age. However, although purely aesthetic items exist, theatre is incomparably more likely to promote a conscious social or political theme than it used to do.

Mei Lanfang exemplifies both patterns. Guifei zuijiu (The Drunken Beauty), which is about the misery of Yang Guifei when stood down for a banquet by Emperor Tang Minghuang, shows brilliant choreography in feigning drunkenness, while Niehai bolan (Waves in a Sea of Sin) is much more direct in denouncing the evils of prostitution and the low status of women and pushing for reform.

In the People’s Republic, many items revised traditional items and stories to give them a more politically correct slant. A good example is the jingju and love story Baishe zhuan (The White Snake) about a snake who turns into a beautiful woman and marries a scholar. The monk who tries to destroy their happiness is portrayed as evil, while the snake is characterized as loving and virtuous.

Quite new themes are also very common, especially those written in the 1980s and since, but still tend strongly to illustrate a political or social theme. One extraordinary example is Pan Jinlian, a Sichuan opera by Wei Minglun, about the woman Pan Jinlian who kills her husband. The item takes the form of a law case with people from around the world giving their testimony on Pan’s actions. It was highly controversial in placing the blame not so much on Pan herself but on the patriarchal system that oppressed women.

Several other items extolled famous Chinese of the past in political ways. A good illustration is Guo Qihong’s Sima Qian, about the famous historian of that name of the first and second centuries BCE who compiled the first of China’s standard histories, the Shiji (Records of the Historian). This item, a jingju, shows how Sima Qian suffered castration for supporting the cause of a defeated general, but overcame all difficulties to write what many consider the greatest of all Chinese traditional histories. Another excellent newly written item is Cao Cao yu Yang Xiu (Cao Cao and Yang Xiu), a Shanghai work dating from 1988, which dealt with an incident in the life of the tyrant Cao Cao (155–220) and represented the relations of political masters with intellectuals. This item became politically sensitive, because many saw a representation of Mao Zedong in the characterization of Cao Cao.

Performance

We turn next to some of the main conventions of the Chinese theatre, which are similar to the genres in showing great diversity, richness and inventiveness. They indicate a synthetic approach to theatre, combining song, musical accompaniment, dance, gesture and mime, with strong emphasis on makeup and costume. The important aspects of music and costume are separately considered and omitted here.

The stage on which the performance takes place is square and faces the audience on three sides. It is fairly bare, with a carpet and usually a table and two chairs of traditional style. There is a curtain at the back, but not at the front. Actors enter on stage right and exit on the left. However, the modern ‘newly arranged historical dramas’ of the People’s Republic depart radically from traditional patterns, with complex scenery typically projected on the stage, properties often extensive, and a curtain at the front.

Role types

The use of role types in China dates back to the Tang dynasty. Both the nanxi and the Yuan zaju had role types that are different but essentially similar to all later genres of Chinese theatre. There are developments and changes in the Ming dynasty kunqu and in the various regional forms.

In jingju there are four main role types. These are male (sheng), female (dan), painted face (jing) and clown (chou). These categories indicate type of voice as well as acting techniques and the character of the person represented. Sheng are close to life, but jing are larger than life.

Each of the four role types is divided into subcategories, and these can be immensely complex. Laosheng (literally ‘old male characters’) are mature men, such as statesmen, wusheng (‘military male characters’) are the male warriors, while xiaosheng (young men), who sing falsetto, are figures such as scholar lovers. Among women, the qingyi (literally ‘black clothing’) are the demure and dignified women, huadan (flower dan) are more light-hearted and often flirts, laodan are the matriarchs, while wudan are the female warriors. On the whole, masks are quite rare in Chinese theatre, with the tradition requiring patterns and colour in the painting of the face of jing to represent character. There is often a judgement implied, with sheng and dan usually positive characters and bad or evil ones generally confined to the jing or chou categories (Figure 2.4).

Figure 2.4   The character Liu Jinding from Zhulin ji (The Ruse of the Bamboo Forest), a jingju wudan (female warrior).

Because from the Ming dynasty onwards public acting troupes were either overwhelmingly male or female, almost all the former, the boy or man who performed female roles became a major phenomenon in the traditional Chinese theatre. By no means exclusive to China, it is found in many parts of the world, usually associated with social taboos against the appearance of women on the stage. In China, these male female impersonators were called nandan (literally ‘male dan’) and became an important part of the history of acting in China. One of the most important actors in China’s theatrical history was Wei Changsheng whose first appearance in Beijing in 1779 made the city the most important in China’s theatre for the first time in centuries and marked an early stage in jingju’s development. Even more important was Mei Lanfang, the most distinguished and famous actor in all China’s theatre history. Under the People’s Republic, the training of nandan has been discouraged, because authorities believe women should play female roles. A few nandan still perform, but the number has become vanishingly small.

Comic figures are generally clowns (chou) but the converse does not hold, since not all chou are comic. It is lack of dignity that characterizes them. They talk directly to the audience. Most clown characters are male, but a few are female. In the early mentions of the chou in the Song dynasty ‘southern drama’, the chou was characterized by a face daubed with black powder. However, in many recent styles the clown is immediately recognizable through the white patch on and around the nose.

For audiences used to divisions such as soprano, tenor, baritone, contralto and bass, these Chinese role types are very striking. Of course the dan sings falsetto, whether the artist is a man or a woman, but there is no real equivalent to categories such as tenor or bass. Indeed, one feature of Chinese musical theatre is the lack of the really deep voice.

The social context

It is obvious from the use of performances in rituals in ancient China that theatre has, from earliest times, been tightly interwoven with society. In the spring, a drama could mark making entreaties to the gods for a good harvest and in the autumn was a good way of giving thanks. Festivals were occasions for theatre performances, which could express joy or whatever emotions the particular festival required. This interrelationship between theatre and society applied to all levels of society, from imperial courts to commoners.

Beginning at the top of society we find that, though emperors and the aristocracy might be quite censorious about the theatre of the common people, they were frequently enthusiasts themselves. The court of the Mongol Yuan dynasty patronized drama as well as the composition of zaju. In 1390, the Ming emperor Zhu Yuanzhang (the Hongwu Emperor, reigned 1368–98) set up a eunuch agency to organize court theatre. It played both the Yuan zaju and southern drama, and, from the sixteenth century on, kunqu as well.

Court theatre reached its height during the Qing. Kangxi set up a special agency, initially for his personal entertainment, but it was greatly expanded under Qianlong. The actors were eunuchs of the court, but until 1827, some were brought from the south to perform and teach. In 1860, the Xianfeng Emperor had actors brought from the city of Beijing in celebration of his thirtieth birthday, but only temporarily. However, when in 1884 the Empress Dowager Cixi brought actors to court as part of her own fiftieth birthday celebrations, they were at the head of a stream that persisted until virtually the end of the dynasty. Her favourite actor was Tan Xinpei, who frequently performed at court.

The great majority of court performances in the early days were kunqu. The actors that came to court in honour of Xianfeng’s thirtieth birthday were jingju artists, as were those the Empress Dowager introduced from 1884 on. However, it was quite unprecedented for the court to favour an entertainment associated with the common people of the city. What this implies is that the patronage of the late Qing court contributed to the rise of the Peking Opera, which means that the court could take some credit for this development, which was so important for Chinese theatre.

Although the Qing emperors had drama performed at court for their personal entertainment, they also used it for ritual purposes, especially Qianlong. Among the various types of ritual that could occasion drama performances were the ‘auspicious rites’ (jili), the ‘martial rites’ (junli) and ‘protocol rites’ (binli). One writer (Ye 2012: 2) states that ‘Qianlong provided a complete set of ritual dramas, in fact a complete set of palace rituals, for succeeding emperors to follow’. Another type of occasion that could be honoured by a drama performance was the visit of a foreign dignitary. A well-known specific example was the 1793 embassy of the British Lord George Macartney (1737–1806). Though he did not like them much, he and his embassy were treated to some spectacular drama performances, including in the emperor’s summer residence in Jehol.

Moving down the social ladder, we find that theatre performances also took place in the mansions of the rich. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, many members of the educated or social elite had specially trained private troupes and would put on performances for personal enjoyment or to entertain friends. A man from an elite class who invited friends to dinner might seat them on three sides of a square space within which actors could perform. It was normally kunqu that received favour at such private performances. However, in nineteenth-century Beijing the elite often preferred jingju and could hire special small theatres where there were provisions for tea and food appropriate to a party.

In the major teahouse theatres of Qing dynasty Beijing, the audience was stratified into rich and poor, but there were at least some from the educated elite. Both in Beijing and in other parts of the country, the common people usually got their theatrical entertainment through open-air temple or market-square performances. These featured regional theatre styles that were definitely popular theatre, and despised by the educated elite. If educated men attended such performances along with the people, as occasionally happened, they could expect criticism from their social equals.

Another area exemplifying social restrictiveness was that women were barred from public performances. Numerous government edicts warned that for men and women to mix together at theatre performances was a prescription for moral disaster and sexual licence. These prohibitions appear to have been less rigidly enforced in the south than the north, but applied everywhere.

The twentieth century saw the breaking down of the rules preventing the elite from watching performances together with the common people and against audiences with both women and men. Private performances in mansions sank in number along with the decline of the kunqu. The May Fourth Movement accelerated the social change that allowed women access to theatre, but the process had begun before then. In Beijing, females at first sat in separate parts of the theatre, but from 1924 together with males.

The actor

All through Chinese history, the performing profession was a disreputable one holding a low social status. Confucius is said to have demanded capital punishment for a group of jesters, singers and dwarfs on the grounds that they were commoners who beguiled their lords. Still, there were variations according to period in the extent to which actors were held in contempt by society.

A comparatively good period for actors was the Yuan dynasty, when performing families attracted some admiration. The situation worsened when the Ming dynasty came to power and puritanical Confucianism tightened its grip over society and family life. Actors were accused of beguiling decent people by presenting unreal images and of sexual immorality through association with prostitution, either male or female. Another reason for their low social image was that wandering troupes were quite common, especially at times when festivals required the services of actors in the countryside, and people of no fixed address could not count on any legal protection or social respect.

However, the nineteenth century saw the rise of major theatre families in Beijing, with sons inheriting their father’s skills. Some of the most important stars of the time came from these theatre families. The nineteenth century was the age when stars like Cheng Changgeng graced the Beijing stage. This could only exercise a benign effect on the status of the actor in general. The reforms of the late Qing and succeeding period also helped to give the actor a small modicum of respect, especially in the cities.

In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, though contempt for the performing profession is not quite dead, the social status of actors has risen greatly. Stars like Mei Lanfang greatly intensified the process already begun with Cheng Changgeng. The People’s Republic made a point of patronizing actors and actresses, making their profession one important to national politics and society. Mei Lanfang and Cheng Yanqiu were even chosen as members of the National People’s Congress.

Summary and conclusion

From the above, the following appear to be the main characteristics of Chinese traditional theatre.

The classifications normal for traditional Chinese theatre are quite different from those of western opera. For instance, content is divided into wen (civil) and wu (military), not tragedy and comedy, with ‘civil’ items putting the focus on love, marriage and domestic affairs, and the ‘military’ ones on war and heroism. The stories come from old novels, dramas and long poems.

The types of character are divided into sheng (male), dan (female), jing (painted face) and chou (clown), not tenor, soprano, baritone and bass. Each of these is subdivided into various categories. Gestures, actions, makeup and costumes are complex. They follow the conventions of the particular type of character and stress the aesthetic, making no attempt to be realistic.

The oldest form for which there is a substantial surviving corpus of works is the zaju (variety drama) of the period running from about 1260 to 1360. There is no surviving music for this form, but it has definitely entered the Chinese literary canon. Another type of theatre to become recognized in the literary canon is kunqu, a highly elite genre dating from the sixteenth century. Both variety drama and kunqu have spawned some very famous dramatists, the best known for the former being Guan Hanqing (flourished second half of the thirteenth century) and for the latter Tang Xianzu. Among specific items, the most famous variety drama is probably Wang Shifu’s The Story of the West Wing, which dates probably from around the turn of the fourteenth century; among kunqu, Peony Pavilion by Tang Xianzu is pre-eminent.

The types of popular (non-elite) traditional Chinese theatre are numerous and tend strongly to the locally based. Among these the most important and famous is the jingju, which evolved from the late eighteenth and through the nineteenth century. One feature of these regional operas is that they are rather low in social status. They are known not through their dramatists or musical composers but through the famous actors who performed them and the troupes to which they belonged. Before the modern era, probably the most famous of Chinese actors was Cheng Changgeng, a performer of old male roles, who is sometimes called ‘the father of the Peking Opera’ for his work in developing the acting styles and in moulding the various theatrical arts into an integrated whole. In the modern era the most distinguished of all jingju actors, and the most famous domestically and internationally of all Chinese performers of any period, was Mei Lanfang, a performer of female impersonator roles.

Chinese ideologies were quite open to drama, raising no objection to people enjoying themselves at theatrical performances. On the other hand, various regimes attempted to use the theatre for political or moral purposes. Some tried to promote their own rule through the theatre. In particular, censorship has been very common throughout the ages. Authorities often kept an eye out for performances they believed subversive politically or offensive from a moral point of view.

This emphasizes the tight connection between society and theatre. Authorities believed that performances could influence the people’s views and behaviour. The popular theatre was also a regular companion for festivals and festivities, and for thanksgiving to the gods. It played a significant role in the lives of the people and was the main way they learnt about their own history.

Actors were on the whole a very low group within society. Yet many were also real artists and made major contribution to Chinese culture. Among actors a distinctive group was the males who mastered the art of playing the roles of women. Although this cross-gender performance became associated with homosexuality and was a factor making for the low status of the acting profession within society, it also gave rise to a highly aesthetic art that not only became one of the most famous aspects of the Chinese theatre but also spawned the greatest and most famous of all Chinese actors of any period: Mei Lanfang.

And finally Chinese traditional theatre is noted for the degree to which it integrates the arts. The good actor needs not only to be able to sing and act properly, but to look the part and to have good command over other arts such as costuming, makeup and gesture. This integration is not necessarily a given in the history of opera. For instance, in the operas of Richard Wagner (1813–83), the demands on the singers are such that during some eras artists have not necessarily looked fully suitable for the role they are singing. At the end of Götterdämmerung (The Twilight of the Gods), the last of his great cycle Der Ring des Niebelungen (The Ring of the Niebelung), the lead soprano Brünnhilde sings music of extreme beauty, grandeur and depth. But some Brünnhildes able to meet the musical demands have been too overweight or not beautiful enough to look ideal for the part. Although acceptable in Wagner, this would not be possible in the Chinese traditional theatre.