The Chinese theater

Not translated into any European language.

Four Yuan Dynasty plays translated by a French sinologue who was for years Professor of Chinese at the École des Langues Orientales.

In the second part of this volume M. Bazin gives numerous discussions of Chinese plays with summaries of their plots. Very valuable work.

Contains also a very good introduction to this important Ming drama.

A complete translation by the famous French sinologue of the Yuan drama, The Orphan of the Chao Family. Voltaire made an abridged version by a Jesuit missionary the basis of his L’Orphelin de la Chine (1755), a stiff and artificial piece, presenting a Genghis Khan who falls in love in the manner of a French courtier of the 18th century.

Translation of a Yuan drama.

A Yuan drama translated by a British sinologue; The Fortunate Union, a Chinese romance, appears in the same volume.

M. Laloy’s version of this Yuan drama attempts to introduce some modern motivation. In his preface the author expresses the fear that in working over this Chinese tragedy “il l’a défigurée en tachant de l’embellir”, and perhaps his fears were justified.

In this volume by a French consul “qui contient des détails fort curieux et intéressants sur les chinois, et surtout sur les chinoises” are printed translations of four realistic comedies of popular life, “sorte de vaudeville au gros sel, où, en gestes comme en paroles, la license chinoise se donne libre carrière.” About ninety pages are devoted to the theater.

A British colonial official has translated three plays. The Willow Lute, The Golden-leafed Chrysanthemum, and The Sacrifice for the Soul of Ho Man Sau. In an introduction of eighteen pages the author discusses the types and conventions of the Chinese stage as seen in Hongkong and Canton. It is interesting to note that in general the southern theater is identical with that of Peking, but that there are some variations, particularly in customs and ceremonials.

Two Chinese plays translated by Charles Budd, Tung Wen Kuan Translation Office, Shanghai, 1913. Short and mildly interesting plays, translated partly for the purpose of aiding Chinese who wish to learn English.

A huge volume containing in translation the entire repertoire of a company of shadow players which Berthold Laufer, Curator of the Field Museum, had bought in Peking in 1901 and which were translated by the famous German sinologue. Though these plays are not presented on the stage, but recited by shadow players to accompany the movements of their puppets that cast shadows on a screen, yet the plots are the same as those of the theater. The book thus serves as a wonderful source for some one wishing to familiarize himself with Chinese plays. Berthold Laufer has prefaced the book with a meaty introduction.

Sociological studies on popular customs and usages in Peking. A chapter is devoted to the theater in which numerous summaries of modern plays are given. The author also deals with related subjects: acrobats, story-tellers, annual ceremonies of guilds, etc.

Several chapters are devoted to the drama. Professor Grube, in his discussion of Yuan and Ming plays, is using Bazin’s translations, but in his evaluation of modern plays he is drawing on his long and intimate experience with the theater in Peking.

This well-known sinologue devotes two chapters to the drama, but they are not up to the standard of the rest of this excellent work. Pi-Pa-Chi is the most modern drama he discusses.

This small volume of 209 pages was written by a minor German dramatist without first-hand knowledge of China. The author based his study upon French translations of older dramas. Yet the book is not lacking in remarks showing a keen insight into the Chinese character.

A volume by a professor of literature at the National University, Peking, in which his critical articles from Peking’s French paper are reprinted. Forty-seven pages are devoted to the theater under headings such as the following: “Origin of the Drama”, “Evolution of the Modern Chinese Theater”, “Ibsenism in China”, etc. Professor Soong follows to a certain extent Wang Kuo-wei’s History of the Drama under the Sung and Ming Dynasties. His thorough knowledge of the European stage enables him to make very striking comparisons.

The chapter “Recreations” in this interesting and painstaking survey presents statistics on the number of theaters, their locations, prices of admission, status of the actor and actress, etc.

The French diplomat devotes one chapter to the theater. He writes before the Revolution, but most things connected with the theater have been changed very little. He reports one abuse, however, which the Revolution (1912) abolished. Page 144: “La prostitution féminine reste discrète, car la femme est toujours tenue à l’écart; mais la prostitution masculine s’étale au grand jour; il n’est guère de pàrtie de théâtre où l’amphitryon ne réunisse ses amis d’abord au restaurant et ne convie quelques jeunes garçons de bonne mine, richement habillés, sachant causer et ‘rendre le vin plus agréable’; ils plaisantent et rient avec les convives, les accompagnent au théâtre et restent avec eux jusqu’à ce que, la fête finie, chacun rentre chez soi. Naturellement, aux simples lettrés on ne demande que leur bonne humeur, et ce sont les riches qui paient la note; bien de fils de famille se ruinent de cette façon.”

This play represents a unique example of Chinese influence producing a worth-while drama on our stage. Will Irwin was kind enough to write to me concerning its origin:

“... I can tell you the history of the play. Harry Benrimo, actor and stage-director, is a native of San Francisco. He saw much of the Chinese in California. His father was a contractor, employing Chinese labor and doing business with Chinese merchants. As a young actor, Benrimo became interested in the Chinese theaters of San Francisco. That was the golden age of the Chinese theater in America. The price of admission made the Jackson Street Company and the Washington Street Company rich on Chinese standards and they were able to get some great actors—just as the money from the Metropolitan Opera drew Caruso from Italy. Ah Chic, leading tragedian of the Jackson Street Company, was as great an actor as I ever saw.... Benrimo sketched out a scenario made not from any one Chinese play, but from a dozen—situations or bits of business or dialogue which he remembered from his old days in San Francisco theaters. Benrimo called into collaboration the late George Hazelton, playwright. On this scenario they worked out The Yellow Jacket.... Several Chinese, notably one man—name forgotten—from the Consulate helped with the rehearsals. Deliberately the authors took certain liberties with Chinese drama and psychology in order to make the play effective for an Occidental audience. Notably, they made the love of man for woman the main theme. One piece of business, I remember, caused endless dispute. It is where the happy and united lovers kiss. That would not happen, of course, with the Chinese. Benrimo understood that perfectly. But he said that an Occidental audience would expect it. And he had his way. I remember that whenever this piece of business occurred in the rehearsals, the man from the Consulate used to giggle.

“Lately I was talking over The Yellow Jacket with Percy Hammond, dramatic critic. ‘Do you know what made it a success?’ he said, ‘The Property Man as played by Shaw.’ Possibly he’s right about that. But the play served its artistic purpose. It made American audiences understand something of this extraordinary art. And I’ve no doubt but that if Hazelton and Benrimo had stuck close to the originals our audiences wouldn’t have understood half so well.”

So far as my experience goes, making love the main theme is not un-Chinese, but The Property Man as played on our stages is. Possibly Cantonese usage differs in this respect, but in Peking property men are always on the stage, coolies dressed in shabby blue cotton, but they are conspicuous only to the Westerner not used to Chinese conventions. They by no means have the importance attached to them in The Yellow Jacket. Compare the chapter, “External Aspects.”

A slender volume that came to be written because the publishing firm had four paintings of Chinese actors which they wanted to issue in calendar form with a few words of comment from the well-known sinologue. Mr. Johnston became absorbed in the subject and wrote so much and so interestingly on it that Kelly & Walsh decided to make a book out of it. The text is much better than the pictures.

The chief features of this book are the excellent paintings and sketches made in Peking theaters by the Russian artist, Alexandre Jacovleff. An English edition has been published by Putnam. No other book can give such a vivid notion of the real appearance as well as the spirit of the Chinese stage as this volume of inspired drawings. M. Chu Chia-chien, instructor in the École des Langues Orientales in Paris, writes well, but too briefly, on the conditions and conventions of the Chinese stage.

A brief, but up-to-the-minute sketch of Chinese literature. This volume by a University of Leipzig Privatdozent is one of a series on the literatures of various nations. The book came to me too late to include what it said on the origin of the theater in China in the text, and therefore I shall quote an interesting paragraph here. (The author speaks of the Pear Garden origin as a myth and says that the Chinese had a theater as early as other nations):

“Es hat sich aus den bei festlichen Gelegenheiten aller Art, bei Krieg und Jagd, bei Opfer und Gelage, inszenierten Tänzen entwickelt, in denen man vorher im Spiel darstellte, was sich nachher zutragen sollte, um so auf magische Weise das Geschick günstig zu lenken, und nachher seiner Freude mimischen Ausdruck verlieh. Zu diesen Tänzen sang man Wechselgesänge mit Rede und Gegenrede, wie solche uns anscheinend aus mehreren Liedern des Schi-king erhalten sind, so dasz das China der Urzeit auch hierin das Leben anderer primitiver Völker geführt hat. Aus Südchina sind uns Texte solcher Dramen religiösen Charakters, wie sie auch K’üh Yüan im dritten Jahrhundert vor Christo bearbeitete, mehrfach überliefert, und bereits aus dem Jahre 545 v. Chr. haben wir eine Notiz nach der bei Tempelfesten, ganz ähnlich wie im alten Hellas, nach den ernsten Schaustellungen eine Burleske von den Stallknechten aufgeführt wurde. Das zeigt also, dasz die dramatische Kunst der Tang-Zeit nicht einen Anfang, sondern nur eine späte Etappe auf einem langen Wege bedeutet. Auch die Han-Zeit hatte ihre Singspiele, die bereits mit einem umfangreichen szenischen Apparat auf geführt wurden und vielleicht kompliziertere Bühneneinrichtungen voraussetzen lassen, als sie das heutzutage an Einfachheit unserer modernsten Schaubühne ebenbürtige—vielleicht für sie vorbildlich gewordene?—chinesische Theater jetzt bietet.” Pages 58-59.

Free translations of five comedies of love (among them two comedies discussed in this book on pages 33 and 96). The work is a splendid specimen of book-making with five colored illustrations by the Chinese artist Hua Mei-chai and numerous woodcuts from the original Chinese editions.

This very interesting journal, so far as I have been able to examine the files, contains only two articles on the theater: Volume XX, “Chinese Theatricals”, and Volume XXI, “Histrionic Notes.” Neither is very important.