Foreigners in general regard the Chinese theater as noisy, dirty, and dull, and therefore as a most unattractive spot; yet the Chinese must think differently about it, for the houses are always crowded. When still at a great distance from the theater one can hear a horrible racket of drums, cymbals, and screeching string instruments. On entering the building one is struck by the lack in the Chinese of the sense of how to make things attractive, for, just as one enters a Chinese restaurant through a dirty kitchen, so one often enters a theater through the laundry; four or five men are seen in the “foyer” bending over steaming tubs, washing towels, essentials in a Chinese theater the use of which the spectator is soon to learn. On entering one finds the house—which, by the way, is arranged like a beer garden with the spectators seated at little tables—packed to the last seat. But the usher says nothing about S. R. O.; he leads you somewhere and as the other spectators seem to telescope you are asked to sit down either at a table or on a bench which has before it a board to hold the teapot and watermelon seeds that arrive the minute you have taken your seat.

As you settle down and look about, you find yourself in the usual kindly, dirty, ill-smelling, smoking, talking, shouting, eating crowd that one finds everywhere in China. Everybody is glad to give the newcomer information or a match; the inimitable, gentle Peking old men with their pairs of walnuts in their right hands which they roll around to keep their fingers supple for writing Chinese characters, drink tea, and smoke pewter water pipes, smiling the carefree smile that old age has graven on their faces. Waiters are continually walking around, jostling the spectators and shouting the merits of their tobacco, candy, fruit or what not, and depositing teapots and steaming dishes of food wherever they are wanted. The most spectacular thing is the manner in which the towels arrive. One waiter throws them to the other in tightly wrapped bundles, the pitcher standing near the entrance and the catcher near the stage or wherever people need to wipe their hands and faces. In hurling these bundles they show an unfailing aim and in catching they never miss. Even though one of these soggy masses of steaming cloth seems headed straight for your face, you need not dodge, for without fail a waiter’s hand will always be stretched out to catch it and all that the drama lover will ever suffer is to have a fine mist sprinkled over his face. Needless to say for this he neither expects nor receives any sympathy—not even a passing notice. A great many soldiers—about whom the Chinese says the worst thing he can think of, that they are “rough”—are admitted free, not because the manager is exceedingly patriotic, but because he thinks that discretion is better than having the door kicked in. In the gallery are seated the women, also eating, drinking, smoking and chattering. How much attention does this audience pay to the play? About as much as we do to the music in a restaurant. They don’t come for a few hours’ excitement, they come to pass the day that hangs heavy on their hands. As one French returned student put it, “In Europe one works during the day and amuses oneself at night; in China one amuses oneself during the day and sleeps at night.”

The returned student finds the Chinese theater very little to his taste, but yet he goes because Chinese social life is so dull that there is nothing better to do. Comforts in our sense are lacking absolutely in these theaters. You sit on stools without backs, your feet rest on stone slabs when the thermometer is hovering about zero and the cold wind is blowing down on Peking from Mongolia; there is absolutely no effort at heating or ventilation—it is Chinese animal heat that keeps the spectators comfortable and in a frame of mind to enjoy the performance. Yet these discomforts are felt only by those used to Western standards of life, for nine out of ten who leave the theater after the last villain has been duly punished go to houses that are likewise unheated and have no light, no agreeable company, and of course no play to charm the soul away from reality.

Peking is the real center of Chinese drama, the city that sets the style for the rest of the country so far as native drama is concerned. Innovations of Occidental nature generally have their origin in Shanghai and are adopted later on in Peking; such imitations of Western institutions are, for example, the amusement arcades called in both cities “The New World”; boxes in the theaters in which men and women sit together; and, of course, motion pictures, at first imported from Europe and America, but in recent years manufactured by Chinese firms in China. But as regards the native theater, Shanghai learns from Peking. The language of the theater, in general, is the Peking dialect spoken by actors all over China. Famous actors from Peking regularly visit Shanghai. It is only in Peking and the treaty ports that regular theaters exist. The vast majority of the four hundred million also have their plays, but they are dependent for them on traveling companies, that set up their mat-shed theaters wherever the citizens are willing to pay them for acting. Thus the political capital Peking is also the leading city for Chinese drama.

The eight hundred thousand residents of Peking have, according to Mr. Gamble’s recently published social survey, twenty-two regular theaters and eight mat-shed theaters; that is, portable buildings covered with matting. Furthermore, there are some nine restaurants, provincial halls, and temples where theatrical performances are regularly given. It is customary to mark all big weddings, funerals, banquets, charity events, and other festivities by theatricals for which the services of professionals are engaged or in which the many eager amateurs are given opportunities to appear in public. Most of the large buildings,—temples, guildhalls, palaces, etc.—are equipped with the simple projecting stages, either inside a large hall or out of doors in a courtyard. If you happen to live near a restaurant or a temple you will be able to speak feelingly of the love of the Chinese for theatricals!

The business organization of the Chinese theater is the same as that which obtained in Elizabethan playhouses. Our theater owner-manager of to-day who selects a play, determines the manner in which it is to be staged and played, and then engages actors to do what he pays them for—this enemy of real art and bête noire of the theater uplifters can be found neither in Elizabethan England nor in the Chinese theater. In staging and acting the company of players has entire freedom in China, just as it had in London. The theater-owner (quite like the “housekeeper” of Shakespeare’s day) engages a troupe to play in his theater, but he never dreams of interfering with the actor’s art. The Chinese call him the “behind-the-curtain” while the actors are the “before-the-curtain.” The former receives thirty per cent. of the income, while seventy per cent, goes to the manager of the company, who then pays the salaries of his actors. Some of these troupes or actors’ clubs are of a rather democratic nature, because all the actors belong to their guild. The actors’ guild has its special temple just outside the Hata Gate, for the actors are religious folk—much as are the members of most guilds in China.

In this temple the actors worship three deities, or rather deified men. The first of these is Kuan Yu (Yo Fei), the god of war, during his lifetime a great fighter against the Chin Tartars in the course of the twelfth century. There is a well-known play that sets forth the high qualities of this hero. Though he had been dismissed by the emperor as the result of a court intrigue, yet he refused to join the rebels, no matter how tempting the offers they made him, but remained loyal to his emperor. His mother was so pleased at this that she tattooed on his back: “He repays the state with loyalty and integrity.” Later on the emperor reinstated him in his high honors and placed his mother’s inscription on the banner of the army.[22]

The second deity is the T’ang Dynasty emperor mentioned in the first chapter as the traditional founder of the theater, T’ang Ming Huang. In his “Pear Garden” school for actors he is said himself to have acted the rôle of the clown. It is for this reason that the clown enjoys special privileges; for example, he is the first one to receive the attention of the make-up artist, while other actors must wait until the clown has had his turn; and he may sit on any actor’s box in the greenroom. It is the clown, furthermore, who burns the incense before the idols found in every theater on the rear wall just opposite the stage and in the dressing room. Such a little religious ceremony is carried out before and after every performance to ward off bad luck. Another feature of the theater that impresses us as being typically Chinese is found in the boards placed at the rear of the stage and on the two supporting columns on which are found inscriptions, generally in gilt characters, setting forth the high moral purpose of the stage. In comparing these mottoes with what is being presented on the stage one is often reminded of the saying of the Reverend Arthur Smith, that no one knows so well as the Chinese what is fitting and proper.

The third deity is Lin Ming-ju, generally pictured as a little boy. This noble youth was a pupil in the “Pear Garden”, and all who were friendly to him made rapid progress in their art. Hence they realized gradually that he was a god. Like other well-known gods he afterwards disappeared in a sudden and miraculous manner. Because the second part of this god’s name is the word for dream, actors never speak of their dreams in the morning.

But religion does not mean to the actors merely the burning of incense or the making of an annual pilgrimage to Miao Feng Shan, two days’ journey from Peking. There is a definite tradition that an actor must show filial piety. Whenever he undertakes something out of the ordinary, such as perhaps accepting a contract to act in Shanghai, he must first ask his mother’s permission. I asked repeatedly about this custom, and learned not a reason for it, but simply the fact that if an actor did not ask his mother’s permission he would be laughed at. Often it is the mother who makes the contract and receives most of the money. Of a certain rising actor it is said that his mother never allows him to act unless he is to receive twenty dollars for each performance.

In the fairly democratic China of the imperial times the son of the poorest man could rise to the position of viceroy of a province by virtue of passing a brilliant literary examination—and if we are to believe Chinese playwrights he often did. However, the actor, together with the son of the prostitute, and one or two other despised classes, was debarred from these examinations. Of course, with the discontinuance of the examinations in 1907 and the establishment of the republic in 1912, these disqualifications dropped away. Socially the position of the actor is improving rapidly nowadays. For example, in July, 1922, the son of a high official of Shantung Province married the actress Li Feng-yün. Far from being ashamed of her profession, she acted several plays on her wedding day as part of the festivities of the occasion. However, she abandoned her professional career on becoming the wife of this wealthy man. The fact that she was the first wife was the remarkable thing to the Chinese who spoke to me of the event; for that an actress becomes the concubine of a rich official is almost an everyday occurrence in Peking. Progress along such lines is not a unique or surprising thing in China; to mention but one example, coeducation has come into being since 1919, almost overnight, so to speak, with surprisingly little opposition. Actresses were forbidden on Chinese stages during the days of the Manchu Dynasty, but since 1912 their number has increased rapidly so that they are appearing now on eleven stages in Peking. Only in the foreign concessions of such treaty ports as Tientsin and Shanghai do men and women appear together on the stage, however; in Peking, Chinese prudery still forbids this.

There is a current notion that Chinese plays last a week or a lunar month, but as a matter of fact about a dozen plays, or separate acts taken from different plays, are given in one performance. Toward the end of the afternoon’s or evening’s entertainment the spectator may observe that some long strips of red paper covered with Chinese characters in black ink are removed from the two side railings of the balcony and others substituted in their place. In this manner the program of the following day is announced. The performances generally last from noon to about six and from seven in the evening until midnight. The best plays with the stars are reserved until the last, while dull, long plays with inferior actors generally begin the program. These poor actors are often retained merely for charity’s sake; often, too, famous actors give benefits for their less fortunate colleagues. In Shanghai actors get monthly contracts; but in Peking the minor actors are hired by the day, and some of them must play in several theaters in one afternoon in order to eke out a meager living at about twenty coppers a day.

Men of this type, of course, are hardly more than “supers.” Regular actors on the average earn about one dollar a day, while some of a higher grade receive five dollars to ten dollars. To receive twenty-five dollars for a regular performance a man must be quite prominent in the theatrical world. A few stars, like Mei Lan-fang and Yang Hsiao-lo, receive one hundred dollars for each regular performance, and considerably more when they act at banquets or on other special occasions.

The charges in the theaters depend on the type of theater and even more on the actors. Theaters where women or boys appear as actors are lower in price. There is no ticket or money demanded as one enters the theater, but the price is collected by the usher when he seats the spectator. In the ordinary theater one can sit at a comfortable table for forty cents or in a box for a dollar and a half. There are two large theaters in Peking built in Occidental style with receding stages, in which the prices are somewhat higher: eighty cents for a first-class seat and nine dollars for a box seating eight persons. When a star is playing, these prices are augmented somewhat. The poorer classes can enjoy theatrical performances for five coppers by going to the mat-shed theaters. The average seating capacity of a Peking theater is about a thousand, and the average attendance is very near this figure, if not above it.

The course of an actor’s training is an extremely hard one. For seven years he is instructed in singing and acrobatics, and then he begins to play in some of the boys’ theaters, institutions connected with the training schools for actors. During the longest part of his apprenticeship he receives no wages, he has long hours, menial tasks, and severe taskmasters. Actresses are trained by special private teachers and their courses have not yet become so uniform as have those for the men. The police have very strict regulations to prevent actresses from becoming prostitutes, but according to Mr. Gamble, in some theaters women from the licensed quarter appear, make engagements after giving their acts, and do some other soliciting. The connection between the lower-grade theaters and the segregated district is rather close.

In order to give an idea of the different kinds of theaters one encounters in Peking, I can do no better than to describe several typical entertainments from my notes stretching over five years. There is in the Southern City, for example, the Tung Lo Yuan, a fine specimen of the old-style Chinese theater. No women are allowed to visit this theater—not because of immoralities, but simply because the place is conservative. The seats run at right angles to the stage, along tables, showing that people come to hear the music rather than to observe the action on the stage. I paid twenty-four coppers for my seat in the balcony; the usual price in this theater is eighteen coppers, but because Han Hsi-ch’ang was going to act, the price was raised on that particular day. After a series of plays dealing with murders and robberies, in the course of which the audience gloated over the shuddering and weeping of the victims, there came the chief play of the day—a Yuan Dynasty drama revived in this theater.

The play deals with a poor woodcutter and his wife. The hero takes no interest in his humble calling; in fact, he neglects it for the study of literature. Since he does not support his wife, she deserts him for a smith. Finally the husband goes to Peking for the literary examination and passes with honors. When the wife learns that her first husband is to become a mandarin she is filled with joy; she sits down at a table, falls asleep, and has a wonderful dream. The dream is portrayed just as it would be in our moving pictures; a conventional symbol, a short pause in the action and the tapping of the drum, indicates to the audience that there is going to be a dream, and then the dream action continues in the same way in which the rest of the play had gone on. A number of men—recalling the Wise Men of the East—enter, bringing all manner of silk robes, headdresses, and other rich gifts for the lady. In her dream the faithless wife sees all this; she tries on her robes, shows them off to the neighbors, and glories in her riches. Then she returns to her sleeping position at the table and awakens to find that all had been a dream. In the fourth act the husband returns, dressed in embroidered robes, a prosperous mandarin. He pours a cup of water on the ground, saying that he will take his wife back provided she can gather up the water again. From this play comes the proverbial expression, “Water once spilled cannot be gathered up again”, which means, of course, that a wife who has been unfaithful cannot be taken back by the husband.

According to the custom of Chinese theaters only one act was presented; it was the third act, the dream, that I saw. The too-severe strain on the chief actor who must sing very long arias is generally given as the reason why plays are not presented in their entirety. Sometimes when an entire play is presented—this is frequently done at guildhalls and other private theatricals—three or four actors in turn play the leading rôle. The actor portrayed exceedingly well the wife’s emotions of joy, surprise, and pride. He wore a black dress, because this is the conventional color for the poor, although it was made of fine silk instead of the cotton which is actually worn by the masses. In the old-style Chinese music (called kuan-ch’ang) the flute is the leading instrument and the strains are melodious and sweet, not at all offensive to the foreigner’s ear as is a great deal of the modern music.

One evening I was the guest of Mr. Chang Ziang-ling, the present Chinese Consul-General in New York, at a performance by Mei Lan-fang in the so-called First Theater, a large playhouse built in European style. The usher took us to two good seats near the stage occupied by two ragamuffins, and asked the latter to give up their seats to us. Mr. Chang then paid him two dollars for two seventy-cent seats and explained that it is a little graft on the part of the ushers to place vagabonds in good seats until people who they know will tip them come to the theater.

The play again was a Yuan drama called “Snow in June”; a play discussed in a previous chapter under the title, “The Sufferings of Tou-E.” Mei Lan-fang is introducing many innovations into the manner of producing plays, turning the stage into a veritable riot of colors selected with exquisite taste. The rear of the stage is covered by a curtain painted with plum blossoms and chrysanthemums in allusion to two of the characters of his name. The executioners, dressed in rich red trousers lined with white, come on the stage leading in their midst the victim wearing a long robe of a delicate shade of light blue. Some of the executioners have their faces painted in vivid reds and blacks; I find that this adds a great deal to the spectacle, even though it is the very opposite of realism. To illustrate the sort of gagging constantly practiced by Chinese actors I might quote what the judge says to the prisoner: “What! One so young as you is accused of having committed a murder? For this you will be beheaded. Let that be a lesson to you not to do it again.” Such a feeble joke in the face of the innocent young victim is, of course, just as fitting as many calembours in Shakespeare’s tragedies. After the execution snow falls; that is, bits of paper are tossed down from above. All in all the staging of the play is most agreeable and Mei Lan-fang’s acting is extremely good.

Quite a different performance can be observed in one of the “new” theaters, a blight which has come to Peking via Shanghai. One evening I went to the one in the “New World”, a four-story concrete building, an amusement palace offering for the single admission fee of thirty cents, old-style plays, “new” drama, story-tellers, singsong girls, moving pictures, performances by acrobats, jugglers, and sword-swallowers, restaurants both for foreign and Chinese food, tea room, billiard tables, and bowling alleys, convex and concave mirrors, and penny slotmachines showing pictures of various sorts. (“A number of these pictures were of rather coarse nature,” observes Mr. Sidney Gamble in his “Peking, A Social Survey”, “but none of them could be called immoral.”) My goal was the “new” theater, namely plays staged in what the Chinese fondly believe to be the manner of the Occidental theaters. Before a very crowded auditorium a play was being performed by actors dressed in European style, or perhaps better, the style of the mail-order-house type of clothing. The play was in spoken Chinese, and no music accompanied the action. Only in the intermissions between the rather short scenes the band from the Boys’ Industrial School, sitting in a corner in the rear of the hall, played “John Brown’s Body” and other appropriate dirges.

The play dealt with a woman who had lured men into her house in order to have them robbed there by her accomplices. This woman was dressed in a red silk waist and a lavender skirt; she no doubt seemed very Western to the audience, because she wore a corset and allowed the contour of her body to show instead of being bound so as to look flat-chested like the Chinese women. The part, however, was acted by a man who spoke in a high falsetto. There was a great deal of love-making of a kind unknown to the Chinese stage—the men kissed the woman’s hand and even put their arms about her. At times the vampire left the stage for a short time with one of the victims, in a significant manner. Most applause was accorded the actor who played the ruffian, when he strode “toughly” across the stage with his coat collar turned up and his cap pulled down over his eyes. By way of giving a good imitation of the manners of Europeans the actors, when speaking to the lady, consistently took off their coats, held them on their arms, and displayed brand-new red suspenders! The scenery was changed with every act and showed crude imitations of our painted interiors or street scenes with lamp posts. The play was endless and the action extremely slow. This heart-breaking imitation of our worst melodramas is, I am glad to say, not making the rapid progress it has made in India, where it has driven out completely the native drama, at least in Calcutta and Bombay.

As I have stated above, the Chinese stage lacks scenery almost altogether. Practically the only ornate—and to a certain extent the most realistic—part of the Chinese theater is found in the costumes. In regard to the dress of the actors, historical truth, as has been stated, is observed to a certain extent. The magistrates, the courtiers, the yamen-runners, the merchants, the doctors, the students, the priests, the monks and nuns, the matchmakers, and similar characters appear in appropriate costumes, but usually much more elaborate than they would be in real life. In the troupe of Mei Lan-fang, Peking’s most famous actor, the men carrying banners in processions are dressed in silk of the same color as the cotton gowns which these ragamuffins wear in the streets of Chinese cities. Honorable personages appear in silk robes in solid colors: purple, yellow, orange, or red. In the dress of common soldiers the spectator finds the styles of the various periods followed with historical accuracy, but the dress of great warriors is fanciful and highly ornamented. These peacocks of the Chinese stage with their feather headdress, their painted faces, and their richly embroidered gowns studded with little mirrors, are the most colorful sights in the theater. Such warriors wear shoes with thick soles, thus adding about three or four inches to their natural height, a touch recalling the soccus of the classical theater. The peculiarly slit-eyed expression of the warrior is achieved by binding a strip of silk tightly about the head, pulling up the eyebrows.

A conception of the immense popularity on the Chinese stage of the warrior performing acrobatics signifying tremendous battles can be gained from the Chinese classification of plays. One of the two main divisions is the wu-hsi or fighting play, involving very little plot and almost continuous acrobatics or “fighting.” The other main division is the wen-hsi or civil play, which is practically the same thing we mean by the term drama. In general, the two kinds of plays alternate in the course of the performances so that each division makes up about fifty per cent. of the plays presented. Westerners are frequently surprised that the Chinese do not make the division into comedy and tragedy, but it may be well to recall that even with us this differentiation is a floating conception. Practically all the divisions mentioned in “Hamlet” could be matched on the Chinese stage; historical, comical, tragical, pastoral, and so on. The Chinese have farces called nao-hsi (noise plays) and fen-hsi (painted, make-up plays), both full of comical and burlesque elements. The only difference between them is, an old Peking resident has observed, that the latter excel the former in obscenity.[23]

A cross division of the above classification is found in the distinction drawn between plays according to the style of music employed; kuan-ch’ü, er-huang, hsi-p’i, and pan-tzu. Among them only the first mentioned has an appeal to literary men, while the other three are considered fit for the mob only. The kuan-ch’ü music is a real Chinese product descended from the classical plays of the Yuan Dynasty. It flourished during the Ming Dynasty, but during the Ch’ing rule it fell into desuetude until at the time of the late Dowager Empress it had entirely passed out of fashion. In the last decades there have been made fairly successful efforts to revive it, especially on the part of Mei Lan-fang. The chief instrument in this style of music is the flute. Er-huang and hsi-p’i are very similar. Both styles came to Peking from the province of Hupeh at the beginning of the Ch’ing Dynasty, and in both the hu-ch’in, a string instrument with a sounding-box played by a bow, gives the characteristic touch to the music. These two styles, together with the pan-tzu, are considered rather vulgar music, especially the pan-tzu. This latter style came to Peking from the province of Shansi, where the barbarian Mongol blood predominates in the population over the purer Chinese strain. The hu-ch’in is also played in pan-tzu; but the instrument that gives the name as well as the character to this style is a wooden board held in one hand by a member of the orchestra and beaten with the other to indicate the rhythm. As can be gathered from this fact, the music is very simple and primitive.

In addition to the instruments mentioned above there are various others employed by the orchestra sitting on the stage. On the whole the instruments are practically the same for all kinds of music. They are shown in the accompanying illustrations drawn for me by a Chinese artist. The hsien-tzu is a sort of three-stringed banjo, the sounding box of which is covered with a snake skin. The yüeh-ch’in (moon guitar) has four strings and a wooden sounding-box. Other wind instruments in addition to the ti-tzu (flute) are the shou, resembling somewhat a bagpipe, and the la-pa, a brass horn used to announce the entry of great military personages. Instruments of percussion outnumber those of other varieties. The ch’iao-pan are two flat boards tied together with a string, used by the leader of the orchestra to indicate the time. The t’ang-ku is a brass plate beaten furiously in battle scenes, as are also the lo and the ch’a (cymbals). The peng-ku is a drum made of a solid block of wood which gives piercing, high notes when beaten in a whirlwind tattoo by means of two thin sticks. The ku has a leather drumhead and resembles somewhat our kettledrum. It should be noted that the size of the orchestra and the kind of instruments employed vary a great deal. However, the above may serve to give an approximate conception of the Chinese theater music. Just as in much of our own earlier drama, emotional or poetic passages are sung by the actors on the Peking stage.

Another striking similarity to the European medieval theater is the fact that the Chinese stage has its fixed character types. The four most important among these, called the t’ai chih or pillars of the stage, are: 1, the cheng-sheng; 2, the wu-sheng; 3, the ching-i; 4, the hua-tan. Each company must always have its best actors among these four, because one of them is sure to be the star in the play.

The cheng-sheng is an elderly man wearing a long beard. The great actor T’an Shen-pei, who died about five years ago, but whose fame lives on in his many imitators, played this part. It comprises the rôles of emperors, generals, and also old faithful servants, the latter generally characters oppressed by grief. T’an Shen-pei, who became the founder of a tradition called the t’an-p’ai, was famous for his skill in acting, his fine singing, and his distinct, measured pronunciation. Among his most famous followers are Yü Ssu-yen and T’an Hsiao-sheng, the latter one of his sons. A related type is the hsiao-sheng, a youthful civilian or military character, frequently the young scholar who plays the part of the lover. The young military hero is called the ch’ü-fei-sheng (wearing pheasant feathers) and the young scholar and lover shan-tze-sheng (carrying a fan). Chu Su-yung is the most famous hsiao-sheng in Peking at present. He has been nicknamed the “living Chou Yü”, after a hero from the ancient tale of “The Three Kingdoms” whom he frequently impersonates upon the stage. Mei Lan-fang has found in the handsome Chang Miao-shang a very satisfactory partner for his romantic plays. This young man, who acts the part of the ardent lover to perfection, has the probably unique distinction among actors of being the product of a Christian missionary school, the Peking Methodist Academy. The Chinese criticize the weakness of his voice and say that his reputation is due only to the fact that he plays opposite the greatest actor of the present day in China.

The wu-sheng is the military hero. To impersonate this rôle properly an actor must be very skillful in the art of stage fighting, which means that he must possess great acrobatic skill. He must understand how to fence with wooden stage swords or spears, and furthermore how to box. Chinese boxing has nothing whatever to do with the bloodthirsty Boxers of 1900, for the latter received their name through a misunderstanding. It is, on the other hand, a most inoffensive art, consisting of a series of poses rapidly and skillfully executed. I believe that formerly it was a method of fighting, but that it has become thoroughly conventionalized at present into a system of posturing and rapid movements.

For a gorgeous riot of color one might recommend a play acted by Yang Hsiao-lou, Peking’s most famous actor of military plays, who is beginning to command the same salary as Mei Lan-fang. He is known not only for his ability in fighting, but also because he can sing well and enunciate very clearly. The tourist can tell the home folks that he has seen something if he has watched Yang Hsiao-lou with a face painted in heavy reds and blues, wearing tall feathers on his head, dressed in a garment embroidered in rich colors and studded with little mirrors, mounted on shoes with very thick soles, strutting about the stage in martial attitude, and finally engaging in combat a similarly dressed hero to the end that both whirl about the stage with lightning speed, while the orchestra supplies the excitement by means of a terrific noise which threatens to take the roof off the building. It makes a truly exciting spectacle of which even an untrained Westerner can feel the thrill.

The two types of ching-i and hua-tan are both young women characters. The difference made between them is that the former represents an honest and simple girl generally playing a sad part in which great emphasis is placed on the singing, while the hua-tan represents a woman of doubtful reputation or a maid servant in a comedy part, requiring great skill in acting. It is one of the merits of Mei Lan-fang that he acts both types and thus breaks down one of the stiff rules of the Chinese theater in the interest of developing it into a freer art. Indeed, for over ten years he has been the supreme artist in both types. It is said of him by Peking critics that he sings as beautifully as a nightingale, that he has a pretty face, that he dances gracefully, and that his acting, in the Chinese simile, is like quicksilver which fills up every crevice and crack of a hole into which it is poured—that is to say, satisfying to the last detail. Teh Hing, a man over sixty years old, is another famous ching-i; however, he scorns to play the rôle of the hua-tan, the flowery maiden who treads the primrose path. Still another type in which Mei Lan-fang appears at times is that of wu-tan, or warrior maiden, a rôle comparatively rarely seen.

For some of the best make-ups and the most natural action on the Chinese stage one ought to see men playing the part of lao-tan, or old woman. I have frequently found it difficult to believe that it was a man who appeared with the sorrowful, lined face, the black headdress, tottering along with the stiff walk engendered by bound feet, leaning on a tall staff with a carved handle, and all in all giving a perfect representation of a lao-t’ai-t’ai (old lady). Very touching bits often appear in plays in which an old woman in her broken voice bewails the loss of a son, her only support in life. Among other minor types are found the lao-sheng (old man), the ta-ching (male part, either wicked or honest—his character is indicated by the style of face-painting he wears), and the er-hua-mien (usually a robber). In addition to these there are an infinite number of other possible parts; for example one sees not infrequently various wild and domestic animals interpreted in very droll make-ups that recall Shakespeare’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

A very important type is the ch’ou, the clown, as much an institution on the Chinese stage as he was on that of our Middle Ages. It is very difficult, Chinese critics say, to become a famous clown. The part of the clown consists largely of improvisation, but it is quite risky for him to be as funny as he can. He is permitted topical allusions, but he must gauge carefully the mood of the audience. I remember one quite successful hit. In a certain play a husband returns after an absence of ten years and finds his wife and son in good health, but with an added blessing of Heaven in the shape of a one-year-old boy. He berates his wife for her infidelity and exclaims, “Who could have done me such a turn?” At that moment the clown leaped to the edge of the stage shouting, “It was he!” and allowed his pointing finger to sweep slowly across the sleek, blushing faces of the row of rich merchants in the front seats.

It may seem surprising that I speak so glibly of the “best” actors among the various types, but I should hasten to state that this is a matter in which I do not give my own judgment but the result of popular balloting. A Peking newspaper holds an annual vote for the best actors among each rubric, and the judgment of the readers of this journal is generally accepted among theatergoers. Although the daily papers are an innovation in Peking, perhaps less than twenty years old, yet many of them have their theatrical critics who “puff” actors and more often actresses for other reasons than for art’s sake. Press-agenting is far from being an unknown art in the Middle Kingdom. Much of the writing is done by students of the National University who earn a little extra money by this means. The most picturesque among the Peking critics is a Japanese called by his Chinese name, T’ing Hua. For the last twenty years he has devoted himself to the Chinese theater heart and soul, and shows his devotion by adopting orphans whom he gives a schooling as actors. T’ing Hua has over twenty such “sons”, one of whom is becoming very famous, especially in the Shun T’ien Shih Pao, the paper for which father writes. Yet in spite of all touting the vote reflects the popular feeling, especially as regards Mei Lan-fang and Yang Hsiao-lou, the most famous interpreters of the rôles of young girl and military hero respectively.

Theaters on a commercial basis are also practically a new thing in China; that is to say something that has developed on a large scale only within the last twenty years. Before that time theatrical performances were given mostly at temples or harvest festivals, at the houses of rich men, and, most elaborately, at the imperial court. As a sign of the times I should like to quote an item clipped from the Peking Daily News of June 28, 1922. The article tells of a meeting of the representatives of Peking’s five thousand blind men held in a temple. The end of the paragraph I shall quote verbatim in the English of the Chinese translator:

But the Peking police force, perhaps the best in the world, has drawn up full regulations, which are adequate for preserving order in the playhouses that have multiplied so rapidly in the capital. Each company must be registered, must pay a tax of five dollars for each performance, must reserve certain seats for policemen who keep order, must not crowd extra seats into the aisles, must avoid immoral plays, must submit all new plays to the police, and must apprise the police beforehand of every performance to be held. The ordinance requiring the separation of the sexes in the theater is an Eastern touch that is sure to impress Occidentals—who have forgotten that in Shakespeare’s day also women were confined to the gallery. Peking police rules demand that the ushers and tea-venders in the galleries must also be women and that these galleries must have their separate exits. The rule that spectators are forbidden to sit on the stage also recalls Elizabethan manners. One can read in these police regulations:

There is, however, very little disturbance in the theaters; at least I have never seen the least sign of a fight or quarrel among the spectators. Actors on the stage are forbidden to curse and are fined if they do so. The hours for the performances are fixed from twelve noon to five in winter and spring, and from noon to six in summer and fall, while all evening performances must end at midnight. The latter are an innovation at Peking and are taxed more heavily than the regular daytime performances. There is also a ruling aimed against “claques” which forbids too boisterous applause.

On one occasion when I took some New Yorkers to see Mei Lan-fang in the rôle of “Yang Kuei-fei on a Spree”, one of my guests exclaimed, “If this play is permitted, I wonder what kind of plays the police forbid!” The obliging Chinese police have supplied me not only with the regulations for theaters, but also with the list of forbidden plays. Naturally enough gross immorality realistically presented is forbidden. There is no question of the display of nudity; it never occurs and, I believe, would hold little appeal for a Chinese audience. Some of the plays forbidden are rather interesting.

There is the “Shang Ting Chi” (Ruse of the Nail). A wife killed her husband because she was in love with another man. The police were unable to learn the cause of the man’s sudden death, but the examining magistrate was told by his superior that he must fathom the mystery or be himself beheaded. When he went home sorrowfully to tell his wife of his plight, the latter asked whether he had examined the part of the head covered with hair. The officer hastened to investigate the back of the victim’s head and found that a nail had been driven into it. When the superior learned of this he ordered the officer’s wife to be arrested. She confessed that she had known of the ruse because she had put her former husband to death by driving a nail into his head and braiding the queue over the wound. Thereupon both women were put to death. The play is forbidden lest women learn how to rid themselves of their husbands!

Another forbidden play is “Sha Tze Pao”, the story of a young woman who loved a monk. One day her young son discovered them in flagranti. The mother feared that the boy would tell of her shame and therefore she killed him. His sister suspected a crime, told the boy’s teacher about it, and he in turn reported it to the authorities. As a result, both the woman and the monk were put to death. The play is based on an actual incident that happened in the province of Hunan about forty years ago. The sister, later in life, at one time visited a theater where this very play was being staged and received a shock comparable to the one an honest son of a famous murderer might receive if he went to visit Madame Tussaud’s Waxworks and suddenly beheld his own father reënacting his crime in wax. The Chinese authorities forbid the play because the killing of the child by the mother is realistically acted out. The mother’s face is covered with blood as she cuts the body into many pieces and places them in a wine vat. It is a curious thing that on the Chinese stage where fixed conventions leave so much to the imagination one finds occasionally the most revolting realism in plays of the “shuddering” variety. I have seen, for example, the victim of an assault dragging his entrails across the stage—a nauseating imitation of the real thing. The Chinese love their “horrors” just as much as our medieval ancestors did.

It is a custom on the Chinese stage to play on the occasion of various seasonal festivals pieces pertaining to the holiday in question. The best known of the seasonal plays is perhaps the “Ta Yin Ho” (Crossing the Milky Way), played on the seventh day of the seventh month of the Chinese calendar, that is to say, generally some time during our month of July. This story is an old legend, varying somewhat in different versions, related in the quotation from William Stanton in Chapter One, where Yang Kuei-fei in the T’ang Dynasty makes allusion to it. It can be seen on a number of stages in Peking at the time of this festival, and is staged in an especially colorful manner by Mei Lan-fang.

The same actor plays another mythological fancy on the occasion of the mid-autumn festival, “Ch’ang-O Pin Yüeh” (Ch’ang-O’s Flight to the Moon).[24] This custom of seasonal plays shows a very close connection existing between the popular beliefs and the theater which recalls in a manner the medieval mysteries of the Easter and Christmas seasons. The fact that some of the plays have been written within recent years only indicates that the Chinese theater is in no way declining as a typical Chinese institution, as is, for example, the popular theater of India. What the visitor sees in the native theaters of Calcutta or Bombay, as has been stated above, is a diluted imitation of our weakest and worst melodrama with all its mannerisms. In contrast to this the Chinese theater of Peking is continuing as a living popular art, introducing some external features from our stage, but on the whole remaining true to its own genius.