Every traveler who comes to China hears of the fame of Mei Lan-fang. He is told that in his visit to Peking he ought not to miss the opportunity of seeing this male actor of female rôles interpret the gay or tragic events of the lives of coy Chinese maidens. When the Chinese Government entertains a distinguished foreign visitor, General Joffre or Secretary of the Navy Denby, for example, Mei Lan-fang gives a performance which forms the pièce de résistance of the Oriental splendors shown to the visitor by way of hospitality. Americans who in turn entertain Chinese friends in Peking generally resort also to a play by this actor. In 1919 a group of American bankers paid Mei Lan-fang four thousand dollars (I have the information from the man who wrote out the check) for half an hour of acting and singing; it is true that in this case an especially large price was paid by way of gaining that imponderable Oriental asset known as “face”, because shortly before this a group of Japanese bankers had tried to impress their Chinese guests by paying Mei Lan-fang one thousand dollars for an evening’s entertainment. The common masses among the Chinese also appreciate this actor, and a manager who succeeds in inducing Mei Lan-fang to sign a contract with him is always sure of a crowded house. For five years I have had the opportunity of observing Mei Lan-fang’s work and I have come to the conclusion that he justly deserves his fame and his popularity.

Perhaps some who have heard Mei sing in his falsetto voice and have seen him act a “slow” play, or opera, if you will, in the conventionalized Chinese manner, to the accompaniment of a screeching violin and ear-splitting brass cymbals, feel that they would have been willing to pay a good sum to be excused from the performance. There is, to be sure, a long list of martyrs who with lavish Oriental hospitality were treated to interminable sessions of Chinese drama; General Wood, for example, recently suffered two hours of it. I should like to say that in my opinion, keenly as I appreciate the Chinese drama and its interpreter, Mei Lan-fang, I realize fully that it does not present such a finished product as is found in our theater. The Chinese have no great tragedies to place by the side of Shakespeare’s; they have no profound comedies such as Molière’s; their plays are never so closely knit as are our “well-made” plays; while in staging they are centuries behind us. The Chinese drama is a case of arrested development; it is childish, medieval, and very trying to our ears. Yet it is typically Chinese. No other art is so popular in China as that of the theater, which presents the old legends of the nation, the famous novels read by the masses, intrigues such as occur on every hand, the music of the various provinces, and the moral ideals of the four hundred millions in general. In fact, the Chinese consider the theater fit for the gods; for whenever they wish to thank their deities or reconcile them, they give theatrical performances for the pleasure of the gods and that of the entire village as well. As Mr. R. F. Johnston remarks in his characteristic manner, designed to shock the ultra-pious, the taste of the gods as regards the drama seems to coincide in a remarkable manner with that of the villagers. Since the theater is in a manner the mirror of the Chinese nation, and is also of intrinsic interest to the student of the drama, it is well worth some attention on the part of any Westerner at all interested in the Orient. Furthermore, because Mei Lan-fang is the most widely known actor, and because he is an extremely intelligent and progressive artist, it is perhaps best to approach this exotic drama through him.

Since Mei Lan-fang is an actor and his ancestors were actors before him, he comes from the lowest class of society. In the otherwise extremely democratic organization of the Chinese empire, where the poorest boy could rise to wealth and fame by virtue of passing the literary examination in the capital, sons of prostitutes, lictors, and actors, as has been said, were barred from competing for government posts. This system of examinations was abolished in 1907, but the social disqualification was felt by Mei Lan-fang, for he is now just thirty years old. His youth was tainted also by his being subjected to unspeakable immoral practices which were openly tolerated in Peking until the Revolution in 1911. Quite aside from this, the childhood of an actor is no bed of roses in a land where the struggle for existence is so desperate, and ninety per cent. constantly hover near the starvation line. In the Southern City of Peking one meets frequently a long line of boys, with prematurely old faces, ranging from eight to sixteen years, marching along seriously and apathetically under the stern eye of a preceptor—the pupils of an actors’ training school. Or if one takes the morning canter along the city wall on the smooth stretch to the south of the Temple of Heaven, one may see the boys at their interminable lessons, which begin at sunrise. They must learn to sing in the shrill, artificial falsetto voice characteristic of the Chinese theater, under a master whose cruel discipline would make Dotheboys Hall seem a pleasant place for week-ends. When there is a sharp wind blowing Peking dust in a gale, the boys are taken to sing against the storm in order that their throats may become properly hardened. The competition for a livelihood as actor is deadly. Three boys’ theaters are training hundreds of boys, while about two thousand actors are already out of work in Peking or are being hired by the day with about twenty coppers’ reward for their long hours of labor. In such an environment Mei Lan-fang grew up facing a drab, dismal existence such as the vast majority of Orientals suffer cheerfully.

But Mei Lan-fang’s originality and talents brought him to the highest position in his art. He had been trained, because of his slender build, girl-like face, and high voice, to act the type of hua-tan, the hetaera. This figure appears regularly in Chinese plays in the rôle of servant girl, lady’s maid, or demi-mondaine. The method pursued by most tyro actors is to attempt to approximate down to the minutest mannerisms the style of the actor at the top of their special class. Mei Lan-fang, however, decided to copy nature instead. He introduced into his acting female traits and foibles observed in the women about him, and this freshness in his style pleased his audiences. He was gradually accorded more and more prominent parts until twelve years ago he was voted the most popular interpreter of female rôles in the capital. The actors selected as the best “lovers”, “warriors”, “old men”, “old women”, and the various other conventional types can count their fortunes as made. After he had been chosen as the most popular actor of female rôles, Mei Lan-fang commanded fifty to one hundred dollars for one regular daily performance, and for private performances some such amounts as were mentioned in the first paragraph of this chapter. He organized his own company, made a triumphal tour through Japan, and began to fill annual engagements in Shanghai, the “Paris of China” so-called.[25]

Let us suppose that in wishing to see Mei Lan-fang you have done as many Pekingese do—sent your servant to the theater to hold a seat for you. Your menial has been enjoying an afternoon’s work by grabbing a good seat in the almost empty theater at one o’clock and warming it until five-thirty, at the same time drinking tea, chewing watermelon seeds, smoking cigarettes, gossiping blandly with his neighbors, and occasionally watching the actors on the stage. Now comes the hour for the star, and you, with many sleek Chinese merchants, displace coolies whose figures—in blue cotton—shrink inconspicuously toward the exit. The moment you sit down a waiter with the inevitable teapot is at your elbow, depositing on the table before you a cup containing one grimy thumb. The tea and watermelon seeds are, as they say in the Moulin Rouge, “obligatoire”, but you are free to refuse threescore flies resting on a bar of candy, eggs of uncertain age whose whites have become black, or apples just the proper softness with which to pelt actors. At the tables all around you men are audibly sipping tea or eating dishes of steaming viands, after which they wipe face and hands on hot towels which the waiters are passing. Bundles of towels continually soaring overhead may remind you of bats under the rafters, or if you are medically minded you may exclaim, “Look at them throwing the smallpox around!”

The indifferent actors have been on the stage for hours, impersonating famous emperors of the time of Attila, cunning counselors as old as Alcuin, or sages contemporary with Pope Sylvester. One short play or part of a play after the other—each lasting about thirty to forty-five minutes—has been going on without intermission since noon. The fact that no pause is made between the plays often leads foreigners to believe that Chinese plays are of serpentine length, while in reality they are no longer than the separate numbers of our continuous vaudeville. The orchestra leader merely beats a few short notes on a gong and the stage is set for the next play—that is to say, Chinese drama has no stage settings whatever. A brightly colored curtain forms the background of the bare stage; in other words, the scenery is left to the imagination, as it was in Shakespeare’s theater.

When the hour for the star has finally come, a special fluteplayer takes his seat as leader of the orchestra and sends out soft, wistful notes that contrast gratefully with the brass din of the preceding battle scene. With tense interest Mei Lan-fang is awaited, for to-day he is to play “A Young Nun Seeks Love.”

With light, mincing step he enters in a long nun’s gown of white silk, over which he wears a white coat dotted with a diamond pattern in light blue. Long black tresses and a narrow black belt set off the delicate shades of the light colors. The exquisite color combination is enhanced by his soft, clear voice and the emotional play of his facial expression. The theme of the forty-minute monodrama is similar to Browning’s “Fra Lippo Lippi”, a story which Mei alternately sings and recites to orchestral accompaniment.

Sent to the convent at a tender age, she finds her life at sixteen a dull round divided between the burning of incense and the reading of monotonous Buddhistic sutras. The abbess has deprived her of the ornament of her hair and forces her to carry water from the well at the foot of the hill. On these excursions she has stolen long looks at a handsome youth playing outside the city gate, and he seems not indifferent toward her.

Her childhood at the home of her pious parents had been an interminable droning of the sacred syllables, “O mane padme hum, o mane padme hum”, beating of drums, ringing of bells, blowing of horns, tinkling of cymbals—all to drive away the devils. Her heart, hungry for a bit of brightness, feels cramped in her cell and she decides to enter the large hall filled with the statues of five hundred saints and Buddhas. Since the stage is absolutely bare, Mei at this point goes through the pantomime of opening a door and closing it again behind him. After some quaint meditations before the various ascetic lohans and the figure of the “laughing Buddha”,[26] who seems to say, “Why waste the precious days of sweet youth?”, the young nun decides to risk all for the sake of finding love. In a graceful, rhythmic dance Mei moves off the stage. The young girl has gone into the “black world”, as the Buddhist nuns call life outside the convent walls.

Another favorite among Mei Lan-fang’s plays is “Burying the Blossoms.” A young girl, tormented by jealousy and doubt of her lover’s good faith, finds the garden path covered with fallen blossoms. In these flowers, broken from their stems and lying crushed on the ground, she sees the image of herself, a girl whose parents are dead and who is neglected by every one. She takes pity on the flowers, and, placing them in a silk bag, buries them under a tree. As she is shedding tears over the little mound her lover comes upon her. The explanation that follows effects a deepening of their love.

In Professor Giles’ translation (“Chinese Literature”, page 368) we have the sentiment of the play expressed (Cf. Moore’s “The Last Rose of Summer”):

But not only such pale, wistful themes are found in Mei’s repertoire. The “Three Pulls”[27] is a tragi-comedy of bourgeois life where Mei presents a delightfully coquettish wife. This is a four-act play in which a large company appears in gorgeous costumes of embroidered silk studded with the little mirrors characteristic of Chinese stage apparel. The various characters wear historically correct dress, the well-known Manchu robes. But as an example of the extreme incongruities in the mixture of the Oriental and the Occidental now taking place in Peking I should like to mention an incident that occurred when the play was staged for the first time at the Chen Kwang Theater. This new playhouse has a large European stage and various other modern conveniences as yet not fully understood or appreciated by the Chinese, for I observed that the petition written by the husband and later flaunted in court was written on a three-foot strip of toilet paper!

The very best-beloved of Mei Lan-fang’s plays is “Yang Kuei-fei Tsui Chou” (Yang Kuei-fei’s Spree). Yang Kuei-fei, the famous concubine of the Emperor T’ang Ming-huang, of about 900 A.D., as has been stated, lives on in Chinese poetry as a charming beauty of absolutely bewitching qualities. In connection with this play one ought to say that drunkenness is rare in China and is not considered a vice or a disgrace. On the other hand a genial spree is looked upon as an exploit. A Chinese gentleman will tell you “I was roundly drunk last night”, much as an American might beamingly confide his triumphs at golf. K’ang Hsi, perhaps the greatest emperor China ever had, used to urge his guests to drink heartily, assuring them that if they drank too deep he would have them taken to their homes in a dignified manner.

The plot of the play is a short episode in the imperial palace. Yang Kuei-fei learns from two eunuchs that the emperor is supping with a rival beauty, and in her jealous rage she orders one bumper of wine after the other. As the wine begins to take effect, she performs some charming dances in which other court ladies join, to the end that a beautiful inebriated ballet is performed. The effect of the dancers in the ancient Chinese dress, the style with the long sleeves taken over by the Japanese as the kimono, is much like a vision of fluttering, multicolored butterflies. Later Yang Kuei-fei, in a low-comedy scene, uses her charms first on one and then on the other of the servants, who prefer to run away rather than be found in a compromising position with the favorite concubine. Finally Yang Kuei-fei leaves the stage alone, singing, “Now lonely I return to the palace.”

One specialty of this play is the manner in which Mei Lan-fang drinks the wine. He grips the cup with his teeth and bends backward very slowly until his head touches the ground. Such “stunts” are fairly frequent in Chinese plays and are used just as traditionally as some of the byplay in French masterpieces staged at the Comédie Française. The great T’an had a very famous trick which no actor has been able to imitate; in the play, “Seeing the Ancestral Portraits”, he would kick off his shoe in such a manner that in falling it would always strike exactly on his head. Mei Lan-fang is not stressing these acrobatic and other tricks, but is placing the emphasis on the interpretation of the emotional content of the scenes.

A little farce that Mei presents in a droll manner is the “Ch’ing Shang Lao Shüeh” (Slave Girl Plays Tricks on the Old Schoolmaster). This play presents the perennial theme of the impertinent servant. The make-up of the old scholar in Ming costume is comical to the last degree. The slave girl receives instruction, together with her mistress. When asked to recite she does so with the swaying body motion commonly found in our urchins when they “say their piece.” She catches a fly off the teacher’s face, and in mixing ink, spits in his eye. When he sets out to beat her, she catches the switch, and as he pulls, lets go, with the result that teacher falls back into his chair and rolls over on the floor with a tremendous crash. After suffering many similar tricks the pedagogue decides to teach in that house no longer. As he leaves the room the audience sees that the slave girl has pinned on his back a picture of a turtle—than which there is no greater insult in all the Middle Kingdom!

This is the only play I have ever seen that makes fun of a scholar. I consider it a pleasant tribute to the Chinese sense of humor that it allows them to laugh occasionally, even at the figure of their national hero. The scholar who by virtue of having passed the examination in Peking is made magistrate or even viceroy of a province is the hero of hundreds of Chinese plays. The examination in the capital with the attendant change of fortune in the life of the hero is the deus ex machina of the Chinese stage. As an example I shall mention another play of Mei Lan-fang’s, the one he played before Secretary of the Navy Denby on July 17, 1922. This play is called “Yü Pei T’ing” (The Pavilion of the Royal Monument). A poor scholar on his way to Peking is caught in a heavy storm and seeks shelter in the pavilion of a royal monument. He finds, however, that a lady has come before him and taken possession of the interior of the small building. Since he is both a scholar and a gentleman, he passes the night on the outside, where the eaves afford him only insufficient shelter from the rain. In the morning the lady thanks him for his consideration, and he continues on his way. The courtesy of the young scholar has made so deep an impression on the lady that she cannot refrain from telling her sister-in-law about it, who in turn tells the lady’s husband. The latter thinks that the story is only a disguise for what he believes to have been the true state of affairs, namely that his wife has been unfaithful to him. He therefore divorces his wife and abandons her to a life of misery and disgrace. The scholar, on the other hand, passes his examination with such distinction that the emperor grants him an audience, in the course of which he asks the young man to tell of the noblest thing he has ever done. The scholar tells of his night spent out in the rain for the sake of an unknown lady. The husband happens to be among the courtiers present, and, upon this corroboration of his wife’s story, he takes her back into his home, and all live happy ever afterward!

The scholar’s quick change of fortune as a theme in the Chinese theater finds a close rival in the motive of filial piety. Among Mei Lan-fang’s plays the latter is best illustrated by the play “Mu Lan”, the name of a girl who goes to war in place of her father because the latter is too old to undertake a heavy campaign. It is characteristically Chinese that this Joan of Arc does not fight for motives of patriotism, but out of regard for the comfort of her aged father. This fascinating play gives Mei an opportunity of showing in the first part his skill in portraying a demure young maiden, while in the second part he can display his address in the extremely conventionalized art of Chinese stage fighting.

All of these and many more characters Mei Lan-fang is on the stage, but of his real character very little is known among foreigners in China. It is known that he has a kindly heart, for every year he contributes his services to a dramatic entertainment arranged by American missionaries for the purpose of providing shelters for the riksha runners during the bitter Peking winters. One reads about it in the papers when he makes his annual pilgrimage to Miao Feng Shan, a mountain temple three days distant from Peking, the traditional shrine where actors worship. But artists eager to paint his portrait have never been able to secure him as a sitter, because he is very shy about entering any society outside his immediate circle. I considered myself very lucky when after some negotiations I secured an interview with him in the typical Chinese fashion through some friends of some friends of his friends. The house in which I called on Mei was his house; he keeps two other establishments—one for his wife and the other for his concubine. For many years Mei Lan-fang was known as the faithful husband of one wife, but finally friends prevailed on him to act in the manner of every Chinese gentleman who respects himself and to take a concubine into his domestic circle. Among Mei’s friends I met a young actor with eloquent scars on his cheeks; he had been the one who introduced Mei to the concubine and the scars were the result of some acid thrown by a brother of the jealous wife. Another gentleman present was a stocky officer of the Peking gendarmerie, a useful friend to the actor, because on several occasions ruffians have attempted to extort blackmail from him by violence—as they do with every one in China who has any money. Mei was the last one to appear, wearing a long white silk gown, the customary hot-weather dress of the Chinese gentleman.

Some of the coyness that gives such a true ring to his stage presentations of young ladies clings to Mei off-stage. He seems like a charming, bookish, slightly effeminate boy of seventeen. In reality he is thirty, but like so many other Orientals he appears to Westerners much younger than he is. He is of the frail, willowy build demanded in a Chinese beauty, but he is the very opposite of languid, sparkling with vivacity and full of life. His voice is high, gentle, and soft; in fact, it sounds very much like that of one of his heroines on the stage.

All in all Mei gives the impression of a youthful scholar rather than of an actor. There is not the slightest touch of Bohemianism about him. His favorite avocations are music and drawing; opium smoking and other fashionable dissipations hold no charms for him whatever. He is very fond of Western music, and hopes ultimately to win over his audiences to an appreciation of the piano and the violin, which would give him an immensely richer field for his musical repertoire. He has for a close friend and daily companion a learned scholar with whom he makes researches in ancient works dealing with the drama. Instead of following in the beaten path he is intent on improving the drama by presenting ancient plays with a staging historically correct, and by reviving whatever was vital in the past. With great pride he showed me his extensive library, lingering long over a neatly written text of a play copied by his grandfather, who had been musician to the great actor T’an.

To sum up Mei Lan-fang: like most other men who achieve distinction, he is in love with his work and devotes himself to it night and day.

His great merit is that he is bringing good taste and sensible innovations to the Chinese theater, which had been stagnant—in a state of arrested development. The old Empress Dowager, showing her usual bad taste, had made fashionable in Peking a Mongolian style of music intended for open-air theaters on the wind-swept plains, which in a roofed theater is absolutely ear-splitting. Mei Lan-fang is returning to traditional Chinese music in which the soft notes of the flute prevail. Instead of the old hackneyed themes Mei has staged numerous new plays based on the famous romantic novel, “The Dream of the Red Chamber”, as well as many other plays written especially for him. Into his fanciful plays of the type of “Midsummer Night’s Dream” he has woven graceful dances, an absolute innovation on his part. New and often historically correct costumes appear in his plays, enlivening the otherwise rather drab Chinese stage. In contrast to the Chinese habit of presenting only the favorite acts of the well-known plays (as though our managers should stage only the balcony scene from “Romeo and Juliet”, or the husband-under-the-table scene from “Tartuffe”), he presents even the older plays in their entirety. When he plays in Japan or in the European theater in Peking, he removes the ill-clothed orchestra from the stage; but he cannot do this in the native theaters, where the strong tradition insists that the musicians must sit on the stage and destroy the illusion, for the foreigners at least.

In this ability of his to make innovations and at the same time to adapt himself to his audiences to a certain extent, lies the key of Mei Lan-fang’s success. Even the most hidebound theater devotees and connoisseurs must recognize the skill of his acting and the perfection of his enunciation, and therefore they are willing to accept the foreign elements which he introduces. Mei Lan-fang’s greatness lies in the fact that he is able to introduce bold reforms into the theater without cutting himself off from the tradition.