BOOKS.
THE CHINESE THEATRE.*
A SKETCH of the Chinese theatre from the pen of a cultured Chinaman familiar with Western civilisation could scarcely fail to prove interesting to a wide circle of Occidental readers ; and this gossipy little volume of General Tcheng-Ki-Tong, the Military Attache of the Chinese Embassy at Paris, is decidedly the most entertaining, as it is probably the most reliable, account we have come across of plays, playgoers, and playgoing in the Flowery Land. Though purporting to be a study of comparative manners and morals as reflected in the drama, comparisons are for the most part avoided, and the book consists mainly of a series of bright and chatty essays treating of things theatrical generally as they are in the far Eastern Empire. Nothing bearing uron the subject appears to have been forgotten, from a description of the temporary theatres where the performances are given, to a discussion of the genius of the native drama. In a word, General Tcheng is a sort of popular epitome of the Chinese stage. His book is pleasantly written, full of dry, caustic humour, enlivened with sly hits at the sybaritic playgoers of the West, to say nothing of occasional slaps at the muddle- headed dramatic critics and commentators of his own favoured land.
Though passionately fond of theatrical representations, the Chinese have, according to General Tcheng-Ki-Tong, no regular theatres as in Europe, and actors are regarded as something a degree or two worse than rogues or vagabonds. Actresses there are none nowadays, young men performing the female parts. Formerly, under the rule of the Mongol Emperors, women were allowed to appear on the stage, but they were classed with infamous characters, and were legally debarred from claiming the ordinary privileges assured to every decent
female in China. The players are banded together in troupes or guilds, rejoicing in such high-flown appellations as the "Brotherhood of Reason and Courtesy," the "Company of Splendid Visitants," the " Society of Fragrant Flowers," or "Mirrors of What is and Should be." The bond between the members of these guilds is unusually strong, and the director is an absolute sovereign. As a rule, the actors journey from place to place, carrying their theatrical paraphernalia with them. But in some of the larger cities in the North of China, there are com- panies permanently located. When the players arrive at any town in which they intend to give a performance, the residents of the district in which they take up their quarters subscribe for a series of representations, the mandarins and officials always heading the list of contributions. The actors thereupon set to work, and within a few hours a temporary theatre of suitable dimensions is constructed with the aid of a few score bamboo- canes and some rolls of coloured cotton stuff. The edifice is shaped like a parallelogram, with a gallery divided into boxes running round three sides, and the stage or platform at one end. The gallery is reserved for the subscribers and " quality-folk " who can pay, the pit being open free to the public. As soon as the preliminary arrangements are completed, the performances begin. They commence at an early hour in the morning, and terminate late at night, four or five plays being represented in the course of each day, to as many fresh audiences. As fast as one set of spectators goes, another comes; and so the performances are continued day after day, without intermission until the repertory of the troupe is exhausted. As long as the" Mirrors of What is and Should be," or the" Society of Fragrant Flowers" are in the town, there is a general holiday ; shops are closed, business is neglected, country folks troop in as to a fair, and all, rich and poor, high and low, are, for the time being, absorbed in the sorrows of Han, the adventures of the literate Taal-Yong, the love intrigues of Pe-Min-Tchong, or the mischief-making of Tchang-In. The theatre, and nothing but the theatre, occupies public attention, until the peripatetic censors of public morals pack up and betake themselves to the next town on their circuit. Often a wealthy resident will treat
• Ls Theeltrs des Chinois : Etudes Sc Mantes Comparees. Par le Gdn6ral Tcheng- Ei-Tong. Paris: Oalmann Levy. 1886.
the townsmen to a series of performances at his own cost ; and not unfrequently the Buddhist priests and Taoist teachers invite a strolling company to some favourite shrine or pilgrimage place, thus adding to the attractions held out to the devout. In such cases, the performances take place in the open air, sur- rounded by a square of booths, where gambling, drinking, opium-smoking, and even less decent practices are by no means reprobated. In this way, it will be seen that although there are no regular theatres in China, the public have no lack of theatrical entertainment, and at a minimum of cost to the poorer classes.
Wealthy Chinamen often indulge in the extravagance of a high-class play for the entertainment of their friends in private. And for this purpose they have, most of them, a special saloon fitted for such performances attached to their dwelling-houses. Invitations to dinner, succeeded by a theatrical representation, are common ; and where the host enjoys the reputation of a bon-vivant and a literate, such invitations are sought after and appreciated. A dinner of this kind is always served in the saloon where the performance takes place, the guests being paired off according to rank and standing. The dishes never exceed eight or ten on such occasions ; and we may remark en passant that General Tcheng-Ki-Tong destroys one of the favourite illusions of the outer barbarians when he tells us that forks and spoons always appear upon Chinese tables, and that it is quite possible, therefore, to do justice to a Chinese dinner without the aid of either chop-sticks or one's fingers. As soon as the dishes are removed, and the host has made the prescribed apology for the "poor dinner" he has offered his friends, the actors enter attired in the rich though antiquated costumes worn under the Ming dynasty. The chief of the troupe advances and presents to the most honoured guest a book on which are inscribed in golden letters the names of the fifty or sixty plays the comedians know by heart. The list is passed round, selection is made, the ladies take seats in the gallery well hidden from view, and the doors are then thrown open to the general public, who always enjoy the privilege of free admission. The performance commences with the entry of the leading character of the piece, who addresses the audience, announcing his name, business, and antecedents, as well as his connection with the drama in pro- gress. A similar explanation is made by each of the dramatis person ce as they in succession appear and take part in the play. There is no scenery employed in a Chinese theatre, absolutely no stage accessories or stage decoration, nothing whatever to create or maintain scenic illusion. Where it is specially desired to bring the mind of the spectator en rapport with the scene, the personage on the stage describes the imaginary surroundings. As a rule this suffices ; but in cases where the imagination of the audience is supposed to require a little extra jogging, the weaver Bottom's de- vice of a man with some mortar to indicate a wall, and another with a lantern for the moon, is literally followed on the Chinese stage. So that half-a-dozen persons heaped one on the other not infrequently represent the rampart over which in all gravity the hero proceeds to climb when escaping from his pursuers. A feature of the Chinese drama is the singing role, one of the dramatis personce to whom all the singing is allotted. Whenever the author considers it desirable to indicate a striking situation, or emphasise a moral sentiment, or make any especial allusion to what has gone before, it is done in song. This seems to be quite an original invention of the Chinese playwrights, and causes every drama to resemble more or less an opera-bouffe in which one of the characters does all the singing.
The plays themselves are, as General Tcheng-Ki-Tong is con- strained to admit, deficient in those higher imaginative qualities which are characteristic of the Occidental drama. But this is only tantamount to saying that life in China is more or less stereotyped and conventional, and affords no such ample scope for dramatic idealisation as the fuller and freer existence of the West. The motive of a play is very rarely love. With the Chinese, as with all Oriental peoples, love is a sentiment, not a passion—a distinction important to be remembered—and the tyrannous, all-absorbing emotion which Europeans are fond of depicting, appears to them but a gross and somewhat stupid exaggeration. Instead of love, the hero or jean,: premier of the classic stage is animated by filial piety, and his career is crowned not with marriage and the possession of a beloved object, but with the laureate's crown at the literates' examination and the attainment of high official rank. His adventures are those that beset the path of ambitious scholars; his temptations, those to which the mandarin is exposed in the performance of his official duties ; his reward or punishment, such as the law normally pre- scribes. The best of these plays are, by general consent, those of the Yu-en dynasty, forming a trifling collection of five hun- dred volumes. There is a large number of comedies of intrigue and love of the orthodox Western type, introducing the ubiqui- tous soubrette, and terminating, as human nature from Pekin to Pall Mall seems to demand a comedy should terminate, in the union of hero and heroine. In great favour with the orthodox Chinese are the religious plays,—extravaganzas satirising the Buddhists and Taoists and their doctrines. These are altogether unique, and allow full play to the imagination of the Celestial dramatists who exhaust the machinery of the super- natural, gods, demons, and spirits, in order to pour ridicule upon the opponents of Confucianism. Nothing can be more amusing than the complications into which the playwright gets his Buddhist or Taoist hero. For instance, the Taoists believe in a material hell, judgment hereafter, and the transmigration of souls. So in The Transformations of Yo-cheu, the author depicts the adventures of a wicked official who, rejecting the doctrine of a Taoist anchorite, dies. His soul descends to hell, where it is doomed to never-ending punishment. Luckily, the anchorite happens to be visiting the King of Hell—the Taoists claim to have communion with demons—and inter- cedes for Yo-cheu. The latter receives his freedom, promising thenceforth to live as a good Taoist. Unfortunately, though, his wife has burnt his remains. However, he receives per- mission to take possession of the body of a young married butcher, Li, who happens to be but a few hours dead. The finale may be imagined,—surprise in the house of the butcher to see Li rise from the dead and not recognise his wife ; con- sternation in the house of Yo-cheu when a butcher appears and claims his spouse there. Explanation, however, follows, and then comes the crowning complication,—both wives claim the living man, one on the ground that it is her husband's body, the other on the score of its being possessed by her husband's soul. The matter is referred to an Imperial Commissioner; but he cannot decide how to equitably divide the reanimated Li, when the latter settles the business by making up his mind to do as the devil did when he got old, and tarns monk—Taoist monk, of course.
Comedies of character—those in which the failings and vices of humankind are hit off in the persons of individuals—form a fair proportion of Chinese plays. They appeal strongly to the popular sympathies, since they are invariably constructed to exemplify the moral conveyed in the maxim familiar to Chinamen from youth, that "punishment follows sin as certainly as shadow follows substance." Nothing is so dear to the heart of the Celestial as retributive justice ; and the unqualified delight of the audience when some unprincipled Mandarin—the "fox," as he is called, the accepted type of a cunning rogue— is exposed and punished, is a standing tribute to the wholesome moral sense of the mass of the Chinese people. And this leads us to note that the Chinese theatre is of all things moral. Even- handed justice must be meted out to all evil-doers. There is no deviation tolerated from this rule. Vice must be shown up in its true colours, and virtue becomingly exalted ; and to this extent the Chinese dramatist is fettered. Even when the wife and concubine—a Chinaman is legally allowed one—are introduced, they are opposed as the types respectively of the good and bad ; and the latter of the two, so far from adorning the story, is made to point a very wholesome moral, she is always the mischief-worker, the disturber of domestic felicity. The stage humour of most of these plays is a little too broad for Euro- peans, and savours too much of buffoonery. A type is the avaricious man who rubs his fingers on a roast joint in a cook- shop, licks the juice off two of his fingers to flavour his dinner rice, and afterwards raves because, while he was asleep, a dog licked the two fingers he had reserved to make his supper tasty. The actors are first-class mimics, but have no notion of portraying either emotion or passion. It is, perhaps, impossible for a European to appreciate the drama of the Flowery Land in the same way as one to the thing born ; but General Tcheng-Ki-Tong's little volume will con- vince even the prejudiced Aryan that the Chinese drama is characterised by many of those subtle touches of Nature that go far to prove the whole world kin.
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