2007039. ejeas 6.1. proef 2. 4-6-2007:14.28, page 75. · pdf filewas demonstrating its own...

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2007 DOI: 10.1163/157006107X197673

2007039. EJEAS 6.1. Proef 2. 4-6-2007:14.28, page 75.

EJEAS 6.1 (2007) 75–102

European Journalof

East Asian Studies

www.brill.nl/ejea

Refined Beauty, New Woman, Dynamic Heroineor Fighter for the Nation? Perceptions of

China in the Programme Selection for MeiLanfang’s Performances in Japan (1919), the

United States (1930) and the Soviet Union (1935)

Catherine YehBoston University

[email protected]

Abstract

One of the seminal cultural transformations in twentieth-century China was the rise of thefemale impersonator, the dan actor, to national stardom, with Mei Lanfang (1894–1961) asthe most famous example (see Figure 1).1 In the short span of 20 years, this figure, oncestrongly associated with being the ‘male flower’ and the ‘call-boy’ of elite men, becamethe representative and high point of Chinese cultural achievements. The three visits MeiLanfang made to Japan in 1919, the United States in 1930 and the Soviet Union in 1935

helped establish the image of cultural China through the art of the female impersonator.

Keywordsvisual culture; urban history; photography

The rise of the dan actor has been largely seen in the context of a transformationof aesthetic taste within Peking opera; or, at most, as a cultural developmentwithin China’s borders. This aesthetic and cultural perspective fails to take intoaccount important political and transnational elements.

The rise of the dan coincided with the collapse of the Qing dynasty; itwas a time when the nation was trying to come to terms with the fall of theimperial order and the unstable situation of the country both domestically

1) Mei Shaowu (ed.), Mei Lanfang [Pictorial Album] (Beijing: Beijing Chubanshe, 1997),p. 27.

76 Catherine Yeh / EJEAS 6.1 (2007) 75–102

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Fig. 1. Mei Lanfang performing in Pavilion of Royal Monument (Yu bei ting)

and internationally. More precisely, it took place at a time when the nation’sleaders were loudly calling for the renovation of the people, and trying toinfuse a new martial spirit into the nation’s psyche. The visible contrastbetween the promotion of such a martial and male national persona andthe rise in popularity of the role of a man playing a woman suggests a possiblepolitical connection. As the dan actors, however, all in their early teens, werestrongly promoted by some of the most powerful politicians and famous literatiintellectuals of the time, and this in some cases in a very conspicuous manner,the plot thickens further.

The rise of the dan, furthermore, was also not simply an internal Chinesecultural affair relating to national politics, but rather an international eventwith a bearing on global cultural trends and the international staging of theChinese national and cultural persona. This aspect will be the main focus ofthe present study. It will study the forces and personalities involved, as wellas the dynamics at work, in Mei Lanfang’s visits to Japan, the USA and theUSSR. It will study the global context of the making of a modern Chinesestar.

Catherine Yeh / EJEAS 6.1 (2007) 75–102 77

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Fig. 2. Yuan Shikai

The sources relating to the subject are very rich and diverse, spanningdifferent media and requiring a variety of methods adapted to their formof communication. As photography had, during the early decades of thetwentieth century, become a medium that could easily be reproduced in print,the prominent role played by photography in the making and shaping ofimages offers a unique perspective on the event. At the time, photographicimages began to circulate globally through newspapers, journals and pictorialmagazines; and with it came a translingual grammar to read them. As muchof the creation of stars and star culture is about image, photography naturallybecomes one of the most important sources for this study. In a sense thesephotographs preserve a direct record of how image was created and shaped.As actors who made it into stardom made ample use of photography tohighlight their ‘female’ seductive looks, photography also is a very rich source,with photographs of a single star often numbering in the thousands. Thedevelopment of photography in turn had a direct impact on the rise of the danin that the camera favours a particular look, highlights particular features andhelps foster particular tastes among the viewers. The pictures’ publication,furthermore, helped to create a particular kind of image-recognition thatevoked a sense of desirability among the broader public.


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Fig. 3. Mei Lanfang performing in Mu Village Fortress (Mu ke zhai)

Photograph in this study is used as a source of information on particulartheatrical events. As the choice of the different operas by the different countriesvisited by Mei Lanfang demonstrates, the image of the dan, represented in theform of photograph, was created and shaped by international forces. Thesechoices are part of a contentious process of defining a suitable and desirableinternational image for China.

The Rise of the Dan and China’s Modernisation Agenda

Figure 22 shows that of Yuan Shikai (1859–1916), the president of the newlyfounded Republic of China, in military uniform (around 1915). Figure 33 hasMei Lanfang in stage costume for the role of Mu Guiying in the opera MuVillage Fortress (Mu ke zhai).4 This photograph was taken in 1913 during his

2) Liu Beisi and Xu Qixian (eds), Gugong zhencang renwu zhaopian huizui (Exquisite Figure-Pictures from the Palace Museum) (Beijing: Zi Jing Cheng Chubanshe, 1994), p. 291.3) Mei Shaowu, Mei Lanfang, p. 23.4) Mei Shaowu, Mei Lanfang, p. 27.


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Fig. 4. Tan Xinpei and Yang Xiaolou performing in Yangping Pass (Yangping guan)

first visit to Shanghai, a visit that brought Mei Lanfang into the nationallimelight. As we see from Yuan Shikai’s picture, two new characters enter thenewly forming national stage at this juncture in time, the politician and thestar in the shape of the dan actor.

These two do not confront each other directly, although the contrast intheir visual representation certainly gives newspaper readers this impression.On the Peking opera stage, the confrontation was played out between the danand the senior martial and male character on stage, the laosheng.

Figure 45 shows, on the right-hand side, the laosheng actor Tan Xinpei (1847–1917) (accompanied by Yang Xiaolou) in stage costume. Figure 56 shows theactor Xun Huisheng in the huadan role, or the ‘sexy female’. The competitionbetween the Tan and the new up-and-coming dan actors was well known.7

5) Sun Yinian and Ma Weidu (eds), Minguo yishu (Republican Art) (Beijing: ZhongguoWenhua Chuban Gongsi, 1995), p. 3.6) Sun Yinian and Ma Weidu, Minguo yishu, p. 4.7) See Mai Lanfang, Wutai shenghuo sishi nian (Forty Years of Life on the Stage) (Beijing:Zhongguo Xiju Chubanshe, 1961), vol. 1, p. 87.


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Fig. 5. Xun Huisheng performing in The Thirteenth Sister (Shisn mei)

The images are taken at a time when the laosheng, the leading role during Qingtimes and the natural leader for the Peking opera companies, were losing inattraction and popularity to the dan. Could it be that society—the audience—was demonstrating its own preferences regardless of muscular appeals fromits leaders, and considered the ‘soft’ demeanour of the female impersonator amore fitting and attractive key image on the national stage than a martial maleauthority figure?

To find an answer to this question, it might help to situate the rise of the daninto the larger social and political horizon. The fall of the Qing left not only apower vacuum but also a vacuum of taste. Many members of the literati classwith high connections in court circles found themselves out in the open andwere recasting their social roles. Quite a few such men of talent entered the fieldof Peking opera for the first time and began to use their gifts in writing newoperas. Prior to this period, most literati input into drama had benefited theKun drama of the south. Following their traditional taste for the ‘flower boys’that represented ya, refinement, as opposed to su, the vulgar, as represented bythe court’s patronage of the laosheng, they focused their attention on this groupof young talents in a mixture of old-style patronage culture and a modernistagenda.


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Fig. 6. Mei Lanfang, Qi Rushan and Luo Yinggong working in Mei’s house

Figure 68 shows Mei Lanfang at home, working together with Qi Rushan(1875–1962), and Luo Yinggong (1872–1924).9 Both men were devoted to Pekingopera, and in particular to the dan actors. This photograph reflects the equalitythat developed during the early twentieth century between patron and actor.In this particular case, the three were working together to create new operaswith dan in the lead. For Qi Rushan in particular, such new operas as wellas this new and dignified relationship with actors were very much part of amodernisation ideal.

The photographs in Figures 7 and 810 reflect the effort to reinvent Pekingopera by giving it a repertoire that drew on a wide range of historical andcontemporary sources and brought the grand themes of humankind on stagethrough a variety of theatrical genres—a notion Qi Rushan developed out ofhis Paris experience from the early 1900s.11 These efforts show a concern for

8) Mei Shaowu, Mei Lanfang, p. 102.9) Catherine Yeh, ‘From “Protector of the Flower” to cultural adviser—the rise of Pekingopera singer to national stardom and the transformation of the patronage culture in Beijing(1890s–1920s)’, in Chen Pingyuan and Wang Dewei (eds), Beijing: Dushi xiangxiang yuwenhua jiyi (Beijing: Urban Culture and Historical Memory) (Beijing: Beijing DaxueChubanshe, 2005), pp. 121–135.10) Mei Shaowu, Mei Lanfang, pp. 26, 57.11) Qi Rushan, Qi Rushan huiyilu (The Memoirs of Qi Rushan) (Beijing: Zhongguo XijuChubanshe, 1989), p. 110.


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Fig. 7. Opera on historical themes: Mei Lanfang performingin The Heavenly Maiden Showering Flowers (Tiannu sanhua)

the image of China as a civilisation which could live up to the requirementsof a respectable nation. For men such as Qi Rushan and Luo Yinggong, amodern nation had to have a modern theatre. The modernisation of Pekingopera began with crafting a new image of the role of the dan. Figures 7 and8 reflect this effort. Some of the new pieces dealt with historical themes (inhistorical costumes), others were based on myths, and elements of the tragedygenre were introduced.

Engraved within the aesthetics of the art of the dan and the symbolicvalues attached to this role we thus find the imprint of the politics of thattime. The choice of the female impersonator was also a reflection on China’sstature in the international arena. A man playing a woman on stage is notexactly the height of a male and martial posture of the kind advocated inthe symbolical representations of the new Republic. The choice of the danfor the key roles brought on to the stage an emblem of the insecurity ofthese intellectual promoters about their own role in the modern world, and


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Fig. 8. Opera based on myths: Mei Lanfang performingin [Lin] Daiyu Burying the Flowers (Daiyu zang hua)

of China’s precarious and weak international standing vis-à-vis the Powers andJapan. The artfulness of playing this female role as well as the character of thewomen these dan were playing had to replace the male posture associated withthe laosheng roles that had lost credibility. Recognising its own power deficit,the national opera was to bring the cultural sophistication and moral statureof the dan roles forward in China’s bid for international standing.

With Mei Lanfang’s visits to Japan, the USA and the Soviet Union, therise of the dan became explicitly and visibly an international event, and thecontention about its symbolic import was played out in the open. On theChinese side it was part of searching for a sound footing in the internationalarea, albeit in the cultural field through Peking opera and in particular throughthe art of Mei Lanfang. It was here that the concerted efforts of men likeQi Rushan with a strong modernising agenda were given a chance. In theirperception, Mei Lanfang’s visit to Japan was the first test of the viability ofreshaping Peking opera to fill the slot the opera stage had in the West.


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Mei’s visit to Japan: Creating a Split Image of China—Culture Versusthe State

In 1919, Mei Lanfang received and accepted his first invitation to go abroad, toJapan. The invitation was extended to him by Okura Kihachiro, the founderof Japan’s largest financial conglomerate, zaibatsu, together with the holdingcompany Kabushiki kaisha which had large interests and much power in Koreaand Manchuria. Okura Kihachiro invited Mei to perform at the most Westernand best-equipped theatre in Tokyo, the Imperial Theatre or Teikoku gekijo,where he was head of the board of directors. Mei and his troupe arrived on25 April, and they gave their first performance on 1 May, just three days beforethe first of the big demonstrations marking the beginning of what is nowknown as the Chinese ‘May Fourth Movement’. This movement had beenignited by the Peace Treaty at Versailles where the Great Powers had agreedto transfer the former German treaty rights in Shandong peninsula to Japan,and the Chinese delegation had been cajoled into signing. The movementquickly evolved into a nationwide boycott against Japanese goods. The hostilefeelings against Japan ran high both in China and among the Chinese studentsstudying in Japan. Mei Lanfang went to Japan in the midst of this brewingstorm, and against the advice of many. With him, Peking opera made its firstvisit abroad.

Previous studies, especially Chinese studies, on Mei Lanfang have barelytouched on this visit, while his later visits to the USSR and the United Stateshave received some attention.12 One of the reasons is certainly the questionof the timing of the visit. It came during what has been cast as one of themost shameful humiliations in modern Chinese history together with anappropriately glorified movement of protest against Imperial Japan and itsChinese retainers. A Chinese male actor of female roles performing on thestage of a country that was in the process of humiliating his own country gives

12) There is, however, some Japanese scholarship on his visit, for example Itô Yutakahiko,‘Issen kyuhyaku jyu kyu nen to issen kyuhyaku nijyu yon nen Mei lanfang rainichi kôen nitsuite’ (Study on Mei Lanfang’s 1919 and 1924 visit to and public performance in Japan),in Naka senswei koki kinen rombunshu, Vol. 20 (2001), pp. 669–698. For studies on Mei’sUS visit, see Mark Cosdon, ‘Introducing Occidentals to an exotic art: Mei Lanfang in NewYork’, Asian Theater Journal, Vol. 12, No. 1 (Spring, 1995); Joshua Goldstein, ‘Mei Lanfangand the nationalization of Peking Opera, 1912–1930’, Positions, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Fall, 1999),pp. 377–420. For Mei’s visit to the USSR see Lars Kleberg, ‘The sorcerer’s apprentices’ (afictional account of Mei’s impact on Soviet theatre), in his Starfall: A Triptych (Evanston,IL: Hydra Books, Northwestern University Press, 1997), pp. 24–49.


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Fig. 9. Mei Lanfang performing in Mulan, the Disguised Warrior Maiden (Mulan congjun)

an unspeakably complex twist to the story. Against this backdrop, his very riseto international stardom would have been exposed to troublesome questions.Given the highly official and highly iconic stature of Mei in the PRC, Chineseauthors were reluctant to take this risk.

What then was the Peking opera that Mei Lanfang and his cultural adviserswanted the Japanese to see, and what did the Japanese end up seeing?

According to Qi Rushan, who helped plan and organise the Japan tour,Mei’s visit to Japan was not just an affair concerning Mei Lanfang and hisinternational stature, but a ‘coming out’ of Peking opera altogether. As aconsequence, the programme conceived by Qi Rushan mostly contained operasfrom the traditional repertoire. From his preparatory list we know that onlyfive of the 21 pieces proposed were new dramas.13 Among them the traditionalpieces are represented by:

A Scene from the Romance of the Western ChamberAt the Bend of the Fen River [in Broadway: The Suspicious Slipper]Gold Mountain Temple [The Legend of the White Snake]

13) Qi Rushan, Qi Rushan huiyi lu, pp. 123–124.


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Fig. 10. Mei Lanfang performing in Gold MountainTemple [The Legend of the White Snake] (Jin shan si)

And the new opera is represented by:

Mulan, the Disguised Warrior MaidenLonging for Worldly Pleasures (a newly choreographed dance piece).

The Chinese proposal for the planned programme is represented in Figures 9–11. In Figure 9,14 Mulan, the Disguised Warrior Maiden (Mulan cong jun) withMei in the role of Mulan, the emphasis is on the maiden’s martial spiritshown through her wish to serve in the army in lieu of her father. Figure 10,15

Gold Mountain Temple (The Legend of the White Snake) (Jin shan si), is a

14) Murataka Karakô (ed.), Shina geki Mei Lanfang (Chinese Theatre and Mei Lanfang)(Tokyo: n.p., 1919), no pagination.15) Mei Shaowu, Mei Lanfang, p. 35.


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Fig. 11. Mei Lanfang performing in The Drunken Beauty Guifei (Guifei zui jiu)

Kunqu piece that has been revived.16 Figure 11,17 The Drunken Beauty Guifei(Guifei zui jiu), shows another signature piece of Mei’s that emphasises facialexpression and dance movements. The Heavenly Maiden Showering Flowers(Tiannu sanhua) (Figure 12)18 was initially rejected by Qi Rushan, the veryman who helped create it, as a possible piece to be performed in Tokyo. Thereason he gave was that it represented neither traditional Chinese culture norPeking opera. The piece was created for the Chinese audience as part of aprogramme to modernise Peking opera.19

On the Japanese side, the selection was made under the direction of thescholar Fukuchi Nobuyo. Of the seven pieces he selected, three were newlywritten operas, but none of them were on Qi Rushan’s list. He also chose onepiece from the Kunqu opera tradition, which was still loved and supportedby the Chinese cultural elite and revived so as to insert some southernelegance and beauty into Peking opera; it was also an artistic form familiarto educated Japanese. Here is the list of what was performed at the ImperialTheatre:

The Heavenly Maiden Showering Flowers (new)The Pavilion of Royal MonumentThe Drunken Beauty Guifei (new)[Lin] Daiyu Burying the Flowers (new)

16) Kun opera was once part of the Peking opera repertoire; however, by the early twentiethcentury very little was left of this tradition.17) Mei Shaowu, Mei Lanfang, p. 57.18) Murataka Karakô, Shina geki Mei Lanfang, no pagination.19) Qi Rushan, Qi Rushan huiyi lu, p. 101.


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Fig. 12. Mei Lanfang performing in The HeavenlyMaiden Showering Flowers (Tiannu sanhua)

Chang’e Escapes to the Moon (new)A Scene from Peony Pavilion (Kunqu)Rainbow Pass20

[Lin] Daiyu Burying the Flowers (Figure 13)21 is a new opera based on thefamous scene from the novel The Dream of the Red Chamber, a novel Japaneseaudiences were probably familiar with. Chang’e Escapes to the Moon (Chang’ebenyue) (Figure 14)22 takes on a mythical theme with the story of Chang’e flying

20) List compiled from ‘Mei Lanfang nianpu’ (Chronicle of Mei Lanfang’s life), in ZhongguoMei Lanfang yanjiuhui and Mei Lanfang jinianguan (eds), Mei Lanfang yishu pinglun(Comments on the Art of Mei Lanfang) (Beijing: Zhongguo Xiju Chubanshe, 1990),pp. 750–758.21) Murataka Karakô, Shina geki Mei Lanfang, no pagination.22) Zhuan Zhujiu, Yang Youxin, Zhao Junhao and Pan Yihua (eds), Mei Lanfang (MeiLanfang) (private printing, 1926), p. 95.


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Fig. 13. Mei Lanfang performing in [Lin] Daiyu Burying the Flowers (Daiyu zang hua)

to the moon to escape being captured by her tyrannical husband. For thispiece, Mei and his supporters reinvented what might be called the historicalcostume.Rainbow Pass (Ni hong guan) (Figure 15)23 is a piece about comprised morality,where the widow of a warrior fights the man who killed her husband only tofall in love with him on the battlefield, for which she is in turn despised by heropponent. It is interesting that the Chinese should have suggested this pieceto their Japanese host, since it had the potential to compromise the image ofChina vis-à-vis Japan in a major way.

Let us have a closer look at the options chosen and the options rejected.First, the image: Qi Ruanshan’s image of China is that of a cultural

China. This is conveyed by representing China as a country with a richtraditional culture infused with sophistication and refinement. This image wasconstructed, however, at a time when the Chinese state was extremely weakand its identity shaky. In response, Qi Rushan chose to stress China’s culturalessence rather than its current political profile. This emphasis on culture wasdefensive. It reacted to the perceived political weakness and instability of the

23) Murataka Karakô, Shina geki Mei Lanfang, no pagination.


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Fig. 14. Mei Lanfang performing in Chang’e Escapes to the Moon (Chang’e benyue)

Chinese state by playing down the political factor. The Japanese side wentalong with the emphasis on cultural China, but the differences show in theselection of the female roles.

The new operas chosen by the Japanese all emphasise the new female rolesof huashan. The huashan role was a new creation during the 1910s. It combinedelements from all three major dan roles: the morally upright qingyi (also knownas qingshan), who excelled in singing; the sexy and coquettish huadan, whosestrength was acting; and the martial dao-ma-dan, who specialised in dancingfighting scenes. This complex role with its extremely high and multifacetedrequirements was a breakthrough in artistic terms; it allowed for the expressionof a broad range of complex features and levels of expression. The culturalChinese emerging from the programme is emblematised in the image of thenew woman, xin nüxing. Chinese culture, it follows, is not only refined but


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Fig. 15. Mei Lanfang performing in Rainbow Pass (Ni hong guan)

also resilient, it is capable of renovation. For the Japanese public an old culturemade a visit imbued with renewed energy and beauty. In the dan, they sawthe representation of a refined and sophisticated Chinese culture, which isalso remarkably modern and up to date. In cultural terms this modernitybrought a sense of renewal of the cultural affinity with China. But with thisnew modernised dan, the Japanese public also found a sensuous female Chinarather than a threatening or posturing male enemy.

This choice must be seen in the context of the differences between Japanesegendered representations of nation and culture.

Figure 16 shows a 1910 cartoon celebrating the annexation of Korea, withJapan as the male (represented by the first colonial governor General Terauchi)rolling back the mythical rock door allowing the eternal light of Japan as female(represented by the sun goddess Amaterasu Omikami) to shine on the suitablydiminutive Korean people (Tokyo Puck, 1 September 1910).24

24) Reprinted by Ryukei Shoten (Tokyo, 1996).


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Fig. 16. Cartoon from Tokyo Puck, 1910

The art of a male posing as a female does not contain the imaginable andpotentially upsetting confrontational posture. The role of female played byMei Lanfang seems to suit the mood of Japanese society at the time. This wasan acceptable profile for China. The female China is the cultural China. Thebeautiful women played by Mei were a stark contrast to a China with anti-Japanese violence on the streets of the capital—a shamefully weak Chinesestate, to boot.

The Japanese selection excluded most of the pieces with spirited andeven martial females of the wudan (martial female) type, including mostprominently Mulan, the Disguised Warrior Maiden (Mulan cong jun) and [ThePrecious Sword Named ] Yuzhou feng (Yuzhou feng). This selection emphasisedbeauty and sexuality.

Seen in the historical and cultural context, this selection is a first step ina series of transnational interactions in shaping the image of China throughthat of the dan. This was altogether a positive image, far from the ‘sick manof East Asia’ and the Boxer cartoons and ephemera. For the Japanese making


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the selection, this was the only image they deemed acceptable to their widerpublic. It should be remembered that the option of a laosheng as the lead actorwas neither offered nor considered. Peking opera made it into the world in anutterly truncated manner.

Proposal and Selection of the American Programme

Mei Lanfang’s visit to the USA in 1930 was an event of some historicaldimensions. It was the first time Peking opera had been to the USA. Foran art form that Western visitors to China had regularly decried as ‘cacophony’accompanied by acrobatics and described as such in their reports, this wasanything but an easy sell. Mei Lanfang and his advisors—above all again QiRushan—faced many apprehensions and obstacles, and it took them sevenyears to overcome the biggest hurdles and get this tour on the way. Finally, on18 January 1930, Mei Lanfang embarked in Shanghai with his troupe and hisadvisers on the Empress of Canada for the United States.

One of the main problems to be solved in the highly commercialisedAmerican theatre world was to generate sufficient interest and anticipationamong the public to convince theatre owners that theatres would be soldout wherever Mei performed. Qi Rushan and his colleagues were surprisinglysavvy in their assessment of the American market. The solution they foundwas photographs. During the three years prior to Mei’s visit, they spent 4,000

to 5,000 yuan on photographs of Mei Lanfang, which they sent to Americannewspapers and magazines. When Mei finally went on his tour, they tookanother 6,000 photographs of Mei in theatrical costumes. When we look atthese photos, they have one central message: beauty—the beauty of Mei, thebeauty of Peking opera.

The other important question to be solved in preparation for Mei’s visitwas the selection of a suitable programme for presentation before Americanaudiences. After years of making inquiries among foreign visitors to China, aprogramme for the US tour was prepared. After the Japanese experience, thistime the large majority were huashan operas, mostly written by Qi Rushantogether with Mei Lanfang. Based on his familiarity with Western dramapractices, Qi Rushan developed a thematical framework of categories suchas myth, opera in historical costume and sentimental opera. As Kunqu playsfitted this framework much better, he brought in many elements from thistradition. In this sense, the new huashan Peking operas were a recreation ofChinese tradition inspired by Western theory. The Peking operas shown byMei in the USA would have been considered exotic in Peking.


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Fig. 17. Mei Lanfang performing in Qingwen Tears the Fan (Qingwen si shan)

The first performance in Washington, DC, however, was a disaster. Fig-ure 17,25 Qingwen Tears the Fan (Qingwen si shan), depicts a scene from TheDream of the Red Chamber, and for the American audience it was simplyincomprehensible.26 In panic, the troupe hired a Hollywood producer namedF.C. Kapakas, a Greek with an intimate knowledge of his job, to recraft theprogramme on which they had spent so much time. For one whole monthKapakas insisted on Mei’s rehearsing every item in his repertoire time and timeagain so that he could observe each detail and make a final selection for theBroadway début. This was a gruelling and anxious time for Mei.27 At last theproducer was satisfied and Mei made his first stage appearance on 16 Februaryat the 49th Street Theater, west of Broadway, billed under the managementof F.C. Kapakas. The Kapakas programme seen by New York audiences atthis theatre, and later at the National, was utterly different from the originalselection. The programme New York audiences saw at the 49th Street Theaterand later at the National was Kapakas’s selection. This included:

25) Murataka Karakô, Shina geki Mei Lanfang, no pagination.26) A.C. Scott, Mei Lan-Fang: The Life and Times of a Peking Actor (Hong Kong: HongKong University Press, 1959), p. 109.27) Scott, Mei Lan-Fang, p. 109.


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Fig. 18. Mei Lanfang performing in The ConcubineBids Farewell to the King of Chu (Ba wang beiji)

At the Bend of the Fen River [in Broadway: The Suspicious Slipper]Hong Xian Stealing the Box [a sword dance]Killing the Tiger GeneralThe Drunken Beauty GuifeiBeauty Xishi [a feather dance]The Fisherman’s RevengeThe Concubine Bids Farewell to the King of ChuMagu Wishes the Queen Mother of the West a Long Life [a tray dance]

As shown in Figures 18 and 19,28 this Kapakas programme went for strongmovements, body gestures, facial expressions, dance movements and plot lines.It emphasised the dramatic on the visual level, the aesthetics of movement, andscenes with intense visual content. It discarded from the old programme thesubtle emotional opera in the Kunqu tradition with qing or devoted love at thecentre. While these operas were appreciated by Chinese audiences, an operaof this type, Qingwen Tears the Fan, had been a failure in Washington. Alsorejected was Mei Lanfang’s signature piece The Heavenly Maiden ShoweringFlowers. The producer felt American audiences had little interest in beauty forbeauty’s sake.

28) Figure 18 from Mei Shaowu, Mei Lanfang, p. 227; Figure 19 from Boston EveningTranscript (month and date unclear) 1930.


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Fig. 19. Cartoon drawing on a Mei Lanfang performance. Boston Evening Transcript, 1930

All the pieces in this programme brought forth a sense of vitality, and MeiLanfang was able to match this emphasis in his acting. The composite imagehe created was that of beauty, tenacity and courage in a female heroine whocould be loved and pitied in her tragic entanglements. This, in the words ofan American critic at the time, was a woman of universal appeal.29 The imageof China emerging from this programme is different from what Qi Rushanand Mei Lanfang had had in mind. Their soft female beauty is replaced bythe dynamic figure representing a vibrant China in another startling departurefrom the general perception of China at the time.

The power of this image, however, is inseparable from the awareness thatthis is a man impersonating a woman. What one sees is not what is there.The art of acting out the ‘artifice of femaleness’ and its power to conjure uprecognition of something that is all art and has nothing of nature makes the

29) J. Brooks Atkinson, ‘China’s idol actor reveals his art; Mei Lan-Fang’s performance ofexquisite loveliness in pantomime and costume’, Yesterday’s Times, 28 February 1930.


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best dan acting into one of the purest forms of art. In a bow to the advent ofphotography, Mei Lanfang furthermore interlaced the flow of movement withcarefully crafted frozen poses.

This again reshaped the image of the dan and the art of Mei Lanfang thatinspired Thornton Wilder to write his play Our Town by adopting the Chineseempty stage, a ‘symbolic’ style of movements and gestures, and the use ofimagined objects and spaces.30 As some of the critics declared at the time, thevitality evoked by Mei’s art challenged the prevailing ‘humdrum realism’.31

Socialist Realism and the Art of the Female Impersonator

Mei Lanfang performed in the Soviet Union in 1935 on the invitation ofTretyakov, the author of Roar China and other reportage works on revolutionaryChina. After the October Revolution, China was greeted by the USSR as an allyand a country that had chosen the path of anti-colonial struggle. The visit was agreat success. There was much talk about Mei’s acting, and all the major artists,directors, critics and theoreticians associated with the Communist movementand residing in Moscow at the time showed up to court him. They includedthe film director Eisenstein, theatre directors Stanislavski and Meyerbeer, andthe German dramatist Bertolt Brecht.32

We only know the programme Mei Lanfang performed in Moscow, notthe negotiations that led to its formulation. The image of China emergingout of this programme was that of an oppressed people in the figure of apowerless yet strong female. She struggles against great odds with intelligence,tenacity and wit. Beside pieces also performed in Japan and the USA such asThe Drunken Beauty Guifei, Rainbow Pass, the choice of Yuzhou feng ([ThePrecious Sword Named ] Yuzhou feng) (Figure 20)33 is of great significance. Ithad been rejected by both the Japanese and US organisers, and the focus isnot on beauty. When forced to become the concubine of the emperor afterhe had executed her husband on false charges, the heroine pretends to havegone mad. To make things even less palatable, the entire scenario of execution

30) See Xiaomei Chen, ‘Wilder, Mei Lanfang, and Huang Zuolin—a “suggestive theater”revisited’, in her Occidentalism: A Theory of Counter-Discourse in Post-Mao China (Lanham,MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002), pp. 105–120.31) John Mason Brown, ‘Mei Lan-Fang presents Chinese plays’, New York Evening Post, 18

February 1930, p. 12.32) Lars Kleberg, The sorcerer’s apprentices, pp. 24–49.33) Scott, Mei Lan-Fang, p. 110.


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Fig. 20. Mei Lanfang performing in [The Precious Sword Named ] Yuzhou feng (Yuzhou feng)

and concubinage had been cooked up by her father, who was the emperor’sprime minister. It is a highly disturbing piece with an upsetting challenge toauthority. The mad woman trashes the emperor’s court and tears out someof his beard as he tries to approach her. The emphasis of the piece is not onbeauty, and photographs highlight this. The contrast to the soft and gracefulfigure in the Japan programme and the lively female figure in the high dramaof the US programme could not have been starker. The Soviet programmereconfirmed China’s place in the international political arena as that of afighter who, while weak in strength, will still depend on her own means andfight for justice.

It is the image not so much of the Chinese state but of its people; it confirmsthe rebellious spirit of the oppressed people, along the same lines as the messagein Roar China.

With this view of China, Mei’s art was received as a cultural heritagebelonging to the people. This contextualisation opened a considerable freedomof interpretation for the Soviet cultural elite. From the reconstruction by LarsKleberg of the various reactions and discussions held in Moscow, we learn that


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every participant interpreted Mei Lanfang’s art in his own terms and for hisown needs.34 Chinese theatre was declared to be for the entertainment of theentire people rather than for the elite; to be a theatre of agitation; to have astage language of symbolical action that was almost no longer in need of words;and to have a female impersonator representing the ‘signs’ of femininity ratherthan being a woman.

Stanislavsky considered Mei a great realistic actor. Eisenstein saw an abstractmode of expression. And Brecht discovered its ‘alienation effect’ as a panaceato counteract realistic acting in Stanislavsky’s vein. At the time socialist realismwas just being formulated, so some went as far as to claim that Mei’s art‘deepens realism against various decadent strains with connection to theFascist contagion’.35 The Moscow crowd were trying hard to deal with Mei’sperforming art as art, but the politics of the day were very much part of thediscussion. In their quest for modernism, the fact that Mei was a man playinga woman was read as an opposition to the bourgeois establishment.

Image Construction: The Desirable Image of China

When we compare the programmes that were put on stage in the three countriestoured by Mei Lanfang, the profiles of China are rather distinct.

Among all the operas taken abroad, only one was selected by all threecountries, namely The Drunken Beauty Guifei (Figure 21).36 In a sense this wasan image of China that was most uncontested. In the persona of the drunkenbeauty there is a sense of regret and rebellion—she gets drunk in reaction tothe news that the emperor has gone elsewhere for his enjoyment. It is meantto represent a woman’s heart breaking when waiting to be appreciated bythe man, the representative of power. It is a scene of extreme beauty, full ofexpression and movements. As it is without much dialogue, the piece relies onits theatricality for communication, which lends it universality.

A comparison of the pieces selected by only one country and rejected by theothers might highlight the particular image of China the responsible groupsin each of them wanted to convey. In the case of Japan these are The HeavenlyMaiden Showering Flowers, [Lin] Daiyu Burying the Flowers and The Pavilionof Royal Monument. The first two are new operas experimenting with fictionalscenes from a Buddhist sutra (Vimalakirtinirdesa) and a novel (The Dream of

34) Lars Kleberg, The sorcerer’s apprentices, pp. 26–49.35) Lars Kleberg, The sorcerer’s apprentices, p. 26.36) Mei Shaowu, Mei Lanfang, p. 88.


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Fig. 21. Mei Lanfang performing in The Drunken Beauty Guifei (Guifei zui jiu)

the Red Chamber). The female protagonist in the first piece is meant to standfor devotion, refinement and virtue. The dramatic potential of her tauntingthe ‘senior disciple’ Sariputra for his pompous attachment to the formalities ofdiscipline and doctrine is not exploited. The second is a lament on the quickpassing of the youth of flowers, a standard trope for girls. The third is the storyof Meng Yuehua seeking shelter from a downpour in a pavilion where she findsa young man already present. She is impressed by the honesty of the youngman, who turns out to be a scholar like her own husband. This husband,however, divorces her in the belief that they are having an affair. The youngman comes to Meng’s aid and declares her innocent. The husband regrets hisaction and asks for her forgiveness. While the piece highlights Meng’s virtue,its focus is on the scene of the two young people alone in the pavilion, whichof course is full of sexual tension. The choices emphasise the fresh and the new,together with the refinement of traditional culture.

Kapakas’s choices for the Broadway venue, The Concubine Bids Farewell tothe King of Chu and At the Bend of the Fen River, were both tragedies. In thefirst piece, the king’s concubine wishes to relieve him of the burden of havingto care for her in a moment of utmost military challenge and dances a sad yet


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valiant sword dance that leads to her suicide. The second piece tells the storyof General Xue Rengui returning home after many years of service and killinghis young son by mistake. The piece focuses on the meeting between the wifeand the husband as they try to deal with the immensity of this tragedy. Thesechoices emphasises dramatic and dynamic features.

The two pieces selected for performances in the USSR were [The PreciousSword Named ] Yuzhou feng and Mulan, the Disguised Warrior Maiden. Thechoice is clearly based on the fighting image of the female, with the first piecerepresenting class struggle against the (corrupted) emperor and the secondpiece depicting a female warrior fighting on the front line, defending hercountry side by side with men.

The arguments are confirmed if the pieces rejected by the responsible groupsin the respective countries are studied. We will here only point out the obvious.For Japan, the rejection of Mulan, the Disguised Warrior Maiden points tothe unwillingness of Mei’s host in Japan to deal with the issue of Chinaresisting outside invasion. The American audience did not like Qingwen Tearsthe Fan, and on this basis Kapakas threw out all new operas as sentimental andrepresenting literati emotions with little stage appeal. The USSR selection alsorejected all the new pieces, but also threw out all the dance pieces. Pieces thatjust showed dazzling beauty did not interest them. All three rejected piecesemphasising pure sensuality without much content, such as The Luo RiverGoddess (Luo shen) or A Nun Yearning for a Life in the World (Nigu sifan). Inthe process of selecting a programme for their own audience, the organisers ofthe programme in each country brought their particular image of China intoplay and found themselves amply confirmed in the enthusiastic applause oftheir audiences.

Conclusion

The image of the dan standing for China and Chinese culture fitted boththe perception and the imagination of the dominant powers at the time.The foreign audiences never challenged it, as they probably would have if afemale impersonator had been used to represent their own national art. Theunderlying assumption was that China was not an equal. In the case of Japan,as Ayako Kano37 points out, the Onnagata actors in Kabuki theatre, who werefemale impersonators, had a rather difficult time during the first decades of

37) Ayako Kano, Acting Like a Woman in Japan: Theater, Gender, and Nationalism (NewYork: Palgrave, 2001).


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the Meiji reforms, because a theatre with real female actresses was now seen asa sign of Japan being a civilised nation.

The dan in many ways stood for China’s vulnerability and dilemmas in theface of the challenges of modernisation. The genius of Mei Lanfang allowed theaudiences to sense in each of his elegant movements and gestures the sedimentsof a great civilisation. These cultural and aesthetic perceptions allowed themto interpret China seemingly free of politics. Yet what they did see on stage wasa Chinese culture that had been radically reworked. Under the agenda to getPeking opera accepted as part of the world cultural heritage, the performancegiven to foreign audiences had fundamentally transformed Peking opera frombeing primarily a singing art to a dramatic art with strong facial expression andan intense psychological interpretation of the characters.

Through the strong input by the host countries in the selection of thepieces and the appreciation of the audiences, the image of China that emergedcorresponded to what each audience wanted China to be and to what it thoughtabout its future.

The role of the Chinese actors and advisors was not a passive one. From thelist of countries they chose to visit, a ranking on an international geo-politicalmap is evident. Mei had wanted to perform in Europe, but that plan nevermaterialised. The three countries that did invite him saw Mei’s visit as more adiplomatic than a theatrical event. In all three cases international politics wasvery much part of the picture. From the programme prepared by the Chineseside, we see the interests and reactions they were anticipating from audiencesin different foreign countries towards a cultural image of China on stage. Thefact that Mei Lanfang succeeded in all three countries signals the desire onthe part of the host country to interpret China in such a way that it wouldcome out positive, and the willingness on the Chinese side to adjust to theseexpectations. In the process, both also participated in the rise of the dan andhelped transform his art.

2007039. ejeas 6.1. proef 2. 4-6-2007:14.28, page 75. · pdf filewas demonstrating its own...

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