Abstract
This surprising remark, a bit like the complaint of a spoiled child, was heard from a young member of the audience of the one hundredth performance of The Young Lovers’ Edition of The Peony Pavilion in Beijing on May 11, 2007. Throughout the performance she had been texting on her cell phone, talking to her friend, and occasionally snapping photos of the dramatic action, and yet she felt absorbed in the story and wanted even more, after the three-hour performance. This sort of remark would have been unthinkable a decade ago, when traditional Chinese opera seemed to have lived out its life. The Peony Pavilion (Mudanting, 1598), mistakenly nicknamed “the Chinese Romeo and Juliet,” has enjoyed a striking popularity since its 2004 marvelous rebirth in a unique production known as The Young Lovers’ Edition (Qingchun ban).1 Now viewed as the most representative play from the whole history of kunqu (kun opera), The Peony Pavilion has survived dynastic change and political calamity and has been challenged and refined by different schools of training and performance interpretation, but it has always been recognized as kunqu’s most magnificent artistic achievement and most stable anchor. The recent international recognition granted kunqu may have contributed to the success of the production: in 1998, the celebrated kunqu diva Hua Wenyi (1942-) was designated a National Heritage Fellow by the National Endowment for the Arts, and the kunqu genre was recognized by UNESCO as a “Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.”2
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Notes
Aoki Masaru, History of Chinese Theatre in Recent Times (Zhongguo jinshi xiqushi), trans. Wang Gulu (from Japanese: Shina kinsei gikyoku shi) (Taipei: Taiwan shangwu, 1975), 1: 230.
The sheer amount of scholarship on The Peony Pavilion and on Tang Xianzu is overwhelming. Below are selected examples: Wu Fuming, Annotated Bibliography on The Peony Pavilion (Mudanting yanjiu ziliao kaoshi) (Shanghai: Xinhua, 1987); Mao Xiaotong, Compilation of Scholarship on Tang Xianzu (Tang Xianzu yanjiu ziliao huibian) (Shanghai: Shanghai Guji, 1986); Zou Yuanjiang, New Studies on Tang Xianzu (Tang Xianzu xinlun) (Taipei: Guojia, 2005); Hua Wei, ed. Tang Xianzu and The Peony Pavilion (Tang Xianzu yu Mudanting) (Taipei: Academia Sinica, 2005); Yang Zhenliang, A Study of the Peony Pavilion (Mudanting yanjiu) (Taipei: Xuesheng, 1992). There are also scholarly journals devoted to Tang Xianzu, such as Newsletter of Tang Xianzu Studies, published by the Chinese Drama Association, Tang Xianzu Branch in Zhejiang province.
Tina Lu, Persons, Roles, and Minds: Identity in the Peony Pavilion and Peach Blossom Fan (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001); Judith Zeilin, “Shared Dreams: The Story of The Three Wives’ Commentary on The Peony Pavilion,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, vol. 54, no. 1 (June 1994): 127–79; Hua Wei, “How Dangerous Can the ‘Peony’ Be? Textual Space, ‘Caizi Mudan ting, and ‘Naturalizing the Erotic.’” The Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 65 (November 2006): 741–62. For publications related to productions, see below.
For instance, in Taipei, 2004, an international conference organized by Academia Sinica, the National Taiwan University and the University of California, Santa Barbara. This conference invited many distinguished scholars on Chinese theatre from all over the world: Stephen Owen, Wilt Idema, Stephen West, Wang An-Ch’i, Zeng Yongyi, Judith Zeitlin, Hua Wei, Li Wai-yee, Wang Ailing, Wang Derwei, Ye Changhai, Zhao Shanlin, and others. Thirty essays were published as a result of the conference. See Hua Wei, ed. Tang Xianzu and the Peony Pavilion (Tang Xianzu yu Mudanting) (Taipei: Academia Sinica, 2005). At least a dozen books related to The Young Lovers’ Edition have been published in recent years. Some of them provide very important references for this chapter.
Pai reworked the conventional phrase qugao hegua (“a high tune matched by few”) to qugao hezhong (“a high tune for all”) for his book, indicating his hope to popularize the elite art. See High Tune for All (Qugao hezhong), ed. Pai Hsien-yung (Taipei: Bookzone, 2005a).
This is the translation of Cyril Birch. Unless otherwise noted, all quoted English text from the play will be from Birch’s translation. Birch’s translation is highly regarded and can be seen as the elite English version of The Peony Pavilion. Tang Xianzu, The Peony Pavilion (Mudanting, 2nd edn), trans. Cyril Birch (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2002), ix. I will provide my own translations of certain passages added to or altered from the original text in the course of specific productions.
Jiao Xun, On Drama (Jushuo) (Taipei: Taiwan shangwu, 1973), 99.
Cao Xueqin, The Dream of the Red Chamber (Honglou meng). See chs 23 and 40 for the reference to The Peony Pavilion. For a good English translation for Honglong meng, see Cao Xueqin, Story of the Stone: A Chinese Story in Five Volumes, trans. David Hawkes and John Minford (London and New York: Penguin, 1973–86).
Hua Wei, Playwriting and Drama Commentary by Women of the Ming and Qing (Ming Qing funü zhi xiqu chuangzuo yu piping) (Taipei: Academia Sinica, 2003), 337–62.
Judith Zeitlin, The Phantom Heroine: Ghosts and Gender in Seventeenth-Century Chinese Literature (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2007).
Steven Paul, “A Review of the Peony Pavilion,” Chinese and Japanese Newsletter, Valparaiso University (May 1999).
A Chinese Cracker: The Making of The Peony Pavilion in Shanghai, New York and Paris (Princeton, NJ: Films for the Humanities & Sciences, 2001).
Pai was founder, editor, contributor, and major fund-raiser for Modern Literature (Xiandai wenxue, 1960–73, 1977–84), a journal that has played an important role in the history of modern Chinese literature. In retrospect, Modern Literature can be seen as part of a Taiwan literary and cultural movement similar to the “May Fourth” movement of 1919. Featuring both experimental Chinese works and introductions to Western literature, Modern Literature provided a major ground for new writers in Taiwan. Pai is commonly seen as one of the leaders of the literary revolution of his generation in Taiwan. The Interrupted Dream in the Garden (Youyuan jingmeng, 1982) combined modern technology (multimedia) and the performance styles of spoken drama and Chinese opera (kunqu and jingju). This production started a new trend of staging modern plays in the Chinese-speaking world. According to Pai, all three events were motivated by the same urge to revive and renew the tradition. What matters most in the process of renewal and revival is new experimentation and the discovery of new life in traditional art. See Chen Yizhen, “Creating New Cultural Directions: Three Major Events, One Spirit — an Interview with Pai Hsien-Yung,” in Deep Purple and Bright Scarlet Blossoms: A Documentary on The Peony Pavilion, Young Lovers’ Edition Performance Tour (Chazi yanhong kaibian: Qingchunban Mudanting xunyan jishi), ed. Pai Hsien-yung (Taipei: Bookzone [Tianxia Yuanjian], 2005), 11–34. This will be referred as Pai Hsien-yung (2005b).
Pai Hsien-yung, “The Peony Pavilion: The Story of the Returning of the Soul,” in Peony — the Soul Returned (Mudan huanhun), ed. Pai Hsien-yung (Taipei: Shibao, 2004b), 22–33.
Liu Shangjian, “Modest Contribution to the Awakening of Chinese Culture,” in The Special Publication for the 100th Performance of the Peony Pavilion the Young Lovers’ Edition (Qingchunban Mudanting daxing gongyan yibai chang jinian tekan) (Beijing: n.p., 2007), 48–9.
Leslie Sklair, Sociology of the Global System (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University press, 1995), 8.
Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalisms (Malden: Blackwell Press, 2006), 49.
Wichmann points out that going to the theatre was commonly referred to as “listening to theatre” (tingxi). The aural aspect was more important than the visual aspect in traditional theatre. See Elizabeth Wichmann, Listening to Theatre: The Aural Dimension of Beijing Opera (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1991), 1. Goldstein discusses how changes in theatre architecture in the early twentieth century — such as the change from a teahouse setting to a playhouse setting, dimming of the auditorium with electric lighting and so on — made for an emphasis on the visual elements of theatre. See “From Teahouse to Playhouse,” Joshua Goldstein (2007), 55–88.
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© 2011 Daphne P. Lei
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Lei, D.P. (2011). The Blossoming of the Transnational Peony: Performing Alternative China in California. In: Alternative Chinese Opera in the Age of Globalization. Studies in International Performance. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230300422_4
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