In the age of early dynasties and agrarian society the majority of people were illiterate and used the theater for a means of education and moral instruction, as well as for entertainment. Theater taught them history and the exploits of famous individuals, and instilled traditional cultural values, such as loyalty, fidelity, chastity, and justice. Some of the material of the Chinese theater comes from historical materials, such as Farewell My Concubine, The Orphan Chao, and Shi Shu. These three plays were all literary reworkings of events from the Spring and Autumn and the Warrior State periods. Borrowing the East Wind, Meeting at the Old City, and The Hua Rung Road are based on events from the Three Kingdom period.

Some of the plays were adapted from novels and other literary source material. For example, Fighting in the Heavenly Court and Monkey King Fights the White Bone Demon came from the famous novel, Journey to the West. Dai Yu Buries Flowers was adapted from The Dream of the Red Chamber. The Fisherman's Revenge and At the Crossroads came from the novel The Water Margin. Other plays have their sources in religious stories, such as Tien Nu Spreads Flowers and Thinking of the Secular World. Other plays are rooted in folk tales including Peacocks Flying Towards the Southeast and The Legend of the White Snake. The Chinese theater is such a popular form of entertainment within Chinese society, it is not only performed in theaters, but also at birthday parties, holidays, festivals, at harvest time, and to mark the birthdays of deities.

Among the celebrated play reprinted in countless versions is titled The Story of the Magic Lute from the fourteenth century. The Sorrows of Han whose plot resembles the story of Esther of bibilical fame, is said to date from before the Christian era. The Emperor in this play was a historical character living about 42 B.C. The story is plainly designed to expose the evil consequences of luxury and self-indulgence, and the worthlessness of monarchs who neglect the welfare of their people. It is in five acts, contains many beautiful songs, and is a great national favorite. Also very popular is The Ruse of Empty City, a traditional play and very famous story from the Chinese novel The Romance of Three Kingdoms. The whole play consists of three parts: Lost of Jie-Ting Pass, Use of Empty City, and Execution of Ma Su.

Chinese Theatrical Characters and Actors

Traditionally, actors would begin studying at a professional, private training school when they were eight or nine years old. They received very strict training for eight years before becoming professional performers. In some cases, the child was apprenticed to a master, and went off to live in his master's home under a contract agreement signed by their parents.

Early in their training, actors specialize in particular types of role, from among the four main character types in Chinese theater, Shan or male roles, Dan or female roles, Jin or painted face roles (male roles with very strong personalities), and Chou or Clown roles. These main character types are divided up further into more specific types - Sheng into Lao-sheng (older male roles), Wu-sheng (male martial artists), and Xiao-sheng (young men); Dan into Lao-dan (older female roles), Wu-dan (female martial artists), and Hua-dan (coquettes); Jin into Ton-chuai (singing specialists) and Jia-tze (acting specialists); Chou into Wu-chou (martial artists) and Wen-chou (civilians). Until the end of the Ching Dynasty, there were no women allowed on stage. All the female roles had to be performed by male specialists in the Dan roles. Every character of the Jin and Chou variety has its own unique pattern of painted face. The difference between them is that Jin characters paint their entire face with various colors in bold designs, while Chou characters only paint around their nose, and use only black and white. The different colors and designs for the Jin carry special meaning. The colors and patterns indicate the character's personality, age, specialty, and physical or mental characteristics. Sometimes, the same character has several faces for different ages and stages of their lives. All the actors have to paint their own faces.

Chinese opera makeup is particularly fascinating and rich in meaning. A character with mostly red makeup or a red mask is brave and loyal. Black symbolizes boldness and impartiality. Yellow denotes ambition, while pink stands for sophistication and cool-headedness. Characters with primarily blue faces are fierce and far-seeing, while green faces show wild and impulsive behaviors. Those with white faces are treacherous and cunning - the villains of the show. Finally, an actor with only a small section of makeup in the center of the face, connecting the eyes and nose, is a clown. This is called xiaohualian, or the little painted face.

Although there are many different regional styles, they all share many similarities. Each have the same four role types: the female, the male, the painted-face, and the clown. Performances consist of singing, poetry, music, dance, and gesture. Emphasis is on costume and makeup rather than props or scenery. The operas often tell the same stories, though with various regional differences, such as alternate endings or additional characters. The information described within this article will, unless otherwise noted, pertain to Peking Opera specifically, and the regional operas more generally.

Toward the end of the Qing dynasty, tea-houses began to double as theaters. Originally, the acting troupes used the tea houses as a place to rehearse plays, since their homes were too small. Business in the tea-houses carried on as before, except the patrons could enjoy the performance during their drinks and conversations. After a time, patrons began frequenting tea houses specifically to see the theater, and in some of these establishments the character for 'tea' was dropped from their name. The acting troupes earned their livelihood through performances for the court, though, and not through public performance. At first, actors had to bribe the eunuchs to ensure that word did not get out that they were performing publicly, because the court frowned on such activity. But performance in public tea houses over time became the common and accepted practice.

Chinese opera has many strong female roles, though for most of its history, no females to play them. Women in China, especially of the upper class, had to observe very reserved and controlled conduct, and for the most part confined themselves indoors. A woman who paraded herself on stage would be considered no better than a prostitute. Instead, men would play the female roles. At certain times in opera history, these female impersonators were the greatest stars of the stage. Their peak in popularity occured in the 20s, 30s, and 40s, the best among them widely acknowledged to be Mei Lanfang, whose performances both at home and abroad in Japan, the Soviet Union, and the United States, influenced such famous dramatists as Berthold Brecht and Stanislavsky. He also met with and performed for famous actors such as Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford. In addition to his mastery of over 100 roles, he also advanced Peking Opera by making significant changes to the costumes, staging, make-up, and texts, in effect creating a number of new plays, including his most famous, Farewell My Concubine.

Beginning in the 1930s, it became acceptable for women to perform in the opera. This led to the gradual disappearance of the female impersonator role, so that now, women almost always play the female roles, even though the mannerisms, vocalisms, and styles of the role were developed when meant to be played by men.

Chinese opera survived the passing of the centuries, the coming and going of dynasties. It survived the end of the Qing dynasty and the warlord era. It survived the Japanese occupation of Shanghai, but not without some famous actors performing for the Japanese and so becoming blacklisted later, their careers destroyed. It even survived the communist revolution -- almost.

Jiang Qing, chairman Mao's wife and a former film actress, denounced the traditional opera for not serving the needs of the masses. No traditional opera was allowed to be performed. Instead, the party promoted what it called the "eight model plays," which featured the common workers, in plain modern dress and naturalistic sets, promoting communism. When the infamous Gang of Four finally fell from power, traditional opera was restored, though it had lost much of its audience. Many opera schools, facing decreasing returns, were forced to close, and the opera stars entered film, to act and do stunt work.

But even today, traditional opera has a place in modern China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. It tells the stories common to all the Chinese people: the legend of the Monkey King, the epic tales from The Water Margin and Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the countless fairy tales and ghost stories. These timeless tales still resonate today, and ensure that the traditional opera will continue to have its place in modern life.

The Four Opera Character Types

In the Chinese Opera, there are generally four main categories of roles: sheng (the male roles), dan (the female roles), jing (the painted face roles), and chou (clowns). Each category is further subdivided into distinct types. An actor typically trains for a single type of role within one category. Actors who can play multiple types of roles within a single category are considered especially talented. An actor almost never plays roles outside his or her category.

Sheng: There are three main male roles that an actor trains for. The first is Lao Sheng, a middle-aged or old man. The Lao Sheng are dignified and refined. They may be high level scholors or officials, and wear a black hat with fins on either side to denote rank, or a general in a military play, wearing armour. In either case the Lao Sheng wears a beard that is black or grey, depending on age. The second type of role is Hsiao Sheng, or young man. The Hsiao Sheng sings in a warbling voice to indicate adolescence, and does not wear a beard. The third type of role is Wu Sheng, or acrobat, who performs much of the most exciting elements of Chinese Opera. A special Wu Sheng role is that of the Monkey King, featured in a number of operas based on the famous story A Journey to the West.

Dan: There are twice as many female role types as there are male. They are divided according to character, status, and age. Lao Dan is the old woman role. The costume is subdued, no make-up is worn, and the singing voice is natural and therefore lower than that for the other Dan roles. The Wu Dan is the female acrobat, and is equivalent to the Wu Sheng role for the men. A Qing Yi actress is the noblewoman, of good quality and character. She is the model or ideal of the Chinese woman. Faithful, proper, shy, graceful. The Hua Dan, however, is of a lower social status than the Qing Yi, and represents a more feisty, flirtatious young woman. A young woman from a wealthy family, set apart from the world in the family mansion, is called the Gui Men Dan. This character is still young, and will one day grow up to become either a Qing Yi or a Hua Dan. Finally, there is the Dao Ma Dan, or warrior woman. This character typically wears full amour and great peacock feathers in her hat. The famed military heroines of China are all played as Dao Ma Dan. The story of Peking Opera Blues, featuring three extraordinary women heroes, is actually titled Dao Ma Dan in Chinese.

Jing: The Painted Face role is the most recognizable part of Chinese Opera. This part is reserved for high-ranking army generals or bandits, warriors or officials. All Jing characters have their faces painted elaborately, the colors on the face indicating the personality and temperament of the character. A white face means treachery, black means uprightness, red indicates courage and virtue, blue denotes cruelty or wild temperament. A mix of multiple colors indicates a more complicated personality.

Chou: The clown is the only role that can break the fourth wall and reference current or local events and speak in colloquialisms. Male clowns are easily recognizable because they all wear a distinctive white patch of make-up around the nose and eyes. This same make-up is sometimes used for mean-spirited villains as well. Female clowns do not have the white make-up patch but instead have a reddened face with black eyebrows.

Costumes and Props

On the Chinese Opera stage, scenery and props are sparse. Often, only a table and chairs are set on the stage and to signify various thrones, mountains, and so on throughout the story. A character committing suicide by jumping down a well may in performance simply be stepping off a chair and walking off stage. It is the actor that must convey the story, through voice, movement, and gestures. Each character, furthermore, wears a distinctive and traditional costume and makeup which cues the audience about their status, and sometimes, about their personality.

The amour, or K'ao is worn by high military officials. It is a very stiff costume, with brilliant colors and often a design such as a tiger's head or dragon across the front. A fully armored actor wears four pennants on their back. Without the pennants, the actor is only partially armored. The Jing (Painted Face) role often wears amour, and it is also seen on Wu Sheng (Male acrobat) and Dao Ma Dan (Female Warrior) actors.

There are many different kinds of hats worn in Chinese opera. Sheng actors who are portraying scholars or officials will often wear a simple black crepe hat with two fins coming out from the sides. This fins denote an actors character or rank: oblong, almost rectangular fins are worn by high officials, round fins are worn by Ch'ou or comic actors, and diamond or oval shaped fins are worn by treacherous characters. Another type of crepe hat has long, thin fins. This type is only worn by prime ministers. Some of the more striking types of headgear include great pheasant plumes, two of them, of sometimes nearly six or seven feet in length, sprouting from the actors head like antennae. Originally, these were used to indicate that the wearer was an insurgent chief or a minority nationality. But because of their beauty, they were soon adopted by many types of military stage characters.

Extra length on the sleeves of many of the costumes are called Shui Hsiu or water sleeves. Water sleeves are long strips of white silk. These sleeves are flicked to emphasize a point, shaken when angry, stretched out in dance. Typically, all of the high officials' costumes have water sleeves.

There are very few props save for the arms of combat such as swords and spears. An umbrella is sometimes carried in an important person's entourage. Another common prop is the horse whip. Whenever an actor holds out this whip, it symbolically indicates he is riding a horse. The color of the whip sometimes indicates the color of the horse. A duster is often carried by the most exalted of characters, such as gods, priests, and celestial spirits, whose stories are often told on the opera stage.

Superstition and the Supernatural

In western theater, a number of superstitions have grown up among performers. Many words and phrases are avoided backstage, as they are said to cause bad luck. For example, actors never say "Good Luck" to each other, they say, "break a leg." Whistling backstage is also said to bring bad luck. As is, most curiously, saying "Macbeth." When one wishes to discuss Macbeth in the theater, one should always refer to it as "the Scottish play." In Chinese Opera, similar superstitions exist.
The words Meng and Keng are particularly important. One should never say Meng at the back of the stage, nor Keng at the front of the stage. These prohibitions stem from the story of Yu Meng, a legendary jester who is said to have impersonated a famous scholar at the court as long ago as 403 B.C. The king was so impressed by the impersonation that lavish favors were bestowed (though respectfully declined).

Another superstition involves the doll that Chinese Opera troupes use to represent babies on stage. These dolls possess the soul of the child they represent. Before and after each performance with these dolls, the actors would pay their respects to it. During the performance, it was always left facing the sky, and afterwards, it was always packed facing the earth. The film Attack of the Joyful Goddess explores this superstition in violent, bloody detail.

Since the Opera often concerns itself with the supernatural world, it's players must be ever more respectful of the laws of that world, and ritual and ceremony must be performed properly and with respect. Tales like the one which begins Hocus Pocus are often told of Chinese Opera troupes who visit a remote town and give a performance, only to find in the morning that the town did not exist and that they were entertaining ghosts. It is traditional that during some Taoist ceremonies, and especially during the Ghost Festival in the seventh month, an Opera Troupe would perform in front of the shrine, to entertain the spirits of that place. Ultimate Vampire begins with a performance of this type. These days, a TV may often be seen facing a shrine to provide similar entertainment to the gods. Though if I were an angry spirit, I can only imagine the suffering I would inflict on anyone who decided to set up a TV in front of MY shrine.

The Patron Saint of Chinese Opera is T'ang Ming Huang. A figure or tablet of T'ang Ming Huang is set up in every theater, and incense was burnt to him before every performance. He was believed to have the power to make each actor perform well or badly. Military actors typically honor another tablet, representing the spirit Wu Ch'ang. This spirit was believed to possess special abilities, including the cruelty needed to wage a successful campaign. Four famous generals from the Warring States period were said to have this spirit's ability bestowed upon them.

Opening a new theater is a special occasion for ceremony, to purify the stage, and drive away devils and harmful spirits. The stage must be doused in dog's blood or chicken's blood, while actors appear on the stage dressed as spirits, carrying whips, tablets, and masks. This ceremony thus drives away the devils, placates them, and ensures that they do not appear on stage again.

Understanding Chinese Dramatic Conventions

It is the opinion of modern scholars that drama was not native to China, but was introduced, probably in rather an advanced state, by the Mongols in the thirteenth century. During the one-hundred and sixty-eight years of the Kin and Yuen dynasties the most celebrated plays were written. A famous collection known as the Hundred Plays of the Yuen Dynasty is preserved, and the titles of about six-hundred others are known, as well as the names of eighty-five playwrights. Three of these authors were women belonging to a class similar to the Greek heteræ. During this period (1200-1368) the style of acting, the subjects to be treated, and the general conduct of the theater were determined. The Chinese stage at the beginning of the twentieth century was practically the same as that of seven hundred years ago.

Theory of Chinese Drama - The ideal of the Chinese stage was that every play should have a moral. An article in the penal code of the Empire requires every dramatist to have a virtuous aim. Both prose and verse are often used in the same play. The best plots satisfy the rule regarding unity of action, and many of them also observe the unities of time and place, although the Chinese knew nothing of Aristotle's theories concerning the elements of structure. Many of the plays are short, a half-hour or so in length; and the longer ones are divided into acts and scenes. It is the custom in many places to give a series of short plays without any intermission, so that a performance sometimes lasts for several hours. In such a case of course there is no attempt at maintaining a single unified action. The second play may take up the career of a new hero after the first one has been killed or defeated, thus carrying the spectator over long distances and through many years. In order to keep the thread of the action clear in that each important character pauses occasionally to announce his name and lineage, and perhaps to rehearse the course of the plot. A singular feature of the Chinese play is the singing actor, to whom are given the most poetic and beautiful passages. Like the Greek chorus, he sometimes repeats the chief events of the play and moralizes upon the conduct of the characters.

Subjects of Chinese Drama - The field of the Chinese playwright is broad, as he has a choice of historical or contemporary affairs from which to draw his plots. He may portray parental or filial goodness, national vices and weaknesses, official corruption, difficulties and delays connected with the law courts, and the absurdities into which religious fanatics are drawn. Love stories are comparatively rare. National customs, such as arranging marriage through an agent and determining official rank by means of examination are inexhaustible sources of comic action. Avarice is often ridiculed. There are burlesques on Buddhism, a religion to which nearly four-fifths of the nation subscribe. No class or section is exempt from the laughter of the stage. As the gods often intervene in Greek plays, so in a Chinese play the Emperor often saves the heroine from an unfortunate marriage or an innocent victim from death.

In general, Chinese drama does not stess the logical development of plot and in the delineation of character. But great stress is centered upon verbal decoration and poetical ornament. There are pleasing contrasts between parallel scenes, and parallelism of language. In many passages a single word is played with compounds being made upon the root so that a speech in praise of a flower or of a royal person becomes an intricate linguistic labyrinth. Also in contrast to Western stage, the Chinese stage usually has little scenery, no curtain, flies, or wings. The costumes of the actors are gorgeous and costly brocade or heavy silk. They are often embroidered and set with semi-precious stones. If, in the course of a performance, an actor has to travel to another country, he goes through the motions of cantering for a few paces, cracks his whip, dismounts, and announces: "I have now reached the country of ...." A property man in ordinary dress, regarded as honorably invisible by everybody, remains on the stage all the time, providing articles needed by the actors. The latter have their tea on the stage; and dead men rise and walk away when their scene is ended.

The player does not stand high in the social scale in China. Neither he nor his descendants for three generations may compete in the public examinations for civil office. Since the eighteenth century women have been forbidden to appear on the stage, and women's parts are taken by young men. Those who would enter the profession of acting must undergo severe discipline from an early age, and must submit to the strictist physical training in respect to diet, acrobatic feats, contortions, and walking with bound feet in imitation of high-born women. There are five classes of actors, each being trained for certain stage types; and each actor is assigned to his own type. The regular companies consist of fifty-six actors, and every member must know from one hundred to two hundred plays. There is no prompter at the performance.

Set Design, Costume, and Symbolism in Chinese Drama

Set design is usually considered as an external of the drama. In China, however, it has so profoundly filtered into the dramatic spectacle through the national disposition to symbolism that decoration of the set has become an essential, as well as a sentient, component of the classical theatre. And this occurs in a country where the stage has no scenery. Such apparent anachronism is explained by Chinese that as their theatre is not imitative, landscape, or an interior, is created for an audience by suggestion; by emotion; and, it must be confessed of the theatre habitué of today, by dramatic tradition.

To the Chinese, scenery is non-essential. A court event which may have taken place centuries ago in a magnificent entourage will be reproduced in the playhouse with every detail of costume and mode of speech carefully exact but without scenery and with almost no stage furnishing. The imagination that has created in Chinese art so much chimerical humor of animal and flower and fetish can find a river where there is no water, and a mountain where none is painted. Prescribed action creates scenery. If some character must climb a mountain, pantomimic motions assume the presence of a granite hill. If a criminal is to be executed it is accomplished with a bamboo pole and traditional movements on the part of the actor. He, the criminal, wails a confession of guilt, walks to one side of the stage and stands under a bamboo pole on which a cloth is tied; he indicates strangulation by throwing back his head and looking up to heaven. If, in a stage story, a general goes upon a journey, the scene is not changed to transport one's mind to another place, instead the soldier cracks a whip, dashes across the stage to a crash of cymbals, and announces that he has arrived. To dismount from his absent steed he pirouettes upon one foot and drops his whip; to mount he turns upon the other foot and picks up his whip. If a plot demands that a fairy enter in a chariot of clouds, a feminine figure advances bearing horizontally two flags upon which clouds and wheels are painted; she is accompanied by another actor in the ubiquitous blue cotton of the Chinese workman.

Upon the stage a man may drink wine in which, unknown to himself, a venomous snake has been dissolved, he may suffer a frightful irritation, throw himself into a pond, wash, and find himself cured, in a propertyless pantomime that is perfectly understood by his audience. Rivers, walls, temples, groves, thrones, couches, are represented by a bench or screen, and if the acting is good everyone is satisfied. But if scenery exists only in the imagination, costumery is splendidly authentic and is frequently of astonishing beauty. Chinese costume--like plumcake--from the very richness of its material, is long lived; and the clothes used in today's theatre may have been worn several centuries ago by mandarins and court officials, by emperors, their wives and concubines.

As Chinese dress was designed for ceremonial purpose, a cloak in which to hide any condition of spiritual or physical poverty and to present men to the world as they wished to appear, it is not difficult to realize why it is so magnificent and costly. The traditional stage dress of even a beggar is a silk coat of a gay checked design. There is a tradition too to be followed in the "barbarian's" dress, and he must wear a bit of fur about his throat no matter what the temperature. The necessity for accuracy in stage dress means that an actor's wardrobe may be so expensive that he more often hires than owns it. Establishments exist to furnish stage clothes by the season to an entire company; and servants, who return every costume to its particular box after each wearing, are included in the rental price.

Faces are painted with red, black, white, green, and gold, and add their colour characterization to the spectacle. The effect, even without scenery, that is obtained by groups of painted figures dressed in stiff brocade of all tints, by the glitter of immense jewels, of gold traceries and silver tissue, of tufted plumes and long pheasant feathers that wave above glistening headdresses, of glinting swords and brilliantly uniformed soldiery, is of memorable dazzle and magnificence.

The Chinese differ from many other Eastern people in that they understand the ancient symbols woven or painted or cut into their decoration and continue to utilize them to tell a story or reflect an early superstition to protect, to ridicule, to praise. Ying/Yang and the I Ching is a significant symbol in Chinese set design. It represents the dualistic principle of man and woman and the harmony of the universe is supposed to depend upon the balance maintained between these two elements. This design is everywhere, on book, wall, porcelain, tablet, and brocade. It is a symbol of Chinses cosmogony. It may applay to opposites that exist in pairs, to the world and hades, to the sun and moon, to hard and soft. Ying and Yang symbolizes the basis of Chinese philosophy, science, and religion, and thus its universality in decoration is inevitable.

In China the dragon is the male element. He is the emblem of Heaven as, since B.C. 206, he has been the device of emperors. He is a stage character and appears in apparent flesh as well as in sinuous embroidery. Although he is wingless he has the power to rise in the air at will. As the sender of rains and floods and the ruler of the clouds he dominates the type of village stage performance which is arranged during a too rainy season to pray for dry weather. The earth dragon marks the course of rivers.

The monkey too is immortalized. He is supposed to have existed before there was a Heaven and earth--where we are not informed. He defeated the generals of Heaven in battle and was finally captured by Buddha, in the end to be released from earth wanderings by a mighty traveller.
The fox is a comic symbol whose stage "business" seems limitless. He may be either man or woman, and practices every deceit. His glance is said to be as efficacious as a drop of benzine for removing spots, and soiled garments are left before his shrine.

The god of thunder association is called Lei Shên. His birthday is on the twenty-forth of the sixth moon, and during the three weeks which precede this date the people feast in his honour. He has three eyes and rides a tiger. There are many gods in the likeness of men. In the third century the present god of war was a famous general named Kuan Yü. He slept quietly for twelve hundred years until, in 1594, he was deified and became known as Kuan Ti. He is usually in armour and carries a long weapon. Confucians call him the military sage. To the Buddhists he is the god of protection, and to the Taoists the minister of Heaven. In popular usage he is also the head of the military. Although habit is in a great measure responsible for the continuing faith in deity prescience and protection, it is interesting commentary on the popular European legend that China's martial spirit is not awake, to recall that a picture of Kuan Ti hangs in every tent and officer's camp of her million and a half soldiers, and that the god of war is the patron of many trades and professions. The theatre god is the likeness of Ming Huang, the eighth century emperor who established a school for actors in the garden of his palace. While most actors have another patron saint to whom they make sacrifice, they are said to pray to the theatre god to be saved from laughing upon the stage. The image of Ming Huang is seen in theatres. The symbol called age represents a force to be placated that is used at birthday celebrations of gods and mortals and finds place upon the stage. For festival use age is of carved and gilded wood and is about four feet high; as a motif it decorates many surfaces of porcelain and silk, and its general popularity is a common expression of the psychic effect in associated ideas.

The ideograph for happiness and for bat are both pronounced as fu and the Chinese wit often plays with this dual significance in design. If five bats are shown together the five blessings are signified.
There is a group of sacred and profane symbols called the "Hundred antiques" which includes the pearl, a charm against flood and fire; coin, emblem of riches; Artemisia leaf, good fortune; two books, representing learning; and the jade gong which aids in procuring justice.

The Twelve Ornaments is usually prevalent Chinese design; they appear alone or in grouped decoration, and frequently are embroidered upon robes of ceremony worn in the theatre both by actors and the audience. These Twelve Ornaments are:

1. Sun, in a bank of clouds, with a three-legged bird inside the disc.

2. Moon, containing a hare and a mortar and pestle.
3. Constellation of stars connected by straight lines.
4. Mountains.
5. Five clawed dragon.
6. Flowery fowls, two variegated pheasants.
7. Temple vessels, used in ancestral worship.
8. Aquatic grasses in sprays.
9. Fire in flaming scrolls.
10. Millet grains grouped in medallions.
11. Fu = axe or weapon of warrior.
12. Fu = symbol of distinction or happiness.

Symbols, with confusing frequence, vary in name to accord with the three doctrines of China; they may differ even in form among the Manchus of the north or the Chinese of the south; but however symbol and image may change in outline their presence and influence is universal. Scroll and animal and flower, knots and leaves, claws, scaly tails, fangs and squinting eyes depict fury, malice, cunning, goodness or wisdom; a dragon protects, a fox betrays, a squat old mandarin advises, a bit of golden scroll blesses; monsters of lacquer or bronze or jade; vermilion, nocturnal blue or the yellow of old faïence; deities of the house, the street, the tomb, the temple, the theatre, speak the secrets of the Violet City; and confess in contortions and audacious prostrations of the superstitions of the Chinese; to link dynasties and repeat the imponderable fantasy and the bland cruelties of twice two thousand years.

Religious Influence on Chinese Opera and Theater

Chinese drama is steeped in the religious doctrines and the demonolatry of the Chinese people. Not only was the stage incepted by religious rite but it has remained dependent upon Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism for theme and character and symbol. Superstitions inherited from Buddhistic principles frequently lay bare the stage of mortality and are the playwright's inspiration for extravaganza; the playwright may create a mise en scène in terrestrial immortality and people it with nostalgic gods and provoking genii and find it more absorbing to an audience than the type of play that transpires on an earthly plane and presents the principles of morality that Confucius meditated upon. The playwright may even unite the two and add a theme from Taoism in his high romance.

Confucianism is based upon ancestor worship and teaches that the source of morality is in filial piety. Confucianism is so definite a theory of conduct that it cannot be expressed in many symbolic forms such as Buddhism furnishes, but it provides themes for numberless operas. Buddhism teaches that release from one's present existence is the greatest happiness. Its four truths are that life is sorrow; that the chain of reincarnation results from desire; that the only escape is through annihilation of desire; and that the way of escape is through the eightfold path of right belief, right resolve, right words, right acts, right life, right effort, right thinking, right meditation. Buddha denied the virtue of caste, ritual, and asceticism as taught by the Hindu sage Guatama, and insisted upon the necessity of pity, kindness, and patience to receive salvation. The most common form of Buddhist drama is the fantasia or the buffoonery of deity and demon symbols through which Buddha is frequently worshipped.

Taoism teaches that contemplation and reason, avoidance of force, and disregard of mere ceremony, are the means of regeneration. It may be said that Confucianism is based upon morality, Buddhism upon idolatry, and Taoism on superstition; that the one is man-worship, the second image-worship, and the third spirit-worship. Or, in another form, Confucianism deals with the dead past, Buddhism with the changing future, and Taoism with the evils of the present.

However we classify we shall inevitably mix them and be justified by the fact that the Chinese often has belief in all three. A Confucian may worship in a Buddhist temple and follow a Taoist ritual. Two thousand years of peaceful existence in one country of a trilogy of doctrines, and the common meeting ground of the theatre of gods and demons and genii, of teaching and tenet that represent all three, indicate a certain degree of national religious pliancy. To add to the long list of mythological beings derived from doctrinal sources are the idols of historic association which have been deified for battle valour or for civil accomplishment. During the twelfth century Kaing T'ai Kung deified many soldiers, and in the fourteenth century the first emperor of the Ming dynasty appointed a great number of city gods. It was then only a short step from a "Great man to a little idol" and ultimately to become both a household and a stage deity. There seems a god for every occasion and a dozen needs for his favour every day.

Religious Influence on Chinese drama is so strong the Imperial Theatre in Peking has three stages, one above the other: the highest is for the gods, the middle space is for mortals, and the lowest plain receives the slain villain. Heaven above, the earth beneath, and the waters under the earth with all that these planes may be supposed to control and appear to figure in dramatic performances that may even be shown during a single play.

History of Chinese Drama

The earliest historical record of Chinese theatrical activity dates back to the Spring and Autumn period (722-484 B.C.) During the Sui Dynasty, Emperor Yang had 300 performers working in his court at New Year's celebrations. As many as 30,000 performers would take part in the lavish theatrical festivals, performing outdoors stretched out along the roads for 20 miles.

Since the time of the Tang Dynasty (618-905 A.D.) Emperor Hsuan Tsung commanded that a large professional troupe be trained at the Li Hsuan or Pear Garden of the Imperial Palace. Since then, actors and actresses in China have come to be known as Children of the Pear Garden. Chinese opera has since become one of the most popular forms of entertainment in the country. More than a millennium after Xuanzong's death, Chinese Opera performers are still referred to as the Disciples of the Pear Garden and they continue to perform an astonishing 368 different forms of Chinese Opera.
Many plays were written during the Sung Dynasty (960-1273 A.D.). Some 2890 titles of various dramas have been preserved to this day. The drama of the Yuan Dynasty (1280-1368) ranks with Tang and Sung poetry as some of the best examples of Chinese literature. The plays of Yuan drama are very tightly structures into four acts, with only one performer allowed to sing in each act. Although many of the plays survive, since their music and staging methods have been forgotten they are seldom performed today.

The earliest thematically complex Chinese drama flowered in the 12th or 13th century AD, though there had long been a rich history of performing arts in the empire. This history included the shamanistic and court dance-performances and the hilarious and thought-provoking court-jester skits of the Zhou dynasty (1122-256 BC) onward; the massive fostering of circus-like arts from the Han dynasty (206 BC-AD 220); the great blossoming during the Tang dynasty (618-907) of written and printed tales that would later be used so extensively for the theatre; the copious import and extension of Buddhist and other kinds of foreign musical and narrative entertainment styles from the Six Dynasties (222-589) on; widely loved puppetry and balladry from the Song dynasty (960-1279); and the age-old skills of flexible and improvised physical theatre. All these styles can be seen to have influenced Chinese drama in its comprehensive form.

Yuan Dynasty Zaju or Variety Play

The first indisputably golden age of mature Chinese drama was that of the Yuan dynasty (1280-1368) variety play around the mid to late 13th century, in particular under the Mongol emperor of China Kublai Khan, who reigned between 1260 and 1294. Shaking up and in some ways devastating traditional Chinese society, the Mongol rulers who took northern China in 1234, were also patrons of popular entertainments, and in and around their capital in ancient Beijing in the northern part of China there was a thriving cultural milieu. With the Mongol conquest of southern China in the 1270s, the variety play became a nationwide drama form. The prolific 13th-century playwright Guan Hanqing may well have been the father of Chinese drama, though the most famous Chinese play of all time, the delicately and lasciviously romantic Xixiang Ji or West Wing was a variety play by Wang Shifu in the 13th or 14th century.

Hundreds of plays on all manner of themes were composed during this period. The performance style was in great contrast to later traditional drama forms such as Peking Opera, the acting and singing being both more natural and also directly comprehensible to the audiences, and the costuming and gestures less flowery and symbolic. In another contrast, actresses were prominent, if indeed not dominant, on the Yuan stage. The plays were usually four acts long, took an hour or more to perform, each consisted of a complete story, and the vital singing of them was done by only one actor in each play or act.

Ming Dynasty Chuanqi or Wonder Play

During the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), which originated in southern China and replaced the Mongol regime, a drama known as the Wonder Play came fully into its own. This differed markedly from the Variety Play and was more typical of later Chinese traditional drama as a whole. It used mellifluous, sinuous singing, stressing music over direct word-meaning; many actors shared the singing in any one play; and the plays were much longer, containing 20 or more acts, sometimes more than 40, and therefore requiring performance over more than one day, although one or two acts might be taken out to constitute a complete bill (or the core of one). The wording of the Wonder Play tended much more to display verbal artifice, and its plots were more intricate. The zenith of dramatic writing in the Wonder Play is found in such plays as Pipa Ji or Lute by the 14th-century playwright Gao Ming, Mudan Ting or Peony Pavilion by Tang Xianzu (16th century), Changsheng Dian or Eternal Life Palace by Hong Sheng, and Taohua Shan or Peach Blossom Fan by Kong Shangren (both 17th century).

During the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), the northern traditional singing and drama style from Shanxi was combined with melodies from a southern form of Chinese opera called Kunqu. This form was created in the Wu region, along the Yangtze River. Kunqu Opera revolves around the Kunshan melody that was created in the coastal city of Kunshan.

The Chin Dynasty (1644-1911) saw the beginnings of the popular Peking Opera style of performance. In the time of the Emperor Tong Zhu, there were 13 performers who were particularly instrumental in developing this form. They were called the Best Thirteen of Tong Zhu. The form of Chinese theater is unlike European theater which is mostly a text-based literary form. The traditional core of the Chinese theater is the performing art of the actor which includes song, dance, acrobatics, martial arts, pantomime, and face painting.

Kun Drama

Kun Opera of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) originated in the city of Kunshan in southern China. In Kun Opera, the link between the poetry, dance and music, was highly refined. This genre became the favorite of scholars who elaborated the plots to extraordinary lengths. One of the most well-known plays from this period, The Peony Pavilion, had 55 acts. Less than ten of the original acts survive today. As an offshoot of the Wonder Play drama, but in its essential singing style a new mixture of both northern and southern elements, there developed what came eventually to be China's most highbrow and classical theatre and music, Kunju (Kun drama), often called the Kun Songs. This genre may have been inspired by Liang Chenyu, who experimented with dramatic singing and wrote the famous drama Huansha Ji or Washing Silk. This play contained a cornucopia of drama elements: fine songs; rich comedy; China's greatest historical tale of revenge; and one of China's most famous romances, involving Xishi, China's byword for female beauty, and Fan Li, China's archetypal and outstanding social drop-out and generous tycoon. Although later fading from prime prominence, the minutely differentiated acting gestures of Kunju and its elegant music have made it the highest dramatic form in the eyes of connoisseurs.

Jingju or Peking Opera

At the end of the Ming dynasty there was a proliferation of regional and local styles of drama. Some references list more than 300 regional opera styles. Characteristics from other forms of opera, such as Hopeh, Wuhan, and Shansi, were incorporated into an Anhui style. After a while this form of opera became known as Ching Hsi, or Capital Play. Ching Hsi is what we know today as Peking Opera. Because of its long history, Peking Opera encompasses a wide variety of drama, and a wide variety of styles of acting. It emphasizes historical and military plays and can be quite patriotic, and so quite popular. An amalgam and development of a few of these eventually came to represent the essence of traditional Chinese drama, Peking Opera. From the late 18th century its early forms found favour in Beijing; by 1830 or so it was fully fledged; and by the mid- to late 19th century Peking Opera was indubitably the national drama, thriving also in Shanghai, from where it was exported to other regions. Although it draws on the most highly regarded Chinese literature, Peking Opera has mainly been celebrated for the quality of its actors. Its most famous actor, nationally and internationally, was Mei Lanfang, who acted female roles. Indeed, until the late 20th century all roles were performed by men, the male impersonators of females developing their own stylized characterizations of femininity that many theatregoers came to view as more authentic than reality.

On stage, Peking Opera most commonly enacts short episodes or vignettes from well-known larger dramas or cycles of stories. The very brevity of the episodes, along with the need to know the wider thematic settings from which they have been taken; the extenuated and often falsetto mode of singing; the unique combination of dialect pronunciations; the fantastically showy costuming for major male roles; the highly elaborate painted face patterns; the symbolic and stylized movements and acrobatics; and the absence of realistic scenery, have all made the finer points of Peking Opera somewhat esoteric even in China, but all its unusual qualities have a combined purpose of concentrating the impact of a performance.

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