![Sample our Arts journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/110799/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Arts.jpg"})
Abstract
Theatricality, or an aesthetics of exaggeration, is the highlight and defining characteristic of the stage in xiqu (indigenous Chinese drama). When Maoist art fell under the general aegis of socialist realism, however, xiqu leaders undertook significant changes to performance practice, including the general execution of traditional gesture. These changes initiated a conversation about the value of theatricality that spanned across the theater industry, and fundamentally challenged the hegemony of the realist aesthetic regime. Amidst the crescendoing discussion on theatricality, the hit Kunqu play Fifteen Strings of Cash (Shiwu guan; 1956) helped revive interest in the rich tradition of aestheticized movement. At the time of its move to the silver screen, the film world was debating how to respond to the aesthetic consequences of the clash between an actor-centered, theatrical art and an immersive, realist one. Fifteen Strings of Cash interfaced the concerns of the cinematic world with the continuously changing discourse on theatricality. In this article, I use this government-sanctioned, popular culture hit to look at the dynamic history of official discourse on theatrical gesture. I explore the influences on the revival of theatricality, whether from rival portions of theater officialdom, or the force of entertainment culture across media, and how these factors mixed with nationalism.
Acknowledgements
I wish to express gratitude to Xu Peng and Margaret Wan for organizing this special issue and for helping significantly with the revisions; special thanks are also due to the anonymous reviewers for CHINOPERL for their helpful suggestions for the improvement of this article.
Notes
1 Fifteen Strings of Cash was translated in 1957 by the husband-and-wife team of Gladys and Hsien-yi Yang for the Foreign Languages Press. “Guan” refers to the string that would have been threaded through the holes in the center of the copper coins.
2 Zhang Geng 張庚, Dangdai Zhongguo xiqu 當代中國戲曲 (Contemporary Chinese xiqu; Beijing: Dangdai Zhongguo chubanshe, 1994), p. 45. Mao wanted the play performed for the whole nation.
3 Ibid.
4 Tian Han 田漢, “Cong ‘yichuxi jiuhuole yige juzhong’ tanqi” 從‘一齣戲救活了一個劇種’談起 (A discussion beginning with “one play that saved a theater genre”), Renmin ribao 人民日報 (People's Daily), May 18, 1956, p. 1. On paper, the Xiqu Reform Bureau (Xiqu gaijin ju 戲曲改進局) had not neglected regional theatrical forms; ethnographic work in the early 1950s ultimately led to reports of hundreds of xiqu types. In this front page editorial, Tian Han openly criticizes attitudes among officials who felt that endangered genres should be allowed to naturally become extinct, or who relied on outdated impressions of xiqu repertoire to lay down rules for companies, with the result that, far from supporting xiqu, numerous traditions had actually been suppressed instead.
5 Zhang Ling 张泠, “Kunqu wutai yu dianying yinmu: huishou ‘Shiwuguan’” 崑曲舞台與電影銀幕: 回首⟪十五貫⟫(The Kunqu stage and the silver screen: Looking back on Fifteen Strings of Cash), Film Appreciation FA 電影欣賞 159 (Summer 2014): 33.
6 For a greater discussion of this, see Siyuan Liu, “Theatre Reform as Censorship: Censoring Traditional Theatre in the Early 1950s,” Theatre Journal 61.3 (October 2009): 387–406. Liu notes that the inhibition of the traditional repertoire had put companies in such severe straits that the government was compelled to step in.
7 This was true within the specific context of the combination of repertoire restrictions with registration requirements. Performance of traditional plays had been severely curtailed, and modern plays were notoriously unpopular with audiences, making the range of available plays left to performers significantly limited. It is also true that nationalization, even as a partial process, frequently led to incomes reduced in comparison with profits from private performance, disincentivizing and slowing the process of nationalization; however, there were multiple forms of “soft censorship” and other pressure available to local governments to enforce compliance with the nationalization and registration campaigns. Accounts of this side of government enforcement tend to be highly anecdotal, and by all accounts, nationwide enforcement of theatrical policy was uneven under the best of circumstances; consequently assessment of the state of the entire industry must be taken with caveats and exceptions in mind. One sign of this artificially induced crisis is in the government's campaigns to improve the living conditions of actors during 1956—this was tacit recognition that troupes were not making enough profits independently to support themselves without government funded support. This situation is notably variable for different xiqu genres, as some, like Yueju 越劇, continued to enjoy high popularity in major cities like Shanghai. The notion of “crisis” here is determined from nationally promoted campaigns, rather than the specific situation in a given locality or for a specific genre.
8 As one example of this kind of critique, see Zhang Geng 張庚, “Xiqu biaoyan wenti” 戲曲表演問題 (The problem of xiqu performance), in Zhang Geng xiju lunwenji 1949–1958 張庚戲劇論文集 1949–1958 (Zhang Geng's collected essays on theater 1949–1958; Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1981), p. 186. I use the term “naturalistic” here as a point of contradistinction with the expressionism of xiqu rather than a reflection of contemporary attitudes toward naturalism, which had been rejected along with expressionism.
9 Xiqu film is not a transparent record of stage technique: too many adaptations were made both in the name of technical considerations (of the limitations of the camera) and artistic considerations (of the differences in aesthetic codes between media). The ephemeral nature of performance art, however, compels use of the visual archive, including the body of filmed productions, as an essential supplement to written debates.
10 Fu Jin notes that opening night of this adaptation actually occurred on December 31, 1955, for a private audience, but the public premiere can still be claimed as occurring in 1956, the date preserved by most reference works. Fu Jin 傅謹, “Kunqu ‘Shiwuguan’ xinlun” 崑曲⟪十五貫⟫新論 (A new discussion of the Kunqu play Fifteen Strings of Cash), Wenhua yichan 文化遺產 (Cultural heritage) 2008.4: 26.
11 The link between xiqu and nationalism has been studied by a number of scholars, notably including Joshua Goldstein's Drama Kings: Players and Publics in the Re-creation of Peking Opera 1870–1937 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), and Catherine Yeh in multiple articles. These works focus in depth on the unique circumstances surrounding the connection of Peking opera with the nation in the pre-PRC period.
12 Lest this sound like an overstatement, it should be noted that the vast majority of plays were simply shelved to await revision or underwent soft censorship, and were not successfully adapted, despite the claims of the Xiqu Reform Bureau. Siyuan Liu argues that their proclamation of success in play reform was simply a rhetorical and political measure taken in 1956 to restore the range of the repertoire, in part to allow companies to return to staging popular traditional plays in order to ease their dire economic straits. See Liu, “Theatre Reform,” pp. 403–4.
13 This was the core of the Ministry of Culture's “May 5th Directive” (Wu wu zhishi 五五指示), so named for its issuance on May 5, 1951. See “Zhengwuyuan guanyu xiqu gaige gongzuo de zhishi” 政務院關於戲曲改革工作的指示 (Directive of the State Council about xiqu reform work; May 5, 1951) in Xiju gongzuo wenxian ziliao huibian 戲劇工作文獻彙編 (Collection of documents on theater work; Changchun: Changchunshi dishiyi yinshuachang, 1984), pp. 24–26.
14 Initial efforts in the immediate post-1949 environment included such measures as the use of a real snake for stagings of The Legend of White Snake. This approach was ultimately censured and curtailed, leaving actors with the problem of how to stage Lady Bai's supernatural transformation while adhering to socialist realism.
15 I am applying this term as a convenient metaphor, in order to describe the changes made to xiqu performance practice generally, as a consequence of undifferentiated pressure on xiqu actors from the state. It is not a term that was used by contemporaries, who described their desired changes in terms of realism and formalism.
16 Jin Jiang, Women Playing Men: Yue Opera and Social Change in Twentieth-Century Shanghai (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2009), pp. 79–83. Yue opera originated in Shaoxing but flourished in Shanghai in the mid-twentieth century.
17 Shang Wei, “Writing and Speech: Rethinking the Issue of Vernaculars in Early Modern China,” in Rethinking East Asian Languages, Vernaculars, and Literacies, 1000–1919, ed. Benjamin Elman (Leiden: Brill, 2014), p. 291.
18 These were often published in Theater Report (Xiju bao 戲劇報), for example, Wang Chuansong's report of his approach to Fifteen Strings character Lou Ashu in 1956; as a genre, these articles were usually titled along the lines of “How I performed [character],” and generally recapped the plot of the play through the lens of the title character's emotional experiences. Tellingly, the majority of these articles were written by well-known actors who still leveraged some star power; in spite of the government's stated interests in dismantling the star system, leaders in the theater world were apparently willing to co-opt the lingering influence of star power for the purposes of spreading approved methods of performance practice.
19 Diana Taylor, The Archive and the Repertoire: Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003), pp. 16–33.
20 Zhang Geng, Dangdai Zhongguo xiqu, p. 46.
21 Tian Han 田漢, “Yinianlai de xiju gongzuo he juxie gongzuo—1954 nian 10 yue 5 ri zai Zhongguo wenlian quanguo weiyuanhui, 10 yue 8 ri zai Juxie changwu lishi huishang de baogao” 一年來的戲劇工作和劇協工作——1954 年10月5日在中國文聯全國委員會， 10月8日在劇協常務理事會上的報告 (Theater work and theater coordination work in the last year—a report given at the committee meeting of the Chinese Literature and Arts Association on October 5 and the meeting of the Standing Committee of the Theater Association on October 8, 1954), Xiju bao 10 (1954): 4–5.
22 Ibid.
23 The discussion of these terms peaked in the months directly after Tian's remarks, including an entire article by Lao She dedicated to the two terms in the December issue of Theater Report. Rather pessimistically, he described the reform situation as stuck between a rock of conservatism (performers too in love with their own technique to reform it) and a hard place of violence (theater outsiders assigned to reform who lacked an understanding or appreciation of xiqu). Lao She 老舍, “Tan ‘cubao’ he ‘baoshou’” 談［粗暴］和［保守］(A Discussion of “Violent” and “Conservative”), Xiju bao 12 (1954): 10–11.
24 Tian Han, “Yinianlai,” p. 4. The full context of the quote is: “… Additionally nowadays there are a lot of people who don't value heritage, they have a violent attitude toward heritage. This makes our work even more complicated and difficult. For the past five years we have been waging a battle to protect our heritage.” … 加上當時有很多人輕視遺產, 對遺產採取粗暴態度, 這就使我們的工作變得更複雜、更困難起來. 五年來我們進行了一場保衛遺產的戰鬥.
25 Ibid.
26 Ibid. “… In performance they throw in non-realist things …” … 表演中夾雜著非現實主義的東西 …
27 Ibid.
28 Ma Shaobo 馬少波, “Guanyu Jingju yishu jinyibu gaige de shangque” 關於京劇藝術進一步改革的商榷 (A deliberation about further reforming the art of Jingju), Xiju bao 10 (1954): 10–11. Ma may be one of the few officials to admit that audiences were not intrinsically attracted to ideologically correct art, but continued to have a taste for spectacle.
29 Ibid.
30 Ibid. Ma's critique is invested in some of the same rhetoric of artistic debates on realism in the 1940s (jiqiao 技巧 versus shenghuo 生活), in an apparent attempt to blend contemporary debates on socialist realism with earlier ones that applied more to critical realism. While on the one hand, this could be read as an attempt to connect more directly with actors more familiar with the earlier debates or alienated by contemporary terms of ideological analysis, his discursive work may be a contributing factor to the lack of clarity, as the piece mobilizes a significant amount of jargon.
31 “Duzhe dui xiqu de yishu gaige wenti de yijian” 讀者對戲曲的藝術改革問題的意見 (Readers’ opinions on the question of xiqu reform), Xiju bao 12 (December 1954): 32–33.
32 Ibid, p. 32.
33 Zhang Geng, “Xiqu biaoyan wenti,” pp. 182–86.
34 In this, he once again followed Tian and Ma.
35 Li Qing 李晴, “Gei yige xiqu nü yanyuan de xin” 給一個戲曲女演員的信 (A letter to a xiqu actress), Xiqu bao 2, no. 5 (Jun 17, 1950): 90–94.
36 “Fandui xiqu gongzuozhong de Guo Yuzhi” 反對戲曲工作中的過於執 (Against being “overly rigid” in xiqu reform work), Xiju bao 6 (1956): 4–5. Guo Yuzhi is the name of the inflexible bureaucrat in Fifteen Strings of Cash and is intended here as a pun.
37 Zhang Geng, “Xiqu biaoyan wenti,” pp. 184–86. It is worth noting that the use of audiences as a tool for motivating reform among actors, (as well as other parts of the art world), became a full-fledged tactic of the government after the public campaign against the film The Life of Wu Xun (Wu Xun zhuan 武訓傳, directed by Sun Yu) in 1951. Rather than government dictums and bans, censorship primarily took the form of public criticism campaigns. See Liu, “Theatre Reform,” pp. 393–94.
38 An Kui 安葵, Zhang Geng pingzhuan 張庚評傳 (A critical biography of Zhang Geng; Beijing: Wenhua yishu chubanshe, 1997), pp. 199 and 169. The report was issued at the 1955 convention.
39 See the discussion of “reforming the plays, reforming the people, and reforming the institutions,” above. Political education classes for actors had been initiated well before these conventions, but the inclusion of political classes was part of the justification of the Cultural Bureau's support for the endeavor. See Zhang Lianhong 张炼红, “Xin Zhongguo xiqu gaige yundong chuqi de yiren jixunban: yi Shanghai, Beijing, Anhui wei li” 新中國戲曲改革運動初期的藝人集訓班：以上海、北京、安徽為例 (Artist collective training classes in the early xiqu reform movement in New China: the examples of Shanghai, Beijing, and Anhui), Zhongwen zixue zhidao 中國自學指導 (Chinese self-education guide) 2 (2004): 27–31; and Zhang Geng, Dangdai Zhongguo xiqu, pp. 48–49.
40 An Kui, Zhang Geng pingzhuan, p. 167.
41 Zhang's famous theory of “lyric drama” (jushi shuo 劇詩說), while initially articulated in the 1940s, did not receive further treatment until the 1960s; even then, his articles use the nativist base of the theory to suggest reforms to spoken drama and music-dramas, traditions that had been imported into China. It appears that the majority of his intellectual focus in the 1950s was on the direction and success of xiqu reform.
42 An Kui, Zhang Geng pingzhuan, p. 170.
43 Ibid, pp. 168–69. This number included bureaucrats as well as actors.
44 Ibid, p. 170.
45 The second conference in 1956, with its broad reach across the nation, held special significance in the development of discourse around performance techniques; see An Kui, Zhang Geng pingzhuan, p. 171.
46 Ibid. An Kui's wording is suggestive, particularly in light of the timing. He is ultimately elliptical about the significance of Zhang's “anti-left” leanings, and does not offer any further insight on his political situation during the Anti-Rightist Campaign in the following year. Zhang's long-term membership in the party and proximity to major figures of power may have acted as insurance against personal attacks during most of the political campaigns. In spite of this, Zhang had initially come under fire for his beliefs in 1954, and went through over a decade of increasingly vicious critiques, including assignment to the category of “bourgeois intellectual,” culminating in his persecution during the Cultural Revolution. Of his major articles produced during the conventions, it was his defense of the traditional historical play Qin Xianglian 秦香蓮 that encountered the most opposition; in 1959, Zhang was required to write a self-critique directly in response to criticisms of this work. See An Kui, Zhang Geng pingzhuan, pp. 192–97.
47 Zhang Geng 張庚, “Fandui yong jiaotiaozhuyi de taidu lai ‘gaige’ xiqu” 反對用教條主義的態度來‘改革’戲曲 (Against using the attitude of dogmatism to “reform” xiqu), (August 30, 1956) in Zhang Geng xiqu lunwenji, pp. 256–57.
48 Fu Jin, “Xinlun,” pp. 26–28. The Guofeng Company was later incorporated by the state in April 1956, and became known as the Zhejiang Kunsu Company (Zhejiang Kunsu jutuan 浙江崑蘇劇團).
49 Zhang Ling, “Kunqu wutai yu dianying yinmu,” p. 32. In a comparison of company income from each performance, Fu Jin notes that the total income from a full house in May rose over 200 yuan from the same number of ticket sales in April; he relies on comparisons of reports of audience numbers with total income in different venues in order to deduce whether or not the house was sold out. From the inflation of this figure, he determines that the play had grown significantly in popularity. See Fu Jin, “Xinlun,” pp. 24–25.
50 Huang Yuan 黄源，“Mao Zedong sixiang jiuhuole Kunqu—wei Zhuxi yibainian danchen jinian er zuo” 毛澤東思想救活了崑曲－為主席一百年誕辰紀念而作 (Mao Zedong Thought saved Kunqu—written for the hundredth anniversary of the Chairman's birth), Wenyi lilun yu piping 文藝理論與批評 (Theory and Criticism of the Literary Arts) 1 (1994): 48.
51 “Kunqu ‘Shiwuguan’ jiang shezhicheng dianying” 崑曲⟪十五貫⟫將攝製成電影 (The Kunqu play Fifteen Strings of Cash will be turned into film), Renmin ribao, May 8, 1956, p. 3; “Wenhuabu tuijian ‘Shiwuguan’” 文化部推荐⟪十五贯⟫ (The Ministry of Culture recommends Fifteen Strings of Cash), Renmin ribao, May 9, 1956, p. 3.
52 “Wenyijie renshi juxing Kunqu ‘Shiwuguan’ zuotanhui” 文藝界人士舉行崑曲⟪十五貫⟫座談會 (Figures of the literature and arts world hold a conference on Fifteen Strings of Cash), Renmin ribao, May 18, 1956, p. 3.
53 The bench itself is an atypical prop for the traditional stage, with closer connotations to realism, despite its traditionalism as an item reflective of the historical setting of the play. Despite this element of modernism, the bench is used both in the play and the film largely to the exclusion of the other elements of the set onstage, an emphasis on minimalism that appears to be rooted in classical aesthetics. (A notable, purely filmic exception to this principle occurs early in the scene where Lou is framed behind vertical bars marking off a portion of the temple, but foreshadowing his capture and imprisonment).
54 A Jia is the pen name of Fu Lüheng 符律衡, a significant theater theorist and director who worked with xiqu reform from the earliest days at Yan'an, in 1938.
55 A Jia 阿甲, “Xiang ‘Shiwuguan’ de biaoyan yishu xuexi shenme” 向‘十五貫’的表演藝術學習什麼? (What should we study from the performance arts of Fifteen Strings of Cash?), Renmin ribao, May 18, 1956, p. 3.
56 Wang Chuansong 王傳淞, “Wo yan ‘Shiwuguan’ li de Lou Ashu” 我演‘十五貫’裡的婁阿鼠 (My performance of Lou Ashu in Fifteen Strings of Cash), Xiju bao 6 (1956): 8–9.
57 A Jia, “Xiang ‘Shiwuguan,'” p. 3.
58 Ibid. “Truth in Life” may be found in Chinese at A Jia 阿甲, “Shenghuo de zhenshi he xiqu biaoyan yishu de zhenshi” 生活的真實和戲曲表演藝術的真實 in A Jia xiju lunji 阿甲戲劇論集 (A collection of essays on theater by A Jia), ed. Li Chunxi 李春熹 (Beijing: Zhongguo xiju chubanshe, 2005), pp. 103–26.
59 A Jia, “Xiang ‘Shiwuguan,'” p. 3.
60 Ibid.
61 Ibid.
62 Ibid.
63 Though it must be recognized that the choreography of the scene borrows from vernacular, prosaic motion, it does so in the context of the clown role, one that often draws liberally from life, and incorporates it within the greater context of theatrical action. It may also be true, as A Jia claims, that Kunqu is an art form inherently inclined more than most genres toward theatrical action, and tendencies toward vernacular movement would have been less noticeable in the greater context of aestheticized motion.
64 Ouyang Yuqian 歐陽予倩, “Tan Kunqu ‘Shiwuguan’ he ‘Changshengdian’ de yanchu” 談崑曲⟪十五貫⟫和⟪長生殿⟫的演出 (A discussion of the performances of the Kunqu plays Fifteen Strings of Cash and Palace of Everlasting Life), Renmin ribao, April 16, 1956, p. 3; Xia Yan 夏衍, “Lun ‘Shiwuguan’ de gaibian” 論⟪十五貫⟫的改變 (A discussion of the adaptation of Fifteen Strings of Cash), Renmin ribao, May 17, 1956, p. 3; Mei Lanfang 梅蘭芳, “Wo kan Kunju ‘Shiwuguan’” 我看昆劇“十五貫” (How I see the Kunju play Fifteen Strings of Cash), Xiju bao 5 (1956): 10–11.
65 See, for example, Zhang Ling, “Kunqu wutai yu dianying yinmu,” p. 34.
66 Aside from A Jia and Mei Lanfang, see also Dai Bufan 戴不凡, “Zhou Chuanying he ta zai ‘Shiwuguan’ zhong de yishu chuangzao” 周傳瑛和他在⟪十五貫⟫中的藝術創造 (Zhou Chuanying and his artistic creation in Fifteen Strings of Cash), Xiju bao 4 (1956): 10–11.
67 Two recent items in CHINOPERL have demonstrated the extent to which Kunqu performance is reconstructed: Kim Hunter Gordon, “Kunqu baizhong, Dashi shuoxi (One Hundred Pieces of Kunqu, Master Performers Talk about their Scenes: A Review Essay,” CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature 35.2 (December 2016): 143–52; and Josh Stenberg, “An Annotated Translation of Zhang Jiqing's Lecture on Playing Cui-shi in Chimeng (The Mad Dream): A Sample Lecture from Kunqu baizhong, Dashi shuoxi (One Hundred Pieces of Kunqu, Master Performers Talk about their Scenes),” CHINOPERL 35.2 (December 2016): 153–75.
68 Tian Han, “Cong ‘yichuxi,'” 1. “New” and “put out” are references to Mao's slogan for xiqu reform, memorialized for the Chinese Xiqu Institute in 1951, to “let a hundred flowers bloom, push out the old and put out the new” 百花齊放，推陳出新. The first half of this phrase had appeared in isolation in his “Talks” at Yan'an.
69 “Zai Zhongguo gongchandang di baci quanguo daibiao dahuishang, rang wenxue yishu zai jianshe shehuizhuyi weida shiye zhong fahui juda de zuoyong” 在中國共產黨第八次全國代表大會上，讓文學藝術在建設社會主義偉大事業中發揮巨大的作用 (At the Eighth National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, let literature and art play a giant role in the great cause of establishing Socialism), Renmin ribao, September 26, 1956, p. 4.
70 Ibid.
71 Gao Xiaojian 高小健, Zhongguo xiqu dianyingshi 中國戲曲電影史 (A history of Chinese xiqu film; Beijing: Wenhua yishu chubanshe, 2005), p. 188.
72 See Han Shangyi 韓尚義, “Xiqu yingpian de zaoxing fenge” 戲曲影片的造型風格 (The design and style of xiqu films), in Zhongguo dianying lilun wenxuan 中國電影理論文選 (Selected essays on Chinese film theory), ed. Luo Yijun 羅藝軍 (Beijing: Wenhua yishu chubanshe, 1992), pp. 614–15. He is critical of this approach as inappropriate for displaying theatrical arts.
73 The argument has been made that these stylizations are easily forgotten among audiences accustomed to watching xiqu, and thus, are not disruptive of theatrical illusion; this has been one of the major critiques of Bertolt Brecht's mischaracterization of the Chinese stage in the foundation of his theory of verfremdungseffekt. This is true primarily in the theater. In a line of argument that had roots in Fei Mu's 費穆 (1906–1951) reflections on his xiqu adaptations, the filmic audience was more attuned to the verisimilar aesthetic mode of cinema and would have been more likely to be surprised by theatricality on screen. Whether or not this is true is debatable, particularly for audiences that had deep knowledge of xiqu; Sang Hu's account of a screening of Fei's Murder in the Oratory (Zhan jingtang 斬經堂, 1937) suggests that audiences may have had an easier time with the unconscious integration of the two modes of spectatorship, until their behavior in the confines of the cinema made them self-aware of the blending of worlds. Zui Fang 醉芳 [Sang Hu 桑弧], “Zhan jingtang guanhougan” 斬經堂觀後感 (Feelings after watching Murder in the Oratory), Lianhua huabao (Qilin yuefu zhiyi “Zhan jingtang” teji) 聯華畫報 (麒麟樂府之一⟪斬經堂⟫特輯) (United China Pictorial [First of Qilin (Zhou Xinfang) music bureau plays special issue on Murder in the Oratory]) 4 (1937).
74 These articles appeared in both trade journals and major newspapers like the People's Daily, and were collated by Zhang Junxiang and Sang Hu into a single text, Lun xiqu dianying 論戲曲電影 (A discussion of xiqu films; Beijing: Zhongguo dianying chubanshe, 1959).
75 Zhang Junxiang 張駿祥, “Wutai yishu jilupian xiang shenme fangxiang fazhan” 舞臺藝術紀錄片向什麼方向發展? (In what direction should stage documentaries develop?) in Lun xiqu dianying, 10–17. Previously published as “Wutai yishu jilupian xiang shenme fangxiang fazhan” 舞臺藝術紀錄片向什麼方向發展? Wenyi bao文藝報 (Arts report; May 1956).
76 Ruan Qian 阮潛, “Guanyu wutai yishu jilupian” 關於舞台藝術紀錄片 (About stage documentaries) in Lun xiqu dianying, pp. 18–22. Previously published as “Guanyu wutai yishu jilupian 關於舞台藝術紀錄片 in Wenyi bao (June 1956).
77 Weihong Bao, “The Politics of Remediation: Mise-en-scène and the Subjunctive Body in Chinese Opera Film,” The Opera Quarterly 26, nos. 2–3 (Spring–Summer 2010): 263.
78 Guang Weiran 光未然, “Xiqu yichanzhong de xianshizhuyi” 戲曲遺產中的現實主義 (Realism in xiqu heritage), in Xiju gongzuo wenxian ziliao huibian (xubian) 戲劇工作文獻彙編 (續編) (Collection of documents on theater work, continued; Changchun: Zhongguo yishu yanjiuyuan xiqu yanjiusuo “xiqu yanjiu” bianjibu, 1985), pp. 146–58. Previously published as “Xiqu yichanzhong de xianshizhuyi” 戲曲遺產中的現實主義, Wenyi bao 24 (1952).
79 The desire for a Chinese style of film production was far from new in the 1950s; Fei Mu's xiqu films are just one example of establishing a national style, albeit different from 1930s leftist filmmakers invested in critical realism.
80 Multiple scholars have since gone on to argue that China's national film aesthetic is one based in operatic theater, for example, Chen Xihe, “Shadowplay: Chinese Film Aesthetics and Their Philosophical and Cultural Fundamentals,” in Chinese Film Theory: a Guide to the New Era, eds. George Semsel, Xia Hong, and Hou Jianping (New York: Praeger, 1990), pp. 192–204.
81 Tao Jin resolved this issue by simply stating that the actors themselves would bring the truth of life and the truth of art concretely together, thereby avoiding the risks of both formalism and naturalism; he saw his own contributions to the artistic side of the film as expressed through sets, props, and costumes. Tao Jin 陶金, “Shezhi xiqu yingpian ‘shiwugan’ zaji” 攝製戲曲影片 “十五貫” 雜記 (Random notes on making the xiqu film Fifteen Strings of Cash) in Lun xiqu dianying, p. 56. Previously published as “Shezhi xiqu yingpian ‘shiwugan’ zaji” 攝製戲曲影片 “十五貫” 雜記, Zhongguo dianying 中國電影 (China film) 5 (1957).
82 Tao Jin is much better known for his work in spoken drama and fiction film features, first as an actor, then as a director. Fifteen Strings was his first of two forays into xiqu film; the second was The Western Garden (Xiyuan ji 西園記) in 1979, also a Kunqu film. His interest in the topic appears to have been a form of native place pride; Tao was born in Suzhou.
83 Tao Jin, “Shezhi,” p. 57.
84 Ibid, pp. 50–53. Singing and dialogue were sped up to accommodate the filmic aesthetic of faster storytelling.
85 Ibid, p. 55.
86 Ibid.
87 In Tao's words, “In making the film, besides the dance sequences, I didn't dare try scattering some dust, for fear of ruining the choreographic movement” 在電影的處理上, 也不敢在舞蹈身段之外嘗試潵一些灰塵, 惟恐破壞了舞蹈動作. Ibid, pp. 55 and 57.
88 Ibid, p. 51.
89 Ibid, p. 56.
90 Ibid, pp. 57–58.
91 Stephen Teo, “The Opera Film in Chinese Cinema: Cultural Nationalism and Cinematic Form,” in The Oxford Handbook of Chinese Cinemas, ed. Carlos Rojas (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199765607.013.0012.
92 [Huang] Tso Lin [黃]佐臨, “The Chinese and Western Theatres: A Study in Contrasting Techniques,” Chinese Literature 8 (1962): 101–11.
93 It should also be noted that beginning in the late 1950s, the spoken drama director Jiao Juyin 焦菊隱 (1905–1975) began to practice borrowing from the xiqu stage in order to emphasize the creation of a national theatrical style; his original efforts focused on the use of the musical percussion luogujing 鑼鼓經 in spoken drama, though other critics of the era noted his inclusion of some aspects of theatrical gesture, as well. See A Jia, “Xiqu chengshi bushi wanneng de” 戲曲程式不是萬能的 (Xiqu formulas are not omnipotent), Xiju bao 8 (1957): 5–6.
94 Teo describes xiqu film as “the quintessential embodiment of a cultural-nationalist form in Chinese cinema.” Teo, “Opera Film,” p. 210.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Anne Rebull
Anne Rebull earned her PhD in East Asian Languages and Civilizations from the University of Chicago in June 2017. She was a lecturer in Asian Languages and Cultures at Northwestern University from 2016 to 2017, and will begin her position as Postdoctoral Fellow in the Study of China at the University of Michigan in Autumn 2017. Her research focuses on the politics of theater aesthetics in the different reform movements to xiqu in the mid-twentieth century. Beyond theater history more broadly, her interests include the adaptation of theater to other media formats and their cultures of consumption, including film and record, as well as the broader cultures of the performing arts from late dynastic China to the present day. She has published a translation of part of Mei Lanfang's biography in The Opera Quarterly, as well as translated subtitles for other films and xiqu plays.