“Reform” at the Shanghai Jingju Company and Its Impact on Creative Authority and Repertory
Until 1949, jingju (historically often called “Beijing/Peking opera” in English) was without question a popular form of theatre, completely dependent upon the equivalent of box-office draw for its very existence. This draw was created in substantial part by the “star power” of leading actors. Most professional companies were created by and for star actors; in each company, the lead actor was an actor-manager who chose other company members, selected works to be performed, and conceived of new works to be created. And while the creation process itself was collaborative, this lead actor remained the primary creative authority throughout, approving or disapproving of scripting and musical composition carried out by other actors and/or assisting writers and musicians.1
During the first half of the 20th century, a number of attempts were made to “reform” jingju, primarily by intellectuals who wanted it to be more “scientific” like the Western “problem play,” or more “elevated” like Italian and German opera. While these reformers did succeed in luring jingju into the Western-style proscenium theatre, dynamics of creative authority remained largely unchanged during this time. However, with the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 came more concentrated efforts at reform. New artistic personnel were added to jingju troupes with the aim of making them more scientific and elevated, including directors, designers, and playwrights trained in Western-style theatre, and composers trained in European concert music and other more recent European and American musical styles. But just as serious experiments in new dynamics of creative authority were beginning to get underway, a much more radical change took place. During the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), all the creative artists involved in each company were placed firmly under the authority of Communist Party officials, who as a group replaced the single actor-manager of the pre-1949 period in many real and practical ways.
In the 23 years since the end of the Cultural Revolution, however, socioeconomic factors have once again come to influence the dynamics of creative [End Page 96]
1. Shang Changrong as Cao Cao in Cao Cao and Yang Xiu (1995) stands center, with He Shu as the condemned Yang Xiu above. The lighting suggests the full moon. The moon, a central image for Yang’s execution here at the end of the play, also dominates the joyous early scene in which Cao and Yang meet and forge their alliance.
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authority in jingju. Since the early 1980s, jingju has faced serious and growing problems, including: oversized troupes and companies; shrinking and aging audiences; diminishing state support; and competition from television, film, and popular, often Western-inspired, entertainment. Most jingju companies have only begun to grapple with these problems in the last three or four years. However, as early as 1983 the Shanghai Jingju Company began a process of self-initiated reform, remaking and reorienting itself according to its own priorities. Now, at the end of the 1990s, the Shanghai Company is one of the few jingju companies in the country to have successfully maintained traditional audiences while creating substantial new ones, and to be approaching economic independence from the state.
One of the main reasons why Shanghai is leading the way in self-initiated reform is surely the legacy of haipai, the daringly innovative Shanghai-style jingju of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. During that period, Shanghai was one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world, and haipai developed as a market-driven performing art in competition and interplay with other regional forms of xiqu (literally “theatre [of] song,” the indigenous Chinese theatre comprised of over 300 distinct forms) and international influences (Shanghai Jingju Yuan 1995:15–16). Haipai was characterized by a willingness to expand forms. For instance, it included the practice of “plays in episodic installments,” liantai benxi, in which each performance ended at a “cliff-hanger” moment so that audiences would return for the next installment. Somewhat later, haipai also pioneered “reformed jingju” (gailiang/gaijin jingju), jingju plays produced under the influence of playwriting and acting techniques from huaju, literally “spoken drama,” the Western-inspired, realism-based Chinese theatre form that began developing in the early 20th century (15). Equally important, haipai was characterized by the extensive acceptance of material from other sources. Plays were adapted from other forms of xiqu, such as Yu Tangchun and Xu Ce pao cheng (Xu Ce Runs on the City Walls) from huiju,
2. Shang Changrong as the King of Qi uses the chains shackling his hands to strangle He Shu as Shangguan Meng (Edmund) in Dream of the King of Qi (1996).
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and numerous plays about Sun Wukong, the Monkey King, from bangzi (16). Production techniques were adopted from other arts, including modern technology, leading to the seemingly magical “machine-operated stage scenery” (jiguan bujing) in which, for instance, the stage might rise in its entirety like a drawbridge, or all scenery on it might appear to burst into flame and blaze into ruins before the eyes of the audience (Cai 1995:n.p.). The influx of Western thought in the 1910s and ’20s led to a number of haipai plays concerned with politics and philosophy (Shanghai Jingju Yuan 1995:16). And the influx of Western popular culture during the same period led to techniques and productions now considered by some to be flashy, shallow, excessive, and/or pornographic (Cai 1996; Shanghai Jingju Yuan 1995:17).
While traditionalists even today often disapprove of at least certain aspects of haipai, the Shanghai Company sees its legacy as being one of innovation and flexibility, and its current task as reconnecting with its own spirit (Li Zhongcheng 1995, 1996; Lü Ailian 1995, 1996; Xu Xingjie 1995, 1996). Throughout 1995 and 1996, the period during which the majority of field research for this article was conducted,2 members and administrators alike seemed to take great delight in repeating two slogans: “Our tradition is creation,” and “The sky is high, the emperor far away” (e.g., Shanghai Jingju Yuan 1995:15; Li Zhongcheng 1995, 1996; Ma Ke 1995, 1996; Shang Changrong 1995, 1996; Xu Xingjie 1995, 1996). In once again making jingju a market-driven performing art in a cosmopolitan city with inhabitants constantly demanding “the new,” the Shanghai Jingju Company has focused on self-initiated “reform” in two major areas—the administrative and economic sphere, and the educational and artistic sphere. Changes in both areas are fundamentally related to those in creative authority, and in repertory.
“Cut expenses and make money” has been the overall aim of the Company in the administrative and economic sphere throughout the 1980s and ’90s (e.g., Li Zhongcheng 1987, 1995, 1996; Ma Bomin 1987, 1995, 1996). In pursuit of this aim, the Company’s first goal was the acquisition of their own theatre venue. In the early 1980s, the Company persuaded the municipal government to give them the decrepit but historic and centrally located Tianchan Theatre. Shortly thereafter, they convinced Hong Kong’s film magnate Run-run Shaw (Shao Yifu in Mandarin Chinese) to finance renovations and to outfit the theatre technologically. Renamed Yifu Wutai (Yifu Stage) in Shaw’s honor, the major priority of the theatre is to present as many performances as possible (Li Zhongcheng 1995, 1996; Ma Bomin 1987, 1995). In 1995, they presented over 500, more than any other theatre in Shanghai—and over 300 of those performances were jingju, most featuring one of the two troupes of the Company (Xu Xingjie 1996). This record has been maintained or bettered in each year since (Ma Bomin 1999).
A second goal of administrative and economic reform has been to increase the motivation for work while decreasing running expenses. As did administrators all over China at all levels in the mid-1980s, those at the Shanghai Jingju Company perceived that the “great wok” (daguofan) or “iron rice bowl” (tiefanwan)—that is, the practice of providing guaranteed income from the state, unconnected to productivity—was detrimental to Company work. In Shanghai, however, administrators began major economic and administrative reforms as early as 1987, when they carried out the newly articulated national policy of “setting rank” (pingzhicheng), initiating changes not undertaken by jingju companies elsewhere in China until much later—for instance, in 1996 in Jiangsu and Beijing (Fang Jinsen 1996; Shen Xiaomei 1996; Xu Xingjie 1996). In the course of setting rank, the Shanghai Company was reduced in size from over 700 to approximately 350 working personnel (Xu Xingjie 1996). In contrast, almost 10 years later in 1996 the China Jingju [End Page 99] Company still had over 600 working personnel, and the Beijing Jingju Company over 1,000 (Li Zhongcheng 1996). The more than 350 displaced personnel at the Shanghai Company either took early retirement, or were placed in or themselves found other employment. The Company continued to support 250-plus retirees until 1997, when that responsibility was assumed by the newly established Ministry of Insurance (Baoxian Bu). Ranks are now set every two years, providing one clear motivation for individual productivity (Xu Xingjie 1996).
Other aspects of administrative and economic reorganization have also contributed to creating a Shanghai Jingju Company that is “lean and hungry” compared to that of 15 years ago. The current company is heavy with actors, musicians, “creators,” technicians, and entrepreneurs, and very light on administrators. A breakdown of the 1995/1996 personnel reveals: 10 administrators; 50 personnel running the theatre venue (box office, publicity, stage hands, janitors, etc.); 90-some actors and musicians in each of two troupes, totaling just over 190; and 90-some personnel in “special offices.” These special offices include: “creation” (chuangzuo), comprising designers, playwrights, directors, and composers of both atmospheric music and vocal music (the former are credited with zuoqu, literally “composition,” while the latter are credited with changqiang sheji, literally “vocal music design”); technical offices (costume, lighting, prop, and scene shops); extra income enterprises (a restaurant, a hotel, office rentals, etc.); library/archives; the amateur arts school discussed below; and personnel and accounting (Li Zhongcheng 1995; Shanghai Jingju Yuan 1995:20; Xu Xingjie 1996). Additionally, individuals are now paid in a fashion markedly different from the great wok/iron rice bowl of old. Only 40 percent
3. Musicians (left) and zhuanjia, or expert artists/advisors (at the table), watch Chen Shaoyun as Chen Lin during rehearsal for The Leopard Cat-Crown Prince Exchange (1995).
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of each person’s salary is now guaranteed and fixed according to central government standards. The other 60 percent is determined by Company income and individual productivity: in addition to receiving performance fees when they participate in income-producing performances, each individual receives points for their contributions, and the value of the points is set by Company income. In 1991, each point was worth 10 yuan; by 1996, the value of each point had more than doubled, to 22 yuan (Xu Xingjie 1996). And at the same time, the Company’s financial dependence on the state has been decreasing. In the early 1990s, it was still 100 percent. In 1995, out of a 15 million yuan budget, only 40 percent consisted of regular municipal funds; of the remainder, 25 percent came from extra income enterprises such as restaurants, hotels, and office rental mentioned above; 20 percent came from special government grants; and 15 percent came from box office revenue (Li Zhongcheng 1995). The Company continues to raise the proportion—and amount—of box office and extra-income-enterprise revenue, moving toward complete financial independence from the state. In the last years of the 1990s, the single greatest economic priority has been the construction of housing adequate to attract and keep excellent artists. Future plans include the establishment of a costume factory to service the Company and bring in additional extra income by providing costumes for other troupes as well; and the establishment of associations to organize and represent artists, bring visiting artists to Shanghai, host them, and place them in productions (Li Zhongcheng 1996).
In the educational and artistic sphere, the Shanghai Jingju Company has focused on three major priorities throughout the 1980s and ’90s. Given here in ascending order of importance, they are: maintain and service traditional audiences; raise the level of performer excellence and “train” new audiences; and most importantly, identify potential new audiences and create new plays especially for them, thereby also expanding the repertory of the Company (Li Zhongcheng 1995, 1996; Ma Bomin 1987, 1996, 1999; Xu Xingjie 1995, 1996). Traditional audiences are maintained and served primarily through weekly performances of either a full-length traditional play or a bill of several major traditional scenes and one-acts (zhezixi). These performances are given at the Company’s own theatre, and are scheduled and priced to accommodate audiences composed primarily of retirees on fixed incomes: Sunday matinees, with all tickets costing 5 yuan rather than the usual 20 to 100 yuan. They are almost always presented to standing-room-only houses (Li Zhongcheng 1996).
Some activities of the Company contribute to building new audiences while maintaining and serving traditional ones. Free performances given at a number of other venues—including irregularly scheduled performances at factories and temple festivals, and performances given each Saturday in a different city park—are designed to reach as broad a spectrum of people as possible. This commitment to free performances comprises a major portion of the Company’s work. In 1995, ’96, and ’97, the average was 400 performances a year for income, and 300 for free (Li Zhongcheng 1995, 1996; Shang Changrong 1997). The Company also participates in regional and national performance festivals, and makes television productions of popular performances, especially those that can be presented in installments.
New audiences are also attracted and “trained” through the work of the Amateur Arts School, a permanent division of the Company, one of the “special offices” mentioned above. The School organizes lectures and short plays or selections from longer ones, and presents them to elementary and secondary school students both in their schools and at the Company’s theatre. Each year, 120 to 150 performances at the theatre are for students who are bused in from their schools to attend (Li Zhongcheng 1996; Shanghai Jingju Yuan 1995:19). The performances for the students are invariably the best that the [End Page 101]
4. The Spider Demon/ Amazon Queen (Fang Xiaoya) subdues the monk, Sha Heshang (Zhu Zongyong), with a magical weapon derived from the traditional “ribbon dance” in Cave of the Coiled Webs (1996).
company has to offer—the finest performers in the finest work. The philosophy is, “Show them the best, and they’ll like it” (Li Zhongcheng 1996). The Company is also lobbying the municipal government to include jingju in the elementary and secondary school curriculum, and is making substantial progress. Many schools now teach the singing of two jingju arias in music classes each semester, and the Amateur Arts School run by the Company also holds special training classes for teachers—more than 100 had received training by the spring of 1996 (Li Zhongcheng 1996).
Pursuing the goal of “raising the level of performer excellence” also includes special training. During the summer off-season, the company brings famous older actors from around the nation to Shanghai, where they hold special master classes for Company members in the performance of unique traditional pieces (Shanghai Jingju Yuan 1995:18). Master performers are also invited to Shanghai in conjunction with the mounting of new productions; they work with Company performers in the application of traditional and the creation of new performance techniques for new characters being developed (Li Zhongcheng 1996; Xu Xingjie 1996). But “raising the level of performer excellence” also includes attracting the finest active performers to Shanghai on a permanent basis. Guest artists are frequently invited to participate in the creation and performance of new plays, and the best are kept and made members of the Company whenever possible (Shanghai Jingju Yuan 1995:19). As a result the Shanghai Jingju Company is at times somewhat fearfully referred to by other troupes as a “personnel pirate” (Li Zhongcheng 1995; Shen Xiaomei 1996).
In the educational and artistic sphere, the greatest emphasis is placed upon identifying potential audiences and creating new plays especially for them. The aim has been to create at least two new plays each year, one in each troupe of the Company. In fact, between 1984 and 1997 the Company created more than 30 new plays, 10 of which have entered the permanent repertory [End Page 102] —the ultimate achievement in xiqu. Company administrators believe that each jingju company in China needs to have 20–30 of its own, original plays in repertory for jingju to be a healthy, living art form. They therefore intend to get at least another 10 into their own repertory in the next 10 years, and are planning to create a minimum of two per year during that time, one in each of the Company’s two troupes (Li Zhongcheng 1996).
In this radically changing administrative, economic, and artistic context, creative authority has also changed, and currently appears to be predominantly a committee dynamic. Neither the traditional autocrats of jingju (the actors) nor those of Western-style theatre (the directors, playwrights, and composers), nor the Communist Party officials of the Cultural Revolution period, have emerged as primary authorities. In the creation of many new productions, lead actors have been working essentially as equals with primary musicians, “creators” (chuangzuoyuan, members of the “creation office” mentioned above—directors, playwrights, designers, composers), and “experts” (zhuanjia, who include: older, more-experienced artists, one or more of whom also serves as “technique director” [jidao] for a production; theatre critics; and cultural officials—that is, the arts-administrators of the company and its governing department of culture).3
This new creative process with its shared creative authority has surely been fostered by the administrative, economic, and artistic reforms being undertaken by the Company. The administrative reorganization reduces the number of administrators, and strongly encourages the sharing of authority in socioeconomic realms. The economic point system tightly connects creative output with financial reward, making all company members in fact partners in the business of jingju. The maintenance of traditional audiences requires sensitive attention to traditional performance values, while the development of new audiences demands bold artistic experiments. The creation of new plays for the several types of strikingly different new audiences discussed below similarly requires remarkable creative flexibility and a constant rebalancing of aesthetic values, tasks that lend themselves to a collaborative process. But several other factors also seem relevant to the development of this group creative process:
1. In part, group process is a reaction against the absolute authority of Communist Party officials during the Cultural Revolution. The “Gang of Four” and those working with them had the first as well as the final “say” in the creation of all performing artworks for over a decade. In the wake of the Cultural Revolution, any individual who insisted on having his or her own way was easily seen as being “like Jiang Qing,” Mao Zedong’s wife and the most visible member of the “Gang” (Ma Bomin 1987; Li Zhongcheng 1995, 1996; Lü Ailian 1995, 1996). This was especially true in Shanghai, since the Shanghai Jingju Company was the originating company for several model revolutionary modern plays (yangban geming xiandai xi) and a favorite of Jiang’s. In post-1976 Shanghai, the most comfortable working methods therefore have been those involving group consensus rather than the autocratic control of an individual or small group.
2. In part, group process is also a reaction against 1980s efforts at “reforming” jingju to draw larger audiences. In the mid- and late ’80s, the Shanghai Jingju Company frequently invited huaju directors to direct, the theory being that huaju, considered more modern and realistic, was therefore more likely to have a “feel of the ’80s” and appeal to young audiences. But even with the best intentions, huaju directors generally did not fair very well in jingju. At best, the stylized, technical artistry of expression in jingju often became mere decoration for more realistic, huaju-based expression. At worst, the realism of huaju actively fought with jingju expression, as [End Page 103]
5. The suggestive rather than realistic scenery of Cao Cao and Yang Xiu (1996) places the characters in a hall of mourning, and lends rather than takes focus. Shang Changrong portrays Cao Cao (left), with Xia Huihua as his wife Qian Niang. The focus on character portrayal is evident in this photograph, as is the detail involved in the execution of the original designs for costumes and headdresses.
6. As Cao Cao in Cao Cao and Yang Xiu (1995), actor Shang Changrong is surrounded by members of the company who, as phantasmal warriors, enact Cao’s nightmare of defeat. The imagistic scenery and staging are accompanied by a tense, brooding score and instrumentation.
when performers attempted realistic sobs and tears while singing (see Wichmann 1990:158–60). But companies had given these directors primary creative authority, with actors, musicians, other creators, and experts able only to give advice. These experiences almost assuredly heightened the desire for group consensus, and increased aversion to autocratic control by an individual or small group. [End Page 104]
3. The questions of “what is jingju?” and “how can/should it adapt to changing times?” also directly and substantially affect the dynamics of creative authority, and thereby the creative process, at the Shanghai Jingju Company and elsewhere. Certainly prior to the Cultural Revolution and in fact to a great extent even today, each performance of any form of xiqu is first and foremost an example of that form—jingju, in this case—and secondarily a specific play in that form. The source of the example, and therefore of the form itself, is the well-trained actor. Artistry—both for the continued existence of the form and for creation in it—resides in the body, mind, and psyche of the experienced actor. There were no directors in jingju (or any form of xiqu) until they entered via the Western-inspired huaju in the middle of the 20th century. And even today, when creating new plays, directors in jingju work with technique directors and other older, expert actors, who make sure that physical and vocal expression convey the richest possible examples of the form. The Shanghai Jingju Company takes particular pride in the fact that Shanghai is known for jingju innovation (e.g., Li Zhongcheng 1995, 1996; Ren Defeng 1995; Shang Changrong 1995, 1996, 1998, 1999; Shanghai Wenhua Bao 1996; Shanghai yishu jie te kan 1996). But perhaps precisely for this reason, it has long been especially important to them that jingju be clearly and vividly exemplified in each new production, however innovative. That production is jingju only and precisely because the experts say so, and the job of the experts is to keep jingju jingju, even as it grows and develops. The group creative process seems remarkably well-suited to the unique dynamics involved in creating new jingju plays in Shanghai.
In 1996, the Shanghai Jingju Company’s original play Cao Cao yu Yang Xiu (Cao Cao and Yang Xiu) was named the finest new jingju since the Cultural Revolution by the Ministry of Culture, the Chinese Theatre Artists Association, and the annual National Festival of New Jingju Plays held in Tianjin. Premiered in 1988 and revised at least three times since then, that play was discovered in script form by a leading actor who proposed it to the Company in 1986.4 Although the script was politically risky, the experts proved willing, as did a director, the two composers needed to mount a new play (one for song and one for atmospheric music), and a core of leading musicians and actors. Over a year was devoted to creating the initial production, and equal amounts of time were devoted to each revision (Ma Ke 1995, 1996; Shang Changrong 1995, 1996, 1997).5
7. This photograph shows a composition session for Dream of the King of Qi. On the left, Xia Huihua composes for the character Xueying (Cordelia), Shang Changrong composes for the King of Qi (Lear), while vocal music composer (changqiang sheji) Gao Yiming (rear) and the leader of the melodic orchestra (qinshi; principal jinghu player) You Jishun look on. Sessions such as this took place for hours a day on a daily basis over the course of almost two months.
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8. He Shu as the priest Tang Seng stands center, with the pig Zhu Bajie (Bai Tao) and the monk Sha Heshang (Zhu Zongyong) on either side. They are led by the Monkey King Sun Wukong (Zhao Guohua) in Cave of the Coiled Webs (1996).
The group creative process followed for this production has become the standard currently followed by the company. It begins with an initial working script, the idea for which may be initiated by an actor, a director, a playwright, or any combination thereof. Meetings are then held between playwright, director, lead actors, and composers, in which a production concept is developed. The playwright then undertakes revisions on the basis of the shared concept. In a second stage, the actors and composers meet to develop a musical outline of modes (diaoshi) and metrical types (banshi) for sung music, including sections to emphasize and musical influences to draw upon for vocal and atmospheric music and their instrumentation. The composers then do a first-draft composition, and meet with the actors to sing and discuss it. After revision, the composers then meet again with the actors and also with the musicians, as well as the playwright and director, to sing and discuss the second draft, which is subsequently revised further. This process continues until agreement is reached on the broad outline of the composition. One should note that this process of musical composition is dramatically different from the traditional process, in which the actor was the primary if not the sole composer. In the late 1970s, when traditional plays and processes were first being revived after the Cultural Revolution, it was possible to observe actors composing in rehearsals entirely on their own—although at times they did meet with criticism from older experts, who felt they were occasionally over-using the more dramatic and time-consuming banshi (patterns of tempo, meter, rhythm, and melodic tendencies) in order to exhibit their own artistry and expressive ability at the expense of plot and overall pace.6
While the contemporary composition process is underway, the director, playwright, and lead actors meet frequently with the designers, and a series of drafts and revisions of set, costume, lighting, and makeup designs occurs as well. When consensus on basic concept, script, composition, and design has been reached, all the artists involved meet with the experts and go over the material. Revisions are then undertaken on the basis of the advice received. Once those revisions are complete, actual rehearsals begin, with technique directors joining the group of artists at work each day. Some movement sequences are proposed by actors—others are proposed by technique directors, [End Page 106] experts, or directors. All are considered, and selections are made by group consensus. For a period of some weeks or months, the only music heard in rehearsals is that sung by the actors, who also continue meeting with the composers and lead musicians to work further on composition. In later weeks or months, first the composers and lead musicians, and finally the full orchestra, join the rehearsals, as well. The work-in-progress is viewed at regular intervals by all the participants not actually onstage, and then discussed by all including the actors and musicians. Decisions made by this entire group then directly affect the work-in-progress. The more experienced members of the group do in essence have “more votes.” But every member of the group is heard, and his/ her opinion weighed by the group. Lead actors, lead musicians, creators, and primary experts work essentially as equals in the creation of many new plays.
To be sure, “committee” dynamics of creation occur at many if not most other xiqu companies as well. However, in all cases that I have witnessed, one individual or small group—usually a director or one or more cultural officials—does have more creative authority than any other. The very near-equality of the Shanghai Company members is unique in my experience to date.
This group creative process has been aimed at identifying potential audiences and creating new plays specifically for them. Since the mid-1980s, three major audiences have been targeted: school-age audiences, popular urban audiences, and intellectual urban audiences (Li Zhongcheng 1987, 1995, 1996; Ma Bomin 1987, 1996).
For school-age audiences, the aim is to create plays with lively subject matter, exciting mise-en-scène, and music and action that simultaneously entertain and teach about jingju. An example is the play Pan si dong (Cave of the Coiled Webs, c. 1982), which involves the Monkey King Sun Wukong and an evil but fascinating female Spider Demon, lots of magic, and humor that also illuminates major jingju conventions.7 For instance, after the Spider Demon takes over the body of the beautiful “Amazon Queen” (Nüer Guo Wang), her followers—previously played by martial male (wusheng) and painted face (hualian) actors—take over the bodies of the lovely young warrior-women who serve the Amazon Queen. But initially, their voices remain those of the male roles with the deepest vocal registers. The Spider Demon explains to them how young women sound in jingju, and the performers practice a few basic vocal exercises (including one or two from Western opera) in order to “find” their falsetto ranges. The switching of actors, acting styles, and voices appears to delight young audiences; it surely increases their understanding of role type vocal technique, as well. Similarly, when the Spider Demon has captured and determined to marry the holy Monk whom the Monkey King serves, she attempts to seduce him with song and dance. Each of her four attempts is in the style of one of the “four great dan” (si da ming dan; the term “dan” refers to the young female role type and performers of that role type) of jingju. Audiences clearly experience a “shifting of gears” between different “styles of femininity,” and seem to enjoy this insight into “feminine wiles”—they receive a simultaneous lesson in the nature of styles (liupai) within a role type in jingju, as well.
For popular urban audiences, the aim is to create rousing melodramas in cliffhanger installments with lavish realistic scenery and striking scenic effects. An example is Limao huan taizi (The Leopard Cat-Crown Prince Exchange, 1995), a new play in installments involving court intrigue between concubines and their eunuch advisors that is based upon a much earlier, haipai version. In the first installment, for which I observed a portion of the rehearsal process during October and November 1995,8 stirring arias deeply grounded in jingju musical traditions are performed in extravagant rival palaces and beside an apparently real, onstage lake. Dances involving a company of over 50 fill grandiose [End Page 107] courtyard sets, at one point including a lion dance with a stunning acrobatic central lion figure. And in the final scene, an entire “haunted” palace that fills the stage appears to blaze with flames and gradually fall and crumble into ruins. This final scene is also remarkable in its adaptability. When performed in the Company’s own theatre, the effects are dazzlingly sophisticated, involving lasers and other state-of-the-art devices. But when on tour to less-well-equipped venues, very similar and quite extraordinary effects are achieved with multiple set pieces, stage smoke, and fluttering silk lit with red lights. At least three installments have been created to date, all of which have also been broadcast as television productions (Li Zhongcheng 1996; Ma Bomin 1999; Shang Changrong 1997).
For intellectual urban audiences, plays with daring political and philosophical themes are staged with imagistic rather than realistic scenery and original, historically based costumes, extraordinary classic-based scores, and innovative instrumentation. The finest example to date is Cao Cao and Yang Xiu, the award-winning play discussed above. It concerns the relationship between the emperor Cao Cao and his brilliant minister Yang Xiu, a relationship that clearly parallels the one between Mao Zedong and Peng Dehuai just before the Cultural Revolution, as well as the one between Deng Xiaoping and Zhao Ziyang just prior to 4 June 1989. The play ends with the two men having a real and moving heart-to-heart talk—just before Cao has Yang beheaded. The script is exceptional and highly theatrical, combining regional dialect and earthy humor with elevated and vastly moving lyrics. The music combines the best of traditional jingju with contemporary Chinese emotionalism, and gives this combination a haunting classical flavor through the use of a guqin, a seven-stringed plucked instrument that is the ancestor of the Japanese koto. The play’s audience reception matches its exceptional critical acclaim; it continues to draw standing-room-only houses whenever and wherever it is performed.
In the second half of the 1990s, the Shanghai Jingju Company has begun targeting a fourth audience as well, one comprised of college students. This newest audience was identified as the result of an experiment carried out in November and December of 1995. As company administrators explained it, after over a decade of listening to official and scholarly assertions that “the
9. In Cave of the Coiled Webs (1996), Fang Xiaoya (center) plays both the Amazon Queen and the Spider Demon who, here, inhabits the Queen’s body. The Amazon Queen/Spider Demon is surrounded by the Demon’s warriors inhabiting the bodies of the attendants of the Queen. She demonstrates correct vocal technique for a female role (dan) to her warriors, whose widely spread fingers indicate that they are really bravura male hualian (“painted face” characters) in disguise.
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youth don’t like jingju” and “jingju is too slow for the youth,” they decided to challenge those assertions (Li Zhongcheng 1995, 1996; Ma Bomin 1995, 1996). With a major grant from the Shanghai municipal government, the company mounted four full-length, large-scale jingju plays of their own creation and took them straight to the college students of Beijing for their evaluation. The plays chosen were Cave of the Coiled Webs and Cao Cao and Yang Xiu described above, as well as the most famous model revolutionary modern play (yangban geming xiandai xi) created by the company, Zhi qu wei Hu Shan (Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy, 1963),9 and a new play created in 1995 for intellectual urban audiences, Qi Wang meng (Dream of the King of Qi). This last play is an adaptation of Shakespeare’s King Lear, interpreted as an allegory concerning Mao Zedong and the Cultural Revolution; to the strains of the xun, an ancient wind instrument with an eerie, lonely sound, the King of Qi (Lear) turns his kingdom over to the younger generation without preparation or guidance.10
Between 25 November and 8 December, 10 free performances were given in Beijing. Cao Cao and Yang Xiu, Cave of the Coiled Webs, and Taking Tiger
10. Zhao Jinglu as the Monkey King Sun Wukong inhabits the body of the Spider Demon, with warriors of the Spider Demon on either side. In front is a magician’s box, which the warriors have unknowingly been using to transport the lower half of the body of the pig Zhu Bajie. Children roar at the cleverness of the disguised Monkey King and the bemusement of the warriors.
11. Warriors of the Spider Demon use a flying spider web to entrap the Monkey King Sun Wukong (Zhao Guohua) in the fall 1995 production of Cave of the Coiled Webs. This spectacular effect occurs in front of a waterfall that appears to flow and send up real spray.
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12. In The Leopard Cat-Crown Prince Exchange (1995), the Crown Prince Zhao Zhen (He Lei, upstage center), flanked by the eunuch Chen Lin (Chen Shaoyun, left) and the eunuch Guo Huai (Zhang Dafa, right), is entertained by imperial court performers. The lion leaps through hoops and tumbles over the heads of other performers.
Mountain by Strategy were each presented two times at the Haidian Theatre, located in the north of the city where a majority of the city’s institutions of higher learning are situated. Cao Cao and Yang Xiu and Dream of the King of Qi were also presented two times each in central Beijing at the Palace of the Nationalities (Minzu Gong). Tickets were distributed free of charge to university and college students at almost every college and university in the city that has degree programs of four or more years. For the first day’s performance, tickets were difficult to distribute—at two of the three symposiums held after the Haidian performances, several students in charge of distribution reported having to plead with friends and colleagues to help fill their class’s allotted number of seats. But word of mouth spread quickly, and from the second performance on, literally hundreds of students were being turned away for each show. Without exception, at the end of every performance most audience members rushed forward to the stage instead of making for the exits, and for at least 15 minutes to half an hour performers had to come down into the house and talk to their audience before the students would disperse.
Questionnaires were distributed at every performance, and three symposiums at three different, conveniently located colleges were held with students who had attended.11 Over 40 percent of the questionnaires were completed and handed in (Xu Kangsheng 1996), a remarkable return, and the symposiums, like the performances, drew turn-away crowds—long lines formed by 1:30 P.M. for the 3:00 P.M. symposiums, and rooms built for 150 were jammed with more than twice that many people. In both the completed questionnaires and the live discussions, overwhelming approval of all four plays was expressed; Cao Cao and Yang Xiu was the overall favorite, and Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy was perceived as “a great traditional classic”—as many students explained, it had been an exciting new piece of theatre when their parents were young! Interestingly, the most common unsolicited student response was anger—anger with themselves at having believed the “propaganda” that “youth don’t like jingju” without ever having attended a jingju performance, and anger with government officials and scholars for having carried out such “brainwashing.” At a special symposium for xiqu professionals held by the Chinese Theatre Artists Association (Zhongguo Xiju Jia Xiehui) on 7 December, [End Page 110]
13. Shang Changrong portrays the King of Qi while the king is still in power. for Dream of the King of Qi, Shang has created an extremely unusual lianpu (the term for the striking makeup designs for hualian); his face is an unaccented flesh tone except for the unique full-forehead eyebrows which indicate both great cerebral powers and an extreme willfulness.
leading national cultural officials praised the achievements of the Shanghai Company, and acknowledged that they had clearly demonstrated the existence of an enthusiastic college audience for good, newly created jingju plays. The president of the China Jingju Company (Zhongguo Jingju Yuan), the highest-ranking jingju company in the country, announced that “the China Company must learn from Shanghai.”
Not surprisingly, the Shanghai Jingju Company considers the Beijing tour to have been an unqualified success (Li Zhongcheng 1996; Ma Bomin 1996; [End Page 111]
14. Dignitaries of the municipal and district governments attending the 1996 Longhua Temple Festival—at which the company gave free performances—were seated at linen-covered tables; local residents stood behind them in a tightly packed crowd that filled the temple courtyard.
Xu Kangsheng 1996; Xu Xingjie 1996). College students in Shanghai are now a targeted and growing audience. And the Company has recently been invited to take several of its original plays to college and university audiences in Guangdong (Li Zhongcheng 1996).
At the Shanghai Jingju Company, the authority of group rather than individual decision seems to be producing the most economically and artistically successful new works. With growing audiences and box office revenues as well as national critical acclaim, the Shanghai Jingju Company is doing well by the standards of professional theatre companies throughout the world. Even more importantly, it is producing substantial new work at an exceptional pace. Neither traditional practice nor the efforts of Cultural Revolution officials would have predicted this collaboration of equals, and it remains to be seen if the Shanghai Jingju Company can sustain this remarkable new dynamic of creative authority. My own two decades of experience in jingju performance, first as a student actor and then as a “facilitating” director supporting the training work of master artist-teachers, have led me to highly value jingju as a living rather than a museum-piece art form. In my opinion, the self-initiated reforms of the Shanghai Jingju Company are making jingju in Shanghai a living and growing theatre form once again. Purists and/or traditionalists, however, may have a different view.
15. In one of their many free performances, members of the company present celebratory zhezixi (excerpted scenes and one-act plays) at the 1996 Longhua Temple Festival, held in early spring. Many different “acts” by both professionals and amateurs were given during the several-day event, staged on the carpet-covered concrete in front of a large sign identifying the occasion.
Elizabeth Wichmann-Walczak is Professor of Theatre Arts and Chair of the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa Department of Theatre and Dance. She was the first non-Chinese to perform jingju in the People’s Republic of China and has written and published on the performance structure and aesthetics of Chinese theatre. She has translated and directed one modern and three classical jingju plays at the University of Hawai‘i; upon Chinese invitation, two classical productions toured mainland China. Dr. Wichmann-Walczak is the first honorary (and first non-Chinese) member of the Chinese Theatre Artists Association, and of the National Xiqu Institute, as well as a recipient of the National Xiqu Music Association’s 1992 Kong Sanchuan Award for excellence in research, creation, and performance, and of the Second National Festival of Jingju’s 1999 Golden Chrysanthemum Award for outstanding achievement in promoting and developing jingju.
Notes
1. This article is based on earlier papers written for the Association for Asian Performance’s 1998 convention and the Association for Asian Studies’ 1999 convention.
2. Under a grant from the Committee for Scholarly Communication with China, I spent October through December 1995 and March through May 1996 with the Shanghai Jingju Company, primarily in Shanghai but also on tour to Tianjin and Beijing. Information in this article is derived primarily from research conducted during that time, including: [End Page 112] interviews with artists, administrators, and scholars; observation of rehearsals and performances; and programs and unpublished manuscripts in the Company’s archive. Additional later interviews have been conducted both in person and by mail and telephone. Earlier research with the Shanghai Jingju Company (July-September and December 1987), also funded by the CSCC, informs this study as well (see Wichmann 1990).
3. For just over two decades I have been studying what I have come to call “the dynamics of creative authority” in jingju. This study involves attending rehearsals as well as performances, observing as much of the rehearsal process as possible for as many new productions as possible. I have watched at least half of the complete rehearsal process for an average of almost one new production a year since 1978, primarily at the Jiangsu Jingju Company and the Shanghai Jingju Company but also at other troupes and companies including the China Jingju Company and the Beijing Jingju Company, and have witnessed considerable change in the dynamics of creative authority over time. The current dynamics at the Shanghai Jingju Company have been developing steadily over the past 15 years, and are described in some detail below.
4. The actor was Shang Changrong, then the leader of the jingju troupe based in Xian; he has since become a member of the Shanghai Jingju Company, and has officially and permanently moved to Shanghai. He created the role of Cao Cao, and has played it in all versions of the play to date. The script was written by Chen Yaxian. For all three major versions, the composer of vocal music was Gao Yiming, and the principal director was Ma Ke.
5. I saw the premiere production in Shanghai in 1987, and was able to observe a portion of its rehearsal process. Unfortunately, except for a video recording, I entirely missed the second major version, in which Guan Huai replaced Yan Xinpeng in the role of Yang Xiu. The third major version, the result of the rehearsal process described below, was like the first two directed by Ma Ke. It features He Shu in the role of Yang Xiu, Xia Huihua in the role of Qian Niang (Cao Cao’s wife), and Li Zhanhua in the role of Luming Nü (Cao Cao’s daughter and Yang Xiu’s wife); I was able to watch the entire rehearsal process for this version.
6. I observed these phenomena—both composition by actors as a part of character development and criticism of actors’ compositions by experts—numerous times in 1979, [End Page 113] 1980, and 1981 at the Jiangsu Province Jingju Company, most notably during the rehearsal processes for three new plays, Pipa lei (Tears of the Pipa, 1979) featuring Lu Genzhang as a villainous cadre, Zhan Shou Zhou (Battle of Shou Zhou, 1979) featuring Dong Jinfeng as the female half and Zhan Guozhi as the male half of a pair of warrior-lovers, and Tufu zhuangyuan (A Pig Butcher Places First in the Imperial Examinations, 1980) featuring Han Junkui in the title role.
7. Cave of the Coiled Webs was originally developed in the first half of the 1980s. According to Zhao Guohua (1996) who plays the Monkey King Sun Wukong, the idea was originated by himself and other leading performers including Bai Tao, who plays the pig Zhu Bajie, and Fang Xiaoya, who plays the Amazon Queen as well as the Spider Demon when she inhabits the Amazon Queen’s body. Together they did an initial sketch version based on an old, banned “pornographic” haipai play. Li Zhongcheng then worked on a full play script, which Ma Ke then directed; Gao Yiming was composer of vocal music. A complete revision involving these same major personnel was undertaken in 1987, and I was able to observe a portion of that rehearsal process.
8. For this first installment of The Leopard Cat-Crown Prince Exchange, the playwrights were Liu Mengde, Dong Shaoyu, and Cheng Weixiang, the director was Dong Shaoyu, and the composers of vocal music were Jin Guoxian and Li Shoucheng; Chen Shaoyun created the heroic eunuch Chen Lin, Zhang Dafa the treacherous eunuch Guo Huai, Shi Min the heroic maid Kou Zhu, Hu Xuan the wronged concubine Li Fei, Lu Yiping the scheming concubine Liu Fei, and He Lei the Crown Prince Zhao Zhen.
9. Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy was redirected by Ma Ke, with He Shu playing Yang Zirong, Shang Changrong as Li Yongqi, Wang Mengyun as Mother Li, and Fang Xiaoya as Chang Bao.
10. Dream of the King of Qi was written by Wang Lian and Wang Yongshi and initially directed by Ouyang Ming in October and November 1995, with Gao Yiming as composer of vocal music. It featured Shang Changrong as the King of Qi (Lear), Xia Huihua as Xueying (Cordelia), and He Shu as Shangguan Meng, a purely villainous version of Edmund. Ma Ke redirected the production with the same cast in March and April 1996, after the Beijing tour.
11. Symposiums were held at Beijing Renmin Daxue (Beijing People’s University) on 5 December, at Beijing Daxue (officially called “Peking University” in English) also on 5 December, and at Beijing Shifan Daxue (Beijing Normal University) on 8 December.
References
1987 Numerous informal interviews and observation of his work as a chou (comic role) actor with the Shanghai Jingju Company. Shanghai, 27 July–16 September, 26–27 September, 5–7 December.
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1996 Director of the Jiangsu Province Jingju Company. Numerous informal interviews with author. Nanjing, 21 March–2 April.
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1995 Artistic Director of the Shanghai National Music Orchestra (Shanghai Minzu Yuetuan) and composer of atmospheric music for the Shanghai Jingju Company. Interview with author. Shanghai, 15 November.
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1995 “Qi Wang meng meng yuan Shang Changrong tan yi” (“Dream of the King of Qi dreamer Shang Changrong talks about art”). Shanghai Wenhua Bao (Shanghai Cultural News), 10 November:1.
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1995 Jingju zou xiang qingnian: Shanghai Jingju Yuan xunhui zhan yan (Jingju Goes Out to the Young: Shanghai Jingju Company Touring Exhibition Performance). Educational brochure with programs for the four plays performed on the tour of Beijing. Shanghai: Shanghai Jingju Yuan (Shanghai Jingju Company).
1996 “‘Xiandai biaoyan yishu’ yantao hui ti chu: shi ‘zou jin Mei Lanfang’ haishi ‘zou chu Mei Lanfang’?” (“‘Contemporary performing arts’ symposium raises the issue: Is it ‘get closer to Mei Lanfang’ or is it ‘get farther from Mei Lanfang’?”). Shanghai Wenhua Bao (Shanghai Cultural News), 10 May:1.
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1996 Dan (young female role) actor with the Jiangsu Province Jingju Company. Numerous informal interviews with author. Nanjing, 21 March–2 April.
1995 Numerous informal interviews and observation of her work as a dan (young female role) actor with the Shanghai Jingju Company. Shanghai and Tianjin, 24 October–24 November, 10–14 December.
1995 Playwright with the Shanghai Jingju Company. Interview with author. Shanghai, 15 November.
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1995 Numerous informal interviews and observation of her work as a dan (young female role) actor with the Shanghai Jingju Company. Shanghai, Tianjin, and Beijing, 24 October–14 December.
1995 Numerous informal interviews and observation of his work as a troupe leader (tuanzhang) with the Shanghai Jingju Company. Shanghai and Tianjin, 24 October–24 November, 10–14 December. [End Page 117]
1995 Set designer with the Shanghai Jingju Company. Interview with author. Beijing, 2 December.
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1995 Numerous informal interviews and observation of his work as a qinshi (leader of the melodic orchestra and player of the jinghu, a two-string spike fiddle) with the Shanghai Jingju Company. Shanghai, Tianjin, and Beijing, 24 October–14 December.
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1995 Interview with author. Beijing, 4 December. Numerous informal interviews and observation of his work as a gushi (percussionist and conductor) with the Shanghai Jingju Company. Shanghai, Tianjin, and Beijing, 24 October–14 December.
