Perceptions of China in the Programme Selection for Mei Lanfang’S Performances in Japan (1919), the United States (1930) and the Soviet Union (1935)

Home , Call boy (theatre), Mei Lanfang, Mei Shaowu, Xun Huisheng

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

European Journal of East Asian Studies EJEAS 6.1 (2007) 75–102 www.brill.nl/ejea

Reﬁned Beauty, New Woman, Dynamic Heroine or Fighter for the Nation? Perceptions of China in the Programme Selection for Mei Lanfang’s Performances in Japan (1919), the United States (1930) and the Soviet Union (1935)

Catherine Yeh Boston University [email protected]

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

Keywords visual culture; urban history; photography

The rise of the dan actor has been largely seen in the context of a transformation of aesthetic taste within Peking opera; or, at most, as a cultural development within China’s borders. This aesthetic and cultural perspective fails to take into account important political and transnational elements. The rise of the dan coincided with the collapse of the Qing dynasty; it was a time when the nation was trying to come to terms with the fall of the imperial order and the unstable situation of the country both domestically

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

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

and internationally. More precisely, it took place at a time when the nation’s leaders were loudly calling for the renovation of the people, and trying to infuse a new martial spirit into the nation’s psyche. The visible contrast between the promotion of such a martial and male national persona and the rise in popularity of the role of a man playing a woman suggests a possible political connection. As the dan actors, however, all in their early teens, were strongly promoted by some of the most powerful politicians and famous literati intellectuals of the time, and this in some cases in a very conspicuous manner, the plot thickens further. The rise of the dan, furthermore, was also not simply an internal Chinese cultural aﬀair relating to national politics, but rather an international event with a bearing on global cultural trends and the international staging of the Chinese national and cultural persona. This aspect will be the main focus of the present study. It will study the forces and personalities involved, as well as the dynamics at work, in Mei Lanfang’s visits to Japan, the USA and the USSR. It will study the global context of the making of a modern Chinese star. 2007039. EJEAS 6.1. Proef 2. 4-6-2007:14.28, page 77.

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Fig. 2.YuanShikai

The sources relating to the subject are very rich and diverse, spanning diﬀerent media and requiring a variety of methods adapted to their form of communication. As photography had, during the early decades of the twentieth century, become a medium that could easily be reproduced in print, the prominent role played by photography in the making and shaping of images oﬀers a unique perspective on the event. At the time, photographic images began to circulate globally through newspapers, journals and pictorial magazines; and with it came a translingual grammar to read them. As much of the creation of stars and star culture is about image, photography naturally becomes one of the most important sources for this study. In a sense these photographs preserve a direct record of how image was created and shaped. As actors who made it into stardom made ample use of photography to highlight their ‘female’ seductive looks, photography also is a very rich source, with photographs of a single star often numbering in the thousands. The development of photography in turn had a direct impact on the rise of the dan in that the camera favours a particular look, highlights particular features and helps foster particular tastes among the viewers. The pictures’ publication, furthermore, helped to create a particular kind of image-recognition that evoked a sense of desirability among the broader public. 2007039. EJEAS 6.1. Proef 2. 4-6-2007:14.28, page 78.

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

Photograph in this study is used as a source of information on particular theatrical events. As the choice of the different operas by the different countries visited by Mei Lanfang demonstrates, the image of the dan, represented in the form of photograph, was created and shaped by international forces. These choices are part of a contentious process of defining a suitable and desirable international image for China.

The Rise of the Dan and China’s Modernisation Agenda Figure 22 showsthatofYuanShikai(1859–1916), the president of the newly founded Republic of China, in military uniform (around 1915). Figure 33 has Mei Lanfang in stage costume for the role of Mu Guiying in the opera Mu Village Fortress (Mu ke zhai).4 This photograph was taken in 1913 during his

2) LiuBeisiandXuQixian(eds),Gugong zhencang renwu zhaopian huizui (Exquisite Figure- Pictures from the Palace Museum) (Beijing: Zi Jing Cheng Chubanshe, 1994), p. 291. 3) Mei Shaowu, Mei Lanfang,p.23. 4) Mei Shaowu, Mei Lanfang,p.27. 2007039. EJEAS 6.1. Proef 2. 4-6-2007:14.28, page 79.

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

ﬁrst visit to Shanghai, a visit that brought Mei Lanfang into the national limelight. As we see from Yuan Shikai’s picture, two new characters enter the newly forming national stage at this juncture in time, the politician and the star in the shape of the dan actor. These two do not confront each other directly, although the contrast in their visual representation certainly gives newspaper readers this impression. On the Peking opera stage, the confrontation was played out between the dan and the senior martial and male character on stage, the laosheng. Figure 45 shows, on the right-hand side, the laosheng actor TanXinpei (1847– 1917) (accompanied by Yang Xiaolou) in stage costume. Figure 56 shows the actor Xun Huisheng in the huadan role, or the ‘sexy female’. The competition between the Tan and the new up-and-coming dan actors was well known.7

5) Sun Yinian and Ma Weidu (eds), Minguo yishu (Republican Art) (Beijing: Zhongguo Wenhua Chuban Gongsi, 1995), p. 3. 6) Sun Yinian and Ma Weidu, Minguo yishu,p.4. 7) See Mai Lanfang, Wutai shenghuo sishi nian (Forty Years of Life on the Stage) (Beijing: Zhongguo Xiju Chubanshe, 1961), vol. 1,p.87. 2007039. EJEAS 6.1. Proef 2. 4-6-2007:14.28, page 80.

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

Theimagesaretakenatatimewhenthelaosheng, the leading role during Qing times and the natural leader for the Peking opera companies, were losing in attraction and popularity to the dan. Could it be that society—the audience— was demonstrating its own preferences regardless of muscular appeals from its leaders, and considered the ‘soft’ demeanour of the female impersonator a more fitting and attractive key image on the national stage than a martial male authority figure? To find an answer to this question, it might help to situate the rise of the dan into the larger social and political horizon. The fall of the Qing left not only a power vacuum but also a vacuum of taste. Many members of the literati class with high connections in court circles found themselves out in the open and were recasting their social roles. Quite a few such men of talent entered the field of Peking opera for the first time and began to use their gifts in writing new operas. Prior to this period, most literati input into drama had benefited the Kun drama of the south. Following their traditional taste for the ‘flower boys’ that represented ya, refinement, as opposed to su, the vulgar, as represented by the court’s patronage of the laosheng, they focused their attention on this group of young talents in a mixture of old-style patronage culture and a modernist agenda. 2007039. EJEAS 6.1. Proef 2. 4-6-2007:14.28, page 81.

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

Figure 68 shows Mei Lanfang at home, working together with Qi Rushan (1875–1962), and Luo Yinggong (1872–1924).9 Both men were devoted to Peking opera, and in particular to the dan actors. This photograph reflects the equality that developed during the early twentieth century between patron and actor. In this particular case, the three were working together to create new operas with dan in the lead. For Qi Rushan in particular, such new operas as well as this new and dignified relationship with actors were very much part of a modernisation ideal. The photographs in Figures 7 and 810 reflect the effort to reinvent Peking opera by giving it a repertoire that drew on a wide range of historical and contemporary sources and brought the grand themes of humankind on stage through a variety of theatrical genres—a notion Qi Rushan developed out of his Paris experience from the early 1900s.11 These efforts show a concern for

8) Mei Shaowu, Mei Lanfang,p.102. 9) Catherine Yeh, ‘From “Protector of the Flower” to cultural adviser—the rise of Peking opera singer to national stardom and the transformation of the patronage culture in Beijing (1890s–1920s)’, in Chen Pingyuan and Wang Dewei (eds), Beijing: Dushi xiangxiang yu wenhua jiyi (Beijing: Urban Culture and Historical Memory) (Beijing: Beijing Daxue Chubanshe, 2005), pp. 121–135. 10) Mei Shaowu, Mei Lanfang,pp.26, 57. 11) Qi Rushan, Qi Rushan huiyilu (The Memoirs of Qi Rushan) (Beijing: Zhongguo Xiju Chubanshe, 1989), p. 110. 2007039. EJEAS 6.1. Proef 2. 4-6-2007:14.28, page 82.

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Fig. 7. Opera on historical themes: Mei Lanfang performing in TheHeavenlyMaidenShoweringFlowers(Tiannu sanhua)

the image of China as a civilisation which could live up to the requirements of a respectable nation. For men such as Qi Rushan and Luo Yinggong, a modern nation had to have a modern theatre. The modernisation of Peking opera began with crafting a new image of the role of the dan. Figures 7 and 8 reflect this effort. Some of the new pieces dealt with historical themes (in historical costumes), others were based on myths, and elements of the tragedy genre were introduced. Engraved within the aesthetics of the art of the dan and the symbolic values attached to this role we thus find the imprint of the politics of that time. The choice of the female impersonator was also a reflection on China’s stature in the international arena. A man playing a woman on stage is not exactly the height of a male and martial posture of the kind advocated in the symbolical representations of the new Republic. The choice of the dan for the key roles brought on to the stage an emblem of the insecurity of these intellectual promoters about their own role in the modern world, and 2007039. EJEAS 6.1. Proef 2. 4-6-2007:14.28, page 83.

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

of China’s precarious and weak international standing vis-à-vis the Powers and Japan. The artfulness of playing this female role as well as the character of the women these dan were playing had to replace the male posture associated with the laosheng roles that had lost credibility. Recognising its own power deficit, the national opera was to bring the cultural sophistication and moral stature of the dan roles forward in China’s bid for international standing. With Mei Lanfang’s visits to Japan, the USA and the Soviet Union, the rise of the dan became explicitly and visibly an international event, and the contention about its symbolic import was played out in the open. On the Chinese side it was part of searching for a sound footing in the international area, albeit in the cultural field through Peking opera and in particular through the art of Mei Lanfang. It was here that the concerted efforts of men like Qi Rushan with a strong modernising agenda were given a chance. In their perception, Mei Lanfang’s visit to Japan was the first test of the viability of reshaping Peking opera to fill the slot the opera stage had in the West. 2007039. EJEAS 6.1. Proef 2. 4-6-2007:14.28, page 84.

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Mei’s visit to Japan: Creating a Split Image of China—Culture Versus the State In 1919, Mei Lanfang received and accepted his first invitation to go abroad, to Japan. The invitation was extended to him by Okura Kihachiro, the founder of Japan’s largest financial conglomerate, zaibatsu, together with the holding company Kabushiki kaisha which had large interests and much power in Korea and Manchuria. Okura Kihachiro invited Mei to perform at the most Western and best-equipped theatre in Tokyo, the Imperial Theatre or Teikoku gekijo, where he was head of the board of directors. Mei and his troupe arrived on 25 April, and they gave their first performance on 1 May, just three days before the first of the big demonstrations marking the beginning of what is now known as the Chinese ‘May Fourth Movement’. This movement had been ignited by the Peace Treaty at Versailles where the Great Powers had agreed to transfer the former German treaty rights in Shandong peninsula to Japan, and the Chinese delegation had been cajoled into signing. The movement quickly evolved into a nationwide boycott against Japanese goods. The hostile feelings against Japan ran high both in China and among the Chinese students studying in Japan. Mei Lanfang went to Japan in the midst of this brewing storm, and against the advice of many. With him, Peking opera made its first visit abroad. Previous studies, especially Chinese studies, on Mei Lanfang have barely touched on this visit, while his later visits to the USSR and the United States have received some attention.12 One of the reasons is certainly the question of the timing of the visit. It came during what has been cast as one of the most shameful humiliations in modern Chinese history together with an appropriately glorified movement of protest against Imperial Japan and its Chinese retainers. A Chinese male actor of female roles performing on the stage of a country that was in the process of humiliating his own country gives

12) There is, however, some Japanese scholarship on his visit, for example Itô Yutakahiko, ‘Issen kyuhyaku jyu kyu nen to issen kyuhyaku nijyu yon nen Mei lanfang rainichi kôen ni tsuite’(StudyonMeiLanfang’s1919 and 1924 visit to and public performance in Japan), in Naka senswei koki kinen rombunshu,Vol.20 (2001), pp. 669–698.ForstudiesonMei’s US visit, see Mark Cosdon, ‘Introducing Occidentals to an exotic art: Mei Lanfang in New York’, Asian Theater Journal,Vol.12,No.1 (Spring, 1995); Joshua Goldstein, ‘Mei Lanfang and the nationalization of Peking Opera, 1912–1930’, Positions,Vol.7,No.2 (Fall, 1999), pp. 377–420. For Mei’s visit to the USSR see Lars Kleberg, ‘The sorcerer’s apprentices’ (a ﬁctional account of Mei’s impact on Soviet theatre), in his Starfall: A Triptych (Evanston, IL: Hydra Books, Northwestern University Press, 1997), pp. 24–49. 2007039. EJEAS 6.1. Proef 2. 4-6-2007:14.28, page 85.

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

an unspeakably complex twist to the story. Against this backdrop, his very rise to international stardom would have been exposed to troublesome questions. Given the highly official and highly iconic stature of Mei in the PRC, Chinese authors were reluctant to take this risk. What then was the Peking opera that Mei Lanfang and his cultural advisers wanted the Japanese to see, and what did the Japanese end up seeing? According to Qi Rushan, who helped plan and organise the Japan tour, Mei’s visit to Japan was not just an affair concerning Mei Lanfang and his international stature, but a ‘coming out’ of Peking opera altogether. As a consequence, the programme conceived by Qi Rushan mostly contained operas from the traditional repertoire. From his preparatory list we know that only five of the 21 pieces proposed were new dramas.13 Among them the traditional pieces are represented by:

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

13) Qi Rushan, Qi Rushan huiyi lu,pp.123–124. 2007039. EJEAS 6.1. Proef 2. 4-6-2007:14.28, page 86.

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Fig. 10. Mei Lanfang performing in Gold Mountain Te m p l e [The Legend of the White Snake](Jin shan si)

And the new opera is represented by:

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

The Chinese proposal for the planned programme is represented in Figures 9– 11. In Figure 9,14 Mulan, the Disguised Warrior Maiden (Mulan cong jun)with Mei in the role of Mulan, the emphasis is on the maiden’s martial spirit shown through her wish to serve in the army in lieu of her father. Figure 10,15 Gold Mountain Temple (The Legend of the White Snake) (Jinshansi), is a

14) Murataka Karakô (ed.), Shina geki Mei Lanfang (Chinese Theatre and Mei Lanfang) (Tokyo: n.p., 1919), no pagination. 15) Mei Shaowu, Mei Lanfang,p.35. 2007039. EJEAS 6.1. Proef 2. 4-6-2007:14.28, page 87.

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

Kunqu piece that has been revived.16 Figure 11,17 The Drunken Beauty Guifei (Guifei zui jiu), shows another signature piece of Mei’s that emphasises facial expression and dance movements. The Heavenly Maiden Showering Flowers (Tiannu sanhua) (Figure 12)18 was initially rejected by Qi Rushan, the very man who helped create it, as a possible piece to be performed in Tokyo. The reason he gave was that it represented neither traditional Chinese culture nor Peking opera. The piece was created for the Chinese audience as part of a programme to modernise Peking opera.19 On the Japanese side, the selection was made under the direction of the scholar Fukuchi Nobuyo. Of the seven pieces he selected, three were newly written operas, but none of them were on Qi Rushan’s list. He also chose one piece from the Kunqu opera tradition, which was still loved and supported by the Chinese cultural elite and revived so as to insert some southern elegance and beauty into Peking opera; it was also an artistic form familiar to educated Japanese. Here is the list of what was performed at the Imperial Theatre:

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

16) Kun opera was once part of the Peking opera repertoire; however, by the early twentieth century very little was left of this tradition. 17) Mei Shaowu, Mei Lanfang,p.57. 18) Murataka Karakô, Shina geki Mei Lanfang, no pagination. 19) Qi Rushan, Qi Rushan huiyi lu,p.101. 2007039. EJEAS 6.1. Proef 2. 4-6-2007:14.28, page 88.

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

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

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

20) List compiled from ‘Mei Lanfang nianpu’ (Chronicle of Mei Lanfang’s life), in Zhongguo Mei Lanfang yanjiuhui and Mei Lanfang jinianguan (eds), Mei Lanfang yishu pinglun (Comments on the Art of Mei Lanfang) (Beijing: Zhongguo Xiju Chubanshe, 1990), pp. 750–758. 21) Murataka Karakô, Shina geki Mei Lanfang, no pagination. 22) Zhuan Zhujiu, Yang Youxin, Zhao Junhao and Pan Yihua (eds), Mei Lanfang (Mei Lanfang) (private printing, 1926), p. 95. 2007039. EJEAS 6.1. Proef 2. 4-6-2007:14.28, page 89.

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

to the moon to escape being captured by her tyrannical husband. For this piece, Mei and his supporters reinvented what might be called the historical costume. Rainbow Pass (Ni hong guan) (Figure 15)23 is a piece about comprised morality, where the widow of a warrior fights the man who killed her husband only to fall in love with him on the battlefield, for which she is in turn despised by her opponent. It is interesting that the Chinese should have suggested this piece to their Japanese host, since it had the potential to compromise the image of China vis-à-vis Japan in a major way. Let us have a closer look at the options chosen and the options rejected. First, the image: Qi Ruanshan’s image of China is that of a cultural China. This is conveyed by representing China as a country with a rich traditional culture infused with sophistication and refinement. This image was constructed, however, at a time when the Chinese state was extremely weak and its identity shaky. In response, Qi Rushan chose to stress China’s cultural essence rather than its current political profile. This emphasis on culture was defensive. It reacted to the perceived political weakness and instability of the

23) Murataka Karakô, Shina geki Mei Lanfang, no pagination. 2007039. EJEAS 6.1. Proef 2. 4-6-2007:14.28, page 90.

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

Chinese state by playing down the political factor. The Japanese side went along with the emphasis on cultural China, but the differences show in the selection of the female roles. The new operas chosen by the Japanese all emphasise the new female roles of huashan.Thehuashan role was a new creation during the 1910s. It combined elements from all three major dan roles: the morally upright qingyi (also known as qingshan), who excelled in singing; the sexy and coquettish huadan,whose strength was acting; and the martial dao-ma-dan, who specialised in dancing fighting scenes. This complex role with its extremely high and multifaceted requirements was a breakthrough in artistic terms; it allowed for the expression of a broad range of complex features and levels of expression. The cultural Chinese emerging from the programme is emblematised in the image of the new woman, xin nüxing. Chinese culture, it follows, is not only refined but 2007039. EJEAS 6.1. Proef 2. 4-6-2007:14.28, page 91.

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

also resilient, it is capable of renovation. For the Japanese public an old culture made a visit imbued with renewed energy and beauty. In the dan,theysaw the representation of a refined and sophisticated Chinese culture, which is also remarkably modern and up to date. In cultural terms this modernity brought a sense of renewal of the cultural affinity with China. But with this new modernised dan, the Japanese public also found a sensuous female China rather than a threatening or posturing male enemy. This choice must be seen in the context of the differences between Japanese gendered representations of nation and culture. Figure 16 shows a 1910 cartoon celebrating the annexation of Korea, with Japan as the male (represented by the first colonial governor General Terauchi) rolling back the mythical rock door allowing the eternal light of Japan as female (represented by the sun goddess Amaterasu Omikami) to shine on the suitably diminutive Korean people (Tokyo Puck, 1 September 1910).24

24) Reprinted by Ryukei¯ Shoten (Tokyo, 1996). 2007039. EJEAS 6.1. Proef 2. 4-6-2007:14.28, page 92.

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Fig. 16. Cartoon from Tokyo Puck, 1910

The art of a male posing as a female does not contain the imaginable and potentially upsetting confrontational posture. The role of female played by Mei Lanfang seems to suit the mood of Japanese society at the time. This was an acceptable proﬁle for China. The female China is the cultural China. The beautiful women played by Mei were a stark contrast to a China with anti- Japanese violence on the streets of the capital—a shamefully weak Chinese state, to boot. The Japanese selection excluded most of the pieces with spirited and even martial females of the wudan (martial female) type, including most prominently Mulan, the Disguised Warrior Maiden (Mulan cong jun)and[The Precious Sword Named] Yuzhou feng (Yuzhou feng). This selection emphasised beauty and sexuality. Seen in the historical and cultural context, this selection is a ﬁrst step in a series of transnational interactions in shaping the image of China through that of the dan. This was altogether a positive image, far from the ‘sick man of East Asia’ and the Boxer cartoons and ephemera. For the Japanese making 2007039. EJEAS 6.1. Proef 2. 4-6-2007:14.28, page 93.

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

Proposal and Selection of the American Programme Mei Lanfang’s visit to the USA in 1930 was an event of some historical dimensions. It was the first time Peking opera had been to the USA. For an art form that Western visitors to China had regularly decried as ‘cacophony’ accompanied by acrobatics and described as such in their reports, this was anything but an easy sell. Mei Lanfang and his advisors—above all again Qi Rushan—faced many apprehensions and obstacles, and it took them seven years to overcome the biggest hurdles and get this tour on the way. Finally, on 18 January 1930, Mei Lanfang embarked in Shanghai with his troupe and his advisers on the Empress of Canada for the United States. One of the main problems to be solved in the highly commercialised American theatre world was to generate sufficient interest and anticipation among the public to convince theatre owners that theatres would be sold out wherever Mei performed. Qi Rushan and his colleagues were surprisingly savvy in their assessment of the American market. The solution they found was photographs. During the three years prior to Mei’s visit, they spent 4,000 to 5,000 yuan on photographs of Mei Lanfang, which they sent to American newspapers and magazines. When Mei finally went on his tour, they took another 6,000 photographs of Mei in theatrical costumes. When we look at these photos, they have one central message: beauty—the beauty of Mei, the beauty of Peking opera. The other important question to be solved in preparation for Mei’s visit was the selection of a suitable programme for presentation before American audiences. After years of making inquiries among foreign visitors to China, a programme for the US tour was prepared. After the Japanese experience, this time the large majority were huashan operas, mostly written by Qi Rushan together with Mei Lanfang. Based on his familiarity with Western drama practices, Qi Rushan developed a thematical framework of categories such as myth, opera in historical costume and sentimental opera. As Kunqu plays fitted this framework much better, he brought in many elements from this tradition. In this sense, the new huashan Peking operas were a recreation of Chinese tradition inspired by Western theory. The Peking operas shown by Mei in the USA would have been considered exotic in Peking. 2007039. EJEAS 6.1. Proef 2. 4-6-2007:14.28, page 94.

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

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

25) Murataka Karakô, Shina geki Mei Lanfang, no pagination. 26) A.C. Scott, Mei Lan-Fang: The Life and Times of a Peking Actor (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1959), p. 109. 27) Scott, Mei Lan-Fang,p.109. 2007039. EJEAS 6.1. Proef 2. 4-6-2007:14.28, page 95.

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

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

AsshowninFigures18 and 19,28 this Kapakas programme went for strong movements, body gestures, facial expressions, dance movements and plot lines. It emphasised the dramatic on the visual level, the aesthetics of movement, and scenes with intense visual content. It discarded from the old programme the subtle emotional opera in the Kunqu tradition with qing or devoted love at the centre. While these operas were appreciated by Chinese audiences, an opera of this type, Qingwen Tears the Fan, had been a failure in Washington. Also rejected was Mei Lanfang’s signature piece The Heavenly Maiden Showering Flowers. The producer felt American audiences had little interest in beauty for beauty’s sake.

28) Figure 18 from Mei Shaowu, Mei Lanfang,p.227;Figure19 from Boston Evening Transcript (month and date unclear) 1930. 2007039. EJEAS 6.1. Proef 2. 4-6-2007:14.28, page 96.

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

All the pieces in this programme brought forth a sense of vitality, and Mei Lanfang was able to match this emphasis in his acting. The composite image he created was that of beauty, tenacity and courage in a female heroine who could be loved and pitied in her tragic entanglements. This, in the words of an American critic at the time, was a woman of universal appeal.29 The image of China emerging from this programme is different from what Qi Rushan and Mei Lanfang had had in mind. Their soft female beauty is replaced by the dynamic figure representing a vibrant China in another startling departure from the general perception of China at the time. The power of this image, however, is inseparable from the awareness that this is a man impersonating a woman. What one sees is not what is there. The art of acting out the ‘artifice of femaleness’ and its power to conjure up recognition of something that is all art and has nothing of nature makes the

29) J. Brooks Atkinson, ‘China’s idol actor reveals his art; Mei Lan-Fang’s performance of exquisite loveliness in pantomime and costume’, Yesterday’s Times, 28 February 1930. 2007039. EJEAS 6.1. Proef 2. 4-6-2007:14.28, page 97.

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best dan acting into one of the purest forms of art. In a bow to the advent of photography, Mei Lanfang furthermore interlaced the ﬂow of movement with carefully crafted frozen poses. This again reshaped the image of the dan and the art of Mei Lanfang that inspired Thornton Wilder to write his play Our Town by adopting the Chinese empty stage, a ‘symbolic’ style of movements and gestures, and the use of imagined objects and spaces.30 As some of the critics declared at the time, the vitality evoked by Mei’s art challenged the prevailing ‘humdrum realism’.31

Socialist Realism and the Art of the Female Impersonator Mei Lanfang performed in the Soviet Union in 1935 on the invitation of Tretyakov, the author of Roar China and other reportage works on revolutionary China. After the October Revolution, China was greeted by the USSR as an ally and a country that had chosen the path of anti-colonial struggle. The visit was a great success. There was much talk about Mei’s acting, and all the major artists, directors, critics and theoreticians associated with the Communist movement and residing in Moscow at the time showed up to court him. They included the film director Eisenstein, theatre directors Stanislavski and Meyerbeer, and the German dramatist Bertolt Brecht.32 We only know the programme Mei Lanfang performed in Moscow, not the negotiations that led to its formulation. The image of China emerging out of this programme was that of an oppressed people in the figure of a powerless yet strong female. She struggles against great odds with intelligence, tenacity and wit. Beside pieces also performed in Japan and the USA such as The Drunken Beauty Guifei, Rainbow Pass, the choice of Yuzhou feng ([The Precious Sword Named] Yuzhou feng) (Figure 20)33 is of great significance. It had been rejected by both the Japanese and US organisers, and the focus is not on beauty. When forced to become the concubine of the emperor after he had executed her husband on false charges, the heroine pretends to have gone mad. To make things even less palatable, the entire scenario of execution

30) See Xiaomei Chen, ‘Wilder, Mei Lanfang, and Huang Zuolin—a “suggestive theater” revisited’, in her Occidentalism: A Theory of Counter-Discourse in Post-Mao China (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littleﬁeld, 2002), pp. 105–120. 31) John Mason Brown, ‘Mei Lan-Fang presents Chinese plays’, New York Evening Post, 18 February 1930,p.12. 32) Lars Kleberg, The sorcerer’s apprentices,pp.24–49. 33) Scott, Mei Lan-Fang,p.110. 2007039. EJEAS 6.1. Proef 2. 4-6-2007:14.28, page 98.

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

and concubinage had been cooked up by her father, who was the emperor’s prime minister. It is a highly disturbing piece with an upsetting challenge to authority. The mad woman trashes the emperor’s court and tears out some of his beard as he tries to approach her. The emphasis of the piece is not on beauty, and photographs highlight this. The contrast to the soft and graceful figure in the Japan programme and the lively female figure in the high drama of the US programme could not have been starker. The Soviet programme reconfirmed China’s place in the international political arena as that of a fighter who, while weak in strength, will still depend on her own means and fight for justice. It is the image not so much of the Chinese state but of its people; it confirms the rebellious spirit of the oppressed people, along the same lines as the message in Roar China. WiththisviewofChina,Mei’sartwasreceivedasaculturalheritage belonging to the people. This contextualisation opened a considerable freedom of interpretation for the Soviet cultural elite. From the reconstruction by Lars Kleberg of the various reactions and discussions held in Moscow, we learn that 2007039. EJEAS 6.1. Proef 2. 4-6-2007:14.28, page 99.

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every participant interpreted Mei Lanfang’s art in his own terms and for his own needs.34 Chinese theatre was declared to be for the entertainment of the entire people rather than for the elite; to be a theatre of agitation; to have a stage language of symbolical action that was almost no longer in need of words; and to have a female impersonator representing the ‘signs’ of femininity rather than being a woman. Stanislavsky considered Mei a great realistic actor. Eisenstein saw an abstract mode of expression. And Brecht discovered its ‘alienation eﬀect’ as a panacea to counteract realistic acting in Stanislavsky’s vein. At the time socialist realism was just being formulated, so some went as far as to claim that Mei’s art ‘deepens realism against various decadent strains with connection to the Fascist contagion’.35 The Moscow crowd were trying hard to deal with Mei’s performing art as art, but the politics of the day were very much part of the discussion. In their quest for modernism, the fact that Mei was a man playing a woman was read as an opposition to the bourgeois establishment.

Image Construction: The Desirable Image of China Whenwecomparetheprogrammesthatwereputonstageinthethreecountries toured by Mei Lanfang, the profiles of China are rather distinct. Among all the operas taken abroad, only one was selected by all three countries, namely The Drunken Beauty Guifei (Figure 21).36 In a sense this was an image of China that was most uncontested. In the persona of the drunken beauty there is a sense of regret and rebellion—she gets drunk in reaction to the news that the emperor has gone elsewhere for his enjoyment. It is meant to represent a woman’s heart breaking when waiting to be appreciated by the man, the representative of power. It is a scene of extreme beauty, full of expression and movements. As it is without much dialogue, the piece relies on its theatricality for communication, which lends it universality. A comparison of the pieces selected by only one country and rejected by the others might highlight the particular image of China the responsible groups in each of them wanted to convey. In the case of Japan these are The Heavenly Maiden Showering Flowers,[Lin] Daiyu Burying the Flowers and The Pavilion of Royal Monument. The first two are new operas experimenting with fictional scenes from a Buddhist sutra (Vimalakirtinirdesa) and a novel (The Dream of

34) Lars Kleberg, The sorcerer’s apprentices,pp.26–49. 35) Lars Kleberg, The sorcerer’s apprentices,p.26. 36) Mei Shaowu, Mei Lanfang,p.88. 2007039. EJEAS 6.1. Proef 2. 4-6-2007:14.28, page 100.

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

the Red Chamber). The female protagonist in the first piece is meant to stand for devotion, refinement and virtue. The dramatic potential of her taunting the ‘senior disciple’ Sariputra for his pompous attachment to the formalities of discipline and doctrine is not exploited. The second is a lament on the quick passing of the youth of flowers, a standard trope for girls. The third is the story of Meng Yuehua seeking shelter from a downpour in a pavilion where she finds a young man already present. She is impressed by the honesty of the young man, who turns out to be a scholar like her own husband. This husband, however, divorces her in the belief that they are having an affair. The young man comes to Meng’s aid and declares her innocent. The husband regrets his action and asks for her forgiveness. While the piece highlights Meng’s virtue, its focus is on the scene of the two young people alone in the pavilion, which of course is full of sexual tension. The choices emphasise the fresh and the new, together with the refinement of traditional culture. Kapakas’s choices for the Broadway venue, The Concubine Bids Farewell to the King of Chu and At the Bend of the Fen River, were both tragedies. In the first piece, the king’s concubine wishes to relieve him of the burden of having to care for her in a moment of utmost military challenge and dances a sad yet 2007039. EJEAS 6.1. Proef 2. 4-6-2007:14.28, page 101.

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valiant sword dance that leads to her suicide. The second piece tells the story of General Xue Rengui returning home after many years of service and killing his young son by mistake. The piece focuses on the meeting between the wife and the husband as they try to deal with the immensity of this tragedy. These choices emphasises dramatic and dynamic features. The two pieces selected for performances in the USSR were [The Precious Sword Named] Yuzhou feng and Mulan, the Disguised Warrior Maiden.The choice is clearly based on the fighting image of the female, with the first piece representing class struggle against the (corrupted) emperor and the second piece depicting a female warrior fighting on the front line, defending her country side by side with men. The arguments are confirmed if the pieces rejected by the responsible groups in the respective countries are studied. We will here only point out the obvious. For Japan, the rejection of Mulan, the Disguised Warrior Maiden points to the unwillingness of Mei’s host in Japan to deal with the issue of China resisting outside invasion. The American audience did not like Qingwen Tears the Fan, and on this basis Kapakas threw out all new operas as sentimental and representing literati emotions with little stage appeal. The USSR selection also rejected all the new pieces, but also threw out all the dance pieces. Pieces that just showed dazzling beauty did not interest them. All three rejected pieces emphasising pure sensuality without much content, such as The Luo River Goddess (Luo shen)orA Nun Yearning for a Life in the World (Nigu sifan). In the process of selecting a programme for their own audience, the organisers of the programme in each country brought their particular image of China into play and found themselves amply confirmed in the enthusiastic applause of their audiences.

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

37) Ayako Kano, Acting Like a Woman in Japan: Theater, Gender, and Nationalism (New York: Palgrave, 2001). 2007039. EJEAS 6.1. Proef 2. 4-6-2007:14.28, page 102.

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the Meiji reforms, because a theatre with real female actresses was now seen as a sign of Japan being a civilised nation. The dan in many ways stood for China’s vulnerability and dilemmas in the face of the challenges of modernisation. The genius of Mei Lanfang allowed the audiences to sense in each of his elegant movements and gestures the sediments of a great civilisation. These cultural and aesthetic perceptions allowed them to interpret China seemingly free of politics. Yet what they did see on stage was a Chinese culture that had been radically reworked. Under the agenda to get Peking opera accepted as part of the world cultural heritage, the performance given to foreign audiences had fundamentally transformed Peking opera from being primarily a singing art to a dramatic art with strong facial expression and an intense psychological interpretation of the characters. Through the strong input by the host countries in the selection of the pieces and the appreciation of the audiences, the image of China that emerged corresponded to what each audience wanted China to be and to what it thought about its future. The role of the Chinese actors and advisors was not a passive one. From the list of countries they chose to visit, a ranking on an international geo-political map is evident. Mei had wanted to perform in Europe, but that plan never materialised. The three countries that did invite him saw Mei’s visit as more a diplomatic than a theatrical event. In all three cases international politics was very much part of the picture. From the programme prepared by the Chinese side, we see the interests and reactions they were anticipating from audiences in diﬀerent foreign countries towards a cultural image of China on stage. The fact that Mei Lanfang succeeded in all three countries signals the desire on the part of the host country to interpret China in such a way that it would come out positive, and the willingness on the Chinese side to adjust to these expectations. In the process, both also participated in the rise of the dan and helped transform his art.