Western Kentucky University TopSCHOLAR® Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Honors College at WKU Projects 3-31-2017 Letters to Mei Lanfang Alexandra Dare Norman Western Kentucky University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/stu_hon_theses Part of the Chinese Studies Commons, Christianity Commons, Creative Writing Commons, Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, and the Performance Studies Commons Recommended Citation Norman, Alexandra Dare, "Letters to Mei Lanfang" (2017). Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects. Paper 675. http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/stu_hon_theses/675 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by TopSCHOLAR®. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors College Capstone Experience/ Thesis Projects by an authorized administrator of TopSCHOLAR®. For more information, please contact [email protected]. LETTERS TO MEI LANFANG A Capstone Experience/Thesis Project Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Bachelor of Fine Arts with Honors College Graduate Distinction at Western Kentucky University By Alexandra Dare Norman ***** Western Kentucky University 2017 CE/T Committee: Approved by Professor Michelle Dvoskin __________________________ Professor Shura Pollatsek Advisor Department of Theatre & Dance Professor Christopher Keller Copyright by Alexandra Dare Norman 2017 ABSTRACT As a male actor of female Dan characters, Mei Lanfang (1894-1961) is known throughout the world as the most representative performer of Chinese opera – particularly for his performance of Concubine Yu in the Peking opera Farewell My Concubine. A feminist analysis of his work in this opera reveals a series of assumptions about the definition of “Woman” in both theatre and life. This project is solo performance piece formatted in a series of open letters to Mei Lanfang, interspersed with personal stories investigating what it truly means to be a Woman – as an actor, a Christian, a feminist, a traveler, and a human being – in this increasingly globalized world. Keywords: Theatre, Feminism, Christianity, Mei Lanfang, Peking Opera, Solo Performance ii To Dori For completely understanding and for walking through the spider-webs first. ผมรักคุณ 我爱你 ♥ iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Perhaps an unintended side effect in the completion of any elaborate project is this overwhelming, humbling realization: I could never have accomplished any of this on my own. As early as 2011, I remember sitting in the office of Dr. Craig T. Cobane and hearing his promise that no dream was too big for the Western Kentucky University Honors College. This promise, to my amazement, would be confirmed again and again over the following five years. So my first thank you is to my family connected with the WKU Honors College and WKU Chinese Flagship Program, especially Dr. Melinda Grimsley-Smith, Dr. Jianjun He, Dr. Ching-Hsuan Wu, Sara Moody, Melinda Edgerton, Stephanie Hammons, Professor Yang Liu, Professor Tony Liang, Zhu Lin, my “surname sister” Meng Kanglei, and of course Dr. Craig T. Cobane, for the constant intellectual, spiritual, and financial support. A special thank-you goes as well to Dr. Jennifer Markin, my advisor, encourager, tissue-provider and friend at every stage. From my first fearful attempts in the Gordon Wilson Lab Theatre to my first increasingly confident moments in theatres around the world, the WKU Theatre [Ampersand] Dance Department has truly been to me yet another circle of family complete with hugs, dinosaur gummies, constructively-thrown shade, multiple over- turnings of the table, Don’t Make Things Harder accountability groups, a rich diversity of personal expression, and ultimately, a wild and inspiring creative environment. So, a iv ginormous group hug goes to my WKU Theatre & Dance department family: To my first reader Dr. Michelle Dvoskin, a huge thank you for both literal and figurative York mints, for sharing your time and your ideas and your cats, and for your unwavering faith in me. To my second reader Shura Pollatsek, thank you for putting me in sturdy golden slippers when I haven’t quite decided which direction I’m going but wherever it is I’m all “full speed ahead!” and then end up skidding face-down several feet across the stage. Thanks go also to Dr. David Young, Scott Stroot, Carol Jordan, Ellen Glatman, Meghen McKinley, Lindsey Eastman, Doris Patrick, Dr. Julie Lyn Barber, and Dr. Amelia Rollings for building a professional, welcoming environment for the development and staging of my ideas. Without my family, I’d have no foundation, much less stories to tell. So thank you, Mom, for spreading the world with joy, fun and the right amount of raspberry jelly. Thank you, Dad, for sharing with me your appreciation for literature, tea in fine china, and rose gardening. More than anything: thank you both for loving God, for living your faith and shining that light so my six-year-old heart, even my twenty-four-year-old heart, recognizes the truth. To my brother and sisters: you will always find the comic relief. Finally, I would like to thank that pioneer group of friends who stayed late one night to watch me perform Seven and A Story for the first time. Until that reading, I did not trust my work. I was scared, discouraged, and deeply convinced that I was an “imposter” about to be found out. But you stayed. You believed in me. In this, your perfect burst of confidence in a moment of frozen panic, I will forever draw warmth, strength, and hope. v VITA November 11, 1992............................................Born in Bedford, Virginia 2011....................................................................Bowling Green High School, Bowling Green, Kentucky 2012....................................................................Indiana University Flagship Chinese Institute, Summer 2012 Graduate 2012....................................................................China Educational Tours (CET) Intensive Chinese Language in Harbin, Fall 2012 Graduate 2013....................................................................Critical Language Scholarship, Summer 2013 Recipient (Qingdao, China) 2014....................................................................WKU International Faculty- Undergraduate Student Engagement Grant Recipient 2015.....................................................................Kentucky Honors Roundtable, Project Presentation 2016....................................................................Chinese Flagship Program: Capstone Year in Nanjing, China FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: Performance Art (Musical Theatre) vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract................................................................................................................................ii Dedication...........................................................................................................................iii Acknowledgements.............................................................................................................iv Vita......................................................................................................................................vi Chapters: 1. Forward............................................................................................................................1 2. Process Plot......................................................................................................................4 3. The Annotated Letters to Mei Lanfang..........................................................................13 4. Epilogue.........................................................................................................................30 5. Letter Eight: One Last Reflection..................................................................................37 Annotated Bibliography.....................................................................................................37 vii CHAPTER ONE ~ Forward ~ Dear Reader, Letters to Mei Lanfang was performed for the first time on December 9th, 2015. The Gordon Wilson Hall Lab Theatre was filled on one side of the thrust stage, teeming with peers already enthused after seeing a series of shorter solo works written and performed by my classmates. Those closest to me were not there; I want that to be remembered. Not as an accusation, nor as a whimper of self-pity, but rather as a testament to my freedom that night. Those people that were the true soul of my piece were present in the room only as the caricature my words framed them to be. In this way, I feel to some degree that my work is incomplete (for now). Reading this piece today fills me with a curious mixture of pride, empowerment, and embarrassment, especially after six weeks of allowing the pages to settle nicely in that file at the back of my mind. Much has changed in six weeks. I expect that’s a recurring theme in my life, and in everyone’s, really: change. So it is with a new set of lenses that I examine that moment and the words with which I filled it. I spoke that night of fear and of bravery, how the two are not mutually exclusive and, in fact, become stronger as the other persists. This tension was embodied in my very 1 willingness to speak. I spoke of femininity and the power of self-expression, but I also spoke of social value placement and the challenge of learning how to react. I spoke of complicated relationships – of love, loss, hurt, and the unexpected healing one can feel despite the reality that nothing