Scenes for Mandarins: The Elite Theater of the Ming (review)

364 China Review International: Vol. 3, No. 2, Fall 1996 Cyril Birch. Scenesfor Mandarins: The Elite Theater ofthe Ming. Translations from the Asian Classics. New York: Columbia University Press, 1995. 256 pp. Hardcover $35.00, isbn: 0-231-10262-3. The field of Ming-dynasty drama, especially the aristocratic Kunqu, or what Cyril Birch calls "the elite theater of the Ming," has attracted some good studies in recent years. Yet this field remains one of greater interest and importance than the attention that it has received would suggest. Birch's new book is very special because of the way the subject is handled, the style in which it has been written, and the author-translator's mastery ofboth Ming theater in particular and Chinese literature as a whole. The book begins with a brief explanation ofits content, including an introduction to the place of the theater among the official classes during the Ming dynasty (1368-1644). Rather than simply offer an analytical description ofthe topic, the author addresses the reader as though he/she were a fellow mandarin of the period invited to the birthday celebration of a provincial governor. This does not add depth to the coverage, but on the other hand neidier is it merely a simplistic narrative device. What this approach does do is to make the subject more interesting , even compelling, because it helps us really enter the world of the audience for whom the plays discussed here were primarily intended. The core of the book is the translations ofparticular scenes from late Mingdynasty Kunqu, together with extensive commentary on the literary qualities of the drama and some references to missing scenes and other features. Among the devices Birch uses to make the plays interesting is to draw up various versions based on particular characters that were very popular in the "elite theater of the Ming" and to show the different ways in which they were treated. The play that is given the most attention—it is provided a separate full translation here—is Tang Xianzu's The Peony Pavilion. This work is in the best tradition ofperiod romance and is one for which Birch has tremendous admiration. Not only does he regard it as "the crowning achievement" of Ming romance drama but he sees it as truly great in a philosophical sense, calling it Tang's "protracted meditation on the nature oflove" (p. 142). In the other plays, the weight is generally more on characterization than on philosophical statement. In the White Rabbitplays, for instance, Birch puts great emphasis on the scenes dominated by Sanniang (or Tertia as he translates this© 1996 by University name). Only passing mention is given to scenes in which Tertia is not the major ofHawai'iPressfigure. For this reader, the attention given to individual characters rather than to the play as a whole makes the book more readable, because it is easier to arouse a reader's sympathy for an individual person. Reviews 365 The female dimension ofthe Ming elite drama looms very large in this book. Birch tells us that "the virtuous but neglected wife . . . stands at center stage in practically every one ofthe earliest southern plays we know about" (p. 35). The dominant character is frequendy a pitiable woman widi a treacherous husband and wicked relations and who suffers a cruel fate. These plays ofcourse take the side of the woman, since it is the role of the dramatist in Chinese as in Western theater to arouse the sympathy ofthe audience for the sufferings ofthe principal protagonists. It is very striking that die dramatists, all ofwhom were men, should have taken such an attitude in a society that has a reputation, no doubt probablyjust, for having been extremely sexist. It is interesting also that the dramatists do not paint a more positive picture ofthe family as an institution. Most were trained to be Confucian in outiook, but Birch accepts the tradition that they could be "a Confucian at die office and a Daoist at home" (p. 11). Although this might go some way toward explaining why the plays are not more Confucian in their portrayal ofthe family, it is a point on which Birch could have elaborated with...