Storming the Fortress of the Peking Opera

STORMING THE FORTRESS OF THE PEKING OPERA AMONG THE EARTH'S MANY FORMS OF THEATRICAL ART, the Chinese opera was considered to be one of the most artistically perfect expressions of a national culture on the world stage. It is difficult to date the origin of the art. The emperor Ming Huang of the T'ang dynasty established a school for actors on his palace grounds, and the students came to be known as "The Emperor's Pear Garden Pupils." However, the present form of dramatic production is often ascribed to the Sung dynasty (960-1279 A.D.). As the art evolved, actors were required to spend years mastering Chinese opera's special combination of mime, acrobatics, and singing. Interestingly enough, in 1777 the Manchu dynasty created a theatrical bureau in Yangchow which banished from the opera certain undesirable themes and encouraged works teaching obedience to parents, to authority, and to destiny.1 There are many forms of opera in China, but the Peking Opera has become the best known to the West. In its old forms, much was left to the viewer's imagination, for there was no scenery, and the staging of every song and scene was stereotyped, even sacrosanct. To change the least movement in classical roles was to invite hoots from an audience which knew exactly how it should be done. Confucian ideals of respect for learning and filial piety permeated the old opera. Many plots dealt with mythical characters from the rich treasury of eastern lore, such as "Uproar in Heaven," where the Monkey Sung Wu-kung fought the gods of thunder and lightning. Roles depicting languorous, richly-robed and bejewelled imperial mistresses, such "The Drunken Beauty," had brought world fame to the great actor Mei Lan-FangjO who specialized in female parts. The opera was an established part of Chinese life, as much as Shakespeare to the English or the ballets of Tchaikovsky to the Russians, but never admitting the wide latitude of interpretation afforded now to Hamlets and Swan Princesses. In recent times China itself has been a vast stage in front of a world audience which sits in awe as gripping drama unfolds behind its closed curtains. The din of armed revolt is punctuated by news releases where yesterday'S potentates have become today's "ghosts and monsters." Most strangely, however, as the curtain begins to rise a bit, as certain accusations grow less Aesopian and more concrete, more complex plots come into focus. Within the drama, it becomes ap1 Claude, Roy, L'Opera de Pekin (Paris: Editions Cercle d'Art, 1955), p. 65. 111 112 MODERN DRAMA September parent that the Peking Opera itself has been part of a noteworthy dramatis personae including Mao Tse-tung and Comrade ChiangChing , his wife, with Lin Piao and Liu Shao-chi the classic rivals for the throne. Thousands of screaming Red Guards form the tragic chorus, lifting high their red books of Mao's Quotations, in one accord sounding portents that the East Wind will prevail over the West Wind. Early in his career, under Soviet tutelage Mao Tse-tung gained an appreciation of the power of art as a propaganda weapon. He viewed and commented upon a work performed by the Yenan Peking Opera in 1944, called "Driven to Join the Liangshan Mountain Rebels." A letter to the cast expressed his appreciation, as he said: History is made by the people, yet the old opera (and all the old literature and art, which are divorced from the people) presents the people as though they were dirt, and the stage is dominated by lords and ladies and their pampered sons and daughters. Now you have reversed this revearsal of history and restored historical truth, and thus a new life is opening up for the old opera. That is why this merits congratulations. The initiative you have taken marks an epoch-making beginning in the revolutionization of the old opera. I am very happy at the thought of this. I hope you will write more plays and give more performances, and so help make this practice a common one which will prevail throughout the country.2 As the Communist regime became entrenched in China, there...