Excerpts

The Birthday Celebration

A piece deriving from the Monk Mulian Series and the folk legend Stealing the Peaches the Third Time. The Eight Immortals, the Heavenly Official, the Three Gods – Good Fortune, Prosperity and Longevity – wishing the Queen Mother of Heaven an auspicious birthday. She would reply with auspicious words, which auger well for the well-being and good fortune of the people.

Now that the peaches are ripe, the Queen Mother of Heaven has her personal guard keep watch over them. The guard falls asleep and Dongfang Shuo manages to steal several peaches. The Queen Mother orders General Yue Fei and his son to lead a celestial army to catch the thief. When caught, Dongfang Shuo explains why he has stolen the peaches. Yue Fei takes him back to the celestial court. Once he sees the Queen Mother, Dongfang Shuo uses his eloquence to wish her an auspicious birthday with peach imagery. The Queen Mother’s wrath turns to delight. She exonerates his crime and even endows upon him with gifts.

Cast: Wang Yili, Tian Min, Yu Zhenjie

The Last Emperor of Ming’s Suicide from Tie Guan Tu

Tie Guan Tu is a traditional repertory. Only six episodes are extant, as memorized and written down by Zhao Peisheng, an old artist of the genre. Among the six, Dissolving the Royal Family and On Mei Hill are vastly different from the versions found in the collection of plays from Chinese traditional theatre published in the Qing period. The masterly stunt of ‘rolling over and kicking off the boots’, performed by veteran artists of previous generations and which has almost disappeared from the stage, is revived by Wang Ying on this occasion. The sung passage shows the devastation of the last emperor of Ming in his last moments and is deeply moving.

When Li Zicheng takes the City of Beijing, Ming emperor Chongzhen escapes to Mei Hill. When he reaches the Pavilion of Longevity, he sees he has no route of escape. He writes with his own blood a note which reads “I was blessed with a mandate from heaven which bestowed honour and prosperity for seventeen years. I am not a bad ruler but the villains have betrayed the country. I take off my crown and loosen my hair; I’ll hang myself. My death shall be anonymous, and my people shall not mourn me.” He then takes his own life.

Cast: Wang Ying

Ghost of a Woman Who Hangs Herself, Ghost of a Man Who Hangs Himself, The Righteous Messenger of Death from The Monk Mulian Series

The playlets on the theme of Monk Mulian saving his mother from hell in the diaoqiang repertory number 168. It took three days and nights non-stop to have them all performed in one go. This is a regular choice for performance at temple fairs during the Ghost Festival to appease the spirits. The story of Ghost of a Woman Who Hangs Herself is about a young woman called Jade Hibiscus who killed herself when forced into prostitution, and twenty years later, returning to the mortal world to find a substitute so she can be incarnated. In Ghost of a Man Who Hangs Himself, the actor needs to perform various aerial acrobatics using a length of white silk. The Righteous Messenger of Death can always win the audience’s hearty approval with its dramatic contrasts within one short play.

Cast: Wang Jiayu, Xie Richao, Tian Min, Chen Xudong

Excerpts:

A Visit to the Temple and An Invitation to Zhang the Scholar from The Story of the West Chamber (Northern repertory)

There are two versions of The Story of the West Chamber – the earlier one by Wang Shifu (1260-1336) of the Yuan Dynasty, later referred to as ‘Northern repertory’. Diaoqiang is the only regional genre that has retained four excerpts from Wang’s version. The original manuscripts and scores are extant in the main. The role of Monk Facong gains more significance in the diaoqiang version than in Wang’s original, therefore emphasizing the comic touch. The diaoqiang broke the tradition of zaju of Yuan in that the singing was done by the actors in their respective roles, unlike zaju in which only one actor would sing throughout, which lends reason to the plot development.

In A Visit to the Temple, the scholar Zhang Gong encounters Cui Yingying in Pujiu Temple, where they fall in love at first sight. With the help of Yingying’s maid Hongniang, the couple finds true love. An Invitation to Zhang the Scholar narrates how Hongniang invites Zhang for a visit at the residence on the orders of Lady Cui, portraying Hongniang’s quick wit and liveliness as well as Zhang’s flair and elan.

Cast: Shi Linqin, Zhang Yinping, Chen Xudong

Autumn River from The Story of the Jade Hairpin

One of the zhuanqi plays interpreted in the diaoqiang. In this version the part originally played by the abbess of the nunnery, is played by the boatman, whose comical treatment adds hilarity to the situation. There are over a dozen set tunes in the medley. The overlapping segments during the singing make a unique feature to diaoqiang.

Scholar Pan Bizheng has been unsuccessful in the civil service examination. He goes to visit his aunt and lodges there temporarily. One day, a young nun named Chen Miaochang plays the lute, and Pan seduces her with a response on the same instrument. The two fall in love. The abbess finds out and urges Pan to re-take the examination. Miaochang hurries to the Autumn River, hires a boat and goes after Pan in hot pursuit.

Cast: Ying Yue, Pan Haojun

Killing Yan Poxi from The Water Margin

The Water Margin was first written for the stage by Xu Zichang (1578—1623) of the Ming period. The diaoqiang version that has been passed down has a history of over four hundred years. Killing Yan Poxi is the climax of the entire story. Many performing techniques such as mime and ‘wiping the forehead’ are used for character portrayal.

Chao Gai, one of the sworn brothers of the Water Margin, orders Liu Tang to recruit Song Jiang of Yuncheng with gifts of gold. That night, Song is invited to spend the night with his concubine Yan Poxi at the Black Dragon Residence. The two have no rapport and pretend to be asleep all through the night. The next morning, Song leaves the brothel in haste, and in the confusion leaves behind in the chamber the bag containing Chao’s recruitment letter and the gold ingot. Yan Poxi finds the letter and threatens to expose Song in court. Song is forced into a corner and kills her.

Cast: Wang Ying, Liang Jingna

The Farewell on the Bridge from Autumn in the Han Palace

This play was written by Ma Zhiyuan (1250-1321), the preeminent poet and playwright of the Yuan Dynasty. The two excerpts conserved in the diaoqiang repertory were manuscript records of an orally told version by Zhu Caixing in the early 20^th Century. A Farewell Banquet features a sung monologue by the actor playing the Han Emperor which runs throughout the playlet, with a particularly moving passage.

Autumn in the Palace tells the story of Lady Wang Zhaojun who is forced by circumstances to enter into a political marriage with the Xiongnu prince, Chanyu, to maintain peace between the two nations. In The Farewell on the Bridge, the Chanyu chief of Xiongnu, intoxicated by Zhaojun’s beauty, stations his army along the border and sends an envoy to ask for Zhaojun’s hand. With the courtiers at a loss and a weak military, Emperor Yuan of Han cannot but agree to marry his beloved Zhaojun off and bids a farewell at the bridge.

Cast: Wang Ying

Stealing the Poem from The Story of the Jade Hairpin

The first libretto of this excerpt was by Gao Lian (1573-1620) of Ming, which consisted of dialogues between the two protagonists during the probing and testing process of a budding amour. Later a lot of lines and repeated sung passages were added to Chen’s part before returning to the main sung passage. Such a mixture exemplifies the uniqueness of the Yuyaoqiang in Southern Theatre.

Taoist nun Chen Miaochang is moved by scholar Pan Bizheng’s music on the lute. But being a nun, she dares not make known her true feeling, and so writes a poem to speak her mind. While she is dozing off, Pan steals a look at the poem. Miaochang thus opens up her heart and the two tie the knot.

Cast: Zhang Yinping, Shi Linqin

Turning Down the Offer of Gold and Resigning from His Position, Taking the Robe with His Spear on the Bridge and The Killing of Bian Xi from Guan Yu Travelling Alone for Thousands of Miles

This is taken from the traditional repertory of diaoqiang, and its history can be traced back to more than five centuries. Typical of the forthright, robust and masculine charm of theatre of northern China, the work was orally passed down by old artists. In traditional Chinese theatre, Cao Cao is often depicted as an evil man and the actor needs to paint his face white to suggest this. But the diaoqiang version has the actor in a handsome old man look. In The Killing of Bian Xi, this becomes a monologue conducted by Monk Pujing, who sings, dances, and plays the duo role of Guan Yu on horseback and the monk walking on firm ground. The comic touch is reminiscent of the ‘army plays’ of the Tang and Song period.

This is a story based on the Three Kingdoms Saga. When Cao Cao attacks Xuzhou, the three sworn brothers Liu Bei, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei lose contact with one another. Guan, who is guarding Liu’s wives Lady Mi and Lady Gan, agrees to serve Cao at Xudu on condition that they will only submit to the Han but not the Cao court, and will leave once news of the others arrives. Cao treats him with extreme cordiality, offering him gold and silver, and the title of marquis conferred by the emperor. Later Guan learns that Liu and Zhang are at the old city. He immediately escorts the two ladies to find Liu, turning down the offer of gold and resigning from his position. Cao, together with Zhang Liao and Xu Zhu, hurry to Baling Bridge to bid him farewell. During his escape, Guan crashes through the three obstacles, kills Bian Xi, and makes his way out.

Cast: Wang Ying, Pan Yuejun