After Greece and India, but before Japan's Noh theater and well before Europe's Renaissance theater, we find an important theater form in China: the zaju or "comedy". This form suddenly appeared in the middle of the 13th century (based on previous pantomime, acrobatics, comic sketches, shadow plays, etc). Traditionally, the creation of the genre has been attributed to playwright Guan Hanqing (c. 1245-1322). The most important authors of the second half of the 13th century were active in Northern China, especially in Dadu (present-day Beijing). From the first half of the 14th century, authors are mainly from Hangzhou and the surrounding area. About 160 pieces are attributed to Yuan authors by modern scholars, but of these only 30 have been preserved in contemporary Yuan editions. After the founding of the Ming dynasty, the comedy enjoyed the special favor of the court, and we know the vast majority of the zaju pieces from late 16th and early 17th century editions, almost all of which are based on texts that were used for performances at the Ming imperial court. The question is to what extent these texts still represent the authentic plays.
[A modern reconstruction of a mural depicting the Yuan zaju stage c. 1324. The original was found in the Guangsheng Temple of Shanxi province.]
China's political domination by a small group of foreigners is often credited as explaining the sudden rise of the comedy. In 1127 the Jurchen people (proto-Manchus) conquered China north of the Yangzi, establishing the Jin dynasty; the Jin dynasty fell to the Mongols in 1234, who in 1278 conquered the whole of China and set up the Yuan dynasty (until 1368, when the native Chinese Ming dynasty took over). The way to high office was hereby cut off for Chinese intellectuals (many among them anyhow didn't want to serve under a foreign dynasty); under the Yuan, even the state exams were abolished. So the cultured elite turned inward and many of them became "recluses", who sought other occupations - and some found those in the writing of zaju plays (something which in normal times would not have been proper).
Themes of zaju consist of:
- the settlement of a crime and its ultimate trial
- love stories (between a student and a courtesan or girl of good family)
- historical pieces, for example based on the story cycle of "The Three Kingdoms"
- Daoist redemption pieces.
Music and song were used in all known Chinese theater forms, although new music was not usually composed for a new play - existing melodies were used. Characteristic for zaju is that the singing was limited to 4 long suites, naturally dividing the play into 4 acts, all of which were sung by one actor. One or two "wedges" could also be added to the suites, for example at the beginning. The roles in zaju were divided over a small number of types: the man, the woman, the knave, the official, the extra and the child. Only the role of the man or woman was allowed to sing (but role switching between acts was possible). All roles could be played by both men and women.
Guan Hanqing was by far the most prolific of Yuan playwrights, writing 67 plays, including some of the most popular in his time - 18 of his plays are extant.
The Injustice to Dou E (a.k.a. Snow in Midsummer) is Guan Hanqing's most famous play. It tells how a child bride turned widow, Dou E, is wrongly convicted of crimes by
a corrupt court official for actions perpetrated by a rejected suitor,
"Donkey Zhang".
Dou E's father, a widower, has borrowed money from Madam Cai, a money lender, in order to obtain funds to take his State Exam in the capital. When he can't repay the money, he barters his young daughter, who then becomes the wife of the son of Madam Cai. That son dies soon after the marriage, but the two widows continue living together. One day, Madam Cai is attacked by a crooked physician, but saved by Father Zhang and his son Donkey. As recompense they demand that Madam Cai marries the father, and Dou E the son. However, Dou E refuses - she wants to remain chaste to the memory of her deceased husband. Donkey, who is an evildoer, plots to kill Madam Cai with poison so that he can force Dou E into a marriage, but his father by mistake drinks the poison and dies. Donkey Zhang then accuses Dou E of murder in a court of law presided over by corrupt officials. Dou E confesses to save her elderly mother-in-law from torture and she is executed. Before dying, she makes three oaths: heaven will reveal that she was unjustly executed when her blood flies upward; when snow falls in midsummer to cover her corpse; and when a 3 year long drought strikes. After her execution, these three prophesied phenomena indeed occur to prove her
innocence. After a visit from the ghost of Dou E, her father
(now a high official) eventually brings the corrupt court magistrate and Donkey Zhang to
justice, thereby vindicating his daughter. Today, the phrase "snow in June" is still widely used among Chinese
speakers as a metaphor for a miscarriage of justice.
In traditional China, as in many other places around the world, there was no independent judiciary. The law was owned by the powerful and wealthy (as is mentioned time and again in a novel like Water Margin), and corrupt judges rode roughshod over the "little people." Dou E could only hope for posthumous redemption. The force of injustice is magnified here by the powerless position of women. Moreover, the justice system was the opposite from what it is today in most countries: suspects were considered as guilty until they had themselves proven their innocence! In order to obtain confessions torture and caning were common, also in the case of light crimes or crimes by women. Prison was not a a form punishment, but suspects were of course locked up when awaiting trial.
Courtroom dramas were popular in the zaju of the Yuan dynasty. Exactly because true justice was difficult to find, wise and incorrupt judges as Judge Bao or Di Renjie (made famous in the west by Robert van Gulik's Judge Dee mysteries) became very popular in Chinese fiction, not only in Yuan zaju, but also in novels of the Ming and Qing periods. Another well-known courtroom play by Guan Hanqing is Rescriptor-in-Waiting Bao Thrice Investigates the Butterfly Dream (translated by West & Idema, see below) - and here we see that even a "wise judge" as Bao Zheng more or less automatically applied torture to the suspects who arrived in his courtroom.
Translations of Injustice to Dou E can be found in:
Monks, Bandits, Lovers and Immortals, Eleven Early Chinese Plays, edited and translated, with an introduction, by Stephen H. West and Wilt L. Idema (Hackett, 2010). An excellent scholarly translation.
Selected Plays of Guan Hanqing, tr. Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang (1958, still available at Amazon for Kindle)
About Chinese drama, see: A History of Chinese Drama, by William Dolby (London, 1976).
Illustrations from Wikipedia.
Greatest Plays of All Time