Kunqu Masters on Chinese Theatrical Performance

By Yip Siu Hing

Kunqu, recognized by UNESCO in 2001 as part of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, is among the oldest and most refined traditions of the family of genres known as xiqu (music-drama or “Chinese opera”). Today, the art form’s musical and performance traditions are being passed on by senior artists. This book consists of twelve explanatory narrations in English, selected and translated from among an expansive collective endeavour in Chinese. Each performer narration sheds light on the human processes that create and transmit celebrated pieces of theatre. Annotations place these narratives in historical, literary, discursive, and aesthetic contexts. Close critical attention reveals kunqu as a living and changing art form. Methodologically, this work breaks new ground by centering the performers’ perspective rather than the text, providing a complement and a challenge to performance analysis, and ideological, sociological, or plot-based perspectives on xiqu.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Anthem Press
• Release date: Sep 13, 2022
• ISBN: 9781785278099

Book preview

Kunqu Masters on Chinese

Theatrical Performance

"These engaging lectures by twelve kunqu masters furnish inside views of their creative process as they discuss a foundational play that features their role type. The introduction, annotations, and supporting materials are as comprehensive an introduction to kunqu as can be found in English and provide leads to existing resources in both Chinese and English."

— Catherine Swatek, University of British Columbia, Canada

The book is unique and valuable and provides understanding about lectures of very influential people to even the ordinary, interested readers.

— David Rolston, University of Michigan, USA

"These masters’ narratives of their lived experience offer readers a wealth of information on kunqu’s stage art, creative process, history, behind-the-curtain secrets, and pedagogy. Accentuating the practitioner’s voice and body, this book constitutes a significant contribution not only to kunqu studies but also to general theatre studies and theatre history."

— Xing Fan, University of Toronto, Canada

This book is a pleasure to read, engaging and witty.

— Cindy S.B. Ngai, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, China

"This wonderful book captures vanishing expertise of kunqu performance for anglophone readers through translations of lectures by master performers about their favourite scenes. The results are both worthy and highly entertaining. Lecturing about a scene called ‘The Stirring Zither,’ Wang Shiyu proves an utterly engaging storyteller. Wang’s lively and precise descriptions of key performance conventions uncover subtle subtextual meanings and lift opaque literary references off the page. Teasing out the details of psychological motivation, he renders the budding romance between a failed feudal scholar and a recalcitrant Taoist nun in delightfully relatable terms. Belying kunqu’s reputation for the strict convention, Liu Yilong’s discussion of the famous scene ‘Descending the Mountain’ offers a fascinating insight into how he transformed many ugly and lurid traditional performance elements into charming and beautiful ones. Rooted in detailed character analysis and clear-sighted assessment of contemporary audience expectations, he explains his development of a comically nuanced and sympathetic portrayal that has delighted audiences in China and abroad."

— Megan Evans, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand

Kunqu Masters on Chinese

Theatrical Performance

A translated and annotated selection from Masters’ Lectures on One Hundred Kunqu Scenes (Kunqu baizhong, dashi shuoxi 崑曲百種 大師說戲), texts originally created and compiled by Yip Siu Hing and the Masters’ Studio, and translated and annotated here by kind permission

Edited by Josh Stenberg

Translated by Josh Stenberg, Kim Hunter Gordon,

Guo Chao, and Anne Rebull

With the support of Wintergreen Kunqu Society and Chang Tong-Ching

Anthem Press

An imprint of Wimbledon Publishing Company

www.anthempress.com

This edition first published in UK and USA 2022

by ANTHEM PRESS

75–76 Blackfriars Road, London SE1 8HA, UK

or PO Box 9779, London SW19 7ZG, UK

and

244 Madison Ave #116, New York, NY 10016, USA

© 2022 Josh Stenberg editorial matter and selection;

individual chapters © individual contributors

The moral right of the authors has been asserted.

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A catalog record for this book has been requested.

ISBN-13: 978-1-78527-807-5 (Hbk)

ISBN-10: 1-78527-807-X (Hbk)

Cover credit: COLLECTION OF THE NATIONAL PALACE MUSEUM

A translated, edited and annotated selection of texts originally created and compiled by Yip Siu Hing and the Masters’ Studio.

This title is also available as an e-book.

CONTENTS

List of Figures

Foreword by Chang Tong-Ching

Preface and Acknowledgments

Notes on Translation

Abbreviations and Acronyms

List of Contributors

Introduction

Josh Stenberg

Lecture 1 Wang Shiyao, Enquiry of the Rat (Fangshu 訪鼠 ) from Fifteen Strings of Cash ( Shiwu guan 十五貫 )

Translated and annotated by Anne Rebull

Lecture 2 Wang Shiyu, The Stirring Zither (Qintiao 琴挑 ) from The Jade Hairpin ( Yuzan ji 玉簪記 )

Translated and annotated by Guo Chao

Lecture 3 Zhang Jiqing, The Mad Dream (Chimeng 癡夢 ) from Lanke Mountain ( Lanke shan 爛柯山 )

Translated and annotated by Josh Stenberg

Lecture 4 Liu Yilong, Descending the Mountain (Xiashan 下山 ) from Ocean of Sin ( Niehai ji 孽海記 )

Translated and annotated by Josh Stenberg

Lecture 5 Huang Xiaowu, The Tavern (Jiulou 酒樓 ) from The Palace of Lasting Life ( Changsheng dian 長生殿 )

Translated and annotated by Guo Chao

Lecture 6 Cai Zhengren, Instating the Statue, Lamenting the Statue (Yingxiang, Kuxiang 迎像哭像 ) from The Palace of Lasting Life ( Changsheng dian 長生殿 )

Translated and annotated by Kim Hunter Gordon

Lecture 7 Ji Zhenhua, Playing the Ballad (Tanci 彈詞 ) from The Palace of Lasting Life ( Changsheng dian 長生殿 )

Translated and annotated by Kim Hunter Gordon

Lecture 8 Hua Wenyi, The Stroll in the Garden (Youyuan 遊園 ) and The Dream Interrupted (Jingmeng 驚夢 ) from The Peony Pavilion ( Mudan ting 牡丹亭 )

Translated and annotated by Anne Rebull

Lecture 9 Hou Shaokui, Sword Meeting (Daohui 刀會 ) from Single Sword Meeting ( Dandaohui 單刀會 )

Translated and annotated by Guo Chao

Lecture 10 Fan Jixin, Writing the Accusation (Xie zhuang 寫狀 ) from Tale of the Mermaid Silk Handkerchief ( Jiaoxiao ji 鮫綃記 )

Translated and annotated by Kim Hunter Gordon

Lecture 11 Liang Guyin, The Tryst (Jiaqi 佳期 ) from The Western Chamber ( Xixiang ji 西廂記 )

Translated and annotated by Josh Stenberg

Lecture 12 Yue Meiti, The Inn on the Lake (Hu lou 湖樓 ) from To Win a Peerless Beauty ( Zhan huakui 占花魁 )

Translated and annotated by Kim Hunter Gordon

Postface

Yip Siu Hing

Appendix A Correspondence between Lectures in This Book and Masters’ Lectures

Appendix B How Scenes Open and Conclude

Appendix C Musical and Vocal Terms

Appendix D Movement and Body Terms

Appendix E Costume Terms

Appendix F Plays, Scenes, and Drama Collections

Appendix G Late Imperial Theatre Figures

Appendix H Modern Chinese Theatre Figures

Appendix I Kunqu Troupes and Other Ensembles

Appendix J Other Genres and Troupes

Bibliography

Index

LIST OF FIGURES

1Kunqu costumes

2Wang Shiyao in Enquiry of the Rat from Fifteen Strings of Cash

3Wang Shiyao [ left ] and Zhang Shizheng [ right ] in Enquiry of the Rat from Fifteen Strings of Cash

4Wang Shiyu in The Stirring Zither from The Jade Hairpin

5Zhang Jiqing in The Mad Dream from Lanke Mountain

6Zhang Jiqing in Divorce under Duress from Lanke Mountain

7Liu Yilong in Descending the Mountain from Ocean of Sin

8Liang Guyin [ left ] and Liu Yilong [ right ] in Descending the Mountain from Ocean of Sin

9Huang Xiaowu in The Tavern from The Palace of Lasting Life

10 Huang Xiaowu [ left ] and Li Hongliang [ right ] in The Tavern from The Palace of Lasting Life

11 Cai Zhengren in Instating the Statue, Lamenting the Statue from The Palace of Lasting Life

12 Cai Zhengren in Hearing the Chimes from The Palace of Lasting Life

13 Ji Zhenhua in Playing the Ballad from The Palace of Lasting Life

14 Ji Zhenhua in Playing the Ballad from The Palace of Lasting Life

15 Hua Wenyi in The Stroll in the Garden from The Peony Pavilion

16 Hua Wenyi [ left ] and Yue Meiti [ right ] in The Dream Interrupted from The Peony Pavilion

17 Hou Shaokui in Sword Meeting from Single Sword Meeting

18 Hou Shaokui in Sword Meeting from Single Sword Meeting

19 Fan Jixin in In the Reeds from The Jumping Carp

20 Fan Jixin in In the Reeds from The Jumping Carp

21 Liang Guyin in The Tryst from The Western Chamber

22 Liang Guyin in The Tryst from The Western Chamber

23 Yue Meiti in The Inn on the Lake from To Win a Peerless Beauty

24 Yue Meiti [ left ] and Zhang Mingrong [ right ] in The Inn on the Lake from To Win a Peerless Beauty

FOREWORD

Chang Tong-Ching

It seems my ties with kunqu 崑曲, a preeminent Chinese theatrical form, were fated. I was born in Taipei into a family of intense jingju 京劇 (Peking or Beijing opera) fans [Appendix J]. My father even hired jingju professionals to help him practice singing, and to assist my older sisters improve their singing and stage performance skills. From early childhood I saw numerous jingju performances by both professionals and amateurs, including many famous performers from Taiwan and beyond. As long ago as I can remember, I shuttled back and forth during jingju performances between the seats of the audience and backstage. After the show was over I would often be carried home, asleep, by my family.

My first exposure to kunqu came as a young child when I would hear the mellifluous sound of a bamboo flute as I passed by a Japanese-style house on my way to school. It made such an impression that, in high school years later, I joined the school’s Chinese orchestra and bought my own flute. When my father recognized my passion for the instrument, he took me to a friend who regularly gathered kunqu afficionados at his home to practice kunqu singing, which is accompanied by the bamboo flute. These gatherings were the forerunners of Taipei’s Pengying singing meetings (Pengying quji 蓬瀛曲集 [Appendix I]), which still convene to this day on a biweekly basis. At these events I also had the opportunity to study the flute with Hsia Huan-hsin夏煥新 [Appendix H]. Eventually, Jiao Chengyun 焦承允 (another frequent member [Appendix H]) formed a little musical ensemble—one sheng, one dan [Appendix I], and a flute—made up of two other students and me. We would meet two or three times a week in Jiao Chengyun’s home to practice kunqu singing with my flute accompaniment. Our small group became very close and I soon discovered that Hsia Huan-hsin was the owner of that Japanese-style house I remembered so well. I continued to participate in these gatherings during my high school and college years and played the flute for some stage performances.

My pursuit of graduate studies in the United States essentially severed my connection with kunqu for 20 years until, in 1993, I moved to Washington, DC, and saw a performance of the Kunqu Society (Haiwai kunqu she海外崑曲社 [Appendix I]) from New York. Soon after I became involved in staging performances in the DC area and eventually established Wintergreen Kunqu Society (Dongqing kunqu she 冬青崑曲社 [Appendix I]) in 1997 to promote the art form in the area. The Smithsonian Associates and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Arts have been the principal sponsors of our kunqu performances in the national museums of the National Mall over the past 25 years. One of the challenges in producing these public education programs is to include a discussion of the background and essentials of kunqu in relation to the performance. In the absence of any kunqu troupe or performance by kunqu professionals in Taiwan, when I started arranging performances I had had very little exposure to professional kunqu performers and was faced with Western audiences completely uninformed about kunqu. It has been an arduous task to find and collect authoritative material on kunqu while living in the United States. Serviceable materials in English are rare and particularly hard to find.

In 2015 I learned that the Masters’ Studio (Dashi shuoxi gongzuoshi 大師說戲工作室) was going to publish Masters’ Lectures, a massive undertaking for which 29 prominent kunqu actors had recorded 110 lectures (each an hour and a half long) on their interpretation and evolution of 109 specific scenes. These lectures provide firsthand information on the kunqu art form and performance. The repertoire and performances discussed in these lectures constitute the foundation for younger kunqu performers today. Since the transmission of kunqu performance art is primarily oral and these actors are mostly in their seventies, a record of their artistry had to be made with some urgency to safeguard the soul of kunqu which they embody. After seeing the contents of the written and visual materials in Masters’ Lectures, I decided to invite experts to translate them into English. While Yip Siu Hing generously granted the copyright of Chinese texts of the scenes selected for translation into English, Josh Stenberg displayed unswerving commitment over several years to lead the translation work, assemble a translation team, and find a publishing company. It is thanks to them that these 12 lectures, selected from Masters’ Lectures, have finally been published as Kunqu Masters on Chinese Theatrical Performance.

In my view, the excerpts provide an enlightening point of entry into how traditional kunqu naturally generated an essence of artistry through the process of oral teaching over four centuries. The prolonged and sustained evolution of kunqu makes it a remarkable case in a Chinese, indeed even in a global, context. By documenting the contribution of these masters over the course of their lifetimes, these lectures give a sense of how the performance of contemporary kunqu scenes is not the product of a few outstanding artists but of a long evolution of dozens of artistic generations over four hundred years.

The lectures were created and recorded in Chinese. The purpose of this translation is thus to furnish a factual account in English of the process of activation and evolution of the oral performing arts of kunqu. Each lecture selected for this collection provides a detailed examination of a single scene from a classic kunqu play; each lecturer has a long and celebrated history of performing the lead role in their respective scenes. Crucially, they provide an authoritative account of the evolution of kunqu as a performing art. Each of the lectures contains descriptions of the traditional acting taught by their teachers, modifications and improvements over a lifetime of performance, and a discussion of how a typical performance looks on the stage today. Together they run the gamut of kunqu roles. I hope this English-language publication will be a valuable resource for researchers, enthusiasts, and promoters.

PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Kunqu, recognized by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 2001 as part of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, is among the oldest and most refined traditions of the family of genres known as xiqu. For many connoisseurs, kunqu represents the towering achievement of the Chinese traditional stage. Its texts are refined and literary, its stage movements distinctive and graceful, its music haunting and mellifluous. It can make a serious claim to being both an ancient and a comprehensive art, with gesture and gaze observed and regulated as much as pitch or timbre. These qualities give it a prestige that has successfully passed from late imperial literati culture to the arts cognoscenti of today’s Chinese cities.

Having survived the turmoil of the Chinese twentieth century, kunqu’s musical and performance traditions are currently passed on by senior artists in the professional troupes of several major cities of the Yangtze River basin as well as Beijing and Chenzhou (Hunan). Since research has largely focused on the textual basis of performance, the transmission of kunqu performance technique, and the shifts and refinements of kunqu tradition have been only patchily understood outside of theatre circles.

Despite the efforts of generations of performers, academics, translators, community organizers, and connoisseurs, it remains difficult to initiate a student or an actor who does not read Chinese into the world and logic of kunqu. Materials in English often require a great deal of philological knowledge and are not very reflective or practical. By providing access to experienced actors’ lectures, this book constitutes an attempt to give insight into the history, society, and practical considerations of kunqu as seen from the perspective of contemporary actors. Each chapter contains a lecture by a master performer on how to perform a particular kunqu scene, thus shedding light on the human processes—technical, pedagogical, ideological, social—that create a particular piece of theatre and transmit it over time. These translations allow kunqu actors’ voices to be heard for the first time in international theatre and performance studies. Meanwhile, the annotations help the reader to place these narratives in historical, literary, discursive, and aesthetic contexts.

The reader should be able to gain some knowledge of how transition and innovation interact on the Chinese stage, both artistically and discursively. The reader should also be able to acquire some understanding of how a theatre with roots in late imperial narratives and practices is reconciled with China’s recent, often turbulent and antitraditionalist, history. Close critical attention to the nature of transmission shows how concepts such as tradition constitute not only a link to the past but also sites of constant elaboration and negotiation. Far from being a museum genre, kunqu’s history reveals itself as a living and changing art form, subject to the internal logic of its technique but also open to innovation. Methodologically, this breaks new ground by emphasizing the performers’ perspective rather than the text, thus providing a different gaze, a complement and a challenge to performance analysis and ideological, sociological, or plot-based perspectives on xiqu.

Years ago, one day in a postgraduate class, a professor warned me and my classmates against doing fan’s research. In retrospect, I’m not sure he was right—perhaps he thought our enthusiasm unseemly—but the remonstrance gave me pause. Like many of my classmates, my interest in theatre research was a direct result of zealous theatregoing which generated a hope to better understand, to proselytize, and to bask in the reflected glow of the art. As a foreign liaison I (and those who succeeded me in this job in Nanjing) produced programs and subtitles, conducted interviews and guided tours, dealt with foreign correspondence, and helped arrange performances abroad. But it was difficult to imagine how to make a long-term research career of theatre because (unlike some performer-researchers such as Elizabeth Wichmann-Walczak or Jo Riley) I had no talent for performance. The impressive catalogue of work on Chinese theatre was so much centered around texts and histories, and the thick encyclopedias of kunqu—my essential primers as a translator and guide—were already written. But where in this corpus were the kunqu actors I knew or the matters that occupied the minds and stimulated the conversations of fans and actors? Ultimately, I wrote my dissertation on something rather different, in part because I could not find the connection between the stage I knew and the field I was supposed to be writing into—I had difficulty imagining producing useful kunqu research myself in Chinese, and difficulty also imagining a readership for kunqu in English, since the people who knew about it could read Chinese anyway.

Since that time, new research has done much to bring the contemporary xiqu stage into greater focus. But in English work on xiqu remains piecemeal, and the research apparatus and discourses bewildering for students not initiated to it via institutions of the Chinese world. My hope is that translating and contextualizing the accounts of these actors in this book is an appropriate way to alchemically transform fan enthusiasm into scholarly tool, bringing the practices and discourses of the kunqu stage closer to the English-speaking student, performer, and spectator.

* * *

As is the case with any substantive collaborative effort, we feel indebted and grateful to many people. First and foremost, the editor and translators thank Yip Siu Hing and the Masters’ Studio for their important work recording and publishing a wealth of information on kunqu performance, and for allowing this annotated English-language selection to be published. This English volume constitutes only a small selection of the Chinese lectures, and it is to be hoped that translations of other lectures will follow.

From the conception to the completion of this project, the generous assistance—both material and intellectual—of Chang Tong-Ching and Wintergreen Kunqu Society has been of enormous importance. Without Chang Tong-Ching’s drive and vision, there might never have been an English-language version of these texts, and her careful attention to every aspect of this volume has much improved it. Anonymous peer reviewers for this volume made many helpful suggestions on earlier drafts which have substantially corrected and improved the text. The longtime kunqu aficionado and theatre professional San-tzu Chen assisted with finding resources and making copies in Taipei libraries, an invaluable aid during the Covid-19 period when so many other resources were inaccessible. She also made several important corrections and clarifications.

For their assistance in dealing with many tricky questions, the translators thank countless kunqu actors and specialists for generously sharing their expertise, in some cases for many years. We particularly want to thank Ji Shaoqing, veteran chou actor of the Jiangsu Company, for his cheery and tireless responses to our various inquiries. Many further explanations and corrections were provided by colleagues and friends such as Ariel Fox, Jaylon Han, Lin Li-chiang, Qiu Yanting, Shih-pe Wang, and Yifeng Zheng. We are also grateful to Frankie T. K. Fong for his assistance with correspondence and coordination.

For their help in proofreading and brainstorming ways of talking in English about kunqu voice and movement, our thanks go to Rosa, Peter, and Rachel Stenberg as well as Rita Dickson. For her assistance with formatting and standardization, we would like to thank Alvina Lock. The tireless copy-editing work of Gareth Richards, Eryn Tan, Helena Dodge-Wan, Aoife Sacker Ooi, and Nicole Lim of Impress Creative and Editorial in Malaysia was integral to the success of the project, doing much to refine and unify the manuscript, including the creation of comprehensive appendices and the index. We thank Anthem Press staff for assistance at various stages of the process as well as Sreejith Govindan and Bindu Gangadharan at Lumina Datamatics in India for seeing the book through production. Generous grants from the University of Sydney’s China Studies Centre and the School of Languages and Cultures are gratefully acknowledged.

The National Palace Museum in Taipei kindly provided the cover image, from a Ming dynasty collection of Yuan plays. The illustration shows the dance of Consort Yang at the Pavilion of Scents in the second act of the play Tang Emperor Minghuang Listening to Rain on the Wutong Trees on an Autumn Night (Tang Minghuang qiuye wutong yu 唐明皇秋夜梧桐雨) by Bai Pu 白樸 and edited by Wang Jide 王驥德 in the Guquzhai 顧曲齋 edition of Yuan Dynasty Plays (Yuanren zajuxuan 元人雜劇選), dated to the Wanli reign (1573–1620). Although Rain on the Wutong Trees is not in the kunqu repertoire, other works derived from Bai Pu are, and the plot treats in a shorter form the same love story as The Pavilion of Lasting Life. The same emperor is associated with the origin myth of Chinese theatre in the Pear Garden (Liyuan 梨園), and numerous stories claim that the emperor Tang Minghuang 唐明皇 played the drum for performances. This, combined with resonance with other depictions of emperors as well as the gaze of Precious Consort Yang (Yang Guifei 楊貴妃) as she dances, suggests that the figure nearest to the viewer is the emperor. We felt that this depiction of performance, printed in the Ming for a Yuan play on a Tang subject, and serving for a book on contemporary theatre, shows both the deep roots of xiqu and its protean quality. We are greatly indebted to Helena Dodge-Wan for creating the cover design.

For providing photographs, we are grateful to Cheng Peng-Chang, Wu Dezhang, and Cindy Rodney, and to the Shanghai Troupe, Chia Hsin-Yuan, the Masters’ Studio, Wintergreen Kunqu Society, Northern Kunqu Opera Theatre, the Jiangsu Company, and Yue Meiti.

An earlier version of Lecture 3 first appeared in CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature as an article entitled "An Annotated Translation of Zhang Jiqing’s Lecture on Playing Cui-Shi in Chimeng (The Mad Dream): A Sample Lecture from Kunqu baizhong, dashi shuoxi (One Hundred Pieces of Kunqu, Master Performers Talk about Their Scenes)." It is reprinted here in an edited form with the kind permission of that journal. The editor and the translators are indebted especially to CHINOPERL’s then editor (now consulting editor) David Rolston, whose comments and edits on that translation helped establish the methods adopted for the present volume. Connor Sheng and Ouyang Biqing, thank you for your patience and assistance.

Josh Stenberg

Sydney, August 2022

NOTES ON TRANSLATION

Translating excerpts from Masters’ Lectures presents a number of unusual and interesting issues. One difficulty is that kunqu performance is always concerned with motion, posture, stage position, and other dimensions of the actor’s art that are easier to demonstrate than to put into words. The concept of Masters’ Lectures, however, was that actors should principally explain their craft rather than use gesticulation or motions to demonstrate. While some performers closely observe this stricture in their lectures, others still make considerable use of gestures or even demonstrate complex movement patterns or sequences as they explain. The lecture videos being unavailable for this publication, gestures and movements are indicated in italics in square brackets.

A project such as this one necessarily overlaps with a number of other fields: literary studies, performance studies, musicology, late imperial cultural history, contemporary cultural policy, and so on. However, it makes no claim to contribute to the study of The Palace of Lasting Life as a literary text or to the scholarly understanding of xiqu music. The purpose of this project is instead to convey a sense of how practice and discourse operate among a major seasoned generation of kunqu actors, now mostly retired. For this reason, we have striven to deliver straight versions of their lectures: if a lecturer does not complete an aria or a speech, we do not furnish the rest of it unless absolutely necessary; if they do not note the qupai 曲牌 [Appendix C], these are not supplied. While it may interest the literary or musical scholar, such information is not usually salient to the lecture, is easily gathered from published scores and recordings, and would here inflate the pages of an already bulky volume. It should also be remembered that these master performers were asked to lecture on their own accounts of a given scene—this means that they often skip over portions belonging to other characters onstage. They may slip in and out of character(s) or make rapid associations with other pieces of repertoire.

Another challenge concerns the fact that there are two Chinese originals of these lectures: the edited video recording and a printed text. The texts have undergone significant mediation both in the original Chinese forms and in the process of English translation. Lecturers have limited time to explain their scene (after editing, the lectures are mostly between one and a half and two hours long) and they take various approaches: some follow a tight and clearly premeditated structure while others improvise, associate, or freely narrate. Some lecturers focus on performance history while others concentrate on singing, character psychology, or key gestures. Where repetition occurs or actors backtrack to a previous point, some smoothing and consolidation has been undertaken. Lecturers may switch without notice between first person (I, the actor and/or I, the character), second person (instructions for you, the student), and third person (s/he, the character). Where it might lead to confusion, this has been adjusted or clarified. Video information—the editing, the background, when actors stand or sit, when their feet are visible and when not, and so on—is beyond our capacity to chart here. At points of divergence we have followed the videos.

In the chapters translated here, Chinese characters are supplied for aria texts and verse but not for prose recitative or dialogue. Hanyu pinyin romanizations and Chinese characters for the titles of scenes and plays, names of characters, theatre people, and theatre organizations are given in the appendices in the back matter. Terms and names that can be found in the appendices are denoted as such in square brackets on their first appearance in the main texts of each lecture. Sung text is formatted in bold italics, while text that is recited, whether or not it is in verse or otherwise according to a metric pattern, is formatted in bold roman. Added descriptions of actions performed by the lecturers in the videos are formatted in italics and set off in square brackets.

Whenever possible, English translations of terms are used in the main text of the translations for ease of reading, but not when the available English translations carry too many misleading implications, as is the case with many of the English terms that are commonly used to translate Chinese role types. The qupai names too are left untranslated because they principally convey metrical information rather than serving as titles for the text’s content.

Finally, though generally delivering their lectures in Mandarin Chinese, actors may switch to a Suzhou dialect, especially when reporting the speeches of older teachers or audience members, or when the role itself requires use of dialect. It remains the case in southern China that the everyday business of kunqu troupes is conducted mostly in that dialect or in other Wu family dialects. These instances of code-switching are not indicated except when the actor is especially drawing attention to them.

Lectures are in alphabetical order by the English title of the play.

ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Chang Tong-Ching 張冬青 is a graduate of Fu Jen Catholic University, Taipei, Taiwan, holder of an MBA degree from Lamar University, and retired certified public accountant. She is the founder of Wintergreen Kunqu Society, Inc. and a co-founder of the Society of Kunqu Arts, Inc. in Maryland. She learned kunqu singing and flute playing from accomplished kunqu aficionados Hsia Huan-hsin and Jiao Chengyun in Taiwan. Since 1993 she has primarily produced and presented professional kunqu performances and educational programs at national museums of the Smithsonian Institution of the National Mall in the Washington, DC, area.

Kim Hunter Gordon is Assistant Professor of Chinese and Performance Studies at Duke Kunshan University. Earning his PhD at Royal Holloway, University of London in 2017, he has studied the sheng role under Qian Zhenrong at the Jiangsu Kunju Theatre and qu singing practice with Xie Yufeng at Nanjing University. He is the current translator for the Jiangsu Company and regularly sings on the avocational kunqu circuit in China and beyond. His research examines the historiography of kunqu and the dynamics of embodied practice and archival culture.

Guo Chao 郭超 is Associate Professor of Chinese at the Zhuhai Campus of Sun Yat-sen University. His research focuses on cross-gender performance and intercultural communication in xiqu. His recent publications include a monograph, Chinese Traditional Theatre and Male Dan (Routledge, 2022), and research articles and review essays in journals such as Asian Theatre Journal, Asian Studies Review, Journal of Gender Studies, Religions, and Journal of the Society for Asian Humanities.

Anne Rebull is an independent scholar, most recently affiliated with the University of Michigan as a postdoctoral fellow and lecturer. She researches the theories of adaptation in xiqu reform in the mid-twentieth century. She has published articles and reviews in multiple platforms, including CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature and Opera Quarterly, among others. She is dedicated to making xiqu play texts more broadly available in English and her translations have been used widely.

Josh Stenberg is Senior Lecturer in Chinese Studies at the University of Sydney. After several years working as translator and foreign liaison for the Jiangsu Company, he enrolled in PhD study in Chinese theatre at Nanjing University, graduating in 2015. Recent publications include Minority Stages: Sino-Indonesian Performance and Public Display (University of Hawai‘i Press, 2019), Research on Southern Drama Abroad (co-author, Nanxi yuwai chuanbo yanjiu 南戲域外傳播研究, Zhonghua shuju, 2021) and Liyuanxi—Chinese Pear Garden Theatre (Methuen Drama, 2023). He has also edited and translated several volumes of contemporary Chinese fiction.

Yip Siu Hing 葉肇鑫 holds a Bachelor of Mathematics from East China Normal University and a Master’s in Stochastic Differential Equations from China Textiles Industry University. His experience ranges from teaching primary and middle school in rural Xinjiang for a decade to acting as vice president of a Hong Kong petroleum company for 12 years. Since retiring at the age of 51, he has spent his time reading, studying, traveling, and in developing his connoisseurship of tea and Huaiyang cuisine. He is the creator and compiler of Masters’ Lectures on One Hundred Kunqu Scenes, a multivolume and audiovisual Chinese project of which this English book is an annotated selection. He is well known for his activities and writings in support of kunqu.

Figure 1 Kunqu costumes.

Source: Cindy Rodney for Wintergreen Kunqu Society.

INTRODUCTION

Josh Stenberg

About Masters’ Lectures

The purpose of this book is to help researchers, students, and theatregoers get a sense of how actor knowledge is structured and expressed in Chinese traditional theatre (xiqu 戲曲), specifically in the form of kunqu 崑曲. To this end, it offers some of the necessary tools to interpret what goes on when actors are onstage, placing performance practice within its network of transmission, vocabulary of technique, repertoire structure, and institutional context. Outside of China and Chinese theatre studies, few theatre practitioners have a clear sense of how actor training or repertoire transmission in China actually function, or their terms of reference. Yet theatre accounts such as these are important not only to help enthusiasts and researchers come to grips with xiqu on its own terms but also to assist those who would like to work respectfully on intercultural projects involving xiqu. This introduction can only briskly sketch some information about kunqu that should make the lectures more intelligible to the reader newly coming to Chinese theatre. If we succeed in our aims, the book itself may serve as the introduction to kunqu.

Knowledge about xiqu exists largely in an embodied form. The accessibility of artist expertise has been circumscribed by its tradition of oral transmission. Historically, hard-won knowledge of this kind has not been lightly shared; many aspects of theatre artistry have been regarded as sensitive, even proprietary. Transmission is sometimes treated as delicately as material inheritance. Fortunately for the aficionado, amateur performer, and researcher, xiqu actor accounts of their performance practice began to be published in periodicals in the Republican era (1912–1949) and in books after 1949. Audiovisual lectures were also sporadically recorded, but it is only in recent years that large-scale and more systematic projects to document xiqu theatre practice have appeared. The largest such enterprise to date for kunqu is Masters’ Lectures on One Hundred Kunqu Scenes (Kunqu baizhong, dashi shuoxi 崑曲百種,大師說戲) (Yip Siu Hing and Masters’ Studio 2014). The present book consists of annotated translations of 12 of its lectures, not even one eighth of the original Chinese project’s scope. One may hope that it represents only the first installment in the project’s translation.¹

Within xiqu pedagogy, teachers instruct their students by recounting theatre history and lore, modeling performance sequences for students to imitate, by orally explicating passages of highly complex vocal and physical technique, and by criticizing and correcting student efforts to reproduce the same passages. As these instructional methods are not easily replicated in textbooks, there are many topics that can only be elucidated through insider accounts. However, knowledge that relies on human sources is precarious as people age, lose their memories, and die. Consequently, the performable repertoire in traditional genres of xiqu such as kunqu has declined at an alarming rate from generation to generation. That makes projects like Masters’ Lectures not only important but urgent.

Masters’ Lectures was produced by the Masters’ Studio, an organization created by the Hong Kong-based philanthropist and kunqu aficionado Yip Siu Hing (Ye Zhaoxin 葉肇鑫). In 2010 and 2011 the Masters’ Studio team recorded 29 kunqu masters lecturing on their core repertoire. Assisted by all the major kunqu troupes, this project covered a little over a hundred scenes. The project was hailed for allowing actors to present their unique understanding about transmission and development by means of rich detail, thereby passing on their rich and precious experience of theoretical and practical significance for strategies of kunqu transmission and preservation (Gu Lingsen 2012, 37). A text by Yip Siu Hing for that project, delineating the project’s scope and ambition, is translated in this book as a postface.

The original Masters’ Lectures collection consists of DVDs of these lectures, an introductory pamphlet, and published edited textual versions of the masters’ recorded accounts. Both the textual and the audiovisual versions include transitional passages prepared by the editorial director of the project, providing the necessary context for Chinese readers and viewers with a basic grasp of xiqu aesthetics and history. Such materials, which assume a basic knowledge of technique, historical context, repertoire, and classical culture, are replaced in this volume by annotations for an anglophone readership which requires other, more fundamental, types of information.

One challenge for any translation of xiqu actors’ accounts into a foreign language is the terms in which that knowledge is initially expressed. Information is embedded in a dense network of references, prior acquaintance with which is assumed. In Masters’ Lectures, actors often explain their art in terms of other scenes, roles, actors, troupes, genres, teachers, playwrights, techniques, and performance instances. Moreover, familiarity with institutional structure, recent history, and cultural policy is assumed. On the one hand, this discursive system is very open in that any number of performers, performance traditions, and events may be referenced. But it is also quite discrete and bounded since Chinese spoken theatre (huaju 話劇), academic discourse and theory, cinema, and literature (not to mention the non-Chinese counterparts of all these) enter into the discourse only at the margins.²

For audiences, a single actor’s performance practice is understood within that network. As in other theatres, the recollection of an actor’s previous performances, especially if these are effective ones, will inevitably remain as part of the theatrical institution, and through casting, publicity, and collective memory, future experiences of audiences in the theatre (Carlson 1994, 113). In xiqu this network of associations is accentuated, since role types, genealogies, and onstage performance movement extend this intertextuality not only to an actor’s own performances but also to those of their teachers, rivals, and students. For most audience members, discussing a kunqu scene is a comparative exercise: comparison between an actor in the present, in the past, and potentially in the future; between this actor in this role and another; and between this actor and other actors in the same role.

One major aspect of this discursive network is the teacher–student lineage which is seen as conferring authority and authenticity across generations. As one scholar writes, actors and aficionados might consider that in one performance of the role of the concubine Yang Yuhuan [楊玉環], Mei Lanfang [梅蘭芳] incarnates all the styles of his various teachers (Riley 1997, 28). In many cases, teacher–student bonds resemble kinship, and indeed performers make use of kinship terms both vertical (for masters) and lateral (for fellow students of the same master). In the translations, the constant references in the lectures to teachers and senior actors (Teacher So-and-so) have been converted to the full names of their referents, but the reader should keep in mind the ubiquity of this respectful teacher–student terminology. The lineages created were once the only way theatrical knowledge was passed on and they remain important even as large projects using audiovisual media are used to make this knowledge more accessible.

Naming Xiqu, Naming Kunqu

Although often presented as fixed, unchanging concepts, xiqu terminology necessarily also has etymology and history. As a term to describe Chinese traditional theatre, "xiqu" has early roots but became widely disseminated in the late nineteenth century in order to contrast existing Chinese theatre practices with Western theatre and its Chinese derivations (Xia Xiaohong 2016, 53–55). Since xiqu predates Western influences on theatre, it is sometimes known in English as Chinese traditional theatre or indigenous theatre, although neither of these terms has achieved wide currency. Translations such as Chinese music drama, song drama, or music theatre, while also accurate, seem to have gained limited traction. Colloquially, xiqu is often known in English as Chinese opera, but this designation is avoided in this book.³

Kunshan, which gives kunqu its name, is a town near Suzhou, now administratively a county-level city belonging to it. Another old name for the singing practice is Kunshan melody (kunshan qiang 崑山腔). Over time it seems that the melody (qiang 腔) terminology has been increasingly restricted to narrower musicological usage, while the singing and theatrical practice began to replace melody with aria (qu 曲) forming the word "kunqu. Then, in the twentieth century, theatre" (ju 劇) became a major generic term for types of theatre, including xiqu, producing the form "kunju 崑劇. At present, the terms based on aria" (kunqu) and theatre (kunju) designations both retain validity for the stage practice of kunqu, while the non-staged singing tradition of the same musical system is only known as "kunqu."⁴ Though some hold that "kunju emphasizes the stage element of the genre and kunqu" emphasizes its musical component, actors, troupes, and fans tend to use both terms interchangeably for the stage genre, and it is impracticable to insist on any hard distinctions.

The term "kunqu seems to be gaining precedence in both Chinese and English, perhaps because the relative antiquity of the term resonates with the genre’s appeal to classicism. This book uses kunqu except in institutional names or when a lecturer specifically mentions kunju." For historical reasons, however, kunju continues to predominate in troupe names.⁵

Kunqu’s Textual Foundation

Chinese drama, even if we only consider surviving scripts, predates any specific extant performance tradition (such as kunqu). Due to the literary merit and canonical status of many of the texts in its repertoire and its relatively early emergence as a stage form, kunqu is sometimes deemed classical theatre, both within China and when promoted abroad. Its antiquity and historical prominence have generated Chinese phrases such as the ancestor (or teacher, or mother) of a hundred theatres (baixi zhi zu, baixi zhi zu shi, baixi zhi zu mu 百戲之祖, 百戲之師, 百戲之母).

Kunqu’s repertoire today is based on texts from a number of historical periods and dramatic genres. In the north, a genre of four-act scripts, sometimes translated as variety plays (zaju 雜劇), developed in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; in the south, a long-form drama emerged which is now referred to as southern drama (nanxi 南戲). At the end of the Yuan dynasty (1279–1368) and the beginning of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), nanxi evolved into chuanqi 傳奇,⁶ and that genre became a major vehicle for literati dramatic production, with its heyday in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. A rich variety of script genres contributes to kunqu repertoire: of the 110 items in Masters’ Lectures, for instance, three are categorized in its accompanying booklet as zaju (including the one translated here as Lecture 9), and eight as nanxi.⁷ The great bulk of lectures, however, are on scenes derived from either Ming or Qing chuanqi, and it is these dramas that are most closely associated with kunqu.⁸

The relationship between performance tradition and text is far from simple. Scripts usually exist in multiple versions as literary scripts become performance texts or performance texts undergo further alteration to facilitate comprehension or to match arias to metric constraints. Late imperial dramatic texts range from those showing no concern with stage practicalities to those obviously intended for performance. It is not always possible to tell from a script which performance practice, if any, it was intended for. Comparing any given scene as performed today with late imperial texts typically shows both substantial changes and considerable similarity, although with the exception of recent alterations it is seldom evident who inserted or removed a particular gesture or line of dialogue. In the intervening centuries the scripts have undergone alteration due in large part to performer-led expansions and reductions of scenes (Swatek 2002a). In the People’s Republic of China (PRC) era, political considerations (for instance, the suppression of so-called superstitious scenes or elements) have also figured (Greene 2019; Chen Xiaomei et al. 2021). Scenes are typically represented as being performed according to a performance tradition, but the chain of transmission varies from the relatively robust to the tenuous. In the post-Mao era, the excavation (wajue 挖掘) of scenes has been incentivized, involving the revival of scenes known typically from texts rather than from continuous performance tradition.

The foundation of repertoire in literary texts that are three or four hundred years old contributes to performance complexity. Onstage, kunqu performers must manage a range of forms of vocal production, from prose dialogues or monologues (that vary from a colloquial to an elevated register) to poems and arias (written to metrical specifications). For prose dialogues or monologues, the elevated register is delivered in a regulated stage speech while the colloquial register is more naturalistic and can be inflected by dialect. Generally speaking, the music for arias was not newly composed nor attributable to a composer. Instead, aria texts were set to preexisting tune matrices (qupai 曲牌), and performance scores were the products of revision and rearrangements done by generations of professional and amateur singers (Mark 2013, 12; see also Appendix C). Lyrics for the arias are not only bound by tone, rhyme, and line length, but are also composed in an elevated register of classical Chinese, replete with intertextual allusions, poetic figures, learned jokes, and metatheatrical gestures. For this reason, sung portions can be difficult for audiences to fully understand. There are numerous records showing audience members consulting written scripts of plays being performed, just as contemporary audiences typically rely on title screens above or beside the stage.

Repertoire: Scenes and Plays

The fundamental units of kunqu in terms of stage education, performance programming, and connoisseurship are scenes and plays. Masters’ Lectures also adopted this as a governing principle, with performers invited to lecture on particular scenes in their repertoire. What are the scenes and plays that the actors are talking about in this book and what is the difference? In Chinese, xi 戲 is commonly used to mean either or both these units (or indeed theatre in general). However, since these two units of differing orders are not intuitive outside of Chinese theatre, it is necessary to explain the relationship between them.

Kunqu’s traditional repertoire consists of scenes that are often but not always associated with the larger narrative of a longer script. Over time, scenes from full-length plays … developed into texts of independently staged short pieces (Henry Zhao 1994, 113) as generations of performance practice caused the "the link between extract and chuanqi [script to be] attenuated" (Swatek 2002b, xix). It is thought that a selection of scenes, generally extracted from different scripts and without a narrative relationship, became the most common format for kunqu performance during the eighteenth century (though such practices existed earlier). The popularity of such extracted scenes may partly explain why the penning of full-length plays became rarer after this time (Lu Eting 1998, 2006, 164–260).

One result of this performance history is that only certain scenes from any given play possess a well-defined performance tradition. This corpus has been further thinned by the several interruptions and stagnations in kunqu performance and education during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The fact that these scenes tend to have their own dramatic integrity, while also belonging to a larger whole, means that they have been variously translated as excerpts, selections, selected acts, highlights, playlets, independent scene-plays, single act dramas, and actable plays. While some of the scenes discussed by actors in this volume belong to well-known plays (such as The Peony Pavilion [Mudan ting 牡丹亭] or The Palace of Lasting Life [Changsheng dian 長生殿] [both Appendix F]), other scenes discussed have more notional attributions (such as that discussed in Lecture 4, Descending the Mountain [Xiashan 下山]), or belong to plays that are little performed or read (such as that discussed in Lecture 10, Writing the Accusation [Xie zhuang 寫狀]).

Today, when in Chinese a particular distinction between a kunqu play and scene is being made, a scene is called a zhezixi 折子戲.⁹ Scene-based performance sessions today typically consist of three or four of these scenes which may have a thematic connection but usually do not. Sometimes a series of interlinked scenes will be presented which indicate the arc (or some section of the arc) of the longer play without representing a full dramatic treatment of it. For example, the scenes centered around the maidservant Hongniang in The Western Chamber (Xixiang ji 西廂記) [Appendix F] are often strung together in a sequence to be performed in a single session as described in Lecture 11, but they represent only a small portion of that play.

A whole performance (that is, a single narrative pursued in one to four sessions) may be referred to as a grand play (daxi 大戲), full play (benxi 本戲), or full script play (quanbenxi 全本戲). The use of terms indicating fullness or completion usually reflects the sense that a longer story has been told from beginning to end. It is, however, seldom the case that every scene from a chuanqi playscript, for instance, has been represented onstage, and thus highly unusual to see a play performed in a way that closely maps to a late imperial script. For instance, if a reader goes to see The Palace of Lasting Life it is not certain that they will see all three of the scenes from that play which are lectured on here, and the ones they do see may appear in truncated form.

At larger and more prominent venues, which tend to attract a broader, less specialized audience, one is more likely to see a full play. These are also the productions that attract the largest publicity abroad and the most sustained academic interest. They may consist of a variety of traditional scenes strung together or significantly adapted, a revival of an existing play not in repertoire or a completely new script.¹⁰ Full plays as performed today conform more closely to story arcs (such as in films, huaju, or Western theatre), including a modern theatrical taste for climactic endings (Zeitlin 2002, 126). To a modest extent, scenes developed for such full plays may then influence the repertoire of scenes by either altering the existing performance tradition for a given scene or, occasionally, carving out a new place in the repertoire for scenes once again extracted from a larger whole.

Role Types (Hangdang 行當)

Role types are a fundamental organizing principle of xiqu, both in terms of script structure and stage aesthetics (Xie Yufeng 2006). In traditional xiqu scripts, characters are usually identified not by name but by role type.¹¹ Onstage as well as in scripts, role-type categories simultaneously encompass narrative, musical, and moral roles (Fox 2019, 385), although the textual and the stage systems neither correspond exactly nor remain static.¹² Information encoded in role types provides defined parameters in which an actor is costumed, made up, moves, speaks, and sings.¹³ Role types generally also reveal social status, gender, age, and moral nature of a character, and lay down physical parameters for performers. A few role types specialize in martial repertoire which requires great acrobatic skill.¹⁴ Important characters are individualized within the parameters of their role types, so (like the formal restrictions for writing verse to be sung on the kunqu stage) the system is regarded as permitting freedom within structure.

As Yue Meiti 岳美緹 put it in a 2013 conversation:

Chinese xiqu uses a role-type system and role types have to be held on to, which is why basic physical training [jibengong 基本功] is important. The role type constitutes you [in a given role], and thereupon the psychology of the character can gradually filter through. The psychological content [of the different characters] is different, the rhythm of their gait is different too. Different characters of the same role type have to strike their poses in different ways, or there won’t be anything for the audience to look forward to. (Lee Yu-lin 2013, 88)

Every character in kunqu repertoire belongs to one of five general role types which can be subdivided into more specific types. New students are sorted by the role type in which they will specialize as early as the second year of basic physical training. This system fundamentally structures cohorts and teacher–student relationships, and thereby technique and repertoire transmission. Mature actors usually remain within one larger role type and do not embrace more than two or three subtypes. The five major categories of role types (and their subcategories) are presented below in their traditional order. (There are more subtypes than are listed; those that are not mentioned in the translated lectures are not included.)

Xiqu role-type prescriptions and performance conventions make it relatively easy for actors to perform characters not of their biological sex as long as certain physical expectations can be met.¹⁵ Kunqu performers active in the early twentieth century were almost entirely male, but by the second half of the twentieth century there developed a strong expectation that biological males should only play male characters, especially as concerns young, sexually attractive female roles. The practice of men playing women in kunqu is now largely confined to the amateur sphere though there are some prominent professional kunqu actresses playing male characters, including Yue Meiti (Lecture 12).¹⁶

Sheng 生

Colloquially known as xiaosheng 小生, this category includes a broad array of male characters who possess considerable status or learning, and most often both. With the exception of the daguansheng 大官生, they are also young.

•Jinsheng 巾生 : young talented scholars, brimming with talent and charm, such as Pan Bizheng 潘必正 in Lecture 2 .

•Xiaoguansheng 小官生 (or 小冠生 ): young men (without beards) who have already passed the imperial examination and entered government service, the " guan " in their name being an official cap indicating government service.

•Daguansheng 大官生 (or 大冠生 ): high officials or the emperor. They have beards, but the singing timbre remains that of the sheng rather than the older laosheng 老生 (see mo 末 below) role, thus requiring a particularly resonant voice. The emperor in Lecture 6 is an example.

•Qiongsheng 窮生 : a character whose status and age would normally make him a jinsheng , but who has fallen on hard times.

•Wusheng 武生 : the martial sheng , a warrior, soldier, bandit, or the Monkey King. This category developed in kunqu under the influence of jingju .

•Honglian 紅臉 : literally red faces. If performed by a wusheng , such as Hou Shaokui 侯少奎 [ Appendix H ], these roles are known as " hongsheng " 紅生 ; if performed by a jing 净 , they are known as " hongjing " 紅净 . Lord Guan 關公 in Lecture 9 is an example.

Dan 旦

In all xiqu genres, dan refers to female roles. In kunqu troupes, the dan types are given six numbered subcategories.

1. Laodan 老旦 : an older woman, often the mother of a main character. The only dan role not to use falsetto.

2. Zhengdan 正旦 : literally proper or principal dan , though rather less prominent in current kunqu repertoire than the guimendan . Middle-aged and of modest social class, she is usually married but not newlywed (sometimes divorced or widowed), and relatively plainly dressed. Cui-shi 崔氏 in Lecture 3 is an example. Known as qingyi 青衣 (dark gown) in jingju .

3. Zuodan 作旦 : usually involves performers of female role types playing male children; also called "child dan " ( wawadan 娃娃旦 ) or "child sheng " ( wawasheng 娃娃生 ).

4. Cishadan 刺殺旦 : stabbing and killing dan . A small category comprising assassins and dramatic murder victims.

5. Guimendan 閨門旦 : boudoir dan . Unmarried young women of some status and dignity, normally the romantic female lead in stories about a talented scholar and a beauty. Du Liniang 杜麗娘 in Lecture 8 is a well-known example.

6. Liudan 六旦 or tiedan 貼旦 : sixth or additional dan . Usually maidservants of a guimendan , typically young and lively, such as Hongniang in Lecture 11 . This subcategory can further be distinguished between greater ones—girls of importance such as Hongniang in The Western Chamber —and lesser ones—flightier and more playful maidservants such as Chunxiang 春香 in The Peony Pavilion . Other young women of doubtful social or moral status (such as wayward nuns, faithless young wives, courtesans) may also be considered liudan . While the "flowery dan " ( huadan 花旦 ) is not formally a kunqu role type, it is often used in kunqu as a synonym for liudan by analogy with jingju , where the term is an established category.

Jing 净

More commonly referred to as great painted face (dahualian 大花臉—in complement to the comic little painted face [xiaohualian 小花臉], see below) or simply painted face (hualian 花臉).¹⁷ A parallel terminology places the dahualian as first face (damian 大面), the fu as second face (ermian 二面), and the xiao hualian as third face (sanmian 三面).

A jing role might be an imposing, sometimes supernatural warrior (the stature of the actor is magnified through the use of padding and high-soled boots) or a general, a deity, or a fearsome villain. There are several subcategories of jing in kunqu, with the only one featuring in these lectures being the villainous white face (baimian 白面) role Liu Junyu 劉君玉 in Lecture 10, a subcategory also known as "secondary jing" (fujing 副净).

Mo 末

Ranging from younger middle age to extreme old age, mo characters are dignified, wear beards, and often hold official positions.¹⁸ They are frequently the father of a main character who is a jinsheng or a guimendan, although in supporting roles some are also aged faithful servants. Laosheng is generally a serious major role for a man of some position of middle age or above, while the fumo 副末 is for secondary roles and the wai 外 is elderly, whitebearded, and usually kind. In Lecture 5, Guo Ziyi 郭子儀 is a righteous laosheng in early middle age whose scene revolves around his noble ambition to serve the Tang dynasty as a general. In Lecture 7, Li Guinian 李龜年 is a wai, a solemn white-bearded role type. As is often the case with mo-focused scenes, both roles require clear and powerful voices.

Chou 丑

The role type of chou is often translated into English as clown, but the concept is broader than the English term and the roles are not always comical. Colloquially, chou can refer to both a broader and a more restricted core category of characters. The broad category ranges in status and morality: some naive, some sly, some downright criminal. The narrower category, which is more known as little painted face (xiaohualian 小花脸) or "little chou" (xiaochou 小丑), is usually poor, young, low status, dialect speaking, amusing, and upbeat. Characters include servants, novice monks, messengers, and so on. The sinister but droll Lou Ashu 婁阿鼠 in Lecture 1 and the monk Benwu 本無 in Lecture 4 are