Human Doors, Ghost Doors: Entrances and Exits in Qing Court Theater

Q2 Arts and Humanities

CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature Pub Date : 2022-12-01 DOI:10.1353/cop.2022.a873828

Judith T. Zeitlin

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Abstract

Abstract:The control of exits and entrances may be fundamental to theater the world over, but as Zhou Yibai observed long ago, the absolute weight placed on the entrances and exits of actors to construct the stage is of paramount importance in Chinese traditional drama. This essay examines how stage space was reconfigured in Qing court "grand opera" through major changes in the uses of exits and entrances, as laid out in unprecedented detail in stage directions included in the lengthy scripts. In particular, this essay focuses on Zhang Zhao's Golden Standard for Exhortation to Virtue (Quanshan jinke 勸善金科) from the early years of the Qianlong emperor's reign (1740 or 1741). As the first of the Qing grand operas to be composed and printed, The Golden Standard helped shape all subsequent grand opera scripts, while the success of its performance led to the construction of permanent three-tiered stages in Qing palaces, two of which are still extant today. The Golden Standard is also especially valuable as an intermediate work between the way exits and entrances are handled in the printed play texts of monumental chuanqi like The Peony Pavilion (Mudan ting 牡丹亭) and The Palace of Lasting Life (Changsheng dian 長生殿) and in the grand opera genre as a whole. Finally, since The Golden Standard is a play that enacts the Buddhist story of Mulian rescuing his mother from hell, ghosts and the underworld play a disproportionately large role in the action. As I argue, it is particularly in the reconceiving of the ontological and spatial relationship between ghosts and the stage that Zhang Zhao's innovations were at their most radical.

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人门、鬼门:清廷剧场的出入口

摘要：出入口的控制可能是世界戏剧的基础，但正如周一白很久以前所观察到的，在中国传统戏剧中，演员进出口对舞台的绝对重视是至关重要的。本文考察了清廷“大歌剧”中舞台空间是如何通过出入口的使用方式进行重大改变而重新配置的，正如长篇剧本中对舞台方向的前所未有的详细阐述。本文着重论述了张《劝德金本位》（《劝德金科》）勸善金科) 从乾隆初年（1740或1741）。《金本位》是清代第一部编印的大戏，它帮助塑造了后来所有的大戏剧本，而它的成功表演导致了在清宫建造了永久性的三层戏台，其中两个至今仍然存在。作为《牡丹亭》（牡丹亭牡丹亭) 《长生殿》長生殿) 以及整个大歌剧流派。最后，由于《金本位》是一部讲述穆连从地狱救出母亲的佛教故事的戏剧，鬼魂和黑社会在剧中扮演了不成比例的重要角色。正如我所说，尤其是在对鬼与舞台之间的本体论和空间关系的重新认识中，张neneneba赵的创新是最激进的。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature Arts and Humanities-Literature and Literary Theory

CiteScore

0.20

自引率

0.00%

发文量

期刊介绍： The focus of CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature is on literature connected to oral performance, broadly defined as any form of verse or prose that has elements of oral transmission, and, whether currently or in the past, performed either formally on stage or informally as a means of everyday communication. Such "literature" includes widely-accepted genres such as the novel, short story, drama, and poetry, but may also include proverbs, folksongs, and other traditional forms of linguistic expression.