CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature最新文献

{"title":"Retelling the Tale of Lan Huahua: Desire, Stigma, and Social Change in Modern China","authors":"L. Gibbs","doi":"10.1353/cop.2021.a800143","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/cop.2021.a800143","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Following the founding of the People's Republic in 1949, China's 1950 Marriage Law encouraged free choice and inspired women to leave unhappy marriages, but also encountered resistance stemming from traditional prohibitions against unsanctioned \"illicit\" relationships. This paper looks at how stories about a regionally iconic rural Chinese woman who rebelled against an arranged marriage to run off with her lover have served as a discursive site for the social effects of individual desires. Northern Shaanxi's Lan Huahua first received national attention in a folk song anthologized in 1945. Since then, her story has been retold in socialist poems, musicals, and TV dramas that portray her as a symbol of class struggle, and, more recently, a 2017 opera where her story is used to explore the promise and peril of neoliberal desires. Taken together, these retellings speak to ongoing tensions regarding how individual agency contributes to or threatens social order.","PeriodicalId":37726,"journal":{"name":"CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43630413","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Shan Ameng, Shaanxi Songs of a Boudoir Beauty (Also known as Zither Songs of a Boudoir Beauty or Marital Harmony and credited to Pu Songling)","authors":"W. L. Idema","doi":"10.1353/cop.2021.a800144","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/cop.2021.a800144","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This article provides a full translation of Guiyan Qinsheng (Shaanxi Songs of a Boudoir Beauty). This text, made up of songs and verse and arranged in ten chapters, provides a detailed first-person narrative of the feelings of a young girl as she matures from a teenager eager to get married to a happy bride, in the process shedding her innocence and turning into a manipulative tease. It stands out for the relative openness with which it describes female sexuality. The introduction focuses on the disputed authorship of this text. While the earliest known printings credit Guiyan Qinsheng to a certain Shan Ameng, the text, under a slightly different title, has also been studied and published in recent decades as one of the rustic songs of Pu Songling (1640–1715).","PeriodicalId":37726,"journal":{"name":"CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45969601","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Lutes Abroad: Translations, Productions, and Derivations of Pipa ji in Western Languages","authors":"Josh Stenberg","doi":"10.1353/cop.2021.a800146","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/cop.2021.a800146","url":null,"abstract":"Despite considerable interest in Chinese drama and performance abroad, barriers of language and geography have tended to limit the degree to which any given Chinese narrative has flourished outside China. There has been, however, a great deal more of such travel than is usually recognized, and that is partly because such transmission and translation has been sporadic across languages and eras. This research note seeks to marshal in one place some information on lesser-known foreign adaptations of Pipa ji 琵琶記 (The Lute). Since this note is intended to be useful for those interested in the history of this narrative abroad, I have included information not only on some little-known adaptations, but also seldom-consulted sources of reception for the two best-known non-Chinese iterations of the narrative, Bazin’s French translation of 1841 and the 1930 (premiere)/1946 (Broadway musical) American adaptation Lute Song. As a major text of the Chinese dramatic canon as well as a persistent element of xiqu repertoire in numerous genres, understanding the translations and metamorphoses of Pipa ji is likely to remain an area of lively interest in our field. With the last major production of Lute Song occurring in 1989, it has proven impracticable to attempt to limit this survey at a certain date, but the materials being both interesting and otherwise inaccessible, I thought it useful to include them. Likewise, it seemed probable that the recording history of Lute Song’s most famous song, “Mountain High, Valley Low” might surprise and entertain some CHINOPERL readers. On the other hand, I have made no effort to catalogue other post-war translations of Pipa ji, which are relatively recent and widely accessible, let alone give an account of Sinological Western scholarship about the play or its productions. Finally, I have made one exception to the “Western languages” of the title by including brief mention of a Dutch East Indies Malay text, because it derives from an English-language intermediary text, and because I happen to have information respecting it. On the other hand, I have no competence in other languages where adaptations may have occurred (Japanese,1 Korean, Vietnamese), and this note has no pretensions to completeness.","PeriodicalId":37726,"journal":{"name":"CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45308014","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Meat, Ghost, Tumor, and Goddess: The Afterlife of a Female Martyr","authors":"Xian Wang","doi":"10.1353/cop.2021.a800142","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/cop.2021.a800142","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This paper examines the literary representation of the Tang loyalist Zhang Xun's concubine in Yao Maoliang's 姚茂良 (fl. 1475) southern drama Shuangzhong ji 雙忠記 (Double Loyalty) and the extent to which this Ming didactic drama delivers concrete moral messages. Analyzing Yao's depictions of ghostly images, cannibalism, and bodily suffering in the play reveals the ambiguities of the literary representations of female martyrdom. The intentional or unintentional deviation from historical records and the depictions of the afterlife of the female martyr in Double Loyalty and biji stories (\"jottings\") calls the necessity of female martyrdom into question. This seemingly didactic drama and the contesting narratives of the \"double loyalty\" stories give voices to women and serve as a critique of female martyrdom. They offer us an alternative way to imagine the moral environment of late imperial China. This paper also adds another dimension to scholarly inquiry into double loyalty worship by including an analysis of literary texts.","PeriodicalId":37726,"journal":{"name":"CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46523488","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Performance Review: The White Snake, Constellation Theatre Company, Washington, D.C., April 25–May 26, 2019","authors":"L. Luo","doi":"10.1353/cop.2020.0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/cop.2020.0008","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This is a performance review of the Constellation Theatre Company (CTC)'s 2019 D.C. production of The White Snake, written and originally directed by Mary Zimmerman in 2012. This review connects the 2019 CTC production with the 2014 performance of the same Zimmerman play, directed by Zimmerman herself on site at the Second Wuzhen Theatre Festival in Wuzhen, China. It further traces a key inspiration of the 2012 Zimmerman play to Chinese writer Zhao Qingge's 1956 novel Baishe zhuan (The Legend of the White Snake), which was itself a product of the cultural politics of the Chinese 1950s and much longer oral, written, and performance traditions.","PeriodicalId":37726,"journal":{"name":"CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42691208","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A Surrogate Hero: Generic Innovation and Reinventions of Masculinity in Naihe Tian","authors":"Lenore Szekely","doi":"10.1353/cop.2020.0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/cop.2020.0005","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Despite being one of the most popular forms of entertainment in the seventeenth century, Li Yu's (1611–1680) contributions to chuanqi drama reflect a genre in decline. Onstage, it had largely dissolved into the performance of extracts, due to its sprawling plots composed around suites of arias. Consequently, chuanqi composition grew out-of-touch with performance. By contrast, Li Yu's own playwriting, directing, and drama criticism were mainly focused on performability. Naihe tian disrupts the stale conventions of the performance of masculinity both onstage and off. Offstage, elite masculinity was hemmed-in by the narrow pathway to officialdom through rote Confucian learning and exam success. Conversely, roles for elite women had expanded with growing acceptance and recognition of their literary and artistic talents.Naihe tian's most outrageous parody of elite masculinity is in casting a clown (chou) in the role of the male lead, opposite a succession of refined and beautiful wives. Conventionally, chuanqi dramas require two plotlines, the primary a domestic drama, and the secondary a venue for the political and professional aspirations of the hero. This paper will focus on how, owing to the fact that the \"hero\" is a complete buffoon, his social commitments are realized by his servant.Prohibitions regarding theater had long been aimed at enforcing standards of gender and social status onstage and among theatergoers. Offstage, the ability of the merchant class to perform scripts of elite culture provoked anxiety surrounding the blurring of social boundaries, heightening the restrictiveness, and scrutiny around literati masculinity. Casting the servant as hero frees him to strike out in provocative ways unimaginable for the conventionally bloodless sheng role type. In service to his master and the public good, his heroism peaks in the seduction and beheading of the bandit queen, challenging frameworks of status and masculinity under the guise of fanciful entertainment.","PeriodicalId":37726,"journal":{"name":"CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"66888370","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Recognizing the Dark Aura: An Excerpt of The Legend of White Snake as a Festival Ritual in Lateqing Sichuan Opera","authors":"Aaron Balivet","doi":"10.1353/cop.2020.0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/cop.2020.0006","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This paper explores the role of festival ritual in late-Qing Sichuan opera. Unlike the commercial performances of teahouses and theaters, festival performances in late imperial China were accessible to audiences of men, women, and children from different walks of life. In addition to entertaining the audience, festival plays also served the functions of communicating with gods and exorcising monsters, ghosts, and other malevolent spirits. The Sichuan opera play examined in this paper includes scenes excerpted from The Legend of White Snake, but unlike full-length versions, this excerpt play focuses entirely on Duanwu Festival. Temporally associated with the summer solstice, many symbols and rituals associated with Duanwu Festival express anxieties over drought, disease, and the threat of monsters and demons. Through comparison with a full-length version of The Legend of White Snake, this paper shows how one excerpt play was adapted to a festival ritual context and changed to increase ritual efficacy. As we shall see, rituals performed in the play are directed not only to characters in the play but also to the real-life audience who were watching the play. The play uses exorcistic symbols associated with Duanwu Festival to increase the efficacy of the ritual, both within the world of the play and the festival celebration for which the play was performed.","PeriodicalId":37726,"journal":{"name":"CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45961851","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Li Xuefang Meets Mei Lanfang: Cantonese Opera's Significant Rise in 1920s Shanghai and Beyond","authors":"N. Rao","doi":"10.1353/cop.2020.0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/cop.2020.0007","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:The historical meeting of Cantonese opera actress Li Xuefang and Peking opera actor Mei Lanfang in Shanghai in 1922 signaled an important moment in the rising significance of Cantonese opera in Shanghai. This essay examines the social context, forces, and social actors involved in this encounter, as well as the activities of Cantonese opera performance in Shanghai that signaled its rise in the city during the 1920s. Drawing attention to the array of historical actors, the textual and visual public discourse surrounding the performers, and the role of Shanghai's Cantonese sojourner community, it explores Cantonese opera performance in Shanghai in this period, in particular the popularity of female troupes. The last section looks beyond Shanghai to consider its connections to and influence on another Cantonese sojourner community across the Pacific, San Francisco.","PeriodicalId":37726,"journal":{"name":"CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41965453","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Special Issue on Regional Language and Performance Texts in the Qing","authors":"C. Swatek, Margaret B. Wan","doi":"10.1353/cop.2020.0000","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/cop.2020.0000","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":37726,"journal":{"name":"CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49105531","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Dialect Humor and Local Sentiment in Two Plays by the Suzhou Playwright Li Yu (李玉, 1602?–Post 1676)","authors":"C. Swatek","doi":"10.1353/cop.2020.0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/cop.2020.0004","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Among extant plays by the Suzhou playwright Li Yu, only one survives in complete versions in both a woodblock imprint dating to the Shunzhi era (1644–1661) and several hand-copied versions: Qingzhong pu (清忠譜, Register of the Pure and Loyal). In the woodblock edition, published in Li Yu’s lifetime, dialogue for the jing, fujing, and chou is rendered in standard stage vernacular, while one readily accessible manuscript of the complete play reflects efforts to capture in writing the effects of Wu dialect in scenes performed by the dialect-speaking roles. This furnishes an opportunity to observe how actors used dialect in a performance. I will examine a case of such translation from one of Qingzhong pu’s most popular scenes and then compare it to a similar scene in another Li Yu play, Wanli yuan (萬里圓, A Ten-thousand Li Reunion), which survives only in hand-copied versions. I will conclude with some observations about the formulaic nature of dialect humor and how texts that attempt to capture that humor shed light on the strategies of the actors who performed them.","PeriodicalId":37726,"journal":{"name":"CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46812423","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}