The History of the Chinese Drama: from Birth to Maturity

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The Chinese drama can be traced back to over 2,500 years ago. The early drama included singing and dancing, and people, dressed like all kinds of animals and accompanied by rhythmic beating music, put on performances with particular plots in the form of dances. In the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, there were many clown actors who pleased the nobility with funny performances.These were the early forms of drama.

The Han Dynasty witnessed a vigorous growth of the Chinese society and various embryo forms of drama in the court and among common people continued to develop. Baixi was very popular, which included music, dance, comedy, acrobatics, magic tricks and so on. These performances all had a close relationship with drama.

After the Han Dynasty, especially in the Tang Dynasty, the music and dance ushered in a period of remarkable development. In the Tang Dynasty, the folk songs and dances, such as Tayaoniang, Botou, Damian, were very popular. In these performances, there were distinct roles, complete plots, singing and dancing, and many other drama factors.

The singing and dancing drama had a tremendous influence on chang or singing of the drama in the following times, while the army drama, which included basically dialogues and monologues, promoted the development of nian of the Chinese drama. The army drama originated from comedies by the court actors of the Qin Dynasty.

There were usually roles in the army drama. One was canjun, an official who was charged with crimes and was the target of satire, and the other was canghu,a personwho satirize the former. The army drama became popular after the Tang Dynasty, first in the court and then among the common people. There were more actors and the stories developed from satire of accused army officials to daily life of common people.

By the Song Dynasty, there emerged drama in its mature form-zaju and nanxi.

In the excavated brick engraved tomb of the Dong family in Houma City of Shanxi Province, there was a small stage built in the north of the tomb. On the stage there were five actors of sheng, dan, jing, mo and chou. This is a hard evidence of the drama performance in the Song and Jin dynasties. Besides, the performing venue was improved dramatically. In particular, the prosperity of the goulan as a performing venue promoted the development of zaju, nanxi and other performing arts. In the meantime, shuochang,a genre of popular entertainment consisting mainly of talkingand singing, which rose in the middle and late Tang Dynasty and flourished in the Song Dynasty, contributed to the maturity of drama in two ways. On one hand, shuochang exerted a direct effect on the script creation of drama and on the other hand, shuochang promoted the development and maturity of the singing part of drama.

In the Yuan Dynasty, the prosperity of zaju marked the maturity of the Chinese drama. The performances of zaju inherited the traditions and skills of the performing arts developed since the Han and Tang dynasties and integrated music, dance, comedy and acrobatics, forming an aesthetic and systematic performing art type. As there were more and more viewers of zaju, zaju troupes became larger and the originally simple roles became more diverse. For example, the role of dan was divided into zhengdan, xiaodan and laodan. The division of roles meant the division in performance and led to improvement of performing skills.

The zaju of the Yuan Dynasty had not only remarkable stage performances but also scripts.A period of less than one hundred years witnessed a great number of zaju writers and works. Zhong Sicheng(around 1279-around 1360) recorded, in his

Luguibu or Records of Drama Performers and Script Writers,152 drama writers who could be clearly identified and 452 drama pieces. Among the most zaju writers, the most famous ones were Guan Hanqing, Ma Zhiyuan, Zheng Guangu and Bai Pu, known as the “four greatest drama writers of the Yuan Dynasty”and Guan Hanqing was the most prominent among them.

Guan Hanqing(around 1220-1300) created over sixty pieces of zaju script and eighteen of them remains until now, including the most famous script The Injustice to Dou E and history drama pieces Guan Yu Going to a Banquet with a Single Broadsword and The Dream of Liu Bei, Emperor of the Shu State. The works of GuanHanqing are diverse both in theme and form, including tragedies, comedies, heroic legends and love stories. His works are characterized by prominent themes, well-paced plots, impressive layout, and distinctive characters. Dou E in The Injustice to Dou E is one of the most successful characters in Guan Hanqing’s works. He was a master of language and integrated classical poetry & lyrics and folk literature into his works.

With simple language used by common people, he was able to create lines that not only precisely conformed to poetic metres but also properly showed the identity and personality of the character.

In the Ming and Qing dynasties, chuanqi, or legend drama, became an important drama form. Based on the zaju of the Yuan Dynasty, it was more complicated and more standardized in music. Most of the legend drama script writers were scholars, who pursued perfect musical presentation. At this time, Wei Liangfu (1489-1566) in Taicang of Jiangsu Province introduced a new music form for the drama by creating the Kun singing style. Since then, the legend drama created by scholars all used theKun singing style as their music standards. The legend drama performed with the Kun singing style is known as the Kun Opera. Its literary representation and musical features cater to the taste of scholars and therefore was vigorously advocated and became the “elegant music”with a special cultural status.

The legend drama of the Ming and Qing dynasties reached its heyday with the completion of Peony Pavilion by Tang Xianzu(1550-1616),a drama piece about theromance between Du Liniang and Liu Mengmei. It soon became the most popular Kun Opera piece and was well received in many places. Even today, it is still an excellent example of Kun Opera stage performances. The efforts of artists of generations contribute to its artistic perfection in terms of singing, music, body movements and performances.