Víctor Hugo Rascón Banda died last Wednesday July the 30th.

Víctor Hugo Rascón Banda

Not long ago I decided to write an entry about Emilio Carballido, and today my heart feels the duty of writing about Víctor Hugo Rascón Banda.

Once more, memories pile up in my mind.

When “el grupo de los doce” (the Group of Twelve) (1) was formed in the mid-eighties, with Mexican playwrights who were part of the old and new Mexican dramaturgy (from the sixties as well as from the seventies), González Caballero would tell me how pleasant one of the new playwrights was, that he supposedly was a “banker” (in fact, he really was one, Rascón Banda was an important employee at a banking enterprise), that he seemed sincere and that he had some interesting dramaturgical work (2).

I sensed the beginning of a fruitful friendship between them both, a friendship that Rascón Banda knew how to handle diplomatically during the times González Caballero was minimised by other Mexican playwrights. Víctor Hugo Rascón Banda maintained his friendship with González Caballero until Gonzalez’s death and even beyond; he was one of the few playwrights present at the last homage made to González Caballero at the Mexico City’s Teatro Hidalgo.

Rascón Banda was looking to quit banking at some point and dedicate himself fully to writing, and when the opportunity came, he became a full time writer. Using his administrative skills he landed a job where he could be of most use to his fellow playwrights, the SOGEM.

The first time I saw Rascón Banda was at a lunch he invited González Caballero to, at a French restaurant within the former Lion’s Desert Convent; as González Caballero used to do, he invited me to go with him and, of course, I accepted. It was the eighties, I was an adolescent in search of his way, meeting the people who managed the stage business in Mexico was always a tempting opportunity. Rascón Banda picked us up at some place in the city centre, in what I considered was a big and luxurious car (González Caballero agreed with me). Rascón Banda was tall, handsome, well-dressed and didn’t look much like the Mexican playwright stereotype; I still remember his deep, clear and confident voice.

González Caballero was impressed by Rascón Banda’s ability to be a “banker”, to have style and to dedicate himself to dramaturgy. Rascón Banda admired my teacher, he was honest and very responsible. Even though he talked about theatre with clarity and knowledge (he was a well travelled man), he had a pleasant conversation, he didn’t try to argue and looked for a sincere exchange.

Victor Hugo Rascón Banda’s plays are among Mexican theatre’s many successes (particularly during the nineties), and great Mexican actors took part in them. Even though he’s known by other plays, the one I treasure the most is the one that got me close to him, Tina Modotti, because it was one of the first plays I read that came from the hands of a Mexican playwright, with a supple dramatical structure (3). He got involved with cinema, theattre, and everything with a dialogue, a story, characters and a performing space.

Víctor Hugo Rascón Banda's texts

Víctor Hugo Rascón knew well how to move the influences on his theatre and to adpat them to his personal style. I remember how Chekhov and his Cherry Garden ran subtly in the background of Playa Azul (Blue Beach), with characters from the PRI era that were losing power and territory (literally), losing their old way of life. He became a master of the realist-naturalist atmosphere, his plays echoed the times and got fused in a clear and direct character study.


I remember him as someone always close to independent groups, close to power too, and close to those who looked for a push to continue in the theatrical world; always approachable, at times, at very few times, when unable to offer all the aid that was required, the sorrow of impotence showed on his face, and yet a solution would arrive.


I didn’t know he was afflicted with cancer until I left Mexico. My colleagues would tell me how he would keep working, even when weak because of his illness. To talk about him always involved talking about a man who was admirable for his human side. Now, at the news of his passing away, I feel somewhat perplexed, and I see time pass by, how I prefer to remember González Caballero when he had dreams and plans, when at the source of his creativity he dedicated himself fully to theatre, I want to keep seeing him during his moments of success.

The losses will continue, there is no way of stopping them, we will have to find a way to preserve Rascón Banda’s work in the theatrical memory of Mexico.





(1) In my hands I hold an ediition of “Doce a las Doce, Teatro Breve” (Twelve at Twelve, Short Plays), the book that gathered those twelve playwrights in a beautiful anthological way where each published a short play that referred to (or took as starting point) one of the 12 hours of a day. The group’s members were: Alejandro Licona, Willebaldo López, Pilar Campesino, Tomás Urtusástegui, Miguel Angel Tenorio, Antonio González Caballero, Tomás Espinosa, Dante del Castillo, Pablo Salinas, Norma Román Calvo, Marcela del Río y Vìctor Hugo Rascón Banda.
(2) At the time, 1989, Rascón Banda was already known by some scandalous premieres. His polemic, relevant and well written plays offered him a place not only in theatre but, some time later, in cinema and television.
(3) The play was part of a theatre volume by Rascón Banda, part of the mythical collection of books edited and republished by the Public Education Ministry in the eighties, called “Lecturas Mexicanas” (Mexican Readings).

“Salesman in Beijing”, a book by Arthur Miller, 24 years later.

I hadn’t got to even the first half of “Salesman in Beijing”, the book Arthur Miller wrote after his second visit to China in 1984, when he was invited to stage his own “Death of a Salesman”, when my hands were already reaching for the keyboard to type about every sentence I had been reading.

Miller’s text is a whole document on an era of Beijing and on theatre in general, but at the same time it revealed the experiences I’ve had in Beijing after 3 years of living here. I didn’t come to do theatre, I came to China to live it, to explore it, and to write about it and its performing arts, to get to know it; I came to learn Taijiquan and to find myself in the strange idleness of the start of my maturity; I haven’t written nor done any theatre since I’ve been here, so I’ve become another spectator of Asian performing arts and, in this case, another reader of Miller’s book.

The first impression the text gave me was one of surprising freedom with which people back then would talk about the Cultural Revolution, which nowadays is a completely taboo subject in China; actors, writers, ordinary people shared their opinions on what had happened, who they’d lived through it, and what damage it had caused while, today, in 2008, starting a conversation on the subject would only provoke complete silence, and maybe deeply intellectual sentences that would try to steer the subject away.

Even though the subject is fascinating, especially during the time it was written, reading about it sounds somewhat outdated and only seems to be of value to those interested in the China that existed during the 80’s. That China doesn’t exist anymore, and is now living the results of its change; now it’s rich and powerful, tells the world what to do, economically invades Africa and Latin-america in search for resources for its expansion. There aren’t many studies that review this transition stage, and maybe that’s reveals the importance of the kind of comments from the heirs to the revolution, comments that Miller brings to us, a revolution that extinguished Chinese cultural life for a decade.

The description of a world outside the theatre and a world within the theatre of that China from the spring of 1984 is at times delicious, an enjoyable read and full of pleasant moments and simple but deep disquisitions. What he describes about life outside the theatre is so interesting (and unique) that I remembered the documentary Antonioni made during the cultural revolution: “Chun Kuo Cina”. Chinese style service, hygiene, the ordinary Chinese spectator, the twists of language, intellectuals and food. Miller is a professional narrator of ordinary life and a spokesperson for the bewilderment of Westerners confronted by Chinese customs.

As for what he describes about life within the theatre, it’s fascinating for someone who’s done theatre or who’s lived it. I consider it a theatrical document because in this text I see direct information on how a sincere representative of the empire of realism (1), in an honest and sincere way, tries to conquer a world that does not handle realism yet (even 100 years after its birth). It’s a document because of the way is presented, it’s a work diary and travel impressions; it’s a document because of its way of presenting the staging of the play, because of its reflections and its means to reach its goal. It’s not just a document about theatre in China, but about how Americans in the end of 20th Century viewed the requirements for their theatre through one of their most important representatives.

The play, which at the time was already almost 40 years old, was going to have its premiere in the recently opened up China. In the years where theatrical postmodernism teared realistic discourse apart in Western World, Miller was trying to “teach” a new way to Chinese actors. But the realism that was being destroyed, leaving behind new forms, inevitably remained (and remains still) with its imposing commercial presence in those post-modern Western cities.


Miller was at the same time a salesman, American theatrical realism with its own “need” for Stanislavski and the ‘interiorisation’ of the actor was being sold where their was no knowledge about it. And I remembered that tale (or real-life story) where a fridge salesman becomes rich in the North Pole selling fridges as boxes for keeping food. I have witnessed, by reading Arthur Miller’s book, how he sold his “Salesman” with the currency of personality, intellectuality, cultural exchange, and the values of non-fiction. At the end, it would seem he’s victorious, that he makes the sale, but, as it happens with the main character of his play, the former successful salesman, he fails.

More than 20 years after that text was written and after that experience, we know that the revolution in the acting of modern Chinese actors was not won by Miller’s realism, it was won by cinema and TV, the bastard or next-of-kin product of realism, realist melodrama (much more suitable to Chinese tradition). Theatre in 2008 is, in China, just a handful of stupid musicals, trite comedies with TV stars and remakes of Chinese classics from the 50’s. The ever present Chinese Opera has found its new place as an adaptation through “national pride” and gets its income from touristic interests; big directors make their modern versions of traditional opera, cause scandal in the country, go abroad and are applauded as innovators and modernisers of China’s new and burgeoning market economy. But the theatre Miller came to revolutionise, the theatre of the word, of characters, of real and deep characters, a theatre of ideas (even if he denies it), that theatre remains empty, it was killed by TV and cinema, it was killed by commerce, it was killed by Tian’anmen and Falungong.

In Beijing’s theatres I’ve seen Ibsen’s, Strindberg’s and Laoshe’s (China’s “modern” author par excellence) plays, and I don’t want to see more. Modern authors have not plays to stage or don’t want to write for theatre, the theatrical spaces (those allowed by the government) are few, the public does not exist, the government reviews (censors?) and adapts every text, foreign stars (who inherited the theatre of Miller and his co-revolutionaries) are not invited to come anymore. There’s something in our way of doing theatre that makes the managers of Chinese culture nervous, “something” about words and ideas, about “reality”. How I wish I could see one of Heiner Müller’s plays in Chinese! Müller is no realist, yet none of his plays are staged.

Then, maybe there’s nothing against realism, but against truth in one of its artistic expressions.



I found the book in London, in October 2007, but I didn’t read it until I came back to Beijing, with the required state of mind to enjoy it. I was never an unconditional fan of Miller, and I think I’ve made that clear, but I must accept that the adventure he narrates is marvelous and that his text is a true treasure.



(1) You can call it 'Realism" or 'Naturalism", it doesn't matter here.

Xiaweidian Style Puppet Exhibition at Mentougou Museum

Ticket of the Shadow Theatre Puppet Exhibtion at Mentougou Museum. July 2008.

Keeping the line of my two last posts about my visit to Mentougou village and its special museum (1) it is the time to share a video and some photographs I recorded of the temporal Shadow Theatre Puppet exhibition I saw there.

I repeat some words about Xiaweidian style elaboration puppets and this special exhibition:

Xiaweidian, a village in Mentougou district, is home to the west school and has a long tradition of carving and playing shadow puppets. -Beijing's "west school" style puppets are coated with water color, not the usual tung oil and offer a slightly different viewing experience-, experts say.

During Summer 2008 Mentogou Museum has an exhibition of 700 hundreds puppets from diferent parts of China, and the highlights of the exhibition are precisely those puppets from Beijing Xipai Xiaweidian School.

Video of Shadow Theatre Puppet Exhibtion at Mentougou Museum

Photographs of puppets showed at the exhibtion

The same video on Vimeo:


Chinese Shadow Theatre Puppets Exhibition at Mentougou Museum from Gustavo Thomas on Vimeo.

(1) - July 23rd, 2008: Mr. Li making Xiaweidian style Shadow Theatre Puppets at Mentougou Museum.
- August 1st, 2008: Chinese opera, Music instruments and Shadow Theatre Puppets at Mentougou Museum

Chinese Opera, Music and Shadow Theatre Puppets at Mentougou Museum

Mentougou Museum, outskirts of Beijing. July 2008.

Mentougou Museum, outskirts of Beijing, is an interesting place to see documents of Chinese Performing Arts history through a small province village's point of view.

A permanent exhibition of Mentougou's Performing Arts shows us Shadow Theatre Puppets (Xiaweidian Beijing West School), Chinese Opera objects (costumes, props, and music instruments); and historical photographs.

Video Mentougou Museum

Photographs of the permanent exhibition at Mentougou Museum:

SHADOW THEATRE PUPPETS


Shadow Theatre Puppet (Xiaweidian Beijing West School). Mentougou Museum.


Shadow Theatre Puppet (Xiaweidian Beijing West School). Mentougou Museum.


Shadow Theatre Puppet (Xiaweidian Beijing West School). Mentougou Museum.


CHINESE OPERA COSTUMES, PROPS AND MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS

Chinese Opera costume. Mentougou Museum.


Chinese Opera props. Mentougou Museum.


Chinese Opera musical instruments. Mentougou Museum.


Chinese Opera Musical Instruments. Mentougou Museum.



HISTORICAL PHOTOGRAPHS

Shadow Theatre Stage (First years of 20th Century). Mentougou Museum.


Chinese opera Troupe (First years of 20th Century). Mentougou Museum.


Street musicians and actors (First years of 20th Century). Mentougou Museum.


Chinese Opera troupe (First years of 20th Century). Mentougou Museum.




Comic Chinese Opera performance (Last quarter of 20th Century). Mentougou Museum.



Chinese Opera performance (Last quarter of 20th Century). Mentougou Museum.


Street Musicians performance (Beginnings of 20th Century). Mentougou Museum.

The same video in Vimeo:


Chinese Opera, Music and Shadow theatre Puppets Permanent exhibition at Mentougou Museum from Gustavo Thomas on Vimeo.

Mr. Li making Xiaweidian shadow puppets at Mentougou Museum.

Mr. Li making Xiaweidian Shadow Puppet at Mentougou Museum, China. July 2008.

Mentougou is known as a Communist-era historical point in China, a rich area in coal extraction, but also it is famous as the place where one style of Beijing Shadow Puppets is made, known as Xiaweidian or Beijing west school.

Xiaweidian, a village in Mentougou district, is home to the west school and has a long tradition of carving and playing shadow puppets. -Beijing's "west school" style puppets are coated with water color, not the usual tung oil and offer a slightly different viewing experience-, experts say.

During Summer 2008 Mentogou Museum has an exhibition of 700 hundreds puppets from diferent parts of China, and the highlights of the exhibition are precisely those puppets from Beijing Xipai Xiaweidian School. (1)

Xiaweidian Shadow Puppets. July 2008.

Master Li, the last of a long lineage of puppeteers from Xiaweidian, showed to me how to do the final steps in the elaboration of two Xiaweidian Puppets I bought from him.

Mr. Li making Xiaweidian Shadow Puppets. Mentougou Museum, China. July 2008.


Mr. Li making leather shadow puppets

the same video in Vimeo

Mr. Li making "Xiaweidian" Shadow Puppets. Mentougou Museum. from Gustavo Thomas on Vimeo.

(1) There will be another post about the exhibition.

Tamasaburo performing in Beijing, a second part.

Tamasaburo, "Mudanting". Beijing, China. 2008.

Some impressions come with time...

It’s more than a month since Tamasaburo’s performance of Mudanting, The Peony Pavillion, and I think it is a good time to recall and then express new impressions if they are any.

Tamasaburo in Beijing, "Mudanting"

Again, intelligence.Tamasaburo’s version of Mudanting started with a Japanese style introduction, and actually not with "Mudanting" instead he introduced himself performing a portrayal of a famous chinese character, Yang Guifei the concubine, only for this first scene. Tamasaburo’s version then is constructed from the kind of ritual entrance of any Kabuki Classic performance: a chorus chanting, the main character doing her entrance very slow, getting all the public’s attention through her first movements. I was recording video but I was watching only Tamasaburo’s movements, listening to the music and to the choir; when someone from the staff asked me to turn off my camera I was surprised I was still recording it.

This kind of ritual was a very clever introduction; it showed the Chinese spectators that the actor on the stage was a Japanese figure, performing in his own style and introducing himself to all of us with the humility of an outsider and with respect. After that he could perform Kunqu because he didn’t appear as someone “coming to teach”; he, talking with actions, had come to be a cultural diplomat, to share his artistic skills with the finest and most magnificent performing Art in China. He knew very well the Chinese spectator.

I also remember how Tamasaburo shared the main role, Du Linang, with two other Chinese actors, they were younger and very well trained. We could see and even compare movements, voices and beauty. Tamasaburo is a star, but he was performing the role as any other young player. That was an opportunity for enjoying this kind of role (an actor performing a female character) for the first time in my life; I enjoyed those three different ways of performing (as they were three) with their voices, with their movements and their beauty.

Beyond any technical skill or talent, a glimpse of intelligence can become the origin of success.

Tamasaburo with the other two Chinese actors; they three performed the main role. "Mudantin" Beijing, 2008.

While I was spying him, he stopped talking and looked at me.


I wanted to say sorry because of the video issue (though you may not believe me, in China there is no problem to take photographs during a performance of any Chinese Opera, wherever you are), but I didn’t find the guy of the staff inside the theatre, so I went out and looked for him in one of the beautiful courtyards. Then, while I was talking with the guy, I noticed that there was a big fabric screen dividing the courtyard. Soon I was alone I went through to discover that it was the part the theatre prepared for the cast to refresh themselves, to smoke or to receive people. And that was what Tamasaburo was doing. I saw him talking with a group of Chinese, kind of bored, respectful, listening to them and using a translator to keep the conversation.

The man was there, without costume or makeup, only with a tiny shirt and that white foundation used by any female makeup designer.

An image which closely resembles the Tamasaburo I saw at Huguang Theatre’s courtyard. Mudantin. Beijing, 2008.

He was talking with the group of Chinese, neither him nor anyone else noticed I was there, so I concentrated on his figure and gestures. I’ve always loved the idea of seeing any genius as a human being, a real human being, and that evening I had the chance to do it again. I remember how feminine his figure was: thin, tall and solemn. And then, my brain instantly started recalling any transvestites I had seen in my life; how silly of me! But the white face, the net covering his hair and his attitude, everything reminded me of those people. I had to put my thoughts in order and relocated his image on the stage on a first plane in my memory, and recalled those videos of him I had seen.

In the middle of this absurd game of unconscious comparisons, while I was spying him, he stopped talking and looked at me; it was only for a second (maybe less), but he stopped and looked at me. All I could perceive in his eyes was tranquility and, of course, seriousness. Then everything returned to normalcy, he was talking again with the help of the translator.

I didn’t use my camera, I simply couldn’t do it; if he were performing on the stage..., but no, he wasn’t. I was there without any permission, it seemed embarrassing, no, impolite, rude of me. It was a very private moment, like a naked man trying to rest after a busy day. It was nonsense.


Helping to build the myth


A Japanese friend commented to me about Tamasaburo’s life and how some Japanese see this artist. She told me Tamasaburo wasn’t part of any Kabuki family, so he wasn’t part of Kabuki’s tradition. What did this mean? Well, I looked at some internet pages and some books and it seems that Japanese respected him more because he had to work harder than others to reach the place he enjoys today. Kabuki actors who belong to a certain lineage of families are heirs to the style and work of their fathers, they have “the blood”, so a big part of the way ahead is already prepared, they only have the obligation to work with persistece to be part of the Kabuki tradition. Actors like Tamasaburo have to convince others with work, with talent, with professionalism and, of course, with their artistic values.

She also told me that Tamasaburo had a poliomyelitis problem in his left hand, so his work for getting such skills as a Kabuki actor was even harder! He broke the myth people usually have about the impossibility of becoming an actor or dancer (Kabuki onnagata players are both) if the aspirant has such physical problems.

I can’t assure the veracity of her comments, but I must accept that I want to play the game of helping to construct a myth (or destroying one?). I have enjoyed so much as a spectator of Tamasaburo’s work on stage that I am sure he is walking rapidly through the way of myths even without my help.

*

Creation in my life has always been linked to the pleasure of being a spectator. If I have created something in my life it has been thanks to seeing or listening to something extraordinary before. I am not looking for imitation of the biggest, I am enjoying what some people call “inspiration” but by the biggest, and I love it. After seeing them perform, after crying, trembling, laughing or getting deep in my own self I can write or picture anything I want, without them my artistic life would be unbearable.

Beijing Opera: Mei Lanfang 梅兰芳. Plates from The Drunken Beauty 贵妃醉酒

Mei Lanfang as Concubine Yang in Guifei Zuijiu

Introduction: a book as a source.

During my first six months living in Beijing I was trying to buy any Chinese book about Beijing Opera translated to English, specially about Mei Lanfang work, but my finding was limited to some simple books aimed to foreign common readers for a better understanding of Beijing Opera. Of course I found several books in Chinese, impossible to read (my Chinese was and is awful) but with marvelous pictures and illustrations.

It was in February 2006 when I found at the Foreign Languages Book Store in Wangfujing street a bilingual collection-book called (in his English version) “A Collection of Illustrative Plates Of Beijing Opera Performed During Mei Lanfang’s Visit To The United States”. This was one of my happiest moments inside any Chinese bookshop, I had in my hands the first “readable” book written by a Chinese author with not only important information but with real documents about the way Mei Lanfang prepared and performed plays, in this case during the 1930-tour to USA.

This book also put on his real place Qi Rushan, researcher, theorician, dramaturgist, and stage director who side by side with Mei Lanfang transformed the face of Chinese traditional theatre and made a revolution from inside. Thanks to him Mei was able to reach the top of the world of big stars of beginnings of the 20th Century. (1)

Qi Rushan

But ¿what does this book has inside? And ¿why did this book put on his place the name of Qi Rushan ? I will answer these questions with a direct quote from (the editor) Wang Wenzhang’s preface (2):

“Mei Lanfang’s visiting performance in U.S. causes such an éclat that is certainly the fruit of his consummate artistic accomplishment which he persistenly pursues. The view is widely accepted to explain and evaluate the historic significance of the visiting performance in U.S. However, not a few people know the experience that Mei Lanfang and his companies had made a series of detailed and comprehensive designs and preparations before the visiting performance. Among these include Mr. Qi Rushan, the organizer and prmoter of the visiting performance to U.S., who is in charge of the introduction and publicity of Peking Opera.

Mr. Qi Rushan received well education on the traditional Chinese culture even as a child and made wide journey for business throughout Europe when he was young. He goes deep into Western drama due to the often visits to theatres. Mr. Qi Rushan assists Mei Lanfang to set up the art of Mei School (3) when he came back to China. He contributes his life to the research of Chinese traditional opera and makes the relevant work turn from so-called “vulgar” research to academic study with true significance.

Mr. Qi Rushan on the behalf of Nation Opera Association invites famous painters to draw everything able to be shown by paintings in relation to Peking Opera from Peking Opera costume, facial makeup, props, musical instruments, dancing shape and theatre, add introduction in both Chinese and English and finally make them scroll of paintings easy to hang up as to “diffuse the Nation Opera to abroad” and to make the American audience understand Peking Opera through a direct way at a greater depht. It is easy for the American audience to understand Peking Opera.

The total of 183 scroll of paintings and 1987 plates to some extent become an encyclopedia of peking Opera knowledge but also display vividly the aesthetic principle of Peking Opera performing art. (…)

“A Collection of Illustrative Plates Of Beijing Opera Performed During Mei Lanfang’s Visit To The United States collects and publishes the majority of Peking Opera paintings drwan before Mei Lanfang’s visiting performance in U.S. 70 years ago. The total of 1092 paintings is preserved by the Academy of Chinese Traditional Opera (forefather of the Art Academy of China). The rest of the paintings about theatre houses are lost before the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 and hard to find. (…) ”



Plates of Guifei Zuijiu “The Drunken Beauty”

Mei Lanfang, Guifei Zuijiu

Synopsis of the text:

Yang Yuhuan, better known as Guifei (Imperial Concubine of the First Order), is the consort most favoured by Emperor Ming Huang (685-762 AD) of the Tang Dynasty. She is invited by the emperor to admire the flowers and have a drink at the Pavilion of One Hundred Flowers. As appointed, Guifen comes to the pavillion with her entourage of palace maids and eunuchs. She waits a long time but the emperor fails to appear. She finally gets word that Ming Huang has returned to the Western Place Court to visit Meifei, another concubine. Disappointed and resentful, she has no alternative but to drink alone. She becomes bitter when she recalls how she was doted on in her early days at the Palace. Wine aggravates her sadness and makes her quite drunk. She returns to her quarters, helped by the maids, cheerless and lonesome.


Inside the book we read:

note: It is a difficult text, it seems the translation was made by an inexpert translator, so, please, make an effort.

“It originates from Drunken Concubine Yang during the reign of Emeperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty and appears on the stage of Beijing Opera from Han Opera in the first years of Emeperor Guangxu. It is a one-act song and dance drama. There are many complicated postures such as holding a cup in the mouth (4), sleeping fish and drunken walk (5). The role has been played by military ‘dan’ (female role). In 1914, mei lanfang learnt the play from Lu Sanbao when he was at yowen troupe (6). With the accumulation of stage experience and thoughts, Mei Lanfang made many innivations in the traditional performing style of the play. He did away with performing on stilts and change ‘huashan’ role to play. He threw away vulgar and obscene performance and words (7) after concubine Yang and paid attention her depressed feeling in the forbidden palace. He enhanced techniques of song and dance. Each singing sentence was untited with postures and expressions in his eyes. It made the image of Concubine Yang dignified and appearing in all her glory. Since that, the Drunken beauty had a new meaning of thought. All the pictures depict main dance postures in Act One Drunken Beauty and Act Two.” (8)

Plates with postures using shan (Fan)

Plate 1: 孤立 (Guli) Standing Alone.

Plate 2: 凌虚 (Lingxu) Soaring Aloft.

Plate 3: 惊鸿 (Jinghong) Frightened Swan.

Plate 4: 日照 (Rizhao) Shining Sun.

Plate 5: 羽集 (Yuji) Congregated Birds.

Plate 6: 延伫 (Yanzhu) Standing and Watching.

Plate 7: 指蓬 (Zhipeng) Pointing to Penglai the fairy Mountain.

Plate 8: 迁延 (Qianyan) Hesitation.

Plates with postures using water sleeves


Plate 9: 卧云 (Woyun) Lying in the Clouds.

Plate 10: 散风 (Sanfeng) Scattering the Wind.

Plate 11: 低鬓 (Dibin) Lowering the Head.

Plate 12: 荣与 (Rongyu) Allowing.

Video with 1930-plates and 1956-film of "The Drunken Beauty"



The same video on Vimeo

Beijing Opera: Mei Lanfang 梅兰芳. Plates from The Drunken Beauty 贵妃醉酒 from Gustavo Thomas on Vimeo.

(1) Now I’ve found some other fantastic books, in French and English (and even translated some articles from Chinese), which have given to me a deeper view of the importance of this interesting actor. Qi Rushan was hidden by Chinese art historians because during the revolution he decided to flee and to stay in Taiwan and not in the new Communist China.
(2) It is a real direct quotations that could have some mistakes for those scrutinous of the language. Bilingual book doesn’t mean written in two languages, so written first in Chinese the book was translated by a Chinese translator with his skills on hand.
(3) The Mei School in one of the “styles” of performing which made school in China after the success Mei Lanfang had during these years.
(4) “holding the cup in the mouth” is a posture (chain of actions) which is easy recognizable in the full-version film.
(5) “Drunken walk” is a posture (chain of actions) easy recognizable in the full-version film.
(6) Photograph showing Mei Lanfang and his teacher Lu Sanbao:

(7) It seems that because of the nature of the subject, a drunken spiteful concubine, the play was, before Mei, performed as a parody of drunk women, and people used to go with the expectation of seeing obscene moments on the stage.
(8) Page 320. “A Collection of Illustrative Plates Of Beijing Opera Performed During Mei Lanfang’s Visit To The United States” Collected by the Arts Academy of China. Wang Wenzhang, chief editor. Culture and Art Publishing House. Beijing, China. 2005.