'Peony Pavilion' challenges rigid thinking, calls for love
- By Andrew Lam
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E-mail Shanghai Daily, September 25, 2013
Qing versus daoxue
Fascinated with the regenerative power of authentic, true emotions, the concept known in Chinese as qing — translated variously as love, desire, and/or passion — he wrote “The Peony Pavilion” as a direct challenge and criticism to daoxue.
In the drama, Du Liniang, the young daughter of a high official, meets a young scholar named Liu Mengmei in a dream.
In a scene that many scholars regard as the most erotic in all of Chinese poetry, the two have a tryst in a garden of peonies. Liniang awakens and pines for her phantasmal lover, then dies, leaving behind a self-portrait.
Liu discovers her painting, and falls in love with her. Then the Underworld judge, moved by her beauty and her undying love, returns her to the mortal world. She appears to Liu as a ghost, and they again consummate their love.
Liu digs her up, whereby her soul rejoins her body. They elope, and, after a number of trials — the bulk of which involves trying to convince her father, who embodies daoxue rigidity, that she is not a demon, and that her lover is not a grave robber — the emperor pardons all.
Further comparisons between Xianzu and Shakespeare are inevitable. Both became influential in their venerable years. “Peony” was as well known in China, and for that matter, East Asia, as “Romeo and Juliet” was in the West. But unlike Shakespeare, who wrote and produced plays for a living, Xianzu became a playwright as an avocation, after retiring from public office.
Though quite famous at the end, Shakespeare was not considered wealthy by London standards, whereas Xianzu had the wealth, status, and leisure to devote his time to dramatic creation.
“His retirement from public life was surely also a form of protest against the corruption and dangers of officialdom in the late Ming,” according to Goldman.
The play, originally composed with 55 scenes that included more than 400 arias of poetry, as well as spoken dialogue, was produced in its entirety only a few times in the years right after it was written. Performing the unabridged version could take as long as a week, challenging audiences and the performers.
The Kenneth Pai production, touring the US in 2006, was a major success, though the play had been shortened to 27 scenes running for three evenings, three hours each night. It also was performed to a sold out crowd in Shanghai in 2004.
But beyond its theatrical triumph is the endearing story of an enduring “Peony Pavilion,” which survived several periods of suppression, the latest being the “cultural revolution” (1966-76), when it was banned. Yet, just like Du Liniang, the play has the power of endurance and resurrection.
In fact, it would be a amazing to see a modern-day English adaptation of “Peony,” something that surely will delight both East and West.
Andrew Lam is an editor with New America Media and the author of three books, “Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora,” “East Eats West: Writing in Two Hemispheres,” and his latest, “Birds of Paradise Lost,” a collection of short stories about Vietnamese refugees struggling to rebuild their lives in the Bay Area.
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