A Peking Opera Classic Steeped in Dark Humour

A staple of Peking opera repertoire, “Qionglin Banquet”, brings smiles to the audience even in times of crisis.

Peking Opera Qionglin Banquet — Fan Zhong-Yu and the two messengers
Courtesy of Trend Foundation

TAIPEI, Taiwan — It has always been a challenging task to review a Peking opera play, a quintessential form of Chinese art that often demands the use of jargons, which could sometimes be impossible to translate into a foreign language. The attempt of translating the plays’ title, too, could bring awkward results. Such is the case for the classic repertoire “Wenchao Naofu” (問樵・鬧府), which can be loosely translated as “Asking the Woodcutter, Wreaking Havoc in the Mansion”, and “Daguen Chuxiang” (打棍・出箱) as “Waving a Cudgel, Jumping Out of a Casket”, both are excerpts from Qiongling Banquet.

Set during the reign of Northern Song Emperor Renzong (r.1010–1063), the story unfolds with Fan Zhong-Yu (范仲禹), a scholar who travels to Beijing for keju, or civil-service examination. After the exam, Fan takes his family on a trip, during which both his wife and son have gone missing. While searching for his family, Fan encounters a woodcutter in the mountains, who tells him that his son was picked up by a tiger, and his wife abducted by the Grand Tutor Ge Deng-Yun (葛登雲).

At first, the woodcutter is reluctant to show Fan the way to Ge’s mansion as he’s afraid of displeasing the Grand Tutor, until he gets the scholar’s assurance that his identity won’t be revealed. Fan rushes to meet Ge, but ends up telling him what he had heard from the woodcutter. Of course, Ge denies of having taken the wife and, while sending his people to track down the whistleblower, plots against the scholar: to get him drunk and ask him to stay for the night.

The second excerpt begins with Ge sending his man to assassinate the drunken scholar. The assassin fails the task because Fan, a reincarnation of Megrez (Chinese God of Wisdom) who’s been awarded zhuangyuan, or “first place”, in the civil-service examination, is being protected by a wrathful deity. Ge then send more of his men, who beat Fan to “death” and hide his corpse in a casket.

In the meantime, two messengers from the capital come looking for Fan to deliver the good news (that he’s received first place in the exam), but couldn’t find the scholar until a month later when they find, in the middle of no where, a casket. Fan, who’s now gone mad, suddenly jumps out of the closed casket, and mistaken the messengers as his missing wife and son. The two messengers come to realise that this madman is the scholar that they’ve been looking for.

This was all done without any stage set or props, distilling Peking opera to its essence.

Steeped in dark humour, this play shows how the characters, particularly Fan who has a bright future waiting ahead of him, comfort his out-of-control life through self-mockery. When looking for his missing family, Fan meets this woodcutter who is hard of hearing; Fan has to shout out to him, reminiscent of a desperate cry to the mountain valley in his inner world where an answer is not heard.

Fan and the woodcutter perform as a satirical duo. In the play, the woodcutter is categorised as Chou, or the clown role, who shows no pity towards the scholar who’s going through the most difficult time in his life. In “Asking the Woodcutter”, Fan’s conversation with the old man is repeated — several times — on the two side, as well as at the front and rear end of the stage; when at the rear end of the stage, the duo repeats the line with their back facing the spectators, as if allowing us to inspect their inner world —heartbroken and devastated—that juxtaposes with the absurdity and impermanence of the real world, all the while inflicting a strange sense of humour. This was all done without any stage set or props, distilling Peking opera to its essence.

The two messengers in comic role enliven us amid an air of sympathy when we see that the scholar has gone mad. But the original story doesn’t end here. In the full version of Qionglin Banquet, justice is served with the Grand Tutor being convicted of his crime, whereas Fan reunites with his wife and son.

Fulfilment (yuan man) and reunion (tuan yuan) are common endings for Chinese literature and drama. According to influential writer, Chiang Hsun, it seems as if this ‘formulaic’ ending is hiding Chinese people’s unregretted great love, even when life is in pain. Yet, it is this very “expectation of fulfilment and reunion that marks the nation’s tragedy”, Chiang writes. But perhaps there could be nobility in suffering. As Aristotle has argued, tragedy is capable of cleansing the heart through pity and terror, and catharsis describes the exact experience of one’s emotion being purified by dramatic art.

In a time when life-inspired stories are often communicated through Netflix and Youtube Videos, walking into the theatre to watch these two excerpts from Qionglin Banquet being performed onstage feels teaches us how we could react and respond to life when it leaves us no choice but to move on with a smile.

More about Qionglin Banquet

Qionglin Banquet is adapted from The Three Heroes and Five Gallants (三俠五義), a classic novel based on the performance of 19th-century oral storyteller. “Qionglin Banquet” was the name of the feast held by the Northern Song court (960–1127 AD) to welcome scholars who have succeeded in the civil-service examination.

The story was adapted into Peking opera by late Wusheng master, Tan Xinpei (譚鑫培). In Peking opera, Wusheng is a man of military tenor who is especially skilled in acrobatics; this is contrast to Fan Zhong-Yu whose role is characterised as Laosheng, a middle-aged or old man who is more reserved than Wusheng.

The complexity of the scholar’s emotion—after having lost his family — is often expressed through his “water sleeves”. Other techniques, such as hair-swining (shuai fa) and front flip (diao mao) — the former expresses the character’s agitation, whereas the latter exaggerate the character’s fall — form part of the “Sigong Wufa”, or the Four Skills and Five Canons, that comprise all the bodily movements and verbal skills required of Peking Opera actors and actresses.

Qionglin Banquet is famously difficult to bring off for the fact that it demands the actor’s impeccable implementation of Sigong Wufa. It’s good to see that Chu Lu-Hao (朱陸豪) who, taking on the role of Fan Zhong-Yu, pulls this off with Chen Qing-He (陳清河) who plays the role of the woodcutter; the former learned to interpret the character from late Sheng master Zhou Zhengrong (周正榮), and the latter from late Chou master Wu Jian-Hong (吳劍虹).

*Reference: “Embrace Our Homeland: WenChao”, 1984, Chiang Hsun

Qionglin Banquet was staged at the Family Theatre in Taipei City Hall on September 25, 2022.

A Peking Opera Classic Steeped in Dark Humour

A staple of Peking opera repertoire, “Qionglin Banquet”, brings smiles to the audience even in times of crisis.

The First Museum in Asia Dedicated to ‘Period’

Tibetan Art and Culture in Exile Flourish at Times of Uncertainty