Popular Chinese Plays 

Translated by Harold Acton 

Edited and proofread by Guan Xingzhong 

Hardcover, 689 pages 

Published by Foreign Languages Press 

Harold Acton (1904-1994) is an Italian-born British writer and legendary aesthete, or a lover of beauty, who had lived for seven years in Beijing in the 1930s and wrote several works about Chinese theatre and poetry. He believes in the idea that true culture is universal. 

During his stay in China, he often watched operas performed in the theaters at Beijing’s Qianmen Street. The content of the plays as well as the skill and devotion of the performers inspired him. “With their lilt in my ears and the lithe actor leaping before my eyes, I fancied I could convey some of their charms to Western playgoers, though the texts were the mere framework of many an exquisite performance,” he wrote in his Memoirs of an Aesthete. 

When describing himself, Acton said he is both a “fervent votary” and “an irrepressible addict” of Chinese theatre. Peking Opera is his “aesthetic nourishment.” It was this desire to introduce English readers to a whole library of popular Chinese literature that propelled him to translate numerous Chinese poems, traditional plays, and novels. 

The book Popular Chinese Plays selects 38 Chinese classical plays of various genres including Peking Opera and Kunqu Opera translated by Harold Acton, such as the “Drunken Concubine,” “Farewell My Concubine,” and “Wu Song Beats the Tiger.” 

Acton divided the plays into six categories based on their performance styles and story types: Civil Dramas, Comedies, Domestic Farces, Song and Dance Plays, Military and Acrobatic Plays, and Half-Civil, Half-Military or Acrobatic Plays. The translation of each play consists of its title, historical time period of the story which the play was based on, main characters and corresponding roles that appear in the play, preface, main text, and annotations. Through a wide range of materials and rich content, the book comprehensively showcases the charm of Chinese opera. 

In the Civil Dramas section, “Cha Mei An,” or “The Chopping of Chen Shimei,” is a well-known play. According to the story, Chen is a penurious scholar blessed with a devoted wife named Qin Xianglian, whose hard work enabled him to travel to the capital and compete in the Imperial examination. However, he promptly abandoned her after he won first place on the examination and lied that he was still a bachelor in order to marry the Emperor’s daughter. Chen later even sent an emissary to murder his wife. Though the Princess and Empress Dowager did their utmost to save him, Chen was eventually condemned to execution by the exasperated Judge Bao, the Chinese precursor of Sherlock Holmes, and a historical figure of the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127) who gained a fabulous reputation for his unswerving integrity and immobile countenance – hence the sobriquet of Iron Face. When performed on the stage, Judge Bao’s unforgettable figure is etched in the memory of each viewer, having a jet black face, a striking silhouette with arched eyebrows, and the crescent moon etched on his forehead to symbolize his supernatural powers. 

In the Comedies section, one of the plays Acton chose is “Ch’un-hsiang Nao Hsüeh” (or Spring Perfume Turns the Schoolroom Topsy-Turvy), an excerpt from The Peony Pavilion, one of the most famous Kunqu masterpieces. Written by the Chinese playwright Tang Xianzu (1550-1616) during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), it tells the romantic story of the daughter of a wealthy official and a talented but poor young scholar. 

Kunqu, a UNESCO-listed intangible cultural heritage, is a traditional Chinese theatrical art form that is often regarded as one of the oldest forms of Chinese opera. It has a rich history and a distinctive style that combines singing and acting with graceful, stylized movements. 

The classic opera “Drunken Concubine” is a must-see for die-hard opera fans around the world and is included in Song and Dance Plays. Set in the Tang Dynasty (618-907) period, it tells a love story between emperor Xuanzong and his beloved concubine Yang Yuhuan, also known as one of the Four Beauties of ancient China. 

According to the plot of the opera, the main character, Yang, arranges a banquet one evening in an imperial garden and waits for the emperor to come, but he never turns up. Yang finally realizes that he chose another concubine over her and feels humiliated, furious, and depressed. The opera shows the change of Yang’s mood and also reflects how women were oppressed by the ancient feudalism society.  

In the Military and Acrobatic Plays section, Acton includes his translation of the classic Peking Opera – “Wu Song Fights the Tiger.” This opera tells the story of Wu Song, a fictional character from The Water Margin, one of the four great classic novels of traditional Chinese literature. Despite the fact that it is classed as a piece of Peking Opera, there is very little singing or dialogue; instead most of the action consists of a fierce fight between a seriously-drunk man and a ferocious tiger (played by an actor covered in an artificial tiger costume). The weaponless Wu Song, under the bravery-inducing influence of alcohol, ends up killing the tiger by pinning it to the ground and bashing its head repeatedly with his bare fists. 

This style of play has a specific name, wuxi, or martial arts in Peking Opera. It mainly focuses on showing the physical skills of Peking Opera actors, including their gestures, movements, and martial arts skills. Singing and dialogue are usually kept to a minimum. 

This book has been rated as the very essence of Chinese drama undiluted, and a re-creation of the living Chinese drama in which the various accents of Chinese dialogue have been recorded with incomparable subtlety and exactitude.