MEI LAN-FANG The Life and Times of a Peking Actor A. C. SCOTT with illustrations by the author HONG KONG UNIVERSITY PRESS Mei Lan-fang came from a famous actor family —the profession is often hereditary in China—and this story of his life is drawn mainly from his own reminiscences and from conversations with the author. He was a national figure whose name was a household word for more than forty years; even in Europe, Japan, Russia and America he was widely known and admired. He was instrumental in opening the eyes of men like Stanislavsky, Eisenstein and Brecht to new dimensions of theat rical expression. No other Chinese actor attained and retained the unique position held by Mei Lan-fang. In foreign eyes it is unique in another sense for Mei made his reputation playing the women's roles of the Chinese classical repertoire, somewhat in the tradition of the Elizabethan theatre in the West. This biographical sketch remains the solitary account in English of China's most famous actor. HK$i5.oo (in Hong Kong only) Oxford University Press and its Branches are the sole distributors outside Hong Kong MEI &AN-FANG BY A. C. SCOTT THE KABUKI THEATRE OF JAPAN Allen and Unwm, London 1955 THE CLASSICAL THEATRE OF CHINA Allen and Unwm, London 1957 TRADITIONAL CHINESE PLAYS University of Wisconsin Press Volume I, 1967, Volume II, 1969 Mei Lan-fang in 1956 MEI LAN-FANG The Life and Times of a Peking Actor A. c. SCOTT with tllustrattons by the author HONG KONG UNIVERSITY PRESS © Copyright by the Hong Kong University Press First printed in October ig$g, 1500 copies Published in 1959 with the title Mei Lan- fang. Leader of the Pear Garden. First issued in this paperback form in 1971 Printed in Hong Kong. Oxford University Press are the sole distributors outside Hong Kong £> LIBRA PRESS LTD. 56, Wong Chuk Hang Road, $Dt Hong Kong PREFACE AND POSTSCRIPT HpHE years which have elapsed since the first publication of this book -^ and its reissue as a paperback have marked profound changes in China. One result of the ensuing political turmoil has been the uncom promising relegation of the traditional theatre in a way that few could have foreseen when these pages were first written and Mei Lan-fang was still alive. His death in 1961 foreshadowed the end of the old acting traditions. During the half century that he was active on the stage Mei became a household legend among his fellow-countrymen who respected both his talents and his personality in an unprecedented way. His reputation spread far beyond China and he was instrumental in opening the eyes of men like Stanislavsky, Eisenstein and Brecht to new dimen sions of theatrical expression. Today, ironically, the name of Mei is barely remembered, if at all, by the new generations in China. Originally I had wanted this book to be a complete and extensively annotated translation of Mei's memoirs which were being published piecemeal in China during the early fifties. It was to ask for his collabora tion in this project that I had a meeting with him in Peking in 1956. In the event it proved impossible to correspond with him afterwards from Hong Kong where I was then living and Mei himself was powerless to remedy the situation, willing though he was. It is sad that he never completed his memoirs before he died. This book, based largely on such materials as he had already published was an apology for what might have been. Were I to write such a book today it would be a very different work. As it is this biographical sketch has remained a solitary account in English of China's most famous actor. I hope it may, in spite of some inadequacies, still prove informative for the ordinary reader for whom it is intended. A. C. SCOTT 1971