UNIVERSITY OF GHANA DEPARTMENT OF THEATRE ARTS

ORIENTAL THEATRE (THEA 406) PRESENTATION ON S.I. HSIUNGs LADY PRECIOUS STREAM BY LESLIE ANNOBIL WALLACE (10314431) KOBINA O. HAGAN (10308223) LECTURER: DR. AWO MANA ASIEDU TEACHING ASSISTANTS: MRS. RASHIDA RESARIO LINDA OPOKU

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Lady Precious Stream is a spoken drama adaptation of a Chinese opera (Wang Bao Chuan), which was translated into English by Shih. I. Hsiung, who also translated plays like The Romance of the Western Chamber 1935, The Professor from Peking 1939 and several others. The play, Lady Precious Stream, opened at the Little Theatre on the Strand, London in 1934 and its significance lies in the fact that it was the first to be written and directed by a Chinese immigrant and staged in Londons West-end. Set under the Tang dynasty, it tells the story of an obstinate maiden (Lady Precious Stream) who marries the familys gardener (Hsieh PingKuei) against her fathers wish. She desserts her royal home to live with her husband in a cave wagering that they will only return when they are rich and successful. After only one month of marriage, Hsieh is summoned to fight in the dangerous Western Regions, leaving his wife alone in the cave. Precious Stream hears that her husband has been killed in action but, in fact, Hsieh has become a King in the Western Regions. On the day of his marriage to the Princess of the Western Regions, he decides to return home to find his first wife and is pursued by the Princess to China. The play ends with the conventional poetic justice prevailing. Since it is a Chinese play, we would like to fish out certain distinctive features that make it as such. First, is the use of Property men. In Hsuings own words, the conventional Chinese stage is not at all realistic. Apart from its lack of scenery, the indispensable property man is the greatest obstacle of obstruction. This simply means the presence of Property Men makes it difficult for reality to be represented on stage; this being from a Western perspective. In Chinese Literary Drama, the Property Man plays the essential roles of: providing cushion for kneeling (when Precious Stream pays her final respects to her father in Act 1, when Hsieh Ping-Kuei is summoned by His Excellency Wang Yun and many other times), taking props on and off stage (this the property men do throughout the entire play), supporting actors and preventing them from falling when they are to die a heroic death (example is when Wang faints). They sometimes go as far as bringing tea to the actors after very long lines and this is exemplified; when the Property Man R brings tea to both Madam and Wang. Another feature visible in the play is the beckoning of audience to use their imaginations. Chinese plays seek to engage the audiences imagination in the artistic realisation of scenery. The use of the bare stage, pantomimes and certain definitive actions challenges the audience to reason and create mental pictures of the environments being represented on stage. For example at the beginning of the play, the reader says: Now let us imagine that this unfurnished stage represents the scene of the picturesque garden of the Prime Minister... Wang Yun, who appears wearing a long black beard which indicates that he is not the villain of the piece.... This shows that the mental pictures created by the audience enhances and facilitates the success of the play. Also the continuous tapping of the forehead; by Precious Stream, Wang Yun and other characters appears to represent a thought process (forgetfulness or devising a solution to a problem). Again leaving the stage bare is to ensure that theres nothing competing with the actors on stage for attention so that audience will be focused and derive the intended message being given to them. This presents the actors as key to the performance and exhibits their colourful costumes whose significance we will explore in the next paragraph.
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Colour, an indispensable symbol in many civilisations also plays a key role in Chinese Literary Drama. Through costume, colour is used to represent a persons social status, rank in military and government office, royal affiliation among others. This is evident in ACT I where the various suitors of Precious Stream arrive wearing colourful costumes which represents their backgrounds. Precious Stream mentions that PRINCES are dressed in RED, YOUNG NOBLES are dressed in BLUE, SONS OF RICH MERCHANTS in YELLOW and HEIRS to GREAT LANDOWNERS are dressed in WHITE. Meaning that colour GONGS! Out distinctions even amongst the Upper Class. Talking of Gongs, we as Oriental Theatre Students should not lose sight of the fact that they play the major part of announcing the presence of key performers, signalling entrances, and cueing music and lights in Chinese Theatre. Hsiung S.I. employs the Gong to cue music and lights, signal the beginning of a new Act and prompt the Reader to appear on stage. For example in ACT I ACT II Gong 1. Reader comes on stage. Gong 1. Enter Reader Gong 2. Curtain up; Gong 2. Lights Up Gong 3. Start Act 1 Gong 3. Music Starts Another substantial feature seen in the play is the use of simple props to represent complex things that cannot be replicated on the conventional Chinese Stage. Here, props like wood, bamboo, cloth, chairs, whips, and many others are put together to represent a complete unit perceivable to the Chinese audience. In the play Lady Precious Stream, two chairs with their backs to the audience and an embroidery attached to bamboo stick tied to the outside of the chairs with a table in the middle represent a pavilion in ACT I. In ACT II, A whip; used by Hsieh Ping-Kuei as he gallops round the stage (indicating long distance); shows that he is riding a horse; yee! haa!! Watch out theres a horse coming through!. The performers curtsy to acknowledge the presence of the audience, introduce themselves to the audience and even ask them questions thereby breaking the imaginary 4th Wall in theatre. The Reader adds to this effect by addressing the audience directly; giving them synopsis of prevailing events and what is to happen. Exemplified in ACT III the Reader comments: We are coming to a strange land known as the Western Regions. It is believed that the customs here are exactly opposite those of China. In ACT II; By some accident we missed the simple but romantic marriage ceremony. Perhaps we purposely avoided it because we thought it might not turn out successfully... The play, Lady Precious Stream has the Four Act Structure of the Northern Yuan dramatist style, and exhibits, among the features above, stories drawn from history and legends about emperors, daughters, generals, wives, and rebels. According to Oscar Brockett, these plays advocated the virtues of loyalty to family and friends, honesty and devotion to work.. they often showed a world out of joint but one in which poetic justice usually prevailed and that is also evident in Hsiungs Lady Precious Stream. Although Hsiung S.I. assures us in his introduction that the play is neither in the Northern or Southern Style, our analysis as intellectual Oriental Theatre Scholars has proven the story more of Northern than Southern.
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References. Oscar Brockett, History of the Theatre Boston, London: Allyn and Bacon, 1995. WB Worthen, The Wadsworth Anthology of Drama, London: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2004. S.I. Hsiung, Lady Precious Stream, An Old Chinese Play Done Into English According to its Traditional Style, Acting Edition: Cox & Wyman Ltd, London,1938 http://www.soas.ac.uk/chinesestudies/events/seminars/19nov2012-chinoiserie-andsubalterneity-in--si-hsiungs-lady-precious-stream-1934.html11111111q