In Peking Opera acting, attention is paid to both symbolism and the conversion of movements into graceful dancing. Imitation brings out symbolism. A performer imitates and
beautifies life's actions. For example, he opens and closes a door where there is no door at all. This is true of mounting or dismounting a horse, going upstairs or coming downstairs, going on board a ship or leaving a ship. At the same time, movements on the Peking Opera stage should be dance-like, have a rhythm and are pleasant to look at. This necessitates exaggeration and pantomimic variations. A combination of symbolism and movement-to-graceful-dancing conversion has resulted in conventionalized acting that is unique to Peking Opera. That is to say, many human actions have gradually been adapted for the theatrical stage and fallen into fixed patterns to become intricate conventions which generations of performers have conformed with and which people are familiar with.
Conventionalized acting in Peking Opera does not come into existence overnight. It is accumulated by a succession of performers and passed down from generation to generation. While standards are to be followed, a break with accepted routine is allowed. Acting conventions develop in the process of being inherited.
In a theatrical company, performers abide by the rule of "wearing ragged clothes rather than the wrong costume." A performer certainly knows what costume to wear when he plays a certain role in a play. Wearing wrong costume does not accord with the plot, nor is it acceptable to the audience. Costuming conventions are a spin-off of acting stylization; and, in turn, it reinforces acting stylization in Peking Opera. As most Peking Operas tell historical stories, the forms of costume are fixed and categorized. Generally, theatrical costume is divided into five categories: mang (the ceremonial robe embroidered with patterns of four-toed dragon and sea-waves worn by emperors or high-ranking
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| The red-faced man on the left is Guan Yu, a general of the Three Kingdoms period. |
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| The dan players on the right wears a soft kao (a warrior's suit of armor without flags) the costume of the two characters is slightly different from the usual style of today. | officials), kao (the warriors' suit of armor), zhe (the lined coat), pi (mantle worn by male or female) and vi (other costumes). Whoever wears a yellow robe with python patterns is an emperor; and whoever wears a blue gown and a black hat a scholar. A character's identity is easily known by what he wears.
Peking Opera costume took shape during the Qing Dynasty but was based on clothes people wore during the Ming Dynasty. The Palace Museum in Beijing keeps a book titled An Outline of Wear, which lists the costume of characters in close to 1,000 Peking Operas.
Facial makeup in Peking Opera aims to exaggerate characters' facial color and features according to requirements of portrayal. Face coloring for the sheng role. the delineation of eyebrows, the eye sockets and the mouth for the dan role, and face painting for the jing and chou roles all have such an effect.
The most characteristic are tie pian zi for the dan, role and face painting for thejing and chou roles. By tie pian zi is meant that long hair is painted on each side of a dan-role player's face and flower patterns are pasted above his brows. The greatest benefit of this is to change the look of the player's natural face. In the case of a male actor playing a dan role, this makes the face more feminine. Using colors to create facial images is a tradition in the history of the Chinese theater. This applies mostly toting (painted face) and chou (clown) role types.
In the long process of development, every character in each opera has acquired a unique makeup image, and such makeup conventions have won recognition from the audience. As soon as a character comes onto the stage, the audience, on the basis of the character's facial makeup and costume, would immediately know whether the character is a kind-hearted, evil, loyal, treacherous, good-looking or ugly person. And this has an impact on the stage effect of a play in question. |
