The Essential Li Yu Resurrected: a Performance Review of the 2010 Beijing Production of Lian Xiang Ban (women in Love)

In recent decades, one after another, masterpieces of the southern Chinese theatrical genre chuanqi 傳奇 have been staged in productions that are more ambitious than stringing together the separate scenes that have been preserved in the Kunqu 崑曲 performance repertoire. These include Tang Xianzu’s 湯顯祖 (1550–1616) Peony Pavilion (Mudan ting 牡丹亭), Kong Shangren’s 孔尚任 (1648–1718) Peach Blossom Fan (Taohua shan 桃花扇), and Hong Sheng’s 洪昇 (1645–1704) Palace of Lasting Life (Changsheng dian 長生殿). Their more productive colleague, Li Yu 李漁 (1611–1680), however, had to wait until last year for one of his plays to receive such attention. The production under review, adapted from Li Yu’s comedy, Lian xiang ban 憐香伴 (Women in Love), was produced by the Beijing Polo Arts Entertainment Company and premiered May 11–14, 2010, at the Poly Theater in Beijing. Despite his importance in the development of Chinese theatre, both in terms of his plays and his writings on the theatre, it is understandable that it has taken a while for one of Li Yu’s plays to enjoy a production of this sort. His plays in general lack gravity or sublimity, but are instead playful and entertaining, chronicling as they do individual pursuits of happiness in the face of cultural orthodoxies. If Peony Pavilion in many respects is