Tian Han and the Nanguo Phenomenon: Networking the Personal, Communal, and the Political

Tian Han and the Southern Society Phenomenon:

Networking the Personal, Communal, and the Cultural

Xiaomei Chen

(A draft paper for the Symposium on Urban Cultural Institutions in Early Twentieth Century China, Ohio State University, April 13, 2002. Please do not cite)

　　　　　 In his seminal study of the Southern Society (Nanguo she, which lasted from 1924 to 1930), Dong Jian points out the crucial difference between the Southern Society and other literary societies.　 While the Literature Association (Wenxue yanjiu hui) featured many figures, the only key player in the Southern Society was Tian Han, who was called, I quote, “the soul of the Southern Society”; “His career path is that of the Southern Society. His style is that of the Southern Society. His representative works are that of the Southern Society.”[1]　　

　　　　　　 Indeed, Dong Jian’s statement rings true if one compares the Southern Society with two other drama societies, the Spring Willow Society, which lasted from 1906-1915, and the People’s Drama Society, which lasted from March to October of 1921.　 As is well-known, the establishment of Spring Willow Society signified the birth of modern Chinese drama, or “huaju,” with its performance in Japan in 1906 of the third act of Duma fil’s La Dame aux Camelias (Chahua nü).　 The dramatic achievements of Spring Willow Society would not have been possible without three key players at different stages of its development: Li Xishuang, the passionate initiator who introduced his contemporaries to the power of modern drama, Lu Jingruo, the talented organizer who persevered in building the first professional theater against poverty and prejudice, and Ouyang Yuqian, the talented actor whose experience in the society led to his future career as one of the three founding fathers of modern Chinese drama, together with Tian Han and Hong Shen.

　　　　　　　 Unlike the Spring Willow Society, which focused on performance mostly for artistic experiments, the People’s Drama Society advocated a new drama (xinju), especially social problem plays to realistically portray people’s lives and to entertain them with their artistic creations.　 The first issue of its journal Drama, the first drama journal in China, introduced Roman Roland’s idea of “people theater” to provide joy, intelligence, and entertainment for the laboring masses.　 Such an orientation pioneered the concept of theater that served the interests of the people long before Communist ideology made it a central principle for literature and art.[2]　 Four players with different talents played key parts, without which the People’s Drama Society would not have existed: Wang Zhongxian, the initiator of the journal and the society, Chen Dabei and Xiong Fuxi, who wrote “amateur plays” against commercial culture, and Ouyang Yuqian, the actor whose performing skills proved essential for the society’s drama productions.

　　　　　　　 In comparison with these two drama societies, Tian Han functioned at once as an editor for three dramatic journals, an organizer for the Southern Drama and Film Society in 1926, the president of the Southern Art Academy from 1927 to 1928, and the sole script writer of five movies, twenty-seven spoken dramas, and three revised Peking operas produced in the six-year history of the Southern Society. Dong Jian’s assessment of the unique role Tian Han had played in the history of the society cited earlier, therefore, is right on target. In spite of Dong Jian’s attention to Tian Han’s key role, however, he nevertheless used an ideological and political framework to understand the trajectory of the Southern Society and the dramatic texts written by Tian Han. His interpretation looks to historical necessity for the transformation of Tian Han from a sentimental playwright influenced by Western authors in the 1920s, to a progressive writer in the left-wing league influenced by the CCP ideology in the 1930s, and finally, to a master of the modern stage from the Republican to the PRC eras.

　　　　　　　　　 Acknowledging the full significance of the historical and ideological approach to the study of the Southern Society, I argue in this paper that we should look beyond political influences.　 Tian Han’s social and artistic networks inspired many of his plays, which constituted the core repertory of the Southern Society.　 His complex love life with different types of women, I believe, also played an important part both in his dramatic work and in his political orientation, including the crucial moment when he led the Southern Society to “turn left” in 1930, and officially became a leader of the left-wing league.

　　　　　　　 Drama critics in China have always mentioned the important role of Yi Keqin, Tian Han’s mother, who shaped his career in drama. Coming from an opera-loving family, she encouraged Tian Han’s early interests in regional theater and shadow plays popular in the rural areas of Hunan.　 No one has argued, however, that Yi Keqin could also be seen as the earliest member of the Southern Society. Indeed, similar to other members of the Southern Society that inspired Tian Han’s creative works, Yi Keqin became the first dramatic character in Tian Han’s first play written at age of fourteen in 1911.[3]　 Entitled A New story of Educating her Son (Xin jiaozi), the play re-wrote an old tale of Sanniang Educating her Son (Sanxiang jiaozi).　 In it, a widowed Sanniang (Wang Chun’e) promised her late husband to raise her son to a prestigious social position.　 Upon learning that her son refused to take his studies seriously, she tearfully narrated to her son her family story to ultimately transform him into a talented scholar.

　　　　　　　 Tian Han changed the setting into the contemporary time of the Northern Expedition, when Sanniang became a widow of a revolutionary; she educated her son about his father’s heroic deeds in order to encourage him to complete the latter’s wish to unify China in the struggle against the warlords.[4] Yi Keqin obviously understood Tian Han’s appreciation of her influence when she interpreted the play as “an apparent encouragement” of herself.[5]　 Throughout his latter years when Tian Han devoted himself to the Southern Society without much financial means, his mother was always a key member, taking care of his house, which was the “headquarters” of the society, and his “extended family” of artistic friends and poor students. At one point, she even pawned her only winter coat in order to provide for the members of Tian Han’s drama troupe, who fondly called her “mother of theater (xiju muqin).”　 If critics were correct in claiming that Tian Han’s own activities and writings consisted “half of the history of modern Chinese drama,” one might also view his mother as having greatly shaped the formation of such a half history.

　　　　　　　　　 Another early member of his networks was Yi Meichen, his uncle, who had provided him with an overseas experience and a passion for an artistic career. As a manager for overseas Hunan students in Japan, Yi Meichen took Tian Han for college education in Japan, where he spent six years, learning about Western literature and establishing friendships with important writers such as Guo Moruo.　 Yi Meichen’s influence on Tian Han’s life later expressed itself in Tian Han’s creative works. In Violin and Rose (1920), Tian Han incorporated his uncle’s life experience in the dramatic character of a Mr. Li.[6] The play depicts an actress’ sacrifice for her lover: she decides to marry Mr. Li for his money in order to finance her lover’s overseas study in Paris to become a great musician. It turns out, however, that Mr. Li, a former revolutionary who had devoted his entire life in establishing the Republic, only wanted to teach the young lovers a lesson about a meaningless relationship without love. At the end of the play, he blessed the young couple, financed his trip to Europe, and provided a happy ending both to their artistic career and love life.　 Much of Mr. Li’s story resembled that of Yi Meichen: like Yi, Li adamantly opposed the concubinage system.　 Because of his own experience of an arranged marriage, however, both Li and Yi had no choice but to seek their happiness in a mistress. Disappointed in their unsuccessful efforts in the revolutionary movements, both now believed in doing good deeds for the young people, who could lead to a better society.　

　　　　　 Central to Tian Han’s theatrical characters are the diverse types of women in his life who provided Tian Han with the romantic energies and sentimental ethos permeating his plays. It is mentioned in Tian Han’s biographies that Yi Shuyu, Tian Han’s first wife was frustrated by Tian Han’s concentration on his own career over his concerns for herself.[7]　 This conflict in their married life expressed itself in Tian Han’s play Longing for Home (Xiangchou, written in 1922),[8] which depicts a couple of overseas students in Japan.　 While the female protagonist blames her man for his obsession with his artistic pursuits, the man lamented his inability to fulfill his woman’s desires. They were then joined by a friend, who had drifted for sixteen years trying to realize his artistic dreams. After hearing about their argument, the friend wonders at the end of the play: “Those without a family envy those who have; those with a family envy those who do not.　 Which one is indeed happier?”[9]　

　　　　　　　　 Tian Han’s situation, however, reflected a broader human predicament that moved beyond a committed relationship. In Longing for Home, the young couple also talked about a friend who had gone back to China and yet missed “his happier days in Tokyo.” The female protagonist states: “It is really interesting: those who had gone back home always want to come back here, whereas whose who are here always want to go home.”[10]　 Indeed, at almost every dramatic turn in Longing for Home, the dialogues between the couple paralleled with Tian Han and Yi Shuyu’s experience abroad: their financial strains, his artistic pursuits and their toll on the relationship, and their unfulfilled dreams to be a perfect couple who could at once achieve artistic aspirations and personal happiness.　 Such a dream seemed to have been temporarily realized after the couple moved back in 1922 to Shanghai, where they worked side by side to produce their own literary journal, the Southern Society By-weekly (Nanguo ban　 yuekan).　 Some drama critics were thus correct in describing Yi Shuyu as　 “the first member of the Southern Society.”　 She was also the first and only co-editor of the first journal published by the Society.　 Coming-home, however, did not prevent poverty and exhaustion from afflicting the idealist couple.　 His wife’s death from illness in 1925 in their hometown began another dark period in the young life of Tian Han, who drifted from one place to another mourning his wife, now “perfect” only in his memory.　 His later plays continued to record his ambivalent feelings for his other wives.　 Like his first wife, they proved to be loving woman, but failed as his ideal artistic companion.

　　　　　　　 Because of time limitations, I will, in the next few minutes, summarize the second part of this paper, which argues that Tian Han’s connections with other artists played a formative role in his playwriting and dramatic activities in the Southern Society. The life, sorrow, and struggle of the artists he associated with provided crucial ingredients for his plays.　 The Death of a Famous Actor (Mingyou zhisi), one of his most famous plays, was inspired by the true story of a Peking opera actor and his pursuit of art in hostile society. The immediate motivation of writing the play, however, was prompted by his acquaintance with Gu Menghe, who was at once a successful Peking opera and modern drama actor. Gu’s skills in these two genres inspired Tian Han to construct a play within a play―that is, an inner play of a Peking opera acting his dramatic role on stage, and an outer play of his struggle in real life to survive in the form of modern drama. Furthermore, Tian Han’s friendship with Ouyang Yuqian and Zhou Xinfang, two famous Peking opera actors, enabled him to respect, admire, and incorporate traditions of Peking opera with modern drama, at a time when other modern dramatists repudiated traditional theater as an obstacle for modern drama reform.　 In fact, thanks to his friendship with opera singers, he was one of the very few playwrights of his time who scripted both modern drama and Peking operas. In return to his friendships, opera performers such as Zhou Xinfang lent him timely help to provide free lectures for his students in his drama academy, which could not have survived without his artistic friends.

　　　　　　 Furthermore, drama critics in China has always argued that it was the triumph of the Communist ideology that won Tian Han over in 1930 when he finally “turned left” after several years of hesitation. There were, however, other important factors. By that time, some of his best students and acting crew members had already left the Southern Society to join other leftist theater groups. A similar political shift toward the “left” seemed to be the only option for him to maintain his artistic networks and for his Southern Society to survive fierce competition with other theater groups.

　　　　　　　　　 There was also a personal factor.　 Tian Han was then alienated from his second wife, who provided crucial financial help to build his first theater in the early period of the Southern Society, but had failed to share his artistic pursuits in later years. He was now drawn to An E, a passionate revolutionary writer who had studied and worked in the Soviet Union.　 Her romantic sentiments and artistic talents finally fulfilled his dream of a loving woman and an idealistic artist.　 Falling in love with An E necessarily meant for Tian Han embracing the socialist ideology.　 One again, his artistic networks and his complex relationships with different kinds of women played equally important roles in his new political orientation. A political interpretation alone, therefore, cannot explain the complicated course of Tian Han’s career and the history of the Southern Society.　

　　　　　　　　　 In spite of his broad social and artistic networks that resulted in the success of the Southern Society, his difficult friendship with Lu Xun partially led to his tragic fate during the Cultural Revolution. Because of a minor disagreement with Tian Han, Lu Xun depicted him as one of “the four fellows” (sitiao hanzi) who dared to argue with him.　 Such a term of “the four fellows” from Lu Xun, the banner-holder of the revolutionary literature in the Republican period, was enough to label Tian Han as a “counter-revolutionary” during the Cultural Revolution in 1966.　 Tian Han died while still wearing the cap of one of the “four fellows” in prison, a tragedy that went well beyond Lu Xun’s wildest imagination.　 This episode further demonstrates the importance of artistic networks in Tian Han’s career and the historical reconfiguration of his Southern Society.

　　　　　　　　　 Fortunately, in 1958, before the Cultural Revolution, Tian Han had already published Guan Hanqing, his best play.　 In it, Tian Han projected onto the Yuan Dynasty playwright his own experience of writing plays to protest social injustice. Like Tian Han, Guan Hanqing on stage drew inspirations for his dramatic characters from his contemporaries: fellow artists, actors and actresses, students and audiences. Unlike Guan Hanqing in the play, who was forced into exile but had the company of his beloved actress friend, Tian Han died alone in 1968.　 He met his end in a prison-like hospital without proper medical care, after having been repeatedly interrogated and tortured by the Red Guards, while his 96-year old mother and his sick wife waited at home for his return. Part of his crime was having too many and too complicated social networks which included KMT agents and right-wing writers before 1949.　 Other crimes included having written Guan Hanqing, which was accused of having attacked the CCP for persecuting various groups of artists, whom he had tried hard to protect. Thirty years later in 1998, however, it was the same group of artists―his former students and fellow writers―who gathered together to celebrate his one hundred birthday with national symposiums on his dramatic art and re-stage his representative plays such as Guan Hanqing.　 Most recently, in year 2000, a biographical play entitled Tian Han was premiered in Beijing, performed by students of Tian Han’s former students and actors who had distinguished themselves in their earlier performance of Tian Han’s Guan Hanqing.　 Not surprisingly, the play on Tian Han reconstructed stories of his social and artistic networks, including his mother, his wives, other women who had affected his dramatic creations but never became his wives, and his recreation of Guan Hanqing on stage.

　　　　　　　　　 Thus, this play on Tian Han continued a sub-genre that can be called “drama of the theater,” which re-created onstage stories of people in the theater community. Interestingly, Tian Han began this subgenre with his 1927 play entitled The Death of a Famous Actor and developed it with subsequent plays depicting the lives and networks of theater artists.　 The final staging of the play on Tian Han seems to be a fitting tribute both to his prolific career and to the social and artistic networks he had valued so much.　