Love and Marriage on the Yuan and Ming Stage

Love and marriage are perennial topics on stage in East and West. From the very beginning of Chinese theatre, stories of passion and seduction have been popular with playwrights and audiences. Many of the such plays show the influence of the famous love comedy West Chamber by featuring a scene in which a young man attracts, intended or not, the attention of a young girl by his performance on the zither. Once married, smart wives strengthen their virtuous grooms in their resolve and improve the ways of their erring husbands. As lovers and wives the female protagonists in these plays are anything but subservient characters—they display remarkable bravery, daring, and ingenuity. They are sometimes the initiator of a relationship, and they are usually the character that resolves problems that occur in the course of their marriage or in the course of pursuing marriage. Only one of these plays has been translated earlier into English. Together, the selection reveals the continuing vitality of Northern drama (zaju) well into the Ming dynasty.