Shih-I Hsiung: A Glorious Showmanby Da Zheng

Abstract

Reviewed by: Shih-I Hsiung: A Glorious Showmanby Da Zheng Weihong Du SHIH-I HSIUNG: A GLORIOUS SHOWMAN. By Da Zheng. Vancouver: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2020. 327 pp. Hardback, $120.00; ebook, $45.00. The Chinese playwright Shih-I Hsiung is probably best understood through a perspective that consists of both literary and historical lenses. Shih-I Hsiung: A Glorious Showman fulfills the latter approach extensively, with both skill and reverence. The author, Da Zheng, draws upon a rich bounty of source material, some known and a great deal previously unpublished. Including personal correspondences between Hsiung and family members, friends, government officials, and prominent figures in artistic fields, this study creates the most complete record of Hsiung’s life in a single volume. Scholarship on Hsiung is mostly geared toward dissecting and analyzing his most prominent accomplishment—the adapted play Lady Precious Stream (Wang Baochuan 王宝钏). This is unsurprising, as it is both the achievement that defined his career as a playwright and an event that changed the course of his life. As a result, the framing of Hsiung’s story in other scholarly work is most often delineated along the lines of artistic choices in staging this famous play and how well or how poorly his production lived up to what it was “supposed to be,” from both the modern European and canonical Chinese perspectives. Zheng shows us, however, that there is much more to know about Hsiung and his career. Complementing existing work, the author’s penetrating biographical treatment of Hsiung makes for both a [End Page 215] fascinating read and a significant contribution to the history of transnational players in Chinese theatre. The primary narrative at work—the story of a glorious showman—is augmented and enhanced by a few others: the story of family, the story of place, and that of a changing China. The author takes special care in demonstrating the importance of family to Hsiung, as well as the tumultuous and ever-changing character of his relationships with his wife, Dymia, and his children. While it becomes clear that Hsiung’s attention often defaulted toward his professional activities, the drama surrounding his family life, whether they were together or apart in Nanchang, London, Oxford, or elsewhere, gives insight into Hsiung’s personal struggles and daring personality amidst the ebb and flow of his career. The dispersal of his family across multiple continents also resonates with the negotiation of identity and place at work in Hsiung’s professional life; he cared deeply for China, its history, and its political wellbeing, but built an identity that was undoubtedly international for himself, his family, and his art. The author places Hsiung’s development as a professional and artist in constant juxtaposition with the rapid changes that China underwent during the 20th century. In doing so, we see a humanized Hsiung on display—showing his own beliefs, biases, activism, and complex reactions to social evolution within the Republican period, war with Japan, civil war, and establishment of the People’s Republic of China. One aspect of this study that is of particular interest is the way the author situates Hsiung among the better-known luminaries of his time: we are made privy to episodes involving interaction, competition, and comradery between Hsiung, Hu Shi, Zhou Zuoren, Xu Zhimo, Mei Lanfang, Yu Dafa, Lao She, Lu Xun, Xu Beihong, Chiang Yee, and more. While this does not stand in direct contradiction of previous research, it certainly places Hsiung in a more positive light than scholarship focused solely on Lady Precious Stream. With the descriptions of Hsiung’s intellect and early history, Zheng introduces the reader to a man that has intellectual clout and, personal spending habits aside, strong business acumen. Considering all of what the author puts forward, readers can recognize how his hand touched many of the efforts of overseas Chinese during his career. Because the inner workings of Hsiung’s art is not the author’s main focus, some opportunity for a comprehensive understanding of Hsiung is missed. Since previous scholarship addresses on theoretical terms the creative, artistic, and cultural space Hsiung’s early work occupied as a trailblazing, transcultural phenomenon, the opportunity to bridge between the...