Theater of the Dead: A Social Turn in Chinese Funerary Art, 1000–1400 by Jeehee Hong

Abstract

Reviewed by: Theater of the Dead: A Social Turn in Chinese Funerary Art, 1000–1400 by Jeehee Hong Aurelia Campbell Jeehee Hong, Theater of the Dead: A Social Turn in Chinese Funerary Art, 1000–1400. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2016. x, 236 pp. US$59 (hb). ISBN 978-0-8248-5537-6 Theater of the Dead: A Social Turn in Chinese Funerary Art, 1000–1400, by Jeehee Hong, focuses on an important shift in the history of Chinese mortuary art, when tombs began to reflect the everyday world of the living much more closely than ever before. The book spans the Song, Liao, Jin, and Yuan dynasties (960–1368), a time when theater flourished among all levels of society and provided a steady stimulus for artistic production. The geographic region on which Hong concentrates, northern Henan and Shanxi provinces, constituted a particularly vibrant center of the performing arts during this time. There, theater could be enjoyed at a number of different venues: on the streets, in temples, at commercial theaters, in private households, and even at funerary rituals. The importance of theater to the people of this region is reflected in their tombs, which prominently feature actors and theaters within their decorative programs. These elaborate tombs belonged to the local elite, namely wealthy merchants and farmers, and help fill a gap in the textual record regarding how this segment of society lived and their attitudes towards the afterlife. Hong argues that most previous scholarship on these tombs has used their theatrical representations to help flesh out our understanding of the history of theater in China. Scholars have also attempted to locate specific aboveground models for the depictions of actors and theaters within these tombs. According to Hong, this “misleading practice” tends to reduce what was in fact a “complex and nuanced picture of the various representations and discourses [within tombs] into an iconographic caricature” (p. 5). To this end, Hong avoids providing the reader with any kind of systematic introduction to theater in China during this time. Instead, her discussion delves into a host of theoretical questions that center on how theatricality was seen and represented: How did “people see performances in various circumstances”? “To [End Page 210] what kinds of images were they exposed”? “What inspired them to represent theatrical images in specific ways”? And “What kinds of visual or ritual experiences shaped the meanings of those theatrical images”? (pp. 13–14). One of the main arguments Hong develops in the book is that tombs bearing theatrical representations reflect the shifting social landscape of middle-period China. Specifically, she claims that these tombs became an important means by which the non-literati elite exhibited their cultural tastes and distinguished themselves from other social groups during this time. For instance, in the first chapter, “Theater and Funeral,” Hong examines a detailed depiction of a funerary ritual that is engraved on the side of a stone coffin (ca. 1056) belonging to a well-off local man. The ritual includes, among other things, a troupe of actors and Buddhist monks clanging cymbals. Although Hong briefly touches upon the religious significance of the ritual—suggesting that it was meant to help transfer the soul of the deceased to the heavenly realm—she is more concerned with the ritual’s sociological implications. She explains that even though entertainments during funerals were condemned in the writings of leading Confucian literati of the time, this engraving demonstrates that the elites of this region regularly held these kinds of controversial performances. Hong argues that in doing so, they “repositioned the funerary discourse away from the official and orthodox sphere and toward the lived social world.” By visually recording the rituals, these individuals furthermore “actively recognized and celebrated [their] own cultural standing in society” (p. 42). Despite its merits, this chapter does not adequately address the fact that Confucian orthodoxy was rarely actually practiced in China. Another argument central to this book is that the means by which theater was represented within tombs indicates a narrowing of the perceived distance between the realm of the living and the realm of the dead. In the second chapter, “Theater for the Dead,” for example, Hong examines...