The Clothes Make the Mandarin: Chen Baichen and the Art of Masquerade

• In Event: Second Looks: Adapting History, Myth, and Icon on the Sinophone Stage

Abstract

Completed in Chengdu in 1945 shortly after V-J Day, Chen Baichen’s farce "Promotion Scheme" (Shenguan tu) draws its name from a Chinese board game in which players, as imperial government officials, compete to climb the bureaucratic ladder by accumulating wealth while avoiding demotions. The chief players in "Promotion Scheme" are two men robbing the yamen who take advantage of a mob uprising (as well as one robber’s physical resemblance to the deposed County Magistrate) to masquerade as officials. Donning official garb is enough for the thieves to complete the transition. Lying low until the mob has departed, the thief-officials then receive the group of corrupt subordinates, who play along out of self-interest. They band together to hoodwink the visiting Provincial Governor, until several layers of imposture are violently exposed.

Buffoons occupy center stage, as in Chen’s earlier wartime plays, but the motif of the game makes for a more abstract drama. Chen exploits the dual meanings of tu in “mapping out” bureaucratic “schemes.” Breaking with documentary realism, the play presents a fantasy of officials-run-amuck without geographical or date markers. Rather than indicting a specific era, "Promotion Scheme" reinforces truisms about officials, for whom war is merely an opportunity for ever more outrageous misbehaviors. This paper uses Chen’s play as a case study of the art of political charade, in which adaptation of Gogol’s "The Government Inspector" (1836), clichés about Chinese officials, and a politically correct ending became a recipe for enduring popularity.

Author

• Christopher Rea, The University of British Columbia