China -- Court and courtiers -- Anecdotes; Cixi, Empress dowager of China, 1835-1908 -- Anecdotes; Empresses -- China -- Anecdotes
The first act opens with a Buddhist Priest, dressed in a yellow coat
robe with a red scarf draped over his left shoulder, descending in a
cloud from Heaven to invite all the priests to this party. I was very
much surprised to see this actor apparently suspended in the air and
actually floating on this cloud, which was made of cotton. The clever
way in which they moved the scenery, etc., was most interesting, and
before the play was finished I concluded that any theatre manager could
well take lessons from these people; and it was all done without the
slightest bit of machinery.
As this Buddhist Priest was descending, a large pagoda began to slowly
rise from the center of the stage in which was a buddha singing and
holding an incense burner in front of him. Then four other smaller
pagodas slowly rose from the four corners of the stage, each containing
a buddha the same as the first. When the first Buddhist Priest had
descended, the five buddhas came out of the pagodas, which immediately
disappeared, and walked about the stage, still singing. Gradually from
the wing came numbers of buddhas singing until the stage was full, and
they all formed into a ring. Then I saw a large lotus flower, made of
pink silk, and two large green leaves appearing from the bottom of the
stage, and as it rose the petals and leaves gradually opened and I saw a
beautiful lady buddha (Goddess of Mercy) dressed all in white silk, with
a white hood on her head, standing in the center of this flower. As the
leaves opened I saw a girl and a boy in the center of them. When the
petals of the lotus flower were wide open this lady buddha began to
gradually ascend herself, and as she ascended, the petals closed until
she seemed to be standing on a lotus bud. The girl standing in the
leaf on the Goddess' right side held a bottle made of jade and a willow
branch. The legend of this is that if the Goddess dips the willow branch
into the jade bottle and spreads it over a dead person it will bring
the person to life. The boy and the girl are the two attendants of the
buddha.
Finally the three came down from the flower and leaves and joined the
rest of the buddhas. Then the Empress of Heaven came, a good old lady
with snow-white hair, dressed from head to foot in Imperial yellow,
followed by many attendants, and ascended the throne, which was in the
center of the stage, and said: "We will go to the banquet hall." This
ended the first scene.
The second scene opened with tables set for the feast to be given by the
Empress of Heaven. These tables were loaded down with peaches and wine
and four attendants guarding them. Suddenly a bee came buzzing near and
scattered a powder under the nostrils of the attendants, which made them
sleepy. When they had fallen asleep, this bee transformed itself into a
big monkey and this monkey ate all the peaches and drank all the wine.
As soon as he had finished he disappeared.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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