Writers › Writer / Poet
Wu Zhenxiu
Banker and Peking opera script editor from Wuxi, Jiangsu, a friend of Mei Lanfang and Qi Rushan who cut and finalised the script of Farewell My Concubine in 1922.
In a study at night, a desk holds a brush pot, a porcelain vase with a plum branch, a lit red lantern, a folded fan and an unrolled blank scroll, with no one seated there, while through a round window the moon rises over a lake with a sailboat.
Also known as Wu Rongchang · Zi Zhenxiu
- Roles
- Writer / Poet
Wu Zhenxiu, named Rongchang and known by his courtesy name Zhenxiu, was born in Wuxi, Jiangsu, in 1883. After a traditional schooling he studied at Nanyang Public School in Shanghai and then in Japan. He spent most of his career in banking, and from 1920, as chief secretary of a bank head office in Beijing, he became a close friend of Mei Lanfang and Qi Rushan and a regular adviser on Mei's new productions. Qi's first draft of Farewell My Concubine ran to so many scenes that it needed two evenings; Wu cut it down to a single evening built around the King of Chu's battle and Consort Yu's sword dance. Yang Xiaolou and Mei Lanfang premiered it in Beijing in February 1922, and it became a signature play of the Mei school. He died in Shanghai on 31 December 1966.
Life and times
Dates 1883–1966