The Peony Pavilion

Introduction

The Peony Pavilion is a chuanqi drama by the Ming playwright Tang Xianzu, completed in 1598 and first titled The Return of the Soul. The original text runs to fifty-five scenes, and the tenth, The Interrupted Dream, follows The Garden Is Swept. Tang drew the story from what he heard while staying in Nan'an prefecture, today's Dayu County in Jiangxi. The Kunqu stage has long kept scenes such as The Interrupted Dream, Seeking the Dream, The Portrait and The Death Scene, and modern Kunqu adaptations usually condense the play into twelve scenes. In 2004 the writer Pai Hsien-yung gathered artists from several regions for a youth edition, and in 2007 the director Lin Zhaohua and the Kunqu artist Wang Shiyu created a chamber version.

Parts

1. The Garden StrollThe first half of scene ten of the original: a spring walk in the garden wakes Du Liniang's youthful longing
2. The Interrupted DreamThe second half of scene ten: Du Liniang meets the scholar Liu Mengmei in a dream
3. Seeking the DreamScene twelve: Du Liniang goes back to the garden to look for the dream she has lost
4. Finding the PortraitScene twenty-four: recovered from illness, Liu Mengmei walks in the garden and picks up a scroll painting
5. Calling to the PortraitFrom scene twenty-six, Admiring the Portrait: Liu Mengmei calls again and again to the woman in the painting