This anthology of Yuan dynasty (1271–1368) zaju 雜劇, a form of musical theatre rendered in English variously as ‘variety plays’, ‘variety shows’, ‘variety theatre’, ‘mixed plays/dramas’, or (West and Idema) ‘miscellaneous comedies’ (most appropriate since the plays tend to emphasize happy endings) presents the genre through translations of fourteenth-century editions of seven plays, four of which are accompanied by translations of the same play in either a Ming (1368-1644) palace manuscript or a late Ming printed edition. Whereas the earlier versions consist only of leading actor scripts and arias, prose dialogue, and cue lines, all assigned to a single lead performer, the Ming versions, adapted for performance at the Ming imperial court and expanded and revised later for a reading instead of a performance experience by Jiangnan (Southern) literati, also provide complete stage directions, rhymed poems, and dialogue for every actor. The subject matter ranges from high political intrigue to commoner life and religious conversion as the plays explore such themes as loyalty and betrayal, revenge and counter-revenge, ambition and enlightenment, and piety and drunkenness. A substantial introduction precedes each play, and the translations are accompanied by extensive factual and interpretive annotations, all of which make the plays easily accessible to the general reader while providing specialist scholars with a wealth of new information and sophisticated insight. The general “Introduction” (pp. 1–48) summarises the latest Western, Chinese and Japanese scholarship on the subject, comprehensively surveys relevant primary sources and secondary literature, provides a meticulous account of the recension of texts, their copying, printing, editing, and transmission, describes the conventions and organisation of the zaju form, and admirably explains the technical vocabulary of scripts, prosody, song modes, and performance. Therefore, though designed succinctly as a introduction to the translations that follow, it may also serve as a reliable guide to the history and critique of the zaju music drama as a whole.

It is likely that the fourteenth-century versions, which consist almost entirely of aria performance/actor scripts or role texts, were commercially printed so audiences could better follow the texts when sung. This form of musical drama, in four acts with the option of a ‘wedge’ (xiezi 楔子) inserted between any two acts or at the beginning, required one actor, playing the lead male or female character, to sing four suites (one per act) of eight to twenty songs. Twenty-seven of these printed texts survive, valuable evidence for how Yuan drama was first composed and performed, a rich legacy, as West and Idema demonstrate, of textual materials that deserve study and appreciation. Particularly illuminating is their juxtaposition of translations of four such Yuan texts with those of Ming versions of the same plays, for this reveals both the course of textual development from performance scripts to literary texts as well as changes in literary taste and ideology from those associated with the diverse amalgam of Yuan era popular culture to those associated with the Ming court and later literati readers, which tended more to emphasize elite Confucian values and moral directives.

The titles of the Yuan and Ming editions that West and Idema translate also indicate the range of subjects and themes: 1. (Yuan) The Orphan of Zhao 趙家孤兒, (Ming) The Orphan of Zhao Greatly Wreaks Revenge 趙家孤兒大報仇; 2. (Yuan) Huo Guang Remonstrates as a Ghost 霍光鬼諫; 3. (Yuan) Xue Rengui Returns Home Clad in Brocade 薛仁貴衣錦還鄉, (Ming) Xue Rengui Returns Home in Glory 薛仁貴榮歸故里; 4. (Yuan) Chen Jiqing Is Enlightened to the Way on a Bamboo-Leaf Boat 陳季卿悟道竹葉舟, (Ming) Chen Jiqing Mistakenly Boards a Bamboo-Leaf Boat 陳季卿誤竹葉舟; 5. (Yuan) Tippler Zhao Yuan Encounters the Prior Emperor 好酒趙元遇上皇, (Ming) Tippler Zhao Yuan Encounters the Prior Emperor; 6. (Yuan) The Affair of the Eastern Window Exposed 東窗事犯; 7. (Yuan) Little Butcher Zhang Immolates the Child to Save the Mother 小張屠焚兒救母 (Grieve not, for the child is miraculously returned to his family from the netherworld!). Space does not permit review of all seven studies and translations, but remarks here concerning their treatment of The Orphan of Zhao may be taken as a representative critique of how West and Idema deal with the plays in general. Moreover, this play should be of special interest to those interested in early modern East-West studies for it was the first Chinese play to be translated (albeit only partially), into a European language (1731): Working from the Ming version included in the Yuanqu xuan 元曲選 (Selected Yuan Dramas), compiled and edited by Zang Maoxun 臧懋循 (1550-1620), the French Jesuit missionary Joseph Henri Marie de Prémare (1666-1736) translated the stage directions and prose dialogues but omitted all the arias. It first appeared in print as “Tchao chi cou ell, ou le petit Orphelin de la Maison de Tchao: Tragédie Chinoise” in Description géographique, historique, chronologique, politique et physique de l'Empire de la Chine et de la Tartarie, compiled and edited by the Jesuit historian Jean-Baptiste Du Halde (1674-1743) (Paris, P.-G. Le Mercier, 1735), vol. 3, pp. 340–378. This massive four volume work was reprinted several times during the mid-eighteenth century and also translated into other European languages, including English and German, so The Orphan of Zhao soon became widely known, its reputation even further enhanced when Prémare's translation was published separately by Sorel Desflottes in 1755, ostensibly in “Peking” but actually in Paris, accompanied by “Des Eclaircissemens sur le Théâtre des Chinois, & sur l'Histoire véritable de l'Orphelin de Tchao” and an anonymous “Préface necessaire” (all apparently by Desflottes), as well as another “Préface” by Du Halde, two letters by Prémare, which had accompanied the delivery of the translation to Europe, addressed to Étienne Fourmont (1683-1745), Professor of Arabic at the Collège de France, which indicate that the translation was not meant for Du Halde but for Fourmont as a source for his study of Chinese grammar then under preparation, published later as Lingua Sinarum Mandarinicae Hieroglyphicae Grammatica Duplex, Latine et cum Characteribus Sinensium (Lutetia Parisorum 1742). One of Prémare's letters actually invited Fourmont to publish Orphelin de Tchao under his own name, but before he got around to doing so, Orphelin de Tchao had already appeared in Du Halde's work. Fourmont then accused Du Halde in Lingua Sinarum Mandarinicae of having intercepted the letters and stolen the translation, to which Du Halde replied that he knew nothing about the letters and declared that Prémare's translation had been delivered to him, which he accepted in all innocence. Other bits of témoignage are also included, the sum of which, full of insult and injury, accusation and counter-accusation, must have piqued the interest of readers—a good marketing ploy at the time (plus ça change!). Amidst all this verbiage Prémare explains why he failed to include translations of the arias:

So Dercylis was praised in an anonymous ancient Greek epigram, her name added to those of the Three Graces, Venus, and the Nine Muses: Prémare has it that the Chinese arias are of this order of demanding subtlety and erudition and thus beyond his reach—or that of any Western translator at the time.

It will be helpful to provide a synopsis of the play: Duke Ling of Jin (r. 620 to 607 bce) had as principal ministers Zhao Dun and Tu'an Gu, but Tu'an so hated Zhao that he wanted to kill him and his entire family, so he falsely accused Zhao of treason, and had all members of the Zhao family slaughtered except Zhao Dun's son Zhao Shuo, who was married to Duke Ling's daughter, Lady Zhuang. Tu'an then forged a decree from the Duke ordering Zhao Shuo to commit suicide. This left Lady Zhuang, who was with child, and when the child was born, Tu'an ordered General Han Jue to surround the palace and prevent the child from being taken to safety. Lady Zhuang entrusted the child to the Zhao family physician Cheng Ying and then took her own life, knowing she would be tortured to reveal his whereabouts. When Cheng attempts to escape, the child hidden in his medicine chest, he is stopped by Han Jue who discovers the child, but out of compassion allows Cheng and the infant to escape. Han then also commits suicide knowing he would be tortured into telling where the child had gone. With the escape, Tu'an threatens to kill every infant in Jin if the Zhao orphan is not revealed, so Cheng Ying decides to sacrifice his own child to safeguard both the Zhao orphan and all the other infants by giving his own son to the aged retired minister Gongsun Chujiu to pass him off as the Zhao orphan. To complete the subterfuge Cheng pretends to inform on Gongsun, whom Tu'an has arrested. The child, Cheng's son, is discovered and killed; Gongsun after interrogation and beatings commits suicide. Thus the Zhao orphan, now known as Cheng Bo survives, and twenty years later the childless Tu'an unknowingly adopts him and names him Tu Cheng. But Cheng Ying then reveals to the orphan the truth of his origins, upon which the Zhao orphan kills Tu'an and avenges his family. The orphan, now known as Zhao Wu, is consequently reinstated with all family titles and properties. Full of serious and terrible events, this play with its “happy” ending, or at least a “just” outcome, typical of many serious Yuan and Ming plays, instead of “comedy” seems more an example of “tragicomedy”.

Although the arias of the Yuan version sometimes differ from those of the Ming editions and provide far less details of plot, the story line is essentially the same. As for the arias themselves, it was another hundred years before they were first translated by Stanislas Julien (1797-1873), Professor of Chinese at the Collège de France, in Tchao-chi-kou-eul: ou, L'orphelin de la Chine: drame en prose et en vers, accompagné des pièces historiques qui, en ont fourni le sujet de nouvelles et poésies chinoises (Paris, Moutardier, 1834), a version based on the Yuanqu xuan edition. In the meantime, Voltaire's adaptation of Prémare's translation appeared in 1755 as L'Orphelin de la Chine, Tragédie, a work that soon prompted numerous reprints and translations. The play thus was a significant addition to the China-related texts that so influenced the discourse of enlightenment then sweeping the West. However, by the time Julien's translation appeared, the West's attitude toward China, increasingly negative, had largely marginalised such engagement with Chinese drama and other forms of literature, thus his work, as West and Idema observed (p. 56) “exerted hardly any influence outside academic circles”. The versions of the arias by West and Idema significantly improve on those by Julien, which tend to literary paraphrase rather than precise and literal translation, and, although The Orphan of Zhao has been translated many times into Western languages over the years, the West-Idema version of the Yuanqu xuan edition that appears here seems the most accurate and literate. Note also that the Yuan edition has also been reliably translated by Wai-Yee Li in C. T. Hsia, Wai-Yee Li, and George Kao, (ed.), The Columbia Anthology of Yuan Drama (New York, Columbia University Press, 2014), pp. 55–72, a work equally accurate that seems to differ from the West-Idema version largely only in word choice. West and Idema, individually and as a team, enjoy the best of reputations as scholars and translators of pre-modern Chinese vernacular fiction and drama, and this latest venture of theirs caps a long list of significant collaborative publications, including Chinese Theater, 1100–1450: A Source Book (Wiesbaden, Steiner, 1982), The Moon and the Zither: The Story of the Western Wing (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1991), Monks, Bandits, Lovers, and Immortals: Eleven Early Chinese Plays (Indianapolis, Hackett, 2010), and Battles, Betrayals, and Brotherhood: Early Chinese Plays on the Three Kingdoms (Indianapolis, Hackett, 2012). As such, it is enthusiastically recommended both to specialist scholars of Chinese drama and to the general lay reader who is interested in traditional Chinese culture and literature.