Epilogue Living with Textual Fixity
In: Inscribing Jingju/Peking OperaSearch for other papers by David L. Rolston in
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Abstract
The more print, audio, and multimedia reproductions of Jingju play texts have been made available, the more those versions of Jingju plays have been used to learn to perform the plays; and the more the student is required to emulate what is given in such fixed forms, the more likely it is that the ways the plays are performed becomes fixed. As is pointed out in a number of places in the book, and in reference to different censorship regimes, another prime reason for both the textualization and the textual fixation of Jingju has been the demands of censors. Censors both want to know in advance exactly what is going to be performed, and want a written record of what has been approved for performance that can be used to judge how faithfully performances stick to what was approved. Censorial regimes have gotten only more powerful and more intrusive as time has gone by in the history of Jingju. The book closes with a brief meditation on the darker side of the textualization (= fixation) of Jingju.