Recorded 5 January 2010

Translated and annotated by Guo Chao

Lecturer

Hou Shaokui 侯少奎 (b. 1939) is a Northern Company actor and the son of Hou Yongkui 侯永奎 [Appendix H]. Best known for powerful martial roles, including Lord Guan 關公 (Guan Yu 關羽) in this scene as well as the wusheng 武生 Lin Chong 林沖 in “Fleeing by Night” (“Yeben” 夜奔), Hou won the Plum Blossom Prize (Meihua jiang 梅花獎) in its second installment in 1985. His autobiography provides rich materials on twentieth-century northern kunqu history and practice (Hou Shaokui and Hu Mingming 2007).

Synopsis

“Sword Meeting” (“Daohui” 刀會) is the fourth and final act of the zaju play The Great King Guan Attends a Meeting with a Single Sword (Guan Dawang du fu dandaohui 關大王獨赴單刀會), more usually known as Single Sword Meeting (Dandaohui 單刀會), by the great fourteenthcentury playwright Guan Hanqing 關漢卿 [Appendix G]. “Sword Meeting” is perhaps the best-known kunqu scene to directly derive from northern “variety plays” (zaju 雜劇). The lyrics of the version performed were adjusted to be singable for kunqu, though the qupai 曲牌 and their sequence are largely the same as in the zaju script. Two early versions of the full play are translated in Wilt L. Idema and Stephen H. West (2012).

The play's hero is the Three Kingdoms figure Guan Yu, better known as Lord Guan. This scene depicts a meeting between major figures from two of these Three Kingdoms, the states of Wu 吳 and of Shu 蜀. After the Battle of Red Cliffs (Chibi zhi zhan 赤壁 之戰) in the winter of 208–209 ce, Wu and Shu formed an alliance against Wei 魏. Liu Bei 劉備 (161–223 CE), emperor of Shu, temporarily borrowed Nanjun 南郡, part of Jingzhou 荆州, from Wu as a base to resist the aggression of Wei. However, Liu Bei later refused to return Nanjun when Wu claimed sovereignty, and sent Lord Guan, one of the most important Shu generals, to defend it.