Theater

The Blessed Isle is home to many theatrical traditions, from the puppets of the northwest to the dancing folk heroes of the Pendant Isles. A few of these traditions are venerable old traditions, others charming novelties, and yet others, the indulgence of the bloodthirsty peasantry.

Respectable Theater

The Realm’s worthy and respectable traditions trace their origin back to the Shogunate, and are grounded in traditional performances of old plays. They are highly formalized and require many decades to master. These widespread theaters can be found in all major cities of the Isle, and their forms are recognized by most of the Isle’s urban population to some extent or another.

Actors who focus on the respectable traditions are, of course, worthy of praise; they are actively cultivating the Realm’s refined heritage. The theater is one of the places where patricians can most readily earn respect from the Dynasty; some famous Dynast-patrician marriages have involved an acclaimed and respected Patrician actor.

Wàn Theater

Wàn theater emerges from the northeast, in the lands of Pangu and the Imperial River valley. It is descended from the Shogunate’s theatrical traditions, which in turn trace their heritage to the old capital of Karashelen. Wàn theater is a treasured part of Wàn cultural heritage and a common fixture of Dynastic going-out entertainment.

Wàn theater is characterized by its elaborate costuming and masks. All actors wear a flat mask while performing, the color of which indicates the role of the character: the five elemental colors ususally denote protagonists, or, when paired with a devious mustache or comical eyebrows, a particularly potent villain. Masks in other colors indicate roles like tricksters, teachers, and heretics. Actors dress in incredibly elaborate Wàn garb; the lead female character often wears seven or eight layers of clothing, and costumes can weigh in excess of 50 pounds in the most elaborate productions.

Wàn theater uses no scenery, and actors only carry weapons or instruments as props. The performance is extremely physical, with an emphasis on positioning, posing, and communicating to the audience through body language. The combination of hot theater, heavy costumes, restricted breathing from the mask, and intense physical focus makes performing Wàn theater a truly exhausting act.

Wàn theatrical productions tend toward longer form performances driven by character acting; a truly spectacular Wàn performance is one in which the actor most fully embodies the character and their role in the story. The Wàn theatrical canon draws heavily from the Epics of the Immaculate tradition, the records of the early days of the Realm, and famous historical Shogunate battles and political kerfuffles. Wàn productions usually include at least one fight scene, and at least one monologue from the leading actor. The plays focus on the ability of the actor, their physical presence, and the narrative driving the production.

The stage for Wàn theater is generally a large rectangular platform featuring four pillars – red, green, black, and blue – and a white banner at the entrance of the hall to welcome guests inside. Theatrical texts discuss how this parallels Creation, and empowers stories by drawing the attention of not only the human, but the supernatural as well.

Qián Theater

Qián theater, the theater of the people in Lord’s Crossing and the surrounding mountainous area, descends from the same Shogunate tradition as Wàn theater, but evolved to focus more heavily on the excellent performance of a small canon of distinguished plays, rather than the individual actor focus of Wàn theater. A well-staged production in the Qián school focuses on bringing to the stage a clear realization of the canon. In a perfectly realized Qián production, the audience should leave the theater and be stunned that they emerge into the modern world rather than into the historical world of the plays.

Like Wàn theater, Qián theater makes extensive use of elaborate costuming, and foresakes the use of scenery and props in favor of the actor’s individual skill. However, where the Wàn theater emphasizes the actor bringing their own spin on the character and allows for improvisation, the Qián theater is focused on the immaculate realization of the detailed plays – not only the lines in the script, but also the stage instructions and other elements hidden to the audience. The books and opinions which underly the theory of Qián theater include lists of hundreds of mudras for the actors to perform, many different ways to hold one’s shoulders or cast one’s gaze, and all such detailed instructions must be executed flawlessly for a successful performance.

Productions in the Qián theater are typically 30 to 45 minutes in length, consisting of a small number of scenes featuring a small number of actors. A night of performance includes a run of several of these shorter plays. The run features Five Topics:

1. An historical event or an excerpt of a famous battle;
2. Nature and humanity’s place in nature;
3. The Perfected Hierarchy;
4. Family and duty to family;
5. Spirits and gods.

The plays in a run also feature at least one of each of the Three Moods:

1. Mournful;
2. Comedic;
3. Erotic.

Playwrights emphasize that this combination of Five Topics and Three Moods evokes a broad experience of the human condition. Many authors in the Qián canon establish their style by their takes on the combinations – where one author may interpret Family/Erotic as an epic of courtly love, another may interpret it as a steamy trist between forbidden lovers and the consequences of their actions.

The Qián canon features a handful of plays in each combination from roughly a dozen authors, including Tepet Zao Kuyen, the master of comedy, and Lotus, the Old Master, hailing from a House whose name was struck from the ledgers but whose masterful erotic and nature plays remain a touchstone of the Qián tradition today.

Qián plays are usually staged in a smaller and more intimate theater, to better allow the audience to be up close and admire the performance’s technical aspects. Qián plays naturally give rise to a dialect of tropes and references that occasionally make their way into the wider Dynasty. Outsiders, or newcomers to the Dynasty, may find themselves the excluded party after a refined Dynast makes reference to one of Lotus’ more obscure works with a quote or a certain flutter of the eyebrows.

Eclectic Theater

Further toward the edges of society than the respectable Wàn and Qián traditions, the Isle is also home to many local theaterical heritages that have their own expectations and rituals. Although none of these have the same prestige or standing as the respectable theaters, they are often beloved by the peasantry and an important relic of the local culture.

Here are some examples:

The White Rose Troupes

An ancient people called the White Rose, predating the Shogunate, were once granted an exemption by the Shogun: they would travel wherever they like in the Isle, not to be impeded by borders, but were forbidden to make a living through any profession other than entertainer. Today, the White Rose people can be found throughout the Isle, wandering in long, slow circuits between major cities.

The White Rose troupes perform their own variety of theater, loud and racuous, with elaborate scenery, colorful costumes, and a huge cast of stock characters. In addition to these performances, they also put on juggling acts, tumbling acts, and all manner of minstrelry – but the theater is where the White Rose people are most acclaimed.

White Rose theater features over four dozen stock characters who play the major roles in their productions, including: Wolf, the stoic hunter, who always has a fur pelt; Hawk, the quick-witted thief, who usually learns secrets that put her life in danger; Toad, the inept and bumbling servant with a large mustache who causes problems through his clumsiness and lack of tact. White Rose children are born into hereditary roles in an intricate cycle: the first child of a Hawk and a Wolf is always a Toad, and so on. The acting children are trained from the age of seven in the theater. Roles are inherited regardless of the sex or desires of the child.

White Rose actors are expected not only to play the same characters for their entire life, but to embody the traits of those characters even outside their performances. Regardless of her sex, a Hawk is always a woman; off stage, she wears woman’s clothes, speaks women’s speak, and lives her life as a woman. Likewise, Toad actors are always men, and the mysterious Crystal – the narrator, who on stage is hooded and mysterious – is agender, neither man nor woman. Lastly, the leader of a White Rose troupe is always considered a woman under Imperial law, and generally lives as such.

The White Rose troupes have an unparalleled freedom of movement, thanks to the Treaty which they keep with the Empress, inherited from that ancient Shogunate decree. White Rose troupes do not need papers to move around. The troupes are widely reviled by city officials, because they bring loud annoyances, excite the peasantry to think strange thoughts, and worst of all, occasionally take in bandits or other rabble. Although the Treaty nominally defines the White Rose as a race, the contemporary troupes are a mishmash of various ethnicities and heritages, defined not my blood or ancestry but by their lifestyle.

Ru Puppet Theater

The Immaculate Order writes and performs many, many different puppet shows as part of their worship services, especially for major gods. These shows recreate famous legends related to the god worshipped that day on the Calendar, and are supervised and produced by monks. The origin of this tradition lies in the artistry of the Ru-speaking peoples of the northwestern Isle, who have been producing puppet theater for centuries.

Ru puppets are quite large, nearly four or four and a half feet tall; some monster puppets are even larger. They are truly beautiful constructions with elaborate clothing, wigs made of human hair, and all manner of other detail. The Order has adapted many of these puppet-making techniques for use in the western half of the Isle.

Puppets are a direct violation of the aniconic prescriptions of the Order, which may lead some to wonder why the tradition is so vibrant. The strict involvement of the Order ensures that the puppets are not sacreligious, and the puppet-show prayers are a luxurious bribe for unruly gods to calm down. Further, the puppet shows are simply extremely popular. They are a common sight at festivals and many of the Realm’s peasants and patricians have fond memories of watching the puppet shows as children.

Outside of performance during ritual, the puppet-actors practice their craft by staging short comedic or tragic plays. These so-called vulgar performances are usually accessible to the locals. The Immaculate Order approves of these performances by staging them within the outer ring of a temple, under the supervision of monks. This arrangement keeps the puppet-actors at the peak of their craft without sacrificing the spiritual wellness of the community.

During performances, the puppet-actors and monks wrap themselves completely from head to toe in black cloth, which is accepted as a code for the audience to regard them as “invisible.” For this reason, some parts of the Isle use puppeteering as a euphemism for sneaking around or going unnoticed.