Ⅰ.Tea Opera and Tea House
The tea was connected with opera first in tea houses.
“In tea houses, many people gather here to learn musical instruments or sing songs, which are called learning items.Tea is offered in teahouses, but these learning items will promote sales volumes”
——“Stories of the Capital”by Nai Deweng in the Song Dynasty
In the Song Dynasty, some tea houses became cultural and entertainment places with tea tasting as the introduction and opera appreciation or self-entertainment as the main content.At that time, there were all kinds of tea houses, and the special one was a“social tea house”that attracted people to learn opera and musical instruments in addition to drinking tea, so as to earn more money.
Fig.3-5 Laoshe’s Tea House
During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, it became very common to perform dramas in“tea houses”or“tea gardens”.The income of opera performers was paid by the tea house.In other words, the income of these teahouses was mainly from selling tea; Only payment for tea was charged, and theater tickets were not sold.Drama was a way to entertain and attract tea guests.For example, the most famous“Zha’s Teahouse”in Beijing in the Qing Dynasty,“Dangui Tea Garden”and“Tianxian Tea Garden”in Shanghai were all such performance venues.Tea gardens or tea houses were usually built in the middle of a wall.The flat ground in front of the stage was called a“pool”.The platform was surrounded by galleries on three sides to provide audience seats, and tea tables and chairs were set up for the audience to watch the opera while drinking tea.
Zha’s Tea house was the earliest commercial tea house with written records in Beijing, and it was located in Qianmenwai.It was originally the private garden of Zha’s Family, a big salt merchant in the late Ming Dynasty.During the reign of Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty,tea gardens were opened to the public, initially named Zha’s teahouse and Zha’s house, and later renamed Guanghe Tea house.Kangxi once came here to see the play and gave a pair of couplets:“the sun and moon lights, the river and sea oil, clapper boards, a theater in the world; Yao and Shun, civil and military roles, Wang Mang and Cao Cao, many roles from ancient to modern times.”Most of the seats in the Zha’s teahouse are long benches, which are opposite each other.The guests sit shoulder to shoulder, which is convenient for drinking tea.The layout of the teahouse in those days is a good model to interpret the relationship between tea and drama in the old time.
图3-6 品茗、演剧两不误的茶楼
如果说在茶楼里，茶与戏剧的结缘，还只是一种外在形式的黏合，似乎有一种“两张皮”之嫌疑，那么以茶为题材和素材的戏剧，就称得上是两者真正的结盟了。而这种情况的出现，至迟是在明代的戏剧舞台上。