Shu Hong

Shu Hong a Chinese actor and film director of the twentieth century (1916-2012) whose long career on stage and screen made him one of the best-loved performers of modern China. He was a leading member of the theatrical troupe known as the Shanghai Amateur Dramatic Society and later became a director and teacher, and he was active in the cinema until his old age.

Early Life and Entry into the Theatre

Shu Hong was born in Zhejiang province in 1916. He grew up in a period of upheaval and came early to the theatre, first as an amateur and then as a member of the professional companies that flourished in the cities of the Yangtze delta. He was drawn to the spoken drama at a time when it was still a young and sometimes precarious art, and he made it his life.

In the 1930s he joined the Shanghai Amateur Dramatic Society, the celebrated company, which, despite its name, was a thoroughly professional troupe that became the most important stage ensemble of the period. There he worked under the leading directors of the day and took part in the productions that made the reputation of the modern theatre.

He served for years as the head of the company and held office in a national association of dramatic artists. His leadership helped to sustain the troupe through war and political change, and his own performances set a standard of natural, restrained acting that contrasted with the more theatrical manner of the older stage. He was admired for his intelligence and his reliability.

Acting Career

Shu Hong was one of the finest actors of the Chinese stage, and his performances in the great plays of the republican period were long remembered. He excelled in the portrayal of ordinary men under pressure, of clerks, teachers and small officials, and his restraint and his precision gave his characters a quiet authority. He was a master of the small gesture and the well-placed pause.

He acted in the plays of Cao Yu and other leading dramatists and took part in the creation of several roles that became identified with him. His ability to suggest a whole life behind a single scene made him invaluable to directors, and his presence on stage steadied an ensemble. He was also a talented comic actor and could find humour in the most ordinary situation.

Alongside his stage work he appeared in a large number of films. He played both leading and supporting roles and brought to the screen the same economy and truthfulness that distinguished his theatre acting. His film performances, especially as kindly or long-suffering older men, endeared him to a wide public and made his face familiar across the country.

Directing and the Cinema

Shu Hong became a director as well as an actor and worked on both stage and screen. He directed theatrical productions and made his mark as a filmmaker, particularly in the later decades of his career, when he adapted literary works to the cinema. His adaptations of modern Chinese fiction won praise for their fidelity to the spirit of the originals and for their humane tone.

His direction combined a firm narrative line with careful attention to the detail of everyday life. He was especially good with actors and preferred understatement to spectacle, and his films have an intimate, lived-in quality. He worked repeatedly with the same collaborators and built a small repertory of trusted performers.

He was honoured by the film industry for his contributions and received national recognition for his long service to the performing arts. His late work inspired respect among younger filmmakers, who regarded him as a link to the great theatrical tradition of the 1930s and 1940s. He continued to work into his nineties.

The Shanghai Company and Wartime

The Shanghai Amateur Dramatic Society was the cradle of the modern Chinese stage, and Shu Hong was one of its central figures. The company staged both Western and Chinese plays, introduced professional standards of rehearsal and design, and trained many of the actors and directors who would dominate the theatre of the following generations.

During the war against Japan the company faced censorship and danger, and some of its members worked in the patriotic theatre. Shu Hong helped to keep the ensemble alive through the years of occupation and exile, protecting its members and its repertoire under difficult conditions. His organisational skill was as important to its survival as his acting.

After 1949 the company was reorganised within the new theatrical institutions, and Shu Hong continued to lead and to teach. His long association with the troupe made him its living memory, and he was often called upon to record and pass on its history. He embodied the continuity of the modern stage from its amateur beginnings to its established maturity.

Legacy and Assessment

Shu Hong died in 2012 at the age of ninety-six, one of the last survivors of the heroic age of the Chinese spoken drama. His career had spanned nearly eight decades, from the amateur experiments of the 1930s to the cinema of the twenty-first century, and his work connected the theatre of the republican period with the culture of the present day.

He is remembered as a great actor and a generous teacher, and as the guardian of the tradition of the Shanghai company. His restrained style influenced a generation of performers, and his films, many of them adaptations of neglected fiction, remain valued by critics. He never sought the limelight and preferred to serve the ensemble and the work.

His long life made him a witness to the whole development of modern Chinese performance, and his recollections and his example are part of its history. He stands for the professional dedication of the actor who places the play above the self, and for the continuity of a theatrical tradition that survived war, upheaval and political change.

See also

• Shanghai Amateur Dramatic Society
• Spoken drama
• Cao Yu
• Chinese cinema