“The Gentlemanly ‘Leading Lady’” as “Ambassador in Art”: Mei Lanfang’s 1930 Tour of the United States

Abstract

A decade after his triumphant international debut in Japan, Mei Lanfang embarked on a new international mission, traveling across the Pacific for a theatrical tour of the United States. In contrast to his tour of Japan, a country that had forged a historical and cultural link to China for more than two thousand years, Mei’s American tour was geographically and culturally a truly international adventure. Performing for the first time in the West on a truly international stage for an ethnically and culturally diversified audience, Mei had to overcome almost insurmountable ethnic and cultural odds and challenges to secure his success. After a six-month stay and a tour of several major American cities, Mei accomplished his mission with “sensational success” (Skinner 1930). For the first time, American audiences saw the Chinese theatre with a time-honored history and tradition as performed and interpreted by its finest exponent, styled by American critics “the Gentlemanly ‘Leading Lady’ of China” (Literary Digest 1924) and “Ambassador in Art” (Atkinson 1930b). After seeing Mei’s opening night performance, Robert Littell of the New York World hailed Mei as “one of the most extraordinary actors” ever seen by Americans and concluded that “Nothing like this has ever been seen in New York” (Littell 1930a). Stark Young, playwright, painter, and doyen of American theatre critics, proved to be the most enthusiastic and articulate of Mei’s American admirers.