Lady Precious Stream

S. I. Hsiung / Xiong Shiyi (1902–1991)

• Dramatist, writer, translator.

• Studied at Beijing Normal University.
• Moved to UK in 1933 to study English literature at Queen Mary College
• Wrote Lady Precious Stream in 1934
• Play was a success in London, then New York.
• Author of a best-selling translation of Xixiang ji, as The Romance of the
Western Chamber (1939) (based on Jin Shengtan’s edition)
New York: Liveright / London: Methuen, 1935 London: Methuen, 1936 (acting edition)
 Peking Opera play
“The Red Mane Stallion”
S. I. Hsiung, Lady Precious Stream (Hongzong liema )
1934 edition; 1936 acting edition
First stage productions in London, 1934-35; New York,
1936
Later productions: London, 1950; Israel, 1952; Kenya,
1953; Ghana, 1963; China, 1991.
Film adaptation, 1938
TV adaptation, 1950

Xiong Shiyi,
Wang Baochuan
Chinese edition 2003
Embroidered silk panel with silks and silver threads. Chaozhou, China, 1863.
Victoria & Albert Museum. (full image and detail)
Clear blue silk robe embroidered with oriental flower and insect motifs
worn by an unidentified character in the play 'Lady Precious Stream',
Little Theatre, London, 1934.
Victoria & Albert Museum.
The delightful new play at the Little Theatre ‘Lady Precious
Stream’ has a genuineness which [previous Chinese-manner plays]
have lacked; for it is written in English by a Chinese author, S.
I. Hsiung, who has shared with Nancy Price the work of the
production.
--W. Darlington, The Daily Telegraph, November 1934.

The acting, brilliantly stylised though it is … does not affect

us as even approximately Chinese. I can imagine the performance
equivalent in absurdity to that given by a company of Chinese
affecting to be English, or of French people pretending to be
American.
--Sydney Carroll, The Daily Telegraph, December 1934.
Like a Ming vase, this play has an undying fascination. Half
the charm lies in telling this ancient fairy-story according to
the quaint conventions of the Chinese theatre.
--“ The Arts: ‘Lady Precious Stream,’” The Stage, December 21, 1950.

Lady Precious Stream is “a very slickly tailored piece of

chinoiserie… ridiculous… to anyone who had seen a real Chinese
play produced under authentically Chinese conditions.”
--Northrop Frye, cited in Tian 2017, 160.
References
• Thorpe, Ashely. “Seeking Subalterneity in S. I. Hsiung‘s Lady Precious Stream, 1934.” In Performing
China on the London Stage: Chinese opera and global power, 1759-2008, pp. 103-135. London: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2016.
• Tian Min.“Lady Precious Stream: A Chinese Chinoiserie Anglicized on the Modern British Stage.”
Comparative Drama 51, no. 2 (Summer 2017): 158-186.
• Yeh, Diana. The Happy Hsiungs: Performing China and the Struggle for Modernity. Hong Kong: Hong Kong
University Press, 2014.
Images
• Victoria & Albert Museum collections: http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O106885/panel-
unknown/?print=1#
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/chinese_in_britain8.shtml
• http://www.hkfringeclub.com/en/whatson/448-Play+Reading+in+English+–
+Lady+Precious+Stream+by+S.+I.+Hsiung.html