A Couple of Soles is a classic comedic romance by the
seventeenth-century playwright Li Yu. Tan Chuyu, a poor young scholar,
falls in love with the beautiful actress Liu Miaogu. He joins her
family's acting troupe, and, in plays within the play, romance ensues.
After Liu's family attempts to marry her off to a local country squire,
she performs a famous scene in which a heroine drowns herself--and then
jumps off the stage into a river, followed by Tan. The local river deity
rescues the lovers from death by transforming them into a pair of soles.
Li balances their romance with the adventures of a retired upright
official involving banditry, bribery, and mistaken identity--and who
nets and shelters the two fish when they regain human form.
Written at a time when China was beginning to recover from the
cataclysmic Ming-Qing dynastic transition, A Couple of Soles displays
Li's biting wit as well as his reflections on the concerns of his age,
including the dangers of administrative service and the role of theater
in society. The play combines witty wordplay and caustic satire with a
strong emphasis on traditional moral values. The first major comedy from
late imperial China to appear in English translation, A Couple of
Soles provides an unparalleled view of the theater in
seventeenth-century China. A general introduction and a detailed
appendix shed further light on the play and its context.
