Tianxian pei (Married to a heaven immortal) is a Chinese Huangmeixi (Huangmei opera) play from Anhui Province that became a national sensation in the 1950s thanks to a film adaptation based on a stage revision of pre-1949 versions. The old performance texts—based on a well-known legend—tell the story of Dong Yong selling his body for three years of servitude in order to borrow money to bury his father, an exemplary act of filial piety that the Jade Emperor in heaven rewards by sending his seventh daughter down to be his wife for one hundred days. The two meet on Dong's way to labor, get married with the help of the Star of the Great White, and proceed to his owner's house where Seventh Sister, with the help of her elder sisters, performs the miracle of weaving ten bolts of colorful brocade overnight, thus gaining the reduction of their labor to one hundred days. On their way home after the period, Seventh Sister is forced to return to heaven while promising to deliver their son to Dong the following year. In the 1950s, the play went through a number of revisions, won several top prizes at the 1954 East China Theatre Festival in Shanghai, was made into a 90-minute film (reduced from three hours), and was further adapted on stage according to the film.

Wilt Idema documents this process in The Metamorphosis of Tianxian Pei in three parts: (1) an introduction and a detailed discussion of the transformation; (2) translations of the old play from a woodblock print supplemented with two scenes from a pre-1949 performance and the 1955 revised version; and (3) translations of “Reflections and Criticism,” which are subdivided into four sections: “The Rewriting” with two pieces by its stage adapters Ban Youshu and Lu Hongfei; “The Performance” with interviews of the female and male leads, Yan Fengying and Wang Shaofang, and reminiscences of its two stage directors, Li Liping (from spoken drama) and Qiao Zhiliang (from Beijing opera); “The Filming” with reflections from its film adapter Sang Hu and director Shi Hui; and “Touring the Country” with four negative views of its post-film version from 1956—a scathing letter from the high-ranking Kang Sheng, a short report of a forum of theatre experts, and two reviews from the scholars Wu Zuxiang and Dong Meikan.

As such, the volume provides meticulously researched, highly illuminating, and expertly translated sources on a representative case of China's radical post-1949 dramatic reform campaign against traditional theatre. It provides a treasure trove of information on some common themes of the campaign, such as ideology-based play revision tactics (changing supposed superstition to free love and feudal morality to class struggle), top-down imposition of literary adapters as well as spoken drama directions and performance techniques, eliminating popular performance elements such as certain clown roles (e.g., converting Eldest Sister from caidan [female clown] to a normal female dan role), and the normative effect filming had on future stage versions.

On top of such an abundance of sources, Idema also sorts through the legend of Dong Yong, the various pre-1949 stage versions, and the several rounds of revisions from 1951 to 1957 to provide, in chapters 1 and 2, a clear guide to, and substantive analysis of, the multiple revisions. Here, Idema's wide spectrum of scholarship in Chinese folklore and premodern literature and drama, including his Filial Piety and Its Divine Rewards: The Legend of Dong Yong and Weaving Maiden with Related Texts (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2009), proves to be a tremendous asset in pinpointing specific influences on the revisions and disentangling conflicting claims about the authorship of the revised versions. As a result, Idema's analysis is especially effective with regard to the changes in the first (1952) and second (1953) revisions, and the effect of the film.

One issue Idema left out of the analysis, but which might have helped readers understand the 1956 backlash, is the reassessment of the dramatic reform campaign that accompanied the liberal national policy in 1956–57, before its abrupt end as a result of the Anti-Rightist Movement. Emphasizing this environment would provide an illuminating background to the four 1956 pieces and the brief discussion of the company's subsequent revision, which largely restored the pre-film vision. The significant differences in art policies before and after the Anti-Rightist Movement might also help explain the fact that the version of the play performed today is still closer to the film, most significantly in the elimination of the caidan role and of Seventh Sister's acrobatic movements in the final act. Idema mentions a final, standard edition by Lu Hongfei written in the spring of 1957, although “there existed a considerable difference between the text as published and the text as performed” (p. 65). Given the drastic shifts in political mood between 1956 and 1957, Idema might have devoted a bit more space to the question of whether it was this 1957 version or a subsequent version that established the play we see today; doing so would have provided a better sense of closure to this fantastic piece of scholarship and tremendously useful source for scholars and students alike.