Drama in the People's Republic of China

Edited by Constantine Tung & Colin Mackerras

Subjects: Chinese Studies
Paperback : 9780887063909, 353 pages, July 1987
Hardcover : 9780887063893, 353 pages, July 1987

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Table of contents

Preface and Acknowledgments

Introduction: Tradition and Experience of the Drama of the People's Republic of China

Constantine Tung

Part One Drama on Historical Themes

Chapter 1. Hai Rui Dismissed From Office and China's Opposition Movement, 1958-1959

Lin Chen

Chapter 2. Images of Women in the Dramas of Guo Moruo: The Case of Empress Wu

Bruce Gordon Doar

Part Two Drama, Ideal and Theory

Chapter 3. Prescriptive Dramatic Theory of the Cultural Revolution

Ellen R. Judd

Chapter 4. Model Drama as Myth: A Semiotic Analysis of Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy

Kirk A. Denton

Chapter 5. Mei Lanfang, Stanislavsky and Brecht on China's Stage and Their Aesthetic Significance

William Huizhu Sun

Chapter 6. Huang Zuoling's Ideal of Drama and Bertolt Brecht

Adrian Hsia

Part Three Post 1976 Theater and Drama

Chapter 7. Theater Activities in Post-Cultural Revolution China

Daniel S. P. Yang

Chapter 8. Modernization and Contemporary Chinese Theater: Commercialization and Professionalization

Colin Mackerras

Chapter 9. The Darkened Vision: If I Were For Real and the Movie

Gilbert C. F. Fong

Chapter 10. Tensions of Reconciliation: Individualistic Rebels and Social Harmony in Bai Fengxi's Plays

Constantine Tung

Chapter 11. The Drama Tragic Song of Our Time (Shidai de beige ): Functions of Literature in the Eighties and Its Socio-Political Limitations

Helmut Martin

Part Four Foreign Theaters in China: Two Case Studies

Chapter 12. Austrian Musical Theater and Music in China

Gerd KaminskI And Else Unterrieder

Chapter 13. Performances of Ibsen in China after 1949

Elisabeth Eide

Chapter 14. Conclusion Colin Mackerras

Notes on Contributors

Index

Description

This is the first book ever published in the West on drama in the People's Republic of China. The plays, playwrights, theories, and performances range from the play that inflamed the Cultural Revolution to a post-Mao satiric drama that upset party leaders; from Jiang Qing's drama theory for her model plays to the discovery of Bertolt Brecht; from the problems and dilemmas that confront theater reform in the post-Mao era to the performance of Ibsen's Peer Gynt and Viennese operettas; and from a historical play glorifying Mao's supremacy to a playwright calling for individualism and women's rights. This book not only depicts aspects of drama in the People's Republic of China, it also provides analyses of the political and social conditions that shaped and are represented in this drama.

Constantine Tung is Associate Professor of Chinese Language and Literature at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Colin MacKerras is Foundation Professor in the School of Modern Asian Studies, Griffith University, Australia.