Theatre

posts on drama in Greater China

Acting Modern China conference

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An International Digital Conference on “Acting Modern China:
A Transcultural Affair”
Organized by The Department of English, The Hang Seng University of Hong Kong,
October 22 to December 3, 2024

This conference aims at further advancing the existing scholarship with comparative and interdisciplinary approaches to Chinese Performance Studies. It critically examines crucial events of theater culture in the past century in Hong Kong, Mainland China, Taiwan, and their trans-continental paths to Chinatown in San Francisco, Japan, and beyond. It features leading scholars from diverse fields of translation, theater studies, anthropology, musicology, East Asian Cultural Studies, and English. Fourteen speakers will each presents a bird’s eye view history from 1910s to 2020s, with a focus on a landmark event in each decade, and its continuous history across regional, national, and international boundaries to delineate a new roadmap of cross-cultural, trans-national, and inter-disciplinary performance studies.

Nancy Yunhwa RAO, in Week One, for example, starts with a crucial year in 1924, which witnessed the opening of Mandarin Theater in San Francisco, and move back and forth in history to examine critical issues such as sojourner communities, global theater, and the allure of theater in translating culture, language, and heritage. Siyuan LIU couples this cross-ocean theater story with a study of the influence of Japanese leftist Avant-Garde theater as seen in the introduction of European-style proletarian puppet theatre to Tokyo and then to Shanghai in the last 1920s. The essay points to the ideological and artistic vocabularies shared by the worldwide proletarian theatre movement inspired by the Soviet Revolution, while also complicating the notion of “sharing” as the specific ideological and artistic environment in each country affected the dramatic/performatic circumstances. Continue reading Acting Modern China conference →

Theater and Politics in Socialist China: A Review Essay

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MCLC Resource Center is pleased to announce publication of Letizia Fusini’s review essay, “Theater and Politics in Socialist China,” which treats recently published books on modern Chinese drama by Maggie Greene, Siyuan Liu, and Xiaomei Chen. The review appears below and at its online home: https://u.osu.edu/mclc/book-reviews/fusini/. My thanks to Jason McGrath, our soon-to-be-former book review editor for media, film, and drama studies, for ushering the review to publication.

Kirk Denton, MCLC

Theater and Politics in Socialist China:
A Review Essay

Resisting Spirits, by Maggie Greene
Transforming Tradition, by Siyuan Liu
Performing the Socialist State, by Xiaomei Chen

Reviewed by Letizia Fusini
MCLC Resource Center Publication (Copyright May, 2024)

Maggie Greene, Resisting Spirits: Drama Reform and Cultural Transformation in the PRC Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2019. 260pp ISBN: 9780472074303 (hardcover)

Siyuan Liu, Transforming Tradition: The Reform of Chinese Theater in the 1950s and Early 1960s Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2021. 472pp. ISBN: 9780472132478 (hardcover); 9780472128723 (ebook)

Xiaomei Chen, Performing the Socialist State: Modern Chinese Theater and Film Culture New York: Columbia University Press, 2023. 384pp. ISBN: 9780231197762 (hardcover); 9780231552332 (ebook)

Nearly a decade ago, in Autumn 2016, I had the opportunity and the privilege to teach an undergraduate survey course on the history of Chinese theater, the only one of its kind in the UK back then. I was a freshly minted PhD graduate and that was my first teaching post. Aside from developing my lecturing skills, the main challenge was to find creative strategies to make the subject more accessible to students who were majoring in theater studies and knew almost nothing about Chinese culture and history. The task became even more daunting when, due to time constraints, I had to condense the history of the rise of modern drama (huaju 话剧) and the transformations of classical theater (xiqu 戏曲) throughout the late-Qing, Republican and early socialist epochs within the space of a couple of hours. Since I wanted to avoid information overload, I began to look for a unifying thread that could hthelp me connect these three periods and, in my research, I came across an excerpt from a text written by Chen Duxiu 陈独秀 in 1904, where the future founder of the CCP eulogizes theater as the best “vehicle for social reform” (120), tracing the paternity of this idea to Confucius, who once said that “nothing is better than yue [乐, the performing arts lato sensu] at transforming social conventions” (118). These thoughts, written just before the dawn of the Republican period and yet rooted in the Confucian tradition, prefigured the Zeitgeist of the New Culture and May Fourth Movements, which, in turn, would be lauded by Mao Zedong in his essay “On New Democracy” as “having pioneered an unprecedentedly great and thoroughgoing cultural revolution” (361) whose only fault was that it failed to serve the interests of the masses of workers, peasants, and soldiers. Through these connections, I was able to visualize the (r)evolution of Chinese theater in the first half of the twentieth century as a tree growing out of Confucian roots and projecting its branches and foliage in a Marxist direction culminating with the Cultural Revolution of 1966-1976. My goal was to convey to my students the impression I had gotten vis-à-vis that short statement by Chen Duxiu about the power of theater to effect social change. The fact that in China, the attribution of a pedagogic and political function to theater is a traditional concept rather than a twentieth-century novelty, hence not an exclusive prerogative of the Communist period or of the Cultural Revolution, was the unifying thread I was looking for. What was initially a mere perception on my part, found confirmation in Richard Schechner’s foreword to the collection in which I originally found Chen Duxiu’s text, where he notes that “the roots of Mao’s attitude—that theater is an excellent educator and that rulers ought to use it as such—go deep in Chinese history. From an early date, theater was seen as a way of reaching ordinary people who could not read” (x). Continue reading Theater and Politics in Socialist China: A Review Essay →

Mo Yan’s ‘Crocodile’ premieres in Suzhou

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Source: China Daily (5/8/24)
Nobel laureate Mo Yan’s debut drama ‘Crocodile’ premieres in Suzhou
By Chinadaily.com.cn

A still from the play, Crocodile, May 3, 2024. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

The much-anticipated stage version of Nobel laureate Mo Yan’s inaugural drama, Crocodile, premiered at the Suzhou Bay Grand Theatre in Suzhou, East China’s Jiangsu province, on May 3.

Crocodile is the first original drama script penned by Mo Yan, which was published in June 2023. Celebrated for his imaginative and humanistic fiction, Mo Yan won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2012.

The plot of Crocodile revolves around the protagonist, Shan Wudan, and a crocodile he received as a gift for his birthday. Through an infinitely growing crocodile, the story delves into the complexity of human nature and explores the theme of “desire”. Continue reading Mo Yan’s ‘Crocodile’ premieres in Suzhou →

‘Shawshank’ in China

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Source: NYT (2/16/24)
‘Shawshank’ in China, as You’ve Never Seen It Before
A stage adaptation of the film featured an all-Western cast, was performed in Chinese and raised questions about translation, both linguistic and cultural.
By Vivian Wang and Claire Fu (Vivian Wang reported from Beijing, and Claire Fu from Seoul)

Two women pose for pictures in front of a promotional billboard for the stage production of “The Shawshank Redemption.”

A stage production of the film “The Shawshank Redemption,” cast with Western actors speaking fluent Mandarin Chinese, opened in Beijing in January. Credit…Gilles Sabrié for The New York Times

When a stage production of “The Shawshank Redemption” opened recently in China, it was cast entirely with Western actors speaking fluent Mandarin Chinese. But that may have been the least surprising part of the show.

That the show — an adaptation of the Stephen King novella that became one of the most beloved movies of all time — was staged at all seemingly flew in the face of several trends in China’s cultural sphere.

Chinese audiences’ interest in Hollywood films is fading, with moviegoers turning to homegrown productions. China’s authoritarian government has stoked nationalism and cast Western influence as a political pollutant. Censorship of the arts has tightened.

Yet the production reflects how some artists are trying to navigate the changing landscape of both what is permissible and what is marketable in China. And its success shows the appetite that many Chinese still have for cultural exchange. Continue reading ‘Shawshank’ in China →

The Peony Pavilion in HK

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Experience the entire kun opera classic The Peony Pavilion the way author Tang Xianzu originally intended. After years of planning, the Shanghai Kunqu Opera Troupe is presenting the Hong Kong debut of the faithfully restored, complete 55-scene saga at the Hong Kong Arts Festival. Structured into three parts and performed over two days, this jewel of the kun opera genre reveals renewed perspectives into the wider social landscape of the Song dynasty, transforming the familiar love story into an unforgettable tale of oppression and emancipation.

A Rotating Poetic World

Explore the ethereal world of The Peony Pavilion through a rotating set design that seamlessly transports the audience from one scene to the next. This unique design also heightens the dreamy landscape of the production, filled with innovative visual effects.

Continue reading The Peony Pavilion in HK →

RMMLA Asian Drama and Performance–cfp

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CFP: Asian Drama and Performance
Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association 77th Annual Convention
Conference Date: October 10-12, 2024
Location: Las Vegas, Nevada

From traditional theatrical practices to contemporary pop culture, the notion of “performance” has continuously played a pivotal role. It not only influences how we interpret literary and visual texts, but also reflects the evolution of society. With “performance” as the focal point, we aim to bring together scholars who can offer insightful perspectives on the topics related to Asian drama, dance and performance. We welcome studies on Asian dramatic texts and performance traditions across various time periods and regions. Papers that examine the performance in a range of humanities disciplines such as cultural studies, film and media studies, gender studies, religion, and anthropology are also encouraged.

We welcome topics including but not limited to:

  • Asian Dance and Drama in Digital Media
  • Decolonizing Asian drama and performance
  • Race and ethnicity in Asian drama and performance
  • Engendering or queering Asian drama and performance
  • (Post-)Human Body and mobility in Asian drama and performance
  • Nationality and diaspora in Asian drama and performance
  • Scripts, Staging, and Props in Theatrical Performances
  • Spatiality and Temporality of Asian Drama, Dance, and Performance
  • Age, aging, and youth in Asian drama and performance

Prospective participants should submit an abstract of approximately 250 words along with a short (2-3 sentence) biography through this google form by March 15, 2024. The language of the session is English.

Please direct any inquiries to: Miao Dou, Melody Yunzi Li, and Pai Wang.

Miao Dou (doumiaokyle@gmail.com)
Melody Yunzi Li (mli40@Central.UH.EDU)
Pai Wang (paiwang@caltech.edu)

Sinophone Adaptations of Shakespeare review

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MCLC Resource Center is pleased to announce publication of Melody Yunzi Li’s review of Sinophone Adaptations of Shakespeare: An Anthology, 1987-2007, edited by Alexa Alice Joubin. The review appears below and its online home: https://u.osu.edu/mclc/book-reviews/melody-li/. My thanks to Michael Hill, our translations/translation studies book review editor, for ushering the review to publication.

Kirk Denton, MCLC

Sinophone Adaptations of Shakespeare:
An Anthology, 1987-2007

Edited by Alexa Alice Joubin

Reviewed by Melody Yunzi Li

MCLC Resource Center Publication (Copyright February, 2024)

Alexa Alice Joubin, ed., Sinophone Adaptations of Shakespeare: An Anthology, 1987-2007 New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022. Xv + 288 pp. ISBN: 978-3-030-92992-3 (hardback).

Sinophone Adaptations of Shakespeare: An Anthology, 1987–2007 is a compelling collection of English translations of seven adaptations of Shakespeare’s tragedies in several stage genres from China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. These works, which span two decades, not only transcend national and cultural boundaries but also remap Shakespearean and Sinophone literature. The anthology makes an important step toward remedying a problem in both Sinophone studies and Shakespeare scholarship: the scarce availability of primary research materials on East Asian adaptations of Western classics.

A comprehensive introduction by Alexa Alice Joubin gives readers an overview of adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays in the Sinophone world. It points out the significance of this anthology—that “Sinophone Shakespeare’s rich range of interpretative possibilities have much to teach us about non-Anglophone understanding of Shakespeare and Sinophone performance practices today” (2). Each adaptation offers a unique lens to understand new aspects of timeless Shakespearean classics, including Hamlet, Macbeth, and King Lear. The plays selected for translation were staged in multiple traditional and modern performance genres, from Chinese opera to huaju spoken drama. Continue reading Sinophone Adaptations of Shakespeare review →

Chinese Theater Collaborative digital resource center

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LAUNCH OF CHINESE THEATER COLLABORATIVE DIGITAL RESOURCE CENTER
January 16, 2024, 8 pm EST

We invite you to the launch of the “Chinese Theater Collaborative/華語戲聚“ (CTC) digital resource center.  CTC is a companion site to two recent publications devoted to making traditional Chinese drama accessible to a broader audience, How To Read Chinese Drama: A Guided Anthology (Columbia University Press, 2022) and How To Read Chinese Drama in Chinese: A Language Companion (Columbia University Press, 2023).

The “Chinese Theater Collaborative” (https://chinesetheatercollaborative.org, going live on 01/16/24)  features over twenty original modules that examine modern renditions of iconic Chinese plays (Orphan of Zhao, Story of the Western Wing, Mulan and Peony Pavilion and more) in multiple formats (theater, film, TV, and comics among others).

These narrated and illustrated modules showcase the vibrant and diverse afterlives of traditional Chinese plays, while facilitating the integration of drama into the literature, culture, media, and language classroom.

Join us on Tuesday, January 16, 2024, 8 pm Eastern Standard Time (EST) by registering here: https://easc.osu.edu/events/ics-event-launching-chinese-theater-collaborative/huayuxiju

For questions, please contact chinesetheatercollaborative@osu.edu.

Patricia Sieber (Professor, DEALL) and Julia Keblinska (Postdoctoral Fellow, EASC)
Editors, CTC
The Ohio State University
Launch supported by The Institute for Chinese Studies (The Ohio State University) and co-sponsored by the Advanced Institute for Global Chinese Studies (Lingnan University)

Drag in contemporary China

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New Publication
Source: Contemporary Theatre Review 33.1-2 (2023)
“Fanchuan and Bianzhuang: Ways of Doing Drag in Contemporary China”
By Hongwei Bao

With popular reality TV shows such as RuPaul’s Drag Race, the term ‘drag’ has come into the public attention in recent years. However, as Mark Edward and Stephen Farrier, editors of Contemporary Drag Practices and Performers, pointed out, drag as a global form of performance culture has long histories, rich heritages and multiple genealogies.1 It is therefore important to look at the local, indigenous, regional and hybrid forms of drag culture alongside its global forms to appreciate its diversity and richness. This also helps to identify the discourses and power relations that construct a dominant form of drag culture.

FIGURE 2. CROSSDRESSING PERFORMER AT THE SHANGHAI PRIDE, 2009 (CREDIT: KRIS KRUG, CREATIVE COMMONS)

This short essay examines the multiple genealogies and diverse forms of drag culture in contemporary China. I will draw examples from queer Chinese cinema, performance and activism. These examples and the forms they represent are by no means exhaustive, but they can offer an insight into the diversity of drag cultures in the contemporary Chinese context. In doing so, this essay hopes to contribute to a more open and capacious understanding global drag culture.

The diversity of the drag culture in China is manifested by the different terms used to translate drag. Fanchuan （反串）and bianzhuang （变装）are two of the most common terms used to describe drag in Mandarin Chinese. Fachuan – meaning crossdressing – is usually seen as a sophisticated art form of gender reversal performance deeply rooted in traditional Chinese theatre and Southeast Asia performance. Bianzhuang – usually translated as drag – refers primarily to contemporary drag performance in popular entertainment venues such as bars and clubs and its aesthetics is more akin to the American drag culture portrayed in Jennie Livingstone’s 1990 documentary Paris is Burning…. [READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE]

Teahouse

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MCLC Resource Center is pleased to announce publication of Claire Conceison’s translation of Teahouse, Meng Jinghui’s radical adaptation of Lao She’s famous drama. The translation includes images from Meng’s 2019 production of the play in Avignon. A teaser appears below; for the full translation, see: https://u.osu.edu/mclc/online-series/teahouse/. The translation is published in conjunction with Barbara Leonesi’s recent MCLC essay on Meng’s adaptation, a link to which appears in the title header.

My thanks to Claire Conceison for sharing her translation with the MCLC commmunity.

Kirk Denton, MCLC

Teahouse 茶馆

By Lao She 老舍[1]
Adapted by Meng Jinghui 孟京辉[2]
Translated by Claire Conceison 康开丽
Published in conjunction with Barbara Leonesi’s MCLC essay on Meng’s adaptation
See also Conceison’s 2019 report on Meng’s Avignon production

MCLC Resource Center Publication (Copyright October 2023)

Preshow at performance of Meng’s Teahouse performed at the Avignon Festival 2019 from July 9-20 at L’Opera Confluence theater. All subsequent photos are from this performance. Photo: Claire Conceison.

Dramatis Personae (in order of speaking)[3]

Teahouse Customers
Wang Lifa
Master Song
Master Chang
Er Dezi
Master Ma
Pockmark Liu
Kang Liu
Kang Shunzi
Eunuch Pang
Qin Zhongyi
Tang the Oracle
Little Girl
Peasant Woman
Li San
Song Enzi
Tubby Huang		 Little Spider
Critic
Officer
Publisher
Big Spider
Sophie
Ugly
Ronald McDonald
Biggie
Daxi
Xiaoming
Didi
Bao’er
Dafei
Little Thing
Big Sister
Little Sister		 Wang Shufen
Refugee
Policeman
Weishen
Chen
Lin
Qin Boren
The Actor
Ding Bao

Teahouse set, designed by Zhang Wu. Composed of 6 tons of steel, it required assembly of 1,000 pieces by 45 technicians, and 8 electricians to rotate the sphere. Photo: Meng Jinghui Studio.

SCENE 1: Ensemble

First Customer: Who is this Tan Sitong?

Second Customer: I heard of him somewhere before. He must have committed a horrible crime. Otherwise he wouldn’t have been sentenced to death.

Third Customer: In the past few months, some officials and scholars have been trying to stir up trouble and causing all kinds of chaos!

Fourth Customer: No matter what happens, my Bannerman’s subsidy is safe. That Tan Sitong and Kang Youwei were saying subsidies should be abolished and we should earn our own living. That’s wicked!

Third Customer: By the time we get our subsidies, our superiors have skimmed most of it off the top anyway. It’s a tough life however you look at it.

Fourth Customer: A tough life is better than no life. If I had to earn my own living, I would starve.

Wang Lifa: Customers! Do Not Discuss Affairs of State.

Master Song and Master Chang: Drink some of this? ….. [read the full translation here]

Summer Translation Collaborative with Amy Ng

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Summer Translation Collaborative with Playwright Amy Ng
May 15-19, 2023
The Ohio State University (Columbus, OH, U.S.A., in person)
Traditional Chinese play translation for the contemporary stage
Pending grant funding

Staged reading of “Rescuing One’s Sister in the Wind and the Dust”; adapted by Amy Ng; based on “Zhao Pan’er Rescues a Sister Through Seduction” by Guan Hanqing; image credit ©Alameida Theatre

In this week-long workshop on the OSU campus, Amy Ng (a London-based Hong Kong playwright) will lead a collaborative effort to translate a classical Chinese play into stageable English. The workshop will feature guest presentations by experienced translators (mornings), hands-on group translation work & individual reflections (afternoons), and a staged reading (Friday afternoon). The goal is to create and document a new process for drama translation, while crafting an engaging, fun, and thought-provoking playtext.

We would like to recruit a diverse cohort of advanced undergraduate and graduate students as well as recent MFAs and PhDs. Required qualifications: advanced command of modern Chinese, professional fluency in English. Interest in and/or experience with theater (any tradition) is desirable, but not required. We welcome novice translators as well as those with prior experience. We especially welcome applications by members of traditionally underrepresented groups. Continue reading Summer Translation Collaborative with Amy Ng →

Performing the Socialist State

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Performing the Socialist State

Performing the Socialist State: Modern Chinese Theater and Film Culture, Xiaomei Chen’s new book, will be published on February 7, 2023, when it should be readily available for purchase everywhere Columbia UP books are sold. But it can be purchased directly from the Press website now and will ship straightaway. The webpage for this book is:

https://cup.columbia.edu/book/performing-the-socialist-state/9780231197762

Customers who purchase the book through the Columbia UP website will receive a 20% discount off the price of the book by using the promo code CUP20. Feel free to share this code on your social media accounts, in newsletters, in email outreach, on your website, and in any other places you may be telling your contacts about the book.

Performing the Socialist State offers an innovative account of the origins, evolution, and legacies of key trends in twentieth-century Chinese theater. Instead of seeing the Republican, high socialist, and postsocialist periods as radically distinct, it identifies key continuities in theatrical practices and shared aspirations for the social role and artistic achievements of performance across eras. Continue reading Performing the Socialist State →

Contemporary Chinese Queer Performance

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Dear all,

I am delighted to announce the publication of my new book Contemporary Chinese Queer Performance. Please recommend the book to your university libraries if this is of interest. Thank you!

All the best,

Hongwei Bao hongwei.bao@nottingham.ac.uk

About the book:

In this ground-breaking study, Hongwei Bao analyses queer theatre and performance in contemporary China. This book documents various forms of queer performance – including music, film, theatre, and political activism – in the first two decades of the twenty first century. In doing so, Bao argues for the importance of performance for queer identity and community formation. This trailblazing work uses queer performance as an analytical lens to challenge heteronormative modes of social relations and hegemonic narratives of historiography. It will be of great interest to students and scholars of theatre and performance studies, gender and sexuality studies and Asian studies. Continue reading Contemporary Chinese Queer Performance →

Ruling the Stage

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I would like to draw your attention to my new book Ruling the Stage: Social and Cultural History of Opera in Sichuan from the Qing to the People’s Republic of China (Brill, 2022).

In it, through an innovative interdisciplinary reading and field research, I analyse the history of the development of opera in Sichuan, arguing that opera serves as a microcosm of the profound transformation of modern Chinese culture between the 18th century and 1950s. I investigate the complex path of opera over this course of history: exiting the temple festivals, becoming a public obsession on commercial stages, and finally being harnessed to partisan propaganda work. The book analyzes the process of cross-regional integration of Chinese culture and the emergence of the national opera genre. Moreover, opera is shown as an example of the culture wars that raged inside China’s popular culture.

For more details please see the book’s webpage: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004519398

Igor Chabrowski <i.chabrowski@uw.edu.pl>

A New Old Play review

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Source: NYT (5/19/22)
‘A New Old Play’ Review: Even the Clown Show Must Go On
Qiu Jiongjiong’s absurdist epic of 20th century China is both a movie and a play, both tragedy and farce.
By Austin Considine

Yi Sicheng in &ldquo;A New Old Play.&rdquo;

Yi Sicheng in “A New Old Play.”Credit…Icarus Films

Per the title, Qiu Jiongjiong’s magnificently layered historical epic, “A New Old Play,” draws as much from Brecht and Beckett as from cinematic traditions. At once tragedy and farce, it breathes new life into a story as old as civilization.

The opening scene is disorienting at first, not least for the film’s protagonist, Qiu Fu (Yi Sicheng), a well-known actor from a Sichuan opera troupe. We meet him when he is old and stooping, in a crumbling mountain village enshrouded by fog. It is China in the 1980s, and the Japanese, the nationalists and the communists have wreaked their havoc in turn. Now two raggedy demons have arrived in a broken-down bicycle rickshaw to cart Qiu off to the underworld.

Still, something feels uncanny, demons notwithstanding. The entire mise-en-scène of the film, we discover, is artificial, an assembly of stage props and hand-painted scenery. Qiu has always played the clown, shuffling from scene to scene, a hapless pauper harassed by need and political fashion. Even his wife (Guan Nan) may not miss him when he’s gone. Somehow he, like the film, maintains a sense of humor. Such is life for a poor player.

Qiu isn’t keen to leave, but his time is up — as the demons remind him, it’s no use trying to outrun fate. Also, the King of Hell is a fan, and Qiu’s failure to appear would make them look bad.

But first, let’s drink and play mahjong in purgatory, where Qiu awaits final passage to oblivion. Absurdities and indignities mount as he reminisces about a life spanning wars and famine, revolution and betrayal. The director’s cleverest trick is having also found joy there.

A New Old Play
Not rated. In Mandarin, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 59 minutes. In theaters.