Abstract: Chinese drama in the 20th century is closely related to world theater, that is, Chinese drama has elements of world drama. This correlation is not a one-way street, that is, the existence of the world drama influencing Chinese drama, but a two-way street, that is, Chinese theater and world theater influence each other. Neither is a completed individual, but is constantly growing and changing. In the course of a hundred years of development, Wang Guowei has made contributions to the establishment of Chinese drama disciplines and has had an impact on Japanese academic circles; Mei Lanfang has reshaped traditional Chinese opera with a modern personality and promoted it to the world; from Ouyang Yuqian, Hong Shen to Meng Jinghui, dramatists' unremitting pursuit of the sinification of drama has left a deep impression on the foreign theater industry. When Chinese drama and world theater go hand in hand, they also inject the unique aesthetic ideas and styles of Chinese drama into world theater. Chinese drama does not need to re-participate in world theater, but has always adhered to, integrated and created in world theater.
Keywords: Chinese Drama World Drama Wang Guowei Mei Lanfang Ouyang Yuqian Hong Shen Meng Jinghui
Tingting Zhao received her Ph.D. from Stanford University's Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures and is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures at Virginia Tech. Research Interests: Chinese Literature and Culture, Drama and Drama Theory, Novels, Poetry. The paper won the first prize of the "Wang Guowei Opera Paper Award" in 2019, and the top ten papers of the 1st and 2nd Mei Lanfang Research Youth Forum. He has received awards such as the Emerging Scholar Award from the Association for Asian Performance. His representative papers include "Rooted Chinese Drama: World Vision and Cultural Self-Confidence in wang guowei opera studies", "Reorienting the Gaze in Mei Lanfang's Lyrical Theatre: Performing Female Interiority".
The concept of world literature (Weltliteratur, world literature) was proposed by the German writer Goethe (1749-1832) as early as the early 19th century. He believes that "national literature is not a very big thing in modern times, and the era of world literature is coming." Now it's time for everyone to contribute to its sooner rather than later." [1] For a long time, however, world literature had only been studied primarily, if not entirely, in European literature. At the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries, some scholars in the United States, represented by Professor David Damrosch of Harvard University, published "What is World Literature?" 》(What is World Literature?) These treatises, such as the classic American view, attempt to challenge the concept of world literature, that is, European literature, in the traditional American understanding, and trigger many works of non-European literature to reconstruct world literature, among which Chinese literary works such as Tang poetry are discussed. [2] In the field of theatrical performance, there is also a challenge to the old order. The traditional school only talks about classic Western dramas, such as the works of Shakespeare, Beckett and others, while several scholars at Harvard University, mainly Professor Martin Puchner, included Chinese plays (such as Guan Hanqing's "Dou E'er") when they re-edited the collection of world dramas, so that Chinese drama was listed in the world drama. [3]
In recent years, I have had the opportunity to participate in two seminars at Harvard University, and I have studied under David DanMurosh and Martin Pukner, and I am deeply impressed by their efforts. As a Chinese scholar, I also thought about it myself: What is the relationship between Chinese theater and world theater? How can we rethink the history of Chinese theater through this new vision of world theater? What kind of inspiration and influence can Chinese drama bring to world theater? I think the answer already exists in the historical process of the development of Chinese drama, more precisely, in the process of development, Chinese theater has been part of the world drama, and this process can be traced back to at least the miscellaneous dramas of the Yuan Dynasty. More importantly, Chinese drama is not only a part of the world drama, but also exists as a world drama itself. Chinese drama has not only changed itself due to the influence of the development of world theater, but also contributed a new model of balance between Chinese culture and world culture to world theater, benefiting the whole world.
These big issues are exactly what we should pay attention to at this time, which can not only help us find the original intention (that is, the meaning of Chinese drama that many literati think about in the development of modern Chinese theater), but also establish the continuity of the development of Chinese theater, and also point out its changing world. It is necessary to put Chinese contemporary drama in a worldwide vision, and to make it clear that Chinese drama is world drama. The development of Chinese drama includes concern for the world and eternal concern for human nature, and the present and future of Chinese drama must also include the development of the world. Thinking about this question, there are several time periods that are worth paying attention to. First, a hundred years ago, the beginning of modern Chinese drama was when Liang Qichao vigorously expounded the importance of opera novels, that is, when Wang Guowei established Chinese drama as an independent field of study and had an impact on Japanese academic circles. Later, when Mei Lanfang reshaped traditional Peking Opera with a modern personality, she spread the modernity of Chinese drama combined with classical to the world (especially Japan, the United States, the Soviet Union, and Germany). At this stage, Ouyang Yuqian used a variety of performance genres to continuously refine the drama with Chinese characteristics in Kunqu opera, Peking Opera, drama and film. Then there is the time when Meng Jinghui has absorbed elements of world theater in the creation of avant-garde theater in the past thirty years, and in turn influenced the American academic community with his own achievements. In the course of this century's development, Chinese drama is at the same time universal. There are two parallel lines here: the first is the relationship between modern Chinese drama and world drama, corresponding to the relationship between Chinese drama and world drama in the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China a hundred years ago; the second is the development of Chinese drama in the past hundred years, corresponding to the development of world drama in the past hundred years. In such an analysis, we will find that the development of modern Chinese drama is a process that echoes the development of world theater, a process of finding a balance between world theater and Chinese culture, and the future development of Chinese theater is also extremely needed by world theater.
Chinese drama continues to tolerate the development of world theater, and at the same time exports its own influence on the development of world theater. Walter Benjamin once used a one-way street to describe the relationship between culture[4], but the relationship between Chinese drama and world theater is not only a one-way relationship, Chinese theater is not only influenced by world theater, but also relies on its own characteristics to influence the development of world theater, so the relationship between the two can be expressed as a two-way street. As David Dan Muroshe put it, "the world is not so much a set of works as a network". [5] This article will be divided into three parts to discuss the two-way relationship between Chinese theater performance and world theater. Each section is not only concerned with the text, but also with the context behind the text. In the discussion, it is not necessarily to classify opera, drama, television, and film, but to consider its commonality and integrity as a performing art, its uniqueness that distinguishes it from literature, and its potential as a self-contained Chinese culture.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="18" >, a great book on the history of Chinese theater in the history of world theater: Wang Guowei's contribution to the establishment of the Chinese theater discipline and its influence on Japanese academic circles</h1>
Liang Qichao said: "When it comes to Mr. Wang's contribution to learning, it is not owned by China but by the whole world. [6] Wang Guowei has been concerned with worldwide topics throughout his academic career. His "Commentary on the Dream of the Red Chamber" strives to prove that there are also tragedies and personalities in Chinese novels; "Human Words and Sayings" puts forward the "realm theory" of Chinese poetics, revealing the unique aesthetic characteristics of Chinese poetry in world literature; "History of Song and Yuan Opera" clarifies the development of Chinese drama, so that Chinese drama can stand on its own in the forest of world drama, and put forward the aesthetics of Chinese opera that is poetic into opera. He studied the newly discovered Simplified Manuscripts of the time, only because he hoped that China would participate in their interpretation. Wang Guowei's academic achievements span a variety of cultural and artistic disciplines, and he hopes to show the confidence that Chinese academia is not lagging behind, and Chinese literature and drama are no less than Western literary drama.
Wang Guowei's establishment of the discipline of Chinese drama stems from his reflections on Chinese culture and world culture. From a student who loves Western philosophy to a scholar who thinks about the relationship between Chinese literature and Western literature, Wang Guowei's confidence in Chinese drama has gradually increased. He has completed a number of dramatic works, such as Qulu (1908), Xiqu Kaoyuan (1909), Lu Ghost Book Annotated (1909), Youyulu (1909), Tang and Song Daqu Examination (1909), Recorded Song Yu Tan (1910), Ancient Opera Foot Color Examination (1911), etc., and then formed his own judgment and completed the highly influential History of Song and Yuan Opera (1912). In terms of its relationship with the history of world drama, there are two points in the History of Song and Yuan Opera that are particularly noteworthy.
The first is to write the history of Chinese theater in the context of the history of world theater. For this, the editors and authors of "New Youth" have repeatedly affirmed this. The July 1917 issue of "New Youth" Vol. 3, No. 5 "Introduction to Books and Newspapers" commented on the History of Song and Yuan Opera: "Although the pamphlet is less than 200 pages, it is not unique to the detailed examination of Song and Yuan scripts, that is, in ancient dramas and Ming Dynasty authors, but also skimmed, and the creation of Cheng china is also. [7] "Chinese Creation", that is, a work original in China. In August 1917, Hu Shi returned from the United States and "spent a day in Shanghai to investigate the publishing industry in Shanghai" and found that "in the literature book, only One of Wang Guowei's "History of Song and Yuan Opera" is very good." [8] As a historian, Fu Sinian also commented: "In recent years, various books of literary history and literary criticism have been published, and Duwang Jing'an's "History of Song and Yuan Opera" is the most valuable. [9] The reason for this is that "studying Chinese literature without understanding foreign literature and writing about the history of Chinese literature without reading the history of foreign literature will never be true." Writing the history of Chinese literature with the old law, listing the biography of the literati, writing for the kind of books, and writing for miscellaneous banknotes, for the Xin Wenfang 'Tang Caizi Chuan body' can also, or for the yellow, quan erjun 'study case body' think that the 'copywriting body' can also be, or even become the "World Speaks New Language" can also be; if you want to be the literary history of modern science, you can't also. The history of literature has its function, a more special system; if it fails to perform this function, it will be meaningless from then on. This work of the present king cannot be described as perfect, but the genre is not bad." [10] This is to recognize that Wang Guowei had a comprehensive understanding of the history of world theater when he wrote the History of Song and Yuan Opera, and had a modern scientific method that was on a par with the West.
The second is to fully affirm and fully reveal the unique contribution of Chinese drama to world drama. The Ming Dynasty Han Bangqi (1479-1556) once compared Guan Hanqing with Sima Qian, for which he was ridiculed by orthodox literati, and Wang Guowei specifically defended and extended Han Bangqi in the "Record of Music": "The Italians regard Tang Dan, the English people look at Tang Dan, the English people look at Spier, and the German people look at GeDai, which is longer than the people of our country, and the number of people who look at Sima Zi is more than the people of our country. [11] The "Tang Dan" here is Dante, the "Speyer" is Shakespeare, and the "Gede" is Goethe, all of whom are regarded as literary giants in their own country and in the world, and they are all dramatists. In Wang Guowei's view, China also has great dramatists, who can be completely compared with Dante, Shakespeare, and Goethe, and should enjoy an equal status in the world literary world, so Wang Guowei commented: "Guan Hanqing leans on the empty and casts great words, and his words and songs are full of human feelings, and the characters are true, so he should be the first of the Yuan people." [12] He commented that Guan Hanqing's "Dou E'e Grievances" and Ji Junxiang's "The Orphan of Zhao" were "the most tragic in nature", and that "although there are evil people in the play, the people who go to the fire are still out of the will of their masters, that is, they are listed in the great tragedies of the world, and they are not ashamed." [13] Based on this self-confidence, the second half of the History of Song and Yuan Opera focuses on the various advantages of yuanqu. A "Where is the best part of the yuanqu?" In a word: nature is enough." [14] The second is that "the beauty of his article is also in a word, and it is only a matter of consciousness." What does it mean to be intentional? Writing love is refreshing, writing scenery is in people's eyes and ears, and narration is like its mouth." [15] "Free use of new language in new genres". [16] Of these verses, Fu Sinian commented: "The book is good at words, let alone in all the examples, and the rest are seen in a few verses, all of which are extremely refined, and those who have the vision of the world are also." [17] It can be seen that this is indeed a unique contribution of Chinese drama to world theater.
As the founding work of Chinese drama discipline, "History of Song and Yuan Opera" has its historical influence. Historiography belongs to the important category of the subset of classic history, exclusively important disciplines, and the application of historical research methods to the category of opera means that Wang Guowei has the consciousness and behavior of opera as an important discipline. Wang Guowei read poetry and books, and his ancient chinese was profound, and he was more involved in Japanese, English, and German. His communication with the Japanese academic circles at that time was wider and his influence was extremely deep. Yan Guwen said, "My master Mr. Ye Huanbin (Ye Dehui) of Changsha and King Jing'an Jun of Haining are both great fighters in the Si realm. In particular, Wang Shi has such useful works as "Opera Kaoyuan", "Qulu", "Ancient Opera Foot Color Examination", "Song and Yuan Opera History" and so on. When Wang's travels to Kyoto, my academic circles were also greatly stimulated. From Dr. Junzan Kano, Kubo Tensuke, Suzuki Leopard, Nishimura Tenjuku, and his deceased friend Kanai Jun were all extremely knowledgeable about Sven, or studied the study of Quxuedi ( ) , or competed with the famous song bottom Shosuke and translator , showing the grand view of ten thousand horses galloping. [18] In particular, Masao Aoki, who regarded Wang Guowei as a predecessor with strong academic influence, was directly influenced by Wang Guowei's "History of Song and Yuan Opera" and devoted himself to the study of Chinese theater history, writing "History of Chinese Opera in Modern Times", thus influencing a generation of Japanese scholars. Today's Scholars of Chinese Drama in Japanese Academia have all traced their roots to the Kingdom Peacekeeper and Masao Aoki. The first sentence in the preface to Masao Aoki's "History of Modern Chinese Opera" reads: "The work of this book, out of the desire to follow up on Mr. Wang Zhongwu Guowei's famous book "History of Song and Yuan Opera", originally wanted to be titled "History of Ming and Qing Opera", for the sake of being easy to enter the eyes and ears of Japanese people, but also under the name of "History of Modern Chinese Opera". [19] The History of Song and Yuan Opera was published in 1913, and the Japanese edition of the History of Modern Chinese Opera was first published in 1931, nearly twenty years later, and as a junior, Aoki Masae did not mention his academic roots in Japan, but directly pointed out the influence and stimulation of Wang Guowei on him, which shows the depth of Wang Guowei's academic thought on him. Masao Aoki spent his life studying disciplines related to Chinese opera, which in turn influenced the expansion and continuation of Chinese opera studies in Japanese academic circles.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="108" >2. Showcasing the Beauty of Chinese Drama on the World Stage: Mei Lanfang's Persistence and Creation and Its World Influence</h1>
The greatest achievement of Mei Lanfang's artistic creation comes from the torrent of world art replacing the old with the new, adhering to the Chinese art itself without following the clouds, integrating Kunqu opera, Peking Opera, poetry, painting and sculpture, but boldly integrating into the world's modern technology, showing a high degree of comprehensive ability. Mei Lanfang's performance never departs from the elegant and delicate aesthetic presentation of Chinese tradition, but it also integrates the free atmosphere of women in the world in the 20th century, emphasizes the release of character emotions and the appeal of performance, and reorganizes body art and language art. Mei Lanfang is the world's most well-known Chinese performing artist, and it still does today. With his footprints in the Americas, Europe and Asia, he brings the audience to the purest artistic shock. For the audience, Mei Lanfang is the world, but there is no doubt that it is Chinese. These two seemingly contradictory words merge in Mei Lanfang's performance. Mei Lanfang, like Qi Rushan, Wu Zhenxiu, Li Shijie and others, has a vision that is compatible with Both China and the West, and in the new creation of the script, lyrics, costumes, posture, expression, and stage, she thinks about how to "sing with sound" and "dance without moving"[20], how to make visual performance another medium for conveying meaning and emotions in addition to lyrics, how to turn drama into a comprehensive art, but also bring this comprehensive art together in a person's body and present a huge energy and appeal. In this process, there are countless reflections on what performance is, and every element of Chinese drama (such as dance, lyrics, songs, costumes, cutting, etc.) should be scientifically classified and sorted out of historical evolution, the meaning of the script and the personality of the female characters in the script should be completed, and the psychological emotions and human nature should be thought. If Wang Guowei's "History of Song and Yuan Opera" is the pioneering work of opera historiography, Mei Lanfang's art is the master of Chinese theater art, and it is an outstanding representative of reorganizing the long-standing Chinese opera art and giving it a new look. In the September 1919 Issue of Pin Mei Ji in Japan, Qing Lingsheng (Hamada Kosho, 1881-1938)[21] positioned Mei Lanfang as "the last person to be the last person to purely Chinese dramas and the masters of the collection, but at the same time, he was also the pioneer of the creation of the original form of new Chinese dramas that might be produced in the future.". [22] Zhou Zuoren and Hu Shi strongly agreed with this view. Hu Shi's letter to Masao Aoki on November 18, 1920, said: "Mr. Zhou Zuoren read the "PinMei Chronicle" and most agreed with Mr. Hamada's discussion. I thought Mr. Zhou's opinion was (very) good. ”[23]
Mei Lanfang has created a contribution to the comprehensive development of Chinese theater art. This kind of creation occurs in both the field of text and performance. According to Diana Taylor's theory, the dramatic performance art is distinguished from literature in two ways: first, drama, as a comprehensive art, contains the creation of the text form and the creation of the body performance; second, the performance of the body carries the cultural history, which is full of vitality and vitality, and is another way of expression in addition to the expression of words. In the past, in the consciousness of Western culture, only the civilization of words could be called civilization, but Diana Taylor believed that the civilization inherited by the body performance should also be considered a civilization, and its culture was older than words. [24] In the American theater critics who attached great importance to body art, during her trip to the United States in 1930, Mei Lanfang's body art not only aroused the amazement of almost all critics, but was also analyzed in detail, not only in words, but also in filming and editing into books, and was widely disseminated. In Benjamin March's album of Mei Lanfang's hand performing arts (gestures), he was fascinated by the artistic, poetic and feminine forms of traditional Chinese tradition presented and re-expressed by Mei Lanfang's hand performing arts. [25] He has a brilliant quote about this: "In performance, the effect of shaping the posture plays a big role. The Chinese stage usually extends to the auditorium, and the audience can enjoy the performance from three sides. The posture of each gesture must take into account this situation; every movement must refer to the overall effect of the whole body. Whenever the hand moves, there must be a corresponding balance of movements in other parts of the body. As a result, the overall effect of the design is maintained. In this way, from one body to another, the elaborate design of its starting and turning is based on personal manners and skills. Here we see the significant impact of the rhythmic element, which is a planned dominant presentation. [26] The example of Benjamin Malz is not isolated. By analyzing dozens of reviews by the New York Times, chicago daily, San Francisco daily and other newspapers, I found that American critics did not choose to use terms with a fixed mindset such as "oriental", but very specifically appreciated Mei Lanfang's choice and innovation as an artist from the perspective of technology, connotation, and cultural richness. [27] The cultural success of Mei Lanfang's visit to the United States is of epochal significance, allowing American audiences to break through the mindset of the East and concretely see the achievements of an artist in inheriting and reproducing China's theatrical art, performing aesthetics, painting art, sculpture art, and even poetry traditions.
Mei Lanfang's achievements in visiting Japan are equally astonishing. Looking at the comments on Mei Lanfang in Japanese newspapers, magazines and books from 1900 to 1961, the respect for Mei Lanfang in Japanese critics jumped out of the paper. [28] They regard Mei Lanfang's art as the ultimate expression of beauty, and admire Mei Lanfang's perfect presentation of Asian art, believing that Asian art can completely surpass Western art. This beauty of Asian art contains Japan's memories of ancient China, especially Yang Guifei of the Tang Dynasty, and the imagination of the Tang Dynasty. In "The Book of Pin Mei", critics praised the philosophical ideas in Mei Lanfang's performance, especially Lin Daiyu's eternal thinking about life in "Dream of the Red Chamber" and the philosophical grasp of the fleeting time. What is more noteworthy is that in addition to many male scholars, there is a female poet who paid special attention to Mei Lanfang. In a poem with Akiko Tsano (1878-1942), there is a poem published on the front page of the magazine "Women" that she herself edited, expressing her amazement at the beauty of the women portrayed by Mei Lanfang.
The beauty of the art displayed by Mei Lanfang makes critics think of China's grand Tang Dynasty atmosphere and the gorgeous refinement of the Ming and Qing courts, which makes them feel the poetic aesthetics precipitated by China. These elegant artistic and cultural connotations are the reason why Japan and even the Western world at that time admired the foundation of Chinese culture, and in 1919, which was controversial, it re-demonstrated The vitality and culture of China. Mei Lanfang represents not only his own exquisite skills as an artist, but also represents Theodan, an industry that also exists in Japan, which brings people a deep feeling. Mei Lanfang's natural expression and posture in the performance are just right to explain the inner heart of the characters, and the women portrayed have charm beyond women, which makes Japanese critics re-examine the performance of Japanese male Dan, and repeatedly proposed that Mei Lanfang stands at the highest end of male Dan art, believing that Japanese male Dan should learn from him. Although the critics themselves are not performers, they are mostly the most familiar audience members of Japanese theater, and comparing them on the ideological level and proposing that Mei Lanfang can be called a model of male Dan is more far-reaching than the influence of individual Japanese actors imitating and learning from Mei Lanfang. The deeper meaning is that at that time, many Japanese literati were distressed about whether they should respect tradition or follow the changes in the West, so the confidence in traditional Chinese culture conveyed by Mei Lanfang, whether it was the traditional drama of "Imperial Monument Pavilion" or the new costume drama "Tiannu Scattered Flowers", all brought spiritual shock to the distressed Japanese literati. The Mei Lanfang in their eyes represents the adherence and self-confidence of Asian culture to its own traditional culture, rather than abandoning its own civilization and arbitrarily starting a new culture. For Japanese commentators, Mei Lanfang's elegant, confident and even proud use of body language to convey the history, knowledge and memory of Chinese culture has greatly touched them and made them determined to restore or even preserve their own culture on the historical track of Japan's Westernization.
In the process of inheriting and promoting the performing arts of Chinese Peking Opera, Mei Lanfang combined the new ideological transformation of the world at the turn of the 20th century, attached importance to performance, advocated women's independence and autonomy, reorganized the artistic trend, and adhered to, integrated and created in the process of playing with the country and the world. Mei Lanfang's performing arts have changed due to changes in the world and have achieved self- achievements, and because of the changes made, his performance itself carries cosmopolitan factors, which are noticed by different scholars, literati, and artists who pursue the same cosmopolitan answers in Mei Lanfang's cosmopolitan performances, forming a variety of sympathetic and spiritual responses. Mei Lanfang's art is Chinese and the world's.
Mei Lanfang's influence on the Soviet Union and Germany stemmed from a trip to Europe in 1935, especially with the Soviet film director Eisenstein and the German dramatist Brecht. Brecht saw the artist's art of separating himself from the character in Mei Lanfang's performance, and he still remembered Mei Lanfang after living in Los Angeles in exile in the United States, and actually thought of Mei Lanfang's dance in the shape of a cactus, and wrote it into the poem "Garden in Progress":
In the cloister-like alley near the house, near the lamp, planted an Arizona cactus, as tall as a man, blooming only overnight every year, and this year with the thunderous gunfire of war, huge white flowers like fists, but so delicate and weak, like a Chinese actor. [29]
The cactus in the poem is shaped like a dancer, and Brecht thinks of Mei Lanfang. Because of World War II, Brecht was forced to leave Germany and settled in Los Angeles like many wandering Germans, and in the garden of his friend Charles Laughton, Brecht saw flowers blooming, but felt devastated. Being in this country distracts him, and the whole poem is full of a sense of pity for the scenery, full of anxiety that he cannot fully integrate into American life as an immigrant, but only this memory of Mei Lanfang makes him happy. This is too strong a contrast. Brecht enjoyed Mei Lanfang's performance during his visit to the Soviet Union in 1935, and after nine years, he was once again in a foreign country, and in this poem, the memory of Mei Lanfang is actually his best memory. If Brecht's article about the "distancing effect" written immediately after enjoying Mei Lanfang's performance in 1935 was Mei Lanfang's most direct shock to him, then in 1944, after 9 years, he still recalled Mei Lanfang's performance and its fantastic beauty, indicating that Mei Lanfang's performance gave not only the influence of a certain performance, but a strong impression - a collection of beautiful, dreamy, dazzling, exquisite, elegant and memorable impressions. It can be seen that Mei Lanfang's performance has a far-reaching influence. Eisenstein's application of montage art to film stems from his concept of "breaking the reshaping" of modern art, and in this cultural movement, he realized that Mei Lanfang also has the concept of breaking the reshaping of traditional art to stimulate the audience's new understanding of art, so he and Mei Lanfang have a heart.
To this day, Western scholars still have great enthusiasm for Mei Lanfang's art, and in the field of Chinese theater studies in the American academic circles, the topic of Mei Lanfang has been studied the most and the most emerging treatises have emerged.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="109" >3, From Ouyang Yuqian, Hong Shen to Meng Jinghui: The Pursuit of The Sinicization of Drama and its Influence on the Foreign Theater Industry</h1>
As a new genre that emerged in China in the 20th century, through the efforts of artists such as Ouyang Yuqian, Hong Shen, Tian Han, and Cao Yu, drama has gradually become a complete part of Chinese literature, without a sense of strangeness and rigidity. Meng Jinghui, on the other hand, pursues the development of another school of world drama: avant-garde drama, in addition to the realistic school of Chinese drama. More importantly, when Richard Schechner, the representative of American human performance science, asserted in 1981 that American avant-garde theater had come to an end,[30] Meng Jinghui continued to develop avant-garde theater in China and passed it on to this day. The development of drama has never stopped in China, and the development of world theater seems to be waiting for the future of China.
When it comes to the development of Chinese drama, we cannot but talk about the far-reaching influence of artists such as Ouyang Yuqian and Hong Shen, who "opened the mountains and forests with the blue wisps of the Yanlu Road".
Ouyang Yuqian's (1889-1962) theatrical activities began very early, and he participated in "Black Slave Calling Heavenly Record" in Tokyo in 1907. In 1913, Ouyang Yuqian wrote the first new drama "Movement Force", satirizing the incompleteness of the Xinhai Revolution, which was composed before the May Fourth Movement, along with Hong Shen's "Pear Seller" (1915) and "Tragedy of the Poor People" (1916), four or five years before Hu Shi's "Lifelong Events". [31] Ouyang Yuqian read the works of Shakespeare and others, and as an actor, he explored up and down various performance categories such as Kunqu opera, Peking Opera, drama, film, and dance, touching the bypass, opening up various categories, and laying the foundation for the media ecology of Chinese 20th-century drama. [32] Media environmental science explores the technological, cultural, and social connections between old and new media. [33] In the 20th century, when new media were constantly emerging, Ouyang Yuqian not only did not worry about new media replacing old media, but instead boldly tried between different media to find common ground and explore its unique media. In 1928, Ouyang Yuqian wrote in his early film work "The Law of Directing": "Film is a comprehensive art formed by the fusion of human energy, mechanical force and everything in nature, and it is a modern, scientific, artistic action, and flowing art, in short, the art of light and shadow, and there is a mysterious and incredible point in it." [34] "In terms of material aspects, the screen play must have actors, sets, lighting, cameras, costumes, props, but like the stage play, don't forget the script. If the script is not fully organized, the film will not want to do well. The script is indeed the root of a play... However, it is not easy to turn words into light and shadow, read into looks, and narration on paper into actions. First, the director must have the power to judge and criticize literature in order to be able to consider the meaning of the play and taste the true taste of the play. And the shallow script should be beautiful, and the noble script should be obvious and interesting. The focus of the play should be sufficient, and the euphemism should have a voice, which cannot be done casually. [35] Ouyang Yuqian's concept is very new, but also reflects a chinese pursuit, and has made unremitting efforts to this end, so he self-evaluation said: "I am quite loyal to acting and asking myself, and it is probably worthy to be a handsome person." [36] For the different categories of acting, Ouyang Yuqian can be described as a master. In the 1940s, Ouyang Yuqian said at the "Symposium on the National Form of Drama": "Greek, Soviet, American, Italian comedy, musical comedy ... Even the methods of Meyerhold, which have been criticized, are digested by the Chinese Kun cavity, the flower drum play, etc., and become their own flesh and blood life, very naturally, very harmoniously, when used, there is nothing bad, nothing that is not understood. [37] Ouyang Yuqian's hundreds of plays, Peking operas, Gui operas, silent and audible films that Ouyang Yuqian composed, adapted and performed in his lifetime, are the practice of his philosophy. The researchers commented: "Ouyang Yuqian's quest is synchronized with the history of modern Chinese drama, and it also covers the complete field of drama, foreshadowing the direction of modern Chinese drama, so it has a distinct symbolism." If we use the path of one person to represent modern Chinese drama, he is Ouyang Yuqian. [38] This evaluation, Ouyang Yuqian, is well-deserved.
Hong Shen (1894-1955) was active in The Chinese theater industry as a playwright, where he studied under George Pierce Baker at Harvard University. Baker was an influential American theater educator in the early 20th century, pioneering the study of theater should not only read and study classic theater works, in fact, everyone can create plays, the most direct learning of theater structure and writing skills. During his time at Harvard, Baker used the material of Dramatic Technique as a teaching material to teach people to fish and train playwrights who could create modern plays. [39] As a direct disciple of Eugene O'Neill, HongShen's theatrical skills are unquestionable, and after learning how to create plays, Hong Shen devoted himself to the creation of Chinese plays. He not only wrote modern dramas with great plot conflicts, such as "Zhao Yan Wang" and "The Fan of the Little Grandmother", but also created the "Rural Trilogy", "Wukui Bridge", "Fragrant Rice", and "Qinglongtan" with his in-depth understanding of China's national conditions, combining what he saw and heard in China's rural life with the new medium of drama, enriching the concept that "everyone can create drama and drama can reflect any life". As the proposer of the concept of "drama", Hong Shen used the Western theatrical medium and combined it with Chinese content, he used Chinese language to naturally and comfortably create modern dramas in Western format literature, and the "Rural Trilogy" reached a high degree of maturity, which can be called the pinnacle of rural themes in the history of Chinese drama. On October 12 and 13, 1935, the Chinese Students' New Drama Society performed HongShen's "Wukui Bridge" in Tokyo, with Liang Menghui as the director, Chen Beiou as the supervisor, and Lin Guo as the installation. After watching the performance, the famous Japanese dramatist Akita Yuque (1883-1962) specially wrote a short commentary article "Wukui Bridge Performed in Tokyo": "Tonight (October 12th), at the second performance of the new drama club for Japanese students at the Hitotsubashi Lecture Hall, I saw the amazing peasant drama "Wukui Bridge". From the correspondence of Chinese friends, although I heard the name of "Wukui Bridge", I did not expect it to be such a good play. Describes the incident in which the bridge of a large landowner was destroyed from the hands of peasants during a time of famine. In the one-curtain, the ignorant and superstitious peasants, the consciousness of young men and women, and the strong motivation of the masses are pressed; it is a fully realistic description. My friend Liang Menghuijun, who plays a squire of Zhou, is really amazing in his acting skills. It is said that the author Hong Shen learned to play in the United States. [40] This short commentary, translated by Chen Bei'ou, was published in the People's Daily on November 16, 1935. From December 21 to 23, 1935, Akita Yunque published a long article entitled "Modern Chinese Drama in Japan" in the Tokyo Asahi Shimbun, in which he once again commented on the performance of "Wukui Bridge": "The Chinese Classmate New Drama Society, originally engaged in the acting movement in Tokyo quite a long time ago. His second performance was the famous peasant drama "Wukui Bridge" by Hong Shen and "This Is Just Spring" by Li Jianwu. Hong Shen studied in the United States and studied drama. In just one scene, the power of compressing the life activities of Chinese peasants is truly impressive. In addition, the acting skills of Lin Guojun, who plays the protagonist of "Wukui Bridge" Li Quansheng, and Liang Menghuijun, who plays a large landlord, have excellent realism (Realism) techniques, which are worthy of many imitations for new Japanese actors. [41] In short, Hong Shen made the new genre of Western drama more than comfortable and naturally integrated in Chinese contexts, and also succeeded in reaching the world. It is worth mentioning that even after graduation, Hong Shen did not interrupt his contact with Harvard university teachers. Among the materials in the Harvard University collection are handwritten correspondence between Hong Shen and Baker between 1921 and 1923, revealing the friendship and academic ties between teachers and students.
"Early Birth Takako" work photos, the right is director Hong Shen, the left is Dong Keyi.
If Ouyang Yuqian and Hong Shen opened a narrative-based drama line in the field of modern Chinese drama in the 20th century, then Meng Jinghui is a dramatist who has made anti-drama a lifelong career. According to Professor Martin Puchner, in the history of modern theater in the West, there are two threads: one is a classical drama based on narrative-based observation of social reality, dominated by Ibsen and Eugene O'Neill; the other is a modern drama that is anti-narrative, anti-plot, and even questioning the drama itself, with Beckett, Brecht, and avant-garde drama as the mainstay. [42] These two threads reflect the development of drama, the multifaceted nature of modernity, and the result of the collision of drama and the world beyond theater. Not surprisingly, Chinese theater closely follows and participates in the development of world theater. What I want to emphasize in particular is that Chinese drama not only participates in the development of the context of world theater, but also continues and contributes its own experience to a large extent, especially to avant-garde theater.
"Avant-garde" began as a term used by the French military in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to refer to a vanguard unit in front of a large force. The word avant-garde means that a small group of people who precede the masses usually challenge the mainstream, subvert common sense, and are cultural products that challenge the secular and industrialized. Avant-garde art began in Europe and flourished in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1981, however, Richard Schechner, the founder of Performance Studies, announced the end of American avant-garde art in his article "The Decline and Fall of (American) Avant-Garde." [43] Even if scholars disagree with this view and insist that the soul of avant-garde art remains, the influence of American avant-garde art is deteriorating compared to the past. In stark contrast, avant-garde art flourished in China in 1994, and its representative figure was Meng Jinghui.
Meng Jinghui's directing career began with his reflections on the similarities and differences between Chinese and Western theater, and he used two plays to highlight his thinking process. From 1991 to 1993, Meng Jinghui directed two seemingly unrelated plays. One is an adaptation of Beckett's Waiting for Godot, in which Meng Jinghui says that from this play he "consciously and directs and handles it in a playful way and style", "For this play, dullness is a kind of power, but I have added a little bit of fun while retaining this power." Somehow, I want to deal with a very serious play on this subject in a more playful way." [44] The other is Sifan, based on the relevant chapters of the Ming Dynasty's anonymous biography of Sifan Shuangxiashan and boccaccio's Decameron of Italy, a process of directing that has nothing to do with China and the West, but lies in the creator's thinking about drama and on life. As the play says: "The performance form of this play has great uncertainty, the stage processing and the improvisation of the actors, often cruising between the game-style virtualization and the rational distancing effect; the passionate investment and the calm bystander blend and mix, in an atmosphere of induction and reinforcement, to complete the maximum expansion of the dramatic space." [45] These two plays are the disintegration and reorganization of the classics, the combination of elegance and the world, and the mixture of cross-cultural classics, and since then, Meng Jinghui's avant-garde art has had its own style. In 1994, Meng Jinghui began directing his first original "Anti-plot Theatre," I Love XXX. Starting with this play, Meng Jinghui confirmed that he studied avant-garde drama. In China, drama generally has actions, plots, stories, and characters, but this drama does not have these, it has no ending, not even a process. It was the first anti-plot and the first full-scale multimedia drama in China. In "Meng Jinghui Pioneer Drama Archive", Meng Jinghui recalled the creative process and said: "This play is more advanced in all aspects. [46] "I Love XXX is interspersed with a passionate love for the 1960s. The time I was born was a great time, and the whole world was in a particularly manic period, to which I longed for. [47] Meng Jinghui learned and applied the techniques of avant-garde theater without hesitation, acknowledging his identity as an avant-garde dramatist and throwing himself into the trend of avant-garde art in the world.
Meng Jinghui pioneered in 1994 a typical Avant-garde Theatre path, a path that represents personal characteristics and requires courage when no one cares. Twenty years later, in 2013, "I Love XXX" returned to the stage and returned to the public's vision, but it led and faced a different generation, and the meaning of this play was different. Many of the avant-garde plays in the West are anti-classical, and they do not even want their works to be preserved and reenacted, not only do not retain any archives (such as photos, sounds, manuscripts), but some plays even perform at any time and in any place without notifying any audience. Even if the archives are retained and the conditions for re-enactment are in place, the market environment and audience needs are also changing, and the meaning of avant-garde drama may change. Meng Jinghui's 2013 "I Love XXX" is still a pioneering drama, retaining two-thirds of the lines, changing one-third of the lines, changing all the actors, and facing a new audience. Surprisingly, while the format of avant-garde theatre remained unchanged, the 2013 performance received more fervent attention from the younger generation. The difference between Meng Jinghui's drama is that it is still avant-garde, still leading the development of drama, but it can be popular. Meng Jinghui can use avant-garde drama as a symbol of each era, as an enduring repertoire. The meaning of Meng Jinghui's avant-garde drama is even richer: it is avant-garde, anti-dramatic, and modern in form and technique, but in essence and content, it directly refers to the current social and world environment.
Meng Jinghui's avant-garde theater participated in and inherited the form of avant-garde theater around the world, and after the american avant-garde theater withdrew indifferently, it continued to open a new page of avant-garde theater in China. As a representative of Chinese avant-garde theater, his activity is a shot in the arm for avant-garde theater around the world. American scholar Claire Conceison has followed Meng Jinghui for decades, and published comments on Meng Jinghui and translations of "I Love XXX" in 2014 and 2018. [48]
"I Love XXX" Hive Theater Performance Stills (2013)
Over the past hundred years, Chinese drama scholars, actors, playwrights and directors have all been immersed in the torrent of changes in world drama, analyzing the pros and cons in the relationship between Chinese drama and world theater in self-examination, learning the ideas in world theater without any doubt, participating in the process of world theater development, but always being able to find the characteristics of Chinese drama while learning other countries' dramas. Whether it is the origin of its development, the extension of poetry, the care of humanities, the philosophical thinking, or the connection with society, it has formed a theatrical works and theatrical concepts with a unique Chinese style. These theatrical works and theatrical concepts not only lead the new direction of the development of drama in China, but also form a new interpretation of national drama and world drama in the world field, bringing thinking and reference to scholars in other countries. Chinese drama not only participates in the change and development of world theater, but also contributes to the experience of world theater itself, and it is particularly important that the development of Chinese theater is originally a microcosm of the development of world theater.
bibliography:
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[2] David DanMurosh: What is World Literature? " Translated by Jian Jian, Song Mingwei, et al., Beijing: Peking University Press, 2014, p. 325. I was a member of the World Literature Institute hosted by Harvard University in 2019 and studied under David Dan Muroshe. He introduced Zhang Ailing's novels and Ang Lee's films into the Institute's texts, discussing them as part of world literature.
[3] J. Ellen Gainor, Stanton B. Garner, Martin Puchner, The Norton Anthology of Drama （New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2018）
[4] (de) Walter Benjamin: The One-Way Street, translated by Wang Caiyong, Nanjing: Jiangsu People's Publishing House, 2006.
[5] David Danmurosh: What is World Literature? , p. 4.
[6] Liang Qichao, "Eulogy at the Tomb of Mr. Wang Jing'an", Chen Pingyuan and Wang Feng, eds., Remembrance of Wang Guowei, Beijing: China Radio and Television Publishing House, 1996, p. 96.
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[9] Meng Zhen (傅思年), "Wang Guoweizhi's History of Song and Yuan Opera", Xinchao, Vol. 1, No. 1, Beijing: National Peking University Press Department, 1919, p. 131.
[10] Meng Zhen (傅思年): Wang Guoweizhi 'History of Song and Yuan Opera', p. 132.
[11] Wang Guowei: A Collection of Essays on Wang Guowei Opera, Beijing: China Drama Publishing House, 1984, p. 227.
[12] Wang Guowei: Collected Essays on The Opera of Wang Guowei, p. 90.
[13] Wang Guowei: Collected Essays on The Opera of Wang Guowei, p. 85.
[14] Wang Guowei: Collected Essays on Wang Guowei Opera, p. 85.
[15] Wang Guowei: Collected Essays on The Opera of Wang Guowei, p. 85.
[16] Wang Guowei: Collected Essays on The Opera of Wang Guowei, p. 88.
[17] Meng Zhen (傅思年): Wang Guoweizhi 'History of Song and Yuan Opera', p. 133.
[18] (Japanese) Yan Guwen: An Introduction to Chinese Literature, translated by Sun Jungong, Shanghai: Enlightened Bookstore, 1930, pp. 170-171.
[19] Masao Aoki: A history of Chinese Opera in Modern Times, translated by Wang Gulu, Shanghai: The Commercial Press, 1936, p. 1.
[20] Qi Rushan: "Examination of Chinese Opera Art", edited by Liang Yan, The Collected Works of Qi Rushan, vol. 3, Shijiazhuang: Hebei Education Publishing House, Beijing: Kaiming Publishing House, 2010, p. 8.
[21] (Japanese) Masao Aoki et al., PinMei Ji, translated by Li Ling, Beijing: Culture and Art Publishing House, 2015, p. 41.
[22] (Japanese) Huibundo, ed., PinMeiJi, Kyoto: Huibundo Shoten, 1919, p. 54. The titles and quotations here are translated by the author according to the Japanese version of the Pin Mei Ji.
[23] Li Qing, ed., "The Legacy of Dongying: Notes on Rare Historical Materials on Sino-Japanese Cultural Exchanges in Modern Times", Shanghai: Shanghai People's Publishing House, 1999, p. 176.
[24] Diana Taylor, The Archive and the Repertoire: Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas （Durham: Duke University Press， 2003）
[25] Benjamin March, Orchid Hand Patterns of Mei Lan-Fang （Detroit: Printed by R.M.Shields, 1935）
[26] Xie Xiaopei, ed., Mal Zhi and His Meiling Lanzi, Shanghai: Shanghai Dictionary Publishing House, 2016, p. 73.
[27] See Zhao Tingting, "Mei Lanfang's Performance as a Kind of World Performance: Mei Lanfang's Aesthetics and Imagination of the World", Mei Lanfang Academic Journal, No. 3, Beijing: Xueyuan Press, 2019, pp. 125-147. In the spring of 2019, the author visited the New York Performance Library in the United States to collect and analyze the records of Mei Lanfang's visit to the United States in the American library and the original English text of many critics.
[28] In the winter of 2019, I visited the National Library of Japan, the University of Tokyo, and Waseda University, and retrieved and analyzed the comments on Mei Lanfang in Japan's newspapers and magazines between 1900 and 1961.
[29] Bertolt Brecht, Bertolt Brecht Poems, 1913-1956. Edited by John Willett, and Ralph Manheim（New York: Methuen. 1976）， 395-397.
[30] Richard Schechner,“The Decline and Fall of the (American) Avant-Garde: Why It Happened and What We Can Do About It.” Performing Arts Journal, 1981.
[31] Liao Ben and Liu Yanjun, "Surveyors of Modern Chinese Drama: Commemorating the 130th Anniversary of Ouyang Yuqian's Birth," Guangming Daily, August 28, 2019.
[32] See (plus) Marshall McLuhan, Understanding the Medium: On the Extension of Man: An Updated Commentary, translated by He Daokuan, Nanjing: Yilin Publishing House, 2011.
[33] At Harvard University, scholars introduced the theory of media environment in communication studies to study the relationship between new media in East Asia.
[34] Ouyang Yuqian, "A General Theory" of the Director's Law, Film Monthly, No. 1, 1928.
[35] Ouyang Yuqian, "The Director's Law", "Unification and Reconciliation", Film Monthly, No. 2, 1928.
[36] Ouyang Yuqian, "Since I Acted 1907-1928", Beijing: China Drama Publishing House, 1959, p. 151.
[37] Mao Dun et al., The Problem of the Ethnic Form of Drama, Guilin: Baihong Bookstore, 1943, p. 24.
[38] Liao Ben and Liu Yanjun, "Surveyors of Modern Chinese Drama: Commemorating the 130th Anniversary of Ouyang Yuqian's Birth".
[39] George Baker: Dramatic Techniques, translated by Yu Shangyuan, Beijing: China Theatre Publishing House, 1985.
[40] (Japanese) Akita Rain Bird: "'Wukui Bridge' Performed in Tokyo," translated by Chen Bei'ou, Minbao, November 16, 1935.
[41] (Japanese) Akita Yuque: Modern Chinese Drama in Japan, translated by Founder, Literary and Art Stage, Vol. 2, No. 3, 1936.
[42] Lionel Abel, Tragedy and Metatheatre: Essays on Dramatic Form （New York: Holmes & Meier， 2003）, 14-24.
[43] Richard Schechner,“The Decline and Fall of the (American) Avant-Garde: Why It Happened and What We Can Do About It.” Performing Arts Journal, 1981.
[44] Meng Jinghui, Meng Jinghui's Archive of Avant-Garde Drama, Beijing: Nova Press, 2010, p. 256.
[45] Meng Jinghui: Meng Jinghui Pioneer Drama Archive, p. 225.
[46] Meng Jinghui: Meng Jinghui Avant-garde Drama Archive, p. 115.
[47] Meng Jinghui: Meng Jinghui Avant-garde Drama Archive, p. 116.
[48] Edited by Claire Conceison. I Love XXX and Other Plays（London: Seagull Books， 2017）
Source: Dramatic Arts, No. 3, 2021