Intercultural Aesthetics in Traditional Chinese Theatre

From 1978 to the Present

Wei Feng

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9783030406356
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Theatre

This book traces the transformation of traditional Chinese theatre's ( xiqu ) aesthetics during its encounters with Western drama and theatrical forms in both mainland China and Taiwan since 1978. Through analyzing both the text and performances of eight adapted plays from William Shakespeare, Bertolt Brecht, and Samuel Beckett, this book elaborates on significant changes taking place in playwriting, acting, scenography, and stage-audience relations stemming from intercultural appropriation. As exemplified by each chapter, during the intercultural dialogue of Chinese and foreign elements there exists one-sided dominance by either culture, fusion, and hybridity, which corresponds to the various facets of China's pursuit of modernity between its traditional and Western influences.

© The Author(s) 2020

W. FengIntercultural Aesthetics in Traditional Chinese Theatrehttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40635-6_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction

Wei Feng¹

(1)

Shandong University, Shandong, China

Keywords

InterculturalismDialogismAppropriationModernityHistory of xiqu

The original version of this chapter was revised. An erratum to this chapter can be found at https://​doi.​org/​10.​1007/​978-3-030-40635-6_​7

End Abstract

As a child of the 1980s, I often scorned xiqu (traditional Chinese theatre) for its association with older generations. I encountered it, whether jingju (Peking opera) or chuanju (Sichuan opera), everywhere: on television, at a stage set in the village conference hall, or in my grandfather’s drawer filled with recorded performance cassettes. In contrast to my youthful protest of the genre, in 2010 I was left affectively astounded while watching a yueju (Yue opera) adaptation, Xinbi Tiangao (Aspirations Sky High), of Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler (1891). The lead role’s mesmerizing sword dance followed by the act of taking her own life vividly presented me with the connection to xiqu that I had been quick to dismiss in the past. This offstage scene in the original play is brought onstage in this adaptation to stress in every possible way Hedda’s psychological and emotional state. In desperation because of Judge Brack’s threat and Tesman’s preoccupation with Lovborg’s manuscripts, she sings an aria in lines apparently absent in the original play while dancing with her red water sleeves. Bits of burned book manuscript scatter about the stage and shadows of entangled tree branches hang on the back wall as stage lights dim. As Hedda intends to escape out of fear, the back wall suddenly moves forward and tree shadows begin to shake; against the white spotlight, she herself casts a dark and enlarging silhouette on the approaching back wall. And finally, there is nothing but a devouring shadow of the self. The percussions, in a fast tempo, urge her to end her pain by slitting her throat with the sword (Fig. 1.1). After this action there is nothing but Hedda’s immense shadow cast on the wall, which gradually merges into complete darkness. Contrary to my expectations, no morals about traditional loyalty, filial piety, chastity, or righteousness are implied in this ending—the ending overwhelmed me through nothing more than the sheer tragic power of Hedda’s death.

Fig. 1.1

Haida before her death. (Courtesy of Sun Huizhu)

This 2006 play was chiefly adapted from the Ibsen play by playwrights and scholars Sun Huizhu (William Huizhu Sun) and Fei Chunfang (Faye Chunfang Fei), performed by Hangzhou Yue Opera Company, directed by Zhi Tao and Zhan Min, with the stage designed by Liu Xinglin, lighting by Zhou Zhengping, and percussions by Ruan Mingqi. I was certainly not the only person to be affected, because this play won several national and international awards: Zhou Yujun, performer of Hedda, became a Plum Performance Award laureate in 2017; other awards from Norway, India, and Germany were bestowed for the play, the music, and the acting, among others. Although some senior audience members might object to this non-traditional play, what still proves provocative for me, as a young, was a simple question: why was I affected now if neither Ibsen’s play nor xiqu were sufficiently affective by themselves? Might there be some new aesthetics at play in this novel intercultural encounter? Aspirations Sky High’s rendition of Ibsen with yueju, its creative use of set design and lighting, music and choreography, subject matter and characterization, as well as its dissemination abroad, all crossed the boundary of traditional yueju, making it an exemplar among many contemporary pieces that have pushed further xiqu’s aesthetic tradition through intercultural appropriation. These initial considerations were further confirmed when I came across other similar theatre works, especially the Contemporary Legend Theatre’s jingju production of Lear Is Here . These plays, performing against previous discourse that fed my learned scorn for the ‘old-fashioned’ xiqu, recaptured my attention with their magic charm that spoke to the multicultural contemporary world and with their modern spirit largely expressed through Chinese tradition. Such a phenomenon was equally emblematic of the broader cultural transition taking place in China over the past century.

The early twentieth century witnessed numerous adaptations of Western plays and novels in China (Zheng and Zeng 2012, 81–82). Xiqu adaptations of foreign plays reached efflorescence after the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) and became a prevailing practice with varied adaptation choices in terms of styles, playwrights, theatrical schools, and target audiences. According to Ric Knowles, ‘theatrical performances [are] cultural productions which serve specific cultural and theatrical communities at particular historical moments as sites for the negotiation, transmission, and transformation of cultural values’ and ‘the products of their own place and time that are nevertheless productive of social and historical reification or change’ (Knowles 2004, 10). In this light, the intercultural xiqu has played a significant role in the overall agenda of re-establishing Chinese identity amid the influx of Western ideas. Such blending of traditional and modern cultural forms is vital to preserving a culture whose legacy had been damaged and challenged by historical, social, and political events throughout the twentieth century.

This book explores how xiqu artistically transforms itself through appropriating Western plays and theatrical forms since 1978, when China¹ bid farewell to Mao Zedong’s era and entered the Deng Xiaoping era. Two significant developments in scholarship have driven this book. The first is intercultural theatre studies, championed by theorists such as Richard Schechner, Erika Fischer-Lichte, Marvin Carlson, Patrice Pavis, Rustom Bharucha, Ric Knowles, Jacqueline Lo, Helen Gilbert, Daphne Lei, and recently Charlotte McIvor and Jason King. These scholars have participated in the several turns of intercultural studies from the early focus on transmission of aesthetic codes, to the political investigation driven by postcolonialism, and to what McIvor calls ‘new interculturalism’ with diversified and multiplied critical approaches and subject concerns (McIvor 2019, 4). Then there are studies on contemporary xiqu, including intercultural xiqu and xiqu’s transformation in modern times, represented by Li Ruru, Wang An-ch’i, Tian Min, Siyuan Liu, Elizabeth Wichmann-Walczak, Catherine Diamond, Li Wei, Lü Xiaoping, Chen Fang, to name but a few. Inspired by those lines of research but also departing from them, the present project uses xiqu’s aesthetic transformation catalysed by intercultural appropriations to challenge, revise, and supplement existing conclusions in both fields.

Xiqu was chosen as the research object on two accounts. First, xiqu has partaken in and suffered from numerous intercultural exchanges since the very beginning of its genesis, either appropriating other cultural practices or being appropriated itself. As a typical East Asian traditional theatrical form, xiqu enters into complex histories of negotiation with the spatial and temporal distance from Western theatre. However, it is neither too indigenous like Chinese calligraphy to be intercultural, nor too adaptive like pop music to be non-Chinese. Second, the fact that xiqu has more than 300 genres and multiple styles would reveal the plural dynamics of intercultural theatre even in one theatrical tradition. As such, xiqu is a promising site to examine the contrasts, conflicts, conversations, compromises, and combinations between Chinese and non-Chinese (predominantly Western) cultures. It might even be a source of alternative views regarding world intercultural theatre discourse that has so far been dominated by the West.

Because of the wide variety of xiqu genres, not all of which participate in the intercultural practices—such as adaptations of Western classics and appropriation of Western theatrical forms/ideas—this book concentrates on only a few that do. Situating contemporary xiqu’s aesthetic transformation within the convergence of...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction
• 2. ‘Egotistic’ Adaptations of King Lear: Intercultural Playwrights Haunted by Tradition
• 3. Border-Crossing Chou Actors in Beckettian Jingju
• 4. Expressionistic Chuanju: Ghosts and Scenography in Lady Macbeth
• 5. Reframing Audience Experiences: Brechtian Estrangement and Metatheatricality Displaced in Xiqu
• 6. Conclusion
• Correction to: Intercultural Aesthetics in Traditional Chinese Theatre
• Back Matter