Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I: Theater Founding Fathers: Liberal Aesthetics in the
Republican Period
1. Tian Han and His Legacy: Proletarian Modernism and “The Theater
of Dramatists”
2. Hong Shen and His Discontent: Canonicity Through Theory and
Practice
3. Ouyang Yuqian and His Theater Dream: Cross-Dressing, Drama
Schools, and Theater Reforms
Part II: Chinese Socialist Theater and Its Afterlife: Shifting
“Classics” and Their Place in Cultural Transformation
4. Is Socialism Good? Satirical Comedy and the Gray Theater of the
1950s
5. The Tales of the Wives: The Mao-Era Metamorphosis of the “Red
Classics” and Their Postsocialist Reinscriptions
6. “The Song of the Geologists”: Remembering Scientists Onstage
7. Monumental Theater: Soldier Plays and History Plays
8. Singing “The Internationale”: One Hundred Years of Sonic
Theater
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Xiaomei Chen is Distinguished Professor of Chinese Literature at the University of California, Davis. She is the author of Staging Chinese Revolution: Theater, Film and the Afterlives of Propaganda (Columbia, 2016); Acting the Right Part: Political Theater and Popular Drama in Contemporary China (2002); and Occidentalism: A Theory of Counter-Discourse in Post-Mao China (second and expanded edition, 2002), as well as editor of The Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Drama (Columbia, 2010; abridged edition, 2014), among other publications. Chen is also coeditor of Rethinking Chinese Socialist Theaters of Reform: Performance Practice and Debate in the Mao Era (2021), which received the Excellence in Editing Award from the Association for Theatre in Higher Education.
In her newest work, Xiaomei Chen confirms her position as the
leading chronicler and analyst of modern and contemporary Chinese
theater. Focusing on three dramatists of central importance before,
during, and after the socialist era, she provides a nuanced and
fascinating overview of the theater’s reflection of these turbulent
times.
*Marvin Carlson, author of Ten Thousand Nights: Highlights from
Fifty Years of Theatre-Going*
In her study of theater, politics, and performativity in modern
China, Chen tells a compelling story of three leading dramatists in
search of socialist modernity—their aspirations, their inventions
and interventions, and their own tragedies amid the state's staging
of the most brutal theater of revolution. A powerful book.
*David Der-wei Wang, author of Why Fiction Matters in
Contemporary China*
This is an illuminating narrative of modern Chinese theater culture
exemplified by Tian Han, Hong Shen, and Ouyang Yuqian. These
legendary dramatists navigated the treacherous political terrains
of different eras and built a modern theater from the crosscurrents
of East and West. Xiaomei Chen is the best writer for keeping their
legacy alive.
*Ban Wang, author of China in the World: Culture, Politics, and
World Vision*
This magisterial book chronicles the cross-media story of spoken
drama from its inception through Republican, Maoist, and
Post-Maoist appropriations in the forms of women’s theater,
socialist theater, and “red classic” films. This capacious history
offers, among many gems, a diachronic study of the “sonic theater”
of the Internationale over the past hundred years.
*Alexa Alice Joubin, author of Shakespeare and East
Asia*
Eminently readable, the entire volume is noteworthy for its
detailed, fascinating, and nuanced analysis of not only modern
Chinese theater and drama but also Chinese theater historiography .
. . A valuable and significant contribution to Asian theater
studies.
*Choice Reviews*
Chen’s commitment to documenting the lived experience of high
Maoism allows her to make sense of the ambience and entertainments
of the era without downplaying the political persecutions that
often interrupted or destroyed careers. She strikes a difficult
balance between frankness about life in authoritarian times and
doing justice to the culture’s capacity to illuminate both the
everyday and the horrific.
*The China Journal*
Chen’s volume has an impressive breadth and depth.
*MCLC (Modern Chinese Literature and Culture) Resource Center*
Offers a bold new reading of modern and contemporary Chinese
theater culture...will be of interest to those in the fields of
literary, performance, and historical studies, as well as to those
who seek to maintain their autonomy in the contemporary world.
*H-Asia*
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