Chinese drama from traditional to modern

Author: Dong Jian, Rong Guangrun
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-08-01
Features: Since the late 1980s of the last century, whether it is Chinese local theater or Western transplant drama, both have encountered unprecedented difficulties. Until today, Chinese theater is still lingering in this shadow. Can Chinese theater break free from the predicament and achieve a transformation from tradition to modernity? How should this transformation be realized? Scholars from both classical and modern theater, as well as from domestic and overseas, gather together to explore the characteristics of Chinese theater, investigate the laws of its occurrence and development, and discuss the significant practical issue of transforming Chinese theater from tradition to modernity. From July 16 to 19, 2005, the international academic symposium "Chinese Theater: From Tradition to Modernity," jointly organized by Nanjing University and Shanghai Theatre Academy, was held successively in Nanjing and Shanghai. Over one hundred scholars and experts from more than twenty domestic universities, research institutions, and from Japan, South Korea, Russia, the United States, and other countries attended the conference. This conference was one of the most grand occasions in recent years for the discipline of Chinese theater and opera in China, where scholars from both classical and modern theater gathered to exchange ideas, producing a positive response in academia. This book selects thirty-nine papers from the seventy-eight submitted to the conference, which are closely related to the conference theme and have high academic value. They reflect the highest level and research trends in contemporary Chinese classical theater and modern theater studies, making the book highly valuable academically.
Since the late 1980s of the last century, whether it is Chinese local theater or Western transplant drama, both have encountered unprecedented difficulties. Until today, Chinese theater is still lingering in this shadow. Can Chinese theater break free from the predicament and achieve a transformation from tradition to modernity? How should this transformation be realized? Scholars from both classical and modern theater, as well as from domestic and overseas, gather together to explore the characteristics of Chinese theater, investigate the laws of its occurrence and development, and discuss the significant practical issue of transforming Chinese theater from tradition to modernity. From July 16 to 19, 2005, the international academic symposium "Chinese Theater: From Tradition to Modernity," jointly organized by Nanjing University and Shanghai Theatre Academy, was held successively in Nanjing and Shanghai. Over one hundred scholars and experts from more than twenty domestic universities, research institutions, and from Japan, South Korea, Russia, the United States, and other countries attended the conference. This conference was one of the most grand occasions in recent years for the discipline of Chinese theater and opera in China, where scholars from both classical and modern theater gathered to exchange ideas, producing a positive response in academia. This book selects thirty-nine papers from the seventy-eight submitted to the conference, which are closely related to the conference theme and have high academic value. They reflect the highest level and research trends in contemporary Chinese classical theater and modern theater studies, making the book highly valuable academically.
The paradox of survival in contemporary Chinese theater, when entering this topic, must first confront a harsh theatrical reality: although the scientific argument that "practice is the sole criterion for testing truth" once took root in China, contemporary Chinese theater has not been completely liberated from the decline of the Cultural Revolution in spirit, nor has its system undergone fundamental changes. The cultural form of wartime theater, as an inherent potential within the body of modern Chinese theater, still influences contemporary Chinese theater. In other words, what faces the practitioners of contemporary Chinese theater is the implicit continuation of the wartime cultural form since the 1990s. To be more specific and sharp, contemporary Chinese theater is caught in an awkward situation: on one side, there is the call of commercial economy driven by consumption and the market; on the other side, there is the ideological demand determined by the implicit continuation of the wartime cultural form since the 1990s. The almost irreconcilable conflict between the two is the paradox of survival in contemporary Chinese theater.
Chinese theater had a brief period of brilliance from the late 1970s to the late 1980s. However, even during that period, the open contemporary Chinese theater only achieved some advancement and expansion in the level of theatrical concepts, without touching on the reform of theatrical troupe systems or making breakthroughs in the philosophical level of the entire theatrical spirit. The implicit continuation of the wartime cultural form is particularly evident in the Chinese theater scene from the early 1990s to the present. A careful examination of Chinese theater during this period reveals the lingering legacy of the critical struggle tradition formed during the wartime period, as well as the traces left by the wartime theater system, which had persisted for decades. Openly advocating "criticism" and explicitly promoting "struggle," especially the works produced under the creative ideology of "class struggle as the guiding principle," are no longer seen. However, the drawbacks caused by the wartime cultural form and its byproduct—the critical struggle tradition—have not completely disappeared. Here, a brief discussion will be made on a few influential conceptual issues.
Political ideological. This phenomenon was extremely common before and during the Cultural Revolution. In the 1980s, under the wave of the spirit of "emancipating the mind and seeking truth from facts," its errors and harms should have been clearly identified both theoretically and practically. Currently, although there has been debate over whether literature and art belong to the superstructure, it is generally agreed that literature and art, as a special form of ideology, are more suspended above the economic base and belong to the realm of human spiritual life. However, in real life, due to the implicit continuation of the wartime cultural form and the potential influence of the critical struggle tradition in modern Chinese theater, some people have developed a mindset (almost becoming a collective unconscious). Some still equate theater with general ideology, or even with political ideology, or still equate theater with general propaganda. They often remember "literature and art should not be divorced from politics" but forget "literature and art should not be subordinate to politics." When examining and identifying theatrical works and performances, they either openly or covertly, intentionally or unintentionally, still use the old measure of "political standards first, artistic standards second." P74