Adapting Western Classics for the Chinese Stage

Shouhua Qi

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9781138214330
• eBook ISBN:
  9781315446141
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Theatre

Adapting Western Classics for the Chinese Stage presents a comprehensive study of transnational, transcultural, and translingual adaptations of Western classics from the turn of the twentieth century to present-day China in the age of globalization. Supported by a wide range of in-depth research, this book

• Examines the complex dynamics between texts, both dramatic and socio-historical; contexts, both domestic and international; and intertexts, Western classics and their Chinese reinterpretations in huaju and/or traditional Chinese xiqu;
• Contemplates Chinese adaptations of a range of Western dramatic works, including Greek, English, Russian, and French;
• Presents case studies of key Chinese adaptation endeavors, including the 1907 adaptation of Uncle Tom's Cabin by the Spring Willow Society and the 1990 adaptation of Hamlet by Lin Zhaohua;
• Lays out a history of uneasy convergence of East and West, complicated by tensions between divergent sociopolitical forces and cultural proclivities.

Drawing on disciplines and critical perspectives, including theatre and adaptation studies, comparative literature, translation studies, reception theory, post-colonialism, and intertextuality, this book is key reading for students and researchers in any of these fields.

1
First contact

Early Chinese encounters with Western drama

The staging of the third act of La Dame aux Camilias (Alexander Dumas fils) by young student members of Spring Willow Society (chunliushe) in the winter of 1907 in Tokyo – far away from home – and especially the full production of Black Slave’s Cry to Heaven adapted from Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin in June that same year marked a momentous development in the history of modern Chinese drama. Many scholars have hailed it as the birth cry of huaju (spoken drama), essentially a “foreign” and imported art form, and, by extension, the birth of xiju (modern Chinese drama).¹ Some scholars, however, have tried to turn the searchlight from outside the country back to the homeland, tracing the origin of huaju to certain elements of traditional Chinese xiqu centuries back in its early burgeoning days,² or to student performances in Shanghai and drama reform endeavors around the turn of the twentieth century in a quest to locate in the native soil an alternative starting point for huaju and, by extension, modern Chinese xiju.³

A more “balanced” view or, rather, a more meaningful approach than trying to pin down an exact date or event, at least as far as the subject of this book – transnational, transcultural, and translingual adaptation of Western classics – is concerned, is to see the birth of huaju and indeed modern Chinese xiju as a convoluted process of gestation catalyzed by forces from both within and the outside world.⁴ The 1907 Spring Willow Society’s reimagining of Western classics in Tokyo, a significant and arguably epochal event, didn’t happen out of the blue; rather, it came about from the convergence of forces geopolitical and domestic, necessary and coincidental, literary, artistic as well as sociopolitical. This adaptation, which inspired the 2007 play Search for Spring Willow Society, mounted in Beijing to reimagine the rehearsing of Black Slave’s Cry to Heaven 100 years ago, speaks volumes of the important agency adaptations of Western classics exert in shaping the development of modern Chinese drama, and indeed the social and cultural life of a country seeking to modernize and redefine itself in a “brave new world.”

In the decades following the Opium War (1839–1842), as China was forced to open its doors for Westerners to come in and trade and proselytize and for the Chinese – albeit only a small handful, mostly imperial envoys and diplomats sent to Western countries to represent the Qing interest abroad – to go and see the outside world for themselves, exposure to Western drama as part of the transnational, transcultural, and translingual encounters became inevitable.

Since most of these early Chinese “innocents abroad,” so to speak, spoke little or no languages of the Western countries they were visiting and, more importantly, since their primary concern was in science, technology, industry, and navy, which the Chinese believed had given Western countries the upper hand in their dealings with China, arts and literature would amount to little more than “sideshows” or occasional cultural excursions. Nonetheless, even from outside looking in, scratching no more than the physically observable surface, their experiences of Western drama – the differences as compared to traditional Chinese xiqu, from the imposing physical structures of theatres to the breathtaking verisimilitude ambience to the perplexingly respectable social status of actors – would register a level of responses that can only be described as cultural shock.

Early Chinese encounters with Western drama also took the form of “West cometh to East” through the agency of newspapers, Western expatriates in China, visiting drama troupes, and mission colleges in Shanghai and elsewhere.

Chinese “innocents abroad” and their chance encounters with Western drama

Li Shuchang (1837–1896), who at the age of 25 had had the audacity to send a “10,000-word” petition to Empress Dowager Cixi (1835–1908) advocating reform, was among the first batch of diplomats sent abroad in 1876, serving as an attaché of Chinese embassies in Britain, Germany, and Spain. During his five-year stint as a diplomat in Europe, Li visited as many as ten countries and recorded his observations in a book titled Xiyang zazhi (Western World Impressions). Here is what he had to say about the Opéra in Paris:⁵

The Opéra in Paris is the best in the world, having no rival in its splendor and grandeur. All visitors to Paris would brag about having seen it…. Walking in, one sees two stories of building, the lower level boasting of seven big doors, the upper level a long, meandering corridor of marble and granite. In the back of the theatre are dozens of rooms – designated residential area for the actors – looking as grand as a royal palace. Once inside the theatre, one sees five levels of seating with a total of two thousand one hundred fifty-six seats…. The theatre has in residence a troupe of two hundred fifty actors, the best of them enjoying a wage of one hundred thousand to one hundred twenty thousand francs, the playwright five hundred francs per performance…. The Opéra in Paris receives an annual subsidy of eight hundred thousand francs from the government as part of its powerful financial backing.

(Ellipses mine)

Li Shuchang’s account, hyperbolic as it may sound, is echoed by similar firsthand observations from other Chinese visiting Europe around this time, such as Zeng Jize (1839–1890), the second son of Zeng Guofan (1811–1872) – a prominent figure in the late Qing decades, especially known for his role in the crackdown of the Taiping Uprising (1850–1864). While serving as ambassador to Britain and France, Zeng Jize was dispatched to Russia to renegotiate the “Treaty of Saint Petersburg” (1881), which he did as forcefully as he could to make the terms less punishing to China territorially. In his Chushi ying fa e riji (Diary of the Ambassador to Britain, France, and Russia), Zeng recorded his impressions of a Western theatre that appeared “more magnificent than a royal palace.” More interestingly, ever mindful of the plight of his homeland since the Opium War and the potential social function of drama and theatre, Zeng observed,⁶

In the past when the French were defeated by the Germans, they began the construction of a big theatre house once the Germans had left to awaken the spirit of the people. They also raised enormous funding to support galleries with paintings of how the French people suffered the shame of defeat and misery of homelessness to arouse the desire and hence resolve for national revenge. It all looked like play, but underneath it all was deep significance. I was told that both the theatre house and the galleries were ideas from people of powerful positions.

Zhang Deyi (1847–1918), another Chinese who had the privilege to travel abroad, was of much humbler pedigree. He earned a scholarship for the Ton-gwen Institute in Beijing, the first foreign language school in China, and later became foreign language teacher of the Guangxu Emperor (1871–1908). In 1866, at the age of 19, Zhang was chosen as a member of the first group of Chinese sent abroad to study the West – France, Britain, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, and Russia, among other countries and places. In his book series Hanghai shuqi (My Overseas Adventures) were such extensive observations of Western drama/theatre that he is sometimes accredited as the first Chinese to introduce Western drama to China. Among the shows he saw were Tsar and Carpenter by Gustav Albert Lortzing, Faust by Charles Gounod, Rip Van Winkle adapted from Washington Irwin’s short story, Around the World in Eighty Days adapted from Jules Verne’s novel, Wilhelm Tell by Friedrich Schiller, The Count of Mount Cristo adapted from Alexandre Dumas’ novel, Beauty and the Best, Don Juan or The Feast with the Statue by Molière, Emily based on Charles Dickens’ novel David Copperfield, and Hamlet and Romeo Juliet by Shakespeare. Some of his notes were short, while others were as elaborate as over 1,500 words long, quite detailed in documenting the ambience as well as “playbill” aspects of his Western theatre experiences.⁷

Indeed, these early Chinese “innocents abroad” were quite awestruck by the realistic ambience – the verisimilitude effect they experienced in Western theatres from lifelike furniture on the stage to vivid scenery in the backdrop thanks mostly to the use of superior stagecraft technology. Dai Hongci (1853–1910), one of the five cabinet level officials sent abroad by the Qing court in 1905 to study political systems in the West by way of preparing (reluctantly, of course) for “constitutional monarchy” (xianzheng), had this observation in his Chushi jiuguo riji (Diary of My Diplomatic Missions to Nine Countries):

Western theatres excel in pictorial ornaments; buildings and balconies appear on stage in the blink of an eye. Rain or shine and weather changes feel so real, as if you the audience are right in it. It’s amazing that such magic can happen in real life.

Wang Zhichun (1842–1906), an imperial envoy who traveled to St. Petersburg by way of Paris and Berlin, among other cities, to attend the funeral of Alexander III of Russia (1845–1894), couldn’t help marvel either in his eight-volume Shi e cao (Diary of an Envoy to Russia):

The oil painting of landscape in the backdrop looks so real that you seem to see mountains upon mountains stretching far into distance. If the backdrop is the painting of a city, you can see buildings and streets so clearly as if it is a real metropolis.

Even with “a telescope powerful enough to see 10,000 li,” as other Chinese visitors to Western theatres had enthused, one would not be able to tell whether the scenery in the backdrop was real or unreal, and if one stares at it long enough, “the human figures (in the backdrop) would begin to move and the waters ripple.”⁸

In addition to being dazed by the magnificent architect and magical stage-craft of Western theatres, early Chinese “innocents abroad” sometimes found themselves perplexed by the apparent social status actors enjoyed in Western countries. Zhang Deyi, the self-made man alluded to earlier in this chapter who had taken extensive notes about Western drama, observed that it was the custom in Britain for theatre owners, managers, or directors to invite dignitaries to the opening night. He himself, an imperial envoy, had had the dubious honor of being the recipient of such invitations.⁹ In his 1896 tour of Russia, Germany, Belgium, France, Britain, and the United States, Li Hongzhang (1823–1901)¹⁰ was received as grandly as head of a state wherever he went. However, when he received an invitation from the general manager of a theatre house in London to attend one of its performances, members of Li Hongzhang’s entourage were not so amused. Such a thing had been unheard of back in China: what thick-faced audacity for a mere theatre manager to even dream of hosting an almost royal personage such as Li Hongzhang? They soon realized, however, that, unlike back in China where acting was regarded as a rather lowly, disrespectable trade and where even talented actors (youling) were often treat...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Prologue
• 1 First contact: early Chinese encounters with Western drama
• 2 Black Slave’s Cry to Heaven, the birth cry of modern Chinese drama, and a group of post-’80s amateurs in search of a director
• 3 Guess who’s coming: Brecht, Beckett, Miller, and the revival of modern Chinese drama
• 4 Tragic hero and hero tragedy: reimagining classic Greek drama as Chinese xiqu today
• 5 Old man Shakespeare, the all but forgotten Shaw, and the importance of being Oscar Wilde
• 6 An old “mentor and friend” from afar: adapting classic Russian drama for the Chinese stage
• 7 The tragic, the comic, the absurd, and the “grand feast” of French classics
• Epilogue
• Index