The Use of Asian Theatre for Modern Western Theatre

The Displaced Mirror

Min Tian

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9783319971773
• eBook ISBN:
  9783319971780
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Performing Arts

This book is a historical study of the use of Asian theatre for modern Western theatre as practiced by its founding fathers, including Aurélien Lugné-Poe, Adolphe Appia, Gordon Craig, W. B. Yeats, Jacques Copeau, Charles Dullin, Antonin Artaud, V. E. Meyerhold, Sergei Eisenstein, and Bertolt Brecht. It investigates the theories and practices of these leading figures in their transnational and cross-cultural relationship with Asian theatrical traditions and their interpretations and appropriations of the Asian traditions in their reactional struggles against the dominance of commercialism and naturalism. From the historical and aesthetic perspectives of traditional Asian theatres, it approaches this intercultural phenomenon as a (Euro)centred process of displacement of the aesthetically and culturally differentiated Asian theatrical traditions and of their historical differences and identities. Looking into the displaced and distorted mirror of Asian theatre, the founding fathers of modern Western theatre saw, in their imagination of the 'ghostly' Other, nothing but a (self-)reflection or, more precisely, a (self-)projection and emplacement, of their competing ideas and theories preconceived for the construction, and the future development, of modern Western theatre.

Bibliography

1. Adorno, Theodor W. 1981. In Search of Wagner . Translated by Rodney Livingstone. London: NLB.
2. Albert, Henri. 1896. Théâtre de L’Œuvre. Mercure de France 17: 125–127.
3. Alpers, B. [1931] 1977. Teatr sotsial’noi maski (The Theatre of the Social Mask). In B. Alpers, Teatral’nye ocherki (Theatrical Essays), vol. 1, 27–162. Moskva: Iskusstvo.
4. Alter, Maria P. 1968. Bertolt Brecht and the Noh Drama. Modern Drama 11 (2): 122–131.
5. Anderson, Joseph L. 2011. Enter a Samurai: Kawakami Otojirō and Japanese Theatre in the West . Tucson, AZ: Wheatmark.
6. Antoine, André. 1928. Mes Souvenirs sur le Théâtre Antoine et sur L’Odéon (Première direction). Paris: Bernard Grasset.
7. ———. 1932. Le Théâtre, 2 vols. Paris: Les Éditions de France.
8. Antoine, André-Paul. 1962. Antoine, Père et Fils: Souvenirs du Paris littéraire et théâtral 1900–1939 . Paris: René Julliard.
9. ———. 1974. Note sur Antoine. In Aux sources de la vérité du théâtre moderne , ed. James B. Sanders, 108–110. Paris: Minard.
10. Appia, Adolphe. 1962. Music and the Art of the Theatre . Translated by Robert W. Corrigan and Mary Douglas Dirks. Coral Gables: University of Miami Press.
11. ———. 1986a. Œuvres Complètes , vol. II, 1895–1905. Edited by Marie L. Bablet-Hahn. Lausanne: L’Âge D’Homme.
12. ———. 1986b. Noch ein Wort über das japanische Schauspiel. In Œuvres complètes , vol. II, 331–332. Appia’s review was originally published in Münchner neueste Nachrichten (Vorabend-Blatt), February 5, 1902, 1–2. For a French translation of Appia’s review, see Adolphe Appia, “Encore un mot sur la représentation japonaise,” in Œuvres complètes , vol. II, 333–334.
13. ———. 1989. Adolphe Appia: Essays, Scenarios, and Designs . Translated by Walther R. Volbach and edited by Richard C. Beacham. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press.
14. ———. 1991. Œuvres Complètes , vol. IV, 1921–1928. Edited by Marie L. Bablet-Hahn. Lausanne: L’Âge D’Homme.
15. ———. 1993. Adolphe Appia: Texts on Theatre . Translated and edited by Richard C. Beacham. London: Routledge.
16. Archer, William. 1901a. The Theatre: French and Japanese Plays—“The Fortune of War”. The World (London), July 10, 31–32.
17. ———. 1901b. The Theatre: “Sairoku”. The World (London), July 24, 28.
18. Arène, Jules. 1876a. Avant-Propos. In Jules Arène, La Chine Familière et Galante , I–III. Paris: Charpentier et Cie.
19. ———. 1876b. La fleur palan enlevée . In Arène, La Chine Familière et Galante , 112–139.
20. ———. 1876c. Une après-midi dans un théâtre de Péking. In Arène, La Chine Familière et Galante , 91–101.
21. Arnaud, Lucien. 1952. Charles Dullin . Paris: L’Arche Editeur.
22. Artaud, Antonin. 1931. Le Théâtre Balinais, à l’Exposition Coloniale. La Nouvelle Revue Française 217: 655–658.
23. ———. 1976a. Selected Writings . Edited by Susan Sontag and translated by Helen Weaver. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
24. ———. 1976b. Œuvres complètes , vol. I, pt. 1. Paris: Gallimard.
25. ———. 1978a. Œuvres complètes , vol. III. Paris: Gallimard.
26. ———. 1978b. Œuvres completes , vol. IV. Paris: Gallimard.
27. ———. 1979. Œuvres complètes , vol. IX. Paris: Garlimard.
28. ———. 1980. Œuvres complètes , vol. II. Paris: Gallimard.
29. ———. 2005. Mise au point à propose de Charles Dullin. In Alain et Odette Virmaux, “ Le Crapouillot (1922): Quatre Textes Retrouvés sur des Hommes de Théâtre: Dullin, Signoret, Pitoëff, Sarment.” In Artaud en revues , ed. Olivier Penot-Lacassagne, 31–39. Lausanne: L’Age d’Homme.
30. Austruy, Henri. 1908. Revue Dramatique. La Nouvelle revue , March 1, 132–135.
31. B. 1902. IAponskaia truppa v Peterburge (The Japanese Troupe in Petersburg). Kavkaz (The Caucasus), 82 (Mar. 28): 3.
32. Bablet, Denis. 1962. Edward Gordon Craig . Translated by Daphne Woodward. New York: Theatre Arts Books.
33. Bandem, I. Madé, and Fredrik Eugene deBoer. 1995. Balinese Dance in Transition: Kaja and Kelod . New York: Oxford University Press.
34. Banu, Georges. 1978. Eisenstein, le Japon et quelques techniques du montage. In Collage et montage au théâtre et dans les autres arts durant les années vingt , edited by D. Bablet, 135–44. Lausanne: La Cité.
35. ———. 1981. Meyerhold et le modelé du théâtre asiatique. Revue d’Histoire du Théâtre 2: 116–142.
36. Barba, Eugenio. 1995. The Paper Canoe: A Guide to Theatre Anthropology . Translated by Richard Taylor. London: Routle...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• Introduction: The Displaced Mirror
• International Dramatic Prospecting: Aurélien Lugné-Poe’s Use of Asian Dramas
• “In Our Two Selves”: Adolphe Appia and Gordon Craig on Japanese Theatre
• “Sea-worthy must put to sea”: W. B. Yeats’s “Nō” and the Japanese Model
• “Free Transposition”: The Use of Nō by Jacques Copeau and Suzanne Bing
• Theatre of Transposition: Charles Dullin and East Asian Theatre
• “IT IS WE WHO ARE SPEAKING”: Antonin Artaud and Balinese Theatre
• “Welding the Unweldable”: Vsevolod Meyerhold’s Refraction of Japanese Theatre
• How Does the Billy-Goat Produce Milk? Sergei Eisenstein’s Disintegration and Reconstitution of Kabuki Theatre
• “The ‘Asiatic’ Model”: The Brechtian Art of Refunctioning of Japanese (Asian) Theatre
• Conclusion: A Haunting Legacy
• Back Matter