Backstaging modern Chinese theatre : intellectuals, amateurs, and cultural entrepreneurs, 1910s-1940s / Man He.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

He, Man.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Chinese drama--20th century--History and criticism.

Chinese drama.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (431 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, 2025.

Summary:

Modern Chinese theatre once entailed a variety of forms, but now it primarily refers to spoken drama, or huaju. Backstaging Modern Chinese Theatre looks beyond scripts to examine visuality, acoustics, and performance between the two World Wars, the period when huaju gained canonical status. The backstage in this study expands from being a physical place offstage to a culturally and historically constructed social network that encompasses theatre networks, academies, and government institutions--as well as the collective work of dramatists, amateurs, and cultural entrepreneurs. Early huaju was not a mere imitation of Western realist theatre, as it is commonly understood, but a creative synthesis of Chinese and Western aesthetics. Charting huaju's evolution from American colleges to China's coastal cities and then to its rural hinterland, Man He demonstrates how the formation of modern Chinese theatre challenges dominant understandings of modernism and brings China to the center of discussions on transnational modernities and world theatres.

Notes:

Title from eBook information screen..

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on information from the publisher.

ISBN:

0-472-90511-2

OCLC:

1525619864