Abstract
Drama as a performing art is one of the most powerful means to arouse the audience’s emotional response. It is the tradition of Chinese theatre to use drama to satirize current political and social events. Apart from China, there are numerous other examples to demonstrate that drama has been useful as propaganda both to a ruling party and to its opposition. In Japan, the shogunate of the Tokugawa period worried that kabuki might lead to unrest by running counter to the social and moral order espoused by the government. In Berlin, Bertolt Brecht’s The Mother was banned from the stage for fear of the emotions it could evoke among the audience. Instead of banning drama, Chinese Marxists used it as a weapon against opposing ideologies for many decades, considering it a powerful tool to disseminate their ideals and to educate the people.
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V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, XIV, (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1962), 323.
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Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung), Talks at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1956), 26. http://collections.mun.ca/PDFs/radical/TalksattheYenanForumonArtandLiterature.pdf. The original talks were delivered on 2 May 1942.
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John Northam, Ibsen’s Dramatic Method (London: Faber and Faber Limited, 1953), 12.
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See discussion in Li Chang 李暢, “Ibsen’s Drama and the Box Set” [Yibusheng de xiju he xiangxing bujing 易卜生的戲劇和箱形佈景], Theatre Studies [Xiju yanjiu 戲劇研究], no. 4 (1979): 112.
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See Michael Meyer, Ibsen: A Biography (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1972), 662, 774–75.
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Huneker , 1.
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Ibid., 56.
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Ibid.
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Li Jianwu, “Socialist Spoken Drama” [Shehui zhuyi de huaju 社會主義的話劇], in New Horizons in Drama 1980b, 25.
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Wang Zhenzhong 王臻中, “The Tragic Beauty of A Doll’s House ” [“Wan’ou zhi jia” de beiju mei 玩偶之家的悲劇美], Jiangsu Drama [Jiangsu xiju 江蘇戲劇], no. 9 (1982): 16–18.
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Gu Zhongyi 顧仲彝, The Theory and Technique of Playwriting [Bian ju lilun yu jiqao 編劇理論與技巧] (Beijing: Zhongguo xiju chubanshe, 1981), 100.
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Ibid., 101.
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Ibid.
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Ibid., 123.
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William Archer, Play-making (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1944), 36.
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Tan Peisheng 譚霈生, On the Dramatic [Lun xiju xing 論戲劇性] (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 1981), 58.
- 25.
Chen Gang 陳剛, “Some Problems in the Present Development of Spoken Drama” [Huaju fazhan zhong de jige wenti 話劇發展中的幾個問題], Selected Essays of Theatre [Xiju lun cong戲劇論叢], no. 4 (1983): 33.
- 26.
Tan, On the Dramatic, 80.
- 27.
Tan Peisheng 譚霈生, “Social Contradictions and Personality Conflicts” [Shehui maodun yu xingge chongtu 社會矛盾與性格衝突], Playscripts [Juben 劇本], no. 5 (1981). Reprinted in Yearbook of Chinese Theatre 1982 [Zhongguo xiju nianjian 中國戲劇年鑑1982], 292.
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Ibid., 293.
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Chen Gang, 33.
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Li Chunxi 李春熹, “Innovations in Dramatic Structure in the Past Two Years” [Tan liang nian lai xiju jiegou xingshi de xin tansuo 談两年來戲劇結構形式的新探索], Heilongjiang Drama [Heilongjiang xiju 黑龍江戲劇], no. 2 (1981). Reprinted in Yearbook of Chinese Theatre, 1982, 295.
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Sun Wei, 97–99.
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Ibsen in One Take . Ibsen International. http://ibseninternational.com/productions/ibsen-in-one-take/. Accessed 18 June 2018.
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Ghosts 2.0. Ibsen International. http://ibseninternational.com/productions/ghosts-2-0/. Accessed 18 June 2018.
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Tam, Kk. (2019). Chapter Ten Ibsenism and Ideology in Chinese Playwriting. In: Chinese Ibsenism. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-6303-0_11
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