China and the West

Aufführung von Deng dai Geduo = Waiting for Godot von Samuel Beckett im Shanghai Changjiang Theatre durch Studenten des Shanghai Drama Institute.
Introductory notes in the printed programme :
Deng dai Geduo, first performed during the fifties in Paris, is now more than thirty years old. The title is now a household word in the West, and the play is required reading for every college student in the humanities in the Western world. This is proof of the play's profound influence, which propelled its author Beckett to the first rank of the world's dramatists. And yet this play is a total stranger to us, since this is its first performance in our country. Why is this play considered to be the representative work of the Theatre of the Absurd ? Because it incorporates all the classic features of this lieterary genre : there is neither a lively plot nor an attempt at complege characterization ; ther is neither a clearly delineated topic nor the use of dramatic conflict. Even the dialogue is often illogical. The one action in the play - 'Waiting' – is advanced by a combination of realistic and abstract methods ; either by ideas or through the subconscious ; my means self-contained or extended ; through life's small incidents or by philosophical reflection ; all of this through the circular movement of its simple structure. Thus the play is transformed and expanded until it achieves for 'Waiting' a goal that transcends time and space, transcends national boundaries, and even transcends timelessness itself in its artistic effect – in order to reflect mankind's shared emotions. And the two tramps in the play become mankind's 'representatives'. The effect so produced shows the great power of pure art and its classic value. This play has had over a thousand performances in the United States. Once, when the author was asked by a director, 'Who is the Godot that everyone is waiting for in the play ?' the author's replay was that he himself did not know. We can perhaps offer the following attempt at an answer : 'So long as mankind has expectations, an equivalent degree of 'waiting' will exist ; so long as that degree of 'waiting' exists, it will be matched by an equal number of 'Godots' in the world. We hope that the performance of Deng dai Geduo will help advance our understanding of the West, and, at the same time, provide a new direction for out theatrical enterprise.
Lo Irving : The premiere of this Beckett play in China was fraught with a great deal of symbolic significance, beginning with the location of the theatre itself. The stage for the performance was sparsely but effectively set with a stunted willow tree at one end, substantial enough to have a rope thrown across the bough later. The costumes were Western, including the tight boots and the various hats. The entrances and exits for Pozzo, the elaborate gestures with the whip, the bustle with the bags and baskets were all stages in the grand manner, wich, together with the music and even the appearance of dancers, betrayed an unmistakable affinity to the tradition of the Peking Opera. In this sense the Chinese Godot, while presented as a work set in the Western world, was at least partially assimilated in the Chinese cultural orbit.