China and the West

Chen, Jia. Shashibiya zai li shi yu ju zhong suo liu lu de zheng zhi jian jie [ID D23911].
Er schreibt : "Shakespeare obviously revealed his own political views in his history plays. He was against feudal separation, tyrants, and civil war. He was for centralization of power, national unity, and a just king. He hated the conflicts between the monarch and nobles because they brought disaster to the country. He noticed the significant power of the bourgeois and the working people (especially the towns’ people). He exposed, although in a limited way ; the oppression and exploitation of aristocrats against the people (including the bourgeois). He applauded patriotism and criticized the unscrupulous pursuit of personal interest. His attitudes were from the middle class viewpoint, but also often reflected the voice of the working people. One thing is worthy of special note : he criticized the ugliness of the bourgeois class. This fact reflected the progressiveness of Shakespeare and his standing on the same ground as the common people."

Aufführung von Romeo and Juliet von William Shakespeare in der Übersetzung von Zhu Shenghao durch die Zhong yang xi ju xue yuan (Central Academy of Drama) unter der Regie von Dan Ni = Danni und A.V. Raikov in Beijing. Es ist die erste Shakespeare-Aufführung seit 1949. Ji Qiming spielt Romeo und Tian Hua spielt Juliet.

Film : Othello von William Shakespeare unter der Regie von Sergei Yutkevich mit Sergei Bondarchuk als Othello.

Film : Biao Cuo Qing = 表错情 = Laughable Mistakes = A comedy of errors von William Shakespeare unter der Regie von Liu Fang.

Film : Fu lan jie jie = 馥兰姐姐 [Mother dearest] unter der Regie von Mok Hong-si nach Alcott, Louisa May. Little women, or, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy. (Boston : Roberts, 1868).

Film : Mei gu = 梅姑 [The orphan girl] unter der Regie von Yan Jun nach Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre : an autobiography. Vol. 1-3. (London : Smith, Elder, 1847). [= Jian Ai].

Film : Hua luo you fen jun = 花落又逢君 [Till we meet again] unter der Regie von Tao Qin nach Dumas, Alexandre fils. La Dame aux camélias. Vol. 1-2. (Paris : A. Cadot ; Bruxelles : Lebègue, 1848).

Film : Xing hua xi zhi lian = 杏花溪之恋 [The result of vanity] unter der Regie von Wang Yin und dem Drehbuch von Situ Ming nach Winsor, Kathleen. Forewer Amber. (New York, N.Y. : Macmillan, 1944).

Film : Jiao jiao nü = 娇娇女 [Precious daughter] unter der Regie von Huang Dai und dem Drehbuch von Mung Yan nach France, Anatole. La comédie de celui qui épousa une femme muette. (Paris : E. Champion, 1912).

Film : Qi ren qi yu = 奇人奇遇 [Adventures of a fabulous man aka A stranger's strange encounters] unter der Regie von Wu Hui nach Gogol, Nikolai Vasil'evich. Revizor : komediia v piati dieistviiakh. (Sankt Petersburg : Tip. A. Pliushara, 1836).

Robert Guillain reist in China.

Aufführung von Nora von Henrik Ibsen durch die Zhongguo qing nian yi shu xue yuan (China Youth Arts Academy) in Beijing unter der Regie von Wu Xue, mit Ji Shuping als Nora und Yu Chun als Helmer, Jiang Zhulin als Krogstad, Bai Ling als Mrs. Linde und Du Peng als Dr. Rank.
A sponsor of the production invited Ibsen specialists from Norway to participate in their performance. Wu Xue made a trip to Norway in order to collect more information about Ibsen and to see how his plays were staged in Norwa.
Cao Juren describes the performance as a production with 'a perfect cast and acting'. Wu Xue comments that 'he play had a different but higher mission in socialist society' and it was treated 'as medicine eliminating corrupt bourgeois morals' and 'as a song praising new life'. Cao Yuren accounts for the difference by the changes in society. Supposedly liberated from all social bondage, both men and women in socialist China were free human beings and therefore no longer identified themselves with Nora. They looked at the play as a satire of the bourgeois social system rather than as an appeal for them to rebel.

A, Ying. Yibusheng di zuo pin zai Zhongguo [ID D26357].
A Ying schreibt : "For the purpose of commemorating Ibsen, a grand memorial ceremony was held in Beijing jointly by the Chinese People's Association for Foreign Cultural Exchanges, the Federation of Chinese Writers and Chinese Dramatists. A conference was also organized by the National Libraryof Beijing the the Peijing People's Cultural Centre. Meanwhile, there was an exhibition at the Nationa Library displaying pictures and books on Ibsen in different languages of the world. The People's Literature Publishing House reprinted the two-volume translation of Ibsen's works by Pan Jiaxun. Essays devoted to the memory of Ibsen appeared in many newspapers and journals. Such activities had never taken plac in China before.
Ibsen lived in the time when capitalism was developing. In his works a picture of the development of capitalism was provided. He was dissatisfied with the social phenomena of his time, and he, therefore, incisively exposed the dark sides of capitalist society. This was especially prominent in the third period of his works, which not only heightened Ibsen's reputation, but also exerted a great influence upon European literature. For instance, in The pilars of society, he unmasked the so-called pillars who were hypocrites and selfish. Ibsen purposedly mocked the socially superior and reputable classes which were expliting the masses. In A doll's hous, he again induced women to become independent persons, and not dolls. This play had a certain influence on the women who were fighting for their rights in Europe.
In his plays, a glimpse of the rebellious spirit against the society he lived in can be obtained. On the one hand, he coldly unravelled the ugliness of capitalist society. On the other, he also discovered that the labour movement and socialist movement in Scandinavia were about to develop. Hence, reflected in his later works is the idea that 'redemption of the world can only come from the labour classes'. From this idea sprang the six symbolist plays, among which were The lady from the sea and When we dead awaken.
Today the Chinese people begin to have a thorough understanding of Ibsen. We are no longer satisfied with the bourgeois viewpoints, prevalent in the May fourth period when Ibsen was introduced. Nor can we accept the anti-historical-materialistic view that Ibsen is greater than Shakespeare. Among those bourgeois critics, some have made much progress since and have obtained a new understanding of Ibsen ; yet there are sill some - for exemple Hu Shi, Lin Yutang and Luo Jialun - who have betrayed the Chinese people and Ibsen, and became the slaves of imperialism and counter-revolutionaires. Actually, even in the May fourth period, it had never occurred to them that the lasting brilliance of Ibsen as a great master of art lies chiefly in the fact that he was a patriot, in his unfailing effort in promoting world peace and welfare, and in his love of the cultural heritage of his home country. Through his works, he revealed without reservation the defects of capitalism and the corruption of the capitalists. It is for this reason that Ibsen will remain forever in the heart of the Chinese people."

Du, Bingzheng. Ge ming lang man zhu yi shi ren Bailun de shi [ID D26467].
Chu Chih-yu : Du Bingzheng made the first echo of Elistratova's article. The article is not an introduction of Byron's poetic works, but more like a report on his research into the political meaning of Byron's poems. Du was one of the few real experts of English literature. It is the effect of Du's adjustment to the demands of the new literary policy. At that time the Chinese, following the Soviet example, were beginning to criticize the 'idealist conception of literature' of Western bourgeois scholars. Du Bingzheng found the 'materialistic basis' for Byron's rebellion, that is, the woker's movements in English society and the contemporary European situation : the French Revolution, the Napoleonic War, and the Holy Alliance. Yet in treating Byron's individualism, he insisted, "It is Byron's 'Class status', that made it impossible for him to rid himself of individualism : the idea of the individual conflicting with the masses often does mischief in his mind". Du's essay bears a strong mark of the new Soviet age of Byrton studies.

[Byron, George Gordon]. Tang Huang. Zhu Weiji yi. [ID D26427].
Zhu Weiji added a politically fashionable introduction, in which he sang Byron's praises for his devotion to freedom but attributed Byron's divorce to the British bourgeoisie's sowing of dissension.

Fan, Cunzhong. Feierding de Ameiliya [ID D26621].
Er schreibt : "Thoroughly exposing the social reality and incisively analyzing the social problems – these, we believe, are the characteristics of Amelia and the further development of Fielding's realistic novel writing. While the story is presented realistically, the ending is too idealistic or utopian".

Tian, Han. Xiang xian shi zu yi xi ju da shi men zai xue xi. In : Guang ming ri bao ; July 27 (1956). = Bernard Shaw : master of realist drama. [ID D27921]. [Ansprache zum 100jährigen Geburtstag von George Bernard Shaw].
Shaw is one of the great realist writers since Shakespeare. The mantle of Ibsen has fallen upon him, and he has continued the Ibsen tradition and developed it better than anyone else. He has been called the present-day Shakespeare. And after he exposed the real aspect of capitalism in his 'unpleasant' plays, his enemies held him up for castigation as 'that hateful Ibsenite'.
Shaw himself was a writer blessed with longevity like his own 'Methuselah'. His natural life covered almost a century while his creative life was spread over seventy years. Thus he was an eye-witness of the many developments in Europe since the turn of the last century.
Owing to his having read Marx's Kapital in early life, he cast a penetrating gaze upon these developments and the social reasons behind them. Shaw possessed a many-sided talent, especially keen on the satirical side, and in addition, he accepted the vivid and lively form of the drama as developed by the English people, with the result that his satirical plays are inimitable. When he died in 1950 people deeply regretted the immense loss of the 'most courageous thinker in Europe' – to use Gorki's phrase. He left with us over fifty plays, several novels, and at least a hundred articles on political and artistic subjects. It cannot be said, in this enormous body of work covering a whole lifetime, that every item shines like a jewel, but without any doubt whatever, the jewels form the main part. As far as his political thought is concerned, he has trod the tortuous path of reform which has resulted in certain shortcomings in the political ideas expressed in his work. But just as Lenin has pointed out, Shaw was 'a good man fallen among Fabians'. His intensive feeling for justice, and his correct creative method often straightened out his political prejudices in the course of creation. Alick West's contention that often the most penetrating passages of Shaw are directly contrary to Fabianism is a perfectly correct one.
Students of Ibsen have admired the dogged persistence of this old dramatist in North Europe in his study of human character. Shaw also was this kind of person. Although he has been called a 'laughing artist' and a 'great humorist', his attitude towards humanity is serious from beginning to end. He never gave an easy assent before he had thought through a problem. But once he grasped hold of the truth, he upheld it with great determination, with the ferocious courage of a lion or a tiger throwing an intense light upon it. Taking his attitude toward war as an instance, Shaw was always a hater of war and a lover of peace. In 1914, when the First Imperialist War broke out, he disapproved so much of the insanity of the bourgeois instigators of the war, that he placed his name with Henri Barbusse, Romain Rolland, and other progressive intellectuals of Europe to a protest against the war. In his pamphlet 'Common sense about the war' he called upon the soldiers of both sides to shoot their officers and go home to farm the land, while those who returned to the cities should start a revolution. This naturally earned him the suspicion and hatred of the warmongers, so that he remained neglected for a comparatively long period, causing people even to make the joke that 'Bernard Shaw was growing old'. It was not until the appearance of Heartbreak House, followed by a whole series of new plays, that these rumors ceased.
Now let us refer to Shaw's view of social reform. Although he admitted that Marx had 'opened his eyes', nevertheless he preferred reform and the Fabian Society. This is the reason why, in many of his works, after giving a profound exposure of the evils of society, he fails to indicate an active way out. In the early days of his creative life, when strikes followed one after another in England, and class antagonisms were becoming intense, he wrote a whole series of 'unpleasant' plays. When class antagonisms slackened for the time being, his barbs also were less stinging, and he produced 'pleasant' plays.
However, such a perspicacious and truly responsible writer could not ignore the fact that events were not developing in a 'pleasant' fashion but becoming daily more serious ; and he could hardly fail to discover that the Fabian movement was wasting its efforts. But as he still did not believe in the great strength of the revolutionary class, and did not see clearly yet the proper path of revolution, he landed up in denying Fabianism on the one hand and the revolutionary trade union movement on the other, considering that both were fundamentally useless. (Shaw's Revolutionist's handbook 1816). It was not until after the success of the Russian October Revolution, and the appearance of the success of the Soviet Socialist Republic, that the depression of the old playwright became dispersed. So he ended up by saying, “We are socialists. Russia's viewpoint is also ours”. Afterwards he kept firmly to this viewpoint and never wavered when the Soviet Union was attacked by the Nazi power of Germany in 1941 and her fate was in the balance.
In 1933, at the time of Shaw's visit to China, the liberation struggle of the Chinese people was in the midst of an extremely difficult period. Japanese imperialism, after the invasion of the Northeast lasting from Sept. 18, 1931, was again intensifying its aggression against North China, while the reactionary government of the Guomindang was compromising with and surrendering to the invader on the one hand, and persecuting and suppressing revolutionaries on the other, and England and the United States were waiting for Japan to attack China. At such a time it was difficult for Shaw in his visit to China to give satisfaction to all parties, and in fact, he did not do so.
In one of his articles, Lu Xun pointed out the different reactions to Ibsen and Bernard Shaw of the so-called 'upper classes' and 'lower classes'. He said : “It goes without saying the people who go to their plays are mostly ladies and gentlemen. Ladies and gentleman belong to a species that is full of 'amour propre'. Although Ibsen puts them on the stage and lays some of their secrets bare, he doesn't pass judgment on them, but says to them calmly 'Think it over. What is it all about ? Although the dignity of the ladies and gentlemen is somewhat shaken, they are still able to swagger home ; and although they are not very happy in their musings when they go home, they are still able to preserva a bold exterior… Shaw, however, is not like this. When he puts them on the stage, he tears the masks off their faces and the expensive clothes from their bodies, and ends by dragging them by the ears, pointing at them before everyone and saying, 'look, these are parasites !' He doesn't give them time to answer back, or a loophole of escape. Then the only people left laughing are the lower classes who are not guilty of the vices he holds up for castigation. In this Shaw approaches the lower classes, and in consequence, there is a distance between him and the upper classes.”
Shaw said in a speech to the students of Hong Kong University : “If at twenty you don't join the Reds in their revolution, you'll become fossils at fifty ; if you become red revolutionists at twenty, the chances are you won't get left behind at forty”. This is the sort of thing that is thoroughly disliked by reactionary rulers, and so it was picked upon by the bourgeois press of Shanghai for attack.
During the few hours he was in Shanghai, Shaw saw the people he wanted to see, such as Madame Sun, and Lu Xun. Nevertheless, Lu Xun said : “I didn't ask a single question of Shaw ; and Shaw didn't ask a single question of me. We lapsed into silence”. Shaw, however, said a few words to the newspaper reporters that besieged him, and what he said was distorted in both the Chinese and foreign papers the next day. For instance, on the subject of the Chinese government, the Shaw of the English papers said : “The Chinese should choose those they respect most to be their rulers” ; the Shaw of the Japanese papers said : “There are several governments in China” ; the Shaw of the Chinese papers said : “A good government is never popular with the people”. This led Lu Xun to say : “Shaw, in this instance, was not being satirical but a mirror”. He reflected the real facial expressions of the imperialists and their jackals.
An article produced during Shaw's visit to China that is worth paying attention to is his message to China and the Chinese people given through the Shi shi xin bao. [Siehe 1933 : Shaw, George Bernard. A message to the Chinese people].
These words of Shaw have the ring of absolute sincerity. Under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party and Chairman Mao [Zedong], the Chinese people are uniting together, and after escaping from national crisis and having driven away the Guomindang reactionary clique, we are actually in the process of adopting the beneficial aspects of modern 'civilization' and rejecting and weeding out the harmful aspects according to our own benefit, and building a socialist, industrialized New China.
In regard to many questions, Shaw is not only a satirist, but also a prophet. Regarding the Soviet Union, regarding, China, regarding others that have suffered or are suffering oppression, a great deal of what he said has proved perfectly correct.
The first introduction of Shaw to China was probably through Pan Jiaxun's Lou xiang (Mean alleys) which was Shaw's virgin effort, Widowers' Houses. It was easy for this play that exposed the cruelty of capitalist exploitation and took up the cudgels for the poor, to draw forth a sympathetic response from the Chinese people of that time, who were also in distressful circumstances. Pan Jiaxun followed up his first translation with Mrs. Warren's profession, and the following plays appeared translated by other people : The philanderer, Arms and the man, The devil's disciple, Candida, St. Joan, Back to Methuselah and Pygmalion. Of these plays, Mrs. Warren's profession, Arms and the man, and Pygmalion have been produced on the stage at different times in various places in China.
If Widowers' houses was influenced by Ibsen, Mrs. Warren's profession is an answer to Ibsen's Doll's house. Ibsen himself threw light on Nora's leaving through Madame Helseth's husband saying to her in The lady from the sea : “I admit you are absolutely free. You can choose for yourself, and you are responsible for yourself”. The result was that Madame Helseth did not leave her husband. But the economic rights of the wife were not yet settled, so Shaw suggests a different solution for Vivie, the new woman, in her determined and uncompromising struggle to leave her brothel-keeper mother and that rotten parasite who lived on the income derived from capital invested in houses of prostitution, Sir George Crofts ; and that was an independent existence working at a profession. This is a development on A doll's house and The lady from the sea, even though in capitalist society, the problem of the professional woman is not an easy one to solve.
Ibsen and Bernard Shaw have many similarities both in their persons and in their art. Their artistic creation swept away a great deal of the prevailing decadence in the European theatre and made dramatic literature a weapon for criticizing society and revealing human life, and turned the theatre into what Bernard Shaw called 'a factory of ideas'. They were heirs to the notable tradition of their own countries and the whole of Europe, and in their turn, have developed it and exercised a strong influence on those who followed them. They both have a serious, severe, unflinching attitude towards artistic creation. Ibsen, for instance, wrote six plays in the period from A doll's house to The lady from the sea on the same central problem, probing it to its depths and bringing it into relief. And Shaw also, in the long period of his creative life, never stopped searching for the truth, for the real qualities of society. He has said that each of his plays marked a development of his thought. Both of them were deeply patriotic, with a warm love for humanity, and very much concerned for the fate of the human species. Both gave their support to all movements with justice on their side, and were staunch, unbending guardians of democracy and pace, in their hatred of war and all its horrors. Where th truth was, there they were to be found, supporting it without fear or favour.
Their works are not only loved by the Chinese people but have had an actual influence on society. Their attitude in pursuit of truth and in upholding it will be forever an example to us. The more we study their works, the more we realize that we have not learnt enough from them, and that their plays should be more frequently staged. In order to establish Chinese realism on a firm basis, we should study their works, act them, and attend performances of their plays more industriously than ever.
On this day, when we are holding a festival in memory of these two great writers, we are full of boundless optimism in regard to the development of the progressive dramatic culture of the whole world. In the past, progressive drama has brought wisdom and courage to the whole of humanity, and educated it in its struggle for liberation. Treading in the footsteps of Ibsen and Shaw, it will in the future bring more wisdom, more courage, and more noble feelings to aid the people of the present day and the future to build an even better life in an even better world.

100jähriges Jubiläum zum Geburtstag von George Bernard Shaw in China.
The apple cart (act II), Mrs. Warren's profession (acts II-III) were performed by students from the Beijing Cinema Actors's Troupe and the Central Academy of Dramatic Art.
Wendi Chen : The cultural bureaucracy orchestrated a variety of activities : conferences, performances, special exhibitions and publication of his translated work. It was not so much Shaw the Western dramatist, but Shaw the socialist who was being feted. Shaw was conveniently employed by the Chinese cultural authorities to serve several related purposes : 1) to propagandize the superiority of socialism over capitalism during the Cold War ; 2) to promote the Hundred flower campaign ; 3) to provide an example for Chinese writers with bourgeois backgrounds ; 4) to assist Chinese cultural authorities in creating a favorable international image of China by extending China's literary repertoire beyond Soviet literature.
The major official event took place on the evening of 26 July 1956 in the ballroom at the Beijing Hotel, where more than one thousand people assembled for official speeches and performances. Many distinguished political leaders, as well as writers, artists, and foreign diplomats, were present.
Other activities included a conference sponsored by the Beijing Library and the Beijing Working People's Cultural Palace. The Beijing Library also staged a special exhibition, displaying photos, books, and essays written by and about Shaw and Ibsen. A number of literary magazines, journals and newspapers published essays on Shaw and his works.
In Shanghai, Tianjin and Shenyang similar activities took place.
Guest speakers were Lennox Robinson, director of the Irish National Theatre, Rubeigh James Minney, British author and Gerda Ring, director of the National Theatre Oslo. The group included the Chinese writers Mao Dun, Chen Zhenduo, Tian Han, Xia Yan, Ouyang Yuqian and Mei Lanfang.

After the celebrations, the Chinese People's Association for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries prepared items for sale, as advertised in the Shavian : Selected works of George Bernard Shaw in Chinese translation (Mrs. Warren's profession, The apple cart, Major Barbara) ; Program of the 1956 commemoration of ibsen and Shaw in Chinese, English and Russian, including the speeches by Lennox Robinson and Rubeigh J. Minney ; Postcards commemorating world cultural figures, including Shaw, Mozart, Ibsen, Franklin.

Rubeigh J. Minney : The scene from The apple cart in which the American ambassador tells King Magnus of England, that his country wished to return to the English fold. The thought delighted them. The play had not yet been translated into Chinese, but although they had less than a week for making the translation and for rehearsals, it was adopted and the members of the Peking Cinema Actors Troupe were word perfect on the night of the performance.
The preparation of these scenes involved us in many discussions. As early as eight o'clock in the morning our rooms were invaded by actors, actresses or producers. We were asked innumerable questions about the meaning of words, the sort of action most suited to the characters, the subtlety of Western gestures, and so on. They took infinite pains. They were striving for perfection, and for the most part they attained it.
The Chinese girl who played the Queen was young and pretty and in her Western clothes and make-up could have passed for English. Her role did not demand much of her ; in that scene she had just to sit and listen, but she used her feather fan most expressively, opening it and shutting it to indicate her reactions to what was being said by the King and the Ambassador.
[The Chinese's acquaintance with Shaw's plays] was confined almost entirely to Mrs. Warren's profession. We tried to veer them off this. I said : "There are a great many other plays which you ought to look at – if you have Chinese translations of them. Mrs. Warren's profession is about a woman who owned a number of brothels. You have, we understand, abolished all brothels. That is a closed chapter now in the life of the people of China." But, no matter what arguments we advanced, back they came to Mrs. Warren. We learned at last that their attachments to this play was because of the struggle in it of Mrs. Warren's daughter Vivie to win her freedom from social and domestic domination. This play was being acted by various groups of amateurs and others all over China and it had accordingly the advantage that the artists already knew it.

Mao, Dun. "Opening speech". In : Xin hua she xin wen gao ; no 2243 (July 1956). [Zum 100jähriges Jubiläum zum Geburtstag von George Bernard Shaw in China].
Mao Dun delivered the opening address. He praised Shaw's plays and emphasized Shaw's personal contacts with China.
"Shaw expressed his sympathy toward socialist countries many times. All his life he supported peace and democracy most vehemently. In His satirical comedies, he employs satire to expose and ridicule warmongers and arms manufacturers. He attacks the aggressive policies of the imperialists against oppressed people. In his plays, he repeatedly protests against the aggression of the colonialists, and shows great sympathy toward the people in their fight for freedom and independence."
"The Chinese people deeply love Shaw's comedies, so full of intelligent political discussion and bitter satire. During his lifetime this playwright also had some personal contact with the Chinese people".

Yang, Xianyi. Xiao Bona : zhi can jie ji de jie pu jia. In : Ren min ri bao (26 July 1956). [Shaw – dissector of boureois society].
Wendi Chen : Yang hailed Shaw as a "dissector of bourgeois society" who "relentlessly tore off the masks of bourgeois gentlemen and ridiculed bourgeois society". Yang admiringly commented on Shaw's superb performance : "As composed and unmoved as a surgeon, Shaw performed an autopsy on the corpse of bourgeois society". Yang then proceeded to catalogue Shaw's individual surgical cases. Widowers' houses, according to Yang, "ruthlessly exposes the rotten corruption of a capitalist Society" ; Mrs. Warren's profession "even more boldly exposes the shameless degradation caused by the oppression of the capitalist system" ; Major Barbara reveals how "capitalism reduces human relationships to mere monetary ones" ; "Heartbreak House symbolizes the whole of bourgeois society", which finally "gets blown up" ; "On the rocks depicts the unemployed workers' struggle to overthrow the government".