China and the West

William A. Joseph ist Secretary-Treasurer der New England Conference der Association for Asian Studies.

William A. Joseph ist Mitglied des Board of Trustees des Boston-Hangzhou Sister City Program.

Stephen H. West ist Vorsteher des Department of East Asian Languages der University of California, Berkeley.

Stephen H. West ist Vizedirektor des Berkeley East Asia National Resource Center.

Stephen H. West ist Mitglied des Board of Directors des Inter-University Program in Chinese Studies.

Stephen H. West ist Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures der University of California, Berkeley.

Stephen H. West ist Mitglied des Board of Directors des Stanford Inter-University Program in Chinese Studies.

D.C. Lau ist Mitglied des Board of Trustees und ab 1989 Senior College Tutor des Shaw College der Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Marco Francisci di Baschi ist Präsident der Associazione Italia-Cina.

Federico Masini erhält das Laurea in filosofia der Università degli studi di Roma "La Sapienza".

Lionello Lanciotti ist Vizepräsident der European Association for Chinese Studies.

William Shakespeare Festival in Shanghai und Beijing.
Li Ruru : For the first time in China, Shakespearean scholars, traditional operatic performers, orchestras, experts on foreign literature, and audiences of local operas were brought together in the theatre. The festival provided a forum for discussing not only the plays and their performances, but also the wider issues involved in bringing together Chinese and Western cultures. The four operatic productions of Shakespeare staged in Shanghai can be classified roughly into three types : those which emphasize the 'foreignness' of the plays, those which fully sinicize the plays, and those which synthesize Chinese and Western elements both textualy and theatrically. The audiences who attended the plays can also be divided roughly into two groups. On the one hand are those who think that this new approach to an old form is very interesting and compelling. Others feel that it is strange and awkward, lacking both the spirit and poetry of Shakespeare and the conventions and beauty of traditional Chinese theatre.
Traditional Chinese theatre's relationship with its audience coincides closely with Shakespeare's, because in both cases the prime consideration was to entertain the audience and cause playgoers to accept and 'enter into' what they were watching on the stage. It should also be pointed out that both Shakespeare's plays and traditional Chinese operas were originally performed in front of audiences made up not only of ranking officials and nobility who had fastidious tastes but of illiterate common people as well. All this constitutes another link between Shakespeare and traditional Chinese theatre.
Shakespeare's plays and traditional Chinese theatre nevertheless represent two disinct cultures. Despite the similarities, there are major differences. At a lively forum concerning their productions, the directors of four operas unanimously described their creative process as one of violent and painful collision. Whether between Shakespeare and 'kun qu' or 'yue ju' or 'huang mei xi', there are clashes and conflicts which inevitably have and impact on operatic traditions, and consequently lead to change and innovation in traditional Chinese theatre art.
Shakespeare has singing-and-dance scenes, and his language conforms to its own rhyme schemes, but these are different from Chinese stylized song, dance, and rhyme conventions. In the process of rehearsals and production, operatic conventions have been developed and changed, absorbing many realistic movements and gestures, which together with stagecraft, lighting, musical accompaniment, and costuming go beyond the traditional operatic framework. As a result, the performing techniques and skills of the opera have been greatly enriched, and this is one major achievement of the operatic adaptations of these Shakespearean plays.

Vortrag von Ding Tao an einer Konferenz der Central Dama Academy wärend des Chinese Shakespeare Festival in Beijing.
His topic was the staging of Shakespeare's plays from the standpoint of the modern age, with emphasis on the significance of Shakespeare's humanism for contemporary China. He maintained that Shakespeare's plays showed us how people were released from the ideological shackles of the Middle Ages and that the Chinese also faced an arduous task to emancipate themselves from outmoded spiritual fetters and to vindicate human rights and dignity. Thus he believed that to present Shakespeare's plays was, in a sense, to present modern-day China.

Besuch von Hu Yaobang als erster chinesischer Politiker von Stratford-upon-Avon, dem Geburtsort von William Shakespeare.

Interview von Zhang Siyang über William Shakespeare mit Mr. Tong der Zhong yang xi ju xue yuan (Central Drama Academy), Beijing.
When Professor Zhang Siyang asked Tong, whether the local residents of Liangshan had any difficulty in understanding Shakespeare's plays.
Tong said : "Not at all! When the play was performed, many of the audience were poorly educated and even illiterate farmers. But it seemed that all of them understood the production very well. After the performance some young men told me that the exotic atmosphere of the play struck them as new. Yet they liked it very much. There were no strange customs or moral doctrines in the play, so they were able to identify with the characters. For them, Shakespeare's plays sometimes were even easier to understand than traditional Chinese drama. For example, a young man told me that when he saw the famous classical Chinese tragedy The Injustice to Don E, he could not understand why Dou E had to be loyal to her dead husband and not remarry although she was only seventeen years old."

Rede von Huang Zuolin am Seminar of China's Inaugural Shakespeare Festival.
Er sagt : "Our conventional theater has already lost more and more audiences. If we use our drama to perform Shakespeare's plays, the production might be 'neither fish nor fowl', which would make the situation of our conventional theater even worse and damage the intact theatrical tradition. We can find a lot of common characteristics in Shakespeare's drama and traditional Chinese drama. We can also see some strong points in each which the two types of drama may learn from each other. There is no doubt that we shall make more contributions to the theatrical circles of the world if we perform Shakespeare's plays by using some stage techniques of traditional Chinese drama when we introduce the works of this great dramatic poet to Chinese audiences. And in the meantime we can make our brilliant theatrical tradition and consummate stage techniques known to countries all over the world."

Yi Kai, ein Theaterkritiker schreibt über die Aufführungen von William Shakespeare : "Since the opening up of our closed social and economic structure, our national spirit has chenged from static to fluid, people’s aesthetic concerns and theatre-going habits changed from the collective to the individualized. A profound, all-around reform has been going on slowly but surely within the traditional Chinese theatre circles. It is no coincidence that traditional Chinese theatre productions of Shakespeare have come along."

Zhang Anjian schreibt über das Inaugural Chinese Shakespeare Festival : "It is indeed a new theatrical exploration to adapt Shakespeare's plays into traditional Chinese drama .... As is known to all, Shakespearean drama is a bright pearl of Western culture and traditional Chinese drama is a treasure of Eastern art. If we mix them together, it will not only make Shakespeare known to more Chinese audiences but also cause traditional Chinese drama to exert a widespread influence upon the theatrical circles of the world. Thus it is really a matter of great importance.

Aufführung von All's well that ends well von William Shakespeare in der Übersetzung von Zhu Shenghao durch das Xi’an hua ju yuan (Xi’an Spoken Drama Theatre) unter der Regie von Yang Huizhen.

Aufführung von Titus Andronicus von William Shakespeare in der Übersetzung von Zhu Shenghao durch die Shanghai xi ju yue yuan (Shanghai Theatre Academy) unter der Regie von Xu Qiping.