“Occidentalism : a theory of counter-discourse in post-Mao China” (Publication, 1995)
Year
1995
Text
Chen, Xiaomei. Occidentalism : a theory of counter-discourse in post-Mao China. (New York, N.Y. : Oxford University Press, 1995). [2nd rev. and expanded ed. (Lanham, Md. : Rowman and Littlefield, 2002)]. (CheX5)
Type
Publication
Contributors (1)
Chen, Xiaomei
(China 1954-) : Professor of Comparative Literature, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, University of California, Davis
Mentioned People (7)
Brecht, Bertolt
(Augsburg 1898-1956 Berlin) : Schriftsteller, Dramatiker, Regisseur
Gao, Xingjian
(Ganzhou, Jiangxi 1940-) : Schriftsteller, Dramatiker, Künstler
Huang, Zuolin
(Tianjin 1906-1994 Shanghai) : Dramaturg, Regisseur
Ibsen, Henrik
(Skien 1828-1896 Kristiania = Oslo) : Dramatiker, Dichter
Mei, Lanfang
(1894-1961) : Schauspieler
Shakespeare, William
(Stratford-upon-Avon 1564-1616 Stratford-upon-Avon) : Dramatiker, Dichter
Wilder, Thornton
(Madison, Wisc. 1897-1975 Hamden, Conn.) : Schriftsteller, Dramatiker
Subjects
Literature : China - Occident
/
Literature : China : Drama and Theatre : General
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Literature : Occident : Theatre general
/
References / Sources
/
Sinology and Asian Studies : China
/
Sinology and Asian Studies : United States of America
Chronology Entries (4)
| # | Year | Text | Linked Data |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1930 |
Stark Young watched Mei Lanfang's performance in New York. Mei Shaowu : Stark Young was so impressed by Mei Lanfang's acting that he called on Mei in person in New York and told him that in seeing the performance style of Chinese opera, it 'suddenly dawned on him that he had found the key to the solution of some problems in his theatrical studies'. (Mei, Shaowu. Mei Lanfang as seen by his foreign audiences and critics. In : Peking opera and Mei Lanfang. Wu Zuguang, Huang Zuolin, and Mei Shaowu. (Beijing : New World Press, 1981). Chen Xiaomei : Young's view of the Beijing opera provides a striking example. Young suggested, that Mei Lanfang's art is essentially realist. He was astonished at "the precision of ist realistic notations and renderings". I twas for him a kind of ralism that amounts to "an essential quality in some emotion, the presentation of that truth which confirms and enlarges our sense of reality". |
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| 2 | 1938 |
Wilder, Thornton. Our town : a play in three acts. (New York, N.Y. : Harper & Row, 1938). [Uraufführung McCarter Theater, Princeton, New Jersey, January 22, 1938]. Wilder, Thornton. A preface for Our town. (1938). In : Wilder, Thornton. American characteristics and other essays [ID D30361]. [Not published]. In the Spanish theater Lope de Vega put a rug in the middle of the scene – it was a raft in mid-ocean bearing a castaway. The Elizabethans, the Chinese used similar devices. Sekundärliteratur Y.T. Luk : Wilder uses no front curtain, no scenery, and no properties, except a few chairs and ladders ; he has a Stage Manager come out to chat with the audience and point out what they are to imagine on the stage, to move chairs, and occasionally to become a character of the performance – the soda fountain clerk as well as the minister of wedding. He learned this theatricalist mode from Peking opera, with which he was quite familiar. From the non-illusionist approach in Chinese theatre, Wilder recognized that even the important events of everyday life can be presented by actors on an open platform, reacting not to a realistic setting but to the private thoughts and personal relations of the characters in the fictive world on that platform. From this Chinese make-believe on the stage, he realized the fundamental conditions of drama – that is, that the theatre is an art which reposes upon the work of many collaborators ; it is addressed to a group mind based on a pretense, its very nature calls out a multiplication of pretenses, and its action takes place in a perpetually present time. The conventionalized performance of Chinese acting, in spite of its blatant theatricality, convinced him that convention was very important in the interaction between actors and the audience, that it was an agreed-upon falsehood, a permitted lie to provoke collaborative activity of the spectator's imagination and raise the action from the specific to the general. Chen Xiaoming : Like Gao Xingjian's Wildman, a Chinese play, Wilder's Our town, an 'Oriental' play, achieves an epic dimension by showing, in the first act, a flashback scene in the past - 'a day in our town', May 7, 1901 – an ordinary day that everyone of us lives. Both plays share the same timeless, episodic structure that presents a macrocosmic view of life. Both plays constantly employ the present time of the play to symbolize a larger temporal view of past, present, and future. Both plays are about much more than simply Emily and George, or an ecologist and a Wildman. Both are in some sense stories of mankind, of its historical past and contemporary reality, its struggle against time and its efforts to preserve natural life and cultural heritage. Both plays are narrated by insightful observers – the Stage Manager and the Ecologist – who convey to the audience their apprehensions over the meaning of life and their nostalgic feelings for an irreversible past. Haberman, Donald C. The plays of Thornton Wilder : a critical study. (Middletown, Conn. : Wesleyan University Press, 1969). Haberman claims that Wilder demanded from the actors of Our town that 'they attempt something like Mei Lanfang's expression of a reality above the casual and a permanence beyond the brevity of each performance. Lee Sang-kyong : Wilder verzichtet bewusst auf Kulisse und grosse Requisiten, um das Drama von seinem Illusionscharacter zu befreien und der Einbildungskraft des Zuschauers freien Spielraum zu lass. So genügten ihm, entsprechend der Nô-Bühne und der Bühne des chinesischen Theaters, einige Stühle und Tische als Bühnenrequisiten, um das Wesentliche der Realität darzustellen. Lifton, Paul. Thornton Wilder's minimalist plays : mingling Eastern and Western traditions. In : Crosscurrents in the drama : East and West. Ed., Stanley Vincent Longman. (Tuscaloosa, AL : Southeastern Theatre Conference and the University of Alabama Press, 1998). (Theatre symposium (Tuscaloosa, Ala.) ; vol. 6, 1998). http://books.google.ch/books?id=UT8yEd2CVssC&pg=PA76&lpg=PA76&dq=thornton+wilder +chinese&source=bl&ots=oZwJuSBxi&sig=rK6z_WTq8khEVMZPfh9F49U8zgM&hl=de&sa= X&ei=jMgRUrqOCImIhQfYroCQDQ&ved=0CFUQ6AEwBTgU#v=onepage&q=thornton%20 wilder%20chinese&f=false. Paul Lifton : While he was working on Our town, Thornton Wilder describes the play in a 1937 postcard to a friend as utilizing 'the technique of Chinese drama', and the 'Chinese' features of the piece did not escape the the notice of reviewers of the original production. Several of them compared it to The yellow jacket. Many other critics also identified the Stage Manager as a variant of the Chinese property man and other features of the pantomime, as 'Chinese' or quasi-Chinese as well. Wilder's interest in pantomime was apparently sparked by a performance by Mei Lanfang. Several of Wilder's shorter play in the minimalist vein also reflect Mei Lanfang's influence and exhibit parallels, too, with other Asian traditional theatres besides the Chinese. On the other hand, he appears to have been uninterested in or unaware of many nonminimalist aspects of Asian theatre. His borrowing was always highly selective. Certainly the lavish, symbolic, and highly theatrical costumes and makeup or masks, the extraordinary and specialized vocal techniques, the exaggerated or symbolic gestures, and the acrobatic or the unnaturally restrained movements of the nô, kabuki, and Chinese opera find no counterparts in his dramatic universe. |
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| 3 | 1982 |
Fang, Ping. Huan ying ni, Li'erwang [ID D24027]. Er schreibt : "The play teaches us a lesson about political struggle, in which we must learn how to differentiate friends from enemies, or how to differentiate the flattering, hypocritical Goneril and Regan from the honest and filial Cordelia. The play bridges the historical and cultural distance between an Occidental past and a Chinese present through a vivid characterization of King Lear as 'the highest ruler of a monarchy', who creates a chaotic world in which the loyal are punished and the treacherous are rewardes. Although our concept of love is different from that of the Renaissance humanist, we nevertheless need the same kind of beautiful soul, which is full of noble love, not just for our relatives and families, but also for our comrades, our motherland, and our glorious party. We should live as a poet, who loves everything that is beautiful." |
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| 4 | 1987 |
Aufführung von Xiao zhen feng qing = Our town von Thornton Wilder durch das Beijing Experimental Theater unter der Regie von Lois Wheeler Snow. Chen Xiaomei : Only a stage photo of Emily and George's wedding with a brief description of the play was printed in Xi ju bao : "This play describes the ordinary daily events – through which one experiences the boundless universe – in a small town in America at the turn of the century." Our town arrived at the wrong time in the wrong place, when things 'Chinese' had been overtaken by numerous things 'Western'. |
Sources (1)
| # | Year | Bibliographical Data | Type / Abbreviation | Linked Data |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1982 | Fang, Ping. Huan ying ni, Li'erwang. In : Shanghai xi ju ; no 5 (1982). [Welcome you, King Lear]. | Publication / Shak359 |
Cited by (1)
| # | Year | Bibliographical Data | Type / Abbreviation | Linked Data |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2007- | Worldcat/OCLC | Web / WC |
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