“Two Chinese adaptations of Eugene O'Neill's 'The emperor Jones'” (Publication, 1966)
Year
1966
Text
Chen, David Y. Two Chinese adaptations of Eugene O'Neill's 'The emperor Jones'. In : Modern drama ; Vol. 9, no 1 (1966). (One45)
Type
Publication
Mentioned People (3)
Cao, Yu
(Tianjin 1910-1996 Beijing) : Dramatiker, Schriftsteller
Hong, Shen
(Wujin, Jiangsu 1894-1955 Beijing) : Dramatiker
O'Neill, Eugene
(New York, N.Y. 1888-1953 Kap Cod bei Boston) : Dramatiker, Nobelpreisträger
Subjects
Literature : Occident : United States of America
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References / Sources
Chronology Entries (2)
| # | Year | Text | Linked Data |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1923 |
Hong, Shen. Yama Chao = Zhao Yanwang. In : Dong fang za zhi ; vol. 20, no 1-2 (1923). = In : Hong Shen xi qu ji. (Shanghai : Xian dai shu ju, 1933). [Geschrieben 1922]. Performance of The Yama Chao = Zhao Yanwang by Hong Shen. Adaptation of The emperor Jones by Eugene O'Neill. Hong Shen played the main role. In the newspaper 'Ching bao' reported that the performance was a failure because the audience couldn't understand it and even regarded the actor as a maniac. Hong Shen : "Zhao Yanwang is intended to show that society should be held responsible for the sins of the individual. No one in the world is born morally good or bad. Both the good and the bad are products of their environment. Nor is there anyone who is perfectly good or absolutely bad, for human behavior is rather complicates. But why is Zhao like this ? If we can study his life story and the stories of people like him, we will find they might all have suffered seriously from maltreatment and unhappy experiences, especially when they were too young to resist." "The first scene is somewhat splendid – the language, in particular, is condensed and the dialogues are full of vitality. From the second scene on, he borrows the background and facts from Eugene O'Neill's The emperor Jones, such as circling in the forest, becoming delirious and seeing hallucinations and being chased with people beating the drums, and so on. Apart from the meaning of its subject matter, nothing else in the play is worthy of mention" Cheng Fu-tsai : Although Hong Shen is fiercely attacked for his imitation of O'Neill's play, his adaptation is undoubtedly a creation of his own rather than a mere mimicry of the American prototype. He has not just incorporated the expressionistic devices into his own play, but has striven to make the play represent and reflect the social and political situation of China in the 1920s. His attempt at externalizing the psychological fear of an escaped convict in modern Chinese drama is unmatched. Thus, the creation of The Yama Chao has achieved a certain degree of success in early modern Chinese drama. From one of Hong Shen's admissions it ensues that for eight scenes of the drama he utilized the 'background and the facts' from The emperor Jones by Eugene O'Neill, and only the first scene, according to him, 'is essential, its style is cohesive and selective, the dialogue is impressive', hence, only this part of the drama is really original. The Yama Chao borrowed from its American prototype the theme of money, the division of scenes, the use of soliloquies and the psychological treatment of hallucinations in a forest setting. Act three is an adaptation of the forest scenes from The emperor Jones. The Yama Chao follows in scene division, motif, and technical devices. Hong Shen found O'Neill's symbolic treatment of social and individual ills in The emperor Jones congenial to his own purpose of staging social reform : the predominantly male cast in O'Neill's play attracted Hong Shen. Hong, Shen : "I am extremely disgusted at the male's impersonating female characters. It is perhaps because I have read too much of Freud's works on abnormal sexuality. Every time I see a man putting on the make-up of a woman, I really feel like having goose-pimples all over me. But I still want to stage a play, and consequently the only thing I can do is to write a play which does not require female characters at all. This is one of the reasons why I made up my mind to borrow the form of Eugene O'Neill's The emperor Jones when the subject-matter of The Yama Chao was decided upon". [In : Zhongguo hua ju yun dong wu shi nian shi liao ji. Tian Han [et al.] zhu. (Beijing : Zhongguo xi ju chu ban she, 1958). 中国话剧运动五十年史料集]. |
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| 2 | 1934-1937 |
Cao, Yu. Lei yu = Thunderstorm. In : Wen xue ji kan ; vol. 1, no 3 (1934). = (Shanghai : Wen hua sheng huo chu ban she, 1936). (Wen xue cong kan ; 1). [Uraufführung in Nanjing 1936]. 雷雨 Cao Yu writes in the preface to Tunderstorm : "Critics have regarded me as a disciple of Ibsen, or conjectured that certain parts of the play are inspired by Euripides' 'Hippolytus' or Racine's 'Phedre'. I am still myself, be so small as I am. I cannot fathom the profundity of the masters, just as the beetle in the dark wonders about the brightness of the day. Over the past decade I have read several plays and have performed in them. However hard I try, I still wonder which part of the play I have deliberately imitated. Perhaps at the lower stratum of my subconsciousness, I have deluded myself : I am an ungrateful servant. I have stolen thread by thread the golden yarn of my master's house, and woven my ugly garment out of the stolen threads and deny the discolored threads (now in my hands) remain the master's." Cao, Yu. Ri chu = The sunrise. (Shanghai : Wen hua sheng huo chu ban she, 1936). 日出 Cao Yu writes in the postscript to The sunrise : "It is a novel attempt, which I have seen in O'Neill's plays and I know it has been successful." Cao, Yu. Yuan ye. = The wilderness. (Shanghai : Wen hua sheng huo chu ban she, 1937). 原野 Cao Yu writes in the postscript to The wilderness : "I had trouble writing the third act. I have adoped two techniques that O'Neill uses in The emperor Jones – the drums and the gunshots in two of my scenes. At first I didn't think he exerted any influence on me, but after I finished writing and read it twice, I felt I was unconsciously influenced by him. The two techniques, to be sure, belong to O'Neill, and if they are aptly used, they are created out of O'Neill's ingenuity, not mine." Sekundärliteratur Cheng Fu-tsai : Cao Yu is fascinated with Greek drama, Aeschylus and Euripides. Several of Shakespeare's plays have influenced him considerably while in college and he was influenced by Eugene O'Neill. Cao Yu's plays, especially The wilderness and Thunderstorm bear a striking resemblance to O'Neill's plays in many aspects. Both of them, for example, employ the expressionistic technical devices to enhance the dramatic effect on the stage. There are also similarities in characterization, the connection between the individual and the race or society and the use of symbols. One remarkable similarity is the treatment of the conflicts of the inner world. In The wilderness Cao Yu adapts O'Neill's The emperor Jones to a Chinese background. Cao Yu does not merely borrow the structure, theme and expressionistic devices from The emperor Jones. He has successfully blended the expressionism of O'Neill with his own realistic portrayal of Chou Hu's regression into a delirious state. Liu Haiping : All these plays are indebted in different degrees to O'Neill in terms of characterization and stagecraft. We find striking parallels between Abbie in Desire under the elms and Fan Yi, the heroine in Thunderstorm, who is also a stepmother with an incestuous longing for her stepson. Robert in Beyond the horizon parallels Zhou Chong in Thunderstorm, also a younger brother with a touch of the poet and a longing for beauty beyond the horizon. Anna in Anna Christie and Chen Bailu, the heroine in Sunrise are both prostitutes hurled into intense suffering by the evil forces of life. Like O'Neill, Cao Yu uses the hallucinatory scenes not only to externalize the haunting memories of the character and explain the source of his tragedy, but also to present a brief, panoramic review of the nation's past. Joseph S.M. Lau : The wilderness resembles the American prototype in 'its bold and inventive use of grotesque images, disconnected plots, contrived symbolism, and deliberate pauses between the already sparse dialogues to create tension'. Chen David Y. : Wilderness adopts the form and technique from its prototypes with so much flexibility that it works out a pattern of its own. Wilderness seems to follow The emperor Jones in the artistic pursuit, lending itself to the expressionistic treatment of emotion through advanced stagecraft and extensive use of symbolism. Horst Frenz : The main character Zhou Fanyi in Thunderstorm is modeled upon Abbie Putnam in Desire under the elms. Like Abbie, Fanyi longs for her stepson. Their incestuous passion becomes a most eloquent and powerful expression of their defiance of traditional morals. |
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Cited by (1)
| # | Year | Bibliographical Data | Type / Abbreviation | Linked Data |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Zentralbibliothek Zürich | Organisation / ZB |
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