“Eugene O'Neill in China : an international centenary celebration” (Publication, 1992)
Year
1992
Text
Eugene O'Neill in China : an international centenary celebration. Ed. by Haiping Liu and Lowell Swortzell. (New York, N.Y. : Greenwood Press, 1992). (Contributions in drama and theatre studies ; no 44). (One56)
Type
Publication
Contributors (2)
Liu, Haiping
(1944-) : Professor and Chair of English, Nanjing-Universität
Swortzell, Lowell
(1930-2004) : Steinhardt's Department of Music and Performing Arts Professions
Mentioned People (1)
O'Neill, Eugene
(New York, N.Y. 1888-1953 Kap Cod bei Boston) : Dramatiker, Nobelpreisträger
Subjects
Literature : Occident : United States of America
/
References / Sources
Chronology Entries (11)
| # | Year | Text | Linked Data |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1903-1953 |
Eugene O'Neill allgemein. The Eugene and Carlotta O'Neill Library. Special Collections. C.W. Post Campus / Long Island University, Brookville, New York http://www2.liu.edu/cwis/cwp/library/sc/oneill/holdings.htm. Ackerman, Phyllis. Ritual bronzes of ancient China [ID D28786]. [Signed Carlotta Monterey O'Neill, 28.12.1945 New York]. Binyon, Laurence. The flight of the dragon [ID D28761]. [Signed Eugene O'Neill]. Bland, John Otway Percy ; Backhouse, E. China under the empress Dowager [ID D2870]. Boerschmann, Ernst. Picturesque China [ID D446]. Brinkley, Frank. Japan and China [ID D28783]. Chuang Tzu : mystic, moralist, and social reformer. Translated from the Chinese by Herbert A. Giles [ID D7731]. Creel, Herrlee Glessner. The birth of China [ID D9969]. Crosby, Oscar Terry. Tibet and Turkestan [ID D2766]. [Signed Carlotta Monerey, 1927]. Fung, Yu-lan [Feng Youlan]. A history of Chinese philosophy [ID D10069]. [Signed by Carlotta Monterey O'Neill, Boston Dec. 2 1952]. Douglas, Robert K. China [ID D2443]. Grantham, A[lexandra] E[thelred]. Hills of blue [ID D28779]. Hill, A.P. Broken China [ID D28792]. [Signed Eugene O'Neill & Carlotta Monterey, Shanghai 1928]. Hobson, Robert Lockhart. Chinese art [ID D28784]. Hsiung, Shih-i [Xiong Shiyi]. Wang Pao-chuan : Lady precious stream [ID D28788]. Lao-tzu. Tao-tê-ching : Lao-tzu's tao and wu wei. Transl. by Dwight Goddard [ID D28778]. Johnson, Reginald Fleming. Twilight in the forbidden city [ID D3330]. Li, Po. The works of Li Po, the Chinese poet, done into English verse by Shigeyoshi Obata [ID D13279]. Lin, Yutang. The importance of living [ID D14759]. [Mr. & Mrs. Eugene O'Neill – compliments & warmest regards from Ling Yutang, Nov. 25, 1937]. Lin, Yutang. My country and my people [ID D13801]. Mowrer, Edgar Ansel. Mowrer in China [ID D8748]. [To Mr. & Mrs. Eugene O'Neill, this slight testimony of a great admiration. Edgar A. Mowrer]. Norton, Henry Kittredge. China and the powers [ID D28455]. [Signed Carlotta Montery, April 27 1927]. Nott, Stanley Charles. Chinese jade throughout the ages [ID D28785]. [[Inscribed : To Carlotta - with all my love ! Gene, Lafayette July 37]. Payne, Pierre Stephen Robert. Forever China [ID D28781]. [Signed Carlotta Monerey O'Neill, New York Febr. 19th]. Reid, John Gilbert. The Manchu abdication and the powers, 1908-1912 [ID D28780]. The sacred books of China : the texts of Taoism. Transl. by James Legge [ID D2559]. Sherap, Paul. . Tibetan on Tibet [ID D28782]. [Signed Carlotta Monterey, 1927]. Smith, Arthur Henderson. Chinese caracteristics [ID D2512]. [Signed Carlotta Monterey, Oct. 1st 1921]. Sze, Mai-mai. Silent children : a novel. (New York, N.Y. : Harcourt, Brace, 1948). [Inscribed by the author : from Mai-mai, New York, March 3, 1948]. Werner, E.T.C. Myths and legend of China [ID D27281]. The wisdom of China and India. Ed. by Lin Yutang [ID D28787]. [Zhao, Ziyong]. Cantonese love-songs. Transl. by Cecil Clamenti [ID D28790]. [Signed Eugene O'Neill]. Sekundärliteratur 1982 / 1992 James A. Robinson : Any treatment of O'Neill's relationship to Oriental mysticism must begin with the catholic faith in which he was raised and confirmed. His indoctrination as a boy in the dominant religion in the Western world inadvertently prepared his for his interest as a man in Oriental mystical faiths. In the sacred texts of Taoism, O'Neill not only found confirmation of his own mystical intuition that a dynamic universal force (Tao by Laozi) united man and the universe but also discovered an encouraging variant of his own dualistic tragic vision as well. 1988 / 1992 Liu Haiping : 1949-1979, O'Neill's works were little read and there were no performances or new translations of any of his plays. O'Neill's name was almost forgotten in China. To Chinese scholars and critics, O'Neill represented an unexplored mystery ; his life and career, as well as his individual plays, all crammed and crowded with drama, seemed inexhaustible subjects for interpretation and reinterpretation. The knowledge that O'Neill attached great interest to Chinese history and culture and that Orientalism, especially Taoism, formed a distinctive aspect of his art further endeared him to Chinese readers and critics. As a result, the 1980s saw no fewer than one hundred-and fifty articles on O'Neill and his plays carried in various kinds of literary and theatre magazines. 1992 Virginia Floyd : The most significant single factor in O'Neill's early life, in that it affected his development personally and dramaturgically, was his rejection at age fifteen of Catholicism. His natural mystical nature was nurtured in later years by his selective reading of and developing understanding of Taoism. In the period when O'Neill sought a replacement for his lost faith, he turned to and found a meaning for existence in Laozi. The Chinese mystic continued to influence the author in the early 1920s, while he was recording notes for plays made prior to the period of his early research in 1925 for the projected work on Shi Huangdi. Recording new information on Taoism, O'Neill became fascinated by the female and male forces, the 'yin' and 'yang' principles, as they related to Taoism and by the way Laozi 'fused mysticism and pragmatism into a philosophy' through 'which he believed all men could discover their lives to be peaceful, useful and happy'. Although O'Neill never completed a scenario for 'Shi Huangdi', he continued his exploration of Taoism, working sporadically on this material from 1925 to 1934. 1992 Long Wenpei : I. The period between the 1920s and 1940s witnessed the first crest of popular interest in O'Neill in China. Among the plays translated and published, some fifty critical essays written about O'Neill appeared in Chinese newspapers and periodicals. Several critics looked upon him as 'a poet, an observer of human nature', who 'inspires man in his striving upward and to seek light even in crimes and insults'. Other critics observed that his plays were different from those written by Ibsen and Shaw, who portrayed their characters in terms of social relationships while O'Neill depicted his as isolated entities. Still others regarded O'Neill as 'an important promoter' in the history of American drama, who 'has smashed many of the set rules of the stage, but never violated the fundamental principles of drama. II. The second period, the 1950s through the mid-1970s, saw O'Neill's popularity in temporary suspension in China. Because of the international political situation in the 1950s, the channels of cultural exchange between China and the West narrowed, and criticism of Western literature became biased. All contemporary Western writers whose works were not obviously directed against capitalism were largely ignored. O'Neill's plays were laid aside and neglected. None of his later plays were translated, nor were his critical essays published, to say nothing of producing his plays on the Chinese stage. III. The third period, the late 1970s to the present, constitutes the second crest of O'Neill's popularity in China. During this period great changes took place in our objective and subjective worlds. The policy of openness and reform adopted by the Chinese government since 1979 has put an end to the period of a closed society and ushered in a new stage. Since then, China has been a scene of bustling activity in literary and art circles. With the improvement in Sino-American relations, cultural exchanges between the two countries, after more than twenty years of stagnation, have been revived. O'Neill fans once again have access to most of his plays and to research literature by scholars from various parts of the world. Riding the waves of this Sino-American rapprochement are a great number of Chinese artists and scholars who have either visited America or taken part in O'Neill conferences and symposiums. American experts and scholars also have visited China. O'Neill has been included in the curricula of Chinese universities. Wherever there is a course in American literature, there is a chapter for O'Neill ; and some universities offer 'O'Neill and contemporary American drama' as an elective course. 1994 Lee Sang-kyong : At the beginning of the 20th century a number of intellectuals of the Western world discovered the spiritual world of the East. They started to look for spiritual regeneration in the mysticism of Buddhism, Hinduism and Taoism. O'Neill was no exception. Even in his youth he felt quite attracted by this spiritual direction and under the influence of theosophy he turned more and more towards Eastern mysticism. He became increasingly interested in philosophers and poets who had been inspired by the Eastern ideas and literature such as Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Jung, Emerson, Strindberg, Yeats, Maeterlink, and Lafcadio Hearn. To deepen his knowledge in Eastern religions he began in the twenties to read books like 'Buddha and the gospel of buddhism' by Ananda K. Coomaraswany (London 1916), 'Six systems of Indian philosophy' by Max Müller (London 1919), and 'The texts of taoism' by James Legge. His deep interest is reflected in the content and form of his plays of the twenties, such as 'The fountain', 'Marco millions', 'The great god Brown', 'Lazarus laughed', and others. O'Neill's popularity in the Orient was probably due to the fact that structure and content of his dramas were strongly by Taoist spiritualism. The Orientals felt especially moved by the sensitive presentation of feelings, by his mysticism and the tragical conflict situations of his dramas. |
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| 2 | 1918-1920 | Notebook 'Reincarnation' by Eugene O'Neill : "Idea for long play – reincarnation – oldest civilization, China 1850 – modern times during war – South Sea Island, 1975 – same crises offering a definite choice of either material success or a step toward higher spiritual plane – Failure in choice entails immediate reincarnation and eternal repetition in life on this plane until spiritual choice is made." |
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| 3 | 1927 |
O'Neill, Eugene. Marco millions : a play [ID D28771]. Quelle : Polo, Marco. The book of Ser Marco Polo, the Venetian. Transl. and ed. by Henry Yule [ID D5467]. Bai Niu : In Marco millions, O'Neill utilizes the myth of Chinese characters to negate Western values. But since the motivation of the myth is the advocacy of change within the West, we find that O'Neill is reluctant to mythify the East to the extent of perpetuating the status quo of the West. As a result, here and there the real history of the Chinese characters breaks through the mythical confines. In this way, the use of myth helps create a complicated vision instead of a naïve contrast between the East and West. O'Neill approached the Marco Polo story with an initial intention to satirize and criticize greedy American businessmen. In talking about his plans about Marco millions in his Selected Letters, O'Neill writes : 'The child will be either a surprising satiric Beauty – or a most gawdawful monster'. O'Neill found the mythologization of Chinese elements an effective way to conduct his criticism, since myth by definition could conceal his motivation in such a way that his attack on American materialism could appear to be unquestionable and thus more powerful. All the central Chinese characters are apparently mythologized, representing values, Oriental wisdom, mysticism, and spirituality, opposed to the Polos' stupidity, superficiality, and materialism. In mythologizing the Chinese figures, O'Neill does offer some dynamics to the characterization of Marco Polo. The Chinese characters highlight Marco's material greed, insensitivity, ignorance, and triteness from three perspectives : Kublai's increasing mockery and criticism, Chu-Yin's disenchanted probe into his potential to change, and Kukachin's gradually intensified sense of disappointment, embarrassment, and despair. Between Kublai and Marco is a conflict between soul and flesh. As the emblem of Taoist doctrines, Chu-Yin is detached and only an observer of Marco. Kukachin's nor a non-conflict like Chu-Yin's ; it is a process passing from eager erotic involvement to total disengagement. Marco is totally unaware of Kublai's cynicism and criticism. His rather consistent cocksureness reveals his ignorance of anything spiritual. He is so blinded by his single-minded pursuit of material wealth that he interprets other people's remarks strictly along material lines. Instead of making direct confrontations with Marco, Chu-Yin observes him from a distance. He advises Kublai to let Marco develop naturally by himself. He wants to probe this representative of the West and find out whether Marco can change so as to realize his potential for wisdom and to achieve harmony with Tao. What Chu-Yin finally finds in Marco is all the qualities opposed to his Taoist doctrines. Serving as a foil, Marco's failure strengthens the validity and wisdom of Taoist thoughts. Another point of contrast illustrated through Chu-Yin is the distinction between humility and arrogance. Chu-Yin embraces the idea of humility. Marco's world is entirely controlled by money. So far as he is concerned, one can measure love only with gold and view beauty only with a mirror made of pearls and silver. Kukachin is another emblem of Oriental spiritual values, she contrasts Marco's triteness and insensitivity through her poetic nature and sensitivity. O'Neill accentuates the correlation between the quality of language and spirituality through the contrast between Kukachin and Marco, which is, first of all, an opposition between the poetic and prosaic. Kukachin's world is a poetic realm. She simply speaks poetry, while Marco is incapable of using any poetic diction, and even his 'poem' is imbued with monetary terms. For Kukachin, life is meaningless without love. If one realizes the spiritual value of love, for him or her, the difference between life and death is not that significant, if it exists at all. Kukachin is the only Chinese character who once had a positive impression of Marco. According to her own account, she had observed all Marco's instinctive, mostly unconscious, kind behaviors and innocent remarks and interpreted them as spiritual manifestations. In actuality, it was love that drove her to Marco's defence. She still believed in Marco's soul, and it was only two years later when the journey came to its end that she painfully realized that Marco was incorrigibly acquisitive, and to him, spirituality and sensitivity were incomprehensible foreign qualities. Bayan, Kublai's general is basically a warmonger and cannot live in peace for an extended period of time. He becomes restless and helpless because 'everywhere in the East there is peace'. The only thing which would occupy him is war. O'Neill's mythologization of the East has created a total negation of the West. Although this total negation fulfills O'Neill's intention to criticize the materialism of the West, it would rule out any possibility for reform, since the total negation is the real myth. Lee Sang-kyong : The Taoist idea of a dualistic world becomes the essential characteristic of Marco millions. The dualism of all earthly phenomena finds its expression not only in the antithesis of male and female, life and death, to be or not to be. The Yin-Yang-principle of Taoism is also expressed in the Western and Eastern life styles such as the modest cheerfulness of the Eastern people and the rough pragmatic life struggle of the Western people. Through his occupation with the Orient, O'Neill was more and more convinced, that Oriental wisdom could offer a hopeful alternative to the Western world's materialistic society. Marco Polo is the personification of the Western dream of materialistic success, and the Chinese empror Kublai Khan is very disappointed of Marco's materialistic attitude. The emperor seed in Marco – who is the representative of Christianity – the spiritual abnormity of the West, as O'Neill repeatedly discloses in the course of the plot. In a romantic romance with Kukachin, the granddaughter of Kublai Khan, Marco feels the magnetic power of the East. For him, wealth and power are more important than feeling. Even the Taoist wisdom of Chu-yin, the emperor's counselor, does mean anything to him. For him, the Orient's wisdom and beauty, embodied by Kublai Khan and Kukachin, are ridiculous and inconsistent. But Kublai, interested in the spiritual development of man, intends to initiate a dialogue about the existence of soul between one hundred wise men of the West and wise men of Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism. Marco is only deeply impressed by the 'millions upon millions of worms' of the silk industry which could produce 'millions upon millions of capital'. O'Neill shows with irony the contrast between the Western materialism and ancient China's aestheticism during Marco Polo's time, pointing out the antithesis of the Westerners' materialistic greed and the mystic wisdom and splendor of Kublai Khan's court. He wants to show the fundamental difference between the Taoist East and the superficial and pragmatic Western civilization. The two opposite world views are represented by two characters : Marco Polo stands for materialism, rationalism, pragmatism, and Princess Kukachin is the living example of idealism and intuitive mysticism. Chu-yin, the counsellor is the only character who is untouched by all the events and remains in harmony with the teaching of Laozi and Zhuangzi. Horst Frenz : O'Neill's interest in the East is most evident in Marco millions. The presentation of a mercantile Marco sent and sanctioned by the Pope as a wise man to represent the wisdom of the West to the East is full of irony. Marco is beyond redemption ; he is totally untouched by the spiritual beauty of Kukachin, the the Taoist wisdom of Chu-yin never reaches his philistine mine. The short exchange of remarks between Chu-yin, the subtle sage of China and Marco, the rash philistine emissary from Venice, sums up the difficulty of an understanding between East and West. The shallowness of the action-oriented West prevents Marco from comprehending the subtleties of the East whose wisdom lies in a quiet observance of the true course of nature, in an attitude of wise passiveness so characteristically Taoist. The scenes, in which Marco establishes a new tax system, introduces printed money, and discovers that gunpowder, up to now used by the Chinese only for fireworks, can be employed for destructive purposes, are filled with biting satire. In a remarkably subtle manner, O'Neill manages in various ways to point out the basically irreconcilable differences between Taoist wisdom and the superficiality of Western civilization. James A. Robinson : Marco millions follows the lines of conventional Western tragedy, which assumes a dualistic universe of irreconcilable conflict – though here, rather than God or nature defeating man, it is West destroying East. Underlying the East-West conflict of the action is a similar conflict within O'Neill, whereby Western dualism ultimately triumphs over the harmonic view of the universe O'Neill discovered in Taoist thought. The play's Eastern elements represent the dramatist's suspicion that at the deepest level, man and world and cosmos were integrated and serene ; but his pessimistic modern-Western side seems reluctantly convinc4ed that man and universe are in hopeless conflict, a conflict reflected in the irreconcilable opposition of Oriental and Occidental cultures. The similar stage groupings and character types symbolize the profound identity between different cultures that makes understanding possible. The response of Marco emphasizes cross-cultural conflict. The farther he journey East – through lands whose mystical creed preach tolerance and renunciation – the more intolerant, ethnocentric and materialistic he becomes. As a prime 'example of virtuous Western manhood', Marco learns nothing from fifteen years in China, pointing up an apparently unbridgeable gap between East and West. His materialism intensifies. The relationship between Kukachin and Marco dramatizes the polarity of the conflict between East and West. Marco exudes intolerance, while Kukachin radiates the supreme tolerance of one who loves a totally different person. Marco loves the treasures of this world, while Kukachin transcends them. Kukachin, who is feminine, passive, and spiritual, corresponds to the 'yin' principle in Chinese thought. The Occidental Marco corresponds to 'yang', the masculine, rational and active principle. The monistic Taoist influence on the play extends to O'Neill's portrait of Kublai Kahn. The Emperor, called 'Son of heaven, Lord of the earth', harmonizes the masculine rationality and aggressiveness of the West, and the feminine intuition and passivity of the East. Khan's Taoist harmony is upset by Marco and his effect upon Kukachin. Only one Chinese character remains unperturbed, and consistently maintains the detachment of the Oriental sage : Chu Yin, Khan's advisor. His advice accords with the teaching of Laozi and Zhuangzi. James S. Moy : O'Neill sought to contrast the obsessive materialism of a Babbitt-like character with a positive representation of a romanticized historical China. Despite the clear comic intent of the piece, one could assume that the Chinese world at least receive a 'positive', if not 'realistic', portrayal within this framework. O'Neill was successful in his satirical portrayal of the Venetian trading family, his use of the Orient proves problematic. His characterizations of the Chinese are intended to show subtle differences. In designing his imaginary marginality called China, O'Neill fell into the trap of stereotyping the Orient, thereby displacing/erasing the reality while China disintegrated into representation. Li Gang : The Taoist influence in Marco millions has been studied by quit a few critics in both the East and the West. They all seem to agree that the Taoist influence permeates almost every aspect of the play : theme, structure, characterization, dialogue, and setting. |
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| 4 | 1929.10 | Eugene O'Neill sailed to Shanghai on the S.S. 'André Lebon'. He noted an idea for a play called Unchartered sea, which would depict the romance between a beautiful young woman, apparently Chinese, of the East and an American poet from the West. They are viewed as pariahs by the prejudiced bourgeoisie. O'Neill writes of 'the conflict of races on board, the trend of the races of the world struggle today, the essential characteristics, the awakening of the East to the West'. |
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| 5 | 1934 |
O'Neill, Eugene. Days without end. (New York, N.Y. : Random House, 1934). FATHER BAIRD : …And what do you think was his next hiding place ? Religion, no less - but as far away as he could run from home - in the defeatist mysticism of the East. First it was China and Lao Tze that fascinated him, but afterwards he ran on to Buddha, and his letters for a time extolled passionless contemplation so passionately that I had a mental view of him regarding his navel frenziedly by the hour and making nothing of it ! Virginia Floyd : The philosophical and religious stages chronicled in Days without end for a novel's eighteen-year-old college student are identically those of O'Neill at that age when he attended Princeton. In his search to replace a lost faith, the student, like O'Neill tried the mysticism of the East. |
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| 6 | 1936.05 | Performance of Before breakfast by Eugene O'Neill by Zhongguo lü xing ju tuan (Chinese Touring Drama Troupe) in Nanjing. Performed by Bai Yang, translated by Fan Fang (1927). | |
| 7 | 1941 |
Li, Qinghua. Yao wang : san mu ju. (Chongqing : Tian di chu ban she, 1944). 遥望 : 三幕劇 Adaptation of Beyond the horizon by Eugene O'Neill in Chongqing. The adaptation was set in a Chinese village, retained much of the original plot and characterization. Two young cousins, one a romantic poet and the other a practical farmer, fall in love with the same girl in the neighborhood. The triangle leads to the mismatch of the poet and the girl and mismanagement of the farm, on the one hand, and the self-imposed exile of the elder cousin, the practical farmer, on the other. The play ends in similar disillusionment in life for all three characters involved. The major alteration mad in the Chinese version lies in what it is that lures mankind beyond the horizon |
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| 8 | 1948 | Hamilton Basso visited the penthouse of Eugene O'Neill in New York and described it in a subsequent article : "It is furnished with things O'Neill has gathered all over the world. The dominant note is Chinese. A small, heavy, vagely catlike stone animal, turned out by a Chinese sculptor a few centuries before Christ, greets visitors as they enter, and there are ancient Chinese prints on the walls of the living room". | |
| 9 | 1961 | Entry about Eugene O'Neill in the trial edition of Ci hai. He was referred as 'a well-known and prolific American playwright, his outstanding plays include Beyond the horizon, The emperor Jones, The hairy ape, and Strange interlude. These plays reflect various problems of American capitalist society, such as murder, poverty, power of money and racial prejudice. However, these plays are extremely pessimistic and despairing, full of decadent sentiments. |
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| 10 | 1981-1982 | Two Symposia on Eugene O'Neill by the Chinese Theatre Association. Young and middle-aged playwrights from around the country took part. Cao Yu lectures on both occasions on O'Neill's dramatic art. | |
| 11 | 1988.06.06-14 |
International Conference 'Eugene O'Neill – world playwright' for his hundredth anniversary of his birth, co-sponsored by Nanjing University and the Eugene O'Neill Society at Jinling Hotel in Nanjing, June 6-9. O'Neill theatre festival June 6-14 in Nanjing and Shanghai ; initiated and organized by Liu Haiping. The festival belonged to a composite project that included the international symposium and a book exhibit, with over a hundred scholars, critics and theater professionals from China, Japan, India, United States, Britain, Germany, Belgium and the Soviet Union. Co-sponsored by the Nanjing University, the Jiangsu Culture Bureau, the Nanjing Television Network, the Jiangsu International Culture Exchange Center and the non-government Amity Foundation in Nanjing ; the Shanghai Culture Bureau, the Fudan University, the Shanghai Academy of Drama and the Shanghai Culture Development Foundation in Shanghai. The festival consisted of ten professional and two amateur productions of O'Neill's plays. Cao, Yu. Letter of greeting from the People's Republic of China to the Conference. Dear Professor Haiping Liu, Thank you for your kind invitation to the international conference in commemoration of Eugene O'Neill's centennial. I would indeed like to attend, yet I very much regret to say my poor health prevents me from coming to Nanjing. I hope you will understand and forgive me. I am so glad to learn that the conference is extremely well planned and prepared. I can imagine how much time you and your colleagues must have put into it. But you can be assured that the conference will be a great, unprecedented event in the history of the exchange of drama and theatre between China and the United States. It will, I am sure, win glory for the academic and theatrical circles. As for the papers to be presented at the conference, I hope they can be collected and published later as a book, so that other people, either O'Neill scholars or those merely interested in him, might also benefit from the conference and have a better understanding of this great dramatist's work. I avidly look forward to such a publication. Thank you for inviting me to be an honorary adviser to the conference. I accept the honor with gratitude. Best wishes for the success of the conference. Sincerely, Cao Yu, President Chinese Dramatists' Association. Speech by Huang Zongjiang at the Conference : "I am not an expert or scholar on O'Neill like you. I am only a fan of Eugene O'Neill. When a high school student, I read the early translations of O'Neill's plays and Beyond the horizon by Gu Yuocheng. How I dreamed of going beyond the horizon ! Then I went to college but did not finish it, just like Eugene O'Neill. I went onto the stage, became a professional actor, then a sailor, again following in the footsteps of Eugene O'Neill. There was World War II, of course. Patriotism. But I became a sailor mainly because of Eugene O'Neill. When the war was over in 1946, I went back to college, but was still unable to finish. I got TB, just like O'Neill. When my first play was published and performed, I thought I was a Chinese O'Neill. Then came the liberation in 1949. We were isolated. You call it iron curtain or bamboo curtain ; anyway there was a curtain. So, I accused and condemned Eugene O'Neill in this or that way. Then came the Cultural Revolution. I was persecuted, of course, as you can understand. The chief crime I was accused of was my worship for Eugene O'Neill. Then, when the Cultural Revolution was over, I was invited to visit the United States. It so happened that the sponsor of my trip was the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center in Connecticut. You might wonder what we accused or condemned Eugene O'Neill of in those years. The first thing was his fatalism. The second was his pessimism. But it seems to us now, whether a fatalist or not, whether a pessimist or an optimist, O'Neill depicted life sincerely. I think the most important thing we have learned from Eugene O'Neill is that we are still learning. Another accusation was that O'Neill is not a realist in his art. Probably you cannot even understand why that was a problem in China. You know we advocated revolutionary realism. If you were not a realist, you were not a revolutionary ; you were a counterrevolutionary. I think O'Neill used expressionism, symbolism, modernism, even absurdism, to make the reality he presented more real. Again, what we have learned from O'Neill is the fact that we are still learning. That is my, or our, long voyage home from beyond the horizon, my life's journey into day. It is such a bright day now that we can have this bright international conference. I think you know what it means to me, to you, and to the whole world." Ile as an adaptation in Western-style opera by the Shanghai ge ju yuan (Shanghai Opera Company). Mourning becomes Electra by the Shanghai yue ju yuan (Shanghai Yue Opera Company), directed by Jiao Huang and Lou Jicheng in Beijing ; Jiao Huang as Brant and Orin, Lou Jicheng as Mannon, Lu Shichu as Lavinia. A group of students from the Shanghai Academy of Drama staged a less realistic version of the performance under the direction of Zhang Yingxiang. Beyond the horizon as performance ; under the direction of Xiong Guodong in Nanjing. Xiong announced in the program : "The communication between O'Neill's dramas and us can easily be established. The stories and the dramas seem to be happening around us. We ourselves even seem to be the very characters in the dramas. How successful we produce the play Beyond the horizon finally depends on how profound we can understand our life and the humans." The production was reset in the 1920s in a Southern Yangzi river village near Suzhou. The architecture, furniture, costume and cultural idiosyncrasies of the locale and the time lent realistic, even naturalistic, details to the nativized adaptation. The setting employed woodenware from farmhouses in Jiangsu countryside. Some of the Chinese audience reacted to the adaptation divergently, while some welcomed its Chinese consciousness and enjoyed its portrayal of the Chinese rural life, others criticized it as having gone to an extreme. Speech by Xiong Guodong at the festival : "For the cast and staff, this is our first experience with an O'Neill play. I should say we had a spiritual meeting with Eugene O'Neill. In staging this play, we found not only O'Neill but also ourselves. Whenever I read the play, I always had a strange feeling as if I saw O'Neill standing beyond the horizon looking at me, and sometimes as if I were standing over there looking at him. I came to see that each of us stands at once on both this side of the horizon and beyond it. From this revelation, I decided to adapt the play to a Chinese background, by putting it in the milieu of a rural village in the low reaches of the Yangzi river and let each of the characters bear a Chinese name. I hope that by doing so, it can help eliminate the distance between my Chinese audience and the American play. It is my understanding that although the play is entitled Beyond the horizon, the real emphasis is laid on this side of the horizon. It portrays successfully many true-to-life characters. So, I said to my cast and staff that we should do likewise on the Chinese stage. We strive to represent quite realistically Chinese rural life. That is why we use so many authentic stage properties and costumes. In fact, the cast and staff spent several weeks in a village in the Yangzi Delta experiencing daily life before we actually began rehearsals. People in different cultures behave differently. The ways to show love and hatred vary from culture to culture. So, we have made a lot of changes from the original script. We read each scene in O'Neill's play again and again and tried to make out what O'Neill meant by this or that, and then figured out ways to render it in the language of the Chinese theatre." The emperor Jones in form of a ritualistic dance by the Jiangsu Drama Troupe, under the direction of Feng Changnian, literary advisor Liu Haiping, choreograph Su Shijin, designed by Wang Zhengyang in Nanjing, Cai Wei as Brutus Jones. Second production of The emperor Jones by the Chinese Dramatists' Association in Beijing. Feng decided to bring into a single work elements of spoken drama, mime, music, dance, plastic arts and gymnastics. The production reduced the play's spoken language and psychological elements to the minimum and applied a ritual-like performance combining dance and pantomime instead. The dance chorus wore black or white leotards and featureless masks of the same color in order to 'give prominence to the main character and augment the production's style'. Speech by Feng Changnian at the Conference : "I have always been an admirer of Eugene O'Neill. I had the idea of producing The emperor Jones even when I was a student at a drama school. So, this production has fulfilled my long-cherished dream. The emperor Jones is a play with a long production history both in China and in the West. So the crucial thing for me is to find a new theatrical approach. Whenever I read the play, I am always struck by the horror of the dark, primitive forest, the suffocating drumbeat of the African tom-tom, the mysterious atmosphere and the simple grandeur of the play. I am also fascinated by the play's deep probe into the psyche of its characters, the elaborate sets of symbols, and the philosophical and psychological ramifications of the play. It seems to me that a realistic, conventional theatrical approach is absolutely inadequate. So, I felt I had to use more expressive means to do the play justice. Hence the new form – pantomime-dance – of this production. Another consideration in choosing this form is the Chinese audience. Since the form is a good mixture of action, pantomime, music and dance, it is in a sense similar to the form of Beijing opera, though our performance is much more abstract and modern than the traditional art. I think, therefore, it is an effective way to bring O'Neill to the Chinese theatregoers. To put it in a nutshell, the main emphasis of our performance is the overall mood and atmosphere created by the pantomime-dance based on the psychological truth of the protagonist Emperor Jones, which can be very different from the logic of our day-to-day life. For example, in certain scenes, we see human bodies or clotheslines hanging from tree branches. This is used to reflect Jones' state of mind. It is expressionistic, rather than realistic. The second emphasis of our production is the symbols ; for instance, the use of the cross in two scenes. The third emphasis lies in the treatment of time and space. At times, we try to blur the line between reality and illusion, or to juxtapose the real and the illusory, so as to effectively show the reality in Jones' illusion and the illusion in his reality. An example comes from the scene in which the Emperor is encircled by the natives running at a dizzying speed, each with a flaming torch in hand. Another point is that throughout the performance we try to maintain a delicate balance between pantomime and dance, relying on the traditional language of the theatre and our real life." The great god Brown by the Shanghai Youth Drama Troupe, under the direction of Hu Weimin, designed by Li Rulan in Shanghai, Zhang Xianheng as William Brown, Ren Guangzhi as Dion Anthony and Song Ruhui as Cybele. The production had opened at a university auditorium on May 28 and had eleven performances at the Changjiang Theater. With full use of symbolic masks. The actors wore plastic masks covering only part of their own features. The masks should 'represent the duality of human mind and disclose the truth of human nature'. Macro millions under the direction of Jackson Phippin. Long day's journey into night by Qian xian hua ju tuan (Drama Theatre of the Nanjing Military Subarea of the People's Liberation Army), under the direction of Zhang Fuchen, in the translation by Jiang Hongding. Speech by Yao Yuan at the festival : "We feel proud that this is the first American play ever done by our company, and it also marks the premiere of Long day's journey into night in China. I believe the Nanjing/Shanghai O'Neill theatre festival and this production will have great impact on Chinese life. With his integrity and insight as a true artist, O'Neill helped create the American drama and thus won high respect from people all over the world. Though China and the United States have different social systems and different political faiths, the Americans and the Chinese belong to the same human race. We are all thinking of ways to solve our common problems. Human beings have always been seeking light in darkness. It is the good artist, intellectuals, and so on, who hold the torches to light the human path. And Eugene O'Neill is one of them. It is based on this knowledge that we present O'Neill's masterpiece on the Chinese stage." Mourning becomes Electra in Yue opera, an interpretation of Hugie by the Shanghai Youth Theater in Nanjing. Hugie by the Shanghai Youth Drama Troupe, under the direction of Hu Weimin, in the translation by Liu Haiping in Shanghai. The Shanghai production differs from the American one not only in costume and language, but also in theme and style. Taking place in 1928 as the original play, the Chinese version of O'Neill's one-acter underwent transplantation from New York to Shanghai. The settings, costumes and sound effects contribute to a sketch of the mesmerizing Chinese city in the 1920s. Jiao Huang and Lou Jicheng cast as night clerk and gambler, appeared in traditional attire and adopted comic devices of the Chinese folk art of cross talk. Ah, wilderness. Student productions by Nankai University in Tianjin, Fudan University in Shanghai and Beijing University. |
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Cited by (1)
| # | Year | Bibliographical Data | Type / Abbreviation | Linked Data |
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| 1 | 2000- | Asien-Orient-Institut Universität Zürich | Organisation / AOI |
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