Overview

"Performing the Socialist State offers an innovative account of the origins, evolution, and legacies of key trends in twentieth-century Chinese theater. Instead of seeing the Republican, high socialist, and postsocialist periods as radically distinct, it identifies key continuities in theatrical practices and shared aspirations for the social role and artistic achievements of performance across eras. Xiaomei Chen focuses on the long and remarkable careers of three founders of modern Chinese theater and film, Tian Han, Hong Shen, and Ouyang Yuqian, and their legacy, which helped shape theater cultures into the twenty-first century. They introduced Western plays and theories, adapted traditional Chinese operas, and helped develop a tradition of leftist theater in the Republican period that paved the way for the construction of a socialist canon after 1949. Chen investigates how their visions for a free, democratic China fared in the initial years after the founding of the People's Republic, briefly thriving only to founder as artists had to adapt to the Communist Party's demand to produce ideologically correct works. Bridging the faith play and ""antiparty plays"" of the 1950s, the ""red classics"" of the 1960s, and their reincarnations in the postsocialist period, she considers the transformations of the depictions of women, peasants, soldiers, scientists, and revolutionary history in plays, operas, and films and examines how the market economy, collective memories, star culture, social networks, and state sponsorship affected dramatic productions. Countering the view that state interference stifles artistic imagination, Chen argues that theater professionals have skillfully navigated shifting ruling ideologies to create works that are politically acceptable yet aesthetically ingenious. Emphasizing the power, dynamics, and complexities of Chinese performance cultures, Performing the Socialist State has implications spanning global theater, comparative literature, political and social histories, and Chinese cultural studies."

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Reviews

In her newest work, Xiaomei Chen confirms her position as the leading chronicler and analyst of modern and contemporary Chinese theater. Focusing on three dramatists of central importance before, during, and after the socialist era, she provides a nuanced and fascinating overview of the theater's reflection of these turbulent times. -- Marvin Carlson, author of <i>Ten Thousand Nights: Highlights from Fifty Years of Theatre-Going</i> In her newest study of theater, politics, and performativity in modern China, Chen tells a compelling story of three leading dramatists in search of socialist modernity-their aspirations, their inventions and interventions, and their own tragedies amid the state's staging of the most brutal theater of revolution. A powerful book. -- David Der-wei Wang, Harvard University This is an illuminating narrative of modern Chinese theater culture exemplified by Tian Han, Hong Shen, and Ouyang Yuqian. These legendary dramatists navigated the treacherous political terrains of different eras and built a modern theater from the crosscurrents of East and West. Xiaomei Chen is the best writer for keeping their legacy alive. -- Ban Wang, author of <i>China in the World: Culture, Politics, and World Vision</i>

In her newest work, Xiaomei Chen confirms her position as the leading chronicler and analyst of modern and contemporary Chinese theater. Focusing on three dramatists of central importance before, during, and after the socialist era, she provides a nuanced and fascinating overview of the theater's reflection of these turbulent times. -- Marvin Carlson, author of <i>Ten Thousand Nights: Highlights from Fifty Years of Theatre-Going</i> In her newest study of theater, politics, and performativity in modern China, Chen tells a compelling story of three leading dramatists in search of socialist modernity-their aspirations, their inventions and interventions, and their own tragedies amid the state's staging of the most brutal theater of revolution. A powerful book. -- David Der-wei Wang, Harvard University This is an illuminating narrative of modern Chinese theater culture exemplified by Tian Han, Hong Shen, and Ouyang Yuqian. These legendary dramatists navigated the treacherous political terrains of different eras and built a modern theater from the crosscurrents of East and West. Xiaomei Chen is the best writer for keeping their legacy alive. -- Ban Wang, author of <i>China in the World: Culture, Politics, and World Vision</i> This magisterial book chronicles the cross-media story of spoken drama from its inception through Republican, Maoist, and Post-Maoist appropriations in the forms of women's theatre, socialist theatre, and red classic films. This capacious history offers, among many gems, a diachronic study of the sonic theatre of the Internationale over the past hundred years. -- Alexa Alice Joubin, author of <i>Shakespeare and East Asia</i>

In her newest work, Xiaomei Chen confirms her position as the leading chronicler and analyst of modern and contemporary Chinese theater. Focusing on three dramatists of central importance before, during, and after the socialist era, she provides a nuanced and fascinating overview of the theater’s reflection of these turbulent times. -- Marvin Carlson, author of <i>Ten Thousand Nights: Highlights from Fifty Years of Theatre-Going</i> In her study of theater, politics, and performativity in modern China, Chen tells a compelling story of three leading dramatists in search of socialist modernity—their aspirations, their inventions and interventions, and their own tragedies amid the state's staging of the most brutal theater of revolution. A powerful book. -- David Der-wei Wang, author of <i>Why Fiction Matters in Contemporary China</i> This is an illuminating narrative of modern Chinese theater culture exemplified by Tian Han, Hong Shen, and Ouyang Yuqian. These legendary dramatists navigated the treacherous political terrains of different eras and built a modern theater from the crosscurrents of East and West. Xiaomei Chen is the best writer for keeping their legacy alive. -- Ban Wang, author of <i>China in the World: Culture, Politics, and World Vision</i> This magisterial book chronicles the cross-media story of spoken drama from its inception through Republican, Maoist, and Post-Maoist appropriations in the forms of women’s theater, socialist theater, and “red classic” films. This capacious history offers, among many gems, a diachronic study of the “sonic theater” of the Internationale over the past hundred years. -- Alexa Alice Joubin, author of <i>Shakespeare and East Asia</i> Eminently readable, the entire volume is noteworthy for its detailed, fascinating, and nuanced analysis of not only modern Chinese theater and drama but also Chinese theater historiography . . . A valuable and significant contribution to Asian theater studies. * Choice Reviews *

Author Information

Xiaomei Chen is Distinguished Professor of Chinese Literature at the University of California, Davis. She is the author of Staging Chinese Revolution: Theater, Film and the Afterlives of Propaganda (Columbia, 2016); Acting the Right Part: Political Theater and Popular Drama in Contemporary China (2002); and Occidentalism: A Theory of Counter-Discourse in Post-Mao China (second and expanded edition, 2002), as well as editor of The Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Drama (Columbia, 2010; abridged edition, 2014), among other publications. Chen is also coeditor of Rethinking Chinese Socialist Theaters of Reform: Performance Practice and Debate in the Mao Era (2021), which received the Excellence in Editing Award from the Association for Theatre in Higher Education.

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