The Impact of Japanese Shinpa on Early Chinese Huaju
THE IMPACT OF JAPANESE SHINPA ON EARLY CHINESE HUAJU by Siyuan Liu BA, Nankai University, Tianjin, China, 1986 MA, Nankai University, Tianjin, China, 1989 MA, St. Cloud State University, 1996 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2006 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH FACULTY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Siyuan Liu It was defended on November 6, 2006 and approved by Dr. J. Thomas Rimer Dr. Bruce McConachie Dr. Kathleen George Dr. Attilio Favorini Dissertation Director (Committee Chairperson) i Copyright © by Siyuan Liu 2006 ii Dr. Attilio Favorini THE IMPACT OF JAPANESE SHINPA ON EARLY CHINESE HUAJU Siyuan Liu, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2006 This dissertation explores the intercultural forces that affected the formation of wenmingxi (civilized drama), China’s first Western-style theatre that flourished in Shanghai in the 1910s, following the 1907 production of Uncle Tom’s Cabin by the Chinese student group the Spring Willow Society (Chunliu She) in Tokyo. In contrast to huaju (spoken drama), the present form of Western theatre in China, which came into existence in the 1920s through a whole-sale importation, wenmingxi adopted a localized approach by mixing Western drama, shinpa (new school drama, the first Western-style Japanese theatre), and traditional Chinese theatre. Based on primary sources as well as recent historical and theoretical studies from China, Japan, and the West, my dissertation focuses on the ideological, dramaturgical, and theatrical transformation wenmingxi brought to Chinese theatre. The study is divided into four chapters and an introduction, which lays out previous research on this topic and my theoretical framework.
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