Poetics of displacement: Twentieth-century Chinese-Western intercultural theatre

Intercultural theatre is one of the most prominent phenomena of twentieth-century international theatre. With the flourish and fruition of twentieth-century intercultural theatre, critics, theorists as well as practitioners have advanced theories and models explicating the making and working of this international phenomenon. In contrast to current theories and models, this study of twentieth-century Chinese-Western intercultural theatre views intercultural theatre as a process of displacement and replacement of culturally specified and differentiated theatrical forces, rejecting any universalist and essentialist presumptions. It is divided into two parts, the first dealing with the Western theatre's interculturation of traditional Chinese theatre and the second with the Chinese theatre's interculturation of the Western theatre.; The first part is further divided into four chapters. As a critical examination of the ostensible Eurocentric displacement of traditional Chinese theatre in the West, the first chapter maps the West's first indirect contacts with the Chinese theatre before Mei Lanfang's visits to the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1930s. Chapter Two details Brecht's displacement of traditional Chinese theatre as exemplified in his conception of the "A-effect." Chapter Three investigates Meyerhold's and Eisenstein's displacement of traditional Chinese theatre, focusing on Meyerhold's idea of the "Conventional Theatre." Chapter Four analyses Barba's ideas of intercultural theatre as related to the Chinese and other Asian theatre traditions.; The first chapter of Part Two deals with the Chinese intercultural displacement of Western realism and avant-garde in the first decades of the twentieth century. Chapter Six is concerned with the Chinese displacement of Stanislawsky to their traditional theatre. Chapter Seven demonstrates the ways Brecht and Meyerhold were displaced in contemporary Chinese theatre. Chapter Eight is a case study of "mutual displacement" as exemplified in some Shakespearean adaptations in Chinese traditional theatrical forms, demonstrating how both Shakespeare and the Chinese theatre are displaced in such intercultural adaptations.