| Lao She (1899–1966) is one of China's most important modern writers. His life spanned all the major events of China's turbulent twentieth century history, from the Boxer Uprising to the Cultural Revolution. An ardent patriot though never an ideologue, his prolific writings and his dramatic personal saga provide invaluable cultural and social insight into those times. His often satirical yet always highly realist style is expressed through a graceful mastery of the Beijing vernacular. This has made him to this day the quintessential writer of his native city, China's longtime capital and the setting of most of his work.; Lao She is primarily acclaimed for his prose fiction, such as novels Camel Xiangzi and Cat Country and short stories Black and White Li and Neighbors. While the remarkable play, Teahouse, counts among his signature works, he is not remembered foremost as a playwright. His twenty-four published plays, however, were written during two of the most critical periods in modern Chinese history. When the War of Resistance broke out in 1937, Lao She followed the Nationalist government to Chongqing. It was there he turned to modern drama as the most effective form of propaganda for the United Front against the Japanese invasion, After the Communists won the ensuing civil war, Lao She's patriotism and love for his hometown compelled him to return to Beijing. To help build the “New China,” once again he found plays to be his best contribution to national solidarity.; This dissertation examines the interplay of dramatic aesthetics and political propaganda in Lao She's plays. Integral to this study is the tension between his own moral values and the policies or ideologies of the state regimes under which he wrote. It is thus imperative to examine his plays in the context of the history they reflect and the life and thought of their author. I have selected for close reading what I regard as the playwright's seven finest pieces. These include both Nationalist and Communist era works and represent the various genres into which I have found his plays are best divided for critical and historical analysis. |
