| For decades huaju (spoken drama) had participated in China's sociopolitical transformations as a powerful form of cultural expression. Yet it had also been burdened by the Chinese Communist Party's ideological control and caught in the tension between theater's social function and artistic quality. In post-Mao China, again huaju took part in the time's sociocultural changes while endeavoring to break away from the tradition of socialist realism and to resolve that tension. Huaju 's effort and its complex negotiations with the social context have not been paid sufficient attention in the cultural and literary studies.; This dissertation utilizes historical and cultural analysis to illuminate dramatic literature and performance. It focuses on the contextualization, theoretical analysis, and criticism of the plays in three phases—the Social Problem theater, the New Form theater, and the New Realism theater—and considers the influences of shifting cultural landscapes, politics, censorship, and both Western and Chinese traditional theater. The study emphasizes the process by which huaju participated in unofficial cultural discourses and contested the dominant Party ideology in heterogeneous voices, forms, and styles. Special attention is paid to the artists' negotiation between new sentiments and old suppressive politics, between a new sensibility and old artistic conventions that they had retained from their earlier experience.; A growing consciousness of mise-en-scène and formal renewal characterized the theater's searching for a new identity. Despite an intense concern with current affairs, the theater was able to achieve the integrity of a personal and universal world-view. A delicate reconciliation between the “residual” and “emergent” elements, between different values and approaches, between renewal and prudence, enabled the artists to find ways around various forms of censorship. As a result, the theater transcended political barriers while gaining more space to explore both themes and forms and thus achieving artistic sophistication and poignancy. This accomplishment demonstrates huaju's ability to dance in chains, a difficult way to create art, and to fulfill its mission of examining, shaping, and inspiring the human condition. |
