Business, Art And Emotion

To Shanghai, the period of the War of Resistance is a special time. The history of this period was in a black shadow because of the discourse of revolution and nation, which control the historical memories. After November, 1937, while the Chinese army and the Nationalist government of Nanjing retreated to the inland, the culture of Anti-Japanese also withdrew from Shanghai's public space. Then the popular culture turned to the mainstream culture of Shanghai. The flourishing of Shanghai's entertainment in wartime was seemed as the abnormal prosperity. But if we look through it by the perspective of urbanization and modernization, we'll find that there were many developments in the field: the performance of the traditional local opera had a big progress in artistry and specialization; more intellectuals took part in the production of popular culture; the life style and values in modern society had expressed more and more on the stage. The suit and cheongsam opera of Huju rise up in this time, and occupy the mainstream of Huju's stage.This dissertation selects the rising of Huju in Wartime of Shanghai as a case to find out how did the urban society and the special context of the wartime shape the popular culture. And then examines the power of time and place. The dissertation has five parts: Section One describes the experience of Huju from the rural to the urban, and examines how did the actors deal with the challenge of the reform discourse, and cater for the public preference to standing in the urban society. Section Two focuses on the development of Huju's institutions with its scope and organization. The traditional troupes and the modern troupes of Huju had driven to the specialization in different way under the business running. Section Three studies the stage transition of Huju in the terms of opera reform. New-art youths who played a crucial role in Huju reform changed the cultural environment of the stage. They make the stage more serious and artistic to promote the modernization transition. Section Four focuses on reshaping the status of the actors in Huju, which was the by-products of Huju reform, and it also promoted Huju's status. The actors took part in positively the transformation from actors to the artists, and also taste the dilemma in this period. Section Five gives interpretation of the modern love dramas on the Huju stage. The popularity of the modern love stories in the stage reflect the feeling, imaging and worrying while the populace had been experiencing the change of love, marriage and family relationship. The modern love dramas filled with all kinds of female roles showed up the rapidly change of the gender relationship in the urban society. The discussion in public about the dramas and the actors revealed the infatuation with romantic love and the suspicion to the constant betrayal in love.The modern love dramas fitting in with the populace's mind and emotion made Huju successful in 1940s'. The prosperity of Huju testified the urbanization of it in the soil of Shanghai from a traditional ditty to a modern drama, and showed up the magic power of urban society. There is a significant relationship between the success of Huju and the special historical context. The war made the recomposition of the urban society, and then the different entertainment forms had varied in a relative effect by the changing of participators in entertainment. The prosperity of the traditional opera in wartime Shanghai is the important feature of the entertainment market in this time.