A Study Of Chinese Historical Drama In The New Century

In the new century,in the more and more vivid cultural atmosphere of our country,the art of drama has been greatly developed.Among them,the achievements of historical plays deserve special attention.By sorting out this fruitful achievement,this paper takes FaZidu,ShangYang,Zhao's Orphans(two versions)and Fayuan Temple of Beijing as the core texts to examine what kind of features the historical drama has presented since the new century,and tries to see the blending of history and the times.This paper is divided into three chapters.The first chapter mainly studies the inherent limitations of historical plays and the ways in which playwrights try to break through the limitations and make dialogue with today.Relying on historical facts,historical drama inevitably takes the feudal society as its background.This background makes traditional feudal ideas drift in the contemporary drama,which shows the limitations of historical drama itself.However,playwrights have been trying to break through the limitations and reconstruct history to find the resonance between history and the present.They either use the shell of history to merge into today's thinking,or choose to focus more and more on historical figures and events that are easily overlooked,excavate the possibilities behind historical stories,so as to unfold the "folds" of history,or initiate "questioning" of history by means of novel theatrical performances,thus approaching the real history.Chapter Two focuses on the analysis of what kind of thinking prompted dramatists to enter history,or in today's historical plays,we can find out how dramatists think about contemporary times.This chapter mainly focuses on Lin Zhaohua's version and Tian Qinxin's version of Zhao's Orphan.In the history reconstructed in various ways,"grand narrative" slowly disappears,while "individual" emerges.The two versions of Zhao's Orphan have both dispelled the original grand theme of revenge.The beliefs that supported Chinese traditional culture in the past have been questioned frequently,and they seem to be "at a loss" in the light of the values of the new century.On the contrary,"self" is more and more valued.In thehistorical drama of the new century,the question of "who am I" has been further explored,and "I" is regarded as an independent "person" who does not depend on any ideology and ideology.Chapter three focuses on how the playwrights think about the times,which not only makes the historical plays in the new century present new contents,but also explores new ways of artistic presentation.Firstly,the language of historical plays presents some new features,such as banter,repetition,parody,collage and so on.Secondly,new space-time construction appears on the stage of contemporary historical drama.Playwrights in the new century are no longer trying to narrow the gap between the ancient space where stories occur and the modern space where stories are expressed,in order to make the audience experience their situation,but deliberately magnify and create "distorted" historical space-time by means of stage arrangement and collage of time and space,aiming at emphasizing to the audience that they have contemporary thinking after this kind of expression of history,so as to self-reliance.My thinking index sends out the audience's thinking.Finally,the creation of historical dramas in the new century also tries to seek help from traditional Chinese operas,trying to introduce the beneficial parts of traditional operas into the urgently needed ones,enriching their presentation methods with the help of traditional operas' singing,facial makeup,drum music and other elements,thus providing the possibility of realizing the integration of traditional Chinese operas and drama.In a word,by sorting out and summarizing the existing achievements of the playwrights in the new century,we can get a glimpse of the possibility of future historical plays.