“Before all else I’m a human being”: Ibsen and the rise of modern Chinese drama in the 1920s

Abstract

The 1920s witnessed the maturing of the Chinese spoken drama in terms of both playwriting and performing practices. One of the thematic concerns of the dramas from this period is the independence and emancipation of women, of which Nora, a protagonist in Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, once served as an example. A Doll’s House was at that time one of the most frequently staged foreign plays in China and exerted great influence on playwrights, performance art, and audiences alike. Consequently, quite a few early spoken dramas were modelled on A Doll’s House in terms of plot and structure. Therefore, the development of spoken drama in the 1920s is not only an event of performance, but also a literary event, and in a larger sense, even a cultural event due to the widespread discussions of Nora and her subsequent transformation into a symbol of individualism, feminism and socialism. In this article, the following questions are to be addressed: What did the performances of A Doll’s House in the 1920s look like? How did the early spoken dramas imitate A Doll’s House, especially the plot of Nora’s departure from home? How did the reception of Nora in China become a cultural event? What influence did this event exert on drama, literature and the New Culture Movement at that time?