Huang Zuolin: Michael Chekhov’s Link to China’s Modern Theatre

Abstract

The folllowing article is a revised and edited version of a keynote address given by Faye Chunfang Fei at the Michael Chekhov Symposium, ‘Theatre of the Future?’, in November 2005 – held at Dartington Hall, where the actor and director Huang Zuolin worked under Chekhov’s guidance in 1936, an experience which helped to shape his lifelong work in uniting the best in western theatrical traditions with those of his native China. Faye Chunfang Fei traces this formative influence, along with those of Stanislavsky, of Brechtian Epic Theatre, and of traditional and modern Chinese forms, in shaping some of the major productions of probably the most influential figure in the Chinese theatre of the later twentieth century. Faye Chunfang Fei received her doctorate in Theatre Studies from the Graduate Center of City University of New York in 1991, and taught theatre in the United States for nine years before taking her present position of Professor of English and Drama at East China Normal University, Shanghai. Her publications include Chinese Theories of Theatre and Performance from Confucius to the Present (University of Michigan Press, 1999), and she is also an internationally produced playwright.