HUNG TENG CHI: THE RED LANTERN. An Example Of Contemporary Chinese Dramatic Experimentation

Abstract

THE FOLLOWING COMMENTS ARE OFFERED IN THE HOPE that they may help to throw a little objective light on what has been an obscure field of study. The theater has remained one of the more neglected Chinese artistic forms if only for the reason that few Westerners, especially theater people, have had the opportunity for close contact with first class performances. In the Chinese as in any theater only immediate experience continually indulged can provide the knowledge from which understanding and appreciation are derived. This experience has been denied a majority of Western people compelled to accept the old exotic generalizations handed down ad nauseam. Practical experience has most often been limited to the hybrid displays of Chinatown or the unskilled performances of expatriate amateurs. Small wonder that the Chinese theater has remained remote in Western conception and if that is true of the past it is doubly so today. Communist attempts to "reform" the traditional Peking opera, so called, have made copy for the popular Western press in recent years although little real information has been offered the enquiring reader. With communication between China and the West at the present dismal levels it is only possible for most of us to follow Chinese theatrical activities from afar and through secondary sources.