One Director, Three Takes: Chen Yong’s Reinterpretations of Life of Galileo, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, and The Threepenny Opera

Abstract

This chapter is a case study of Chinese adaptations of Brecht’s Life of Galileo (1979), The Caucasian Chalk Circle (1985), and The Threepenny Opera (1998), all mounted by Chen Yong (1929–2004), a female director and one of the most prolific and noteworthy contemporary Chinese theatre artists at China Youth Art Theatre (one of the predecessors of the National Theatre of China today). This chapter examines Chen Yong’s directorial approaches in adapting Brecht’s plays in the three specific political and social environments since the end of the Cultural Revolution. Chen’s reinterpretations of these plays were not only conditioned by the changes in the socio-historical and cultural life of China, but they also reflected a unique perspective that paid particular attention to the portrayal of female characters. This directorial perspective was filtered as much by her revolutionary idealism as by a traditional Chinese “idealization” of the virtues of womanhood; hence, it would fall short of the ideals of feminism as understood in the West.