Rewriting History on China's Stage in an Intercultural Context

Abstract

Mao Zedong, a proclaimed Marxist historical materialist, stated in the 1940s: "History is created by the people. But on the stage of traditional theatre the people became dregs, whereas the dominating forces were noblemen and their ladies. This reversion of history [should be] re-reversed, so that the truth of history [could be] restored." Although Mao on this occasion was commenting on the reform of traditional Chinese theatre, such as Beijing opera whose repertory is based on ancient stories, he was never enthusiastic about the western-styled modem drama — his instruction to "re-reverse the reversion of history" has been widely applied to both. While noblemen, the almost inevitable choice for protagonists in historical drama, did not vanish from the theatre as Mao seems to have hoped, their traditional images were often altered. It was only in the 1980s that some artists, daring to question Mao's official interpretations of Chinese history, began to write history plays only for their relevance to contemporary life regardless of historical authenticity. Fascinated by the western artists' free adaptations of classics and writings about history recently introduced into China, a few went even further, incorporating ancient images freely in their experimental works.