‘Spoken Drama (Huaju) with a Strong Chinese Flavour’: The Resurrection and Demise of Popular Spoken Drama (Tongsu Huaju) in Shanghai in the 1950s and Early 1960s

Abstract

In the late 1950s and early 1960s in Shanghai, the remnant ofwenmingxi(civilized drama), China's first form of Western-style spoken drama, which had flourished in the 1900s and 1910s as a hybrid of Western spoken theatre and indigenous performance, experienced a brief resurrection and ultimate demise under the name oftongsu huaju(popular spoken drama). Considered until then as popular entertainment inferior to the officially recognized form of modern theatre,huaju(spoken drama), that adhered to Western realistic dramaturgy and performance,tongsu huajustaged a six-play festival in January 1957 thanks to liberal art policies, received a warm welcome in Beijing and other cities, and attracted the attention of somehuajuexperts who praised its affinity to indigenous performance, thus triggering a debate over its efficacy as a localized alternative tohuajufor the future of modern Chinese theatre. Using contemporary sources, this article examinestongsu huaju’s brief rise and fall in Shanghai, with a focus on its performances, the debate, the policy changes that decided the fate of China's first form of modern theatre, and the implications of its fate for the narrative of periodization in modern Asian theatre.