Culture & Critical Categories: Drama

Critical Categories & Culture: World Drama

Deborah Griggs

Berlin, May 2015

The main propositions of this paper are 1) that as with all communication codes

and frameworks of understanding, critical methodology within the literary and

dramatic arts is culture bound and 2) that in the moment where the scope of study

is expanded to world literature and world drama, it is important to first investigate

the culture-bound characteristics of the critical concepts and strategies to be

employed. Although the propositions apply to both literature and drama, the

concrete examples used in the paper are limited to drama.

Culture-bound concepts Even the most seemingly straightforward critical concepts are steeped in the times

and places in which they are conceived. They are further influenced by the

traditions from which they see themselves spring. Within the framework of literary

scholarship, critical concepts construct grammars that are then applied to works

with the aim of revealing their structure and meaning. Yet while critical approaches

spring up, develop, and transform in a self-conscious and seemingly visible

manner, the culture-bound aspects of core concepts sometimes remain veiled or

neglected in theoretical discussion. As a ubiquitous concept applied to everything

from schools of thought to artistic styles, dramatic methods, or fictitious characters,

realism is a term that under even cursory examination reveals a cultural

contingency not always taken adequately into account.

Considered as literary movement, for example, realism is often considered as part

of a historical progression. An overview of such movements or artistic styles might

therefore discuss romanticism as a response to (Western) industrialization and

realism as a kind of response to romanticism. For many years, such connections

were introduced as a means of providing a kind of narrative framework for these

concepts.

Griggs: Culture & Critical Categories 2

As cultural concerns have changed, however, the understanding of theoretical

constructs has also changed. Over the last decades, for example, media studies has

made a case for artistic movements arising in concert with developments in media,

technology, and meta-structures of discourse. Indicative of this media focus is

Friedrich Kittler's discussion of German Romanticism as a response to what he

called the discourse network in Germany around 1800. This discourse network was

the result of a national liberalization of education that had at its center the goals of

mass literacy and a broad network of writer-reader relationships. Within the

framework of this endeavor, the state encouraged and trained mothers to teach

their children phonetics. According to Kittler's analysis, this early teaching led to

the child's association between the mother's 'mouth' and the act of speaking,

encouraging an idea of language as deeply associated with maternity and early

orality. Through the association of language with nourishment, self-discovery, and

nature, Kittler sees the source of a romantic relationship between language and

nature, language and the soul. The medium of the mother's voice and the domestic

context of reading are therefore his key to understanding the romantic period in

Germany. Kittler similarly sees a media-related connection to realism by viewing it

as a response to the gramophone, which, by arbitrarily recording all noise in the

environment, first made us aware that human speech is 'just another noise.' While

this thought may not seem surprising in the present age of electronically mediated

voices, pixels and computer-based speech recognition, in a time in which language

was considered to be something arising out of the soul, the idea of language as

noise might have been a shock. Further, if the recording medium is considered as

an impetus for the scientific investigation of phonetics and the study of language as

physical sound waves and modulation, then a connection between realism and

media technology is not far behind. Of course, to view human life as a response to

technology would also be a case of cultural teleology, for in it lies a blindered

vision of cultural purpose cutting a very narrow path through human thought and

nature.

Inter- and multicultural critics should remain aware of the fact that the 'stories'

made up about theories or patterns of thought are culture-bound fictions that reveal

deep cultural values, attitudes and beliefs. For this reason, critical concepts such as

realism are very slippery, whether used to identify a literary style, a particular work,

or a character. The term becomes culturally even more slippery if its foundation in

plausibility is taken into account.


The idea of realism depends on the idea of plausibility, and ideas about what is

plausible are based on assumptions arising from experience or cultural norms—

assumptions about anything from the way the living room of a middle-class family

might look, to the way a character might act in a certain situation, to ideas about

what is funny. In Arthur Miller's Death of A Salesman, for example, would it be

plausible to picture a baby grand piano or a crystal chandelier in the Loman's

living room? Would it be plausible for Linda Loman to be confused at Willy's inner

torment in the face of his sense of failure? Would it be plausible for Biff to shrug off

his father's adultery? How we answer these questions relates to what we find

plausible. What priorities would a middle-class family set on owning a car, as

opposed to owning a baby grand? Is it more likely that Biff will be interested in

football than classical music? How important is material success in the viewer's

culture? What are the pressures on a man to be successful? How much of his

identity is at stake? How do children rely on their parents for their own identity?

How important is fidelity in marriage? In other words, how 'realistic' is the setting;

how plausible are the conflicts and the actions of these characters; and how does

sense of the plausible relate to the viewer's cultural belonging and social

experience?

If a US audience watched a Japanese Kabuki play in which a character committed

ritual suicide because a family member had been insulted, would viewers find this

emotionally plausible or realistic? Perhaps they would allow it as part of a ritual

past that no longer has a basis in modern culture; yet Japanese author and

playwright Yukio Mishima committed ritual suicide (seppuku) in 1970 because he

had failed to convince a group of like-minded traditionalists to commit to a plan to

return to traditional Japanese values. Without knowing the historical fact, would

that audience identify this behavior as plausible? And even if they decided that

seppuku was no longer a plausible response to a problem of honor, would they

find the contemporary Japanese idea of honor any more plausible? Realism

depends on cultural understanding.

Discussions of modernism in the West also indirectly relate to assumptions about

realism in that they include discussion of the shift in cultural perceptions of reality

as a result of developments in scientific theory. Whether the theory is Darwin's

theory of evolution, Nietzsche's philosophical standpoint that God is dead, Marx's

view of economics as the driving force in social reality or Freud's map of the

psyche—Western realism portrays a view of human behavior and the human


condition as the relate to economics, politics, and social structures; and a view of

emotions as they relate to the workings and fundamental conflicts of the psyche.

When such concepts are employed in analysis, clarifying the cultural and

philosophical contexts surrounding them can enrich the perceived layering of

meanings within a work or attributed to the work as well as the resonance between

the work and its cultural context.

Culture-bound viewpoints…the case of drama Individual concepts are not the only culture-bound aspect of critical analysis.

Understanding the nature of art and the strategies for approaching it critically arise

within the context of culture. For the purpose of this paper, cultural context refers

to the position of an art form as an institutionalized element of culture and public

discourse as well as to the values, attitudes and beliefs that influence theme,

content and form. Performance arts are particularly easy to recognize in their

public aspect.

Theater as a Public Institution In his book Transformation of the Public Sphere, German philosopher and

sociologist Jürgen Habermas examines the concept of the public and its

significance for culture. According to Habermans, the public sphere is the place

where a culture directly and often consciously presents itself to its members or to

the world, a place of self-representation. It also a location where cultures engage in

public discourse, that is, a space in which different groups may engage in power

struggles or where existing values, attitudes and beliefs may be upheld or attacked

through public conversations.

As a performed event, drama is public; as an entity that may be supported either by

government subsidies or public audiences, theater is a public institution. Theater

and its products are therefore influenced by the general structure of the public

sphere at any given time.

Several aspects of the concept public must be understood before we can

investigate specific effects of the public sphere on theater or drama.

On the one hand, the term public suggests accessibility: public events and

public places are those accessible to all. On the other hand, it may suggest

representation: public buildings are not called such because they are always


accessible, but because they are representative of some cumulative identity,

whether of 'the people' or of the institution in charge of the public well-

being and public order. Along the same lines, a public event may not be one

to which all are invited, but one which is somehow representative for the

public. Beyond these meanings, there are also the ideas of public opinion or

the public domain, both referring to the people as a body or an audience

creating a public entity in communication or relationship to a government

or culture. It is from this idea that such concepts as public justice, public

hearing, or public outrage stem, and also the concepts of publishing,

publication, publicity or public performance. All of these various aspects of

the public join to create the public sphere. (Habermas 13-14)

Understanding these different aspects of the term public can help us see how

theater might be viewed as a public institution. Like public buildings, the theater

may be one of the public institutions—such as the systems of justice or education—

which are provided legitimacy and status through the government; or, like

publications, publicity or, more appropriately, publicly accessible media, the

theater may be a public institution provided legitimacy by what we might call the

'public body.' Where the theater stands in relation to its legitimacy as a public

institution will influence the drama that we see on the stage and the viewer

expectations regarding its general purpose of being.

It is important to note that this last statement draws a clear distinction between the

theater as an institution and drama as an artistic product.

In its characteristic as a cultural institution, Western theater is a place of

entertainment and/or confrontation, where ideas, values and experiences 'floating

around' in the public sphere at any given time may be reflected, as well as a place

where emerging ideas may be formulated or further developed. These ideas may

relate to the attitudes and values expressed in a play or the aesthetic values

expressed by its form. Furthermore, in this function as a forum for ideas, the theater

or the individual drama can be viewed as an entity that is holding a 'conversation'

or 'discourse' with the public audience, or as an entity facilitating an audience's

conversation with itself and its culture. This is the role of theater as a public forum

or an element of public discourse. The term drama, on the other hand, will be

employed here to point to plays themselves and their qualities of content and form.


From this perspective, drama does not exist without theater and theater does not

exist without drama. Thus, an examination of the theater as a cultural institution in

which plays are produced and performed will shed light on the meaning of a

drama, just as the examination of individual dramas will shed light on the role of

the institution theater at any given time.

Western European Drama and the Public Sphere Because of the cultural and artistic diversity within the region identified as Western

Europe, it is difficult to generalize the effects of the public sphere on Western

European drama. However, an examination of a few concrete situations will reveal

the way in which the structure of the public sphere has affected the institution of

theater and therefore dramatic form or content.

Feudalism is a common, but much disputed word, due to the diversity of specific

arrangements between lords and vassals or lords and peasants in the various

regions or social groups being described as feudal. The most basic meaning,

however, describes an arrangement in which an overlord grants segments of land

(fiefs) to vassals, who pledge their loyalty in return, to include military service. The

vassal might then grant land in the same way, thereby creating complex and

loosely defined levels of hierarchy or social 'classes.' At the bottom level, peasants

receive protection and guarantee of regulated social order in exchange for some

form of economic and/or political subservience, whether this be in the form of

military service, adherence to systems of law or taxation, or the like. This bottom

layer of feudalism overlaps with structures called seignorialism or manorialism.

Important for this discussion is the differentiation between a relatively loosely

organized feudal structure and the highly centralized absolute monarchies

associated with the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

This last point is especially important for any discussion of the public sphere since

in the feudal structure, there is a series of individual 'local' cultures as opposed to

the more centralized culture of the monarchy.

The feudalism described by Habermas in his book shows the following

characteristics:

In the feudal structure there was no public sphere in the modern sense of a

centralized body of political and social representation or discourse. While the

overlord was a figure of cumulative power, he was not necessarily a culturally


representational figure. For the peasants of any given fiefdom, it was the vassal or

lord who embodied their social or cultural identity. Also, because loyalty in many

feudal systems ended with the death of a vassal or overlord, there was not the kind

of continuity that one might see in a monarchy based on succession, making the

manifestation of a stable, coherent culture unlikely. Similarly, there was no

centrally coherent public sphere, but only a loosely connection accumulation of

locally defined public contexts.

The church, on the other hand, was a centralized and representative embodiment

of the collective intellectual and spiritual sphere. Education was in the hands of the

church—the 'house' of intellectual thought—and therefore closed to what we

would call the public in terms of ownership.

In this structure, Habermas sees no private persons in the sense we use the word

today: the feudal lord was part of the ruling structure and therefore a public figure;

and although the common person had some sense of what we would now call the

private, he was not an officially recognized factor in any public identity or culture,

but only served it.

In the example above, it is clear that feudal lords (or vassals) would be classified as

public figures but would not form a cohesive public body overall. Within the

fiefdom and certainly between fiefdoms, peasants were not factors in an official

public culture and so were communicated to (for example, through writs or

proclamations) but not communicated with (through voting or in any kind of public

forum). There was therefore little representation of culture in centralized public

institutions or even necessarily in standardized social norms or classes.

In keeping with this picture, the public activities that took place consisted mainly of

local fairs, tournaments, or displays of knighthood--entertainments for the people,

displays of power by the feudal lords. Other fair entertainments—e.g., minstrel

singing, dancing or mime—were most likely remnants or products of pagan ritual

and therefore belonged to the people in the sense that they were self-organized and

perpetuated, a part of what might be called the 'folk culture.' In this structure,

theater as a centralized social institution would be unlikely.

There was, however, a centralized location of spiritual belief and intellectual

thought in the Church, one capable of overriding the isolated microcultures of the

fiefdoms to form a coherent and representational public identity. Because of this

capacity, it was the Church that became a central locale of early formal dramatic


representation and therefore important to the development of theater in Western

Europe.

This early drama consisted of dramatic ritual manifesting itself in liturgical

ceremonies requiring dialogue between priest and choir. It also manifested itself in

passion plays; in miracle or mystery plays; and, later, in morality plays.

Because these plays may be seen as an attempt of the Church to communicate

belief to the people and legitimize itself as a seat of worldly power before the

people, we would not consider this kind of theater as taking part in a public

discourse of the kind one might see today. It is also clear that the drama produced

in this context would not reflect the lives of the common person from their own

perspective but from one outside of their everyday lives and realm of personal

power. These plays may be described as representational of the Church, rather than

‘of' the people. Drama at this time did not entertain or reflect on the attitudes or

views of the audience, but instructed the audience.

The great Western European monarchies of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries

gave rise to a different kind of public sphere. Habermas notes characteristics of

these monarchies relating to the public sphere.

The Renaissance brought with it the dissolution of the feudal system and the rise of

the great monarchies in Western Europe. Under the supreme rule of the monarch,

noble peers no longer embodied their own regional public identity, but formed an

organized public domain in a defined realm. The court became a controlling force

in centralized cultural self-representation, as well as a locale for such

representation.

Education was still tied to the Church, but education began to vie with noble birth

as means for individuals to enter a state of honor and/or favor in the

representational structure of the court. Still, the noble was the primary culturally

representative, the symbolic public personage.

Commoners still had no socially recognized, personal identity in the collective

structure.

Although the Church was still a decisive force in government, it had received

blows to its power base through Great Schism, the English rejection of the Pope

and the Reformation. Religion wrangled with government for power.


While the position of the monarch solidified in sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,

an increased privatization of commerce and the appearance of stock-holding

companies led to the development of a small, but increasingly powerful pre-

bourgeois class. With the advent of the printing press toward the end of the

sixteenth century, a reading public developed. This reading audience consisted of

nobles by birth; members of the court; a new nobility, emerging on the basis of

education or public office; and a small upper segment of the pre-bourgeois class,

consisting of those successful in commerce. As those outside the court gained the

ability to acquire education and economic power, as well as to become informed

and to disseminate ideas among the populous, the first signs of a public sphere, as

we know it, became evident.

Against the backdrop described above, it is easy to see how a broader base of

accessibility to education and the advent of the monarchy could lead to the

increased secularization of art. Much entertainment still took place in public

squares and venues. Meanwhile, dramatic performance moved from the church to

the court or to a public domain controlled by the monarchical law and resulted in

a corresponding shift in content, from purely religious drama to drama generally

celebrating the noble personage, the king, or courtly ideals. This shift in locale and

content revealed a changing position of the institution of theater within the social

structure.

Nevertheless, just as the common people were being instructed by the Church in

the passion, miracle or morality plays, they were performed for in the sense that

they were not seeing stories about their own lives or views, but the lives of those

deemed significant or the views deemed appropriate by the dominant culture,

which was, in turn, controlled by the monarch.

Several examples of this influence can be seen in the French theater under Louis

XIV

In terms of the effects of the monarchical social structure on the institution of

theater, there is the case of the French playwright Molière the influence of the Louis

XIV on drama designed for public consumption outside of the court. One aspect of

the monarch's influence was royal patronage. After 1658 or so, Molière's troupe

enjoyed the king's patronage, a vital factor in the success of a playwright or

company, since patronage meant funding and/or favor that would enable a


company to survive and attract an audience eager to find favor with the king and

therefore follow his tastes.

Patronage, however, did not universally ensure the acceptance of all material by a

playwright or company, as demonstrated in the case of Moliere's Tartuffe, first

performed for Louis XIV in May 1664. The play's thematic focus is the religious

hypocrisy of the character of Tartuffe, who uses religious piety as a guise for

ingratiating himself to patriarchal head of a small family, thus alienating him from

wife, son and daughter. At the same time that Tartuffe is inciting these family

conflicts, he is attempting to coerce the beautiful matron of the household into an

illicit relationship with him. The play was banned as offensive to religious

sensibilities, which resulted in repeated petitions from Moliere requesting that the

ban be lifted. The first petition was written in August 1664, the second in 1667,

and the third in 1669. In the second petition, we clearly see Louis' absolute control

of culture:

It is indeed an act of temerity on my part to come and importune a great

monarch in the midst of his glorious conquests, but, my position being what

it is, where am I to find protection, Sire, except where I am now seeking it?

Whose aid can I solicit against the authority of the power which is bearing

so hardly upon me unless it be that of the source of all power and authority,

the just dispenser of absolute commands, the sovereign judge and master of

all? (Molière, 106)

In the above, Moliere's absolute acceptance of absolute power is clearly visible.

There is no argument against a specific analysis of the play or against a judgment

based on some kind of objective law—think of laws regarding pornography and

how someone seeking to appeal a ban on a particular book or film might argue a

point based on definitions or legal precedent—but there is only the appeal to the

favor of the king, an appeal seeking to indirectly discredit those who might be

influencing the king. This situation reveals how the public sphere is directly and

explicitly influenced by the tastes of the monarch or selected advisors (including

the clergy), more than by any public opinion in our modern sense of the word. The

situation also reveals how the institution theater and its products can be influenced

by the public sphere as it is embodied by the king and his court.

Continuing with the example of France, in the eighteenth century, there is a

growing sense of a public sphere in the more modern sense. The emergence of


more established professional classes (e.g., lawyers, doctors, administrators) and

prospering capitalists (e.g., bankers, merchants, publishers, manufacturers) made

for an educated reading public and one which could pay for the theater. Also

emerging in this new cultural scene was the professional critic, in whose role we

can see the public self-selecting those of its members who would influence taste,

thought and morals. With this new public sphere and with the possibility of

organized resonance from audiences, the theater began responding more

exclusively to the tastes and interests of the public audience.

In this environment another specific instance of interaction between the public

sphere, the monarch and the theater can be discovered, that in conjunction with

Pierre Caron de Beaumarchais' play The Marriage of Figaro. Whether

Beaumarchais was being overtly political by presenting a comic hero from the

servant class who was not only cleverer than his master, but no better or worse

than his master, is disputed.

Beaumarchais' first 'Figaro-play,' The Barber of Seville reveals a Figaro who is a

clever trickster and generally smarter than his social better, Count Almaviva. The

Count wants to woo a woman (Rosine) who has been locked up by her guardian—

an man much too old for her who is speculating on a forced marriage which will

secure for him not only the young beauty, but her fortune. Figaro encounters the

Count pining away below Rosine's window, clueless as to how to find access to the

object of his longing. The plot focuses on the machinations which help the Count

obtain his goal, all of which are designed and carried out by Figaro. Although this

type of character—the clever servant—is traditional to comedy, Beaumarchais

departs from tradition by providing a detailed history of Figaro's life and thus

presenting a fullness of personality unusual to the traditional stock character.

In The Marriage of Figaro, as scholar Joseph Reish points out in his essay

"Revolution: The Three Changing Faces of Figaro," Beaumarchais goes one step

further presenting a Figaro who "openly flaunts his mental prowess and asks why

this factor and not family and name should be the measure in determining social

importance."

In this play, Figaro's class is precisely identified: he is below the professional class

of lawyers and doctors, but above the class of ordinary peasants. That the Count is

seen to 'give' Figaro his 'peasant bride' further establishes the class structure.

Further, the Count attempts to incur the droigt de seigneur, a practice relating the


seignorialism (already related in this commentary to feudal social structures) which

allows the lord to sleep with the brides falling under his jurisdiction on their

wedding nights. By the time the Marriage of Figaro is performed, the practice is

dated. It is thus reasonable in terms of general cultural values that he be foiled.

However, in this play, Figaro does not use his cleverness for his master's purposes,

but to foil his master's purpose. He not only pits himself against his master, but

gains the support of the Countess in working against her own husband, who is

found to be romantically (and morally) wanting. And as Reish states in his essay:

Airing his grievances publicly is the major thrust of Figaro's strategy; he

intends to dishonor the lord in front of his vassals. Figaro manipulates things

so that the Count must disavow any claim to the 'droigt de seigneur' in a

public forum. (Reish)

It is the 'public' nature of Figaro's fight, though not the particular subject of Reish's

essay, that is interesting here. This aspect of 'appealing to the public' helped make

Figaro's character and the play so controversial—regardless of whether

Beaumarchais was consciously provoking authority or not in his comedy—and it

was the problem of public effect of his speech in the play that occasioned bans. As

in the case of Moliere's Tartuffe under Louis XIV, the performance of

Beaumarchais' Marriage was prohibited by Louis XVI, who was "appalled by the

play's impertinences." (Wood, 23)

Under the type of feudalism described by Habermas, the form that much early

Western European drama took was influenced by the Church, which was an

identifiable, centralized locale of culture. From the Habermasian view, it was also

a cultural institution interested in asserting its influence, thus interested in

'representing itself' before the people.

The shift from actual church ritual to the passion or miracle play is one that might

be viewed as a move from a religious ritual to an artistic product. It may be argued

at which point dramatized ritual stops being religious practice and becomes

theater; however, no matter where one draws the line, the general dynamic is

important to recognize since the move from religious ritual to artistic representation

is one that can be observed in almost all regions of the world and understanding

the remnants of the religious in modern drama is an important cultural observation.

The dynamic of mutual influence is clear here: the monarchical structure may be

seen to influence the theater as a cultural institution and the artistic products


(dramas) produced within it, just as changing social structures may be explicitly or

implicitly reflected in the content or reception of a play.

The same strategies can be employed to examine the connection between the

structure of the public sphere and the institution theater in the nineteenth and

twentieth centuries or discovering explicit and implicit reference to cultural values

and attitudes in critical reception and analysis.

Modern Western Drama in Cultural Context Several significant aspects of Western thought in the twentieth century connect to

modern Western drama. Modernism may be described as connecting to the kind of

desacralization described by Walter Benjamin and therefore to connected shifts in

scientific theory; to the idea humans are on their own when it comes to developing

ethical and moral codes; to the weakening influence of the Church in the public

sphere; and/or to the increased focus on the individual. It may also be connected to

the continuing struggle with language, meaning and doubt regarding the value of

human existence that became a central theme in the twentieth centure. These

observations were presented in relation to general broad cultural experiences in the

West.

Epic Theater & Public Discourse Walter Benjamin's discussion of Bertolt Brecht's epic theater reveals relations

between the theatrical medium and twentieth century experiment. According to

Benjamin, the desacralized stage moves away from the illusionist theater and the

causal plot. It further changes the relationship between the audience, the actor and

the play, encouraging all parties to remain at a critical distance from the play in

order to promote the discovery of social, political and philosophical content on

which everyone must 'take a stand.'

In order to more clearly see Brecht's work in relation to the institution of theater,

the public sphere and cultural context, one must closely examine the cultural

context that Brecht experienced, as well as the situation of the theater as Brecht

was beginning his work.

One aspect of culture Brecht that Brecht perceived was the social failure of

capitalism and the human failure of nationalism, which he came to denounce after

his experiences in World War I. For many Germans, the gruesome events of World


War I were distant statistics and stories represented in a press that did not reach

many rural areas. For Brecht, they were a reality. The expression of his distress may

be seen in his conception of a theater of interruption, of taking a stand, of rejecting

romantic visions of the patriotic. Of the connection between war trauma and

modernist thought, scholar Margaret Higgonet writes:

The interconnection between the symptoms of trauma and a widespread

explanation of the rise of modernism gives this question special weight.

Susan Stanford Friedman writes in her study of H. D. that "Art produced after

the First World War recorded the emotional aspect of this crisis; despair,

hopelessness, paralysis, angst, and a sense of meaninglessness, . . . chaos,

and fragmentation of material reality." 55 Modernist writing, she explains,

focused on the "agency of language" as a vehicle of meaning (ibid.). For

some, trauma writing was defined by a fragmentary juxtaposition of intense

moments and images, as emotionally powerful wording erupted in response

to the war experience. It stood in opposition to the exhausted, cliché

discourse of patriotism and traditional values that Henry James and

Hemingway declined as overstrained and obscene. 56 As Edith Wharton

wrote, "the meaning had evaporated out of lots of our old words, as if the

general smash-up had broken their stoppers." 57 (Higgonet, 102)

Coupled with this disillusionment was the experience of the postwar social and

economic chaos exacerbated by the harsh conditions of the Treaty of Versailles. In

his article on the relationship between the urban context of post-WWI Berlin and

Brecht's Threepenny Opera, David L. Pike writes:

The urban thresholds of begging, prostitution, crime, prisons, executions,

and public festivals...were rendered as bourgeois theatre, thus revealing

their dependence upon the bourgeois sphere. The epic theatre, meanwhile,

the Berlin experience of watching the Dreigroschenoper, prefigured a

materialistic, critical theory of modernity in a city where humanity had no

more currency than as a commodity of the bourgeoisie.

The above suggests some of the probable connections between the cultural context

that Brecht experienced and his concept of theater or specific thematic elements

within his work. Added to this is the context of the theater as an institution in

Germany of the 1920's.


According to scholar Friedrich Dieckmann, except for the Volkstheater (popular

regional theater, usually in dialect) of Southern Germany, the theater in Germany

of the 1920's was undergoing a decline in popularity as a result of the fascination

with film. One of Brecht's goals, Dieckmann claims, was to resuscitate the medium

by integrating the "aesthetic and technique of the new entertainment, the silent

film" with the "cooperative craftsmanship" of the theater, which Brecht associated

with "the old, preindustrial time." (Dieckmann, 12)

Thinking along these lines, one might see in the episodic plot, a structure of scenes

that more closely resembles film montage than the unified causal action of

traditional drama. One might also see in the exaggerated gestures and movements

of the silent film actor, an element of style and method creating distance between

the audience and the actor, a distance that may have contributed to the style later

associated with the alienation effect of Brecht's epic theater. Other aspects of

theatricalism, elements or devices within the play which make the audience aware

of the theatrical mechanism, used by Brecht in his plays were elements of set

design that distracted spectators, hindering them from 'losing themselves' in the

world of the play, or stage events that interrupted the action. In the case of

Trommeln in der Nacht (Drums in the Night), produced in 1922, Brecht included

the following disruptive elements:

At the premiere, Brecht installed banners in the auditorium with phrases

from the play including "Glotzt nicht so romantisch!" ["Stop that romantic

staring!"]. These instructions to the audience aimed to destroy the illusion of

watching "real life" and thereby to overcome passive reception. Brecht

sought not merely to entertain, but also to encourage a critical attitude in the

audience. Other anti-illusionary devices included a red moon magically

aglow before each appearance of Kragler on stage, while Kragler himself

reminds the audience that it is watching actors acting out a reflection of life

and not real life itself. (Lawrie)

From the standpoint of philosophical thought, Dieckmann presents Brecht as

caught between the ideas of Ich-Aufhebung and Ich-Bewahrung, which might be

translated as the preservation of the individual will and identity, as opposed to the

assimilation of the individual into a larger whole. Unable to see a compromise or

harmonious solution to the problems of the individual and the collective identity,

"the group is joined together by an interest that is not longer private and directed


toward self-preservation, but rather one that extends to the whole of society: the

rupturing of the old, egocentric, world." (Dieckmann 13-14)

As in the focus on individual identity and subjective reality in the historical periods

following the French Revolution, focal points of the twentieth century are the

increased awareness of individuality, personal freedom and social responsibility.

Where, then does the problem of 'preserving' the individual will vs. the

'assimilation' of identity into the larger whole arise in Brecht's mind? For Brecht,

the cult of the individual and capitalism were phenomena to be questioned. Like

G. B. Shaw, Brecht was extremely critical of the social consequences of

individualism as it developed under capitalism. Although not Marxist from the start,

Brecht was obviously driven to his dramatic form by his values just as he was

driven to make the 'audience' aware of its participation in the failings of the social

system. Collective responsibility is therefore connected to Brecht's idea of the epic

theater, which the dramatist explicitly introduced after The Threepenny Opera.

Some of the ideas included in the epic theater were the following:

• Theater is not real. Spectators should not be encouraged to engage in the

suspension of disbelief that is part of the illusionist theater, but should

remain aware of the theatrical medium.

• Spectators should not identify with or empathize with the characters.

• Spectators should not be drawn into the tension of the plot, i.e., should not

feel suspense with which they identify.

• There should be no Aristotelian catharsis or emotional release at the end of

the play.

With the above ideas, Brecht did not mean that the audience should not become

emotional—quite the contrary. He wanted to irritate and provoke his audience.

However, he did not want the emotional energy of the spectator to flow into the

character and be satisfied by an ending with closure or resolution. Rather the

spectator should come out of the play stirred up, with the desire to carry this energy

out into the world in the form of political activism.

Some critics have described Brecht's plays as "open ended", but where no

solution to the issues presented on stage is offered, the conclusion is

nevertheless apparent. For example, after the desperate Shen Te in Der gute

Mensch von Sezuan [The Good Person of Szechwan, 1941; produced 1943]


beseeches the gods in vain for a solution to how to survive in a capitalist

society, the epilogue urges the audience to find a "good ending" to the story,

and it is abundantly clear that the only satisfactory resolution to the dramatic

conflict lies outside the theatre in revolutionary transformation of society.

Brecht's intention to stimulate change beyond the actual performance

illustrates his notion of the social function of art. (Lawrie)

Thus, the epic theater does not intend to leave the spectator with dramatic closure

or a feeling that all is right with the world, but with a feeling of disjuncture or a

feeling that something must be set right in the world—the same feeling that Brecht's

cultural context and social experiences evoked in him.

Modern Chinese Drama in Cultural Context Unlike Western Europe and North America, where the monarchies began to either

disappear of lose a significant portion of the influence in the late eighteenth and the

nineteenth century, nineteenth century China was ruled by a strong imperial

dynasty and, perhaps even more importantly, influenced by a rigid social structure

based on the moral, ethical and philosophical teachings of neo-Confucianism. It

was not until early in the twentieth century, in 1911, that a revolution brought

down the dynasty. However, rather than replacing the dynastic rule with a social

and political structure that would respond to a desire for equality or liberal

democracy popular in a large segment of the revolutionary movement, the vacuum

created by the demise of the dynasty left a chaotic power structure dominated by

regional warlords and foreign influences. It was from this chaotic domestic

background that China took part in WWII by supporting the allied forces against

Germany.

However, rather than promoting cultural exchange or intercultural harmony, this

cooperation with the West became a primary cause for the Chinese rejection of the

West in the twentieth century, as seen in the May Fourth Movement, which

immediately followed the signing of the Versailles treaty in 1919. During the

negotiation of the treaty, China had demanded that as a reward for its support in

the war, the allies return the previously German controlled regions of China.

Instead, the Allies gave them to the Japanese. China felt so betrayed by this

decision, that the May Fourth Movement, started by students in May 1919, became

one of the single most important turning points in the development of twentieth

century Chinese culture.


Why is this history important to an understanding of Chinese drama?

This historical background was as important for Chinese culture and drama as the

French Revolution, industrialization, or the developing influence of scientific

thinking have been on Western culture and drama.

For this reason, in trying to assess foreign theater of the twentieth century, in this

case, Chinese spoken drama, one must examine not only historical events, but the

ideas that developed in the culture as a result of historical events and the nature of

the public sphere with regard to influence on cultural values and attitudes or

institutions such as the theater. Explicitly, it must be asked which individuals or

institutions influence the form and content of drama, whether on the basis of taste

or of cultural doctrine. Only when this framework has been identified can the

subtle cultural coding of the plays become intelligible.

Important to the study of twentieth century theater are not merely the facts of this

past, but the understanding of the dynamic between culture and its artistic

institutions, culture and its artists, art and its patrons.

Chinese Spoken Drama: A break from tradition One aspect of modern Chinese drama that must be considered at the outset is the

difference between Chinese opera, a centuries-old, traditional form of drama still

performed today, and Chinese spoken drama, which appeared in early twentieth

century after the fall of the imperial dynasty and thereafter dominated twentieth

century Chinese theater. Just as religious drama or sacred theater in Western

Europe preceded and perhaps paved the way for secular drama and, in the

twentieth century, for the desacralized stage, Chinese opera formed the backdrop

for the development of the Chinese spoken theater.

Chinese opera is usually traced back to the Song Dynasty, that is, to a period

between the tenth and twelfth centuries. Performed in various regions and

historical periods, the opera went through several stages of development before

settling into the forms seen today. Although the Beijing opera (also called Peking

opera) is the most well known to the West, there are parallel forms in Shanghai,

Guangzhou and other regions.

The plots of Chinese opera are generally built on traditional tales, whether

historical or legendary, stories known by a broad cross-section of the general

public. In terms of spectacle, Chinese opera incorporates music, song, dance,


ornate costumes, dramatic make-up, acrobatics, poetry, and other elements of

spectacle. In this sense, it is a very stylized form, in some ways comparable to

Western ballet, in the elements of dance and fixed gestures or postures, or to

Western opera, in the way it incorporates song or storytelling. We can see here a

marked distinction between the symbolic, stylized spectacle of the Chinese opera

and the Western European fascination with the illusionist stage.

In speaking of the differences between traditional Chinese and Western theater,

scholar Richard Yang wrote:

Perhaps the unique feather of the Chinese opera, in comparison to its

Western counterpart, was its imaginative symbolism or its lack of realism.

The Chinese have a saying, "nothing on stage is real." Therefore a walk is

not a real walk; a cry is not a real cry; a laugh is not a really laugh; and a

feast is not a really feast There is no door on the stage, but an actor's gesture

can create a door. There is no mountain on the stage, but a table or chair

can symbolize a mountain. A whip symbolizes a horse. An oar symbolizes a

boat. (Yang, 61)

Unlike the similarly stylized opera or ballet in Western culture, which has generally

enjoyed a reputation as 'high culture' rather than 'popular culture' (with perhaps

the exception of local outdoor performances of opera in Italy), the Chinese opera

developed as a popular form of entertainment.

In speaking of the reasons for the extreme popularity of the Beijing opera in the

nineteenth century, Yang wrote:

The Peking opera had only a few simple singing patterns, so simple that

almost every person in Peking, whether he was a high government official or

a lowly rickshaw coolie, could manage to sing a few of its arias. Its stories

were also simple, mostly taken from popular legends or folklore with which

the people were already familiar. Its dancing forms and symbolic gestures,

though a great puzzlement to first nighters, were actually so

conventionalized that they soon could be easily understood and

appreciated. (Yang, 61)

From this perspective, it becomes clear that the institution of theater in late

nineteenth and early twentieth century China was 'popular' theater and

'representative' theater at the same time, influenced by the tastes and interests of a

broad public sphere which were influenced by a strong imperial dynasty and neo-


Confucian thought. It was therefore a reflection of the world experienced by the

common people as well as something promoted by the imperial dynasty and

therefore a drama also performed for them. It becomes equally clear that the tastes

and interests of the theater-going public were very different than those of Western

Europe and North America.

Aside from the effects of specific historical events or widespread understanding of

what theater "is" on methods and styles within theatrical works, the content and

form of drama are affected by deep cultural elements of religion or by perceptions

regarding the objective and subjective worlds. If, for example, objective reality is

subordinate to an underlying reality as is true in some Eastern religions, it may be

inquired how this will affect the interest in literal realism on the stage.

After the fall of the imperial dynasty in 1911, followed by the simultaneous infusion

of foreign influence and rejection of the rigid formalism of Confucianism, much of

which was explicitly or implicitly present in traditional Chinese opera, came rise of

the Chinese spoken drama. Eliminating music, dance, stylized gesture and costume

in favor of a more realistic dramatization in the Western sense of the word, Chinese

spoken drama became the dramatic form of experiment in twentieth century China.

Chinese Approaches to Modern Chinese Spoken Drama In her book, Reading the Right Text, scholar Xiaomei Chen, attempts to present

Western readers with a cultural view of modern theater in China. Her main

theoretical considerations, designed to reveal the 'indigenous historical and

cultural context' of twentieth century Chinese drama, relate to the following

aspects of modern Chinese plays:

• tensions between 'artistic form and political content'

• aspects of the 'local and global' or 'rural' and 'urban'

• political 'representation of the masses'

• 'revolutionary memory and pop culture'

• 'gender, sexuality and body politics' (Chen, viii)

Although overlaps with concerns of twentieth century Western theater are visible

here, there is also much that is different, for Chen's categories show little interest in

the problem of a scientific theory vs. religious doctrine as the ethical or moral

center of culture, little interest in the problems of objective vs. subjective reality or


in the problem of language and meaning. Instead, there is a more central focus on

politics and social issues, which though also thematically or materially present in

Western drama, portray less prominently the plight of the individual (protagonist)

and focus instead on the plight or condition of a collective group. Some of this

coincides not only with some of the Communist philosophy prevalent in China

during the twentieth century, but also with China's character as a generally

collectivist culture, compared to the individualistic cultures of North America and

much of Central Europe.

Chen's discussion of formalist aspects of Chinese spoken drama also makes clear

the role of Chinese theater in public discourse, as well as the political nature of the

institution. This is not the same as the Western concept of political theater, that is,

the discussion of political intent or explicit and implicit political content injected

into plays by their authors or directors or ensembles, but the politicizing of the

theater by the audience, that is, the search for political implications in the method,

style, or theme of a play.

Accurate Analysis of Chinese genre The discussion of modern Chinese drama in Chen's book also reveals that apparent

similarities in categories of genre may be deceptive, for example in the case of the

historical drama. In the nineteenth century, Western drama used historical settings

to explore the individual's relationship to history. The historical play may therefore

not really be primarily about history but about the concept of the 'individual' in

history, the importance of the individual to history or the individual identity within

the flow of a larger conceptual field, such as history. That history was being

reinterpreted by such plays would certainly have been noted and perhaps

discussed in the critique of the play, but most likely only insofar as it revealed

theme or was effective in discovering layers of meaning in the work.

A good example of contemporary American ambivalence to the truth of history

might be perceived in the current practice of creating books or films, based on a

true story. This phrase, 'based on a true story,' may mean anything from accurate

research and factual representation of details to a vague connection to a real event.

The public or the audience is generally unconcerned about the level of truth in the

connection and more concerned with the story and its meaning for their lives. As a

result of this disregard for or naivete in relation to the problem of historical


accuracy, there are rarely large public discussions or critiques held regarding the

accuracy of these popular works.

In China, however, the reception of historical drama was extremely critical of the

historical representation, the meaning of the interpretation of history and the

significance of this historical interpretation for the present. The individual

characters were important not as heroes or protagonists in the sense of the Western

formalist criticism, but in their characteristics as representatives of cultural values

and attitudes of the present. This critical perspective would probably most closely

connect with what Western scholarship might call the historical critical approach.

Furthermore, because the public sphere was controlled first by Confucian

formalism, then Maoist idealism and social institutions that regulated the

production of art, the idea of symbolic representation had an entirely different

value in Chinese drama than it did in Western drama. If plays set in historical

periods were sometimes used to disguise a discussion of the present that would be

otherwise censored, they were even more often accused of doing so, even where

there was no subversive intent.

One example of politicized critical reception provided by Chen in her book relates

to the Chinese opera Hai Ruis Dismissed from Office:

Responding to Mao's call to write about Hai Rui, a legendary official of the

Ming Dynasty…Wu Han, the deputy mayor of Beijing and a reputable

historian, portrayed an incorruptible Hair Rui dismissed from this official

post for having challenged the authority. Wu's Peking opera was absurdly

interpreted as having used the drama to challenge Mao's dismissal of

General Pen Dehuai, who questioned Mao's radical economic policies of

the late 1950s. (Chen, 21)

Chen cites multiple examples of where such reception of the theater in the public

sphere literally determined the form and content that appeared on the Chinese

stage, just as completely as the 'market' value of supply and demand with regard to

audience taste has influenced much of what appears on the Western stage.

However, despite these differences, there are significant areas of mutual influence

and overlapping areas of interests in Western and Chinese drama. Considering the

political nature of Chinese theater, it is not surprising that an area where there are

explicit cross-currents and also cases of misinterpretation is in the area of political


or revolutionary theater as well as in the thematic exploration of social identity and

social issues.

For this reason, the next section will attempt to show a case study which reveals

the complexity of intercultural influence between Chinese and Western theater and

also the difficulty of analyzing plays from other cultures without the proper

investigation of the culture from which the play has emerged.

Cross-cultural Influence and Analysis Postcolonial illusions: Who is appropriating whom?

The beginning of Modern Chinese spoken drama is set in 1907 with the production

of The Black Slave Cries Out To Heaven, an adaptation of Uncle Tom's Cabin by

the Spring Willow Society which consisted of Chinese students who were living in

Tokyo just after the turn of the century. Although the ostensible issue in the

publishing of the translation of Stowe's novel in China had been the treatment of

Chinese unskilled laborers in America (a parallel to the racism exhibited against the

black race in the novel), the issue of racial and ethnic conflict was also a Chinese

issue within Asia. This was especially true during the War of Resistance against

Japan—the period between 1937-1944, during which the Chinese resisted military

invasion and occupation by Japan—where ethnicity rather than race is the reason

for oppression and persecution. The play was also staged as a class conflict play in

Soviet Communist parts of China in 1933—before the War of Resistance with Japan

and therefore before racial/ethnic issues were a part of the Chinese theater—with

an additional act depicting the rebellion of the black slaves. This play often

resulted in agitation and active political behavior among the audience. (Chen, 3)

Several things are often assumed in postcolonial interpretations of Asian works: the

enforced imposition of Western forms and also the interpretation controlled by the

interests and culture of the West. Chen shows by this example, however, that

Western ideas were also appropriated by the Chinese, who possessed the

knowledge and intent to adapt Western stories and themes to their own purposes.

Postcolonial criticism, however, tends to focus on the effects of Western

colonization on non-Western cultures and subsequently on the works of art

produced in these cultures. In the above case, this critical perspective would limit

the richness of the analysis in recognizing the mutual influence of cultural

products.


Also belying some of the effectiveness of the postcolonial perspective are the

instances of borrowing from East to West. One significant example for the epic

theater and therefore for twentieth century Western drama stemmed from a visit to

Moscow by Bertolt Brecht in 1935, during which the dramatist was exposed to a

performance of Chinese opera. In her essay "Brecht, Feminism and Chinese

Theatre," drama scholar Carol Martin describes Brecht's perception of Chinese

acting and how this experience influenced his concept of alienation with regard to

acting styles.

In his essay ["Alienation Effects in Chinese Acting" 1964] Brecht articulates a

relationship between actor and spectator wherein both become critical observers

(not without empathy of the actions the actor performs. Instead of "real life," Brecht

saw in Mei's acting a manipulable system of signs and referents. He celebrated the

Chinese theatre's ability to manufacture and manipulate Gestus, actions that were

both themselves and emblematic, if not symbolic, of larger social practices.

(Martin, 77)

What Brecht obviously perceived in the stylized gestures, postures and speech of

the Chinese opera was a lack of literal realism, that which helps create the

spectator's illusion of looking in on 'life' when he or she sees a play. Since this

coincided with Brecht's already established interest in a critical distance between

spectator and actor, actor and role, he did not bother to investigate the relationship

between the actor, the role and the real as perceived by the Chinese actors

themselves.

Richard Yang's description of the symbolic nature of emotions, actions and objects

on the stage of the Chinese opera—where "a walk is not a real walk" or "a cry is not

a real cry, where an actor may "create a door" through a gesture, and where

"nothing is real"—blends with Brecht's point. However, there is another aspect of

realism, one based on Chinese values and attitudes, which Brecht did not take into

consideration. Martin cites a quote from actor Mei Lanfang—the actor Brecht

observed in Moscow—that illustrates the principle involved:

When talking about the conventionalized pantomime of smelling the flower in

Drunken Beauty (Guifei zuijiu), Mei Lanfang says: "The important thing is for my

heart and my eyes to see that flower (even though there is not one in sight onstage),

only that will give the audience a sense of reality." (1999:175-76) (Martin, 79)


If we go back to the concept of realism as generally employed in Western literary

theory, we can see some room for this view. While literal realism relates to the

accurate reproduction of physical reality as we experience it in everyday life—the

way a room should look, the way people of a certain social class or education or

region will be likely to talk—psychological realism relates to the plausibility of a

character's motivation or acts in a certain set of circumstances or within certain

relationships. The latter is not necessarily dependent on this behavior occurring

within a physically realistic setting. Thus, in the pop-culture film Star Wars, there is

an aspect of psychological realism in Luke Skywalker's conflicted love of Darth

Vader, even though these characters are placed in an unreal setting of death stars

and interstellar travel. In the case of Chinese Drama, we can see a similar type of

realism—sometimes called poetic realism—that is more focused on the truth of

feelings or metaphysical perceptions than on the truth related to the external world

of objects or observable physical behavior. Our perception of realism is based on

cultural attitudes and beliefs.

This example make evident that dramatists may faithfully adopt styles, methods,

techniques or formal patterns without understanding or perhaps caring about the

meaning of the element in its original cultural context, and that we cannot judge by

appearances when we look at styles, methods or patterns that look the same in a

work from another culture. We must investigate the background and context in

order to gain an understanding of intended meaning.

Apparent similarities and deep-rooted differences One of the plays discussed by Chen in her book and historically significant to

modern drama in China is Cao Yu's Thunderstorm, first performed in 1933. The

main character of the play is Lu Ma, who as a young servant in the house of Zhou,

fell in love with the family's eldest son, Zhou Puyuan and bore him two sons.

When Zhou Puyuan married a woman of influential family, Lu Ma was driven from

the house with the youngest of her sons and forced to leave the eldest son to be

raised in the house of Zhou. Lu Ma subsequently married Lu Gui and bore him a

daughter named Sifeng.

The time of the play's action is thirty years later. Having left Lu Ma and taken their

daughter Sifeng with him, husband Lu Gui has come to work in the Zhou

household. Lu Ma comes to the house in search of her daughter, only to discover

that Sifeng, has fallen in love with the Zhou Ping, the son that Lu Ma had been


forced to leave behind. Because Zhou Ping has been raised as the eldest son of the

house and nobody in the house is aware that Sifeng is Lu Ma's daughter, neither of

the lovers is aware of the incestuous nature of the their relationship.

In another subplot, it is revealed that young Zhou Ping had also been involved in

an affair with the woman who is now old Zhou's second wife and that this woman

is still in love with her son-in-law. This incestuous and chaotic situation ends in

tragedy. Lu Ma's daughter Sifeng and Old Zhou's youngest son are accidentally

electrocuted, upon which his eldest son Zhou Ping shoots himself and Old Zhou's

second wife, Fangyi, goes mad.

Aside from the obvious relationship to the kind of family tragedy evident in Greek

plays such as Oedipus Rex, Chen acknowledges Western influence in the structure

and unity of the play: "Thunderstorm is a well-structured play in four acts and two

scenes…which unfolds and finds resolution within a twenty-four-hour period."

(Chen, 8) This observation makes sense in light of the fact that playwright Cao Yu

had read all of Ibsen and much Western drama prior to writing this play.

In the play's ending, however, Chen discovers a formal similarity between

Thunderstorm and a specific European play, which simultaneously reveals a

fundamental difference in cultural values and meaning.

Like Ibsen's A Doll's House, the play concludes with a lonely patriarch on an

empty stage, signifying the emptiness of a broken home, which was, in fact, never a

'home.' However, the two plays differ in a vital respect: where Ibsen's play

celebrates Nora's leaving home as a courageous act, Cao Yu's play illustrates that

for Chinese women, the lure of leaving home is only a trap. (Chen, 8)

Chen's observation is significant to cross-cultural analysis.

Hendrik Ibsen's realist play tells the story of Nora, who is married to Torvald

Helmer, a bank employee who, after years of hard work and financial struggle, has

obtained a stable position with good income. Treated like a charming but immature

child by her husband, Nora is portrayed as a compliant and doting wife. We

quickly discover, however, that a secret threatens their apparent harmony. Early in

their marriage, when Helmer had become seriously ill and they were without

financial backing, Nora had forged her father's name to a paper in order to get a

loan to enable them to go to Italy for Helmer's convalescence. Saying the money

had come from her father, Nora kept this secret, scrimping money from the weekly

budget to pay back the loan.


It is this secret that creates the tension in the play, for Krogstad, who loaned her the

money, not only works under Helmer at the bank, but is in the process of being

fired by him. When Krogstad discovers that he is to be dismissed from his position,

he threatens to tell Helmer of Nora's duplicity unless she convinces her husband to

keep him on at the bank. When she fails to convince Helmer, Krogstad places a

letter revealing the fraud in Helmer's mailbox, to which Nora has no key. Helmer

reads the letter and reacts by telling Nora that he cannot be married to her. Adding

that she is not fit to be the mother of their children, he threatens to take them away

from her. In the end, another minor character in the play convinces Krogstad to

return the papers documenting Nora's fraud to her. When he does, Helmer, assured

that nobody will discover his wife's crime, decides to forgive her; however, Nora

now sees her husband in such a way that she will not reconcile with him and ends

the play by leaving the house.

The validity of Chen's observations regarding similarities between the two plays is

obvious. As in Thunderstorm, the tension in A Doll's House arises from a secret

threatening to expose a past that will somehow emotionally damage if not destroy

the main character. In both plays, the protagonist is rendered helpless by nature of

social norms related to gender and power relations—in one case, the relations of a

female servant and male master in feudal, pre-Republican China and, in the other,

the relations between husband and wife in a patriarchal European society.

Also, as in Cao Yu's play, the action of Ibsen's play takes place in a single

household. The time frame is slightly longer than allowed by strict Aristotelian

unity, covering several days, but the dynamic of the present being overtaken by

secrets of the past is the same in both plays.

In the comparison of these plays, however, there is an example of two elements

appearing similar but having different meaning in their respective cultural contexts.

In a modern Western drama, such as Ibsen's, the act of asserting one's will in an

attempt to 'determine one's own fate' may end in tragedy, but it will most likely be

considered heroic. Ibsen's ending for Nora is open. By leaving the house she has

asserted her individuality and her freedom. In a Chinese drama such as

Thunderstorm, however, the self-assertion of the individual against the collective is

not heroic. Lu Mah left the household but has not been able to escape her fate.


When examining works from other cultures, it is not only useful, but often vital to

understand the cultural context of the work, as well as the culture-bound

characteristics of critical concepts.

Works Cited:

"Cao Yu's Trilogy: The Wilderness" ChinaCulture.org. c. 2003: Ministry of Culture People's Republic of China. 23 April 2006.

http://www.chinaculture.org/gb/en_artqa/2003-09/24/content_38724.htm

Chen, Xiaomei. Reading the Right Text. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2003.

Dieckmann, Friedrich. "Brecht's Modernity: Notes on a Remote Author." TDR: The Drama Review. 43.4 (1999) 12-15 New York University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. (c) 1999. 16 April 2006. WilsonSelectPlus database.

Habermas, Jürgen. Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit. Darmstadt: Hermann Luchterhand Verlag, 1979.

Higonnet, Margaret. "Authenticity and Art in Trauma Narratives of World War I." Modernism/Modernity 9.1 (2002) 91-107. 15 May 2006. Project Muse.

Lawrie, Steven W. "Bertolt Brecht." The Literary Encyclopedia. 17 Dec. 2004. The Literary Dictionary Company. 15 April 2006. <http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=554>

Martin Carol. "Brecht, Feminism, and Chinese Theater." TDR: The Drama Review. 43.4 (1999) 77-85 New York University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. (c) 1999. 16 April 2006. WilsonSelectPlus database.

Molière, The Misanthrope and Other Plays. trans. John Wood. Harmondsworth: Penguin. 1987.

Pike, David. "Kaliko-Welt: The Großstädte of Lang's Metropolis and Brecht's Dreigroschenoper." MLN 119.3 (2004) 474-505. 15 May 2006. Project Muse.

Wood, John. "Introduction." Beaumarchais, The Barber of Seville and The Marriage of Figaro. trans. John Wood. Baltimore: Penguin. 1964. 11-36


Yang, Richard F. S. "Behind the Bamboo Curtain: What the Communists Did to the Peking Opera." Educational Theatre Journal, Vol. 21, No. 1. (Mar., 1969), pp. 60-66. JSTOR

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