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Chinese Yuan and English Renaissance theaters: A comparative study
Abstract
Earlier scholars have made some unsubstantiated comments about similarities between Chinese Yuan and English Renaissance theaters. The present comparative study explores the significant similarities and differences between these two theaters. The two theaters are shown to be strikingly similar in the theatrical conventions they employ. We see similarities between these two theaters in crucial aspects. Both were open theaters with a bare stage surrounded by the audience on at least three sides. Both stages lacked scenery and used portable properties transported by stage hands. Audience were equally noisy. The players, clad in magnificent costumes, were flexible and skillful in acting, singing, dancing, and tumbling. They spoke, chanted, or sang in both prose and verse forms. They also followed similar procedures in their presentation. These areas of similarity required players of both theaters to act with a theatricality or stylization. In this study, I have applied the approaches taken by the scholars of English Renaissance theater to the study of Chinese Yuan theater. This has enabled me to explore some areas that scholars on Yuan theater have not touched. This synchronic comparison of two theatrical conventions bearing no traces of mutual influence also shows that, given similar historic, economic and social soils, people in different civilizations will bring similar flowers to bloom.
Subject Area
Comparative literature|Asian literature|Theater|British and Irish literature
Recommended Citation
Wei, Shu-Chu, "Chinese Yuan and English Renaissance theaters: A comparative study" (1991). Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest. AAI9132933.
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI9132933