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Eugene O'Neill as Traditional Chinese Theatre: Adapting Desire under the Elms

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2009

ZHU XUEFENG  and
LIU HAIPING
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Abstract

Eugene O'Neill's Desire under the Elms (1924) has been adapted twice into traditional Chinese theatre (xiqu), or into Sichuan opera (chuanju) and Henan qu opera (henan quju) to be specific. A close reading of the adaptations reveals that the traditional theatre has been in a persistent search for intercultural perspectives, which at the same time also proves self-reflective. All through the two Desire adaptations there runs a significant indigenous vein, bringing to the American play a mixture of historical memories and contemporary experiences peculiar to China. Both scripts mirror the current spectacle of dramatic encounters between heterogeneous elements – native and foreign, traditional and modern – producing unceasing collisions and fragmentary images in the process. They nevertheless suggest the possibility of reaching a plateau where boundaries are crossed and seemingly incompatible elements merge. The kind of selective assimilation of modern Western thoughts and dramatic techniques evidenced here bring about a new turn in the traditional Chinese theatre.

Type
Articles
Information
Theatre Research International , Volume 34 , Issue 1 , March 2009 , pp. 3 - 20
Copyright
Copyright © International Federation for Theatre Research 2009

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References

NOTES

1 Xu Wen, editor's note to Yushuxia de lianqing (Love under the Elms), by Eugene O'Neill, trans. Jiang Jia and Jiang Hongding (Changsha: Hunan renmin chubanshe, 1983), p. 2 (hereafter Yushuxia).

2 Chen Qiaoru, interview with Zhu Xuefeng, 30 December 2006.

3 Xu Fen, ‘Yuhai kuangchao dawenlu’ (Xu Fen on Raging Tides of a Sea of Desire) (hereafter ‘Dawenlu’), in Xu Fen xiju zuopinxuan (Xu Fen: Selected Plays) (hereafter XFXZ), 2 vols. (Chengdu: Sichuan renmin chubanshe, 2001), Vol. I, p. 221. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are our own.

4 Meng Hua, Yushu guzhai (Old House under the Elms), TS (1999), p. 1. The playscript was later published, with revisions, in Juben (Play Monthly), 10 (2006).

5 Xu Fen, Yuhai kuangchao (Raging Tides of a Sea of Desire) (hereafter Yuhai), XFXZ, Vol. I, p. 183.

6 Xu Fen, ‘Dawenlu’, p. 222.

7 Meng Hua, playbill of Yushu guzhai (Old House under the Elms), dir. Xie Kang, Zhengzhou Quju Company, Zhengzhou, 2000.

8 Guomin gongbao (National Gazette), 4 April 1912.

9 Fuchang, Yan, ed., Chuanju yishu yinlun (Introduction to the Art of Chuanju) (Chengdu: Bashu shushe, 2000), p. 215Google Scholar.

10 Xu Fen, ‘Weilan qi botao’ (From Ripples to Waves), XFXZ, Vol. II, p. 765.

11 Xu Fen, ‘Zhenxing xiqu de sikao’ (Thoughts on the Revival of Traditional Theatre), XFXZ, Vol. I, pp. 543–4.

12 Xu Fen, ‘Guanyu “tansuoxing xiqu” de dubai’ (A Monologue on the ‘Experimental Traditional Theatre’), XFXZ, Vol. I, p. 612.

13 Xu Fen, Yuhai, pp. 183–4.

14 Xianglin, Li, ‘Lun dangdai chuanju gaibianzhong de “chuangzaoxing beipan”’ (On the ‘Creative Betrayal’ in Contemporary Chuanju Adaptations), Chengdu daxue xuebao (Journal of Chengdu University), social science edition, 1 (1999), p. 52Google Scholar.

15 See Guowei, Wang, ‘Hong lou meng pinglun’ (On A Dream of Red Mansions), in Wang Guowei xueshu jingdian ji (Academic Classics by Wang Guowei) (Nanchang: Jiangxi renmin chubanshe, 1997), p. 58Google Scholar.

16 Xu Fen, interview with Zhu Xuefeng, 20 January 2002.

17 Confucius, Confucian Analects, in The Four Books, trans. James Legge (Shanghai: The Chinese Book Company, 1930), bk. 4, chap. 16.

18 Extant O'Neill papers include nine pages of notes on Thus Spoke Zarathustra and thirteen of the eighty-four entries in all teach that values are not absolute. See Robinson, James A., Eugene O'Neill and Oriental Thought: A Divided Vision (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1982), p. 60Google Scholar.

19 See Gelb, Arthur and Gelb, Barbara, O'Neill (New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1973), 486–7Google Scholar.

20 Eugene O'Neill, Desire under the Elms, in idem, Complete Plays, ed. Travis Bogard, 3 vols. (New York: Library of America, 1988), Vol. II, pp. 375, 377 (hereafter Desire).

21 See Freud, The Ego and the Id, in The Freud Reader, ed. Peter Gay (New York: W. W. Norton, 1989), p. 645.

22 O'Neill, Desire, p. 342.

23 This title was adopted upon the suggestion of the deputy mayor of Zhengzhou; a metaphor of the relationship between administration and theatre production in contemporary China. When the adaptation was revived in 2006, the title was altered to Yushu guzhai (Lonely House under the Elms).

24 Yushuxia.

25 O'Neill, Desire, p. 343.

26 Hua, Meng, ‘Aoshi juzuo yu Zhongguo xiqu de juyu yu mohe’ (The Colliding and Grinding between O'Neill's Play and the Traditional Chinese Theatre), in Youjin Aoni'er xiju yanjiu lunwen ji (A Collection of Papers on Eugene O'Neill), ed. Kedui, Liao (Zhengzhou: Henan wenyi chubanshe, 2001), p. 10Google Scholar.

27 Ibid., p. 13.

28 Yu, Li, Xianqing ou ji (Random Notes of Idle Pleasures) (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2000), pp. 73, 76Google Scholar.

29 Ibid., p. 75.

30 Xu, ‘Dawenlu,’ p. 224.

31 Sun Yan, Liu Liming and Meng Feizhou, ‘Yangju changqile zhongguo qiang’ (Singing A Foreign Play in Chinese Opera), Xinhua Zongheng (Across New China), 2 January 2001.

32 Liu Haiping is an O'Neill scholar and one of the authors of this article.

33 Alexander Moffett is professor of theatre at the Grinnell College in Iowa.