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The Stage History of Roar China!: Documentary Drama as Propaganda

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 October 2010

Walter J. Meserve  and
Ruth I. Meserve
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Extract

During the 1920's China was undergoing great political and social change. The Republican government under the leadership of Sun Yat-sen struggled against warlord factions and watched the birth of the Communist Party of China (1921). It was a time of turmoil and unrest, as newspapers headlined frightening incidents of murder, banditry, illegal taxation, military skirmishes and plundering. Added to China's problems was the recent appearance on her rivers of boat patrols by foreign governments who vowed to protect their commercial interests at any cost. That presence was an embarrassing, even an insulting situation. Finally, on the eve of 1924, Sun Yat-sen announced that China would look toward Russia for help. China would turn away from the West—particularly Britain, America, France and Germany, all of whom had participated in the division of China into foreign legations and treaty ports after the Opium War (1840–42) and had enjoyed great economic advantages as a consequence.

Type
Research Article
Information
Theatre Survey , Volume 21 , Issue 1 , May 1980 , pp. 1 - 13
Copyright
Copyright © American Society for Theatre Research 1980

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References

NOTES

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Fast am maisten verstimmt hat hier die Darstellung der Engländer in China. Die Russen zeigen in Brülle China! allzu wenig Interesse für die eventuelle Nettigkeit der Engländer im privaten Umgang! Als ob es nötig wäre, in einem Stück über die Bluttaten des Konigs Attilla sein Kinderliebheit besonders zu zeigen.

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37 Ibid.

38 We are most grateful to the Hungarian Theatre Institute (Budapest) for allowing us to use the materials in their fine clipping collection for the Polish and Zurich productions of Roar China.

39 A version of this paper was given as a Public Lecture at the University of Toronto, Massey College, Centre for Graduate Study of Drama on 23 March 1976.