Wei Zhang - Chinese Adaptations of Brecht Appropriation and Intertextuality

As China is becoming an important player on the world stage, Chinese literature is poised to change and reshape the overlapping, shared cultural landscapes in the world. This series publishes books that reconsider Chinese literature, culture, criticism, and aesthetics in national and international contexts. While seeking studies that place China in geopolitical tensions and historical barriers among nations, we encourage projects that engage in empathetic and learning dialogue with other national traditions. Imbued with a desire for mutual relevance and sympathy, this dialogue aspires to a modest prospect of world culture. We seek theoretically informed studies of Chinese literature, classical and modern - works capable of rendering Chinas classical heritage and modern accomplishments into a significant part of world culture. We promote works that cut across the modern and tradition divide and challenge the inequality and unevenness of the modern world by critiquing modernity. We look for projects that bring classical aesthetic notions to new interpretations of modern critical theory and its practice. We welcome works that register and analyze the vibrant contemporary scenes in the online forum, public sphere, and media. We encourage comparative studies that account for mutual parallels, contacts, influences, and inspirations.

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Cover illustration: Drawing ofThe Chalk Circle. By permission of Qianman Wan at MICA

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This book is derived from my PhD dissertation at the University of Hawaii at Mnoa.

I am deeply indebted to Professor Markus Wessendorf, my advisor and dissertation chair. He has kindly guided me throughout my PhD studies and dissertation project, making time to read and offer detailed and thoughtful feedback and suggestions for revision for the many drafts of my proposal, journal submissions, and dissertation chapters even on weekends and during holidays and vacations. Without his inspiring and patient mentorship, the completion of PhD studies and the dissertation would not have been accomplished.

I would like to extend my sincerest thanks to Professor Lurana D. OMalley, Professor Julie A. Iezzi, and Professor Kirstin A. Pauka for the most memorable courses I have taken with them and for invaluable guidance and support and for their illuminating feedback and meticulous editing.

I am very grateful to Professor Ming-Bao Yue, Dr. Weijie Yu (Singapore), and Professor Frederick Lau for their tremendous help and advice in the development stage and the final dissertation process.

I would like to express my gratitude to all those who have offered guidance and support for me at UH-Mnoa during my PhD studies there.

I owe many thanks to Professor Kathy Foley, former editor of theAsian Theatre Journal (ATJ), for patiently helping me to revise my first journal submission in English (which was published in the fall issue of 2016) as well as my second submission. I am profoundly grateful to Professor Siyuan Liu, currentATJeditor, for his extensive and patient guidance in the preparation of my second journal article for publication.

I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and suggestions on my twoATJarticles.

My heartfelt gratitude goes to the theatre artists in Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, and Chongqing in China whom I have interviewed for this project. They are (in the order in which I interviewed them between March and July 2016): Lin Zhaohua, Liu Xiaorong, Zhang Qiuge, Shen Lin, Feng Yuanzheng, Zhao Ningyu, Li Jianming, Jiang Ruoyu, Ding Yangzhong, Lu Xuegong, Xue Dianjie, Zhang Li, Chen Qiaoru, Zhao Jianrong, Yang Xiao, Sun Yongbo, Jian Xiaoli, Wei Minglun, Hu Chengde, Gao Yin, Huang Jisu, Ding Jiali, Zhang Nan, Zhao Han, Shen Qian, Zhang Xiaoming, and Liu Yonglai. Additionally, I need to thank Wu Xi, Liu Feng, Ouyang Ming, Ma Lianqing, Xu Yongming, Shen Tiemei, Peng Xinqi, Jiang Naichen, Cui Guangli, and Liu Kaikui, for their work on the Brecht adaptations and/or for sharing their insights during phone interviews when I was writing my dissertation and revising the journal articles in the past several years. Their dedication to the theatre arts and their inspired adaptations of Brechts plays after the Cultural Revolution have made this book possible.

My thanks would also go to the professors who have helped me at different institutes in the past: Professor William Huizhu Sun, who directed my first PhD dissertation at Shanghai Theatre Academy; Professor Huihui Zheng, my MA thesis advisor at Shanghai Normal University; and Professor Judy Mitoma, Professor Angelia Leung, Professor Victoria Marks, and the Center for Intercultural Performance at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

I owe a profound debt of gratitude to the Dai Ho Chun Fund, John Young Scholarship in the Arts, UHM-PKU Exchange Scholarship, Chun Ku & Soo Yong Huang Foundation, College of Arts and Humanities Dissertation Research Award, Research Corporation of the University of Hawaii Graduate Fellowship, the Chung-fong and Grace Ning Chinese Studies Fund, Graduate Student Organization Funding, Department of Theatre and Dance, and the Center for Chinese Studies at UH-Mnoa for supporting my research.