A History of Chinese Drama

This volume gives the first substantial outline in any Western language of Chinese theatre, from its origins to the present day. Dr. Dolby's is a pioneer introduction to one of the most vital and vivid aspects of Chinese life through the centuries, as well as to what, in many ways, has been the most potent genre of Chinese literature and entertainment. Dr. Dolby pursues the origins of Chinese theatre back to the court-jesters, wrestlers, tumblers, troubadours, story-tellers, puppeteers, preachers, Buddhist missionaries, dancers, slapstick clowns and singing-girls of ancient times, and probes the emergence of a drama consciousness and of the first proto-dramatic institutions. He thereafter discusses each of the major forms of Chinese drama, from the Yuan zaju theatre, which flourished during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries under Mongol conquest, right up to the Peking Opera, Western-style drama, and other twentieth-century developments. Close attention is paid to the interaction between the drama of the imperial court and that of the villages and markets, and also to the wider social significance of drama in China. Individual outstanding plays are considered in detail, and extended passages are quoted in the author's own new translations; many of these plays have never previously been translated. A bibliography of translations into Western languages is provided.