Theater and Society

The five texts presented in this anthology are selected from the hundreds of plays and film scripts written and produced each year in China since 1979. Registering the nation’s social, economic, political, and cultural transformations, these works have been published in leading journals and staged in major theaters, provoked powerful responses from Chinese audiences, and caused heated discussions, controversies, and confrontations on a national scale. Representing the most important achievements of contemporary Chinese theater, they also cover its two leading genres, namely, traditional regional music drama and modern spoken drama. ¹ The one film script included here, Old Well, is nationally and internationally acclaimed. This anthology, the first to present this dramatic and performing literature, offers both vital information about what has come to be called “the dramatic renaissance of the new period” and significant insights into a society that has been undergoing complex structural changes.