ABSTRACT
This chapter interrogates the phenomenal success of S. I. Hsiung’s 1935 production of Lady Precious Stream on the international stage, particularly on the London stage. It approaches Hsiung’s play as a Chinese chinoiserie marked by its invocation of the spectral authenticity and authority of traditional Chinese theatre. Despite the play’s Chinese origin, however, the intercultural locus of its production necessitates a decontextualized reconstitution of the play. The afterlife of the original Chinese play was self-Orientalized in Hsiung’s adaptation as a Chinese chinoiserie, a self-conscious fabrication of Chinese tradition. And, at the same time, it was strongly influenced by the English romantic, sentimental and melodramatic theatrical traditions and experiences and was charged with the English and European modernist imagination of Chinese theatrical tradition.
