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Cultural Significance of Mei Lanfang’s Performances in the U.S. in the 1930s

Shin, Jee-young 1

1서울대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

The Chinese Peking Theatre (“Chinese Theatre”), one of China’s most representative forms of performing arts, has resonated deep with Chinese people since the Qing Dynasty to date. The sheer volume of massive publications on artistic achievements or features of the Chinese Theatre demonstrates people’s profound interest in the theatre. Those books and journals may describe the pride the public have over the nation’s cultural excellence. Or they may be about the assessment by the art experts over its cultural and artistic values. It almost surely appears that the Chinese Theatre is a perfectly ideal form of performing arts that strikes a chord with the Chinese. This brings up the question whether the theatre can touch upon the emotions of people from other cultures. This study started from the curiosity of how the Chinese Theatre may have been received by the people from the cultures that are geographically remote when even the public of neighboring Korea felt starkly unfamiliar about the theatre. To this end, the study chose Mei Lanfang’s overseas performances for analysis, particularly those performed in the U.S. In fact, Mei Lanfang’s performances in Japan made a sensational success as predicted along with comparative critiques being actively written over similarities between the Chinese Theatre and Onnagata from Japan’s Kabuki Theatre. Theatre performances in the U.S. have a wholly different level of meaning because they deal with the audience of a completely different culture. Mei Lanfang’s performances in the U.S. were successful because of excellent strategy and planning of his team and Americans’ interest in the unique and eccentric features of the Chinese art. But most of all, Mei Lanfang’s personal excellence in theatrical arts and maturity and openness of U.S. artistic and theatrical circles were the primary reasons for the triumph. American contemporary artists and critics could look into their own theatrical and cultural circumstances in a different perspective through the Chinese Theatre.

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.