Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Huang, Alexander CY

Titel

The Politics of an "Apolitical" Shakespeare: A Soviet-Chinese Joint Venture, 1950-1979

Ist Teil von

• Borrowers and lenders, 2005-10, Vol.I (2)

Ort / Verlag

Athens: Borrowers and Lenders: The Journal of Shakespeare and Appropriation

Erscheinungsjahr

2005

Quelle

Elektronische Zeitschriftenbibliothek - Frei zugängliche E-Journals

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• In the postcolonial and global era, appropriation of canonical works has frequently been seen as an act of political intervention. In the history of Shakespearean appropriation, however, there have been a few unusual cases that thrive on a vision of apolitical productions. The popular Chinese Much Ado About Nothing (1957, 1961; carbon-copy revival in 1979) is a case in point. Under the historical circumstances of Soviet-Marxist-Maoism in the mid-twentieth century, China witnessed a Soviet-Chinese joint venture to appropriate Much Ado for both practical and aesthetic purposes: to familiarize Chinese actors with the Stanislavskian method; to offer the Chinese audience a glimpse into what was perceived to be authentic theatrical realism and authentic Shakespeare; and, finally, to provide "apolitical" entertainment in a time when ideologies shifted as frequently as policies changed. The Soviet-Chinese joint venture manufactured desirable histories and memories. As such, the trajectory of this particular adaptation over time contradicts the present understanding of historicist and presentist approaches to premodern texts. The creation and reception of this supposedly apolitical Shakespeare are fraught with complications, because at work are the politics of "apoliticization" in the advent of Communism and political prosecution.