Adapting Shakespeare from Western Drama to Chinese Opera

Abstract

Two hundred and forty years after his death, Shakespeare was introduced to China. It was in 1856 that the British missionary William Muirhead mentioned the Bard of Avon in his Chinese translation of British history. In 1878, the first Chinese ambassador in Britain, Guo Song-tao, saw a performance of a Shakespeare play at the Lyceum Theatre in London. He was very impressed and recorded this in his diary.1 Today, the Chinese people can not only read Shakespeare in English and Chinese, but can also enjoy his plays on stage. There are two major performative modes in which Shakespeare appears in China. Each of them has about one hundred years of history. One is Huaju or ‘spoken drama', influenced by Western drama; the other is Xiqu or ‘Chinese opera', based on the indigenous theatre. Adapting Shakespeare into Huaju is easier because the transfer takes place within the same art: however, adapting it into Chinese opera is much more complicated because they are entirely unrelated. In spite of this, since the early twentieth century Chinese practitioners have been brave enough to meet the challenge. So far, there are more than twenty indigenous operas in different genres that have been adapted from Shakespeare.
Parallel to that, Shakespeare's plays were also adapted into Chinese stage drama (Huaju). Li Ruru, scholar of Chinese theatre, has discussed these attempts in her book Staging Shakespeare in China.2 Though there exists an early silent film adaptation made in 1931, two years ago the first contemporary Chinese film adaptations from Shakespeare were realised: The Banquet and Prince of the Himalayas, both of which are based on Hamlet (I have analysed them in my recent book Shakespeare's Images).3 Whether as operas or theatre plays or films, these adaptations are the subject of continuous debate.

Shakespeare in Southern Africa Vol. 20 2008: pp. 1-11