The Communication and Reception of Polish Theatre in China

2.1. Literature review

Before understanding the communication and reception of Polish theatre in China in detail by means of case studies, it is mandatory to introduce the development process and the current situation of Chinese modern theatre Huaju (话剧, shortened as Chinese theatre in this study). Only by understanding where Chinese theatre came from, what it is now within the local theatre ecosystem, and where it wants to go, and by reviewing the communication footprint of Polish theatre in the hundred-year development of Chinese theatre in a temporal dimension/on a time-line, can we have an overall picture of both the reception-end and the entire communication process itself.

Therefore, the second chapter gives an overview of the development history and current situation of Chinese theatre and the communication of Polish theatre in China through literature review. For the part reviewing Chinese theatre development, especially the New Period’s two “theatrical waves from the West”, references are mainly from a 2017 volume of conference proceedings edited by Tian Benxiang entitled The Second Western Theatre Wave in the New Era (Xin shiqi xiju erdu xichao), as it collected all the Chinese leading theatre scholars and professionals’ views and keynote speeches delivered at the 2016 Beijing conference. The materials used to understand the general situation of the communication and reception of Polish theatre in China are from the articles published in academic journals, magazines and newspapers which, honestly speaking/unfortunately, are limited, as well as the information available on the Internet.

2.2. Case studies

Chapters three to six are case studies at the micro level. As for the case selections to study the communication and reception of Polish theatre in China, two perspectives are considered: one is theatrical theory/thoughts/ideas, and the other is theatrical productions/works. These two perspectives function as, metaphorically speaking, two parallel lines.

The case study of chapter three focuses on the perspective of theatrical theory. Polish theatre master Jerzy Grotowski who influenced the world theatre in the 20th century is selected for study. The reception of Grotowski’s theatrical ideas/concepts by Chinese academic and theatre circle are analyzed. The research materials are speeches, interviews and academic articles by Chinese scholars and experts. In terms of time span, the analysis covers the time from the 1960s to 1980s when China ushered into the New Period’s first “theatrical wave from the West” and Chinese theatre circle was involved in a heated discussion on “theatre view” (戏剧观 xi ju guan), and then concludes with the first decade of this century.

The case studies in the fourth and fifth chapters focus on Polish theatrical productions performed on the Chinese theatre stage. The reason for having such works for research is mainly because in the second decade of the new century, Polish theatrical works entered China for performance in the context of a new round of “theatrical wave from the West” that surged in China. In terms of the selection of study case and the time span, the fourth chapter selects Mo Fei, a production directed by the famous Polish theatre director Krystian Lupa. It is adapted from a novel by Chinese writer Shi Tiesheng and performed mainly by Chinese actors. The work was first performed at the Lin Zhaohua Theatre Art Festival in 2017 and then toured in many cities across the country. The fifth chapter chooses (A)pollonia, a production directed by an influential Polish director Krzysztof Warlikowski. (A)pollonia was first premiered in Poland as early as 2009, in 2016 it was performed at the 6th Lin Zhaohua Theatre Art Festival. It is based on the text, which is foreign to Chinese audience, and all the actors are Polish. In addition to investigating the reception and influence of these two different Polish theatrical works, I also expect to explore the influencing factors in cross-cultural communication. When analyzing these two works, the investigated groups at the reception-end include not only Chinese theatre experts and scholars, but also ordinary audiences. The analysis is carried out from two dimensions: qualitative and quantitative. Qualitative analysis is text analysis, which includes text analysis of academic articles, drama reviews, forum speeches, news and media reports (traditional media & new media) published by experts and scholars, as well as the analysis of audience comments posted on the online new media platform Douban. The quantitative research relies on the statistical data from Douban, with data comparison between the two works. (Note. The content of chapter five is also collected in pages between 193 and 241 in an e-Book Value disputes II. Alternate worlds by Polish scholars Łukasz Rozwadowski and Marcin Stabrowski (red.) with the title “Mediation of the values in the reception of Warlikowski’s theater in China.” The e-book is available at http://sklep.wuwr.com.pl/products/2290.html?status=nowosc.)

In chapter six, the case study targets Lupa’s A Madman’s Diary. It should be noted that Mo Fei and (A)pollonia were staged in China in 2017 and 2016 respectively when the new round of “theatrical wave from the West” was in its strong momentum. At the end of 2019, after the outbreak of the COVID-19, this wave cooled down. Due to the pandemic prevention and control measures, transportation inconveniences and many other factors, foreign theater works, including Polish ones, were hardly exhibited in China. The only exception, and a notable one, is the premiere in March 2021 of Lupa’s second Sino-Polish co-production A Madman’s Diary, which is the only Polish director’s theatrical work staged in China since the outbreak of the pandemic. Year 2021 marked the 100th anniversary of the great Chinese writer and reformer Lu Xun’s birth, and as adapted from Lu Xun’s novel of the same name, Lupa’s A Madman’s Diary had attracted Chinese theatre people’s attention and aroused heated discussions on more controversial topics with mixed reviews during the pandemic. If Lupa’s first play Mo Fei mainly discusses human plight, loneliness, human nature, and the relationship between people, then A Madman’s Diary is more challenging, its dimension is richer and topic sharper. It leverages Lu Xun’s novel to investigate the system and humanity, and transcends the categories of country, culture, and the limits of time. Such a bold attempt put some Chinese theatre professionals in awe, but it was bound to receive different opinions as well. Therefore, the sixth chapter analyzed the reception of Lupa’s A Madman’s Diary in China, and the analysis focuses on the opinions and views of the Chinese theatre professionals and scholars. The research materials mainly come from the published after-show talks, critical articles written by Chinese scholars, and their interviews with Lupa. For the audience analysis, Douban data is no longer used for analysis, but I attach a review written by myself from the perspective of an ordinary member of the audience after watching the performance in March 2021 in Shanghai Grand Theatre.

The specific research data and methods will be described in more detail in each chapter. Here it should be noted that as for the text excerpts and quotations used in the analysis, especially the audience’s comments on the new media platform Douban, for privacy protection concern, any profile related information of the Douban reviewer is not given in the study. The quoted texts and excerpts remain the same as the original text on the platform, although there may be some grammatical and spelling errors in the original text, which are not corrected in this study. The statistical data of Douban is only quoted for research purpose, and data such as ratings in this study reach up to the time when the analysis was conducted, which could be different from the real-time data shown on the platform.