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Adaptation as Appropriation: Staging Western Drama in the

First Western-Style Theatres in Japan and China

Siyuan Liu

Theatre Journal, Volume 59, Number 3, October 2007, pp. 411-429 (Article)

Published by Johns Hopkins University Press


DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/tj.2007.0159

For additional information about this article


https://muse.jhu.edu/article/223705

Access provided at 5 Feb 2020 19:53 GMT from CUNY Graduate Center
Adaptation as Appropriation:
Staging Western Drama in the First Western-
Style Theatres in Japan and China

Siyuan Liu

Acculturation/Domestication versus Foreignization


Writing about the debate between acculturation (also referred to as domestication)
and foreignization in translation studies, Susan Bassnett cites French and German prac-
tices in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries as examples of the opposed
approaches, both “extensively justified in both intellectual and aesthetic terms”:1

The acculturation versus foreignisation debate has been with us for centuries. Grossly sim-
plified, the issue hinges on whether a translator should seek to eradicate traces of otherness
in a text so as to reshape that text for home consumption in accordance with the norms and
expectations that prevail in the target system, or whether to opt for a strategy that adheres
more closely to the norms of the source system. Acculturation, it can be argued, brings a text
more completely into the target system, since that text is effectively aimed at readers with
no knowledge of any other system. On the other hand, foreignisation ensures that a text is
self-consciously other, so that readers can be in no doubt that what they are encountering
derives from a completely different system, in short that it contains traces of a foreignness
that mark it as distinct from anything produced from within the target culture.2

A century later in Japan and China, the same two opposed approaches were used to
introduce and adapt Western theatre. There it first appeared in acculturated forms,
only to be replaced later by styles that emphasized foreignization in translation and
production.
The acculturated form of Western theatre, which emerged in Japan during the 1880s
as a result of the country’s modernization and Westernization, is known as shinpa (new

Siyuan Liu recently received his PhD in theatre and performance studies from the University of Pitts-
burgh. He has published research articles in Asian Theatre Journal and Text & Presentation, and
contributed entries on twentieth-century Chinese theatre to The Oxford Encyclopedia of Theatre
and Performance and The Encyclopedia of Asian Theatre. His research focus is on the interac-
tion between East Asian theatre and the West in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He has staged
productions in both China and the United States.

I would like to thank the two anonymous readers and the editors of Theatre Journal for their invalu-
able suggestion and comments.
1
Susan Bassnett, “Bringing the News Back Home: Strategies of Acculturation and Foreignisation,”
Language & Intercultural Communication 5, no. 2 (2005): 121.
2
Ibid., 120–21.

Theatre Journal 59 (2007) 411–429 © 2007 by The Johns Hopkins University Press
412  /  Siyuan Liu
school drama).3 It reached the height of its commercial success in the first decade of the
twentieth century by combining acting styles of kabuki and Western realistic theatre,
localizing European romantic and melodramatic plays and adapting Japanese melo-
dramatic fictions. This model was emulated by the Chinese student group the Spring
Willow Society (Chunliu She) in Tokyo, where in 1907 they staged an adaptation of
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, renamed Black Slave’s Cry to Heaven
(Heinu yutian lu). Subsequently, these students brought what they had learned back to
Shanghai where this new theatre, known as wenmingxi (civilized drama),4 flourished
throughout the 1910s.
However, as cultural and theatrical contact between Japan/China and the West
widened and both countries continued down the path of modernization through West-
ernization, the pendulum gradually swung to favor foreignization in both translation
and production. In Japan, this foreignizing format is known as shingeki (new drama),5
which theatre historians generally agree debuted in 1909 with a production of Ibsen’s
John Gabriel Borkman. It was directed by Osanai Kaoru (1881–1928), who was known
for his unyieldingly canonical and foreignizing approach to translating and staging
European plays.6 Starting from the 1920s, the same kind of theatre—called huaju (spoken
drama)7—emerged in China, thanks both to students who returned from the West and
Japan and to a change in the intellectual environment that preferred foreignization as
a means of forcing the Chinese populace to open up to Western ideology.8 As a result,
huaju in general also favored a canonical and foreignizing approach in translating and
staging foreign drama.
Consequently, the earlier domesticating approach of shinpa and wenmingxi, which
usually involved adapting foreign plays by localizing them in time and place, has
largely been disregarded as a mere transitional phase. This dismissive attitude toward
adaptation, defined by Georges L. Bastin as “a set of translative operations which
result in a text that is not accepted as a translation but is nevertheless recognized as
representing a source text of about the same length,”9 reflects a generally negative

3
Shinpa was Japan’s first form of modern theatre that combined elements of Western spoken drama,
such as using daily speech and modern staging techniques, with certain conventions of kabuki, includ-
ing using female impersonators. Shinpa started in the 1880s and reached the height of its popularity
in the first decade of twentieth century.
4
Wenmingxi was China’s first form of modern theatre that flourished in Shanghai in the 1910s. Like
its predecessor shinpa, wenmingxi combined modern Western dramatic and theatrical elements with
those of traditional Chinese theatre.
5
Shingeki was the modern Japanese theatre that followed Western realistic dramatic and theatri-
cal principles in staging both foreign and native plays. It started in the first decade of the twentieth
century.
6
For further discussion of Osanai’s role as the principal figure in shingeki and his foreignizing ap-
proach, see Gioia Ottaviani, “’Difference’ and ‘Reflexivity’: Osanai Kaoru and the Shingeki Movement,”
Asian Theatre Journal 11, no. 2 (1994): 213–30; and M. Cody Poulton, “Foreign or Domestic Drama?
Osanai Kaoru and Modern Japanese Theatre,” in Text & Presentation, 2006, ed. Stratos E. Constantinidis
(Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2007), 167–81.
7
Huaju, like shingeki, also emphasized following Western realistic dramatic and theatrical principles
in staging both foreign and native plays. It emerged from the 1920s and is the contemporary form of
modern Chinese theatre.
8
For a discussion of the change from domestication to foreignization in fiction translation in late-
Qing/early republican China, see Lawrence Venuti, The Scandals of Translation: Towards an Ethics of
Difference (New York: Routledge, 1998), 178–86.
9
Georges L. Bastin, “Adaptation,” in Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies, ed. Mona Baker
(New York: Routledge, 1997), 5.
Theatrical Adaptiation as appropriation in japan & china  /  413
view among “historians and scholars of translation” who reject “the phenomenon as
distortion, falsification or censorship.”10 Such an attitude has led to the accusation that
localized productions were “garbling” the “original spirit” of canonical Western plays.11
One telling example concerns early Shakespearean productions in Japan.
In 1903, the famous shinpa couple Kawakami Otojirō and Sadayakko, fresh from
two sensational tours in the US and Europe (where they witnessed Shakespearean pro-
ductions by actors such as Henry Irving), staged localized versions of Othello, Hamlet,
and The Merchant of Venice. Their subsequent nationwide tours allowed most Japanese
audiences to experience Shakespeare for the first time. A year later, another shinpa star,
Ii Yōhō, staged Romeo and Juliet with a script adapted by Osanai, the above-mentioned
future leader of shingeki. Although all these scripts involved heavy editing and local-
ization of time and place, critics such as Tsubouchi Shōyō, Kawakami’s contemporary
and first translator of the complete Shakespearean plays into Japanese, have faulted
Kawakami’s approach as having “extinguished the greatness” of Othello by turning
a “historical play into ordinary domestic drama.”12 In contrast, Osanai’s rendition is
considered by Matsumoto Shinko to be “Japan’s first conscientious Shakespearean pro-
duction,”13 even though it “can best be described as an extract of Shakespeare’s play,”
with “one-tenth the length” of the original and the setting “changed from feudalistic
Verona to contemporary Tokyo.”14 Matsumoto praises Osanai for his “faithfulness,”
since he kept “all of the dramatis personae . . . , except very minor ones” and “cleverly
selected lines which advanced the plot and incorporated the main features of each
character.”15 More importantly, he approached the play with the foreignizing attitude
of a canonical translator as opposed to Kawakami’s domesticating adapter:

Osanai’s obviously sincere efforts in attempting to interpret Shakespeare in Japanese theatri-


cal terms can be best discerned by the careful and delicate choice of words spoken by each
of the characters in his version. In this respect, Osanai’s attitude was entirely different from
[Kawakami’s adapter] Emi Suiin, who nonchalantly reformulated Othello into a melodrama
to suit the tastes of Kawakami Otojirō .16

What such criticism fails to recognize is that Kawakami was finding ways to introduce
Shakespeare to his Japanese audience and to seek their approval, “a source of valida-
tion that few canonical critics or scholars can accept.”17 Critics have not acknowledged
that, in Lawrence Venuti’s words, “the translator works in an asymmetrical relation-

10
Ibid., 6.
11
Yasunari Takahashi calls a Japanese production of Julius Caesar in 1868 “a garbled Kabuki-style
version.” See Is Shakespeare Still Our Contemporary?, ed. John Elsom (London: Routledge, 1989), 84.
Writing about Chinese Shakespearean productions in the 1910s that were based on the Lambs’ Tales
from Shakespeare, Ruru Li believes that “they had almost totally lost Shakespeare’s original spirit and
flavor.” See Ruru Li, “The Bard in the Middle Kingdom,” Asian Theatre Journal 12, no. 1 (1995): 54.
Further explanation of these Chinese productions is provided later in this essay.
12
Tsubouchi Shōyō, quoted in Toshio Kawatake, Zoku Hikaku Engekigaku (Tokyo: Nanasō sha, 1974),
504. English translation by James Brandon, “Some Shakespeare(S) in Some Asia(S),” Asian Studies
Review 20, no. 3 (1997): 16.
13
Matsumoto Shinko, “Osanai Kaoru’s Version of Romeo and Juliet, 1904,” in Performing Shakespeare
in Japan, ed. Minami Ryuta, Ian Carruthers, and John Gillies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2001), 63.
14
Ibid., 57–58.
15
Ibid.
16
Ibid., 61.
17
Brandon, “Some Shakespeare(S) in Some Asia(S),” 17.
414  /  Siyuan Liu
ship, always cooperating more with the domestic than the foreign culture and usually
with one constituency among others.”18 As André Lefevere notes, for the translator,
the specific conditions of the target culture are at least as important as, if not more
than, the source culture: “The genre that is dominant in the target culture defines to
a great extent the readers’ horizon of expectation with regard to the translated work
that tries to take its place in that target culture. If it does not conform to the demands
of the genre that dominates the target culture its reception is likely to be rendered
more difficult.”19
Lefevere’s emphasis on the dominant genre at the time of translation is pertinent to
the translation practices of Western drama in Japan and China. While the dominant
mode in translating foreign literary works in the two countries preferred foreignization
for much of the twentieth century, the opposite was true at the turn of the century, when
adaptation was the favored mode. Here, I want to examine the “horizon of expectation”
of that earlier era in three aspects: the overall trend in literary translation; the difference
between translation/adaptation for reading and for the theatre; and the sociopolitical
conditions that influenced adaptation, including the East/West imbalance of power
at the height of colonialism as well as contemporary regional conflicts that ended in
Japan’s imperialist rise. After a general examination of how these particular concerns
affected theatrical adaptation and translation in Meiji Japan and late Qing/early Re-
publican China, I will focus on two European plays, Othello and La Tosca, which were
first adapted in shinpa and then in wenmingxi. In both cases, the adaptation processes
reflected an effort to appropriate these plays to address the specific political, cultural,
and aesthetical issues of their times.

Domestication as Translation in Meiji Japan and


Late Qing/Early Republican China
In his study of adaptation of Western literature in Meiji Japan (1868–1912), J. Scott
Miller points out that denigration of the value of such works

reflects a naïveté about what Japanese translators were after, and unfairly imposes prefer-
ences for literal translation upon a culture that did not share those preferences. In Meiji
Japan literal and adaptive translations were not necessarily seen as superior and inferior,
respectively, but rather as two different modes of translation representing two very differ-
ent agendas: expediency and art. For the first half of the Meiji period adaptation served
as the primary translation standard for literary, dramatic, and lyric texts . . . . On the other
hand nonliterary works, such as diplomatic and technical documents, as well as medical
and scientific texts . . . retained their propensity to be translated literally throughout the
Meiji period. 20

In fact, the difference in these two forms of translation was codified in the usage of
different terms: hon’yaku, which means literal translation, and hon’an, which was reserved
specifically for adaptation. Since Japan was only beginning to open up after centuries
of self-imposed isolation, adaptation was necessary to ground the frame of reference
in the familiar, and “correspondence [was] compromised in favor of smooth reception”:

18
Venuti, The Scandals of Translation, 22.
19
André Lefevere, Translation, Rewriting, and the Manipulation of Literary Fame (New York: Routledge,
1992), 92.
20
J. Scott Miller, Adaptations of Western Literature in Meiji Japan (New York: Palgrave, 2001), 11–12.
Theatrical Adaptiation as appropriation in japan & china  /  415
“Unlike the static lens of hon’yaku, which in its quest for correspondence sought to
transmit clearly focused information across linguistic boundaries, hon’anmono (adapted
foreign tales) served Meiji authors as a mutable lens whereby they could reexamine
the foreign, revising, even appropriating, the texts as familiar Japanese images.”21
Likewise, the result of longtime insulation in late Qing China (ending in 1911) man-
dated a similarly domesticating strategy in literary translation. One of the most popular
translators of this era was Lin Shu (1852–1924), whose first translation project—the 1899
rendering of Dumas fils’s La Dame aux camélias—was such a bestseller that it effectively
elevated the stature of the novel as a legitimate literary genre. Its popularity was best
summarized by another famous translator, Yan Fu (1853–1921), who wrote the cou-
plet: “A volume of La Dame aux camélias / Has broken the hearts of Chinese youths.”22
Although Lin did not know any foreign languages, he nevertheless translated more
than 180 foreign literary works, relying on oral renderings of his collaborators that
he then turned into classical Chinese. In the process, he revised the original works so
as to conform to Confucian ethics. One of his strategies was to change the titles, like
renaming Charles Dickens’s Old Curiosity Shop to The Story of the Filial Daughter Nell
(Xiaonü nai’er zhuan). He also used framing devices such as prefaces and epilogues to
cast the original work in familiar cultural and historical contexts. For example, in his
preface to Harriet Beecher Stowe’s anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, translated as
Black Slave’s Cry to Heaven, Lin connects the brutality against black slaves to contem-
porary US discrimination against Chinese immigrants and the fate of China in the face
of repeated military and diplomatic humiliations by Western powers:

Recently the treatment of blacks in America has been carried over to yellow people. When
a cobra is unable to release its poison fully it vents its anger by biting wood and grass.
Afterwards, no one who touches the poisoned dead branches will escape death. We the
yellow people, have we touched its dead branches? . . . As a result, the yellow people are
probably treated even worse than the blacks. . . . And the prospect of the imminent demise
of the yellow race has made me feel even sadder.23

Lin’s version of Uncle Tom’s Cabin also became a bestseller and was used as the basis
for the first full-scale production of Western-style Chinese theatre—the aforementioned
1907 Tokyo production of Black Slave’s Cry to Heaven by the Spring Willow Society. In
an apparent effort to accentuate this nationalist theme, Spring Willow even reprinted
Lin’s preface on its poster.24
This literary preference in acculturation undoubtedly influenced adaptation of West-
ern plays in shinpa and wenmingxi. At the same time, choice of these was also swayed
by the traditional divide between closet dramas as literature and playscripts aimed for
production. Since traditional theatre in both Japan and China was centered on actors,

21
Ibid., 144.
22
“Kelian yijuan Chahua Nü/ Duanjin Zhina dangzi chang.” Quoted in Aying, “Guanyu Bali Chanhua
Nü Yishi,” in Lin Shu Yanjiu Ziliao, ed. Xue Suizhi and Zhang Jucai (Fuzhou: Fujian renmin chubanshe,
1982), 274. Unless otherwise noted, all translations in this essay are mine.
23
English translation by R. David Arkush and Leo O. Lee and printed in Lin Shu, “Heinu Yutian Lu
Xu,” in Land without Ghosts: Chinese Impressions of America from the Mid-Nineteenth Century to the Present,
ed. R. David Arkush and Leo O. Lee (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), 77–78.
24
For further discussion of this production, see Siyuan Liu, “The Impact of Japanese Shinpa on Early
Chinese Huaju” (PhD diss., University of Pittsburgh, 2006), 51–63.
416  /  Siyuan Liu
the role of professional playwrights had traditionally been subordinate. Scripts were
treated cavalierly by actors, who often adapted them to suit their own performance
styles. Although both shinpa and wenmingxi were considered “new theatre,” their
practitioners partially inherited this tradition. As M. Cody Poulton notes, “Like kabuki,
a shinpa play was written above all with the actor in mind, with the latter free to fol-
low, or not, the playwright’s lines.”25 At the height of wenmingxi’s commercial boom
in mid-1910s Shanghai, the majority of the productions were based on scenarios with
actors ad-libbing onstage, a situation largely due to a lack of performable scripts that
could keep pace with the genre’s meteoric success.26
At the same time, there was a tradition of closet dramas written for and by elite literati
who usually sought to avoid connection with theatre and actors because of their low
social status. When writing plays as literature, the literati playwrights did not need to
make their work fit for the stage. In fact, many strove to keep their plays away from
the stage through overtly erudite content and language. In the wenmingxi era of the
1910s, this divide was still evident in the publication of many unperformable “new
drama” plays in literary magazines and the simultaneous dire shortage of wenmingxi
scripts, which only served to propagate the use of scenarios. When it came to translat-
ing foreign plays, the effect of this dichotomy was evident in the division between, on
the one hand, more literal translations published in literary magazines and penned by
scholars with a European-language background, and, on the other, stage adaptations
of both original shinpa plays and shinpa versions of European drama by wenmingxi
actors who had been to Japan and were thus familiar with shinpa’s adaptive and
domesticating practices. For example, Friedrich Schiller’s William Tell was published
in 1911 by Ma Junwu (1881–1940), who had translated the piece while studying met-
allurgy in Germany. Overwhelmed by the popularity of William Tell in Switzerland,
Ma recommended that the play “be read as the history of Swiss independence.”27 Ma
literally meant “read,” since he translated it into classical Chinese, hence making it
impossible for the spoken stage.28
In another instance, although the direct and literal translation of Victor Hugo’s Angelo
was published in Chinese during the wenmingxi era, it was not staged. Instead, it was
an adapted version of Angelo from Japanese that became a favorite of the wenmingxi
stage.29 The creator of the more literal translation was Zeng Pu (1872–1935), a novelist
who had studied French in the first Chinese foreign-languages school—Interpreters’
College (Tongwen Guan)—in Beijing. In general, Zeng’s direct translation is more literary.
For example, he translated a love song in act 2, scene 4, into the style of chuci (Songs
of the South), a Chinese poetic form that is over two thousand years old. Extremely
elegant to read, it was definitely not the form of choice for the commercial wenmingxi

25
M. Cody Poulton, Spirits of Another Sort: The Plays of Izumi Ky ōka (Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese
Studies, University of Michigan, 2001), 23.
26
For further discussion on wenmingxi’s use of scenarios, see Liu, “The Impact of Japanese Shinpa
on Early Chinese Huaju,” 151–62.
27
Friedrich Schiller, “Weilian Tui’er,” in Wanqing Wenxue Congchao, Yuwai Wenxue Yiwen Juan, vol. 4,
ed. Aying (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1961), 1225.
28
Classical Chinese is the traditional style of written Chinese based on ancient grammar and vo-
cabulary, not any modern spoken dialect. Wenmingxi scripts were written in vernacular Chinese, a
written style modeled after modern spoken Mandarin Chinese.
29
For a detailed analysis of the literal and stage translations of Angelo, see Liu, “The Impact of
Japanese Shinpa on Early Chinese Huaju,” 187–98.
Theatrical Adaptiation as appropriation in japan & china  /  417
stage.30 The adapters of the wenmingxi version of Angelo were Bao Tianxiao (1876–1973),
a journalist, and Xu Banmei (1880–1961), a wenmingxi actor who had studied in Japan.
In 1910, they adapted a Japanese version of Angelo by Satō Kō roku, (1874–1949), one
of the most popular shinpa playwrights.31 Although Xu called Angelo “one of the three
great tragedies of the world,”32 his and Bao’s version was treated as live theatre in
production. A review describes onstage improvising and joking both among the actors
and audience members—in other words, a typical wenmingxi attitude that cherished
stage effect over fidelity to the script.33
Apart from theatrical and literary conventions, political, cultural, and aesthetical
concerns also mattered when it came to adaptations of European plays in shinpa and
wenmingxi. In terms of contemporary geopolitical concerns, the dominant theme was
Japan’s rise as the new regional power by defeating China in the Sino-Japanese War
(1894–95) and Russia in the Russo-Japanese War (1904–05), colonizing Taiwan, and
annexing Korea in 1910. At the same time, the region’s original power, China, was in
a state of disarray after a series of military and territorial losses to both Western pow-
ers and Japan. Both shinpa and wenmingxi actively sought to reflect this geopolitical
dynamic, using both original creations and adaptations from European plays. One of
the European plays that was localized to reflect the tumultuous era on both national
and international levels was Othello, in both shinpa and wenmingxi adaptations.

Othello
The shinpa version was staged in 1903 by Kawakami Otojirō and Sadayakko, who
played Othello (Muro Washiro) and Desdemona (Tomone) respectively. After return-

30
The following are the first four lines of the song in French, in an 1896 English translation by I. G.
Burnham, and in Zeng’s Chinese version in pinyin. In true chuci (Songs of the South) fashion, this song
is full of such classic auxiliaries as xi, zhi, er, nai, pronouns as ru (thee), and such concocted phrases as
bingming (joined in life, bond) and yuanqin (love birds):

Mon âme à ton coeur s’est donnée


Je n’existe qu’à ton côté
Car une même destine
Nous joint d’un lien enchanté
(Victor Hugo, “Angelo,” in Marie Tudor. La Esmeralda. Angelo [Paris: Nelson, n.d.], 290.)

My heart to thine is freely given,


I cannot live apart from thee;
That bond divine was forged in heaven,
That joins us for eternity.
(Victor Hugo, “Angelo, Tyrant of Padua,” in Lucrezia Borgia; Mary Tudor; Angelo,
Tyrant of Padua; The Twins [Philadelphia: Rittenhouse Press, 1896], 272.)

Wo you linghun xi
Ju ru zhi xin
Wo buneng li ru er sheng xi
Nai bingming zhi yuanqin
(Victor Hugo, “Angelo,” Xiaoshuo Yuebao 5, nos. 1–4 [1915]: 2, 26.)

31
Iizuka Yutori, “Satō Kō rō ku No Kyakuhon to Chugoku No Shingeki—Kumo No Hibiki, Ushio,
Gisei,” Chuo Daigaku Bungakubu Kiyo 157 (1995): 131.
32
Xu Banmei, Huaju Chuangshiqi Huiyilu (Beijing: Zhongguo xiju chubanshe, 1957), 22.
33
During one of the productions, Xu played a comic and clueless scoundrel Ma Er (Gaboardo) who
was entreated by the dying arch-villain Tian Guozhu (Homodei) to deliver an important letter. A review
418  /  Siyuan Liu
ing to Japan from their two tours to the US and Europe between 1900 and 1902, they
staged a series of European plays, most of which were localized to Japan and East Asia.
Their Othello moved Venice to Japan and Cyprus to Peng Hu Island, a part of Taiwan
that China conceded to Japan as one of the conditions to end the Sino-Japanese War
in 1895. Here, Othello becomes governor of Taiwan before falling victim to domestic
politics. As a result, he is recalled to Japan to face allegations of brutality in the process
of imposing order on the island.
Besides nationalism and politics, the issue of race in Othello was replaced by class,
another prominent concern of the modernizing Meiji era. As Ayako Kano points out,
Othello was depicted as a dark-faced army general (fig. 1) from southern Japan: “He
is described as a ‘new commoner’ (shin heimin)—a term for former outcasts newly
incorporated as commoners under the Meiji government. He is a Japanese from the
lowest caste who has been struggling to gain the status of a full-fledged national subject
through his military conquests.”34 In a way, this awareness of class is one of the hall-
marks of early shinpa scripts, which, according to Powell, “were mainly adaptations of
the so-called political novels that were popular at the time. The word ‘political’ when
applied to these novels seemed to refer mainly to the idea of the individual making
a success of his life in the new Japan in spite of the hurdles of low birth or misfor-
tune.”35 Therefore Kawakami played a rising star in the new, Westernizing Japanese
military, taking advantage of the nation’s imperialist adventures. This change not only
bypasses Meiji Japan’s racial homogeneity, but foregrounds a pressing issue in Japan’s
modernization, something of immediate interest to audiences of 1903.
As the man credited for bringing shinpa to national prominence, Kawakami had
a knack for finding political and commercial relevancy for his productions. He first
became famous during the 1880s by tapping into a general postrestoration discontent
and calling himself “liberty kid” (jiyū dōji). When the Sino-Japanese War broke out in
1894, he convinced government censors to grant him the only theatre permit to portray
the war by touting the masculinity of his relatively realistic and educated actors, whose
acting would appropriately “inspire the military with its valor and excitement.”36
A comparison of Othello’s production’s poster and stage shots reveals a remarkable
balancing act between foreignization and acculturation. On the one hand, the poster
(fig. 2) is designed to market Shakespeare’s exoticism with a lithograph drawing
filled with European architecture and costume as well as characters with typical and
ostensibly Western physical features and gestures, complete with Othello’s dark face. It
highlights the play as “one of Shakespeare’s four great tragedies,” calling it a “straight

of the production records an insider’s joke on actor and critic Mr. Ma Er: “Lisheng’s Zhao Da [Orfeo]
and Banmei’s Ma Er wonderfully portrayed a pair of villainous and servile stooges. When the dying
Tian Guozhu yelled ‘Mr. Ma Er, please, please,’’ the real Mr. Ma Er happened to be in the audience at
the time. That was a practical joke” (Zhou Jianyun, “Xiaowutain Zhi Xisheng,” in Jubu Congkan, vol.
2, ed. Zhou Jianyun [1922; repr., Taipei: Zhuanji wenxue chubanshe, 1974], 434).
34
Ayako Kano, Acting Like a Woman in Modern Japan: Theater, Gender, and Nationalism (New York:
Palgrave, 2001), 107.
35
Brian Powell, Japan’s Modern Theatre: A Century of Change and Continuity (London: Japan Library,
2002), 13.
36
From the 16 August 1894 issue of the Tokyo newspaper Miyako Shimbun, reprinted in Kawakami
Otojirō Sadayakko: Shinbun Ni Miru Jinbutsu Zō, ed. Shirakawa Nobuo (Tokyo: Yūshōdō Shuppan, 1985),
160.
Theatrical Adaptiation as appropriation in japan & china  /  419

Figure 1. A scene from Kawakami’s 1903 production of Othello. Kawakami, standing and in
blackface, plays the general. Courtesy of Waseda University’s Tsubouchi Shōyō Theatre Museum.

Figure 2. Poster for Kawakami’s 1903 production of Othello. Courtesy of Waseda University’s
Tsubouchi Shōyō Theatre Museum.
420  /  Siyuan Liu
play” (seigeki), a term Kawakami and Sadayakko used after their European tour to
distinguish themselves from both kabuki and other shinpa companies. What is perhaps
most unusual is a paragraph in (faulty) English that further bolsters their authority as
having watched and studied genuine Shakespearean acting in the West:

“Othello,” to be produced by Mr. Kawakami and Madam Sada Yacco, is the adaptation from
Shakespeare’s play of which they have seen the performance in Europe where they have
engaged with their troupe previous year, and learned the art of the acting much differing
from our conventional. No foreigner ever had such a good opportunity as this time to see
Shakespeare’s drama in its almost original form in Japan. Because it is the first experience
to us to play the Poet’s work, Mr. Kawakami appears as the Moor and Madam Sada Yacco
as Desdemona. If any foreign audience should like to see the costumes and the dressing-
rooms in the theatre, please communicate to Mr. Kawakami or Madam Sada Yacco. They
will be kind enough to show them and give explanation about them.

Yet, in contrast to the foreignizing poster, the stage shots of the production reveal do-
mestication of costume, makeup, and set, reflecting styles that are indeed contemporary
Japanese and Chinese (fig. 3). It seems that the Kawakamis were offering the exoticism
of Shakespeare as a major attraction while also ensuring the production’s mass appeal
through acculturation. As a result, the couple enjoyed great success touring Othello, The
Merchant of Venice, and Hamlet throughout Japan, thereby introducing Shakespeare to
a large number of average Japanese spectators. In fact, the commercial nature of both
shinpa and wenmingxi marked one of the most significant distinctions between them
and the canonical, often didactic, shingeki and huaju, which traded mass appeal for
entertaining and educating an elite audience in what they supposed to be authentic
Western high culture. For shinpa and wenmingxi to be commercially successful, it
meant finding ways to remain topical, accessible, and relevant. Perhaps this was the
reason why the Chinese version of Othello was not staged until mid-1915, when a ter-
ritorial crisis again accentuated the topicality of national security and racial tension,
thus finally offering its Chinese adapter Lu Jingruo (1885–1915) the right metaphors
for rising nationalism and modern citizenship. This crisis came to be known as the
Twenty-One Demands.37
The Twenty-One Demands served as a reminder of possible national demise that
had befallen many non-Western nations. As Rebecca Karl argues, modern Chinese na-
tionalism was formed in the late Qing era through examination of the encounters with
imperialism and colonialism by such “lost nations” as Poland, South Africa, Hawaii,
Turkey, Egypt, the Philippines, and many other Asian countries.38 This nationalist theme
contributed to a great extent to the early success of wenmingxi, beginning with the 1907

37
During the First World War, Japan fought on the Allied side and seized German holdings in
Shandong Province on China’s eastern coast. In January 1915, the Japanese government proposed the
Twenty-One Demands, which sought Japanese economic control in railway and mining operations in
Shandong, Manchuria, and Fujian provinces, and pressed to have Japanese advisors appointed to key
positions in the republican government in Beijing. Word of the Japanese proposal provoked public fear
that the treaty would make China a Japanese protectorate like Korea and prompted massive demon-
strations and boycotts of Japanese businesses and products. When the treaty was signed in May, the
Beijing government under president and military strongman Yuan Shikai (1859–1916) rejected some
of these items, but conceded to most Japanese territorial demands.
38
Rebecca E. Karl, Staging the World: Chinese Nationalism at the Turn of the Twentieth Century (Durham:
Duke University Press, 2002).
Theatrical Adaptiation as appropriation in japan & china  /  421

Figure 3. A scene from Kawakami’s 1903 production of Othello. Kawakami plays Othello and
Sadayakko plays Desdemona. Courtesy of Waseda University’s Tsubouchi Shōyō Theatre Museum.

Tokyo production of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Since then, the 1911 anti-Qing revolution and
the regional conflicts of East Asia remained popular sources for wenmingxi plays.39
When such revolutionary zeal faded a few years after 1911, wenmingxi turned to
domestic melodrama and enjoyed a brief commercial boom in Shanghai. In the wake of
the Twenty-One Demands, however, there was a revival of nationalist themes in 1915
wenmingxi productions. This prevailing sentiment was aptly summed up in the title
of a production review: “The Traitor amidst Cries of National Salvation.”40 The review
was of the play The Traitor (Maiguo nu), one of several wenmingxi plays focusing on
the history of the Japanese annexation of Korea. It was against this backdrop that the
Spring Willow Theatre, which was created in Shanghai by members of the Spring
Willow Society, staged its version of Othello in April 1915.
Renamed Spring Dream (Chun meng), the Chinese version was adapted from
Kawakami’s script by Lu Jingruo, one of the most prominent members of the Spring
Willow Society. Although Lu’s script is no longer extant, the play’s synopsis, collected
in One Hundred New Drama Plays (1919), provides a glimpse into the way Lu tackled
the issues of race and geopolitics:

Major general Wu Shinan has made a great contribution to the Republic of China. Young and
handsome, he is betrothed to Lin Huihua, daughter of a former high-ranking Qing Dynasty
official. Citing the general’s mixed heritage [yizhong] (his mother is a foreigner), the official
is opposed to their union. As the nation is faced with foreign invasion at its borders, the

39
For a discussion of these plays, see Liu, “The Impact of Japanese Shinpa on Early Chinese Huaju,”
122–32.
40
Zhou Jianyun, “Jiuwang Sheng Zhong Zhi Maiguo Nu,” in Jubu Congkan, 2:439–40.
422  /  Siyuan Liu
government orders the general to command his troops in Manchuria. Before his departure,
the prime minister acts as the go-between and makes it possible for him to marry Huihua
and bring her to Manchuria. A wealthy businessman, Luo Dakun, having already married
after failing to win Huihua’s hand, grows jealous at the news of the general’s wedding to
Huihua and seeks to distance the couple. When a certain lieutenant violates the law by be-
ing over-indulgent, he is pardoned through the help of Huihua’s maid. When the ensign Yi
Yamin hears about it, he maligns Huihua and the lieutenant in front of the general. Enraged,
the general kills Huihua. Meanwhile, Yi Yamin’s wife, embittered by his indulgence with
prostitutes, informs the general of his receiving bribery from Luo Dakun and slandering.
The general gravely regrets his behavior and commits suicide as atonement.41

If we compare the Japanese and Chinese versions of Othello, it seems obvious that
the contrast in their differing national identities shaped their perspectives of adapta-
tion. While the Japanese Othello was tapped to bring order with an iron fist to a newly
conquered colony, his Chinese counterpart could find his fame only by defending a
besieged nation in the one region, Manchuria, that its powerful neighbor to the east
had always coveted and would eventually occupy. In terms of Othello’s identity, while
the question of race in Shakespeare’s play was replaced by the issue of class in the
Kawakami script, the Chinese version blended racial resentment against the Manchus,
who had ruled China for over two hundred years during the Qing Dynasty, with
contemporary aversion to foreigners by giving Wu Shinan a foreign mother, though
it is impossible to determine from the scenario whether she was European, Japanese,
or of another nationality. The adapter Lu Jingruo seems to suggest that the misfor-
tune of this Chinese Othello was at least partially due to a wounded and xenophobic
national psyche.
The significance of Lu’s Othello also lies in the fact that it was most likely the first
production of a full Shakespearean play in China, not a dramatization based on Lin
Shu’s influential rendition of the Lambs’ Tales from Shakespeare, known in China as the
English Poet: Reciting from Afar on Joyous Occasions (Yinbian yanyu). All other wenmingxi
productions of Shakespeare, relying heavily on scenarios and improvisation, were based
on these tales. This practice was popularized in 1913 by Zheng Zhengqiu (1888–1935),
often credited for ushering in the commercial era of wenmingxi when he staged a hit
dramatization of The Merchant of Venice that was renamed Contract of Flesh (Rou quan).
This production was followed by other popular adaptations of such plays as The Taming
of the Shrew, Romeo and Juliet, and Hamlet. The title of this version of Othello, following
Lin Shu, was The Black General (Heidu). It was advertised as follows: “The prettiest
girl refuses to marry the most handsome young man, but is determined to wed the
black general with a black body and black beard. This causes many evil deeds in the
world of love. This is a first-rank Shakespeare play of infinite interest.”42 All together,
twenty such synopses are collected at the beginning of the “New Western Plays” (xiyang
xinju) section of One Hundred New Drama Plays and are uniformly subtitled, “a famous
Shakespearean play” (Shashibiya mingju). Most of these summaries retain the title and
character names of Lin’s adaptation, leaving no doubt of their source.
In contrast, the synopsis of Lu’s version of Othello, with its title transliterated as
Weisailuo—apparently from Kawakami’s Osero­—and subtitled as “a famous play

41
Zheng Zhengqiu, ed., “Xiyang xinju” (New Western Plays), in Xinju Kaozheng Baichu (Shanghai:
Zhonghua tushu jicheng gongsi, 1919), 24.
42
Ruru Li, Shashibiya: Staging Shakespeare in China (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2003),
20.
Theatrical Adaptiation as appropriation in japan & china  /  423
by Shakespeare in five acts, adapted by Jingruo,” was not printed together with the
dramatizations. Instead, it is collected in the second half of the “New Western Plays”
section devoted almost exclusively to adapted shinpa and European plays staged by
the Spring Willow Theatre.
Lu was the only Chinese student in Tokyo who had studied with both shinpa and
shingeki groups. First enrolled in Tokyo Actor’s School (Tokyo Haiyū Yōseijo) created
by Fujisawa Asajirō, a shinpa star and Kawakami’s assistant, Lu then moved on to the
Literary Society (Bungei Kyōkai) led by Tsubouchi Shōyō, one of the two leaders—along
with Osanai—of the shingeki movement and first translator of Shakespeare’s complete
plays into Japanese. Although Lu was enamored of shingeki’s foreignizing approach
to European plays and had taken part in the Literary Society’s canonical productions
of Hamlet and The Merchant of Venice,43 when it came to selecting European plays for
his Shanghai audience, he obviously agreed with the Kawakamis’ domesticating strat-
egy. Until his untimely death in 1915, Lu was enough of a realist to stage only shinpa
melodramas and shinpa versions of European plays.44 One of his earliest adaptations
of European drama was Hall Caine’s spectacular play The Bondman (Nuli), which
he staged in Shanghai during the summer of 1909. It was another Sinicized version
borrowed from a Kawakami adaptation, this time a typical melodrama featuring an
onstage volcanic eruption. Hence it was obviously this notion of seeking validation
through contemporary relevancy that led him to the Kawakamis’ Othello in 1915 and
the strategic changes for his Chinese audience.

La Tosca
Like Othello, the fate of Victorien Sardou’s Tosca in shinpa and wenmingxi also un-
derscores the importance of political, aesthetic, and theatrical expectations of adapta-
tion and reception. In 1887 Sardou wrote his five-act play for Sarah Bernhardt, with a
typical melodramatic plot involving the blindly passionate diva Tosca, her artist lover
Mario Cavaradossi who helps a fugitive revolutionary Cesare Angelotti, and the arch-
villain police chief Scarpia. Its success spawned quite a few imitations and variations,
including Puccini’s 1900 three-act opera.
In 1907, two of shinpa’s brightest stars, Ii Yō hō (1871–1932) and Kawai Takeo
(1878–1942), staged the play in Tokyo with the title Hot Blood (Netsu ketsu) (fig. 4). Un-
able to locate either Sardou’s play script or Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica’s libretto
to Puccini’s opera version, their commissioned translator Taguchi Kitukei based his
script on a novel adaptation of the play, taking additional inspiration from Regret of the
Fan (Ogi no kon), a kabuki play by Fukuchi Ochi and one of several kabuki versions of
the Tosca story. Taguchi’s version kept relatively close to the original, although there were

43
Nakamura Tadayuki, “Chunliu She Yishi Gao (2)—Xian Gei Ouyang Yuqian Xiansheng,” Xiju-
Zhongyang Xiju Xueyuan xuebao 4 (2004): 24–26.
44
A fellow Spring Willow member and Lu’s good friend Ouyang Yuqian recalls that Lu actually
was translating Tolstoy’s Resurrection, Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, and two Molière comedies shortly before
he died. These manuscripts were never staged and were lost after Lu’s death. See Yuqian Ouyang,
Ziwo Yanxi Yilai (Taipei: Longwen chubanshe, 1990), 60. It is most likely that these scripts were based
on Japanese translations, with Resurrection possibly from a popular shingeki version by Shimamura
Hōgetsu featuring his lover Matsui Sumako. Lu knew both of them at the Literary Society.
424  /  Siyuan Liu

Figure 4. Poster of La Tosca staged at Tokyo’s Shintomi-za in July 1907. Courtesy of Waseda
University’s Tsubouchi Shōyō Theatre Museum.

some added characters and plots.45 One noticeable change was the title, which, by
emphasizing the revolutionary theme, effectively shifted the play from a star vehicle
for the actress to a double bill for the romantic couple united through heroism in the
face of tyranny.
It appears that this shinpa production fared rather poorly with Japanese audiences
and critics. A review from the September 1907 issue of the shingeki heavyweight Waseda
Literature (Waseda bungaku), published by Tsubouchi’s Literary Society, mocks both the
quality of the script and the pretentiousness of the shinpa stars.46 It is understandable
that, given his foreignizing shingeki point of view, the critic, under the penname Red
Dragonfly (Akatonbo), would be harsh on the domesticating script and performance.
At the same time, it is also worth noting that the production’s heroic message failed
to resonate with an audience quite content with the empire’s recent military victories,
unlike those of Kawakami’s “liberty kid” moment decades earlier or their Chinese
counterpart two years later when the Spring Willow Society staged the same play in
Tokyo.
Tokyo had long served as an important hub of Chinese nationalism. It was here that
in 1905 Dr. Sun Yat-sen organized the United League (Tongmenghui), the revolution-

45
Iizuka Yutori, “Ra Tosuka, Neketsu, Atsui Namida—Nichu Ryokoku Niokeru Tosuka Jyuyou,” Chuo
Daigaku Bungakubu kiyo 152 (1994): 131–34.
46
Akatonbo, “Shintomi-Za No ‘Netsu Ketsu,’” Waseda bungaku 9 (1907): 62–70.
Theatrical Adaptiation as appropriation in japan & china  /  425
ary alliance most credited with the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty. In 1909, Spring
Willow’s production of La Tosca provided a perfect measure of excitement to the Chinese
community on the eve of the anti-Qing revolution. The Chinese version was called
Hot Tears (Relei), although the title reverted to its shinpa name, Hot Blood (Rexie), in
later productions in Shanghai.47 In his memoir, Ouyang Yuqian (1889–1962), who as
a female impersonator played Tosca (a common practice in shinpa and wenmingxi),
provides three reasons for the selection of the play. First, they liked the shinpa produc-
tion, and he and Lu especially considered Kawai and Ii their idols. Second, the four
major roles fit well with the most active members of Spring Willow. And finally, the
anti-Qing atmosphere among Chinese students in Japan called for a highly charged
antiestablishment melodrama.48
Several changes were made in Spring Willow’s script. First, Ouyang notes that “apart
from Tosca, we casually changed the names of the characters at the time in order to
make them easier to say and remember.”49 As a result, the artist Cavaradossi became
Lulan (Roland), the police chief Scarpia, Baoluo (Paul), and the fugitive Angelotti, Hengli
(Henry)—all common English names. Unlike Taguchi’s five acts, the Chinese version
consisted of four acts taking place, respectively, in the chapel, Cavaradossi’s home,
Scarpia’s room, and the castle. One important change was to postpone Angelotti’s death
from act 2, when he originally commits suicide in a well on Cavaradossi’s estate to
avoid being captured, to the last act so that he and Cavaradossi are executed together,
but not before they can exchange some heroic dialogue, as Ouyang recalls:

In our production, Roland and Henry enter bound together. Roland regrettably apologizes
to Henry, who consoles him, saying heroically that tyranny will collapse and a free and
egalitarian society will definitely prevail. . . . Roland excitedly agrees with his outlook.
Finally, Henry says: “We’re friends now. We’ll remain friends after death.” Roland says:
“We’re comrades now. We’ll remain comrades after death.” Of course these words won
applauses from the full house. We all felt this was a good change.50

It was therefore no surprise, that, in contrast to the lukewarm reaction of its shinpa
predecessor, this Tosca was a hit with the Chinese community in Tokyo. The student
actors became instant celebrities, and “over forty people joined the United League in
the several days after the production.”51
In addition to aiming for a nationalist relevancy, the Tosca productions in shinpa
and wenmingxi also foregrounded the importance of indigenous ethical and aesthetic
principles in adaptation and production. Compared to the foreignizing shingeki and
huaju, both shinpa and wenmingxi were much more mindful of traditional theatrical
principles and even utilized some of their conventions.52 In fact, a few of the new ac-
tors had more than superficial ties to kabuki or jingju (known in the West as Beijing
opera). For example, as Yasuji Toita points out, Yamaguchi Sadao, one of the earliest
shinpa actors, was trained as a kabuki onnagata (actor of female roles);53 Kawai Takeo,

47
Ouyang Yuqian, “Huiyi Chunliu,” in Zhongguo Huaju Yundong Wushi Nian Shiliao Ji, vol. 1, ed.
Tian Han et al. (Beijing: Zhongguo xiju chubanshe, 1985), 24.
48
Ibid.
49
Ibid.
50
Ouyang, “Huiyi Chunliu,” 31.
51
Ouyang, Ziwo Yanxi Yilai, 19.
52
See Liu, “The Impact of Japanese Shinpa on Early Chinese Huaju,” 231–41.
53
Yasuji Toita, “The Kabuki, the Shimpa, the Shingeki,” in Japanese Music and Drama in the Meiji Era,
vol. 9: Japanese Culture in the Meiji Era, ed. Komiya Toyotaka (Tokyo: Ō bunsha, 1956), 268.
426  /  Siyuan Liu
shinpa’s Tosca, was the son of a kabuki actor and was known for his “brilliant and
florid” style reminiscent “no doubt of his Kabuki origins.”54 Many wenmingxi actors
were true jingju aficionados. Before turning to wenmingxi, Zheng Zhengqiu was a
jingju critic known for his nuanced performance reviews.55 As one of wenmingxi’s
best-known nandan (male in female roles), Ouyang Yuqian also performed rather
frequently in jingju, eventually becoming a professional jingju actor during the late
1910s. For a decade, his fame on the jingju stage rivaled that of Mei Lanfang, the most
famous jingju actor of his generation, as underscored by the saying, “Mei of the north
and Ouyang of the south” (bei Mei nan Ou).56
Therefore, it was inevitable that some adaptations of Western plays were intermingled
with dramaturgical and theatrical conventions of traditional Japanese and Chinese
theatre. In the case of La Tosca, both shinpa and wenmingxi versions moved the scene
in which Scarpia tortures Cavaradossi for Angelotti’s hiding place to the stage proper
(figs. 5 and 6), in contrast to its treatment in both Sardou’s play and Puccini’s opera.57
In the European versions, Scarpia torments Tosca by describing to her the torture that
is taking place offstage, where the police put a spiked iron ring on Cavaradossi’s head
and tighten it each time he refuses to talk. The audience hears Cavaradossi’s moans,
but the action is centered on Scarpia’s tormenting of Tosca, and her reaction and even-
tual confession of the hiding place in order to save her lover. Among other things, the
original scene was obviously designed to highlight Sarah Bernhardt’s emotional range.
It also conforms to the European tradition of relating violent acts through messengers,
instead of directly portraying them onstage.
In shinpa and wenmingxi, the scene became an opportunity for the two romantic
leads to shine. Ouyang provides a fairly detailed description:

Paul enters with the police and asks Roland about the fugitive. Given no answer, [they] put
a steel ring on Roland’s head on stage and slowly tighten it. He faints and comes back, but
keeps saying “I don’t know.” Tosca is pushed by the police to center stage where she argues
with Paul, reprimanding and beseeching him. Paul scares and tricks her by saying that if
only she tells about Henry, he will release Roland. She cannot bear to see Roland’s agony
but the latter keeps calling her name even when he loses his consciousness. She bites her
tongue several times but Paul keeps ordering to tighten the ring. Roland passes out and she
leaps forward to the ground. Paul whispers to her: “Save your lover!” She cannot sustain
any longer and relents. The ring is released and Roland recovers. Tosca goes to embrace
him and Roland asks her: “I didn’t tell him right?” She says: “You didn’t.”58

The basic premise here is the same as in the original play and opera, but its method
of presentation differs starkly in terms of the onstage interaction between Tosca and
Cavaradossi, and the latter’s heroic suffering in the face of tyranny. Apparently, the
notion of propriety in European theatre did not pose a problem for shinpa and wen-
mingxi, since torture scenes are traditionally not hidden in kabuki or jingju. On the
contrary, they provided an occasion for showcasing artistic virtuosity through speech,
song, and choreography. In addition, the scene provided the actor playing Cavara-

54
Ibid., 272.
55
Xu, Huaju Chuangshiqi Huiyilu, 37–38.
56
This was a saying that has been often quoted to illustrate Ouyang’s popularity as a jingju actor.
Its origin is unknown.
57
Ouyang, “Huiyi Chunliu,” 29–30.
58
Ibid., 29.
Theatrical Adaptiation as appropriation in japan & china  /  427

Figure 5. The torture scene of the shinpa version of La Tosca in 1907, with Ii Yōhō (center) and Kawai
Takeo (right). Courtesy of Waseda University’s Tsubouchi Shōyō Theatre Museum.

Figure 6. The torture scene of Spring Willow’s version of La Tosca in 1909, with Lu Jingruo (center)
and Ouyang Yuqian (right). Photo from Xiaoshuo shibao, 1911.
428  /  Siyuan Liu
dossi—originally Ii Yō hō and Lu Jingruo (in the shinpa and wenmingxi productions,
respectively), both leading romantic heroes of their eras—a much more prominent role
than in the original play.
In the wake of anti–Twenty-One Demands demonstrations, wenmingxi once again
found Sardou’s melodramatic power. La Tosca, with its title transformed from Hot Tears
to Hot Blood, was staged many times by both Spring Willow and other companies. A
review of one production starring Zheng Zhengqiu emphasizes that version’s theme of
resistance and patriotism. In particular, the reviewer is impressed by Zheng’s portrayal
of Cavaradossi during the onstage torture scene: “Faced with the police superinten-
dent, [Zheng] was stern and eloquent. Mencius said: ‘Those who give counsel to the
great should despise them, and ignore their pomp and display.’ Roland was definitely
worthy of the teaching. When tortured, he painfully called out to Tosca: ‘Mind justice.
Mind humanity. Mind reputation.’ Suffering from the torment, grinding his teeth, he
would rather die for his country. Scenes like this are true condemnations of today’s
world.”59 In Sardou’s treatment of this scene, the offstage Cavaradossi resorts to chau-
vinistic pressure on Tosca: “No, no! You have nothing to say. And I forbid you, do
you understand. I forbid it!”60 and “Be quiet or I will curse you.”61 In Puccini’s opera,
he is more chivalrous: “Have courage—Say nothing, nothing. I scorn the pain.”62 In
Shanghai, Cavaradossi’s admonitions are infused with a Confucian tone of justice and
ethics: the importance of keeping one’s good name in the face of oppression and tyr-
anny. No wonder this Cavaradossi reminds the reviewer of Mencius’s ideal of moral
supremacy in the face of authority.

A Case for Acculturation


As can be seen through the analyses of Othello and La Tosca, the flexibility of ad-
aptation allowed both the actors and audiences to appropriate a foreign play in their
familiar ethical, aesthetic, and theatrical images. Were these the Shakespeare and Sardou
in their “original sauce” (yuanzhi yuanwei), a phrase some Chinese canonical directors
used to call their foreignizing productions?63 Apparently not, nor was it the purpose
of adaptation in shinpa and wenmingxi, since both were commercial theatres mindful
of their audiences’ limited knowledge of Western drama as well as their familiarity
with traditional theatre. Operating in a literary and cultural environment that preferred
domestication, the actors and translators of shinpa and wenmingxi took advantage of
the mutable lens that adaptation afforded them. They localized European drama ac-
cording to the social, political, and aesthetic conditions familiar to their audiences; as
such, their introduction of Western theatre reflected an acute awareness of changing
national identities and the role of Western-style theatre in both reflecting and affecting
such changes.

59
Qiuxing, “Yaofeng Xinjuchang Zhi Rexie,” in Jubu Congkan, 2:438.
60
Victorien Sardou, La Tosca: The Drama Behind the Opera, trans. W. Laird Kleine-Ahlbra (Lewiston,
NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1990), 105.
61
Ibid., 106.
62
Giacomo Puccini, Giuseppe Giacosa, and Luigi Illica, Tosca, trans. Edmund Tracey (New York:
Riverrun Press, 1982), 60.
63
For a discussion of such Shakespearean productions in China, see Li, Shashibiya, 61–96.
Theatrical Adaptiation as appropriation in japan & china  /  429
Consequently, it is obviously no longer adequate to treat these two genres, shinpa
and wenmingxi, as little more than transitional forms—mixtures of the Western and
traditional—prefiguring the canonical and foreignizing theatres of shingeki and huaju.
Much as the foreignizing approaches of shingeki and huaju reflected the intellectual
and literary environments of their times, so also must the domesticating strategies of
shinpa and wenmingxi be viewed. This is one of the reasons why scholars in both
Japan and China have come to recognize the roles of shinpa and wenmingxi as the
beginning of Western-style theatre in both countries.64
Returning to the issue of foreignization versus acculturation, there is an apparent
tradeoff between adaptation and strict translation in theatre. By faithfully introducing
Western plays as dramatic literature, the original practitioners of shingeki and huaju
favored authenticity over theatrical approachability. On the other hand, shinpa and
wenmingxi adapters and actors saw these pieces first and foremost as good theatre
that needed to be localized in order to reach a broad audience. And their success—the
fact that Kawakami was able to tour the country and introduce Shakespeare to the
Japanese audience—was a testament to the efficacy of this strategy.
Since the histories of modern Japanese and Chinese theatres have been routinely
treated as the histories of dramatic literature, historians have tended to favor the
foreignizing shingeki and huaju. As I have demonstrated in this essay, equating the-
atre with dramatic literature often misses the specific conditions governing theatrical
transactions between two or more cultures. Here, the framework of foreignization
versus acculturation in translation studies helps us dislodge theatrical studies from
literary studies, just as postcolonialism has provided an argument for localization in
the sociohistorical context of these transactions. It is only by looking at these broader
issues that we can accurately access the complicated processes of theatrical translation
and adaptation.

64
See Liu, “The Impact of Japanese Shinpa on Early Chinese Huaju,” 2–6.

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