How to Read Chinese Drama

Another gem in Columbia's How to Read Chinese Literature series. From comic obscenities to heartbreaking lyricism, the expressive language of Chinese drama runs the gamut, making it the hardest but most rewarding of all genres. Now we have the perfect guide for novices and experts alike. -- Judith Zeitlin, coeditor of <i>The Voice as Something More: Essays Toward Materiality</i> A stunning achievement in the study of Chinese drama. This well-structured and concisely composed anthology provides students, scholars, and general readers a timely scholarly book which is at once accessible and comprehensive. Highly recommended for theater studies, traditional and modern cultural and literary studies, comparative drama, and global performance studies! -- Xiaomei Chen, author of <i>Staging Chinese Revolution: Theater, Film, and the Afterlives of Propaganda</i> Traditional Chinese theater is a different kind of theater that synthesizes a great variety of performance modes, making it both difficult and very rewarding to learn and to teach. Bringing together a wide variety of approaches and focuses, How to Read Chinese Drama is an outstanding achievement. -- David L. Rolston, author of <i>Inscribing</i> Jingju<i>/Peking Opera: Textualization and Performance, Authorship and Censorship of the National Drama of China from the Late Qing to the Present</i> Perhaps the most helpful element in this excellent guide for students and scholars is its Thematic Contents list. By guiding the reader to related topics across its many descriptive and interpretive essays, it both demonstrates and provides access for understanding the richness and complexity of the Chinese theatrical tradition. -- Robert E. Hegel, cotranslator of <i>A Couple of Soles</i>