Devin Waugh
Dr. Luo
CHI 331
Section 001
7 November 2013
Communist
China and The Arts
Communism and
Socialism are two similar, yet different types of governing types that are seen
throughout history and our world today. The Communist party and its leader Mao
Zedong used both Communism and Socialism during the revolutionary period of
China to bring stability after the Japanese occupation and the long Chinese
Civil war ending in 1950. China’s new
government style completely changed the way China was run and created a great
sense of nationalism for the people by using propaganda and mass media
technology, like the radio, to reach out to the people. Though, with Communism
now allowing the government in control of everything, it’s a wonder how the
arts were affected at this time of China’s history. A common association with
Communism is that it hinders the arts of a nation due to absolute control by
the government and their ability to pick and choose what the people see. The
Communist party of China is found guilty of hindering China’s artistic ideas
and abilities throughout it’s government control by bolstering arts that saw
the government a positive light and doing away with the traditional theater.
The
bolstering of plays in favor of the Communist party is obvious throughout the
early years of its control. Plays and operas such as “The Red Lantern” brought
about nationalism for the people of China and showed great Communist party
members sacrificing their lives in order to defeat the Japanese by delivering
secret codes to the Communist party army.
This is shown when Li says, “We’ll think of some way to send it,
Tieh-mei. You’ve seen everything. I can’t keep this from you any longer. This
is something more important than our own lives. We must keep it a secret even
if it costs us our heads.” (Page 173) The acting and plot of the opera was not
the only thing used to show the government in a positive lighting, but how the
opera was run. This opera along with many others took on the western style of
theater rather than sticking to the tradition ways. This was done in many ways
such as using more instruments in the orchestra. “The Red Lantern” used 17
musicians for 25 instruments, including new instruments that added to bass and
treble that were absent from traditional theater some 20 years before and
allowed for an all around greater sound for the audience. The acting also
changed in which the actors now had spoken dialog rather than the traditional
singing conversations and portrayed regular citizens rather than great and
ancient heroes. Lastly, the costumes and setting of theater greatly changed in
which the setting was now a painted background instead of just spoken
beforehand to the audience. All of these factors did revamp the Chinese theater
during the early Communist ruling and brought more audience members, but
hindered the creativity of the arts by doing away with the traditional theater.
The traditional theater was looked down upon at this time due to it being
associated with the “old society” of China, which went against the ideals of
the Communist party. It also hindered the creativity of theater because most
theater plays and operas focused on the greatness of the government and its
devoted followers, thus not allowing for works that might have been done in
traditional theater.
The
Communist party used the ideals of Communism and Socialism throughout its early
rule in China. Some of these themes used were class warfare, which we see in
the countryside when peasants overthrew the landlords. With this overthrow of
the landlords came the land to be redistributed out to the peasants where all
the crops would then be distributed evenly throughout all of China. These
ideals were passed along to the general public from the government through
propaganda, communist leaders traveling to spread the word, and mass media. The
affects and reasons behind this redistribution of land are clearly shown by
“Teahouse” Act one by Lao She. In act one the characters bicker amongst
themselves about the state of China and its people. One of the main themes of
act one is hat the countryside of china is extremely poor and the peasants
cannot feed themselves and are forced to sell their own children in hopes they
will have a better life as prostitutes and servants and the parents will have
enough money to eat. We see this in the conversation between the Sixth-Born
Kang and Pockface Liu when Pockface says, “There aren’t ten taels of silver to
be found in your whole village. In the countryside you can buy a child for five
catties of wheat flour. Don’t tell me you don’t know that.” (Page 24) Another
supporting quote of the extreme poverty in the countryside and lack of food is the
conversation again with Pockface Liu and now Fourth Elder Chang when they say,
“Fourth Elder
Chang: ‘What’s going on in the countryside, that people are driven to sell
their children?’
Pockface Liu:
‘Who knows? But the way things are, even a dog would prefer to be born in
Beijing.
Fourth Elder
Chang: ‘Elder Liu, you must really be ruthless to make your living at this
trade.’
Pockface Liu: ‘If it wasn’t for me maybe they wouldn’t find buyers…’”
(Page 26) This play was written in 1957, seven years after the Communist Party
took over China. This was one of the few works that spoke out against the
Communist party partially, but was allowed to it demonizing the “old society.”
It showed the people of China what the old society was like before the
Communist regime and how they could not revert back to such awful times, thus
showing the Communist party in positive a light.
The arts during the early time of
Communist China were not to par with the traditional ways of theater due to it
being considered a way of the old society. The mindset of living for your
government and propaganda monopolized theater in a way that all production was
about the government and its success or call to actions for the people rather
than telling heroic stories of ancestors or tragedies like “The Sea of Regret.”
Work Cited
Literary
Section: Chinese Peking Opera House. The Red Lantern. Foreign Language
Press, 1966.
Print.
She, Lao. Teahouse, The Chinese University Press, 2001. Print.
Yang, Daniel S. P. The Drama
Review: TDR, Vol. 13, No. 4, Politics and Performance
(Summer, 1969), pp. 167-180, The MIT Press,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1144496.
