중국 “청말민초 신조연극”의 연극사적 의의와 동아시아 근대연극

Abstract

The history of theater in China is understood in terms of the unitary structure of Xiqu (戱曲, Chinese traditional theater) in the pre-modern period and the dichotomous structure of spoken plays and Xiqu in the post-modern period. This understanding, however, does not capture how spoken plays were created and Xiqu was greatly transformed with the introduction of Western theater to China during the country’s transition to the modern period. As a result, theater during the modern transitional period has not received much research attention in the field of Chinese theater history for a long time. Although research on Chinese theater in this period began in the 1990s, the dichotomous structure of spoken plays and Xiqu resulted in the misunderstanding that theater during this period was binary. However, it was actually complex and diverse, including civilized dramas(文明戱), reformed Xiqu(改良戱曲), and Xiqu in contemporary dress(時裝新戱) which makes it much more difficult to study Chinese theater during this period as it cannot be categorized binarily into spoken plays or Xiqu. To overcome this problem, Yuan Guoxing(袁國興) proposed a new concept of the new-trend theatre movement in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republican period(淸末民初 新潮演劇) in theater history to understand the diverse theatrical spectrum of Chinese theater during the modern transitional period from a holistic perspective rather than a binary one. Although there have been follow-up studies on the new-trend theatre movement in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republican period, which was proposed based on a consensus among both researchers of Chinese theater in the modern transitional period and researchers of Chinese Xiqu and contemporary Chinese literature, the term is not always implemented as originally intended due to conventions in academia, where Chinese theater in the modern period is understood as a dichotomy of spoken plays or Xiqu, and the narrow recognition of modernity in Chinese modern literature. Considering the value of the term’s holistic perspective and its potential to extend beyond Chinese theater history to East Asian theater history, it would be worth applying it to future research on Korean theater history.