History as Farce and the Intellectual as Comedian: Li Jing’s Metahistorical Drama Comedies from the State of Qin

With critical fabulation as its methodological starting point, this article analyzes the dramatic techniques used by contemporary Chinese playwright Li Jing to construct the figure of the intellectual-as-artist in her 2017 metahistorical drama Qinguo xiju (Comedies from the State of Qin). By locatin...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Asian theatre journal 2023-03, Vol.40 (1), p.44-74
Main Author: Chirita, Andreea
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Analysis
Asian literature
Chinese literature
Comedians
Comedies
Dramatists
Han Fei
Historical drama
Intellectuals
Lee, Jennifer 8
Literary characters
Morality
Performance (Arts)
Philosophers
Playwrights
Political power
Theater
Values
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Summary:With critical fabulation as its methodological starting point, this article analyzes the dramatic techniques used by contemporary Chinese playwright Li Jing to construct the figure of the intellectual-as-artist in her 2017 metahistorical drama Qinguo xiju (Comedies from the State of Qin). By locating historical farce as the origin of contemporary Chinese political thought, Li supplants today's politically subservient intellectual with the character of the intellectual-as-comedian. When cast in this new light, Li endows Chinese theatre with a renewed sense of immediacy, namely to rescue everyday Chinese people from moral and spiritual degradation, a task at which contemporary Chinese intellectuals have failed. Andreea Chirita is a Lecturer of Chinese Studies at the University of Bucharest as well as a translator of contemporary Chinese literature into Romanian and English. She specializes in contemporary Chinese theatre, and her most recent article in Modern Chinese Literature and Culture examines the work of Beijing's Paper Tiger Theatre Studio.
ISSN:0742-5457
1527-2109
1527-2109
DOI:10.1353/ATJ.2023.0003