"Performing the Socialist State centers on three founding fathers of modern Chinese drama: Tian Han, Hong Shen, and Ouyang Yuqian. All three traveled abroad in the early 20th century (Tian and Ouyang to Japan, Hong to the US) and returned to China to introduce Western theater technique and style. After the founding of the PRC in 1949, all three became key leaders in the formation of a canon of socialist theater and in the reform of traditional opera. Drawing on the conclusions of her previous CUP book, Staging Chinese Revolution: Theater, Film, and the Afterlives of Propaganda, Chen argues that these figures were neither unthinking servants of the state nor its powerless victims. Instead, Tian, Ouyang, and Hong engaged in a dialogic process of negotiation and compromise, building on their Republican-era work, that led to the creation of the group of performance pieces on the history of the Communist Revolution that we see today"-- Provided by publisher.
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