Chen Xiaomei's new Anthology of Modern Chinese Drama published by Columbia University Press is an important addition to the Columbia series of anthologies in East Asian studies and offers English-speaking readers the opportunity to gain a taste of Chinese drama by looking at a collection of plays published between 1919 and 2000.

Chen Xiaomei, editor of the anthology and professor of Chinese and comparative literature at the University of California at Davis has already provided, with her anthology Reading the Right Text: An Anthology of Contemporary Chinese Drama (University of Hawai‘i Press, 2003), an introduction to modern Chinese drama. In this earlier volume she presented five plays by playwrights from the 1980s such as Liu Shugang and Sha Yexin. In this anthology, the spectrum is wider as this thick volume contains 22 plays, ranging from Hu Shi's 1919 one-act play, The Main Event in Life, to the anti-capitalist smash hit from 2000, Che Guevara. It is important to note that half of the selected plays are from the pre-1980s period: seven plays are from 1920s and five from the Maoist period with even one model opera drama from the Cultural Revolution.

Similarly to Edward Gunn's Twentieth-century Chinese Drama: An Anthology (Indiana University Press, 1983) from which four plays are taken, this anthology focuses on an early period of modern Chinese theatre, looking to retrace the artistic journey of Chinese theatre from the last century going back to the origin of huaju (spoken drama). This focus is unlike other anthologies such as An Oxford Anthology of Contemporary Chinese Drama edited by Martha Jeung and Jane Lai (Oxford University Press, 1997), or Theater and Society: An Anthology of Contemporary Chinese Drama by Haiping Yan (M.E. Sharpe, 1998), which both focus on the post-Mao period.

The modern period is well represented by three main exponents: Hong Shen, Tian Han and Ouyang Yuqian, founders of huaju. Hong Shen's Yama Zhao (1922) is a play about a military deserter lost in a forest facing imaginary enemies; Tian Han's The Night the Tiger Was Caught (1922–23) is a “neoromantic” depiction of a poor peasant; Ouyang Yuqian's After Returning Home (1923) is an early example of satirical comedy about two conflicting generations. All these plays reflect influences from the West and are mostly written in a realistic Ibsenian style.

One of Tian Han's plays from a later period is also present: Guan Hanqing (1958) about the homonymous playwright from the Yuan Dynasty and written in the spirit of proletarian theatre. From the 1930s, other important works are Wu Zuguang's Return on a Snowy Night (1942) that talks about the decline of an opera star and Lin Jianwu's It's only Spring (1937) set in the Qing Dynasty. Both Cao Yu's classic Thunderstorm (1934), which is considered to mark the beginning of drama's golden period, and Lao She's influential Teahouse (1958) are included.

From the Cultural Revolution period, we have The Red Lantern, a revolutionary model opera that portrays underground communist activities during the Japanese occupation. From the 1980s, the golden period of Chinese avant-garde, only two plays are included: Gao Xingjian's Bus Stop and Li Longyun's Wilderness and Man (1988), a philosophical and ideological play, and from the 1990s there is only Yang Limin's Geologist (1995). This does not totally disappoint: plays from the 1980s and part of the 1990s have been already contained in previous anthologies such as those mentioned above.

The last three plays are by playwrights from outside Mainland China: the acclaimed US-born Taiwan-based playwright and director Stan Lai is represented by his play Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land, a story about two drama companies sharing one auditorium for rehearsal, which was made in a film in 1992. Then there are two plays by Hong Kong writers: Joanne Chan's Crown Ourselves with Roses (1988) on refugees in Hong Kong after the 1960s and Anthony Chan's Methamorphosis (1986), a painful play about universal love. These last three plays give a taste of what has been produced outside Mainland China.

Apart from the plays themselves, Chan offers a useful introductory overview of the plays and their historical and artistic background. One aim is to connect Chinese and Western dramatic traditions, since Chan intends to appeal to students of world drama and not only of Chinese theatre. She places the plays in an historical context describing chronologically the development of modern Chinese theatre and indeed looks at Western influences on Chinese theatre. A brief synopsis of each play with short commentaries is also given together with references to other plays from the same period.

As for the translations, some of them have been taken from earlier editions but have been revised. This adds a contemporary flavour to the texts without detracting from the meaning and style from the originals. Amongst the translators are Chinese experts in the field, like Jonathan S. Noble, Provost Advisor for China at Kellogg Institute, Amy Dooling, associate professor of Chinese at Connecticut College and Nick Kaldis, director of Chinese studies in the department of Asian and Asian-American studies at Binghamton University (SUNY). Stan Lai and Joanne Chan provide their own translations of their Chinese texts.

Chen opens the introduction by saying that having taught modern Chinese drama for 20 years has helped her compile this anthology. Indeed, this volume would make it easier to teach Chinese theatre programmes, which are still quite rare in the UK, precisely because of the lack of primary sources in English as well as inadequate funding. The use of this anthology, however, goes beyond that of a classroom situation: it brings any Western readers closer to the fascinating and rich world of modern Chinese theatre.