The importance of opera in late imperial and modern China cannot be overemphasized, as it involved all social classes, dominated Chinese cultural life in both urban and rural settings, and shaped social values. In recent decades, studies of Chinese operas have produced remarkable scholarship, to which Hsiao-t'i Li's book Opera, Society, and Politics in Modern China is a new addition. What distinguishes Li's book from other recent scholarship is his macro social analysis, focus on intellectual discourses, and emphasis on continuity and change. The book charts the changing role of opera in society in the context of twentieth-century Chinese reform and revolution: from the traditional gentry-literati notion of jiaohua (moral transformation), through the reformist and May Fourth discourse of enlightenment, and finally to the revolutionary and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) tool of political mobilization and revolutionary propaganda.
Chapter 1 builds on Tanaka Issei's influential socioeconomic analysis of Chinese opera and provides an overview of various types of opera performance, venues, and audiences in the late imperial era: the court performance patronized by the ruling nobles; the tanghui opera taking place at the residences of gentry-literati; the huiguan theater supported by native-place associations and merchant guilds; rural community theaters organized by local governments, village heads, and lineages; and “small opera” (xiaoxi) performed by itinerant troupes. A diverse repertoire developed, ranging from romantic stories to morality tales to vulgar affairs, and served two major functions: jiaohua and entertainment.
Chapter 2 traces theater reform in the first four decades of the twentieth century. It highlights the role of reform-minded intellectuals in redefining the role of opera in society. Though gentry-literati had long talked about the use of opera to transform society, it was not until the early 1900s that a few intellectuals, such as Chen Duxiu, assigned an enlightenment role to opera, regarding it as the most effective medium for educating the common people. Through the 1910s and 1920s, the social value of traditional opera was intensely debated in the May Fourth Movement. Its supporters started experimenting with various reforms to create mass drama. Leftists in the 1930s further pursued and radicalized mass drama. They developed unified actions to mobilize theater for political purposes, particularly in rural areas.
Chapters 3 to 5 focus on the New Stage and the Yisushe to illustrate two different models of theater reform. The Shanghai-based New Stage (1908–27) represents a model of commerce plus enlightenment. The founders—brothers Xia Yueshan and Xia Yuerun—aimed to spread reformist discourses among a cosmopolitan audience. Their reform involved the adoption of modern stage facilities and the newest technologies; they developed a hybrid repertoire of Beijing opera combining the old and the new, the traditional and reformist.
The Xi'an-based Yisushe represents a different model of theater organization and reform. From its foundation in 1908, Yisushe was a noncommercial organization with close ties to dominant political forces, including the warlords, the Guomindang, and the CCP. Such political alliances contributed to the theater's success and longevity. In terms of theater reform, Yisushe focused less on technical innovation and entertainment but more on social education. By sending itinerant troupes to the countryside and creating plays of Qin tunes pregnant with moral and political messages, Yisushe took a much more active role than the New Stage in making opera a medium to politicize and mobilize the masses.
Chapter 6 deals with the legacy of the New Stage and Yisushe. The modern technologies and reformist orientation of the New Stage quickly traveled from Shanghai to other cities and provinces. The influence of Yisushe was more far-reaching. Its model of mass drama prevailed after the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1937. Both the Guomindang and the CCP mobilized opera for wartime propaganda, but it was the CCP that proved to be the master. They not only incorporated folk ballads to engage with rural audiences but also created new plays to spread revolutionary and communist ideology. The CCP theater reform was top-down and comprehensive. It extended from Beijing opera to various small operas, taking advantage of the latter's populist and itinerant nature to reach out to the masses all over China. This “reaching out and revolutionary” model continued during the civil war and reached its height in the Cultural Revolution period.
Opera, Society, and Politics in Modern China is well organized, and its specific arguments are enlightening, despite a tendency to oversimplify the complex theater reform in establishing large-scale patterns. Its most significant contribution is perhaps the meticulous attention to historical continuity and change. Readers are reminded that the CCP's political mobilization of opera and, by extension, its mass cultural politics were not entirely new but can be traced back to the 1930s leftists’ concerns with the masses, the May Fourth agenda of enlightenment, and even the gentry-literati discourse of jiaohua. But the CCP theater reform was unprecedented in its radical, centralized, and extremely political nature, which left no room for any nonpolitical purposes. Overall, this is an important book. I recommend it strongly to those interested in Chinese theater, modern Chinese history, or the relationship between culture and politics in general.
