The Drama of Ideas

Puchner, Martin

doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199730322.001.0001

Cited by 87 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Thus Face exemplifies Martin Puchner's concept of a theatre of ideas. 47 In The Drama of Ideas: Platonic Provocations in Theatre and Philosophy, Puchner refutes the prevailing misunderstanding of Plato as an enemy of theatre, arguing that Plato's Socratic dialogues constituted 'an alternative form of drama'; and he analyzes the reverberations of this dramatic Platonism in modern drama. 48 According to Puchner, modern dramatists, from August Strindberg, Oscar Wilde, and Bernard Shaw, to Bertolt Brecht, Luigi Pirandello, and Tom Stoppard, share, despite their differences, a Platonic insistence that 'theatre be an intellectually serious undertaking, a theatre of ideas.…”

Section: Nostalgia For Orthodox Huaju and The Drama Of Ideasmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Here, as Puchner puts it, 'theatre can be an epistemological tool, a laboratory of truth, a thought experiment'. 54 Face for Mr. Chiang Kai-shek as a Comedy of Ideas Yet depictions of the intellectuals in this play are far more profound and subtle than the crude distinctions of left, centre, and right. In fact, the play's biggest appeal is the comic presentation of their awkward situation.…”

Section: Nostalgia For Orthodox Huaju and The Drama Of Ideasmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Dramatizing Chinese Intellectuals of the Republican Era in Face for Mr. Chiang Kai-shek: Encoding Nostalgia in a Comedy of Ideas

Li¹,

Beaumont²

2021

New Theatre Quarterly

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Face for Mr. Chiang Kai-shek, one of the most influential Chinese plays to have garnered attention in recent years, serves as a reminder of the importance of campus theatre in the formation and development of modern Chinese spoken drama from the early twentieth century onwards. As an old-fashioned high comedy that features witty dialogues and conveys philosophical and political ideas, it stands in opposition to such other forms of theatre in China today as the extravagant, propagandistic ‘main melody’ plays, as well as the experimental theatre of images. This article argues that the play’s focus on Chinese intellectuals of the Republican era and their ideas encodes nostalgia both in its dramatic content and theatrical form: the former encodes nostalgia for the Republican era through a nuanced representation of Chinese intellectuals of that period, while the latter encodes nostalgia for orthodox spoken drama (huaju) in the form of a comedy of ideas. Yuan Li (first author) is Professor of English in the Faculty of English Language and Culture, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies. She has published extensively on contemporary Chinese and Anglo-Irish drama, theatre, and cinema. Tim Beaumont (corresponding author) is Assistant Professor at the School of Foreign Languages at Shenzhen University. His research is primarily philosophical, and it is currently focused on the relationship between nineteenth-century liberal nationalism and contemporary multiculturalism.

show abstract

Section: Nostalgia For Orthodox Huaju and The Drama Of Ideasmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Nostalgia For Orthodox Huaju and The Drama Of Ideasmentioning

confidence: 99%