Title

Images of Theatre and Theatricality in Anchee Min's Works

Author

Amy TY Lai

Genre

Article  

Pages

543-582

Download

PDF

Language

English

Key words

theatricality, performativity, gender, sexuality, transgression

Abstract

       To date there has been very little criticism on theatricality in fiction in Chinese culture,and on its relation with gender, despite abundant examples of play-acting in works of all periods. This essay aims to fill such a void in literary criticism by examining three of Anchee Min's works: Red Azalea, Becoming Madame Mao, and Empress Orchid. It also aims to enrich existing Western criticism, which tends to conflate performativity and theatricality, by historicising and contextualising Min's examples and referencing various dramatic forms, from traditional Peking opera and revolutionary model opera, to realist speech drama, Brechtian epic theatre and postmodernist theatre, all registering the socio-political and economic changes of different periods of Chinese history. As such, the essay will probe the power they offer women in transgressing the patriarchal society, as well as their varying limitations.