Taiwanese Jingju Performances Featuring Women’s Writing: Meng Xiaodong and The Ghostdom River

This essay examines the ways in which two Taiwanese women playwrights used jingju in their recent works. Wang An-Chi’s Meng Xiaodong featured actress Wei Hai-Ming (魏海敏) telling the autobiography of the eponymous twentieth-century actress. Wu Ming-Lun’s The Ghostdom River adapted the traditional story of Yin Yang River, exploring the female character’s complex personal situation. These projects demonstrate the significant contributions made by the two women playwrights to the twenty-first-century jingju.