"A Mixed-Blooded Child, Neither Western Nor Eastern": Sinicization of Western-Style Theatre in Rural China in the 1930s

From 1932 to 1937, Xiong Foxi, a Chinese playwright, director, and theatre professor who had studied theatre at Columbia University, directed the drama division of a high-profile literacy campaign in the villages of Ding Xian County in northern China. There, he and his colleagues staged outdoor productions that used traditional, folk, and Western theatrical techniques and incorporated mass participation of the peasant audience. As a successful experiment in localization and popularization of Western-style theatre, the Ding Xian model stood in sharp contrast to the prevailing trend of Chinese spoken drama as a canonical, didactic, and illusionary theatre aimed toward educated city audiences.