Resisting Spirits: Drama Reform and Cultural Transformation in the People’s Republic of China by Maggie Greene (review)

Resisting Spirits offers an analysis of cultural transformation in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from the early 1950s to the early years of the Cultural Revolution (1966–76) through the lens of supernatural dramatic literature, an important and popular genre of the Chinese literary canon. Maggie Greene argues that “the creation, discussion, and reception of these potentially troublesome plays underscores the experimental nature of cultural production in the high socialist period, as writers and artists attempted to figure out what parts of the canon were key and how art could be redeployed to resonate with contemporary concerns—all while dealing with unsettled and often contradictory policies” (6). Cultural reconstruction under the new regime in the PRC has thus far been a fascinating yet obscure picture. Resisting Spirits tackles the task with an original methodology, sharp analyses, and solid sources, deepening and complicating our understanding of cultural transformation in the first decade and a half of the PRC.

The main body of the study consists of six chapters organized chronologically. Chapter 1 contextualizes the 1949–53 theatre reform movement by referring to pre-1949 reform attempts, introducing the different challenges facing the fledgling government, senior cultural workers and officials, and local troupes. Using adaptations of the folktale “The Cowherd and the Weaving Maid” as a case study, Greene demonstrates how the distinction between mythology and superstition functioned as the sticking point in debates around supernatural dramatic literature. Chapter 2 extends this discussion by examining debates about ghost plays in the succeeding decade, using Ma Jianling’s Wandering West Lake (1953, revised 1958) as the primary case study. Tracing Ma’s removal of the ghost in the 1953 version and the ghost’s return in the 1958 version, as well as the criticisms that both versions received, the chapter illustrates continuing efforts by critics and artists to separate the theatrical ghost characters from superstitious customs in daily life.

Chapter 3 considers the high point of supernatural dramatic literature in the sanguine transitional period of the early 1960s, offering a close reading of Meng Chao’s Li Huiniang (1961), with particular attention to how the playwright proves the compatibility of elite classical literature and the contemporary present on the socialist stage. Discussing Li Huiniang in parallel with Stories about Not Being Afraid of Ghost, a collection of ghost tales, Greene illuminates the fundamental question that ghost plays in this period provoked: “Was the audience meant to identify with the ghost, as an expression of the masses’ historical frustrations? Or should ghosts stand as metaphors for real-life antagonists?” (81).

Chapter 4 spotlights the pivotal year of 1963, a transitional period for supernatural dramatic literature and its creators. Greene demonstrates that the policy of banning ghost plays marked the beginning of the cultural sector’s increasing radicalization. At the same time, she uses critical essays published in the national newspaper Guangming Daily to illustrate the continuity in tone and structure between the 1950s debates about supernatural drama and those of 1963. Based on documents of local troupes’ meetings and internal discussions, this chapter also supplements its picture of elite discourse with local artists’ expressions of exhaustion, concern, and disagreement about shifts in policies.

Covering the period from late 1963 through the early years of the Cultural Revolution, chapter 5 observes the radical changes in cultural discourse that took place as the targets of cultural criticism shifted from the form or theme of a piece to the writers and artists themselves. A thorough survey of the criticisms of Meng Chao and his Li Huiniang from 1963 to late 1965, for example, illustrates how Meng’s “incorrect, antisocialist viewpoints” (131) took center stage. By calling attention to this shift, Greene proves that the radicalization effort that culminated in Yao Wenyuan’s 1965 essay on Hai Rui Dismissed from Office—traditionally identified as the prelude of the Cultural Revolution—began much earlier than many have...