Organization, Types of Analysis, and Sources
SITE STRUCTURE
The site is currently organized around the six iconic plays that are featured in How To Read Chinese Drama in Chinese: A Language Companion and examined in How To Read Chinese Drama: A Guided Anthology and their afterlives in theatrical, filmic, print and other media. Eventually, we hope to expand the site to include modern renditions of the thirty or so plays discussed in the latter anthology.For the six plays, the original play is discussed briefly on an introductory page ("General Background"); you find all the titles of the modules for a given play listed in chronological order at the end of that page. Different early modern and modern productions are given their own separate module. Typically, we provide text, images, and some video clips for each production. Our mixed use of complex and simplified Chinese characters typically follows the source that we are featuring.
Given the dynamic and malleable nature of dramatic texts in China and elsewhere, virtually all later renditions of these plays take the form of adaptations. The exact nature of the changes made depend on many factors--the producers, the audience, and the historical circumstances among others. At the same time, the respective media--live traditional theater, film, and serial graphic narrative among others--also decisively shape the aesthetic form and the social significance of individual versions.