caa a22 4500 388093552 CHVBK 20180307125258.0 cr unu---uuuuu 161130e199902 xx s 000 0 eng 10.1017/S0266464X00012616 doi S0266464X00012616 pii (NATIONALLICENCE)cambridge-10.1017/S0266464X00012616 Sun William H. The Paradox of Acting in the Traditional Chinese Theatre [Elektronische Daten] [William H. Sun] Traditional Chinese theatre seems to appeal to audiences across the world more for its exquisite acting than for its literary qualities. Yet Mei Lanfang, Tang Xianzu and Li Yu all assert that good acting must be firmly rooted in its literary base. What compelled these masters to go out of their way to emphasize the importance of the written text, argues William H. Sun, was precisely the failure of many traditional actors to take it seriously, preferring to rely on superficial virtuosities. From this constant struggle in traditional Chinese theatre between a theoretical respect for textual quality and practical emphasis on performance has emerged the peculiar paradox of acting here explored. The author, William H. Sun, is a Shanghai-born playwright, author, and associate professor of drama at Macalester College. A contributing editor of TDR, he has taught at Tufts University, California State University, Northridge, and the Shanghai Theatre Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1999 New Theatre Quarterly Cambridge University Press 15/1(1999-02), 17-25 0266-464X 15:1<17 1999 15 NTQ https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266464X00012616 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266464X00012616 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 100 1- Sun William H. NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- New Theatre Quarterly Cambridge University Press 15/1(1999-02), 17-25 0266-464X 15:1<17 1999 15 NTQ CC0 http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0 nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-cambridge