![]() ![]() A special issue of the movement's leading magazine New Youth (Xin qingnian) was dedicated to Ibsen and another to dramatic reform. In the late 1910s, the New Culture Movement, known for its attack on traditional culture and aspiration for Western science, democracy, and culture, inspired a new direction in modern Chinese theatre known as huaju (spoken drama). As a result, few scripts from the era survived. After the fall of the Qing dynasty during the 1911 revolution, new drama moved from Tokyo to Shanghai, where it flourished in a hybrid form known as wenmingxi (civilized drama), which relied heavily on scenarios and improvisation. Although missionary schools had staged spoken drama performances in cities such as Shanghai as early as the late 1800s, scholars agree that modern Chinese theatre began in 1907 when the Chinese student group the Spring Willow Society staged in Tokyo an adaptation of Uncle Tom's Cabin titled Black Slave's Cry to Heaven (Heinu yu tian lu). Modern Chinese theatre started at the turn of the twentieth century, in part in response to calls by reform-minded intellectuals unsatisfied with traditional theatre's inability to depict social reality and thus serve political and educational functions. ![]() ![]() Introduction: A Brief History of Modern Chinese Drama ![]()
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