Abstract
Almost no any other country owned so many performances of A Doll’s House as China, especially in the certain periods, for example, May Fourth Movement period and in 1930s, A Doll’s House is performed in China more frequently than any other of Ibsen’s plays and it impacts China’s intellectuals profoundly. In contrast, now in China A Doll’s House is almost completely forgotten. The performances of A Doll’s House in China represented the reception and influence of Ibsen in China and also reflected the social development; therefore, my claim will be focused on the point that understanding Ibsen’s play and its impacts should be embedded in its performances and the background. From this perspective, I will give an interpretation how Noraism formed an imagined community and how Nora’s performance was active or declined on the China political arenas.
The reception of performances of Ibsen’s plays is different in different periods of China. In contrast to the great influence of Nora as well as Ibsen in the earlier period, his plays did not gain more attention and emphasis on Ibsen in China today.Is Nora as well as Ibsen outdated in current China? By presenting and discussing the performance history of A Doll’s House in China and the relation between society’s development and performance, I will make up the gap of the Ibsen studies in this perspective. Therefore, the claim of this topic will be that the performance history of A Doll’s House in China is an example of a general model or hypothesis. During the revolution periods, Nora was popular in China mostly because Nora’s performance represented the situation at that time and could arouse the progressive youth. Through performances and media’s impetus, an imagined community was formed around the theatre. Thus, performance and theatre became political arenas, which attracted audiences and readers to imagine the new community. On the other hand, when the dynamic period of a turmoil or revolution is over, the theatre will lose its importance as relation and interaction and be reduced to an attraction or more or less a formal experiment presented in front of spectators.
Today, however, theatre is no longer important as a political arena. In the ultra modern China of today we are in a situation very similar to most countries in the west - and the theatre, also when they stage Ibsen, should no longer have a political implication. Theatre is first of all entertainment or a formal experiment.