Research On The Puppet Drama

This paper focuses on the drama of Manchukuo(the puppet drama), by collectingand organizing the documents of drama scattered in newspapers and magazines inManchukuo period, researches on various levels about the puppet drama, includingthe policies of drama, the activities of drama, the creations of drama, the reviews ofdrama and the theories of drama. What the foregoing works would do is to depict thewhole development frame of the drama in Manchukuo period. In the meanwhile, thedrama in Manchukuo will be placed in the longitudinal path of Chinese modern drama,compared with other form drama from a horizontal perspective. All in all, my paperattempts to acknowledge the process of the Northeast Drama in the “dark ages” froma macro level, discovery the existing form in the special era, reveal the culturalmentality of human beings and our responses to the times which have been hidden inthe arts.“Stranded” in the heterogeneous circumstances, what the context that the puppetdrama faced is the actual colonization on the culture carried out by the Puppetgovernment. This is the contemporary mechanism that drives and restricts thedevelopment of drama, and also the crucial reason which influence the complexities,heterogeneities and destructives of the drama’s development pattern. In order to severthe colonial government and consolidate its colonial culture, the Puppet builds up acomplete set of policies and manages the drama. Reviews on the policies of thepuppet drama would help us set up an interaction space about the drama developmentwhich makes contacts between the puppet’s colonial culture and drama developmentpossible. On the one hand, this dimensional interaction space shows the changes ofcharacters about the puppet drama along with the changing policy in the fourteencolonial times from the perspective of process; on the other hand, it depicts thebidirectional control on the drama development implemented by the Puppet. What thespace describes would tell us that the actual results of the construction and reformsabout the drama policy: the changing policy will influence the literary concept ofwriters, contents of drama and the writing angel, and also influence the activities ofdrama, the creations of drama, the reviews of drama and the theories of drama.Due to the activities of drama, the puppet drama comes to a booming phase, and a variety of dramatic art goes together. The "three pillars" professional theater groupspaly as core strength driving the developments of amateur theater. The broadcastingdrama becomes as the new power promoting the development of drama, called as“two development paths of the puppet drama” together with the stage drama. Thescreen drama goes through introduction from abroad to homemade, and turns into adominant tool undertaking the work of cultural propaganda and indoctrination. Theactivities of drama groups, showings of the famous performers and the ongoingestablishment of theaters, lead to “the old drama boom” in the Puppet. So, putting allthe activities of the puppet drama in the same knowledge space to be searched couldfully describe the whole scene of the drama movement, and also contribute tocompare the interactions and influences among various form drama.Based on the whole environment of the puppet drama literature,“drama boom”and “drama bald” phenomenon exist simultaneously, and the prosperity that reflectedin the qualities and kinds of the puppet drama still can’t conceal the problem thatthere is an imbalance between the creativity and the development strength. For thescript, various form drama coexist, such as resistance and assentation, ingratiating andavoiding, metaphor and harmony, including the colorful anti-Japanese drama,avoiding political and depicting normal life drama, also concorde drama whichreveals the obscured content that reverse current situation and policies. Dealing withthe type of the puppet drama, historical drama paying attention to heroism andtraditional morality, children drama has national policy spirit and childlike innocence,lyrical opera, poem drama and other kind of drama emerge synchronously. Whencome to the art presentation and value judgment, the puppet drama shows differentperceptions to modernity, colonialism, and nationality. The mutual existing oppositephenomenon merges in the special puppet period, and makes the complex context ofthe puppet drama heterogeneous.It’s the comments to the scripts and activities of drama that an indispensable partof the researches on drama. Scattered in the newspapers and magazines, commentsabout the puppet drama, with great quantity and odd pieces, establish a “followfeeling” style. Commentators express their feelings and favoritisms to the puppetdrama, whose opinions along with two extremes between touted and abuse evaluation.For domestic drama written and acted by the puppet citizen, there is more tolerant,and meaning of hope and expectation are included in the scripts. At the meanwhile,the comments act as a tool to lead citizen’s consciousness, implying the colonial policies. Comments to the scripts often focus on the meanings and values about thedraft, and also take into account the artistic expressions. And comments to theactivities follow a fixed pattern by looking at thinking and method, but when come todifferent kind of drama, such as opera, broadcasting drama, or screen drama, there aredifferent modes sometimes.Although there are many researches on the drama theory scattered in the puppetnewspapers and magazines, integral theory system still isn’t established, onlycoexisting with activities and writing of the puppet drama. Due to special colonialculture circumstances in the Puppet, explorations about drama show various features,such as numerous but superficial, and merging with foreign theories. Among theseresearches on the drama theory, acknowledge of drama nature, pursuit to thepopularization of drama, and comparative theory researches between new drama andold drama, become to study focuses in this domain.