Comment On The Influences Of Eugene O’neill On The Creation Of The Chinese Modern And Contemporary Drama

Eugene O’Neill’s, the master American playwright, and an important coordinate of the cultural communication and interaction between the West and China, has been widely spreaded in the formation and development of the Chinese modern drama. The influences of Eugene O’Neill on the creation of the Chinese modern drama is divided into three levels, including the borrowing of performance skills, the echo of dramatic aesthetics, the commitment to the exploratory spirit, which are reflected intensively and dominantly in the creation of the Chinese modern playwrights, such as Hong Shen, Cao Yu, Li Longyun, etc. Taking "The YAMA Zhao" written by Hong Shen,"The Wilderness "by Cao Yu, and "The Wasteland and The Human "as a reference.The thesis explores the changes of the performance skills and core meanings showed in the course of borrowing of O’Neil’s plays, represented by Emperor Jones, by the Chinese playwrights in different cultural contexts of different times. In the process of changes in the cultural context, the Chinese playwrights not only have to adhere to the law of creation of drama and reflect their own style, but also adjust their own creative strategies in the extrusion of the utilitarian features of Chinese drama and the arts and culture policies in order to achieve the conversion of the plays from a literary value to the value of stage. Faced with its own problems and the shocks of the market system, the insistence of drama’s nature becomes the biggest inspiration and has the most important meaning.