Fudan University Drama Society And Chinese Modern Drama Movement,

Fudan Dramatic Association, an amateur dramatic club that exerted a great influence on the history of Chinese modern drama, was founded in 1925 in the tide of the Amateur Drama Movement. The instant it was founded, it received energetic support and guidance from Hong Shen, one of the founders of Chinese modem drama, which undoubtedly laid a good foundation for its development. Later, the association went through historical stages of Left-wing Drama Movement, National Defense Drama Movement, Anti-Japanese War Drama Movement, etc. As an amateur dramatic club organized by university students, it presented many influential dramas, both Chinese and foreign, such as Landlady, Molluscs, The Lier, Cyrano, Wukui Bridge, Thunderstorm, Sunrise, Emperor Jones, She Stoops to Compromise and so on, and fostered a crop of dramatic artists in stage practice, like Ma Yanxiang, Zhu Duanjun, Fengzi, to mention just a few, thus making important contributions to the development of Chinese modern drama. However, owing to the amateur nature of the association as well as the actual limitations in research on dramatic clubs, a systematic research on Fudan Dramatic Association has long been lacking. This paper attempts to probe into the interaction between Fudan Dramatic Association and Chinese modem drama movement by investigating Fudan Dramatic Association in the macro-background of Chinese modern drama movement from the perspectives of the association's coordinates in the coordinate system of times, its historical process, and its position in the history of Chinese modern drama, etc.Chapter One starts with the background in which Fudan Dramatic Association emerged, and through the analysis of the way of spreading of the modern drama and the Amateur Drama Movement, expounds the inevitability of its emergence, and points out that Hong Shen, as one accidental factor that leads to the occurrence of Fudan Dramatic Association, laid the foundation for its occurrence.Chapter Two analyzes the performance stages of Fudan Dramatic Association. The historical process Fudan Dramatic Association went through generally conforms to the development process of modern drama movement, and is greatly restrained bythe times. The process can be roughly divided into three stages: the first stage includes the Amateur Drama Movement period, which can be sub-divided into Recreation Rally Drama Movement period and Literary and Artistic Drama Movement period, the Left-wing Drama Movement period, and the National Defense Drama Movement period; the second stage is the Anti-Japanese War Drama Movement period, which can be divided into two parts — the Chongqing Part and the Shaihai Part, depending on the place where the movement is launched; dramatics during the third stage are closely related to the democratic movements of students after the Chinese people won the Anti-Japanese war.Chapter Three analyzes the performance characteristics of Fudan Dramatic Association. Although the choice of dramas for performance during different stages epitomizes the characteristics of different stages, preference for comedies, aesthetic and sentimental dramas, altering-translation dramas and intellectual-related subjects dominates all stages.Chapter Four illustrates the position of Fudan Dramatic Association in the history of Chinese modern drama. The most glorious period of Fudan Dramatic Association is the Amateur Drama Movement period, during which the association's selection of adapted original dramas vigorously promoted the development of Literary and Artistic Drama Movement, playing the role of a bridge in the rapid spreading of western dramatic culture in China. Fudan Dramatic Association made the first performance of some classical dramas, such as Wukui Bridge, Sunrise, etc, which is highly significant in the history of spreading of the drama. As an amateur dramatic club, Fudan Dramatic Association fostered quite a lot of brilliant dramatic artists, who made their own important contributions to Chinese modern drama movements after they left Fudan Dramatic Association.After the foundation of the People's Republic of China, drama movements in the original sense no longer existed, and Fudan Dramatic Association served more as a mere amateur dramatic club of students, chiefly aiming at making students' spare time colorful and representing the university to participate in various theatrical festivals, and accordingly ebbing in its significance in the history of Chinese modern drama.