The evolving stage: Theater and socio-cultural transformation in early modern China

This dissertation examines the social and cultural significance of theater in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century China. Focusing on the relation between theater and different social groups, especially the literati, the author demonstrates that the changing ways in which theater was "consumed" embodied profound social and cultural transformation in these two centuries, namely, a burgeoning consumer culture was in the process of formation, which in turn led to the blurring of social lines and the diffusion of power in the field of cultural production.;The first part of the dissertation considers the rise of a new dramatic form kunqu and the prevalence of household acting troupes from late sixteenth-century to mid seventeenth-century. In the process in which late Ming literati transformed the folk theatrical form kunshang qiang into the refined kunqu, they set an important aesthetic standard for this new form, namely, "refined but not profound, plain but not uncouth." In this way kunqu was able to court a gradually diverse urban elite, including literati, merchants, and other previously unprivileged social groups. In the "proto-consumer society" of seventeenth-century China, kunqu became a means for this new elite group to demonstrate their distinction, which was vividly demonstrated by the fashion of keeping a household acting troupe for those with ready cash and alleged "taste.";The second part considers the emergence of a mass leisure industry in the eighteenth-century. The first group of public playhouses known as xiyuan appeared in mid eighteenth-century Beijing. Xiyuan provided theatrical performances to most of the urban residents on a daily basis. More importantly, it created a more open social space. The emergence of public playhouses and the consequent professional resident troupes indicates that a profit-driven mass leisure industry was on its way. The author concludes that the theater's shift from elite salon to public playhouses indicates its change from an object of luxury consumption to one of mass consumption.