The Encounter Between Shakespearean Theatre And Kunqu

Bloody Hands is the adapted version of Macbeth in Kunqu which has received great praise from both Chinese and British audiences. Turning Macbeth into Bloody Hands, in other words, transforming Shakespearean theatre into Kunqu, is a transcultural process with conflicts and fusions between them. During this process, how do the two traditions fuse and conflict? What kinds of breakthroughs and transformation take place and how do they shed a new light on both Macbeth and Kunqu, as well as on transcultural communication? These are the core topics of this dissertation.The dissertation is mainly divided into three parts:the introduction, the text and the conclusion.The introduction part includes the statement of significance of the dissertation and a literature review of the research on Bloody Hands and other related adaptations of Macbeth.The text is divided into six chapters.The first chapter gives a brief introduction of the adapting history of Macbeth in traditional Chinese theatre and examines why Kunqu is able to embrace Macbeth particularly with an analyzation on the possibility of mutual echoing between them. The second chapter briefly examines the details about setting, plot, structure, and characters in the adaptation. The third chapter focuses on Bloody Hands’presentation of tragic connotations in Macbeth, and explores the connection between the staging characteristics of Kunqu and the changes of those connotations. The fourth chapter examines the changes in characterization, psychological depiction from Macbeth to Bloody Hands, with an analyzation on the influence of "hangdang" and other factors. The chapter also discusses the exaggerating and lyric characteristics of character images in Bloody Hands. The fifth chapter explores the change in aesthetic experience from Macbeth to Bloody Hands, focusing on tragic experience and sensory experience. The sixth chapter intends to explore how Bloody Hands sheds a new light on both Macbeth and Kunqu.The conclusion part summarizes the major points discussed in the text and restates the transcultural significance of Bloody Hands.