Theatre
趙閻王
Not translated into English
Hong Shen · 1923
Synopsis
In the age of the warlords, Zhao Da, bodyguard to a battalion commander, knows that his chief has been withholding the men's pay for five months and has lost part of it gambling. Urged on by a comrade, old Li, he seizes the cashbox and flees into the forest. Hunted by pursuers beating a drum, he loses his way and, from monologue to monologue, sinks into delirium and hallucinations.
Context
Hong Shen got the idea for the play in the spring of 1922, hearing soldiers tell on a train that a warlord's army had buried prisoners alive. It appeared in early 1923 in the magazine Dongfang zazhi and was staged in Shanghai in February, the author playing the title role. The newspaper Jing bao spoke of a failure, the audience taking the actor for a madman. Critics at once noted the debt to O'Neill's The Emperor Jones: the money, the division into scenes, the hallucinations in the forest; Hong Shen explained himself in a 1933 article.
Who it is for
A short play, carried almost entirely by the title role and with no female part; no French translation has appeared.
Prizes and reception
It made the author's reputation; historians count him among the three founders of Chinese spoken drama.