Translation for theatre performance : Hong Shen's The young mistress's Fan in the Republic of China

Abstract

The Young Mistress’s Fan was translated from Oscar Wilde’s four-act play Lady Windermere’s Fan by Hong Shen. It was premiered in the Shanghai Staff Education Stadium in May 1924 and was restaged in the Shanghai Olympic Theatre in June. The production of The Young Mistress’s Fan was a landmark event as it helped define the modern drama, adapted plays as well as modern performing forms. It also directly led to Hong Shen’s later success as a reputable director, playwright and translator. This thesis investigates Hong Shen’s translation and stage of Oscar Wilde’s Lady Windermere’s Fan. In doing so, I hope to explore the power relations between Hong Shen and the social structure in which the individuals operated. This thesis is divided into five chapters. After the introduction, I start with an analysis of the translating and adaptive strategies Hong Shen adopted in the production of The Young Mistress’s Fan with an emphasis on the difference between Hong’s translation for theatre performance and those translated for literary reading. Chapter 3 explores the dramaturgical methods Hong adopted on-stage. I intend to highlight how the translator’s on and off-stage strategies in the theatrical practice can be explained regarding his/her relations with other agents (censorship, intellectuals, readers, audience, etc.), and the positions he/she occupied. In Chapter 4, I reappraise the notion of “educativeness” in the setting of the intellectual field, the concept of “faithfulness” in the setting of translation, and the idea of “entertainingness” in the setting of reception. Borrowing Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of doxa, I argue that the practice of the translator is to a large extent restrained by the hidden rules in the fields. A conclusion will be found at the end of this thesis.