閱安琪作品的劇場意象和劇場性

Images of Theatre and Theatricality in Anchee Min's Works

不同時代有關中國的文學作品中，劇場性現象極為常見，至今卻鮮有針對中國文學中劇場性、及其跟性別之關係的研究。本文探討旅美華裔作家閔安琪以英文書寫的三本作品：《紅杜鵑》、《升格為毛夫人》和《蘭花皇后》，為了豐富西方文學批評往往將表演性跟劇場性兩者混而為一的不足，於是引用京劇、革命劇、現實主義話劇、布萊希特史詩劇場和後現代劇場各傳統，跟它們本身的時代性、社會性，來深入分析閔作品裡眾多劇場性例子。就閔作品描述，本文除分析不同劇場性之呈現外，更討論其挑戰父權社會的能力、以至不同程度之限制。

To date there has been very little criticism on theatricality in fiction in Chinese culture, and on its relation with gender, despite abundant examples of play-acting in works of all periods. This essay aims to fill such a void in literary criticism by examining three of Anchee Min's works: Red Azalea, Becoming Madame Mao, and Emρress Orchid. It also aims to enrich existing Western criticism, which tends to conflate performativity and theatricality, by historicising and contextualising Min's examples and referencing various dramatic forms, from traditional Peking opera and revolutionary model opera, to realist speech drama, Brechtian epic theatre and postmodernist theatre, all registering the socio-political and economic changes of different periods of Chinese history. As such, the essay will probe the power they offer women in transgressing the patriarchal society, as well as their varying limitations.