Hong Shen

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
In this Chinese name, the family name is Hong.
Hong Shen
Qing Empire
DiedAugust 29, 1955(1955-08-29) (aged 60)
Beijing
Occupation(s)playwright, screenwriter, director, film theorist
Notable workYama Zhao (1923)
The Young Mistress's Fan
Mrs. Shentu (1925)
Wukui Bridge (1931)
StyleChinese spoken drama

Hong Shen (Chinese: 洪深; Wade–Giles: Hung Shen; 31 December 1894 – 29 August 1955) was a Chinese playwright, film director and screenwriter, film and drama theorist, and educator. He is considered by drama historians as one of the three founders of the modern Chinese spoken drama, together with Tian Han and Ouyang Yuqian.[1] He wrote the first Chinese film script, Mrs. Shentu.

Early life and education

Hong Shen was born in

Boxer Indemnity Scholarship. While there, he wrote and produced two plays in English.[4] A cast of Chinese students from OSU and Oberlin College performed one of them, The Wedded Husband, in April 1919 to an audience of 1300 in the university chapel. It was probably the first play written by a citizen of China to be performed in the United States.[5] In the fall of 1919, he transferred to Harvard University and was selected as one of "Baker's Dozen" to study drama under Professor George Pierce Baker.[3][6]

Career

Hong Shen returned to China in 1922, with the ambition of becoming China's Ibsen.[7] He taught Western Literature at Fudan University in Shanghai, as well as several other universities. He wrote and acted in the play Yama Zhao in 1923, which strongly opposed the brutal warfare that plagued China at the time, which is now known as the Warlord Era. The play was well received and established his reputation as a playwright.[3][6] He joined the Shanghai Association for Dramatists, and made a number of plays, including The Young Mistress's Fan, which was adapted from Oscar Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan. The play was tremendously popular and was highly influential to the development of modern drama in China.[8][6]

In 1925, Hong Shen published the film script Mrs. Shentu in the Shanghai magazine Eastern Miscellany. It was never filmed, but is considered a milestone in film history for being the first published film script in China.

Mingxing (Star) Film Company in 1925. He then co-directed the films Love and Gold (1926) and The Young Mistress's Fan (1928) with Mingxing's founder Zhang Shichuan, and wrote the script for the 1931 film Sing-Song Girl Red Peony (directed by Zhang Shichuan), the first Chinese sound film (though it was sound-on-disc, not sound-on-film). He was appointed director of the China Film School in 1928.[8]

Hong Shen joined the League of Left-Wing Writers in 1930,[2] and participated in political activities. In the 1930s, he wrote many film scripts as well as three plays collectively known as the Trilogy of the Countryside.[6] Wukui Bridge is considered the best of the three. It was first staged in 1931 with Yuan Muzhi playing the main role.[9] Hong also wrote many books and articles on film and drama theory.[8]

After the

Communist control.[8]

After the Communists won the

Ministry of Culture, and Vice-President of the China Theatre Association. He was also a member of the First National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.[8] On 29 August 1955, he died of lung cancer in Beijing.[2]

References

  1. ^ Chen 2014, p. 5.
  2. ^
    Ministry of Culture of China. Archived from the original
    on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 15 May 2015.
  3. ^ a b c Ye & Zhu 2012, p. 75.
  4. ^ East Asian Studies Studies Center, ICS Performance: "The Wedded Husband" November 2103 (Accessed June 10, 2015)
  5. ^ “Wedded Husband” married Chinese culture with English language at OSU 31 January 2014
  6. ^ a b c d Cody 2007, p. 624.
  7. ^ Huang 2014, p. 91.
  8. ^ a b c d e f Ye & Zhu 2012, p. 76.
  9. ^ Eberstein 1989, p. 132.

Bibliography

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hong_Shen&oldid=1192112162"