Abstract: The Merchant of Venice , as presented by China Youth Art Theatre (CYAT, 1980) and directed by Zhang Qihong, was not only an influential Shakespearean adaptation but also showed the cultural features of China during its social transformation in the early 1980s. This article offers a case study of the production’s language, acting, and staging from the perspective of intercultural performance and modern reconstruction. Specifically, it examines how CYAT rewrote the script using modern language to better connect with Chinese audiences, shaped the characters with humanist spirit to highlight the theme of mercy, friendship, and love, and combined western realism and Chinese traditional theatrical elements in music, scenery, and costumes to create a true “comedy” appealing and comprehensible to the Chinese audiences in the 1980s.
Jia Xu (Sun,) studied this question.