Emotion ( Jeong / Qing 情) as form in the tale of Chunhyang: contemporizing changgeuk and Yue Opera

This essay examines how emotion functions as form in the transformation of a classical character across different Asian traditional theatres. It compares the staging of a contemporary Chunhyang, the virtuous heroine of the well-known Korean folk tale, in two Asian traditional theatre forms: changgeuk and yueju (Yue Opera). Changgeuk, a South Korean musical theatre genre, and yueju, a Chinese song-dance theatre originating in Shengzhou, both emerged in the early twentieth century alongside the modernization of their respective countries. Their divergent theatre histories led to different attitudes towards traditionality and to almost opposite routes of modernization. Both National Changgeuk Company of Korea’s Chunhyang (2020) and Zhejiang Xiaobaihua Yue Opera Troupe’s Chunxiang zhuan (2015) sought to detach Chunhyang from the communal network of emotions that had historically defined her character, but through different performance forms. By comparing emotions and forms in these two productions, this essay proposes an inter-Asian route of modernization.