Gao Xingjian's Early Dramatic Work. Between Avant-garde and Tradition.

Gao Xingjian's Early Dramatic Work - Between Avant-garde and Tradition, bachelor thesis, Charles University in Prague, Faculty of Arts, Prague 2011, 51 pages. In the first part of her bachelor thesis the author presents Gao Xingjian's early dramatic work within the context of his essays and his theoretical thoughts. The author focuses mainly on four plays - Alarm Signal (1982), The Bus-stop (1983), The Other Shore (1986) and Between life and Death (1991). In these plays she points out Gao Xingjian's dramatic methods, e. g. the work with different persons of the pronoun, introduction of the alienation effect or a practical employment of Gao's "theory of triplication". The second part of present paper introduces the most influential sources of inspiration in Gao Xingjian's work. In the West it concerns Samuel Beckett and Bertolt Brecht, while in China it's Chan Buddhism and Beijing Opera. The author subsequently compares a mutual relations of these sources of inspiration, namely she relates Beckett's works to the Chan and Brecht's works to the Beijing Opera. The final part eventually analyses a specific synthesis of the different sources in Gao Xingjian's dramatic work