|
Theater
Das Kapital the musical!Posted by Joel Martinsen, March 12, 2009 7:00 PM
![]() The second time as farce Drawing inspiration from a best-selling Japanese manga adaptation of Das Kapital, Chinese theater producers are planning to bring Marx's masterpiece to the stage. Yang Shaolin, general manager of the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center, told the Wen Hui Bao that, together with Fudan University economics professor Zhang Jun and other experts, he is preparing a dramatization of Das Kapital. They've already decided on a director: He Nian, who directed the stage adaptation of the hit martial-arts spoof My Own Swordsman (武林外传). He Nian says he will combine elements from animation, Broadway musicals, and Las Vegas stage shows to bring Marx's economic theories to life as a trendy, interesting, and educational play. Can it be done?
As bizarre as this may sound, a theatrical Das Kapital is not an unprecedented undertaking. Japanese writer, translator, and civil servant Sakamoto Masaru (阪本勝) wrote a mammoth stage adaptation of Marx's masterpiece (戯曲資本論, 1931) that was translated into Chinese by Fei Mingjun and published in 1949 as A Dramatic Capital (戏剧资本论). Links and Sources
|
Partner Links
Jobs in China
Recent Comments
lyl on
The cult of a Super Girl
Jeremy Gol on
Danwei Canteen: Chestnut Chicken Stew
Gareth on
Gamble your life away in ZT Online
Inst on
The Mouse looms over Shanghai
Anonymous on
Giant Mao Zedong stands alone in the autumn cold
Joel Marti on
A centenarian monk reads the newspaper
China Media Timeline
Major media events over the last three decades
Danwei Model Workers
![]() Recommended blogs and new media
Books on China
Xujun Eberlein's Apologies Forthcoming: Hong Kong's Blacksmith Books has published a short story collection by Xujun Eberlein.
Princess Der Ling: Two Years in the Forbidden City: Two years in the Forbidden City is largely a reminiscence of the minutiae of life for one of history's most powerful women, by one of her court attendants, a Manchu noble's daughter by the name of Der Ling.
Carl Crow's The Long Road Back to China: In 1939 Carl Crow - an American journalist, advertising executive and author who had lived in Shanghai for 25 years until forced out by the Japanese - travelled up the Burma Road from Rangoon to Chongqing on assignment for Liberty magazine - 'the most interesting assignment I have ever been given'.
Front Page of the Day
A different newspaper every weekday
From the Vault
Classic Danwei posts
+ New Years Past: Other Spring Festivals by Geremie R. Barmé (2007.02): Sang Ye interviews two people about their experiences during Great Leap Forward-era Spring Festivals. Translated and annotated by Geremie R. Barmé. + Trend-spotting in online fiction (2007.06): An interview with Daniel Dan Fei (丹飞), publisher of Notes on Graverobbing (盗墓笔记), Rear Palace (后宫), and Those Ming Dynasty Things (明朝那些事). + China's 50 Most Beautiful People (2005.03): The Beijing News borrows a picture of Maggie Cheung from Cosmo for the cover of today's Entertainment insert, "50 Most Beautiful People in China". Ms. Cheung takes the top spot, with Takeshi Kaneshiro, Little S, Zhang Ziyi, and Liu Ye rounding out the top five in this exercise that is a conscious imitation of People magazine's yearly rundown.
Danwei Archives
Danwei Feeds
Via Feedsky
or Feedburner |






Comments on Das Kapital the musical!
'The Primitive Accumulation' Boogie! - where do I get a ticket? Though I feel that surely The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon would lend itself better to the stage surely?
Preferred the Grundrisse as death metal myself.
I'm afraid that Chinese socialists know very little about modern Marxism in the West, particularly analytical Marxism, partly because it uses a fair amount of mathematics.
That director did make a sensation with his TV soap opera, but I don't think it is funny at all to try Marx's works.
Note that the director is responsible for the stage adaptation of the TV show My Own Swordsman, not the original, which was written by Ning Caishen and directed by Shang Jing (according to Baidu).
This version of Das Kapital does sound like it'll be more exciting than a sober, Morality Play-type adaptation that one might expect.
PI.. that's funny. I'm no where near your level but I'm just wondering whether their assumption about all the past of communism and all possible future of communism, and also the ultimate superiority of communism ... is valid?!!
Can we psycho-predict/psycho-model human behavior on such a demi-god level then hell yes, communist 4 eva bitches!
He's joking, I assume, considering that China regularly wins the international math olympiad and a bunch of ethnic Chinese ran off with the Fields Medal.
I'm simply... speechless.
Is Danwei so desperate so as to plagiarize from The Onion?!
(I'm hoping) ;)
Eisenstien was developing a movie based on Das Kapital, some notes still available. Why not a musical?