La Traduction et la réception d’Eugène Labiche dans la Chine moderne : étude des cas de La Poudre aux yeux et Le Voyage de Monsieur Perrichon

Abstract

The modern Chinese theater attempted to nourish itself with the systematic translation of Western plays. This article analyzes the translation and transmission of the comedies of the French playwright Eugene Labiche, especially his La Poudre aux yeux and Le Voyage de Monsieur Perrichon. During the first half of the twentieth century, Song Chunfang promoted with enthusiasm Labiche’s works because they introduced to Chinese theater an alternative that differed from the mainstream Ibsen plays worshipped by his contemporaries. Song Chunfang appreciated the elements of popular theater observed in Labiche’s works, taking them as models for the modern Chinese theater. La Poudre aux yeux, a parody of the hypocrisy of the urban middle class, was translated for the first time by Zhao Shaohou. Later, his successful translation inspired several retranslations, adaptations and rewritings, including Cao Yu’s The Gilt. Similarly, Le Voyage de Monsieur Perrichon was (re)translated several times and it contributed to the adaptation by Shi Huafu, whose choice of title, The Peacock Screen, was inspired from the Peking Opera. Although the fame of Labiche is often forgotten nowadays by researchers in the Chinese-speaking world, he was indeed one of the most popular and well-known French playwrights in modern China. Given its importance in professional training in universities as well as in commercial productions on stage, Labiche’s comedies should not be neglected when studying the history of Chinese theater. By reviewing and analyzing the translations, adaptations and rewritings of Labiche’s plays that date from the first half of the twentieth century, researchers can retrace in more detail the development of modern Chinese theater and its quest for modernity.

Keywords

• La Poudre aux yeux
• Le Voyage de Monsieur Perrichon