Cao Yu: Pioneer of Modern Chinese Drama

Collaboration between NCRC and U-M Confucius Insitute

Modern drama in China is known as “spoken drama” to distinguish it from the traditional Chinese song-dance theatre. 

Cao Yu is recognized as the foremost figure in its development. 

Often compared to Shakespeare, Ibsen, Chekhov and O’Neill, Cao Yu is credited with aiding this non-indigenous type of drama reaching a degree of maturity in both form and audience reception in the mid-1930s.

This exhibition is as much a story of modern China as it is about Cao Yu himself, because his life and career exemplify the dilemmas and difficulties faced by generations of Chinese intellectuals in the twentieth century.