Learning From Each Other Between Chinese Drama Concepts and the Western From the View of Brecht and Cao Yu

Over the past two thousand years, the drama tradition of China and the west developed independently, respectively formed their distinctive features. By the twentieth century, Chinese and western playwrights began to learn from each other. For example, Bertolt Brecht, a German dramatist, found the ideal form for his “epic theater” in the Peking Opera by Mei Lanfang, and then perfected the concept of “alienation”. Meanwhile, Cao Yu, a Chinese dramatist, began a comprehensive study of western tragedy theory, and created mordern plays in the style of Ibsen. The modern integration of Chinese and western drama traditions is unequal in terms of mode and intensity. What Brecht obtained from Chinese Peking Opera is only part of his own drama concept, while what Cao Yu obtained from western drama is the concept itself.