Author(s)

Lin Ma

Chongqing College of Electronic Engineering, Chongqing, China.

When discussing the challenges and obstacles faced by Chinese Opera in contemporary times, many tend to attribute them to a lack of creativity within the genre or the impact of external factors such as multimedia. However, few acknowledge the influence that the decline of performance stages—which serve as carriers for Chinese Opera—has had on its survival. When examining the historical audience-performer relationship of Chinese theaters derived from the stage, it is evident that all existing modes of audience-performer relationship can be traced back to history. Therefore, the continuous development of contemporary drama hinges on innovation of the audience-performer relationship and identification of breakthroughs for dramatic progress. The innovative audience-performer relationship in domestic and international drama cases can offer some inspiration for the ongoing development of Chinese Opera. This paper focuses on exploring the continuous development of contemporary drama through an examination of the historical evolution of the audience-performer relationship. It delves into the topic from the following perspectives: 1) analyzing the reality of Chinese traditional opera’s gradual decline in contemporary times; 2) examining how the audience-performer relationship has constantly changed throughout history; and 3) providing a reference for the development of contemporary drama by analyzing innovative cases of audience-performer relationship in Chinese and foreign modern drama.

Chinese Opera, Contemporary Drama, Theater, Audience-Performer Relationship, Ongoing Development

Ma, L. (2023) Study on the Ongoing Development of Contemporary Drama—From the Perspective of Historical Evolution of the Audience-Performer Relationship. Open Journal of Social Sciences, 11, 568-576. doi: 10.4236/jss.2023.1112038.