Miller Says Chinese Theatre Flourishes in Popular Rebirth

Theater is a powerful form of expression and source of "enormous vitality" in China, playwright Arthur Miller told 50 students gathered in Currier House Senior Common Room yesterday.

Miller, speaking after a one-year trip through China, said that the tendency in Chinese theater to "overact" and play to an audience was the biggest difference between Chinese and Western theater. He added, however, that there seems to be a fusion taking place of this "presentational method" with a "more realistic Western method," in which actors work with the "fourth wall" up.

Miller said that during the period of their rule, the "Gang of Four" repressed Chinese art and theater, and as a result China "lost one generation of plays."

The government ordered artists to write plays that glorified the state, and "wiped out whole areas of though and art," he said.

Recently theater and art forces have regrouped, and diversity and richness in Chinese theater is on the rise," Miller added.

Miller suggested that "new thought inevitably leads to class crystalization." The government is wary of this and may try to repress theater if class consciousness becomes too pronounced, he added.

Miller outlines current theatrical directions in China in his new book, "Chinese Encounters," which draws on his contact with intellectual and artistic figures during the trip.

Miller said the myth of the "American Dream," which was the theme of his play, "Death of a Salesman," existed even in China. "It's everywhere, but we invented it," he said.