Abstract
While Taiwan went through the process of urbanization during Japanese colonial period, modern commercial theatres began to emerge. With the emergence of these theatres, local business activities, the publics’ leisure activities, and citizens’ bodily perception of space all experienced changes. To understand how modern theatres came into existence as compared to traditional temple theatres and eventually became a significant site where city residents’ leisure activities took place, this study attempts to reconstruct facts about nine modern theatres in Tainan City during Japanese colonial rule by using historical materials such as newspapers, magazines, government gazettes, statistics, maps, name directories, and memoirs. As analysis of historical materials shows, the growth of theatres and their geographical locations are overdetermined by events which caused urban spatial transformation: demolition of city walls, city renovation, and construction of canals. In other words, there is high relevance between the emergence and numbers of theaters and progression of urban renewal, population distribution, and the shifting of axis of entertainment districts. Moreover, these theatres differ from each other in the following aspects: construction process, location, organization management, and the audience’s spatial experience. Daibutai Theatre (1911-1945), for example, is the first theatre co-funded, constructed, and managed by Taiwanese people, signifying the formation of Taiwanese theatrical subjectivity. Miyako-za Theatre (1928-1945) stands apart from other theatres in terms of the transformation of theatrical space, organization management, and construction purpose since it involves the issue of public construction. In the thesis we also analyzed news reports and theatre regulations made by the colonial government, discussing the cultural image of theatre constructed or reflected by the colonizer and news media. We revealed that the modernity that those theatres represent can be attached with diverse cultural significations according to different gender, identify, and social status perspectives. The theatres in Tainan that emerged during Japanese colonial rule formed complex relationships with the locality. Though the above mentioned theatres have all become a thing of the past, their relationships with local space, the communal feelings, memories, and cultural identification that they evoked still remain and exist in many different forms.