Chronology -- Prologue -- Encounter -- Part One: Coming of age -- Escape from childhood -- From party to prison -- Left wing to stage center -- Shanghai film afterimages -- Part Two: In the hinterlands -- Mao's way in Yenan -- Yenan's popular culture -- On the road to Peking -- Part Three: Behind the scenes -- The fifties incognito -- Peking and Moscow -- Redreaming the red chamber -- Part Four: Cultural revolution -- Setting the stage -- Learn to swim by swimming -- Against the current -- Lin Piao the overreacher -- Part Five: Mistress of the arts -- Theater of revolution -- Heroics in song and dance -- Decompression -- Eleventh hour -- Terms -- Personalities.