This paper deals with the translation of Chinese and French-language plays and their staging outside the culture in and for which the plays originally were written. Such an approach can hope to yield insights only into specific, historically contingent constructions of ”Chineseness” and ”Europeanness” and not into ”Chineseness” and ”Europeanness” as such. This is all the more true since the two translators of the plays discussed in this paper were more interested in exploring how their respective theatrical traditions could be enriched by that of the other and were less interested in exclusive definitions of their theatrical tradition. The two translators and their works to be discussed in this paper are Li Shizeng who translated two contemporary Western plays from French into Chinese and Louis Laloy who translated a classical Chinese play of the 13th century into French.