Using rarely seen minutes, manuscripts and photographs preserved in the Shanghai Jingju Theatre archive, an analysis of Interrogating the Chair, a revolutionary Chinese opera embodying Mao's instruction ‘We should never forget the class struggle’, reveals how the ideological demands of the mid-1960s interfered with Chinese theatre. Further, the many revisions of the opera show how the traditional jingju repertoire was transformed into model opera. Interviews with those involved at the time are used to present a direct account of how practitioners dealt with the dilemma of presenting a revolutionary and contemporary theme while keeping faith with their indigenous theatrical form.