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Overlooking a life on stage and screen

By Gavin Phipps
STAFF REPORTER
Saturday, Nov 10, 2001, Page 11

Wu Hsing-guo.

After a five-year hiatus from performing with a troupe, celebrated operatic thespian and dancer Wu Hsing-kuo (吳興國) makes a welcome return to the stage next week when he joins forces with the Tai-Gu Tales Dance Theater (太古踏舞團) for three nights of modern dance fantasy entitled Silk Road (飛天).

Wu's name has been synonymous with theater since he graduated from the Chinese Cultural University (中國文化大學) with, quite literally, flying colors in the late 1970s. Within three years of graduation, Wu had became one of Taiwan's leading exponents of Wusheng (武生) -- the acrobatic lead male role in Beijing opera.

Throughout the 1980s he performed in countless productions with the Lukuang National Opera (陸光國劇隊), one of the nation's most prestigious classical opera troupes. Whether suspended from theater ceilings by wires in order to simulate flight, or simply relying on his ground-based martial arts skills to stage theatrical combat, Wu's acrobatics were guaranteed to ensure the success of any show he appeared in.

Wu Hsing-guo stars in Contemporary Legend Theater's Kingdom of Desire. PHOTO COURTESY OF CONTEMPORARY LEGEND THEATER

Saddened by what he describes as a "declining interest in traditional opera," Wu parted company with the Lukuang National Opera in 1984. That same year he teamed up with a handful of members of Taiwan's Beijing Opera Youth Troupe (青年京劇團), who like Wu were also disenchanted by the wane in popularity of traditional forms of Chinese opera. By early 1985, the group had formed the Contemporary Legend Theater (CLT, 當代傳奇劇場).

While still labeled by many as an opera troupe, productions by the Contemporary Legend Theater veer radically from traditional operatic performances.

"Standard classical opera was slowly losing out to western-style productions that were arriving in Taiwan. After all, they were fresh and offered audiences something they'd never seen before," recalls Wu in an interview with The Taipei Times.

"We felt that one of only ways to ensure that audiences didn't forget about classical opera was to combine it with aspects of popular western theater, thereby giving audiences a totally new theater experience."

Under Wu's guidance, the troupe set about rejuvenating the standard classical form of Chinese opera by combining it with elements of western theatrical themes and storylines, using very complex sets, even more grandiose costumes and employing casts of over 50.

Since its founding, the CLT has performed adaptations of Euripides's Medea and Aeschylus's Oresteia, westernized re-workings of several classical Chinese operas and Shakespeare's Hamlet, re-titled War and Eternity.

It was Wu's 1985 The Kingdom of Desire, an orientalized re-working of Macbeth, however, that was to bring the CLT world acclaim. When it premiered at the National Concert Hall critics applauded the show as one of the most exciting performances of the year. And when it traveled abroad to the US and Europe it was met with equal acclaim.

"The huge casts, magnificent sets and costumes were only part of the show's attraction. No one had had taken well-known western plots and storylines and retold them using ancient China in such a grandiose manner on stage before," he said.

Always on the lookout for acrobatic talent to play either a clean-cut hero or evil villain, the Hong Kong movie industry soon came knocking on Wu's door. Making his movie debut in director Ho Ping's (何平) 1992 movie, 18 (十八), Wu won the Best Newcomer Award at the annual Hong Kong Movie Awards that same year.

Since then Wu has had starring roles in a string of Hong Kong hits including The Temptation of a Monk (誘僧), Green Snake (青蛇), The Soong Sisters (宋氏王朝) and Jackie Chan's recent The Accidental Spy (特務迷城).

Although spending a large part of the last decade on film sets, Wu's bowing out of stage performances following the CLT's 1996 production of The True Story of Ah Q(阿 Q正傳) had little to do with aspirations to pursue a career in film.

"Of course it's great fun doing the movies, but when you've been trained as a classical Chinese operatic performer, it always comes as a bit of an anti-climax when you're on a movie set," continues Wu. "I was used to performing in front of an audience not a director shouting `cut' ever few minutes and telling us to do it all over again."

Instead, it was a matter of economics that persuaded Wu to steer clear of large-scale stage productions.

"It had simply become to expensive to stage productions that demanded large sets, grandiose costumes and large casts," he explains. "The reasons were two-fold. First, funding was cut short, and second the number of troupes asking for funding increased, which made it difficult to raise enough cash to stage flamboyant productions."

While the number of smaller, private theater troupes had increased, the economic situation of the day has meant that funds available for the promotion of the arts through the nation's largest sponsors, the National Theater and the Council for Cultural Affairs, have decreased.

In order to receive funding, troupes are required to submit lengthy, detailed production plans and scripts. According to Wu, the funds are so sparse at present that everything from the price of paperclips to the social acceptability of the script comes under very close scrutiny.

The funding system is so rigid now, in fact, that Wu has recently had to employ a professor of Chinese literature in order to adapt the storyline and pen a script for a proposed production of Outlaws of the Marsh (水滸傳).

"With so many troupes looking to receive so little cash, each proposal has to be perfect in every manner. Because of this, the whole affair has become pretty cutthroat. But what really upset me was when the groups screamed `unfair' if they didn't get funding," he said. "One group would get money and another would accuse the funding committee of bias. The whole situation has gotten out of hand and can be quite nasty." Earlier this year, Wu returned to the stage for the first time since 1996, only this time he had every intention of avoiding whopping bills and funding problems. He went it alone and produced, starred-in and directed a one-man adaptation of Shakespeare's King Lear.

"Obviously it would have been more impressive to have put on a large-scale production of King Lear, but once again financial restrictions killed that idea in the very early stages," stated Wu. "I know full well that if I had received funding for a large-scale production dozens of other troupes who had received nothing would have been up in arms. So I simply avoided this hassle by making it a solo production."

While Wu still has his reservations about staging large productions, his upcoming performance with the Tai-Gu Tales Dance Theater is very different. There are no high-flying acrobatics and no carefully choreographed, on-stage military engagements.

Featuring dance theater's founder, Lin Hsiu-wei (林秀偉), who happens to be Wu's wife and newcomer Wu Tsai-ling (吳采璘), who just happens to be Wu's daughter, Silk Road is more of a family affair.

"Of course, it's very different from performing with a large group of actors who you don't really know. Not that I have it easy because I'm the director's husband," Wu says with a laugh. "There were occasions during rehearsals when, because of my training, I'd dance with a little too much vigor for Lin's liking and she'd tell me so in no uncertain terms to calm down."

Telling of the legendary discovery of silk over 2,000 years ago by the wife of the famed Yellow Emperor, the production intertwines the myth with the life of a silkworm.

The style of dance requisite of Silk Road may be a stark contrast to Wu's previous performances, but the story that unfolds is, like many of Wu's ventures, timeless and offers audiences a journey into a dream-like world.

"It should prove a very nice way to return to the stage as part of a troupe. It has given me the chance to explore an avenue of dance I haven't explored in many years," said Wu. "And it will give audiences who are familiar with my behemoth productions a chance to take in a more refined and delicate style of legendary performance."

The Silk Road (飛天) will be performed at National Taiwan Arts Education Institute (國立台灣藝術教育館) 47 Nanhai Road, Taipei (臺北市南海路47號) Nov. 14 to Nov. 16 at 7:30pm. Tickets for all performances cost between NT$300 and NT$1,000 and are available through all national ticketing agencies or at the door.　　　　
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