From the inception of the collaboration, Wei wanted to include aspects of Beijing opera. “Previous productions of Orlando have been ‘dramatic,’ with no singing. As my background is in opera, I wanted to incorporate song, and this was discussed right at the beginning,” she said. That having been accepted, considerable work had to be done in adapting the text. At first, Chinese translations of the novel were considered, but the literary quality of these did not really work within an operatic context. Wei invited Wang An-chi (王安祈), the artistic director of the Guo Guang Opera Company (國光劇團) and the scriptwriter behind many experimental Beijing opera productions, to rewrite the text. “At first she was very reluctant, for she frankly found the story ridiculous,” Wei said.
After Wang produced her opera script, Wei then got to work tinkering with the musicality of it, taking it away from the conventional rhythms of Beijing opera, which she said, “sounded inappropriate.” She added rhyme to some of the spoken parts, drawing on theatrical conventions that indicate the social class of a speaker. And, she said, she also made personal sacrifices for her art. At a public lecture about her involvement in the project last week, Wei said that having spent a lifetime learning to express herself through multitudinous layers of clothes and makeup, she now finds herself on stage with the simplest of costumes, and by the end, stripped down to little more than a camisole. Such a state of undress for a traditional artist is virtually unheard of.
Enormous effort has been made to meet the technical demands imposed by Wilson on this production, and Liu Chiung-shu (劉瓊淑), artistic director for the CKS Cultural Center (國立中正文化中心), which is sponsoring the production, spoke to the press about the improvements made to the rigging and lighting of the National Theater for this production.
What remains to be seen is whether a play about Western feminism in the 1930s will translate convincingly into this very new medium. Given the stature of both Wilson and Wei, there is plenty of interest in discovering if this will work. Some tickets remain, but are selling fast.
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