Opening at the Novel Hall on Thursday was a revival of Li Baochun’s (李寶春) production of The Wilderness. Based on a melodramatic play by Cao Yu (曹禺), who is recognized as China’s greatest modern playwright, the modern setting — steam engines and pistols feature in the opera, with the performers stripped of the usual lavish costumes and mask-like makeup — was cause for some trepidation on the way in.
Li’s production was a revelation of the potential of Beijing opera in a modern setting. Though certainly not without some incongruous moments, the highly stylized performance style of Beijing opera fitted the histrionics of the story perfectly, and some of the grandiloquent pronouncements of the original play, which can be hard to stomach as drama, seemed at home in this operatic setting.
Li was in top form as the central character Chou Hu (仇虎), a convict who returns to his home town to exact revenge on those who took everything from him, including the woman he loved. Huang Yu-ling (黃宇琳), as the female lead, shone in parts, usually as a foil to Li, but failed to generate a truly palpable presence of her own. Even so, they made a powerful duo who did an effective job in making the tragedy of 1930s China, when ideas of Western liberalism pushed up against an oppressive and violent patriarchal imperial system, seem real, vital and affecting.
The elaborate stage set was built around the basic table-and-two-chairs of traditional Beijing opera, and didn’t obscure the focus on the main performers. Two larger set pieces toward the end, one a dream sequence when Chou Hu faces off against an army of demons from the underworld, and the climatic sequence when he gets lost in a forest pursued by armed militia, aim for larger theatrical effects, but do not quite come off. The power of Beijing opera is generated by the individual performer, and these atmospheric sequences blurred this focus without achieving much in the way of spectacle. Indeed, the dancing trees that obstruct Chou Hu’s escape, gave rise to titters, when the effect should have been that of the devastating onrush of tragedy.
As part of Contemporary Legend Theater’s opera series The Legendary Pear Garden (梨園傳奇), the company, in conjunction with various charity organizations, hosted a backstage tour and visit to the theater on Friday for children from areas devastated by recent floods and isolated regions around the country. Students from Ruifeng Primary School (台東縣瑞豐國小) in Taitung County met the performers for Young Heroes (英雄美少年), which they watched later that evening.
The Legendary Pear Garden is the first time that Contemporary Legend has staged a totally traditional program in Taiwan, having focused on pushing innovative new productions during its more than two-decade history. Speaking about this departure at a press conference in June, Contemporary Legend’s founder, Wu Hsing-kuo (吳興國), said that his innovation was built upon the traditions he had learned as a youth. Beatrice Yang (楊婉平), public relations manager for the group, said that the backstage visits were an extension of an ongoing effort by Wu to bring Beijing opera to children around the country.
In the final show of the series, yesterday afternoon’s Loves That Topple Empires (傾國之戀), Wei performed two of the great female roles of Beijing opera. The show opened with opera diva Wei Hai-min (魏海敏) performing as Yang Gui-fei (楊貴妃) in a demanding scene in which the imperial favorite gets drunk after being stood up for an assignation by the emperor. She runs a gamut of emotions — excitement, anger, petulance, anxiety — as the wine increasingly gets the better of her. Wei wowed the packed house with her formal discipline, and was ably supported by Lin Chao-hsu (林朝緒), a young comic whose talent and stage presence suggest that we will be seeing much more of him in future.
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