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.
This was followed by Wei and Wu performing Farewell My Concubine (霸王別姬), both performers doing a brilliant job in this classic set piece that combines athletic skill and expressive virtuosity. Once again, they were ably supported, this time with a physically exuberant series of more than 10 standing back flips by Dai Li-wu (戴立吾) in a battle sequence wowing the audience with their sheer.
The house was packed and at the final curtain the audience was on its feet, not only in recognition of two fine performers, but also of the younger generation of supporting actors who they are drawing along in their wake. While this was clearly Wu’s and Wei’s show, the younger performers were given room to shine.
The Taipei Folk Dance Theatre’s (台北民族舞團) Dancing Portrait of Taiwan (舞語台灣) program at the Metropolitan Hall in Taipei on Friday could not have provided three dances that were more different, yet still lived up to its goal of providing a picture of dance in Taiwan today.
The evening opened with Hu Min-shan’s (胡民山) Tales of Marvels About Po Jieh (婆姐傳奇), a dance about the masked female attendants of Taoist deities. Ten women, garbed in “traditional-style” green and purple robes and pants, wearing white face masks and red ribboned headdresses, moved gracefully through Hu’s combinations of set groupings and line dances, aided at times by a masked grandmother and child. The piece epitomized the company’s folk dance tradition.
The next work was a startling contrast. Lin Wen-chung’s (林文中) Reflections in a Lake (湖映) was a very stark, austere work for five women, set to a nanguan (南管) song, Drifting Winds Upon the Chinese Parasol. The nanguan score was very different from Lin’s usual music choices, but the sharp, angular arm movements and very fast combinations were in keeping with the modern dance choreography he creates for his own company, WCdance.
As he often does, Lin took the stage space and made it smaller, confining the dancers to a large square of white mylar flooring and its periphery. His five dancers worked very hard, but seemed to find the performance a bit alien to their usual fare, as did the audience.
The evening ended with Guo Ruei-ling’s (郭瑞林) rollicking Community Bulletin (社區公告), which was colorful, fast-paced and just plain fun. The dancers looked like they were enjoying every minute and the audience was too. Guo showed how community centers have to be all things to all people.
He started off with an entrance that looked like a harvest dance, but the dancers quickly changed costumes and personas as he moved them through a series of scenes of a meditation class, yoga class and then a community dance performance, complete with chattering MCs. Two teenage boys wandered through the proceedings, one throwing balls and other objects at the class members, while the other was completely engrossed in a porno magazine. A brief snippet of The William Tell Overture heralded each change of page.
The piece ended with the dancers wearing boats, blowing bubbles, tossing confetti and colored streamers and big smiles all round.
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