The Chien Kuo Foundation For Arts And Culture and the Suzhou Kunqu Opera Theater are joining forces for their October production of Nanke Dream. The production is a collaborative cross-strait effort, with Cai Zhengren and Zhang Jiqing, two renowned kun opera masters from China, offering their operatic expertise, Taishin Arts Award-winner Wang Chia-ming in the director’s chair, a dream team of set and costume designers, including Huang I-ju, Lai Hsuan-wu and Wang Tien-hung, and a cast of young stars from Suzhou Kunqu Opera Theater — Shi Xiaming, Shan Wen, Zhao Yutao and Xu Sijia — filling the lead roles. The opera is set to be a spectacular, dream-like performance.
Wang Chia-ming, a director who has earned the epithet “theater’s naughty child,” will be exploring entirely new territory with Nanke Dream. He says that even though the opera is 400 years old, it is still relevant to people today and quite alluring.
Nanke Dream, commonly translated as A Dream Under the Southern Bough, is one of the four plays collectively known as “Four Deams“ written by Chinese playwright Tang Xianzu during the late Ming Dynasty. Tang adapted the work from a well-known fantastical short story by Tang Dynasty writer Li Gongzuo called The Governor of Nanke. The story portrays life in the dream state and the process of falling deeply in love with someone and then losing them, probing deep into the threshold of human emotion. Wang says he will place individual desires within the social power constructs of nation and family, using the dream state to question the perceptual distinction between reality and fantasy, and in the end the audience hopefully comes to the realization that the material world is emptiness.
Photos courtesy of Chien Kuo Foundation For Arts And Culture
照片由建國工程文化藝術基金會提供
Kun opera possesses its own aesthetic formula, and Wang, in interpreting the work, returns to the basic performance requirements of the art form, avoiding the use of any contemporary methods that would negatively affect the opera’s own traditional mixture of musical, vocal and recitative techniques and styles. Most of the rehearsal time is being spent ensuring that all of the physical movements, the positioning of people when walking, facial expressions, how the body appears and props are all suitable for what Nanke Dream is supposed to represent. By expressing in meticulous detail the flow of emotions and each character’s desires and thoughts, the production should be able to attain an extravagant sense of simplicity and allow contemporary audiences to connect with antiquity.
The plot of the opera takes place during the Tang Dynasty and involves a discharged army officer named Chun Yufen, who gets drunk, falls asleep and dreams that he has entered an ant kingdom where he marries a princess and becomes a palace attendant before being sent off to be prefecture chief of Nanke County. After an illustrious career spanning 20 years and a beautiful marriage, his wife suddenly dies from an illness. Chun spends his days in utter debauchery and in the end is sent back to the real world. When he wakes up, Chun sees that he was merely stuck inside an ant kingdom in a pagoda tree. Suddenly a thunderstorm washes away the entire ant hill. Feeling a deep sense of gratitude toward the ant kingdom, Chun asks a Buddhist priest to release the suffering souls of the ant kingdom. In the end, Chun attains nirvana and becomes a Buddha.
The first half of Nanke Dream will be performed on Oct. 18 and 20, while the second half will be performed on Oct. 19 and 21. Tickets are available through NTCH ticketing.
Photo courtesy of Chien Kuo Foundation For Arts And Culture
照片由建國工程文化藝術基金會提供
(Liberty Times, Translated and compiled by Kyle Jeffcoat)
建國工程文化藝術基金會與江蘇省蘇州崑劇院合作重製全本崑劇《南柯夢》，十月上台演出。此次演出由兩岸團隊傾全力製作，中國國寶級崑曲大師蔡正仁、張繼青指導，台新藝術獎百萬首獎導演王嘉明跨界執導，夢幻設計群黃怡儒、賴宣吾和王天宏聯手打造，江蘇省蘇州崑劇院明星演員施夏明、單雯、趙于濤、徐思佳青春主演，共同締造兩岸崑曲傳奇大夢。
有「劇場頑童」封號的導演王嘉明，首次跨界執導崑劇《南柯夢》，王嘉明說，該劇即使已經有著四百多年歷史，卻依然有其時代性，深具吸引力。
Photo courtesy of Chien Kuo Foundation For Arts And Culture
照片由建國工程文化藝術基金會提供
《南柯夢》是晚明劇作家湯顯祖的「臨川四夢」作品之一，原著改編自李公佐唐傳奇《南柯太守傳》，藉夢寫景，展現出由「情著」至「情盡」的連串過程，真正探討勘破情關。王嘉明說，他會將個人情慾置放在「國」與「家」的社會權力架構下，透過夢境質疑真實與虛擬的邊界，最後將觀眾帶到「諸色皆空」的境地。
由於崑劇有著華麗的格式之美，在詮釋手法上，王嘉明將回歸崑曲的基本表演設定，不以當代手法破壞崑曲本身在曲牌唱腔與唸唱文字間的經典搭配，而是將大多的排練用在發展符合《南柯夢》各段落的動作、走位、眼神、身段和道具運用上，表達細緻的情感流動和角色慾念，反而可以做到以簡馭繁，以古喻今。
《南柯夢》敘說唐朝一位落魄的武官淳于棼，於一次酒醉時，墜入夢境。夢中淳于棼進入蟻族的世界，與大槐安國瑤芳公主成婚，晉為駙馬，並被派任為南柯郡太守。歷經二十年，淳于棼作官的政績卓著，與公主恩愛情深。後來公主病逝，淳于棼因為逸樂無度，而被遣送回到人間。夢醒後，淳于棼驚見大槐安國是槐樹中的螞蟻穴，螞蟻窩被一場暴雨沖走。淳于棼為了感念螞蟻國的恩情，求助禪師超渡了螞蟻眾生。最後自己也頓悟超脫，立地成佛。
《南柯夢》上本十月十八與二十日、下本十月十九日與二十一日，在台北國家劇院演出，請洽兩廳院售票系統售票。
(自由時報記者趙靜瑜）
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