Alternative Chinese Opera in the Age of Globalization: Performing Zero (Studies in International Performance)

Studies in International Performance Published in association with the International Federation of Theatre Research Gen...

Author: Daphne P. Lei

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Studies in International Performance Published in association with the International Federation of Theatre Research General Editors: Janelle Reinelt and Brian Singleton Culture and performance cross borders constantly, and not just the borders that define nations. In this new series, scholars of performance produce interactions between and among nations and cultures as well as genres, identities and imaginations. Inter-national in the largest sense, the books collected in the Studies in International Performance series display a range of historical, theoretical and critical approaches to the panoply of performances that make up the global surround. The series embraces ‘Culture’ which is institutional as well as improvised, underground or alternate, and treats ‘Performance’ as either intercultural or transnational as well as intracultural within nations. Titles include: Patrick Anderson and Jisha Menon (editors) VIOLENCE PERFORMED Local Roots and Global Routes of Conflict Elaine Aston and Sue-Ellen Case STAGING INTERNATIONAL FEMINISMS Christopher Balme PACIFIC PERFORMANCES Theatricality and Cross-Cultural Encounter in the South Seas Matthew Isaac Cohen PERFORMING OTHERNESS Java and Bali on International Stages, 1905–1952 Susan Leigh Foster WORLDING DANCE Helen Gilbert and Jacqueline Lo PERFORMANCE AND COSMOPOLITICS Cross-Cultural Transactions in Australasia Helena Grehan PERFORMANCE, ETHICS AND SPECTATORSHIP IN A GLOBAL AGE Judith Hamera DANCING COMMUNITIES James Harding and Cindy Rosenthal (editors) THE RISE OF PERFORMANCE STUDIES Rethinking Richard Schecher’s Broad Spectrum Performance, Difference, and Connection in the Global City Silvija Jestrovic and Yana Meerzon (editors) PERFORMANCE, EXILE AND ‘AMERICA’

Ola Johansson COMMUNITY THEATRE AND AIDS Sonja Arsham Kuftinec THEATRE, FACILITATION, AND NATION FORMATION IN THE BALKANS AND MIDDLE EAST Daphne P. Lei ALTERNATIVE CHINESE OPERA IN THE AGE OF GLOBALIZATION Performing Zero Carol Martin (editor) THE DRAMATURGY OF THE REAL ON THE WORLD STAGE Alan Read THEATRE, INTIMACY & ENGAGEMENT The Last Human Venue Shannon Steen RACIAL GEOMETRIES OF THE BLACK ATLANTIC, ASIAN PACIFIC AND AMERICAN THEATRE Joanne Tompkins UNSETTLING SPACE Contestations in Contemporary Australian Theatre S. E. Wilmer NATIONAL THEATRES IN A CHANGING EUROPE Evan Darwin Winet INDONESIAN POSTCOLONIAL THEATRE Spectral Genealogies and Absent Faces Forthcoming titles: Adrian Kear THEATRE AND EVENT

Studies in International Performance Series Standing Order ISBN 978–1–4039–4456–6 (hardback) 978–1–4039–4457–3 (paperback) (outside North America only) You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBN quoted above. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England

Alternative Chinese Opera in the Age of Globalization Performing Zero Daphne P. Lei

© Daphne P. Lei 2011 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2011 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978–0–230–2–45655 hardback This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Daphne P. Lei. Alternative Chinese Opera in the age of globalization : performing zero / Daphne P. Lei. p. cm. Includes index. Summary: “Bringing the study of Chinese theatre into the 21st-century, Lei discusses ways in which traditional art can survive and thrive in the age of modernization and globalization. Building on her previous work, this new book focuses on various forms of Chinese “opera” in locations around the Pacific Rim, including Hong Kong, Taiwan and California”— Provided by publisher. ISBN 978–0–230–24565–5 (hardback) 1. Operas, Chinese—History and criticism. 2. Operas, Chinese— Performances—Pacific area. 3. Chinese—Ethnic identity. I. Title. ML1751.C5L44 2011 792.5089’951—dc22 2010050923 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne

For David, Milo, and Rafe, who give me a home

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Contents List of Figures

ix

Acknowledgements

x

Series Editors’ Preface

xii

Introduction: Performing Zero Chinese nations Center and peripheries Zero Chinese opera Alternative Chinese opera Nostalgia Methodology Chapter outlines

1 2 5 7 8 11 15 18 20

1 Femininity Comes to the Rescue: Innovative Jingju in Taiwan The rhetoric of ethnicity in Taiwan Traditional jingju in Taiwan Modern jingju in Transition: Early new jingju and early Innovative Jingju Strategizing Innovative Jingju: depoliticization and effeminization The “innovations” of Innovative Jingju Conclusion

23 24 27 32 40 56 63

2 Pacification and Silent Resistance: Performing Hong Kong in The Flower Princess Hong Kong: colonial, postcolonial, and neocolonial The Flower Princess (Dinühua, Dae Neui Fa) Nostalgia, loss and mourning (views from the local) Conclusion

64 65 71 92 96

3 The Blossoming of the Transnational Peony: Performing Alternative China in California Keywords to The Peony Pavilion

98 99

vii

viii Contents

Peony productions The Young Lovers’ Edition Transnational consumption: the California tour The California performances Transnational racial split Conclusion 4 Waiting for Meaning: The Joint Venture of Robert Wilson, Jingju, and Taiwan The stakes of international and intercultural grand collaborations Robert Wilson and his knee structure The Orlando adventure Problems with the grand replication Conclusion

103 105 116 121 139 140 142 143 146 147 171 175

Conclusion

178

Notes

184

Bibliography

214

Index

228

List of Figures 1.1

Zheng Chenggong and Taiwan (The National Theatre, Taipei, 1999)

39

Wang Youdao Divorces His Wife (The Guoguang Theatre, Taipei, 2004)

44

1.3

Three Persons, Two Lamps (The New Stage, Taipei, 2005)

48

1.4

The Golden Cangue (The National Theatre, Taipei, 2006)

54

2.1

The Flower Princess: The Youth Edition (The Studio Theatre at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, Hong Kong, 2007)

74

2.2

The Flower Princess: The Youth Edition (The Studio Theatre at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, Hong Kong, 2007)

78

1.2

3.1

The Peony Pavilion: The Young Lovers’ Edition (Barclay Theatre, University of California, Irvine, California, 2006)

128

The Peony Pavilion: The Young Lovers’ Edition (Zellerbach Theatre, University of California, Berkeley, California, 2006)

135

4.1

Orlando (The National Theatre, Taipei, 2009)

168

4.2

Orlando (The National Theatre, Taipei, 2009)

170

3.2

ix

Acknowledgements A study with transnational scope like this one cannot be accomplished without institutional support and recognition of the value of the project. Among multiple grants I received during this period, I wish to acknowledge two major awards. Both the Single Investigator Innovation Grant I received in 2006 from the Council on Research, Computing and Library Resources at the University of California, Irvine and the Pacific Rim Development Grant I received from the University of California in 2009 helped make it possible for me to be a truly Pacific Rim investigator. The doctoral faculty of my home department, the Department of Drama, UC Irvine, and of our sister department, the Department of Theatre and Dance, UC San Diego have been a source of constant support for my research. My graduate students from both departments as well as from other campuses have enlightened me with their research projects and inspiring conversations. UC’s Multicampus Research Group in International Performance and Culture also provided a unique space for my intellectual growth in the past three years. Special thanks are due my series editors, Professors Janelle Reinelt and Brian Singleton. Their insightful comments have helped me shape the project and inform it with a better international understanding. They are also academic colleagues whose works and passion I greatly admire. I am fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with them. I am also grateful to the Palgrave editorial and publication teams for perfecting a smooth publication process. This is a project about collaboration along peripheries. I wish to express my gratitude to the people from all over the world who have helped me: Milky Man Shan Cheung and Professor Yu Siu Wah of the Chinese University of Hong Kong; Vivian Chang, and Zhong Baoshan (Vice President) of the National Guoguang Opera Company in Taipei; Li Huey-mei, Huang Pen-ting and Michael Chang-han Liu of the National Theatre in Taipei; Amy O’Dowd and all the Peony lovers from California; and photographers Chung Yu-sang, Hsu Pei-Hung and Liu Chen-Hsiang. Special thanks also go to Professor Chan Sau-Yan, who opened the door to Hong Kong Cantonese opera for me, as well as to Professor WingChun Ng, whose knowledge of and enthusiasm for Cantonese opera have been a constant source of inspiration. x

Acknowledgements xi

Although zeroed out in this study as a matter of methodological principle, the Chinese center has contributed to the project as well. I would like to thank Professor Fu Jin of the National Academy of Chinese Theatre, Beijing and Professor Kang Baocheng of Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, whose conference invitations allowed me to get a glimpse of the academic discourse between the center and the peripheries. Alternative Chinese Opera is about unrelenting belief and passion. I am deeply indebted to a few people whose expertise and devotion I admire greatly. Their perseverance and resilience, their belief and determination, and above all, their love and labor for the art are the reasons alternative Chinese opera has survived and flourished. To Professor Wang An-Ch’i and Professor Pai Hsien-yung, Wei Hai-Ming and Li Hsiao-Ping I wish to express my thanks for multiple interviews and for much further generous guidance. I thank them further for their tireless battling on behalf of alternative Chinese opera. This book is my contribution to the fight. This book is also a project about survival. Neither an art form nor a scholar can survive the times of darkness and despair without the support of friends. Thank you, Julia and Michael, for constantly thinking of me, checking my vital signs. This is a project about nostalgia. My parents, both gone now, were witnesses and direct victims of the 1949 split; they never had a chance to go home. This book is for people like my parents, for whom nostalgia is real. I also wish to express my warmest appreciation to my sisters, who continue to provide me with a loving home in Taiwan and with motivations for my trans-Pacific crossings. Finally, Alternative Chinese Opera is a project about hope. Family is the source of life and the reason for every breath I take. I cannot finish the project without envisioning a future of light for my boys. Thank you, Milo and Rafe, for being with me every day, for growing with me, and for lighting the bleakest days. The urgency and immediacy of your existence confirms the meaning of my life. You teach me how to keep hope alive. And, thank you, David, my love, for continuing to play multiple roles in my life: reader, critic, companion, supporter, teacher, and crucial audience member. Life is an eternal lack without your participation. Thank you for being there.

Series Editors’ Preface The “Studies in International Performance” series was initiated in 2004 on behalf of the International Federation for Theatre Research, by Janelle Reinelt and Brian Singleton, successive Presidents of the Federation. Their aim was, and still is, to call on performance scholars to expand their disciplinary horizons to include the comparative study of performances across national, cultural, social, and political borders. This is necessary not only in order to avoid the homogenizing tendency of national paradigms in performance scholarship, but also in order to engage in creating new performance scholarship that takes account of and embraces the complexities of transnational cultural production, the new media, and the economic and social consequences of increasingly international forms of artistic expression. Comparative studies (especially when conceived across more than two terms) can value both the specifically local and the broadly conceived global forms of performance practices, histories, and social formations. Comparative aesthetics can challenge the limitations of national orthodoxies of art criticism and current artistic knowledges. In formalizing the work of the Federation’s members through rigorous and innovative scholarship this Series aims to make a significant contribution to an ever-changing project of knowledge creation. Janelle Reinelt and Brian Singleton International Federation for Theatre Research Fédération Internationale pour la Recherche Théâtrale

xii

Introduction: Performing Zero

Zero, an ancient discovery, is enjoying an early twenty-first-century vogue. Printed in white geometric type against the mysterious blur of a dark background below the classic red cursive “Coca Cola” logo, “zero” grabs the attention of the young generation, suggesting an emo cool, an explosive sensation, and a youthful masculinity. On the other hand, the Chinese notion of “going down to zero” (in Chinese, guiling, “homing to zero”) implies the opposite: it is a pseudo-zen practice intended to empty the mind and bring one to serenity. In the context of diet drinks, zero sugar and zero calories suggest abundant caffeine stimulation, surplus energy, and unlimited possibilities, for example, sexual possibilities. In the context of new age self-help practice, zero connotes relaxation, breathing, meditation, and the recharging of one’s body and mind. The new millennium zero introduces positive energy and potentiality. Zero is not an end; zero is the new beginning. The emptiness of zero brings out unlimited potential. The focus of this study is Chinese opera and its particular ways of performing zero, a performance that involves a monstrous combination of fashionable cool and stale archaism. Globalization in the new millennium manifests itself in the rapid growth of virtual realities and the even more rapid disappearance of real-world regional languages and traditional cultures. As aging Chinese opera artists and audiences cling to their art, younger, wired generations are increasingly immersing themselves in the virtual world for their entertainment. Desperate cries for help from traditional art are not heard because no one is listening. The stakes are high, the moment is urgent, and the rift between the two groups has to be mended now. The new millennium brings the last chance to revive Chinese opera with alternative energy and with a view 1

2

Alternative Chinese Opera

to a future. The UNESCO preservation effort (more on which below) is the tolling of a warning bell. This project examines alternative Chinese opera in the “Chinese peripheries,” a genre that by definition includes traditional Chinese theatres adjusted and modified for both local and international audiences. My focus is Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the major Chinese American ethnopoles in California – all the “non-China” Chinese-speaking nations on the Pacific Rim. The intense trafficking and collaboration of ideas, capitals, and manpower among these regions imagines a peripheral alliance surrounding the center. To battle identity confusion and anxiety, Chinese opera, an “intangible” cultural heritage which is supposed to transcend any material index such as GDP, has become an intrigue medium of Chinese identity performances in the age of globalization. In the peripheries, various forms of Chinese opera carve out a comfort zone to ease political conflict, nostalgia, cultural ambivalence, and identity anxiety in the transnational Chinese world. Because of its ambiguity and antiquity (who would suspect that a dated art could have any political function?), the complex and encompassing art form is also used in efforts to comply with, resist, criticize, or promote local governments while avoiding direct confrontation. A seemingly apolitical art can sometime make for the most effective political statements. Alternative Chinese opera negotiates a space between personal identity and national ideology, between traditional Chinese values and postmodern cultural nonchalance. As an innovation in, or updating of, traditional forms, alternative Chinese opera helps Chinese opera resist the “natural selection” of time and progress that all traditional arts face today. A discursive space becomes a bulwark against the tides of time.

Chinese nations While the English term “Chinese” seems comfortably to encompass both ethnic Chinese in general and political Chinese in particular, it is a trickier business to name a Chinese person in the Chinese language. Terms like Han and Tang, traditionally used to denote “China” and “Chinese,” generally referred only to members of the Han ethnicity, the ethnic majority.1 The term Zhongguo (literally, “central state or states,” a term used for “China” since antiquity), also implies a Hanethnocentric view and paints surrounding ethnic groups as barbarians.2 Since the Yellow River region played an important role in early Chinese civilization, one can also say that this ethnocentric view derived from a northern perspective.3 Sun Yat-sen’s 1912 revolution ended the Qing

Introduction: Performing Zero 3

dynasty (1644–1911), which was established by the Manchus, an ethnic minority from northeast Asia, and ushered in the Republic of China (ROC). The “Chinese nation” and “Chinese ethnicity” were never well-defined concepts in premodern times, but after the successful nationalist revolution, it became necessary to define a new Chinese ethnicity for the new Chinese nation-state. Zhonghua minzu (Chinese ethnicity), a term coined by Liang Qichao (1873–1929) and Sun Yatsen (1866–1925), implies that Chinese ethnicity encompasses the Han majority and several minorities;4 Zhonghua minzu also suggests a correspondence between the Chinese nation-state and Chinese ethnicity. The new China, with its new Chinese people and its new Chinese ethnicity, was not purely an indigenous product, but one that reflected the gaze of outsiders, the global audience of modernity that insisted on seeing China as a unity.5 If the modern China and Chinese ethnicity were from the beginning politically constructed concepts of unity, the civil war of 1949 introduced new complications and fragmentations. When the old Republican government (with its Nationalist Party, the KMT or Kuomintang/ Guomindang) moved to Taiwan, a new Chinese nation, the People’s Republic of China, was founded in mainland China by the Communist Party. Because the two Chinese states shared the same Chinese ethnicity, the conflation of China, Chinese people, Chineseness, and Chinese identity could never be taken for granted. Explicit explanation is needed when any of the terms is used. Are you Chinese Chinese (mainland Chinese)? Do you call yourself Taiwanese or Chinese? Are you Chinese or Chinese American? Local identities such as Taiwanese and Hong Kongers become problematic when the term “Chinese” comes into play, because of the possible ethnic, nationalist, or political associations of the Chinese center. It is indeed exhausting to discuss the “Chinese problem” today.6 A number of Chinese “nations” are major players in this study: Taiwan (the Republic of China, ROC, established in 1912 on mainland China and moved to Taiwan in 1949), Hong Kong (a British colony for 99 years, a Special Administrative Region, SAR, since 1997), and Chinese ethnopoles in California (since the mid-1800s). Mainland China (the People’s Republic of China, PRC, founded in 1949) plays a minor non-speaking role in this study.7 While the diverse cultures and vibrant arts of the historical center cannot be denied, this study focuses on the concerns of the peripheries. Despite its participation in certain transnational collaborations, the center has deliberately been muted in order to let the peripheral voices be heard. Alternative Chinese opera “celebrates” peripheral superiority by zeroing out the center.

4


Politically speaking, the “One China Policy” recognizes only the PRC as the legitimate China. All other Chinese nations, such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau, are all part of this “one China,” and any country wishing to establish diplomatic relations with China must acknowledge this presumptive unity. This strongly asserted political identity seem to overshadow distinctive cultural and local identities in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and elsewhere. Transnational Chinese see a different picture. Within Taiwan, waves of immigration from mainland China created cultural and political fractures. The terms “Chinese” and “Taiwanese” (and their equivalents in Chinese languages) became extremely politically charged, and one cannot use these words without associating oneself with pan-blue or pangreen forces, roughly defined as pro-reunification and pro-independence respectively. One should also not forget the 50-year colonization of Taiwan by Japan (1895–1945), which laid the foundation for Taiwan’s modern infrastructure, many social institutions, as well as aesthetic and cultural values (more details in Chapter 1). The 99-year British colonial legacy in Hong Kong, with its close association with the coming of modernity, has become an inseparable element of Hong Kong identity. The transition of sovereignty from British to Chinese in the rhetoric of “return” (Hong Kong has returned to the mother’s bosom) has generated ambivalent feelings for many people, especially for those forced to take a position either as pro-Chinese or pro-Hong Kong (more details in Chapter 2). One might imagine that the Chinese diaspora in the United States would transcend the PRC-ROC divide, but in fact the split in loyalties is all the stronger for its voluntary nature. I have used the term “incomplete racial split” to describe a situation when this kind of Chinese perform for that kind of Chinese, with charity as a means to connect and separate the two groups. It is incomplete because this kind of Chinese and that kind of Chinese share the same ethnic and cultural origins, but are separated by economic, cultural, and class differences accentuated by charity.8 After the split in 1949, ROC continuously (and rather successfully) claimed its legitimacy as the official China in the international arena for decades. This claim was advanced symbolically and materially: the ROC government financially supported overseas Chinese communities such as those in San Francisco and New York Chinatowns; established diplomatic relations with developing countries by providing agricultural, technical, and financial support;9 constructed Dragon Gates or Confucius statues; and sponsored performances of “Chinese dances” and “Chinese opera” in diaspora.10 With the UN’s recognition of PRC as the legitimate “Chinese” member (1971), Nixon’s


visit to the PRC (1972), and China’s Open Door Policy (1978), which resulted in a change in immigration patterns into the United States, it became much more difficult for the ROC government to exercise its influence over the general Chinese diaspora. However, nostalgia and voluntary identification with a homeland need not respond to diplomatic and immigration policies, and transnational collaborations in diaspora have often shown signs of a partial racial split. Chinese nations cannot be unified partially because of their linguistic differences. Both mainland China and Taiwan use Mandarin as the official language, even as multiple other Chinese languages (often referred to, erroneously, as “dialects”) are spoken at home and on the streets. Distinct Chinese languages are impossible to count. The main languages in Taiwan, besides the official Mandarin, are Taiwanese (Hokkien) and Hakka. In Hong Kong, Cantonese (yueyu) is the most commonly spoken local language, although many residents also speak English and Mandarin. In California, different immigrant groups speak different forms of Chinese: early immigrants are mainly Cantonese or Chaozhou speakers, whereas Taiwanese and Mandarin speakers belong to later groups. The writing system further complicates the language issue: In Taiwan and Hong Kong, traditional characters are used, while in mainland China, simplified characters are used. In other words, Taiwan and Hong Kong share a writing system but not a spoken language, whereas Taiwan and Mainland China share the same official spoken language but not a writing system. The PRC and Hong Kong did not use a common language or writing system until after the 1997 “return.” Many ethnic Chinese who immigrated to the United States from South or Southeast Asia have even more complicated language habits. In the United States, despite different communities marked by different languages, so-called “Chinese schools” mainly teach spoken Mandarin; the writing instruction – simplified or traditional characters – is based on the needs of the community. A Chinese lingua franca in both speaking and writing is impossible. Because favorite operatic forms correspond to linguistic demands and cultural affiliations, a Chinese opera franca is also not possible, whether locally or transnationally.

Center and peripheries Although any world map will clearly represent the peripheries – Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and more remote diasporic Chinese regions – surrounding the continental center, the real relation between these regions is much more complicated and fluid. Scholars have long tried

6


to go beyond stressing the demarcation between center and peripheries and to find alternative ways to approach the Chinese-speaking world. For instance, Wei-Ming Tu has proposed the term “cultural China” to include people with an interest in China but without Chinese ancestry. Shu-mei Shih has bypassed controversial notions of Chinese identity and Chineseness by focusing on linguistic identity and identifying “Sinophone” communities. Lin Kehuan, discussing contemporary theatres in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China, has simply used “consumer society” to indicate a specific stage in the social and artistic development of these regions. For my part, I have used the term “operatic China” to describe an imaginary Chinese nation existing in opera performances in different times and spaces. Allen Chun, on the other hand, throws up his hands – “fuck Chineseness” – and illustrates the ambiguities of Chinese ethnicity and identity.11 Nevertheless, it is imperative to explain the ambiguous but inescapable notion of center and peripheries, and to further interrogate the validity of this notion. Obviously, the center depends on the peripheries for its supremacy. The “central states” (zhongguo, China) cannot exist as such without the surrounding “barbarians,” who have defined China’s centrality and cultural distinction since antiquity. Yet the present peripheries might feel ambivalent about their own national and cultural identities, not to mention their peripheral status, even if their antique designation as barbarians has faded. There is also a fundamental contradiction between the Chinese central view and the global pan-Chinese view. Ubiquitous centers would not be possible. Further, the polarity of center and peripheries sometimes reverses. In popular culture, the peripheries often lead: through such figures as Teresa Teng (Deng Lijun, Taiwan) and Jackie Chan (Cheng Long, Hong Kong) in an earlier generation and Jay Chou (Zhou Jielun, Taiwan) and Leehom Wang (Wang Lihong, US born, Taiwan based) nowadays, the peripheries clearly claim their central positions in popular culture. China’s economic success and the 2008 Olympic glory can be seen both as a source of shared cultural pride and as a harbinger of Chinese imperialism. Ethnic minorities, including “Taiwanese aborigines” from the peripheries, saw themselves “represented” by the center without actual bodily presence during the Olympic opening ceremony. The center staged an inclusive and multicultural China to the world and to its peripheries.12 However, when the Olympic glory faded quickly under the shadow of the present global economic crisis, China announced plans for a grand military procession in 2009 to celebrate the government’s sixtieth anniversary.13 A grand parade of soldiers and tanks was paired


with an aerial display of 151 military aircraft, fully equipped with “real” missiles and bombs “made in China,” which flew over Tiananmen Square.14 Even as the celebration put national pride and economic achievement on display for a global audience, the demonstration of military strength and political power was an unambiguous assertion of authority directed at spectators on the peripheries. Under this kind of political, economic and military pressure, local identities are inevitably defined by their relations with China: part of China, not China, for China, against China, and so on. As much as one might wish to go beyond the center/periphery binary, Chinese hegemony immediately looms on the horizon and becomes a visible threat. Missiles positioned in southeastern China and aimed at Taiwan have an immediate effect on the stock market on the island. If the subaltern cannot speak, can the periphery speak? How does the periphery speak when a missile is pointed at her heart? In this study, I honor local and peripheral voices while remaining keenly aware of “realistic” political and military threats originating at the center. By proposing the notion of “zero” as a peripheral strategy, I wish to acknowledge the agency and voices of these regions and offer a new way of approaching these “Chinese problems.”

Zero I consider alternative Chinese opera a product of globalization. These performances, even when they do not take place at international theatre festivals, are still staged with a transnational audience in mind. Alternative Chinese opera is not just for the local us, but also for the global other, and more importantly, for the transnational Chinese other. In this setting, “Chinese opera” and, to certain extent, “China” are not fixed entities; they are both empty structures that induce meanings, which are expressed in various artistic and linguistic forms. The concept is close to what Lévi-Strauss calls a “zero institution.” As explained by Slavoj Žižek, a zero institution is an empty signifier that itself has no determinate meaning but signifies the presence of meaning. It is an institution that has no positive function except to signal the actuality of social institutions as opposed to pre-institutional chaos.15 The Chinese nation, as a form of social institution, awaits inscribed meanings to form its national identity and its right to exist. Viewed from the center, numerous regional operas staged every day with no prospective world audience fragment China as a solid whole. Seen from the peripheries, multivalent alternative Chinese operas both endow and disavow

8


national meanings from the center. I would like to take the notion of the center as a zero institution even further by factoring in time: as performers in the peripheries connect antiquity with savvy modern technology in alternative Chinese opera, opening moments of the past like strategically placed time capsules, they imply that the old center is dated, impotent, the site of a broken tradition. The old center is turned into raw material, a spectator looking on jealously, or a traveler left behind in the progress of time. In certain transnational collaborations between the center and peripheries, such as The Peony Pavilion, the center actually confirms the superior position of the peripheries in terms of progress (more on this subject in Chapter 3). The actual center/periphery situation no longer matters; what replaces it is a vertical relation between the “here and now” (contemporary performances) and the imagined Chineseness of the past (the operatic tradition). In this configuration, the power relation no longer depends on the spatial structure (center/periphery), but rather on the temporal relation (then/now); whoever travels most nimbly through time to resurrect Chinese opera builds the nation. Zero guarantees multiple meanings for China and for Chineseness; zero provides a vivid figure for all the operatic discourse that surrounds and orbits a black hole, forming a concentric circle without touching the center; zero reflects local anxieties and the global phenomenon of being ethnic Chinese. The visual metaphor is one reason I use such terms as “center” and “peripheries” despite their overtones of Cold War mentality and other kinds of awkwardness. Zero implies a future alliance of the peripheries, but in the meantime, acknowledges a split among different Chinese nations. The center/periphery relation might be reversed, or the center might long for the flexibility of the peripheries, or the peripheries might not want to be part of the master plan of the center, or the center is indeed a zero institution. The splits, alliances, and changes of position among various Chinese nations make for a perpetual motion which itself further hollows out the center. The refusal to grant the center its solid core is the contemporary phenomenon that makes alternative Chinese opera possible and fascinating.

Chinese opera Why Chinese opera? What makes Chinese opera uniquely viable among all artistic and cultural forms? In premodern times, Chinese opera was the primary form of communal entertainment; it also created a teaching environment, where histories, cultures, values, and beliefs could be learned. Today, despite its decreasing popularity, various forms of opera


(even in its extreme variation in TV costume drama) still demand in their audiences a felt connection with Chinese classics and traditional values. Chinese opera might be the only place where modern Chinese encounter classical Chinese language or poetry, and it might be the only occasion in which such traditional values as loyalty and righteousness are put in play. Opera is a tokenized representation of Chineseness and connection to the Chinese past. I have extensively discussed the problematic term “Chinese opera”: not only does it constitute an inaccurate generalization of diverse performing art forms from China, it also reflects Western cultural hegemony. Hundreds of traditional Chinese theatrical forms with very different musical and performance styles and sociocultural contexts have been gathered under the umbrella of “Chinese opera,” which often refers by default to only one specific local form, “Beijing opera” (jingju). Beijing opera becomes a metonymic representation of all traditional theatrical forms from China, across time, regions, language, and performance styles, as if for the convenience and satisfaction of the Western observer. Moreover, drawing strict generic distinctions among dramatic forms is itself a European and American habit, especially since the rise of realism. The term “Chinese opera” is thus a translation or rather a mistranslation of a Western categorization of performing arts. In traditional Chinese theatre, singing, dancing, speaking, and even acrobatics are all parts of the mise-en-scène. In general, arias are in rhymed verse, dialogue in prose. Music is the main determining factor in the genre. Playwrights need to have good knowledge of music in order to “write” plays; a scene of a play can be seen as a collection of individual songs following specific musical rules. In other words, music is not optional; it is essential and it is what theatre was. In premodern China, the most common form of stage drama was called xi or ju, both terms commonly translated “drama” or “theatre”; the verb often used with each of these objects was chang, “to sing.” As a matter of fact, when Western stage plays were introduced to China in the early twentieth century, they were called “spoken drama” (huaju). No singing in theatre? Such a novelty! “Speaking” is the marked term, not “singing.” In the American context, the term “opera” carries connotations of antiquity and foreignness. Chinese opera, therefore, often suggests a form of ancient exoticism and alienation, something incomprehensible and difficult to appreciate. The naming of Chinese opera in the United States also coincided with the rise of “American opera,” American musicals, whose singing and dancing helped create American identities. My research has shown that the 1920s was the first time when the

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term “Chinese opera” became the preferred way to refer to traditional Chinese theatre.16 Several genres are discussed in this study: kunqu (Kun opera), jingju (Beijing opera), and yueju (Cantonese opera). These are very distinctive genres, despite the way they are collapsed, in mistranslation, into Chinese opera. Kunqu is one of the oldest living Chinese traditional theatres, its history traceable to a point of origin 600 years in the past.17 One of the performance styles for chuanqi (marvel plays), the dominant form in the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), kunqu became a synonym for chuanqi because of its popularity. As a form of elite theatre, kunqu is known for its elevated poetry, literary allusiveness, melodic music (less percussion-intensive), and beautiful, sustained dance. In its prime, it was enjoyed mainly in elite circles and performed in small private settings. The famous playwright Tang Xianzu (1560–1616), for instance, owned his own troupe. Even now, kunqu lovers around the world take pride in the genre’s highbrow status and stress its distinction from other relatively “lowly” genres. Kunqu was recognized by UNESCO in 2001 as a “Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity,” the first Chinese opera to have received such an honor.18 By contrast, jingju and yueju both belong to the category of regional theatre or local theatre, which became popular as kunqu was declining in the mid-Qing (around the eighteenth century).19 Jingju (Beijing opera, capital opera) is not from Beijing. The origins of the genre are often traced to a performance by a troupe from Anhui province in Beijing on Emperor Qianlong’s eightieth birthday in 1790. This initial performance was not so much the “birth” of Beijing opera as the moment of its coming of age. Its development in Beijing gave the genre the chance to gain royal and aristocratic patronage and became one of the most popular theatres from the nineteenth century onward. In the early twentieth century, there was a deliberate effort to shed the popular associations of jingju and to cultivate its status as “national opera” (guoju).20 Mei Lanfang’s 1930 visit to the United States helped promote the image of jingju as the national opera of China, the Chinese opera. Mei’s visit has remained a popular topic for scholars even to the present day.21 Yueju (Cantonese opera), on the other hand, had a very different fate. Yueju originated in Guangdong and Guangxi provinces. As the most popular genre among 14 local forms, it was often called “grand drama” (daxi) by locals. Historically, yueju was loosely associated with the southern barbarian (nanman) because of its origins along the southern border of China. Geographical and cultural marginality naturally gave people in the region more opportunities to cross the national and cultural borders. Yueju’s


popularity spread with diasporic populations to Hong Kong, Southeast Asia, north America, and Europe before any other operatic forms. Even though it never shed its provincial and even somewhat barbaric associations within China, it was one of the earliest vanguards of “Chinese opera” overseas. Canton (Guangzhou) was one of the first ports to be “opened” to the West after the first Opium War, and yueju has been one of the most “progressive” theatrical forms22 because of its roots in this “contact zone” between East and West.23 In 2009, yueju became the second form of Chinese opera recognized by UNESCO as a “Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.” But the fact that the award was shared by the center and the peripheries – Hong Kong, Macau, and Guangdong province – might be interpreted as a friendly gesture, a way of using transnational “cultural” cooperation to ease political tension between the center and the peripheries (more details in the Conclusion to this volume).24 In this study, when referring to each individual genre within its own artistic and cultural context, I use its common Chinese name, such as kunqu, jingju, or yueju. When discussing these genres together, especially on a transnational level or from a global perspective, I use the common term “Chinese opera.” This nomenclature is part of a deliberate effort to remind the readers of the interlingual and transnational negotiations that have formed our idea of Chinese stage performance.

Alternative Chinese opera Alternative Chinese opera operates within a specific mindset. In a nutshell, it is alternative to whatever is regarded as “orthodox” Chinese opera, that is, a tradition that has putatively remained unchanged since antiquity and that is putatively held as the cultural property of Chinese everywhere – but as the political property of China proper. Alternative Chinese opera is alternative because it is updated, modernized, or improved as compared to the tradition; it is alternative because it is not from the center, PRC; it is alternative because despite its local connection it takes a transnational approach; it is alternative because it imagines an ideal Chinese nation when no alternative China can exist legitimately. It is alternative because we have to and also because we want to. The turn of the millennium saw very ambivalent developments in the world of Chinese opera: in 1995, all surviving jingju companies in Taiwan merged into one, the Guoguang Opera Company; in 1997, Hong Kong was “returned” to mainland China, and threats to the free market economy posed dangers for the free market for Hong Kong yueju; ironically, kunqu was proclaimed by UNESCO as a “Masterpiece

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of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity” in 2001, and the transnational production of a kunqu play The Peony Pavilion (The Young Lovers’ Edition) was a phenomenal success (2004-present); in 2009, yueju became the second Chinese opera as a “Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity” by UNESCO, and a joint-award was shared by Hong Kong, Macao, and Guangdong province. In other words, whereas traditional theatres seem to face inevitable extinction domestically, on the transnational or global level, there were glimmerings of an unprecedented hope. In a parallel to the “incomplete racial split,” the alternative can never be completely severed from the orthodox or original because it depends on the latter to be the Other and to be the spectator. Three Others become definitive: tradition, China, and the nation. 1 Alternative to tradition One cannot speak of an alternative to tradition without defining tradition. The Oxford English Dictionary defines tradition as “the action of transmitting or ‘handing down,’ or the fact of being handed down, from one to another, or from generation to generation.”25 In this definition, the “tradition” of a living performing art implies an unchanging continuity with the past, both in the material being handed down and in the action of transmitting itself. But can anything living stay the same and not adjust to its changing habitat? Does any adaptation or adjustment count as an interruption of the tradition? How long an interval can be allowed in the course of “handing down”? Does “revived” tradition, implying as it does that the tradition was once dead, count as tradition? Hobsbawm’s notion of “invented tradition” emphasizes “repetition”: “‘Invented tradition’ is taken to mean a set of practices, normally governed by overtly or tacitly accepted rules and of a ritual or symbolic nature, which seek to inculcate certain values and norms of behaviour by repetition, which automatically implies continuity with the past.”26 The sense of repetition, along with the sense of its connection to the past, claims for Chinese opera the reverence that is tradition’s due. For instance, in 1982, the Kunqu Company of Jiangsu province staged five scenes of The Peony Pavilion to celebrate the 366th anniversary of the death of playwright Tang Xianzu. In 1986, another few scenes from the same play were staged to celebrate the 370th anniversary.27 Although the repeated celebrations might create the illusion of continuous tradition, both the historical past and continuity are in this case factitious notions, as the kunqu tradition was clearly interrupted by the Cultural Revolution (1966–76). Therefore,


such “quasi-obligatory repetition” is better explained as obeisance to an invented past and an invented tradition.28 Chinese opera fulfills a need for Chinese identity performance. It is a token of an eternal China and an eternal Chineseness, both of these being especially precious in tumultuous times of war or political unrest. It is what Clifford Geertz calls “cultural performance,” designed “to exhibit to visitors and to themselves”:29 Chinese opera is something we possess, and Chinese opera is something you don’t have. Invention or not, the belief in an eternal tradition has its psychological function. It is arguably even more useful for those who are engaged in alternative Chinese opera to firmly believe in the tradition. Without the tradition as a tokenized fossil or dated phenomenon, alternative opera would have no point of reference and its value would be diminished. By claiming to be an improvement, innovation, update, or deconstruction of the traditional, alternative opera claims to extend the tradition. In the most current debate in Chinese opera circles, “original sauce and original flavor” (yuanzhi yuanwei) and “innovation” (chuangxin) are two opposite camps representing a traditional approach and an alternative approach respectively.30 If the original flavor is imagined, the alternative to the original is even more fabricated. Once again, alternative Chinese opera is a practice of ambivalence: it turns a living tradition into a museum piece and claims both a tangential connection and an essential difference. In order to be alternative, it has to kill a living tradition and invent a fossilized tradition to take its place. 2 Alternative to China As explained earlier, the ruptures among different Chinese nations are not based on ethnicity or race. The notion that all Chinese are somehow descendents of the Yellow emperor or of the Dragon is a common panChinese trope. “China” becomes a problem only when it asserts its political hegemony over other Chinese nations. Taiwan is not permitted to present itself to the world as a China (Republic of China) or as “Taiwan” (an independent country), but is forced to adopt the awkward name “Chinese Taipei” as its “national” identity, as for example in international sporting events. Postcolonial Hong Kong, under its current status as SAR, has to negotiate between its distinctive local identity and its official “Chinese” nationality. Many diasporic Chinese in the United States, despite their different national identifications, are grouped under the confusing ethnicity “Chinese Americans.” Awkwardness, ambiguity, liminality, hyphenation, confusion: these are the conditions ethnic Chinese face in their relations with the political Chinese center.

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Culturally, every part of the Chinese-speaking world has its own distinctive local culture, which may be organically local or made “native” by means of political propaganda. The yueju classic The Flower Princess (a subject of Chapter 2), for instance, is a popular local Hong Kong product, but is also exploited as a medium of political expression in both pro-Hong Kong and pro-Chinese discourse. Sometimes the peripheries claim their cultural legitimacy over the Chinese center. For instance, a traditional technique, “stilting” (caiqiao, walking in special footwear to imitate bound feet), was abandoned in China because of the rush to “liberate” the masses from feudal practices during the Cultural Revolution; but the technique is preserved in operatic performances in Taiwan and Hong Kong. Taiwan jingju and Hong Kong yueju thus appear more culturally Chinese than China’s opera in the PRC. That alternative Chinese opera can claim to be more Chinese than China, superior to China, or non-coeval with China provides the form with its ontological raison d’être. Alternative Chinese opera establishes a China that cannot exist in the current political climate. This alternative China embodies Anderson’s paradox of nationalism, which connects “objective modernity” and “subjective antiquity,”31 or in this case ancient Chinese cultural glory and modern creative energy. Alternative Chinese opera draws a vertical connection from present to past, from the contemporary Chinese periphery to the ancient Yellow River valley, from modern singing to classical poetry. Present-day artistic passion awakens ancient specters to replace contemporary China and become co-actors on the alternative Chinese opera stage. China becomes a spectator watching the exhibition of its past with envious eyes. 3 Alternative to nation I argue that alternative Chinese opera is transnational in nature from the point of conception right through to production and consumption. Since only one Chinese nation can legitimately claim ownership of the orthodox tradition, alternative forms must transcend the nation but sometimes also embody the nation. Although it is not appropriate to discuss the relation of the center and periphery situation as if it were a relation between first and third worlds, one is nevertheless reminded of Jameson’s notion of third world literature functioning as “national allegory.”32 By its fluid nature, alternative Chinese opera does not restrict itself to the role of national allegory, but it does always enunciate the nation in the context of transnational performance. This is also the paradox of transnationalism: it draws attention to what it negates and continues to foreground the significance of the national.33 Practicality


often requires collaboration between mainland China and other Chinese nations in alternative opera productions, so national boundaries are crossed and de-emphasized for the sake of artistic creation. However, a sort of “racial split” along national and class lines inevitably opens during this kind of collaboration: our kind of Chinese are better than your kind of Chinese; our Chinese nation is greater than your Chinese nation; alternative Chinese opera is superior to traditional Chinese opera. The sense of superiority is based on economics and cultural distinction, which in turn translate into class differences. From the transnational point of view, production values in mainland Chinese troupes can be stereotyped as inferior, undisciplined, or unmotivated because of the effect of decades of communist politics on crews’ work ethic; at the same time, the experience of competition in the free market gives transnational Chinese a sense of their superiority in innovation and creativity. Nevertheless, the vast resources and mass market of mainland China become an indispensable component in many transnational collaborations, though China’s participation is deliberately downplayed because of the peripheries’ claimed superiority. Such ruptures within transnational practice redraw the national borders to match economic distinctions. Appadurai has entertained the notion of the postnational state as a result of alternative forms of organizing global affairs and as a response to the inability of the nation-state to retain its monopoly on loyalty.34 “Flexible citizenship” has become a fashion statement for wealthy transnational citizens: “I can live anywhere in the world, but it must be near an airport.”35 I will argue that postnational practice is possible within the practice of alternative Chinese opera, but the establishment of the postnation immediately emphasizes the boundaries between Chinese nations. For instance, an NGO, “The Peony Pavilion Foundation,” was established with money from Taiwan to support a production “made in China.” In order to provide financial support for a kunqu production as a real postnational institution, this foundation had to be set up in Hong Kong, “the third country.” The NGO’s location and the funding sources accentuated the lack of freedom and complicated bureaucracy on the China side. The performance of alternative Chinese opera tends to redraw national boundaries and create an alternative nation where no nation existed.

Nostalgia Nostalgia plays an important role in alternative Chinese opera. Usually associated with homesickness, nostalgia should be seen as a longing both for a different place (the home faraway) and for a different time

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(the home in the past). Seen as a medical condition, the term nostalgia was coined by the Swiss physician Johnnes Hofer in 1688 to refer to symptoms of severe homesickness: nostos means “home,” and algia in this compound refers to a painful condition of longing.36 Scholars have approached the subject of nostalgia from many different angles. Svetlana Boym points out that nostalgia is “a longing for a home that no longer exists or has never existed.” Nostalgia is a “sentiment of loss and displacement,” but also “a romance with one’s own fantasy.” Boym proposes a cinematic image of double exposure in nostalgia: home and abroad, past and present, dream and everyday life.37 On a large scale, the postmodern age we live in is described as the age of “macro nostalgia,” with commodities designed to satisfy consumers’ nostalgic desires.38 Various theorizations of contemporary nostalgia have been proposed. One might argue that no present dystopia is required to bring on longing for a utopia in the past or even that the past never exists except in narrative or in the form of “lack.” Nostalgia becomes the “desire for desire.”39 At another extreme, if all desire is social, as Deleuze and Guattari argue, nostalgic desire is far removed from any type of “natural” homesickness. Nevertheless, no matter how manipulative or artificial nostalgia can be, I argue that nostalgia is deeply rooted in the psychology of the “peripheral” Chinese and is a fundamental affective apparatus in generating alternative Chinese opera. Different types of nostalgia are discussed in this study. Boym lists two kinds of nostalgia, the restorative and the reflective: the former concerns rebuilding lost homes and patching gaps in memory, whereas the latter revolves around loss and longing. Nationalist reconstructions of the past and revivals of national symbols and myths are acts of restorative nostalgia. Boym further discusses the two narrative plots within restorative nostalgia, the restoration of origins and the conspiracy theory. Conspiracy theories, in their stark opposition of good and evil, imagines such a scenario: they (the designated enemies) conspire against “our” homecoming, hence “we” have to conspire against “them” in order to restore “our” imagined community. Home is under siege and a defense system against the enemy becomes necessary.40 I would argue that most alternative Chinese opera functions partially on the notion of restoring an origin or the past, but that there is also an element of “conspiracy theory” in certain governmental policies on Chinese opera, such as the jingju policies in Taiwan under the KMT government. Jingju is no longer an innocent art; it is a strong defense mechanism against the evil communism (more details on this in Chapter 1).


Reflective nostalgia, on the other hand, focuses more on fragments of the past, the irrevocability of the past, and the gap between identity and resemblance. The past is not something to go back to, but part of the present, with connections to the future. This is similar to Deleuze’s notion of contemporaneity of past and present: “Not only does the past co-exist with the present that has been, but, as it preserves itself in itself (while the present passes), it is the whole, integral past; it is all our past, which coexists with the present.” Bergson’s famous metaphor, the “cone” represents this kind of “complete state of coexistence”: “In the past itself there appear all kinds of levels of profundity, marking all the possible intervals in this coexistence.”41 Different levels of past/memory oscillate, but when the past and present make contact, the whole past is compressed into the contacting point. I will discuss this kind of reflective nostalgia and the coexistence of present and the compressed past when I analyze the yueju production of The Flower Princess in the complicated setting of postcolonial/neocolonial Hong Kong (Chapter 2). Cultural anthropologist Renato Rosaldo has coined the term “imperialist nostalgia” to describe how, under circumstances of colonial and racial domination, the dominant power may yearn for what has been destroyed and mourn the passing of what has been transformed. In the imperialist context, this notion is associated with progress: “When the so-called civilizing process destabilizes forms of life, the agents of change experience transformations of other cultures as if they were personal losses.” The industrialist mourns for nature, the colonizer mourns for savage ways of life. 42 To contextualize imperial nostalgia in this study, I will say that the Chinese center mourns for its provincialism and the orthodox tradition mourns the loss of local and marginal barbarism. In postcolonial Hong Kong, quaint local traditions are treated as “the vanishing savage,” to borrow James Clifford’s phrase,43 and are the object of some “imperialist nostalgia” from the center, before they disappear completely into the projects of civilization, centralization, and Sinicization. Such a disappearing object is a rhetorical construct legitimating the practice of “savage ethnography.” “The other is lost, in disintegrating time and space, but saved in the text.”44 By commemorating the vanishing savage of the local, the center eternalizes local savagery and posits itself as savior. The decolonization process is then administered not by the local “indigenous” population, but by the new regime, the new colonizer. Imperial nostalgia is explored further when I discuss the incorporation of The Flower Princess into the “return” celebration ceremonies in Chapter 2.

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I would like to consider yet another type of nostalgia in alternative Chinese opera: retro-futuristic nostalgia, the subject of Chapter 4. In the case of Orlando in Taiwan, Robert Wilson’s avant-garde sensibility and high-tech theatricality subject jingju to deconstruction and reconfiguration. Rewritten to the tune of Western theatrical semiotics, jingju is fragmented, distorted, and decontextualized. A techno restaging of jingju, metonymically misrepresented, confronted jingju with an unprecedented challenge. The art of jingju, however battered and distorted, retained a certain figurative immortality in the retrofuturistic configuration: jingju competes, adapts, and survives; it does not die, even under such harsh circumstances. Through Wilson’s international fame, Taiwan jingju was hoping to win a truly global future, while still boasting its anchor in artistic tradition. There was in this Taiwan bargain a nostalgia for a future, a future when the metamorphosis of Chinese opera, with the help of high-tech experimentation, will stand in for an alternative China, a nation whose national identity could be contemporary and present and whose national art could be real art, not Oriental exoticism. Orlando may not have been a satisfactory production for traditional jingju fans; it nevertheless feeds a taste for retro-futuristic nostalgia and offers a glimmer of hope for future alternative Chinese opera.

Methodology Born and educated in Taiwan, academically trained in the United States, working and residing in California, I am bilingual, bicoastal, binational, and bicultural. But I was raised in Taipei by parents who fled the communist regime in 1949, and “Mainlander” has inevitably become part of my unofficial “ethnicity.” Since childhood I have breathed nostalgia for the mainland as a kind of second-hand smoke, and I doubt I have understood all of its effects. On the other hand, my status as descendent of diasporic Mainlanders in Taiwan and longtime resident of the United States gives me more flexible transnational perspectives on Chinese nations. My inherited status as a Mainlander gives me an opportunity to understand a minority Taiwan identity, or an ethnic subculture that is rarely addressed in transnational discourse. My research on diasporic Chinese in California shows that this local subculture also operates on a transnational level and very often has its transnational advantages. My official ethnic identity in diaspora as “Taiwanese Chinese” (Chinese but not real Chinese; a different kind of Chinese) also allows me to flirt with the identity of insider/outsider


when interacting with various diasporic communities; my constant crossings of national borders on the Pacific Rim, as well as conversations with individuals and academic institutions in different localities, give me the illusion of holding transnational citizenship. The fluidity (imagined or not) of my transnational academic status grants me entry into different zones in alternative Chinese opera. On the paratheatrical level, I am split half native informant, half Western ethnographer; on the theatrical level, I am half transnational spectator, half local spectator. My academic interest and bilingual and bicultural status allow me to penetrate further into alternative Chinese opera as language translator, cultural interpreter, and art negotiator. The primary “texts” under investigation in this study derive from actual “here and now” performances in the new millennium in Chinese peripheries. Multiple interviews and actual involvement in projects have informed my analytical thinking on the subject. By moving in and out of these projects, by being on either side of production and consumption, and by activating my cultural belonging in different “nations,” I hope to be able to provide a fresh view of “Chinese opera.” I approach alternative Chinese opera on a number of levels. On the transnational level, Chinese opera provides a chance for conversation and even alliance, despite different political beliefs in different regions. It also demonstrates a pan-Chinese belief in traditional aesthetics and cultural values. On the local and national levels, it adjusts itself to fulfill specific political and cultural desires. On the personal level, it imagines an identity that transcends national borders but appeals nevertheless to nostalgia for a lost “Chinese nation” that exists in the past or the imagined future, but nowhere in the present. Alternative Chinese opera thus purports to rebuild a Chinese nation based on such “restorative nostalgia” or “retro-futuristic nostalgia” or offers mournful observations in the mode of “reflective nostalgia.” Finally, alternative Chinese opera represents a survival strategy for desperate artists, as the opera business in peripheries largely operates in the market economy rather than with state sponsorship. These tactics supply new oxygen for the declining tradition; the endangered species survives in a niche fed by transnational confusion. In this study, I use common geographic and cultural terms such as “mainland China” (Mainland), “Taiwan,” “Hong Kong,” and “California” to refer to various Chinese nations, avoiding terms that stress political and territorial identity, such as PRC, ROC, SAR, and USA. Despite the significance of national boundaries and politics in transnational studies, I wish to emphasize the creative and imaginative nature of the alternative

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approach to the subject. In general, I use pinyin in romanizing all Chinese names and terms, except in the case of words that have become familiar in older romanizations (such as Taipei) and spellings that reflect individuals’ own choices, as in names. Translations of the dramatic texts are for the most part my own, except in the case of The Peony Pavilion, for which I draw on Cyril Birch’s admirable English version. Translations of terms and titles are also my own where no official translation is available.

Chapter outlines All the alternative Chinese opera performances discussed in this book took place in the first decade of the millennium, in the Chinese “peripheries” (Taiwan, Hong Kong, California). The general climate of decline in traditional art, local policies, and political tensions between the center and peripheries have combined to make mounting these performances a tremendous effort that requires multivalent collaboration, intricate negotiation, and substantial capital and manpower. All of the money-losing performances discussed here have nevertheless succeeded in some other respects: they have found new ways of artistic expression and claim to offer a model to the center’s “original sauce, original flavor” paradigm; they have also explored the possibilities of transnational collaboration in the production, consumption, and promotion of the art. By performing “zero” – both in reaffirming the emptiness and fictiveness of the center and in bringing to life transnational alliances in creating alternative Chinese opera – the peripheral Chinese nations have forged a possible future for Chinese opera. Chapter 1, which focuses on “innovative jingju” (xinbian jingju) in Taiwan, begins with an introduction to the politics, history, ethnicity, and cultures of Taiwan during the past few decades. Jingju, transplanted to Taiwan from mainland China, was promulgated by the KMT government as an element of nationalist rhetoric that called both for the recovery of the lost homeland and the establishment of a legitimate China in diaspora. However, as nativist Taiwanese voices became stronger during the 1980s, the environment became harsher for jingju – a Mainlander’s art – and the form faced possible extinction. The new millennium saw hopes of reviving the art in “innovative jingju,” an alternative jingju that combines modern/Western theatrical sensibility (staging, directing, marketing, dramaturgy), traditional artistry, and new scripts. The creative energy in Taiwan’s free market economy made up for the dwindling resources available to traditional jingju. This “made in Taiwan” jingju, or “jingju without the Beijing family name” appears


intelligent, even fashionable, to new and younger audiences of college students and young professionals. Innovative jingju posits Taiwan as the alternative center for the future of jingju. Chapter 2 focuses on a performance of the Hong Kong yueju classic, The Flower Princess: The Youth Edition. The performance, which adopted a traditional approach and used a young cast of amateurs, took place in 2007, on the tenth anniversary of Hong Kong’s “return” to mainland China and the fiftieth anniversary of the play itself. Staged before an international audience, with a selected jury “voting” for the best actor, the performance served multiple purposes: it was part of a continuing effort to cultivate local talent for the aging yueju dramatic form; it showed reflective nostalgia for Hong Kong’s colonial identity and was an elegy to lost hopes for autonomy; it was an expression of ambivalence regarding the postcolonial/neocolonial situation of being “Chinese” again; it was a defiant expression of Hong Kong cultural pride in the face of Chinese nationalist hegemony. Hong Kong’s unique identity of eternal transitionality – between dynasties, between regimes, between nationalities, between cultures – is commemorated in The Flower Princess. The California tour of the kunqu classic The Peony Pavilion: The Young Lovers’ Edition (2006) is the topic of Chapter 3. Having UNESCO’s recognition has made kunqu a source of unparalleled artistic and national pride. Supported by money and planning from outside of the PRC, Chinese raw material and labor, and foreign consumption, the “made in China” Young Lovers’ Edition has enjoyed extraordinary success since its premiere in 2004. Transnational Chinese were the major force behind the success of the California tour in 2006, which lasted a month and included performances and educational programs on four campuses of the University of California. The transnational capitalist class thus established an alternative China that transcended boundaries of different Chinese nations, eased their nostalgia for a twice-left home, and celebrated a national identity connecting present transnational wealth and prestige with past artistic glory. One transnational China for the twenty-first century is a Peony China. Orlando (2009), a collaboration between the American avant-garde director Robert Wilson and the Taiwan jingju diva Wei Hai-Ming, was the performance among those considered here that deviated most radically from the traditional course of Chinese opera and is the focus of Chapter 4. Torn away from the context of jingju artistic tradition and Taiwan culture, this extravagantly produced Orlando might be regarded as a failed example at intercultural theatre based on postcolonial status inequalities. And because of its incomplete deconstruction of jingju, this

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production appeared awkward and confused, despite certain technical wonders in its staging. Still, despite the sense that its best traditional features had been distorted or even battered, jingju managed to survive the challenge and shine through the maestro’s heavy cloud. Retrofuturistic nostalgia helped pave a new path and present a glimpse of hope for Taiwan jingju, jingju without the Beijing family name. In the Conclusion, I briefly discuss some of the most recent developments in, and performances of, alternative Chinese opera, presenting them as “aftermaths” of the productions discussed in these chapters, and as a means of projecting the future of the genre.

1 Femininity Comes to the Rescue: Innovative Jingju in Taiwan

Is traditional Beijing opera (jingju) an art form associated with hegemony or state power? Many young people in Taiwan today would consider the question absurd: the dated art form is usually associated with a minority group, the old Mainlanders – retired soldiers and military village dwellers – who are dying out and no longer enjoy any class or political privileges. Recent changes in the political climate also make any traditional arts associated with mainland China misfits. New and innovative jingju, on the other hand, is a different story. This is the form the younger generation might consider fashionable, artistic, intelligent, even cool. Why is there such a big difference, in terms of perception, appreciation, and understanding, between traditional jingju (chuantong jingju) and innovative jingju (xinbian jingju) in Taiwan today?1 While jingju was favored by the emperors of the Qing dynasty (1644–1911) and was honored as “national opera” through most of the twentieth century,2 views of this popular national art have changed in the new millennium. Nancy Guy has even wondered, at the beginning of her study Peking Opera and Politics in Taiwan, whether it will still be possible to do research on the subject in the coming decades, since jingju has been in a steady decline.3 However, a new voice and new force came into being in the 1990s, partly in response to the unfriendly political climate, and partly as a self-help survival strategy in a media-dominated age. The new form, which I term “Innovative Jingju,” has supplied the oxygen that Taiwan jingju desperately needs at this moment. Although it arose out of necessity, I argue that Innovative Jingju not only reflects the form’s struggle against local hegemony, but also demonstrates a multicultural Taiwan identity and a uniquely experimental artistic quality, which in turn help revitalize the moribund traditional art form across 23

24


the transnational Chinese world. Moreover, the “gender” of the genre is also under reconstruction and reconsideration because of disproportional female participation in the production and consumption of the art. Desperate self-help efforts on the peripheries have been transformed into a kind of local pride, which has contributed to the reconstruction and survival of the center as well. In this chapter, I focus my analysis on the formation and artistic development of Innovative Jingju in Taiwan in the first decade of the millennium. Although traditional opera is still performed regularly, my concern here is with contemporary adaptations. Detailed discussion of three productions – the “little theatre” style Wang Youdao Divorces His Wife (2004), the medium-scale Three Persons, Two Lamps (2005), and the full-scale National Theatre production of The Golden Cangue (2006) – will illustrate the cultural, political, artistic, and gender functions of Innovative Jingju in Taiwan.

The rhetoric of ethnicity in Taiwan To put it bluntly, no one can or should avoid the thorny issue of ethnicity when conducting any kind of cultural studies in Taiwan. Ethnic differences in Taiwan are both highly constructed and fundamentally real; the main ethnic divide lies in ideology instead of race, in temporality rather than locality. Allen Chun uses the word “fictive” to describe the discourse on ethnicities in Taiwan.4 The overall ethnic rhetoric is based on the distinction between benshengren (people from this province, Taiwan) and waishengren (people from outside this province);5 in other words, it is “insiders” versus “outsiders,” the legitimate versus the illegitimate, the original owners versus the latecomers. A more recent ethnic rhetoric of Pan-Green vs. Pan-Blue generally follows the benshengren-waishengren divide: The Pan-Green alliance generally advocates a Taiwan identity separate from China’s, stressing local bensheng identity, pro-independence rhetoric, and memories of the February 28 trauma (more on which later). The Pan-Blue alliance takes a milder approach to the Taiwan/China problem, advocating maintenance of the status quo, improvement of economic relations with China, and a panChinese rather than an independent Taiwanese identity.6 Such a division relies mainly on ideological, political, and cultural identifications. As communities are always imagined and reimagined, and nationalism invents nations when they do not exist, this kind of ethnic rhetoric requires a great deal of forgetting and forgiving as well as of invention, in order to construct the ethnic logic and narrative.7 Nevertheless, to

Innovative Jingju in Taiwan 25

many residents in Taiwan, the division between green and blue operates on the ontological level, so reiteration of ethnic rhetoric plays an important part in political discourse. What are the ethnic groups of Taiwan? The aborigines of Taiwan, or the “real” native Taiwanese, as one might call them, are related to Austronesian peoples. Today they constitute only about 2 percent of the population. Throughout history, immigration from the Mainland to Taiwan and to other smaller islands (the Penghu archipelago or Pescadores) was not very common, partially because of the harsh waters in the Taiwan Straits. The first major period of immigration came during the seventeenth century, when the pirate/trader Zheng Zhilong (1604–1661) and the Dutch and the Spanish, who had been active in the nearby Philippines, saw Taiwan as a base of operations.8 Some believe that Taiwan did not become “Chinese” until Zheng Chenggong (1624–1662), the son of Zheng Zhilong, expelled the Dutch and started serious cultivation in 1661. The Qing court encouraged immigration after established its sovereignty in Taiwan in 1684.9 Another large wave of immigration came in the nineteenth century. The majority of immigrants came from the southern Fujian region, a smaller number from the eastern Guangdong region. The Fujian immigrants were Hoklo speakers, while the Guandong immigrants were Hakkas and spoke the Hakka language. After China’s defeat in the Sino-Japanese War in 1895, Taiwan became a Japanese colony until 1945, and during this period Japanese language, culture, and aesthetics helped construct Taiwan’s local value systems. After the defeat of Japan and the end of the Pacific War, Taiwan was returned to China, then ruled by the Nationalist (KMT) party. Japanized Taiwan therefore had to undergo a linguistic, cultural, and political process of re-Sinicization. The exhilaration of decolonization was accompanied by confusion and even a degree of resentment toward the KMT regime, which during the transitional period arguably created a neocolonial experience for Taiwan. Ambivalence about “being Chinese again” in Taiwan prefigured the postcolonial/neocolonial experience of Hong Kong after the 1997 “return” (more on which in Chapter 2). The February 28 Incident (in Chinese, it is called 228, Er-erba) of 1947 is worth special attention here: it was one of the biggest conflicts of the re-Sinicization period. The incident was sparked by a protest against a police confiscation of contraband tobacco. The protest and suppression turned violent, evolving into a series of arrests and the disappearance of many opponents of the central government. This “White Terror” silenced and weakened the power of Taiwan’s native elites during that time, and became a source of historical trauma for the bensheng locals.

26


For decades, February 28 was a taboo subject and a hidden history; it was not until after the lifting of Martial Law that the topic was re-opened and re-addressed, both officially and among scholars. Many believe that the incident marks the birth of Taiwan consciousness and the desire for Taiwan independence. The suppression solidified KMT power for decades during unstable times, but also made the ethnic chasm almost irreparable. The unfortunate result was lasting distrust of the KMT government and division between bensheng locals and waisheng newcomers. Resentment and distrust would complicate the KMT government’s task of governing after the ROC officially moved to Taiwan in 1949.10 The rise of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 and the withdrawal of the KMT government to Taiwan brought the next large wave of immigration. The new diasporic population was made up of members of the government and military personnel, along with family members and many others who chose to be associated with republican China rather than communist China. Although the newcomers came from many different provinces and spoke many different languages, they were classed together in popular parlance as “Mainlander” (daluren) or waishengren, “people from other provinces.” Earlier immigrants, Hoklo and Hakka, and sometimes aborigines referred to themselves as Taiwanese (taiwanren) or benshengren, “people from this province.” Hoklo currently make up about 70 percent and Hakka 15 percent of the total population, Mainlanders only 13 percent and indigenes even less at 2 percent.11 In the ethnic dialogue, the indigenous population, the original “owners” of Taiwan, started with little voice in political life and have had to fight for decades to claim their rightful place. The general division of “in” and “out” groups is not a matter of race or origin, since the majority of both groups belong to the major Chinese ethnic group, the Han, with ancestral origins in mainland China. The distinction is largely ideological, political, cultural, and very importantly, temporal. The dichotomy between “in” and “out,” or “green” and “blue” is based on a very loosely constructed pair of equations. Han immigrants to Taiwan before 1949 (largely Hoklo and Hakka speakers), along with their descendants, are bensheng locals, true Taiwanese, February 28 victims, oppressed, traumatized, and “green.” Immigrants to Taiwan after 1949 (from all over China) are Mainlanders, waisheng latecomers, Chinese (rather than Taiwanese), privileged, oppressors, and “blue.” Naturally there are many gray areas, such as the population of children of mixed marriages. Certain people of the younger “born-in-Taiwan” generation who have no real connection with either the February 28 trauma or with mainland China would also like to leave behind the


historical wound of 1947. Some latecomers of 1949 were Hoklo speakers and could assimilate among the bensheng locals more easily than other Mainlanders because of their linguistic advantage. Nevertheless, this division still has many partisans nowadays. The fictive character of race and ethnicity becomes truth, especially in the political arena. When the waisheng outsiders of the Nationalist government were attempting to establish the sovereignty of the Republic of China over the majority bensheng locals, they had to transform postcolonial Taiwan, a historically peripheral Chinese region, into the ROC nation-state and to convince the new diasporic population that the government in exile was actually functioning and that Taiwan could be their home. Something magical had to happen, and it had to happen fast. The KMT government, exhausted after enduring the long Pacific War, the Chinese civil wars, and the economic crisis of the late 1940s, desperately needed cultural tools to help it ease the transitional pain. Horng-Luen Wang explains the complicated relations between cultural object and nation. It is through institutions that a nation is constructed as a real entity and a culture is formulated as an object that the nation owns. The cultural object becomes proof of the existence of the nation: “We are a nation because we have culture.”12 However, national culture, the apparently natural secretion of a nation, is usually not organically formed. I would even argue that only the nation can legitimize and further promote national culture, which in turn solidifies the status of the nation-state. The symbiosis of national culture and nationstate explains the situation of jingju in Taiwan. With its popularity and its status as “national drama,” jingju was the perfect candidate to serve as the “national culture” or “national heritage” of the ROC in Taiwan.

Traditional jingju in Taiwan A

Early history

A number of scholars have written about the history and politics of traditional jingju in Taiwan. Wang An-Ch’i’s Fifty Years of Taiwan Jingju (2002),13 Su Guizhi’s The Development of Jingju and Gezaixi under National Policies,14 and Nancy Guy’s Peking Opera and Politics in Taiwan (2005) are the most representative recent works. Xu Yaxiang’s Chinese Theatre Troupes in Taiwan under Japanese Governance (2000) covers the halfcentury of Japanese control over Taiwan (1895–1945).15 My introduction of the early period can therefore remain succinct. Many people believe that jingju in Taiwan, a largely transplanted “alien” art, is doomed to suffer resistance from the local populace and that its decline and ultimate

28


death are to be expected in the natural course of affairs. However, the early popularity of jingju prior to 1949, when the KMT moved to Taiwan, suggests that a commercially viable jingju market was once possible and perhaps provides some foundation for later cultivation. Historical records show that jingju was probably seen in Taiwan as early as during the administration of Liu Mingchuan (1836–1896), the first governor of Taiwan province (1885–91). Due to the “poor quality” of native Taiwanese theatre, troupes from the Mainland were invited to perform in Taiwan.16 Troupes from Shanghai were especially popular, thriving alongside local gezaixi (Taiwanese opera) and caichaxi (a form of Hakka drama), as well as cinema. Hakkas, also established a jingju troupe known as “Yiren Jingju Troupe” (Yiren jingban, 1945).17 One garners a rather vivid picture of the thriving market for jingju in the multicultural environment of the period from the titles of the performances: modern plays (such as Funny News from Shanghai and Lottery in Hubei) and plays in Western dress (Napoleon and The British Bloody Handprint) were performed side by side with plays with traditional themes (The Story of Three Kingdoms, Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai). Jingju seemed to provide a kind of novel Hollywood-style entertainment for residents in Taiwan.18 The linguistic, cultural, and artistic differences of jingju seem not to have hindered popular appreciation. Without the heavy burden of “national heritage” or “national drama,” the market for jingju in Japanese-occupied Taiwan seemed rather free. The 1924 founding of Taipei’s Yongle Theatre, a major theatre for visiting jingju troupes, showed that the art was taking root in Taiwan in the early twentieth century. The Gu Troupe (Gu jutuan) starred the young actress Gu Zhengqiu (1929–), whose five-year residence (1948–53) in Yongle also helped establish a solid foundation for jingju in Taiwan. Gu Zhengqiu was invited to visit for a month, but extended her stay because of her extreme popularity; she was forced to make Taiwan her new home when the government moved to Taiwan in 1949. Gu became one of the most important figures in the history of jingju in Taiwan.19 B Government support and cultivation in the early period After the KMT government moved to Taiwan, jingju, which was already among the most popular theatrical genres both on the mainland and in Taiwan, seemed the best candidate to become the cultural and national icon of the ROC government in Taiwan. The early “cultivation” of the art by the military happened naturally: some actors joined the army in 1947, and an informal “troupe” came into being to entertain soldiers during the difficult civil war period; some of these actors moved to


Taiwan with the troops in 1949. The military brought together other talented members of the military, and a number of jingju troupes were formed. The actors entertained soldiers and also performed for civilians to raise extra money. Jingju was extremely popular among soldiers in the early period, despite the limited resources and poor performance conditions. One incident recorded by the famous actor Zhou Zhengrong (1927–2000) serves as a testimony: in the year 1951 alone, he writes, he played in 339 performances. Soldiers complained about the cancellation of one performance due to rain: “If I’m not afraid of death, why are you afraid of the rain?” Most of the military troupes were established during the 1950s, including the Air Force’s influential Dapeng troupe (1950–95), the Navy’s Haiguang troupe (1954–95), and the Army’s Luguang troupe (1954–95).20 Opera schools were established to train youngsters to carry on the tradition, including Little Dapeng (1954), Little Luguang (1963), and Little Haiguang (1969).21 A privately supported school, Fuxing was also founded (1957).22 The construction of the major jingju performance venue, the China Armed Forces Literature and Art Activities Center (Guojun wenyi zhongxin) in 1965, was also significant for the development of jingju in Taiwan. It helped create a stable audience base beyond the military. But it also made Taipei the “heart” of jingju, contributing to its uneven development and perhaps the later decline in Taiwan. The government’s support was crucial as jingju took root in Taiwan. During transitional and tumultuous times, art is usually the first thing to go. But the fate of jingju was different. Not only did jingju survive the difficult period of transition, it even flourished for a few decades not in spite of, but because of political instability. Although opera actors speak of the hardships of performing during this period, material lack seems not to have discouraged passionate performers and fans.23 Support for jingju may have leached precious resources from other art forms, but without the ideological drive that characterized a period of uncertainty, Taiwan might have stabilized its defenses and its economy only to end up with a cultural desert. C Cultural Restoration vs. Cultural Revolution The KMT government in exile was soon up on its feet and contemplating the future of the ROC in Taiwan. Education, the apparatus for creating national consciousness, became a matter of the highest priority. “The Three Principles of the People” (Sanmin zhuyu),24 the doctrine promulgated by Dr Sun Yat-sen, became a central tenet in education. In 1954, Chiang Kai-shek (1887–1975) drafted two amendments to the

30


Principle of Livelihood: one on education (yu) and one on wellbeing (le). Chiang emphasizes the “wellbeing of the mind,” in which art and literature will replace politics and work as spiritual weapons.25 A decade after Mao Zedong’s famous address in Yan’an (1942) on art and literature as important components of the revolutionary machine,26 Chiang adopted a similar view. In fact, he expressed regret at not having used art to its fullest political potential: “Bandits (i.e., the Communists) snuck thoughts and emotions of ‘class struggle’ into the arts and literature and transfused their ideas into the minds of citizens.”27 Although it was already too late, Chiang was still hoping to maximize the function of art in transitional times. The Cultural Revolution (1966–76) provided the KMT with an excellent opportunity to prove the sort of conspiracy theory of nostalgia described by Svetlana Boym. The communist “bandits” conspired against “us” (the free China) with their political arts and literature; therefore, our home, according to Boym’s words, “is forever under siege, requiring defense against the plotting enemy.”28 It was KMT’s mission to win home back from the evil enemies, or at least to recreate home in diaspora. Cold War tensions accentuated the opposition of Free China and Red China on the global level. This was the perfect moment for ROC to claim its legitimacy as the orthodox China, only “temporarily” in exile, and to claim “recovering the lost mainland” (guangfu dalu) as its ultimate goal, both domestically and internationally. To counter the Cultural Revolution, which sought to discard traditional cultures, the “Cultural Restoration” movement (Wenyi fuxing yundong) was launched in Taiwan to defend traditional cultures. The “orthodox” Chinese tradition, now manifested as the ROC in Taiwan, claimed its place in the lineage of legitimate Chinese sovereignty, from the ancient sage rulers Yao, Shun, and Yu, to the Kings Tang, Wen, and Wu, to the Duke of Zhou and the uncrowned king Confucius and on, ultimately to the founding father of the Republic, Sun Yat-sen. “The Three Principles of the People” was represented as the culmination of 5000 years of orthodox culture.29 Presenting himself as a loyal follower of Sun Yat-sen and the Three Principles, Chiang legitimized ROC as the orthodox China and himself as the true leader of China. Confucianism, jingju (national drama), other traditional arts, and the Three Principles became the representatives of Chinese nationalism on the island. While the nation-state is an abstract and intangible concept, culture consists of audible and visible objects, to be produced and reproduced, preserved, cherished, remembered, promoted, transmitted, transplanted, and consumed. Jingju therefore played an immensely important role in translating the abstract notion


of Chinese nationalism into concrete terms that were accessible to citizens of the ROC in Taiwan. It was equally important in international displays of Taiwan’s orthodox Chineseness. In 1969, in the middle of the Cultural Revolution, the ROC government gave a gift to the city of San Francisco by building a Dragon Gate in Chinatown and decorating it with the calligraphy of Sun Yat-sen. The gate and its inscription (“All under Heaven Is Our Common Polity”) symbolize Taiwan’s orthodox Chinese cultural lineage and its sovereignty over the diasporic Chinese. The Dragon Gate is a figure that represents Taiwan’s efforts at symbolic and cultural diplomacy.30 What the gate represented as a stationary symbol in San Francisco, jingju put into action as a portable commodity that could “perform” the national culture in museum exhibits, diplomatic galas, art festivals, cultural exchange gatherings, and international sports games. The mission of “Cultural Restoration” was thus engaged on both the domestic and international level. Culture “restored” in the peripheries (both in Taiwan and in overseas Chinese communities) challenged the nascent Chinese center (PRC). In the rhetoric of “recovering the homeland” and “restoring cultures,” jingju was enlisted as an element of the “Cultural Restoration Movement.” Jingju was sponsored by the government in the spirit of “restorative nostalgia”: despite the diverse origins of Mainlanders, jingju was made into a medium of national longing through which national culture was honored, the national past commemorated, and the national home restored.31 Besides supporting the troupes and opera school, the government also instituted annual “theatre competitions.” From 1965 to 1974, only traditional plays entered the competition. Plays with traditional morals such as loyalty and righteousness, especially patriotism, were strongly encouraged. Since the competition took place in the “glorious month of October,”32 troupes focused their repertoire on extolling Chinese nationalism. Not only were certain themes encouraged in the selection of plays for performance, plays were also revised to fit the themes. The government also exercised overt censorship, making immorality, superstition, and incorrect political ideology pretexts for banning plays. Moreover, anything that was produced in mainland China after 1949, including new traditional plays, was also forbidden.33 Although the competition sharpened the actors’ skills and motivation, the focus on patriotic themes narrowed their choice of plays. The unusual political climate in Taiwan sheltered traditional jingju from the Cultural Revolution and ensured the continuation of the art form during

32


tumultuous times. But the rather narrow and protective approach made it very difficult for jingju to regain its feet in the free market after changes in the political environment.34

Modern jingju in Transition: Early new jingju and early Innovative Jingju The concept of modernity in traditional arts is riddled with ambiguities and relativism. One might argue that jingju was modernized first in the early twentieth century with the introduction of contemporary costume and themes, modernized a second time in the CCP’s ideology-driven model plays of the mid-twentieth century, modernized again with Western theatricalization and interculturalism in Taiwan in the 1980s, and modernized once more at the turn of the millennium with fresh ideas for composition and staging. Modernity, in the context of traditional art, is thus continuously changing but also apparently everlasting. Any innovation, either in style or theme, that differs from the imaginary “original sauce, original flavor,” is referred to as “modern,” despite the multiple layers of modernity in recent jingju history. The notion of modernity itself forms concentric circles around the empty core of the imagined traditional point of origin; modernizing jingju is an act of performing zero. In this chapter, I divide Taiwan’s modern jingju roughly and practically into two groups: “Early new jingju” refers to experimentations from the 1970s through the1990s, while “Innovative Jingju” refers to a bolder approach adopted at the turn of the new millennium. A

Early new jingju

After 1975, the annual drama competition shifted its emphasis to newly created plays. Since the general political message remained similar, most plays created during this period were based on traditional heroic or patriotic stories glorifying Chinese nationalism and traditional values. One popular story concerned the national hero Yue Fei (1103–1142), who fought fearlessly against the Jurchen. Such modern jingju were created gingerly to comply with political ideology and did not take full advantage of playwrights’ creative potential. Wang An-Ch’i observes that in a single year, no fewer than four jingju troupes re-enacted the defeat of Jurchen generals by Yue Fei.35 The 1970s were another transitional time in the history of Taiwan. The carefully maintained illusion of “orthodox China in Taiwan” was fading. In 1971 the ROC was forced out of the UN, and the PRC replaced the ROC as the single legitimate Chinese UN member. In


1979, the United States recognized the PRC and terminated official diplomatic relations with Taiwan.36 On the other hand, the 1970s also saw significant economic advancement in Taiwan. Taiwan was finally on its feet and on its way to becoming one of Asia’s Four Little Dragons. Unfortunately, it was also steadily being abandoned by its international allies. People in Taiwan were experiencing a new identity crisis: did the official rhetoric of the ROC as the true heir of Chinese tradition and savior of the mainland still make sense? After decades of receiving US support and following the Western notion of modernity,37 how was Taiwan to find its own voice as a modern nation? If people in Taiwan were not “Chinese,” who were they? Was an indigenous Taiwan identity – an identity that predated the arrival of Han Chinese, Dutch, Spanish, and the KMT on the island – still viable? Was there an “original” Taiwanese identity to return to or a new identity to be created? Despite the change in Taiwan’s international status, the government still clung to official slogans about recovering the mainland. But multiple voices, especially “native” and “local” voices, were beginning to make themselves heard. It must be remembered that the term “native” (bentu) in this rhetoric does not refer specifically to aborigines, although it is sometimes understood to encompass them. Instead, “native” is defined in opposition to “Chinese” or “Mainlander” and refers to a sort of local, grassroots, rural, anti-Western, bensheng, Taiwanese voice. This period also saw the rise of “native soil literature” (xiangtu wenxue), which focused on rural lives in Taiwan and employed Taiwanese dialect rather than Mandarin in writing. Writers and others claimed to be “looking for our own voices”; but “our” was very narrowly and exclusively defined. Similar things were happening in the world of jingju. Because of its limited subject matter and its aging audience, traditional jingju was losing its appeal. Guo Xiaozhuang’s (1951–) Yayin Ensemble (Yayin xiaoji, founded in 1979) was the first successful experiment with new jingju in Taiwan. Guo had a number of successful productions in the 1980s and early 1990s. Her approach was to re-examine jingju through the lens of “modern” concepts derived from Western theatre, in terms of dramaturgy, direction, lighting and set design, script, and even music. Traditional stories were restructured and repackaged, new music was composed, costumes were refashioned and the staging Westernized. Everything was redesigned with the aim of making the traditional art more palatable to younger audiences. Wu Hsing-kuo (1953–) went a step further: his Contemporary Legend Theater (Dangdai chuanqi, founded in 1986) staged Western plays adapted in jingju style, such as Macbeth (The Kingdom of Desire, Yuwang chengguo, 1986), Hamlet (The Revenge of the Prince, Wangzi

34


fuchou ji, 1990), Oresteia (Aoruisitiya, 1995), and Waiting for Godot (Dengdai Guotuo, 2005). His works have often been performed in the realm of intercultural theatre and at international arts venues such as the Festival d’Avignon, Le Theatre du Soleil, and Odin Teatret. Although once briefly disbanded, Contemporary Legend is still a very important troupe in Taiwan today.38 Both Guo and Wu received traditional training in jingju and have usually played the leading roles in their own productions. B

Early Innovative Jingju

1

Background

Several factors contributed to a change in the cultural and political climate in the 1980s and 1990s: hostile international relations, the realization that recovering the mainland was a hopeless task, rapid growth in GDP, the aging of Taiwan’s immigrant mainland elite, and the rise of local activists, to name a few. The most significant events of the 1980s were the 1986 founding of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), a major rival to the KMT, the 1987 abolition of Martial Law, and the 1988 inauguration of the first native (bensheng) president, Li Tenghui, who would lead the country until 2000. Nativist voices were getting louder and louder, culminating with the election of the first DPP president, Chen Shui-pien, who served from 2000 to 2008. The rise of “Taiwanese” power in the place of Mainlander control signaled a shift of the entire society in a more open and multicultural direction, and the government’s arts policies accordingly shifted from the older rhetoric of Chinese cultural restoration to a new emphasis on Taiwan nativism. As a result, the unusual prestige that jingju had enjoyed for decades rapidly diminished. The military’s opera troupes were disbanded one after another, and in 1995, all remaining troupes were consolidated into one company, the National Guoguang Opera Company. Only one opera school remained, and jingju was only one of several genres that students could elect to study.39 The “permanent” home for jingju, the China Armed Forces Literature and Art Activities Center, also closed down in 1995. The old connection between the military and jingju disappeared. At the same time, globalization was also playing an important part in the ongoing story of national arts. Because of Taiwan’s status as one of Asia’s Four Little Dragons, encouraging global perspectives among citizens became one of the aims of education. The National Theatre (Guojia juyuan) and the Concert Hall (Guojia yinyueting), new performance venues completed in 1987 in the grounds of the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall, became Taiwan’s window on the international world of arts. Since


1987, numerous performing arts groups of all kinds have been invited to perform in Taiwan every year; fin de siècle Taipei actually became a showcase for world performing arts. On the other hand, domestic artistic groups have had to compete with foreign groups for performance venues and resources. As Taipei became a more and more vibrant center for world arts, the environment for jingju became harsher and harsher. 2 The resurfacing of “home” in jingju After nearly fifty years of separation, original memories of “home” are blurry. Jingju, a residual memory, has grown with the government’s nurturing into something different from the original. Beijing-styled jingju plays have been reimagined and reconstructed on the basis of fading memories and under the constraints imposed by limited resources. The form known as “Beijing” opera on the other side of the Taiwan Straits has undergone an even more drastic transformation because of deep reforms and interruptions. The reunion of the two sides after a separation of half a century was bound to bring surprises; no one could truly claim to have preserved the original. In 1993, the Beijing Jingju Company (Beijing jingju tuan), members of which included Mei Lanfang’s daughter Mei Baoyue and son Mei Baojiu, visited Taiwan and brought with them the most traditional repertoire, designed to feed the nostalgia of jingju fans. More mainland troupes came soon after and presented both traditional and modern jingju. The abundance of traditional jingju talent in mainland China was an eye-opening experience for Taiwan’s audiences. Another surprise came from modern jingju: in mainland China, drastic jingju reforms, both in form and content, have created new methods of staging and narrative methods. Jingju, once an actor-centered art, now showcases both playwriting and directing.40 This double surprise of traditional skills and modernized stagecraft from the artistic homeland was a wake-up call. Although Taiwan could pride itself on certain preservation efforts, it simply could not compete with the rich resources of mainland China. On the other hand, decades of democracy and the free market had also made Taiwan’s art less ideology-driven. With inspiration from “home,” jingju circles in Taiwan took full advantage of their own creative potential to develop a new genre of jingju plays that would reflect Taiwan’s unique multicultural configuration. 3 Repoliticizing jingju: de-Beijing and pro-Taiwan strategy Taiwan jingju in the 1990s was a little like an orphan looking for a home. Abandoned by the military, its long-time patron and finding itself without the resources to compete with mainland China, jingju desperately

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needed a new home to recuperate and to grow again. The newly established Guoguang Company, the only jingju company in Taiwan, had to rescue the art from death. As nativization and Taiwanization became the official artistic line, politicizing jingju was adopted as an emergency strategy to protect it in the politically unfriendly climate of the late 1990s. The first big production of Innovative Jingju, after the drastic downsizing and merging of military troupes, was The Taiwan Trilogy (Taiwan sanbuqu): Mazu (1998), Zheng Chenggong and Taiwan (Zheng Chenggong yu Taiwan, 1999), and Liao Tianding (1999). The Guoguang Company proposed The Taiwan Trilogy in 1998 when the political trends were clearly showing a movement toward nativization and Taiwanization.41 As noted earlier, military support had meant that jingju in Taiwan was politicized from the beginning. But this politicization was designed in part to maintain an orthodox “Chinese” tradition to counter the Cultural Revolution on the mainland; even in highly politicized theatre competitions, it was mainly a matter of adapting traditional stories to fit correct political themes. For decades, jingju in Taiwan had not faced any pressure for true change. The main objective of Guo Xiaozhuang’s Yayin Ensemble and Wu Hsing-kuo’s Contemporary Legend was not the reform of jingju per se, but the creation of something corresponding to intercultural theatre in the West. In other words, their experimentation focused more on form than on content. As a result, Taiwan did not cultivate a good environment for modernizing jingju or creating new jingju as it maintained tradition. By contrast, in mainland China, drama reform was carried out in a sweeping manner under the Communist Party. As early as 1942, the reform policy was clear: jingju should discard the dregs of feudalism and express socialist ideology in the service of the people. During the decades leading up to the 1990s, jingju had seen multiple reforms: old plays had been banned or corrected, new plays created; a new theatre administration system had replaced the old, establishing the authority of the director in place of the earlier masterdisciple system; and artists and audiences had been educated with the correct political ideology, making art a tool of patriotism.42 One major consequence of these reforms is that mainland China has cultivated many talents who are both politically sensitive and artistically competent in the production of quality modern jingju plays on the grand scale. For Taiwan jingju circles, however, the Taiwan Trilogy was the first attempt to create something completely new, since the tradition of the genre did not offer any ready-made stories or characters that would fit the new political agenda. The challenge was enormous.


Bentuhua, literarily “nativization” or “localization,” was the main concern. Literally, bentu is “native soil,” and the notion of the tu (“soil,” but also “folksy” “rustic,” and even “vulgar”) was emphasized by the Guoguang Company as a key element of their new approach: “Traditional opera is a vehicle that carries history through time, depicting both the ancient splendor of Chinese culture and the rustic simplicity of Taiwanese customs.”43 “Taiwan jingju” (Taiwan Beijing opera) – this oxymoronic entity that confuses locations and artistic traditions – had deliberately to abandon its elite status and become “rustic” (tu) and localize its themes. Mazu, the Heavenly Mother, the goddess widely worshipped by fishermen in southern coastal China and Taiwan, became the best choice for the first story of The Taiwan Trilogy. Mazu was born mortal and spent her life helping people; she became immortal (as sea protectress) when she was 27 years old. She has numerous pious followers. Her cult followed early immigrants from Fujian province to Taiwan, and her temples are to be found everywhere in Taiwan. Every year, during the month of the “Mazu craze” (the third month in the lunar calendar, associated with her birthday), many temple celebration activities take place, including a unique custom known as “walking the street” (zoujie), in which a procession escorts a statue of Mazu from temple to temple and from town to town so that she can oversee all her people. The procession usually takes a few days to complete, and countless pilgrims follow her on foot. This has become a unique localized “Taiwan” custom.44 Like most bensheng locals, Mazu came from southern China and made Taiwan her home. Mazu has been “nativitized” and become a Taiwan local goddess. Marketed as a “new large-scale mythological jingju,” Mazu appealed to the taste for the motifs and traditions of popular religion. The design of the program cover for Mazu recalled those free pamphlets of Buddhist stories, given out at temples everywhere, or cheaply printed almanacs, also given out for free.45 Those publications, circulating in the lower strata of society, might be regarded as mainstays of what Foucault calls popular knowledge; they represent the paradigms and belief system of people. By choosing this program design, Guoguang deliberately diluted the elite flavor of jingju and co-opted popular knowledge for mainstream theatre. The costume of Mazu followed the design of her temple statue, with gaudy red and gold as major hues. The staging also featured special effects, such as the use of a fog machine and colored lighting to emphasize the supernatural effect. All these design decisions corresponded to notions of the tu and the popular. They made for familiar imagery, deeply rooted in people’s beliefs and close to the aesthetics of

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the local Taiwan drama, gezaixi, which is often seen performed outdoors as part of temple celebrations. The tu aesthetics struck traditional jingju audiences as strange, even alienating. Jingju itself had its start as a popular art, but its association with the Qing court and deliberate cultivation by elites in the early Republic made it into an “elegant” and “highbrow” art. The KMT’s support also gave it the stamp of “orthodoxy.” The tu approach was an attempt to restore the vulgarity and vitality of popular culture. By adopting such an approach, Guoguang sought to bridge high and low, mainland origins and Taiwan diaspora, sacred and popular, transplanted art and local tradition. For jingju circles, however, it was easy to see this effort as a politicized production or even a satire of the compromise forced upon jingju by its harsh environment. The next two pieces in the trilogy, Zheng Chenggong and Taiwan and Liao Tianding, also feature extremely familiar figures from Taiwan history. Zheng Chenggong was marketed as a “new large-scale epic jingju” and Liao Tianding as a “new native jingju.”46 The intercultural conflicts in Taiwan’s colonial history – the Dutch-Taiwanese confrontation in Zheng Chenggong, the Japanese-Taiwanese in Liao Tianding – had never been dealt with before in the history of jingju. These familiar stories are legendary, historical and mythological at the same time, but they belonged somehow to a different realm of knowledge and were never considered “Chinese” enough for earlier new jingju plays (such as those featured in competitions). Therefore, new arias had to be written, new songs composed, and new characters created. In visual terms, red-haired Dutchmen,47 uniformed Japanese officers, white-faced Japanese courtesans, and barefoot Taiwanese aborigines, along with Han Chinese in traditional outfits, presented an image that was multicultural, multiethnic, and entirely unprecedented on the Taiwan stage (Figure 1.1). Taiwan, it was suddenly clear, had long been a globalized place, permeated by successive waves of colonization. These new images and portrayals of the “barbarian other” – whether foreign colonizers or aborigines – seemed, unfortunately, to rely heavily on stereotypes and to be mainly decorative.48 Musically, the novelty of the productions derived from their use of local music and folk songs rather than Dutch or Japanese music. Even in the earliest preparation for The Trilogy, music talents from the mainland had been invited to participate in the creation of the new jingju. Zhu Shaoyu, the music director and composer for Zheng Chenggong and Liao Tianding, explained that he hoped to break with musical tradition and compose a new music to fit the Taiwan theme, incorporating Taiwanese folk songs and southern musical instruments. Taiwanese music was used mainly as background music and in choruses,

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Figure 1.1 Zheng Chenggong and Taiwan (The National Theatre, Taipei, 1999) The scene between a barefoot Taiwanese aboriginal woman and a red-haired Dutch man is a rare interracial scene in the history of Taiwan jingju. Courtesy of the Preparatory Office of the National Headquarters of Taiwan Traditional Arts, Guo Guang Opera Company.

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while music for arias stuck close to the original jingju sound. In order to express local Taiwan flavor and rusticity, the electric synthesizer, widely used in today’s jingju productions in mainland China, was replaced by traditional musical instruments such as pipa, flute, erhu, and suona. Musically speaking, the equation the music director had in mind was “Beijing flavor + Taiwan flavor = More flavor.”49 These transparently politicized productions represented a transition, an outcry, a protest, a satire, or even a crisis of new jingju in Taiwan in the fin de siècle. They raised a serious question for jingju circles and the general public: was this what they wanted from traditional jingju? Ironically, these productions also represented a fine opportunity for Taiwan jingju artists to learn from mainland China. Despite the atrocities of the Cultural Revolution, artistic talent from the mainland provided Taiwan with rich resources during this transitional period, both in the form of preserved traditions and in precedents for novel experimentation. Yang Xiaoqing and Lu Ang, who directed Mazu and Zheng Chenggong respectively, are mainland directors with experience in modernized traditional opera in the mode of Western musicals, with large casts and grand spectacles. However, Li Hsiao-Ping and Zhu Jinrong, both Taiwan-trained opera actors, worked as assistant directors for these two productions. For the last piece in the trilogy, Liao Tianding, Li Hsiao-Ping took on the responsibilities of director, with Luo Bei’an serving as his dramaturg.50 Traditional jingju was actorcentered and offered little scope for a theatre director, since all singing and movements, including blocking, were dictated by the tradition. Rehearsals differed from what one would expect in Western theatre because life-long learning of one’s role itself constituted an unending rehearsal. Simple sets and minimal technical needs made final dress and technical rehearsals less essential. The notion of employing a theatre director to oversee every aspect of a production’s mise-en-scène was unknown in traditional opera. Although most of the young Taiwan directors involved in the Taiwan Trilogy were knowledgeable in traditional opera, it was their “modern” and “Western” theatre sensibilities that made them valuable assets. Li Hsiao-Ping’s training in jingju, as well as his experience working in little theatres and his study of Western theatre theories, helped him become a key player in the Innovative Jingju movement in Taiwan.

Strategizing Innovative Jingju: depoliticization and effeminization Innovative Jingju’s next step took it in an almost completely opposite direction: adopting a strategy of effeminization, jingju came to seem


completely depoliticized. The Taiwan Trilogy nativized jingju by eulogizing familiar figures in Taiwan history and culture and by using local tunes and native aesthetics to make jingju rustic and folksy. It was a politically correct celebration of Taiwanese consciousness and Taiwanese “national culture.” The new millennium saw the birth of new “feminine” plays, which deliberately avoided such pandering but shifted their focus to telling women’s stories from women’s points of view. Jingju had largely been a “male” art, in terms of production and consumption, as well as in general patriarchal ideology, until the mid-twentieth century;51 Mei Lanfang’s great international fame tended to obscure women’s contributions to the entire history of Chinese theatre.52 Increasing participation by women during the second half of the twentieth century unfortunately did not completely change the gender dynamics of jingju; especially in Taiwan, the early military-based troupes as well as the competition-driven patriotic plays gave the art a masculine feel. Some new plays, appearing to be “apolitical” and “feminine,” started a new epoch in jingju history in Taiwan in the last decade. I use the word “feminine” here to indicate associations with harmlessness, prettiness, romanticism, or even frivolousness. The term “effeminize” here means a deliberate effort to make jingju “feminine” (pretty and harmless), with plays about women written by women. Several plays can be named in this “feminine” category: Wang Youdao Divorces His Wife (Wang Youdao xiuqi, 2004), Three Persons, Two Lamps (Sange ren’er liangzhandeng, 2005), The Golden Cangue (Jinsuoji, 2006), and The Dialogue at the Green Mound (Qingzhongqiande duihua, 2006).53 Wang An-Ch’i, artistic director of Guoguang since 2003, is the main author behind these plays, all of which center on the sorrow, romantic desires, or psychological struggles of women. My focus here will be Wang Youdao Divorces His Wife, Three Persons, Two Lamps and The Golden Cangue. I argue that these plays not only allow more female participation and more female themes, they also achieve new theatrical landmarks through their innovative staging and dramaturgy. Moreover, behind an apolitical “feminine” mask, these plays subtly express political concerns from the peripheries, without overtly speaking against local or central governments. I will discuss the “feminine” contribution to jingju in detail in the later part of this chapter. A Wang Youdao Divorces His Wife (Wang Youdao xiuqi, 2004) Wang Youdao Divorces His Wife is based on the well-known jingju play The Pavilion of the Royal Tablet (Yubei ting). With its emphasis on the patriarchy’s key female virtues of chastity and obedience, this play is the perfect

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vehicle for actors specializing in the role of the virtuous maiden or qingyi (literally, “blue robe”) role type, such as Mei Lanfang and Wei Hai-Ming. Wang Youdao is away from home for the imperial examination. His wife Meng Yuehua goes to visit her parents and on her return is caught in an unexpected rainstorm, which forces her to take refuge in a pavilion. A young man, Liu Shengchun, takes shelter in the pavilion for the same reason. They wait out the storm overnight and leave the pavilion without having had any personal interaction. When Wang realizes his wife has spent a night out with a man, he divorces her on the grounds of “immoral” conduct, which will affect his reputation. Distraught, Meng submits to her husband’s decision. Finally Wang meets Liu, who has shared the pavilion with his wife, and on hearing Liu’s account he realizes that his wife is indeed innocent and virtuous. He takes his wife back and marries his younger sister to Liu.54 Wang An-Ch’i, the author of the new version, writes of her experience of relearning this play. She had seen this play many times and felt for Meng Yuehua in her sorrow, but she never reflected on the ridiculousness of these female virtues until she taught the play in a class and her college students burst into laughter. A celebrated morality play of old times was a farce in the eyes of young students in the twenty-first century. She was chagrined, and not only for her own sake as a professor, but also for the jingju classic.55 To her, this was a wake-up call for jingju: the story is the same, the performance style is the same, but the context has completely changed. The message was clear. Since the context cannot go back in time, the play has to change. Her main task now was to determine how to update this play for modern audiences without entirely deconstructing the original. A complete deconstruction would ruin the original reference, with which most people are not familiar; moreover, all the performance techniques associated with the original would be lost. Modernization without preservation was not what Wang wanted for the new Taiwan jingju. So Wang adopted a “feminine” approach, emphasizing the female psychological struggle but still presenting the original story. Regarded as “Jingju Little Theatre” (Jingju xiaojuchang), this production allowed much more freedom for experimentation and imagination than Taiwan jingju had had before. Wang speaks of employing little theatres as a “strategy” to “avoid jingju traditions.” Jingju’s comprehensive formulas, as rich a cultural resource as they are, are also a heavy drag on experimentation.56 The major innovation in Wang’s production was the introduction of two actresses to play the role of the wife: one played the chaste qingyi, the other her fantasy double, represented in the huadan (“flower female” or


vivacious woman) role type. Together the two actresses portray Meng’s wavering between maintaining her chaste thoughts and enjoying the tantalization of “being-looked-at” by a completely stranger outside her domestic terrain.57 Role types in traditional opera confine the actors in their specific body movements and singing styles, and they also restrict the characters’ personalities. A virtuous woman or qingyi who had evil thoughts would not be true to her role type. Using two role types to portray different sides of the same character was an ingenious strategy to deepen and complicate the play’s psychological portrait. Another innovation is the pavilion: the pavilion is impersonated by a chou (clown) character, who serves as witness to Meng’s psychological struggle and also offers a running social commentary, as chou characters often do (Figure 1.2). Wang Youdao, a typical “boor” (played by the laosheng or older-male role type) with a beautiful young wife, worries constantly about being cuckolded. Before leaving for the examinations, he advises his wife: For these few days, you must lower your willow-leaf-shaped eyebrows and narrow your almond-shaped eyes; you must look neat and not have any evil thoughts; you must not make men covet on you; don’t lean on the front door waiting so to excite them….For women, chastity is the highest priority! (62–3)58 Meng visits her parents on Tomb Sweeping Festival, but hurries home because she has left her sister-in-law at home alone. Caught in the stormy weather, she takes shelter in the pavilion, where young Liu Shengchun also takes cover. The confined space is awkward but also tantalizing, as Confucian doctrine forbids any physical contact between the sexes outside the family. In the production, the couple’s water sleeves “accidentally” brush together and create a sensual effect for both of them. Liu notices Meng’s beauty (he calls her a “soaked lotus”) and worries that he will not be able to control his desires, while Meng also feels the excitement created by the unusual circumstances and moral taboo. At this moment, another actress, in the role of huadan, enters to play Meng’s double. When Liu takes a quick glance at Meng, the two actresses have different reactions: Meng (qingyi) ( frightened ): He’s watching me! Meng (huadan) (excited ): He’s watching me! (After examining the young man)

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Meng (qingyi): Meng (huadan):

Figure 1.2

I’m frightened. That’s right. I should be frightened. (Trying in vain to make herself feel frightened, she bursts into laughter). I am seventy-percent frightened and twenty-percent embarrassed; as for the ten-percent, I’m feeling shy, happy, and also some sensation I don’t quite know how to explain….

Wang Youdao Divorces His Wife (The Guoguang Theatre, Taipei, 2004)

Wang Youdao’s wife Meng Yuehua (the qingyi, right) and Liu Shengchun (left) take cover on a rainy night in the pavilion, which is personified by a clown character (standing on the table). Courtesy of the Preparatory Office of the National Headquarters of Taiwan Traditional Arts, Guo Guang Opera Company.


This situation (sitting side by side with a strange man) reminds Meng of her wedding night, when everything was exciting but also unknown (76–8). Liu’s glance excites her and rekindles the romantic desire she has been suppressing. Both actresses start a dance as they daintily brush raindrops from their hair and clothes. The qingyi starts with restricted movement, but as the huadan moves sensually, displaying her body, the qingyi too gradually dances herself into a flirtatious ecstasy. The rain ends and the sun rises. Meng and Liu return to their separate realities. Nothing improper has happened during the night. When Wang asks about her night out, Meng explains, with a secret smile: “There was nothing that happened…. Nothing happened…. I did not let anything happen.” Highly suspicious and enraged, Wang sends Meng back to her parents’ home (86–8). Meng (qingyi) expresses her regret: “I had only the slightest ‘evil’ thought. How could my husband see through me? Are there actually ghosts and gods who were watching everything?” She (qingyi) blames the pavilion: “Why were you standing here, giving me a chance to meet him?” The pavilion brings out the original story: Three hundred years ago, on a night of heavy rain […] a man and a woman sat here, back to back without moving, for the entire night […]. The woman went home and was divorced by her husband, just like you! People made it into a play. That woman… no, that man […] that man who always played a woman, was called Mei Lanfang. He was so “true-to-life,” much more modest than you! Meng (qingyi) blames herself: “why did I brush away raindrops, wringing out my clothes? Why can’t I be as ‘modest’ as that woman from the past?” The qingyi and huadan start an argument: Meng (qingyi): I wanted to defend myself, but couldn’t. Meng (huadan): It was too absurd. There was no need to defend myself. Meng (qingyi): How do I argue? Meng (huadan): What need is there to argue? Meng (qingyi): Regret. I just regret that I was not firm enough. Meng (huadan): Regret. I regret that I even felt regretful just now. (98–9) The rest of the plot follows the original. When Wang realizes he has wronged his “chaste” wife, he asks what she wants him to do. (The

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pavilion suggests kneeling down or taking a beating.) Meng (qingyi) says: “I want you… I just want you, to take a good look at me.” Her double (huadan) is disappointed: “The gong is not striking, there’s no drum roll, and yet the drama is over! This ending, how did this ending become the same old happy ending?” (102–3). At the end, after everyone celebrates their happy reunion and the sister’s marriage, Meng (huadan) leans on the railing of the pavilion, savoring the sweet but lost memory of that rainy night. The reason Wang An-Ch’i gives for her experiment is her desire to explore the voices buried in the bottom of women’s hearts since ancient times. She repeatedly emphasizes that she does not want to engage in a sort of “violent and shallow deconstruction” of the original, such as having Meng elope with the stranger or changing the ending completely. Instead, she wants to look for some possible feelings hidden under the serene surface in traditional theatre, and to find real “drama” in little cracks and gaps. The feelings of “looking” and “being looked at” become the focus of Wang’s innovation. In the “little theatre” setting, Wang avoids some traditional restrictions and formulas but presents a new way to “look at” jingju.59 By dramatizing an awkward situation on a rainy night in Wang Youdao, Wang An-Ch’i actually comments on the ambiguous status of jingju classics nowadays. The beauty of classical theatre, like that of the virtuous wife, cannot be noticed unless it is seen in a different situation, by a stranger, with a voyeuristic gaze. On the other hand, the audience cannot enjoy the tantalizing pleasure that classical theatre offers unless it views the classic from a new angle and with a new imagination. As one of the first “feminine” plays created by Wang An-Ch’i and directed by Li Hsiao-Ping, Wang Youdao Divorces His Wife actually functions as metatheatre and comments on the uneasy and transitional status of jingju in Taiwan. The politicized Trilogy focused on local stories; it made its nativization aims apparent. Wang Youdao’s contribution to the nativization movement is much more significant: despite its small scale, it was a product “made in Taiwan” with a Taiwanese production team and Taiwanese pride. The new artistic director of Guoguang is not a jingju actor, but a serious scholar of classical Chinese drama and literature and fan of opera. Her literary talent, combined with Li’s talent in directing and in experimental theatre, opened up new possibilities in this little production. The team of the scholar and writer Wang, jingju actor and theatre director Li, and traditionally trained opera actors laid the foundation for Innovative Jingju in Taiwan in the new millennium.


B Three Persons, Two Lamps (Sange ren’er liangzhandeng, 2005) Three Persons, Two Lamp, co-authored by Wang An-Ch’i and Zhao Xuejun, is the story of three Tang dynasty court ladies. The three women – Xiangqi, Guangzhi, and Shuangyue – are close friends because of their similar circumstances. It was customary for emperors to keep numerous ladies in the inner palace, only a few of whom would ever have the chance to be chosen as imperial concubines. Waiting for the emperor’s favor was the whole aim of these women’s existence. Surrounded by other women and eunuchs, these women were safely imprisoned in their eternal waiting and anticipation. The intertwined stories of three of them describe their loneliness in their isolated gilded palace (Figure 1.3). As the play opens, all the court ladies are excited about getting ready for the emperor’s birthday, except for Xiangqi, who is dressed in old garments and is wearing an unfashionable hairdo. We learn later that a few years ago, Xiangqi had a chance to be “favored” by the emperor by the well in the garden. Ever since, she has worn the same dress and hairstyle, hoping the emperor will recognize her if they ever meet again. Often lingering by the well, she sings, “Ever since that moment, I remain unchanged, waiting for the rain and clouds… lingering, wishing to relive the old dream.”60 She laments: “How could you forget me? Forget my look, forget my name…” (140–1).61 A spotlight on the stage floor represents the well, and as Xiangqi sings and dances into oblivion, the light suddenly disappears, implying that she has fallen into the well.62 Fifteen years after entering the palace, Shuangyue, another court lady, finally has a brief encounter with the emperor, but the latter does not even care to ask her name. Tired of endless and hopeless waiting, she decides to entrust her love to a stranger outside of the palace. All the court ladies have been summoned to make military uniforms for the soldiers at the frontier. She writes a love poem and sews it into a jacket: “Combating sojourner in the battlefield, who understands your coldness and bitterness? I made this jacket by hand, not knowing who will receive it. My passion is in the stitches, my love in the cotton. This life is at an end. May we be united in the next life!” (155).63 She reveals her secret to Guangzhi, another close female friend, who is actually in love with her. Guangzhi is frustrated by her impossible love of Shuangyue: “Can’t I give you what you desire?” (152). Shuangyue responds ambiguously. By giving Guangzhi a flute, she has symbolically given herself to Guangzhi, since the flute is to be given to her future husband; but she still longs for a normal family life, as everyone else does.

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Figure 1.3

Three Persons, Two Lamps (The New Stage, Taipei, 2005)

The three persons (three court ladies): from left to right, Shuangyue, Guangzhi, and Xiangqi. Courtesy of the Preparatory Office of the National Headquarters of Taiwan Traditional Arts, Guo Guang Opera Company.

She has chosen to entrust herself to an unknown man instead of waiting endlessly for the emperor. Xiangqi reappears, her hair soaked and her clothes drenched, shivering with cold. People realize that this is her ghost after they discover her body in the well. The ghost of Xiangqi laments the emperor’s


heartlessness: “We set a date – we’d meet again by the well. Only I took it seriously […]. I couldn’t believe you were really heartless! I couldn’t wait anymore […] if there’s an afterlife […] please remember I’m Xiangqi” (169). Shuangyue’s secret love poem has reached Chen Ping, a soldier lying ill on the frontier. Chen is very moved by the poem: “The words and lines touch my heart. I feel for her, this beauty wasting away like water flowing in an isolated palace. Like her, I am imprisoned in my own ill body, cannot fly away […]” (173). When this serious crime – passing letters from inner court to outside – is revealed, both Shuangyue and Chen Ping are brought to the emperor for punishment. After listening to their stories, the emperor is reminded of his own youthful loves and how heartless he has been to many women (a sub-plot tells how Lady Mei sadly waits in vain for the emperor because he has fallen in love with another woman): “I have been in the sea of love for so long, how can I make others suffer from love? The romantic emperor is paying off his love debt now. For love roots on earth, I wish to carefully cultivate, carefully cultivate” (175–6). The emperor pardons the couple and marries Shuangyue to Chen; moreover, he asks all the court ladies – 3000 in total – to choose their own destiny, whether to be released or to remain at court. Chen dies three years after their marriage and Shuangyue is remarried to his comrade Li Wenliang. The couple invites Guangzhi to live with them. The play ends ambiguously. The lesbian relationship between Guangzhi and Shuangyue has never fully developed; on the other hand, it is never completely rejected. Their relationship, whether it is homosocial empathy or homosexual attraction, is summarized in this line: “Real and unreal, daze and trance” (151). The close of the play re-emphasizes the ambiguity: Li and Guangzhi hold lamps at opposite edges of the stage, and Shuangyue visits one side and then the other. The chorus ends singing the line “three persons, two lamps, two lamps. Three persons two lamps” (187).64 What are we to make of this closing line? Is Shuangyue maintaining a bisexual identity? Or does Guangzhi compromise herself and become the concubine of Shuangyue’s husband? Or is it that both these things have happened, and that, although on the surface the three appear to be a traditional Chinese household – a husband and his two wives – there is actually some complicated sexual play among the three? The sexual ambiguity and open ending are a new milestone in traditional jingju, which regularly relied on grand reunions (datuanyuan) or lastminute deus ex machina justice to provide audiences with satisfying

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endings. During any jingju reform, whether in Taiwan or on the mainland, whenever politics was the guideline for adaptation or creation, clearcut political ideology allowed no room for ambiguity. Audiences have always been able to come home with a clear conscience, with a clear sense of the justice of their emotions, and with a clear message. The experimentation of Wang Youdao (the split of the female character) had pushed audience to take two opposite views of the traditional play. Three Persons went a step further. This was the first time the audience was left in a vacuum of confusion. Their only guidance was the stage image. The audience had to think and to work. Three Persons, Two Lamps was seen on the New Stage (Xin wutai, seating about 1000) in Taipei in 2005. Compared to the little theatrestyle production, Wang Youdao Divorces His Wife, Three Persons seems to have “made it” to the mainstream venue. As experimental in its themes, staging, and costume as Wang Youdao, Three Persons was another play in which academic inspiration was key. The early version of Three Persons came from a student’s class assignment. When Wang An-Ch’i was teaching a class in playwriting in the Theatre Department at National Taiwan University, graduate student Zhao Xuejun wrote the play The Love Story of Military Regalia (Zhengyi qingyuan) as a class assignment, inspired by the poem by Meng Qi, mentioned above.65 Wang was moved by the story and the characters’ emotion, despite the predictable immaturity of the student’s writing. Wang was also very pleased with Zhao’s freshness and her unfamiliarity with traditional art: as a completely “modern” person of the “e generation,” Zhao was not at all confined by the formulaic logic and traditions of jingju script-writing. After intensive revisions and after major contributions from Wang in the composition of arias, a fresh new jingju play was born. It was originally designed to be presented in an experimental little theatre setting, but Wang An-Ch’i decided to take a great leap of faith and launch it as a full-scale production, as the main annual production for the Guoguang Opera Company in the year of the company’s tenth anniversary. The stakes were high, as the combination of an unknown playwright, an unfamiliar play, and cast of non-celebrities intensified box-office pressures at the larger theatre. Elements that from the perspective of traditional opera inevitably appeared to be shortcomings – the abandonment of familiarity and formula, the dismissal of tradition, and the lack of star power – made for creativity, originality, boldness, and freshness in the context of jingju innovation. They also allowed the exploration and cultivation of new audiences. In order to promote their play, a young team (including


Zhao, the playwright) took jingju to the street. In addition to passing out flyers and putting up posters, the three leading actresses, in full makeup and beautiful newly made costumes, also visited Taipei’s Ximending, a shopping district popular with youth culture. It is also a place where temporary stages are often set up for small promotional rock concerts. A parade of jingju costuming in graceful and fluid movements thus had for its backdrop all the starkest reminders of the form’s status as temporal and geo-cultural misfit: electronic movie marquees and shop signs, young people in hip outfits, blasting pop music, dazzling arrays of fashionable goods and foods, loud and fast-moving crowds. The clash between the two cultural opposites, with their very different colors, sounds, and fashions created an exhilarating effect of contradiction. If younger audiences would not enter the world of jingju, jingju would walk right into the “here and now” of Taipei youth culture. The ancient feminine beauty of Three Persons, Two Lamps offered a direct challenge to Taipei youth’s aesthetic taste. “If all the young people are so passionate and excited, the renaissance of jingju will not be long in coming!”66 Public talks, seminars, and college campus visits were among the tactics used to attract younger audiences. Sold-out performances showed that the approach was working. The younger generation became the new hope for Innovative Jingju in Taiwan. The risk that the Guoguang Company took – a new play, an unknown cast, and new promotion strategies – showed too that Innovative Jingju in Taiwan was more than just a facelift. Jingju was repackaged as something romantic, sleek, and fashionable. Because some of jingju’s traditional values were de-emphasized and feminine love and beauty were accentuated, going to an innovative jingju was not so different from seeing a romantic musical. With courage and experimentation, Three Persons successfully captured the youth audience and started a new chapter in the Innovative Jingju movement. C

The Golden Cangue (Jinsuo ji, 2006)

Golden Cangue (2006), adapted from a famous novella of the same title by Eileen Chang (Zhang Ailing, 1920–1995), focuses on a woman who has chosen money over love and become a prisoner of her wealth.67 Pathetic and sadistic, she eventually destroys herself and her family. C. T. Hsia, a leading scholar of modern Chinese literature, ranked Chang’s work as “the greatest novella in China since ancient times.” He regarded Chang as the best and most important Chinese writer of her era and ranked her accomplishment with that of writers like Katherine Mansfield, Katherine Anne Porter, Eudora Welty, and Carson McCullers.68

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The life of Eileen Chang mirrors Chinese history in her time: wars intervened in her life and decided her fate. She grew up in Shanghai, lived briefly in Hong Kong, and spent most of the rest of her life in the United States, where she died. Her exquisite use of language, which mixes modern and classical usages, her acute observations of life, her intricate portrayal of human relations and psychology, and her brilliant use of visual images and montage have combined to make her one of the most celebrated Chinese writers of the twentieth century. Paradoxically, her works were banned in China after 1949, mainly because her stories have largely to do with bourgeois lives.69 On the other hand, in Taiwan and Hong Kong, which she called “peripheral” or “frontier” cities (biancheng), numerous enthusiastic “Chang fans” (Zhang mi) have adopted her as their own and preserved her legacy. Her works have enjoyed a popularity comparable to that of the classical novel The Dream of the Red Chamber. Chang never lived in Taiwan, and her visit in 1961 was brief. She even scoffed at the assumption that she must feel “at home” when she visited Taiwan because “Formosa is China, the motherland of all Chinese.” Nevertheless, a kind of dream-like chronological confusion overcame her as she landed in Taiwan: “It really was China, not the strange one I left ten years ago under the Communists but the one I knew best and thought had vanished forever.”70 Since she left mainland China in 1952, she had the opportunity to see both kinds of China. In her mind, Taiwan had kept alive traces of the old China, although it also had its own distinctive multicultural and local characteristics. What Chang could not know at that point is that as a transmitter of the Chinese literary tradition, she herself was part of what Taiwan had preserved from the old China. A similar chronological and geographical confusion was to be found in Taipei’s street names, the diverse foods served in its restaurants,71 and in transplanted jingju. As a matter of fact, such time/ space confusion was to become a distinctive feature of Taiwan culture. Chang’s most popular stories were set in Shanghai and Hong Kong in the 1930s and 1940s, but Chang fans in Taiwan never regarded her characters and locations as alien. They savor the stories of China in another time and place as they might savor Szechuan-style beef noodles. They study her style and proudly acknowledge her influence as a disciple of Confucius might claim his place in the lineage. They never hesitate to advance their claim: Eileen Chang is ours. Chang’s The Golden Cangue and her character Cao Qiqiao have left a vivid impression in people’s minds. Bringing this literary classic to the stage was bound to be a difficult task. But the reconstruction of the


original and adaptation of the novella for the stage took advantage of the work’s status as a classic. Although the new work was to be a fulllength play, it would nevertheless lack the narrative detail of a novel and might appear confusing to some audience members. Trusting in their new audience’s literacy in Chang’s works, the playwright and director adopted a bold approach, emphasizing images and metaphors and portraying female desire and psychological conflict instead of retelling the whole story. Opera classics always depended on confidence in the audience; the tradition of performing excerpted scenes (zhezixi) instead of complete plays deliberately set aside the big picture and allowed performers to focus on bits and pieces of the plot. The Golden Cangue’s designated audience was clearly not the traditional crowd, but younger adherents of the Chang cult, literate in modern literature. Moreover, the intended audience was not an opera audience but a theatre audience, fully prepared to appreciate a non-traditional mise-en-scène and innovative narrative method. The play, in five acts, depicts the unhappy life of Cao Qiqiao, a beautiful woman of humble origins. Her unfortunate marriage to a rich but blind and paralyzed husband and her unrequited love for the Third Brother doom her to a life of destruction, both for herself and for her children. Qiqiao is imprisoned by gold all her life. As she laments, “My youthful beauty was mistreated by gold and silver; but now gold and silver are my companions into old age” (235).72 Wang An-Ch’i writes of the difficulties that attended the adaptation of the play. Chang’s brilliant literary images could not be easily transformed into stage language. Eileen Chang’s fiction has a cinematic quality, but transforming her narration into the dialogue of jingju was a challenge precisely of the visual thrust of her narrative style. A new stage language had to be created for jingju. Instead of presenting the story in a chronological way, important events of Qiqiao’s life were depicted in different areas of the stage. These time-spaces or event-areas sometime overlapped and were sometimes juxtaposed. “Intertwining real and imaginary, overlapping time and space” (xushi jiaocuo, shikong dieying) became the play’s overt narrative tactic.73 The director Li HsiaoPing lists the five dominant visual images corresponding to the five major themes: Mahjong represents Circumstance (chujing) and shows how Qiqiao must constantly defend herself in the battle of daily life in a large family; the mirror represents Love (aiqing); foot-binding represents Manipulation (zaizhi), a sadistic act of control over her grown daughter’s feet; opium represents Burning (ranshao); and flowers represent Withering (kuwei). Both of the final images represent total destruction.

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Fu Jun’s stage design for the play focuses on a few essential images: mirror, door, and bed. The mirror, simply represented by a semi-circular metal frame, is placed downstage center (Figure 1.4). Qiqiao’s moments of gazing into the mirror indicate a change of time, space, and state of mind.74 As a circular mirror symbolizes happy reunion in Chinese culture, the semi-circular frame suggests separation and also resembles the shape of a Chinese lock (the symbolic cangue of the novella’s title). As for the stage action, the mirror functions as a two-way lens. Qiqiao gazes through the empty lens into the audience to enter a different time, space, and state of mind. At the same time, the frame seems to act as a camera lens directing the audience’s gaze into the character’s inner world. Does the audience see a true reflection, a distorted image, or a

Figure 1.4

The Golden Cangue (The National Theatre, Taipei, 2006)

Qiqiao (played by Wei Hai-Ming) gazes into the mirror/golden cangue. The bed in the background is also a central stage image. Courtesy of the Preparatory Office of the National Headquarters of Taiwan Traditional Arts, Guo Guang Opera Company.


voyeuristic picture? Aren’t the multiple overlapping images similar to the “hall of mirrors” in Jean Genet’s world?75 One can no longer distinguish between dream and reality, falsehood and truth, or reflection and originality in such a stage presentation. Everything is blurred in opium smoke and twisted by the funhouse mirrors of imagination. In the second half of the play, after Qiqiao has moved out of the large household, the major image is the door. Placed upstage center, the coffin-like door is made up of two black planks. Whoever walks through the door is lit by a haunting greenish light symbolizing the suffocating, damp and cold environment that Qiqiao has constructed for herself.76 The final image is the bed, a site for birth and death that here becomes both the wedding bed and the opium bed. The sadistic Qiqiao deprives her children of nuptial bliss and replaces it with narcotic oblivion. They decay under the cangue of gold and the pall of opium smoke. The bold deconstruction of the original novella and experimentation with theatre imagery surprised many critics and audience members, particularly because of their use in a jingju frame. Members of the public, from high school students to a more senior audience, responded very positively.77 For literary and theatre critics, the play’s extended use of recitation in a vernacular or spoken drama style weakened the dramatic tension.78 After the long dialogue over mahjong, Wang Youhui says, “I was relieved finally to hear the sound of gongs and strings.” In other words, the theatricality of jingju was absolutely necessary to balance the realism of spoken drama. When new jingju verges too close to spoken drama, it loses its charm. Wang also considered the realistic portrayal of foot-binding theatrically thrilling in realistic terms, but thought that this realism could not match the lingering effect of beauty created in traditional opera.79 With limited resources, dwindling government support and private patronage, and declining audiences, Taiwan jingju faced a life or death kind of dilemma. To live, it would have to change and to adapt to the here-and-now; clinging to tradition would amount to suicide. Beginning with the early overtly political new jingju, such as Mazu and Liao Tianding, and proceeding through the little theatre production of Wang Youdao Divorces His Wife and the mid-size Three Persons, Two Lamps, jingju’s self-renewal culminated in The Golden Cangue, a joint venture that brought together literary classic and recognized jingju expertise, familiar traditional melodies and bold experimental staging. The Golden Cangue also starred Wei Hai-Ming (Wei Hai-Min), arguably the best of Taiwan’s jingju actresses (more on Wei in Chapter 4). The Guoguang Company was very proud of the production and seriously considered promoting

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this play internationally. Within the space of a decade, jingju circles in Taiwan had learned to rewrite jingju scripts with modern sensibility, to adopt Western staging methods, and to cultivate new directors like Li Hsiao-Ping. The bold steps the Guoguang Company took proved successful. Innovative Jingju is now a distinctive “made in Taiwan” genre. It is a form of jingju that has thrown off the family name Jing (Beijing). Without the family name Jing, Innovative Jingju offers itself as an alternative to traditional mainland jingju, the Beijing jingju. With depoliticized modernity and deliberate effeminization in mind, it likewise offers itself as an alternative to traditional Taiwan jingju, the KMT-sponsored token of restorative nostalgia and masculine gesture of patriotism. By claiming to be an alternative to both, Innovative Jingju simultaneously casts two jingju traditions as dated and unfit, as things to be competed with or even overwritten. Traditional Beijing jingju, despite its interrupted history, is still able to offer abundant resources; traditional Taiwan jingju, regardless of its metonymic representation of the genre, has proudly preserved some precious traits and continued to perform restorative nostalgia for certain audiences. In other words, even as these traditions continue to supply the collective jingju genre with oxygen, they have also taken on the character of relics, whose purpose is to bless the efforts of Innovative Jingju.

The “innovations” of Innovative Jingju Beyond its obvious contributions to sustaining the life of jingju in Taiwan and to answering competition from jingju in the mainland center, I would argue that the greatest contributions of Innovative Jingju are to the jingju genre itself. A

Metatheatricality

All three plays discussed above function as metatheatrical commentary on jingju’s present predicament. Wang Youdao Divorces His Wife emphasizes the notion of “awkwardness,” an apt word for the state of the classics today. When the most revered moral values of ancient times, such as female chastity, have become a farce, jingju classics have become dated baggage that youngsters are not willing to carry. The deconstruction of classics during the Cultural Revolution was a straightforward political “struggle,” not a reflection of the awkwardness resulting from the passage of time and revolution in ideology. Wang Youdao’s boorish character and the unusual circumstances of the play successfully address the awkward situation in jingju in Taiwan nowadays. How is the


awkwardness of the classic to be handled during the transitional period? What does awkwardness bring to jingju reform? When the “invented tradition” of jingju has been broken and a new tradition has not yet been established, how does a “traditional” form find its voice? Despite its immature and experimental nature, Wang Youdao was an excellent way of roiling the waters of Innovative Jingju. Three Persons, Two Lamps plays with the notion of ambiguity. Is Guangzhi a wife or a concubine? Is Shuangyue bisexual or a traditional first wife? Is there a lesbian relationship between the two women, or is it simply sisterhood? The sexual overtones and the ambiguous ending have a lingering effect. Audience members cannot help but fantasize about their own places within the ménage à trois. Even after a decade’s experimentation, Innovative Jingju still does not have a stable identity. Is it a traitor to traditional jingju? Is it a hodge-podge of the modern and the traditional, East and West? Is it a product of politically correct efforts at Taiwan nativization? Is it an embarrassing residue of KMT glory? Is it merely a copy of mainland modern jingju in the style of Western musicals? The ambiguous identity of Innovative Jingju echoes the relationship between the three persons: as long as they can maintain a surface serenity, individual identities and pairings do not matter much. Their identity is fluid and subject to their survival. Whether veiled in political correctness or in apolitical femininity, Innovative Jingju pushed boundaries of jingju reform and extended the life of the genre. The Golden Cangue, on the other hand, addressed the feeling of loneliness and dislocation. As a matter of fact, loneliness has been an important thread in Wang An-Ch’i’s recent creations. The anthology of her plays that contains the three plays discussed above is actually titled Rouge Lips and Pearl-Sewn Sleeves, Both Lonely. The lonely women in Wang Youdao and Three Persons, Two Lamps seem to achieve certain improvements in their lives and are willing to settle in new ways of life. The Golden Cangue, on the other hand, never solves the problem of loneliness. Qiqiao is lonely because of her class, because of her loves, and because of her money. Unable to relieve her loneliness, she only drags people around her into her own downward spiral of decay and morbidity. The themes of loneliness and dislocation make for a sharp commentary on the situation of jingju in Taiwan today. Audiences of connoisseurs are dying out, the best professional actors are aging, and the training system is coming to pieces. In other words, jingju is at risk because fewer and fewer people understand what jingju is. As a playwright and scholar, Wang An-Ch’i feels most keenly the lonely pain of not being known, not being understood, and not being appreciated.

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Although it was positively received, The Golden Cangue implied an ominous ending for Innovative Jingju. B

Dramaturgy and mise-en-scène

Structurally and conceptually, Innovative Jingju is very different from traditional jingju. The zhezixi tradition allows performances only of the most famous scenes, the most theatrical of the theatrical. Whatever may have happened before the star enters matters less than how the star shines here and now. While such excerpted scenes certainly deal with characters’ emotions and psychology, it takes a connoisseur to appreciate the characters’ subtle “changes of breath, glance, or gesture” and to make such theatre-going experiences valuable.80 However, under the influence of Western theatre, realism and identification have been embraced as a yardstick for theatrical achievements. Isolated scenes of zhezixi do not convince modern audiences effectively because they do not offer the big picture, the arc or logic of the play. A newly created full-length play is much more appealing to modern audiences precisely because it allows them to consume something new and whole. Because of new audiences’ demand for jingju in this new style, plays have to be written differently. The connection between scenes, the entrances, exits, scene changes and so on, things taken for granted in modern Western theatre, become something new for jingju. But it is not merely a matter of constructing Chinese stories on the Western realistic model or using Stanislavski’s theories of character. It is a matter of balancing and negotiating between character-building and role-playing, between plot-advancement in dialogue and the highlighting of emotion in singing, between modern themes and classical language and traditional performance style. The biggest impact of Innovative Jingju’s foregrounding of playwright and director is the gradual erosion of traditional role types (jiaose or hangdang) and performance school (liupai). Role types are deeply rooted in the history of Chinese theatre and were present at the conception of every play. In the scripts of zaju (variety plays) preserved from the Yuan dynasty, role types are often used in the place of characters’ names.81 Since characters’ performance style, both for singing and movement, must correspond to their role types, characters tend to stay within the range of role type, whatever variation the plot might call for in emotion, physicality, or psychology. Characters’ role types also determine in very stark terms whether they are good and evil. The qingyi (virtuous maiden), for instance, will not have evil thoughts. Wei HaiMing has spoken of the difficulties she experienced when she played


Lady Macbeth in the Contemporary Legend production of The Kingdom of Desire (1986). Her training told her that qingyi was the most plausible role type for Lady Macbeth, a woman of high social status. But she was forced to break away from the qingyi role type in order truly to convey the psychological complexities of Lady Macbeth’s character.82 In the plays discussed above, for instance, the split of the Meng Yuehua character into two role types – qingyi and huadan – in Wang Youdao Divorces His Wife is a challenge to the conventional expectation that role types and characters will correspond. In The Golden Cangue, the character Qiqiao is no less complicated than Lady Macbeth, and the multiple shifts of time and space require the actor to switch between young and old, vulnerable and cruel, innocent and sadistic. If Wei HaiMing were capable only of being faithful to her Mei-school training in the qingyi type, she would betray the complexity of the character Eileen Chang created. The playwright and director were thus forced to find ways to release Wei from conventional role types and to create something completely new. The new creation could rely on certain traits of the conventional role types, but could not be limited by them.83 C Return to femininity Cross-dressing is a practice at least as old as Yuan zaju (thirteenth–fourteenth century). Throughout history, the “cross” has gone both ways. Women players shared the spotlight with male players, portraying male and female characters as their counterparts did. While many private kunqu troupes were female companies in the Ming and Qing dynasties, jingju companies were largely male.84 Unfortunately, jingju’s international popularity often gives a wrong impression that, like ancient Greek theatre, Japanese noh, or Elizabethan theatre, classical Chinese theatre lacked female players. From early on, male actors dominated the jingju stage and auditorium, and even female roles were “owned” by men. The qiandan (nandan), female roles played by male specialists, were considered the highest achievement of jingju art. Mei Lanfang, for instance, with his fictional and therefore artful femininity, has been the world’s most famous jingju artist since his prime in the 1930s. It is said that male actors, in order to enhance their femininity, adopted modified costumes and headdresses: while female characters are traditionally costumed in loose-fitting robes, male dan wear close-belted robes to narrow their waists; they also use artificial side tresses and decorations glued to the forehead to make their faces appear smaller and more feminine; the art of “stilting” (caiqiao) is a way for a male to mimic the gait of a woman with bound feet.85

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All these inventions and modifications are tailored for male actors to make up their deficiency of real femininity. Femininity thus became a special form of expertise in jingju, produced and consumed by men, and imitated by women. Although actresses gained access to the stage in the Republic era, they were required to emulate male actors’ imitation of femininity. Instead of trying to restore their own “natural” femininity, they were heard to lament their lack of certain qualities to be found in their male teachers, such as the physical energy required to play the martial dan and the “fullness” of the falsetto voice. “There is a lack of female consciousness in the field of jingju,” Wang An-Ch’i comments dryly.86 Female consciousness is even more scarce in the thematics of jingju. Traditional female virtues were not invented by women, but were made to be observed by women. Theatre was seen from the beginning as a natural venue for advocating moral values. Theatre proposes chastity, endurance, self-sacrifice, obedience, and domesticity as a second nature for women. Yu Ji goes on killing herself in every production of The Hegemon King Says Farewell to His Queen,87 Wang Baochuan accepts her husband’s second wife willingly in The Red-Maned Courser,88 and Meng Yuehua continues to accept her husband’s jealous rejection. Were it not for the laughter of the college students, traditional female virtues might well have lingered on, unreformed, in Taiwan’s jingju. In contrast to jingju reforms in mainland China, which were guided by a clear political imperative to deconstruct “old” thoughts and value systems, Taiwan’s apparently apolitical feminine plays advanced “female consciousness” without overtly challenging the patriarchy. Since the historical setting of these plays does not actually allow female characters to deconstruct patriarchy, portraying the subtle emotional ripples and suppressed resentment of women are arguably more effective acts than any overt expression of feminist critique. While revolutionary jingju plays from the mainland, such as The White Hair Damsel (Baimao nü), harshly criticize patriarchy in feudal society, they often employ prurient techniques, such as violations of the female body.89 Taiwan’s “feminine” jingju, on the other hand, strives for a different type of gender equality, the expression of female psychology instead of sensationalism. With more scripts created by female playwrights such as Wang An-Ch’i and Zhao Xuejun, along with female directors like Chung Chuan-hsing, a growing female audience, and female opera students,90 Innovative Jingju in Taiwan has become a “feminine” art in both production and consumption. The harmless and beautiful femininity of Innovative


Jingju reflects an undeniable “womanpower” at work in efforts to rescue the genre. The vitality of jingju comes from the apparent “weakness” of femininity. D Ultimate Taiwaneseness: hybridity and altruism Although earlier examples of Innovative Jingju, such as Liao Tianding, might have appeared to be “Taiwanese” productions because of their theme, they relied heavily on aid from the mainland in the form of jingju expertise. It was not until Wang Youdao Divorces His Wife that one could speak of a true “made in Taiwan” type of jingju, a jingju without a clear Jing family name. “Beijing opera without a Beijing family name” (Jingju bu xing jing) is a phrase often seen in promotional materials for modern jingju in Taiwan, signaling the rise of an alternative form to challenge the old dying art. Xing (family name) is of course an important concept in terms of lineage and heritage. For traditional Chinese theatre, family name also indicates different lineages of training and performance style, such as the Mei school, affiliated with Mei Lanfang, or the Cheng school, affiliated with Cheng Yanqiu, another famous male dan in Mei’s time. What does it mean when Beijing opera in Taiwan no longer carries the family name “Beijing”? Does it imply betrayal, loss, mutation, or a sense of independence? An international conference on jingju, held in 2007 at The National Academy of Chinese Theatre Arts in Beijing, presented a basic topic for debate: whether jingju should be modernized or keep its “original sauce and original flavor” (yuanzhi yuanwei). A small number of scholars from Taiwan presented papers on recent developments in jingju in Taiwan: Wang An-Ch’i discussed her “feminine” plays, Chung Chuan-Hsing spoke of the “children’s jingju” productions she had done, and Weng Xingli analyzed audiences’ reception of Taiwan jingju.91 The novelty of the ideas presented in these papers ensured that they would be well received by members of mainland jingju circles; it was as if a fresh breeze had blown in from the periphery. On the other hand, a number of traditionalists from the mainland insisted that preservation should be the top priority. Between the two opposite concepts there seemed to be very little middle ground.92 The “Beijing” family name itself is a paradoxical concept. Originally a regional genre from the Anhui area, jingju gradually settled in Beijing and matured, absorbing certain local tunes in the process. In other words, Beijing opera was not “born” in Beijing but came of age in Beijing. To insist on Beijing originality or authenticity is impossible. What jingju artists in Taiwan during the KMT era believed they had preserved – orthodox Chinese tradition – was in fact a faint residue or

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blurry memory of Republican-era jingju, which was largely destroyed during decades of CCP-led reforms and restrictions on the mainland. The “natural” path and growth of jingju has been altered on both sides of the Taiwan Straits. Attempts at repair – the “Dubbed Image Reconstruction Project” (yinpeixiang gongcheng), for instance – came too late, and certain damage could not be undone.93 Nevertheless, because of its association with Beijing and its cultural resources, mainland jingju perpetuates the illusion of being the “original.” This notion of originality is nothing but a fantasy, but looking for the original seems to be an irresistible habit. Ignoring the emptiness of origins and instead retaining a clear dichotomy – original vs. the derivative, Beijing-affiliated vs. newly independent – pan-Chinese jingju circles recreate in miniature the panChinese complex. Neither the center nor the peripheries are willing to accept that original and authentic jingju is a zero institution. It is clear that Taiwan has chosen a path of innovation over a path of preservation. It is equally clear that Taiwan has sufficient resources and creative energy for Innovative Jingju, and it would appear that young audiences are willing to accept this new genre. The lurking worry has to do with tradition. Without any traditional art, Innovative Jingju cannot claim to be an alternative to the original; no matter how innovative it ultimately becomes, it will still need to preserve certain elements from jingju’s past. Director Li Hsiao-Ping speaks of different value systems, then and now: In the old days, there was no clear division between stage and auditorium, there was noise everywhere, but when the actors opened their mouths, audiences were drunk with enchantment. Now we don’t have this anymore. There are holes everywhere, and we have to patch them. I do lighting, I plan entrances and exits, I do beats and blocking, I carefully calculate everything. We have to create a complete illusion; we have to package it carefully, even for traditional jingju.94 To Li and to jingju professionals in Taiwan or around the world, the ability to maintain the basic traditional qualities of jingju are the greatest challenge. Modernized jingju makes for excellent theatre, but it does not recreate jingju as it once was. The disappearance of opportunities for intensive training in jingju, the lack of interest in and commitment to learning this difficult art, the lack of prospects and prosperity for this profession, all make the future of “quality” jingju less hopeful than traditionalists would like to imagine. While everyone is able to celebrate the creativity


of Innovative Jingju, the future of traditional jingju is uncertain. As Li says, “I don’t want to think about it. I don’t dare to think about it.”95 While Li, a major creator of jingju in Taiwan, takes a pessimistic view, Zhong Baoshan, a major administrator of jingju and vice president of the Guoguang Opera Company, has a different attitude. He praised Wang An-Ch’i’s vision: “In order to extend the life of traditional theatre, the best strategy is ‘modernization.’” When Guoguang was founded and suddenly the major responsibility for jingju in Taiwan fell on its shoulders, the mission had to be very clear: to continue traditional art education and to promote traditional theatre. In Zhong’s mind, it was Wang’s insistence on modernization as a strategy that made it possible to carry out this mission. In addition to major annual productions of modern jingju, small-scale weekly traditional opera performances, performance tours, summer camps for children, seminars and lectures on college campuses, and even jingju gymnastics (jingju cao, an exercise routine evolved from jingju movement) are all parts of the strategic plan to keep jingju skills alive. Jingju has also shown a kind of artistic altruism. It is known in the dance world that what is called “classical Chinese dance” derives from jingju. Zhong also credits jingju for inspiring Taiwan’s most celebrated modern dance troupe, “The Cloud Gate Ensemble.” Zhong notes that the esteemed jingju scholar and playwright Yu Dagang often invited Lin Huaimin, the founder of Cloud Gate, to attend jingju performances. The inspiration and influence of jingju is apparent in Lin’s work, despite Lin’s own figuration of his troupe’s productions as Taiwanese modern dance. “Jingju just gives and gives. If you can find anything useful, take it,” says Zhong.96

Conclusion The “feminine” creative energy miraculously rescued the dying jingju in Taiwan in the last decade. Despite its limited resources, Innovative Jingju, like a fresh breeze, inspires the pan-Chinese jingju world. Lingering worries about not being able to “go home,” the pride of “becoming independent,” and the happiness of watching scattered seeds take root here and there all belong intrinsically to the sentiment of diaspora and help to make Innovative Jingju the ultimate “Taiwanese” art. Sixty years of separation have made the grandmother’s home into the home of a distant cousin, and a family reunion is less about reasserting family ties than about exchanging updated new personal information. Eventually the family name will no longer matter for jingju in Taiwan. A hyphenated name, Tai-jingju (Taiwan-Beijing opera), might lie ahead.

2 Pacification and Silent Resistance: Performing Hong Kong in The Flower Princess

Fallen petals fill the air and obscure the moonlight As I offer a cup of wine at the Phoenix Terrace. From “Death of the Fragrance,” The Flower Princess These lines, sung in a sharp, high-pitched female voice, are the most famous lines in all of yueju (Cantonese opera). For listeners from Hong Kong they create one of the two effects, both extreme: either a sentimental longing for the good old days, or revulsion at the sappy cliché. These seemingly contradictory responses work on the same principal: these lines represent the old, the familiar, the trite, the assumption that nothing is new and nothing will ever change. Over the past half-century, The Flower Princess (Dinühua in Mandarin, Dae Neui Fa in Cantonese) has become a key work in the yueju tradition; its multiple metamorphoses and adaptations in different media have given the story a popular or even camp feel. It is an operatic classic, a cliché cited again and again, a cultural symbol, and an archetype for Hong Kongers. Probably the most famous and most performed yueju piece in past decades, The Flower Princess can be seen as a synonym for Hong Kong yueju in our time. Like a Shakespearean classic, The Flower Princess also implies communal ownership, with Hong Kongers claiming their share. The communal commodity belongs to everyone yet to no one. The “classic” nature of the play also permits artists certain liberties in adapting it; no matter how “true to the original” or “deconstructive” the adaptation might be, its status as a classic does not change. In a time of crisis, such classic works provide unlimited creative energy for artists and yield undeniable power for identity performance. In an examination of the relationship between Hong Kong identity performance and yueju, this chapter will focus on productions of 64

The Flower Princess in Hong Kong 65

The Flower Princess at a few important historical junctures: The Flower Princess of 1957, by Tong Dik Sang (Tang Disheng);1 the Youth Edition and fiftieth anniversary of the original production in 2007; and the performance in the year of the return/handover of Hong Kong to the PRC (1997). I will further discuss the paradoxical discourse on Hong Kong during the colonial/postcolonial transition and examine how this discourse functions at the local, national, and transnational levels.

Hong Kong: colonial, postcolonial, and neocolonial Before analyzing any productions of The Flower Princess, it is imperative to discuss Hong Kong’s relationship to colonialism. Hong Kong, the most cosmopolitan of all Chinese cities, has been called the “floating city,” “the city of disappearance,” or the city of “borrowed place, borrowed time.”2 All of these names suggest a sort of ontological precariousness and uncertainty. But such fragility, mixed with material progress, has formed Hong Kong’s unique character. Developing from a fishing village to a token of China’s national shame, from a British colony to a Special Administrative Region (SAR) of the PRC, from the pearl of the East to an ambivalent postcolonial/neocolonial state, Hong Kong has had a complicated and fascinating history over the past century. Its colonial status was the result of a series of defeats: the First Opium War (1839–42), the Second Opium War (1858–60), the Treaty of Nanking (1842), the Convention of Peking (1860), and a 99-year lease in 1898 left the entirety of Hong Kong’s present territory (Hong Kong Island, the Kowloon Peninsula, the New Territories, and nearby smaller islands) under British control until 1997. Through westernization and urbanization, both standard procedures of colonial control, Hong Kong was transformed within a few decades from a fishing village to an international port and financial center. Hong Kong was very different from other British colonies: its small land area provided neither natural resources nor a large number of native residents. Since many people moved to Hong Kong after the colonial government had already been established, one might consider the Hong Kong situation a form of voluntary colonialism. Ackbar Abbas even believes that in the case of Hong Kong, one cannot speak of a precolonial past.3 The lack of natural resources and the unique geographical, cultural, and economic situation make the colonial and transitional Hong Kong inseparable from mainland China. Since the colony could not offer much gain in territory or natural resources for the British, colonizing Hong Kong was seen as a first step toward British imperial control of the Far East. Hong Kong was the gateway to China.4

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If there were not many indigenous people, then who are Hong Kongers? Most residents were refugees or immigrants from mainland China, that is, transients or sojourners. Before the split between the PRC and the ROC in 1949, the border between Hong Kong and the mainland was open. Cold War tensions forced Hong Kong either to choose sides or to avoid involvement altogether. Relations between Hong Kong and Taiwan remained friendly; tourist and business visits were common, and Hong Kong students often took degrees in Taiwan. But the relationship between Hong Kong and the PRC was different once the northern border between Hong Kong and the mainland was closed. Political turmoil in the PRC accentuated Hong Kong’s status as a safe and free haven, and large numbers of immigrants swarmed into Hong Kong during the early Communist regime (early 1950s) and during the Cultural Revolution.5 Political uncertainty in China had also affected Hong Kong immigration earlier in history, as when the establishment of the Republic in 1912 and the Sino-Japanese War in 1930s both caused waves of immigration to Hong Kong.6 However, before the border was closed, these movements were mostly temporary displacements rather than permanent diaspora. “Home” was still a place to return to. Because of the scarcity of natural resources, large numbers of British colonizers were not required to establish control. Native and naturalized British citizens made up only a small part of the population. The majority of Hong Kong’s inhabitants were actually “aliens” in the legal sense, and the concept of Hong Kong citizens or permanent residents was unknown because of the territory’s non-nation-state status. In other words, the inhabitants of Hong Kong were either citizens of the United Kingdom or aliens of Hong Kong.7 Lin Kehuan sees Hong Kong before the 1960s as a temporary place for “refuge, immigration, and moneymaking opportunities.”8 Luo Feng describes this mentality well in his analysis of the poem “Spring 1957: Hong Kong,” by Wang Wuxie: First of all, he [a Hong Konger] cannot allow himself to return to China, because the political change or party policies cannot give him a sense of belonging. Second, the Chinese culture he has searched for and admired could not endure in a land under foreign control. The cultural chasm and vacuum make him confused and anxious […] this leads eventually to a floating condition of being rootless, directionless, and without choices.9 The notion of Hong Kong’s “floating” condition of existence has become a commonplace. Throughout history, as a major port and the front door


of China, Hong Kong has acted as a transitional space between East and West, tradition and modernization, between China and the rest of the world, and – during the second half of the twentieth century – between political turmoil and hopeful stability, between authoritarianism and democracy, and between poverty and wealth. By way of Hong Kong means en route to freedom, prosperity, and modernity. But Hong Kong, prosperous as it has become, has never achieved political autonomy; it was intentionally made “apolitical.” Colonial education deliberately made Hong Kong a transitional place, avoiding any specific cultural and national identification. In public school education from the 1950s through the 1980s, students learned a Chinese history that ended in 1911 and a modern literature that encompassed only May Fourth literature.10 Local and contemporary Hong Kong culture scarcely seemed to exist.11 The coincidence of the colonial education system and the closure of the northern border rendered Hong Kong a rather stateless and identity-free entity. Unfortunately, the status of “not quite, not white”12 and “not quite, not Chinese”13 did not automatically guarantee a clear consensus on Hong Kong identity. The liminal existence – between the “not British, not Chinese” and “not British English, not Chinese Chinese” – created a unique Hong Kong character based on negation. Because colonial education avoided any nationalist association with either the mainland or Taiwan, and Hong Kong native identity was also downplayed, the freedoms of the market and the port could be seen as a result of colonial pacification and control. In other words, “free” Hong Kong was of necessity free from any national association and free from any kind of political engagement at the national level. The promotion of utilitarianism and consumption and the absence of direct state control helped the popular media industry flourish, and this industry in turn helped create a sense of autonomous cultural identity. However, “the free-market institutions which gave rise to illusions of an autonomous culture industry also gave rise to mentalities and lifestyles that were effectively divided on the basis of class and education.”14 This kind of class-based society thus had “colonial sovereignty” and a “regular society,” but not a “political society.”15 Scholars generally agree that the 1960s were a turning point for “Hong Kong consciousness.” The 1961–71 census showed, for the first time in history, that more than half of the population was born in Hong Kong.16 Liu Zhaojia states that only in the 1960s, “when Chinese immigrants gave up the idea of returning to socialist China, and their descendents discovered a home in Hong Kong, was a stable Chinese society established.”17 Allen Chun points to the Cultural Revolution as a major influence in

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Hong Kong’s emerging identity in the 1960s.18 As the population of “natives” grew, a sense of home and consciousness was easier to cultivate. Lin Kehuan believes that such consciousness was not a “continuation or discontinuation of traditional culture, or a critique or rebellion against existing culture”; instead, it came about through a combination of “a flourishing and stabilized economy, growth of the post-war population, and cultivation of the Hong Kong government in the 60s and 70s, aided by commercial popular culture.”19 Such Hong Kong solidarity tends to be apolitical, as people in Hong Kong identify themselves with familial or parochial interests rather than national interest. The special circumstances of Hong Kong make cultivating indigenous political leaders difficult. It is clear to Hong Kongers that their political power has to be transferred from either the British colonizers or the Chinese government, since not enough political power was generated by locals themselves.20 Ackbar Abbas describes Hong Kong’s subjectivity in terms of “disappearance.” The temptation to regard Hong Kong from a local, marginal, or cosmopolitan position does not, and cannot, decolonize itself. Recognition of its culture is posited on the imminence of its disappearance, and the imminent danger of disappearing is recontained through familiar and plausible representations. Efforts to respond to and deal with the sense of disappearance form a unique Hong Kong culture.21 A media-based popular cultural identity expresses its identity crisis through this system of signification, but this expression is not politically efficacious and does not have any destabilizing power. The dream of decolonizing Hong Kong went up in smoke before anyone noticed. Hong Kong was originally on the UN’s decolonization list, which was prepared by the Special Committee on Colonialism. In other words, Hong Kong was set to be decolonized and granted independent nationhood. However, at China’s request and with Britain’s acquiescence, Hong Kong’s proposed decolonization was dropped in 1972. With no Hong Kong participation in deciding its own fate, it was removed from the list.22 The year 1997 was the happily anticipated or long-feared juncture that would decide the future of Hong Kongers. The “97 problem,” as it was called, had likely been on people’s minds for a long time, but it was not “officially” addressed until 1979, when the British and Chinese governments started formal talks about the upcoming handover. Without the involvement of Hong Kong, these closed-door meetings produced the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration, which declared Hong Kong’s new status as a Special Administrative Region and recognized China’s sovereignty over Hong Kong after 1997. The SAR was to maintain its capitalist system and way of life for 50 years, as in future China and


Hong Kong would be “one country, two systems” (yiguo liangzhi). Article 3, Section 5 of the Declaration promises that the current social and economic system in Hong Kong will remain unchanged, and so will the life-style. Rights and freedoms, including those of the person, of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of travel, of movement, of correspondence, of strike, of choice of occupation, of academic research and of religious belief will be ensured by law in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. Private property, ownership of enterprises, legitimate right of inheritance and foreign investment will be protected by law.23 The words “remain unchanged,” “be ensured,” and “be protected” suggest that the best Hong Kongers could hope for would be no change at all under PRC sovereignty; the new government did not even attempt to offer a picture of a better and brighter tomorrow. The common saying “horses still racing, revelers still dancing” (mazhaopao, wuzhaotiao), with its references to gambling and nightlife, reflects the escapist attitude of the fin de siècle Hong Kong, and matches the Beijing government’s policy of maintaining the status quo. The assumption was that as long as Hong Kongers could still enjoy their decadent capitalist freedoms, they would feel no resentment toward the new regime. “If you cannot choose your political leaders, you can at least choose your own clothes.”24 The Tiananmen Square Incident of 1989 challenged these illusions about the status quo. The strong reaction of Hong Kongers to this event showed their anxiety about the city’s “expiration date.” It was estimated that one in six Hong Kongers took to the streets to protest Chinese government’s brutal crackdown on student protesters. The PRC had been considered a place to escape from, and new mainland immigrants were often looked down upon because of class differences. Hong Kong’s conditional freedoms – no voting, but freedom of expression, travel, choice of profession – allowed the city’s residents to regard themselves as superior.25 The martyrdom of the students was a wake-up call: Hong Kongers felt a renewed cultural and ethnic affinity with Chinese people, but felt threatened by the Chinese regime. If the People’s Liberation Army could commit such an atrocity against their own young citizens, how could they be trusted by defenseless residents of Hong Kong? This anxiety was reflected in rising emigration numbers and suicides (more on which below), as well as in plays, movies, and other artistic and literary expressions. The arts and literature of the Hong Kong finde-siècle have been the focus of many scholarly works.26

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Hong Kong’s century of British colonialism was not resolved in decolonization or postcoloniality when the PRC regime took over. It was a power transition with no participation from local residents; it was, in Lau’s phrase, “decolonization without independence”27 or, in Abbas’s, “postcoloniality without decolonization”;28 it was in fact a new form of colonization, something that one might call Chinese neocolonialism. All the accomplishments of British colonialism – Hong Kong’s economy, its status of financial center, its tourist traffic, its global film market and entertainment industry – became “natural resources” sought after by the new colonizer. The “territorial gain” was important too, as the PRC would now have access to another important port. The Basic Law and Hong Kong’s SAR status gave the city some breathing room before neocolonialism took hold. Fear of the new colonizer, the same regime that had sent many Chinese into exile and destroyed the hopes of democracy at Tiananmen, seemed to prompt feelings of nostalgia for the colonial past. Could British colonialism, the national “shame,” really be the object of nostalgia? Even if postcolonial Hong Kongers were experiencing a sense of loss, was British colonialism really what they wanted to restore? Rey Chow speaks of a sort of “virtual democracy,” a last-minute burst of political reform before Britain’s departure from Hong Kong.29 Roberti sees the phenomenon as hypocrisy, a “smoke screen put up so the British could avoid feeling guilty about turning six million people over to a brutal regime.” The efforts could have little real significance, since after 1997, “the Hong Kong government will answer to Beijing, not to the people of Hong Kong.”30 Nevertheless, such pseudo-democratic gestures seemed to give Hong Kongers reason to favor British colonialism over Chinese authoritarianism and perhaps to feel nostalgia for the colonial past. However, one might also see the power transition of the return – the term the PRC government uses – as the long-awaited moment when the lost son is finally able to return to his mother’s bosom. The implicit assertion that blood is thicker than water celebrates the reunion of ethnic Chinese, despite their political, cultural, and economic differences. After all, being controlled by the Chinese government is better than paying tribute to a foreign Queen. Chinese nationalism (minzu zhuyi) provides a rationale for Hong Kongers to renounce their colonial past, no matter how gilded this past was, and to be reunited with other ethnic Chinese. The combination of the happy return, celebrating Chinese nationalism, and sad nostalgia, longing for the decadent capitalist and colonial past, have made for a pervasive ambivalence in postcolonial Hong Kong. This ambivalence is reflected in many of the artistic works of


the past decade. The 2007 Youth Edition of the yueju classic The Flower Princess is one fine example.

The Flower Princess (Dinühua, Dae Neui Fa) A

1957: The Flower Princess in its original context

1 The creation of the script and the original production The Flower Princess tells the story of Princess Changping (1629–1646), daughter of Chongzhen (r. 1627–44), the last emperor of the Ming dynasty.31 The short-lived princess of the Ming inspired the popular imagination, and in modern times her story has been retold in legends, plays, movies, TV costume dramas, and even martial arts novels.32 The most famous yueju retelling is the 1957 version written by Tong Dik Sang (Tang Disheng, 1916–1959) and performed by Hong Kong’s Sin Fung Ming Troupe. This version is adapted from a kunqu (kun opera) version by Huang Yunshan (1805–1866) of the Qing dynasty. It is said that there was another version by Liang Jintang (1934), but only fragments of the play have survived. As the 1957 version is extremely popular, it has become a modern classic, known to everyone in yueju circles. Tong’s inspiration, Huang Yunshan’s The Flower Princess, did not appear at the time of the dynastic transition. It was written around 1832, when kunqu was already in decline.33 Despite Huang’s literary talent, his political career was unsuccessful; he retired early and devoted himself to literature. Just after having learned of his failure in the imperial examination, Huang was encouraged by his friend to write a play to vent his frustration, to display his literary talent, and to praise the beneficence and virtue of the Qing. Another obvious purpose for this play was to commemorate the death of the princess and the Ming.34 More than a century later, the story was picked up by Tong Dik Sang, but expressed in a completely different form, yueju. “Orthodox” kunqu was no longer dominant, and local voices, even in the periphery, began to tell their own versions of catastrophes and identity crises in times of dynastic transition. Tong Dik Sang had done odd jobs, including screenwriting and copying music scores for yueju troupes, before he had a chance to write yueju scripts in 1943. His early works include Dragon Mansion and Phoenix Blood (Long lou feng xie) and Flood in Sizhou City (Shui yan Sizhoucheng). He became popular in the early 1950s and wrote plays for many troupes. Many of his most famous plays were written during the middle and late 1950s. Besides The Flower Princess, Two Fairies at the

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Moon-Worshipping Pavilion (Shuangxian baiyueting) and Presenting a Sword at the Pavilion of a Hundred Flowers (Baihuating zengjian) are among the most popular. Tong died of a heart attack at the young age of 43, at the peak of his career.35 Pak Suet Sin (Bai Xuexian, stage name for Chen Shuliang, 1926–), the first and for many viewers the ultimate Flower Princess, began her acting career at the age of 13. Her father Pak Kui Wing (Bai Jurong, stage name for Chen Rong, 1892–1974) was a famous actor who specialized in young female roles. Pak Suet Sin and Yam Kim Fai (Ren Jianhui, stage name for Ren Lichu, 1913–1989), an actress specializing in young male roles, had been stage partners before forming the Sin Fung Ming Troupe in 1956 (Sin Fung Ming in Cantonese, or Xianfengming in Mandarin, means “wonderful phoenix singing”). Tong Dik Sang wrote The Flower Princess specifically for the troupe. Pak Suet Sin played the princess and Yam Kim Fai her betrothed, Zhou Shixian. The first production was at the Li Stage in 1957. The overnight success of the production also transformed Pak and Yam into yueju icons in Hong Kong. A film version starring Pak and Yam appeared in 1959. A 1960 audio recording of the entire play by Sin Fung Ming enhanced the play’s popularity and made it part of the modern canon. Bell Yung believes that because the audio version, from vinyl to cassette to CD, has remained the same over 50 years it should be considered the most authoritative and popular version.36 Pak and Yam also devoted themselves to cultivating young talents, forming the Chor Fung Ming (Chufengming in Mandarin, “young phoenix singing”) Troupe, a youth counterpart to Sin Fung Ming, in 1963.37 2 The original plot in its original sociopolitical context The Flower Princess is set in a crucial time in Chinese history: it is the end of the era, the end both of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) and of Han Chinese political rule; it is also a new beginning, as the new Qing dynasty (1644–1911), founded by Manchus from northeast Asia, establishes its “foreign” rule of China and inaugurates a long period of intercultural coexistence of Manchus and Han Chinese. The transition is chaotic, as both the bandit king Li Zicheng and Manchu troops threaten the throne of the Ming emperor. The last Ming emperor, Chongzhen (r. 1628–44), has two daughters. He cherishes the elder, 15-year-old Changping, dearly. Changping falls in love with Zhou Shixian, the son of a court official, and they exchange vows under a camphor tree. Unfortunately, calamity disrupts the lovers’ happiness, as the bandit king Li Zicheng invades the capital and breaks into the palace. Knowing that there is no way out, the Emperor Chongzhen “bestows” death upon his favorite women: the


queen, his favorite imperial concubine, and his two daughters. Both the queen and the imperial concubine hang themselves with the red silk given them by the emperor, but the emperor intends to kill his daughters with his own hands. When Zhou Shixian, the Princess’s betrothed, tries to stop the emperor, the latter laments: “Don’t blame me for being cruel! Blame yourself, a scholar too weak to protect your beauty. You do not have the strength to lift a thousand kilos. How useless is your love of ten thousand strands!” (35).38 In the chaos, the emperor kills his younger daughter but only wounds Changping. Emperor Chongzhen flees and later hangs himself. The bandits are quickly defeated by the Manchu troops. The new Qing is established. The horrific violence against the princess establishes the ominous tone of the play as a Hong Kong allegory (Figure 2.1). Having been abandoned by her Chinese father half a century ago, Hong Kong as the British colony in the 1950s still experienced political unsettlement. Many refugees had arrived, and many were still to come. Migration was also proceeding in the other direction, as the PRC’s Hundred Flowers Campaign of 1956 provided a glimmer of hope for Chinese intellectuals and artists, who were encouraged to freely express their opinions. Many intellectuals from Hong Kong took this opportunity to “go up north” and to entrust themselves to the nascent Chinese government. However, the Hundred Flowers Campaign, like the Qing emperor’s “merciful” gesture, did not provide an optimistic future in Tong’s view. Changping gradually recovers from her wound, hidden in a Taoist temple with an assumed identity of a nun. Finally, the betrothed Zhou Shixian and Changping meet again. Changping is unwilling to accept the new emperor’s offer to protect the couple and celebrate their wedding in court, but Shixian explains that this is a temporary compromise designed to win both the release of Changping’s younger brother, the crown prince, who is being held hostage, and a proper funeral for the Chongzhen emperor, whose coffin is still unburied. This gesture of the new emperor would win over the Ming loyalists and help ease the dynastic transition. For the princess, this is a chance to gain some leverage to negotiate with the new regime. Shixian promises her that after the emperor has granted their wishes, they will commit suicide together in a true celebration of their love and a demonstration of their loyalty to the Ming. The princess drafts a memorial to be read aloud in the court; this is to ensure the emperor’s true commitment to the Ming loyalists. Many yueju artists from Hong Kong in the 1950s, including such star actors as Pak Kui Wing, Hong Sin Neui (Hongxiannü), and Ma Sze Tsang

Figure 2.1 The Flower Princess: The Youth Edition (The Studio Theatre at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, Hong Kong, 2007) Emperor Chongzhen tries to kill his own daughter, Princess Changping (the Flower Princess). Courtesy of Chinese Opera Information Centre, the Chinese University of Hong Kong: Photo by Chung Yu-sang.


(Ma Shizeng) had gone north to join in the construction of the new China. Their idealism was short-lived. The “Anti-Rightist Movement” was launched in 1957. It was a direct attack on intellectual freedom and the beginning of a reign of terror. Tens of thousands of intellectuals were labeled as “rightists,” and many of them were sent to labor camps to be “re-educated,” and many suffered violent “struggles” and attempted suicide. Some Hong Kong artists managed to flee back to Hong Kong, but their lives and art were nevertheless gravely affected by the new movement.39 The visionary Tong Dik Sang, who died two years after the completion of The Flower Princess, saw only the beginning of the calamity. The Anti-Rightist Movement would eventually affect the lives of more than half a million intellectuals. His play, written in 1957, is a perfect reflection of the political climate of the time, as the court scene shows the suspicion that Hong Kongers might have entertained toward the Chinese government during the 1950s. At court, after reluctantly allowing the petition to be read aloud before all his court officials, the emperor hesitates to grant the wishes he has promised. The princess says: “Among the five hundred subjects here, at least three hundred served at the old court. If they see me smile, they will submit to you willingly; if they see me weep, they will feel resentment toward your highness” (100). The emperor is still evasive: “Let’s just celebrate the happy marriage and not worry about old matters.” She finally gives free rein to her wailings: Alas, old emperor! My father king! My mother queen! (facing the subjects on the sides, she cries and sings) Releasing sorrowful sound, The Princess laments at court, Blood and tears flowing down her cheeks like tides. Mourning at the main imperial court, She remembers old hatreds And recounts blood debts. Three hundred old subjects, please listen carefully: The bestowed red silk was thrown down on the golden steps. My mother the Queen and Lady Yuan sadly hanged themselves. The brandished sword splashed blood on the golden tapestry. I resent Father the emperor for killing my sister princess. Do not embrace the new court and abandon the old. My wailing is loud and clear, here in the Phoenix Court!

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Alas! Father, Mother, Husband! ……… (The entire court is saddened). Finally, the emperor is forced to concede: “I worry the sound of your wailing will travel far. The cries of the princess shake the imperial city. I shall release the child prince instantly” (101–2). The play moves to its final climax. In the most famous scene, “The Death of Fragrance” (Xiangyao), the lovers, now in their bright red wedding costumes, sing an elegy for their country and for themselves. The finale features the most memorable Cantonese opera aria of our time: Fallen petals fill the air and obscure the moonlight As I offer a cup of wine at the Phoenix Terrace. The Flower Princess burns incense in tears. May my death repay the favor of Father and Mother […]. They perform a wedding ceremony and sing the final lines: Shixian:

Changping:

Shixian:

Changping: Shixian: Changping: Shixian: Changping: Shixian: Both: Shixian: Changping: Both:

Willow shade is our hibiscus canopy. The Ming prince looks at his bride (holding up her veil). Rekindle the light, looking at her at midnight. Till heaven decays and earth ages, Loving phoenix and loving phoenix Bow to each other and drink a cup of nuptial wine. Pass on the golden cup, Savoring the wine, slowly swallowing. Arsenic and tears fall in the wine. Happily falling into drunkenness in the dreamland with you (they touch wine cups). Clinking our cups at the night terrace (they touch wine cups again). A flowery crown takes the place of my burial dress (they drink together). The prince’s helmet is buried in the tomb. We embrace each other. We lean on each other. The joint tree branches emit the fragrance of the princess. The Flower Princess. Will accompany you forever. When husband and wife die, so will the tree. (104–5) (Figure 2.2)


Finally, the lovers celebrate their uncompromised love for each other and the allegiance to the Ming, dying together under the camphor tree. Politics decided the fate of many traditional arts in modern China, from Mao Zedong’s 1942 talk at the Yanan Forum – in which he defined arts’ purpose as one of uniting and educating the people and defending against enemies40 – to a series of policies banning or instituting reform and innovation in traditional opera in the 1950s, to the culmination in the Cultural Revolution, when model drama took the place of traditional opera as the sanctioned art form. The result of the political turmoil was a gap of approximately two decades in the development of traditional opera in mainland China. In Taiwan, although traditional art forms remained intact, the content of the plays was ideology-based, advocating nationalism and the recovery of the lost homeland. Hong Kong was immune to such disastrous blights on traditional art because of its colonial status; it was able to offer a space for native artists to grow, for disillusioned returned artists to recuperate, and for defecting artists to find new inspiration. It was also the only place where “freedom of expression” was possible during the 1950s. The Flower Princess was a play about ambivalence, disillusion, and hopeless and useless protest – all the feelings that a transitional state might have. Hong Kong intellectuals and artists in the 1950s, like Zhou Shixian, a scholar too weak to protect his beauty when the Ming falls, did not have enough strength to protect the integrity of their work during the Anti-Rightist Movement; the sacrifice of the heroes seemed useless patriotism offering no political hope. Nevertheless, the late 1950s was the time when Hong Kongers began to see themselves as separate from the mainland Chinese, with or without a hopeful political future. While Hong Kong was not exactly a nation-state, one might argue, nonetheless, that its flourishing yueju industry played the role of a national cultural form proudly representing Hong Kong. The 50-year popularity of The Flower Princess in Hong Kong constitutes the main narrative of yueju in modern times as well as a unique “national” tradition that distinguishes Hong Kong as an entity independent from other “Chinese” polities. B

2007: The Flower Princess in postcolonial Hong Kong

1 Multiple flowers in 2007 Half a century later, the fever of The Flower Princess has risen even higher. Numerous stage productions, along with fragmented, adapted, updated, satirized, bastardized, and translated versions in various forms also appeared in 2007. One of the newsworthy productions was the one led by Pak Suet Sin, the star of the original 1957 production. 2006 marked

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Figure 2.2 The Flower Princess: The Youth Edition (The Studio Theatre at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, Hong Kong, 2007) The wedding ceremony of the princess and her betrothed before their double suicide in the final scene “Death of Fragrance.” Courtesy of Chinese Opera Information Centre, the Chinese University of Hong Kong; Photo by Chung Yu-sang.


the fiftieth anniversary of the Sin Fung Ming Troupe, and 2007 the fiftieth anniversary of the play. Pak’s celebratory production was therefore significant to yueju fans. Along with actors from the junior troupe, Chor Fung Ming, the artistic director Pak commemorated The Flower Princess with 34 sold-out performances in 2006 and 2007. Despite the Cultural Revolution on the mainland and the political transition in Hong Kong, Pak’s Flower Princess continues to live and die, to love and lament. Pak’s production represented tradition in its purest form: it was the final repetition, the culmination of all the repetitions of her original performance, the “invented tradition” of yueju. The connection between Sin Fung Ming and Chor Fung Ming also offered hopes for transgenerational transmission. Pak might be in her waning years, but her authority endowed her production with the aura of the continuous history of yueju in Hong Kong. An uncompromising princess came to represent a stable force in a moment of political instability. Numerous alternative productions also took place in 2007. For instance, the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts staged a modernstyle production, directed by the minimalist Deng Shurong. With a new script devoid of songs and rhymed verse, an improvisational style of live harmonica and guitar played in the Western style, an empty stage and symbolic design, non-operatic speaking styles and movement, Deng’s production was no longer Cantonese opera, despite its close resemblance to the original in play structure and characterization. The objective of the production was to “reinterpret the classic in a strippeddown modern theatrical style and to examine the relationship between improvisational music and performance.” Rather than glorifying a classic, this production represented an artistic experiment: “The tension of the performance comes from the actors’ bodies and impulses. In an age dominated by technology, perhaps the most basic things can make audiences appreciate the exchange of energy between actors and audiences.”41 The set was a minimalistic one, with only chairs and small props to represent the world of the characters. The staging was stylistically symbolic: the death bestowed upon the queen and the concubine was represented by the sudden dropping of two flying red scarves seen against the backdrop of a white screen.42 Reviewers generally expressed an appreciation for the new approach and acting style.43 The occasions for this production were the “Chinese Language Arts Festival” (Huawen yishujie) and a conference commemorating the “Centennial of Chinese Language Theatre.” The term “Chinese language theatre” is significant; it indicates both a historical scope and a transnational perspective. The terms hua (denoting

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China and Chinese culture taken as a whole) and huawen (denoting Chinese languages) are usually used only in transnational contexts where various Chinese “nations” encounter each other. “Chinese language theatre” denotes theatre in the Western style, namely huaju (spoken drama), whose origins can be traced back to about a century ago. The apolitical and transnational “Chinese language” conference included theatre scholars from Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, Macao, Australia, Malaysia, the United States, and other regions where “Chinese language theatre” is part of the culture.44 Because of the transnational context and the “Western” style of staging, the bare stage was called an “Elizabethan-style” stage,45 Tong Dik Sang was praised as a “Chinese Shakespeare,” and Deng’s Princess was compared to Shakespearean productions.46 This phenomenon suggests that even in the transnational Chinese context, the “local” classic needs to borrow the aura of the “world” classic in order to be viable. One criticism of the production had to do with its modification of the scene in which the princess’s memorial is presented. Tong’s scene takes place in court, so the psychological game between the emperor and the young couple is displayed before the assembled Ming court officials. The Qing emperor negotiates a path between leniency and strength. In Deng’s production, however, the scene is presented as a secret meeting between the emperor and Zhou, and the princess only joins in later. The emperor, who is portrayed as a perfect tyrant, arrests the couple at the end of the scene. The harsh depiction of the emperor shows no depth of character, and the psychological tension of the scene is destroyed.47 While some members of the audience might feel sympathy for the Qing emperor in Tong Dik Sang’s original, it is difficult to admire Deng’s autocrat. As explained earlier, Tong saw only the beginning of the political calamity in 1957, whereas Deng was in a very different historical moment half a century later. Did Hong Kongers’ patience for their sovereign wear thin as time passed? The Qing emperor’s tough stance toward the young couple resembles the unyielding, authoritarian attitude of the PRC government toward the students in Tiananmen Square. The young couple’s protest is crushed by authority; there is no dilemma, no room for negotiation or compromise, no leniency. On the other hand, the meeting between the emperor and Zhou to consider the fate of the princess behind closed doors also curiously resembles the talks between the PRC and British governments in the 1980s. The Flower Princess, like Hong Kong, has no right to decide her own fate. Deng’s new interpretation of the scene may offer less dramatic tension, but it frankly presents Hong Kongers’ dissatisfactions over the transition. The


fact that this play is presented on the modern stage before transnational “Chinese” audiences is really significant. The Flower Princess also has her space in the realm of popular culture, such as TV variety shows and pop music. Two pop songs inspired by the yueju classic are examples of the ubiquity of the classic in recent years. An English translation of the climax song, “Death of Fragrance” by Lanny Shum, appeared on YouTube, renamed “Lovely Princess.”48 Performed with traditional costumes and music and with lyrics translated into simple pop song-style English (full of clichéd lines such as “please don’t cry,” “no time to say good-bye”), this song appears almost to be a parody of the original. Another song, an R&B duet by Guangzhou-based singers Dongshan Shaoye and Xu Shiyu, was also inspired by The Flower Princess.49 The original yueju tune and lyrics are “quoted” in this modern music video, “Matching Sword and United Hairpin – The Flowery Princess” (Jianhe chaiyuan Dinühua).50 But like Shum’s “Lovely Princess,” this song is entirely devoid of historical specifications and political meanings. With the line “in every beautiful story, there is always a pathetic woman,” this song is another pop song about the loss of love. The princess’s strength and patriotism are neglected, and her suicide is presented as a beautiful and pathetic gesture for love. That this song is “made in China” might be understood to mean that it presents a depoliticized view from “the center.” The multiple performances of The Flower Princess in different genres around the anniversary year reflected the long-lasting popularity of the play, but also showed that the classic is a signifier of the quintessence of Hong Kong’s character. Any Hong Konger can detect the subtlest allusion to the piece, a line, a few notes, even a gesture. All the “creators” of the alternative Flower Princesses were full of confidence that their “mutations” would not and could not ruin the original. No matter what the response was – appreciation, severe criticism, ridicule, or laugher – the audience was momentarily united in its recognition of the play. Like the Mahabharata in India, The Flower Princess functions on an archetypal level. Its status as “classic” or “archetypal” allows multiple interpretations that in no way threaten its core meaning. A sort of tacit understanding is shared by all audiences. 2 The Youth Edition (Qingnian ban) It is precisely because of the kind of primordial power The Flower Princess has among Hong Kong people that another production became significant. This production was the desperate final cry of the fallen city and at the same time a token of pathetic and unimaginable hope, like a phoenix rising from ashes. On 7 September 2007, a “youth

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edition” (qingnian ban) of The Flower Princess was staged by a group of young amateur actors for an international audience. Like the minimalist production mentioned above, The Youth Edition was performed by a small cast of young actors in the Studio Theatre at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, as a special event for the International Cantonese Opera Conference. However, The Youth Edition was done in utterly traditional Cantonese opera style, not as an experiment in Western style staging. Compared to most opera productions, which are funded by private money, this production was official and institutional. It was co-sponsored by The Cultural Ministry of Guangdong Province (PRC), the Ministry of Civil Affairs of the Hong Kong Special District, The Cultural Ministry of the Macao Special District, the Hong Kong Arts Development Council, the Cantonese Opera Research Program, the Department of Music of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, and the Peach Blossom Origin Cantonese Opera Workshop. It was likewise a joint venture across many zones. Politically, it was the result of a collaboration of Chinese government (i.e., the center, represented by its provincial government) and the local governments of the Special Districts Hong Kong and Macao; artistically, it brought together yueju academics, amateurs, and professionals; and it also depended upon a close cooperation between the local and global yueju communities. With official sanction, academic ties and international scope, the Youth Flower Princess seemed to be elevated to a status higher than that of popular opera. Auditions was held in March and callbacks in April. A committee of eight finally selected the “six pillars” of the play:51 Liang Shuming (female, “the civil and martial male”),52 Li Peiyan (female, “major flower female”), Chen Hongjin (male, “male clown”), Liang Weikang (male, “martial male”), Zou Liyu (female, “secondary flower female”), and He Jingwei (female, “young male”). Li Peiyan would play the princess and Liang Shuming her betrothed Zhou Shixian. Selected actors would receive three months of intensive training from masters Ruan Zhaohui and Li Qifeng and others.53 The performance was to be free, but a lottery system would decide its audience; that is, it was to have a selected audience. Moreover, there would be a jury composed of opera professionals and international scholars from the conference, who would vote for the best actor after the performance. All six actors would automatically receive a reward of HK$5000, and the best actor would receive an additional HK$10,000 as the top prize.54 I was one of the scholars invited to the conference and had the chance to serve on the jury for this historic event.


The production was strongly reminiscent of the youth version of The Peony Pavilion (the subject of Chapter 3). In 2004, The Peony Pavilion: The Young Lovers’ Edition had begun its immensely popular run. Enthusiasm for the production was to reach a fever pitch in Taiwan, spreading to mainland China, Hong Kong, Macao, California, London, and beyond. The Flower Princess borrowed the idea of “freshness” from The Peony Pavilion but took a greater risk. Not only were these six actors young, they were also non-professionals.55 They were amateur opera lovers. The female lead Li Peiyan (Lee Pui Yan) had actually emigrated to the United States and graduated from Wellesley College, but her love for yueju led her back to Hong Kong. Liang Shuming, the male lead, learned the art by taking classes at such institutions as the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. Compared to traditional opera actors who devote their entire lives to the art, the actors’ art in The Youth Edition was inevitably somewhat immature and amateur. As for the performance itself, this version was very close to the original but slightly condensed: the original four-hour version was cut down to a three-hour play, with the major reduction coming in the scene “Begging for the Corpse.” The performance venue at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts had a thrust stage and a small auditorium. The scenery was simpler than in traditional Cantonese opera performances, which often employ gaudy backdrops without much correspondence to the plot. In this production, a simple platform represented the Phoenix Terrace (the imperial court), projections were used to create the effect of flying snowflakes and flower petals, and a simple coil of incense indicated the change of setting to a Taoist nunnery. All the singing and movements followed the traditional approach, and the portrayal of characters and the structure of the play were also very close to the original. But the young cast gave the production a very different feeling. This was a smaller and simpler, younger and fresher, even a tender emulation of the most traditional Flower Princess. In the midst of multiple Flower Princess productions, why did the producers of the Youth Edition want to take such a risk, presenting yet another Flower Princess in its traditional flavor without a strong cast or any distinctive approach? The minimalist production at the Academy a few months earlier, though it was also presented by young amateur actors, had at least been able to boast an alternative approach and new interpretation. Except for its promotional aspect, with its open auditions and jury system, The Youth Edition was surprisingly “traditional.” In the audience that night, besides opera scholars and professionals, also sat Pak Suet Sin, the Flower Princess, now in her eighties. My neighbor in

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the audience, Hu Guixin, an opera artist from Singapore, joked with me about how she could detect every tiny error (and she did), because she had played this lead role for 30 years! The Youth Edition was without gimmicks and stars. It was like a defenseless child sincerely and tentatively presenting herself for microscopic international, official, critical, and professional examination. The “raw” performance took place under the scrutiny of all the seasoned artists, including the original princess herself. It also went up against the entire history of The Flower Princess over the preceding half-century. What an audacious attempt it was! But wouldn’t they make a fool of themselves? Why weren’t they afraid? There were indeed signs of immaturity. The female lead’s voice broke a few times and she made some mistakes in her lines. Certain minor characters (guards and maids) also appeared a bit clumsy, a sign of their “instant training.”56 But I found myself uncritically captivated by the young actors. This was my first experience seeing a yueju performance this way. The theatre was modern and sleek, the set was very simple. The auditorium was small, so the feeling was rather intimate. There were many young faces in the crowd, unlike in most yueju performances, where one finds that senior citizens make up the majority of the audience. With younger audience and modern architecture, one experienced the illusion of seeing a contemporary Western-style play. It was indeed a refreshing experience. The production’s freshness and elite setting allowed the audience to appreciate the performance with an open mind. Virtuosity was no longer an issue. The concern was whether these young actors could meet the challenge of acting in a play of historical and artistic significance in a fiftieth-year anniversary performance staged before an international audience. To my mind, they have certainly passed the test. Despite minor imperfections, the story, the acting, and the entire cultural experience were utterly engrossing. The young actors had nothing to lean on except for their own art. The young actors’ care, sincerity, and their simultaneous trepidation and audacity were very moving. The three hours were well spent. The scholars and professionals invited to the conference were handed ballots before the performance. The ballots were collected afterward and the results announced the next day at the farewell banquet.57 At the banquet, where all the actors shared a table, one could see their young smiles without the burden of heavy makeup and centuries of opera tradition. These were just young Hong Kong faces, not members of a pathetic royal family lamenting the end of an era. They appeared carefree and happy.


But the message of the play was still heavy. Sai Shing Yung (Rong Shicheng), a professor and Cantonese opera scholar from Singapore National University, told me that he nearly wept during the performance. Having grown up in Hong Kong, he knows the play by heart, as do most Hong Kongers. And yet, he felt that this production really expressed the sentiment that this was “the end of Hong Kong, the end of yueju.”58 Ye Shaode, a yueju specialist who also delivered a conference paper on training in, and transmission of, yueju in Hong Kong, writes: “I strongly felt that these local young yueju actors could not continue the art of the last generation, although I knew this feeling was not rational.” Trying to be more objective, he states that young actors did a fine job considering that they were beginners. He further explains that the traditional “master-disciple” system of training method seems “out of date,” but that, with the loss of clear lineages in training and with the new emphasis on individuality, traits of certain senior yueju masters will be lost forever.59 As explained in Chapter 1, the loss of liupai, distinctive schools of training and performance style, is one of the challenges jingju has faced as the PRC government has introduced a new training system and director-centered staging method. It is obvious that Hong Kong yueju is experiencing a similar crisis of modernization, and the hasty training for The Flower Princess made keeping distinctive liupai almost impossible. A well-planned, well-promoted, institutionalized, and officially sanctioned production aroused in its audiences unsettled emotions and rational critique. In this respect the performance reflected Hong Kong’s true ambivalence in our time. This performance, with its official and academic support, its hard-working young actors and its full-house audiences – in other words, with the best intentions and effort one could possibly muster in today’s environment – still was not up to par in the view of opera professionals. The general consensus seems to be that the actors’ sincerity and efforts were laudable or moving, but the result was not satisfactory. The rhetoric surrounding the performance shows a Nietzschean oscillation – Apollonian rationality confirms the value of the academic and artistic attempt, whereas Dionysian nostalgia longs for the lost yueju tradition; the Apollonian critical lens finds imperfection and amateurism in the production, while the Dionysian heart is touched by the young actors’ naïveté and hope. All the burning issues regarding yueju today are reflected in this oscillation: The genre is old, the story is old, the audience is old. It takes a lifetime’s devotion to produce quality work. What will happen to the genre when there are no

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longer actors willing to devote their lives to it? How many more years can Pak Suet Sin still charm the senior audiences in Hong Kong? How can one expect any other yueju actors to triumph in this era? What will happen to yueju once Pak and her fans are gone? If the young people’s attempt did not have any impact, what is yueju’s future? Like The Youth Edition, Hong Kong itself is trapped in a sort of ambivalence, full of nostalgic sadness even in the midst of objectively “happy” conditions. Even visitors like myself have been able to sense this ambivalence in recent years. The outlook should be happy and celebratory, because Hong Kong is finally rid of its shameful colonial status and has returned to the bosom of the motherland. The PRC government has preserved Hong Kong’s economy, putting to rest one of the major fears of Hong Kongers before 1997. Nevertheless, ambivalent and pessimistic feelings are still prevalent, partially because of the lack of political agency. “Official” happiness somehow cannot dispel the shadow of pessimism and ambivalence. By 2007, ten years after the return, Hong Kong has undergone a significant transformation. In general, it is much more “Chinese”: that Mandarin is widely heard now, that simplified characters appear on store windows, and that signs reading “Welcome Countrymen” or “We accept RMB” (the PRC currency) are all subtle signs that Hong Kong is now a Sinicized SAR.”60 But the single most visible (and audible) change is the large number of tourists from the mainland crowding hotels, restaurants, and shops everywhere. Rising tourism has brought in capital and stabilized the Hong Kong economy. However, it might have been expected that such Sinicization would not affect the lifestyle of Hong Kongers; after all, the “horses are still running, revelers still dancing” because Hong Kong was promised that it could remain “unchanged.” The year 2007 offered a chance to be hopeful, at least temporarily. At the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) meeting in Australia, Chinese Prime Minister Hu Jintao met with the chief executive of Hong Kong, Donald Tsang Yam-Kuen. Hopes were high: the people of Hong Kong had feared the worst in 1997, but the stable condition after ten years seemed to suggest that a general election to choose their own chief executive was possible for 2008. There was renewed hope for political autonomy, which had earlier been crushed when Hong Kong was removed from the UN’s decolonization list and the colonial government’s “virtual democracy” was sacrificed for the sake of the return. Sadly, in his brief meeting with Tsang, Hu explained that Hong Kong should devote itself to the development of minsheng (literally, “people’s


lives,” i.e., the economy),61 instead of minzhu (literally, “people’s rights,” i.e., democracy).62 It was a slap in the face for Hong Kongers. Minsheng or economic growth had been the focus of the British colonial government, partly for the sake of stabilizing the colony by steering it away from any kind of nationalist conflicts.63 As discussed earlier, the “free” market and “free” port can actually be seen as a gesture of colonial control because Hong Kong remained “free” of any national association. The Tiananmen Square Incident and “virtual democracy” did inspire democratic activists,64 and the question of 1997 did awaken political consciousness in Hong Kong, but the tender germination of democratic desire was extinguished by the minsheng rhetoric of 2007. The hope for political autonomy in 2007 partly explains why there was such a sense of anxiety and desperation behind the production of The Youth Edition. Under normal circumstances, this would have been seen as a simple experiment; however, with such an enormous investment of “hope” in the production, any artistic or technical blunder had significant consequences. An affective identification process was happening during the performance. While the princess could use wailing and crying to threaten the Qing emperor when he did not want to keep his promise, Hong Kong people after 2007 had neither leverage nor ammunition. At their best, social commentary and street protests were equivalent to the useless and hopeless resistance of the princess, who for all her nobility could do no more than stage a spectacular protest and kill herself. Abandoned by the Qing government more than a century earlier, Hong Kong then experienced another abandonment by the British. One could not help but wonder: how many more years will Hong Kong audiences still applaud (or cry for) such an uncompromising suicide? As many contemporary versions of The Flower Princess are completely devoid of political meaning, perhaps what remains for this modern classic is only to post a pathetic woman in a beautiful story. So the young actors’ efforts were laudable, but for them, as for the student protestors in Tiananmen Square, the outcome was tragic. It was doubly pathetic because despite the young people’s passion and devotion, the fate of the princess, or Hong Kong, could not be altered. Like student protestors in Tiananmen and later street protestors in Hong Kong, who carried out their demonstrations before the cameras of the international media, these young actors had a chance to be in the spotlight at the international conference, but their limited exposure in a single performance, once again only confirmed that their resistance was futile. The greatest irony was when members of the jury voted for the best actor after the performance. Even this “historic” suffrage was

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limited to a privileged few.65 When all was said and done, the protests and voting were just part of a play! As the production took place on 7 September (seventh day, the ninth month; “9-7” as the Chinese refer to the date), it recalled the memory of 1997, colonial Hong Kong’s expiration date. 1997 and all the attendant anxieties were revisited, and Hong Kong’s pre-97 character was commemorated before an international audience. The elegy of Hong Kong was sung one more time, with fresher and younger voices and with care and sincerity. The only comfort was that the ceremony of mourning was at least staged by Hong Kongers themselves. C 1997: nostalgia, mourning, and the death of fragrance (a view from the center) 1997 marked a “happy” moment in Chinese history when Hong Kong could finally put behind it its years as a British colony. Final countdowns in public squares and on Chinese TV, celebratory programs, and speeches were all part of the return festivities. Return (huigui) is the term that the PRC government adopted long before 1997 as it legitimized its position as the original owner of Hong Kong and the creditor of the British. The British, on the other hand, used the term “handover,” as if Great Britain and China were equal shareholders in the ownership of Hong Kong. The 1997 event was merely a business transaction; there was no guilt, no debt, no interest payment, no shameful colonial past, no threat to British glory. Whether it was being returned or handed over, Hong Kong was caught between the different political discourses. On the rainy night of 30 June 1997, just before midnight, the Union Jack and the Hong Kong colonial flag were slowly lowered to the accompaniment of the British national anthem. A somber Prince of Wales stood by, having just given a farewell speech on behalf of Queen Elizabeth II.66 On the other side of the transaction, the mood was ecstatic but cautious. To mark the Chinese “takeover,” public final countdowns and celebration ceremonies had been held in multiple locations, and there had been seven hours of live performances and fireworks in Beijing, along with a meeting between Tony Blair and Jiang Zemin. Of course the truly decisive gesture came when the People’s Liberation Army crossed the border to be stationed in Hong Kong. Yu Siu Wah (Yu Shaohua), in his Out of Chaos and Coincidence: Hong Kong Music Culture, brilliantly analyzes some of the return celebration activities, which sometimes reflected the historical irony of Hong Kong’s situation and sometimes displayed implicit messages of control and overt gestures of appeasement from the Chinese government. The “Celebration


Committee,” the committee in charge of all the return festivities, commissioned Tan Dun, the world famous Chinese avant-garde composer, to compose a grand piece to celebrate the return. In Symphony 1997: Heaven, Earth, Man (Jiaoxiangqu 1997: Tian, di, ren), Tan used his usual composition techniques: quotation, collage, cut and paste, and recycling. He included the familiar folk tune “Jasmine” (Molihua) as a reference both to the Chinese original and to Puccini’s Orientalized imitation in Turandot. Another special feature was the sound of the ancient bells. These large sets of pitched bronze bells (bianzhong) were ceremonial instruments invented more than two millennia ago, an undeniable visual and aural symbol of the central power of the orthodox Chinese.67 Tan Dun also recycled some of his own music and incorporated some Hong Kong local flavor: Symphony 1997 quotes both Tan’s theme song for the film Don’t Cry, Nanking (Nanjing datusha or Nanjing, 1937)68 and the song from the scene “Death of Fragrance” (Xiangyao) from The Flower Princess. Ironically, in their original contexts both songs represent extreme sadness and trauma. The massacre of Nanjing refers to the 1937 incident in which Japanese slaughtered countless innocent citizens in Nanjing. A heightened Chinese nationalism, accompanied by strong anti-Japanese sentiments, attends memories of the incident. An implicit connection is drawn between the British “devils” who colonized Hong Kong and the Japanese troops who carried out the massacre. The reference to the historical tragedy of Nanjing arouses a kind of xenophobia. Hatred against the Japanese, British, and any foreign regime is an effective way of reasserting Chinese nationalism.69 In The Flower Princess, “Death of Fragrance” is the final song before the double suicide and therefore represents noble Chinese martyrdom; among Hong Kongers it is the most popular yueju song and a symbol of Hong Kong’s identity. Wasn’t the return supposed to be a happy incident? Why was Tan’s celebratory piece full of ominous tunes? Is historical trauma always part of “Chinese identity” when the latter is held up for the consideration of international audiences?70 As noted above, “Death of Fragrance” is about the death of the princess, “fragrance” being a metaphor for female beauty in Chinese poetry. Her death is a protest against the new dynasty but also a celebration of her new freedom: she is finally able to attain her identity as a Han Chinese, as wife, as martyr. Her death is doubled as nuptial bliss. This tragic beauty and this romanticized martyrdom make the play function in the popular realm, as a classic, and as a medium for Han Chinese nationalist expression. On the other hand, the death of The Flower Princess is first forced upon her by her father and later suggested by

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her betrothed. As for Hong Kong, it is never voluntary. In the hardest of times, she hides, recovers from her injury, and survives under the cover of an assumed identity, her disguise as a nun. Hers is a basic human instinct: to live! Her final death, like those of the many female characters who have committed suicide on stage throughout history, can be seen as the apotheosis of womanhood and as a reflection of male anxiety under extreme circumstances. As scholarship, politics and militarism – representatives of patriarchal power in ordinary times – lose their effectiveness, at least women still follow the patriarchal mandate to sacrifice themselves. While male suicide might inspire patriotism, it is also easily identified as dangerous political dissent; a beautiful woman’s death, on the other hand, can always be appreciated as something romantic, pathetic, and apolitical.71 As Yu Siu Wah suggests, “fragrance” also stands for Hong Kong, in Chinese literally “the fragrant port.” Yueju’s most famous song, “Death of Fragrance,” therefore becomes an elegy for Hong Kong and, through a familiar gesture of female sacrifice, affirms the city’s lack of subjectivity. The citation of “Death of Fragrance” in Symphony 1997 is actually handled by playing the voice of a street performer recorded live on Temple Street. Temple Street (Miaojie), located in Hong Kong’s busy Yau Ma Tai (Youmadi) district, is frequented by traditional street performers and vendors. Including this recording adds a folksy flavor and memories of old local traditions; at the same time the composer, like an ethnographer, claims to be presenting “authentic” records from his field research in his “writing.” Tan’s musical ethnography is very intriguing: in the symphony, the melody of The Flower Princess fades out before it reaches its end, as the sound of the large bronze bells fades in and drowns it out. These large bells, with their heavy symbolism, reaffirm central Chinese hegemony and the claim of orthodox tradition, both in music and in politics. The local voice of the lone singer sounds lonely and frail, insubstantial, and extremely feminine, compared to the loud masculine sound of multiple bronze bells and full symphony orchestra. Moreover, the street performer, whose voice symbolizes Hong Kong’s local character and its death, remains anonymous.72 She is faceless and nameless, her voice first collected as an ethnographic specimen and later consumed by international audiences. Symphony 1997 functions as an ethnographic document of Hong Kong in 1997: the distinctive Hong Kong identity is celebrated as a marginal voice that is later smothered by orthodox ethnographic discourse. Ackbar Abbas cautions us that marginal positionality can easily be stabilized by the center by being represented as token.73 Tan Dun’s


Symphony 1997 takes a further step, murdering tokenized Hong Kong marginality. The anonymous Hong Kong local cannot even finish its own elegy before submitting to the Chinese center and orthodox tradition. Archaic local street performance, like most traditional arts already well on its way to extinction, is snuffed out before it has a chance to live out its natural lifespan. The brief quotation from “Death of Fragrance” captures the nostalgic flavor of Hong Kong’s local character, but is this truly a “local” nostalgia? The song is performed by a local artist, but once it has been co-opted into the mainstream, its local identity is under erasure. This nostalgia is a fictionalized nostalgia for the local, a mourning for the death of Hong Kong by the center. This kind of nostalgia is close to what cultural anthropologist Renato Rosaldo terms “imperialist nostalgia.” Discussing colonialism and racial domination, Rosaldo speaks of a kind of yearning for what one has destroyed and a mourning for the passing of what one has transformed. In the imperialist context, this notion is associated with progress: “when the so-called civilizing process destabilizes forms of life, the agents of change experience transformations of other cultures as if they were personal losses.” The industrialist mourns for nature, the colonizer mourns for savage ways of life.74 The Chinese center and the orthodox tradition mourn for the provincialism and barbarism of Hong Kong. The frail singing from Temple Street is the swan song of “the vanishing savage” in James Clifford’s words;75 it is commemorated by the center in a gesture of sympathetic “imperialist nostalgia” before it gives its life over to the process of being “civilized” and “centralized.” By honoring the vanishing savage of the local, the center also eternalizes the local other and posits itself as a savior in the “savage ethnography”: “The other is lost, in disintegrating time and space, but saved in the text.”76 The decolonization process is then administered not by the local “indigenous” population, but by the new regime, the new colonizer. The imperialist nostalgia for yueju, similar to the Qing emperor’s pacification gesture toward the princess, aims to capture Hong Kongers’ hearts and to create a real return. To speak more generally, Symphony 1997 also functions as an act of national mourning. The theme song from the film Massacre of Nanjing emphasizes the central Chinese position in the lyrics: “Don’t cry, Nanjing; Don’t cry, baby.” The return becomes a process in which the colonial Hong Kong is first declared dead (through “Death of Fragrance”), and then nurtured back to life and cradled and comforted like a lost child in its mother’s bosom (“Don’t cry, baby”). Hong Kong people are encouraged to participate in their own funeral in order to be

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reborn in a new foster home. How can one ensnared in such a historical and political tangle not feel perplexed, enraged, and powerless? The orphaned young princess is pathetic and confused, but proud nonetheless, but for the rage, helplessness, and hopelessness of the Hong Kongers at the time of the return there is no outlet. July 1997 saw record high rainfall in Hong Kong; it was Hong Kong weeping for its own loss and singing its own elegy on the eve of the happy return. A staged national mourning and imperial nostalgia can also redirect people’s energy to political purposes. A perfect example was the recent “national mourning” for victims of the Sichuan earthquake, which killed tens of thousands and left millions homeless. On 19 May 2008, exactly one week after the quake, the Chinese government announced three days of national mourning: flags were lowered and the Olympic torch relay was stopped. The climax came at 2:28 PM, one week to the minute after the quake struck, when everyone in China was told to cease all activity and to be silent for three minutes. Ironically, the “silence” was filled with a loud “wailing” as cars, trains, and ships all sounded their horns at the same time. After the three minutes’ “silence,” people gathered, holding national flags or banners, shouting “Go Sichuan!” The cheer for the local, Sichuan, quickly changed to “Go, China!” and “Long Live China!” TV news showed thousands of people gathering at public spaces like Tiananmen Square to honor the victims and to express their patriotism.77 This ingenious “national mourning” transformed anger at the corrupt local government into sympathy for the victims and fervent love of the nation.78 By stopping the Olympic torch relay to make space for mourning for the earthquake victims, China also made a show of humanitarianism to the world, hoping to neutralize the brutality and violence that the Chinese government had inflicted upon Tibetans.79 The victims under the rubble were transformed into fuel for post-traumatic nationalism.

Nostalgia, loss and mourning (views from the local) Peter Homans, in his introduction to Symbolic Loss, describes certain mourning practices from the earlier history of Western civilization.80 One important practice in the Middle Ages was “the tame death,” the subject of a study by Philippe Ariès: the dying man and his community are fully aware of the upcoming death, and all the sadness and mourning are shared and made public. One can even say the dying man is “in charge,” and the affective burden of the loss is born by the community in the rituals it orchestrates.81 The tame death is thus a public one,


mourning for which becomes a shared experience. However, as Homans indicates, mourning practices have fallen into a sharp decline in the modern era: Darwin’s concept of grief as a biological fact of primate life and Freud’s notion of mourning as a person’s inner experience differ greatly from the public and social notion of death and mourning in the Middle Ages. Mourning has become private and individualized and very often requires the help of psychologists and psychiatrists. Inability to mourn is a modern phenomenon.82 “The inability to mourn” is linked to Freudian melancholia: it is “a loss of the kind that has been experienced, but one cannot see clearly what has been lost. This would suggest that melancholia is in some ways related to an unconscious loss of a love-object, in contradistinction to mourning, in which there is nothing unconscious about the loss.”83 In Freud’s view, the lost love-object could be a person, an idea, or some form of abstraction (liberty, country); as extended by Homans, “symbolic loss refers to the loss of an attachment to a political ideology or religious creed, and to the inner work of coming to terms with this kind of loss.” What is lost is usually “sociohistorical, cognitive, and collective. The lost object is a symbol or rather a system of symbols and not a person.”84 This brief digression provides another insight into the sociopolitical function of The Flower Princess. As explained earlier, for some, Hong Kong functioned as a refuge, a safe haven from the PRC in times of turmoil. Waves of immigration from China were seen after 1949, during the Cultural Revolution, and after the Tiananmen Square Incident. For some others, Hong Kong is a “floating world” that exists in “borrowed place, borrowed time.” Richard Hughes put it bluntly: “It is the only human habitation in the world that knows when it will die – 1997.” However, writing in the 1960s, Hughes believed that there was no stress or despair concerning the expiration date, because “borrowed time is as good as any.”85 The notion of borrowing challenges the very ontology of Hong Kong because of the question of ownership. A pawn, booty, a prize – the token of the Sino-British relations is seen as an attachment that can be easily detached from Great Britain and reattached to the Chinese center. Even though some scholars like Hughes believe Hong Kongers of the 1960s showed no political consciousness, at least the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration served as a reminder of the terminal date for the decadent “free” lifestyle. Or rather, it was the signal of the beginning of the tame death rituals. The future had been decided, so the best Hong Kongers could do was to cope with the loss, through “rituals”

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and “rites.” Various patterns of behaviors might be cited here: first of all, fear of possible political and economic instability brought about by the communist regime inspired large numbers of Hong Kongers to emigrate. This agony was aggravated by the 1989 Tiananmen Square Incident. Major emigrations started in the 1980s, with numbers almost tripling in the early 1990s. As most of the emigrants were younger well-educated members of the middle class who could speak English (and therefore preferred to emigrate to the United States, Canada, and Australia), the “brain drain” over two decades certainly left its marks on the society.86 The “vote of no confidence” was also expressed in another form: suicide. According to a study by the WHO (World Health Organization), the suicide rate among Hong Kong residents rose steadily from 1990 to 2005, with the rate among men consistently much higher than among women.87 Loss of confidence in Hong Kong’s future, expressed in writing, speech, protests, performances, and even through emigration and suicide, amounted to a collective form of local “tame death.” Every Hong Kong resident was watching and preparing for the end. However, since the colonial government was responsible only for the “handover” and the “takeover” was entirely the business of the Chinese government, the object being trafficked and exchanged – Hong Kong – had no authority or autonomy to stage its own mourning. Hong Kong’s voice was not heard; Hong Kong’s true shareholders had no part in the trading. If the melancholia surrounding the 1997 handover was part of the long process of local “tame death,” then Symphony 1997 was an expression of China’s “imperialist nostalgia,” a gesture of mourning for the lost Hong Kong character on the eve of murder. The princess, the anonymous street performer, and Hong Kong are all the objects of this imperialist nostalgia, the “vanishing savage,” and necessary sacrifices for the progress of a unified China. If The Flower Princess is seen as a general allegory for Hong Kong’s demise, then The Youth Edition might be understood as an expression of Hong Kongers’ nostalgia and self-mourning. Unlike Pak Suet Sin’s canonical performance, multiple variations or satire of the classic, The Youth Edition was a conscious gesture, an attempt to stage the classic with a new meaning. It was a local performance of reflective nostalgia and self-mourning to express the ambivalence of Hong Kong’s postcolonial/neocolonial existence in the transnational context; even more significantly, the self-mourning was staged by young people. As mentioned in earlier discussion, Svetlana Boym states that while restorative nostalgia is often seen in nationalist reconstructions of national memory, symbol, myth, and culture,


reflective nostalgia reminds one of loss and the impossibility of return. In reflective nostalgia, the past is fragmented and different levels of the past are compounded into the present and connected to the future. The Youth Edition was perhaps originally instituted as a restorative nostalgic gesture, as a hopeful attempt to restore Hong Kong’s “national” memory through the most familiar opera, aided by young people’s passion and an international gaze. The general success of The Youth Edition seemed to prove that a Hong Kong national past was obtainable, at least temporarily, in performance; however, the ambivalence people felt about the performance showed that all references to the past – the colonial history, the glorious yueju tradition, the June Fourth massacre, the hopeless and helpless protest – are compressed and coexist with the present. The existence of multiple pasts in the future is what Deleuze called the “contemporaneity of past and present” and Bergson identified in his “cone” theory.88 This coexistence of present and past was connected with the future in the international jury’s symbolic action of voting. Failed restorative nostalgia was transformed into reflective nostalgia and realized in an act of self-mourning. The performance of self-mourning confronts reality and declares a limited form of autonomy. While members of the selected jury exercised their right to “vote,” the actors exercised their right to mourn for themselves through an “authentic” performance of “Death of Fragrance.” The ambivalent reception of The Youth Edition also reflected an extended mourning for the demise of yueju and the demise of Hong Kong’s identity. Just as Huang Yunshan created the original Flower Princess in the mid-Qing, when restoring the Ming was an unimaginable task, the twenty-first-century Flower Princess had no political leverage and its restorative nostalgia could have no actual effect. The most it could do was to offer a gesture of selfmourning from the local. If Hong Kong could not have an autonomous life, it could at least stage its own death and mourning. The student protest in Tiananmen Square began as mourning for Hu Yaobang, a pro-democracy PRC official, but the massacre interrupted the mourning rituals. The trauma and mass arrests afterwards made it impossible for the protesters to mourn their own sufferings. It was Hong Kongers who took up the burden of mourning for the June Fourth massacre: every year on the anniversary of the massacre, protesters take to the street to commemorate student martyrs and to advocate democracy in Hong Kong. In 2009, for the twentieth anniversary of the incident, 8000 people marched with such slogans as: “Don’t forget June Fourth. Carry on heroic deeds. Generation to generation, pass on the torch of Democracy” (Wuwang Liusi. Jicheng yingliezhi. Xinhuo xiangchuan, jiehao

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minzhubang).89 Ironically, this mourning on behalf of the center is not seen by the center, as the PRC media did not cover the protests, and public access to such networking tools as Youtube and Twitter was blocked by the PRC government before the anniversary.90 While the protesters loudly staged their annual commemoration, The Youth Edition took up the torch of yueju and subtly joined in the mourning for the students of Tiananmen Square, for the vanished street performer quoted in Symphony 1997, and for Hong Kong’s younger generations. As long as people still take to the streets, the torch of democracy (or the torch of the hope for democracy) is still held high; as long as The Flower Princess still dies for her beliefs, the solidarity of Hong Kong identity is remembered and re-enacted.

Conclusion On many levels, Tong Dik Sang’s The Flower Princess can be seen as the ultimate symbol of Hong Kong character. It is an indigenous, madein-Hong Kong kind of yueju, not yueju from the PRC. It is a modern creation based on a classical story. It is a play about transition, as Hong Kong has always served as a transitional place, especially during transitional times. It is about loss: loss of identity, loss of the past, loss of memory. It is about hybridity: modern and traditional, old and new, the theatrical ephemerality and the digital eternality. It is about useless resistance and futile attempts to restore an original that never existed in the first place. Finally, it is a play about choice: no matter how pathetic the outcome might be, the lovers exercise their right to choose death. In all respects the play captures an element of Hong Kong’s self-image. The youth Flower Princess performed 50 years later, on the other hand, represents a new attempt to speak up for a distinctive Hong Kong identity in the postcolonial/neocolonial situation. Defining Hong Kong identity is harder than ever under the new regime, as the differences between Hong Kongers and PRC citizens are disappearing in the process of assimilation. Some might appreciate the stability that the new regime has brought, some are still anxious about the future when the SAR constitution, the Basic Law, expires, and some might be nostalgic for the “floating world,” when national allegiance seemed to be a free choice. The ambivalent existence of the floating word also offers a space for resistance and dream. The flourishing local yueju and the global market in movies and popular music are illusions of “freedom of choice” that Hong Kongers created for themselves and for the world


before the fin de siècle. The seriousness and sincerity of The Youth Edition destroy the escapist dream; now it is time to face reality. By way of the few performances discussed above, I have hoped to show how this play has become part of the Hong Kong psyche and part of a clear Hong Kong identity defined against a Chinese identity. For outsiders, The Flower Princess is a Hong Kong classic, a harmless antique favored only by senior citizens; Hong Kong always projects an image of being sleek, modern, energetic, Western, and carefree. However, for Hong Kong people, the original political import – whether it is an elegy for the Ming or as panegyric to the Qing – is never forgotten, so any rendering of the play is full of topical significance. The protest against hegemony, the passionate martyrdom, and rejection of compromise, all performed by the fragile princess, are actions that Hong Kongers did not take and would never have a chance to take. Repeated dramatizations in the past half a century have created an imagined nation in which Hong Kong consciousness has found a home. The ironies inherent in the play – a double suicide in the course of a wedding, a pathetic ending coinciding with a glorious beginning – also aptly fit Hong Kong’s moment of return. Abandoned by the Chinese father more than a century ago, Hong Kong has grown up under the British and acquired its own sense of self, and a forcible new adoption by the Chinese guardian is not universally welcomed. The return (being Chinese again) was characterized by an irrational feeling of ambivalence, an ironic mixture of resentment and sorrow. Therefore, The Youth Edition, under the disguise of preserving a Hong Kong classic, gained official sponsorship from both the local and center and had an opportunity to stage for one more time Hong Kong’s protest and mourning before the world audience. Moreover, it demonstrated a sense of transnational Hong Kong identity as both performers and audience were made up of domestic/local and diasporic/international Hong Kongers. The feeble attempt to demonstrate a transnational Hong Kong identity in The Youth Edition is a cry from the peripheries, whose voices are often stifled. “Fallen petals fill the sky and obscure the moonlight […].” As long as Hong Kong still weeps for the fallen petals, Hong Kong will still stubbornly hold onto its identity, despite its new guardian. No one can predict whether Hong Kong will “remain unchanged for fifty years” or how much longer Hong Kongers will mourn the death of the princess. One can only hope that The Youth Edition was not the last note of the Hong Kong elegy, the last note of Hong Kong yueju.

3 The Blossoming of the Transnational Peony: Performing Alternative China in California

Is it over? I haven’t got enough yet! This surprising remark, a bit like the complaint of a spoiled child, was heard from a young member of the audience of the one hundredth performance of The Young Lovers’ Edition of The Peony Pavilion in Beijing on May 11, 2007. Throughout the performance she had been texting on her cell phone, talking to her friend, and occasionally snapping photos of the dramatic action, and yet she felt absorbed in the story and wanted even more, after the three-hour performance. This sort of remark would have been unthinkable a decade ago, when traditional Chinese opera seemed to have lived out its life. The Peony Pavilion (Mudanting, 1598), mistakenly nicknamed “the Chinese Romeo and Juliet,” has enjoyed a striking popularity since its 2004 marvelous rebirth in a unique production known as The Young Lovers’ Edition (Qingchun ban).1 Now viewed as the most representative play from the whole history of kunqu (kun opera), The Peony Pavilion has survived dynastic change and political calamity and has been challenged and refined by different schools of training and performance interpretation, but it has always been recognized as kunqu’s most magnificent artistic achievement and most stable anchor. The recent international recognition granted kunqu may have contributed to the success of the production: in 1998, the celebrated kunqu diva Hua Wenyi (1942–) was designated a National Heritage Fellow by the National Endowment for the Arts, and the kunqu genre was recognized by UNESCO as a “Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.”2 Nevertheless, the seemingly perpetual glory of the art still faces an unending battle with modernization and westernization in the process of globalization. It is quite unfathomable that such an archaic form – with its classical language, its difficult literary allusions, its slow 98

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dance movements and its premodern style of singing – could win back its popularity and attract many young audience members in the twentyfirst century. Everyone believes that it was the irresistible charisma of the producer and creator of the production, Pai Hsien-yung (Bai Xianyong, Kenneth Pai, 1937–), that brought about this triumph. Unlike many international performances, which tend to rely on tokenism for quick recognition and easy consumption – an example would be jingju’s use of the painted face – Pai Hsien-yung’s The Peony Pavilion: the Young Lovers’ Edition took a very different approach. It was painstakingly produced in an effort to represent traditional Chinese art in the most exquisite manner, with every detail attended to and with record-breaking levels of private capital and manpower to draw on for support. A “return” of the investment – not in the form of monetary profit, but in the form of cultural capital and cultural nationalism – was generated by the transnational Chinese. The success of the production depended heavily on the belief in a transnational China built by the Chinese transnational capitalist class. Peony China, or the Young Lovers’ China is a new Chinese nation that attempts to utilize global capitalism to bypass national, cultural, political, and even personal boundaries. A few key concepts, intrinsic to the success of the production, must be explained in advance of the discussion. These are pertinent to the explanation of the play in its historical, cultural, and transnational dimensions.

Keywords to The Peony Pavilion A

The scholar (wenren)

The concept of the scholar or literatus is basic to The Peony Pavilion. The play was written by the celebrated scholar Tang Xianzu (1550–1616) and appreciated by literati in his time and ever since, and it has generated extensive scholarship in numerous languages. The play follows a familiar pattern found in many “talented-scholar-beautiful-maiden” (caizi jiaren) stories. The career of the talented scholar Liu Mengmei develops throughout the course of the play, the beautiful maiden Du Liniang and a glorious success in the Imperial Examination coming as rewards at the end. But because the scholar Liu Mengmei has so strong a faith in love that he can go beyond life and death to resurrect Du Liniang, he becomes the most ideal and beloved romantic lover in all of Chinese opera. Taking advantage of Pai Hsien-yung’s literary reputation, this production aimed to attract college students and professors, writers and artists – that is, the modern literati. The California tour was

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restricted to four campuses of the University of California. The elite art’s dependence on scholarly consumption was accepted as a given in the promotion of this production. The operatic genre kunqu, one of the oldest existing forms of Chinese traditional theatre, was the dominant form in the middle and late Ming dynasty (1368–1644). In the middle Qing dynasty, or roughly the eighteenth century, kunqu began its decline as local drama began to flourish in its place. Many people consider The Peony Pavilion the highest achievement of the art of kunqu. Peony is one of “four dreams” written by Tang Xianzu: The Story of the Purple Hairpin (Zichai ji), The Story of Nanke (Nanke ji), The Story of Handan (Handan ji), and The Peony Pavilion. All four dreams go beyond the realm of realism, into the transcendental worlds of Daoism and Buddhism; they are quite literally “marvel” plays.3 As one of the most celebrated scholars and playwrights in Chinese history and a contemporary of Shakespeare, Tang is often compared with the Bard. The Peony Pavilion (1598) has, as noted, been referred to as the “Chinese Romeo and Juliet.” This type of simple cross-cultural comparison has limited validity, as generalization and tokenism seem to be the base of the comparison. Aoki Masaru, writing in 1930, was probably one of the first to draw this cross-cultural comparison; in his History of Chinese Theatre in Recent Times he writes, “the masters of East and West lived in the same era. How marvelous!”4 Unlike Shakespeare, a working playwright who was not held up as a laureate by his contemporaries, Tang was born into a gentry family, earned the highest honor, the jinshi or “metropolitan graduate” degree, in the Imperial Examinations, and enjoyed the highest respect of his literati peers. He was not successful in his administrative career, and he retired early. The Peony Pavilion was written in retirement, as an elite form of drama and certainly without consideration for the groundlings, the unsophisticated, of his time. Tang Xianzu and The Peony Pavilion have been the subjects of scholarly studies for centuries. Contemporary kunqu scholars such as Wang An-Ch’i, Wu Xinlei, Zhou Qin, Yang Zhenliang, Zou Yuanjiang, Hua Wei and Zeng Yongyi have all written and lectured extensively on the play and the playwright.5 English publications on the subject include those of Catherine Swatek, Tina Lu, Judith Zeitlin, and others.6 In recent years, The Young Lovers’ Edition also inspired many international conferences and collaborative projects.7 Four hundred years after its birth, The Peony Pavilion has become an inexhaustible source of scholarly inspiration and a focal point for improvised scholarly communities.


B People of elegance (yashi) Like the peony, which is regarded as the king of flowers, The Peony Pavilion carries elite connotations. From its original context to mid-twentieth-century productions by the celebrated male dan Mei Lanfang, late-twentieth-century performances by famous female dan Hua Wenyi and Zhang Jiqing, and the international production by Peter Sellars (Vienna, 1998) and Chen Shizheng (Lincoln Center, 1999), Peony Pavilion productions have regularly been presented as elite or high art. As only a very small number of kunqu plays are still in circulation, The Peony represents the cream of the crop, the most exquisite piece in the most exquisite genre. In spite of, or perhaps because of, its small circulation, kunqu has always been the province of the so-called “people of elegance” (yashi). Ya, “gracefulness” or “elegance,” is defined in opposition to su (or tu), “vulgarity” or “folksiness.” Musically, it can refer to yabu (“elegant music,” the class kunqu belongs to) as opposed to huabu (“flowery music,” the class jingju belongs to). Ya suggests grace, beauty, an aristocratic cultural superiority. Pai Hsien-yung chose the term “high tune” (qugao), indicating elite taste, for the title of one of his collections of Peony essays.8 In the case of The Young Lovers’ Edition, this sort of elite elegance denotes a sense of artistic, psychological, and spiritual fulfillment sought by “golden patrons” (more on whom below) as an adornment for their personal financial success. By their charitable support of kunqu performances, these wealthy patrons fashion themselves as a cultural and artistic elite, people of elegance. Although elitism and elegance do not come automatically with material success, capital is nevertheless an indispensable tool for bringing aesthetic “elegance” into one’s life. The Lincoln Center, Peter Sellars, academic associations, and the love of self-proclaimed “people of elegance” – all these suggest that no matter how “dated” Peony might be, it retains its highbrow status. Its uncompromising aristocratic aura is perhaps one of its major attractions for modern audiences. C

Love Has the world ever seen a woman’s love to rival that of Bridal Du [Du Liniang]? […] To be as Bridal Du is truly to have known love. Love is of source unknown, yet it grows ever deeper. The living may die of it, by its power the dead live again. Love is not love at its fullest if one who lives is unwilling to die for it, or if it cannot restore to life one who has so died.9

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The passage comes from Tang Xianzu’s 1598 preface to the play. The love (qing) he refers to here, transcending life and death, has been regarded as love in its highest form. According to a legend recorded by Jiao Xun (1763–1820) in his On Drama (Jushuo), an actress from Hangzhou named Shang Xiaoling, famous for her portrayal of Du Liniang, fell victim to an unrequited love. Identifying deeply with Du Liniang, she played the character with true sorrow. One day, while performing the scene “Pursuing the Dream” (Xunmeng), she sang: “Let me commit my fragrant spirit, though rains be dank and drear, to keep company with this apricot’s [plum’s] roots.”10 With tears streaming down her face, she collapsed and stopped breathing.11 Another famous episode in the lore of the play comes from the beloved novel The Dream of the Red Chamber (Honglou meng) by Cao Xueqin (1724?–1764?), which provides a glimpse of kunqu performance in the Qing period. The rich Jia family owns an all-female kunqu troupe, and the novel’s heroine Lin Daiyu sorrows as she overhears the troupe rehearsing The Peony Pavilion. Daiyu even quotes famous lines from the play in a poetry contest: “‘Bright the morn, lovely the scene,’ listless and lost the heart – where is the garden ‘gay with joyous cries’?” (“Interrupted Dream”).12 Readers of the novel recognize The Peony Pavilion as the romantic inspiration for the novel’s beloved young lovers Lin Daiyu and Jia Baoyu. In the world of literary commentary and criticism, The Peony Pavilion was an inexhaustible source of inspiration. Centering on the theme of love, many of these commentaries were generated by women writers.13 As seen in the examples cited above, The Peony Pavilion has long served as a touchstone for the highest state of love. It represents the truest, bravest, and deepest form of love, the most idealized and most enviable kind of love. Constantly reappearing in different guises, Du Liniang is what Judith Zeitlin would call a “phantom heroine,” the female ghost who reappears in different literary and artistic works. Although Zeitln’s focus is on the seventeenth century, one can clearly see how these ghosts travel through time and space and present themselves in different media (poetry, literature, theatre, and even film).14 Here I would like to extend the notion of phantom further and see love (the Peony type of love) itself as the phantom character whose reincarnation still haunts us. While the reference to Peony or Du Liniang does not mean much to today’s young audience, love can still live on. The possibility of experiencing true love in such a slow, indirect, delicate, but romantic way contrasts sharply with the fast-paced virtual world with its seemingly unlimited freedoms, a world where many of today’s youngsters


“live.” Without much help from modern technology, the audience had to experience the work bodily – that is, to sit through the entire production with immense patience – instead of virtually. Perhaps this kind of experience in the restrictions of “real time” was a sort of novelty for the younger audiences.15 For older audiences, by contrast, the love story was a journey into an imaginary world where their avatars, so to speak, could be young, beautiful, and passionate again. In Tang Xianzu’s play, love transcends life and death; in productions of Peony, love transcends time and space to excite, comfort, and unite audiences from different generations and different geographical origins. The play’s scholarly status as high literature, its theatrical status as high art, and its universal appeal as a token of romantic love form the play’s unique identity, which has been cherished by Peony circles across the centuries. The Young Lovers’ Edition has benefited immensely from this solid foundation. But much work remains to be done if the play is to continue to enjoy transnational success in the new millennium.

Peony productions Before discussing The Young Lovers’ Edition, I will provide a brief history of productions of The Peony Pavilion. The Peony Pavilion is in the repertoire of every kunqu troupe, although not every troupe can perform the entire play. It is not clear whether The Peony Pavilion was ever performed in its entirety, all 55 scenes, from start to finish, before our own era. The play has been known largely through the reading of published versions of the script and performances of its highlights in the form of zhezixi (“excerpted scenes”).16 By the twentieth century, only a few famous scenes were regularly performed. It is said that Suzhou’s Quanfu Troupe, which in the 1920s was the only existing orthodox southern kunqu troupe, preserved an original performance menu of 12 scenes, the largest number in any troupe’s repertoire at that time. The Japanese invasion broke up most kunqu troupes, but when kunqu was revived by the Zhejiang Kunqu Company in 1956, Peony re-entered the regular repertoire. Mei Lanfang (1894–1961) and Yu Zhenfei (1902–1993) performed scenes from the play together three times (in 1934, 1945, and 1959), in 1959 for the sake of making a film, with a spectacular dance by 12 actors. In the 1980s and 1990s, there were numerous productions of selected scenes, with famous actors such as Hua Wenyi and Zhang Jiqing playing the role of Du Liniang. Another film was made in 1985, with Zhang Jiqing as Du Liniang.17

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In Taiwan, kunqu did not receive the express support of the KMT government as jingju did in the early years. But it was never banned and therefore preserved its performance traditions and popularity within small circles of kunqu lovers, very often within colleges. A number of important productions involving Pai Hsien-yung will be discussed in the next section. In the transnational context, two major productions are worth mentioning: Peter Sellars’s production with Hua Wenyi (1998) and Chen Shizheng’s “complete” production of 1999.18 Peter Sellars met Hua Wenyi in 1990 while organizing the Los Angeles Arts Festival. It took him a few years to realize his unique vision of The Peony Pavilion with music composed by China’s rising avant-garde composer Tan Dun. The final production was a hybrid performance mixing traditional kunqu, Western-style opera, modern ballet, and naturalistic Western acting style, in an abstract set enhanced by multimedia staging. Neon lights, images projected on multiple screens, loud music, and non-stop dancing helped achieve Sellars’s aim of “much too much.”19 Hua Wenyi’s performance of passages from the scene “Interrupted Dream” was handled in the traditional kunqu style, though without kunqu makeup and costume. Hua appeared as herself, a middle-aged woman in a pantsuit, not a 16-year-old maiden from the sixteenth century yearning for love. In contrast to the rest of the “much too much” performance, Hua’s performance accentuated the beauty and simplicity of kunqu itself. This production premiered in Vienna in 1998 and in the United States in 1999. With The Peony Pavilion framed in a much larger contemporary story, Sellars’s version included two parallel stories, one ancient, one modern. Sellars’s Peony was probably the first international production of the play on such a grand scale.20 Sellars’s Peony was a high-brow, avant-garde, and somewhat incomprehensible production. Its ideal audience was perhaps the European cultural elite. Chen Shizheng’s 1999 production seemed to target American wealthy patrons with a more popular taste. His Peony claimed to be the most “original,” “complete,” and “authentic” production: it included all 55 scenes and lasted around 20 hours in a three-day period, at the Lincoln Center.21 American audiences were introduced to an “authentic” experience of Chinese theatre: the stage was transformed into a Chinese garden complete with a pavilion and live ducks swimming and quacking in a real pond. The audience was also encouraged (or instructed) to chat, applaud, and move around freely during the performance; various folk arts such as stilt-walking were included to create a spectacle of China replete with polychromatic, polyphonic,


multicultural thrills. The original plan – with a cast from the Shanghai Kunqu Company – had to be altered because the Chinese government had banned the production and forbidden the troupe to travel to the United States; Chen was forced to scramble to rebuild his cast from the local and global resources available to him. This act of “political oppression” by the “evil” Chinese government made for an enhanced sensation for the American audience, much as the “banned in China” label became a prerequisite for Chinese films in the international market.22 Chen’s production was generally well received by American audiences, and A Chinese Cracker, a film about the production process, also helped to prolong the effects of this “Chinese” production.23 Criticism from the Chinese side was very different: many people were dissatisfied with Chen’s artistic decisions, such as his inclusion of folk arts and dialect, his choice of some inappropriate music, and his use of some unorthodox kunqu performance styles.24 Chen’s own training in huaguxi (flower drum drama, a local folk art) rather than in the elite kunqu form also made his qualifications suspect in the eyes of kunqu purists. Nevertheless, on the transnational stage, Chen’s “complete” Peony was probably the best known kunqu production before Pai’s Young Lovers’ Edition came along.

The Young Lovers’ Edition A

Before the beginning

The 2004 Taipei premiere of Peony marked the beginning of the third “historic” undertaking in Pai Hsien-yung’s long literary career, the first two being his founding of Modern Literature in 1960 and his production of The Interrupted Dream in the Garden in 1982.25 Pai Hsien-yung, son of Pai Chung-hsi (Bai Chongxi), a high-ranking KMT general who worked closely with Chiang Kai-shek, was born in Guilin. He moved to Taiwan in 1952 after living for a few years in Hong Kong. With his mainland origins and his familial ties with the KMT, Pai enjoyed a privilege in his youth that would be a disadvantage for him in Taiwan nowadays. However, his fame as a giant of modern literature has seemingly won him immunity from political stereotyping both in Taiwan and in the transnational Chinese world. Perhaps because Taiwan is where he established his literary fame, perhaps because he still has many family members and friends residing in Taiwan, he normally identifies himself and is identified by others as someone from Taiwan. Interestingly, though, he lived there for only a decade (1952–62), mainly in his teenage and college years, and has since then resided in the United States for over

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40 years. Among his most famous works is the one titled Taipei People (Taibei ren), a collection of short stories about people living in the multicultural society of Taipei. The term “Taipei person/people” has been chosen as an identity marker by some who wish to present themselves as metropolitan Chinese rather than as Mainlanders or Taiwanese in the narrow senses of those terms. Taipei people are also the moving force behind Pai’s literature and theatre productions; many of the Taipei people have become global Chinese who continue to support Pai’s vision from transnational positions. Kunqu and The Peony Pavilion have “lived” with Pai throughout his life. One of the most memorable dramatic experiences of his childhood was seeing a performance of “The Interrupted Dream,” one of the most famous scenes from The Peony Pavilion, by the famous opera stars Mei Lanfang (as Du Liniang) and Yu Zhenfei (as Liu Mengmei) in Shanghai. This 1945 performance was Mei’s first after the end of World War II.26 Although Pai is considered one of the vanguards of Chinese modern literature, his love for the classical Chinese art has never waned. As he explained in an interview, he felt great anxiety for Chinese culture as he watched TV footage of the destruction of traditional culture during the Cultural Revolution, when he was already living in the United States. His cultural anxiety and nostalgia never left him. It was not until the production of The Young Lovers’ Edition that he felt his mission was accomplished.27 As a fervent kunqu fan, Pai travels the world chasing good performances. He also organized a number of Peony productions before The Young Lovers’ Edition. The first of these was his production of The Interrupted Dream in the Garden (Youyuan jingmeng, based on his short story of the same title) in 1982. This multimedia production starred Lu Yan (1927–), the famous Chinese American actress whose Hollywood credits include The Last Emperor (1987) and Joy Luck Club (1993). With a stream of consciousness narrative and multimedia stage presentation, Interrupted Dream depicts an aging former kunqu actress reminiscing over her lost love while singing arias from The Peony Pavilion. The fusion of performance styles (spoken drama and opera) and the experimentation with modern technology marked Pai’s first Peony as the most radical among all his productions. Pai’s second Peony effort was a traditional production of two scenes from The Peony Pavilion in Taipei in 1983, staring Xu Lu as Du Liniang and Gao Huilan (an actress specializing in sheng, the male role) as Liu Mengmei. Xu and Gao, both of whom grew up in Taiwan, were considered “made in Taiwan” opera stars. In 1992 Pai invited Hua Wenyi,


a top kunqu actress from China who had defected to the United States in 1989, to Taipei for a two-and-half-hour production of selected scenes from The Peony Pavilion, co-starring Gao Huilan. This was one of the earliest chances Taiwan audiences had to see artists from the mainland since the 1949 divide. All of these productions were transnational in nature and established a paradigm that the Young Lovers’ Edition would follow: they were joint ventures involving Taiwan, the United States, and China, with Taiwan audiences as the major source of patronage. From previous experiences, Pai knew that support from his “Taipei people” would be absolutely essential as he attempted his most ambitious kunqu project. One major catalyst for The Young Lovers’ Edition and a historic event for Chinese opera in the twenty-first century was the designation of kunqu as the “Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity” by UNESCO in 2001.28 Such international recognition was a validation of kunqu’s elite status in the world of arts; on the other hand, it also suggested a cruel death sentence for this ancient living art. The words “oral” and “intangible” suggest the presence, transience, ephemerality, and immateriality. What is oral and intangible cannot be collected or preserved.29 What are the options for preserving something living and intangible? Can anything “preserved” still have life and vitality? Juan Goytisolo, the Chairman of the International Jury of UNESCO, warns of the inherent paradox in such an award: “We must avoid the trap of museumising them and turning ourselves into anthropologists who, as a Mexican intellectual said, ‘see peoples as cultural fossils.’” While we are trying to protect something living, we must avoid creating “indigenous reserves.”30 The Peony Pavilion has everything to do with the intangible and the transient. Spring is short, and young beauty and love blossom and fall as quickly as peonies. It is the carpe diem impulse, the urgency of seizing the spring of life, that makes Du Liniang pursue her love without reservation. It is the same urgency that made Pai realize his project was about now and must happen now. To “appreciate spring in springtime” became the main impetus of The Peony Pavilion.31 As Pai sensed the anxiety of kunqu’s dwindling and aging audiences, he decided to play to youth and to the springtime of life. The subtitling of his production, “The Young Lovers’ Edition,” captured many young people’s hearts. Celebrated actresses who had played Du Liniang, such as Hua Wenyi and Zhang Jiqing, were already in their waning years, and it was difficult for young actors to take up their mantle because of Peony’s historical and artistic status. As a result, one almost never saw an actress of

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a suitable age playing the 16-year-old Du Liniang. Pai’s production was different. He knew that he was dealing with an audience of a different generation, with different sensibilities and a different taste in theatre. The attraction of youth and beauty was a more promising selling point than the virtuosity of seasoned actors. Pai ran a small experiment: when he was invited to lecture on kunqu to high school and college students in Hong Kong in 2002, he chose the topic “Love in Kunqu” and sought four young actors from the Suzhou Kunqu Company to show “how ancient people make love (courtship).” The lecture and demonstration were enthusiastically received, and the students fell in love with the young actors’ performance. Pai’s dream of a young lovers’ production was much closer to realization after this event.32 This was a daring approach, as it was only thanks to a small number of “people of elegance” that the dying theatre tradition was still alive at all. By choosing such inexperienced actors to play such important roles, Pai risked offending the surviving connoisseur audience as well as artists and scholars in kunqu circles. Pai speaks of choosing Shen Fengying and Yu Jiulin, the young lovers, as placing a bet in gambling.33 On the basis of their looks and potential rather than their experience or credentials, Pai picked a few pieces of “precarved jade” and put them through three months of intensive training – devil’s camp, as they call it – to improve their technical abilities and to learn the play. By dint of his idealism and passion, he was able to convince master performers from various kunqu schools to serve as teachers for these young actors, in the process possibly violating certain unspoken rules. Wang Shiyu is a top male performer from the Zhejing school. Zhang Jiqing, a top female performer who was famous for playing Du Liniang, is from the Jiangsu school. They probably would never have had a chance to work together if not for Pai’s ambition.34 “In the history of kunqu, this was the first time that two masters, crossing school and province boundaries, spent a year to teach students for the sake of one play in mainland China.”35 In a further act of self-conscious innovative traditionalism, Pai made the young actors perform the ceremony of kneeling and bowing before their master teachers (baishi), an abandoned ritual that was regarded in communist China a relic of feudal society. This move was designed to restore the master-pupil tradition, at least symbolically. Pai believes that it is essential to revive such rituals in order to revive kunqu and Chinese culture.36 The master teachers later explained that the ceremony made them feel much more responsible for their own disciples and the gravity of their task of “transmitting the art” (chuandao) became more palpable. It was personal connections and responsibilities, not duties imposed


by the Party or institutional apparatus, that make the masters commit themselves deeply to the Young Lovers’ project. Pai took a further risk by bypassing the national level of government and taking local kunqu directly to the transnational level, where politics would play a less crucial role. With major international investment from NGOs and individuals, cultural capital in the form of charity and volunteering, and a professional design team from Taiwan, Pai hoped to minimize the political risk and maximize returns on the investment. However, he had to receive the blessing of the bureaucracy before he could even start this project; otherwise, it might suffer the same dire fate as Chen Shizhen’s original plan had. His passionate persuasion finally won a “nonchalant attitude” from the local bureaucracy of Suzhou, and the Young Lovers’ project was ready to take off. B

The beginning

1

Made in China

Peony was a cultural product that could be roughly identified as “made in China.” I have used the description “made in China” in discussing products of a transnational Chinese alliance in the film industry, products created with foreign capital and brain power (managerial manpower and marketing) and Chinese labor and with raw material on the production line (directors, actors, material, and shooting sites), but usually not for Chinese consumption.37 The term “made in China” in film by no means neglects the artistic contribution from the Chinese side, but simply focuses on the pattern of production and consumption: it is made in China, by Chinese, and with Chinese materials, but not for the Chinese market, at least not initially. The “made in China” Peony generally adhered to the model: the product was based on foreign conceptualization, covering aspects of the general artistic approach, the script, the artistic design, marketing, and quality control; it was funded by foreign (mainly diasporic Chinese) capital; it was completely “made” in China, with master teachers responsible for actor training and “making” the play with local actors; its beautiful costumes were made from local silk and embroidered locally; however, it was initially made for foreign consumption, as the play toured around before it was “reimported” to China. Moreover, the reimported performances were funded largely by foreign capital, as the ticket prices had to be marked low due to the economic discrepancy between the domestic and international markets. But this particular “made in China” product had its own unique brand, that is, its Chinese cultural mission. Pai knew from the beginning that

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in order to have full artistic autonomy, he could not rely solely on government support; support from NGOs and individuals would not force him to compromise his artistic vision. Pai extended an invitation to his artist and scholar friends – his contemporaries in the literati circle – to join him in creating the young lovers’ dream. Fan Mannong, a longtime friend with extensive experience in art administration, was invited to co-produce the play. The design team of top artists was formed in response to her recommendations: Lin Kehua for stage and lighting design, Wang Tong for costume design, Wu Sujun for choreography, Xi Song for graphic design, and Dong Yangzi for calligraphy. Kunqu scholars were summoned to reorganize Tang Xianzu’s original into a modern script suitable for performance. Once this conceptual work was done, the “real” production could begin. Pai Hsien-yung describes this transnational “made in China” project from a cultural point of view: Chinese culture originated in China, but it was stopped and stiffened in the past decades. It has lost vitality and become dusty. On the contrary, Taiwan has been peaceful and wealthy for the past few decades. There is a sense of continuity of cultural sensibility. The island nation is also good at absorbing cultures from all over the world and recreating them in an organic way. Perhaps Taiwan culture is the recreation of Chinese culture. He uses Mahayana Buddhism as an example. Almost extinct in mainland China, Mahayana is promulgated in Taiwan by Masters Hsing Yun, Sheng-yen, Cheng-yen and others. “Not only was it preserved, it was modernized […] and influenced many aspects of modern life. Kunqu should be similar: mainland China has the foundation, Taiwan has the agility to recreate. By combining these two, modern Chinese culture can be created.”38 2 Carving the jade The main cast members came from the “Little Orchid Group,” a junior contingent of the Suzhou Kunqu Company. Once the major cast members had been chosen, the three-month boot camp training began. The long process was designed to carve both the actors’ bodies and their minds. The leading actress Shen Fengying remembers her first day: “I was lying on the floor, facing down […] The teacher put his knee on my back and pulled my arms back and upward. My joints were about to be


dislocated. I was sore and numb. He pulled and pulled until he heard my joints make a cracking sound. Then he let go of my arms slowly […] When I got up, I could not help but cry.”39 The training aimed to strengthen “body quality, shape, water sleeve movement, walking, finger gestures, eye expressions, and singing.” Yu Jiulin, the male lead, describes the difficulty he experienced receiving this training as a 25-year-old. “My bones were being torn apart and my muscles were burning […]. Every day I could hear [my fellow actors] screaming and howling in pain as their tears and sweat streamed down. But it was very effective. Soon I looked tall and straight, and felt much more energetic.” “Walking,” Yu admitted, was his weak point. The “walking” training involved 19 different steps: square step, official step, poor scholar step, drunken step, and so on. Part of the training required taking two minutes to complete a single step; this was to build core strength and balance.40 Obviously this old-fashioned training method was no longer in use, but the “feudal” baishi ceremony had caused Masters Wang Shiyu and Zhang Jiqing to willingly reveal their hidden treasure, the training methods of their forebears. Pai witnessed tireless devotion from the masters: for one water sleeve movement, Zhang Jiqing corrected Shen Fengying 33 times! The positioning of the sleeves had to correspond to the pitch of the flute. He always felt a sense of awe and piety during rehearsals because the artistic standards for kunqu were so high.41 In order for actors to fully understand the play, Pai brought in scholars to teach them the history of the Ming dynasty as well as kunqu music theory; he would spend a considerable amount of time discussing even a single line of poetry with the actors.42 It was this sort of careful, detailminded teaching of every note of the music, every line of the poetry, every glance, and every movement that ultimately “carved” the raw jade of The Young Lovers’ Edition. Through teaching – both oral instruction and demonstration – the intangible art of kunqu was summoned back to life. Pai sought to revive the old tradition with his own new aesthetic vision of freshness, beauty, and the spirit of youth. Pai envisioned the costumes as “tender and delicate, light and pure.” Powdery pink, ochre red, willow green, tender yellow, moonlight white, all the colors associated with youth and spring in Chinese theatre made up the color scheme for the production. Following Pai’s basic concept, the Taiwan film and stage costume designer Wang Tong designed the costumes, which would be handmade in Suzhou with expensive silk and detailed embroidery. The newly designed costume successfully projected a sense of freshness and youth, unlike old-fashioned costumes

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with sharp primary colors, which Pai thought would “make actors look old.” 43 When the actors were freshly trained and dressed in their newly made costume, this “made in China” product was examined by kunqu specialists from Taiwan, as the last step of the quality control. Pai gave his final approval and the troupe was off to Taipei. 3 Creating a modern kunqu logic Twenty-seven of the original 55 scenes were fashioned into a script of three books for the planned three-day performance. The writing team included top scholars from Taiwan: Hua Wei (Academia Sinica), Zhang Shuxiang (National Taiwan University), Xin Yiyun (National Taipei University of Art), and Pai Hsien-yung himself. Pai identifies “passion” (qing) as the theme that unites the production: the first book is the initiation, “passion in dream,” the second is the transition, “passion between man and ghost,” and the third is the resolution, “passion in the human world.”44 The whole play can be seen as a journey of love across the states of being of the human soul. Hua Wei lists several important professional productions of The Peony Pavilion undertaken in recent decades (1980–2003). Among these the majority have emphasized the first third of the play, about the dream, Du Liniang’s longing, and her Liebestod. In other words, only the first night of the Young Lovers’ performance – with Du Liniang as its center – includes scenes familiar to traditional kunqu audiences. Liu Mengmei’s role was minimized in these earlier productions. Traditional audiences had the ability to enjoy zhezixi (excerpted scenes) because their own knowledge of the complete plot framed the excerpts. But the designated audience of The Young Lovers’ Edition – the young or new audience – would not have such specialized knowledge and would therefore need a complete and coherent spectacle. The writing team took steps to meet this goal. The role of Liu Mengmei would be stressed so that he would be an equal partner to Du Liniang. No words would be added or altered, but selected scenes and arias would be rearranged according to modern theatre logic. The team worked for five months, editing the script to make it both “good literature and good theatre.”45 In general, the entire play had to be coherent, but each book also had to have its own internal logic, since some members of the audience might choose to see only one night’s performance. Theatrical aspects of the performance – martial and civil elements, quiet singing and spectacular dancing, sadness and humor – had to be balanced within each book, even as certain threads ran through the entire play.


Many things taken for granted in modern Western theatre, such as character psychology and the shaping of plot with the through-line of action and with climax, were handled differently or de-emphasized in traditional Chinese opera. The structure of Chinese opera was generally much looser than the standard modern Western plot; a play was often performance-oriented rather than plot-oriented, allowing plenty of space for sections highlighting stage business rather than plot or character development. Traditional plays often have repetitive sections: characters might introduce themselves on more than one occasion or recount plot in monologue narration; often spoken prose sections and singing in verse can be repetitive, as the latter can be a refined and elaborated version of the former. As in Western grand opera, the sparkling virtuosity of the performers and the beautiful poetry and music of certain arias are what traditional audiences come for, not the emotional or psychological development of the characters or the convincing arc of the entire play, as in Western modern theatre. However, The Young Lovers’ intended audiences were not opera connoisseurs, and modern Western theatricality would be a much better draw. Traditionally, students learned and perfected their parts aria by aria, studying dance and gesture along with the singing; most historical Peony actors probably had not read the entire play. The performance tradition of zhezixi further fragmented the concept of a play. In other words, it was both for the new audience and for the young actors that a modern theatrical logic was desperately needed. It was no easy matter to construct a new play in the traditional style but with modern structure, as has been done for Innovative jingju in Taiwan. To reshape a grand classic like The Peony Pavilion is a more daunting task still. In order to show how scenes were rearranged for the performance, I list the scenes of the three books in the table overleaf (p. 114). The first book introduces the innocent Du Liniang experiencing an initiation to love in a dream (“passion in dream”). Determined to find her unknown lover, she is willing to die for love. Book One ends with her death. The second book covers her time among the shades, as a ghost seducing Liu Mengmei (“passion between man and ghost”). Placing his faith in love, Liu revives Du with the help of a Taoist sorceress. The second book ends with Du’s revival. The last book brings the several threads of the plot together: the rebels are quelled, Liu passes the Imperial Examination, Du is reunited with her family, and the young lovers celebrate their love in the human world. Book Three finishes with the traditional happy ending (“passion in the human world.”).46

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The Young Lovers’ Edition Book One: One: Admonishing the Daughter

The Peony Pavilion (Mudanting)47

Four: Aspirations Five: Search for the Dream Six: The Scheme of Conquest Seven: The Self Portrait Eight: The Lady Shaman Nine: The Soul Departed

Scene 3: Admonishing the Daughter (xunnü) Scene 7: The School Room (guishu) Scene 10: The Interrupted Dream (jingmeng) Scene 2: Aspirations (yanhuai) Scene 12: Pursuing the Dream (xunmeng) Scene 15: The Spy for the Tartars (ludie) Scene 14: The Portrait (xiezhen) Scene 17: Sorceress of the Tao (daoxi) Scene 20: Keening (naoshang)

Book Two: One: The Shades Two: The Traveler Finds Haven Three: The Daughter Remembered Four: The Portrait Retrieved Five: The Roaming Spirit Six: Midnight Rendezvous Seven: Alarm in Huaiyang Eight: Vows in the Shades Nine: Resurrection

Scene Scene Scene Scene Scene Scene Scene Scene Scene

Two: The Girl’s School Three: The Interrupted Dream

Book Three: One: The Elopement Two: Moving the Encampment Three: To Hangzhou Four: Rebels Quelled Five: Meeting the Mother Six: Anchored at Huaiyang Seven: Search for the Candidate Eight: Interrogation by the Cane Nine: Reunion by Command

23: 22: 25: 24: 27: 28: 38: 32: 35:

Internal Judgment (mingpan) Traveler’s Rest (lüji) Maternal Remembrance (yinü) The Portrait Recovered (shihua) Spirit Roaming (hunyou) Union in Shades (yougou) The Scourge of the Huai (huaishi) Spectral Vows (mingshi) Resurrection (huisheng)

Scene 36: The Elopement (hunzou) Scene 42: Troop Transfer (yizhen) Scene 39: Hangzhou (ruhang) Scene 46: Rebels Countered (zhekou) Scene 48: Mother and Daughter Reunited (yumu) Scene 49: Moored before Huaian (huaibo) Scene 52: The Search for the Candidate (suoyuan) Scene 53: Interrogation under the Rod (yingkao) Scene 55: Reunion at Court (yuanjia)

Musically speaking, the editing was pursued in a spirit of “decisive cutting and cautious consideration” (dadao kuofu, xiaoxin yiyi). The original play contains 428 song units (qupai), of which 308 were cut. The remainder, only about a quarter of the original, was examined and restored with extreme caution.48 The music director, Gu Zhaoshen, held to the twin principles of tradition and innovation. Even as he tried to preserve the excellence of the tradition, he made changes to fit the rhythms and emotions of modern staging. Keeping traditional musical


instruments such as the flute and Chinese string and percussion instruments, Gu added bass, cello, violin, and arrayed bells (bianzhong) to create a symphonic effect.49 This westernizing approach was controversial, as many traditionalists believed that a flute alone should be able to express the essence of kunqu music. The fundamental contradiction is that, with its elite performance settings, traditional kunqu was never meant to please large crowds; the large auditoriums of modern performance are alien to the basic aesthetic principles of kunqu. Pai explained that traditional kunqu music did not contain lower bass notes; adding those Western instruments helped to create a music that was interesting enough for an audience to listen to for nine hours.50 Musicality, choreography, narrative, poetry, spectacle, and character psychology were all calculated to meet the same “modern” theatre standards of sensibility and coherence. As in many non-Western cultures, modernity in the performing arts is not only a temporal development, it is also a matter of Western stylization and artistic logic. In other words, the terms “modern” and “Western” are often conflated. The coherence of the entire mise-en-scène has been the norm in Western theatrical tradition since Artaud, but in the context of traditional Chinese opera this striving for coherence represented an innovation. As explained earlier, the concept of the director was also non-existent in traditional theatre. The Young Lovers’ Edition was the first time that members of kunqu circles attempted to carefully “think through” the entire classic with a “modern” sensibility, without sacrificing its most precious traditions of singing and acting. This was one of the major achievements of the production. 4

The Taipei premiere

On seeing the stories-high poster for The Peony Pavilion on the National Theatre and images on bulletin boards on the streets of Taipei, Zhang Jiqing and Wang Shiyu sighed: “We have been playing kunqu all our lives and never seen such a spectacle!”51 When the actors first set foot in the auditorium in the National Theatre, with its four tiers of seats, and saw the modern stage design for the play, everyone was very pleasantly surprised. Cai Shaohua, president of the Suzhou Kunqu Company, declared: “We are twenty years behind Taiwan!” 52 Pai Hsien-yung warned Shen Fengying: “You’ve got to sing ‘Zaoluopao’ well. Everyone in Taiwan knows how to sing that song!”53 This of course was an exaggeration, but the frightening effect was real. Spirits were high and expectations even higher. Despite the obvious inexperience of the young actors, the Taiwan audience welcomed the production

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enthusiastically: it was a beautiful performance, a romantic encounter, and a novel experience. Pai’s TV interviews and campus visits and the inevitable internet buzz, all elements of paratheatrical performance surrounding The Young Lovers’ Edition, helped create a fashionable phenomenon in Taiwan for a few weeks. After its premiere run (25 April through 2 May 2004) and subsequence performance in Xinzhu City, the production went to Hong Kong, then on to college campuses in mainland China. It was also performed at the Chinese Art Festival in Hangzhou (2004), the International Art Festival in Shanghai (2004), the Culture and Art Festival in Macau (2005), the Asian Art Festival in Foshan (2005), and returned to the National Theatre in Taipei in 2005. Before the troupe’s visit to California in 2006, more than 80 successful performances were given in Taiwan, mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau.

Transnational consumption: the California tour Pai Hsien-yung is an emeritus professor of the University of California, Santa Barbara and has lived in that city for 40 years. The California tour therefore seemed an obvious choice as the first step in transnational performance. A production on such a scale – a group of 80 actors and other personnel, a performance lasting nine hours over three days, and tickets priced accordingly – was bound to face serious obstacles. Moreover, the genre itself, both foreign and ancient, would be challenging for American theatre audiences. Even public educational institutions like the University of California were unwilling to accept the risk. Neither Pai’s own academic connection nor persuasion from professors and scholars could convince university administrations to gamble on the production. It finally took massive investment from transnational “golden patrons” to make the tour a reality. A

Golden patrons

A “golden patron” (jinzhu) is the slang term Chinese use to describe a major sponsor behind an individual, an organization, or an event. The Peony “golden patrons” played essential roles in guaranteeing international success. As explained earlier, in order to retain artistic autonomy, Pai preferred to raise money from private sectors rather than relying on government support. In general, Pai had to find patrons to “adopt” each performance, since ticket sales could only cover a small portion of the production costs. Especially when the troupe was touring campuses in mainland China, student tickets were priced as low as 20 RMB (about


three dollars) in an effort to achieve Pai’s aim of attracting more young people into the world of kunqu. In other words, launching a performance was inevitably an act of charity. Who were Peony’s golden patrons? They were wealthy old friends of Pai and newer acquaintances who were attracted to Pai’s passion and sense of cultural mission. Amy O’Dowd (Amy Chang, Zhang Juhua), for instance, a long-time resident of Santa Barbara and a new acquaintance of Pai, made a substantial contribution in order to bring the performance to the city. Besides donating money to UC Santa Barbara, she also used all her connections to convince the city bureaucracy to let Peony banners hang on the main streets for eight days. Her main love is Chinese music. After seeing the Taipei premiere, she believed this was something that could be brought to the United States: “Beyond living comfortably, I wanted to search for spiritual and psychological comfort. I often wonder why there isn’t anything Chinese in elite American society.” She believed that this production would appeal to American elites because of its fine music.54 The major golden patrons for the US tour were Chen Yizhen and Liu Shangjian (Richard Liu), who represent two major corporations based in Taiwan and Hong Kong. Liu Shangjian, Chen Yizhen and Pai Hsien-yung are all alumni of National Taiwan University. Chen Yizhen’s love for art and literature was rekindled by Pai’s passion. She speaks of her transnational experience of the play. Because her company (Trend Micro, a technology corporation based in Taiwan) has a branch in Nanjing, she was able to take about 200 engineers from her company to see the production during its visit to Nanjing. Some people told her that they came from Kunshan, Jiangsu province, the birthplace of kunqu, but had never had a chance to see the art. They had never known that such beautiful melodies originated in their own hometown. Touched by everyone’s response, she set up a Peony Pavilion Foundation in Hong Kong. She explains that foundations of this kind are not legal in mainland China, and it is inconvenient to wire money to China from Taiwan. Hong Kong, the traditional “third place” between Taiwan and the mainland, was the perfect location for her foundation.55 Like Amy O’Dowd, Liu Shangjian has spoken of his desire for a spiritual and psychological satisfaction that would go beyond the financial success he has had in his life. He has known Pai for many years and as a young man participated in many of the activities of Pai’s literary circle. The Peony Pavilion summoned back his lost love for literature.56 The US tour presented a more difficult task for the golden patrons. Chen Yizhen had been a major sponsor from the beginning, but

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the US tour required much more from her. The total cost of hosting the 80-person group for a month and related expenses came to about one million US dollars. However, her promise to cover the expenses of the production was not enough to convince UC campuses to include The Peony Pavilion in their production seasons. As one of the board members of UC Berkeley Foundation, Liu Shangjian was better positioned than anyone else to appeal to the institution: with a donation of a million dollars to UC Berkeley, he was able to convince the university’s artistic administrators to schedule The Peony Pavilion for the opening of the Zellerbach Theatre’s 2006 season.57 Chen Yizhen, with her experience in transnational business, successfully negotiated a “win-win” contract with four UC theatres: all proceeds of ticket sales would go to the theatres, but the theatres would have to set aside four days before the performance for setup and rehearsals. In other words, artistic quality would not be compromised because of any obsession with cost-saving or profits.58 As the first UC campus, Berkeley was naturally the one to open the tour; UC Irvine, UCLA and UC Santa Barbara were the rest of the destinations. All three examples of the golden patrons above illustrate an interesting phenomenon: art is a medium by which patrons translate their economic success into cultural capital and psychological satisfaction. All three golden patrons speak of their desire to transcend their current material success: Peony has brought back their youthful love of music or literature and revived their romantic dreams. It has given them an opportunity to promote Chinese art and culture among middle- and upper-class Americans, guaranteeing a cultural pride in diaspora. Finally, it has allowed them to envision an alternative transnational China. The current “Chinese problem” is an uncomfortable and even inflammatory subject in transnational negotiation and collaboration; claiming a flexible citizenship is one way to avoid any specific kind of “Chinese” national identification. The Young Lovers’ Edition has helped the golden patrons imagine themselves as “founding fathers” of a Peony China, whose fellow citizens are transnational Chinese who seek belonging and gratification in the form of cultural Chinese nationalism. B

Kunqu volunteers

At curtain calls, at cast parties, and at public occasions of all kinds, whenever Pai had a chance to speak about The Young Lovers’ Edition, he always expressed the warmest gratitude to the “kunqu volunteers” (kunqu yigong). His circle of kunqu volunteers is large and encompassing: it includes all the volunteer staff who have worked closely with the


production, representatives of local Chinese communities who helped “drum up momentum” (zaoshi),59 academics who organized campus activities to promote the show, local business and individuals who sponsored the production, and everyone who contributed money or time.60 He considers himself a kunqu volunteer as well. During tours, the work of local kunqu volunteers was essential to guarantee smooth productions. Pai spoke of people’s “charitable hearts (shanxin), warm hearts (rexin, enthusiasm), and sense of cultural mission (wenhua shiming gan).” In this way of framing the matter, supporting the California tour did not amount to sponsoring the show per se. The goal was something much nobler than simply covering production costs or buying personal fame; it was a charitable act to help promote and preserve Chinese culture. The reward, if one can speak of a reward in the context of charity, was cultural pride in diaspora. Chinese cultural pride becomes something that is produced with raw materials from China but can be owned only by transnational Chinese. In the context of the California tour, Chinese cultural pride becomes what Geertz terms a “cultural performance”: proud performances of a Peony nation in California are addressed both to the diasporic Chinese themselves and to the American other.61 Chinese Americans demonstrated to themselves and to American society a sense of cultural identity and artistic pride, which they hoped would transcend “model minority” stereotyping of Chinese Americans. C Transnational Chinese capital, transnational Chinese pride In a sense, the actors, as raw materials for the production, became almost anonymous in California; they were part of the package presented by transnational Chinese as the occasion of their cultural pride. The actors were well protected from any outside distractions during their tour. They were not allowed to have any individual outings, and they received numerous motivational lectures by their teachers and by Pai to keep their morale high. At the rehearsal at Barclay Theatre in Irvine, Pai combined encouragements and threats in his address to the actors. He explained that Irvine was a wealthy middle- and upper-class community: “Don’t think Americans don’t understand Chinese opera. They do! They can see everything clearly, so pay absolute attention! Have faith in yourself. There’s unlimited potential!”62 Master-teacher Wang Shiyu regularly reminded the actors of the good fortune they were enjoying in performing in professional theatres: “Practicing it a hundred times cannot match seeing it once; seeing it a hundred times cannot match performing it once” (Baixue buru yikan; baikan buru yichuan). Pai was depicted to the actors as a great benefactor and savior.63

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Opportunities like this were indeed very rare. Because of the PRC government’s policies for the protection of traditional art, these actors knew that the course of their lives was set when they entered the kunqu school. Normally, after they finish their four-year training, they are guaranteed a job in a company and perform whenever, whatever, and wherever they are assigned by the government.64 Before taking part in The Peony Pavilion, they treated performances as a routine job, like “eating from the big rice pot” (chi daguofan) in the communes of earlier years.65 There seemed to be little aspiration, little passion, little feeling for kunqu performance or sense of preserving Chinese art at all. Capital from outside of China inspired the actors to learn art as art, not as a work assignment. Needlessly to say, this capital brought the actors many sweet rewards.66 Sklair writes of the “transnational capitalist class” (TCC) as those who see their personal or national interests as being best served by identification with the interests of the capitalist global system, in particular the interests of transnational corporations.”67 Although many golden patrons and volunteers for The Young Lovers’ Edition certainly belong to the “transnational capitalist class,” their “transnational corporation” in this context is a spiritual and psychological one. It is for a transnational operatic China that everyone raised capital and volunteered. Like UNESCO’s preservation of “oral and intangible heritage of humanity,” transnational China is based on a sense of urgency and nostalgia. Pai Hsien-yung identified a mission of cultural renaissance as his motivation for founding Modern Literature in 1960: it was a recreation of Chinese literature in Taiwan after the 1949 schism, a recreation of the May Fourth spirit in Taiwan.68 In putting together The Young Lovers’ Edition, Pai had to deal with the consequences of multiple crises: political and economic differences between Taiwan and the mainland, the impact of the Cultural Revolution and its interruptions of kunqu training and transmission, the aging of connoisseur audiences, and general indifference to traditional art among younger audiences. Pai explained that the Chinese had lost their “national soul” since the nineteenth century and that this production was designed to awaken “cultural desire and Chinese nostalgia.” Chinese all over the world share the same DNA; the drive to restore Chinese culture is a “redeeming force” for the “souls” of all ethnic Chinese.69 Gellner used the image of “man without a shadow” to describe someone without a nation;70 Pai used the figure of the loss of the soul to characterize the present Chinese “nation,” with its economic strengths and cultural weaknesses. It was this sense of loss and longing for


something we used to have, this national pride or glory in the past, that summoned the transnational strength to build this theatrical version of a Chinese nation. The seemingly apolitical nature of this nation made it the only kind of transnational Chinese nation that was imaginable. Transnational capitalism offers a defense against temptations arising from domestic capitalism. As China transforms itself from a socialist society into a capitalist one, temptations from commercial industries can easily replace the “iron rice bowl” (tie fanwan, stable job) and draw specialists in traditional arts away from their professions. After a few years of investment from transnational capital in the effort to cultivate China’s talent (to carve the jade) and to present it to international audiences, it will be unfortunate to see this venture be abandoned.71 It is therefore important to ensure the continuous operation of transnational China’s cultural production line with the help of transnational capital. The Peony Pavilion has established a successful paradigm for future performances.

The California performances The Young Lovers’ Edition performed at the Zellerbach Theatre (seating around 2000) at UC Berkeley (15–17 September 2006), Barclay Theatre (seating around 700) at UC Irvine (22–24 September), Royce Hall (seating about 2000) at UCLA (29 September–1 October), and Lobrero Theatre (seating about 700) near UC Santa Barbra (6–8 October).72 Although all these performance venues are very different, the academic connection, the promotion strategies, the general audience, the theatrical and paratheatrical formulas (more on which below) generally followed a similar pattern during the California tour. Close observation of the performance at the Barclay Theatre at UC Irvine gives a sense of how the performances of Peony went at the four University of California campuses. A

The paratheatrical

On the night of the first performance at the Barclay Theatre, a gorgeously dressed audience filled the theatre lobby. It was a bustling, festive scene, noisy, colorful, merry, and excited. The audience was a mixture of Chinese and non-Chinese, but the lobby scene resembled a holiday party or a joyful celebration of Chinese New Year. Instead of finding their seats immediately, the audience lingered in the lobby, enjoying the cheery ambiance. American theatre conventions seemed to be put on hold: the curtain was about 20 minutes late, and the intermission

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was prolonged as the feeling of festivity continued. The audience completely ignored the ban on flash photography during the performance. Near the end of the performance, many audience members started moving toward the stage. When the entire cast, the master-teachers, and Pai came on stage for the curtain call, they were surrounded by enthusiastic audience members taking pictures or simply getting a closer look at the celebrities. The curtain call routine was very elaborately done, with choreographed dances, abundant flower bouquets (which Pai would throw into the crowd and orchestra pit as everyone cheered), and Pai’s speech of appreciation. As if wishing for an encore, audiences lingered, not wanting to see the event end, even after a three-hour long performance. As I observed from attending several performances, this post-show paratheatricality – from the audience’s besieging the stage to Pai’s speech and flower-throwing – was all part of the performance ritual, anticipated well in advance. The audience seemed well informed and understood their role in this ritual. The tranquil theatre usually reserved for symphonies and ballets was transformed into something like a pop venue, all for a 400-year-old Chinese opera.73 Each performance started with a comprehensive list of credits, both in English and Chinese, projected on either side of the stage. As the orchestra played the overture in the dimmed auditorium, everyone involved in the show – actors, producers, orchestra, cast members, stage crew – was fully recognized and appreciated. Unlike printed theatre programs or the film credits that appear after the movie, which audiences may or may not attend to, as they wish, this listing of credits before the performance proper insisted on its place as part of the performance. It was even provided with its own music. The projecting of subtitles on side screens has become common practice in contemporary Chinese opera. But such an elaborate “performance” of credits is rare. Throughout the performance, bilingual subtitles were provided for spoken lines and arias and for the titles of songs. The use of Lindy Li Mark’s English translation for the subtitles caused some controversy. Compared to Cyril Birch’s lauded literary translation, this modern version appeared “clunky”74 or even vulgar because of its simplification of the original script’s elevated vocabulary and its omissions of obscure literary allusions. The shortened, unfortunately sometimes clumsy translation offered an easy read and limited distractions for the audience, so subtle things – the movements of eyes and of fingers, smiles and frowns, the twist of a waist, the fluttering of water sleeves – would not be missed. Since the subtitle screens were on the sides, it was indeed difficult to shift one’s attention between the side


panels and the center stage. Again, the strife was the necessary result of an effort to balance the excellence of literature and the excellence of performance. Chinese audiences enjoyed a linguistic advantage because the Chinese text is more succinct and the literary quality of the original remained intact. Transnational audiences, on the other hand, had to sacrifice a bit of literary enjoyment for the sake of a more complete theatrical appreciation. One rarely hears this kind of issue in connection with the subtitles in Western opera performances. Most audiences are satisfied with simple translation and are willing to focus their attention on the musical performance. Again, the historical and literary weight of the Peony classic is the major player here. Some members of the audience were unhappy to settle for anything less than high poetry in the translation. Discussion of the subtitles was an element of paratheatricality that lasted throughout the entire tour.75 B

The theatrical

The first night opened with a prologue, as an actor portraying Tang Xianzu delivered the playwright’s most famous statement about love: “Love is of a source unknown, yet it grows ever deeper. The living may die of it, by its power the dead live again. And must the love that comes in dream necessarily be unreal?”76 Tang Xianzu here becomes the spokesperson for Pai Hsien-yung, who in turn represents the transnational Chinese declaring their love for an idealized operatic China. The first night’s performance consists of the classic Peony scenes: “The Interrupted Dream,” “Search for the Dream,” and “The Self Portrait,” all serving to highlight Du Liniang’s beauty and sexuality. The beginning scenes serve as an introduction to the characters: the strict Confucian father Du Bao (played by Qu Binbin), the loving mother Madame Du (played by Chen Lingling), the old Confucian pedant Chen Zuiliang (played by Shen Zhiming), the beautiful and pampered 16-year-old Du Liniang (played by Shen Fengying), and her mischievous maid Chunxiang (played by Shen Guofang). Upon Shen Fengying’s first entrance as Du Liniang, singing “Voice of oriole falters/ before such radiance of spring,” the audience applauded. Although transnational Chinese audiences are in general more subdued than traditional Chinese opera audiences, the tradition of applauding for lead actors and occasional loud cheering for wonderful acrobatics did survive in this performance.77 The next scene, “The Interrupted Dream,” is without question the single Peony scene that has been performed most frequently in the 400 years

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of the play’s history. It includes the play’s most famous aria “Zaoluopao” and the duet and fan dance of Du Liniang and Chunxiang, the “itching” scene of Du, as well as Du and Liu’s dreamworld lovemaking. On an empty stage, the maiden and maid showed their appreciation for the spring through delicate dancing, dainty finger movements, lovable smiles, and sprightly glances. The youthful discovery of desire was conveyed through subtleties. Shen Fengying sang: See how deepest purple, brightest scarlet open their beauty only to dry well crumbling. Bright the morn, lovely the scene, listless and lost the heart – where is the garden gay with joyous cries? (“Zaoluopao”) These are lines almost any kunqu amateur can sing; these are lines that Hua Wenyi was asked to demonstrate in the Peony press conference I attended; these are lines I have heard more than one kunqu scholar sing at academic conferences, lines that Pai Hsien-yung told Shen Fengying that all Taiwan audience knew by heart, that Lin Daiyu was caught citing in The Dream of the Red Chamber. Lines, in short, that a young actor like Shen Fengying could not afford to get wrong. Her performance was generally regarded as adequate, if not spectacular, perhaps most significant for the fact that it won the actress the audience’s acceptance as a suitable impersonation of the young heroine. After Chunxiang leaves the garden, Du sits down to rest. She is disturbed and aroused by the spring: From turbulent heart these springtime thoughts of love Will not be banished – O with what suddenness comes this secret discontent! (Here Shen rose to her feet and stood next to the table)78 I was a pretty child, and so of equal eminence must the family be to receive me in marriage (Shen mimed coyly as if a handsome mate were dancing around the table, but her movements became more and more open). But for what grand alliance is this springtime of my youth so cast away? (Shen “cast away” her long water sleeves beautifully, half pouting, half flirting)


What eyes may light upon my sleeping form? My only course this coy delaying (Shen covered half of her face, smiling and blushing) but in secret dreams by whose side do I lie? Shadowed against spring’s glory I twist and turn (Shen held one water sleeve in the other hand, twisting and pulling the sleeve as she danced toward the table) Lingering Where to reveal my true desires! Suffering (With her back against the table, arms slightly open supporting her weight, she gently rubbed her back against the table, once on the right side, once on the left side. This is the famous “itching” and “scratching” moment.) this wasting, where but to Heaven shall my lament be made! (“Shanpoyang”79) Again, this is one of the play’s most anticipated scenes, and Du is called upon to display all her girlish flirting and feminine desire. She is coy and yet yearning, blushing yet burning, anxiously waiting for love to come. She even daringly tries to quench her desire by rubbing her back against the edge of the garden table. This subtle “itching” and “scratching” movement, though performed fully clothed, is extremely erotic for knowing audience members.80 Shen’s performance was a superb expression of frustrated desire in dancing and singing. Du Liniang feels drowsy and falls asleep. At this moment the Flower God (male, played by Zhou Xuefeng), holding a flying banner, led ten beautiful Flower Spirits (female) in a spectacular dance. The Flower Spirits wore bell-shaped skirts with floating capes, which helped enhance the dreamy quality as they drifted and slid fluidly. They continued to change formation throughout the dance, which as seen from above looked like a fantastic multicolor kaleidoscope. In Tang Xianzu’s original, the Flower God is a minor character who gives his blessing to the lovers; this dance of the Flower Spirits is a modern addition designed mainly to provide visual pleasure. Scholars like Goldstein and Wichmann have traced jingju’s gradual supplanting of aural pleasures with those of visual pleasures in modern times.81 Mei Lanfang was one of the pioneers in enhancing visual pleasure by modifying costume, props, and accessories for better visual effects in dance numbers. He was also famous for his dance pieces such as Heavenly Fairy Scattering Flowers (Tiannü sanhua).82 Choreographing a large dance number as

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part of the Chinese opera performance is also a modern practice. For Pai, the Flower Spirits were essential for cultivating the mood; he even said that the success or failure of the show depended upon the Flower Spirits.83 The Flower Spirits served as a sort of visual aphrodisiac both for the characters on stage and for the audience in the auditorium; the multiple appearances of Flower Spirits also provided a visual reminder of the divine dimension as well as the thematic thread of the story. Traditionally, the Flower God character appears only in Du’s lovemaking dream as a way of showing the spirits’ blessing. In The Young Lovers’ Edition, the Flower God appears several times – in the love-making scene, in Du’s death scene, in the underworld, in the revival scene and elsewhere, sometimes by himself, sometimes with the entire entourage of Flower Spirits – floating through these scenes and providing an aesthetic and spiritual aura for the play.84 Dance spectacle of this kind was perfectly suited for Western and modern audiences who might not appreciate the unfamiliar singing style and slow pace of traditional opera. I have written about American audience’s tastes in Chinese performance during the Gold Rush era in San Francisco: they appreciated the spectacle, the gorgeous costumes and acrobatics, far more than opera singing. The falsetto singing and string music were described as whining, the percussion music as deafening. Opera singing became a target of ridicule.85 Although every aspect of The Young Lovers’ Edition was carefully planned, the inclusion of some spectacle was still a wise way to punctuate the long performance. The Flower Spirit dance was therefore especially important for the US tour: Wang Shiyu explained that pretty young girls were specially picked for the dance during the California performance. Pai also gave extensive notes about the dance in rehearsal. The idea is that although the foreign audience might not understand opera, they understood dance perfectly.86 The lovers, Du Liniang and Liu Mengmei (played by Yu Jiulin), finally meet. In Tang Xianzu’s original, Liu is introduced in an earlier scene (Scene Two), in which he explains he has changed his name because of the rendezvous with Du in a dream.87 However, Liu’s introductory scene was rarely considered worthy of excerpting and performance in the modern kunqu tradition. This scene was restored in The Young Lovers’ Edition because balancing the lovers was considered so important. But the scene was placed right after “Interrupted Dream.” In other words, The Young Lovers’ Edition wanted to keep Du as the original dreamer. The lovers – Shen Fengying and Yu Jiulin – danced flirtatiously, their gazes locked almost the whole time. From time to time, they touched each other’s water sleeves or hands or shoulders while continuing their


fluid dance movements. The scene of their dream lovemaking is conveyed in the following lines from Yu Jiulin: Open the fastening at your neck loose the girdle at your waist, while you screening your eyes with your sleeve, white teeth clenched on the fabric as if against pain (Back to back, they danced in circle with their water sleeves intertwined), bear with me patiently a while then drift into gentle slumber (Standing behind Shen, Yu touched her shoulders and she smiled sweetly with closed eyes. They swung together in unison for a few beats). In Yu’s singing and Shen’s dancing, in his longing gaze and her coy smile, one of the most deliciously erotic scenes of lovemaking in all of world drama was presented on the Barclay stage. Both actors were fully clothed as they danced, barely touching. The climax was expressed as the couple held their long water sleeves swaying in unison, with Shen’s closed eyes expressing a sense of ecstasy. They make love with bold but poetic words and suggestive but elegant dancing88 (Figure 3.1). The Flower God and Flower Spirits finished the dream with a lovely dance, with a chorus singing in the background. This sweet sexual encounter is followed by perfect desolation as Du tries to relive the dream (“Pursuing the Dream”). At first a girlish pout, demure smile, and delicate dancing showed that Shen was still mesmerized by her sweet dream, but these sweet memories gradually turned into anguish as she realized that she could not relocate her dream. Her smile faded away and her eyes looked hazy and even teary. Unable to find her way back to her dream, Shen expressed Du’s determination to die for her love: Ah, could we only live or die at will, then who would moan for bitter pain? Let me commit my fragrant spirit, though rains be dank and drear, to keep company with this apricot’s [plum] roots (Shen gestured as if leaning on a plum tree).89 “Search for the Dream” is a long solo scene, an extraordinary challenge for a young actor like Shen Fengying. Like Du Liniang alone

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Figure 3.1 The Peony Pavilion: The Young Lovers’ Edition (Barclay Theatre, University of California, Irvine, California, 2006) The touching of water sleeves between Liu Mengmei (left) and Du Liniang (right) is a bold expression of their erotic love in the famous scene “The Interrupted Dream.” Photo by Hsu Pei-Hung.


in the deserted garden, Shen Fengying was alone on the vast Barclay stage for more than 20 minutes. However, Shen was not truly alone on stage; she was performing against the ghosts of numerous artists, literary comments, and anecdotes from hundreds of years of kunqu history. This famous section is what a passionate woman would die for (as in the theatrical anecdote mentioned earlier), and what an audience would cry for. Sobbing sounds could be heard around me. Even though Shen’s voice was unstable and sometimes broke, it was a great pleasure to watch her. It may indeed be the case that visual pleasure is far more important than aural enjoyment for today’s audiences, especially international audiences. Unable to find her love, Du Liniang has fallen ill and is gradually wasting away. In order to preserve her youthful beauty, she paints a portrait of herself and composes the poem Liu Mengmei has requested of her in the dream. Entrusting the portrait to her maid Chunxiang, she also confides in her about her dream. “The Self-Portrait” is Du Liniang’s effort to preserve spring. The first night’s performance ended with “The Soul Departs,” when Du completes the first part of her journey – this life. It is the fifteenth day of the eighth month, the Mid-Autumn Festival, a day to observe the beautiful full moon and to celebrate romantic or family reunions. The stark contrast between the festival background and Du’s inner loneliness was expressed in the dim lighting, which also reflected her untimely withering, the sorrowful rain and the hazy moonlight. Shen Fengying also changed from her earlier girlish pink costume into a deathly white one. She is sure now that her happiness cannot be obtained in this world: “What has the world to show more puissant than passion? –Soul cast adrift, heart aching, all is done.” Du knows the end is near, and she wants to have her last words with her mother and Chunxiang: she instructs them to hide her portrait under the rock and to bury her body by the plum tree in the garden. Then came the death scene. In the many death scenes I have seen in my life as a theatre-goer, the audience has usually felt the emotional effect but never the physical effect. With her half-open eyes, her listless body, and her airy voice, Shen Fengying sang the following lines with a visceral effect: “A floating numbness: hands and feet wilt and will not move.” “The root of illness has loosened; the beloved has met with me.” As Du gives up this life but becomes convinced she will find her love in the next, Shen skillfully changed her glance from despair to hope. Shen pushed away her mother and Chunxiang and sang her last line: “May the moon, once set, rise again and the burnt-out lamp glow red!”90

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As the Mother and Chunxiang were wailing, the Flower God and Flower Spirits entered, circling the dead Du Liniang. A red carpet was laid on the floor and a red cape was laid over her. She walked downstage – now a ghost but dressed in red as a bride – and repeated her last line with chorus. The first night’s performance ended with the beginning of a “hopeful” journey, her continuing pursuit of love. The final dance brought the emotion to the highest point as the curtain fell for the first night. The first night’s performance was a success. As Pai predicted, many audience members would want to buy tickets after seeing the first night’s performance. But Barclay, a smaller theatre, was already sold out and some decided to see the next two performances at the much larger Royce Hall (UCLA) a week later.91 Starting the southern California tour with a smaller theatre was a wise strategy. The first book is Du Liniang’s story, and this second book belongs to Liu Mengmei. The audience watches his rise from his lowest point, from poor obscure scholar, to lover of Du’s ghost, and finally to the romantic hero who resurrects her. Liu first appears as a typical poor scholar on his way to the capital for the Imperial Examination. Holding an umbrella, a bundle flung over his shoulder, Yu demonstrated his virtuosity by using various brilliant steps to show Liu’s struggles with the wind, rain, cold, and slippery ground. The scene in which he discovers Du’s portrait is especially fine. Although he has visited the garden in his dream, this is his first real-life visit to the garden. As he explores the deserted garden, moving across the bare stage with various brilliant steps, walks, and water sleeve movements, this scene is his answer to Du’s “Interrupted Dream.” This scene is known as the most challenging for any actor who plays the part of Liu Mengmei, and for Yu Jiulin in particular, who identifies “walking” as his weakness in training.92 In Du’s garden scene, she is accompanied by Chunxiang for part of the time, but Liu is now on his own, turning the empty stage into a wonderland by his own looks and movements.93 In addition to appreciating Yu Jiulin’s physicality in the scenes of “The Traveler Finds Haven” and “The Portrait Retrieved,” the audience also enjoyed the emotional transformation he was able to convey as he fell in love with Du’s portrait. Yu Jiulin spoke of studying the complexity of the Liu Mengmei character: lest Liu appear lustful and lose his charm, it was necessary to balance his silly love for an unknown portrait, his desire to meet the woman, and his surprise when the beautiful woman in the portrait really appears in life. In order to express Liu’s complicated emotions, Wang Shiyu taught Yu Jiulin to fix his gaze


on Shen Fengying to show his strong attraction and longing, even as he held himself slightly away from her to show his ambivalence and confusion. Liu is frightened after learning his lover is a ghost. Yu Jiulin expressed such emotion vividly by shivering as he circled the stage, tossing and shaking his water sleeves as if to keep the evil spirit away. Du finally calms him and explains their destiny: The Lady Register I entreated for permit to return to life, the Mistress of Reincarnations granted fulfillment of my remaining span, which you, sir, are foreordained to share. Your solemn vow to take me as wife Fills my cold bones with new warmth. Liu responds: “Now you are my wife I shall have no more fears.” The final scene of the day, “Resurrection,” was presented like a wedding ceremony with red as the main color, corresponding to the first night’s ending. Yu Jiulin was dressed in red, and under Sister Stone’s direction, he performed a ceremony: “O Presiding Deity of this place, we are reopening this grave for the sole purpose of restoring Bridal Du [Du Liniang] to life. Let us find no lifeless corpse, but a living woman.” The Flower God and Flower Spirits entered, dancing in a circle. The lights went up on a ramp upstage and Shen Fengying appeared, also wrapped in red. Delighted, the lovers met in each other’s embrace as the Flower Spirits danced and the chorus sang. The first night is about Du’s descent from happy innocence to desperate hope; the second night is Liu’s ascent from lonesome poverty to blissful happiness. The first book shows Du’s determination to die for love, while the second and third books allow Liu to prove himself as a romantic lover and successful scholar and as someone who can push forward the plot and tie up the play and bring it to a satisfying closure. Du’s theatrical function is much reduced in these two books. The romantic love between Du Liniang and Liu Mengmei is no doubt the most celebrated form of love. Theatrically, it was also the most tantalizing and luscious sensation. However, other kinds of love, such as the love between mother and daughter, presented in a plain and frank staging style, actually heightened theatricality because of their contrasting simplicity.

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Du Liniang’s farewell to her mother was extremely moving (“Soul Departed”): Du: Mother. Madame Du: Child. Du: Please stand back a little (Shen slightly pushed her mother away) Madame Du: What for? Du: Stand back a little (She did it again) Madame Du: What for? (Chen Lingling [as mother] moved back a little) Du: Please stand back a little more. Madame Du: What for? (Both moved back a little more. Now they were about ten feet apart) Du: I want to make obeisance to express my gratitude and to bid farewell (The dramatic pipa music started and she moved close to her mother and knelt down) Madame Du: Don’t talk like this! Du: Mother! Madame Du: My child! Du: From my first year you have prized me (Shen sang the following aria while kneeling) as your “thousand gold pieces” but I, unfilial, cannot serve you to the end of your days. Mother, this is Heaven’s decree. In this life, a flower no sooner red… ah, let me only serve anew these parents, lily and cedar, in the lifetime to come. Du’s “stage business” requesting that her mother step back had a very sensational effect.94 The loneliness at her heart, her unspeakable desire, and her guilt at being an unfilial daughter were all expressed in very simple language and movement in this farewell scene. This was one of the moments when human emotion was presented raw and plain, free of poetic language, literary allusions, complicated movements, and delicate dancing that characterized most of the dramatic action. This was the moment when true human emotion could cut through theatrical conventions and linguistic and cultural differences. Chen Lingling (Madame Du, the old dan character) had a very strong stage presence


and a solid, clear voice; she was outstanding in this production. I could actually hear weeping in the audience around me. The uncanny reunion between mother and daughter was equally touching (“Meeting the Mother”). Driven away from their home in the chaos of the war, Madam Du and Chunxiang seek shelter and encounter Du Liniang in the dim light. Naturally, they think she is a ghost. After trying in vain to flee from her, Madam Du says, “Is it my daughter? Are you an apparition? Mother neglected you.” She asks the frightened Chunxiang to toss paper money to Du, creating an almost comic scene. Finally, Sister Stone enters with a candle and sets the record straight. With long cries (“Mother!” “Child!”), they come from either side of the stage to embrace each other. Shen Fengying performed the difficult feat of walking on her knees toward her mother to show her guilt at having been unfilial. Mother said: “My child, ghost or not I couldn’t bear to give you up again!” She sang in happy disbelief: “Three years of heartbreak: what brings the cruel sea to give back now its pearl?” The scenes of parting and reunion between mother and daughter, although not the most famous scenes of the classic, touched the audience deeply with their simple but sincere depictions of the most basic kind of human love. Tang Xianzu’s Peony is a comprehensive portrayal of life, replete with happiness, sadness, beauty, and vulgarity. However, productions throughout history have tended to invoke “beauty” and “elegance” and minimize the play’s earthy and crude elements. The Young Lovers’ Edition generally eliminated some most vulgar elements of the play, mainly in the characters of Sister Stone and Scabby Turtle. Sister Stone (played by Tao Hongzhen), a Taoist nun whose strange physical features make her a special liminal character: as she says, she was denied “woman’s proper parts” and has a “rock-hard hymen.” As a sorceress, she is summoned to find a cure for Du Liniang’s illness. Sister Stone, not a man and not quite a woman, was written as a jing character and given very vulgar language by Tang Xianzu. In The Young Lovers’ Edition, however, she is portrayed as a young Taoist nun and the obscenity of her language is largely muted. Another vulgar character, Scabby Turtle, who would accompany her in the revival scene, was completely cut. This cut was probably part of Pai’s design to make The Peony Pavilion “beautiful” and “elegant,” but it did mean a sacrifice of the original Sister Stone’s considerable edginess and vitality. That is why there were objections when Peter Sellars wanted to include the Scabby Turtle character and Chen Shizheng wanted to restore the “dregs” (such as prostitutes).95 Sister Stone’s long “self-introduction,” hilarious for its puns and sexual jokes,

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was shortened, and because Lindy Li Mark’s subtitles intentionally avoided literary allusion, those who understand the original felt the loss of the passage’s earthy humor. While vulgarity and earthy humor were kept to a minimum, The Young Lovers’ Edition interspersed spectacle and fighting scenes among quiet singing scenes to successfully engage the attention of the new and international audience. These occasional martial moments within the long love story centered mainly on Duchess Yang, her husband Li Quan, and the barbarian king Wanyan Liang. Each night’s performance included one such short martial scene. After the long solo scene of Du Liniang (“Search for the Dream”) on the first day, the emotions of the audience were brought to a low point; the following long intermission further sapped the audience’s enthusiasm. In order to bring back the audience’s fervor, a very brief scene of spectacle was included to foreshadow the upcoming war. A jing (painted face) character, the Jin king Wanyan Liang (played by Fang Jianguo), appeared in his dazzling costume as his soldiers tumbled around him swinging big knives. This two-minute transitional scene appeared abrupt and out of keeping with the rest of the scenes for the night. However, the grand costume and headdress and the bravado of the painted-face character, expressed in exaggerated movements and a loud voice, created a stark contrast to the rather “quiet” scenes of Du Liniang. As with the dance of the Flower Spirits, one could understand the importance of this martial scene in appealing to the tastes of American audiences. “Alarm in Huaiyang,” a short scene of spectacle, appeared on the second night, also in the second half of the play, when audiences had been lulled by quiet love scenes. The traitor General Li Quan (played by Tang Rong) and his shrew wife Duchess Yang (played by Lü Jia) remind the audience of the pending war. The brief scene of humor and the display of spear fighting and acrobatics served as comic relief. Similar to “The Scheme of Conquest,” such spectacle provides some visual excitement and fast-paced entertainment for the new kunqu audience, who may not have the patience or taste for the more refined elements of opera. While it was common practice to provide some short martial scenes even within a civil play – the connoisseur audience might use this opportunity to take a break – scenes of this kind took on a different significance in the transnational context. The irony is that Duchess Yang, a womanwarrior character wearing an exaggerated headdress with long pheasant feathers and colorful costume, seemed to attract too much unexpected and unwanted attention from the American media (Figure 3.2). In Santa

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Figure 3.2 The Peony Pavilion: The Young Lovers’ Edition (Zellerbach Theatre, University of California, Berkeley, California, 2006) Duchess Yang (middle) and her husband Li Quan (left), with their spectacular costume and performance, received some unexpected and unwanted attention in the California tour. Photo by Hsu Pei-Hung.

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Barbara, when the city finally granted permission to have Peony banners on the main streets, the picture chosen for the banner was Duchess Yang! Also, when The Independent, a Santa Barbara-based free news and entertainment guide, chose The Peony Pavilion for its cover, the image chosen was Duchess Yang and her husband Li Quan. The woman warrior and the painted face in their exaggerated and colorful makeup and costumes, both of them belonging to the small portion of the martial parts of the play, became the vanguards of kunqu on American soil. Anyone with a little knowledge of The Peony Pavilion could see the absurdity of using these martial characters as iconic images for the play; anyone who was engaged in painstakingly conveying the exquisite beauty and cultural subtlety of the play would feel frustrated. Stereotypes seemed destined to win out in the transnational setting. Perhaps it was a mistake to include the scenes of the barbaric king and warriors; in this case, insecurity about an American audience’s taste backfired. The third martial moment (“Rebels Quelled”), which took place on the third day of the performance, presented interesting racial questions in the scene on international and intercultural negotiation between Duchess Yang, her husband, and the barbarian king. The barbaric king speaks a “barbarian language” – a made-up language full of gibberish – as a clown character acts as a translator between the king and Duchess Yang, who has attracted the king’s lustful attention. Here the audience witnessed a negotiation between ethnicity, cultures, sexes, and languages. Traditionally, Chinese theatre almost always presents foreigners as barbarians. They are easily identified because of the stereotyped way in which they are represented, with outlandish costumes (such as long furry scarves), language (gibberish) and characterization (low intelligence and uncivilized manner). Very often they represent a trivial crisis or function as comic relief. Since plays are usually written from a Sinocentric and nationalist point of view, barbarians are to be laughed at or defeated in the end. Even Chinese bandits like Duchess Yang hold a higher ethnic and cultural status than a barbarian king. Given that Westerners were themselves once regarded as barbarians, this feature of the performance created an interesting dimension on the occasion of transnational performance. Now the Western audiences were invited to stand with the Chinese center in satirizing the barbarians of China’s periphery. Perhaps an easy way to understand the treatment of the barbarians in Peony is to compare them to ethnic minorities who, on the early American stage, were regularly portrayed as uncivilized and laughable. Is there an equation to be drawn between white American audiences and Han Chinese in the play, and between barbarians in the play and ethnic minorities in


American society? The harmless threat of barbarians created comic relief and an excuse for spectacle at the expense of ethnic minorities. The last night brings the final reunion, but not before the lovers go through some dramatic obstacles. Since Du has now come back to life, Confucian doctrine immediately stakes its claims: Du and Liu cannot continue their illicit rendezvous, and a proper wedding ceremony is needed to sanction their love (“The Elopement”). The following scene is at once amusingly ridiculous and pathetically compromising: Du: Liu, I am still a virgin. Liu: We spent nights of love together; how could your precious body have remained intact? Du: That was my ghostly form; only now do I bring you my real self. It was my wandering soul visited my lover, my body remains virgin as before. Du’s vitality and rebelliousness seem to dissipate after she is revived. Although we still see her sweet love, bashfulness, and feminine beauty, Du Liniang becomes a bit less interesting in the last book because one can feel Confucianism and patriarchy creeping back in to put everything back in order. The last portion of the play concerns the lovers’ attempt to achieve the ideals of happiness defined by the mundane world: success in the Imperial Examination, marriage, and reunion with family. The final twist is Liu’s. On taking the Imperial Examination, he wins the highest honor, recognition as top scholar, but he leaves for Du’s home before learning the good news. Du Bao sees him as an imposter, since his daughter has been dead for three years. When Liu presents the portrait, he is identified as a tomb-robber and caned. Even when Du Liniang appears in person, he claims she must be a ghost or fox spirit. Du Bao applies all sorts of tests to establish Du Liniang’s true identity, checking Du’s footprint, her shadow, and her image in the mirror. Finally Du Liniang says to her father in desperation: “No more of this! Father. Your daughter stands living here before you and you refuse to acknowledge her, yet Liu Mengmei took me in marriage three years as a ghost!” His Confucian thinking does not allow him to believe anything supernatural, not to speak of his daughter’s “improper” marriage. Even at the end, when the Imperial Decree arrives and brings a happy ending, Du Bao is still barely convinced. His stubborn Confucian beliefs stands out against the production’s deeper theme of transcendent love.

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I wish to point out two short scenes with non-traditional staging as successful examples of “alternative Chinese opera.” Although most acting and singing in The Young Lovers’ Edition was done in the traditional way, under the guidance of Wang Shiyu and Zhang Jiqing, some scenes were staged with a remarkably modern and Western theatrical sensibility. To my mind, some fresh staging ideas were very effective. This is where the marriage between modern and tradition actually worked. A very moving theatrical moment was the very brief scene “The Daughter Remembered.” Tang’s original is a typical scene of commemoration and wailing: three years after Du’s death, the Mother and Chunxiang remember her with sorrowful songs and religious rituals. The Young Lovers’ presented a completely different picture: there was no singing, no dialogue, no rituals. With the Father upstage center and the Mother and Chunxiang downstage left and right, the three formed a triangle on the dim stage mourning Du Liniang. Without looking at each other, each of them uttered a long cry in turn – “Mistress” (from Chunxiang), “Daughter” (from Mother), and “Liniang” (from Father) respectively – and then they repeated the calling in unison. This soulsummoning performed on the bare stage, from different perspectives, with different voice registers, was a very cathartic moment. The simplicity of the staging revealed the raw emotion of Du’s bereaved family; it was frank and true in contrast to the opera’s typical embellishment. Moreover, the placement of the actors – in their triangular formation facing the audience instead of one another – indicates that the characters are remembering Du in their own individual mental and emotional states. Instead of narrating with elaborate poetry as traditional opera staging would require, modern staging reduced their memory and longing to simple utterances from the three characters, in their own terms, from their own perspectives. Another wonderful short scene was “The Shades,” which opened the second day’s performance. Here special lighting and sound effects created a fantastic Hades. The eerie sounds and chilling blue light of the Hades scene dramatized the wandering of Du’s soul among tumbling ghosts to the fire-blowing painted-face Judge Hu, the judge of Hades. Shen Fengying, in pure white, moved around the stage in a “ghostly” walking style, keeping her body straight and stiff and her steps tiny. The contrast between the graceful, eerie Du in white and the ferocious tumbling ghosts in bright colors was theatrically very effective. Sharply limited dialogue, mixed styles of body movements, unique sound effects created by traditional instruments, and special stage lighting all helped create the most fantastic spectacle of The Young Lovers’ Edition. Special effects borrowed from modern stagecraft used sparingly


but appropriately helped enhance the mood of the classic without damaging its exquisite aura.

Transnational racial split Transnational technology corporations, the transnational capital class, transnational kunqu production, and transnational cultural pride: these were the joint efforts that made the transnational production of The Peony Pavilion possible. Transnational Chinese have negotiated a path between deep involvement in the local and an aloof position that allows them to go beyond the local; they are apt at facilitating connections and alliances between different localities and different political regimes; the flexibility of their identities also allows their capital to flow more fluidly. However, amidst the transnational collaborations, with their aura of the happy family, one is inevitably reminded of the paradox of transnationalism: it draws attention to what it negates and further foregrounds the significance of the national.96 In the theatre program for the California tour, there appears a long list of names, including the creative team, supporting team, backstage team, and cast. Under the creative team, certain names are marked with “*” to indicate that the person in question is from Taiwan, some with “#” to indicate a Hong Kong origin. Pai also speaks of the great difference in work ethic and attitude toward art from the different Chinese nations. He implies that artists from Taiwan are devoted and highly disciplined, whereas on the mainland bureaucracy often becomes an obstacle to art.97 The racial split – this kind of Chinese as opposed to that kind of Chinese – is suddenly made prominent with such typographical marks and rhetoric. As explained earlier, this split is incomplete because this kind of Chinese and that kind of Chinese share the same ethnic origins but are separated by economic, cultural, and class differences. In the transnational context, it is both the sameness and differences that make hierarchy and collaboration work together to create the specific “made in China” type of production process: while this kind of Chinese is performing superiority for that kind of Chinese in the production process, it is the inseparability of the two groups that makes a shared aesthetic pleasure possible. In the case of The Young Lovers’ Edition, this type of racial split is also a reason for success, because it was a specific sub-culture of transnational Chinese – the Mainlander from Taiwan – that made this particular transnational China possible. From Pai himself to golden patrons, kunqu volunteers, and transnational audiences, one can see that the sub-culture of Mainlanders from Taiwan became the mainstream cultural force for the transnational Peony.

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The Mainlanders from Taiwan are the waishengren, people who were born in mainland China and moved to Taiwan circa 1949, plus their descendants, whether they currently reside in Taiwan or are now in diaspora. As explained in Chapter 1, the first-generation Mainlanders experienced intense nostalgia, whether born out of their own homesickness or out of the “restorative nostalgia” promulgated by the KMT in the context of “Cultural Restoration.” Their sense of displacement, as well as renewed fears of communist aggression – especially in the 1970s, when the ROC was forced out of the UN – caused large numbers of Mainlanders to emigrate to the United States. Among the immigrants in this wave were wealthy second-generation Mainlanders who came to the United States to study in graduate school. Their sub-culture functioned on a special kind of national ambivalence: the mainland was their parents’ home, not theirs; Taiwan is their home, but the current nativist rhetoric rejects them as “outsiders.” They want not to belong to any present Chinese nation, but long for an alternative Chinese nation. In addition to their cultural mission and national pride, this group of people might have an even more basic motivation for imaging an alternative transnational Chinese nation. Their double diasporic experience, their double nostalgia and double sense of not-belonging make their need for a “nation” or “home” much more urgent. A special kind of transnational temporality helps The Young Lovers’ Edition to achieve its goals while also allowing transnational Chinese to see beyond the here and now and to enjoy the glory and success of a transnational alliance set in the past. Transnational Chinese “avoid” being any kind of Chinese in the present, while the special temporality of the production allows them to be Chinese in the past, and specifically to be a timeless and eternal kind of Chinese. Money buys more than pride and glory; it also buys time.

Conclusion The month-long California tour ended happily in a lavish banquet for patrons and VIPs in Santa Barbara. At least one actor was seated at each table, mingling with patrons, volunteers, and audience members. There were more thanks to volunteers and golden patrons, more congratulations for a job well-done, more toasts to future success, more confirmations of the mission of cultural preservation and transmission. Local golden patron Amy O’Dowd hosted the banquet, again citing her hopes of building a transnational kunqu community and extending the paratheatrical performance of The Young Lovers’ Edition. Amid the


feelings of cultural pride and artistic success, there was also a lingering sorrow, a feeling of not wanting to let go. “Is it over? I haven’t got enough yet!” A transnational alternative China was celebrating its onemonth anniversary with the success of The Young Lovers’ Edition. Would this Peony nation continue to live and thrive? Pai Hsien-yung describes The Young Lovers’ Edition as his “brand.” He understands that brand recognition is important in the world of commercial competition. Because of its entrepreneurial mission, The Young Lovers’ Edition was supported with a major investment of capital; however, once the brand name has been introduced to the world, kunqu needs to be cost effective.98 Although Pai has inspired many people to continue fighting and working for kunqu, there is an inherent contradiction between cost-effective commercial success and quality control for the “oral and intangible heritage of humanity.” Transnational alternative Chinese opera cooperation has demonstrated a successful strategy for producing a grand kunqu with artistic integrity at the beginning of the twenty-first century. But the specific “sub-culture” that gave it life is also on its way out, and mainland nostalgia is becoming less and less relevant as time passes. One can only hope that the brand will continue to have value long after its creators have left the scene.

4 Waiting for Meaning: The Joint Venture of Robert Wilson, Jingju, and Taiwan

The story of the production of Orlando in Taipei might be captured in the following playlet: ACT I (August 2007, Watermill Center, New York) A: B: A: B: A: B:

Let’s go. We can’t. Why not? We are waiting. Waiting for whom? We are waiting for Bob.

ACT II (the Knee) Scene 1 (May 2008, Taipei) C: A: C: A: C:

I can’t go on. Why not? I’m waiting. Waiting for what? I’m waiting for meaning. Meaning will come tomorrow.

Scene 2 (August, 2008, Taipei) A: Let’s go. D: We can’t! We are waiting, waiting for the stupid light! Scene 3 (January, 2009, Taipei) E: We are still waiting... A: What are we waiting for this time? E: We are waiting for the f***ing tree! 142

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ACT III (February 2009, Taipei) A: Let’s go! F: Yes, let’s go. A: No more waiting? F: There’s no time to wait! We have to let go. Confusion, frustration, endless waiting, and, in the end, compromise and resignation: so runs the playlet, and such were the experiences of the Taiwanese participants in Orlando, a joint venture bringing together Robert Wilson, Wei Hai-Ming (Wei Haimin), jingju, and Taiwan. As a “flagship” production of the NTCH (National Theatre and Concert Hall) and the 2009 Taiwan International Festival, Orlando premiered on 21 February 2009, in Taipei’s National Theatre. In this chapter, by playing with Wilson’s notion of “knee” structure, I attempt to elucidate the negotiations that went into the making the intercultural Orlando and the results these negotiations yielded. As a participant in the early stages of the project and a close observer of its progress, I can offer some inside stories of this intercultural and international collaboration, which lasted from 2007 to 2009. My academic training also allows me to approach the performance itself from a healthy distance and with a relatively objective lens. By moving in and out of the project, I approach the subject of this chapter alternately as native informant, anthropologist, audience member, and theatre scholar. I also interrogate the validity, effect, and future possibilities of this type of grand international production.

The stakes of international and intercultural grand collaborations Although displays of cultural hybridity have been a key element in the performing arts throughout history, it seems that it was the artists of the twentieth century who really discovered the meaning of international and intercultural “collaboration” between East and West. From the early experiments of the drawing room “noh plays” of W. B. Yeats, Ezra Pound, and the celebrated Japanese dancer Michio Ito,1 to the grand “Oriental” spectacles of Ted Shawn and Jack Cole of Depression-era Hollywood,2 from Meyerhold, Artaud to Brecht, the East has provided abundant inspiration for Western “intercultural theatre” in the first half of the twentieth century, either in theorization or in stylization. However, in the second half of the twentieth century, as more international grand collaborations became possible, more problems cropped

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up. One of the sources of difficulty was the East’s unwillingness to continue as a silent partner. Even in cases where the voice of the East is muffled during the process of collaboration, the audience is not willing to be silent. On the surface, the sounds of dissatisfaction from the East might seem purely political, more a question of cultural hegemony than of intercultural efficacy. It might be, too, that criticism is a necessary part of postcolonial discourse in any intercultural collaboration, as the postcolonial local sees traces of lingering imperialism and evidence of cultural exploitation. However, when taking a closer look, one finds that the most severe and effective criticism addresses artistic elements, not the politics of the collaboration. Traditional art brings with it deep beliefs about cultural heritage and identity; it is invested with love, labor, and pride; it is a place where “alternative” interpretation inevitably becomes problematic, especially when the alternative approach is imposed from outside, by or in collaboration with the other. Among “grand” international and intercultural collaborations, a famously infamous example is Peter Brooks’s Mahabharata (1985). This nine-hour theatrical adaptation of the Indian epic premiered at the Avignon Festival in 1985 and toured the world for the next four years. The relevance of Mahabharata in this chapter is not its grand scale, but its discursive aftermath, led mainly by Rustom Bharucha, Gautam Dasgupta, and Phillip Zarrilli.3 All critics pointed out mistakes, whether misunderstandings of the legend or violations of certain traditional performance codes. But the most serious mistake, as I read these critiques, was its neglect of “context.” In other words, in Brook’s mind, The Mahabharata was a collaboration between the contemporary maestro and the great ancient epic, a collaboration between the Western present and the Eastern past, not a collaboration between himself and contemporary Indian culture and people. Brook’s Mahabharata was thus seen as torn from its religious, artistic, cultural, political, and temporal context. To adapt the epic out of its context is to pronounce The Mahabharata dead for contemporary Indian people and culture. Brook was ready to chop up the raw material and process it into something new, but Indians were not ready to let go. “Heritage of humanity” does not reduce or replace the value of national and cultural heritage. Bharucha contests, Mahabharata is universal “because it is Indian. One cannot separate the culture from the text.” 4 Nevertheless, Brook’s Mahabharata did not red flag future grand intercultural performances. To turn to the specific case of jingju in Taiwan, a production worth mentioning is Oresteia, a collaboration between The Contemporary Legend Theater and Richard Schechner (1995). Taking the


approach of environmental theatre, Schechner chose Ta An Forest Park as the performance space. Located in the heart of Taipei, this vast urban forest is loaded with political meaning, as it had for decades been the site of a crowded settlement for Mainlander members of the military and their families.5 Large parts of the three-hour production were easy to link with other plays by The Contemporary Legend. Wei Hai-Ming (Clytemnestra) and Wu Hsing-Kuo (Agamemnon and Orestes) seized the audience’s attention with their jingju star power. Lin Hsiu-Wei’s choreography created sensational effects and heightened theatricality. Most of the other characters, including the chorus, were played by actors trained in jingju, and they displayed their skills in singing, speaking, and acrobatics before a crowd of 2000. The major difference between Schechner’s production and Wu’s was the postmodern interruption addressing the status of jingju and contemporary Taiwan politics. A “City Boy” character (in baseball cap and baggy shorts, chewing gum) kept interrupting or laughing at the “grand” performance of jingju; a man in a suit kept threatening the crowd with a gun, especially during the scene in which a jury votes on the final judgment of Orestes; and Athena was presented as a game show hostess, with high heels, shining mini skirt, and a high-pitched giggling. These rather “contemporary,” “familiar,” and “Taiwanese” characters seemed to mock the lofty position of the KMT and of jingju, neither of which is considered native Taiwanese. In the uncomfortable ending of the play, Athena wishes to appease the Furies because she fears they will “protest on the street, cause traffic jams, ruin business, and damage [Taiwan’s] international reputation.” The voting process is marred by the man with a gun in a seeming satire on democracy in Taiwan. The director’s clever idea of ending the play as a game show allows him to offer a solution for Taiwan’s quandary: a temple would be built to guarantee that Taiwan would be a state where “mothers are kind and sons are filial, marriages are harmonious, traffic is smooth, the stock market is great, and politics is clean; [Taiwan] will become the business center of the Mediterranean [Pacific].” The ending with everyone on stage, dancing and singing in celebration, represents the ultimate compromise for the people of Taiwan. The play’s suppressed gender issues, along with its layers of political meaning and artistic conflict, are all muffled under the “happy ending” of the game show. While Schechner’s artistic feat was celebrated here, his limited understanding of Taiwan’s political and cultural complexity seemed to cheapen the sovereignty both of Taiwan as a political and cultural entity and of jingju as an art form. 1995 was a year when tensions between Taiwan and mainland China were high; it was also the year when all

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jingju companies were merged into a single company, the Guoguang Company. All the most serious issues were treated as a game show in the postmodern spirit of pastiche, making it seem that money and traffic were the major concerns of Taiwan people. Moreover, the park that the rich enjoyed was for many others the site of lost homes. Some members of the audience reported feeling cheated or angry.6 Oresteia was perhaps an artistic success, but culturally it left much to be desired. Avant-garde maestros like Richard Schechner, Peter Brook, and Robert Wilson win international acclaimed for their ingenious artistic innovations and ground-breaking experiments; they are the established leaders of mainstream art. Their international collaborations, especially those with traditional artists from the East, are eagerly anticipated by the world audience. However, as seen in Mahabharata (1985) and in Oresteia (1995), and later in Robert Wilson’s Orlando (2008), the most important criterion for success in international and intercultural collaboration remains to be the artistic and cultural context. These productions might be successful in terms of ticket sales or visibility, or in terms of new artistic stimulation, but the resentment resulting on the side of traditional art becomes palpable because the art is taken out of context. No matter how old Mahabharata and jingju are, they are still living in people’s minds. To take these arts out of context is to disregard all the people who are still breathing the art; it is also a premature announcement of the death of these arts.

Robert Wilson and his knee structure In a career spanning four decades, Robert Wilson has established his international reputation as one of the avant-garde theatre directors of our time. Many publications and films have been devoted to Wilson and his works, including the recent book Absolute Wilson: the Biography (2006) and the documentary film of the same title (2007).7 Rather than engaging in long digression, I point out here only a few basic Wilsonian elements that are relevant to my later discussion of the Taiwan Orlando project. Wilson’s productions are usually on a “grand” scale in terms of the duration of performance, the size of the cast and production team, and the production cost. Even his “incomplete” piece was very extravagant. The CIVIL warS: A Tree is Best Measured When it is Down was to have six parts performed in six countries and then to have a culminating performance fusing all six parts at the summer Olympics in Los Angeles (1984). Only four parts were staged, in Minneapolis, Rome, Rotterdam, and Cologne. The planned culminating performance was cancelled for lack of funding. Wilson’s reputation for grandeur is what attracted attention from theatre circles in Taiwan.


Eccentric, incomprehensible, but visually and musically astounding – these are the words often associated with Wilson’s works. He intentionally withdraws meaning, conventional associations, and even emotion from the language and body movements of his actors. Language and movement are reduced to the most elementary particles of theatre: sounds, breath, timing, rhythm, beats, vibration, duration, space. As far removed as possible from any Aristotelian sense of empathy, his works often resemble sculpture or installations more than dramatic action on stage. “Without light, no space. Without space, no theatre.”8 Lighting is probably the most important aspect of Wilson’s theatre. It does much more than serve the actors; it is itself an actor. I would even say that live actors sometimes, as in the case of Orlando, find themselves in a subordinate position, serving the light. Like music, Wilson’s light moves with precision and rhythm. Appia is often cited as one of Wilson’s greatest influences in this aspect.9 Wilson does not block the show and then light it; his light comes even before blocking. One of the first things he explained to Wei Hai-Ming in our brainstorming meeting at the Watermill Center was the precision of his lighting: On a dark stage, only her hand is lit, then a skull, then her head. Lighting is much more than illumination; it works like montage in film; it has a life of its own. The “knee” is an important concept in Wilson’s theatrical works. The knee is the joint where two different parts are connected but also separated; the knee is where everything turns around but also continues. The architecture at his Watermill Center features a “knee” area connecting two sections of the building. His “knee plays,” first seen in Einstein on the Beach (1976), are “divertissements, or ‘joints,’ between the scenes. They provide a continuity of action much as olios offer entertainments between the acts of a burlesque or vaudeville show.” In The CIVIL warS: A Tree is Best Measured When it is Down, there are “plays” which last three to six minutes each, between the 15 full scenes. In Orlando, the character’s double gender and the stage play’s three-part structure reflect the knee concept: in the first part, Orlando is a man, and in the last part, Orlando is a woman; the middle or knee part is where everything turns around and where the gender transformation takes place.

The Orlando adventure A Prelude: love at first sight The idea of collaboration traces back to 2007, when Robert Wilson visited Taipei and had a chance to see a performance of selected jingju scenes by the jingju diva Wei Hai-Ming. Wilson was invited by the

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National Theatre as part of the master lecture series celebrating the theatre’s twentieth anniversary. Wilson gave a public lecture and also visited the National Guoguang Opera Company. The intention was to show him some of Taiwan’s most distinguished and representative performing arts, so that there might be some chance of future collaboration. While Taiwan is becoming a destination for international visiting artists, Taiwan’s own artists are not exactly visible on the world stage. In other words, the booming economy in Taiwan has made Taiwan a good consumer of art, but not quite a producer or exporter of art. With Wilson as a bridge, artists in Taiwan might get a chance to participate in the world art scene. With this intention in mind, two artistic forms were shown to Wilson during his short visit: traditional jingju and drumming (U Theatre). Wei’s performance of “Holding up the Seal, Claiming Leadership” (Pengyin Guashuai) caught Wilson’s attention and planted the seeds for a collaboration. This famous scene from the jingju repertoire recounts the decision of Mu Guiying, a famous woman general, to accept command of the army and lead it into battle. The piece allows a tremendous show of Wei’s virtuosity: emotionally, it shows the conflict between a woman’s domestic duty and her patriotism; technically, the negotiation between military prowess and feminine beauty is displayed on the woman’s body. Within her pliant femininity there is a kind of rigor, a feminized masculine strength. Enacting a typical struggle of a woman under traditional patriarchy, the play advances a mild gender criticism that has won acclaim from jingju audiences over the generations. Artistically, one imagines that a feminized masculinity traditionally portrayed by male dan is now retheatricalized by Wei, who was trained in the Mei School, the male dan school. Multiple layers of imitation and emulation are presented in Wei’s body: while Mei Lanfang has to negotiate between his own masculinity and feminized masculinity, Wei has to express the feminized masculinity mastered by the male dan with her female body. Whether or not Wilson can truly be said to have understood the intricacy of gender-bending practice in jingju history, he was convinced Wei Hai-Ming was the actress he wanted to work with. Wei Hai-Ming has been a master-teacher, leading star, and fervent supporter of jingju in Taiwan. By her own account, she was lucky enough to have caught the “tail of the old tradition” and “the head of the new beginning.”10 Like many performers of the last generation, Wei “grew up” in opera school and her career was decided for her by her father and her teachers. Talented and beautiful, she played important roles at a young age and had a promising career ahead of her. However, she took


a great risk and challenge in accepting the invitation of Wu Hsing-Kuo to play the role of Lady Macbeth in The Kingdom of Desire in 1987. Wei had trained as a qingyi (virtuous maiden), but the role of Lady Macbeth would require her to play a villainous or evil character. This courageous leap proved to be a life-changing decision. As noted in Chapter 1, the steady decline of traditional jingju and the rise of Taiwan on the international stage coincided with Wei’s decision to embrace both the old and new forms. Her virtuosity in the traditional repertoire and openness to innovative works are among the main reasons the declining art has been able to shine despite Taiwan’s difficult cultural and political climate. Her marvelous performance in The Golden Cangue was one of the most successful examples of Innovative jingju. The original plan was for the NTCH and the Guoguang Opera Company to co-produce Orlando: NTCH would provide Western theatre “hardware,” such as space and technical support, as well as major financial support, while Guoguang would contribute jingju “software,” such as script-writers, actors, musicians, makeup artists, and composers. This joint venture would be of the highest caliber: the National Theatre is the best performing space in Taiwan, and Guoguang employs the most talented jingju artists. With top performer Wei Hai-Ming and internationally famed maestro Robert Wilson, Orlando was expected to be a historic success. Because it was to be the flagship production for the year 2009, NTCH devoted record-breaking funding and unprecedented manpower to this project. While Chinese operatic performances these days often seem to express nostalgic feelings toward the past, the Taiwan Orlando looked to the future with retro-futuristic nostalgia. It was hoped that the Taiwan Orlando could bring visibility both to jingju and to the “made in Taiwan” brand name; Taiwan performing arts would enjoy national glory on the world stage, not in the form of Orientalized art, but as a quality product of the new millennium. B Chapter One: Watermill journey: waiting for Bob11 I was invited to join a three-person team from Taiwan in visiting the Watermill Center in New York for an initial planning meeting. Besides Wei Hai-Ming, the Taiwan team included Li Hsiao-Ping (Li Xiaoping), the important Innovative jingju director from the Guoguang Company, and Lee Huey-Mei (Li Huimei), the program manager of the National Theatre. Adding myself, a Taiwan export and American-trained academic whose passion is intercultural negotiation and identity performance in Chinese opera, our four-person group represented the Taiwan side of the table for this international and intercultural collaboration.

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Day 1: Architecture and formality Robert Wilson started the collaboration with an explanation of his basic architectural concept, according to which horizontal and vertical lines represent space and time and a “knee” acts as a joint between two separate parts. These basic artistic and architectural concepts would become clearer throughout our days at Watermill and would eventually become lucid in the production itself. Wilson draws as he talks. White sheets of paper with black lines are the best documentation of his thoughts on theatre as a “formal” director. I only give formal direction.12 I don’t care what you are thinking. Make up something. Don’t interpret. I often use nonsense, but the audience tries to make sense of nonsense. During the initial period of getting acquainted with one another, Wilson announced his directing “philosophy,” as articulated above. Our group heard it but unfortunately didn’t really hear it; we took his words as general suggestions, not as ironclad laws; his statement was interpreted through our cultural and artistic filters. The director’s role in traditional jingju is minimal, and even in Innovative jingju, the director “shapes” jingju while constantly worrying about butchering it. The fundamental misunderstanding here was that our group believed Wilson had been invited to direct a jingju Orlando loosely based on Virginia Woolf’s text, while Wilson had in fact intended to rehash his successful earlier effort with Wei Hai-Ming. In our minds, the Euro-American productions were an example of what Wilson had done, not a paradigm we were going to follow. We believed that the logic and conventions of jingju would be the basis of our work rather than mere decoration; we did not expect that the cultural and artistic context of jingju in Taiwan would be excluded from consideration. Schechner’s Oresteia, as noted above, even with its environmental and postmodern theatre approach, still preserved jingju style and theatre logic. It was indeed a case of misunderstanding and miscommunication at first sight. Wilson led us on a tour of the building and grounds of his Watermill Center.13 The boxy Bauhaus buildings have rigid vertical and horizontal lines and are divided into two independent structures separated and joined by the “knee.” The knee is an indoor/outdoor transitional space between the two wings; it has rocks on the ground and is open to the


sky; rains and snow can be part of the knee experience if one goes from one wing to the other. The indoor space contains offices, living quarters, museum collections and archives, large kitchen and dining areas, gallery space, and space for rehearsals and performances. Life and art are one here: students rehearse among art objects in the gallery, and the art objects are sometimes used in rehearsals. Art is not encased in glass boxes or protected by an alarm system. It is the life breath of the Center. Somehow the proximity of live artists and art objects does not create intimacy or warmth. There is always a sense of awe and tension in the air. These objects seem to remind the rather free-spirited artists of the law of order and extreme cleanliness. The invisible boundary between art and life exercises its cruelty here. Life is messy, art is tidy; life is ambiguous, art is precise; life is negotiation, art is decision. We also toured the museum and archives located downstairs. These were full of ancient artifacts such as Buddha heads, sculptures, and ancient vases. “Twenty-five hundred years before Christ,” claimed Wilson as he pointed to certain pieces. Our group examined objects purportedly more ancient and valuable than the national treasures collected in Taipei’s National Palace Museum. The question of authenticity remained open, at least for us. The numerous ancient objects in the museum, as well as the ancient stone hedges and giant vases outdoors, reminded us that our life is haunted by the past and by our interpretations and fetishizations of the past. The authenticity or the monetary values of these objects seemed to matter less than their cultural associations (prehistoric, 2500 BCE, Neolithic, New Guinean), which contributed to the overall sense of awe and discomfort of the Center. Everything was arranged, decided, planned. There was no messy improvisation in Wilson’s world, not even in its version of nature. Our group met with other artists who were working on individual or collaborative projects at Watermill. Wilson introduced an Indonesian dancer to Wei Hai-Ming. The Indonesian dancer was asked to perform some movements about winter, and Wei to do something about spring. A short demonstration of certain jingju movements became a long lecture, and Wei used this opportunity to educate the artists there about the art of jingju: its role types, its training system, and her own learning experience. One of our strongest desires was really to use the collaboration as an opportunity to show the world the richness, complexity, and beauty of Chinese opera. This desire was the result of another major misunderstanding: Robert Wilson is not interested in Chinese opera as a whole; he chose Chinese opera as a form of expression because he had chosen Wei Hai-Ming; he chose Wei Hai-Ming because she fit the model established by Isabella Hupert, Jutta Lampe, and Miranda Richardson.14

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Nevertheless, at this stage of negotiation, he never directly said no to the idea of involving other jingju actors and elements. Finally, dinner. Later we would realize this represented another misunderstanding based on our cultural assumptions: we had thought that since Wilson was now taking his turn as host, that there would be reciprocation for earlier acts of hospitality. We assumed that the question “Have you eaten?” – a common greeting in Taiwan and an implicit invitation – would be part of American hospitality too. Instead, since we spent the entire day at the Center away from civilization, no meals were made available to us, not until dinner. Hospitable reciprocity, like respecting jingju in its cultural context, was not to be taken for granted in this collaboration. Sitting with us were Wilson and his long-time collaborator Christopher Knowles, a poet and artist who was diagnosed with autism as a child. What people might consider Knowles’s abnormality is seen as a gift by Wilson. Knowles recited some of his poetry for us. It was very moving to listen to the monotonic but musical rhythms under the starry night. This also gave the Taiwan team a chance to peep into Wilson’s eccentric creative world. Day 2: Stick and skull: defending the ground Our group laid out our wishes and aims for this joint venture. Li Hsiao-Ping, representative of the Guoguang Opera Company (the coproducer of this project), explained his two aims for this trip: the production must be jingju and it must involve large number of Guoguang personnel. Lee Huey-Mei, representing the NTCH, had as her aim the ambition to put Taiwan on the world stage. She explained that Taiwan is not a very attractive destination for famous international artists because the small population allows for few performances. Given the costs associated with involving famous international artists, a joint venture of this kind – that is, a co-production rather than a touring performance – means inevitable financial losses, but it also provides an opportunity for Taiwan to make an appearance on the world stage. In other words, Lee’s mission in this workshop was on the one hand to gain face for Taiwan and on the other hand to prevent loss of face at all costs. As we waited for Wilson, his long-time assistant director Ann-Christin Rommen – who would ultimately be listed as co-director for the Taiwan production – went over the German production with us, showing us stage drawings and the English script. The video of the German and French productions had been made available to the Taiwan production team before their arrival, but they did not take those recordings seriously, partly because the recordings were unsubtitled and confusing, partly because the Taiwanese team believed that this material was only


for reference, since Wilson was going to make something fresh in Taiwan. The Taiwan group politely listened to Rommen’s explanation, not understanding its real significance. Rehearsal finally began. Wei was asked to imagine herself as a 16year-old boy, the Queen’s favorite. Wei consulted with Li Hsiao-Ping and decided to present the famous character Yang Zongbao, a young general from the warrior family Yang. This character’s use of the “baby male” singing style (wawadiao, baby-tune) might show the femininity and youthfulness of the male character required in Orlando. This was a difficult choice, as the young male (xiaosheng) in Chinese opera generally appears feminine to the Western observer. The xiaosheng’s makeup uses hues similar to female makeup, his singing is in a high falsetto voice, and he wears silky embroidered robes. Only his movements might suggest masculinity to non-specialists. The young boy role presents even greater challenges, as Chinese opera in general did not develop well-defined conventions for the representation of children.15 The choice of a young male character singing in the “baby-tune” was what the specialists came up with to show Wilson a jingju take on Orlando as a 16-year-old boy. Since both Orlando and Yang Zongbao are young males involved in fighting, Wei wanted to show Wilson all the techniques associated with horse-riding: mounting, riding, and dismounting. Unable to obtain a proper operatic horsewhip, we found a stick that barely served the purpose. In Chinese opera, there is no horse on stage; all the riding is symbolized through brandishing of the whip and body movements. With her makeshift whip, Wei did her best to show what jingju stage language provides for the representation of a young male. This typified the pattern of the collaboration in this first stage: when Wilson asked Wei to do something, she searched her own performance repertoire, and with the assistance of Li, identified an existing character and scenario in jingju, with its particular jingju vocabulary, to present to Wilson. Robert Wilson’s vision was therefore realized through a long process of translation. It was delivered first in his modern colloquial English, then passed through my colloquial English-to-modern Chinese translation to Wei. Wei and Li then went through the repertoire of Chinese opera and identified a scene, character (filtered by role type), aria (in classical Chinese), and set of stylized jingju movements that would correspond to Wilson’s vision. I would then translate and interpret the aria and stylized movements to Wilson in colloquial English. This process was not only a simple translation of meaning, as Wilson perhaps imagined; it was a translation that crossed cultures, artistic genres, and time. There

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was no direct way to cut through the multi-layered translation of art and culture. Differences over the notion of translation have proven to be the basis of miscommunication throughout the life of the project. Wei was asked to whistle in imitation of a bird song. This was not a successful experiment, as whistling has no place in jingju tradition. Wei gave it a try, but suggested in the end that a flute might be the best way to get the desired sound. Wilson then disappeared for a moment and returned with a human skull in his hand. He explained that the skull was from New Guinea, where it had been used as a head rest: in New Guinea, sleeping on ancestors’ skulls is a known custom. He asked Wei to lay her head on the skull and speak some lines. Our group was quite impressed with Wilson’s ingenious improvisation with the ancient skull, not knowing that both the whistling and the skull were part of the master plan to recreate details of the European versions of Orlando. They ran through the skull scene a few times before the rehearsal was interrupted because Wilson had to receive an important guest, a potential patron. Day 3: Stage time and real time Following the schedule that had been given us, we arrived at the center in the afternoon. The schedule would soon prove completely untrustworthy. It seemed to be expected that there would be long periods of waiting. Everyone seemed to be running around hectically, busy with their projects, and we could get no definite answer as to when our time with Wilson would actually come. This was very different from what we had thought would happen: the Taiwan group had found their own funding for their trip in the expectation that they would be working with Wilson, brainstorming and planning, for eight full days. Wei had also agreed to give a lecture on jingju to all the visiting artists at the center. Instead, each day brought long periods of waiting and only very limited time to actually work on the project with Wilson. Since the schedule was uncertain, our group did not want to leave the center to eat lunch and risk missing our precious meeting time. Food became an issue we had to deal with. We secretly joked that the project should be called “Waiting for Bob, Waiting for Food.” When the time for rehearsal finally came, Wei continued with the scene in which Orlando sleeps on the skull. Waking up, Orlando talks about his dream. Instead of using the voice of the young general Yang Zongbao as on the day before, Wei sang a song from her recent performance of The Golden Cangue. “In January, the plum blossoms are


a powdery white. A girl is embroidering in her chamber. In February, she puts the flower in her hair. The fragrance attracts young men. In March […].” The aria is completely out of keeping with the character of Orlando, an aristocratic boy at court. The song is by the young Qiqiao, a lower-class young girl, in the course of her daydreams about love. But the dreamy and innocent quality of the song “felt right” for Wei and Wilson at this moment. As a matter of fact, this song ominously foreshadows Wilson’s future approach to jingju: as long as it feels right, the original artistic and cultural context does not matter. As soon as Wei had finished the short scene, Wilson turned to his assistants and got the report: 1 minute, 50 seconds. Wilson then asked Wei to do it again, making it 2 minutes and 30 seconds. She was also given some instruction, such as crossing her hand in front of her body three times. This is what Wilson meant by formal direction, a concept he introduced earlier.16 To hear such precise stage timings and movements, with no explanation of their meaning, at such an early stage in the rehearsal process, was extremely confusing for someone like Wei. In jingju training and rehearsal, singing usually comes before movement, or at least accompanies movement. Wei was now being asked to think not about the meaning of her singing, but about the duration of the song and the shape and position of her body. Her discomfort was apparent from the very beginning of the Orlando project. She was then asked to present a fighting scene, using a bamboo stick as her sword. She was also told to speak or paraphrase the following lines: “I was sixteen. I was in love with death, not only my own death but also the death of my ancestors.” This instruction again passed through a series of translations. Wei paused a moment and “translated” my translated instructions into jingju movements and classical Chinese. Now she was asked to move forward: three people were standing in a line, representing her enemies, and she had to approach them one by one moving perpendicularly to the existing line of enemies. The juxtaposition of perpendicular lines represented the intersection of time and space as elsewhere in Wilson’s work. Wilson paused a moment and asked whether Wei liked this kind of approach or if she would prefer to have a text first. Wei naturally preferred to have the text first, but she did not entirely reject this working method. Once again, her politeness – not rejecting Wilson’s ideas outright – was another aspect of the cultural misunderstanding. Nevertheless, she proposed transporting the text into a Chinese historical background and heard no objection.

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Day 4: Day off Day 5: Temporary settlement Our group arrived in the afternoon, as scheduled, but were told that Wilson would probably have only 15 minutes with us. His assistant apologized profusely but could do nothing to change the situation. Knowing that our time was really limited, we decided to move ahead with or without Wilson; we asked Ann-Christin Rommen, who at least seemed to be a steady source of information, to pass on our questions and to find out what exactly the next step was. At this moment, there was no Chinese text, no Chinese opera, and no cast except for Wei. The previous three days had given us a taste of Wilson’s working method, but did not seem to represent any progress in the Orlando project, at least from our point of view, since we did not know the skull, stick, and whistling would all become part of the show. Because of the Wilson group’s lack of knowledge about jingju, we were deeply concerned about the outcome of the project. Wilson miraculously appeared and gave us some time to discuss the project. We reached decisions on a few matters: the Orlando story could be transposed to a Chinese background with Chinese characters, but would generally follow the original plot; Taiwan would have total freedom to adapt the material; costumes would reflect the period; sound design could be creative, with prerecorded music and special effects along with opera singing and live orchestra; and the set would be abstract. The writer should adhere to the basic structure of the play: the first part takes place when Orlando is a man (35–40 minutes), the second part is the transformation (30 minutes), and the third part takes place when Orlando is a woman (25 minutes, with a quicker rhythm). The music and script of this newly composed opera should be ready for Stage A rehearsal by May 2008. Our group was worried. To judge from Li’s experience, it would take four weeks, rehearsing 12 hours a day, to ready a new jingju play for performance. So far Wilson had arranged only a short rehearsal for May 2008 and a month-long rehearsal for January 2009, just prior to the performance in February. We did not even have a script or cast yet. How was there going to be enough time? Day 6: Final desperation Wei lectured jingju in Chinese to the entire group at the center, with an English translation from me. She also demonstrated certain movements and singing styles. It was well received by the students. The curiosity and enthusiasm of other artists prolonged the lecture session.


During our meeting, Wilson mentioned the notion of Western architecture, with a square or rectangular building in back and a lone tree in front. The contrasting shapes and materiality help each other to be seen better. A similar concept is at work in classical ballet, where the star ballerina dances before a line of dancers, and in Greek tragedy, where the actor stands in front of the chorus. Seizing on this concept as a means of reiterating our hopes for a more jingju-oriented production, our group once again suggested additional jingju actors besides Wei, or at least a crowd scene to fill out the background of her solo performance. By this point, Wilson had only expressed his “preference,” not his “decision” for a solo performance, and the Taiwan group thought negotiations were still open. After a reiteration of the knee concept, we were told we were done! Done? We had barely begun to talk about the project, and our original schedule indicated that there were still two days of work left. Wei was desperate. Wilson had not seen anything yet. How could he know how to begin? Wei wanted to show him the differences between jingbai (more colloquial jingju language) and yunbai (heightened poetic jingju language), because it would be important to mix these two kinds of language in the right ratio to make a successful script, and ultimately a successful performance. Wilson ignored her request at first, but with her insistence, Wei stood up from the dinner table and demonstrated various singing and speaking styles in jingju and kunqu. She also proposed that jingju performance could be used for Orlando’s male acting and kunqu the female acting, while in the transitional part drums and gongs could be used. The demonstration was well received by the crowd. Days 7, 8, and 9: The foggy unknown We lingered on the foggy Long Island, worrying about the future of the Orlando project. What were we to do? Wilson had introduced his philosophy of directing and theatre, showed us his collection of world treasures, and explained what happened in the previous Orlando productions, but we had barely discussed our project. What was the next step to be? At this point Wilson seemed open on matters of historical and cultural setting, language, and performance style; the only thing he insisted on was the basic three-part structure and the length of the play. The group was confused and dissatisfied and frankly felt a bit as if we had been deceived. This expensive nine-day trip for four people had accomplished very little. While I could return to my relatively free academic life of writing and publishing, both Lee and Li had to report to their bosses and deal with the consequences of the meeting. Wei was worried

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that her life-long training and her virtuosity would be wasted: how could Wilson know how to direct her if he did not know what she could do? The only thing we could do at this point was to find someone to translate the Orlando English script into Chinese, then rewrite it with a Chinese background and characters and with jingju arias, dialogue and music. Now we put our hopes in the Chinese script. C Chapter Two: The knee: hope, anxiety, and compromise This “knee” period of the project lasted about a year and half. The Taiwan team had four “encounters” with Wilson: a brief meeting in January 2008, a two-week rehearsal in May 2008, a short rehearsal in August 2008, and the final month-long rehearsal in January and February 2009.17 1 Development of the script The confusion and the anxiety our group had experienced at Watermill were an ominous start for the larger creative team in Taiwan. Wang An-Ch’i, the pen behind Innovative jingju in Taiwan, felt extremely uncomfortable taking up the responsibility for writing the Orlando script. What she had to work with was a modern Chinese translation of Darryl Pinckney’s stage rendition of Woolf’s original. Woolf’s semiautobiographical novel deals with gender issues such as androgyny and bisexuality, 400 years of English history, and reflections on life. Even though her stream-of-consciousness style makes her work difficult to read, it is at least rich enough to promise the possibility of interpretation. Pinckney’s condensed script offers a sketchy line to accompany Wilson’s stage design, not to elucidate Woolf’s complicated original. Wang An-Ch’i would later come to realize that there are two separate narrative lines in this production – an audio-visual line and a textual line – and that the two lines often deliberately contradict each other.18 The first line could be interpreted as the “pure theatricality” of Robert Wilson, which does not deliberately symbolize, reference, or prescribe meaning. But this concept was not clear to the Taiwan team in the early stages of the production, since our group got the impression at the Watermill Center that Wilson was flexible and open-minded about the Chinese opera script. Wang thought she had to compose a new jingju play with the plot of Orlando, although she felt that she did not understand or feel for the characters at all. Wang said, “I have to thoroughly understand the character […] before I can write a single line of poetry seven characters long.”19 Poetry is arguably the most important element of Orlando: as the Queen’s favorite 16-year-old boy, a young man in love,


a man in exile, and a married woman, Orlando keeps writing poetry throughout the 400 years of the story. “What accompanies me is poetry and melody” (Act I). Gender changes, time changes, love changes, but poetry is eternal. Even though Pinckney’s text could be translated into modern Chinese, into classical Chinese, and then into jingju-style arias and dialogue, Wang could make no poetry at all without understanding the characters’ emotions. Nevertheless, she did it, as she knew she must, for the sake of jingju and for the sake of Taiwan’s face. Following the general plot line, she and her students created a script that was historically and culturally convincing in the Chinese context, amplifying it with additional characters and historical references. The first version of the Chinese Orlando script was set in the Tang dynasty, during the reign of Empress Wu (r. 690–705). The script was sent to Wilson, but there was no response. In January 2008, the Taiwan team had a brief meeting with Wilson. This was an embarrassing occasion, even a humiliating one. When the team asked for his feedback on the script they realized that, due to his assistant’s negligence, Wilson had never seen the script. Chagrined, the assistant quickly downloaded the script and showed it to Wilson. This was not what he wanted, he declared. He did not want dialogue. He did not want additional characters. He wanted to follow the German and French versions. Lee Huey-Mei showed him the notes she took and the report she wrote for the Watermill trip, when he gave our group the impression that everything was open and flexible, but her insistence was futile at this point. He wanted a solo Orlando starring Wei Hai-Ming.20 So the team set to work on the script, not in order to create a Chinese Orlando script, but in order to make the German script into something bearing a resemblance to Chinese opera. This change of approach was in some ways a relief for Wang An-Ch’i, since her job was now simply to “translate” it into jingju, and understanding the logic and meaning was no longer an issue. During the next few months, the script would gradually develop into an accompanying line to fit Wilson’s audiovisual line. However, the lack of convincing logic and meaning still troubled Wei Hai-Ming, and right up to the last moment of the rehearsal process she was still trying to grasp the meaning of the script.21 The formal director Wilson says, “I think Virginia Woolf is a formal writer, and her text is therefore formal as well. She is, after all, writing both about herself and about 400 years of the history of England. It is a playful, fantasy text. Yet as a formal writer she views events to some extent from a distance.”22 Obviously Wilson finds a connection between his formal directing and Woolf’s formal writing, but the

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formality of jingju performance and of Chinese poetry, both essential in constructing the script, are largely neglected in Wilson’s creation of the Taiwan Orlando. One witnessed Wei’s constant struggle throughout the rehearsal process; the lack of familiar jingju formality deprived her of meaning. She felt directionless. 2

The rehearsal

In May 2008, Wilson came to Taiwan and worked with Wei for two weeks. A few hours into the first rehearsal, Wang An-Ch’i received a text message from an assistant at the rehearsal: “Disaster! Big disaster!” Wang rushed to the scene and saw Wei collapsed in a chair, lamenting: “My 40 years of achievement, destroyed in a single day!” They had spent the entire morning whistling bird songs. Musicians were asked to produce “sound effects” instead of playing jingju music: the player of the huqin, a stringed instrument, was asked to produce the longest sound with one pull of the bow, and the drummer had to try to produce a sound as loud as he could. Wang’s heart ached at the waste of theatrical and musical talent. The philistine butchering of jingju made her furious; she was afraid that jingju would be completely destroyed in the name of the avant-garde maestro’s experiments. Indignant and defensive, she even thought that the word jingju should not appear in the performance program at all.23 Heartache. Both Wei and Wang had been defenders of jingju against all odds; they had been vanguards of Innovative jingju and conservations of traditional forms. They know everything about experimenting with jingju. They have an ocean of knowledge about traditional jingju, but have remained open-minded enough to take risks with innovative forms. They understand the Taiwan market well enough to keep traditional audiences and attract newer, younger audiences. No one is in a better position to modify, modernize, or deconstruct jingju. Any artist who lacks their understanding of jingju’s formal qualities and logic must inevitably run into difficulties in attempts at experimentation or deconstruction. Wang’s initial reaction was rage, whereas Wei’s was bewilderment and confusion. In an early scene in which Orlando is a 16-year-old boy, he imagines fighting and killing on the battlefield. The scene requires an imaginary sword fight. Since Wei’s main training was as qingyi (virtuous maiden), her posture, body language, voice, and even emotion and thought on stage are all true to the maidenly character type. Breaking the role type is not impossible, as Wei showed in The Kingdom of Desire and in The Golden Cangue. But such a difficult task presumes a clear understanding of the art on the part of the creators of the play, since


the actor is required to negotiate the intricate interactions between role type and character, and among body, voice, and plot. As noted above, the child or young adult is a role type rarely played in jingju, so Wei had little to go on as she created 16-year-old Orlando on stage. She worked hard with Li Hsiao-Ping, searching their shared encyclopedic knowledge of jingju, and created a scene in which Wei could act the boy with convincing sword-fighting and body language. When the scene was presented to Wilson, it was flatly rejected. Wei was asked to discard her jingju body and fight with a stick like a little boy, instead of with a sword in the stylized movements of jingju. Stripped of jingju performance codes, Wei is a 52-year-old woman, not a 16-year-old boy. Wei felt naked and lost. The debacle recalled a similar episode, when Peter Sellars invited the most celebrated kunqu actress, Hua Wenyi, to play a lovelorn 16-year-old maiden in his version of The Peony Pavilion (1998). Hua was asked to wear “natural” modern clothes and makeup, but to sing and dance in traditional kunqu manner. On stage, we saw a middleaged woman (Hua was 57) reminiscing about her youthful feelings of love, not being the young woman in love; we saw the discrepancy between her kunqu body and her modern clothes, which did not allow her to present certain kunqu movements; we see the awkwardness when Joel de la Fuente, the male ballet dancer, circled half-naked around the middle-aged woman.24 Without the mediation of the formality of Chinese opera, actors are stripped of their second nature and feel lost. This was the source of the anxiety that Wei Hai-Ming felt during this period. Why? What did these demands mean? These are the questions that Wilson would not answer. He knew what he wanted and what he did not want, but he did not know or did not want to explain why he wanted it. Say this line three times. Hold the skull this way. Stand up abruptly and mimic a sword fight. Lie on the ground. All these motions corresponded precisely to the German version in terms of timing and positioning, and in terms of Wilson’s concept of horizontal and vertical lines. But why? What did they mean? Wei asked these questions, but rarely got any sort of an answer. “Forget it. It’s useless to ask. Let’s get to work!” She dealt with this problem with perfect professionalism and continued to work. She tried to discard jingju logic, such as the coordination of singing and dancing and the coordination of hand and eye. She did not understand what she was doing. She just did what Wilson wanted her to do so the rehearsal could go on.25 They spent two weeks in May blocking Act I. “Blocking” might not be the right word to describe what was happening, since the show had been blocked, lit, and

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designed long before. Now Wei was only filling the blanks between set lighting spots with opera words, filling out prescribed timings. Wei was stripped of her second nature but was not given any replacement. She could make no sense of the story or of Wilson’s direction. Her last hope was Wang An-Ch’i, who might help her make the script more performable, more meaningful and logical, in other words, more jingju-like.26 In August 2008, Wilson was in Taiwan for two days because his I La Galigo was touring in Taiwan. Wilson’s time was limited, but AnnChristin Rommen took over to run the rehearsal. Wang’s script was translated back into English so that Rommen could know what Wei was saying at any given moment. Using the German version as her guide, Rommen would increase the length of certain passage or add certain words back to the script. The main purpose seemed to be to adjust the Chinese script to fit the German tech cues. There was little effort to enhance the jingju qualities of the production or to provide a Chinese context for the story. During the next few months Wei Hai-Ming worked to separate herself from jingju and to transform herself gradually into a sort of puppet for Wilson. Wilson had told Wei to forget everything about her professional training. The simplest thing, such as standing on stage, could be the most difficult.27 During the early stages of rehearsal, Wei was extremely anxious, and Li Hsiao-Ping was trying to persuade her to “empty” herself (fangkong) and “go down to zero” (guiling) so that she could face the problem with a fresh mind. When people expressed uncertainty and worry, Li was optimistic, because he was certain that Wei could overcome her anxiety once she had learned to go down to zero and open herself to new possibilities. It was easy for Wilson or Li to ask Wei to empty herself, but could she do it? Clear guidance would be necessary if she was to be able to turn her back on the second nature she had acquired in 40 years of training. Unfortunately, Wilson was not qualified to provide guidance of this kind. Worse still, Wei would later find herself even more alone after the departure of Li Hsiao-Ping and the withdrawal of the Guoguang Company (more details below). As a result, she partially fulfilled the “puppet actor” role that Wilson’s theatre demands, but she did not bring in much of the new jingju dimension that the Taiwan Orlando project really deserved. The original plan had been for the National Theatre and the Guoguang Opera Company to co-produce Orlando. Wei’s skill is the highest achievement of jingju art in Taiwan, but her art cannot exist without the support of Guoguang, which provides onstage support – musicians,


makeup, and costumes – as well as intellectual support behind the scenes from director Li Hsiao-Ping and playwright Wang An-Ch’i. From the point of view of the NTCH, producing Orlando with Robert Wilson would increase the visibility of Taiwan on the world’s art stage; from the point of view of Guoguang, supporting Orlando would give jingju a chance to appear on the global stage. “How much the island wishes to expose itself to the world!” exclaimed Li Hsiao-Ping.28 However, the sweet dream that Taiwan would win international recognition via jingju – via Wei Hai-Ming, via Orlando, via Robert Wilson – was crushed once the Taiwan team realized that Wilson wanted merely to reproduce the German version with jingju as fragmented decoration, not as an integral part of the production. Moreover, no other jingju actors could participate in the production. The Guoguang Company gradually reduced their support: Li Hsiao-Ping saw his encyclopedic knowledge of jingju rendered irrelevant, Wang An-Ch’i saw her exquisite writing butchered, and the musicians and composers saw their art dismantled. Jingju enjoyed little esteem in this reproduction of earlier performances.29 January 2009 came and Orlando entered the final stages of rehearsal. Meaning was still absent and jingju was still out of place, but the situation was as Wang An-Ch’i described it: “the arrow was on the bow and we had to let go!” (jian zai xianshang, bude bufa). No one wanted to see a failure, especially of a flagship production on this scale. No matter how disappointing the situation was, Taiwan’s face and jingju’s face were still at stake, so everyone worked extremely hard to preserve some basic dignity. It was three weeks before the opening and the show was far from being ready. Wilson spent a long time on Act I, and it was not until three days before the open run-through rehearsal and press conference (that is, three days before the opening) that he started rehearsing the second act. But rehearsals stalled because Wilson was unhappy with the color of the tree. He tried to fix it by having the bark peeled off, but eventually sent it back to the shop. He could not continue with Act II because of the missing tree, so he was forced to skip to Act III.30 Not until the afternoon before the open rehearsal and press conference did Wilson finish rehearsing Act II. The show was barely ready to show to the public.31 All media were invited to watch the open run-through, which was advertised as a production “tailor made for the jingju diva Wei Hai-Ming by the famous American director of visual theatre, Robert Wilson.”32 Although the earlier Orlando productions were known to Taiwan audiences, the fact of “replication” was kept secret in all the promotional materials.

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3


Music

In Chinese opera, music exists at the conception of the play. Musical understanding is essential for playwriting, whether the play uses existing tunes or acquires new ones. For contemporary jingju in Taiwan, writers who, like Wang An-Ch’i, have enough knowledge of traditional jingju tunes, often work with a jingju composer to make a complete “score” with both new tunes and old ones. Since Wang was not in control of the text of Orlando, the music could only be made after consulting with Wilson. Li Chao, a celebrated jingju composer, and Chen Yang, a famous composer of contemporary music, were assigned for the Orlando project. Note that Orlando was not a jingju script in structure, but a spoken drama script with passages of jingju singing and recitation, performed under Wilson’s avant-garde direction. The Taiwan team decided to have Li Chao write the singing passages in traditional jingju and to have Chen Yang deconstruct it according to Wilson’s instructions. Since singing is the most specialized aspect of the performance, it took an expert like Li Chao to explain the logic of the mode and the formality of songs to Wilson so that the latter could understand what kind of “deconstruction” or “dismantling” was needed. The jingju specialists were not troubled by the idea of a deconstruction of jingju, but they had been waiting for the opportunity to educate Wilson so that he could do it right. This is why the earlier rehearsals run by Rommen had largely skipped the operatic passages. Everything had to wait until January 2009, when Wilson came back to Taiwan. No one expected that lighting or the tree would hold things up. As noted earlier, Act I took the longest time to rehearse in January. As a result, Act I had the most jingju singing and recitation; by comparison, Act II and Act III sounded like spoken drama. Wei’s speaking part was a mixture of modern spoken drama style, with some jingbai (less formalized jingju speech) and very little yunbai (highly stylized jingju speech). However, the hasty rehearsal of the show meant that no time was left for careful consideration of jingju singing. The formality and logic of jingju was neglected and jingju singing became a ridiculous afterthought. Sometimes only a couple of lines from the beginning and a couple of lines from the end of a song were sung. Long passages of song were cut. If a line of singing was not long enough to fill the duration between light cues, the line would be repeated two or three times, regardless of meaning. Chen Yang and Li Chao felt that their job was no longer the composition of music, but instead the creation of “sound effects.”33 Toward the end of the rehearsal period, Wei became more and more detached from the jingju world and “became herself.” In the traditional


jingju world, actors rarely improvise or freely exercise their creativity, because training, role type, school, and other artistic formality serve as the criteria for aesthetics and sources of discipline for actors’ bodies and minds. Ignoring formal rules does not just produce “bad acting,” it denies aesthetical pleasure. Since Wilson could not provide guidance, and the experts of jingju were by this time largely gone, Wei was on her own. In the last act, Orlando (a modern woman living 400 years after the boy of the first act) feels the drastic change of the world and the coming of the new era. She says: “Everything – eating, clothing, housing, and transportation – has changed. Even flavors have become different.” She then goes into a passage describing the details of the changes, in food and drinks, in customs, in aesthetics. Wang An-Ch’i’s original lyrics were poetic, mixing classical and modern Chinese, to accompany Li Chao’s jingju composition. Wei felt the lyrics and music were inadequate to express the “modern” feeling of the original; she “improvised” a tune and made up some lyrics in a sort of pop song style. The new lyrics were in modern Chinese: What’s wrong with the world? I don’t even recognize it anymore… Coffee and red wine have replaced Oolong tea. Sesame cake and fried dough (shaobing youtiao) have become cheesecake… Everyone only wants to be fast fast fast; Everyone only wants to be strange strange strange. What’s wrong with the world? How can I live here and find myself? (Act III) Wei performed this section in a pop song style, both in her voicing and dancing, along with flashing colored lights. Her action really enraged the jingju circles because it was seen as a cruel betrayal of the art that nourished her and made her who she is now. Wei, on the other hand, felt invigorated as she entered a new stage of her acting career, a stage of creativity.34 Wang An-Ch’i and Li Chao, for their part, considered Wei’s notion of opera and time too narrow. For them, kunqu and jingju are both living musical forms. One must not assume that kunqu can be used only for something 400 years old, and jingju for something 200 years old. One certainly cannot demand that the modern period be represented in a rock style, which does not match the rest of the show.35 Wang An-Ch’i and Li Chao both worked on

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The Golden Cangue, a play set in the twentieth century in Innovative jingju style. They understand modernizing jingju perfectly but do not agree with Wei’s aesthetic judgment. An unfortunate chasm surfaced between Wei and the team during the performance, and the side screen showed “lyrics and composition by Wei Hai-Ming” for the song mentioned above so to draw a distinction between Wei’s creation and the team’s creation. Also, as Wang believed the language of this song was vulgar and out of place, she asked that subtitles not be provided for this part.36 All of the complicated arguments and strife over jingju went on behind Wilson’s back, as the team had lost hope in educating Wilson about the intricacy of the different artistic and linguistic expressions. Just as Wilson sees the knee as the place where everything turns around, I see the rehearsal period as the knee of the entire project. From the early anxiety, confusion, negotiation, frustration, anger, to the final compromise for the sake of the big picture – Taiwan’s face – the whole project was completely turned around within the knee period. It was not a product Taiwan had anticipated or desired, as it was not a unique “made in Taiwan” product but a grand replication. It was not a fair exchange between Taiwan and Wilson, as the former felt somewhat “cheated.” It was also seen as a missed opportunity, as Wilson did not want to understand or take advantage of the jingju as an art form. Nevertheless, Taiwan got a little exposure on the world’s art stage through the engagement of Wilson. The “knee” period probably also taught Taiwan a lesson about international negotiations with world-famous maestros. D

Chapter Three: The performance37

In the long underground walkway of the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall subway station, the fast-moving flows of crowds could see the lonely silhouette of Wei Hai-Ming in a wall-sized advertisement for Orlando. The façade of the National Theatre as well as the surrounding streets were decorated with numerous banners for Orlando. It was festive, celebratory, and exciting. At the premiere performance, the National Theatre was full of well-dressed people, bright lights, and the sounds of eager anticipation. The stage was lit, and through a translucent curtain decorated with cloud patterns, a standing figure (the female Orlando) could be seen. With a sudden clap of thunder, the main house lights went down; at the next clap of thunder, the lights on the three-tiered balcony went down; with more rolling of thunder more and more house lights going off, leaving only the light on stage. A final


sound of thunder brought complete darkness. This striking beginning was probably the most memorable moment for the Taiwan audience during their Wilson experience. A face in profile appeared in the darkness. The 16-year-old boy Orlando lay in bed, imitating bird calls. His face was the only object visible in the vast darkness. Then a hand moved into the light as he raised his hand over his head slowly. 38 With a sudden clenching of his fist, he said: “I am alone.” Light gradually spilled onto a skull next to him. He picked it up, looking at it and talking to it. As Orlando was in dark costume, the only things visible were his white face, his hand, and the skull. Orlando said, “I am in love with death, in love with death, in love with death.” The opening minutes of the Taiwan Orlando were extremely similar to the French and German versions, despite the linguistic difference. A lay audience could easily see this as a Chinese copy of the Western original. But the first sign that the mimicry was not complete came with a movement of Wei’s hand. As she raised her hand slowly over her face, there was a half-second pause before she clenched her fist and her wrist twitched a bit. The tiny movement, almost insignificant, revealed her jingju training. In jingju performance, if one were to extend the arm and make a sudden fist, the wrist would usually make a little twist before the clenching. The actual moment of tightening would probably be punctuated with drums and gongs (luogu dian) and with a slight turn of the head and a sudden freeze of the body (liangxiang). Here Wei’s liangxiang was minimized because she was lying down, but a connoisseur audience could recognize Wei’s resistance of her jingju second nature. A portion of the beginning monologue was also done in the jingbai form. The line “I’m in love with death” was repeated three times; the line rose from natural spoken Chinese into the heightened yunbai form, as Orlando stretched the final sound. The opening scene provided a taste of Wilson’s Taiwan Orlando: precise lighting, intriguing sound effects, striking theatrical moments, and a frustrated struggle with fragmented jingju. I will discuss this struggle further in the next section. The 16-year-old Orlando is the Queen’s favorite; she wants to give him wealth and eternal youth (Figure 4.1). The young aristocrat enjoys his life, drinking and frolicking and listening to adventure stories. The queen passes away and the new emperor ascends the throne, but Orlando remains as young as ever. He falls in love with Sasha, a beautiful princess from the north. He decides to elope with her, despite the scandal that will result at court. On a frozen night, Sasha betrays

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Figure 4.1 Orlando (The National Theatre, Taipei, 2009) Orlando (played by Wei Hai-Ming) as a young man in Act I. Courtesy of NTCH, National Chiang Kai-Shek Cultural Center; Photo by Liu Chen-Hsiang.


him and sails away without him. His heart broken, he says: “It is all deception. It is all deception. It is all deception!”39 According to Wilson, “There are three parts. Part One is dark. It is mostly horizontal and vertical lines. Part Two is gray. It’s a center. It’s constructed with horizontal and curved lines architecturally speaking.”40 Act II, the transitional, “knee” section of the play, opens with the line: “You open your eyes.” The entire act is done in second person, as if Orlando has stepped out of his/her own body and is watching the gender transformation. Orlando volunteers to serve as ambassador to the “western country.” He enjoys power, wealth, women, and the delicacies of the exotic country. Orlando has fallen into deep sleep when political calamity and chaos come to the foreign country. People think he has died. He wakes up seven days later to a completely different world: “It’s like dream, like illusion. It’s fake, but it’s like real.” A giant tree descends slowly and he goes behind the tree. When he reappears, he has become a woman in a pantsuit, dancing with light and joyful steps (Figure 4.2). She joins a group of wandering shepherds. Orlando is someone who knows s/he is a man in a woman’s body. At the end of the act, Orlando says farewell to the shepherds and returns to her country. “Part Three is light and color. It’s mostly curved lines […] The last part begins in the 20th century 400 years later.”41 Orlando appears as a woman in a dress, learning to talk like a woman, act like a woman, flirt like a woman. Like every woman, she has to regard chastity and marriage as the most valuable things in the world. She gets married, but her husband is always away. The world is changing, and her life flashes before her eyes: “The sword-practicing boy, the youth who waits anxiously, the volunteer ambassador, the wondering girl, the bride who sees her husband off […]. I am the only audience.” The play ends with the line: “I, I am alone.” Despite the festivities outside the National Theatre and inside the lobby, full house and long ovation, the audience, who had come with great anticipation, did not seem to feel satisfied. Many people, both young and old, dozed off during the performance. There seemed to be a sense of hollowness and coldness that the audience could not fathom. The director was famous, the performance venue was great, the actor was excellent. How could such a collaboration have gone wrong? Why didn’t I enjoy the show? Here one recalls the doubled structuring devices behind the production: the audio-visual line of Wilson’s “pure theatricality” and the narrative line of the story. Wilson’s three-part architectural concept – dark/man/horizontal

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Figure 4.2 Orlando (The National Theatre, Taipei, 2009) Orlando (played by Wei Hai-Ming) has just transformed into a woman in Act II, the “knee” part of the play. Courtesy of NTCH, National Chiang Kai-Shek Cultural Center; Photo by Liu Chen-Hsiang.

and vertical lines (Act I), gray/man-woman/horizontal and curved lines (Act II), light and color/woman/curved lines (Act III) – works well in the audio-visual line, and the Taiwan audience would probably have appreciated it as a separate show on its own.42 It was the narrative line and the role of jingju that made the production problematic.


Problems with the grand replication A Incomplete deconstruction and the fragmented signifiers of jingju One of the major sources of unsettled feelings was the incomplete deconstruction and fragmentation of the signifiers of jingju. Jingju is a “formal” art, whose formality – whether in singing or in movement – comes in complete sets (tao), with clear beginnings and endings. A song or a sequence of movements has its internal logic and cannot be broken randomly. Wang An-Ch’i’s script followed jingju logic in its recitation passages and songs. Because of the long-term working relationship between Wang and Wei, the latter depended on Wang and hoped that Wang could give her a comprehensible script. But the jingju logic both Wang and Wei hold dearly was dismantled by Wilson. Although Wilson wanted Wei to forget her professional training, there was not a successful erasure of jingju. The following examples show why. I have already explained how the fist-clenching moment in the opening scene revealed the secret of Wei’s training. Similar unconscious giveaways crept in throughout the performance. For instance, just after Orlando has discovered that he has become a woman, she sings: “Yin and yang are reversed, I am unchanged. I am I, still the same, ah, still the same. As I mount horses with agility, my sensitive mind is like poetry. I still want to travel around the world. The only thing that is changed is my fresh red lips” (Act II). During the entire sequence, Wei’s stance and lower-body movements were rather “natural,” but she moved her arms and hands in a stylized jingju way. When she pointed, she used the “orchid fingers” (lanhuazhi). Orchid fingers are the basic hand gesture for dan role type. It seemed that the upper body was preserving its jingju training while the lower body was moving in modern dance. There was an uncanny resemblance to the model drama (yangban xi) of the Cultural Revolution. Although I do not believe Wilson intentionally wanted to recall the stylization of model opera during that tumultuous period, the effect was nevertheless there. Another awkward section of Orlando was the first act, when Orlando is a 16-year-old boy. As explained earlier, there was little in the way of precedent for the role of the child or adolescent boy in the jingju performance tradition, so the deconstruction of jingju and the reconstruction in Wilson’s stylization could not become complete. After the opening skull sequence, Wei stood up and acted out an imaginary battle against a lit rectangular shape in the background. To rid herself of the formalized

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jingju style of sword fighting, she waved her sword around like a kid pretending to fence. She walked on her tiptoes, following the punctuation of the percussion, and stopped and looked at the audience with a huge exaggerated smile. With “happy Chinese” music in the background, she hopped in a circle, alternating from foot to foot as she turned and raised the other leg; she gesticulated broadly, sometimes seeming to be juggling. To me, the whole sequence looked a bit like pantomime, and Wei’s white-face makeup was reminiscent of Harlequin. Her exaggerated movements seemed to offer satire, commentaries, and teasing, but there was no point of reference. The signifiers met with empty signification. During the scene in which Orlando declares his love for Sasha, he says: “I look at the frozen water and think about death. Everything is going to die […] but I don’t want to die […]. I feel the snow and ice are melting” (Act I). Wei raised her arms, palms upward, as if touching imaginary ice above her head. She circled around, touching, miming.43 Audiences could easily jump from the happy clown reference to a sad clown pantomime reference, despite the musical elements from jingju. I was startled to see her clownish portrayal of Orlando, which does not seem to fit the character of the romantic and somewhat spoiled playboy aristocrat, and later, the young man with a broken heart. When I asked Wei about her choice of the clown reference, she was surprised at my reaction; she had tried only to portray this character as a young boy, with the appropriate lively and cute movements.44 Such clowning gestures are repeated when Orlando becomes a woman at the beginning of Act II. She says behind the tree: “Your skin, your skin remembers it for you, your skin tells you that you have become a woman” (Act II). As she jumps out from behind the tree, she is barefoot, dressed in a gold knee-length pantsuit, with her hair done in a braid. She dances around on tiptoe, laughing in amazement, examining her new female body. The movements and the music recall the first act’s clownish portrayal of a 16-year-old boy. This awkwardness was one of the most widely criticized aspects of Orlando. Even though the grand replication was not obvious to the general public, art critics and scholars quickly noticed the inadequate use of jingju. At a seminar, scholar Zhang Xiaohong explained that since there is no set performance style for teenagers, Wei had to act like an innocent kid; for Chinese audiences, seeing Wei hopping around like a kid was almost embarrassing. This was like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, made for foreign audiences and not for Chinese eyes.45 While some people might find it embarrassing to see a middle-age woman hopping about like a kid, I detected a Western point of reference for her movements in pantomime and clowning. Neither reaction is really appropriate for the


Orlando character. This awkwardness became a new code preventing the audience from appreciating the pure theatrical experience Wilson was aiming to create. On the other hand, I did find that certain deconstructions of jingju worked very well. During the scene in which Orlando realizes Sasha has betrayed him, Wei stood up from a kneeling position with a fast turn, performing a variation of “sleeping fish” (woyu), a jingju movement known for its difficulty. One crosses one’s legs in a low squatting position and twists the torso about 90 degrees while gradually lowering the torso to a position almost touching the floor. The final position might look to the lay eye like something out of a game of Twister, but in jingju, the long skirt and feminine movements disguise the awkward crossing of the legs. The most famous use of “sleeping fish” is in The Drunken Princess (Guifei zuijiu),46 a play made famous by Mei Lanfang. It is usually done in a slow motion, and the actor shows virtuosity by singing in the uncomfortable twisted position. Sleeping fish, a movement representative of Mei’s artistry, demonstrates the great flexibility of the actor’s body as well as the jingju notion of perfect feminine beauty. As most female roles (dan) were played by men before the mid-twentieth century, actresses had to learn how to behave like women by imitating their male masters. Wei Hai-Ming herself mastered her jingju art under Mei Baojiu, the son of Mei Lanfang. I applaud Wei Hai-Ming’s artistic decision to execute “sleeping fish” in the extremely awkward situation and completely outside of the context of jingju feminine beauty. In Orlando, “sleeping fish” was done in a fast, “ugly,” and masculine style, as Wei (playing the male Orlando) showed her crossed legs and stayed on the floor reciting the lines in a very hoarse voice. As the gender transformation of Orlando was in part an expression of Woolf’s gender criticism, the use of “sleeping fish” became a critique of the vision of femininity designed by men for the consumption of men in the jingju tradition. By ruining the traditional aesthetics of “sleeping fish,” Wei successfully disassociated the conventional meaning of jingju feminine beauty; her decision amounted to a gender critique both of patriarchy in society in general and in the world of jingju in particular. Like the slight twitch of the clenching fist, the “sleeping fish” was another subtle but decisive moment in which jingju shined through the maestro’s heavy cloud and reunited the connoisseur audience with the jingju tradition. B

Globalizing audience

“Robert Wilson made Orlando from the point of view of the global audience.”47 What is the global audience? There is in the popular realm an assumed sensibility about “Oriental” performing arts: spectacles

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like Farewell My Concubine, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and the extravaganzas of Cirque du Soleil have furnished a colorful, sensational, marvelous, and extremely pleasurable Orient for global consumption. On a more highbrow level, Ariane Mnouchkine, Ong Keng Sen, Suzuki Tadashi, and Richard Schechner have offered global audiences a similar intercultural fusion. Still, who exactly is the global audience? It seems that the aforementioned works are made mainly for the consumption of the United States or Western Europe, perhaps with Asia as a secondary market. Are we still assuming the we, the West, are the world? When Asia wants to claim global citizenship, must they adopt the existing global sensibility? Is it possible to cultivate a new kind of globalism that is less Western dominated? The frustration of Chinese audiences with Wilson’s Orlando came mainly from the incomplete deconstruction of artistic, cultural, and local codes. Jingju is a familiar signifier for all Chinese audiences. A sound, a gesture, or a pause in jingju stylization can open the door to the entire field of signifieds: it is a world of role types, age-old stories, rigorous actor training, schools of stylization, discipline, formality, and history. Geng Yiwei explains the inequality of the signs: “Some signs are not signs for Wilson, so he has no problem and everything is equal to him. For us, it is not equal: certain things are his creation, but certain things are signs to us. But he does not feel the differences.”48 Not only the matter of signs, but aesthetics too prevented Taiwan audiences from embracing this production whole-heartedly. “The most moving, or the most fierce part of the production is jingju. You can even say it is impossible to deconstruct jingju. It is impossible to deconstruct the body of Wei Hai-Ming.”49 Beyond the art of jingju, local and cultural references immediately threw up obstacles to Wilson’s wish for an association-free, pure theatre experience for global audiences. All Chinese dynastic and geographical references were intentionally removed, and the Taiwan Orlando seemed to exist in a timeless, nationless, cultureless vacuum. “I see only something that is fashionable, not something that is epochal,” Zhang Xiaohong comments, referring to the ahistorical character of the staging.50 However, in writing the script, Wang An-Ch’i played a trick on Wilson by inserting a timely local reference. When Orlando (as a woman) talks about her suitor in Act III, she describes him as someone who comes every day, bragging about his wealth: “he has seven yi [yi is the number one hundred million], no, twenty-seven yi. In this country, he hides four yi. Three yi, four yi, twenty-seven yi, seven yi.” The audience burst into loud laughter as Wei counted how many yi that man has. This was a direct reference


to Chen Shui-bian, the former president of Taiwan (2000–08), who at the time of the Orlando production was under investigation for embezzlement and money-laundering. It is said that Chen had hidden seven yi New Taiwan dollars (that is, NT$700 million or about US$22 million) in various countries during his presidency. His hidden wealth is referred to as “Cape Seven yi” (haijiao qiyi, seven yi abroad), a pun on the title of the very popular recent film Cape No. 7 (Haijiao qihao).51 This local, and timely, political reference was again a subtlety that would necessarily have escaped Wilson, but I found it the most unifying moment in the entire show. Throughout the largely confusing Orlando, this was a lucid moment when the entire audience knew what was meant at this moment in history and in this place in the world. This joke would not work in any other country, or even in the same country ten years in the future. Wang’s brilliant trick shows how powerful such local reference is. Working as a kind of reversal of the Brechtian alienation, this moment re-established the connection with the audience through an Aristotelian moment of empathy set in the midst of a cold and almost emotionless play. Perhaps this line represented Wang’s critique of Wilson’s disassociation of jingju and disregard of Taiwan.

Conclusion The unsatisfactory results of this long process of intercultural negotiation point to a key issue in intercultural collaboration: unspoken cultural codes. This grey area where both sides make assumptions on the basis of their own cultural understanding often creates misunderstandings. I have already explained that Watermill did not show a fulfillment of reciprocal hospitality – this should have been a cultural lesson learned. It is not a matter of a written contract that is broken or not. Even if an agreement does not include meals, Taiwanese cultural sensibility could not imagine that a host would let a guest go hungry! On the other hand, American institutions assume that visitors will bring their own food under circumstances like these. It is my observation that throughout the negotiation process, many cultural assumptions led to misunderstandings and miscommunication. For instance, the politeness of the Taiwan group (when patiently listening to Rommen’s explanation of the German staging) might be mistaken for acquiescence, and Wilson’s plan for a solo performance was understood as a “preference” instead of a directive. Even jingju was interpreted differently: Taiwan was envisioning an Orlando with unimpaired jingju logic and stylization, perhaps something similar to Schechner’s Oresteia, whereas Wilson’s

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jingju was fragments between light cues. Although in any artistic creation alterations from, and compromises in, the original plans are to be expected, I see greater misunderstanding and miscommunication in this case because of the unspoken cultural codes. To be sure, this grey area is what makes intercultural theatre fascinating. But the experience of Orlando might serve as a cautionary tale for future collaborations: sometimes cultures need to step aside and let business do the talking. It is as yet unknown how the Taiwan Orlando might be perceived by Western audiences. However, I believe the fragmented jingju reference, which works as a misleading signifier, hindered the Taiwan audience’s appreciation of Wilson’s pure theatricality. The rather unequal bartering behind this intercultural and international collaboration also made many people uneasy. Fans of Wei Hai-Ming and of jingju found the production disappointing because of its distortion of her jingju mastery. A general outcry could be heard from the artistic circles: “What a waste!” Wilson’s artistry was admired, but did not seem sufficient to make up for what he had undone. Although one always views a play with one’s own references and interpretation, someone unfamiliar with jingju would probably find the Taiwan Orlando a more satisfying experience. One might concede that there is nothing wrong with Wilson’s Orlando, but that Wilson simply chose the wrong audience for it. Jingju without the Beijing family name, avant-garde jingju, the deconstruction of jingju, and even the murder of jingju – these were the results of the combination of Wilson’s theatrical practice and jingju tradition that had been anticipated before Orlando came to fruition. However, all these seemingly negative assessments actually suggest a longing for a hopeful future, what I call retro-futuristic nostalgia. While the KMT advocated that jingju function as a vehicle of restorative nostalgia designed to betoken a lost national past, retro-futuristic nostalgia views jingju in both a retrospective and a futuristic light: certain old jingju elements would be deliberately stripped away, unprecedented experimental Western staging would be utilized, tradition would be reinterpreted and a suave new avant-garde product would be born to take Taiwan into the future of performing arts. Such a new art would be true art, not Oriental cliché or tokenism. Taiwan jingju circles were ready to take jingju to the next level, a step further than Innovative jingju. Orlando, unfortunately, was unsatisfactory because of Wilson’s neglect of cultural and artistic context, but it also surprised the audience by demonstrating jingju’s vitality and tenacity. Jingju had been fragmented, distorted, and decontextualized in the face of Western theatrical semiotics. But the fantastic high-tech staging of a metonymic representation and


misunderstanding of jingju did not kill the art, but created a futuristic alternative Chinese opera. In this retro-futuristic configuration, jingju competes, jingju survives and lingers on, and jingju shines through the dark clouds of the maestro’s intercultural theatre. In a sense, Orlando offered Taiwan jingju the worst circumstances: Wilson’s fame and his artistic formality turned into an unprecedented source of oppression for jingju, while the high financial stakes made it impossible to abandon the project. Jingju had to comply because “the arrow was on the bow and we had to let go.” Awkward, embarrassing, inadequate, wasteful…, despite all the negative judgments one still finds in the production glimpses of the ways in which jingju might survive in a high-tech, decontextualized, but nevertheless artistic world. The retro-futuristic Orlando, the metamorphosis of jingju, the ultimate alternative Chinese opera from Taiwan offers a glimpse of the future of Chinese opera.

Conclusion

Yang Silang: Kowtow and Kowtow. Even if I were to kowtow ten thousand times, nothing can redeem my guilt. Throughout the play, his [my father’s] tears were streaming down, streaming down… I could only hold his hand tightly and offer him some tissues. Sitting in front of us, a gray-haired man was wiping away his tears and his son handed him a handkerchief… When everyone stood up after the show ended, I realized that there were many old men, some on crutches, some in wheelchairs, all accompanied by their middle-aged children. They were all very quiet, with tears in their eyes. This is the description of the audience’s response to a very cathartic scene from the famous traditional jingju play Silang Visits His Mother (Silang tanmu). Long Yingtai (1952–), a leading cultural critic and author from Taiwan, captures many such emotional moments of Mainlanders in Taiwan in her recent book Big River, Big Sea – Untold Stories of 1949 (Dajiang dahai, yijiusijiu).1 The aforementioned play depicts Yang Silang, a Chinese general who after having been held for 15 years against his will among the Liao, finally manages to visit his aged mother. To the minds of the older members of this audience, the national border between Han China and the non-Chinese Liao was a figure for the Taiwan Straits and the division established there in 1949. Unlike Yang Silang, who only left home for 15 years, these old men would never have a chance to see their parents again because of decades of separation.2 Unlike Yang Silang, they could never kneel before their parents and beg forgiveness. Of all traditional jingju plays, Silang Visits His Mother is one of the most popular pieces in Taiwan. It is also a piece that troupes visiting from the 178

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mainland always present on the Taiwan stage. After decades of separation, restorative nostalgia built around the nationalist cry to recover the mainland has lost its effectiveness. The great ease of traveling from Taiwan to the mainland these days cannot alleviate personal nostalgia because the remembered home is long gone. What lingers in this type of play is a gnawing guilt, an eternal regret, a lack of redemption and resolution. The aging audience’s weeping over Silang also reflects the current state of traditional Chinese opera: the story is old, the audience is old, the genre is old, and no amount of weeping can restore the past glories of the art. Traditional Chinese opera allows aging audiences to revisit national trauma and to dwell one last time on their memories of home, but the standard “grand reunion” ending no longer offers any comfort or hope for the transnational Chinese. The silent weeping of the aged audience merges with the desperate cries of opera artists. Something has to be done, now or never. The new millennium holds out the last hope of revitalizing Chinese opera with alternative energy and new perspectives. Alternative Chinese opera provides a sense of new possibilities, different approaches, and perhaps a chance to look into the future rather than lamenting the unobtainable past. Originating as a survival tool for combating the natural selection of globalization, dwindling connoisseur audiences, and an opera training system in decline, alternative Chinese opera has in the past decade found various ingenious ways to make the aging genre “work” in the peripheries. The successes of the past decade have proved that alternative Chinese opera has gone beyond the initial survival stage and has now created new values and meanings for Chinese opera. From the overtly political The Trilogy of Taiwan to the few “apolitical” feminine plays of Wang An-Ch’i and others, Innovative Jingju in Taiwan has adapted quickly and made tremendous progress after the old KMT glory was no longer functioning as a protective charm for the transplanted Mainlanders’ art. Innovative Jingju has created a “made in Taiwan” brand name for itself, with modern theatricality, new plays, young audiences, and a unique feminine sensibility. The new genre seems to have established a solid base in Taiwan in the past few years.3 The golden triangle of Innovative Jingju – Wei Hai-Ming, Wang AnCh’i, and Li Hsiao-Ping – have brought the genre to a new level with their most recent production Meng Xiaodong (Taipei, 11–14 March 2010). Meng Xiaodong (1908–1977) was a famous actress who specialized in the old male (laosheng) role type in the Yu School (Yupai) and was married to Mei Lanfang for four years. A collaboration of the National Symphony Orchestra, the Taipei Chinese Orchestra, and the Guoguang

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Opera Company, this production was advertised as a “jingju musical” (jingju yinyueju). As in other “feminine” plays, Wang tries to explore the feminine voice of Meng, which has been muffled by the voices of her men (Mei Lanfang and Du Yuesheng, the legendary gang leader who was her second husband) and of her male stage characters. Wei HaiMing fully displayed her virtuosity in three distinct voices: the male dan voice of Mei School jingju, the female old male voice of Yu School jingju, and the real voice of Meng Xiaodong, in natural non-jingju female voice. Wang Youdao Divorces His Wife experimented with splitting one character into two role types played by two actors; now a single actor was switching between characters and role types, between different schools of singing, between genders, and between jingju and musical.4 Incorporating elements of metatheatre, Meng Xiaodong offers a brief history of jingju, in which famous traditional plays such as Silang Visits His Mother, The Drunken Princess, Wujiapo (the story of Xue Pinggui and Wang Baochuan), and others are “quoted” in their original styles. For jingju connoisseur audience, these little vignettes of traditional jingju are a sampler of zhezixi allowing a delicious enjoyment of Wei’s virtuosity; they also serve as an introduction to jingju’s tradition of cross-gender performance. Young audiences are intrigued by the love story among the female sheng, the male dan, and the legendary gang leader. Meng Xiaodong was another innovative jingju that inspired a positive response from different strata of the Taiwan audience. Hong Kong’s ambiguous postcolonial/neocolonial position was reflected in the Youth Edition of The Flower Princess. Layers of the past – multiple memories of the modern classic, Hong Kong’s history of colonization and occupation, the ongoing struggle for decolonization and autonomy, and Hong Kongers’ anxiety and fear in transitional times – were all compacted in the enactment of reflective nostalgia in The Flower Princess. Like Silang Visits His Mother, The Flower Princess offered no comfort, serving instead as a painful reminder of what Hong Kong could not have. But the “made in Hong Kong” classic with its young cast nevertheless proudly displayed a unique local identity before an international audience. In 2009, yueju became the second Chinese opera recognized by UNESCO as a “Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.” This was a great surprise in yueju circles: naturally kunqu was the first candidate for such recognition because of its status and history, but how could yueju, perceived as a lowly marginal genre, receive such an international honor even before jingju, the Chinese opera? Moreover, being the most “progressive” opera because of its development in the contact zone between East and West, yueju might appear less traditional

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and hence less qualified for recognition as a “cultural heritage.”5 The significance of this award is that it was shared by the center and the peripheries: Hong Kong, Macau, and Guangdong province. Multiple questions arose on this “happy” occasion: was international recognition a strategy to alleviate political tensions between the center and peripheries by honoring cultural and artistic collaboration? While the UNESCO recognition would certainly bring more resources to Hong Kong yueju circles, would it also endanger the unique Hong Kong style developed in the “free” market (free from any national association)? Would the princess finally give up her useless and hopeless protest and surrender to a happy reunion? The new status of yueju moved Hong Kong into another transitional stage, and the future is yet unknown. At this point, the more and more Sinicized SAR still tries to hold onto certain privileges available only in the peripheries. Google’s recent move from China to Hong Kong shows the unstable relationship between the Chinese center and the peripheries. Hong Kong has once again become a refuge for freedom-seekers in transitional times.6 After the success of The Peony Pavilion: The Young Lovers’ Edition, Pai Hsien-yung launched The Story of the Jade Hairpin (Yuzan ji) in the National Theatre in Taipei in May 2009, following the model he had established in Peony. A kunqu classic by the Ming playwright Gao Lian (1573–1620), The Story of the Jade Hairpin was now advertised as “the second young lovers’ dream” and featured the lead actors from The Young Lovers’ Edition, Trend Micro as a major sponsor, a similar design team, and a similar touring schedule.7 The “brand name” Pai Hsien-yung had hoped to create continues to “seduce” youngsters across transnational Chinese communities. In diaspora, the video recording of The Young Lovers’ Edition has something of the effect of Pak Suet Sin’s original audio recording of The Flower Princess. With its bilingual subtitles and its lingering legacy on the UC campuses, it has become a standard tool for teaching and learning about The Peony Pavilion.8 Despite severe criticism, Orlando, the least operatic of the various alternative Chinese opera projects, nevertheless demonstrated a new way of imagining and utilizing jingju and offered a challenge that this old art was willing to take and able to withstand. Jingju resiliently survived mutilation, distortion, ridicule, and misunderstanding in Robert Wilson’s grand replication of his earlier productions. However, the next production of this kind proved that traditional Chinese opera could have a future in this type of extreme experimentation. After Orlando, Taiwan engaged Robert Wilson in another grand production, 1433: The Grand Voyage (Zheng He, 1433), this time pursuing

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a collaboration with drumming (U Theatre), Taiwanese opera (gezaixi), and jazz music by Richard Landry and Ornette Coleman. 1433 opened in the National Theatre a year after Orlando (20–28 February 2010), as the flagship production of the 2010 Taiwan International Theatre Festival. U Theatre, founded by Liu Ruoyu (Liu Jingmin, 1956–) in 1988, is a unique “made in Taiwan” performance group fusing drumming, Zen Buddhism, Taoist self-cultivation, dancing, chanting, and Grotowski-style actors’ training.9 Note that U Theatre was the only other group introduced to Wilson during his initial visit to Taiwan in 2007; it was also the only other group to visit the Watermill Center along with the Orlando group in the summer of 2007. The seeds of collaboration between Wilson and U were planted around the time when Orlando was being conceived. The other important participant in 1433 was Tang Meiyun (1964–), a famous gezaixi actress specializing in male roles. Tang plays the role of the narrator (as an old woman), telling the story of the 1433 adventure of Zheng He (1371–1435), the great admiral whose journey reached as far as the Cape of Good Hope. Huang Chih-chun (Huang Zhiqun), music director of U Theatre, played the non-speaking role of Zheng He with brilliant body movements. Unlike the grand mimicry of Orlando, 1433 seemed to allow Taiwan performing artists more liberty in expressing their unique local culture and performance style. Without a predetermined lighting plot to serve as a guideline, artists from 1433 felt less restricted. Moreover, since neither drumming nor gezaixi has been elevated to the exalted position of national art or suffered from the stiff formality of a weighty tradition, these artists could be more carefree and flexible in this type of intercultural encounter. There was less to lose and hence more to gain. 1433 appeared to be a more successful production in displaying Taiwan’s arts and culture. *** The few productions mentioned above suggest that alternative Chinese opera continues to improve itself with new stories, new collaborative ideas, new staging methods, and new conceptualizations of traditional Chinese opera. Enough creative energy has been generated to carry this genre into the second decade of the millennium. It is clear that traditional Chinese opera will never recover its past glory because the performance context and training system have changed forever; traditional Chinese opera will never regain its vitality from free-market competition because the art is no longer commercially viable. The best future one can imagine for traditional Chinese opera is its preservation

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as a national museum art because of its status as part of the “heritage of humanity.” Alternative Chinese opera, on the other hand, originated as a means of survival in the free-market peripheries, and will perhaps have a healthier life because it has to change. Alternative Chinese opera cannot afford to be stymied because the stakes are high; alternative Chinese opera, without national or royal patronage, has to help itself or die. By deeming the center “zero” and its opera “fossilized,” by posing an alternative to tradition, to China, and to nation, alternative Chinese opera imagines multiple transnational operatic Chinas, which in turn become an emotional reservoir that has the potential to galvanize future operatic performances. Born in crisis, alternative Chinese opera has had to continue dealing with new crises looming on the horizon. The new recognition of yueju by UNESCO might erase the form’s unique local Hong Kong character by putting it in competition with material from the center. On 2 June 2010, Taiwan jingju’s most celebrated actors, Wei Hai-Ming, Li Baochun, and Wu Hsing-kuo, went to the Ministry of Education to stage a public protest against budget cuts in jingju education and to advocate a change of leadership for the only opera school in Taiwan. Without a good training ground, Taiwan is now facing a serious problem securing a supply of quality jingju actors, and companies sometimes have to ”borrow” actors from the mainland for their productions. This is the first time these actors regarded as “national treasures” have had to take to the street in an effort to rescue their art.10 This is the crisis of which Li Hsiao-Ping said, “I don’t want to think about it. I don’t dare to think about it.”11 With hopes of cultivating an audience in the next generation, alternative Chinese opera also takes advantage of non-traditional performance spaces, be they internet blogs, social networking sites, or downtown Taipei streets. The public protest mentioned above also took place on Wei Hai-Ming’s blog and on facebook.12 One can only hope such bold and drastic steps taken by star actors will have some impact on government policy. The unfortunate duality of center and peripheries has created many tragedies for the transnational Chinese in the past decades. But the misfortune of the transnational Chinese has helped generate exciting new works to sustain the tradition of Chinese opera. The crises looming on the horizon make every production of alternative Chinese opera as precious as a swan song. Impending doom is a source of inspiration. The dynamics between center and peripheries change from day to day, and it is difficult to predict a stable relationship. Perhaps the “grand reunion” will work better as an operatic fantasy after all.

Notes Introduction: Performing Zero 1. The Han (202 BC–AD 220) and the Tang (618–907) were dynasties. Their names became general terms for ethnic Chinese. In diaspora, for instance, Chinatown is often known as the “Street of Tang People” (Tangrenjie). “Han” is now the official name for China’s majority ethnicity, and Mandarin is known in Chinese as the “Han language” (Hanyu). 2. The term Zhongguo appears in both The Zuo Tradition (Zuozhuan, late fourthcentury BC) and The Book of Documents (Shangshu, its earliest sections dating to the first half of the first millennium BC). 3. Daphne P. Lei, Operatic China: Staging Chinese Identity Across the Pacific (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 6–8. 4. Liang Qichao was an important scholar, philosopher, and reformer of the late Qing/early Republican era. 5. The writings of Stalin and terms translated from Japanese are cited as the most obvious foreign influences. See Allen Chun, “Fuck Chineseness: On the Ambiguities of Ethnicity as Culture as Identity.” Boundary 2, vol. 23, No. 2 (Summer 1996a), 111–38. 6. Historically, the term “Chinese problem” refers to the nineteenth-century racial discourse on Chinese immigrants in California. Closely linked to labor and economics, this racial discourse, along with the slogan “Chinese Must Go,” eventually resulted in the discriminatory “Chinese Exclusion Act” of 1882, the first law in US history targeting a specific nationality. The “Chinese problem” today, however, has to be discussed in the global context. 7. Their individual “national” histories and politics will be illustrated further in later chapters. 8. Daphne P. Lei (2006), 17. This idea is further explained with case studies in Chapter 2 and Chapter 4. 9. A new publication documents the 50 years (1959–2009) of Taiwan’s technical aid to other countries. See Zheng Liyuan et al. Heaven and Earth Afoot: Taiwan Technicians’ Contributions without Borders (Tiandi xingjiao: Taiwan jishu renyuan wuguojie de gongxian) (Taipei: Taiwan ICDF, 2009). 10. One such famous symbol is the Dragon Gate in San Francisco’s Chinatown, a gift from the ROC government in 1969. The horizontal tablet bears an inscription in the calligraphy of Dr Sun Yat-sen: “All under Heaven Is Our Common Polity” (tianxia weigong). Using Dr Sun’s writing here is a simple way to establish the ROC’s orthodox claim over this Chinese diasporic nation, which was established during the Gold Rush era, long before the founding of either ROC or PRC. For more information on present-day San Francisco Chinatown, see Daphne P. Lei (2006), 173–205. For a sample study of the Taiwan government’s use of “Chinese dance” as a tool of diplomacy in the early years, see Szu-Ching Chang, “Dance Performance and Cultural 184

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11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16. 17.

18.

19.

Diplomacy: A Study on the International Performances of Taiwanese Dance Companies 1949–1973” (Wudao zhanyan yu wenhua waijiao: xiyuan 1949–1973 nianjian Taiwan wudao tuanti guoji zhanyan zhi yanjiu) (Master’s Thesis: National Taiwan University of Art, Taiwan, 2006). Wei-ming Tu, “Cultural China: The Periphery as the Center,” in The Living Tree: the Changing Meaning of Being Chinese Today, ed. Tu Wei-ming (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1994), 1–35. Shu-mei Shih, Visuality and Identity: Sinophone Articulations Across the Pacific (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007). Lin Kehuan, Theater in Consumer Society (Xiaofei shidai de xiju) (Taipei: Bookman, 2007a). Daphne P. Lei (2006). Allen Chun (1996a), 111–38. During the opening ceremony, 56 children in different ethnic attire, representing China’s 56 officially recognized ethnic groups, carried a large Chinese national flag in the procession. It was later discovered that these “ethnic” children were actually all played by children of the Han majority. See Jane Macartney and Hannah Fletcher, “New fakery scandal, as China’s ‘ethnic’ children actually come from Han majority.” The Times (16 August 2008). “Gaoshanzu” (high mountain people) is the erroneous name used by the Chinese government for Taiwanese aborigines, which consist of more than a dozen different ethnic groups. According to Sina.com.hk: “The grand military parade can demonstrate to the world the strength and stability of our country under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, and also establish the authority and credibility of the fourth-generation leader Hu Jintao.” See http://news.sina. com.hk/cgi-bin/nw/show.cgi/9/1/1/968526/1.html. For related report, also see http://www.worldjournal.com/wj-la-news.php?nt_seq_id=1815845 According to the report, it took 9 minutes and 20 seconds to complete the air procession. See Taiwan News. “China’s Military Aircrafts in Display All Equipped with Real Missiles” (http://www.etaiwannews. com/etn/news_ content.php?id=1065801&lang=tc_news&cate_img=257. jpg&cate_rss=news_PD). Slavoj Žižek, “The Matrix, or two sides of Perversion,” Philosophy Today, Celina Volume: 43 (1999). Claude Lévi-Strauss, “Do Dual Organizations Exist?,” in Structural Anthropology (New York: Basic Books, 1963), 131–63. For a comprehensive discussion of the naming and misnaming of Chinese opera, see Daphne P. Lei (2006), 8–11. As always with the counting of historical and traditional origins, one might wonder if “600 years” is a stretch. Wei Liangfu (1489–1566), whose musical innovation is often seen as having given birth to kunqu, lived 500 years ago. For a study of the origins of kunqu, see Wu Xinlei, “Introduction: A Study of the Historical Origins of Kunqu,” in Studies of Kunqu of the Early Twentieth Century (Ershishiji qianqi kunqu yanjiu) (Shenyang, PRC: Chunfeng Wenyi, 2005), 1–12. UNESCO, “Kunqu Opera: Proclamations of Master Pieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity (18 May 2001).” See http://www.unesco. org/bpi/intangible_heritage/china.htm See Tanaka Issei, “Development of Chinese Local Plays in the 17th and 18th Centuries,” Acta Asiatica, vol. 23 (1972): 42–62; and Aoki Masaru, History of Chinese Theatre in Recent Times (Zhongguo jinshi xiqu shi), trans. Wang Gulu

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20.

21.

22. 23. 24.

25. 26.

27.

28. 29. 30.

31. 32. 33.

34.

35. 36.

Notes (from Japanese: Shina kinsei gikyoku shi) (Hong Kong: Zhonghua, 1975), 376 and 468. Joshua Goldstein is one of the most important scholars in recent years to have addressed the meaning of “national opera” and Mei’s US tour. See Joshua Goldstein’s “May Fourth Realism and Qi Rushan’s Theory of National Drama,” in Drama Kings: Players and Publics in the Re-Creation of Peking Opera, 1870–1937 (Berkeley: University of California, 2007), 134–71. Such as “Nationalization through Iconification,” in Joshua Goldstein (2007), 264–89; and Nancy Guy, “Brokering Glory for the Chinese Nation: Peking Opera’s 1930 American Tour,” Comparative Drama, vol. 35, no. 3/4 (Fall/ Winter 2001–02), 377–92. Bell Yung, Cantonese Opera: Performance as Creative Process (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), xi. For the relationship among local, national, and international in jingju and yueju, see Daphne P. Lei (2006), 11–14. For the declaration, see UNESCO, “Yueju opera: Inscribed in 2009 on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.” http:// www.unesco.org/culture/ich/index.php?RL=00203 The Oxford English Dictionary can be found online at http://www.oed.com/ Eric Hobsbawn, “Introduction: Inventing Traditions,” in The Invention of Traditions, ed. Eric Hobsbawn and Terence Ranger (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 1–14. Wu Xinlei, “A Review of Performances of The Peony Pavilion since 1911,” in Four Hundred Years of Youth Dream: Bright Purple Deep Red Peony Pavilion (Sibainian qingchun zhi meng: Chazi yanhong mudanting), ed. Pai Hsien-yung (Taipei: Yuanliu, 2004), 58–69. This book will be referred to as Pai Hsienyung (2004a). Hobsbawn (1983), 1–14. Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973), 113–14. For instance, in the international conference on jingju organized by The National Academy of Chinese Theatre Arts and held in Beijing in 2007, the debate between the two camps dominated the conversation. In my opinion, there was no real “dialogue” between the two camps. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Rev. edn (London and New York: Verso, 2006), 5. Fredric Jameson, “Third-World Literature in the Era of Multinational Capitalism,” Social Text, no. 15 (Autumn 1986), 65–88. Brenda S. A. Yeoh, Michael W. Charney, and Tong Chee Kiong, eds. Approaching Transnationalisms: Studies on Transnational Societies, Multicultural Contacts, and Imaginings of Home (Boston: Kluwer Academic, 2003), 2. Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 1996, 2000 reprint), 169. Aihwa Ong, “On the Edge of Empires: Flexible Citizenship among Chinese in Diaspora,” Positions, vol. 1, no. 3: 45–78. Johaness Hofer, “Medical Dissertation on Nostalgia” (published in Latin in 1688). The article was translated into English by Carolyn K. Anspach. Bulletin of the History of Medicine, vol. 2 (1934): 376–91.

Notes 187 37. Svetlana Boym, The Future of Nostalgia (New York: Basic Books, 2001), xiii–xiv. 38. Malcolm Chase and Christopher Shaw, “The Dimensions of Nostalgia,” in The Imagined Past: History and Nostalgia (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1989), 1–17. 39. Susan Stewart, On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982), 23. I also credit Susan Bennet for her inspiring introduction to “nostalgia.” See Performing Nostalgia: Shifting Shakespeare and the Contemporary Past (New York and London: Routledge, 1996), 1–17. 40. Boym (2001), 41–8. 41. Gilles Deleuze, Bergsonism, trans. H. Tomlison and B. Habberiam (New York: Zone Books, 1988), 59. 42. Renato Resaldo, “Imperial Nostalgia,” in Culture and Truth: The Remaking of Social Analysis (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1993), 68–87. 43. James Clifford, “On Ethnographic Allegory,” in Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1986), 98–121. 44. James Clifford (1986), 112–13.

Chapter 1 Femininity Comes to the Rescue: Innovative Jingju in Taiwan 1. Various terms are used to describe this new phenomenon: “newly edited/created jingju” (xinbian jingju); “reformed jingju” (gailiang jingju); or “modern jingju” (xiandai jingju). I use the term “Innovative Jingju” to refer to jingju plays that are newly created or are adapted from the traditional repertoire with significant changes. The concept of “innovative jingju” is never new; Mei Lanfang had performed new plays with contemporary themes in modern clothes in the 1910s, although he later gave up this practice because he felt that jingju artistic standards had been compromised. Autobiography of Mei Lanfang (Mei Lanfang zishu), ed. Mei Shaowu and Mei Weidong (Beijing: Zhonghua, 2005), 85–105. 2. For a good study of the nationalization of jingju during the Republican era, see Joshua Goldstein (2007). The nationalization of jingju in Taiwan after 1949 will be explained in detail later. 3. Nancy Guy, Peking Opera and Politics in Taiwan (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2005), 1. 4. Allen Chun, “Ethnic Identity in the Politics of the Unreal,” Taiwan in Comparative Perspective, vol. 1 (November 2007): 76–86. 5. The island of Taiwan is considered a province in ROC territory, which includes other small islands. 6. Each group includes several political parties, but the major party associated with the Green is the DPP (Democratic Progressive Party, minjindang), while for the Blue it is the KMT (Nationalist Party, kuomintang or guomindang). 7. All these are familiar notions related to nationalism. On imagining a national community, see Benedict Anderson (2006), 1–7; on the notion of nationalism inventing a nation, see Ernest Gellner, Thought and Change

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8.

9. 10.

11. 12.

13. 14. 15. 16.

17. 18. 19.

20. 21. 22.

Notes (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1964), 168; on the idea of forgiving and forgetting, see Ernest Renan, “What is a Nation?” trans. Martin Thom, in Nation and Narration, ed. Homi K. Bhabha (London and New York: Routledge, 1990), 8–22. China.com.cn. “The Hardship of Immigration across the Ocean.” http:// big5.china.com.cn/chinese/zta/439085.htm. The Dutch were in Taiwan from 1624 to 1662, the Spanish from 1626 to 1642. Cao Yonghe, The Study of Early Taiwan History (Taiwan zaoqi lishi yanjiu) (Taipei: Lianjing, 1985), 1–24. The February 28 Incident has been an important political and scholarly topic since the abolition of Martial Law in 1987. See, for example, Lai Zhehan, Research Report of the February 28 Incident (Ererba shijian yanjiu baogao) (Taipei: Shibao wenhua, 1994); Chen Fangming, ed., A Collection of Scholarly Essays on the February 28 Incident (Ererba shijian xueshu lunwenji) (Irvine, CA: Taiwan Publishing, 1988); Xu Xueji, ed., Essay Collection for the Conference on “Commemorating the Sixtieth Anniversary of February 28 Incident” (Ererba shijian liushi zhounian jinian lunwenji) (Taipei: Taipei Cultural Ministry February 28 Memorial Hall, 2008); and Huang Zhangjian, The Evidentary Scholarship on the Truth of the February 28 Incident (Ererba shijian zhenxiang kaozhenggao) (Taipei: Lianjing, 2007). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Taiwan Horng-Luen Wang, “National Culture and Its Discontents: the Politics of Heritage and Language in Taiwan, 1949–2003,” Comparative Study of Society and History, vol. 46, no. 4 (October 2004), 789–815. The quotation is from Richard Handler, Nationalism and the Politics of Culture in Quebec (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press), 153. Wang An-Ch’i, Fifty Years of Taiwan Jingju (Taiwan jingju wushinian) (Taipei: Guoli chuantong yishu zhongxin, 2002), 2 vols. Su Guizhi, The Development of Jingju and Gezaixi under National Policies (Guojia zhengcexia jingju yu gezaixi zhi fazhan) (Taipei: Wenshize, 2003). Xu Yanxiang, Chinese Theatre Troupes in Taiwan under Japanese Governance (Rizhi shiqi Zhonguo xiban zai Taiwan) (Taipei: Nantian, 2000). The original document appeared in the Chinese-language Taiwan Daily (28 August 1906, no. 2499). See Xu Yaxiang, Historical Facts and Interpretation: Selected Readings from the Theatre Material in Taiwan Newspapers during the Period of Japanese Governance (Shishi yu quanshi: rizhi shiqi Taiwan baokan xiqu ziliao xuandu) (Yilan: National Traditional Art Center, 2006), 71–2. Su Guizhi (2003), 108. Wang An-Ch’i (2002), 1: 25–6. For the history of Beijing opera in the pre-KMT period, see Wang An-Ch’i (2002), 1: 25–42, and Su Guizhi (2003), 57–88. Su’s chapter covers both jingju and gezaixi (Taiwanese opera). One important fact is that some actors were actually from the famous troupe Fuliancheng in Beijing. See Wang An-Ch’i (2002), 1: 43–54. Wang An-Ch’i (2002), 1: 55–72. The Fuxing Theatre School (Fuxing xiju xuexiao) was established in 1957 by Wang Zhenzu as a specialized private school for the training of jingju actors. It became the National Fuxing Theatre Experimental School in 1968. Fuxing has been an important educational institution for traditional theatre in

Notes 189

23. 24.

25. 26.

27.

28. 29.

30.

Taiwan, and many of the most important actors are graduates. Fuxing and other opera schools were merged into the National Taiwan Junior College of Traditional Theatre (Guoli Taiwan xiqu zhuanke xueyuan) in 1999, which became the National Taiwan College of Performing Arts (Guoli Taiwan xiqu xueyuan) in 2006. The National Taiwan College of Performing Arts is the only school that teaches traditional theatre in Taiwan today. Jingju is one of several forms (gezaixi, Hakka drama, ethnomusicology, and others) that students can choose to major in. Wang An-Ch’i records many anecdotes of actors’ hardships and commitment during this time. See Wang An-Ch’i (2002), 43–54. The Three Principles of the People are the Principle of Minzu (Chinese nationalism, which specifies that China consists of five major ethnic groups), the Principle of Minquan (democracy), and the Principle of Minsheng (social welfare or livelihood). An English translation is available by Frank W. Price, San Min Chu I: The Three Principles of the People (Sanmin zhuyi) (Shanghai: China Committee, Institute of Pacific Relations, 1927). The three principles are translated as the Principle of Nationalism, the Principle of Democracy, and the Principle of Livelihood. Su Guizhi (2003), 98–9. Mao Zedong, “Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art,” in Selected Readings from the Works of Mao Tsetung (Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1971), 250–86. “The Two Amendments on Education and Wellbeing to the Principle of Livelihood” (Minsheng zhuyi yule liangpian bushu) by Chiang Kai-shek is collected in the new edition of Sun Yat-sen’s The Three Principles (The Three Principles, with The Two Amendments on Education and the Principle of Livelihood [Sanmin zhuyi, zenglu minsheng zhuyi yule liangpian bushu]) (Taipei: Zhongyang wenwu, 1974), vol. 2: 1–144. Svetlana Boym (2001), 43. Chiang Kai-shek, “Memorial Essay for the One Hundred and First Birthday of the Founding Father and the Inauguration of Yat-sen Hall [Zhongshanlou],” in Advocacy and Fulfillment: Documents from Ten Years of the Chinese Cultural Restoration Movement in Taiwan Province (Hongyang yu shijian: Taiwansheng tuixing zhonghua wenhua fuxing yundong shinian jiyao), ed. Committee of the Chinese Cultural Restoration Movement (Taipei: Committee of the Chinese Cultural Restoration Movement, 1972), 1–3. Yao and Shun were legendary sage kings. Yu founded the Xia dynasty, Tang the Shang dynasty. King Wen (r.1099–1050 BC) and King Wu (r. 1046–1043 BC) and the Duke of Zhou (fl. 1100 BC) were early Zhou dynasty rulers. By linking himself to the Duke of Zhou, who lived half a millennium prior to his time, Confucius (551–479 BC) included himself in the orthodox tradition. Claiming an affiliation with Yao, Shun, and the others has been a customary way for Chinese to trace their cultural lineage to ancient times, even though half of the named kings and sages are mythical or legendary figures. By linking Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925) to Confucius, Chiang Kai-shek bridges a gap of two and a half millennia and imagines a direct and continuous lineage of the orthodox Chinese tradition. For a fuller description and a photograph of the gate, see Daphne P. Lei (2006), 179–81.

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31. Svetlana Boym (2001), 41–8. 32. “The glorious month of October” (Guanghui de shiyue) is a familiar term in Taiwan. The anniversary of the founding of the ROC (10 October), Restoration Day (25 October, the day that marked Taiwan’s decolonization from Japan), and Chiang Kai-shek’s birthday (31 October) are the three major holidays. As a month of national holidays, October is always seen as a time for domestic and international festivities. It is also one of the most intense months for tourism, since many overseas Chinese are encouraged to return to Taiwan to participate in celebratory events. Although Restoration Day and Chiang’s birthday are no longer national holidays, October is still seen as a month of celebration. 33. For a comparative study of the banning of jingju in Taiwan and in the mainland, see Wang An-Ch’i, “Narrative Strategies of Prohibited Theater in China and Taiwan” (Jinxi zhenglingxia liang’an jingju de xushi celue), Journal of Theater Studies (Xiju yanjiu), vol. 1 (January 2008a): 195–218. 34. Theatre reform in mainland China was much more comprehensive and intense; it covered every genre, every region, and every aspect of theatremaking. The earlier reforms were less drastic than the reforms of the Culture Revolution, when nearly all traditional opera was completely banned except for eight model plays. 35. Wang An-Ch’i, “Speaking of the ‘First Family’: Are All Contest Plays Model Drama?” (Public talk in Taipei, 5 August 2008). 36. At the celebration of the sixtieth anniversary of the PRC in 2009, Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, spoke of how the PRC had progressed in the past “thirty” years. It is interesting to note that as the PRC was celebrating its 60 years of history, the United States was recognizing only 30 years. The curious 30-year discrepancy can be interpreted in two ways: it might refer to the official US-PRC relationship of 30 years, but it might also reflect US recognition of the ROC as the legitimate China from 1949 to 1979. See “Hillary Clinton praises China’s ‘historic accomplishment’ in fighting poverty,” People’s Daily Online (2 October 2009): http://english.people.com. cn/90001/90776/90883/6776143.html 37. The United States has played a crucial role in helping Taiwan establish its economy. Support from the United States – both financial and technological – lasted until 1965. 38. Many people have written on these two artists, especially on Wu HsingKuo. For two recent biographies, see, for Guo, Wang An-Ch’i’s Lights on Yayin (Guangzhao Yayin) (Taipei: Xiangyinwenhua, 2008b), and, for Wu, Lu Jianying, Sprouting from Disparity (Juejing mengya) (Taipei: Tianxiawenhua, 2006). 39. See note 22. 40. Wang An-Ch’i, “The Influence of Visiting Mainland Troupes on the Aesthetics of Taiwan Theatre,” in Wang An-Ch’i (2002), 1: 114–25. 41. As Wang Sipei points out, the pieces chosen in the genre of “traditional theatres” by the National Theatre in 2000, the year of the inauguration of the first DPP president, were two gezaixi (Taiwanese opera) plays. As the National Theatre is the biggest performance venue for theatre and dance, the message was clear to all traditional theatre artists. See Wang Sipei, “A Review on the Movement of Taiwanization in Peking Opera: Two Cases Study on Liao

Notes 191

42.

43.

44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50.

51.

52.

53.

54.

55.

Tian-Ting and Exodus,” Bulletin of Taiwanese Literature (Taiwan wenxue xuebao), no. 1: 295–324. Wang An-Ch’i, “The Transition from Actor-Centered to Playwright-Centered Drama: An Investigation of Mainland Drama Reform and the Transformation of the Nature of Contemporary Theater.” Bulletin of the Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy (Zhongguo wenzhe yanjiu qikan) 19 (2001), 250–316. “Introduction to the Kuo Kuang [Guoguang] Chinese Opera Company.” This introduction appears in the programs of Mazu and Zheng Chengong and Taiwan. See “The Heavenly Mother – Ma-Tzu” in the program for Mazu (Taipei: National Theatre, 1998). See the program of Mazu. See the programs of Zheng Chenggong and Taiwan (Zheng Chenggong yu Taiwan) and Liao Tianding. “Red hair” (hongmao) is a common way of referring to the Dutch by Taiwanese locals. Wang Sipei, 301. See program notes for Zheng Chenggong and Taiwan, 13. Zhu Shaoyu is now a famous jingju composer and director in the PRC. Luo Bei’an was the president of Greenray (Lüguang jutuan) at that time. Greenray, one of the important modern theatre troupes in Taiwan, has created works in the form of “Chinese musical,” “citizen drama” (works on contemporary Taiwan themes), and “world drama” (translated contemporary foreign works). See: http://www.greenray.org.tw/version2/p01/greenray01. htm Women rarely attended public jingju performances in the Qing. The early Republican era began to see segregated-sex seating and then mixed-sex seating in urban theatres. Joshua Goldstein discusses the integration of the female audience throughout his Drama Kings (2007). Different theatrical genres in different historical periods have different gender codes. I will explain cross-dressing and gender codes in the section “Return to femininity.” The Dialogue at the Green Mound (2006) illustrates the encounter between the two familiar female historical characters Wang Zhaojun (fl. 32 BC) and Cai Wenji (fl. 194?–206?). Wang, a Chinese court lady married off to the leader of the northern Xiongnu tribes, and Cai, who was abducted by the Xiongnu troops and married to a Xiongnu lord, are representatives of women “stained” by the foreign “barbarians” during intercultural conflicts. Their sorrow has been dramatized and poeticized by many literati throughout history. For a detailed discussion of literary and dramatic works on these two characters, see Daphne Pi-Wei Lei, “Performing the Borders: Gender and Intercultural Conflict in Premodern Chinese Drama” (PhD Dissertation, Tufts University, 1999). For a version of the jingju script, see The Pavilion of Royal Tablet (Yubei ting), in The Grand Complete Drama (Xikao daquan), ed. Hu Juren (Taipei: Hongye, 1986), 1: 281–93. Wang An-Ch’i, “Experimenting ‘Beijing Opera Little Theatre’,” in Rouge Lips and Pearl-Sewn Sleeves, Both Lonely (Jiangchun zhuxiu liangjimo) (Taipei: INK Publishing, 2008c): 21–5.

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56. Wang An-Ch’i (2008c), 25. Wang Youdao was presented as “jingju little theatre,” an experimental production in The Guoguang Theatre. 57. I have in mind Laura Mulvey’s term “being-looked-at-ness,” a state in which the female functions as object of the male gaze in cinema. See Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” Screen, 16.3 (Autumn, 1975), 6–18. 58. All page numbers refer to the published text. Wang An-Ch’i, Wang Youdao Divorces His Wife (Wang Youdao xiuqi), in Wang An-Chi (2008c), 59–109. 59. Wang An-Ch’i (2008c), 21–5. 60. “Cloud and rain” is a Classical Chinese euphemism for sexual intercourse. 61. All page numbers refer to the published text. Wang An-Ch’i and Zhao Xuejun, Three Persons, Two Lamps (Sange ren’er liangzhandeng), in Wang AnCh’i (2008c), 111–87. 62. All visual images are found in the stage directions in the script and in the recording of the performance of 26 March 2005 at the New Stage. The DVD is published by the National Guo Guang Opera Company. 63. This poem comes from the collection The Original Legends of Poems (Benshi shi) by Meng Qi (fl. 875) of the Tang dynasty. The story tells of a soldier who discovers a poem sewn into a uniform made by court ladies. The emperor pardoned the court lady and married her to the soldier. This poem was the original inspiration for the play. 64. This is the ending of the published script; however, in the stage production, the play ends with all three characters on stage, with Shuangyue in the middle and the two lamps lit at the sides. In silence, the flute is passed from Guanzhi to Li, from Li to Shuangyue, and then back to Guangzhi. Li Huimian thinks the abstract meaning of the “two lamps” was lost in the stage production. See Li Huimian, “Between the Flow of Intention and Crossing the Boundary of Gender: A Comparison between ‘Three Persons and Two Lamps’ and ‘Male Queen,’” Taipei Theatre Journal, vol. 2 (2005): 63–84. The final image in the stage production, however, can be interpreted as the serene image of a traditional household, with the two lamps indicating that there are different possibilities of sexual relations. I think that by putting all three characters on stage, the director created an even greater ambiguity and allowed the audience more room for imagination. 65. See note 63. 66. From the production program for Three Persons, Two Lamps (Taipei: New Stage, 2005), 40. 67. The novella was written in the early 1940s and published in the anthology Marvel Tales (Chuanqi) in 1944 in Shanghai. Marvel Tales contains some of Chang’s most representative short stories and novellas. The anthology, later renamed Collected Short Stories of Eileen Chang (Zhang Ailing duanpian xiaoshuo ji), has gone through numerous editions. See “The Golden Cangue” in Collected Short Stories of Eileen Chang (Zhang Ailing duanpian xiaoshuo ji) (Taipei: Huangguan, 1980), 150–202. 68. C. T. Hsia, The History of Modern Chinese Fiction (Zhongguo xiandai xiaoshuo shi), trans. Liu Shaoming et al. (Hong Kong: Chinese University, 2001), 335–72. The book was written in the 1950s and first published in 1961. 69. New World Encyclopedia. “Eileen Chang” (http://www.newworldencyclopedia. org/entry/Eileen_Chang)

Notes 193 70. Eileen Chang, A Return to the Frontier (Chongfang biancheng) (Taipei: Crown, 2008), 64. “A Return to the Frontier,” an essay in the form of a travelogue about Chang’s days in Taiwan and Hong Kong in 1961, was published in English in The Reporter (1963). She rewrote it in Chinese in the 1980s, but the work did not come to light till 2007. Both the English and Chinese version can be seen in A Return to the Frontier (Taipei: Crown, 2008), 9–80. It is significant that Chang uses the term “Formosa,” a term that means “beautiful island” in Portuguese, in her original English essay. Formosa is a term used by Europeans prior to the official governance of Taiwan by the Qing government in the late nineteenth century. In recent Taiwanese independence rhetoric, Formosa has sometimes been used to indicate a preChinese colonial state; Formosa is thus a politicized name for Taiwan. Since Chang could not foresee the independence movement in Taiwan in early 1960s, I suspect she used “Formosa” for its familiarity to Western readers at that time. When she rewrote the essay in Chinese in 1980s, she used the Chinese name “Taiwan” in references to the island. 71. Many streets in Taiwan are named for major mainland cities, such as Nanjing, Qingdao, Chongqing, Chengdu, Guangzhou, and Xiamen. Although this “map” has a general geographical logic, its intersections with Taiwan local names and other names create geographical and cultural confusions. Many mainland regional foods were brought to Taiwan after 1949. A unique phenomenon in restaurants in Taiwan is food from multiple regions appearing in the same restaurant. Naturally, mainland regional foods have been localized and new fusion foods created. 72. All page numbers refer to the published text. Wang An-Ch’i, The Golden Cangue (Jinsuo ji), in Wang An-Ch’i (2008c), 188–275. 73. Wang An-Ch’i, “Magnificent and Bleak Theatre Design,” in Wang (2008c), 37–41. 74. Lin Shu-hsun points out that Qiqiao gazes into mirror three times in Act Two, during the wedding of Third Brother and his bride: the first time she is reflecting on her own wedding, the second time she is imagining the wedding between herself and Third Brother, and the third time she is gazing into reality (her lost youth and love). See Lin Shu-hsun, “Theatrical Stage Space Analysis of the New Jingju Opera ‘The Golden Cangue,’” Journal of Traditional Chinese Theatre (Xiqu xuebao), vol. 4 (December 2008): 273–98. 75. Martin Esslin describes Genet’s theatre as a “man caught in a maze of mirrors, trapped by his own distorted reflections, trying to find a way to make contact with the others he can see around him but being rudely stopped by barriers of glass.” Martin Esslin, Theatre of the Absurd (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1968), 195. 76. Lin Shu-hsun (2008), 273–98. 77. See Chiu Hui-yin, “The Golden Cangue, Continuation and Innovation of Traditional Chinese Opera,” Journal of Chinese Ritual, Theatre and Folklore (Minsu quyi), vol. 159 (March 2008): 171–204; and Lin Shu-hsun (2008), 295. 78. Such as Chiang Hsin-li, “A Comparison between and Analysis of the New Chinese Opera Golden Lock and Its Original Novel,” Xiqu xuebao, vol. 3 (June 2008): 1–24; Wang Dewei, “Beautiful and Pathetic Gesture: Viewing Eileen Chang from Jingju The Golden Cangue,” in Unitas (Lianhe wenxue), no. 259

194

79. 80. 81.

82. 83. 84.

85.

86.

87.

88. 89.

90.

91.

92. 93.

Notes (May 2006): 47–53. Wang Youhui, “Gorgeous but Desolate Modern Beijing Opera: Guo Guang Company’s ‘The Golden Cangue,’” Performing Arts Journal (Taiwan xizhuan xuekan), vol. 13: 179–81; Chiu Hui-yin (2008): 171–204. Wang Youhui, (2008): 179–81. Wang An-Ch’i, (2001), 250–316. Instead of “Macbeth says,” a typical Chinese script might have “Martial Male says.” My argument here is that performance style (martial male) trumps individual character (Macbeth) in the Chinese convention. Wei Hai-Ming, Female Actor (Nüling) (Taipei: Jimu wenhua, 2006), 35–6. Wang An-Ch’i also discusses the impact of Stanislavski’s theories on traditional performance schools (liupai). See Wang An-Ch’i, (2001), 250–316. For a good study on the subject of cross-dressing, see Siu Leung Li, CrossDressing in Chinese Opera (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2003, 2006). The art of “stilting” (caiqiao) was banned in 1952 in mainland China because of its associations with feudal society. The practice is preserved in jingju in Taiwan and in yueju in Hong Kong. Wang An-Ch’i, “Gender, Performance, Texuality: A Direction of Jingju Studies,” Forum in Women’s and Gender Studies (Fuyan zongheng), vol. 72 (October 2004): 1–8. Yu Ji, the favorite concubine of Xiang Yu (King of Chu) kills herself after a beautiful sword dance so that she will not become the king’s unwanted burden in the losing battle. The Hegemon King Says Farewell to His Queen (Bawang bieji) is an anonymous jingju classic. One version of the script is collected in Hu Juren (1986), 1: 91–104. One version of the anonymous The Red-Maned Courser (Hongzong liema) is collected in Hu Juren (1986), 1: 561–95. The heroine of the story, Xi’er, escapes into the deep mountains after she is raped by her landlord. Her hair turns white because of the hardships she suffers, and villagers mistake her for a goddess. Later, Communist troops save her and punish the evil landlord. Originally a local legend, The White Hair Damsel was turned into a modern musical (1945), a film (1951), a jingju (1958), and a ballet (1964). Wei Hai-Ming, for instance, regularly teaches jingju classes, both in her own studio and in community colleges. Her students, almost entirely female, are both audiences of, and volunteers for, her productions. Wang An-ch’i, “Female Consciousness in the Innovative Jingju in Taiwan: Why Do We Need to Reconstruct the Female Image?”; Chung Chuan-hsing, “Deep Cultivation of the Field: Children’s Jingju”; Weng Xingli, “The Study of the Viewing Behavior of Jingju Audiences in Taiwan.” This was my observation at the conference, where I presented a paper titled “Face and Gender Metamorphosis: Beijing Opera on the World Stage.” The Dubbed Image Project is a grand effort to reconstruct traditional theatre pieces from the 1940s to 1960s. New casts were trained to lip-sync to the voices on old audio recordings and to act with guidance from surviving actors and documents, with sets and costume constructed in accordance with surviving images and audience memories. Hundreds of traditional pieces were reconstructed and recorded. However, since the recording did not start until 1994, memories of the past were largely lost.

Notes 195 94. Interview with Li, 5 August 2008, Taipei, Taiwan. 95. Interview with Li, 5 August 2008, Taipei, Taiwan. 96. Interview with Zhong Baoshan (24 February 2009). According to Zhong, the audiences for Guoguan’s jingju performances number about 70,000 annually, equivalent to about one in 300 of the entire Taiwan population.

Chapter 2 Pacification and Silent Resistance: Performing Hong Kong in The Flower Princess 1. Tong Dik Sang is the Cantonese pronunciation; Tang Disheng is the Mandarin. In this chapter, to respect local practice, I use Cantonese romanization whenever it is available, but also supply pinyin. 2. For the term “floating city,” see Xixi, “Marvels of a Floating City” (Fucheng zhiyi), in Handscroll (Shoujuan) (Taipei: Hongfan, 1988), 1–19. Through a discussion of René Magritte’s art, Xixi describes the allegorical, rootless, and timeless floating city as a miracle created by will and faith. It is a place of vibrant art and economy where people have both the freedom to receive any information and the right to remain silent. Ackbar Abbas’s “city of disappearance” and Richard Hughes’s “borrowed place, borrowed time” will be explained later. 3. Abbas believes that although the settlement can be traced back as early as the Song dynasty, such history is not especially relevant; what made Hong Kong into today’s Hong Kong was British colonialism. Ackbar Abbas, Hong Kong: Culture and the Politics of Disappearance (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997), 2. 4. Lau Siu-Kai, Decolonization Without Independence and the Poverty of Political Leaders in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1990), 14. 5. Lo Wai Luk, Hong Kong Stage: Hong Kong Drama as Cultural Discourse (Xianggang wutai: zuowei wenhua lunshu de Xianggang xiju) (Hong Kong: International Association of Theatre Critics, 2004), 10. 6. Daisy Sheung-Yuen Ng, “The Cultural Politics of Nostalgia in Contemporary Hong Kong Film and Memoir.” PhD Dissertation. Harvard University, 2000, 11. 7. Guan Xinji, “The Formation of Political Society in Hong Kong,” in Hong Kong in Transition: The Continued Search for Identity and Order (Zhuanhuanzhong de Xianggang: shenfen yu zhixu de zaixunqiu) ed. Liu Qingfeng and Guan Xiaochun (Hong Kong: the Chinese University Press, 1998), 99–113. 8. Lin Kehuan, Drama Hong Kong, Hong Kong Drama (Xiju Xianggang, Xianggang xiju) (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 2007b), 6. 9. Luo Feng “The Colonialism and Native Consciousness in Hong Kong Modern Poetry” (Xianggang xiandaishi de zhimin zhuyi yu bentu yishi), in PostColonial Theories and Cultural Identity (Houzhimin lilun yu wenhua rentong), ed. Zhang Jing-yuan (Taipei: Maitian, 1995), 227–78. 10. The May Fourth Movement of 1919 represented the “modernization” of Chinese language and literature. It advocated the use of colloquial rather than classical Chinese in writing of all kinds, the translation of Western texts, and experimentation with new ways of writing in literature. Although

196

11. 12. 13. 14.

15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25.

26.

27. 28.

29.

30. 31.

Notes the movement was a moment of enlightenment for modern Chinese literature, it would hardly be appropriate to regard it as forever contemporary. Daisy Ng (2000), 11. Homi Bhaba, “Of Mimicry and Man,” in The Location of Culture (New York: Routledge, 1994), 85–92. A stereotype about Hong Kong students is that they are not good at either Chinese or English. Allen Chun, “Discourses of Identity in the Changing Spaces of Public Culture in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore,” Theory Culture Society, vol. 13, no. 51 (1996b): 51–75. Guan Xinji (1998), 99–113. Guan Xinji (1998), 103. Liu Zhaojia, “Hong Kong People or Chinese People: Identity of Hong Kong Chinese 1985–1995,” in Liu Qingfeng and Guan Xiaochun (1998), 5. Allen Chun (1996b), 58. Lin Kehuan (2007b), 6. Lau Siu-Kai (1990), 9. Ackbar Abbas (1997), 1–15. Mark Roberti, The Fall of Hong Kong: China’s Triumph and Britain’s Betrayal (New York: J. Wiley, 1996), 10–11. GOVHK Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Bureau, “The Joint Declaration.” http://www.cmab.gov.hk/en/issues/jd2.htm Ackbar Abbas (1997), 5. Ridicule of mainland immigrants and exposure of their illegal identity have been common dramatic tropes in popular entertainment. Sheldon Lu, for instance, discusses how new mainland immigrants feel the need to “pass” as Hong Kongers in the movie Comrade, Almost a Love Story (Tianmimi). See Sheldon Lu, “Diaspora, Citizenship, Nationality: Hong Kong and 1997,” in China, Transnational Visuality, Global Postmodernity (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001), 104–21. For examples, see Ackbar Abbas (1997); Lin Kehuan (2007); Sheldon Lu (2001), 104–21; Daisy Sheung-Yuen Ng (2000); Yu Siu Wah, “The Reappearance of Feudal Rites at Fin de Siècle,” in Out of Chaos and Coincidence: Hong Kong Music Culture (Le zai diancuozhong: Xianggang yasu yinyue wenhua) (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 2001); Luo Feng, The Decadent City (Shijimo chengshi) (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1995); Liu Qingfeng and Guan Xiaochun, eds. (1998); Rozanna Lilley, Staging Hong Kong: Gender and Performance in Transition (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1998); Lo Wai Luk (2004). Lau Siu-Kai (1990). Abbas believes that postcoloniality begins when subjects think and act in a certain way. It is a tactic and a practice, not a legal-political contract or historical accident. Ackbar Abbas (1997), 10. Rey Chow, “King Kong in Hong Kong: Watching the ‘Handover’ from the U.S.A,” Social Text, no. 55, Intellectual Politics in Post-Tiananmen China (Summer 1998): 93–108. Mark Roberti (1994), 299–300. According to The History of the Ming Dynasty (Mingshi), Princess Changping was 16 and already betrothed to Zhou Shixian when the calamity struck.

Notes 197

32.

33. 34.

35.

36.

37.

38.

39.

40. 41.

42.

The desperate emperor said to the weeping princess: “Why did you have to be born in my family?!” He intended to kill her but managed only to wound her in the arm. The Ming fell and the emperor committed suicide. The princess pleaded with the new emperor to allow her to become a Taoist nun. The new emperor did not grant her wish and on the contrary ordered her to marry her betrothed and gave her gifts of money and land. The princess died of unknown causes the next year. Zhang Tingyu, The History of the Ming Dynasty, Newly Edited (Xinjiaoben Mingshi) (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1974), 121: 3677–8. One example is the legendary loner “One-Armed Wonder Nun” (dubi shenni) in the popular martial arts novel The Deer and the Cauldron (Luding ji, 1969–72), by the famous Hong Kong-based novelist Jin Yong (pen name for Zha Liangyong, 1928–). The Deer and the Cauldron has inspired multiple TV and film adaptations. The late eighteenth century is generally regarded as a transitional time when kunqu was declining and local drama rising. See Tanaka Issei (1972): 42–62. Zeng Yongyi, “The Flower Princess of Huang Yunshan” (Huang Yunshan de Dinühua), in The Collected Studies of Chinese Classical Theatre (Zhongguo gudian xiju lunji) (Taipei: Lianjing, 1986), 281–97. Biographies of Contemporary Hong Kong Cantonese Opera (Xianggang dangdai yueju renminglu), ed. Ou Wenfeng and Zheng Yanhong (Hong Kong: The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1999), 140–1. Based on this reasoning, Yung chose the audio version for his English translation. Tong Dik Sang, The Flower Princess: A Cantonese Opera (Dinühua), trans. Bell Yung, with the assistance of Sonia Ng and Katherine Carlitz: (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2010), x. His romanization of characters’ names is in Cantonese. For their history and information about the Chor Fung Ming (Chufengming) Troupe, see: http://www.geocities.com/chorfung/chorfung_intro.htm and http://sinfung.net/charaters/others_charaters/chofung.htm Since my main focus is on the Youth Edition, all passages and page numbers from the play refer to that version. The script was edited by a committee of scholars and professionals (Ye Shaode, Ruan Zhaohui, Li Qifeng, Chen Shouren, and Li Weisheng) and published in 2008 by the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Tong Dik Sang, The Flower Princess: The Youth Edition Production Script (Dinühua: Qingnianban yanchu jubenji), ed. Ye Shaode et al. (Hong Kong: The Chinese University, 2008). All translations are mine, though in many cases I have consulted Yung’s new translation. Shuihengzhou’s “The Swan Song of Yueju in Hong Kong” (Xianggang de yueju juechang) relates the miserable endings of many yueju artists who “went up north,” including Pak Kui Wing, the father of Pak Suet Sin. See Shuihengzhou, in Open Magazine (Kaifang zazhi) (February 2007) (http:// www.open.com.hk/0702p54.html). Mao Zedong (1971), 250–86. See the website of the School of Drama, Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts (http://www.hkapa.edu/asp/drama/drama_showcase_production_detail. asp?performanceid=2562&lang=tch&mode=gui). Yu Shanlu, “The Flower Princess: The Small Sparrow Has It All” (http:// mypaper.pchome.com.tw/news/yushanlu/3/1278783173/20070131235502)

198

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43. For a review and introduction, see Joanne Ho’s: “The Theatrical Generational Gap between Deng Shurong and Tang Disheng: A Review of The Flower Princess of the Chinese Language Arts Festival” (Deng Shurong yu Tang Disheng de juchang daigou: ping Huawen yishujie Dinühua) (http://www.iatc. com.hk/onlinearticle/articled431.html); Wang Jieyu, “Recreate Cantonese Opera with Spoken Drama” (Jie huaju zaizao yueju) (http://paper.wenweipo. com/2006/10/29/YC0610290001.htm); and Yu Shanlu, “The Small Sparrow Has It All.” 44. For more information about the conference on “Chinese Language Theatre Centennial,” see Liu Huifen, “The Sixth Chinese Language Theatre Festival: Records of the Chinese Language Theatre Centennial Conference” (http:// www.com2.tw/chta-news/2007-3/chta-0703-a1.htm). 45. Yu Shanlu, “The Small Sparrow Has It All.” 46. Joanne Ho (http://www.iatc.com.hk/onlinearticle/articled431.html). 47. Joanne Ho (http://www.iatc.com.hk/onlinearticle/articled431.html). 48. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnV1XbY302E. This song was first performed in Las Vegas, 1970. 49. See http://www.fm993.com.cn/fm993/news/html/200742204620.htm. A performance of this song can be seen on YouTube (http://www.youtube. com/watch?v=JviDyIQvVsI). 50. The title alludes to two famous yueju pieces, both by Tong Dik Sang. 51. The six pillars (liuzhu) are the major role types in a performance of yueju: major flower female, civil and martial male, clown male, martial male, secondary flower female, and young male. 52. The first word in the parenthesis indicates the actor’s gender, the second term the specialized role type. 53. Dai Shuyin, ed. “The Flower Princess Youth Edition Audition Notice.” Hong Kong Opera Newsletter, vol. 16, (31 August 2007): 10. 54. http://www.takungpao.com:82/news/07/02/25/UL-696927.htm. 55. Most of the lead actors in The Peony Pavilion began their training at age 16 in opera school (for four years) and performed for a few years in the opera company before their Peony experience. The actors for The Flower Princess, on the other hand, had taken only evening classes or private lessons. They did not receive any systematic Cantonese opera training. 56. In the tradition of Chinese opera, actors-in-training have to play such roles as guards and maids, that is, in the non-speaking entourage that surrounds the lead characters and provides a sense of lively spectacle. 57. Liang Shuming, the woman who played the male lead, received the most votes. 58. My conversation with Professor Yung immediately after the performance. 59. Ye Shixiong, “Window to Opera: Who Are the Heirs of the Masters?” (Xiqu shichuang: mingjia fengfan houji heren?) (11 September 2007, Wenhuipo). See http://paper.wenweipo.com/2007/09/11/XQ0709110006.htm. 60. Cantonese, a southern Chinese language, is the de facto language of Hong Kong. Mandarin, the official language of the PRC and Taiwan, originates in northern China and belongs to a very different language system. In writing, both Hong Kong and Taiwan use the traditional character system, while simplified characters are used on the mainland. As explained in the Introduction, Hong Kong and Taiwan share the same written Chinese,

Notes 199

61. 62.

63. 64.

65.

66.

67.

68.

69.

70.

71.

Taiwan and the mainland share the same spoken Chinese, and Hong Kong and the mainland share neither spoken nor written Chinese. http://www.cnr.cn/2007tf/cfadly/zxbd/200709/t20070909_504564607.html. Note that minzhu (people’s rights) and minsheng (people’s lives) are two principles of Sun Yat-sen’s “The Three Principles of the People.” Minzhu is “the Principle of Democracy” and minsheng “the Principle of Livelihood.” See Chapter 1, note 24. Allen Chun credits this idea to a conference paper by Wing Sang Law (1992). See Allen Chun (1996b), 51–75. Such as Szeto Wah (Situ Hua) and Li Zhuoren, both leading voices in the democratic movement in Hong Kong. An annual commemoration of June Fourth is staged by activists in Hong Kong. More details below. I credit Professor Wang An-Ch’i for the idea that voting within the theatre was instituted as a surrogate for the general election not available to Hong Kong citizens (conversation with Wang, Guangzhou, 2008). I watched the broadcast of the ceremony on TV. “Somber” is the proper word to describe the general mood of the British. For a recording of various transition ceremonies, see British Retreat 1997 (http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=T2Rvdktho_g) Yu Siu Wah, “The Reappearance of Feudal Rites at Fin de Siècle,” in Yu Siu Wah (2001), 16–43. Yu devotes a section of his piece to a discussion of the bronze bells and their significance as indications of the “central” or “orthodox” Chinese government position. See Yu (2001), 16–25. For an introduction to the ancient bronze bells, see Robert Bagley’s chapter “Percussion,” in Music in the Age of Confucius, edited by Jenny F. So (Washington DC: Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institute, 2000), 35–62. This 1995 film was directed by Wu Ziniu (PRC), produced by Taiwan’s Longxiang dianying LTD, and co-starred Qin Han and Liu Ruoying, both from Taiwan. The historical commemoration was a transnational production. I have discussed this point in a conference paper, in which I analyze rekindling of anti-Japanese sentiment through a performance of the song “Ballad of the Great Wall” (Changcheng yao). The song describes the atrocities committed by the Japanese against the Chinese during World War II. Diasporic Chinese, comprising many diverse groups, were instantly united by antiJapanese sentiment at the concert. See Daphne Lei, “Staging Transnational Chinese Capital for the Local American Audience,” conference paper for American Society of Theatre Research (Chicago, 2006). I have written previously that a series of stereotypes, including historical traumas such as the Cultural Revolution, have become elements of authentic Chineseness as presented for international consumption. The obvious examples are the film Farewell My Concubine and the play M. Butterfly. See Lei (2006b), 207–53. Chan Sau Yan writes of the character of the Qing emperor and political intention in The Flower Princess. In Huang Yunshan’s original play, despite his severe criticism of those who shifted their allegiance to the new dynasty, the Qing emperor’s “kindness” is nevertheless praised. This praise can be seen as a survival tactic for Huang, who did not have a successful political career.

200

72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78.

79.

80.

81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86.

87. 88. 89.

90.

Notes His play is both commemorating the lost dynasty and creating a safe political environment for himself. His own political agenda is hidden behind the beautiful woman’s suicide. See Chan Sau Yan, “Analyzing Drama from ‘Evolution Psychology’: Discussing the Plot of Life and Death in Cantonese Opera The Flower Princess” (Cong “yanhua xinlixue” jiedu xiqu: yueju Dinühua shengsi qingjie chutan), in Gazing into Death: Multi-Disciplinary Perspective (Ningshi siwang: si yu renjiande duoyuan xingsi), ed. Liang Meiyi and Zhang Canhui (Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2005), 117–42. For more analysis of Huang Yunshan’s The Flower Princess, also see Zeng Yongyi (1986), 281–97. Yu points out that Tan Dun did not credit the performer in his recording. Yu Siu Wah (2001), 16–43. Ackbar Abbas (1997), 12–13. Renato Rosaldo (1993), 68–87. James Clifford (1986), 98–121. James Clifford (1986), 112–13. Mahalo.com. “China’s National Mourning” (http://www.mahalo.com/ China_National_Mourning). Many victims of the quake were schoolchildren crushed by collapsed school buildings, whose construction did not meet safety standards. Local officials, who took bribes allowing construction standards to be compromised, were considered the real culprits. During the Olympic torch relays in 2008 prior to the Beijing Olympic Games, torch-bearers encountered many protesters who condemned the Chinese government’s oppression of Tibetans. Peter Homans, ed. Symbolic Loss: The Ambiguity of Mourning and Memory at Century’s End (Charlottesville and London: University Press of Virginia, 2000), 1–40. Phillipe Ariès, “The Tame Death,” in The Hour of Our Death, trans. Helen Weaver (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1981), 5–28. Peter Homans (2000), 7–9. Sigmund Freud, General Psychological Theory: Papers on Metapsychology (New York: Touchstone, 1997), 166. Peter Homans (2000), 20. Richard Hughes, Hong Kong: Borrowed Place – Borrowed Time (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1968), 10. Asia Pacific Migration Research Network (APMRN). “Migration Issues in the Asia Pacific Issues.” Paper from Hong Kong (http://www.unesco.org/most/ apmrnwp7.htm). It was 11.5 (per 100,000) in 1990, 11.8 in 1995, 13.2 in 1999, and 18.6 in 2004 .(http://www.who.int/mental_health/media/chinzhongk.pdf). See the Introduction to this volume, note 41. Also see Svetlana Boym (2001), xiii–xiv, 41–56. Sina.com.hk. “The Population for the Twenty-Year Anniversary of the June Fourth Protest Increased.” Sing Tao Daily (June 1, 2009) (http://news.sina. com.hk/cgi-bin/nw/show.cgi/630/3/2/1152716/1.html) and EpochTimes. com. “Hong Kong Protests the Rhetoric of Donald Tseng” (http://www. epochtimes.com/b5/9/5/15/n2527182.htm). Robert Mackey, “China’s Great Firewall Blocked Twitter,” The New York Times (2 June 2009) (http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/02/chinas-greatfirewall-blocks-twitter/).

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Chapter 3 The Blossoming of the Transnational Peony: Performing Alternative China in California 1. Throughout this chapter, I use The Young Lovers’ Edition to refer to Pai Hsienyung’s production and The Peony Pavilion to indicate the play itself or other productions of the play. 2. UNESCO. “Proclamations of Master Pieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity, 18 May 2001 (http://www.unesco.org/bpi/intangible_heritage/china.htm). 3. These four dreams are written in the form of chuanqi (marvel plays), the dominant dramatic genre in the Ming dynasty. Kunqu was one of the ways of performing chuanqi plays and later became a synonym for chuanqi. It is said that Tang Xianzu did not intend for The Peony Pavilion to be a kunqu play, but kunqu soon became the conventional way of performing it. 4. Aoki Masaru, History of Chinese Theatre in Recent Times (Zhongguo jinshi xiqushi), trans. Wang Gulu (from Japanese: Shina kinsei gikyoku shi) (Taipei: Taiwan shangwu, 1975), 1: 230. 5. The sheer amount of scholarship on The Peony Pavilion and on Tang Xianzu is overwhelming. Below are selected examples: Wu Fuming, Annotated Bibliography on The Peony Pavilion (Mudanting yanjiu ziliao kaoshi) (Shanghai: Xinhua, 1987); Mao Xiaotong, Compilation of Scholarship on Tang Xianzu (Tang Xianzu yanjiu ziliao huibian) (Shanghai: Shanghai Guji, 1986); Zou Yuanjiang, New Studies on Tang Xianzu (Tang Xianzu xinlun) (Taipei: Guojia, 2005); Hua Wei, ed. Tang Xianzu and The Peony Pavilion (Tang Xianzu yu Mudanting) (Taipei: Academia Sinica, 2005); Yang Zhenliang, A Study of the Peony Pavilion (Mudanting yanjiu) (Taipei: Xuesheng, 1992). There are also scholarly journals devoted to Tang Xianzu, such as Newsletter of Tang Xianzu Studies, published by the Chinese Drama Association, Tang Xianzu Branch in Zhejiang province. 6. Tina Lu, Persons, Roles, and Minds: Identity in the Peony Pavilion and Peach Blossom Fan (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001); Judith Zeilin, “Shared Dreams: The Story of The Three Wives’ Commentary on The Peony Pavilion,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, vol. 54, no. 1 (June 1994): 127–79; Hua Wei, “How Dangerous Can the ‘Peony’ Be? Textual Space, ‘Caizi Mudan ting, and ‘Naturalizing the Erotic.’” The Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 65 (November 2006): 741–62. For publications related to productions, see below. 7. For instance, in Taipei, 2004, an international conference organized by Academia Sinica, the National Taiwan University and the University of California, Santa Barbara. This conference invited many distinguished scholars on Chinese theatre from all over the world: Stephen Owen, Wilt Idema, Stephen West, Wang An-Ch’i, Zeng Yongyi, Judith Zeitlin, Hua Wei, Li Wai-yee, Wang Ailing, Wang Derwei, Ye Changhai, Zhao Shanlin, and others. Thirty essays were published as a result of the conference. See Hua Wei, ed. Tang Xianzu and the Peony Pavilion (Tang Xianzu yu Mudanting) (Taipei: Academia Sinica, 2005). At least a dozen books related to The Young Lovers’ Edition have been published in recent years. Some of them provide very important references for this chapter.

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8. Pai reworked the conventional phrase qugao hegua (“a high tune matched by few”) to qugao hezhong (“a high tune for all”) for his book, indicating his hope to popularize the elite art. See High Tune for All (Qugao hezhong), ed. Pai Hsien-yung (Taipei: Bookzone, 2005a). 9. This is the translation of Cyril Birch. Unless otherwise noted, all quoted English text from the play will be from Birch’s translation. Birch’s translation is highly regarded and can be seen as the elite English version of The Peony Pavilion. Tang Xianzu, The Peony Pavilion (Mudanting, 2nd edn), trans. Cyril Birch (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2002), ix. I will provide my own translations of certain passages added to or altered from the original text in the course of specific productions. 10. The word mei in the name of the male lead, Liu Mengmei, is translated as “apricot” by Birch, although it is typically translated as “plum.” See Tang Xianzu (2002), 2. When quoting Birch’s text, I will also include the word “plum” in bracket to follow the convention. 11. Jiao Xun, On Drama (Jushuo) (Taipei: Taiwan shangwu, 1973), 99. 12. Cao Xueqin, The Dream of the Red Chamber (Honglou meng). See chs 23 and 40 for the reference to The Peony Pavilion. For a good English translation for Honglong meng, see Cao Xueqin, Story of the Stone: A Chinese Story in Five Volumes, trans. David Hawkes and John Minford (London and New York: Penguin, 1973–86). 13. Hua Wei, Playwriting and Drama Commentary by Women of the Ming and Qing (Ming Qing funü zhi xiqu chuangzuo yu piping) (Taipei: Academia Sinica, 2003), 337–62. 14. Judith Zeitlin, The Phantom Heroine: Ghosts and Gender in Seventeenth-Century Chinese Literature (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2007). 15. The song “By the Plum Tree” (Zaimeibian, 2004) by the popular singer Leehom Wong (Wang Lihong, Alexander Wang) satirizes the slow and dated classic while also expressing a longing for such romantic love. “The depiction of The Peony Pavilion is romantic and unthinkable […] especially to us […] too busy to eat, [eyes] too tired from web-surfing […]. My world is more and more convenient, but I still can’t find love […]. Slow down […]. Let Master Tang take us back to the romantic Peony Pavilion.” Part of the song is done in a rapid rap style, with 250 words spoken in 50 seconds. 16. Catherine Swatek’s “Introduction: Peony Pavilion on Stage and in the Study” (Introduction to Cyril Birch’s 2002 edition). See Tang Xianzu (2002), xv–xxx. 17. Wu Xinlei, “A Review of the Performance of The Peony Pavilion since 1911,” in Pai Hsien-yung (2004a), 58–69. 18. For scholarly discussion of these productions, see Asian Theatre Journal, vol. 19, no. 1 (Spring 2002): 121–60. This special issue includes articles on Sellars’s and Chen Shizheng’s versions of Peony: Catherine Swatek’s “Boundary Crossings: Peter Sellars’s Production of Peony Pavilion”; Judith T. Zeitlin’s “My Year of Peonies”; Susan Pertel Jain’s “Contemplating Peonies: A Symposium on Three Productions of Tang Xianzu’s Peony Pavilion”; and David Rolston’s “Tradition and Innovation in Chen Shi-Zheng’s Peony Pavilion.” Other works include Catherine Swatek’s “Introduction: Peony Pavilion on Stage and in the Study,” Tang (2002), xv–xxx. I have written about these two productions in comparison with The Young Lovers’ Edition

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19. 20.

21. 22. 23. 24. 25.

26.

in the context of the “intangible heritage of humanity”: Daphne Pi-Wei Lei, “The Paradox between Materiality and Intangibility: Preservation and Development of Kunqu Overseas,” Arts and Literature Studies (Wenyi yanjiu, vol. 6, 2009), 78–86; the article is in Chinese. Catherine Swatek also wrote a book about productions of Peony: Peony Pavilion on Stage: Four Centuries in a Career of a Chinese Drama (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 2002b). Steven Paul, “A Review of the Peony Pavilion,” Chinese and Japanese Newsletter, Valparaiso University (May 1999). I was involved in the early stages of the Sellars project, serving as translator for Hua on several occasions: at the International Festival of Arts and Ideas at Yale University (“Conversation with an Artist,” International Festival of Arts and Ideas) in 1996; at UCLA in 1997 (“Beyond the Peony Pavilion: Chinese Opera and Contemporary Consciousness”); and other unofficial meetings of Sellars, Hua and Tan Dun in 1997. I had numerous conversations with Hua and Sellars about the production and saw the US premiere at Berkeley in 1999. Although all 55 scenes were presented, sections were cut and the tempo of certain songs was speeded up. I have discussed this phenomenon using Farewell My Concubine as an example. See Daphne Lei (2006a), 207–54. A Chinese Cracker: The Making of The Peony Pavilion in Shanghai, New York and Paris (Princeton, NJ: Films for the Humanities & Sciences, 2001). For example, see http://www.sinologic.com/newmusic/special/shangkun, html. Pai was founder, editor, contributor, and major fund-raiser for Modern Literature (Xiandai wenxue, 1960–73, 1977–84), a journal that has played an important role in the history of modern Chinese literature. In retrospect, Modern Literature can be seen as part of a Taiwan literary and cultural movement similar to the “May Fourth” movement of 1919. Featuring both experimental Chinese works and introductions to Western literature, Modern Literature provided a major ground for new writers in Taiwan. Pai is commonly seen as one of the leaders of the literary revolution of his generation in Taiwan. The Interrupted Dream in the Garden (Youyuan jingmeng, 1982) combined modern technology (multimedia) and the performance styles of spoken drama and Chinese opera (kunqu and jingju). This production started a new trend of staging modern plays in the Chinese-speaking world. According to Pai, all three events were motivated by the same urge to revive and renew the tradition. What matters most in the process of renewal and revival is new experimentation and the discovery of new life in traditional art. See Chen Yizhen, “Creating New Cultural Directions: Three Major Events, One Spirit – an Interview with Pai Hsien-Yung,” in Deep Purple and Bright Scarlet Blossoms: A Documentary on The Peony Pavilion, Young Lovers’ Edition Performance Tour (Chazi yanhong kaibian: Qingchunban Mudanting xunyan jishi), ed. Pai Hsien-yung (Taipei: Bookzone [Tianxia Yuanjian], 2005), 11–34. This will be referred as Pai Hsien-yung (2005b). In order to express his determination not to play for Japanese occupiers during the war, Mei Lanfang grew a mustache, signaling a clear rejection

204

27.

28. 29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

34.

35. 36.

Notes of his stage femininity. This famous act of “growing a mustache to express his determination” (xuxumingzhi) is often cited when Mei is mentioned as a patriotic actor. See Chen Yizhen, “Creating New Cultural Directions: Three Major Events, One Spirit – an Interview with Pai Hsien-yung,” in Pai Hsien-yung, ed. (2005b), 11–34. Pai also had a heart attack in Santa Barbara a few years prior to The Young Lovers’ Edition. This near-death experience gave him a sort of existentialist awakening, and he has devoted himself to the art of kunqu ever since his recovery. http://www.unesco.org/bpi/intangible_heritage/china.htm. “Oral and Intangible” is translated as “non-material”(fei wuzhi) in Chinese. For instance, a conference on “non-material” heritage was organized by the Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou in 2007. Juan Goytisolo (Chairman of the International Jury), “Defending Threatened Cultures,” Proclamation of Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity (http://www.unesco.org/bpi/intangible_heritage/goytisoloe.htm). According to Fan Mannong, a co-producer of The Peony Pavilion, the inspiration for this approach came from the phrase “looking for spring in the autumn,” famously used by the PRC writer Yu Qiuyu to describe previous productions. Most cast members of The Young Lovers’ Edition were in their twenties when they were cast. Pai Hsien-yung (2004b), 30–3. See Js.xinhuanet.com. “Pai Hsien-yung’s Kunqu Chronology” (Bai Xianyong kunqu dashiji) (http://big5.xinhuanet.com/gate/big5/www.js.xinhuanet.com/ zhuanlan/2005-05/20/content_4272828.htm) for a chronology of Pai’s kunqu-related events. Three of the four actors who went to Hong Kong later were cast in The Young Lovers’ Edition. Pai Hsien-yung, “The Peony Pavilion: The Story of the Returning of the Soul,” in Peony – the Soul Returned (Mudan huanhun), ed. Pai Hsien-yung (Taipei: Shibao, 2004b), 22–33. Master performers with national stature of this kind – that is, performers who have received the Plum Flower Award or been recognized as a National First-Class Performer – also include Hua Wenyi and Cai Zhengren of the Shanghai school. See Zhu Donglin, “On the Phenomenon of the Young Lovers’ Peony Pavilion,” in Pai Hsien-yung (2005a), 277–296. Cai Shaohua, the president of Suzhou Kunqu Company, also spoke of the difficulty of convincing people locally. Since kunqu is considered a local art of Suzhou, why was it necessary to invite outsiders such as Wang Shiyu and Pai Hsien-yung to “teach” the locals how to improve their own art? See “An Extraordinary Opportunity” (Interview with Cai Shaohua) in Such Spring: Interviews with Persons of the Peony Pavilion Young Lovers’ Edition (Chunse ruxu: Qingchunban kunqu Mudanting renwu fangtanlu), edited by Poon Sing Wah (Singapore: Bafang wenhua, 2007), 15–23. http://big5.xinhuanet.com/gate/big5/www.js.xinhuanet.com/zhuanlan/ 2005-05/20/content_4272828.htm. At the party in Beijing celebrating the one hundredth performance, held at the Moscow Restaurant, 13 May 2007, Pai even used the phrase “restoring the feudal rites” to describe the baishi ceremony. Such an expression would have been politically unacceptable two decades ago. Pai persuaded three

Notes 205

37. 38.

39. 40. 41.

42. 43. 44.

45. 46.

47.

48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53.

54.

master teachers to take seven pupils, explaining that the teacher-pupil transmission is the embodiment of social responsibility and the best way to pass on the “oral and intangible heritage of humanity.” See Wu Xinlei and Pai Hsien-yung’s “China and the US: The Development of Kunqu in the Age of Globalization” (http://club.xilu.com/kunqu/msgview-823641-68511.html). Daphne P. Lei (2006a), 251. He uses building hospitals as an example of a flourishing modern Buddhism. See Chen Yizhen (2005), 11–34. The masters he lists are among the “Four Heavenly Kings” of Taiwan (the fourth one being Master Wei Chueh). Master Cheng Yen, for instance, founded the Tzu-Chi Foundation, a “modern” charity organization that operates a TV station, builds hospitals and schools, advocates recycling, and is involved in relief efforts worldwide. Tzu-Chi has also established many Chinese schools abroad. Shen Fengying, “Youth Starting Line,” in Pai Hsien-yung (2004b), 134–45. Yu Jiulin, “With Faith, No Neglect!” in Pai Hsien-yung (2004b), 146–53. “One Is Beauty; One Is Passion” (Interview with Pai Hsien-yung) in Poon Sing Wah (2007), 1–14. Pai also notes his own efforts to shape the actors’ bodies: in order to strengthen Yu Jiulin, who was often sick, he gave Yu 100 US dollars each month to buy more nourishing food; by contrast, Pai asked Shen Fengying to lose weight (“There has never been a fat Du Liniang!”). Shen succeeded in losing more than ten pounds. Yu Jiulin, “With Faith, No Neglect!” in Pai Hsien-yung (2004b), 146–53. Xin Yiyun, “Building Dreams: May All Lovers in the World Enjoy Nuptial Bliss,” in Pai Hsien-yung (2004b), 156–61. Pai Hsien-yung, “The Road of Three Lives in the Peony Pavilion: Origins and Developments of Producing The Peony Pavilion,” in Pai Hsien-yung (2004a), 96–101. Hua Wei, “Insistence of Passion: Adapting The Peony Pavilion: The Young Lovers’ Edition,” in Pai Hsien-yung (2005), 88–115. Pai Hsien-yung, “The Road of Three Lives in the Peony Pavilion: Origins and Throughlines of Producing The Peony Pavilion,” in Pai Hsien-yung (2004a), 96–101. The first set of scene numbers and titles correspond to the actual English subtitles seen in the performance; the second set refers to Cyril Birch’s translation of Tang Xianzu’s original (in parenthesis). The performance script for The Young Lovers’ Edition (Qingchunban Mudanting juben), ed. Hua Wei et. al. can be found in Pai Hsien-yung (2004a), 130–263. Zhou Chuanjia, “Number Techniques,” in Pai Hsien-yung (2005a), 158–165. “This Is Celestial Music” (Interview with Zhou Youliang), in Poon Sing Wah (2007), 69–74. “One Is Beauty; One Is Passion” (Interview with Pai Hsien-yung), in Poon Sing Wah (2007), 1–14. Shen Fengying, “Youth Starting Line,” in Pai Hsien-yung (2004b), 136–45. Fan Mannong, “Seeing Spring in Spring,” in Pai Hsien-yung (2004b), 30–3. Shen Fengying, “Youth Starting Line,” in Pai Hsien-yung (2004b), 136–45. “Zaoluopao” (from “the Interrupted Dream”) is arguably the most famous aria of the play. Interview with Amy O’Dowd (Beijing, 13 May 2007).

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55. Poon Sing Wah (2007), 191–3. 56. Liu Shangjian, “Modest Contribution to the Awakening of Chinese Culture,” in The Special Publication for the 100th Performance of the Peony Pavilion the Young Lovers’ Edition (Qingchunban Mudanting daxing gongyan yibai chang jinian tekan) (Beijing: n.p., 2007), 48–9. 57. This is a well-known legend in Chinese American circles. Liu also speaks of this in his interview with Poon Sing Wah. See Poon Sing Wah (2007), 195–6. 58. See “China and US: The Development of Kunqu in the Age of Globalization” (Wu Xinlei’s interview with Pai Hsien-yung): http://club.xilu.com/kunqu/ msgview-823641-68511.html. 59. For instance, alumni of both National Taiwan University (Pai’s alma mater) and of Taipei First Girls’ High School enthusiastically promoted the production with various events. 60. One typical example is the press conference I participated in. Panelists included Pai Hsien-yung, Dominic Cheung (Zhang Cuo, a poet from Taiwan and professor at University of Southern California), kunqu diva Hua Wenyi, and David Schaberg (co-director of the Center for Chinese Studies at UCLA), and myself (Drama professor at UC Irvine). Each panelist talked about kunqu or The Peony Pavilion, and Hua demonstrated the play’s most famous aria, “Zaoluopao.” Representatives of the Chinese language media and of many Chinese organizations were present, and tickets were available for purchase on site. See World Journal (16 July 2006). Many such activities took place all over California during summer and fall, 2006. To promote the production at Barclay Theatre in Irvine, I gave a lecture on The Peony Pavilion for a small circle of VIPs at the Barclay Theatre (10 September 2006) and organized a workshop with two actors from the troupe for faculty and students at UC Irvine (26 September 2006). I also gave an interview for a local newspaper, the Irvine World News. See Irvine World News, 14 September 2006. Needless to say, all these different kinds of “volunteer” work helped sell tickets for the Barclay performance. 61. Clifford Geertz (1973), 113–14. 62. This speech was given at a rehearsal on 21 September 2006. 63. Interview with Wang Shiyu at the cast party in Beijing (13 May 2007). 64. Shen Fengying explained that junior actors like her usually have no chance to play in big professional productions at all. They often play for tourists in places like Zhouzhuang. See Pai Hsien-yung (2004b), 137. 65. The “big rice pot” is a term used in reference to communist communes and suggests shared property and shared duty, with a concomitant loss of individuality and lack of drive to perform. Amy O’Dowd used this term to describe the actors’ condition before they participated in the Peony project. Interview with Amy O’Dowd (Beijing, 13 May 2007). 66. The actors were often “pampered” by wealthy kunqu volunteers. For instance, they were given a tour in the Bay area and a trip to Disneyland during their California tour. Cash gifts were also common. At the cast party in Beijing, a lottery game of cash prizes was set up for company members. Wealthy volunteers were encouraged to add to or match the amount that was in the

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67. 68.

69. 70. 71.

72. 73.

74.

75.

76.

77. 78. 79. 80.

81.

original envelope. Hundreds of US dollars were given to individual actors as the party reached its climax. Leslie Sklair, Sociology of the Global System (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University press, 1995), 8. Chen Yizhen, “Creating New Cultural Directions: Three Major Events, One Spirit – an Interview with Pai Hsien-Yung,” in Pai Hsien-yung (2004b), 15. “One Is Beauty; One Is Passion” (Interview with Pai Hsien-yung), in Poon Sing Wah (2007), 1–14. Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalisms (Malden: Blackwell Press, 2006), 49. Interview with Amy O’Dowd (Beijing, 13 May 2007). She believed that, cash rewards at the cast party in Beijing were one tactic to make the actors stay in the profession. Each of these theatres has a close connection with the local campus of the University of California. I attended all three performances at Barclay, one performance at Royce Hall, and all three performances in Beijing (2007). The audience’s behavior after the show was similar in all these performances. See Mark Swed’s “‘Peony’ able to flower amid cuts,” Los Angeles Times (26 September 2006.) He criticized the costumes, the set, and the omission of scenes and characters, but generally considered the production successful. He wrongly identified Pai Hsien-yung as the subtitle translator. Enraged by Swed’s review, Pai phoned me and asked me to write a “write back” to the LA Times to explain the rationale for his choices. I did so but received no response from the LA Times. When I later had a chance to write a review for the AAP (Association for Asian Performance) Newsletter, I explained the reason for Pai’s choice for translation. See Association for Asian Performance Newsletter (Fall 2006c). I consider my “write back” as a form of paratheatrical performance. The lines quoted above come from Tang Xianzu’s preface, but part of the “prologue” of this production also takes lines from Scene One: The Legend (biaomu). I use present tense for the script narrative, but past tense to describe what happened on stage and in the auditorium at a specific performance. All stage directions in brackets and in italics refer to the performance I saw. They are not in the original script. Like “Zaoluopao,” “Shanpoyang” is another very famous song in the play. Hua Wenyi demonstrated the “itching” during “Conversation with an Artist” at Yale University in 1996. In Chen Shizhen’s The Peony Pavilion at the Lincoln Center, Qian Yi (as Du Liniang) performed this scene sitting down, thus neglecting the entire itching sequence. This omission was roundly condemned by connoisseur audiences. See Tang Xianzu (2002), xxi. Wichmann points out that going to the theatre was commonly referred to as “listening to theatre” (tingxi). The aural aspect was more important than the visual aspect in traditional theatre. See Elizabeth Wichmann, Listening to Theatre: The Aural Dimension of Beijing Opera (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1991), 1. Goldstein discusses how changes in theatre architecture in the early twentieth century – such as the change from a teahouse setting to a playhouse setting, dimming of the auditorium with electric lighting and

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82. 83. 84.

85. 86. 87.

88.

89. 90.

91. 92. 93.

94. 95. 96. 97. 98.

Notes so on – made for an emphasis on the visual elements of theatre. See “From Teahouse to Playhouse,” Joshua Goldstein (2007), 55–88. The History of Chinese Jingju (Zhongguo jingju shi), vol. 2, 134–5. “One Is Beauty; One Is Passion” (Interview with Pai Hsien-yung) in Poon Sing Wah (2007), 1–14. This is how the choreographer Wu Sujun described the use of the Flower God motif. See Hua Wei, “Insistence of Passion: Adapting The Peony Pavilion: the Young Lovers’ Edition,” in Pai Hsien-yung (2005a), 88–115. Daphne P. Lei (2006b), 25–85. These are the notes from the rehearsal at the Barclay Theatre (21 September 2006). Liu means willow, and Mengmei means “dreaming of plum/apricot” (mei). In their dream, Liu holds a willow branch and asks Du to compose a poem about the willow. Traditionally, Du and Liu barely touch in this scene. Pai asked Wang Shiyu to “sex up” the scene by adding more flirting glances and touches of water sleeves. See Poon Sing Wah (2007), 1–14. In Chen Shizhen’s Lincoln Center production, there was a lot more touching, and Liu Mengmei removed a layer of Du’s outer garment. Chen’s “realistic” approach seems to violate the aesthetics of Chinese opera. For plum/apricot, see note 10. The original lines are “How to locate the root of this sickness, how find a healer for her heart?” (by Chunxiang) and “How can the moon, once set, rise again or the burnt-out lamp glow red?” (by Du Liniang) These desperate questions were changed into a statement and a wish to provide a sense of hope in the production. These two campuses are about 55 miles apart. See note 40. Wang Shiyu told me that he never praised his students so they would continue to strive for perfection; however, after 100 performances, he finally told the public that he felt Yu’s performance in “The Portrait Retrieved” was “not bad.” This was probably the highest praise uttered by this masterteacher. Interview with Wang Shiyu, Beijing (at the Moscow Restaurant, 13 May 2007). What I call the “stage business” (requesting Mother to step back) is not in Tang’s original text. Tang Xianzu (2002), xxi. Brenda S. A. Yeoh et al., eds (2003), 2. Interview with Pai Hsien-yung, in Poon Sing Wah (2007), 11. http://club.xilu.com/kunqu/msgview-823641-68511.html.

Chapter 4 Waiting for Meaning: The Joint Venture of Robert Wilson, Jingju, and Taiwan 1. For the reasons for incorporating noh in his performance, see Yeats’s introduction to Ezra Pound and Ernest Fenollosa’s Certain Noble Plays of Japan: From the Manuscripts of Ernest Fenollosa, Chosen and Finished by Ezra Pound,

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2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8. 9.

with an Introduction by William Butler Yeats (Churchtown: Cuala Press, 1916), i–xix, also see Yeats’s “Notes on the First Performance of ‘At the Hawk’s Well,’” in Yeats and the Noh, with Two Plays for Dancers by Yeats and Two Noh Plays, ed. Akhtar Qamber (New York: Weatherhill, 1974), 85–8. For the script of At the Hawk’s Well, see Akhtar Qamber, ed. (1974), 121–30. Michio Ito, the Japanese dancer who was involved in Yeats’s “noh plays,” was instrumental in producing the Oriental fantasies of Ted Shawn and Jack Cole. He was unfortunately deported during World War II because of his “enemy ethnicity.” For a discussion of Ito’s career, see Yutian Wong, “Utopias: Michio Ito and the Trope of the International,” in Worlding Dance, ed. Susan Leigh Foster (New York and Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 144–62. For the creation, process, and criticism of Brook’s Mahabharata, see David Williams, ed., Peter Brook and the Mahabharata: Critical Perspectives (London and New York: Routledge, 1991). Rustom Bharucha, “A View from India,” in David Williams (1991), 228–52. It would be inaccurate to assume contemporary Indian society still connects with the ancient epic in the way it did centuries ago; Bharucha points out that there are plenty of modern misrepresentations of the epic by Indians themselves. However, The Mahabharata is still regarded by Indian people today as their cultural heritage, from which they derive strength. Mainlander military villages (juancun) were a unique cultural phenomenon in post-war Taiwan. Scattered throughout Taiwan, these villages are typically densely constructed and densely populated. Many of the residents are low-income military families who followed the KMT government to Taiwan. These close-knit communities usually belong to the anti-communist “pan blue” coalition. As military villages grew decrepit and Mainlanders were losing political power, many of the villages were dismantled, with villagers transferred to high-rise housing projects. The irony is that the Ta An (Da’an) district is a wealthy district, with high real estate values, so that the urban paradise built on the site of the old military village was ironically referred to as “the rich men’s park.” Liu Jihui, “New Pantheon in Taipei: Oresteia in Da’an Forest Park” (Taiwan xinshenmiao: Da’an gongyuan de Aoruisitiya) (http://www.srcs.nctu.edu.tw/ joyceliu/mworks/mw-taiwantheatre/Oresteia.htm). Katharina Otto-Bernstein, Absolute Wilson: The Biography (Munich, Berlin, London and New York: Prestel, 2006); Katharina Otto-Bernstein et al., Absolute Wilson (DVD) (New York: New York Video, 2007). Other frequently cited works include Arthur Hombert, The Theatre of Robert Wilson (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996); Maria Shevtsova, Robert Wilson (London and New York: Routledge, 2007); Franco Quadri, Franco Bertoni and Robert Stearns, Robert Wilson (New York: Rizzoli, 1998); Laurence Shyer, Robert Wilson and His Collaborators (New York: Theatre Communication Group, 1989). Geng Yiwei’s book is a Chinese introduction to Wilson’s life and works prepared in advance of the Orlando performance. See Geng Yiwei, Robert Wilson, the Unlimited Power of Light (Luobo Wei’ersen, Guangde wuxian liliang) (Taipei: Zhongzheng wenhua, 2009). Maria Shevtsova (2007), 63. Maria Shevtsova (2007), 63–4.

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Notes

10. Interview with Wei Hai-Ming (July 2008). 11. The first chapter is based on my own experience with the group in summer, 2007. Here I act as the native informant, a cultural and linguistic translator, but also an anthropologist reporting my findings. 12. Wilson uses the word formal to refer to his major directorial concern, forms. In other words, he generally does not discuss content, meaning, or psychology with his actors. 13. The Watermill Center is located in Water Mill, Long Island, New York. Wilson bought this six-acre property in the 1980s and donated it to his non-profit organization, the Byrd Hoffman Foundation. The main building, where 250 Western Union workers were employed, was built in 1926 and redesigned by Wilson and the famous architect Richard Gluckman. The center’s major events take place during the summer, when dozens of artists from all over the world gather to collaborate in creating art and in gardening and cooking. For the history and development of the center, see Jonathan Kalb, “Theater: Robert Wilson’s 21st-Century Academy” (New York Times: Sunday, 13 August 2000) and the website of the Watermill Center (http://watermillcenter.org/about/history). 14. Three productions of Orlando were staged before the Taiwanese production: the German (with Jutta Lampe, 1989), the French (with Isabelle Huppert, 1995), and the English (with Miranda Richardson, 1996). 15. “Baby-male” (wawa sheng) is a known role type that captures the innocence of children in a high singing and speaking voice. It is in practice a rather difficult role to perform. As Chinese opera requires years of training, actors might be too old by the time they acquired the skill; female actors with a smaller build might be chosen to play such roles instead. The lack of major children roles in Chinese opera is probably both a cause and an effect of the lack of specific training in this category. 16. See note 12. 17. I was not involved in the negotiation and rehearsal process in Taiwan. Chapter Two is based on numerous interviews I conducted in 2008 and 2009 with people at the core of the project: the original group members (Wei, Li and Lee), Wang An-Ch’i (writer and artistic director for Guoguang), Huang Pen-Ting (program planner for NTCH), Liu Chang-Han (Marketing, NTCH), and Zhong Baoshan (vice-president of Guoguang). These individuals, along with a few others closely involved with the production from Taiwan, are hereafter referred to together as the “Taiwan team.” Here I write in the role of anthropologist and archival researcher. 18. “Two Is One: Western Avant-Garde Is in the Orient,” PAR: Performing Arts Review, vol. 195 (March 2009): 60–8. 19. Interview with Wang An-Ch’i (Taipei, 29 July 2008). 20. Interview with Lee Huey-Mei (10 July 2008). 21. At the final dress rehearsal, when Wilson made a comment on the intonation of certain lines, she complained: “Of course it was flat. I never understood what this line meant!” Her complaint obviously was not translated into English for Wilson (Taipei, 20 February 2009). 22. Bradley Winterton, “Talking to Robert Wilson,” Taipei Times (20 February 2009), 13. 23. Interview with Wang An-Ch’i (Taipei, 29 July 2008). 24. Conversation with Hua Wenyi (Berkeley, 1998). Also see Chapter 3, note 20. Hua Wenyi had told me of the discomfort she felt performing in Sellars’s

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25. 26. 27.

28. 29.

30. 31. 32.

33. 34. 35. 36.

37.

38.

39.

40. 41. 42.

production without traditional kunqu costume and makeup. Pantsuits do not have water sleeves, which are essential for certain kunqu movement. Interview with Wang An-Ch’i (Taipei, 29 July 2008). Interview with Wei Hai-Ming (July 2008). Nancy T. Lu, “Wilson directs Wei Hai-Ming in ‘Orlando,’” culture.tw (12 February 2009) (http://www.culture.tw/index.php?option=com_content& task=view&id=1119&Itemid=235). Interview with Li Hsiao-Ping (21 February 2009). Although Guoguang still supplied the “software” such as musicians, they reduced their financial support to only 10 percent of the total production cost. For a picture of the tree, see Figure 4.2. Interview with Wang An-Ch’i (Taipei, 21 February 2009). “Invitation to the Complete Dress Rehearsal of the World Premier of Orlando” (email advertisement from NTCH, 12 February 2009). The original email was sent by Chuang Ching Ju, Programming and Marketing Department of NTCH. Interview with Wang An-Ch’i (Taipei, 21 February 2009). Interview with Wei Hai-Ming (Taipei, 23 February 2009). Interview with Wang An-Ch’i (Taipei, 21 February 2009). At the final dress rehearsal on 20 February, when the subtitles abruptly stopped, people thought it was a technical mistake. It turned out that Wang An-Ch’i had deliberately directed that subtitles be omitted for this section. When Wang An-Ch’i published her script, she insisted on including her own original lines. See Wang An-Ch’i and Xie Baiqi, Orlando: Chinese Opera Version (Oulanduo: xiqu ban), Taipei Theatre Journal, 10 (2009): 225–41. The script was later collected in the beautifully printed Orlando: Wake up the Orient, a record of the Orlando rehearsal and production process. See Geng Yiwei et al., Orlando: Wake up the Orient (Huanxing dongfang Oulanduo) (Taipei: Zhongzheng wenhua, 2009), 171–204. Here I write from the point of view of an audience member and art critic. I watched Orlando three times during its run, once from the first row of the orchestra (opening performance, 21 February 2009), once from the tenth row of the orchestra (final dress rehearsal, 20 February 2009), and finally from the second-floor balcony (22 February 2009). Throughout this section, the gender of pronouns follows the narration: when describing the actress Wei Hai-Ming, I use “she,” but “he” and “she” are both used in reference to the character Orlando. For Orlando, the gendered pronouns correspond to the appearance of biological sex, not the state of mind. This plot summary of Orlando is based on the Taiwan stage version. Darryl Pinckney’s script is a much more condensed version than Woolf’s original, and the Chinese translation further sheds specific cultural, geographic, and national references. For instance, Sasha is a princess from Russia in Woolf’s novel, but in the Chinese version, she is only referred to as someone from “a northern country” (beiguo). Bradley Winterton, “Talking to Robert Wilson,” Taipei Times (20 February 2009). Nancy T. Lu (2009). For instance, Huang Pen-Ting explained that many people from the design field would come to see the production, simply to seek inspiration

212

43.

44. 45. 46.

47. 48. 49. 50. 51.

Notes from Wilson’s famous avant-garde staging, lighting, and costume design. Interview with Huang Pen-Ting (Taipei, 30 July 2008). In this miming sequence, she was actually playing with moving spotlights as she appeared as if under the surface of frozen water, touching the ice from below. I did not notice the light show when I sat in the orchestra; only from a higher elevation did the moving spotlights become visible. Interview with Wei Hai-Ming (Taipei, 23 February 2009). “Two Is One: Western Avant-Garde Is in the Orient,” PAR: Performing Arts Review, vol. 195 (March 2009): 60–8. Lady Yang drinks while waiting for the emperor and becomes tipsy. The whole scene portrays her longing for the emperor and her jealousy of other women in very feminine movements. To a feminist eye, Drunken Princess would be a male chauvinist play. “Two Is One: Western Avant-Garde Is in the Orient” (2009): 60–8. These are the words of Wang Jiaming. “Two Is One: Western Avant-Garde Is in the Orient” (2009): 60–8. “Two Is One: Western Avant-Garde Is in the Orient” (2009): 60–8. This comment is by Zhang Xiaohong. “Two Is One: Western Avant-Garde Is in the Orient” (2009): 60–8. Cape No. 7 (haijiao qihao) was directed by Wei Shengde and starred Fan Yichen. The film, which premiered in 2008, was extremely popular in Taiwan.

Conclusion 1. Long Yingtai, Big River, Big Sea – Untold Stories of 1949 (Dajiang dahai, yijiusijiu) (Taipei: Tianxia zazhi, 2009), 1: 68–9. For an English introduction to the book, see Verna Yu, “Untold Stories of China and Taiwan,” New York Times (5 October 2009) (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/06/world/asia/06ihttaiwan.html?_r=3). 2. Traveling from Taiwan to the mainland was officially forbidden until 1987, almost 40 years after the separation. 3. On 3 July 2010, a conference co-sponsored by Harvard University, Academia Sinica, and the National Taiwan University was held in Taipei to celebrate the 15-year anniversary of the Guoguang Opera Company. Many scholars, writers, and jingju practitioners mentioned in this book were present at the conference. Guoguang also scheduled two special performances of The Golden Cangue, with its original cast, for the conference participants and special guests (The Metropolitan Hall, Taipei, 6 and 7 of July). I was invited to both the conference and the performance. 4. He Dingzhao, “Resinging Meng Xiaodong, Wei Hai-Ming Doubles as Mei Lanfang,” United Daily News (9 February 2010). 5. At the conference on “Non-Material” (feiwuzhi, Chinese translation for “intangible”) at the Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou I attended, scholars did not hold much hope for the submission of yueju to UNESCO because one country should only have one dramatic genre proclaimed. “Tibetan” drama, some suggested, might be a better choice, because of its ambiguous identification as Chinese/non-Chinese. To my mind, the joint award between center and peripheries fulfilled this type of logic. The title of the

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6.

7.

8.

9. 10.

11. 12.

international conference was “Traditional Theatre under the Perspective of Preserving Non-Material Cultural Heritage.” Because of China’s internet censorship and hacker intrusions, Google shut down its internet service in China and redirected Chinese users to the uncensored search engine in Hong Kong on 22 March 2010. It is said that youngsters placed wreathes outside of Google’s headquarters in Beijing, as a gesture of mourning for the death of freedom. Although this move was temporary, it nevertheless accentuates Hong Kong’s position as a refuge for mainland China during transitional times. See Miguel Helft, “Google Shuts China Site in Dispute over Censorship,” New York Times (March 22, 2010) (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/23/technology/23google.html); and Steve Lohr, “Sergey Brin on Google’s China Move,” New York Times (March 22, 2010) (http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/22/interview-sergey-brinon-googles-china-gambit/?ref=technology) Since its premier in Taipei in 2009, The Jade Hairpin had traveled to Beijing, Hong Kong, and Shanghai by mid-2010. See http://mag.udn.com/mag/reading/storypage.jsp?f_ART_ID=180922 Also see Audacious Lust: The Story of the Jade Hairpin (Sedan baotian Yuzan ji), edited by Pai Hsien-yung (Taipei: Tianxia yuanjian, 2009). The book includes scholarly articles, production photos, costume design as well a performance script. One recent example is the Peony Pavilion fundraising performance I organized for the Department of Drama, University of California, Irvine (20–21 February 2010), involving such Southern California amateur groups as the Jade Bell Performing Arts Association, the Chinese Kwun Opera Society, the Spring Thunder Chinese Music Association, and students from the department. As a local production, this miniature Peony did not have a transnational scope; however, The Young Lovers’ Edition clearly showed its influence in the actors’ movement, costumes, and scenic design. Video and audio recordings often serve as diasporic amateur actors’ first Chinese opera “teachers” because of the lack of better pedagogical resources in diaspora. See http://drama.arts.uci.edu/ChineseOpera.html. http://www.utheatre.org.tw/eng/engopen.htm. Other than budget cuts, another major problem is the leadership of The National Taiwan College of Performing Arts, the only opera school in Taiwan. The president of the school, Zheng Rongxing, has been in the position for 12 years; however, his focus on Hakka drama depleted valuable resources from jingju. See He Dingzhao, “Wei Hai-Ming and Wu Hsing-kuo rescued Jingju Education” (http://mag.udn.com/mag/campus/storypage. jsp?f_MAIN_ID=13&f_SUB_ID=104&f_ART_ID=251219) I also started an online petition and invited the international theatre community to support their effort to save Taiwan jingju. More than 100 scholars and artists from all over the world signed the petition within a 24-hour period. See http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/save-taiwan-jingjueducation See note 96, Chapter 1. http://blog.yam.com/weihaimin/article/28933759. http://www.facebook. com/pages/wei-hai-min-Wei-Haimin/113799801972633?ref=search.

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Bibliography 223 Wang Sipei. “A Review on the Movement of Taiwanization in Peking Opera: Two Cases Study on Liao Tian-Ting and Exodus,” Bulletin of Taiwanese Literature (Taiwan wenxue xuebao), no. 1: 295–324. Wang Youhui. “Gorgeous but Desolate Modern Beijing Opera: Guo Guang Company’s ‘The Golden Cangue,’” Performing Arts Journal (Taiwan xizhuan xuekan), vol. 13: 179–81. Watermill Center (http://watermillcenter.org/about/history). Wei Hai-Ming. Female Actor (Nüling). Taipei: Jimu wenhua, 2006. Wichmann, Elizabeth. Listening to Theatre: The Aural Dimension of Beijing Opera. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1991. Wikipedia. “Demographics of Taiwan” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Demographics_of_Taiwan). Williams, David. Peter Brook and the Mahabharata. London and New York: Routledge, 1991. Winterton, Bradley. “Talking to Robert Wilson,” Taipei Times (20 February 2009). Wong, Yutian. “Utopias: Michio Ito and the Trope of the International.” In Worlding Dance, ed. Susan Leigh Foster. New York and Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, 144–62. Wu Fuming. Commentated Bibliography on The Peony Pavilion (Mudanting yanjiu ziliao kaoshi). Shanghai: Xinhua, 1987. Wu Xinlei. “Introduction: The Study of the Historical Origin of Kunqu.” In The Study of Kunqu of the Early Twentieth Century (Ershishiji qianqi kunqu yanjiu). Shenyang, PRC: Chunfeng Wenyi, 2005, 1–12. Wu Xinlei. “A Review of the Performance of The Peony Pavilion since 1911.” In Four Hundred Years’ of Youth Dream: Bright Purple Deep Red Peony Pavilion (Sibainian qingchun zhi meng: Chazi yanhong mudanting), ed. Pai Hsien-yung. Taipei: Yuanliu, 2004a, 58–69. Wu Xinlei and Pai Hsien-yung. “China and the US: The Development of Kunqu in the Age of Globalization” (http://club.xilu.com/kunqu/msgview-82364168511.html). Xin Yiyun. “Building Dreams: May All Lovers in the World Enjoy Nuptial Bliss.” In Peony – the Soul Retuned (Mudan huanhun), ed. Pai Hsien-yung. Taipei: Shibao, 2004b, 156–61. Xixi. “Marvels of a Floating City” (Fucheng zhiyi). In Handscroll (Shoujuan). Taipei: Hongfan, 1988, 1–19. Xu Xueji, ed. Essay Collection for the Conference on “Commemorating the Sixtieth Anniversary of February 28 Incident” (Ererba shijian liushi zhounian jinian lunwenji). Taipei: Taipei Cultural Ministry February 28 Memorial Hall, 2008. Xu Yaxiang. Historical Facts and Interpretation: Selected Readings from the Theatre Material in Taiwan Newspapers under Japanese Governance (Shishi yu quanshi: rizhi shiqi Taiwan baokan xiqu ziliao xuandu). Yilan: National Traditional Art Center, 2006. Xu Yanxiang. Chinese Theatre Troupes in Taiwan under Japanese Governance (Rizhi shiqi Zhonguo xiban zai Taiwan). Taipei: Nantian, 2000. Yang Zhenliang. A Study of the Peony Pavilion (Mudanting yanjiu). Taipei: Xuesheng, 1992. Ye Shixiong. “Window to Opera: Who Are the Heirs of Masters?” (Xiqu shichuang: mingjia fengfan houji heren?) Wenweipo (September 11, 2007) (http://paper. wenweipo.com/2007/09/11/XQ0709110006.htm).

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Dramatic texts Anonymous. The Hegemon King Says Farewell to His Queen (Bawang bieji). In The Grand Complete Drama (Xikao daquan), ed. Hu Juren. Taipei: Hongye, 1986, 91–104.

Bibliography 225 Anonymous. The Pavilion of Royal Tablet (Yubei ting). In The Grand Complete Drama (Xikao daquan), ed. Hu Juren. Taipei: Hongye, 1986, 1: 281–93. Gao Lian. The Story of Jade Hairpin (Yuzan ji), adapted by Zhang Shuxiang. In The Audacious Lust: The Story of the Jade Hairpin (Sedan baotian Yuzan ji), ed. Hsien-yung. Taipei: Tianxia yuanjian, 2009, 58–101. Pinckney, Darryl. Orlando (stage adaptation from Orlando by Virginia Woolf, in English). np. nd. Tang Xianzu. The Peony Pavilion: The Young Lovers’ Edition (Qingchunban Mudanting juben), ed. Hua Wei et. al. In Four Hundred Years’ of Youth Dream: Bright Purple, Deep Red Peony Pavilion (Sibainian qingchun zhi meng: Chazi yanhong mudanting), ed. Pai Hsien-yung. Taipei: Yuanliu, 2004a, 130–263. Tang Xianzu. The Peony Pavilion (Mudanting, 2nd edn), trans. Cyril Birch. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2002. Tang Xianzu. The Peony Pavilion (Mudanting). Taipei: Liren, 1986. Tong Dik Sang (Tang Disheng). The Flower Princess: A Cantonese Opera (Dinühua), trans. Bell Yung, with the assistance of Sonia Ng and Katherine Carlitz. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2010. Tong Dik Sang (Tang Disheng). The Flower Princess: The Youth Edition Production Script (Dinühua: Qingnianban yanchu jubenji), ed. Ye Shaode et al. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Cantonese Opera Programme, 2008. Wang An-Ch’i. The Golden Cangue (Jinsuo ji). In Rouge Lips and Pearl-Sewn Sleeves, Both Lonely (Jiangchun zhuxiu liangjimo). Taipei: INK Publishing, 2008, 188–275. Wang An-Ch’i. Wang Youdao Divorces His Wife (Wang Youdao xiuqi). In Rouge Lips and Pearl-Sewn Sleeves, Both Lonely (Jiangchun zhuxiu liangjimo). Taipei: INK Publishing, 2008, 59–109. Wang An-Ch’i. The Dialogue at the Green Mound (Qingzhongqiande duihua). In Rouge Lips and Pearl-Sewn Sleeves, Both Lonely (Jiangchun zhuxiu liangjimo). Taipei: INK Publishing, 2008, 277–300. Wang An-Ch’i and Xie Baiqi. Orlando (Chinese Opera Version) (Oulanduo, xiquban) (adaptation from Darryl Pinckney’s Orlando, in the style of jingju). Taipei Theatre Journal, 10 (2009): 225–41. Wang An-Ch’i and Xie Baiqi, Orlando: Chinese Opera Version (Oulanduo: xiqu ban). In Orlando: Wake up the Orient (Huanxing dongfang Oulanduo) by Geng Yiwei et al. Taipei: Zhongzheng wenhua, 2009, 171–204. Wang An-Ch’i and Zhao Xuejun. Three Persons, Two Lamps (Sange ren’er liangzhandeng). In Rouge Lips and Pearl-Sewn Sleeves, Both Lonely (Jiangchun zhuxiu liangjimo). Taipei: INK Publishing, 2008, 111–87.

Theatre programs The Flower Princess: Fiftieth Anniversary The Youth Edition (Dinühua: wushi zhounian jinian qingnianban) (The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, Hong Kong, 7 September 2007). The Golden Cangue (Jinsuo ji) (City Stage, Taipei, 2–4 May, 2006). The Golden Cangue (Jinsuo ji) (The Metropolitan Hall, Taipei 6–7 July, 2010). Liao Tianding (The National Theatre, Taipei; The County Cultural Center, Xinzhu; The City Cultural Center, Jiayi; The National Sun Yat-sen University, Gaoxiong; 22 October – 21 November 1999).

226

Bibliography

Mazu (The National Theatre, Taipei; The County Cultural Center, Xinzhu; The County Cultural Center, Taidong; Zhongxing Village, Taizhong; 14 April – 9 May 1998). Orlando (Oulanduo) (The National Theatre, Taipei, February 21 – 1 March 2009). The Peony Pavilion – Young Lovers’ Edition (California Tour) (Zellerbach Hall, Berkeley; Barclay Theatre, Irvine; Royce Hall, Los Angeles; Lobero Theatre, Santa Barbara; 15 September – 8 October 2006). Three Persons, Two Lamps (Sange re’er liangzhandeng) (The New Stage, Taipei, 25–27 March 2005). Wang Youdao Divorces His Wife: Jingju Little Theatre (Wang Youdao xiuqi: Jingju xiaojuchang) (Guoguang Theatre, Taipei, 27 March 2004). Zheng Chengong and Taiwan (Zheng Chenggong yu Taiwan) (The National Theatre, Taipei; The County Cultural Center, Xinzhu; Chenggong University, Tainan; The City Cultural Center, Gaoxiong; 1–24 January 1999).

Audio and video recordings (films, DVD, and Youtube) British Retreat 1997 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?vT2Rvdktho_g). Chen Shizhen, et. al. A Chinese Cracker: The Making of The Peony Pavilion in Shanghai, New York and Paris (DVD). Princeton, NJ: Films for the Humanities & Sciences, 2001. Dongshan Shaoye and Xu Shiyu. “Matching Sword and United Hairpin – The Flower Princess” (Jianhe chaiyuan Dinühua Jianhe chaiyuan Dinühua (http:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=JviDyIQvVsI). Otto-Bernstein, Katharina et al., Absolute Wilson (DVD). New York: New York Video, 2007. Pai Hsien-yung, et. al. The Peony Pavilion (The Young Lovers’ Edition; DVD). Taipei: Gonggong dianshi, 2004. Shum, Lanny. Lovely Princess – In English (Yingwen Dinühua) (http://www. youtube.com/watch?vQnV1XbY302E). Tan Dun. Symphony 1997: Heaven, Earth, Mankind (CD). New York: Sony Classical, 1997. Wu Ziniu, dir. Don’t Cry, Nanking (Nanjing datusha or Nanjing, 1937; film). Taipei: Longxiang dianying LTD, 1995.

Interviews by Daphne Lei Conversation with Hua Wenyi (Berkeley, 7 March 1999). Conversation with Sai Shing Yung (Rong Shicheng) (Hong Kong, 7 September 2007). Conversation with Wang An-Ch’i (Guangzhou, 12 October 2008). Interview with Lee Huey-Mei (Taipei, 10 July 2008). Interview with Li Hsiao-Ping (Taipei, 5 August 2008). Interview with Li Hsiao-Ping (Taipei, 21 February 2009). Interview with Wang An-Ch’i (Taipei, 21 February 2009). Interview with Wang An-Ch’i (Taipei, 29 July 2008).

Bibliography 227 Interview Interview Interview Interview Interview

with with with with with

Wang Shiyu (Beijing, 13 May 2007). Amy O’dowd (Amy Chang) (Beijing, 13 May 2007). Wei Hai-Ming (Taipei, 23 February 2009). Wei Hai-Ming (Taipei, July 2008). Zhong Baoshan (Taipei, 24 February 2009).

Talks Wang An-Ch’i. “Speaking of the ‘First Family’: Are All Contest Plays Model Drama?” (Public talk in Taipei, 5 August 2008).

Index Abbas, Ackbar, 65, 68, 70, 90 alternative Chinese opera, 2, 7, 8, 11–15, 18, 19, 20, 179, 182–3 Anderson, Benedict, 14 Appadurai, Arjun, 15 Bai Xianyong, see Pai Hsien-yung Bai Xuexian, see Pak Suet Sin Boym, Svetlana, 16, 30, 94–5 Brook, Peter, 144, 146 see also Mahabharata, The Cantonese, as language (yueyu), 5, 198–9 (n. 60) Cantonese opera, see yueju Chan Sau Yan, 199–200 (n. 71) Chang, Eileen (Zhang Ailing), 51–2, 192 (n. 67, n. 68, n. 69), 193 (n. 70) Taiwan, 52 The Golden Cangue, 51–3 Chen Shizheng The Peony Pavilion, 104–5, 207 (n. 80), 208 (n. 88) Chiang Kai-shek, 29–30, 189 (n. 29), 190 (n. 32) China Zhongguo (central states), 2, 184 (n. 2) center, 3, 5–8, 13 zero institution, 3, 7–8 Chinese as ethnicity, 2–3, 4, 6, 13, 18, 184 as ethnicities represented in Olympics, 6, 185 (n. 12) as language(s), 5 as writing systems, 5, 86, 198–9 (n. 60) Chinese center, see China Chinese communism (Chinese Communist Party), 3 in KMT rhetoric, 16, 30 work ethics, 15, 120, 206 (n. 65) Hong Kong, 66, 94

Chinese diaspora, 4, 5, 13, 117–18, 139–41, 181 Chinese opera actor training, 194 (n. 85), 198 (n. 56), 210 (n. 15) cross-dressing, 59 genres, 10–11 identity performance, 2, 13 naming (and misnaming) in US, 9–10 Performance school (liupai), 58, 85, 108, 179–80 problematic definition, 9 role type (jiaose, hangdang), 58–9 stakes, 1–2, 11, 182–3 structure (compared to Western drama), 113 see also jingju (Beijing opera), kunqu (kun opera), yueju (Cantonese opera) Chinese peripheries, 2, 3, 5–8, 13, 97, 181 scholarship on, 6, 185 (n. 11) superiority to center, 6, 14, 15 Chun, Allen, 24, 67–8 Clifford, James, 17, 91 Contemporary Legend Theater (dangdai chuanqi), 33–4, 36, 58–9 see also Wu Hsing-kuo Cultural Restoration movement (wenyi fuxing yundong), 30–1, 189 (n. 29) Cultural Revolution, 30, 199 (n. 70) Deleuze, Gilles social desire, 16 contemporaneity, 17, 95 Deng Shurong, 79–81 Dialogue at the Green Mound, The (Qingzhong qiande duihua), 191 (n. 53) Dubbed Image Project, The (yinpeixiang gongcheng), 62, 194 (n. 93)

228

Index 229 February 28 Incident (ererba shijian), 25–6 scholarship on, 188 (n. 10) flexible citizenship, 15, 118 Flower Princess, The (Dinühua, Dae Neui Fa), 14, 21, 96 Hong Kong classic, 64, 81, 96, 97 English translation, 197 (n. 36) kunqu version, 71 modern variations, 79–81 Symphony 1997, 89–91 Tong Dik Sang, 71–7 Flower Princess, The (the Youth Edition, Qiannianban), 21, 81–8, 94–7, 180–1 best player contest, 82, 84 figures, 74 (fig. 2.1), 78 (fig. 2.2) script, 197 (n. 38) Flower Princess, The (Princess Changping), 71, 196–7 (n. 31, n. 32) Freud, Sigmund, 93 1433: the Grand Voyage (Zheng He, 1433), 181–2 Geertz, Clifford, 13, 119 Gellner, Ernest, 24, 120 gezaixi (Taiwanese opera), 28, 38, 182 Golden Cangue, The (jinsuo ji, the novella), 51–3, 57–9 see also Eileen Chang Golden Cangue, The (jinsuo ji, the jingju), 53–6, 212 (n. 3) figures, 54 (fig. 1.4) see also Eileen Chang Guo Xiaozhuang, 33–4 Guoguang Company (National Guoguang Opera Company), 11, 34, 36–8, 51, 55–6, 63, 146, 149, 152, 162–3, 179–80, 212 (n. 3) see also Innovative Jingju, jingju in Taiwan, Wang An-Ch’i Hobsbawm, Eric, 12–13 Homans, Peter, 92–3 Hong Kong, 3, 4 colonialism, 17, 65–71 the 97 problem, 68, 87, 88

SAR, 13, 181 Sino-British Joint Declaration, 68–9 transitional space, 15, 21, 66–7, 117, 181, 213 (n. 6) see also Symphony 1997, The Flower Princess Hua Wenyi, 98, 103, 104, 106–7, 161, 203 (n. 20), 210–11 (n. 24) Innovative Jingju, 20–1, 23–4, 34–63, 179–80, 187 (n. 1), 212 (n. 3) similar terms, 187 (n. 1) see also Wang Youdao Divorces His Wife, Three Persons, Two Lamps, The Golden Cangue, Orlando, and Meng Xiaodong intercultural theatre, 33–4, 143–6, 175–6 Jameson, Fredric, 14 jingju (Beijing opera), 10, 56, 59, 151, 153, 155, 156, 160, 162–3, 171, 173, 176–7, 178–80, 210 (n. 15), 207–8 (n. 81), 212 (n. 46) national opera (guoju), 10, 186 (n. 20) origin, 61–2 reconstruction (The Dubbed Image Project), 62, 194 (n. 93) jingju in Taiwan conspiracy theory, 16 decline, 34 early new jingju, 32–4 education, 29, 34, 183, 188–9 (n. 22), 213 (n. 10) effeminizing, 40–1 modern jingju, 32–63 music, 164–6 nativization of (bentuhua), 35–40, 46 traditional jingju, 27–32, 56, 148 see also Innovative Jingju, The Taiwan Trilogy, Wang Youdao Divorces His Wife, Three Persons, Two Lamps, The Golden Cangue, Orlando, Meng Xiaodong, Contemporary Legend Theater, Oresteia, Silang Visits His Mother

230

Index

kunqu (kun opera), 10, 100, 185 (n. 17) decline, 100, 186–7 (n. 19) as “masterpiece of oral and intangible heritage of humanity,” 98, 107 see also The Peony Pavilion (Mudanting), The Story of the Jade Hairpin KMT (Kuomintang, Guomindang, the Nationalist party), 3, 16, 20, 24–31, 34, 38, 56, 61–2, 104, 105, 140, 179, 187 (n. 6) Lei, Daphne P. The Flower Princess, 83–4 Orlando, 149–58 The Peony Pavilion by Peter Sellars, 203 (n. 20) The Peony Pavilion (The Young Lovers’ Edition), 206 (n. 60) The Peony Pavilion fundraising performance at UC Irvine, 213 (n. 8) research methodology, 18–20 “saving Taiwan jingju,” 213 (n. 10) works by, 199 (n. 69), 202–3 (n. 18) Li Chao, 164–6 Li Hsiao-Ping, 40, 46, 56, 62–3, 149–58, 161–3, 179, 183 Liang Qichao, 3, 184 (n. 4) Liao Tianding, 38, 40 Lin Kehuan, 66, 68 Long Yingtai, 178–9 Luo Feng, 66 “made in China,” 15, 21, 109–10 Mahabharata, The, 81, 144, 209 (n. 4) Mandarin (as language), 5, 33, 86, 181 (n. 1), 198–9 (n. 60) see also Chinese (as language) Mainlander (waishengren, daluren), 18, 23, 26–7, 139–40, 145–6, 178–9, 209 (n. 5) immigration to the US, 140 masterpiece of oral and intangible heritage of humanity (UNESCO), 107, 204 for kunqu, 10, 107, 185 (n. 18) for yueju, 11, 186 (n. 24)

Mazu, 37–8 Mao Zedong, 30, 77 Mei Lanfang, 10, 41, 59, 103, 125, 148, 173 children of, 35 in Meng Xiaodong, 179–80 in Wang Youdao Divorces His Wife, 45 influence on Pai Hsien-yung, 106 jingju reform, 187 (n. 1) patriotism, 202–3 (n. 26) Meng Xiaodong, 179–80 metatheatre, 46, 48, 56–8, 180 mourning, 17, 88, 91–7 nationalism, 14, 89, 92 theories of, 187–8 (n. 7), 199 (n. 69) nostalgia, 15–18, 140 conspiracy theory, 16, 30 imperialist nostalgia, 17, 91–2, 94 macro nostalgia, 16 origin of the term, 16 reflective nostalgia, 17, 94–5 restorative nostalgia, 16, 31, 94–5, 176 retro-futuristic nostalgia, 18, 176–7 see also Svetlana Boym One China Policy, 4 Ong, Aihwa, 15, 186 (n. 35) see also flexible citizenship Oresteia, 144–6 see also Contemporary Legend Theater, Richard Schechner, Wu Hsiang-kuo Orlando (by Virginia Woolf), 158, 159 Orlando (by Robert Wilson, European productions), 20–1, 151, 152–3, 154, 210 (n. 14) English script, 158 Orlando (by Robert Wilson, Taiwanese production), 18 audience, 173–6 Chinese script, see Wang An-Ch’i figures, 168 (fig. 4.1), 170 (fig. 4.2) performance, 166–70, 181, 211 (n. 36, n. 38), 212 (n. 43) rehearsal in Taipei, 160–6 rehearsal at Watermill, 153–8

Index 231 see also Robert Wilson, Wei Hai-Ming, Li Hsiao-Ping, Wang An-Ch’i Pai Hsien-yung (Kenneth Pai, Bai Xianyong), 99, 105–12, 116–17, 141, 203 (n. 25) see also The Peony Pavilion (The Young Lovers’ Edition); The Story of the Jade Hairpin Pak Suet Sin (Bai Xuexian), 72, 77, 79, 83, 86, 98 see also The Flower Princess Peony Pavilion, The (Mudanting, the kunqu classic) key concepts, 99–103 production history, 103–5 scholarship on, 201 (n. 5, n. 6, n. 7) Peony Pavilion, The (Mudanting, The Young Lovers’ Edition, qingchunban), 21, 98–9, 107–21, 181, 204 (n. 31, n. 34) California tour, 116–39, 206 (n. 60) figures, 128 (fig. 3.1), 135 (fig. 3.2) financial investment, 15, 116–18 Peony Pavilion, The (miscellaneous) fundraising performance at University of California, Irvine, 213 (n. 8) Pai Hsien-yung’s early productions, 106–7 pop music (Zaimeibian), 202 (n. 15) see also Peter Sellars, Chen Shizheng racial split, 4, 5, 12, 15, 139–40 Rosaldo, Renato, 17, 91 Sanmin zhuyi, see The Three Principals of the People Schechner, Richard, 144–6, 150 see also Oresteia Sellars, Peter The Peony Pavilion, 104, 161 scholarship on, 202–3 (n. 18, n. 19, n. 20) Shakespeare compared with Tang Xianzu, 100 compared with Tong Dik Sang, 80

in Contemporary Legend productions, 33–4, 58–9 Silang Visits His Mother (Silang tanmu), 178–9, 180 Story of the Jade Hairpin, The (Yuzan ji), 181 Sun Yat-sen, 3, 29–31, 184 (n. 10), 189 (n. 29) Taiwan, 3, 13 ethnicity, 24–7 face of, 159, 163, 166 see also jingju in Taiwan Taiwanese as ethnicity (benshengren or Taiwanren), 24–7 as language (Hokkien), 5, 33 as nativism (bentu), 33, 37 Taiwan Trilogy, The, 36–40 Tan Dun Symphony 1997, 89–92, 94 The Peony Pavilion (by Peter Sellars), 104, 203 (n. 20) Tang Disheng (Tong Dik Sang), see Tong Dik Sang Tang Xianzu, 99–100 scholarship on, 201 (n. 5, n. 7) see also The Peony Pavilion Tiananmen Square Incident, The (The June Fourth Massacre), 69–70, 80, 87, 94, 95–6 Tong Dik Sang, 71–2, 80 see also The Flower Princess Three Persons, Two Lamps (Sange ren’er liangzhandeng), 47–51, 57 figures, 48 (fig. 1.3) source, 192 (n. 63) Three Principles of the People (sanmin zhuyi), The, 29–30, 86–7, 189 (n. 24, n. 27), 199 (n. 62) see also Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek tradition general definition, 12 invented (Hobsbawm), 12–13, 79 see also Eric Hobsbawm transnationalism theories, 14–15, 139 transnational capital, 116–21

232

Index

transnationalism – continued transnational collaborations, 15, see also The Peony Pavilion (The Young Lovers’ Edition, California tour) U Theatre, 182 see also 1433: the Grand Voyage (Zheng He, 1433) Wang An-Ch’i, 32, 41, 61, 63, 100 Dialogue at the Green Mound, The (Qingzhong ji), 191 (n. 53) The Flower Princess, 199 (n. 65) The Golden Cangue, 51–6 Meng Xiaodong, 179–80 Orlando, 158–66, 171, 174–5, 199 (n. 65), 211 (n. 36, n. 39) Three Persons, Two Lamps, 47–51 Wang Youdao Divorces His Wife, 41–6 Wang, Horng-Luen, 27 Wang Leehom (Alexander Wang, Wang Lihong), 6, 202 (n. 15) Wang Youdao Divorces His Wife (Wang Youdao xiuqi), 41–6, 56–7, 59, 180, 44 (fig. 1.2) Wei Hai-Ming (Wei Haimin), 21, 55, 58–9, 145, 183, 194 (n. 90) figures, cover, 168 (fig. 4.1), 170 (fig. 4.2) Orlando, 147–77, 179–80, 210 (n. 21), 211 (n. 36) “saving Taiwan jingju,” 183, 213 (n. 10)

see also The Golden Cangue, Orlando, Contemporary Legend Theater Wilson, Robert, 146–7 1433, 181–2, 210 (n. 12) Orlando, 18, 147–75 scholarship on, 209 (n. 7) Watermill Center, The, 150–1, 210 (n. 13) Wu Hsing-kuo, 33–4, 183 Oresteia, 144–6 “saving Taiwan jingju”, 183 see also Contemporary Legend Theater (dangdai chuanqi) Yayin Ensemble see Guo Xiaozhuang Yeats, W. B., 143 Yu Siu Wah (Yu Shaohua), 88–92 Yueju (Cantonese opera), 10–11 as “masterpiece of oral and intangible heritage of humanity,” 11, 180–1, 183, 212–13 (n. 5) overseas connection, 10–11 role types, 198 (n. 51) see also The Flower Princess, Pak Suet Sin, Tong Dik Sang zero, 1, 7–8, 20, 62, 183 Zhao Xuejun, 47, 50 Zheng Chenggong and Taiwan (Zheng Chenggong yu Taiwan), 38–40 figures, 39 (fig. 1.1) Žižek, Slavoj, 7

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