PRODUCTION King Lear [Lier zai ci]
Data Type：review
Author：Boulanger-Mashberg, Anica
Title：King Lear Review
Source：Tasmanian Times
Date：2009/4/4
Language：English
Abstract：The author marvels at Wu's performance but wonder if this production can be called an "adaptation" as it departs significantly from Shakespeare's original.
Where is Lear?
This adaptation of Shakespeare’s King Lear is challenging for an audience unfamiliar with traditional Chinese opera. The source text itself is not an easy place to begin, and in this interpretation, director and performer Wu Hsing-kuo has no intention of simplifying Shakespeare. Not only are we negotiating Shakespeare’s complex story, but also Wu’s own intricate narrative, and the demanding experience of absorbing this cross-cultural theatre work.
For the first act, Wu introduces us to his Lear – a dominating character who draws on the bold, heightened style of traditional Chinese opera. This Lear is often quite a comic figure, although the audience seemed reluctant to laugh, uncertain about the tone and cues for this particular cultural theatricality. The performance, reflecting Wu’s extensive training, is part song, part speech, part dance, part acrobatics, and part martial arts. The text itself (a hybrid contemporary/poetic reduction of Shakespeare’s text) is sung and spoken in Mandarin, and surtitled. In a venue the size of the Princess Theatre, this really requires two sets of eyes: one to read the text and one to concentrate on Wu’s performance.
After the interval, Wu moves on to sketch other characters from Lear, including Lear’s daughters, who allow Wu’s comic charisma to shine through. Other notable characters are Lear’s ally, Gloucester, and his two sons, through whom Wu articulates a touching story of regret and familial conflict. The various characters allow Wu to show off his considerable and varied skills. But at the same time such a multiplicity of narratives, filtered and obfuscated through the conventions of an unfamiliar theatrical style, pace, and language, is overwhelming.
It is very difficult to find Shakespeare’s play inside this ‘adaptation’. The production might make more sense, and generate less anxiety, if it were described as a response to Lear and titled accordingly, rather than professing to retell the play. This raises an important question: what constitutes an adaptation? In this case, not much of Shakespeare’s language remains (even in translation), and large amounts of the narrative have not made it into the production. This is not necessarily problematic, as these absences are filled with other things: rich costumes, virtuosic martial arts displays, and a dramatic representation conveying Wu’s own relationship with Lear. However, the question still stands, when so little of Shakespeare’s Lear is accessible here, is it really an adaptation? Or has it become altogether another entity?
The most engaging section is the third act, in which Wu strips away the other characters leaving a version of himself, the actor and individual, who articulates his own connection to Lear. This makes me wish that there was less Shakespeare in this production and more Wu, because in these moments where he is most grounded, the performance is compelling, and overrides the potential intimidation of the cultural boundary.
This adaptation of Shakespeare’s King Lear is challenging for an audience unfamiliar with traditional Chinese opera. The source text itself is not an easy place to begin, and in this interpretation, director and performer Wu Hsing-kuo has no intention of simplifying Shakespeare. Not only are we negotiating Shakespeare’s complex story, but also Wu’s own intricate narrative, and the demanding experience of absorbing this cross-cultural theatre work.
For the first act, Wu introduces us to his Lear – a dominating character who draws on the bold, heightened style of traditional Chinese opera. This Lear is often quite a comic figure, although the audience seemed reluctant to laugh, uncertain about the tone and cues for this particular cultural theatricality. The performance, reflecting Wu’s extensive training, is part song, part speech, part dance, part acrobatics, and part martial arts. The text itself (a hybrid contemporary/poetic reduction of Shakespeare’s text) is sung and spoken in Mandarin, and surtitled. In a venue the size of the Princess Theatre, this really requires two sets of eyes: one to read the text and one to concentrate on Wu’s performance.
After the interval, Wu moves on to sketch other characters from Lear, including Lear’s daughters, who allow Wu’s comic charisma to shine through. Other notable characters are Lear’s ally, Gloucester, and his two sons, through whom Wu articulates a touching story of regret and familial conflict. The various characters allow Wu to show off his considerable and varied skills. But at the same time such a multiplicity of narratives, filtered and obfuscated through the conventions of an unfamiliar theatrical style, pace, and language, is overwhelming.
It is very difficult to find Shakespeare’s play inside this ‘adaptation’. The production might make more sense, and generate less anxiety, if it were described as a response to Lear and titled accordingly, rather than professing to retell the play. This raises an important question: what constitutes an adaptation? In this case, not much of Shakespeare’s language remains (even in translation), and large amounts of the narrative have not made it into the production. This is not necessarily problematic, as these absences are filled with other things: rich costumes, virtuosic martial arts displays, and a dramatic representation conveying Wu’s own relationship with Lear. However, the question still stands, when so little of Shakespeare’s Lear is accessible here, is it really an adaptation? Or has it become altogether another entity?
The most engaging section is the third act, in which Wu strips away the other characters leaving a version of himself, the actor and individual, who articulates his own connection to Lear. This makes me wish that there was less Shakespeare in this production and more Wu, because in these moments where he is most grounded, the performance is compelling, and overrides the potential intimidation of the cultural boundary.
