PRODUCTION The Tempest [Baofengyu]
Data Type:essay
Author:Huang, Andrew
Title:A Tempest of Music and Drama: Tsui Hark, Wu Hsing-kuo plus Tim Yip
Source:The Tempest 2004 Premiere Program, originally in Taiwan News
Place:Taipei
Publisher:Contemporary Legend Theatre [Dangdai chuanqi juchang]
Date:2004/12/30
Pages:138-143
Language:English
Abstract:This article reports the making of The Tempest presented by the Contemporary Legend Theatre. A jingju adaptation of Shakespeare, this play is an unprecedented collaboration of Hong Kong film director Tsui Hark, Taiwan’s top thespian Wu Hsing-kuo and Oscar-winning designer Tim Yip.

For the month of December 2004, there will be a fierce tempest that will blow everyone out of their chairs. Oh, this is not a forecast of a typhoon coming; instead, it’s the unprecedented collaboration of Hong Kong master Tsui Hark, Taiwan’s top thespian Wu Hsing-kuo and Oscars winner Tim Yip for a Chinese musical adaptation of Shakespeare’s play The Tempest.

How do I describe this convergence of three artistic giants for the readers? ──simply, the must-see theater event of the year in Taiwan this year. The Tempest will make its world premiere at Taipei’s National Theater on December 30. World-wide touring will follow next year. The production of The Tempest employs 40 actor/musicians and 36 costumes.

One of the most anticipated elements of this musical is the involvement of Hong Kong master Tsui Hark. An established film master who has helped shaped the history of Chinese film in the 80’s and 90’s and has tried out a Hollywood career, expectation is high about how Tsui will direct The Tempest. Will it be a kungfu-influenced musical or a magic-realism piece in the style of The Ring trilogy?

Asked what the final result will feel like for the audiences, Tsui simply responds, “this work will neither be a kungfu piece nor a The Ring piece. We should and aim to build a style of our own.” Beyond that, Tsui declined to divulge more details about how the final work will feel like.

However, Wu added for Tsui, “since we have invited director Tsui to participate in this project, logically, we can expect this theater piece to have some feels of a movie.”

Tsui Hark bravely embraces his theatrical debut with The Tempest after four decades of filmmaking career. Tsui is mostly celebrated for creating the kungfu new wave through the 80’s and 90’s with the classic A Chinese Ghost Story trilogy, Once Upon A Time in China series with Jet Li, and Legend of the Swordsmen trilogy.

The Tempest marks many firsts for director Tsui: it’s the first time he directs a theater work, the first time he adapts Shakespeare’s work, the first time he works in an art form where there is no damage-control devices such as “cut” and “editing.”

Tsui expresses that he has always admire Peking opera as a very refined art form. “Wu Hsing-kuo’s Peking opera makes me feel that it’s ‘contemporary Peking opera’,” says Tsui. “Wu’s works bring the audiences back to Peking opera again. He is my idol.”

Tsui says he feels strongly inspired every time when he was invited to watch Wu’s different performances. He is surprised and delighted that he is enticed by Wu to plunge into the world of theater just like this. “I will put my ideas into this production,” Tsui says. “I want to surprise and excite both the audiences and myself.”

“Movie is a one-dimensional media; theater is a three-dimensional media,” Tsui explains. “In movies, with camera and editing, we could choose which parts are the highlights for the audiences to focus on. However, theater is an open space where audiences get to choose where they will pay their attention to.” Tsui humbly says that he is learning and exploring along the way of this production.

“What we are using in this project is Peking opera. Peking opera is an art form that deserves to maintain its own uniqueness,” says Tsui. “We are using the techniques and methods of Peking opera to interpret this play by Shakespeare.”

The involvement of Tsui with The Tempest is itself an interesting story full of drama and intrigues.

On January 3, 2003, Wu phoned up Tsui to say “Happy Chinese New Year.” Wu tied in the greeting with an invitation for Tsui to direct Wu’s upcoming project, a Peking opera version of The Tempest. Surprised, Tsui answered, “good! But I don’t know a thing about Peking opera!”

On January 7, 2003, Wu called up Tsui again as a follow-up invitation. Having just finished reading the original English text of Shakespeare’s play and watching British director Peter Greenaway’s film adaptation The Magician’s Bible [sic: should be “Prospero’s Books”], Tsui responded, “there isn’t much dramatic conflicts in this story. Exactly what is good about it?”

On January 25, 2003, Wu again phoned up Tsui to pursue. “I have discussed this project with many friends, including Shakespeare academic professors. Nearly everyone has different thoughts and opinions,” Tsui said, “Now, it’s becoming fun. Let me think about it more.”

In mid February 2003, Wu finished the synopsis of the first draft and e-mailed to Tsui. In March, Wu called up Tsui with a new idea, “what if we interpret the whole play from point of view of the aborigine Caliban” Tsui shot back, “what if - you split into three and portray the parts of Alonso, Prospero and Caliban at the same time?”

In April, Wu flew to Hong Kong to personally visit Tsui. Having done his homework already, Tsui threw out four different versions of story plotlines he had drafted. These included: the 12 chapters of the magic bible, the isolated island of Caliban, the fantastic voyage, and the mysterious magician. After their discussion, a summary of the convention and the four different story versions were posted onto the website of the Contemporary Legend Theatre. Audiences were invited to vote for their favorite version.

On June 1, Tsui flew to Taipei to discuss with Wu about the form of theater and its ways of interpretation. The two paid a visit to Taipei’s National Theater and sat at the audiences’ seats, staring silently at the empty stage. As if somehow inspired, Tsui said, “Hsing-kuo, thank you for bring me into the world of theater.”

On June 5, the online voting result came out. The audiences voted the third version “The Fantastic Voyage” as their favorite. This is the version where Wu would portray three characters in the same play. Apparently, audiences thought it would be more entertaining to see Wu tackling three characters at the same time in the same play.

However, the idea of one actor portraying three parts is more experimental and belongs to the realm of small theater. However, both Tsui and Wu wanted this project to be a big production.

On June 20, Tsui came out with the fifth version that merges the best elements of all four previous versions. In this version, the story is divided into two acts and a total of 13 theme songs would be used to connect the plotline.

Wu and his wife the choreographer Lin Hsiu-wei worked through Tsui’s fifth version. Together they rearranged the sequence of the different scenes according to the need of dramatic rhythm and deleted the unnecessary details. This became the sixth version. The version was sent out to everyone involved in the project.

On July 3, Wu and Tsui discussed again if the sixth version indeed contained the best elements from all previous versions. The Shakespeare academic professionals they consulted all agreed that this was the best version.

Finally, on July 7, the story’s final structure was confirmed. A production schedule was finalized and all the team members started their works.

One thing director Tsui will definitely bring into this new musical is Tsui’s sense of cinematic touches. With his background in film, Tsui drew scene-by-scene rough sketches a movie practice. What Tsui clearly brings in are the clear structure, tight peace, layered characters and fast-rolling dramatic momentum that are the trademark of his film works.

Actor Wu and director Tsui’s friendship started a decade ago when Tsui invited Wu to star as the lead in Tsui’s movie Green Snake. As the founder of Contemporary Legend Theatre, Wu spent three years to prepare the production of The Tempest. Wu invited Tsui to serve as the director of this new musical at the beginning of 2003. After six months’ careful contemplation and wavering, Tsui agreed to take on the challenge.

Actor Wu and designer Tim Yip’s friendship started a decade ago with they collaborated on Hong Kong director Clara Law’s costume drama Tempting Monk starring Joan Chen. Tiring of the repetitive work in Hong Kong’s film industry, Yip relocated to Taiwan to start designing for the theater groups in Taiwan. In the beginning, Yip stayed at Wu’s house. It’s during this sojourn when Yip designed his breakthrough work, the eye-catching, outlandishly beautiful and avant-garde design for Contemporary Legend Theatre’s adaptation of the Greek tragedy Euripides. The success of Euripides catapulted Yip to his first peak as the most promising designer of his generation. In 1996, Wu and Yip collaborated again on Contemporary Theatre’s production Oresteira. In 2001, Yip won the unprecedented glory of winning the best costume design award at the Oscars for Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Because of the two’s deep-rooted friendship, Yip took time off from his busy schedule to perform the design work for Wu’s adaptation of King Lear and then now again for The Tempest.

Yip’s challenge this time is to inject the element of modern fashion into this ancient drama. He attempts to create costumes that “feel as transparent as air and seems like floating through the air.” The image and costume he designs for lead actor Wu is a visually stunning set that looks like a cross between human and beast.

Acclaimed for his out-of-this-world beautiful design that also manages to serve the theme of the story, Yip is a consummate artist who never disappoints.

During the rehearsal session on December 15, 2004, I witnessed the sumptuous costumes Yip has designed and how actors had to struggle to perform within these often difficult costumes. The actresses who portray the fairies wear translucently white costumes complete with Chinese ancient style “Lotus Feet” tiny shoes and two white flags on their back as their wings. The lotus feet shoes are enormous challenge because the actresses have to wear them while performing the various acts such as dancing, jumping and kicking. In order to train their feet to get used to the shoes so that their performance won’t be affected when the show opens, all the fairy actresses decided not to take off their lotus shoes during the three month rehearsal period.

However, it’s Wu’s costume of the magic robe that is the centerpiece of this production’s design. Yip took time off from his design works for the Athens Olympics Games to design this essential piece of magic robe. The complication of the design is such that the production had to employ 20 sewers to work together for 20 consecutive days in order to finish this unique robe.

Never one to fail anyone’s expectation, Yip’s design of the magic robe is at once outlandishly beautiful, shockingly bizarre and yet perfectly suiting and conveying the theme of the story. This unique magic robe serves both a Wu’s costume and a part of the stage background.

However, beauty and originality come with a price. Yip’s design of the magic robe is 4 feet in length and five feet in width. It’s an enormous challenge for Wu yet a delight for the audience to watch how Wu can act, jump and perform the action scenes in this unique piece of costume. “I hope Yip’s final version of my magic stick will be lighter,” Wu complains. “The current version is so heavy that I don’t know how to handle it.”

Yip’s design for the stage background this time employs the work of Chinese ink painting. Yip decided to injects the atmosphere of Chinese aura into this western play. He also used wire work in order for the actors who portray fairies to fly across the stage. As for the backdrop of sea and the isolated island, Yip employs his magic touch by designing eye-catching sets that function as rolling sea waves.

The music section will feature a mixture of Peking opera, Kuan opera and Taiwanese aboriginal music. Aborigine actor Caliban and the actresses who portray the fairies will sing “Song of Beauty and Ugliness” from the musical’s 12 songs.

The Tempest is the last work of William Shakespeare. This play starts with the theme of revenge and ends with the message of forgiveness. As Shakespeare’s last work, this play also touches upon various themes such as the struggle of power and knowledge, human being versus the nature, colonization issue and aborigine issue.

Comparing to Shakespeare’s more famous works such as Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet, The Tempest is widely considered to be a controversial and hard-to-handle work because of the many issues discussed in the story.

There exists various classic interpretation of The Tempest in the history. British actor Olivier Lawrence’s film version is considered the definitive, authoritative interpretation of The Tempest. British art-house director Peter Greenaway’s film adaptation is deemed to be an avant-garde, post-modern version of the classic play. Director Tsui’s version will mark the first time The Tempest will be interpreted with Peking opera and Taiwanese aboriginal music.

Wu Hsing-kuo himself is a devout fan of Shakespeare. His contemporary Legend Theatre has mounted drastic Chinese interpretation of Hamlet, King Lear and Macbeth with acclaim.

By Andrew Huang
Contributing Writer
This story by Andrew Huang originally appeared in Taiwan News
On 12/31/2004. The copy rights of the story belong to Andrew Huang.