PRODUCTION The Tempest [Baofengyu]
Data Type：production background
Title：About the Contemporary Legend Theatre
Source：The Tempest 2004 Premiere Program
Place：Taipei
Publisher：Contemporary Legend Theatre [Dangdai chuanqi juchang]
Date：2004/12/30
Pages：148-150
Language：English
Abstract：Established in 1986, the Contemporary Legend Theatre (CLT) has continuously tried to absorb expressive forms from traditional Chinese theater to explore new possibilities for innovation. Their works, including those adapted from Shakespeare's plays, uniquely combine the vocabulary of modern Western theatre and the glorious culture of the East.
The Contemporary Legend Theatre
The Contemporary Legend Theatre (CLT) was established in 1986 by Wu Hsing-Kuo and a group of Chinese Opera actors and artists. Since its establishment, The CLT has continuously tried to absorb expressive forms of singing, chanting, acting, and stage combat from traditional Chinese theatre to explore new possibilities for innovation.
The CLT plans its major goals to stimulate interest and search for originality and uniqueness in the theory of expression. It starts by adapting western plays to absorb the essence of Western theory, structure and the strength of its expression. The performances involve a search for materials from ancient Chinese legends, and are designed to use modern world experience as a unique, original creative expression. The CLT combines the artistic elements from Western and Eastern theatre, and tries to create a new performance form.
In 1986, the CLT staged its first production The Kingdom of Desire, an adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, at Taipei Municipal Social Education Hall for three nights. The Kingdom of Desire played to full houses and instantly had a great impact on the culture and art cycles of Taiwan. The play was honorably invited by Royal National Theatre, London, and well received by London audiences in 1990. It has also toured to Tokyo, Hong Kong, Seoul, and Netherlands. The Kingdom of Desire was also invited to the Festival d’Avignon in France in 1998.
In 1990 the second play, War and Eternity, adapted from William Shakespeare’s Hamlet; the audience and the critics alike recognized and acknowledged CLT’s efforts and its unique artistic style. In 1991, the company performed their first traditional Chinese opera, Yin Yang River. In staging this traditional opera, beside preserving its original essence and creating a new meaning of time, the group also created a new form of expression by giving the opera a more powerful theoretical structure and music.
In 1992, after several years’ devotion to planning and searching for new talents, new voices, new aesthetics and a new spirit, CLT chose to mount an original production based on Li Hou-Zhu’s work, The Last Days of Emperor Li Yu (Wu Hsien Chiang Shan). In using this work they created a new form of Chinese theatre that is neither a “stage play” nor a “new Chinese Opera.”
In 1993, the CLT took a new direction in modernizing Peking Opera. Lo Lan Nu was based on the ancient Greek tragedy Medea by Euripides. In this production, the company went further in shedding the traditional opera basics and embracing a more modern, Western-oriented theatrical style. This play sets the background at Tunhuang, with the feeling of Tibetan religious meditation and turbulent anxiety from our inner cave. Stunning music and spectacular costume empowered the play. The audience was awed and at the same time admired the leading actress Wei Hai-Min’s breath-taking performance.
Oresteia, premiered in 1995, was directed by the innovative environmental theatre master Richard Schechner. Again, this production generated great interests in the theatre community. Purposely selected an outside park as the performance stage, this production brought the theatre to the audience, instead of the other way around. This experiment took departure from the traditional Chinese Opera in its form of language, its style of acting and singing. The characters mixed the original Greeks with the modern Taiwanese, and the audience’s response played an important part at this production. Some critics claimed that Oresteia is the best inter-culture work they had ever seen.
To challenge the zenith of performing art, Wu Hsing-Kuo presented the 120-minute solo performance King Lear, premiered on July 6, 2001 at Novel Hall, Taipei. Wu portrays 10 character of Shakespeare’s masterpiece alone on stage for 100 minutes. King Lear was costumed designed by the 2001 Academy Award Winner in Best Art Direction Tim Yip. Yip’s design helped Wu to perform 10 different characters, including King Lear, Fool, Earl of Kent, Goneril, Regan, Cordelia, Earl of Gloucester, Edmund, and Edgar. Wu skillfully used props, costume, and different arts of singing in traditional Chinese Opera to distinguish the different characters on the stage. The Artistic Director of French Le Theatre du Soleil, Ariane Mnouchkine said, “What a great performer seeking King Lear on the stage!” and many critics believe that this production has started a new era for the CLT’s future.
Wu Hsing-Kuo, the founder and the Artistic Director of the company, believes that to make traditional topics more meaningful they must be given, in addition to a change of style, a new spirit, new thinking and new attitudes reflecting contemporary society. Wu is well trained in traditional Chinese Opera and well versed in modern dance forms, and he is clearly able to interpret the Chinese voice, color, costume, and body movements in the contemporary theatre. The extraordinary achievement of Miss Wei Hai-Min, the distinguished actress, in retaining the elegance of the traditional art while incorporating it with modern dance movements, has received much praise from the general public.
The CLT continues to look ahead seeking to create something new while at the same time preserving the eloquent character of Chinese singing, dancing, and theatre and infusing the vocabulary of the contemporary theatre of the west with the glorious culture of the east.
Since 2001, the CLT has produced a new production each year. Its most recent works include King Lear (2001), The Hidden Concubine (2002), and A Play of Brother and Sister: A Hip Hopera (2003). In the late December 2004, the CLT will produce an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Tempest, directed by celebrated film director Tsui Hark. In May 2005, the company will embark on its US debut tour with The Kingdom of Desire.
The Contemporary Legend Theatre (CLT) was established in 1986 by Wu Hsing-Kuo and a group of Chinese Opera actors and artists. Since its establishment, The CLT has continuously tried to absorb expressive forms of singing, chanting, acting, and stage combat from traditional Chinese theatre to explore new possibilities for innovation.
The CLT plans its major goals to stimulate interest and search for originality and uniqueness in the theory of expression. It starts by adapting western plays to absorb the essence of Western theory, structure and the strength of its expression. The performances involve a search for materials from ancient Chinese legends, and are designed to use modern world experience as a unique, original creative expression. The CLT combines the artistic elements from Western and Eastern theatre, and tries to create a new performance form.
In 1986, the CLT staged its first production The Kingdom of Desire, an adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, at Taipei Municipal Social Education Hall for three nights. The Kingdom of Desire played to full houses and instantly had a great impact on the culture and art cycles of Taiwan. The play was honorably invited by Royal National Theatre, London, and well received by London audiences in 1990. It has also toured to Tokyo, Hong Kong, Seoul, and Netherlands. The Kingdom of Desire was also invited to the Festival d’Avignon in France in 1998.
In 1990 the second play, War and Eternity, adapted from William Shakespeare’s Hamlet; the audience and the critics alike recognized and acknowledged CLT’s efforts and its unique artistic style. In 1991, the company performed their first traditional Chinese opera, Yin Yang River. In staging this traditional opera, beside preserving its original essence and creating a new meaning of time, the group also created a new form of expression by giving the opera a more powerful theoretical structure and music.
In 1992, after several years’ devotion to planning and searching for new talents, new voices, new aesthetics and a new spirit, CLT chose to mount an original production based on Li Hou-Zhu’s work, The Last Days of Emperor Li Yu (Wu Hsien Chiang Shan). In using this work they created a new form of Chinese theatre that is neither a “stage play” nor a “new Chinese Opera.”
In 1993, the CLT took a new direction in modernizing Peking Opera. Lo Lan Nu was based on the ancient Greek tragedy Medea by Euripides. In this production, the company went further in shedding the traditional opera basics and embracing a more modern, Western-oriented theatrical style. This play sets the background at Tunhuang, with the feeling of Tibetan religious meditation and turbulent anxiety from our inner cave. Stunning music and spectacular costume empowered the play. The audience was awed and at the same time admired the leading actress Wei Hai-Min’s breath-taking performance.
Oresteia, premiered in 1995, was directed by the innovative environmental theatre master Richard Schechner. Again, this production generated great interests in the theatre community. Purposely selected an outside park as the performance stage, this production brought the theatre to the audience, instead of the other way around. This experiment took departure from the traditional Chinese Opera in its form of language, its style of acting and singing. The characters mixed the original Greeks with the modern Taiwanese, and the audience’s response played an important part at this production. Some critics claimed that Oresteia is the best inter-culture work they had ever seen.
To challenge the zenith of performing art, Wu Hsing-Kuo presented the 120-minute solo performance King Lear, premiered on July 6, 2001 at Novel Hall, Taipei. Wu portrays 10 character of Shakespeare’s masterpiece alone on stage for 100 minutes. King Lear was costumed designed by the 2001 Academy Award Winner in Best Art Direction Tim Yip. Yip’s design helped Wu to perform 10 different characters, including King Lear, Fool, Earl of Kent, Goneril, Regan, Cordelia, Earl of Gloucester, Edmund, and Edgar. Wu skillfully used props, costume, and different arts of singing in traditional Chinese Opera to distinguish the different characters on the stage. The Artistic Director of French Le Theatre du Soleil, Ariane Mnouchkine said, “What a great performer seeking King Lear on the stage!” and many critics believe that this production has started a new era for the CLT’s future.
Wu Hsing-Kuo, the founder and the Artistic Director of the company, believes that to make traditional topics more meaningful they must be given, in addition to a change of style, a new spirit, new thinking and new attitudes reflecting contemporary society. Wu is well trained in traditional Chinese Opera and well versed in modern dance forms, and he is clearly able to interpret the Chinese voice, color, costume, and body movements in the contemporary theatre. The extraordinary achievement of Miss Wei Hai-Min, the distinguished actress, in retaining the elegance of the traditional art while incorporating it with modern dance movements, has received much praise from the general public.
The CLT continues to look ahead seeking to create something new while at the same time preserving the eloquent character of Chinese singing, dancing, and theatre and infusing the vocabulary of the contemporary theatre of the west with the glorious culture of the east.
Since 2001, the CLT has produced a new production each year. Its most recent works include King Lear (2001), The Hidden Concubine (2002), and A Play of Brother and Sister: A Hip Hopera (2003). In the late December 2004, the CLT will produce an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Tempest, directed by celebrated film director Tsui Hark. In May 2005, the company will embark on its US debut tour with The Kingdom of Desire.
