PRODUCTION The Tempest [Baofengyu]
Data Type：review
Author：Smith, Ken
Title：Tsui Hark's The Tempest
Source：Timeout Hong Kong
Place：Hong Kong
Date：2008/10/17
Language：English
Abstract：an introduction of the show, including a bio of Wu Hsing-kuo
Halfway through his Peking Opera training program, teachers told a 16-year-old Wu Hsing-kuo that he had no future. Not a very accurate prediction for a performer who’d later share the stage with Placido Domingo and the screen with Jackie Chan, but given the state of traditional theatre in Taiwan in the 1960s, it was a reasonable prognosis.
Beijing, where the old masters who had chosen to stay faced radical constraints during the Cultural Revolution, the young performers who’d fled to Taiwan found themselves the keepers of their own tradition. But by the time Beijing’s lyric theatre was back on track and looking for ways to stay relevant, Taipei’s Peking Opera establishment was more conservative than ever. As for the audience, “half of the people were waiting to discover something new,” Wu recalls. “The other half was ready to stand up and fight to keep things the same.”
It was as one of the principal dancers of Taiwan’s pioneering Cloud Gate Dance Theatre that Wu first discovered that adventurous half of the audience. A few years later, while trying to bring the same creative spirit to Taipei’s Lu-Kuang Chinese Opera Company, he found himself hitting a wall. Despite garnering acclaim in the traditional repertory, he knew the only way he could create something new in Peking Opera was to form his own company.
Enter Contemporary Legend Theatre, the troupe Wu fashioned in his own aesthetic image. With no mention of Peking Opera in its name, the company set out to integrate Chinese lyric theatre with other dramatic forms right off the bat of its first production – a retelling of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, entitled The Kingdom of Desire. Although the company’s works have run the gamut of ancient Greek dramas like Medea and modern classics such as Waiting for Godot, CLT has found its most consistent inspiration in Shakespeare, from Wu’s rhapsodic one-man King Lear to the company’s sprawling production of The Tempest, directed by Tsui Hark. The latter comes to Hong Kong this week as part of the New Vision Arts Festival.
Tsui’s path to Chinese opera is largely due to Wu’s flirtation with film acting in the 1990s, when one of his dozen or so cinematic roles included the scholar in Tsui’s 1993 film Green Snake. “I had seen Wu Hsing-kuo dance that same character in Cloud Gate’s production of The Legend of the White Snake, and his performance had really stuck with me,” Tsui recalls. “I couldn’t find anyone else like him, certainly not among the film actors I was used to working with. He had a unique air in front of the camera, like it was always a live performance. Working with him was a very different experience.”
As Wu was carving out a respectable film career, his theatre company hit rough waters. Traditionalists were showing resistance to some of CLT’s innovations, and internal disputes led Wu to disband the company in 1998. But three years later, after playing the villain in The Accidental Spy, Wu suspended his film career to return to the stage full-time. Tsui, for his part, usually managed to catch Wu’s major premieres, and their occasional dinners would turn into marathon discussions of Chinese aesthetics.
“I’d never seriously thought of collaborating,” Tsui admits. “But one night, around midnight, he called asking if I’d be interested in directing a Peking Opera version of The Tempest. I warned him that I was no expert in Peking Opera, or Shakespeare. I’d do it only to become a student of Wu Hsing-kuo.”
Tsui’s Tempest is a visually driven experience, quickly moving well beyond Peking Opera’s traditional “one table, two chairs” simplicity. “Tsui’s strength is not that he brings any of his film ideas to the stage,” says Wu. “It’s Tsui’s films that are actually very much filled with ideas from Chinese opera. His advantage in a project like this is that, because he doesn’t usually direct for the stage, he looks at the material with a keen mind and fresh eyes.”
The production, featuring costumes by Oscar-winning designer Tim Yip, premiered in Taipei in 2004 and was reprised there two years later as part of CLT’s 20th anniversary season. “It was definitely a happy experience,” says Tsui, adding that he’s looking forward to the show’s first appearance in Hong Kong. “With my movies, I look back at the DVDs and always find things I’d like to change. On stage, every performance is new. We can keep changing things forever.”
Beijing, where the old masters who had chosen to stay faced radical constraints during the Cultural Revolution, the young performers who’d fled to Taiwan found themselves the keepers of their own tradition. But by the time Beijing’s lyric theatre was back on track and looking for ways to stay relevant, Taipei’s Peking Opera establishment was more conservative than ever. As for the audience, “half of the people were waiting to discover something new,” Wu recalls. “The other half was ready to stand up and fight to keep things the same.”
It was as one of the principal dancers of Taiwan’s pioneering Cloud Gate Dance Theatre that Wu first discovered that adventurous half of the audience. A few years later, while trying to bring the same creative spirit to Taipei’s Lu-Kuang Chinese Opera Company, he found himself hitting a wall. Despite garnering acclaim in the traditional repertory, he knew the only way he could create something new in Peking Opera was to form his own company.
Enter Contemporary Legend Theatre, the troupe Wu fashioned in his own aesthetic image. With no mention of Peking Opera in its name, the company set out to integrate Chinese lyric theatre with other dramatic forms right off the bat of its first production – a retelling of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, entitled The Kingdom of Desire. Although the company’s works have run the gamut of ancient Greek dramas like Medea and modern classics such as Waiting for Godot, CLT has found its most consistent inspiration in Shakespeare, from Wu’s rhapsodic one-man King Lear to the company’s sprawling production of The Tempest, directed by Tsui Hark. The latter comes to Hong Kong this week as part of the New Vision Arts Festival.
Tsui’s path to Chinese opera is largely due to Wu’s flirtation with film acting in the 1990s, when one of his dozen or so cinematic roles included the scholar in Tsui’s 1993 film Green Snake. “I had seen Wu Hsing-kuo dance that same character in Cloud Gate’s production of The Legend of the White Snake, and his performance had really stuck with me,” Tsui recalls. “I couldn’t find anyone else like him, certainly not among the film actors I was used to working with. He had a unique air in front of the camera, like it was always a live performance. Working with him was a very different experience.”
As Wu was carving out a respectable film career, his theatre company hit rough waters. Traditionalists were showing resistance to some of CLT’s innovations, and internal disputes led Wu to disband the company in 1998. But three years later, after playing the villain in The Accidental Spy, Wu suspended his film career to return to the stage full-time. Tsui, for his part, usually managed to catch Wu’s major premieres, and their occasional dinners would turn into marathon discussions of Chinese aesthetics.
“I’d never seriously thought of collaborating,” Tsui admits. “But one night, around midnight, he called asking if I’d be interested in directing a Peking Opera version of The Tempest. I warned him that I was no expert in Peking Opera, or Shakespeare. I’d do it only to become a student of Wu Hsing-kuo.”
Tsui’s Tempest is a visually driven experience, quickly moving well beyond Peking Opera’s traditional “one table, two chairs” simplicity. “Tsui’s strength is not that he brings any of his film ideas to the stage,” says Wu. “It’s Tsui’s films that are actually very much filled with ideas from Chinese opera. His advantage in a project like this is that, because he doesn’t usually direct for the stage, he looks at the material with a keen mind and fresh eyes.”
The production, featuring costumes by Oscar-winning designer Tim Yip, premiered in Taipei in 2004 and was reprised there two years later as part of CLT’s 20th anniversary season. “It was definitely a happy experience,” says Tsui, adding that he’s looking forward to the show’s first appearance in Hong Kong. “With my movies, I look back at the DVDs and always find things I’d like to change. On stage, every performance is new. We can keep changing things forever.”
