PRODUCTION The Taming of the Shrew [Enu jiaoqi]
Data Type：interview
Author：Chang, Ya-han
Title：An Interview with Huang Ya-jung
Place：New Taipei
Date：2012/11/6
Language：English
Abstract：The troupe director and leading actor talks about the troupe's history and development and how the script was chosen and modified. Though taken from Shakespeare, she feels that the play is not incongruous with the theatre tradition of gezaixi. She also speaks of the differences between gezaixi and jingju.
CHANG. Thank you for the meeting, Ms. Huang. My first question is: as the leader of a traditional Taiwanese opera troupe, why do you want to adapt Shakespeare's work?
HUANG. I would like to talk about the whole story first. We were doing smalle-scale children's Taiwanese opera in the foundational period. Later, I felt that we had accumulated enough energy to put on a big production. At the beginning of High Sun Theatre we did not have our own troupe members. We just made auditions when we started preparing a show. Most of our actors came to the troupe after work or class. They are not professionals—that was our situation back then. And I myself like children's theatre a lot, so we were doing children's Taiwanese opera. After a few years, when we got our own troupe members, I thought that in order to express something, to express life—the express on the stage, using skills of singing, reciting, acting and martial arts—we need a big production. So we got the idea and said, “Hey, let's put on a big production!” And then we did Mean Girl, Dear Wife. So, we were planning for a big production first. By “big production” I mean a play in the traditional style, compared to the children's Taiwanese opera, what we High Sun did before. A big production is also a jargon in Taiwanese opera, meaning a play in traditional style. What we thought of was our light-hearted style. At that time, the playwright Lin Wen-shou immigrated to Canada. She started trying to write plays when she immigrated to Canada. She wrote, and sent her plays to some people. I had also got some—Wen-shou is my friend, earlier my student. Around that time, she sent me some plays, including one play, as I remember, with the title The Legend of the Mean Girl, that was the title she used back then. I think she wrote that for a playwriting competition held by the Ministry of Education. Earlier the competition opened not only to students and teachers but also to young people who just start their career. I guess she intended to join the competition, because she also attached the connotation, which looked like the documents you prepare to register for the competition. Anyway, she showed me that. I knew she had adapted Shakespeare. Quite an interesting play. I myself had seen The Taming of the Shrew before. So I thought: we need a big production. And I thought about the style of our troupe—the other actress Chiu Chiu-hui and I, we work together quite well, and we are quite good at the style of this play—it becomes us. The stories happen in royal palaces suit us not. We do not do that kind of plays. OK, its style fits us, so we bought the play from Wen-shou and asked Director Jiang, Jiang Jian-yuan, to direct it. As for the title The Legend of the Mean Girl, we did not find it catchy. What is interesting about the play is the “taming of the shrew,” the complete transformation of this character. We pondered upon this and tried many titles, such as “the shrew something” or “the gentlewoman something”—finally, we decided: let's just use Mean Girl, Dear Wife. Yes, and there is a scene added into the play, in which her (the shrew's) sister pretends to be a shrew to trick the suitor. Therefore, we chose the current title, a title which suits both parts. So, the title was transformed into Mean Girl, Dear Wife, while we were advertising it. The original title was The Legend of the Mean Girl.
CHANG. So had the play been revised between its birth and debut?
HUANG. Right, right, there were surely some revisions. It was because—well, just my own opinion—this is one of Wen-shou's early works. Now she has written more and more plays and also won an award. She also formed with another actress a troupe named Wujuan Opera Troupe, and she writes all the plays it produces. The plays are grander and grander, more and more complete. But this is her early play, so you can see, for example, the fragmentation in scene arrangement. The play we see today had been revised by the director, deleting one scene and moving its content to another scene. Some scenes were deleted and some are merged—he had revised all these. Fortunately we've already got the MSN back then. Wen-shou was lving in Canada—how much the director had to pay if he had to make the international phone calls! They discussed the revision on MSN because Wen-shou was in Canada. The director contacted her on MSN when he wanted to delete, add, or merge something, or to add some new lyrics. Generally the situation would be that the director said he wanted some extra stuff and Wen-shou would come up with some. I remember that the director mentioned whether the audience should be informed why and how the shrew becomes a shrew—is it because she has no mother, or some other reason? But the playwright said no. She did not consider it necessary. One's personality is a given. She thought there was no need to tell the background, to explain why she has this personality.
CHANG. Hmm, I remember that the reason is also unknown in the original play of Shakespeare. Well, we've seen some adaptations by, for example, Peking opera and Yu opera. The actors are likely to say, “the hangdang of my role is very complicate. It seems to me that the role types (hangdang) are quite fixed in traditional theatre. And Shakespeare's roles can hardly fit in.
HUANG. The hangdang of Taiwanese opera is not as strict as the Peking opera. For the example, Xue Ping-gui in Xue Ping-gui and Wang Bao-chuan is wensheng when he is poor, wusheng when he is on the battle field and laosheng after eighteen years when he is back. In Peking opera the role is played by three hangdang: wensheng, wusheng and laosheng, very clear. My teacher, Ms. Liao Chiung-chih, told me that back then when they were still in the indoor theatre, the troupe was complete, so the role would be played by three actors—but now there is only one actor that play this role. My opinion is that, now the xiaosheng who plays Xue Ping-gui should be in the martial profession (wusheng) but act in a gentle style (wensheng). Though he is a poor xiaosheng in the beginning, the role should not be played by a wensheng. The actor must know how to perform the martial arts and play the role for the Xiliao War, and then, putting on the laosheng make-up and costume, come back to the stage as old Xue Ping-gui. So, according to my teacher, when they were in the indoor theatre, they would play it like what the Peking opera does; but now we only use one actor to interpret different periods in the role's life. However, some roles, like laosheng, would look better if it is performed by somebody specializing in laosheng—male laosheng still looks better. But in modern Taiwanese opera it would be an actor from the beginning to the end. And take the shrew for example, in Peking opera it should be acted by a poladan (shrew). Our Chiu-hui can play kudan (suffering woman) well, and also sanhua (clown). She plays Jiao Gui-ying in Wang Kui Abandons Gui-ying, and the Money Slave in our children's opera Money Slave, Asan in Asan Going to the Town, and the grandma in The Beauty and the Beast. She truly can act. So, for Taiwanese opera it depends on how well the actor acts. You can either specialize in one role type or do the trans-type acting. So, in Peking opera the role is a poladan, but Chiu-hui in this production just plays “the role,” which is different from the kudan she usually does. Taiwanese opera's concern might be that “this is the protagonist”—the leading actress can act, so she would be able to interpret it well.
CHANG. It seems to me that the concept of roles and actors in Taiwanese opera is similar to the one in modern theatre.
HUANG. Exactly. Like Xiaomi, she can act in all kinds of roles. She would not just act xiaosheng because she specializes in xiaosheng.
CHANG. Ms. Chen Ya-lan has been acting xiaosheng, but now she also acts the dan (woman) roles.
HUANG. (Laugh). It takes time to transfer. It also took me a long time to get used to Sun Tsui-feng’s White Serpent. It’s weird.
CHANG. The first time I saw her acting is Meng Li-chun on TV.
HUANG. Oh, it's weird. I tell you... I specialize in xiaosheng, but in 1995 CCA ran an Artist Cultivating Workshop for Ms. Liao. The first-year workshop is for dan because Ms. Liao specializes in dan. I joined it. I was joking to Ms. Liao, “I'm going to the audition.” And she said, “Great!” She was serious. I was shocked. I said, “But, Madam, I specialize in xiaosheng!” But she told me, “You should learn all the things. If one day you become the teacher, you should be able to tell the students about the tips.” I thought, “Well, that's right” and joined the workshop. Actress who acts men so long would like to act women as well. It turned out that people thought I was acting some drag-queen role, because of my xiaosheng temperament. I had played xiaosheng for a long time. When you act men for a long time your figure would change: like the shoulders, they would be wider, and also the shape of the face. People said I was doing some drag-queen; and I responded, “Hey, I am a woman!” There was one time, I saw a xiaosheng playing a woman in soap drama. I thought, “Damn!” Since then, I gave up the idea of playing female roles. But sometime I still interpret women. I’ve played Wuniang in the workshop, and also Hua Mu-lan who disguises herself as a man and join the army for her father, that’s a special case. And also Lu Xue-feng, another role that can be played by either “man” or “woman.” So for Taiwanese opera the issue would be whether you can play the role well, not whether you specialize in that role type or not. It’s freer.
CHANG. And what about the reaction from your audience? Did they find this different from the traditional Taiwanese opera? For your audience are still the audience of Taiwanese opera.
HUANG. No. Nothing different. We got quite a lot of light-hearted comedies in Taiwanese opera. But when we were advertising it, I use the name of Shakespeare; in order to make people think that it is a breakthrough—“Not a traditional play! It’s Shakespeare! From the West!” I made this association in advertisement. But I don’t know how many people came for this. We did not make a questionnaire on that. But they do not find it awkward. The translation and transformation are already made in the writing of the play. Like Hong Qian-li (Petruchio) is not a western name. And its subject, we’ve got quite a lot of light-hearted comedies like this in Taiwanese opera. The audience did not find it weird.
CHANG. In the DVD, I saw the matchmaker and the scene of Chinese hell.
HUANG. The Chinese hell comes from the director’s genius. I’m also a director and a playwright, so I know it. In theatre the director makes a big difference. Sometimes they can turn a bad play into a great production. You should keep in mind that not everything you see on the stage comes from the script. Sometimes the director has done something to it. She (Lin) was still writing the play, so it looks fragmental. It is more intensive after Director Jiang’s touch.
CHANG. I would also like to ask: I’ve reread Shakespeare’s play before I come here, and find Hong Qian-li quite different from Petruchio―he is a beggar, his personality is different, etc.―the styles of the two characters are quite different. Why make such a change in the adaptation?
HUANG. You have to ask the playwright. It depends on her intension. I only know that on the connotation she had written something like the parallel of the shrew and her sister. You got to ask the playwright. Now I can only give you information about how the production is made. And on the other hand, about how the director reorganizes the play, you should ask the director. I’ve also made some changes when we put it on again. I was the vice-director. I found Mr. Jiang’s version was still somehow long and tedious, so I deleted something more. But because it was they who set up the foundation, I just made it stronger. So for the directorial arrangement you should ask the director, and for the character design you should ask the playwright.
CHANG. Well, what our professor expects us to get from the interview is mainly the question: why Shakespeare?
HUANG. Oh, why this subject. You should still ask the playwright. Because, in this production, it is not us who come up with an idea and find a playwright to write it. If it was so, I could answer this question. What we wanted was something of small, light-hearted, not royal—our troupe was small. Our condition is all that I can tell you.
CHANG. So it still depends on your general style.
HUANG. Yes, it depends on what we had and how we act. Wen-shou gave us a lot of plays. Some other friends also gave us other plays. I found this one most suitable for us. It’s she who wrote it first. And the play becomes us. So we get the play from her. This is the story. I did not imagine a play and get a playwright to write it.
CHANG. So the play came first.
HUANG. It was there for some time. I can give you Wen-shou’s phone number if you need, and also the director’s. You can contact them and ask them.
CHANG. Thank you very much. I think that’s all I want to ask.
HUANG. You’re welcome. So you go ask them for details. What I can tell you is only our condition.
HUANG. I would like to talk about the whole story first. We were doing smalle-scale children's Taiwanese opera in the foundational period. Later, I felt that we had accumulated enough energy to put on a big production. At the beginning of High Sun Theatre we did not have our own troupe members. We just made auditions when we started preparing a show. Most of our actors came to the troupe after work or class. They are not professionals—that was our situation back then. And I myself like children's theatre a lot, so we were doing children's Taiwanese opera. After a few years, when we got our own troupe members, I thought that in order to express something, to express life—the express on the stage, using skills of singing, reciting, acting and martial arts—we need a big production. So we got the idea and said, “Hey, let's put on a big production!” And then we did Mean Girl, Dear Wife. So, we were planning for a big production first. By “big production” I mean a play in the traditional style, compared to the children's Taiwanese opera, what we High Sun did before. A big production is also a jargon in Taiwanese opera, meaning a play in traditional style. What we thought of was our light-hearted style. At that time, the playwright Lin Wen-shou immigrated to Canada. She started trying to write plays when she immigrated to Canada. She wrote, and sent her plays to some people. I had also got some—Wen-shou is my friend, earlier my student. Around that time, she sent me some plays, including one play, as I remember, with the title The Legend of the Mean Girl, that was the title she used back then. I think she wrote that for a playwriting competition held by the Ministry of Education. Earlier the competition opened not only to students and teachers but also to young people who just start their career. I guess she intended to join the competition, because she also attached the connotation, which looked like the documents you prepare to register for the competition. Anyway, she showed me that. I knew she had adapted Shakespeare. Quite an interesting play. I myself had seen The Taming of the Shrew before. So I thought: we need a big production. And I thought about the style of our troupe—the other actress Chiu Chiu-hui and I, we work together quite well, and we are quite good at the style of this play—it becomes us. The stories happen in royal palaces suit us not. We do not do that kind of plays. OK, its style fits us, so we bought the play from Wen-shou and asked Director Jiang, Jiang Jian-yuan, to direct it. As for the title The Legend of the Mean Girl, we did not find it catchy. What is interesting about the play is the “taming of the shrew,” the complete transformation of this character. We pondered upon this and tried many titles, such as “the shrew something” or “the gentlewoman something”—finally, we decided: let's just use Mean Girl, Dear Wife. Yes, and there is a scene added into the play, in which her (the shrew's) sister pretends to be a shrew to trick the suitor. Therefore, we chose the current title, a title which suits both parts. So, the title was transformed into Mean Girl, Dear Wife, while we were advertising it. The original title was The Legend of the Mean Girl.
CHANG. So had the play been revised between its birth and debut?
HUANG. Right, right, there were surely some revisions. It was because—well, just my own opinion—this is one of Wen-shou's early works. Now she has written more and more plays and also won an award. She also formed with another actress a troupe named Wujuan Opera Troupe, and she writes all the plays it produces. The plays are grander and grander, more and more complete. But this is her early play, so you can see, for example, the fragmentation in scene arrangement. The play we see today had been revised by the director, deleting one scene and moving its content to another scene. Some scenes were deleted and some are merged—he had revised all these. Fortunately we've already got the MSN back then. Wen-shou was lving in Canada—how much the director had to pay if he had to make the international phone calls! They discussed the revision on MSN because Wen-shou was in Canada. The director contacted her on MSN when he wanted to delete, add, or merge something, or to add some new lyrics. Generally the situation would be that the director said he wanted some extra stuff and Wen-shou would come up with some. I remember that the director mentioned whether the audience should be informed why and how the shrew becomes a shrew—is it because she has no mother, or some other reason? But the playwright said no. She did not consider it necessary. One's personality is a given. She thought there was no need to tell the background, to explain why she has this personality.
CHANG. Hmm, I remember that the reason is also unknown in the original play of Shakespeare. Well, we've seen some adaptations by, for example, Peking opera and Yu opera. The actors are likely to say, “the hangdang of my role is very complicate. It seems to me that the role types (hangdang) are quite fixed in traditional theatre. And Shakespeare's roles can hardly fit in.
HUANG. The hangdang of Taiwanese opera is not as strict as the Peking opera. For the example, Xue Ping-gui in Xue Ping-gui and Wang Bao-chuan is wensheng when he is poor, wusheng when he is on the battle field and laosheng after eighteen years when he is back. In Peking opera the role is played by three hangdang: wensheng, wusheng and laosheng, very clear. My teacher, Ms. Liao Chiung-chih, told me that back then when they were still in the indoor theatre, the troupe was complete, so the role would be played by three actors—but now there is only one actor that play this role. My opinion is that, now the xiaosheng who plays Xue Ping-gui should be in the martial profession (wusheng) but act in a gentle style (wensheng). Though he is a poor xiaosheng in the beginning, the role should not be played by a wensheng. The actor must know how to perform the martial arts and play the role for the Xiliao War, and then, putting on the laosheng make-up and costume, come back to the stage as old Xue Ping-gui. So, according to my teacher, when they were in the indoor theatre, they would play it like what the Peking opera does; but now we only use one actor to interpret different periods in the role's life. However, some roles, like laosheng, would look better if it is performed by somebody specializing in laosheng—male laosheng still looks better. But in modern Taiwanese opera it would be an actor from the beginning to the end. And take the shrew for example, in Peking opera it should be acted by a poladan (shrew). Our Chiu-hui can play kudan (suffering woman) well, and also sanhua (clown). She plays Jiao Gui-ying in Wang Kui Abandons Gui-ying, and the Money Slave in our children's opera Money Slave, Asan in Asan Going to the Town, and the grandma in The Beauty and the Beast. She truly can act. So, for Taiwanese opera it depends on how well the actor acts. You can either specialize in one role type or do the trans-type acting. So, in Peking opera the role is a poladan, but Chiu-hui in this production just plays “the role,” which is different from the kudan she usually does. Taiwanese opera's concern might be that “this is the protagonist”—the leading actress can act, so she would be able to interpret it well.
CHANG. It seems to me that the concept of roles and actors in Taiwanese opera is similar to the one in modern theatre.
HUANG. Exactly. Like Xiaomi, she can act in all kinds of roles. She would not just act xiaosheng because she specializes in xiaosheng.
CHANG. Ms. Chen Ya-lan has been acting xiaosheng, but now she also acts the dan (woman) roles.
HUANG. (Laugh). It takes time to transfer. It also took me a long time to get used to Sun Tsui-feng’s White Serpent. It’s weird.
CHANG. The first time I saw her acting is Meng Li-chun on TV.
HUANG. Oh, it's weird. I tell you... I specialize in xiaosheng, but in 1995 CCA ran an Artist Cultivating Workshop for Ms. Liao. The first-year workshop is for dan because Ms. Liao specializes in dan. I joined it. I was joking to Ms. Liao, “I'm going to the audition.” And she said, “Great!” She was serious. I was shocked. I said, “But, Madam, I specialize in xiaosheng!” But she told me, “You should learn all the things. If one day you become the teacher, you should be able to tell the students about the tips.” I thought, “Well, that's right” and joined the workshop. Actress who acts men so long would like to act women as well. It turned out that people thought I was acting some drag-queen role, because of my xiaosheng temperament. I had played xiaosheng for a long time. When you act men for a long time your figure would change: like the shoulders, they would be wider, and also the shape of the face. People said I was doing some drag-queen; and I responded, “Hey, I am a woman!” There was one time, I saw a xiaosheng playing a woman in soap drama. I thought, “Damn!” Since then, I gave up the idea of playing female roles. But sometime I still interpret women. I’ve played Wuniang in the workshop, and also Hua Mu-lan who disguises herself as a man and join the army for her father, that’s a special case. And also Lu Xue-feng, another role that can be played by either “man” or “woman.” So for Taiwanese opera the issue would be whether you can play the role well, not whether you specialize in that role type or not. It’s freer.
CHANG. And what about the reaction from your audience? Did they find this different from the traditional Taiwanese opera? For your audience are still the audience of Taiwanese opera.
HUANG. No. Nothing different. We got quite a lot of light-hearted comedies in Taiwanese opera. But when we were advertising it, I use the name of Shakespeare; in order to make people think that it is a breakthrough—“Not a traditional play! It’s Shakespeare! From the West!” I made this association in advertisement. But I don’t know how many people came for this. We did not make a questionnaire on that. But they do not find it awkward. The translation and transformation are already made in the writing of the play. Like Hong Qian-li (Petruchio) is not a western name. And its subject, we’ve got quite a lot of light-hearted comedies like this in Taiwanese opera. The audience did not find it weird.
CHANG. In the DVD, I saw the matchmaker and the scene of Chinese hell.
HUANG. The Chinese hell comes from the director’s genius. I’m also a director and a playwright, so I know it. In theatre the director makes a big difference. Sometimes they can turn a bad play into a great production. You should keep in mind that not everything you see on the stage comes from the script. Sometimes the director has done something to it. She (Lin) was still writing the play, so it looks fragmental. It is more intensive after Director Jiang’s touch.
CHANG. I would also like to ask: I’ve reread Shakespeare’s play before I come here, and find Hong Qian-li quite different from Petruchio―he is a beggar, his personality is different, etc.―the styles of the two characters are quite different. Why make such a change in the adaptation?
HUANG. You have to ask the playwright. It depends on her intension. I only know that on the connotation she had written something like the parallel of the shrew and her sister. You got to ask the playwright. Now I can only give you information about how the production is made. And on the other hand, about how the director reorganizes the play, you should ask the director. I’ve also made some changes when we put it on again. I was the vice-director. I found Mr. Jiang’s version was still somehow long and tedious, so I deleted something more. But because it was they who set up the foundation, I just made it stronger. So for the directorial arrangement you should ask the director, and for the character design you should ask the playwright.
CHANG. Well, what our professor expects us to get from the interview is mainly the question: why Shakespeare?
HUANG. Oh, why this subject. You should still ask the playwright. Because, in this production, it is not us who come up with an idea and find a playwright to write it. If it was so, I could answer this question. What we wanted was something of small, light-hearted, not royal—our troupe was small. Our condition is all that I can tell you.
CHANG. So it still depends on your general style.
HUANG. Yes, it depends on what we had and how we act. Wen-shou gave us a lot of plays. Some other friends also gave us other plays. I found this one most suitable for us. It’s she who wrote it first. And the play becomes us. So we get the play from her. This is the story. I did not imagine a play and get a playwright to write it.
CHANG. So the play came first.
HUANG. It was there for some time. I can give you Wen-shou’s phone number if you need, and also the director’s. You can contact them and ask them.
CHANG. Thank you very much. I think that’s all I want to ask.
HUANG. You’re welcome. So you go ask them for details. What I can tell you is only our condition.
