Peking Opera show based on Macbeth set for Beijing debut
Many people gave up but I never imagined I would stop because Peking Opera has been such an important part of my life.” Wu Hsing-kuo, actor and director, Contemporary Legend Theatre in Taiwan
Taipei-based actor and director Wu Hsing-kuo has not only done films in the past three decades, but also been involved with theater, contemporary dance and TV.
But according to him, Peking Opera is where he belongs.
Before sitting down for an interview in Beijing, the 63-year-old artist points to a photo, which shows a group of youngsters standing in a Peking Opera pose on an overpass.
The image is from a practice session of Taiwan’s Contemporary Legend Theatre that Wu, along with other like-minded performers of the art form, founded in 1986.
“On sunny days, we trained on basketball fields, and on rainy days, we trained under highway overpasses. That’s how we started,” says Wu, whose troupe will debut its signature work, Kingdom of Desire, in Beijing on May 5.
“The actors were not paid back then but we were passionate about Peking Opera,” he adds.
Kingdom of Desire, a Peking Opera adaptation of William Shakespeare’s famous play Macbeth, has toured worldwide since 1986.
The production is now set to be presented at the capital’s Tianqiao Performing Arts Theater.
“Macbeth is full of desire and ambition, reflecting attributes of all humans. It is timeless and cross-cultural,” says Wu.
He chose Macbeth as the first piece for his troupe because it also mirrored his personal ambition.
Wu started learning Peking Opera at Taiwan’s Fu-Hsing Chinese Opera School at age 11 and specialized in wusheng (male martial arts roles).
After eight years of training, he was admitted to the Chinese Culture University in Taipei to study the old art form.
“I felt disappointed while performing as most seats were empty and the few audience members that were there were all elderly people,” Wu says of the decline Peking Opera faced in the past few decades, when similar troupes went bust.
“Many people gave up but I never imagined I would stop because Peking Opera has been such an important part of my life. I wanted to figure out a way to revive it.”
In Kingdom of Desire, Wu combined traditional performing techniques with Western-style storytelling and set it in the Warring States Period (475-221 BC).
In addition, he broke the stereotype of roles in Peking Opera and added cinematic aspects in the production, such as onstage movements of the performers in slow motion.
Thanks to his previous experience of working with Lin Hwaimin’s Cloud Gate Dance Theatre, among the most famous contemporary dance troupes in Taiwan, Wu could also combine Peking Opera gestures with contemporary dance moves.
When Kingdom of Desire premiered in Taipei in 1986, Wu won wide acclaim for the innovative production. In 1990, he presented Kingdom of Desire at the Royal National Theatre in London.
“After the performance (in London), rose petals fell on the stage. It was like a dream. The actors cried — all the hard work had paid off,” Wu’s wife and dancer, Lin Hsiu-wei, recalls of the audience appreciation.
Lin is now the producer and choreographer of the Contemporary Legend Theatre.
Despite the acclaim, Wu’s teacher and Peking Opera master Chou Cheng-jung criticized the adaptation. Chou, a traditionalist, even refused to meet with Wu.
Kingdom of Desire is the first of the Contemporary Legend Theatre’s many Peking Opera versions of Shakespearean plays like The Tempest, King Lear and A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
From 2007 to 2014, he produced Peking Opera shows based on the great Chinese novel Water Margin, written by Shi Nai’an in the 14th century about an outlawed group.
Wu combined the opera with rock, hip-hop and kuai shu (a traditional art form in which stories are recited with the help of bamboo clappers) for the shows.
His troupe also translates Chinese lines into English for the benefit of non-Chinese audiences.
Wu practices singing, stretching and martial arts daily to help his Peking Opera sessions. In Kingdom of Desire, in which he plays a role, he backflips from a 2-meter-high platform onstage.
Peking Opera is still under threat although it has seen some revival in audience interest in the recent past, he says.
“I want to do more productions to prove the beauty and value of Peking Opera.”