Resounding across generations
A father-son duo is presenting a new play about Peking Opera, Chen Nan reports.
Song Tianshuo grew up listening to the pounding of drums, clangs of cymbals and high-pitched arias of Peking Opera. His father, Song Yan, is a performer of the 200-year-old art form and president of Beijing Fenglei Peking Opera Company.
Song Tianshuo watched Peking Opera performances as a toddler and studied the art form with his father as a child. However, instead of becoming a professional Peking Opera performer, Song Tianshuo is a theatrical director.
After receiving training in contemporary drama at the Central Academy of Drama in Beijing, 30-year-old Song Tianshuo has carried on his family’s legacy in his own way.
The original Chinese play, The Couple in the Lane, directed by Song Tianshuo and written by Song Yan, is being staged at the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing until Sunday.
The play, which premiered in the capital in November, tells the story of an old couple living in a hutong (traditional alley) in southern Beijing. Song Yan and actress Li Qinqin play the old couple. The production features strong Peking Opera elements since Song Yan plays the role of a retired Peking Opera performer.
“When my father gave me the script in January last year, I was touched because it tells his own story,” says Song Tianshuo, adding that his father, who is 58 years old, will retire in two years and foresees his post-retirement life through the play.
“I’ve talked about retirement with my father. He loves Peking Opera and won’t stop performing, even after his retirement. He’s also keen on popularizing the art form among children.”
In the play, the man feels lost after retiring from a Peking Opera company.
Retirement transforms his daily life. Although he still trains every day, he has no stage on which to perform, as he has for decades. It also poses challenges for the longmarried couple as they adjust to life after retirement.
“Elderly people and their retirement lives are rarely portrayed in plays but shouldn’t be ignored. They want to find their own voice after retirement, which is just like Peking Opera, the old art form, needing to shine again in the contemporary world,” Song Tianshuo says.
Song Tianshuo also plays three minor roles in the show, adding humor to the production.
It’s not the first time for the father and son to stage a play together.
In 2015, they co-directed The Net, which tells the story of a father and his adopted son against the backdrop of a Peking Opera troupe in 1930s Beijing.
The title refers to a piece of cloth that’s tied around Peking Opera performers’ heads before putting on heavy headwear. Troupes have a unit called kuixiang, in which people help tie the cloth around performers’ heads.
A leading role in the play works in the kuixiang department of a Peking Opera company. Along with the main story, the play portrays the stories of the people backstage.
The play was staged nearly 100 times and made about 3 million yuan ($460,000) within three years after its premiere.
The success of The Net led to two more plays featuring Song Yan’s collaboration that also revolve around stories of Peking Opera troupes: The Kesi Arrow Sleeve Robe and The Star. “We tried to display the beauty of Peking Opera
through the three plays. With The Couple in the Lane,
we wanted to make some changes. Besides setting the story against a contemporary scene, we showcase the beauty of Peking Opera in a gentle and modest way to leave more space for audiences to use their imaginations,” says Song Tianshuo.
Rehearsals for their latest work took place at Fenglei Peking Opera Company, which is located in a hutong in downtown Beijing. The company was named Min Le She when it was founded in 1937 by its first president, Zhang Qi, and Peking Opera actor Liang Yiming. It was renamed in 1971.
Song Yan, who was born in Beijing and likewise learned Peking Opera from his father, who was also a performer, was offered the opportunity to become the president of Beijing Fenglei Peking Opera Company in 2001, when the art form was facing decline.
“We had few performances and struggled to survive. I joined the company when I was 12, and I didn’t want to see it die,” Song Yan recalls.
He borrowed 200,000 yuan from the local government to pay the company’s debts and led the actors to give nearly 800 performances in 15 months, hoping to change the company’s fortunes.
Now, the company has not only survived but also has become one of the country’s best-known Peking Opera companies, staging about 600 shows a year. It also offers workshops for children.
“We tried various ways to expand the company’s audiences, especially among the youth, and we succeeded when we brought The Net,
which inspired us to tell more Peking Opera stories through contemporary plays,” says Song Yan.
“Unlike Peking Opera performances, which have powerful and exaggerated movements and facial expressions, performing in contemporary plays is quite different. Thanks to my son, I also learned how to walk and talk onstage as a drama actor.”