Yang Li-hua, Yeh Ching, Huang Hsiang-lien. . . . Stars from television Taiwanese opera flock to perform at the National Theater. The all-star Taiwanese opera company Ming Hua Yuan has a show, and bigshots and stars gather as if at an awards banquet, while the newspapers carry stories about it for days on end. The Kuokuang and Fu Hsing Peking opera schools are merged, freeing up resources to add a curriculum in Taiwanese drama.

In the wave of enthusiasm for things Taiwanese, can Taiwanese opera, long seen as too common and vulgar to appear in first-class performance venues, turn over a new leaf?

For a long time, Taiwanese opera, which had no state protection, survived on its own by relying on its own vitality. As times changed, it was adapted to the outdoor stage, indoor stage, and TV.

Really no mistakes?

Through the airwaves, TV Taiwanese opera links up with a broad viewing audience. Relying on the force of individual personalities, Ming Hua Yuan, a family-based troupe, strives to carry on the heritage of Taiwanese opera, and is planning to establish a school. Such phenomena mean Taiwanese opera is developing in a diversified way. Today performers dare to go beyond the limits of the TV console and break past the traditional crude and stripped-down outdoor performance format to test their true mettle in the National Theater, thereby affirming the existence of their art form.

There's nothing wrong with that, of course. However, are those in the sold-out house-including many politicians and mass media reps-really there to see the dramatic arts, feel the emotional power of Taiwanese opera and be moved to tears? Or, is it all just a way to improve one's image by jumping on the "native Taiwanese" bandwagon?

Stars from televised Taiwanese opera are experts in psychological drama and in costumes and visual imagery; Ming Hua Yuan emphasizes elaborate mobile scenery to dazzle the audience; its outdoor shows aim to create a fun and lively atmosphere to snare passers-by into stopping to watch. But once in the National Theater, the singing and movements are both not up to snuff, and there is a lack of deep artistic self-improvement and criticism. The problem with the current pattern of glorification-in which anything labeled "native Taiwanese" can only be bathed in praise and no criticism is allowed-is that this may not be helpful to the healthy growth of Taiwanese opera overall. In sum, is it perhaps just a brief illusion of vitality, like a year with an especially good harvest?

If you can't say something nice. . . .

A few years back, at a conference about Taiwanese opera, one scholar suggested, "In terms of musical performance, Taiwanese opera is not as refined as Peking opera." As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he was assailed on all sides. All this scholar-not one of the "native Taiwanese fanatic school"-could do was make his escape.

Taiwanese opera is a relatively youthful dramatic form. Although it does have music that is unique and of high artistic value (e.g. the "Crying Theme"), in performance most musical numbers are simply ways to move the plot along, without any particular character in and of themselves. The music alone is never enough to convey mood and plot changes.

Ethnomusicologist Lin Ku-fang argues that, in the context of Chinese drama overall, Taiwanese opera is still in the developing stage, whether one be talking about the singing, roles, makeup and costumes, or movements. It is rare that any Taiwanese opera is worth seeing again and again.

The Kuokuang Peking opera school, established less than a year ago out of a merger between the opera troupes of the three armed services and the Kuokuang Opera Company, will soon merge with the National Fu Hsing Dramatic Arts Academy, freeing up resources for native Taiwanese drama. Lin Ku-fang wonders: "In the past, the one-sided emphasis on Peking opera was an aberration. Is it possible that the current nearly exclusive emphasis on Taiwanese opera is not an aberration as well?"

A frog in a well

Looking back over the rocky road that Taiwanese opera has followed, it has certainly not been pampered and protected the way Peking opera was. Late in the Japanese occupation era, when the colonial regime was trying to "Japanify" its subjects, performance of Taiwanese opera was either banned outright or had to be done in kimonos and with Bushido swords. After the ROC government took over, development of local opera was distorted by an emphasis on national symbols like the ROC flag. Naturally, scholars who profess a deep attachment for things "native Taiwanese" now spare no effort to treasure this one and only Taiwan-born-and-bred art form that has had to survive on its own for so long; no criticism of Taiwanese opera is brooked.

Chiu Kun-liang is chairman of the Department of Drama at the National Institute of the Arts. He points out that scholars and supporters are not only extremely "forgiving" and "biased by nostalgia" toward native Taiwanese art forms, they even assume that these define traditional culture and that only these possess the flavor of true local culture. In his view, they go too far in seeing traditional local culture so narrowly.

Lin Ku-fang contends that the current status of Taiwanese opera has nothing to do with the beauty of the art form per se. He argues that it is being excessively puffed up, which may cause local art forms to suffer the same weakness as the proverbial frog in the well-only able to see a small portion of the sky, he mistook it for the whole universe. More than a decade ago, both Lin and Chiu were participating in local temple performances and strongly promoting efforts to aid traditional local drama; today, now both of them have doubts about the condition of Taiwanese opera.

Chi Yueh-oh, a long-time enthusiast of Taiwanese opera, shares their concerns: "In the past, Taiwanese opera was suppressed in all kinds of ways. She was able to survive because of her internal vitality. Today, people are going overboard with the promotion, pouring lots of water on top while the roots rot underneath. I'm afraid it won't survive," she says in a voice tinged with worry.

Big tree, rotten roots

So is state support bad for Taiwanese opera? Let's look beyond the glitter of the top performing companies.

There are more than 300 registered Taiwanese opera troupes, which looks to be a huge figure. However, many of these exist in name only, and more than half of the total are really song-and-dance shows falsely registered as Taiwanese opera. There are probably only about 50 companies actually performing at temples and street-corners across Taiwan. This is also not a small quantity, but then there's the problem of quality. Because of low-priced competition from outdoor movie showings and song-and-dance acts, a Taiwanese opera company will get no more than NT$20,000 for a day of putting on two shows, one in the afternoon and one in the evening. (Of course, Ming Hua Yuan and Ho Lo are exceptions; they get about NT$600,000 per performance.) Given that it takes 15 or 16 people to put on the day's shows, NT$20,000 is hardly enough to keep them fed, much less worry about quality.

"Taiwanese opera still needs protection," says Lin Ku-fang. The surviving companies almost all rely on subsidies to stay afloat. Ho Lo gets about NT$2 million from the Council of Cultural Affairs each year. The Lanyang Taiwanese Opera Company takes NT$20 million a year of the Ilan County government budget.

With reliance on subsidies, if Taiwanese opera, at the cost per production of NT$3 million can adopt "mini-theater company" tactics, leaving behind large performance venues to put on one show after another, this could cultivate new viewers, and bring refinement back to outdoor stages, which are the venues most intimately integrated into daily life, raising the steadily declining level of temple culture in the bargain.

Given that Taiwan has more than 20,000 registered temples, the room for temple-based opera to survive is much less than one might imagine. Famous companies like Ming Hua Yuan and Ho Lo can attract large crowds. However one Ming Hua Yuan show-even if it only includes the second-stringers-costs NT$300,000. Most temples, when they set off firecrackers and burn offerings of spirit money, they do not hesitate to spend a million or more. It's just that few can afford such sums for putting on drama, or at least few are willing to do so.

Faced with this situation, Ming Hua Yuan plans to establish 25 teams, utilizing the parent company's reputation and training, to reduce the costs of performances while maintaining a reasonable level of quality. These teams will perform at temples in an attempt to win back this former domain of Taiwanese opera.

Add soil, not water

In the old days, the only people who went into acting were children of impoverished families. Twenty years ago, even if you were the scion of a well-known acting family, if you wanted to sing Taiwanese opera, you would have met parental opposition. Today there are Taiwanese opera clubs on college campuses, and parents are thrilled when their children are accepted into the Taiwanese opera curriculum at Fu Hsing Dramatic Arts Academy. Taiwanese opera has achieved a high degree of affirmation and respect. But has it become re-energized? It's still too early to say.

Today, what Taiwanese opera really needs is not "water," which it already has too much of, but "soil" in which it can set roots. In the new "nativist" textbooks being produced by the Ilan County government, in music classes children will learn to sing basic Taiwanese opera melodies. In the land where the seeds of Taiwanese opera first sprouted, people are now replenishing the soil.

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With beautiful costumes and clever story lines, Ming Hua Yuan's outdoor performances are very much able to draw a crowd. (photo by Hsueh Chi-kuang)