Snow in August's deputy director Tsao Fu-yung, a renowned Peking Opera xiaosheng (young male role) performer who is also playing the role of Shenxiu in the production, says that when he first took on the job he did not know how to set about it. Director Gao Xingjian wanted the actors to free themselves of the existing forms of Chinese opera, Western opera and Western drama-in other words, he wanted it to be like nothing on earth. At the casting auditions in April, Gao told the actors: "Set aside your traditional moves and postures, set aside all the existing forms of Peking Opera, and start everything afresh!"

What Gao wanted was spontaneous and natural performance. In the play there are no traditional role categories, but only characters. Each character should develop naturally according to his or her own feelings and the story line, and every character is a lead role. In future whether they are playing in the National Theater or in Marseilles, France, the actors will not be wearing radio mikes, so they will have to project their voices out beyond the 100-member orchestra in front of the stage to reach every single member of the audience, so that all the audience can hear clearly what the actors on the stage are saying and singing.

When Gao Xingjian came to Taiwan for the second time, in late June, for rehearsals, he still stressed "letting go" of existing forms. He invited along dancer and choreographer Lin Hsiu-wei to teach the performers how to free their bodies from the strictures of the Chinese operatic style, and to instruct them in Chan (Zen) meditation. Gao also had them listen to various kinds of music, including orchestral music, opera, and religious music such as Tibetan Buddhist music and Chan meditative music. He wanted the actors to become familiar with all kinds of different music, and to move their bodies according to the feelings elicited by the music. Another focus of training was voice production. Each week they had to practice speaking and singing in a natural (non-falsetto) voice for two full days.

Tsao Fu-yung admits frankly that this was a very difficult task. "Just think, we'd all been in Chinese opera for so long that we had long since grown accustomed to the Peking Opera style of singing, speaking and moving. Now we had to put all that aside and start again with a completely new face-but none of us was at all sure what that new face was supposed to be, and even now we're still feeling our way forward." It really hasn't been easy. But the real challenge will come in the next, third stage of training, "because at that point the music will be fully completed, and we will each have to define our roles in accordance with the music, and match our performances completely to the music. This does not just mean following gong and drum rhythms in the way we are accustomed to. It's a very difficult thing to do."

But fortunately, says Tsao, all the actors are willing to accept this challenge and are thoroughly eager to learn. Over the past several months of tough training, they have gradually come to understand what director Gao Xingjian expects of them, and no longer feel, as they did at the beginning, that they are groping in the dark. They are also getting the hang of what modes of expression the play requires.

Snow in August has a cast of 50 actors, a choir of 50, four percussionists, and a 90-piece orchestra. Thus there will be some 200 people on stage taking part in the performances, and the actors will not be allowed to wear radio mikes. But performers who are used to singing in the restrained, thin falsetto of Peking Opera cannot be expected to open their throats and produce a powerful voice, capable of reaching out over the orchestra and into the ears of the audience, without comprehensive prior training. Since April, Tsai Shu-shen, a teacher in the music department at National Taiwan Junior College of the Performing Arts, has been giving the actors instruction in voice production.

Tsai says that the Western operatic voice has greater depth, penetration and range; the more constricted voice of Peking Opera does not carry as far. In particular, the dan (female role) voice is even more restrained than that of other role types. As soon as students begin to study Peking Opera, their teachers tell them that when singing a dan role they must not show their teeth; this is to prevent them from opening their mouths wide when they sing. Tsai also realized that dan role singers use their nose, throat and mouth cavities to produce sound, but make little use of their chests and abdomens. But a singer needs to use all five to produce a voice that will carry.

Once she became aware of this problem, Tsai discussed it with the actors several times, hoping that they would sing from the chest and abdomen. But none of them could manage to do so, "because they were already used to their existing style of singing, and for a while they couldn't switch over." Later, she discovered that when these performers sang pop songs, without even thinking about it they opened their mouths wide and sang far louder than when they were singing Peking Opera. So she encouraged them to relax as much as possible and open their mouths naturally. This had the desired effect, and their voices projected better.

Tsai Shu-shen also personally taught the performers to read musical notation, and trained them to develop their sense of rhythm. "In the past they all learned from their teachers by direct example, so they didn't need to be able to read music, and they've never been in the habit of using a score," says Tsai Shu-shen, explaining why little value is placed on the ability to read music in Peking Opera. Secondly, Peking Opera performers are always accompanied by percussion when on stage. The actors learn the percussion scores of Chinese operas, but this is the first time they have had to work with an orchestral score. Naturally it was unfamiliar, and they had to learn everything from scratch. "Thankfully they all have a good grounding in their craft, so after a few lessons they got the hang of it."

Mastering new singing techniques was an important start, but the real challenge for the actors had only just begun, for they also had to relearn their posture, movements, emotional expression, delivery of spoken lines, and way of walking on stage.

Wu Hsing-kuo, who is famous inside and outside Taiwan for his production of the modified Peking Opera Kingdom of Desire, is playing the role of Huineng in Snow in August. The role is central to the whole play. A highly experienced performer, Wu says that he accepted the role with great eagerness and enthusiasm, but it was only when he really got to grips with the piece that he discovered what a formidable task stood before him. From the beginning, he felt that the most difficult part was showing his "true" (non-falsetto) voice to the audience. But Wu thoroughly approves of the idea, and says "In art, the truer the better." However, to ask an actor who is untrained in Western opera to sing in the Western operatic style, and demand that his voice should carry to every member of the audience, really is a challenge, and to this day he is still training hard.

Another problem for Wu Hsing-kuo is the fact that the music for the three-act, eight-scene play has not yet been completely finalized. This is a worry, he says, "because I don't know how to follow the music to find the definition of my role. Therefore I hope the music can be finished soon."

With less than three months to go before opening night, Gao Xingjian and the cast have begun intensive rehearsals, rehearsing all day on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, while Tuesdays are devoted to voice training. The music for the first act, written by Hsu Shu-ya, has now come out, so that rehearsals now include music as well as speech. Since the end of September they have been rehearsing the positioning of the actors on the stage for Act 1, so the production is beginning to look like a real play. Although the rehearsals are hard work and everyone is under tremendous pressure, they are all growing more and more enthusiastic. However, Wu Hsing-kuo says with worry that apart from rehearsals, Gao Xingjian also has to deal with many administrative matters related to the play. He hopes that a professional producer can take over these duties, to enable Gao and the cast to concentrate on rehearsals, in order to give the theatrical world a completely new learning experience and gift. As fans of the stage, this is a hope that we share.

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Gao Xingjian is here shown directing Wu Hsing-kuo (second from right) in delivering dialogue; they will do it over and over again until they are satisfied. First at right is assistant director Tsao Fu-yung.

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Huge numbers of people are involved in Snow in August. From left are Tsao Fu-yung (assistant director), Tsai Shu-shen (musical director), Wu Hsing-kuo (playing the role of the Sixth Patriarch Huineng), Pu Sheng-chuan (the Buddhist nun Wujincang), and Yeh Fu-jun (the Fifth Patriarch Hongren).