The Contemporary Legend Theater does indeed have a strange story to tell. In the seven years from its initial conception to today they've only produced two plays, but their efforts so far have already made them a huge focus of attention. While their productions involve mobilizing upwards of 100 people, offstage they're just a two-man show--normally just Lin Hsiu-wei, who leads the company, and her director husband, Wu Hsing-kuo. Friends say they run on a shoestring budget, yet despite their shortage of funds and lack of a stage base, they still made it to London's National Theatre as the first performing group to appear there from Taiwan.

It was last November, thanks to joint efforts by Nakane Kimio of Japan's Ninagawa Troupe, the Free China Centre in London, the Council for Cultural Planning and Development and the New Aspect Promotion Center, that the Contemporary Legend Theater was invited to appear at the National and took to London their virgin production Kingdom of Desire, based on Shakespeare's Macbeth.

Playing to nearly full houses for four days, the actors were nervous over the organizers' insistence that subtitles were unnecessary for world-class drama, but the sheer warmth emanating from the stage seemed to overcome the language barrier and infect the whole audience, so that each show brought a standing ovation.

A demonstration performance on the last afternoon was even more of a hit, with cast members appearing in turn to introduce their roles, each coming on stage half made-up and applying their maquillage while singing their part, as foreign trade official Hsu Shih-tang gave a lively explanation. The British audience just loved it.

Drama critics were divided, but most of the negative criticism was based on preconceptions about Peking opera, such as "the singing sounded like treading on a cat's tail" and "the actors' thick-soled shoes made them look like yachtsmen walking about on stage." As far as the play itself went, no amount of carping could disguise its merits. The Guardian newspaper acknowledged that Kingdom of Desire was "the best creative blend of Eastern and Western drama to date."

"It was lucky our first play drew such international attention," says Lin Hsiu-wei. When they first chose to present a Western drama using Peking opera conventions and singing, they hoped not only to break new ground for traditional Peking opera but to use a familiar plot as a bridge to give foreign audiences a fresh conception of what Chinese drama can be. "This was a dream come true for us, and a short-cut too," admits Wei Hai-min, female lead in Kingdom of Desire.

Behind this triumphant achievement lies a simple gathering of friends, which quite unexpectedly led to the birth of a drama company.

At a Chinese New Year's day gathering of actors and theater-going university students at Wu Hsing-kuo's home in 1984, all the talk was of the decline of Peking opera, problems with military drama troupes and the fall-off in younger audiences. These reflections sparked a desire to make a new start, and the group agreed to meet for regular weekly discussions. Wu Hsing-kuo felt the time wasn't ripe and had some doubts, but New Aspect promoter Hsu Po-yun set his mind to rest: "If you want to wait till you're as well known as Mei Lan-fang and Ma Lien-liang, you may never get off the ground!"

"We hope to stop our audiences drifting away by introducing modern stage techniques, but we don't want to improve Peking opera, it's already been "improved' enough, with a uniquely symbolic language developed over the past century and its singing and gestures brought to the pitch of perfection." Coming to the point, Wu Hsing-kuo declares: "What's more, our actors have all had a Peking opera training, they normally perform traditional programs for army troupes like Fu Hsing and Ta Peng, and they can't discard a heritage in which they're so firmly rooted."

With an ingrained training they could not ignore, the only way to hold on to modern audiences was to leap right out of the traditional mold and try to find a new path. So the Contemporary Legend Theater plumped for Shakespeare's Macbeth, transferring it to a Warring States background where similar events were not uncommon. The megalomaniac murderer Macbeth was transformed into Ao-shu Cheng, an ambitious rogue notorious in the Warring States period.

But hang on a minute--can the rich Chinese coloration and noisy rhythms of Peking opera convey the gloomy darkness of a tragedy? And can a performance just two and a half hours long, half of which would be given over to recitative and stage combat in the Peking opera manner, do justice to the plot? How closely can a translated text capture the spirit of the original? And how are differences in cultural background to be overcome? Such questions make one doubt the feasibility of blending Shakespeare and Peking opera.

"We weren't too concerned about translation." After a pause, Wu Hsing-kuo adds: "We just wanted to use the deeply philosophical character of Western drama to shake up our staid traditional theater, break free from convention and find a style proper to our own age."

For all these high ideals they were dogged at the start by lack of money and of a stage for rehearsals, being just a band of actors determined to strive for innovation at any price, together with a few interested friends prepared to help them along. And with no one to handle administration the whole burden was thrown on the shoulders of Lin Hsiu-wei, herself leader of the Tai Ku Dance Troupe.

Scriptwriter Li Hui-min was then just a student opera buff with no formal understanding of operatic recitative. After he'd beavered away for a year, Wu Hsing-kuo eventually described his script as "too like a prose drama," and a small core group ended up having to knock it into shape line by line.

Once the script was ready, the actors had to find time off from. competitions, performances and troop-cheering activities to rehearse on the stage of the Lu Kuang and other troupes. It took three years before everything was shipshape and the production was fit for the stage.

Kingdom of Desire was premiered at Taipei's Social Education Hall in December 1986. On stage there looked to be the customary singing, gestures, recitation, combat and orchestral accompaniment to each scene; but the costume designs were anything but traditional, attempting to convey a subdued texture through orange and black materials. In another departure from traditional Peking opera the actors no longer wore their traditional maquillage, and dispensed with customary accessories such as sleeve drapes and artificial beards. Furthermore, complex lighting and sound effects, the scenery and props, dance steps, slow-motion and projection effects all convinced you you were watching a modern play. And drama buffs soon saw that the actors had left traditional acting conventions far behind.

According to rehearsal director Ma Pao-shan: "Things like the scout who comes on stage in the opening scene, tumbling and crawling and panting for breath, or at the end of the play when Wu Hsing-kuo grabs the terrified soldier and questions him, maybe actors in the contemporary theater can take these things in their stride, but for Peking opera this is all strictly 'off limits.'"

This innovative experiment was greeted with acclaim by audiences and caused quite a few ripples in the local literary community, where it was regarded as marking a major turning-point in blending modern and traditional drama. But almost no one was able to accept such a revolutionary approach at the start of rehearsals.

Since the major roles are the heart of Peking opera, the actors playing the bit parts run around the same way in every play without regard for the action. But Wu Hsing-kuo believes: "If the whole cast's energy can be harnessed, the effect will be more powerful than just with the major roles." So the minor warriors ceased to be just moving scenery and became truly part of the play, familiarizing themselves with the plot and acting in their own way.

How could the two main roles but break the mold of Peking opera characters too? Wu Hsing-kuo's Macbeth progresses from a military commander to a king, and finally to a raving madman, requiring a blend of three separate character repertoires in Peking opera. Wei Hai-min's part as Lady Macbeth doesn't fit any single role in traditional Chinese drama--her wily wickedness is too much for the chaste ch'ing-i role, and requires a combination of the lively hua-tan and the sharp-tongued po-la-tan roles to do justice to it.

When she took on the part, Wei Hai-min hesitated a long time. For her as a celebrated player of ch'ing-i roles to lend her star status to Wu Hsing-kuo, a player of elderly lao-sheng roles, was strictly a breach of dramatic etiquette and many drama fans urged her against it. Moreover, "having been used to traditional drama for so many years, it was quite a shock to change all of a sudden!" As she felt her way into the part, watching related plays and films and even talking it over with colleagues left her with a total lack of confidence, "because your emotions and manner of acting have to change totally." But when she finally appeared on stage with her flashing glances of fury and her inner struggle between conscience and desire, audiences were overwhelmingly convinced that she had indeed brought Lady Macbeth to life.

Kingdom of Desire proved a succes d'estime, but the Contemporary Legend Theater needed time to recover; their second production was four years in the pipeline.

In fact the script of Emperor Li of the Latter T'ang was ready in three years, but they couldn't find a composer sufficiently steeped in Peking opera, Chinese music and Western classical music to write the score. So this Chinese theme with all its elegant versification was dropped in favor of another Shakespearean tragedy, Hamlet. Wu Hsing-kuo invited prizewinning dramatist Wang An-chi from the Lu Kuang troupe to adapt the play in the hope of finding yet more new possibilities.

But the earlier production's resounding success raised the stakes second time around.

"Our fears of failure and criticism created pressures which held back our creativity," Wu Hsing-kuo brings himself to admit. So he set himself another aim: This time he wanted the audience to "watch a film in the theater."

With its quick scene-changes and special effects The Prince's Revenge is more eyecatching than Kingdom of Desire, but as a whole it's a less natural stylistic blend of East and West. "It's a bit of a mix-up, like an underdone recipe," Hsu Po-yun opines. His view is quite widely shared.

Experienced dramatist Wan An-chi believes this is an inevitable hitch with a dramatic form in transition. She groups contemporary Peking opera into three categories: firstly traditional old drama, typified by the military troupes; secondly drama with an emphasis on innovation and reform, of which the Ya Yin troupe are the most famous exponents; and the approach being taken by the Contemporary Legend Theater, which plans to escape from dramatic convention and blend the Chinese art of performance with Western intellectualism to produce a new type of drama. While opening up interesting new avenues, this approach is still at the experimental stage and awkwardness is bound to result from immaturity of ideas and expression.

Wang An-chi cites the ghost scene in The Prince's Revenge as a prime example: "This should be where traditional skills can shine, since Peking opera has a well-developed repertoire of steps and gestures for ghost dramas. But the director doesn't want to be hidebound by convention, and until some new ideas come along I'm afraid that scene will just go to waste."

While conscientiously avoiding Peking opera's dramatic conventions, The Prince's Revenge has also been criticized for lack of innovation. According to Ku Huai-chun, who teaches in National Taiwan University's foreign languages department, has been a Peking opera buff since childhood and is also a keen fan of Shakespeare, Wu Hsing-kuo's prince spends a lot of time expressing angst and frustration and comes over as too monotonous. "Delving into a new theme means exploring new avenues of performance, which the actors should express more boldly," she says.

The script has been criticized all the more forcefully because the play is so overtly linked to its Shakespearean original. But by contrast to the pace, tension and dramatic development of Macbeth, Hamlet is altogether more philosophical, tentative, expansive and complex. "It's not an easy play to cut to two hours, and if you don't pinpoint the key elements it all comes across askew, and the audience will feel let down if all the greatness of the original seems to have evaporated," Ku Huai-chun explains.

This Chinese Hamlet is a story of emotional entanglements and moral dilemmas, because Chinese drama is strong on narrative, weak on emotional outpourings, and depends more on beautiful literary language than on philosophical content. But Western ideas of religious redemption and choosing between life and death were still too foreign to the Contemporary Legend Theater, so from the outset the emphasis was shifted to Hamlet's decision to take revenge, making his ratiocination, debate and hesitations less important.

Essentially The Prince's Revenge presents quite a different story from Hamlet with its focus on an individual's inner searchings. "It's still far from perfect," admits Wu Hsing-kuo. Meanwhile the Contemporary Legend Theater is hatching out a new production, again based on a Western play, this time the Greek tragedy Medea. Lone adaptor Wei Hat-min is seeking to shed light on that unusual woman who murders her children to vent her wrath.

With three productions in a row all based on Western classics, won't people imagine this is the only way ahead for new forms of Chinese drama?

"We began by adapting Western plays to learn from their structure and tension; next we plan to draw inspiration from ancient myths and legends; and finally we hope to draw our material directly from modern experience of life and produce a genuine 'contemporary legend,'" Lin Hsiu-wei calmly explains.

"Looking back at our productions, we've had some successes and some failures, but at least we have followed a genuinely experimental path," concludes Wu Hsing-kuo, and then bursts out laughing: "After all, we can say whatever we like, it's up to others to come up with the criticisms!"

To clashing gongs and cymbals, the curtain will continue to rise on Contemporary Legend Theater's future productions.

[Picture Caption]

Behind all the glamour is just a group of friends who never thought they would assist at the birth of a drama company. Pictured here are (left to right) Wu Hsing- kuo, Lin Hsiu-hui and Wei Hai-min.

New generation Peking opera actors need to understand Western art. Here National Taiwan University lecturer Ku Huai-chun explains the text of Hamlet.

Blending the performing arts of Peking opera with Western drama has been one way the Contemporary Legend Theatre has tried to blaze a new trail. (from Kingdom of Desire)

Large painted flats mark a departure from the conventional white empty stage and give more the impression of watching a modern play.

(photo courtesy of the Contemporary Legend Theater)

Acting means stretching oneself emotionally and physically! This is a big challenge for actors trained in conventional Peking opera. (from Kingdom of Desire)

Male actors from the Contemporary Legend Theatre perform modern dance with Lin Hsiu-hui.

(Below) As a Chinese version of Hamlet, The Prince's Revenge has had a mixed critical reception. (from Hamlet)

New generation Peking opera actors need to understand Western art. Here National Taiwan University lecturer Ku Huai-chun explains the text of Hamlet.

Blending the performing arts of Peking opera with Western drama has been one way the Contemporary Legend Theatre has tried to blaze a new trail. （from Kingdom of Desire）

Large painted flats mark a departure from the conventional white empty stage and give more the impression of watching a modern play. （photo courtesy of the Contemporary Legend Theater）

Acting means stretching oneself emotionally and physically! This is a big challenge for actors trained in conventional Peking opera. （from Kingdom of Desire）