Up on stage, Fan Lihua uses her curved halberd to hook the lance wielded by Xue Dingshan, then circles coyly and suggestively about him, eliciting thunderous approval from the 500 people in the audience. The Youth Taiwanese Opera Troupe of the Taipei Cultural Center (TCC) performed Fan River Fortress in late June at Dadaocheng Theater. The flirtatious undercurrent between Fan and Xue as they battle it out is one of the highlights of this operatic work.
Where youth get a chance
The Youth Taiwanese Opera Troupe, which marks its fourth anniversary this coming August, is—along with the National Taiwan College of Performing Arts (NTCPA)—the most important training and performance group in the Greater Taipei area for young Taiwanese Opera performers. With professional Taiwanese Opera troupes vying with each other to lure away members, the young performers can see a future for themselves on the stage, and hope grows that a new generation of Taiwanese Opera performers will emerge.
In 1981, at a time when televised Taiwanese Opera was enjoying a huge boom in popularity, the famed performer of young male roles Yang Lihua appeared in The Fisherwoman at the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall, thus launching into a career that has now run for 34 years. This most local form of traditional Chinese opera badly needs new blood, among performers and audiences alike.
It was this need to cultivate a new generation that prompted the TCC to establish its Youth Taiwanese Opera Troupe in August 2011. Admission was open to anyone between the ages of 18 and 35, regardless whether they’d had any previous formal training. Since then the troupe has recruited annually and performed at Dadaocheng Theater. Works performed prior to this year include Flying Peng Trashes the Imperial Palace, Third Prince Nezha Stirs Up Trouble, and Revenge Served Cold. The troupe’s members have increased to 22, and admission is no longer free, as it was in the early days.
Fighting or flirting?
All 500 tickets for Fan River Fortress sold out a month ahead of its performance in June. The storyline focuses on two main subplots. One is Xue Dingshan and Fan Lihua as they engage in combat but grow romantically interested in each other as the fight progresses. The other is how Xue manages relations with his three wives.
Jiang Tingying, who played Xue Dingshan, joined the troupe in its third year. Before that she had studied for ten years to perform lively young female roles, but has become hugely popular in recent years after switching to male roles. The part of Fan Lihua was played by Jiang Wanyi, who in that role was called upon to be by turns coquettish, demure, and innocently winsome. Both of these performers are graduates of the NTCPA, both are 26 years old, and both are seen as having the potential for a stellar career on stage.
Young performers also played Xue Dingshan’s first two wives Dou Xiantong and Chen Jinding, and his sister Xue Jinlian. It is worth noting that the role of Fan Lihua’s martial arts and black magic master—the Old Witch of Lishan—was played by Cai Mengjun, who joined the troupe in its first year with no previous formal training. Cai is currently employed as a university instructor. Zhu Liangxi, who played Fan Lihua’s maidservant, is soon to start her second year of study in the Department of Taiwanese Opera at NTCPA.
Fan Lihua gets involved in a lot of combat, so the role is quite demanding. When rehearsals began in April, the first scene was a tussle between Xue and Fan. Directing the performance was Yang Lien-ying, a specialist in Peking Opera female warrior roles who, in connection with the ROC centennial celebrations, was selected as one of Taiwan’s 100 greatest artists and is well known for her strictness as an instructor.
“As you fight with Xue, you must make purposeful eye contact with him,” intones Yang, who takes pains to see that “the five fundamentals” of Peking Opera (hands, eyes, body, gait, and the masterly coordination of the first four elements) are all on proper display during the fight. Yang personally demonstrates how to fight flirtatiously, without a trace of aggression showing in her eyes or body language.
Yang explains that the honing of martial skills gets more emphasis in Peking Opera than in Taiwanese Opera: “I showed them about 100 different moves, then the Taiwan Opera instructor winnowed that down to about 30 or 40 and made modifications to suit Taiwanese Opera. This was very helpful for the young performers.”
Yang herself is an instructor in the Peking Opera department at the NTCPA who started directing the performance of female warrior roles at the Youth Taiwanese Opera Troupe in its second year. For the role of Fan Lihua, Yang helped Jiang Wanyi to choreograph a lot of fight routines. She asked Jiang to “make purposeful eye contact” with Jiang Tingying, who was playing Xue Dingshan. “You have to attack, but do it in a way that shows your reluctance to cause harm.”
Tomorrow’s stars
When Fan Lihua takes to the stage, it is de rigueur for her to perform a swordplay routine. Jiang Wanyi had never studied swordplay, so this was naturally the most stressful aspect of playing the role.
Jiang Tingying, a relatively large-framed woman, also faced a completely new challenge when she was called upon to give expression to Xue Dingshan’s changing moods.
“Xue Dingshan is a fun role,” laughs Jiang, noting that he already has two wives at home when he gets into the flirtation with Fan Lihua. “The storyline itself says nothing about what moves him to take up with Fan Lihua, so it’s up to the performer to communicate to the audience what makes him decide to get into a relationship with her.”
“I won’t let him go until he promises to marry me,” declares Fan, who is far too much the warrior for Xue to handle in combat. She toys with him, now feigning an attack, now stirring his desire.
Xue actually starts off very much the masculine hero, boldly taking on the enemy in battle. It is only later, after he gets tangled up with Fan, that he starts to become a bit shameless in his behavior. Jiang Tingying explains the mood change she must express in playing Xue’s character: “When I first take to the stage, I’m playing the part of a young male warrior, but by the latter part of the opera I’m downgraded to something more akin to a clown or an errand boy. I’m a bit buffoonish, no longer a straight arrow, the way a young male role usually comes across.”
Traditional, but not old-fashioned
But how are fresh young performers in their early 20s to interpret the no-holds-barred connivances of the characters in this work as they make their moves upon each other?
“I started off by imitating,” says Jiang Wanyi. Fan River Fortress is a very old opera, so Jiang first made a close study of how Fan had been portrayed by past masters, then gradually digested her observations. “I spent time thinking about how they had used their eyes and handled the vocals, rather than just relying on my own feeling about how such things should be done.”
“It was really difficult!” Jiang Tingying freely acknowledges that a young person—having experienced so much less of life, and having performed so much less on stage—could not possibly match the skills of a veteran. But, she adds: “The more thought you put into it, the better you’ll do; every extra bit of effort makes a difference.”
So how do these young performers feel about Taiwanese Opera’s image as something watched only by the very old?
Jiang Wanyi is having none of it: “I don’t know where that preconception got started! We want to cultivate a young audience, and get our friends to come out to watch opera. We want them to see that Taiwanese Opera isn’t like the image they have in their minds.”
Jiang Tingying adds: “The times are changing, and Taiwanese Opera is changing, too. Unfortunately, however, young people don’t know how much it has changed.”
Holding on to talent
According to Tina Shi, an instructor in the Department of Taiwanese Opera at NTCPA, “Taiwanese Opera has been in a continual state of foment” for the past ten years.
Shi is the daughter of the late Taiwanese Opera director Shi Wenhu, and has performed female roles in the Yeh Ching Taiwanese Opera Troupe. Fan River Fortress was the first Taiwanese Opera work that she directed for the Youth Taiwanese Opera Troupe. By “foment,” she means the difficulties faced by young Taiwanese Opera performers.
While acknowledging that well-known troupes—such as the Tang Mei Yun Taiwanese Opera Company and the Hsu Ya-Fen Taiwanese Opera Troupe, both based in northern Taiwan—are doing very well, and perform in such places as the National Theater, Tina Shi feels that “what young performers most lack is chances to become known to audiences.”
“There’s more to being a performer than practicing and honing your skills,” laments Jiang Wanyi. “You’ve got to get out and perform. That’s all that counts as experience.”
It is often said, “It takes ten years to turn out a top imperial scholar, but longer to turn out a good stage performer.” But, says Shi, if private Taiwanese Opera troupes don’t improve, then outstanding young performers who join such troupes will just get caught up in the mediocrity. They might perform with great frequency, but won’t have a chance for “critical reflection on the quality of their work.” Over the long haul, this situation is not good for performers, for opera troupes, or for Taiwanese Opera as a whole.
The TCC’s Youth Taiwanese Opera Troupe has taken an important first step by providing young talent with a milieu where they can train and perform. There’s a lot more riding on all this than this or that individual’s career success. The future of Taiwanese Opera hangs in the balance.
To prepare for the late-June presentation of Fan River Fortress, the Youth Taiwanese Opera Troupe of Taipei Cultural Center hired Yang Lien-ying (right), a well-known specialist in Peking Opera female warrior roles, to coach the performers playing the parts of Fan Lihua (Jiang Wanyi, second from right) and Xue Dingshan (Jiang Tingying, left) and help them express the flirtation taking place between the combatants.
Fan River Fortress, a classic work of Taiwanese Opera, tells the tale of Fan Lihua (right) and Xue Dingshan (left), who meet in mortal combat only to fall in love before the struggle is concluded. (courtesy of Dadaocheng Theater)
Fan River Fortress, a classic work of Taiwanese Opera, tells the tale of Fan Lihua (right) and Xue Dingshan (left), who meet in mortal combat only to fall in love before the struggle is concluded. (courtesy of Dadaocheng Theater)
The National Taiwan College of Performing Arts is a cradle of Taiwanese Opera performing talent. Students here go through rigorous training, and have formidable skills to show for it.
Young performers of traditional Chinese opera need opportunities to get up on stage and ply their skills if they are to accumulate experience. Shown here are 2015 graduates of the National Taiwan College of Performing Arts performing Green and White Snake Redux: An Alternative Love Story this past May at Bao’an Temple in Taipei’s Dalongdong neighborhood.
