Modern Faces of Taiwanese Gezai xi Opera: Two Plays by Sunhope Taiwanese Opera Troupe

MEDIA REVIEW: MODERN FACES OF TAIWANESE GEZAI XI OPERA: TWO PLAYS BY SUNHOPE TAIWANESE OPERA TROUPE SHU-CHU WEI Whitman College “Gezai xi 歌仔戲 is undoubtedly the most representative Taiwanese drama,” states Professor Zeng Yongyi (Tseng Yong-yih) 曽永義 in his book on the history of gezai xi.1 In this review, I will first briefly introduce the development and performance style of gezai xi. Then I will present an introduction to and review of two plays by Shanghe gezai xi jutuan 尚和歌仔戲劇團 (SunHope Taiwanese Opera Troupe) available on DVD as examples of recent creative innovations in a local form of indigenous Taiwanese opera that might also presage future developments. SunHope was founded in 1995, when Liang Yueling 梁越玲, a young woman who had learned this performance art from her mother since childhood and graduated from college with a major in English, organized and named the troupe. In 2002, the troupe started to produce new and experimental presentations. The troupe also took its plays to the United States in 2002 and France in 2004.2 Among SunHope Troupe’s new plays and experiments, Mouni zhi tong 牟尼之瞳, translated as Eyes in Your Mind and dubbed as “avant-garde” by the troupe, is notable in that it makes substantial and creative use of Shakespeare’s Othello and is, as far as I know, the first instance of such use of foreign dramatic material in gezai xi. The only performances of this play were held on March 18 and 19, 2011 at Kaohsiung Cultural Center as a part of Gaoxiong Chuntian Yishujie 高雄 春天藝術節 (Kaohsiung Spring Arts Festival), but it was made available on DVD that year. My favorite play by the troupe, however, is Yulin guoshi 玉琳國師 (National Master Yulin) in Mandarin pronunciation and Qiok Lim Gok Su in southern Min or Taiwanese pronunciation, which is the English title used by the troupe. It premiered on November 25 and 26, 2010 at Kaohsiung Cultural Center, was performed twice in other places in Taiwan, and was to be presented by invitation in Japan in 2012, but the trip was canceled for unknown reasons. I first watched this play performance as a recorded television program on Renjian weishi 人間衛視 channel, which is run by the Buddhist temple Fo-guang-shan 佛 光山, headed by Master Xingyun 星雲法師. The impressive performance intrigued me as it marked a significant departure from traditional gezai xi productions although it was not proclaimed as avant-garde or such, only as a Zen-style production . This performance initiated my research on the troupe and its other 1 Zeng Yongyi 曽永義, Taiwan gezai xi de fazhan yu bianqian 臺灣歌仔戲的發展與變遷 (The development and change of Taiwanese gezai xi; Taipei: Lianjing, 1988), p. 21. 2 See the troupe’s website at sunhope.myweb.hinet.net/. CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature 37. 2 (December 2018): 171–177© The Permanent Conference on Chinese Oral and Performing Literature, Inc. 2019 DOI 10.1080/01937774.2019.1593683 productions, including Eyes in Your Mind. I purchased the DVD recordings of these two plays from the troupe’s website.3 DEVELOPMENT AND PERFORMANCE STYLE OF GEZAI XI Gezai xi has had a long-standing presence in Taiwan through live performance and media broadcasts. By the early twentieth century, gezai xi had become a mature Taiwanese indigenous drama of highly-mixed origins.4 In the seventeenth century, people from Fujian province, mainly from Zhangzhou 漳州 and Quanzhou 泉州, started to move to Taiwan and brought with them their local music and performance arts. By the 1910s, some Taiwanese mixed a number of singing styles to sing and perform stories in the Taiwanese dialect. Performing in venues ranging from a simple spot on the ground to make-shift outdoor stages and later urban theaters, the players enriched their performances with music, makeup, costumes, and movements learned from mature dramas of the time.5 As a local form of drama, the performance of gezai xi has often been affected by shifting attitudes toward Taiwanese dialect. Although gezai xi was initiated and developed under the Japanese occupation which lasted from 1895 to 1945, the Japanese colonizers tolerated it for some time because of their appeasement policy. However, after Japan launched the Pacific War in 1937, performances in Taiwanese dialect were banned. It is said that...