Performing Arts

The White Snake in Black Light

• Byline:AMY LO
• Publication Date:05/01/1991

An inventive children’s theater troupe adds electric fantasy and dazzling color to a familiar tale.

Four-year-old Li Chieh-chung would not stop fidgeting in his seat or tugging at his mother's sleeve so that she would bend down and hear his loud, insistent whis­per, "When is the big snake going to come out?" Mother and son were sitting in a pitch-black auditorium, waiting to see the Cup Theater's adaptation of a well-known Chinese opera, The Story of the White Snake. The little boy was anx­ious to see how the snake could appear on stage and not hurt anyone.

Finally, the curtain parts. As melan­choly notes waft from the strings of the zitherlike cheng, a gleaming white snake slowly rises to fill the black maw of the stage. It climbs through the air gracefully like a kite, and arches up to take a drink from a floating flask. And as a voice in the background recounts the familiar story, the snake is transformed in a few blinks of the eye into a tall, resplendent woman, her face beaming.

"The children are dazzled, and they wonder how we do it," says Tung Feng-Ii (董鳳酈), director of the Cup Theater. Tung was just as amazed when she saw her first black light play in Japan in 1979. When she returned to Taiwan in 1981, she began researching into the tech­niques of black light theater production with the help of several students major­ing in child education. In 1983, the loose­ly formed but dedicated group began working on combining puppetry and black light, and writing scripts. In 1985 the Cup Theater was formally estab­lished, its crew made up mostly of schoolteachers and students. It presented its first performance, a mime, in 1987. Since then, the group has staged one show a year, enthralling children and their parents with inventive black light mimes, plays, and puppet shows. Most of the Cup Theater's scripts are based on Chinese operas and legends.

It is the link between parents and children, and between teachers and children that the troupe wanted to ex­press in its name. "The word 'cup' is easy to remember," Tung says, as she discusses the philosophy behind the group's name. "We drink water and sur­vive. But drinking also brings pleasure," she says. "A little child drinks out of a cup held by a parent or teacher. Our name draws an analogy between water and art. Like water, art isn't only neces­sary for survival but also brings enjoy­ment to life. And we hope our audience will make art a part of their lives, espe­cially today when this sense of art's im­portance seems to have disappeared."

The Cup Theater is Taiwan's first and only black light theater, named after the fluorescent black light used to light the stage. Everything on stage that is black in color is rendered invisible. Scen­ery, props, and costumes are painted in neon colors, which turn luminous in the dark. Manipulating the props are light­ footed stagehands who are unseen by the audience because they are clothed in black from head to toe. Even their eyes are covered with black gauze.

In explaining why she chose black light for children's drama, Tung says: "It delights children because it is full of fantasy and wonder. Television cartoons have the same effect, but we offer the speed and the bright colors on stage. And the children really get caught up in the play. We want them to see the magi­cal effect and pleasure of creativity. And because we are involved in education, we want to help children appreciate their tradition and art, and maybe even bring in something spiritual. We want them to see that there are more things than money that are worth going after."

Colors glowing in the dark and translucent images dancing in space quicken the pace of the tragic story about a white snake who lives in the heavens and accidentally drinks a monk's elixir. She is trans­formed into a beautiful woman named Pai Su-chen, and is sent to the world of humans to repay the debts of her past life. She falls in love and marries Hsu Hsin, who is unaware that she was once a snake and will one day have to return to her original form. On the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, Pai Su-chen changes back into the white snake, unaware that Hsu Hsin is watching her. He faints at the sight. Pai Su-cheng, stunned because Hsu Hsin now knows her secret, changes back into a woman.

The angry monk has not given up his search for the one who drank his elixir. When he finds Pai Su-chen, she and her sympathizers tight him bravely. Her brother, the fish demon, helps by flooding the monk's monastery. Never­theless, Pai Su-chen loses. But she es­capes wounded, and gives birth to a son. The monk remains relentless, and finds her again. Through his powers, a pagoda descends from the sky and drops over her like a net. The monk lets the child go, but the lovers are never united. Hsu Hsin enters a monastery, and Pai Su­ chen lives the rest of her life trapped in the many-storied shrine.

The Cup Theater uses life-size pup­pets made of styrofoam to act out the characters of the lovers and the monk. "If we had real people, the technical aspect of the play would suffer," says Tung. "Besides it would have been impossible for actors to wear neon paint on their faces." But throughout the performance, the movements of the puppets manage to come to life. Black-clad pup­peteers stand behind their styrofoam puppets, extending their hands out the sleeves attached to each puppet's torso. To keep the puppets standing upright, strings and a T-shaped rod attached to each puppet's back are buckled to the front of the puppeteer's costume. The overall effect is wonderfully animated.

Agility, speed, and timing are essen­tial to every black light production. It takes less than ten seconds for Pai Su­ cheng to be transformed into the white snake. And the change takes place right in front of the audience. While other black light troupes, according to Tung, might have taken a scene break, the Cup Theater uses more than ten black-clad stagehands to make the scene work. Pai Su-chen is covered with a glowing or­ange sheet. She struggles briefly as the stagehands slowly pull a black sheet off the white snake. "It took a lot of prac­tice," says Tung, "but the result was a moment so intense and believable."

The Cup Theater also succeeds in pulling off a powerful combat scene. The highest point of excitement in Chinese opera, the combat scene shows off the troupe's technical prowess and gymnastic skills in the speed and nimbleness with which they draw a fight to its end. Flash­ing swords, fast footwork, high jumps, and lightning cartwheels are all features of the combat scene. In The Story of the White Snake, Pai Su-chen and the monk summon up their internal powers and without touching their weapons, direct them in the duel. According to legend, ancient Chinese swordsmen through nei gong, or exercise of the internal organs, could reach a transcendent stage wherein they would be invincible, except to another swordsman in the same tran­scendent stage. This adds a supernatural aura to the battle.

Pai Su-chen and the monk stand on either side of the stage, flailing their arms and flicking their wrists. In the middle of the stage, neon swords fly, matching the instructions of the puppets' arms and wrists. On the stage are two black-clad stagehands trying to strike each other with the weapons. They are just as spry as Chinese opera performers. The monk finally overwhelms Pai Su­ cheng, and as she stumbles, a twenty­-foot pagoda majestically descends on the stage. The black stage is ablaze with bright neon colors, like fireworks sus­pended in time.

The Cup Theater wants to win over parents as much as they do children by making their performances just as appealing to adults. "We don't want them to fall asleep," says Tung. "We want them to join in."

To cultivate art appreciation in chil­dren through black light theater demands dedication and hard work from the troupe's members, of whom 90 per­cent are teachers. They receive no pay for their work except on performance days. Meetings take place every Satur­day, but when a performance is due, the members meet several evenings a week as well as on Sundays. The meetings and rehearsals are held in a rented basement. Marriage, overseas study, and careers have taken their toll on membership. Originally there were forty members, but now the Cup Theater has less than a dozen. Although the number of members has declined, many of them stayed for several years before leaving.

Hung Hsiao-wen (洪小文), a high school teacher, joined the Cup Theater in 1983. She is the only one left behind from the original group. During her first few times on stage, Hung stumbled over the electric wires. She also found it diffi­cult to breathe under the black hood that covered her head. Hung always finds joy in the children's reactions to their performance, and says that it has helped her become more creative as a teacher. But she is also exhausted. "I don't mind working hard," she says, "as long as we get audience support. I can't leave until I find someone who has the heart and the ability to take my place."

All of the Cup Theater's members take turns in scriptwriting, designing the set and building the props, performing, and handling the lights. The music is commissioned. Altogether, the produc­tion process takes an average of six months. The props are built by the mem­bers themselves during the three-month summer vacation, so that they will be able to have greater control over their manipulation and can make additional innovations. Great care is taken to make the props vivid in detail. "If we have a simple stage set, the children will quickly lose interest," Tung says.

The painstaking attention to detail shows in the construction of the female puppets for The Story of the White Snake. In Chinese opera, the female characters gesture with their hands while they sing. They elegantly turn their wrists counter­clockwise, their fingers in the shape of an orchid (thumb and middle finger pressed together, the rest of the fingers extended). The female puppets used in the play have these essential orchid fin­gers, or Ian hua chih. The way the puppets walk, or even hold umbrellas, were de­signed to closely mimic Chinese opera stances.

Rehearsals for the actors and the stagehands are equally demanding. It is imperative that all the actors and stage­ hands know their exact places because they have to move quickly and quietly in the blinding dark. Every second is crucial. It is very much a group perform­ance, because the ability of the play to hold itself together is dependent on the dexterity of both the actors and the stagehands.

Performances are usually held in au­ditoriums that can accommodate an audience of six to seven hundred. Tick­ets range from about US$4 to US$18, and proceeds from the ticket sales and the income from Tung's kindergarten school cover the troupe's expenses.

Tung also contributes from her earnings as supervisor at a leading children's art school, as consultant to two kindergar­tens, and as scriptwriter for children's television. The troupe has no intention of getting involved in a commercial ven­ture, and does not want to accept aid from foundations. "That way, we are cer­tain of our motives," she says. "Our re­sponsibility is to the children."

Through the years, the determina­tion and the talent of the little black light theater troupe has become better known. Even high school and college students have joined the audience. There are plans to tour the island, and to give in to the many requests to perform overseas. The members continue to derive the happiness that money can not buy from watching the children and their parents having fun. Says Huang Ching-jen (黃慶仁), Cup Theater member and a full-time employee of a plastics company: "Working with the theater is my contribution to the fulfillment of an ideal." Yet he also sums up the biggest problem facing the Cup Thea­ter. "If I had the time, I would continue to stay' with the theater. But it is demand­ing work, and I really do not know how much longer I can manage to juggle my time." Since this interview, Huang has gotten married and quit the theater. But he has become one of the theater's grow­ing number of reservists.

The Cup Theater plans to advertise for new recruits, and is looking specifi­cally at Taiwan's art institutes where stu­dents already are equipped with dancing, painting, and drama skills. Despite its difficulties, its chances of surviving are still strong. And they will remain strong for as long as parents and teachers con­tinue to take the cup and, as Tung Feng­-Ii says, "help children satisfy their thirst for creative wonder."