Dr. Stanley A. Waren, Professor Emeritus of Theatre at the City University of New York, attended the first public performance of The Kingdom of Desire. He enthusiastically responded to a request from the Free China Review to analyze both the play and its attempt to combine two rich, yet very different, dramatic traditions. Dr. Waren is currently a Fulbright-Hays Visiting Professor in Drama and Theatre at National Taiwan University.
I was most fortunate in being present at the first public performance of Contemporary Legend Theatre's The Kingdom of Desire, an attempt to fuse Peking Opera with a freely adapted version of Shakespeare's tragic masterpiece Macbeth. I was part of an audience that applauded vigorously, then stood and cheered what was certainly both a magnificent effort to extend the boundaries of Peking Opera and a success in capturing the essence of Shakespeare's tragedy: the personal relationship of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, with their driving ambition and greed; the soaring moral guilt of both, leading to an inability to sustain the stamina and presence needed to cloak their evil deeds; and finally, their downfall from a temporary height of greatness to their ignominious deaths. There was little question on opening night that the audience realized they were witnessing a very special and stirring theatrical event.
Imagine my amazement the following week to hear negative comments about the production from several of my colleagues and friends. They voiced concern about the impertinence of this group of Peking Opera players who not only had the effrontery to modify "traditional" Peking Opera, but also had the boldness to "tamper" with an authentic Shakespearean masterpiece.
Scenes retain and adapt Peking Opera backdrops.
I do not consider myself an expert in modern Peking Opera, but I am aware—as are most theatre scholars—that the 18th century form of Peking Opera today considered the "tradilional" form did not suddenly blossom forth full-blown overnight, but evolved over centuries and had significant dramatic antecedents. Furthermore, the history of art, and more specifically the history of drama and theatre, contains incident after incident of the evolution and revolution of dramatic form as artists attempted to interpret the ideas of a changing society. The 17th century French "neo-classicism" of a Racine—the "approved" dramatic form of its time with its rigid dramatic rules of time and place, and its stress on decorum, such as no death on-stage—was scoffed at by Victor Hugo and the "romanticism" of the early 19th century, which threw out the rules and revolutionized dramatic form. Romanticism gave way in turn to realism and the late 19th century naturalism of Emile Zola, who pressed for a scientific approach to drama, emphasizing the new biological and scientific theories concerning the effects of heredity and environment on people. And in the 20th century, the revolt against a "realistic" perception of life was led by the expressionists, Brecht and his Epic Theatre, by the surrealists, Artaud and his Theatre of Cruelty, and by the Absurdists, Beckett and Ionesco. The process continues.
Dull hued costumes replace the usual flamboyant dress.
The one constant in all of this is that artistic form never stands still. II is constantly shaping and reshaping itself in relation to the fresh ideas and thinking of evolving civilizations. Artists may want to interpret such concepts as democracy, industrialization, the new technology, economic and financial changes and show how these affect the lives of people. While doing so, they may find that existing dramatic forms do not encompass the "new substance" and therefore the creative process in art begins to modify the extant forms, and new ones may replace the older ones. That is not to say that the traditional forms of French neo-classicism and Chinese Opera, among others, should not always be retained, presented, cherished and admired. Of course they should. Preserving and being able to view the cultural heritage of the past occupies a central place in modern civilization. But concurrently, contemporary artists must be permitted to extend the frontiers of their art, attempt modifications and explorations, and be free to interpret their rapidly changing world in much the same manner as the generations of artists who preceded them. I contend that in this instance, and following in the highest tradition of art, the Contemporary Legend Theatre succeeded in expanding the boundaries of Peking Opera form by exploring how Peking Opera would fare when faced with the task of expressing the tragic substance, the characters, the emotions, the psychology and philosophy of an acknowledged Western masterpiece.
Turning now to the negative comments about tampering with "authentic" Shakespeare, most theatre scholars would agree that the sole authority for the "text" of Macbeth is the first edition, published in 1623, of Shakespeare's Comedies, Hitstories and Tragedies. No one truly knows whether this "authentic" printed copy is derived from Shakespeare's own, is a transcript, or is a stage prompt book modified during rehearsals. What is known, however, is that Macbeth is the fourth of the famous tragedies, following Hamlet, Lear and Othello, and that surprisingly (a fact that has puzzled many scholars) the Macbeth text is very short by comparison. Two songs referred to in the Witch-scenes by first lines come from a play by Middleton. And, lastly, some of the stage directions including those concerning the death of Macbeth are contradictory or at least misleading. In other words, there is no certainty about whether the text has been changed, whether deletions or additions have been made, or whether we have Shakespeare's full and original play-script as first presented in 1606. The main source for the play is Holinshed's Chronicles of Scotland, 1587. Shakespeare hardly tries to remain true to the source, but modifies the material in order to shape his tragedy.
Every century has adopted (and adapted) Macbeth as its own, searching out the meaning of the great tragedy whose universality allows continuous application to contemporary life. The staging has also changed over the years from the imagined bare stage of the Elizabethan theatre to the overstuffed scenic splendors of a later age, and a 20th century return to the bare stage. Concepts of costuming have also differed over the years, ranging from a general concept of what is "contemporary" to costuming reflecting Shakespeare as adapted and set in different locales. For example, in 1920 there was a modern dress version presented in London. In fact, the Contemporary Legend Theatre is following in the "modern" tradition of staging Shakespeare by placing their free adaptation of Macbeth in the third century B.C. in the state of Chi. It is important to stress that what has mattered over the centuries in Shakespearean production and what has kept Shakespeare fresh and vital has not stemmed from attempts to copy or to create "authentic" Shakespeare, but from attempts to capture and fully realize the essence of Shakespeare's tragedy in performance. The criterion of success is whether intellectual and emotional understanding of this great work of art has been communicated to its ever changing audiences, made up of so many different cultures and over so many centuries.
Lord and Lady declaim in traditional operatic style.
For me, Contemporary Legend Theatre succeeded in communicating the tragic currents of Shakespeare's masterwork. Macbeth's gnawing and greedy ambition; Lady Macbeth's goading him on to murder; the usurping of power, the horrible imaginings that follow, ignited by a fear of evil and moral guilt; and the subsequent fall from greatness to death. The events of the play, pruned further by the omission of several scenes, were presented without the usual "starting" and "stopping" of traditional Peking Opera. Here, the total performance moved on inexorably with incredible, increasing speed and with growing rhythmic intensity. There was no loss of momentum, thus paralleling what is generally believed to have been the nature of production in the Elizabethan playhouse with Shakespeare's plays moving, on the bare thrust stage, almost like a movie scenario. To use a contemporary example, the pace resembled the fast moving, integrated script, music, song and dance of the American musical theatre.
Famous Macbeth images—the bloody hands, darkness, disease, horror—all are visible in The Kingdom of Desire. Macbeth is a physical and violent play, and the bodily agility and control of the Peking Opera performers was strikingly apparent as the passion, violence, and suffering of the action moved forward. The much "analyzed" last scene of Shakespeare's play based on the incomplete stage directions—whether Macbeth dies on or off-stage—becomes a triumph in the hands of the play's director and leading player, Wu Hsing-kuo, who plays Ao-shu Cheng (Macbeth), a general of Chi. In this version of Macbeth as freely adapted by playwright Lee Hui-min, Ao-shu Cheng dies on stage, felled by arrows and falling from his high perch in an incredible back flip to the stage level in full view of the audience, a feat symbolic of Macbeth's fall from his temporary ill-gained greatness. It should be noted that the great English actor, Lawrence Olivier, in his interpretation of Macbeth had a parallel concept. During a desperate and violent sword fight with Macduff he is driven up a long flight of castle steps to the top and then, wounded, falls backwards and down into space, but here, lands out of sight of the audience.
Equally worthy of mention is the scene between Lady Ao-shu, (Lady Macbeth) magnificently played by Wei Hai-min and General Ao-shu Cheng (Wu Hsing-kuo) in which the Lady cajoles and urges him on to commit the murder These two principal players push the limitations of traditional character types of Peking Opera form, revealing the individual psychological values inherent in the scene, but with the full sweep of Peking Opera gesture and movement. The banquet scene is another triumph. Again, the physicalization of Peikng Opera is seen as the ghostly apparition virtually destroys Macbeth's confidence, but at the same time the embarrassment of the Lady at her husband's display of weakness in front of their guests comes through with sensitive emotional overtones.
The famous image—bloody hands cannot be cleansed.
Perhaps the only scene in which inner psychological values appeared to be played perhaps a little too quietly in relation to the rhythmic and physical sweep of the production is the sleep-walking scene of the Lady. The scene as played by Wei Hai-min could stand on its own, but as she mentioned in a discussion of the production, her costume in this scene lacked the famous water sleeves of Peking Opera. With the sleeves, she would have been able to physicalize the action more in the Peking Opera tradition.
How then was the form of Peking Opera stretched? There was a bold new use and integration of movement, costume, lights, music and scenic design. The sequential rhythmic intensity and dynamic entrances and exits made for a continuous whole that helped bond the production and the audience together. Character types became individuals released from masks and make-up. With the one exception as noted the production appeared never to stop (as it does in traditional Peking Opera) but to sweep the audience along while reinforcing the vision of Shakespeare's tragedy.
Was the essence of the tragedy revealed? True, some scenes were omitted, but from beginning to end the psychological and emotional values were apparent. They were seen in the released-from-type Peking Opera acting of the "Macbeths" who clearly established for us their relationship, their ambition, their guilt, their fears, and their fall from grace, were seen in the stylistic grace, gesture and violent movement of the Peking Opera form itself, which helped to project the imagery; but most importantly were seen in the newly found integration of all the elements of stage production into a continuous seamless, evergrowing, rhythmic sweep which, for me, suddenly made possible a new use of the Peking Opera form in our contemporary world.
This is a production that will travel well and thought should be given not only to reviving it here, but to sending it to other countries.