Stage of transition

The Theatre Practice company introduces Chinese opera to packed houses, while traditional troupes go virtually unwatched. Edward Choy explains the modern dilemma facing this ancient art form 

It’s every actor’s worst nightmare. You walk out on stage, and even past the glare of the spotlight you can see that barely a fifth of the house is filled. The audience looks almost disinterested. The next three hours are packed with complicated dialogues, songs, and elaborately choreographed dances and fight scenes. But you soldier on, knowing that the show has been paid for, and it must go on. For the traditional Chinese opera troupes in Singapore, this is no nightmare. It’s a reality they confront every evening, as they prepare to play to small audiences on makeshift stages set up before temple entrances. 

Unlike contemporary theatre companies like TheatreWorks and W!ld Rice – who receive a large proportion of their funding from the Government – these Chinese opera troupes are funded entirely by the many temples in Singapore. But the troupes are not hired to perform for the temples’ devotees (though some attend the performances). As Madam Toh Bao Hua, the troupe leader of the Sin Guat Hong opera troupe (a Hokkien company) explains, the shows are performed primarily for the deities each temple is dedicated to, especially on each deity’s holy day, referred to as their ‘birthdays’. 

Before each performance, the troupe leader must perform a ritual to seek the permission of the deity. But it’s not enough to just have them come and watch the show. Spirits like to give their opinions, too, interrupting the show by possessing an audience member (usually a medium or priest) to praise or complain about the performance. Toh has to respond appropriately, sometimes having her actors change the plot subtly to accede to the demands of their spiritual audience. This is a quite a feat considering each performance can last two or three hours. And they don’t just perform once a week. 

‘We usually perform more than ten times each month,’ Toh says. It’s a frequency any theatre company would be proud of, but it’s still a far cry from headier days. Chua Hock Kee, once the owner of one of the most successful Teochew opera troupes in Singapore, recalls fondly the period between 1983 to 1986, when they performed more than 320 times a year and ‘entire kampongs would turn up to watch’. 

But Chinese opera wasn’t always so tragic. As we know it today, it evolved from a tradition dating back to the Tang Dynasty. Actors perform specialised roles like the Sheng (male), Dan (female) and Chou (clown), their elaborate costumes indicating their specific role. Painted backdrops indicate the locale of the scene, and string and percussion instruments provide accompaniment to the distinctive melodic speech and singing, while the gestures and props are part of a semiotic system that a savvy audience can decode to indicate things like horse-riding, rowing a boat, or even whether a character is indoors or outdoors. It’s really quite an exacting performance form. 

‘It’s not like being a singer these days, where all you have to do is learn to sing,’ says Chua. ‘Opera actors must master singing, chanting [speaking dialogue], fighting and dancing.’ An example of this is Toh, who’s been acting for 45 years and plays both male and female roles. 

Sadly, Chinese opera has been in a steady decline. In February 2007, Chua disbanded the troupe he founded and led for 26 years. With ageing actors and a shrinking budget, he could no longer produce shows of the quality he desired. And modernising the performances was out of the question. ‘We’re paid by the temples to perform for their deities,’ Chua says. ‘They want us to perform in the traditional style.’ 

Language also plays a major part in the diminishing audience numbers. Both Chua and Toh agree that the dwindling number of Singaporeans speaking the dialects they perform in is the main reason for Chinese opera’s decline. With only English and Mandarin being taught in schools and used in Singapore, even if people were interested, they might only be able to follow the action while missing out on the plot. 

Luckily, all is not lost. Come April, Chua’s son-in-law Ric Liu will take the stage in traditional Chinese opera garb. But he won’t be speaking and singing in Hokkien or Teochew. The Theatre Practice (TTP), a Mandarin theatre company, in collaboration with the Speak Mandarin Campaign, will be performing The Soldier and His Virtuous Wife, a musical adapted from a Yuan Dynasty classic about a soldier who is conscripted the morning after his wedding, and returns a decade later to a wife who can’t recognise him. The director, Kuo Jian Hong, is hoping to build on the success of TTP’s last play, If There’re Seasons…. 

To overcome language barriers, TTP’s plays all have subtitles, and to engage a wider target audience, the play will use comedy and modern performance styles like rap, despite the actors being dressed in period costumes. Kuo wants audiences to come regardless of their language proficiency or age: ‘We shouldn’t be losing a large group of people just because they’re afraid they can’t understand. Comedy is ageless; primary schoolchildren will like it and if you’re old, as long as you can hear and see, you’ll be fine.’ On top of that, the play has been localised, with references to things like National Service, ensuring its audience won’t be alienated by the plot or the style of presentation. 

The play’s lead actors are Liu and Joanna Dong, who will play the soldier and the wife, respectively. For a Mandarin play, it’s fairly surprising to discover that the leads both normally speak mostly English, but can switch to Mandarin effortlessly when performing. Neither have experience with the traditional Chinese opera forms, but are aware of the problems involved with trying to keep it alive. Ironically, attempting to make it more accessible by simplifying it means it runs the risk of losing key elements, like its rhythmic speech and singing, and the sign system built into the gestures and movements. Worst of all would be to translate a dialect opera into Mandarin to reach a wider audience, which would mean obliterating the original text. As Liu puts it, ‘preserving it [as a national art form] for tourists might end up like the refurbishment of Chinatown – it loses something along the way.’ 

The truth is, as long as temples and idols exist, traditional Chinese opera will continue in some form. But unless something is done to address its appeal to a younger, non-dialect-speaking generation of Chinese Singaporeans, its ageing actors will be playing to empty seats, and the occasional interruption of a spirited priest. 

Traditional Chinese-dialect opera is available at various temples island-wide. Call Sin Guat Hong Opera Troupe (6777 3130) or Wayang Troupe (6453 4641) for more information.

Photos Lester Ledesma