Context
·
Politics: Taiwan
o 1980s: support for
Taiwanese independence was growing
o Performing arts like jingjiu (Beijing opera) and huaju (spoken drama) moved
away from traditional Chinese arts and adopted more Western elements
·
Personal: Wu
o
Born in 1959 in Taiwan
o Entered the Fuxing Drama School
to learn jingjiu at the age of twelve
o Trained to play wu sheng
characters, strong males often cast as the lead in a Beijing opera
o Learned acting, dancing, singing,
and acrobatics
o Endured rigorous training with
severe physical beatings
o Completed his training at age
twenty and received a scholarship to the Chinese Cultural University
o Became interested in modern dance
o 1974: became part of the Cloud
Gate dance company
§ Stressed spontaneity and
connection to the performer’s body and emotions; more natural and unpredictable
§ Very different from the strict,
traditional practices of jingjiu
o 1977: returned to jingjiu
professionally
o Became a disciple of the famous
teacher and performer Zhou Zhengrong
§ Earned special status among
Zhou’s protégés (like an adopted son)
§ Struggled to overcome tensions
stemming from his participation in modern dance
o In the mid-1980s, Zhou and Wu had
a major falling out
§ Zhou disapproved of “some alien
element” in one of Wu’s movements and began to beat him
§ Wu grabbed the stick and
questioned his master’s methods
§ Zhou never acknowledged Wu again
o Founded his own company,
Contemporary Legend Theatre (CLT)
o Adapted and performed Western
classics, including Shakespeare
§ Kingdom of Desire, a Macbeth adaptation,
1986
§ War and Eternity, a Hamlet
adaptation, 1990
§ The Tempest, 2004
o 1999: the company closed because
of financial problems and the changing status of jingjiu in Taiwan
o Wrote Lear is Here during this hiatus and performed when company reopened
in 2001
o Lear is Here is the most radical
§
One-man performance
§
Minimalist costumes and spectacle
§
Wanted to renew and transform Beijing opera, and give it new life in a
changing world
§
An autobiographical work reflecting his struggle with Beijing opera and
with his master Zhou
§
Exploration of Wu’s own quest for artistic and personal identity
Subtext
·
Recent trend, particularly in Asian
interpretations of Shakespeare, to present an autobiographical interpretation
o
Lear Is
Here is a jingjiu (Beijing opera)
performance
o
Full title: Li
Er zai ci, Wu Hsing-kuo Meets Shakespeare
§
The title is indicative of Wu’s comparing
himself with Lear
·
Autobiographical rendition of a troubled
relationship between father and child
o
Allegory about Wu’s uneasy relationship with his
jingju Master Zhao
o
Wu’s resistance to his dead master takes several
forms
§
Plays Lear, the wronged father, and Regan, the
unruly daughter
§
Plays Edgar, the wronged son; and Gloucester,
who wrongfully resented him
§
In shifting between daughter and father, Wu
dramatizes his resistance to the dominating father figure
§
Imagines his master’s repose by impersonating
the father
§
Commentary on his apprenticeship and career in
Beijing opera
o
Anxieties about a dominating master/father
figure in his career
o
By playing all the characters, he is able to
deal with conflicting identities—himself as a disciple and his master as a
surrogate father
o
Played daughters to imagine what it would be
like if he had gone against his master—and then Lear to imagine what his master’s
reaction would have been
·
“Who am I?”
o
Says this phrase repeatedly in Act Three;
directly translates a section of Shakespeare that includes this phrase in Act
One
o
Line-by-line translation amid interpretation
shows its significance, central theme
·
When he removes his beard, headpiece, and
costume, he speaks to the audience as himself
o
Wu depicts Lear as two bodies: a fictional
character and a human performer representing the character—revealing the
performer to be in search of an identity
o
“I’m back!”
§
Signifies return to the stage in 2001 after the
Contemporary Legend Theatre was disbanded two years ago
§
Triumph over difficulties in finance and human
resources
·
Wu believes he shares many of Lear’s characteristics—rage, madness,
arrogance, capriciousness
o
Grabbed the stick Zhou was beating him with and
spoke out
o
A few days before Master Zhou’s death, Wu
dreamed of fighting his master, and killing him with his bare hands.
·
Onstage costume change represented resistance to
old traditions
o
Played many characters to show that he is not
just the male combatant that his master trained him to be, but rather a
versatile actor
·
Not a “big-time” but a “small-time”
appropriation; in Wu’s hometown performance, a majority of the audience knew
about Wu’s identity crisis and cheered him through the performance as he
announced, “I am back! I have returned to my profession!”
Intertext
·
King Lear
by Shakespeare
o
Lear’s division of the kingdom and solo
performance
o
Fool reproaches Lear; Kent recalls the scene
§
Fool makeup
o
The three sisters
§
Water sleeves, female dance movements
o
Gloucester’s blinding (very briefly covered)
o
The Cliffs of Dover
·
Reference to a local song
o
The Fool sings of a rich man in Taipei who
bought his daughters each a building, and when they break their agreement to
care for him in return, he hires a bulldozer to knock them all down
o
“Perhaps the only unambiguously local or topical
reference in the play; [it] is greeted by great applause and laughter”
