Three Scenes Peking Opera

SCENE ONE: LOVE

The first scene that evening at the Zheng Yi Ci Theatre is from a love story. A young student and a girl from an aristocratic family desperately want to run away together but the girl's mother is firmly against their union. Luckily, the family's clever maid-servant concocts a plan that allows the student to sneak into the house. She distracts the family matriarch and explains aways the rustling of the bushes outside by pretending that it's just a stray dog or a bungling thief. The plan is a success. In the closing epilogue, the maid-servant sings that the young lovers are as "harmonious as fish in water."

The dedication of the artists at the Zheng Yi Ci Theatre to Peking Opera is itself a love story. Earlier in the evening, I had the chance to speak with Ghaffer Pourazar, an English computer-animator-turned-actor who came to Beijing four years ago in order to study China's most famous theatre style.

He revealed that unlike his Western thespian counterparts, he rehearses every day of the week and must wake up at five in the morning to start -- lest his muscles stiffen up from the opera's grueling acrobatics. Yet he doesn't even dare compare his dedication to that of the fellow members of his troupe. Most of them have been training since they were five or six years old.

What makes Zheng Yi Ci Theatre different from the other theatres in Beijing is the desire to share this passion for the opera with audiences. For example, Pourazar explains that a Chinese-speaking emcee and an English-speaking emcee relate the actions of each scene before the actors come on stage: "At other theatres you just watch the colors and the fighting. But it makes such a big difference when you understand the story -- at least tenfold, sometimes a hundredfold in enjoyment."

The structure of the theatre building itself is a testament to the importance of intimacy between the performers and the audience in Peking Opera. Despite the theatre's 300-year-old history (it is China's oldest indoor wooden theatre), it has maintained its original dimensions, with audience members sitting on three sides of a stage that is no larger than 36 square meters. No electronic sound system is used -- the actors' natural voices fill up the house. The theatre's location in a bustling hutong one block south of Hepingmen also emphasizes Zheng Yi Ci's connection to the people.

Yet its coziness makes the building no less impressive. Colorful banners drape from brilliantly painted ceilings. And although the stage is relatively small, it actually contains three levels -- just like the Empress Dowager Cixi's opera stage at the Summer Palace.

For all its magic, Pourazar admits that Peking Opera is in trouble: "It's no secret that it's not doing well in China. The young people don't like it and the old people are dying off."

SCENE TWO: GRIEF

The next scene is a ghost story. A noble soldier asks a general to help his father, who is besieged with his army at the front, but the general kills the young man because of a feud between their two families. His ghost enters the dreams of his sleeping father and brother who are in his homeland faraway. Not unlike the first scene of "Hamlet," the soldier wails the circumstances of his death to his half-frightened, half-weeping relatives. The clear, plaintive voice of the actor earns him bursts of applause and cries of "Hao! Hao!" ("Good! Good!") from the Chinese members of the audience. They are loud but one can't help notice that they are old and they are few.

Wang Yuming is a smooth-talking businessman who has always loved the opera. But despite his recent reinvigoration of the theatre, the manager of Zheng Yi Ci is not shy to talk about Peking Opera's difficulties in nurturing a local audience.

He places the blame on two major events in modern Chinese history. The first was the Cultural Revolution of the '60s and '70s, during which society fervently denied ancient culture. That chaotic period left a large number of Chinese people who grew up without traditional opera. The second event is the "opening up" of China in the last two decades. Millions of youth now look westward for their music and drama, not backwards in time. The market economy has also added an extra burden on the previously state-sponsored theatre troupes. These troupes, Zheng Yi Ci included, are now constantly changing strategies in order to stay afloat. Wang calls this "exploiting the new ways to use old culture for a new society." The result: traditional theater in which the audiences are mostly foreign tourists.

Pourazar, himself a foreigner, has mixed feelings about this situation: "The opera's become a commodity. Most of your time and energy goes into trying to sell it. That can destroy the art."

SCENE THREE: VICTORY

The last piece of the evening is a war scene. Pourazar tells me that it is his favorite; after all he directed it himself. Complete with spinning, leaping and other choreographed sparring, this is also the scene that everyone has been waiting for. "The painted face shows the arrogant intensity of a general. The high arching eyebrows and the fearsome mouth explain that it is he who will emerge victorious. "The first look will tell you everything about the character. Peking Opera is as simple as that." The audience cheers continuously. Despite already knowing the outcome, we are exhilarated to witness the same battle that has been fought -- and won -- for centuries. Yet most of us cannot even understand the language it is sung in.

Manager Wang assures me that Zheng Yi Ci, like most other traditional theatres in the city, frequently stages shows for local Chinese people at reduced ticket prices. But it is the tourist money that keeps the theatre alive. Wang stresses the importance of cultural education of the young people of China so that they may appreciate their own civilization's rich legacy in the performing arts. But right now, as manager of the theatre troupe, Wang bears the uneasy task of balancing Peking Opera as art and Peking Opera as tourist attraction.

Pourazar is hopeful though. He remarks that "if the theater is good then people will come." I assume he means the Chinese people as well as foreigners. Presumably if Peking Opera can maintain the "arrogant intensity of a general" then it can endure any revolution in society. After all, love, grief and victory are stories that never change.