Don’t call it an opera
The White Snake / If the mention of Beijing opera, or Jingju, brings to mind images of hefty Chinese women clad in silk robes trilling cryptically in Mandarin, think again.
“I don’t like to use the word ‘opera,’” says Elizabeth Wichmann-Walczak, the producer and director of The White Snake. “What characterizes indigenous Chinese theater is that it has equally important song, speech, acting, dance and combat.”
The White Snake is a romantic thriller with a singing style distinct from Western opera. It is an interpretation of a legend about a snake spirit who evolves into a beautiful young woman then marries the man of her dreams. Along the way, the couple must battle a monk with supernatural powers who’s convinced the woman is an evil demon. The legend has played a prominent role in Chinese culture and has beenadapted into several motion pictures, television series and interpretative dances in China and Taiwan.
“The myth itself appeals to both the romantic and it appeals to those, as a production, who have an interest in martial arts and combat,” says Wichmann-Walczak, who is also the director of UH-Manoa’s Asian Theatre Program. “So it has a combination of some of the loveliest, most varied music in Jingju, a romantic story, passionate characters and three major battles featuring all kinds of different weapons and creatures.”
Complementing the performances will be an array of free events held on campus. Showing at Commons Gallery from February 8–14 is “Jingju Arts and the Famous Mei Lanfang,” an exhibition shedding light on one of Jingju’s most renowned stars, Mei Lanfang, a male actor notorious for playing female roles in the Jingju of the 20th century. On Saturday, Feb. 6, from 2pm–5pm, get analytical with a series of talks from UH professors. Alluring, if not mind-boggling titles like “Demonic Passion: The White Lady in Late Ming Fiction” and “Green Snake: Li Bihua’s Feminist Re-writing and Tsui Hark’s Cinematic Adaptation of The Legend of the White Snake,” lay claim to Wichmann-Walczak’s assertion that The White Snake is “extremely rich and very sophisticated.”
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