Traditional Chinese opera should not force traditional ideas on modern people for the sake of heritage; instead, some parts of it should die, the implication being that it should become more inclusive.
In all my previous research, I have found that all the recreations of traditional Chinese opera culture have been selected from the best parts of it. For example, its voice, its acrobatics, its stage art. This made me reflect on my own conditions. Firstly, I am not good at singing, dancing, painting and other skills, which means that I do not need to choose the best parts of Chinese opera and repeat them as others do; secondly, since I am now studying abroad, there must be some content that I can present abroad but cannot do so in the domestic educational environment.
This reminds me of the large number of opera plays I used to read, all of which have one common feature: they all seek a Great Reunion. The Great Reunion refer to here is not the Happy Ending as we understand it in the modern sense, but rather the patterned ending of the feudal period in which the main character or the family, after repeated struggles, finally comes together happily. But such plots are often incompatible with modern values, e.g. polygamy, bad wives. A friend of mine who works as a China opera director said after he read The Story Of Lute, “To be honest, I think the hero should go to hell and the first and second female should stay together.” Although this was a joke, it reflects the values demanded by the younger generation and the fact that we don’t see many Chinese opera productions revising the ‘dross’ of the plot at the moment.
Although many stories in Chinese opera reflect the good spirit of the Chinese nation, it is undeniable that there are complex historical and cultural reasons behind the ‘Grand Reunion’ becoming a structural pattern in classical Chinese opera. In The Evolution of Literature and the Improvement of Drama, Mr Hu Shi said that “this superstition of ‘ Grand Reunion ‘ is hard evidence of the weakness of the Chinese mind.” He argues that the preferred ‘ Grand Reunion ‘ shows the mentality of the Chinese people who are afraid to face up to their flaws and only want to whitewash the situation, which is a manifestation of self-deception. At the same time, this model should be abandoned by modern values.
Therefore, I wanted to design an intervention. The story line is designed as a ‘chessboard’ in which each character is a ‘chess’. Interested participants are allowed to participate in these stories, and it is entirely up to the participants to decide where these ‘chesses’ end up. In this way, I hope that, on the one hand, the audience can learn about Chinese opera through the game, and on the other hand, by collecting their ‘chessboard layout’, I can better help the traditional stories to be adapted by eliminating the parts that are not in line with modern values.