#Chinese Theatres

[slavic-roots-western-mind]

Main types of Chinese Opera pt. 1

There are many different types of chinese opera, so here are some of the main ones!

Peking Opera 京剧 (Jīngjù)

This is probably one of the most well-known operas, originating from Beijing during the Qing dynasty. There are 4 main roles:

1.生 (shēng), which is usually an older dignified male character such as a scholar, which can be divided into older, younger and martial 生 aka 武生 (wǔshēng)

2. 旦 (dàn), a female role which was previously played by men as women were not allowed to perform during the Qing dynasty, but nowadays both men and women can play this role. This role has several subtypes:

闺门旦 (guīméndàn), a young unmarried high-status virtuous woman, whose main focus is singing.

正旦 (Zhèngdàn)/青衣 (Qīngyī), an elegant, middle-aged, usually married woman who mainly sings.

花旦 (Huādàn), a young woman who unlike the Guīméndàn focuses on speech and movement.

武旦 (Wǔdàn), this is a martial arts role with quite a lot of stunts and fighting with rare singing moments

刀马旦 (Dāomǎdàn), a young brave warrior, who usually focuses on acrobatics, singing and dancing unlike the Wǔdàn.

老旦 (Lǎodàn), is an older female role, usually with a lower singing voice.

彩旦 (Cǎi dàn), is more of a clown role, which is apparently more commonly performed by men

4. 净 (Jìng), a "rough man" role, usually has a vibrant and strong character, which has heavy face painting.

5. 丑 (chǒu), the clown role, which is one of the most physically demanding roles due to the acting and acrobatics combo, despite being considered as a minor role.

There are over 1400 stories used in Peking Opera, with 2 traditional types, civil and martial. Civil focuses on the relationship between the characters and is usually about normal daily occurrences, whereas martial is more about action and fighting. Another more modern type of differentiation divides the plays into traditional (pre-1949ish), plays created after 1949, and contemporary plays.

Kunqu Opera 昆曲 (kūnqǔ)

This is one of the oldest types of Chinese opera, originating from Kunshan, combining signing, dancing and martial arts. It features similar characters like the Peking Opera with another character 末 (Mò), who is an old man with a long beard.

However, there are some differences, as Kunqu uses softer, melodic music and different instruments such as the flute as the main accompanying instrument rather than Peking Opera's stringed instruments. The types of stories are also different, as Kunqu's focus more on the romantic and poetic aspect, exploring various classical stories. Peking Opera's stories tend to be a bit more varied as previously mentioned.

Traditionally, Kunqu was mostly for the upper-class as the stories performed were classical Chinese literature, and at the time not everyone had the opportunity to learn. This may be why Kunqu typically uses classic chinese, whereas Peking uses a combination of both classic and vernacular, making it more available for everyone.

Yue Opera 越剧 (yuèjù)

This opera is also known as Shaoxing opera, originating from Shaoxing, Zhejiang in early 1900s. Originally the performances featured only male actors but nowadays all-female performance troupes are becoming the standard. It's interestingly the 2nd most loved opera type, just after Peking Opera as it's slow and romantic form is perfect for love stories such as The Butterfly Lovers.

Yue Opera also features the usual set of character types e.g. 生，旦 etc. except they are usually played by women.

In terms of appearance, Yue Opera tends to go for a more subtle makeup look (as subtle as stage makeup can be) and simpler but nonetheless gorgeous costumes, in contrast to Peking Opera's dramatic and bursting colors.

Yue Opera usually relies on string instruments, with a smaller musical ensemble and musical accompaniment so that the performers singing is more clear unlike Peking Opera's stronger background music.

[wheelsgoroundincircles]

I think I posted this before, but that was no doubt 4,000 posts ago. So here you go again.

It might be hard to believe but the car used at the beginning of 'The Pink Panther Show' cartoon series was actually the real thing. If you cast your mind back, the sequence involved the car pulling up at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in and the film then cuts to the animated scenes.

The car was built in 1969 and was based on an Oldsmobile Toronado complete with 7 litre engine. It was pink of course with pink furry interior which also contained a bar and a mobile phone.

I'm pretty certain the Pink Panther wasn't real though. Award yourself 5 bonus points if you can still hum the theme tune.

[citizenscreen]

Shirley MacLaine and Jack Lemmon celebrate with champagne after immortalizing their prints at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in June 1963.

[timberlakegallery]

[usafphantom2]

P-40, China

@ron_eisele via X

[melliotwrites]

Ghost Story: a new musical is up on YouTube!

Two love stories between Chinese American and Polish American men haunt the same Montana ranch house — one century apart. As past and present intertwine, the lovers confront long-held fears in their quest to determine if they love one another for the right reasons.

GHOST STORY is a new musical exploring queer interethnic intimacies between working-class immigrants in the early Mountain West, as well as the complicated racial past of modern gay relationships. Through a story about love, culture, and identity, the show asks: In making meaning from the overwhelming tragedies of queer history, how do we balance seeking truth and beauty?

This presentation includes mature language and some mature themes. Stream our live cast album here on Spotify (and look up Ghost Story Melliot on other streaming services to find it!)

[wlwcatalogue]

Female Queer Icons of Hong Kong // Yam Kim Fai (任劍輝) and Pak Suet Sin (白雪仙)

Photo 1: Promotional photo for 1955 contemporary movie The Model and the Car (玉女香車) (no video available) (Source: LCSD Museum Collection Search Portal)

Photo 4: Photo from Sin Fung Ming Opera Troupe's 1958 trip

Photo 5: Photo from a 1962 newspaper feature on Yam, Pak, and others at their (?) summer villa in Central, Hong Kong

Photo 6: Christmas celebrations with Yam, Pak, and their protégés of the Chor Fung Ming Troupe

Far and away the most iconic duo in Cantonese opera, Yam Kim Fai (任劍輝) and Pak Suet Sin (白雪仙) – commonly referred to simply as Yam-Pak (任白) – were famed for their partnership both on and off the stage… Click below to learn more!

Edit on 28/07/2023: Updated to link to a photo of the entrance to the Hong Kong Heritage Museum’s Pop Culture 60+ exhibit, and to add information regarding Yam and Pak's marriage status.

Iconic? How?

Yam-Pak are the face of Cantonese opera; you can't talk about the latter without mentioning the former. It's to the point where a gigantic picture of them graces the entrance to the Hong Kong Heritage Museum’s permanent exhibition on Hong Kong pop culture’s evolution across the past 60 years (“Hong Kong Pop 60+”) - they are the first thing you see upon entering!

Best known as the originators - with Yam playing the male leads and Pak the female leads - of five masterpieces of Cantonese opera, namely:

1. Princess Cheung Ping (帝女花) 2. The Legend of the Purple Hairpin (紫釵記) 3. The Dream Tryst in the Peony Pavilion (牡丹亭驚夢) 4. The Reincarnation of Lady Plum Blossom (再世紅梅記) 5. Butterfly and Red Pear Blossom (蝶影紅梨記) (Note: Princess Cheung Ping, Purple Hairpin, and Butterfly and Red Pear Blossom were made into abridged movie versions, with the Sin Fung Ming troupe members reprising their roles from the theatre productions. Also, the "Fragrant Sacrifice" (香夭) duet from Princess Cheung Ping (movie clip) is one of - if not the most - famous songs in Cantonese opera.)

Yam and Pak were the leading pair and co-founders of the legendary Sin Fung Ming Opera Troupe (仙鳳鳴劇團; 1956-1961), which is widely held to have pushed Cantonese opera forward as an artform due to Pak and scriptwriter Tong Tik Sang’s (唐滌生) emphasis on poetic libretti and adapting source material from Chinese literature and history. (Note: it has been common practice since the 1930's for Cantonese opera troupes to be founded by key actor(s).)

They were also very active in the Hong Kong film industry in the 1950's, being paired in over 40 movies together across roughly 8 years. One of those – the aforementioned Butterfly and Red Pear Blossom (蝶影紅梨記) – is the sole Cantonese opera movie on the Hong Kong Film Archive’s 100-Must See Hong Kong Movies list (IMDB list / archived version of the official PDF). It's a well-deserved inclusion - check out this beautifully-shot dance scene.

Even their post-retirement activities had a significant effect on the industry! In the early 1960’s, they held auditions for prospective students and provided - for free - systematic, hands-on training to those who passed; Yam and Pak even hired other veterans to teach skills they personally were not as familiar with. Prior to this, apprentices were expected to learn primarily from observing their masters, and to pay handsomely for the privilege. Yam-Pak’s methods proved exceedingly effective: the Chor Fung Ming Opera Troupe (雛鳳鳴劇團; 1963-1992) starring their apprentices reigned supreme in the 1970’s-1980’s. Following this success, Cantonese opera institutes - most notably the major 1900s-era guild, the Chinese Artists Association of Hong Kong (八和會館) - started to offer systematic coaching to young hopefuls in the 1980's.

Okay, so why are they queer icons specifically?

The lazy answer is that they're queer icons because nearly all of Yam's roles were male, so Gender is involved by default, and since most hit Cantonese operas of the time were romances, that means you get to see two female actors performing being in love onscreen (and also on stage, but there aren't any video recordings from back then). So far, so Takarazuka Revue.

Female actors playing male roles in Cantonese opera To give some context, each Cantonese opera performer specialises in one of four major role-types, and Yam was a sung (生) - i.e. an actor specialised in playing standard male roles. Female sung were fairly common in the 1910's-1930's due to women being banned from performing with men during that period, but when the ban lifted in the mid-1930's, many troupes shifted towards cis-casting. Yam was pretty much the only one whose popularity survived the transition. Just take a look at the huge number of Cantonese opera movies produced during the 1950’s-1960’s – you’ll be hard-pressed to find a female sung other than Yam, let alone one with top billing. Happily, thanks to Yam's immense popularity, her profilic film career (over 300 movies!), and the prominence of Sin Fung Ming works in the Cantonese opera canon, there has been a resurgence in female sung which endures to this day. Two noteworthy examples are Yam's protégé Sabrina Lee/ Loong Kim Sang (龍劍笙) - a star in her own right - and Joyce Koi/ Koi Ming Fai (蓋鳴暉), one of the biggest names still active in the industry. (Note: perhaps due to cinema being more "realistic" in nature, Yam's early movies often involved her playing female characters cross-dressing as men, including in some Cantonese opera movies. However, she received increasingly more male roles as her fame grew, and from the mid-1950's onwards she was playing male characters onscreen nearly exclusively-- even in non-Cantonese opera movies! See Photo 1 above.)

What sets Yam and Pak apart is that they were particularly known for their chemistry. Long before Sin Fung Ming's formation in 1956, the advertising copy for their first Cantonese opera movie together - Frolicking with a Pretty Maid in the Wineshop (酒樓戲鳳, 1952) - declared "Only this movie has Yam-Pak flirting on the silver screen" (source - 華僑日報 1952/05/23-26). And indeed, they were popular for their flirtatious duets: their Cantonese opera works invariably contained at least one, and such scenes made it into some of non-Cantonese opera (i.e. "contemporary") movies too. In fact, there are not one but two contemporary movies where Yam and Pak's characters are not paired up and yet still sing a duet together in such a way that their significant other(s) become convinced that the two are in romantically interested in each other - see 1952's Lovesick (為情顛倒) and 1956's The Happy Hall (滿堂吉慶) - a weirdly specific situation which doesn't crop up in the other, non-Yam-Pak movies I have seen.

Speaking of contemporary movies, let's talk about a certain plotline that keeps cropping up in works featuring the both of them and where Yam plays a woman! Six of the eleven movies which fit that criteria involve Yam's character cross-dressing as a man (a common characteristic across Yam's handful of female roles), and Pak's character falling for her. Nothing ever comes of it, of course, but, um. It was certainly a trend. Actually, even their very first movie together - 1951's Lucky Strike (福至心靈) - falls into this category.

Such storylines, and the emphasis on their chemistry, are particularly interesting given that both Yam and Pak remained ostensibly unmarried throughout. This was unusual for female performers of their stature, who tended to wed in their twenties, often to fellow-actors or wealthy men (e.g. Hung Sin Nui/紅線女, Fong Yim Fun/芳艷芬, and Tang Pik Wan/鄧碧雲)... In contrast, by the time Yam-Pak retired from the stage in 1961, they were both over 30 years old and without husbands.

Also, did I mention they were popularly believed to be living together? There doesn't seem to be any conclusive evidence either way... although it's a little strange that separate newspaper pictorials depicting "Yam at home" and "Pak at home" seem to be of the same location... however what is conclusive is that they did spent a lot of time together offstage. Pak has talked about how when they had no guests over, Yam would watch TV by herself while Pak was in the living room (source - p93), and protégé Mandy Fung/ Mui Suet Sze (梅雪詩) has said that Pak would sometimes cook for Yam at home (source - 03:53~). They would also celebrate birthdays, New Year's, and Christmas together (see Photo 6 for an example of the latter).

Shortly after Yam's passing in 1989, Pak set up the Yam Kim Fai and Pak Suet Sin Charitable Foundation (任白慈善基金) to support the arts and provide welfare for the elderly. In 1996, Pak made a large donation to Hong Kong University, resulting in one of the buildings being renamed Yam Pak Building (任白樓) in thanks (source).

Thanks for reading! Please feel free to DM me or send an ask if you have any questions, or are just interested in learning more.

If you made it here, have this bonus piece of trivia - Yam and Pak were also well-acquainted with Hong Kong's preeminent queer icon, Leslie Cheung (張國榮), who was a massive fan of theirs. Sadly there don't seem to be any pictures of them before Yam's passing, but here's one of Pak (centre) having afternoon tea with Cheung (left) and his long-term romantic partner Daffy Tong (唐鶴德) (right) at the Cova cafe in the Pacific Place shopping mall.

[myheartismadeofstars]

Triple Date: Hualian, Fengqing and Quanyin.

They attend a Chinese Opera.

XL and MQ are watching enraptured, completely obsessed with the story being told, the music, the performance, all of it!

HC hasn't noticed the performance at all, he's watching XL's face.

FX doesn't really care that much. Also:

FX: *sees some impressive acrobatics* "I could do that"

XL, MQ and HC, in unison: "no you couldn't"

QYZ keeps trying to run off because he's bored. YY likes Opera but he is too focused on keeping QYZ in his seat. He misses most of the performance (XL later buys him a solo ticket, with HC's money obviously, so he can see one on his own). QYZ eventually settles down when YY holds his hand. QYZ, despite his boredom, is happy to be out in public with Shixiong!

[evelyce]

messy russian girl aesthetic looks like:

books by Bulgakov and Dostoevsky, journaling, attending theatres weekly, spending nights in jazz pubs with friends and going to chinese lectures at uni the next morning, sipping cappuccino with caramel syrup while reading poetry, hugging your friends, groupmates and colleagues when you meet

[sgdlr-asdfghjkl]

Link Click Musical contents??

Someone wrote a non-spoiler review of the musical on weibo. They seemed to enjoy it a lot despite not seeing the anime. (I've used DeepL Translator for their post)

The plot uhh I'm taking a guess they cover the episodic stories from s1 (noodle lesbians and earthquake arc for sure).

The set appears to have some sort of carousel mechanism. They also use a projector for additional animation/lighting effects. Transl quote: the carousel itself has the intention of the clock, the scenery also has the elements of the clock hand. (which sounds pretty neat ngl)

The person described main trio characters and praised the chemistry between them. It sounded very in character for CXS, LG and QL we know from anime. So it's safe to assume musical did a great job at characterisation. There seems to be a theme of conflict between CXS's and LG's way of doing things. Transl quote: Under the unchangeable important trajectory, friendship, love, family, destiny, regrets, and in the midst of a destiny that can't be changed, Cheng Xiaoshi will never give up his fight. CXC's never-ending struggle, Lu Guang's silence, the weight of knowing where he's going, and the loss of one life after another, and the immense grief that follows, are the tests of their bond..... So like, yeah they got it all right it seems 👌

Ok and for the wildest part that confused me the most and is probably a mistranslation >> I quote: There's a funny part in this scene when Cheng thought he had changed his destiny and made Lu Guang disappear, and when he sang a big solo and confessed his remorse, I thought he was about to lose it. The chemistry of this group is unique.

😶And I-......... Whatever they mean by 'funny', I won't rest until we get to see it. Subbed. PLEASsdfghjkl;'

[stephenlang-slang]

Stephen at the Los Angeles Premiere for Alien: Romulus.

[theglitterdome]

Joan Crawford being memorialized in cement at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood - September 14, 1929

[citizenscreen]

Sidney Poitier places his hands and feet in wet cement at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles on June 23, 1967. He was the first black actor to do so.

[timberlakegallery]

[emaadsidiki]

TCL Chinese Theatre, Hollywood Boulevard, LA. CA.

[damn-these-eyes]

the fall guy