Ancient Greek tragedy in China: focusing on Medea adapted and performed in Chinese Hebei clapper opera

Abstract

Since early twentieth century, western theatric classics have been performed in the form of Chinese operas on stage, but the majority of adapted operas are works of Shakespeare, Ibsen and O’Neill, with few of them from ancient Greek tragedies. Here, we choose Hebei clapper opera Medea directed by Luo Jinlin as an example to analyze how Greek tragedy is performed and understood by Chinese opera writers and directors, and what meaning this sort of intercultural theater could convey to both western and oriental worlds. The clapper opera Medea presented the audience worldwide with striking operatic performance and successful integration of the west and the east. Two starring actresses demonstrated their strengths of acting Medea respectively: Peng with her long-term basic training of solid martial arts, being vigorous and nimble, mainly expressed Medea’s sadness and strong will of revenge; Liu, who was already in her 50s when performing, mainly exploited her strengths of expressing “emotions” by skillful singing. However, Critics hold different views towards this “Medea,” because she is not only different from the original character, but also different from any female characters in traditional Chinese operas. Nevertheless, Chinese Medea is shaped in depth with emphasis on her “affection”—her mixed and complex passions of pleasure, anger, sorrow and joy through adaptive ways of narrating and performing on stage, which made Medea understandable and laudable. Finally, when discussing how to understand and evaluate intercultural complexity of performing Greek theater via Chinese opera, we propose positive or “celebratory” evaluation. We hold that literary classics would not be ruined by imitation, adaptation, re-writing and anti-writing, or impaired when staged in foreign artistic form, for we view these changes not as damages of original work, but as an “afterlife” with which the original work enhances its vitality and influence.