Those who are familiar with\nclassical Chinese literature will have heard of Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai,\nthe legendary, ill-fated ‘Butterfly Lovers’ of yore. When Dama Orchestra —\nalmost synonymous for their high quality and unique presentations of\nShanghai-style shi dai qu — decided to stage this well-loved tale as the\ngroup’s first musical, both artistic director Pun Kai Loon and music director\nKhor Seng Chew knew they faced a mammoth task.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Could Dama live up to expectations?\nCould their latest production stand up to the inevitable comparisons: to the\nShaw Brothers’ 1960s silver screen version, Love\nEteme<\/em>, starring the legendary Ivy Ling Po — and our own attempts, such as\nthe Temple of Fine Arts’ award-winning 2003 dance drama, and Lee Swee Keong’s\nsolo performance piece earlier this year?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Once Upon a Time<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Butterfly Lovers – The Musical<\/em>, which ran from the September 27 to October\n15, 2006 at KLPac’s Pentas 1, was a refreshing departure from traditional\nstaging: a presentation of an age-old legend with the nostalgia-tinged, but\nstill fresh and contemporary feel Dama does so well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ‘Butterfly Lovers’, set in the time\nof the Eastern Jin Dynasty (265 – 420 AD), is a Romeo & Juliet<\/em> type of love tragedy with strains of Yenti<\/em>-style proto-feminism. The heroine,\nZhu Yingtai (played by Dama resident soprano Tan Soo Suan), daughter of a\nwealthy landlord (Liau Siau Suan), longs for an education — denied to girls in\nthose days. By the miracle of dressing up as a man, Yingtai manages to persuade\nher parents’ assent (though how one’s parents could not even recognise their\nown daughter, even with the cross-dressing, is beyond me). She sets off for\nNishun College, befriending the poor scholar Liang Shanbo (Yang Wei Han) en\nroute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The two become sworn brothers.\nDuring the three years they spend in college, the inevitable happens: Yingtai\nfalls for Shanbo. He only finds out later that his dear ‘brother’ is actually a\nwoman, and decides to propose — but it is too late: Yingtai’s father has\nmatch-made her with the rich playboy Ma Wenchai.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Soo Suan was simply brilliant as\nYingtai. A trained classical singer (with two BOH Cameronian Arts Awards for\nBest Vocal Performance, no less), her impeccable and beautiful vocal\ndeliverance was the soul of the musical. And though Butterfly Lovers<\/em> was her acting debut, Soo Suan managed to carry\nthe role convincingly, handling the anguish and heartbreak of the show’s later\nscenes with tearful aplomb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unfortunately, the rest of the cast\nwere not so stellar. Pop artiste-turned-stage actor Yang Wei Han, who appeared\nin the Ho Lin Huay musicals Siddhartha<\/em>\nand Above Full Moon<\/em>, looked right for\nhis role as the scholar-pauper Shanbo, but had voice and acting skills that —\nthough commendable — were overshadowed by Soo Suan’s powerful voice. The\nsupporting ensemble, sixteen strong in mostly non-speaking roles, were\nsimilarly well cast, but did not stand out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Minimalism<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Dama’s Butterfly Lovers<\/em> employs a clever linguistic device: besides\nEnglish-language subtitles for the calligraphically-impaired, An English\nnarrator provides comic relief, giving opinionated comments about the lovers\nthat bring contrasts with the high drama onstage. Having English spoken in a\nMandarin production might seem odd to the puritan, but when the narrating voice\nis revealed to be that of villain Ma Wenchai, this conflict of languages serves\nto heighten Yingtai’s sense of alienation, and emphasises the fact that she is\nstill, after all, a daughter under the tyrannical yoke of the patriarchy. Edwin\nSumun’s dramatic and deep voice filled this role effectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The musical’s contemporary set was\ndevoid of the ornamental reds and golds typical of period Chinese\ndramatisations, leaving much to the audiences’ own imaginations — a design\nsensibility, complemented by the elegant and not overly elaborate period\ncostumes of Dominique Devorsine, that was quite effective at keeping attentions\non the performance. This minimalist desire to cut away at paraphernalia even\nextended to the titular orchestra’s place in Butterfly Lovers<\/em>: unlike previous shows, Dama’s 20-piece ensemble\ntook a total back seat, playing behind the curtain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Butterfly Lovers<\/em> ends in grief for its lovers — Shanbo dies and Yingtai dies at his grave. Our spirited, headstrong feminist heroine — who was unafraid to push social and traditional boundaries that confine women to the home -\u00ad- finally gives up testing the boundaries of empowerment allowed her in that era, and ends up sacrificing her life in the name of love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Still, all the anguish and heartache escalates into a dramatic last scene that is, despite itself, totally mesmerizing. On the night I attended Butterfly Lovers<\/em>, Soo Suan’s penultimate howling and crying moved me to tears. The intense mood, helped by a combination of special-effects rain, thunder and lightning and Dama Orchestra’s crashing music –\u00ad playing along to pre-recorded tracks for a richer and more textured effect — built up to a climax.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our star-crossed lovers, reunited in\ndeath and transformed into a pair of butterflies, were portrayed at the end by\nthe mythic silhouettes of two large butterflies, fluttering around their\ngraves. The poignancy of this quiet moment, after the tumult of the storm, was\nvery fitting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So was Butterfly Lovers<\/em> successful? The short answer: yes. Dama had to add\nthree more performances to their week-long run — this, if nothing else, says\nthat the musical has been causing quite a stir among theatre-goers. Just like\ntheir previous efforts, Dama delivers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ~~~ <\/p>\n\n\n\n Jess C is a music enthusiast. <\/p>\n\n\n\n First Published: 17.10.2006 on Kakiseni <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Those who are familiar with classical Chinese literature will have heard of Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai, the legendary, ill-fated ‘Butterfly Lovers’ of yore. When Dama Orchestra — almost synonymous for their high quality and unique presentations of Shanghai-style shi dai qu — decided to stage this well-loved tale as the group’s first musical, both […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"iawp_total_views":9,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7758,7764,7773,7774,7762],"tags":[530,38,3088,557,2863,493,2864,3989,40,233,3988,49,2861,46,788],"language":[7785],"writer":[7975],"class_list":["post-27552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-artikel","category-muzik","category-muzikal","category-ulasan","category-teater","tag-chinese","tag-dama-orchestra","tag-dominique-devorsine","tag-edwin-sumun","tag-khor-seng-chew","tag-klpac","tag-liau-siau-suan","tag-mandarin","tag-music","tag-musical","tag-pun-kai-loon","tag-review","tag-tan-soo-suan","tag-theatre","tag-yang-wei-han","language-inggeris","writer-jess-c-ms"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27552"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27552\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39056,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27552\/revisions\/39056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27552"},{"taxonomy":"language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/language?post=27552"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myartmemoryproject.com\/ms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/writer?post=27552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}