01-05-19
Edward Li Kui Ming is a legendary and astonishing personality in the performing business of Hong Kong. His initial career was an administrator and scriptwriter with a movie company. In the late 80s, he transformed himself into an expert in numerology and fengshui. Few years ago, he leased an old theatre Sunbeam Theatre in North Point and presented, among many others, his unique personal creations especially Cantonese operas to amuse and amaze the audience.
When creating, Li never followed the old rules. His creativity is endless, restless and effortless. And, his ‘Neo-Cantonese’ operas refused to grasp traditional stage conventions. The differences, if not, tensions, between his and outside orthodox operas provided a source of impellent drive for him to generate more and more theatrical shows to prove his success.
Several years ago, he made a ‘reformed’ Cantonese opera about Mao Zedong, the communist revolutionary leader of China. The storyline is about the 3 romantic affairs of Chairman Mao. This time, he created another opera on the US President Donald Trump. Originality is apparently the king of drama: Trump got a twin brother by the Chinese name of Chuan Pu whom he had never met since birth. Chuan was somehow lost in China and could not be found by Trump. He was a crematorium worker and was sadly treated during the Cultural Revolution of China. In 2019, daughter of Trump, Ivanka, managed to search and find the poor Chuan. She took him from China to America for 2 secret missions. She got him a reunion with his old girlfriend; and then to talk to a hidden spirit in White House and he was President Lincoln. Finally, he had to pretend as Trump because the US President was kidnapped by some aliens from the outer space. Chuan was asked to conduct political negotiations with the North Korea leader Kim Jong-un on world peace and had to solve disputes relating to Sino-US trade. Worst of all, the Earth was facing an attack by the Martians which wanted to destroy all mankind. The plot is hilariously absurd and farcical―although the opera was not meant to be funny at all.
Despite the novelty and oddity of the opera, the experienced and wonderful actors like Loong Koon Tin, Sun Kim Long, Roger Chan and Emily Chan Wing Yee beautifully got it over with the incredible saga of ‘Donald Trump’. They could act, sing and even rap. Their brilliant performance is perhaps one of the reasons why the tickets of the opera were selling like hot cakes.
The artistic disappointment of the show is probably due to Li being over-ambitious. He mingled too many bizarre and daring elements into the opera including plot, music, acrobatics, supernaturalism and politics. The eyes are bigger than the belly. However, when the old ways of Cantonese opera are getting unpopular, young audience have in reality deserted this traditional form of entertainment. It is therefore a delightful shock to see so many teens and youths frequenting the opera house Sunbeam Theatre this time to watch Trump On Show.
In spite of her magnificent: past for more than 1,000 years, the glory of Cantonese opera has been on the eroding side of her fate. The lack of young audience is the grave worry. The biggest thing that concerns us is that Cantonese opera is out of the modern touch. To quote a few problems, there is no role for a director in the trade. Actors used to give an impromptu performance on stage without much rehearsal. The operas are too long, usually more than 3 hours. The sound level of the music can be regarded by some as noise disturbance. Of course, there is a dispute here. The conservative perform the opera day in, day out without agreeing to the need for any surgery of the noble art. The liberal so far have not created any marvellous masterpiece which can truly shine and glow causing an intense heat from the public. Hong Kong people do pray for a re-genesis of our classical art. Wonder if Edward Li, in view of the success of Trump On Show, will be the blast which will inspire more ‘reformed operas’ to come?
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