Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land
The work of Taiwan playwright-director Lai Sheng-chuan "Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land" (Anlian Taohuayuan) is a classic drama throughout China.
It is a combination of two plays "Secret Love," a tragedy set in the modern times, and "In Peach Blossom Land," a comedy set in ancient times.
Jiang Binliu and Yun Zhifan are two lovers who meet in Shanghai after the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression (1937-45), but are parted during the civil war. They lose touch for decades until Jiang is dying in a hospital in Taipei.
The older story is about Laotao who leaves home outraged after he finds his wife Chunhua having an affair with Yuan. By a strange accident he ventures into the Peach Blossom Land, a utopia once described by the Eastern Jin Dynasty (AD 317-420) poet Tao Yuanming . There he meets two lovers who look exactly like Chunhua and Yuan.
Laotao cannot forget Chunhua and wants to reconcile and take her to live in the Peach Blossom Land. When he goes home, he finds that Chunhua and Yuan have become an unhappy couple just like Chunhua and himself in the past. Laotao tries to escape back to Peach Blossom Land, but can never find it again.
These two stories seem to be irrelevant, but when they are combined in Lai's play, the result has become one of the most successful dramas in Taiwan. The thread to sew them up in the play is the mistaken scheduling of a theatre, which arranged two different troupes to rehearse on the same day. Both troupes were going to perform in two days, At last they compromised to rehearse on the same stage in turn.
In the latest version, the Ming Hwa Yuan Gezai Opera (traditional Chinese opera popular in East China's Fujian and Taiwan provinces) Troupe performed the part of "Peach Blossom Land," making the play a real colliding of two troupes. (Coming to sg)
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Well-known Chinese actor Huang Lei and actress Yuan Quan will headline the mainland version of "Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land," playing Jiang Binliu and Yun Zhifan in the "Secret Love" part, while the "In Peach Blossom Land" part will feature comic actors Yu Entai, Xie Na and He Jiong.
source http://www.chinaculture.org/gb/en_newupdate/2006-10/19/content_87109.htm
er... is this an operah or normal show?
It is a combination of two plays "Secret Love," a tragedy set in the modern times, and "In Peach Blossom Land," a comedy set in ancient times.
Jiang Binliu and Yun Zhifan are two lovers who meet in Shanghai after the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression (1937-45), but are parted during the civil war. They lose touch for decades until Jiang is dying in a hospital in Taipei.
The older story is about Laotao who leaves home outraged after he finds his wife Chunhua having an affair with Yuan. By a strange accident he ventures into the Peach Blossom Land, a utopia once described by the Eastern Jin Dynasty (AD 317-420) poet Tao Yuanming . There he meets two lovers who look exactly like Chunhua and Yuan.
Laotao cannot forget Chunhua and wants to reconcile and take her to live in the Peach Blossom Land. When he goes home, he finds that Chunhua and Yuan have become an unhappy couple just like Chunhua and himself in the past. Laotao tries to escape back to Peach Blossom Land, but can never find it again.
These two stories seem to be irrelevant, but when they are combined in Lai's play, the result has become one of the most successful dramas in Taiwan. The thread to sew them up in the play is the mistaken scheduling of a theatre, which arranged two different troupes to rehearse on the same day. Both troupes were going to perform in two days, At last they compromised to rehearse on the same stage in turn.
In the latest version, the Ming Hwa Yuan Gezai Opera (traditional Chinese opera popular in East China's Fujian and Taiwan provinces) Troupe performed the part of "Peach Blossom Land," making the play a real colliding of two troupes. (Coming to sg)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well-known Chinese actor Huang Lei and actress Yuan Quan will headline the mainland version of "Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land," playing Jiang Binliu and Yun Zhifan in the "Secret Love" part, while the "In Peach Blossom Land" part will feature comic actors Yu Entai, Xie Na and He Jiong.
source http://www.chinaculture.org/gb/en_newupdate/2006-10/19/content_87109.htm
er... is this an operah or normal show?
posted by Kongming at
11:51 pm
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