April 27, 2009

看戲 - 高文英

Here is one xiang opera I have not seen in Cantonese opera before. 高文英 is the name of the main character in the story. The show is quite long, 3 hours without interval and stoppage for change of scenes; but it is quite entertaining.

This is the sheng who played Gao Wen Ying .....



Very briefly the story ...

A man was maligned for murder by a powerful official in the imperial court. The punishment was beheading. The man and his family fled and they were separated. Then his wife gave birth but, because of an encounter with a tiger in the forest, her son was also separated from her. So, the man, his mother, his wife and his son were all at different parts of the country.


As usually is with Chinese opera, there is a happy ending. Finally the family were united and justice was also done.


The encounter with the tiger was a funny one - A friendly tiger that likes to do somersaults tried to snatch the baby son from the actress with its paws. During the tussle and tug-of-war the baby was tossed on to the ground. The woman ran away with the tiger running after her in two legs and waving his paws. A passerby later took the baby away.

1 comment:

amai said...

I was laughing away when I read the part about the two-legged tiger. I was there for the show but not during this part...The weather was so hot that I had to go to the actor's resting room to cool down.