Up close and personal

Liu recalls that, back in 2005, he performed in a small production, titled Hamlet — The Revenge of Prince Zi Dan, adapted from Shakespeare's Hamlet by Shanghai Peking Opera Company. Along with the company, he traveled to Denmark to perform the Peking Opera production.

"That was the first time that I performed in such a small Peking Opera production. I had no idea what 'small' meant, only knowing that we had much fewer cast members and a simpler stage set. When we performed in Denmark, the applause from the audience was very warm, despite the language barrier," recalls Liu.

Since then, Liu has been performing in more small Peking Opera productions, such as Faust based on Goethe's masterpiece with the same title, which was coproduced by the China National Peking Opera Company and the Italian Emilia Romagna Theatre Foundation in 2015, and his one-man show based on Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea.

"With a smaller cast and team, simpler stage sets and costumes, those productions bring lots of challenges for artists of traditional Chinese operas. The idea is bold but the root remains the same," says Liu.

According to Yang Fengyi, artistic director and head of the Northern Kunqu Opera Theatre, smaller theatrical productions of traditional Chinese operas encourage directors, scriptwriters and performers to help the audience to change their attitudes and aesthetic judgments about the old art forms.

She also mentions Ma Qian Po Shui, the first Peking Opera show staged at a small theater, which was directed by Zhang Manjun and premiered in 2000 by the Jingju Theatre Company of Beijing.

"Now, after decades-long development, making smaller productions has become a popular movement among Chinese theaters of traditional operas, as a way to attract new audiences and a platform to offer opportunities to young talent."

Red Bean, a new production by Wuxi Xiju Opera Theater, was scheduled to be staged during the festival, on Tuesday and Wednesday, as the first small theatrical production of Xiju Opera, a local opera form of Wuxi, Jiangsu province, with a history dating back to the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).

Four actors and actresses from Wuxi Xiju Opera Theater played six characters in the production, which tells a tragic love story between a prince, Xiao Tong, during the Southern and Northern Dynasties (420-581) and a beautiful woman named Hui Ru.

One of the performers in the new production is Cai Yu, an award-winning Xiju Opera actress who heads the Wuxi Xiju Opera Theater. With a history going back to the 1950s, the theater decided to put on its first small production, and invited An Fengying to be the director.

"The theater has been devoted to preserving and keeping Xiju Opera alive, like many other theaters of traditional Chinese operas in the country. We want to attract a younger audience, so we decided to develop our first small production," says Cai.