Li Dan

CREATING new plays is as important as keeping the old traditions of Beijing opera, a classical Chinese art now more than 200 years old.

Zhu Shihui, director of Hubei Beijing Opera House and known as the best mime actor today, holds this belief and works hard to live by it.

Traditionally, mime actors have only supporting roles in Beijing opera. Zhu broke the frame with his successful portrayal of a county official Xu Jiujing in 1981. The story is a classic: Talented and upright, Xu ranks No. 1 in the imperial exam to select officials. His ugly looks, however, leave a bad impression on senior officials, who assign him to a low-ranking post. Later, Xu cleverly judges a case in defiance of a senior incumbent official to straighten things up and restore justice. After that, Xu gives up his post and becomes a barkeeper.

Zhu’s recitation of the lyric “Hard to Be a Junior Official,” with 75 guan (a Chinese character meaning official) included in the tongue twister, left a strong impression on the audience. He has the magic to amuse people, while behind the cloak of humor he also lets them see the intelligence and nobility of the character, critics say. Some called his role a breakthrough, something between laosheng (old male role) and chou.

“My portrait of roles serves the play as a whole. If people call that a breakthrough, I should thank Gao Ying, former director of our opera house, who insisted on creating new plays,” Zhu said.

At that time, traditional operas were meeting their second prime in the early days of “Opening Up and Reform,” when people had just awakened from the rocky years of the “Cultural Revolution.”

“Traditional plays like ‘Qin Xiang-lian’ (about a young woman and her snobbish husband who deserts her to marry the emperor’s daughter) had a good box office. People would still come to the show half a month after the first night. We didn’t have to work out new things,” he recalled.

The insistence of his predecessor and his personal success led him to see the value of new plays.

Since then, Zhu has trod the road of creating new roles to bring new audiences to the theater. This time he is a music-loving duke in “Zenghou Yi.”

“Creating new plays doesn’t mean that we can do away with tradition,” he said. “If I don’t follow the basic rhymes, costumes or performances of the chou roles, and people think it’s no more Beijing opera, that would be a big failure. Traditionally the chou actors place much more emphasis on recitation and combine recitation with singing. I would abide by these rules while doing new roles.”

Besides luck that gave him the role of Xu Jiujing, Zhu attributed his success to strict training during his early years in the trade.

Born in 1947 in Hubei to a bank clerk’s family, Zhu was influenced by his father and uncles who were fans of Beijing opera. His parents often took him to the theater, which gradually planted a love for it in his young heart long before he could judge things. He began to learn Beijing opera at the provincial theater school at the age of 12.

“I was curious, but soon overwhelmed by the hard work… I carried on and the basic training was the first step towards a career,” he said.

As head of a local Beijing opera house, Zhu thinks his mission is to train new singers and educate young audiences.