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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 August 2017
Since the 1980s the Taiwanese theatre troupe Contemporary Legend Theatre (CLT) has been devoted to transforming jingju by way of adapting world classics. Through an analysis of its adaptation of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot (2005), this article considers how CLT pushes the boundaries of jingju acting, which is made up of singing, speaking, dance-acting and combat. To meet Beckett's challenge of performing comic failure, CLT integrates jingju restraint and Western slapstick. In so doing, CLT liberates the actors’ bodies from jingju conventions to produce a new aesthetic, which also gives the original play a new metaphysical interpretation.
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5 See Li, ‘Women Yao Wei Dengdai Er Dengdai Ma?’, p. 12.
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22 See Beckett, Waiting for Godot, pp. 58–9.
23 This translation is based on the original English subtitle in the DVD of this production. I made some changes to represent the syntactical structures of the original Chinese.
24 Wu Hsing-kuo, ‘Interview with Wu Hsing-kuo’ by Wei Feng (15 May 2014). Wu told me that this passage was added and written by Chin Shih-chieh to make it sound ridiculously funny. They planned to demonstrate how the two tramps made a big fuss of waiting.
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37 Bergson, Henri, Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic, trans. Brereton, Cloudesely (Rockville: Arc Manor, 2008), p. 43.Google Scholar
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42 Conrad Hyers, M., Zen and the Comic Spirit (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1974), p. 39 Google Scholar.
43 Ibid., p. 90.
44 Wu, ‘Canque Yu Cibei De Xiaorong’, p. 56.
