A Gaze Enchanted with The Peony Pavilion

Since the 1990s, academia in Taiwan has been actively engaged with the revival of intangible cultural heritage Kunqu Opera through video recordings, education, performances, and modern adaptations, leading to the phenomenon of The Peony Pavilion-the Youth Version. 

 

Suk-hong Cheung’s A Gaze Enchanted with The Peony Pavilion is mainly inspired by Pai Hsien-yung’s New Kungqu productions (The Peony Pavilion-the Youth Version, The Jade Hairpin-the New Edition, and The White Silk Robe-the New Edition) performed in the last two decades. Cheung elaborates respectively on Pai’s essential ideas behind these adaptations, as well as his artistic interpretation of Kunqu performance incorporating classical Chinese painting and calligraphy. By referring to theatric productions and delicate performances, Cheung further explores the cultural significance for the Kunqu Opera Revival.

 

To further the literary significance of The Peony Pavilion as a work and theatric production, the featured article articulates subtle nuance between the “romantic” writing of The Romance of the Western Chamber, The Peony Pavilion and The Dream of the Red Chamber, and the classic trope of scholar-beauty romance. With such a literary perspective of visual arts, Cheung also makes her brief foray into realms of film and drama.