PEKING OPERA REVIEW : Distinctive Style of Sichuan Troupe

In her ornate fringed and embroidered long-sleeved gown and bejeweled, pearl-studded headdress, with its astounding 5-foot pheasant feathers on top, Xiaoan Yang of the Chongqing Peking Opera Company makes a classic statement of Chinese beauty. But, despite her dainty, mincing walk and cooing, falsetto speech, this is no helpless lotus blossom.

Indeed, the first surprise of the Sichuan troupe’s four-part program of excerpts Tuesday at Bridges Auditorium, Claremont (to be repeated Friday through Sunday in Royce Hall, UCLA), was Yang’s prowess with a sword: her ability to depict a character who combines the softest, sweetest femininity with enough martial arts moxie to leave a male intruder in her bedroom cowering at her feet.

The intruder, played by Jiahua Huang, is very good-looking and soon the sword at his throat becomes an implement in a subtly modulated, intriguingly dangerous dance of seduction. Eventually, after shrill, sinuous little arias and more dancing, he smilingly offers his neck to the blade and she surrenders by offering him the sword itself--as a gift.

The use of speech, song, pantomime, martial arts and dance in this sequence (“The Sword Is a Gift From Bai Hua”) is typical of the 200-year-old Peking Opera idiom, and the youthful Chongqing cast keeps them in perfect balance. In the past, troupes from Hong Kong, Taipei, Guangzhou and Beijing itself have often emphasized different facets of the form on their American visits--one offering gymnastic exhibitions, for example, another extended displays of singing skill. Here, however, the principal innovations are overscale scenic paintings along with a curiously literal mime style at odds with the exquisite stylization of the other components.

The most extensive singing of the evening comes in “Li Kui Visits His Mother,” in which a fierce outlaw wearing a spectacular black and gold robe and demonic, masklike makeup (Minghua Zhao) turns into a quivering wimp when reunited with his blind, silver-haired mom (Lili Yuan). Accompanied from the wings by exotic traditional instruments, the vocalism is marked by gutsy attacks, long-held and floridly embellished notes plus a piercing intensity. It is not pretty in Western terms, but it is superb theater music: distinctive, forceful, full of feeling.

Comedy and spectacle dominate “Havoc in Heaven,” in which a small group of monkeys led by that lord of misrule Sun Wu Kong (Fanqiang Zeng) are attacked by enraged, self-important warriors of the Jade Emperor. Like the outlaw in “Li Kui,” the most heroic and fearsome-looking characters of Peking Opera are outrageously mocked here, ridiculed and then vanquished by the irrepressible simians who excel at warfare but don’t take it seriously.

Eventually, of course, the play disappears except as a pretext for sensational feats of coordinated athletics: teams of acrobats vaulting over both one another and a large swirling banner, for example.

Before he winds up being twirled like a human baton, Zeng proves he can dance, fight, juggle and act at the same time. However, the evening’s most awesome virtuosity comes from warrior woman Yingwei Zhou in the intricate battle scene from “The White Snake.” Whether grabbing the point of an opponent’s spear and suddenly doing a circle of high-velocity turns around him or kicking the lances thrown at her back to her enemies, Zhou is a brilliant performer.

It is her energy that carries the whole company along on a sustained physical cadenza. By the end, the stage whizzes with flying red and gold pikes but it is Zhou you’re watching: a delicate figure in turquoise pajamas who radiates enough triumphant defiance and sheer chutzpah to make you offer your own neck, smilingly, to her blade.