It’s Mostly in the Mind

The stage is bare of scenery and brightly lit. You see two warriors fighting one another. Now if you use your imagination--as you must--you will realize you are watching a scene at night.

You will also laugh--as you’re meant to do--at the struggles of the men who can’t really see each other.

That in a nutshell is the traditional way Chinese opera is staged.

“At the very most, there is a table and a chair, but no background, no backdrop of any sort,” Hu Ying, a professor of Asian languages and literature at UCI, said in a recent phone interview.

“The entire focus is on the actor, who is supposed to create everything--a castle, the weather or darkness--by costumes, face paint and partly by dancing or miming.”

Ying was talking about the Beijing Kun Opera Theatre, which will present two mostly similar programs Friday and Saturday at the Irvine Barclay Theatre.

The programs, which include an excerpt from “The Peony Pavilion” (one of the Kun classics) and several Monkey King stories, are jointly sponsored by the Irvine theater and the Philharmonic Society of Orange County.

Local audiences are probably more familiar with Peking (a.k.a. Beijing) Opera because those companies have toured the Southland frequently.

But Kun opera predates Peking Opera by about 200 years, tracing its origins to the 15th and 16th centuries. And that is only one of the differences between the two.

Kun music is more melodic and the tempos slower, Ying said. There is also more emphasis on singing and considerably less on acrobatics, though the five pieces the company is bringing to the United States are a lot more action-oriented than most.

“If you were to compare [the two forms], Kun is more dance-like and less acrobatic,” Ying said, adding that Kun opera is also “very much a literary form.

“Some of the dramatists were highly respected poets. They composed lyrics for the really old [musical] pieces, whereas in Peking Opera, the most famous pieces were composed by the performers.

“They were not well-known for their lyrics but for their performances, except for what they borrowed from Kun.”

The lyrics are highly refined because they had to conform to music already composed. In the 16th century, Wei Liangfu, who often is credited with creating the form, compiled about 500 regional tunes (some say 800 tunes) that would be used to tell the stories.

By doing so, he helped transform what had been essentially a musical recital form into a theatrical one. It became possible, Ying said, for “great artists to compose theater pieces without being thought vulgar.

“These songs have completely set meters. They are as long as sonnets, but sonnets of different kinds, composed according to different rules.

“Because Chinese is a tonal language, each word has to be pronounced at the right tone,” she added. “If the music demands a dropping tone and you put in a word with a rising tone, it would be nearly impossible to sing it.”

Therefore, fitting lyrics to the songs was “an incredibly difficult task,” which is why there were few successful playwrights after the early 18th century.

“During its heyday, from the early 17th century to about the mid-18th century, it was heavily patronized by the court. It was considered the correct music.

“I think people will enjoy this quite easily, given the pieces,” Ying said. “Two are visually spectacular and one is quite hilarious. Basically, anyone can kick back and enjoy them and have fun. I have no worry in that respect.”

Moreover, to help audience members who do not speak Chinese, supertitle translations will be projected above the stage.

Lee Chen, who will serve as the translator for the troupe, is working on them now.

Chen was born in China and moved to the United States about 10 years ago to study Asian theater and opera at the University of Hawaii.

“When I was growing up, everything traditional was bad,” she said recently from her L.A. home, referring to the dogmatic rules of China’s Cultural Revolution, a time in which art was required to serve the ideals of communism (1966-76).

“Of course, we had Peking Opera, but it was revolutionary theater,” such as “The White-Haired Girl” or “The Red Detachment of Women.”

“I didn’t know anything about traditional things. I came to America to study them. That was very ironic. At first I hated Peking Opera. I hated the sound of it. It makes the ear hurt. But I wasn’t exposed to the traditional one, but the revolutionary one. Then when I was getting training for it, I experienced a whole shift--I was older and I was learning my own culture.

“I like it now. I’m actually trying to get into a group that’s based in Monterey Park to keep practicing. I want to keep training with them, learn pieces from them.

“I’m very excited. This tour [which begins in Irvine, crosses the country and ends in Hawaii on Feb. 29] will be fun. I’m the only one who speaks English. I’ll be traveling with 23 people who don’t speak one word of English.”

* Beijing Kun Opera Theatre will perform slightly different programs Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. at the Irvine Barclay Theatre, 4242 Campus Drive. $28-$35. (949) 854-4646.

Chris Pasles can be reached at (714) 966-5602 or by e-mail at chris.pasles@latimes.com.