RED BOAT TROUPES AND CANTONESE ... - University of Georgia

type, and kuk pei, 127 acrobatic performance, characters, psychological profile, and unfolding of
events. These are modules for forming an opera. Using these basic modules, performers can
easily assemble tai gon hei, out-line plays. 128 Pai cheung may be performed as a scene of a play,
or used as a fundamental play module for directors, performers, and script writers. Some old
performers remember as many as 300 pai cheung. The Cantonese traditional art survey in 1961
documented 142 pai cheung. Among them 54 were wan pai cheung, 81 were wu pai cheng, and
7 chow (funny play) pai cheung. 129 Examples of wu pai cheung included “Fighting the Tiger”
and “Fighting in the dark,” while wan pai cheung included “Teaching Son,” “Reading Letter
from Home,” and “First Night after Wedding.”
Influenced by the northern performer Zhang Wu, early Cantonese opera have role types
similar to Han and other opera genres that divide the types into ten categories. 130 In the 1930s,
the roles were narrowed to six. Today, there are four main types: the dan, the sheng, the chou
and the jing. A dan is a woman’s role. A beautiful main character is called a fa dan, meaning
flower dan. An old woman is called a lao dan, meaning old woman. A heroine who can master
martial arts is called a do ma dan, (“do” means knife and “ma” means horse). A sheng is a male
role. A young scholar or young man is a sheng. An old man is a lao sheng. A scholar or young
man who can also master martial arts is a wan wu sheng. A chou is a clown who usually has a
white mark on around his nose. He is a humorous character. A jing is a painted face. The color
and style of painting indicates his character. Usually, a performer specializes in one or two of
these stock roles. Kunju and Peking Opera are predecessors of Cantonese Opera. With the rapid
economic growth in the Pearl River Triangle, Cantonese Opera expended, especially between
127
Name tag of a tune type
128
Wong, Toa, Yuet kek [Yuetju] (Vancouver: Wong Toa Publishing. 2002), 22-29.
129
Ibid.
130
Wong, Toa, 15.
57