When HAMLET meets PEKING OPERA
當《哈姆雷特》遇上京劇
1 I thought I knew a lot about Hamlet. As a high school student with English literature as one of my main subjects, I have to! Shakespeare’s Hamlet is probably the most important play by the most important writer in English. Almost everybody knows 「To be, or not to be」, right? Having seen quite a few productions of Hamlet and read the play many times, I was full of confidence—until the Peking Opera came to town!
我本以為自己對《哈姆雷特》很了解。作為一名以英語文學為主課的高中生，《哈姆雷特》是我必學的內容！莎士比亞的《哈姆雷特》應該是最重要的英語作家創作的最重要的戲劇了。幾乎所有人都知道「生存，還是毀滅」，對吧？我看過好幾部《哈姆雷特》的影視作品，這部戲劇我也看了好幾遍，因此我充滿了信心——直到城裡來了京劇表演！
2 Dating back to the 18th century, Peking Opera has over two hundred years of history. Does this mean it’s easier than a Shakespeare play to understand? To find out the answer, I just had to go and see The Revenge of Prince Zidan—the Peking Opera version of Hamlet.
京劇的起源可以追溯到18世紀，距今已有兩百多年歷史。這是否意味著京劇比莎士比亞的戲劇更容易理解？為了找到答案，我必須去看看《王子復仇記》——京劇版的《哈姆雷特》。
3 Starting with an orchestra playing traditional Chinese instruments, the opera brought a completely new sound to my Western ears. At first, I thought what I heard was a violin, but later I learnt that it was an instrument with two strings called jinghu. Then, seeing the main characters come on stage, I was surprised! The costumes and masks were amazing. The performers of course sang in Chinese, but the music, exaggerated movements and mime helped get the meanings across to the audience. The voices themselves sounded really unique—some of the female voices were so high that I was sure they could break glass! And the stage was really simple:a decorated whip represented a horse, and a screen with Chinese characters, a study. Using such techniques, the opera had transformed a small stage into the whole universe.
戲一開場，是樂隊彈奏中國傳統樂器，我這個西方人的耳朵聽到了一種全新的聲音。起初，我以為我聽到的是小提琴的聲音，不過後來我才知道那是一種有兩根弦的樂器，叫做京胡。然後，看到主角登場時，我感到十分驚訝！那些服裝和臉譜都很棒。當然，演員們的唱詞是中文的，但觀眾可以藉助伴奏、誇張的動作和形體模仿來理解表演內容。那些唱腔聽起來非常獨特——有的女聲聲調如此之高，以至於我覺得可以震碎玻璃！舞臺的布置非常簡單：有裝飾的馬鞭就代表馬，寫有漢字的屏風就代表書房。通過這些方法，京劇把一個小小的舞臺變成了浩瀚的宇宙。
4 Easily my favourite part of the show was how the characters moved on stage. I had never seen Prince Hamlet do a backflip before! That was simply incredible. It was so dazzling and energetic that I wasn’t sure if the characters were performers or athletes! Everyone was clapping.
毫無疑問，演出中我最喜歡的部分是人物在舞臺上的動作。我從沒見過哈姆雷特王子表演後空翻！簡直太不可思議了！那眼花繚亂的動作充滿力量，我都不確定這些表演者到底是演員還是運動員！大家都使勁兒鼓掌。
5 Before experiencing The Revenge of Prince Zidan, I wasn’t sure if I would enjoy it. But, in fact, I was on the edge of my seat! Feeling the strong emotions of love, anger, fear and grief in the performance, I could easily recognise the theme of Hamlet. So, if you want to see a show that combines music, singing, drama, poetry and costume design with explosive effect, The Revenge of Prince Zidan ticks all the right boxes!
在親身體驗《王子復仇記》之前，我不知道自己是否會喜歡(京劇)。可事實上，我看得超級投入！通過從表演中感受到的愛、怒、懼、哀等強烈情感，我很容易就能看出《哈姆雷特》的主題。所以，如果你想看一場融合了音樂、演唱、戲劇、詩歌以及驚豔服飾的表演，那麼《王子復仇記》再合適不過了！
Good Book, Bad Movie?
好書壞電影？
1 They say that 「a picture is worth a thousand words」, but the briefest look at books and the movies based on them would have anyone questioning this common saying. All too often, great words end up being turned into cinematic 「turkeys」.
人們常說「一圖勝千詞」，但是簡單對照一下書籍和由之而改編的電影，就會讓人們開始質疑這一說法。很多時候，優秀的文字作品最終卻變成電影中的失敗之作。
2 Good movies need good stories. If so, why has one of the earliest and greatest works in Western storytelling, Homer’s The Odyssey, never had an equally great movie based on it? Movies need strong characters. So why have the movies based on The Great Gatsby never been praised as 「great」? Movies of course need impressive images, so why has Alice in Wonderland only resulted in movies best described as 「interesting」?
好的電影需要好的故事。若是如此，那為什麼西方敘事文本中最早且最優秀的作品之一——荷馬的《奧德賽》——從未產生過同樣優秀的改編電影呢？電影中需要個性鮮明的人物。那為什麼基於《了不起的蓋茨比》改編的電影從未被稱讚為「優秀」呢？電影當然需要令人印象深刻的畫面，那為什麼由《愛麗絲夢遊仙境》改編的電影頂多被稱為「有點意思」呢？
3 One of the key reasons behind this is that while a book usually takes a few days to read, a movie typically lasts under two hours, This means that great books can lose plot details and characters when they move to the big screen. This is something that even the highly successful Harry Potter movies can’t escape from, with fans of the books disappointed not to see some of their favourite characters in the movie versions.
這背後的一個重要原因是，一本書通常需要花幾天的時間來閱讀，而一部電影通常不會超過兩小時。這就意味著優秀的書籍被搬上大銀幕之後，會刪減一些情節和人物。這是連大獲成功的「哈利·波特」系列電影也無法避免的事情，有些書迷因為在電影中沒看到自己最喜歡的一些角色而感到失望。
4 Movies also disappoint us when things don’t look the way we imagined them in the books. Take, for example, the epic movie Troy, which is in part based on Homer’s The Iliad and was met with mixed reviews from the audience. The most questionable issue was the actress chosen to play the part of Helen. Many people thought she didn’t live up to Helen’s title of 「the most beautiful woman in the world」, influencing opinions of the movie to some extent.
電影呈現出的事物與我們讀書時的想像的有落差時，我們也會備感失望。以史詩電影《特洛伊》為例，該電影部分改編自荷馬的《伊利亞特》，觀眾對它的評論褒貶不一。其中最有爭議的問題在於扮演海倫的女演員。許多人認為她配不上海倫「世界上最美麗的女人」這一稱號，這在一定程度上影響了人們對這部電影的看法。
5 There are a thousand Hamlets in a thousand people’s eyes. Furthermore, books and movies are two different forms of media and therefore have different rules. With this in mind, perhaps we should judge a movie in its own right, and not against its original source. Interestingly, audiences have in recent years turned to television series such as Sherlock or Mad Men, which can have many characters and gradual plot development. Perhaps, one day, readers of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s most admired work will find themselves glued to their screens by episodes of The Great Gatsby.
一千個讀者就有一千個哈姆雷特。而且書籍和電影是兩種不同的媒體形式，因此也遵循不同的原則。考慮到這一點，也許我們應該基於電影本身而不是將其與原始版本進行對比來評價電影。值得注意的是，觀眾已經逐漸將興趣轉向了《神探夏洛克》或《廣告狂人》這樣的電視連續劇，因為電視劇能展現更多人物，情節也得以逐步展開。也許有一天，F. 斯科特·菲茨傑拉德最傑出作品的讀者們，會發現自己已被《了不起的蓋茨比》的劇集深深吸引。
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