Lee's study, based on intensive ethnographic research in the 1990s, is an investigation of the history, demographics, economics, cultural nuances and political strategies related to ‘Chinese street opera’. The title refers to both amateur and professional performances on the streets, in the vicinity of temples, in vacant lots or fields and in temporarily constructed structures. In Singapore's multicultural society, where Eurasian, Malay, Chinese and South Asian are the main ethnic groups, ‘Chinese’ encompasses various dialects from Fujian and Guangdong in China; ‘Chinese opera’ thus refers to Fujian opera, Chaozhou opera and Cantonese opera. The complexity, ambiguity and fictiveness of ‘Chinese’ and ‘Chinese opera’ in Singapore situate this study in a fascinating context of cultural and postcolonial studies.
Chinese street opera has played an important role in Singapore's nation building and modernity, especially in the last two decades of the twentieth century. While professional opera gradually withered, amateur opera thrived because of state sponsorship. In a development that reflects Confucianism advocated by the state, amateur opera players represent the best Singaporean citizens: they are educated members of the middle and upper class distinguished by their strong cultural, moral and artistic values. Their opera performances reaffirm their own cultural and social superiority and their participation in the hegemonic discourse of nation building. The first three chapters lay out the historical, social and ethnographical details. Chapter One takes us from the early migration history to the flourishing entertainment business of the mid-twentieth century (1840–1960). The next two chapters offer detailed ethnographic accounts of professional and amateur opera respectively, including documents of the rehearsal process, stage layout, music, audience reception and backstage activities. Dozens of illustrations provide valuable visual documentation. It is sometimes difficult to navigate through the ‘thick description’ in these chapters because the theoretical thread is not yet clear and because Lee seems to hesitate between being general and specific, between speaking to global and to local readers.
The theoretical arguments become clearer in later chapters. In Chapter Four, Lee demonstrates how, in the course of its decline, professional secular street opera gradually moved back into its historical setting as a performing art accompanying religious and ethnic occasions. Chapter Five extends the discussion of opera to a global level. Now with ‘cultural tourism’ as the new framework, Chinese street opera is recontextualized and redefined as a new cultural resource for the nation. Chapter Six then provides the key to the entire project. Here the various theories of culture, ethnicity, nation and capital at last come together to provide a clear theoretical framework. Readers might find it helpful to get the theoretical gist here before reading the earlier chapters.
Lee's work is a newly excavated archaeological site that theatre scholars should not miss it. For Chinese opera scholars, this is an informative study of a neglected genre in a neglected region; for generalists, this is a fascinating effort to rethink the question of art as cultural capital in a nationalist narrative. Given these strengths in the study, one only wishes that it had offered a clearer sense of Chinese street opera's prospects for survival in the new millennium.
