云霄潮剧团 - 陆文龙



On Thursday, 19 Jun 2008, I headed straight to Koo Chai Pa 韭菜芭at Upper Paya Lebar road after I had my dinner at Golden Shoe Market. The train was quite crowded and I met an old colleague who had worked as a temporary staff in my organization last September. He is a Diploma holder and is working to support his part-time degree. His face was filled with amazement when I told him I was on my way to watch Chinese opera at a temple. I told him I had been watching Chinese opera since you and had uploaded many video clips on the internet. I alighted at Paya Lebar station and took a few minutes to get my orientation for the right bus stop. For the past few days, I took a bus from Ang Mo Kio interchange. This time round, I had to travel in the opposite direction.



I was quite early when I reached the temple. Tonight’s performance is 陆文龙and I guessed my favourite actor 汤艺勇would play the role as 陆文龙. At the entrance, I saw a few Caucasians. Later, I saw more Caucasians. Then, I saw Dr Chua (蔡署鹏博士) of the Singapore Chinese Opera Institute. Ah ha, he must the one who led them to watch Yu云霄潮剧团 I tapped on his shoulder to say hello to him and briefly introduced myself as he knows my wife more than me. I also saw 蔡碧霞小姐. I wanted to call her mobile phone but she turned her head in time and saw me. I walked to say hello to her and told her I would like to take some pictures with the actors. Immediately, she led me to the backstage. The actors and actresses were busy painting their faces and preparing their costumes. I named 汤艺勇g and she brought me next to him. I could see 艺勇 perspiring with pearly drops of sweat dripping non stop. I felt so bad to interrupt as he was still doing his finial touch up. We shook hands and he told me to return later.



The performance began and true enough, 艺勇played the role as 陆文龙. The first 30 minutes of the performance was very solid. There was very little singing as fighting and acrobatic skills dominated the segment. Both 艺勇and 李丽君were simply great performers. 艺勇was damned solid when he spin two spears with his hands. He was able to able to capture the audience attention through his skillful act and I was thoroughly thrilled watching the show.



As I was just seated one row behind Dr Chua, he asked me to join him. That was the row dedicated to VIP only. We had a short chat while watching the performance. I told him I needed to go to the back stage to take pictures with 艺勇. He accompanied me. When we reached the back stage, 艺勇was using his mobile phone. We could see his sweaty face and thought he needed a rest. He quickly stood up to touch up and put on his headgear. I took 3 shots of him and then Dr Chua took 2 shot of me with艺勇. Then, I saw 丽君and I requested for a photo taking. So, two young ladies dressed as 武生came to take pictures with me. Later, I discovered that the other lady is called 何小琴. After that, we returned to watch the performance. The show ended at about 11 pm and Dr Chua led the group of Caucasians to take a group photo with the performers.