
SNOW IN MIDSUMMER: THE SILENCE
窦娥冤:静默
January 13-18, 2025. Baby Grand Theatre, Kingston, ON
In January 2025, Yu Theatre staged a silent theatre adaptation of Guan Hanqing’s Yuan drama Snow in Midsummer at the Baby Grand Theatre. Titled Snow in Midsummer: The Silence, the work restaged the story of Dou E, a young woman wrongfully executed, whose resistance and sacrifice brought justice to light.
Unlike traditional performances, The Silence was highly experimental, “infusing extensive elements of shadow play, using light and movement to replace spoken narrative, presenting this timeless injustice through an entirely new artistic form.” (WeChat, November 21, 2024)
Light and shadow symbolized the tension between silence and outcry, between society and the individual. In representing Dou E, the production used “dual casting”—a “Black Dou E” and a “White Dou E,” embodying her external reality and inner desires, visually amplifying the character’s contradictions.
This production pushed Yu Theatre’s artistic boundaries once again, deliberately abandoning language as the central medium to explore universal values beyond words. It also invited non-Chinese-speaking actors for the first time, making Yu Theatre’s work more accessible across cultures.
2025年1月,虞剧社在 Kingston Grand Theatre 的小剧场 Baby Grand Theatre 上演了默剧《窦娥冤:静默》(Snow in Midsummer: The Silence)。作品改编自关汉卿的元杂剧《窦娥冤》,讲述了一位年轻女子因冤屈而被处死,直至以生命抗争,昭雪真相的故事。
与传统表演不同,《静默》极具实验性,“融入了大量影子表演元素,用光影的交织与肢体的表达,取代语言叙事——通过全新的艺术形式呈现这一千古冤案。”(微信推文,2024年11月21日)光与影的辩证关系在舞台上象征着“静默”与“呐喊”的对立与交织,回应了社会与个人之间复杂的张力。通过现代化改编,作品重现了封建伦理对个体生命的桎梏与腐蚀。在表现窦娥这一角色时,制作采用“一角多演”的设计:以“黑窦娥”与“白窦娥”并置,象征其“现实处境”与“内心愿望”,从而在视觉层面强化了人物的多面和矛盾。
这一制作再次突破了虞剧社的艺术边界,主动舍弃语言这一核心元素,探索超越语言的普世价值。这样的艺术选择不仅深化了作品的象征意义,也让非中文使用者能够更直接地参与进虞剧社表演之中。这也是虞剧社第一次邀请非中文使用者的演员。















