Letter from an Unknown Woman | Soloist lives out human personas through art

The soloist in the recent performances of Letter from an Unknown Woman, Huang Xiangli, celebrates the humanity that animates all forms of art.

Letter from an Unknown Woman is an intense, confessional work adapted from the well-known Austrian novella by Stefan Zweig. Conceived by one of China’s most influential theatre directors, Meng Jinghui, the show at the Macao Cultural Centre’s Grand Auditorium highlights an actress praised across the nation for her ingenious monologue skills.

“When I first started doing the show, I [did not feel] much strong emotion in the role,” she said. She recalled that, over her performances, she gradually found stronger feelings from the role.

“At the end of several shows, I felt an emotion that I previously hadn’t,” she said. “And these new emotions would quickly be used in my next shows.”

Huang hinted that, as she performs the role more and more, her understanding of the role grows. It seems that both it and she develop in a parallel fashion.

“My understanding of the role gradually expanded [along with] the number of performances, including my ability to feel and my imagination did so,” she explained. “It will further enrich and open up the role itself.”

The performer remains, however, flesh and blood, which means that there can be times that she cannot perform because of illness or exhaustion.

Having led nearly 1,000 shows of the namesake drama, Huang said that the most challenging part of the journey was to stay healthy along the way. “I didn’t dare to get sick,” she said, because she could not be suddenly replaced due to an illness.

There were times that she was so worn out she wanted to suspend the show, but she always kept going. She considered this to be down to not just her professionalism, but as a way to feel stronger as she overcame her physical hurdles.

With the astonishing number of shows completed, Huang admits that sometimes she has felt disoriented and wearied before shows, and sometimes about the show. “However, I reckoned that I had to overcome these emotions because I’m a professional actress.”

Huang has been doing monologue dramas since 2013.

The show started in small theaters with 300 to 600 seats. Later on, it was upgraded to larger theaters with capacities of more than 1,000. Huang said that performing to a larger audience once would have consumed more of her energy. She admitted that sometimes she felt a greater strain before she even stepped on the stage.

Nonetheless, she managed to transform this pressure into momentum.

Another thing that she finds interesting about the show is how she yearns for the audience’s reactions afterwards.

The director, Meng Jinghui, is one of the most influential and celebrated Chinese theatre directors. His incisive wit and critical style earned him an outstanding place in the contemporary drama scene, bringing vitality to theatre in China and elsewhere.

In this show, Huang convincingly creates an incisive portrait, bringing to life a woman trapped in a cascade of raptures and agonies.