Taipei's Thalie Theatre is a highly unpredictable set-up. Lacking a permanent home, they are forced to change their venue with virtually every production. And whether or not their shows are successes appears to depend as much as anything else on chance.
This Easter weekend the troupe will put on, of all things, T.S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral. Written in 1935 to be performed in a church, Thalie is playing the piece in a cellar that has never hosted drama, or any other public event, before. At a rehearsal on Tuesday night there was still no stage lighting and no scenery.
Eliot was a poet and playwright who spent his working life wearing business suits, though this didn't prevent him from wearing makeup on occasion. He oscillated between astringent modernism and self-abnegating Christianity. Murder in the Cathedral is definitely of the second category, and for a group like Thalie to select it represents their oddest decision to date.
Thalie Theatre succeeds when text, venue and the talent at their disposal happen to gel. This occurred with Salome in 1999, when they had use of a well-equipped theater, opted for a text which could be played simultaneously straight and with a degree of satire, and cast their players in roles that suited their abilities.
Thalie is strongest at comedy combined with a fanciful, slightly bizarre modernism. Maurice Harrington and Susanne Palm are strong character players where there's any chance of farce, while Milly Chang (who was wonderful in the title role in August Strindberg's Miss Julie) and Jerome Co can interact very dynamically given a vigorous text.
Unfortunately, Murder in the Cathedral is neither farcical nor vigorous. It relates the story of the 12th century assassination of British archbishop Thomas Becket in what many have seen as staid, only mildly dramatic verse.
That Thalie will treat the text satirically is suggested by director Daniel Ingi Petursson's use of Francis Bacon's disturbing Pope Pius XII painting in the production's poster. Fears that it may be seriously mis-cast are roused by Maurice Harrington's approach to the role of Becket.
"The text contains a long sermon, and I have to deliver this seriously," he says. "On the other hand I do show Becket as, well, slightly mad here and there." With a cast of 26, playing in an untested venue with questionable acoustics, this production looks like one for real enthusiasts only. But then Thalie are nothing if not an unknown quantity. They sometimes give the impression that even they are not really sure how a particular show will turn out. You never know -- you may just be lucky.
Performance notes:
What Murder in the Cathedral
When Tonight, 7pm; Tomorrow, 3pm and 7pm; April 21, 7pm; and April 22, 3pm and 7pm.
Where 82 Ningpo West Street, Taipei (MRT: Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall, Exit 2)
Tickets NT$200, available at the door.
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