Neckties and high heels back in fashion

Neckties and High-heeled Shoes (領帶與高跟鞋), a work that made Green Ray Theater (綠光劇團) an overnight success seven years ago, is back with a new cast.

Founded in 1993, Green Ray Theater is one of the few performance groups dedicated to creating original, Taiwanese musicals.

Neckties and High-heeled Shoes was first staged in 1994 and was the group's first musical production. At a time when modern local musicals were unheard of, the show saw unexpected and record-breaking success, with sell-out crowds at its 10 performances at the Experimental Stage of the National Theater.

The group also went to Beijing with the show in 1996, followed by a tour around Taiwan with six more performances.

As in 1994, the prolific playwright and the group's founder Luo Bei-an (羅北安) is the musical's director. The main appeal of the new version is that more well-known artists from other fields will take part in the performance. Among them are singer-actress Nana Tang (堂娜), comedian Teng An-ning (鄧安寧) and Huang Hsen-hsen (黃心心), a member of the pop group IPIS.

Neckties takes a humorous look at office life. The characters complain about how a white-collar career, or the loss of one, affects their respective personal lives and they gripe about the fatigue they suffer from working long hours every day.

The characters provide a slice of office life -- a successful career woman who has everything she wants except a love life, a harsh manager who constantly takes advantage of female subordinates and an aging rank-and-file worker unwilling to face the boredom of retirement.

If there is a weak point in the musical it is that these stock characters, seemingly out of popular TV dramas and literature, show little creativity on the part of the playwright and restrict the performers.

The only exception is Chen Hsi-sheng (陳希聖), who plays Jerry, a fawning middle-rank employee whose schemes against his colleagues wreak havoc in the office. Chen shows comic talent and genuine skill when expressing his devotion to his female boss in a painfully inept way.

The music in Neckties is excellent. The numbers are freshly melodious and provide a vivid outline of each of the characters. Nana Tang's long-time reputation as a singer is proven in The Sorrows of a Modern Career Woman, her solo performance, and in Young Again, a duet with Luo.

The musical was Luo's attempt to deal with his aversion to 9-to-5 jobs. Since high school, "I have had a lasting fear of office work, but the same fear also triggered my enormous interest in this subject," Luo said.

While working on the musical, this fear turned into sympathy. "Limited job opportunities results in cannibalistic competition between office workers. In their world there is less joy than pain. The rare occasions of joy make them more precious. I am deeply touched by these brief moments of joy," he said.

What: Neckties and high-heeled shoes by Green Ray Theater

When: July 19 - July 22 WHERE National Theater (國家戲劇院), 21 Chungshan S. Rd. (中山南路21號)

Tickets: Call Green Ray Theater at 2395-6838