Performance Workshop, long one of Taiwan's leading theatrical groups, is
breaking new ground with a original play by Ting Nai-cheng (丁乃箏) called
Love is a Two-Way Street, which opened yesterday at the National Theater and
will play there until Wednesday. In a theatrical first, the play will open
simultaneously in Shanghai, where it will be performed under the direction
of Chen Li-hua (陳立華).
Love is a Two-Way Street (他和他的兩個老婆) was inspired by the British
comedy Run for Your Wife, by prolific comic playwright Ray Coony, which was
first performed in 1983. The original play tells the story of John Smith, a
London cabbie with his own taxi, a wife in Streatham, a wife in Wimbledon
and a knife-edge schedule! He has been a successful, if tired, bigamist for
three years, but one day he is taken to hospital with mild concussion.
Complications ensure, and that is the stuff of ageless comedy.
Director Ting Nai-wen, a veteran of Performance Workshop's wide repertoire
of productions over the years, has updated this venerable show, and by
placing it in the context of modern-day cross-strait trade, has given
herself ample room for developing many comic themes. As in the original,
Love tells the story of a man with two wives, but in this case, one in
Taiwan and the other in Shanghai. It also introduces a host of new
characters such as scrupulous paparazzi who will stop at nothing to get a
story - or even better a recording - of sexual misbehavior. Playing on both
sides of the Strait, Taiwan's cast says it is very interested to see the
interpretation that the Shanghai cast puts on the show. Love is a Two-Way
Street will play at the National Theater at 7:30pm until May 22 with a
matinee on Sunday. Tickets cost from NT$300 to NT$1,800.
Sept.16 to Sept. 22 The “anti-communist train” with then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) face plastered on the engine puffed along the “sugar railway” (糖業鐵路) in May 1955, drawing enthusiastic crowds at 103 stops covering nearly 1,200km. An estimated 1.58 million spectators were treated to propaganda films, plays and received free sugar products. By this time, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖, Taisugar) had managed to connect the previously separate east-west lines established by Japanese-era sugar factories, allowing the anti-communist train to travel easily from Taichung to Pingtung’s Donggang Township (東港). Last Sunday’s feature (Taiwan in Time: The sugar express) covered the inauguration of the
The corruption cases surrounding former Taipei Mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) are just one item in the endless cycle of noise and fuss obscuring Taiwan’s deep and urgent structural and social problems. Even the case itself, as James Baron observed in an excellent piece at the Diplomat last week, is only one manifestation of the greater problem of deep-rooted corruption in land development. Last week the government announced a program to permit 25,000 foreign university students, primarily from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, to work in Taiwan after graduation for 2-4 years. That number is a
In a stark demonstration of how award-winning breakthroughs can come from the most unlikely directions, researchers have won an Ig Nobel prize for discovering that mammals can breathe through their anuses. After a series of tests on mice, rats and pigs, Japanese scientists found the animals absorb oxygen delivered through the rectum, work that underpins a clinical trial to see whether the procedure can treat respiratory failure. The team is among 10 recognized in this year’s Ig Nobel awards (see below for more), the irreverent accolades given for achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think.” They are not
This Qing Dynasty trail takes hikers from renowned hot springs in the East Rift Valley, up to the top of the Coastal Mountain Range, and down to the Pacific Short vacations to eastern Taiwan often require choosing between the Rift Valley with its pineapple fields, rice paddies and broader range of amenities, or the less populated coastal route for its ocean scenery. For those who can’t decide, why not try both? The Antong Traversing Trail (安通越嶺道) provides just such an opportunity. Built 149 years ago, the trail linked up these two formerly isolated parts of the island by crossing over the Coastal Mountain Range. After decades of serving as a convenient path for local Amis, Han settlers, missionaries and smugglers, the trail fell into disuse once modern roadways were built