Since it was established three years ago, the annual Eslite Basement Festival (誠品書店-地下開放劇場藝術節) and its month-long series of weekend performances has become an integral part of the local fringe theatre scenes' calendar.
Entitled Theatre For 2 (只有二個人) -- for the simple reason that the four groups invited to perform will only use casts of two -- this year's festival is set to include performances of theater, dance and music on consecutive weekends from tonight through Sept. 1.
Getting the festival underway at 7:30pm this evening is The Sunlite Theater Group (戲曲瑰麗劇場) with a performance of Macbeth, The Puppet (傀儡馬克白). Directed by Li Hsiao-ping (李小平) and featuring Beijing opera stars Ju An-li (朱安麗) and Cheng Jien (盛鑑), the play is a rather off-the-wall reworking of Shakespeare's classic with some highly visual Chinese opera-styled twists.
Next weekend it's The Party Theater Group (戲劇同志劇場). The two man troupe will perform a show entitled Eden (新天堂公園) -- a play that follows a conversation between two homosexual men who accidentally meet in a park.
Music is the order of the day the following weekend, when Hsieh Yun-ya (謝韻雅) and Scott Prairie (音樂肢體劇場) perform a mime/dance and musical piece called When the River Meets the Ocean (當河流相遇海洋).
Bringing this year's festival to close is the LA/FA Dance Theater (舞蹈能量劇場) and its show, Single Room (單人房), a dance that sees two members of the troupe exploring the interaction between two people as they share a single room.
The Eslite Basement Festival runs from today through Sept. 1. Performances will take place on Fridays at 7:30pm, Saturdays at 2:30pm and 7:30pm and Sundays at 2:30pm in the basement arts space of Eslite's Tunhwa branch (誠品敦南店B2藝文空間). Tickets for the shows cost from NT$400 to NT$450 and are available from Acer ticketing outlets nationwide or direct from Eslite bookstores.
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