The Chung Cheng Cultural Center's annual Experimental Theater Festival begins tonight with Shakespeare's Wild Sisters, one of Taiwan's oldest and leading alternative theater groups.
Zodiac's many storylines are based on the true story of a serial killer in the US in the 1960. The killer, who remains at large today, fooled the police by mailing them coded letters concealing his name and leaving obscure hints regarding his motives and whereabouts.
Accounts of this tug of war between the suspect and the police inspired Wang Chia-ming to create Zodiac, which focuses on the ambiguous relationship and, sometimes, role reversal between detective and suspect. It also blows the chase out of proportion, making it a matter of universal consequence.
The piece opens with the killer dancing next to the female detective to the deafening beat of techno in a nightclub. Their lives are shown to be equally empty, thus blurring the good guy/bad guy divide.
Another episode depicts the frenzied chase between the two through city streets, campuses, restaurants and beaches. In the end, the exhausted killer and the anonymous detective fall on the ground and turn to reach the other's hands like a pair of dying lovers.
Its intriguing plot aside, Zodiac's stage setting is one of the most ingenious among non-mainstream theater performances. The video projections that serve as more than backgrounds are quite worth watching.
The other seven groups in the festival include Off Performance Workshop, Taitung Theater, Golden Bough Theater, Uhan Shii Theater Group, Oh My Darling Theater Company, Stalker Theater Group and Taiwan Walker Theater. Most of them will restage their acclaimed previous performances. For more information, call CKS Cultural Center at (02) 2343-1647.
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