Chengda students get incestuous

The Young Talent Arts Festival (青年才俊藝術節) is an annual theatrical event that serves as a one of the few chances for university students to produce and stage their own performances. As college students remain the primary audience for many theater performances in Taiwan, current student productions may well represent the future face of local theater as well as its future viewers.

Onani Theater Group, made up of students from National Chengchi University (國立政治大學) in Mucha, will go on stage today with Tower (塔), the group's debut performance.

Set on a simple stage, Tower is a tragedy that packs a powerful emotional punch.

Having run away from their castle, a princess and her brother (a prince) are taken hostage and locked inside a dark room from which there will be no escape. As the years pass, the teenage siblings begin to feel attracted to each other and start to flirt, skirting the line between sibling affection and sexual attraction. But they never go too far, for incest is a taboo they still vaguely recall from their days in the palace.

Although Tower seems like a simple love story, Chen Wei-en (陳緯恩), the play's writer and director, thinks the meaning is much broader.

"The world we live in is a prison, like the tower. The interactions between the prince and princess can happen in the relations between any two people," Chen said.

Audiences may do well to brush up on their literary knowledge as the play dishes out a heavy dose of abstruse metaphors and arcane references. In fact, the script had scared off several aspiring actors and actresses at auditions because they simply couldn't understand it, before the group found its present cast through acquaintances.

Performance Notes:

Tower will be performed today at 7:30pm and tomorrow at

2:30pm and 7:30pm

at the Performance Hall at the Chinese Culture University's Center for Promotional Education (推廣教育表演廳), B1, 231 Jiankuo S. Rd. Sec. 2 (建國北路2段231號B1). Tickets are NT$250 and are available at Acer ticketing outlets or by calling (02) 2784-1111.