Love Wasabi (愛情哇沙米) is Spring Sun Performing Arts Troupe's (春禾劇團) most successful performance to date. When it was first put on stage in 2001 by the high-profile theater group, the 17 shows were quickly sold out. So popular was the song and dance piece that its director Liu Liang-zou (劉亮佐) adapted it for TV earlier this year.
The TV adaptation has just been nominated for four prizes including best director, best lead female and best supporting male in the annual Golden Bell Awards (金鐘獎). Liu's remake of the musical, to be performed tonight at the National Theater (國家戲劇院), will give comedy fans a chance to revisit the work that did brilliantly both at the box office and among the critics' circle.
PHOTO COURTESY OF SPRING SUN PERFORMING ARTS TROUPE
The person behind Spring Sun is its producer, leader, executive and actress Lang Tzu-yun (郎祖筠), one of the country's few top comedians. Having a way with smart words and a knack for touching the emotions of an urban audience, Lang's well known for her quick wit. A year after studying under Wu Chao-nan (吳兆南), an old master of Chinese stand-up comedy, Lang set up Spring Sun in 1999 with Buddha Says "Never talk about it." Teacher says "Say It Out Loud!", a series of traditional repertoire pieces with modern and feminist twists. Lang followed that up with several musicals and modern comedies, telling humorous yet touching stories from a female perspective.
Spring Sun's adaptation of Yuan dynasty drama in Huanhsi Mansion also drew full houses with ingenious stage settings and a hilarious plot. Last year's tragic-comic Spring Sun's 18 Tricks presented some humorous thoughts on life and love. What Sense Does Love Make? a musical performed earlier this year, is a tragic-comic look at love cross the Taiwan strait.
Despite the cast being almost the same in the remake of Love Wasabi, some details have been changed by Liu to give the story a more positive note.
"When I directed it for the first time, I was single and very pessimistic about the whole relationship and marriage thing, but this time I'm a married man. When I look back on the first Love Wasabi, I couldn't understand why I directed it that way, as I'm more positive about marriage now," Liu said.
He said he expected some of the audience who liked the TV rendition to go and see the theater remake.
"I wanted to do a combination of TV and theater. Hopefully a TV audience will enjoy the show as much as usual theater-goers."
Billed as "The Taipei Version of Sex and the City," Love Wasabi does have all the elements that makes it a TV hit, especially with an urban female audience: strong female bonding, lots of sex talks, debates on marriage and sexual preferences, hot love affairs and go go boy dancers.
Hsinli, Wang Chuan and A-lang were close friends since college. Their different life experiences over 10 years only strengthens their friendship. Whenever they get together, they help each other deal with their rapidly changing lives and their increasingly unhappy relationships with their husbands. Feeling wronged by their husbands, the three brood on revenge plans.
A-lang, whom everyone calls a superwoman, works on the management of a large entertainment company. Her husband is on the brink of a mid-life crisis and yet cannot stop chasing women. A-lang and her friends plot to teach him a lesson and rekindle the fire between them after years of estrangement, but this only leads to unexpected repercussions involving a willful young girl and an ambitious and amorous young man. At the same time, the other two friends, a marriage counselor whose own marriage is on the rocks and a actress past her prime, have their own problems to solve.
Another promising part of Love Wasabi is its soundtrack. Huang Yun-ling (黃韻玲), the veteran singer-songwriter, is well known for her pioneering bossa nova-tinged pop songs. Huang's fusion jazz compositions and melodic love songs make a nice background for the stories of relationships in the big city.
Love Wasabi is at 7:30pm tonight through Sunday and at
2:30pm tomorrow and Sunday at the National Theater. Tickets are from NT$500 to NT$1,800 and are available at Acer Ticketing Outlets. For more information, call Spring Sun at (02) 2395 2999.
Last week the story of the giant illegal crater dug in Kaohsiung’s Meinong District (美濃) emerged into the public consciousness. The site was used for sand and gravel extraction, and then filled with construction waste. Locals referred to it sardonically as the “Meinong Grand Canyon,” according to media reports, because it was 2 hectares in length and 10 meters deep. The land involved included both state-owned and local farm land. Local media said that the site had generated NT$300 million in profits, against fines of a few million and the loss of some excavators. OFFICIAL CORRUPTION? The site had been seized
Next week, candidates will officially register to run for chair of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). By the end of Friday, we will know who has registered for the Oct. 18 election. The number of declared candidates has been fluctuating daily. Some candidates registering may be disqualified, so the final list may be in flux for weeks. The list of likely candidates ranges from deep blue to deeper blue to deepest blue, bordering on red (pro-Chinese Communist Party, CCP). Unless current Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) can be convinced to run for re-election, the party looks likely to shift towards more hardline
Sept. 15 to Sept. 21 A Bhutanese princess caught at Taoyuan Airport with 22 rhino horns — worth about NT$31 million today — might have been just another curious front-page story. But the Sept. 17, 1993 incident came at a sensitive moment. Taiwan, dubbed “Die-wan” by the British conservationist group Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), was under international fire for being a major hub for rhino horn. Just 10 days earlier, US secretary of the interior Bruce Babbitt had recommended sanctions against Taiwan for its “failure to end its participation in rhinoceros horn trade.” Even though Taiwan had restricted imports since 1985 and enacted
Enter the Dragon 13 will bring Taiwan’s first taste of Dirty Boxing Sunday at Taipei Gymnasium, one highlight of a mixed-rules card blending new formats with traditional MMA. The undercard starts at 10:30am, with the main card beginning at 4pm. Tickets are NT$1,200. Dirty Boxing is a US-born ruleset popularized by fighters Mike Perry and Jon Jones as an alternative to boxing. The format has gained traction overseas, with its inaugural championship streamed free to millions on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. Taiwan’s version allows punches and elbows with clinch striking, but bans kicks, knees and takedowns. The rules are stricter than the
RSS