Fans demand return of the Human Condition to stage

Human Condition (人間條件) has been Green Ray Theater's (綠光劇團) most celebrated work to date.

After it premiered at Taipei's National Theater (國家戲劇院) in 2001, phone calls and e-mails asking for a re-staging immediately inundated the theater. As a result director and script writer Wu Nien-jen (吳念真) brought it back in June.

"When we staged the show in June, it was just after the SARS outbreak. To our surprise, people were so quick to come back to the theater. They suddenly felt okay to be in the same room with other people [in the theater]. That change touched us deeply because the play is about how the expression of true emotions drawing people closer to each other," said Lee Li-heng (李立亨), director of Green Ray.

Human Condition centers on the four members of an ordinary family. The father of the family is a borough warden obsessed with making money. His family means less to him than his lottery and betel nut businesses. The mother escapes from real life into the world of TV soap. Neither of them tries to understand their teenage daughter. Being awkward at almost everything, the 17-year-old girl can only sit and fantasize about the boy in the next class. The betel nut beauty the family employs coldly observes the absurd behavior of this family while spending all her time flirting on the cell phone.

But when the dead grandma comes back to possess the daughter, the rest of the family is less scared than happy. Assuming the ghost has supernatural powers, they bombard her with their wild wishes. As the ghost of grandma in the shape of the daughter almost wreaks havoc on those around, the grandma manages to accomplish the task she came back to this world for -- to say "thank you" to the man who helped and encouraged her when she was his housemaid.

"Most the of the play is dotted with humor characteristic of Wu's works. But the last five minutes is definitely the time for handkerchiefs," Lee said.

Founded nine years ago, Green Ray has produced 14 original plays and musicals, mostly centered on the lives of ordinary people to reflect the changing faces of modern society. Apart from being the most popular production, Human Condition has special meaning for the group.

"It was filmmaker Wu Nien-jen's first stage play. It was also our first spoken drama. At the time we were trying to transform [ourselves] from being a musical theater to a drama theater -- everyone made their best efforts.

"After the success of the performance in 2001, we could say that we're both a musical and a drama theater. It was a heavenly gift," Lee said.

Human Condition will be perform at the National Theater, 2:30pm and 7:30pm tomorrow, and at 2:30pm Sunday. Tickets range from NT$350 to NT$1,500 and are available at Era ticketing outlets.