A 'foolishly optimistic' play about love

Just four weeks after staging Taiwanese Flavor -- Asshole Life as part of the Basement Open 2003 at Taipei's Eslite Bookstore, Chen Amou (陳梅毛), the prolific script-writer/director of Taiwan Walker Theater (台灣渥克劇團 ), is back in the theater with two new productions at Ku-ling Street Theater (牯嶺街小劇場).

Love to Die (愛我就去仆街再仆街) and Pie in the Sky (少林派武當派蘋果派還有兩個左派 -- 蔣經國與謝雪紅 ), which will be performed consecutively this weekend and next.

Love to Die -- the Chinese title means "if you love me, then go lie on the street and die" -- is a "foolishly optimistic" play about love.

"People always want their lovers to prove their love for them, when it's totally unnecessary," said Chen.

The three characters in the play, two women and a man in a love triangle, thus make many futile and ludicrous attempts to prove their love, only to ruin the relationships.

The performance opens with the three characters complaining to themselves about their lover. Their meaningless grumbles go on and on till all three are tired out. What follows are mock scenes featuring the banter of intimate lovers, on uneventful workdays, or about the bad novels they've read. Intending to reveal the true nature of the conversations between two people in love, the talk is unforgivingly silly, but kind of amusing at the same time.

Interspersed between the lovers' scenes is the battle between three "rainbow fighters" and three "assassins," all played by the same cast.

"Eveyone has positive and negative sides to their personality. Rainbow fighters are the positive self that seeks a perfect love affair, but these fighters always turn into assassins from time to time to sabotage, with jealousy and suspicion, their almost established relationships," Chen said.

That battle, Chen said, is still going on, when the show ends with the voice-over recitation of Woody Allen's quote, "Lovers are like sharks, if they don't swim, they die."

"Everyone is still looking for the rainbow, of love and that's what gives them the energy to go on living their lives," Chen said.

Chen will follow up his most feel-good piece so far, with Pie in the Sky next week, which puts him back in the mindset of a sarcastic social observer. Chen's dry humor, which has come to define most of Walker's productions, will come to the fore here.

Based on the life of late president Chiang Ching-guo (蔣經國), who ruled the ROC from 1978 to 1988, the play focuses on Chiang's seldom-discussed aspect: his left-wing politics.

"His education and relations with Stalin made him a socialist, and his policies, his distrust of capitalists during his presidency, clearly showed his leftist beliefs," Chen said.

Set during the Cold War period -- between the US and the former Soviet Union, the Chinese Communists' rise and the Nationalist Party's retreat to Taiwan -- the play will look at how the young Chiang gradually lost his leftist ideals.

Love to Die will be performed at 7:30pm tonight through Sunday and at 2:30pm tomorrow and Sunday.

Pie in the Sky will be performed at 7:30pm Nov. 14 through Nov. 16 and at 2:30pm Nov. 15 and Nov. 16. All performances are at Ku-ling St Theater, 15 Ku-ling St, Taipei (台北市牯嶺街15號). All tickets are NT$300 and available at Acer ticketing outlets.