Theatrical voices make themselves heard

By Gavin Phipps
STAFF REPORTER IN WASHINGTON
Friday, Nov 28, 2003, Page 17

PHOTO: GEORGE TSRONG, TAIPEI TIMES

Hugely stage director Stan Lai (賴聲川) and his Performance Workshop (表演工作坊) theater troupe return to the boards of the National Theatre (國家戲劇院) this weekend, with a philosophical and comedic gambol entitled Mumble Jumble (亂民全講), which takes audiences on a weird journey through life and politics in Taiwan.

Loosely on -- and drawing inspiration from -- Edward Lam's hit play, Eat, Money, Man, Woman (搵食男女), Mumble Jumble is a theatrical "State of the Nation" address, that, on the eve of next year's elections, sees members of the theater company expressing their thoughts apropos the current state of this nation.

Along highlighting the improvisational talents of some of Taiwan's top theater actors and actresses, Mumble Jumble also features an appearance by popular songstress, Dadawa (阿雅) and a special cameo by Taiwan's most outspoken and best-known female politician, Sisy Chen (陳文茜), who plays the God of the Dead.

"We've gathered together a really strong cast of actors, all of whom have a genuine talent for improvisation," Lai said. "The production might not be in a style that people have come to expect from us, but I think because of the talented cast, along with the topics it touches on, it will still prove popular. Even with audiences not used to such madcap and out of the ordinary theater."

Under Lai's directorship, Performance Workshop has become one of Taiwan's leading contemporary theater groups since being founded in 1984. Along with performing, the group has also collaborated with any of the nation's smaller theater troupes .

As one of the most influential voices in Chinese-language theater, Lai has penned a staggering 23 original plays. He has toured worldwide and his 1992 production of The Peach Blossom Land (暗戀桃花源) has been made into a film. The play has had 50 different productions in Beijing alone. His most recent production, the seven hour epic, A Dream like A Dream, received top awards at this years Hong Kong Drama Awards.

Lai's has managed to set itself apart from many of the nation's other theater troupes because of its reliance on social-political aspects and topical features as the basis for its productions over the years.

Previous productions have included a reworking of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot as well as the locally written Love On a Two-Way Street (他和他的兩個老婆), a show that was simultaneously performed in Taipei and Shanghai.

The group's most recent production was Sand and a Distant Star (在那遙遠的星球,一粒沙), a farcical comedy about alien abductions and visits by UFOs that proved a sellout in Sept.

It's back down to Earth with a bang for the Performance Workshop's latest production, however. Produced in close collaboration with artists from Hong Kong and China, Mumble Jumble forges a new-brand of Chinese theater which focuses on society and politics in Taiwan in a series of improvised scenes, all of which unfold in a wild and comedic fashion.

"The production is a bit different from our previous shows in the sense that there's no central plot and some of the dialogue is improvisational," Lai said. "By welding together series of sketches and scenes we've come up with a production concept that has never been tried in Taiwan before."

With a minimalist set, which along with a digital display, consists predominantly of projected photographs of city landscapes, the production moves quickly through a series of 11 real life and imaginary scenes.

The inane skits include a lecture that turns into an exercise in democracy and a mysterious phone call that leads to an even more puzzling meeting, as well as a Taiwanese hijacker who needs three translators to get her message across to the pilot.

The most provocative sketch and one that, according to Lai, "pushes the limits of live theater," is Mother Tongue, which sees a professor teaching the audience how to cuss. Adding even more madness to the insanity are a host of characters who claim to be a dog, a concept, virtual reality, a scoop of chocolate ice cream and a cartoon.

It might all sound a bit farfetched and fanciful, but there is actually method to the madness that reigns in the Performance Workshop's Mumble Jumble.

The Performance Workshop's (表演工作坊) Mumble Jumble (亂民全講) will premier at the National Theatre (國家戲劇院) tonight at 7:30pm. Performances will continue at the theater until Dec. 3, after which the show goes nationwide. Tickets for Taipei performances cost between NT$300 and NT$1,800 and are available from the CKS Cultural Center's box office or from ERA Ticketing Outlets. For a full schedule of performance times check out both the ERA and CKS Web sites.