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International Theatre Festival takes a look at language in a manner of speaking

This year's biannual International Theatre Festival will once again be bringing some of the best in global theater to the CKS Cultural Center from March 25 through May 9, with troupes from five countries performing in five languages over a six-week period,

In contrast to 2002's inaugural event, which saw theater groups from France, Denmark, Lithuania, Norway and Taiwan focusing their talents on body language, this year's festival is a more verbal affair. Troupes from Japan, Poland, Canada, UK and Taiwan will be treating audiences to productions that, along with being both visual and emotionally powerful are centered around the spoken word rather than body movement.

Poland's Teatr Peisn Kozla will be beginning the festival in late March with a Polish-language performance of the ancient Sumerian epic, Chronicles. The festival's English language shows will see the UK's Theatre Babel performing Ibsen's A Doll's House and Canada's UbU Theatre Troupe performing its multi-media production of The Blind.

Taiwan's two main languages are represented by the Jen Theatre, which will perform a Taiwanese language version of Samuel Beckett's Endgame and the avant-garde Rive-Gauche Theatre Group, which will treating audiences to a Mandarin language version of Abe Kodo's off-beat detective story, The Ruined Map.

The festival's biggest show is Japan's Ku Na'uka Group. It will be putting on a lavish performance of Tenshu Monogatari, a show that combines elements of traditional Japanese performance arts such as Bunraku and Kabuki with modern theatrical techniques in order to create a vivid and stylistic form of theater that represents today's Japan. This Japanese language production will be performed at the National Theatre.

Although the festival is nearly a month away tickets are expected to sell out well in advance of the opening show. The 2002 International Theatre Festival proved so popular with local audiences that tickets had completely sold out within two weeks of going on sale. Needless to say, organizers advise anyone wishing to attend this year's festival to purchase tickets well in advance.

Tickets for the 2004 International Theatre Festival are now available direct from the CKS Cultural Center's booking office or via Acer Ticketing Outlets nationwide. Tickets for performances at the Experimental Theatre cost NT$600. Tickets for the performance at the National Theatre cost from NT$400 to NT$1,500. For further information and a full performance schedule visit the festival's Web site at www.ntch.edu.tw. March 25 through May 9.

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