The second International Theatre Festival with its theme of the spoken word continues this weekend, when local troupe Tainan Jen Theatre
Formed in 1987, Tainan Jen Theatre was one of the first companies in Taiwan to focus solely on western-styled rather than traditional Chinese spoken drama. Since then the troupe has built up a reputation as one of the nation's leading intercultural troupes, with productions of Antigone and Macbeth both lauded by critics as two of the most successful Taiwanese-language adaptations of Western theater to have been staged in the country in recent years.
For its latest production, and one with which it has chosen to represent Taiwan at the biannual International Theatre Festival, the troupe has opted to perform an adaptation of Beckett's Endgame -- a classic work of modern literature and a play in which nothing happens once.
The production of Beckett's post-modernist masterpiece sees the performers portraying characters not from a psychological perspective, but instead setting out to embody their stage personas through physical and verbal actions. It is a style of theater created by the Tainan-based group that has been dubbed the "performance score of voice and body" (
Endgame revolves around the verbal relationship between Nagg and Nell who live in trashcans, their wheelchair-bound son Hamm and his attendant Clov. Like a game of chess, from whence the term "endgame" originated, the play's protagonists are constantly trying to checkmate each other in a womb-like environment from which Clov is desperate to escape before Hamm can murder him.
Performance notes:
Tainan Jen Theatre will perform Samuel
Beckett's Endgame
Where: The Experimental Theatre
When: Today through Sunday. Performances begin at 7:30pm. Matinees will take place at 2:30pm, tomorrow and Sunday
Cost: NT$600 from the CKS Cultural Center box office, or from Acer Ticketing Outlets nationwide. More: For full festival performance schedule, visit the CKS Cultural Center Web site at www.ntch.edu.tw.
RSS