What'll it be? Love or money on Lovers' Day?

For the love of money go see this play. PHOTO COURTESY OF SPRING SUN PERFORMING ARTS TROUPE

Love money? Everyone wants both, but if you had to choose one, which would it be? It's a question Spring Sun producer and actress, Lang Tzu-yun (郎祖筠) asks in her most recent work, For the Love of Life and Money (有錢沒命花).

Spring Sun Performing Arts Troupe (春禾劇團) brought their hugely successful production, Love Wasabi, to the stage in 2000, and in their latest performance at the National Theater, the Taipei-based theater company explores just how far one will go to get rich and laid.

It's Lang's first attempt at a black comedy and although the plot is thick with lust, greed, adultery and death, the renowned comedic actress ensures her script is still laced with plenty of humor.

People never content with what they have, and in their pursuit to find more love, fame and fortune they sometimes lose everything, said Spring Sun's manager Sky Shi (施光耀). "In the play the characters have to make a choice between love and money, but some of the characters get greedy and try to take both and so the audience watches and sees what happens to them," he said.

The story is told through the relationships of six main characters, and casts familiar TV-commercial regulars Lin Mei-shu (林美秀) and Na Wei-shun (那維勳). The play opens with the discovery of a severely wounded woman who, moments later, is found dead. The story builds around the search for her identity and investigates why she was robbed and left to die.

With "more twists and turns than a mountain road" the comic-thriller promises to have audience members sitting on the edge of their seats, Shi said.

Performance notes:

What: For the Love of Life and Money

Where: the National Theater of the CKS Cultural Center (國家戲劇院)

When: Begins tonight and runs until next Sunday, Evening performances begin at 7:30pm with Saturday and Sunday matinees at 2:30pm. There are no Monday or Tuesday shows

Tickets: NT$500 to NT$1,800, available at the CKS box office

For more information, call Spring Sun at (02) 2395 2999.