Women stand up to male-dominated comedy

By Yu Sen-lun
STAFF REPORTER
Friday, Jan 14, 2005, Page 13

Three actresses challenge taboos in spicy stand-up comedy shows. PHOTO COURTESY OF PERFORMANCE WORKSHOP THEATRE

Performance Workshop Theatre (表演工作坊), founded by director Stan Lai (賴聲川), established its fame with the 1985 play The Night We Became Hsiang-sheng Comedians (那一夜, 我們說相聲). The show transformed traditional Chinese stand-up into a nationwide craze, so to celebrate the troupe's 20th anniversary, Lai plans to transform traditional stand-up once again.

Three will challenge the traditional, male-dominated Chinese style of stand-up comedy called hsiang-sheng (相聲) in a show called The Night Women Became Hsiang-sheng Comedians (這一夜,Women說相聲).

In a marathon of performances, veteran comedian Fang Fang (方芳), experienced theater actresses Hsiao Ai (蕭艾) and Teng Cheng-hui (鄧程惠) will tackle this monumental task.

"We have always challenged ourselves to give different faces to the art of hsiang-sheng. Traditionally, women are not allowed to do hsiang-sheng. So this time it is a difficult challenge for us," Lai said.

Since it's a challenge to the male-dominated art, Lai did not just replace the male performers with women. Nor did he encourage his actresses to imitate the male performances, he said.

Rather, he tried to understand the differences between men's and women's speech, "and then find a special women's language," he said.

In the process, Lai found that women can listen and speak at the same time. A couple of women can even talk heatedly about three to four topics at the same time. On stage, though, dialogue recreating this speech style would be difficult to follow for the audience.

Lai the play's content revolves around current women's topics, such as diets, fitness, beauty products and relationship problems, and content ranges from the ancient topic of feet-binding to the latest topic -- "doing the splits" (劈腿), otherwise known as cheating on one's significant other.

"These topics may somewhat be related to feminism, but we don't want to overemphasize the connection," Lai said. "We want to use jokes and laughter to present and explore the frustrations and choices women face."

The story of The Night Women Became Hsiang-sheng Comedians begins at a year-end party of what seems to be a direct-sale company called Total Women.

Two saleswomen Blue Diamond (Hsiao) and Ruby (Teng) desperately wait for a mysterious old lady to show up, perhaps for some great tips about selling their products. But the old lady never shows up. Instead a woman claiming to be the lady's granddaughter (Fang) appears, but she cannot explain the old lady's absence.

A series of talk-show episodes then begins. The six episodes include monologue, dialogue, call-and-response and three-person group talk.

In one episode, Shouting Abuses on the Streets, actress Fang rants while playing an angry woman cursing everything she sees. She adopts Huang-mei opera voices and Beijing opera voices and also imitates Mando-pop singers.

Fang also perform a solo episode about the thoughts and feelings of a woman coming out of marriage.

The three actresses lay it bare about their experiences with their "special friend" that comes every month for a few days.

"We just talk in a very straightforward manner about a biological phenomenon. And the result has been explosive laughter at the past few rehearsals, because the jokes were too realistic," said Fang.

And course there will be performances about women's language used only in "very private" situations.

All three actresses were top choices for director Lai. Hsiao and Teng are winners of Golden Bell Awards (Taiwan's top TV award) and are some of the earliest members of the troupe.

Fang no stranger to stand-up either. She is a senior TV variety-show hostess with 30 years of experience, 15 years of which were spent as a cabaret-show hostess.

She said, "From the beginning of the rehearsal, we felt that we have so much to talk about. And we could talk for three whole days about those stories and jokes."

The show runs from today at Taipei Municipal Social Education Hall. At press time, the troupe was planning two extra performances in Taipei on Jan. 28 and Jan. 29 because of the great demand for tickets.

After Taipei, the show will tour to Taichung on Feb. 27, Hsinchu on May 28, Zhongli on June 4, and Kaohsiung on June 10 and June 11.

Performance note:

WHAT: The Night Women Became Hsiang-sheng Comedians

WHEN AND WHERE:

Jan 14 to Jan. 22, Jan. 28 and Jan. 29, 7:30pm at Taipei Municipal Social Education Hall.
Feb. 27, 2:30pm at Chungshan Hall, Taichung City
May 28, 7:30pm at the Grand Hall of National Ching-hua University
June 4, 7:30pm at Arts Hall, Chungli City
June 10 and June 11, 7:30pm at Chih-teh Hall, Kaohsiung City

TICKETS: NT$300 to NT$1,800, available at Era Ticketing outlets