The 1963 film The Love Eterne (
Riding on the success of the 2003 revival and hoping to attract a younger generation of theatergoers, Da Da Arts is reuniting actors from the original film and stage version and pairing them with a few younger TV celebrities.
The star of both the film and theater version, Ling Bo, together with Hu Chin (
PHOTO COURTESY OF DA DA ARTS
To appeal to a younger audience local television and film personalities, Guo Zhi-chien (
Ling, now 66-years-old, is embedded in the memories of women who watched her grace the screen as the young scholar in The Love Eterne. Four decades later, her facial expressions, movements and singing are as skillful as ever, said Da Da Arts producer, Melisa Jiao (
"Lin Bo is forever to be the leading lady as Liang Shan-bo there is nobody else could substitute her role?. The live performance is difficult for these aged actors, who have to memorize all the lyrics not to mention all the choreography, and it is difficult to get everyone together to rehearse and to perform on stage. But if we could get the original cast, then why not?" Jiao added.
The butterfly lovers, or the Legend of Liang Shan-bo and Chu Ying-tai as it was previously titled in the 2003 production, is regarded as the Chinese equivalent of Romeo and Juliet. Chu Ying-tai, born into a wealthy family, disguises herself as a man so she can attend school, where she befriends the handsome Liang Shan-bo, the only son in a poor family.
When Chu's secret is finally reviled to Liang the two fall in love, but are too late; it has been arranged that Chu will marry the son of a powerful court official. The ill-fated lovers die of broken hearts only to be reincarnated and reunited as butterflies.
The film The Love Eterne was so popular in Taiwan that many people can still sing the arias from memory. The question nowadays, is whether or not the popularity of huangmei musicals will continue. According to Da Da Arts organizers its days are not numbered.
"More teenagers are enjoying the show. Some have seen the original film or musical version on TV and many are fans of Ling Bo," Jiao said referring to a press conference where fans of Ling were invited to attend.
As of press time, most tickets for the Taipei dates were sold out. For more information on the show and additional tour dates check the Web site at www.dadaarts.com.tw.
Performance notes:
What: The Butterfly Lovers (The Legend of Liang Shan-bo and Chu Ying-tai)
When: Tonight and Tomorrow at 7:30pm with a Saturday matinee at 2:30pm
Where: CKS Cultural Center National Theater (
Tickets: NT$1,000-NT$2,500 available online at CKS Cultural Center Box Office or online at www.artsticket.com.tw
Telephone: (02) 3393 9888
When life gives you trees, make paper. That was one of the first thoughts to cross my mind as I explored what’s now called Chung Hsing Cultural and Creative Park (中興文化創意園區, CHCCP) in Yilan County’s Wujie Township (五結). Northeast Taiwan boasts an abundance of forest resources. Yilan County is home to both Taipingshan National Forest Recreation Area (太平山國家森林遊樂區) — by far the largest reserve of its kind in the country — and Makauy Ecological Park (馬告生態園區, see “Towering trees and a tranquil lake” in the May 13, 2022 edition of this newspaper). So it was inevitable that industrial-scale paper making would
Asked to define sex, most people will say it means penetration and anything else is just “foreplay,” says Kate Moyle, a psychosexual and relationship therapist, and author of The Science of Sex. “This pedestals intercourse as ‘real sex’ and other sexual acts as something done before penetration rather than as deserving credit in their own right,” she says. Lesbian, bisexual and gay people tend to have a broader definition. Sex education historically revolved around reproduction (therefore penetration), which is just one of hundreds of reasons people have sex. If you think of penetration as the sex you “should” be having, you might
July 21 to July 27 If the “Taiwan Independence Association” (TIA) incident had happened four years earlier, it probably wouldn’t have caused much of an uproar. But the arrest of four young suspected independence activists in the early hours of May 9, 1991, sparked outrage, with many denouncing it as a return to the White Terror — a time when anyone could be detained for suspected seditious activity. Not only had martial law been lifted in 1987, just days earlier on May 1, the government had abolished the Temporary Provisions Effective During the Period of National Mobilization for Suppression of the Communist
Hualien lawmaker Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) is the prime target of the recall campaigns. They want to bring him and everything he represents crashing down. This is an existential test for Fu and a critical symbolic test for the campaigners. It is also a crucial test for both the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and a personal one for party Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫). Why is Fu such a lightning rod? LOCAL LORD At the dawn of the 2020s, Fu, running as an independent candidate, beat incumbent Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmaker Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) and a KMT candidate to return to the legislature representing
RSS