2006 International Theater Festival: Politics and theater do mix

The bi-annual International Theater Festival will open next Saturday in Taipei. The two-month-long festival featuring workshops to be held at the National Experimental Theater (國家實驗劇場) by world-class producers and directors will run until April 30.

Performers have drawn inspiration from the likes of Anton Chekhov, Lu Xun (魯迅), Tang Xian-zu (湯顯祖) and Hans Christian Andersen for this year's shows.

Five troupes, from Taiwan, Hong Kong, France, Denmark and Canada, will present their "soul and mind" on stage.

Ticket sales have been brisk for many shows and organizers are confident that the festival will prove popular even though it clashes with the Phantom of the Opera musical, which is currently on stage at the National Theater.

So far, tickets for the four performances by the Odin Theatret from Demark are sold out and tickets for another much-talked-about play, Knock on Heaven's Door (敲天堂之門), are selling fast.

According to Wang Mo-lin (王墨林), producer of the festival's opening show, Knock on Heaven's Door, his group Body Phase Studio has been promoting international cooperation between performing troupes from different regions and countries for the last 15 years.

This is the first time, however, that his group has been able to remove the barriers that prevent cultural exchanges based on equal status between Taiwan and China, Wang said.

China's government has previously refused to allow cultural exchanges that infer Taiwan is a separate country.

The behind-the-scenes negotiations and final breakthrough did not come easily.

Right after the National Theater of Taiwan approved the idea of producing a play that addressed the sensitive topic of national identity, which affects both Taiwanese and Chinese citizens, Wang and French director Francois-Michel Pesenti of the Theatre Du Point Aveugle organized a meeting in Paris about two years ago to explore the possibility of staging Knock on Heaven's Door.

Subsequently, Wang held auditions in Beijing and conducted negotiations in Shanghai to gain the Chinese authorities' approval.

The play is based on Pesenti's personal observations on the relationship between Taiwan and China over the last 10 years.

Interestingly, the script of the play was adapted from several of Chekov librettos.

The cast consists of nine actors: six Taiwanese and three Chinese.

"Bring[ing] to light what people are trying to hide in society is the duty of a playwright," Pesenti said at a recent press conference.

Pesenti first collaborated with local experimental groups for his play 1949: Suppose 6 Were 9 in 1996.

Beginning March 9, The M.O.V.E. Theater Group of Taiwan is set to explore the different values accorded to love and various professions.

For the play Hero Lost, director Fu Hong-cheng (符宏征), the latest recipient of the Taishin Art Award, took inspiration from Lu Xun's novel Newly Edited Stories (故事新編) and developed the work based on Lu's Into the Moon (奔月), an ancient Chinese story.

Fu uses masks in his play that are reminiscent of cultural relics found in Sichuan province, China.

Hero Lost explores the contemporary cultural value of love and seeks to inspire audience members to re-examine what constitutes the personality of heroes.

Through the use of visual effects, the play attempts to connect "realty and [the] abstract,

language and action, and finally form a super realistic modern myth," Fu said.