Comparing a play like Beauty and the Beast with a play by Samuel Beckett, Lu says that both have artistic merit, but it is only works like Endgame that touch him deeply whereas when Beauty and the Beast is over he thinks no more about it. For Lu, plays that have timeless themes keep him interested and develop his actors' skills.
Lu considers his actors lucky when they play strong characters from Beckett's Endgame or Shakespeare's Macbeth because these works require a considerable amount of skill and understanding to make the characters plausible.
The actors, however, often have difficulty tackling such lofty characters and texts. To overcome this problem, Lu has invited international coaches to train local actors to become more adept at entering into the on-stage roles. For example, before he staged Endgame and Footfalls he invited a Beckett scholar from the US to give a two-week workshop. This year, he invited a Polish director who specializes in Greek chorus to help them with Lysistrata.
Lu's willingness to bring theater specialists from all over the world to Taiwan to develop the actor's talents speaks of the confidence and respect he has for his actors. It also shows that he believes in the actor's development. "I like to see the growth of actors. It is one of my pleasures. I always say to them that if they don't work hard, if they make me feel they are no longer beautiful on stage, there's no point for me to do theater," he said. "They also suffer a lot because they have to meet my expectations. In the rehearsal room I will sometimes make them cry."
Lu said his greatest influence has been Jerzy Grotowski, a Polish director who collaborated with the same group of actors for more than 25 years. And like the filmmaker's approach, Lu believes that the theater's fundamental concern should be the actors' relationship with the audience, and not the sets, lighting or special effects. As a result, the director must develop an intimate relationship with the actors — one that has to be cultivated over a long period of time.
Lu is currently collaborating with two actors on an on-going basis. His future plans are to work with a core group of seven actors. "I can't work with people case by case," he said. He finds that going in and working with a company on a contract basis usually involves a short three-week or one-month collaboration where both parties gain very little from the relationship and the director is usually reduced to working out technical issues.
And it is Lu's interest in helping the actors go deep into the core of the characters combined with a love of plays and the Taiwanese language that has enabled him to evolve from seeing the theater as a job. "For me, theater is [no longer] a profession but a kind of life attitude," he said.
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