Taiwan's theater companies adapt Western classics to the stage adeptly. Many, however, take an experimental approach - shorthand for taking liberties to justify the stage sensibilities of the production's director - and alter the original work beyond anything recognizable.
That said, Green Ray Theater Troupe (綠光劇團) has done something out of the ordinary with Of Mice and Men. The production sticks as closely as possible to the script without adding the usual experimental flourishes because the company wants to present local audiences with "the best of world literature so that they don't have to go abroad" to see theater classics. It is a formula that has brought Green Ray much success in the past.
The troupe will perform John Steinbeck's story of George and Lennie, two depression-era farm hands who dream of buying their own plot of farmland so they can lead a simple life. Despite their hard work and careful planning, their plan comes to naught after one of the two unwittingly commits murder.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF GREEN RAY THEATER TROUPE
The production, which begins tonight at the Metropolitan Hall, brings together some of Taiwan's top theater professionals: Luo Bei-an (羅北安), whose last theatrical effort was the extremely popular remake of the Pulitzer-prize winning play Proof, teams up with film director Ke Yi-chung (柯一正).
Last week Joseph Nye, the well-known China scholar, wrote on the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s website about how war over Taiwan might be averted. He noted that years ago he was on a team that met with then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), “whose previous ‘unofficial’ visit to the US had caused a crisis in which China fired missiles into the sea and the US deployed carriers off the coast of Taiwan.” Yes, that’s right, mighty Chen caused that crisis all by himself. Neither the US nor the People’s Republic of China (PRC) exercised any agency. Nye then nostalgically invoked the comical specter
April 15 to April 21 Yang Kui (楊逵) was horrified as he drove past trucks, oxcarts and trolleys loaded with coffins on his way to Tuntzechiao (屯子腳), which he heard had been completely destroyed. The friend he came to check on was safe, but most residents were suffering in the town hit the hardest by the 7.1-magnitude Hsinchu-Taichung Earthquake on April 21, 1935. It remains the deadliest in Taiwan’s recorded history, claiming around 3,300 lives and injuring nearly 12,000. The disaster completely flattened roughly 18,000 houses and damaged countless more. The social activist and
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Approaching her mid-30s, Xiong Yidan reckons that most of her friends are on to their second or even third babies. But Xiong has more than a dozen. There is Lucky, the street dog from Bangkok who jumped into a taxi with her and never left. There is Sophie and Ben, sibling geese, who honk from morning to night. Boop and Pan, both goats, are romantically involved. Dumpling the hedgehog enjoys a belly rub from time to time. The list goes on. Xiong nurtures her brood from her 8,000 square meter farm in Chiang Dao, a mountainous district in northern Thailand’s