At around the time when the colored lights of Taipei's bustling Ximending District came on, the stairs of the Paris by Night nightclub resounded with the clatter of high heels as ten or so seriously fashionable young ladies, with Taipan Chin at their head, sauntered elegantly up to the second floor ... . " So begins Kenneth Pai's (白先勇) classic short story The Last Night of Taipan Chin (金大班的最後一夜), which tells the story of a young woman who survives, and too some extent finds success and respect, in the nightclub scene of wartime Shanghai and post-war Taipei. It was made into a popular film in 1986 and was subsequently adapted for the stage. The highly acclaimed Chinese production, which premiered in 2005, has wowed audiences around China and in Singapore, and will open in Taipei tonight.
The performance is an event on a whole range of levels. Unlike Chinese dramas that have come to Taipei in recent years, such as the Beijing People's Art Theater's (北京人民藝術劇院) performance of Lao She's (老舍) Tea House (茶館) in 2004 and Cao Yu's (曹禺) Thunderstorm (雷雨) in 2006, the story on which the play is based is by a Taiwanese writer and includes scenes set in Taipei. Moreover, the Ximending of the story is little different from that which local residents may remember of the area just 15 to 20 years ago, giving the whole story a greater immediacy and familiarity for local audiences. That these scenes are interpreted by a cast from the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center (上海話劇藝術中心), adds piquancy to the theatrical experience.
The Last Night of Taipan Chin is part of the short story collection Taipei People (台北人, 1971) in which Pai grafted his strong classical Chinese literary sensibility onto a base of Western literary modernism to produce one of the great works of modern Chinese literature and a defining portrayal of the Chinese diaspora. (A Chinese-English bilingual edition was published by the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2000.) With its emotional highs and lows as the protagonist battles circumstances and a string of men with only one thing on their mind, and its rollicking dialog rooted in the jitterbug social scene of Shanghai's nightclubs, this is one of Pai's most accessible creations.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF NEW ASPECT
The story is ideally suited for adaptation into a musical since it is set in what might be described as China's Jazz Age, a period of fin de siecle decadence that pervaded Shanghai in the early years of World War II. Many golden oldies, now familiar to almost every Chinese person of a certain age, where first sung in the nightclubs which attracted a crowd of war profiteers, gangsters and sons of rich families. Over 30 of these songs have been incorporated into the musical, many to be sung by the star of the show, Liu Xiaoqing (劉曉慶), around whom the show has been built.
Liu is a superstar of the old school, having not only made her name for memorable roles on the silver screen, but has also made herself one of the richest women in China through her ventures in real estate, and is one of the most gossiped about people for both financial and romantic scandals. She saw the inside of a prison cell after being charged with tax evasion, but despite being one of the most watched women on the Chinese celebrity circuit, she manages to retain an almost impenetrable urbanity. During a live TV linkup with Taiwanese media last week, when asked whether her husband would be joining her in Taipei, she quipped: "Which one? ... You must define your terms," a response which ended that line of questioning.
Her media savvy, mercurial character and resilience in the face of adversity and condemnation have prompted comparisons between her and Taipan Chin. "I've never worked as a taxi dancer," she responded, "and while we've both had a number of romances in our lives, what woman hasn't?" The ability to balance a sharp tongue and an easy smile are something that she and her character certainly do share in common.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF NEW ASPECT
Liu, who prior to The Last Night of Taipan Chin worked mostly in cinema, has already made her mark with her stage debut. She commanded the stage for nearly the whole two-hour-plus show, during which time she acts, sings and performs a number of ballroom dance set pieces. This tour de force has somewhat overshadowed other members of the production team.
Xie Jin (謝晉), director and screenwriter for the celebrated film Hibiscus Town (芙蓉鎮, 1986), a bittersweet take on the Cultural Revolution, is artistic director for this production. Yu Chiuyu (余秋雨), the doyen of Chinese letters, has been brought in as the literary consultant, and Chen Gang (陳鋼), the composer of the hugely popular The Butterfly Lovers violin concerto (梁祝小提琴協奏曲), and whose father Chen Gexin (陳歌辛) composed a number of the golden oldies featured in the show, is behind the music. How effectively Liu can bring back the heady days when songs like When Will He Come Again? (何日君再來), In the Mood for Love (花樣年華) and Nighttime in Shanghai (夜上海) ruled the dance halls remains to be seen, but given the reviews from China and Singapore, Taiwanese audiences should be in for a treat.
June 23 to June 29 After capturing the walled city of Hsinchu on June 22, 1895, the Japanese hoped to quickly push south and seize control of Taiwan’s entire west coast — but their advance was stalled for more than a month. Not only did local Hakka fighters continue to cause them headaches, resistance forces even attempted to retake the city three times. “We had planned to occupy Anping (Tainan) and Takao (Kaohsiung) as soon as possible, but ever since we took Hsinchu, nearby bandits proclaiming to be ‘righteous people’ (義民) have been destroying train tracks and electrical cables, and gathering in villages
Dr. Y. Tony Yang, Associate Dean of Health Policy and Population Science at George Washington University, argued last week in a piece for the Taipei Times about former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) leading a student delegation to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) that, “The real question is not whether Ma’s visit helps or hurts Taiwan — it is why Taiwan lacks a sophisticated, multi-track approach to one of the most complex geopolitical relationships in the world” (“Ma’s Visit, DPP’s Blind Spot,” June 18, page 8). Yang contends that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has a blind spot: “By treating any
This year will go down in the history books. Taiwan faces enormous turmoil and uncertainty in the coming months. Which political parties are in a good position to handle big changes? All of the main parties are beset with challenges. Taking stock, this column examined the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) (“Huang Kuo-chang’s choking the life out of the TPP,” May 28, page 12), the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) (“Challenges amid choppy waters for the DPP,” June 14, page 12) and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) (“KMT struggles to seize opportunities as ‘interesting times’ loom,” June 20, page 11). Times like these can
Swooping low over the banks of a Nile River tributary, an aid flight run by retired American military officers released a stream of food-stuffed sacks over a town emptied by fighting in South Sudan, a country wracked by conflict. Last week’s air drop was the latest in a controversial development — private contracting firms led by former US intelligence officers and military veterans delivering aid to some of the world’s deadliest conflict zones, in operations organized with governments that are combatants in the conflicts. The moves are roiling the global aid community, which warns of a more militarized, politicized and profit-seeking trend