Tsai Po-chang (蔡柏璋) confesses to an obsession with television serials. It is a strange admission coming from a theater director and playwright. Stranger still, Tsai says his love of the genre influenced the writing and production of his play K24 Chaos, a six-hour marathon that is currently running at the National Experimental Theater.
"I can sit in front of the computer all day and [watch] a whole series," quipped Tsai in an interview earlier this week.
The director and playwright-in-residence for Tainaner Ensemble (台南人劇團) says it was difficult, however, convincing Lu Po-shen (呂柏伸), Tainaner Ensembles' artistic director, to follow a format onstage that is traditionally used for television.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF TAINANER ENSEMBLE
"Initially I said, 'No, our audience will kill us. If they come … and don't see the end they will get mad,'" Lu said, sitting beside Tsai in a coffee shop in Gongguan. But Lu eventually relented and allowed Tsai to write the first two episodes, which were performed to critical acclaim at a theater festival on Matsu Island two years ago.
When Tsai finished his military service last year, it was Lu's turn to convince him to write another four episodes.
Based loosely on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, K24 Chaos is set up as a play within a play and follows a kind of television format whereby a cliffhanger ends each episode.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF TAINANER ENSEMBLE
Nine actors play over 70 roles on a stage that is constructed so the audience can see the rehearsals onstage and the backstage machinations at the same time. The musical score purposely adds an element of suspense, similar to that of Alias, the television show that influenced Tsai.
The play opens with a professional theater group rehearsing Shakespeare's tragedy, which is two weeks away from opening night. But the rehearsal is interrupted by the news that one of the actors has mysteriously disappeared.
Meanwhile, K24 Chaos - the play's version of the secret service - uncovers a plot to assassinate the president's daughter, who plays the leading role of Juliet. To protect the leading lady, the group sends Agent Marcel to play the role of the missing character.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF TAINANER ENSEMBLE
While Marcel learns to act he begins to uncover what turns out to be a terrorist plot to assassinate the president's daughter on opening night. He also falls in love with the woman playing Juliet and becomes insanely jealous every time she and Romeo have a love scene.
Suspense builds as Marcel begins piecing together the terrorist plot. The last episode employs a denouement that sees Juliet drinking poison. The audience, of course, isn't sure if the poison is real or part of Romeo and Juliet.
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