Nation Rescue, Ltd (救國株式會社) is one of Ping Fong Acting Troupe's (屏風表演班) most pessimistic plays and explores how concerns over public order compete with freedom and lawlessness in modern Taiwanese society.
"[The play] is my observation of collective psychology and human nature," writes the work's creator Hugh Lee (李國修), in an introduction to the play.
The story follows a group of secret agents who "encourage" a young man obsessed with suicide to announce to the mass media that he committed an infamous murder and was behind several other major domestic criminal cases.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF PING FONG ACTING TROUPE
Masterminding this ruse, which helps Taiwan maintain its international reputation as a safe, stable society, is the quasi-governmental and secretive Nation Rescue, Ltd.
The "rescue" team, led by a senior police officer planning to retire, gradually persuades the youth to assume the role of a killer, creates a motive for the homicide, and makes extensive reports to the international media, all under the banner of progress and patriotism.
"The members of the company worry about public security and their individual futures. [So] they manipulate the mass media to control the populace," Lee said.
However, the confessions and heroic deeds of the "rescue" company are invented, and the Nation Rescue, Ltd is destabilized by the greed and individual desires of its members. Their initial intent to manipulate public opinion fails and the group dissolves.
Their meddling, however, produces an ironic result: the attempt to convince an innocent suspect he is a murderer works. Convinced he has nothing to lose, the "killer" shoots one of the agents and escapes.
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