Under the leadership of its artistic director Hugh Lee (李國修), Ping-Fong Acting Troupe (屏風表演班) has built a reputation for creating sentimental theatrical works that examine Taiwan’s social history. The tear-jerker Wedding Memories (女兒紅) investigated the relocation of Mainlanders to Taiwan and Far and Away From Home (西出陽關) had lonely soldiers sitting in seamy entertainment clubs listening to old songs sung by hostesses.
With Mad in Taiwan (瘋狂年代), however, Lee passed the directorial reigns over to 27-year-old Huang Chi-kai (黃致凱), who has worked with Lee for six years, and rather than the pathos and loss of Taiwan’s past, the script, written by Chi Wei-jan (紀蔚然), takes a satiric look at Taiwan’s chaotic present. The production begins tonight at Taipei’s National Theater for a two-week run after which it will travel south in the second week of May.
Playing on the words “Made in Taiwan,” the play within a play seeks to overturn traditional representations of the country (such as it still being a manufacturing base).
PHOTO COURTESY OF PING-FONG ACTING TROUPE
“Every country has its symbols,” Huang said over a coffee in Gongguan. “For Japan it’s the samurai sword. America has Coke.”
And Taiwan? Well, betel nuts, of course. Or, more precisely, betel nut beauties.
“Many people throughout southeast Asia chew betel nuts,” Huang said. “But only Taiwan has betel nut beauties.”
Though Taiwan is known for these vendors, the play is more of a pastiche of the nation’s contemporary society than it is about the betel nut sellers.
The inner story centers on a theater troupe putting together a musical. Their research takes them (as well as the audience) to the halls of Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan, where they witness brawls and shouting, and on to a television set, where they see how news anchors ply their trade and the filming of a reality show.
Huang says that much of the script is spent looking at Taiwan’s media environment because it has the power to show high culture in one segment and low culture in the next.
“People are drawn to the drama of television news because it shows different aspects of society and is immediate and real,” he said.
Huang says the element of reality exhibited by television is largely missing from Taiwan’s contemporary theater and that the stage also has the potential to show both cultures.
“Plays staged at the National Theater are often highbrow and not related to ordinary people’s lives. We want to change the idea that only highbrow theater has something to say,” Huang said.
Though that may sound somewhat overwrought, Chi Wei-jan’s witty and caustic dialogue keeps the themes light and the action flowing.
Exposed to Taiwan’s elitist culture of media and politics, in the end the troupe decides to stick with the country’s local culture and mounts the musical based the betel nut beauties’ lives.
The production brings together some of Taiwan’s top stage actors such as Fan Guang-yao (樊光耀), who delivered an absorbing character in the 2006 production of Green Ray Theater’s (綠光劇團) Proof, and veteran Ping-Fong player such as singer Liu Shan-shan (劉珊珊). The play also features Ho Jung (何戎), who drew on his former life as a news anchor for ERA to play the role of a television program director.
For Huang, Taiwan’s contemporary spirit is “a great bridge, not dividing, but uniting fine art and local culture. We want to convert what is perceived to be local and old fashioned and transform it into something that is new and contemporary,” he said.
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