It would make the perfect headline: Lady Gaga in an S&M tussle with Andy Warhol. The story would go on to describe, in intimate detail, the dripping of candle wax on Warhol’s naked torso, a whip to keep him in line and plenty of rope to ensure no escape.
Though implausible (Warhol’s been dead for 23 years), the above scene kicks off American Dream Factory (美國夢工廠), the latest play of social criticism by Against Again Troupe (再拒劇團), which begins tonight at Guling Street Avant-Garde Theatre (牯嶺街小劇場).
“It’s the play’s only S&M scene,” said Sammie Liu (劉柏珊), the production’s producer, an hour into a technical rehearsal on Wednesday night.
Pity, that, because Against Again Troupe does such a bang-up job of it — a cross between the gothic atmosphere of Warhol’s Flesh for Frankenstein and the false sexuality of a Gaga video (didn’t she used to be a blow-up doll?).
Directed by Huang Si-nung (黃思農), who co-wrote and workshopped the script with his four actors, American Dream Factory is a mise-en-scene that examines the export of the American dream. Here, however, democratic principles don’t lead to prosperity — the ad nauseum mantra mouthed by a string of recent US presidents.
Today’s American dream export, American Dream Factory suggests, is unfettered capitalism, consumerism and materialism, a dehumanizing product that perpetuates vast inequalities and turns people into automatons. Along with Gaga and Warhol — the latter played by Jack Yao (姚淳耀) of Au Revoir Taipei (一頁台北) fame — the play uses Ronald McDonald, Michael Jackson and Madonna as symbols of the American dream gone wrong.
American Dream Factory began as an art installation for the 2008 Singapore Fringe Festival. The installation comprises the set for the play and requires considerable visual multi-tasking to keep up with. Three televisions showing, for example, footage of Kurt Cobain smashing his guitar and Warhol eating a hamburger, add to the overall theme but also serve as a distraction to the human action. But that’s probably the point.
Though not a particularly original concept (it seems that every month sees a new play in Taiwan attempting to tackle consumerism and materialism as a subject), the fantastical staging of the production makes it an enjoyable ride.
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist
Peter Brighton was amazed when he found the giant jackfruit. He had been watching it grow on his farm in far north Queensland, and when it came time to pick it from the tree, it was so heavy it needed two people to do the job. “I was surprised when we cut it off and felt how heavy it was,” he says. “I grabbed it and my wife cut it — couldn’t do it by myself, it took two of us.” Weighing in at 45 kilograms, it is the heaviest jackfruit that Brighton has ever grown on his tropical fruit farm, located