Stan Lai’s (賴聲川) widely acclaimed A Dream Like A Dream (如夢之夢), a major landmark in Chinese-language theater, will take the stage at Taipei’s National Theater from Aug. 19 to Sept. 1.
First staged in Taiwan and Hong Kong in 2002, the epic eight-hour production has returned with a new cast, and features actors Chin Shih-chieh (金士傑), Hsu Yen-ling (徐堰鈴), Hu Ge (胡歌) and Chinese pop star Chris Lee (李宇春). Thirty actors will portray over 100 roles in the show. Oscar-winning designer Tim Yip (葉錦添) created the design for the 300-plus costumes.
Epic, romantic, extravagant, metaphysical and engrossing, Lai’s masterpiece will run for a total of eight shows. The production will have no subtitles.
Photo courtesy of Performance Workshop theater
“This story is about life and people’s choices,” Lai told the Taipei Times in an interview in June. “It’s essentially about karma.”
The plotline tells several interwoven stories with one leading to another. The narrative follows the life of Gu Shiang-lan, who lived through much of the 20th century, first as a prostitute in 1930s Shanghai and then, after marrying an aristocrat, a painter in Paris. Following the death of her husband, she returns to China in the 1950s and experiences the Cultural Revolution.
Lai said he drew on the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Tiananmen Square massacre and the Cultural Revolution to craft the emotionally complex story.
“The story moves ahead in time while referring to the past constantly, thus forming a unified whole,” Lai said.
To best present this complex story about love, life and enlightenment, Lai conceived a daunting 360-degree, two-story circular stage that surrounds the audience, who sit in the center pool section. Actors perform on the circular stage, sometimes with two or three actors for the same role appearing simultaneously.
“This story came to me organically, “ Lai said, adding that he thought up the story while attending a seminar in India in 1999. During a meditation session in front of the lotus tree where the Buddha is said to have attained enlightenment, the inspiration surged into Lai’s mind and he quickly scribbled down the plotline. “When you fall into the spell of this show, you won’t feel the length at all,” Lai said of the play’s length.
The performance is divided into two parts and scheduling allows audience members to watch it on two consecutive nights or both parts at the same time.
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
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
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
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
RSS