LAB Space had its audience laughing up a storm last weekend with its rollicking presentation of American playwright David Ives’ Ives’ Shorts.
Diverse existentialist conundrums is the name of the game as Ives delivers six distinct “shorts” and clearly challenges actors and actresses to handle multiple roles with a variety of witty and changing dialogues. Guest directors Ting Kao (高詩婷) and Andrew Chao (周厚安) have chosen and directed their cast well and found new talent in the process.
James Lo (羅濟豪), one of many newcomers to LAB, is at his best in Words, Words, Words, the classic test to prove the “Infinite Monkey Theorem.” In Sure Thing, he had run a gamut of pick-up lines with a blossoming Carrie Mo (莫少宣) and in The Philadelphia, he enjoyed the carefree spirit of being in “Los Angeles,” as opposed to Victor Stevenson’s “funky Philadelphia.” But here as the pragmatic “Milton,” he shows how a chimp can manipulate the system to get smokes. At the same time, of course, he argues practically with the plotting Swift, Charlie Storrar, that they should just type “Hamlet” (whatever that is) and get out of there.
Photo courtesy of Cheng Yi-lee
Out for revenge on the unseen yet “observing” Dr Rossenbaum, Storrar fiendishly plots a poison-tip sword death reminiscent of Shakespeare’s Laertes to do the job.
Storrar is not done; he adroitly handles other roles. In Degas C’est Moi, he pontificates as an imaginative and whimsical Degas for a day while other cast members as typical New Yorkers condescendingly ignore him. In Variations, as the pondering, cerebral Trotsky, he seeks reprieve while his inquisitive and “sometimes dutiful,” wife Sharon Landon assists.
Not to be ignored in this ensemble is Angela Collengberg. As the more focused chimp Kafka in Words, she actually gets the play done. But her best role is when she transforms from stuttering shyness to masterful “linguist” with the coaching effervescent Stevenson in Universal Language.
The set is minimalist and a merry-go-round concept of entering and leaving provides a neat, systematic way to change sets. This is live theater at its best.
We lay transfixed under our blankets as the silhouettes of manta rays temporarily eclipsed the moon above us, and flickers of shadow at our feet revealed smaller fish darting in and out of the shelter of the sunken ship. Unwilling to close our eyes against this magnificent spectacle, we continued to watch, oohing and aahing, until the darkness and the exhaustion of the day’s events finally caught up with us and we fell into a deep slumber. Falling asleep under 1.5 million gallons of seawater in relative comfort was undoubtedly the highlight of the weekend, but the rest of the tour
Youngdoung Tenzin is living history of modern Tibet. The Chinese government on Dec. 22 last year sanctioned him along with 19 other Canadians who were associated with the Canada Tibet Committee and the Uighur Rights Advocacy Project. A former political chair of the Canadian Tibetan Association of Ontario and community outreach manager for the Canada Tibet Committee, he is now a lecturer and researcher in Environmental Chemistry at the University of Toronto. “I was born into a nomadic Tibetan family in Tibet,” he says. “I came to India in 1999, when I was 11. I even met [His Holiness] the 14th the Dalai
Following the rollercoaster ride of 2025, next year is already shaping up to be dramatic. The ongoing constitutional crises and the nine-in-one local elections are already dominating the landscape. The constitutional crises are the ones to lose sleep over. Though much business is still being conducted, crucial items such as next year’s budget, civil servant pensions and the proposed eight-year NT$1.25 trillion (approx US$40 billion) special defense budget are still being contested. There are, however, two glimmers of hope. One is that the legally contested move by five of the eight grand justices on the Constitutional Court’s ad hoc move
Stepping off the busy through-road at Yongan Market Station, lights flashing, horns honking, I turn down a small side street and into the warm embrace of my favorite hole-in-the-wall gem, the Hoi An Banh Mi shop (越南會安麵包), red flags and yellow lanterns waving outside. “Little sister, we were wondering where you’ve been, we haven’t seen you in ages!” the owners call out with a smile. It’s been seven days. The restaurant is run by Huang Jin-chuan (黃錦泉), who is married to a local, and her little sister Eva, who helps out on weekends, having also moved to New Taipei
RSS