Taipei enjoyed a delightful treat this past weekend with the first five of the original 10 plays that make up Taipei Shorts II. And if viewers liked those, the coming five plays promise an even more provocative and enticing evening.
In the upcoming works, the five new playwrights transverse time and space with challenging existentialist, absurd and inquisitive themes.
In A Gift from the Heavens, Mark Caltonhill revisits the death of Tang Dynasty poet, Li Bai (李白) but frames his verses with 1930 Taiwanese folk songs set in the politically repressive 1970s. The protagonist sings these folk songs to literary, political and comical effect.
Photos courtesy of Alicia Haddad
A T Beaune takes viewers into a different dimension mixing the modern with the past in Flight 109. In this play, Aqua on her round the world flight faces the existentialist conflict of being true to oneself as well as to one’s lover who remains at home.
In preparation, theatregoers are advised to read Shakespeare’s Sonnet 109 and be aware of Sandra Tavoli’s musical rendition of it, to get the full complexity of all expressed.
Shashwati Talukdar veers into the absurd with a mind-bending challenge of a different sort in Memory Stratagem. Here a memory expert in a remote monastery is trying to sort out the true story of a hero from a distant time, while being hassled by a monk to move quickly and just get it done.
Culture Bleep by Esther Wainwright also takes viewers into the absurd in the year 2040. There a desperate Mr Vain finds that, having lost his mobile phone, he is unable to link with his social media and therefore starts losing his viewers.
Finally, after all the heavy stuff, Emily Haver brings delight with Little Moons. Here two people wearing hydrated facemasks and listening to Debussy’s Clare de Lune come together to witness an eclipse.
On one level, it is simply a “sweet and silly love story” the dream-like type that everyone longs to experience. Yet at another level, it reminds us that love and magic are real and that we should always be open to their possibility.
All in all, the coming weekend promises to be a wild ride for viewers, and certainly one well worth the experience.
Cheng Ching-hsiang (鄭青祥) turned a small triangle of concrete jammed between two old shops into a cool little bar called 9dimension. In front of the shop, a steampunk-like structure was welded by himself to serve as a booth where he prepares cocktails. “Yancheng used to be just old people,” he says, “but now young people are coming and creating the New Yancheng.” Around the corner, Yu Hsiu-jao (饒毓琇), opened Tiny Cafe. True to its name, it is the size of a cupboard and serves cold-brewed coffee. “Small shops are so special and have personality,” she says, “people come to Yancheng to find such treasures.” She
In July of 1995, a group of local DJs began posting an event flyer around Taipei. It was cheaply photocopied and nearly all in English, with a hand-drawn map on the back and, on the front, a big red hand print alongside one prominent line of text, “Finally… THE PARTY.” The map led to a remote floodplain in Taipei County (now New Taipei City) just across the Tamsui River from Taipei. The organizers got permission from no one. They just drove up in a blue Taiwanese pickup truck, set up a generator, two speakers, two turntables and a mixer. They
Former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu’s (洪秀柱) attendance at the Chinese Communist Party’s (CPP) “Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War” parade in Beijing is infuriating, embarrassing and insulting to nearly everyone in Taiwan, and Taiwan’s friends and allies. She is also ripping off bandages and pouring salt into old wounds. In the process she managed to tie both the KMT and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) into uncomfortable knots. The KMT continues to honor their heroic fighters, who defended China against the invading Japanese Empire, which inflicted unimaginable horrors on the
Hannah Liao (廖宸萱) recalls the harassment she experienced on dating apps, an experience that left her frightened and disgusted. “I’ve tried some voice-based dating apps,” the 30-year-old says. “Right away, some guys would say things like, ‘Wanna talk dirty?’ or ‘Wanna suck my d**k?’” she says. Liao’s story is not unique. Ministry of Health and Welfare statistics show a more than 50 percent rise in sexual assault cases related to online encounters over the past five years. In 2023 alone, women comprised 7,698 of the 9,413 reported victims. Faced with a dating landscape that can feel more predatory than promising, many in
RSS