The Wilde Theatre Company pulls open its first curtain tonight with an adaptation of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple, a spot-on choice of a premiere performance for the English-language troupe.
The play stars Wilde Theatre Company co-founder David Young as the cigar-smoking, poker-playing Oscar and Jacques Fouche is his fussy friend Felix.
Oscar is a young sports writer living in a spacious five-room flat in North London. Felix is a BBC reporter and actor who is dumped by his boyfriend of seven years and starts a new life under Oscar's roof.
PHOTO : DAVID MOMPHARD, TAIPEI TIMES
Audiences familiar with Simon's script will quickly notice exactly where Wilde Theatre Company's adaptation departs from the original.
"The biggest differences are that it takes place in London instead of New York and that Felix is gay," Young said.
The first of these differences is a technical issue, given Young's Irish brogue and Frouche's English accents. The second might be chalked up to the company's credo to produce theater that looks at multi-cultural themes and issues.
"We wanted to update the material and make it more [appealing] to a younger Taipei audience," said Wilde's other founder and director of the current production, Barbara
Coughlin.
"Having studied the play and placed it in a modern context we were unafraid and confident to interpret Felix as an out gay man in today's society. It also seemed more feasible that two 20-somethings would not be married with children as in the original play."
Coughlin and Young, founded Wilde Theatre Company in March of this year. They are, in their words, "passionate and committed to theater and concerned by the lack of public performance found in Taipei."
Though The Odd Couple is being staged in the pub-cum-performance space Chocolate and Love, the company hopes to find future audiences -- and actors -- in both the foreign and local communities, using the arts as a kind of outreach program.
English language and literature are both great tools to assist non native speakers in their learning and appreciation of Western tradition and culture," they write in the company's literature.
Auditions for upcoming performances, including a production of Oscar Wilde's Dorian Gray, will be held throughout September. Contact wildetheatre@gmail.com for details.
Wilde Theatre Company's production of Neil Simon's Odd Couple runs tonight through Sunday and again next Friday, Aug. 12 to Sunday, Aug. 14 at Chocolate and Love. Tickets cost NT$400 and are available at the door. Seating is limited and audiences are advised to arrive early. All performances begin at 7pm. Chocolate and Love is located at 148, Xinyi Rd, Sec 4, Taipei (
On April 26, The Lancet published a letter from two doctors at Taichung-based China Medical University Hospital (CMUH) warning that “Taiwan’s Health Care System is on the Brink of Collapse.” The authors said that “Years of policy inaction and mismanagement of resources have led to the National Health Insurance system operating under unsustainable conditions.” The pushback was immediate. Errors in the paper were quickly identified and publicized, to discredit the authors (the hospital apologized). CNA reported that CMUH said the letter described Taiwan in 2021 as having 62 nurses per 10,000 people, when the correct number was 78 nurses per 10,000
As we live longer, our risk of cognitive impairment is increasing. How can we delay the onset of symptoms? Do we have to give up every indulgence or can small changes make a difference? We asked neurologists for tips on how to keep our brains healthy for life. TAKE CARE OF YOUR HEALTH “All of the sensible things that apply to bodily health apply to brain health,” says Suzanne O’Sullivan, a consultant in neurology at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London, and the author of The Age of Diagnosis. “When you’re 20, you can get away with absolute
May 5 to May 11 What started out as friction between Taiwanese students at Taichung First High School and a Japanese head cook escalated dramatically over the first two weeks of May 1927. It began on April 30 when the cook’s wife knew that lotus starch used in that night’s dinner had rat feces in it, but failed to inform staff until the meal was already prepared. The students believed that her silence was intentional, and filed a complaint. The school’s Japanese administrators sided with the cook’s family, dismissing the students as troublemakers and clamping down on their freedoms — with
As Donald Trump’s executive order in March led to the shuttering of Voice of America (VOA) — the global broadcaster whose roots date back to the fight against Nazi propaganda — he quickly attracted support from figures not used to aligning themselves with any US administration. Trump had ordered the US Agency for Global Media, the federal agency that funds VOA and other groups promoting independent journalism overseas, to be “eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law.” The decision suddenly halted programming in 49 languages to more than 425 million people. In Moscow, Margarita Simonyan, the hardline editor-in-chief of the
RSS