The centuries-old Chinese love story of The Butterfly Lovers has been part of folklore for as long as anyone can remember, and has more recently been featured in Chinese traditional operas, on the stage and in movies.
From tomorrow in Taichung, the Dafeng Musical Theater will present this romantic story in a Broadway musical style. The music is composed by the highly-talented Chung Yiu-kwong (
One major and daring change from the original story is the role of Ma Wen-cai (
PHOTO COURTESY OF DAFENG MUSICAL THEATER
The new role that Ma takes in this production is that of a rich, handsome guy who gets almost the same amount of affection from Zhu as Liang does. So, the old story of Zhu breaking away from an arranged marriage turns into a modern triangular love story with leading lady Zhu having to make a final choice of her life-long companion.
Liang is played by Berson Wang (
The Butterfly Lovers is from Oct. 1 to Oct. 2 at Zhongshan Hall, Taichung City; from Oct. 7 to Oct. 8, at Municipal Culture Center, Tainan City; Nov. 4 to Nov. 6, Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall, Taipei; Nov. 26, Hall of Art, Jungli.
Website: www.liang-zhu.com
Telephone: (02) 2925 3960
US President Donald Trump may have hoped for an impromptu talk with his old friend Kim Jong-un during a recent trip to Asia, but analysts say the increasingly emboldened North Korean despot had few good reasons to join the photo-op. Trump sent repeated overtures to Kim during his barnstorming tour of Asia, saying he was “100 percent” open to a meeting and even bucking decades of US policy by conceding that North Korea was “sort of a nuclear power.” But Pyongyang kept mum on the invitation, instead firing off missiles and sending its foreign minister to Russia and Belarus, with whom it
When Taiwan was battered by storms this summer, the only crumb of comfort I could take was knowing that some advice I’d drafted several weeks earlier had been correct. Regarding the Southern Cross-Island Highway (南橫公路), a spectacular high-elevation route connecting Taiwan’s southwest with the country’s southeast, I’d written: “The precarious existence of this road cannot be overstated; those hoping to drive or ride all the way across should have a backup plan.” As this article was going to press, the middle section of the highway, between Meishankou (梅山口) in Kaohsiung and Siangyang (向陽) in Taitung County, was still closed to outsiders
Many people noticed the flood of pro-China propaganda across a number of venues in recent weeks that looks like a coordinated assault on US Taiwan policy. It does look like an effort intended to influence the US before the meeting between US President Donald Trump and Chinese dictator Xi Jinping (習近平) over the weekend. Jennifer Kavanagh’s piece in the New York Times in September appears to be the opening strike of the current campaign. She followed up last week in the Lowy Interpreter, blaming the US for causing the PRC to escalate in the Philippines and Taiwan, saying that as
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has a dystopian, radical and dangerous conception of itself. Few are aware of this very fundamental difference between how they view power and how the rest of the world does. Even those of us who have lived in China sometimes fall back into the trap of viewing it through the lens of the power relationships common throughout the rest of the world, instead of understanding the CCP as it conceives of itself. Broadly speaking, the concepts of the people, race, culture, civilization, nation, government and religion are separate, though often overlapping and intertwined. A government