When Slow Island Theater Group’s (慢島劇團) popular musical, Moon Girl (月孃), premiered in 2010, their choice of venue seemed unconventional at first. For two weeks, the troupe performed a story about the lives of three women growing up together in a karaoke parlor in front of a live audience at Ke Lai (閣徠演歌坊), a karaoke parlor in Taipei’s Ningxia Night Market (寧夏夜市).
“Every performance, there would be two, three people in the audience who hadn’t seen any theatrical production before. They came to sing karaoke, but found us instead,” troupe founder Wang Ke-yao (王珂瑤) says.
It’s precisely these types of audiences that the theater troupe wants to reach out to — people who don’t normally go to the theater.
Photo Courtesy of Slow Island Theater Group
For its 2013 production, Factory (鐵工廠), Slow Island teamed up with organizations such as the Taiwan International Workers Association (台灣國際勞工協會) to invite factory employees, migrant workers and immigrants from Southeast Asian countries to see a lively musical centering on a group of Thai, Indonesian and Taiwanese workers at a small factory in Greater Taoyuan. It used dance, singing and comedy to address social issues surrounding labor and immigrant workers.
BRINGING THEATER TO THE MASSES
To Wang, the aim is to create everyday art for everyday folk. “My performances used to be poetic and abstruse. Every time my mom came to my show, she would be like, ‘I don’t understand a thing,’” she says.
In 2008, Wang returned to her hometown in Taoyuan and established Slow Island. Often assuming the roles of both producer and performer, Wang collaborates with different artists, which explains the troupe’s diverse oeuvre. Factory was directed by Lin Hsin-i (林欣怡) from the more politically-oriented Taiwan Haibizi (台灣海筆子). Meanwhile, Mint, Rosemary and the Flower with no Name (薄荷、迷迭香和不知名的花) in 2008 and Awakening of Love (夢醒時分) in 2012 are romantic comedies led by Wu Shih-wei (吳世偉).
Moon Girl, on the other hand, is a collaboration between Taiwan’s theatrical talents, including Betsy Lan (藍貝芝) and Hung Pei-ching (洪珮菁) and American director Dan Chumley, with whom Wang had worked on a Taiwanese production of The Vagina Monologues (陰道獨白) in 2007.
Featuring many old Mandarin and Hoklo-langague ballads as well as original songs by Cheng Chieh-jen (鄭捷任), the music director of Tiehua Music Village (鐵花村) in Taitung County, the production tells a bittersweet story about the decline of a karaoke parlor called Moon Girl. It revolves around three orphaned girls who were raised by the parlor owner who go their separate ways after growing up and return bearing the scars of life.
Since its successful premiere, Moon Girl has returned to few karaoke parlors and other venues in Taitung County, Greater Tainan and Greater Taoyuan’s Jhongli District (中壢) in 2012. It even traveled to Brazil last year. A new tour began in Greater Kaohsiung last month and will end this week with six shows in Yilan City.
“It is a melodrama. It is about humanity. Everybody can understand it,” Wang adds.
When asked about what she wants to do next, Wang says she has planned to bring an audience-friendly production of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream to local parks and community centers across the country.
“I think stage performances are good to see. People just don’t know how and where to see them. Hopefully, I can offer more access,” Wang says.
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