If you are headed south for the long holiday weekend, you might want to stop off in Tainan tomorrow to catch Caws & Effect by the Vancouver, Canada-based Mind of a Snail puppet theater.
The modern fable about a pair of wisecracking crows in search of a new home will be performed twice at the “Original Theater” at the Tainan Municipal Cultural Center complex as part of the Tainan Arts Festival.
There are still plenty of seats available for both shows, unlike the troupe’s performances last weekend at the Experimental Theater in Taipei, which sold out weeks in advance and led to the Taipei Festival of the Arts producers adding an extra morning show at the last minute on both Saturday and Sunday to meet pent-up demand.
Photo Courtesy of Chloe Ziner
The co-directors of Mind of a Snail, Chloe Ziner and Jessica Gabriel, created and perform the 50-minute show, which tells the tale of the two crows through layered projections beamed from an overhead projector, video projections, puppetry, masks and an original musical score.
In the play, one of the nest hunting crows plants a magical seed given to it by a worm and dreams a new world into being.
However, not everything is as it seems and the new land ends up having dire consequences for the pair — or as mothers everywhere are so fond of saying: “Be careful what you wish for.”
Caws & Effect is a totally visual performance, with no verbal text, and deemed suitable for children aged seven and up — as well as adults.
■ Original Theater at theTainan Municipal Cultural Center (臺南文化中心原生劇場) at 332 Zhonghua E Rd, Sec. 3, Tainan (台南市中華東路3段332號)
■ Tomorrow at 2:30pm and 7:30pm. Tickets are NT$600, available online at www.artsticket.com.tw, at convenience store ticketing kiosks and at the door
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