German playwrights seem to be all the rage these days in Taipei theatrical circles. Last weekend it was the Contemporary Legend Theatre (當代傳奇劇場) with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s monumental Faust, and this weekend Against Again Troupe (再拒劇團) offers a musical based on Frank Wedekind’s Fruhlings Erwachen (Spring Awakening, 春醒).
Against Again Troupe was founded in 2002 by a group of aspiring young theater workers who wanted to form a community to produce works that focused on society’s ills.
With Wedekind’s groundbreaking 1891 play, the group seems to have found the perfect vehicle.
Photo Courtesy of Against Again Troupe
The play, which explores the sexual repression of the 19th century Germany and youthful rebellion, was once banned because of its scenes of homoeroticism, rape and suicide. Today, howerver, it is considered a seminal work in modern theater.
In the US, Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater turned it into a rock and roll musical, Spring Awakening, which won eight Tony Awards, including Best Musical, in 2007.
Against Again Troupe’s musical, directed by Huang Yuan-wen (黃緣文) with Huang Si-nung (黃思農) and Chiang Tao (蔣韜) as the musical directors, opens tonight for five shows.
The show focuses on the relationships between Melchior and a naive girl, Wendla, who fall in love and are anxious and curious about their own bodies and sexuality, while their suicidal friend Moritz is struggling to live up to society’s expectations.
Given the subject matter, there is a parental discretion warning.
■ Tonight through Sunday at 7:30pm, tomorrow and Sunday at 2:30pm
■ Taipei City Government Family Theater (台北市政府親子劇場), 2F, Taipei City Hall, 1 Shifu Rd, Taipei City (台北市市府路1號2樓)
■ Tickets are NT$1,000 to NT$2,000 and are available at NTCH box offices and other ticketing outlets, online at www.artsticket.com.tw and at convenience store ticketing kiosks. Sunday’s matinee is almost sold out
Nothing like the spectacular, dramatic unraveling of a political party in Taiwan has unfolded before as has hit the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) over recent weeks. The meltdown of the New Power Party (NPP) and the self-implosion of the New Party (NP) were nothing compared to the drama playing out now involving the TPP. This ongoing saga is so interesting, this is the fifth straight column on the subject. To catch up on this train wreck of a story up to Aug. 20, search for “Donovan’s Deep Dives Ko Wen-je” in a search engine. ANN KAO SENTENCED TO PRISON YET AGAIN,
Despite her well-paying tech job, Li Daijing didn’t hesitate when her cousin asked for help running a restaurant in Mexico City. She packed up and left China for the Mexican capital last year, with dreams of a new adventure. The 30-year-old woman from Chengdu, the Sichuan provincial capital, hopes one day to start an online business importing furniture from her home country. “I want more,” Li said. “I want to be a strong woman. I want independence.” Li is among a new wave of Chinese migrants who are leaving their country in search of opportunities, more freedom or better financial prospects at a
During her final years of high school, Chinese teenager Xu Yunting found an unusual way to make some pocket money: transforming herself into male video game characters and taking their female devotees on dates. The trend, called “cos commissioning,” has gained traction in China recently, with social media posts garnering millions of views as an increasing number of young women use their purchasing power to engineer a meeting with their dream man in real life. One early morning in Shanghai last month, Xu carefully inserted contacts to enlarge her irises and adjusted a tangerine wig to transform into “Jesse,” a character from
When the Dutch began interacting with the indigenous people of Taiwan, they found that their hunters classified deer hide quality for trade using the Portuguese terms for “head,” “belly,” and “foot.” The Portuguese must have stopped here more than once to trade, but those visits have all been lost to history. They already had a colony on Macao, and did not need Taiwan to gain access to southern China or to the trade corridor that connected Japan with Manila. They were, however, the last to look at Taiwan that way. The geostrategic relationship between Taiwan and the Philippines was established
RSS