Have you ever wondered what a play would be like without a director and without rehearsals? Come see Nassim Soleimanpour’s White Rabbit, Red Rabbit, a one-person show that has been performed around the world since 2010, and premiers in Taiwan on Saturday.
In the iconoclastic tradition of Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author, White Rabbit might be dubbed “actor in search of a director” for in this one-person play, the actor sees the script for the first time and performs it before a live audience with no assistance from a director or stage notes.
What is the plot? No one will tell. That is part of its charm and allure. The actor must perform the script, relying solely on instincts and training.
Photos courtesy of the Red Room
This play, co-produced by Infinity Key and Red Room, had been on The LAB Space founder Brook Hall’s bucket list and he agreed to return from Vienna as one of the actors performing it. He says, it’s the “best way to say thanks and goodbye.”
Seating is limited. For those who wish to see all eight performances, special “Golden Rabbit” passes are available for NT$1,500. Tickets are selling fast.
Admission for individual performances is free, (donations are accepted) but attendees have to queue up behind Golden Rabbits for what may be standing room only.
Sept.16 to Sept. 22 The “anti-communist train” with then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) face plastered on the engine puffed along the “sugar railway” (糖業鐵路) in May 1955, drawing enthusiastic crowds at 103 stops covering nearly 1,200km. An estimated 1.58 million spectators were treated to propaganda films, plays and received free sugar products. By this time, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖, Taisugar) had managed to connect the previously separate east-west lines established by Japanese-era sugar factories, allowing the anti-communist train to travel easily from Taichung to Pingtung’s Donggang Township (東港). Last Sunday’s feature (Taiwan in Time: The sugar express) covered the inauguration of the
The corruption cases surrounding former Taipei Mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) are just one item in the endless cycle of noise and fuss obscuring Taiwan’s deep and urgent structural and social problems. Even the case itself, as James Baron observed in an excellent piece at the Diplomat last week, is only one manifestation of the greater problem of deep-rooted corruption in land development. Last week the government announced a program to permit 25,000 foreign university students, primarily from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, to work in Taiwan after graduation for 2-4 years. That number is a
This year’s Michelin Gourmand Bib sported 16 new entries in the 126-strong Taiwan directory. The fight for the best braised pork rice and the crispiest scallion pancake painstakingly continued, but what stood out in the lineup this year? Pang Taqueria (胖塔可利亞); Taiwan’s first Michelin-recommended Mexican restaurant. Chef Charles Chen (陳治宇) is a self-confessed Americophile, earning his chef whites at a fine-dining Latin-American fusion restaurant. But what makes this Xinyi (信義) spot stand head and shoulders above Taipei’s existing Mexican offerings? The authenticity. The produce. The care. AUTHENTIC EATS In my time on the island, I have caved too many times to
Many Taiwanese have a favorable opinion of Japan, in part because Taiwan’s former colonial master is seen as having contributed a great deal to the development of local industries, transportation networks and institutions of education. Of course, the island’s people were never asked if they wanted to be ruled by Tokyo or participate in its modernization plans. From their arrival in 1895 until at least 1902, the Japanese faced widespread and violent antagonism. Things then calmed down, relatively speaking. Even so, between 1907 and 1916 there were eleven anti-Japanese revolts. A map in the National Museum of Taiwan History (國立臺灣歷史博物館)