There was an interesting assortment of theater and dance performances on in Taipei this month, ranging from very polished shows by professional troupes to not always successful pairings of local and expatriate dancers and a valiant community theater effort.
Of the two platform programs — Taipei Shorts III and the Meimage Dance New Choreographer Project (鈕扣New Choreographer 計畫) — it turned out that short but sweet were the best of the creations, although even the less laudable had some strong points.
Taipei Dance Forum (舞蹈空間) delivered a knockout of a show with its to revival of 2014’s Red and White (紅與白) to mark acclaimed Chinese-American novelist Eileen Chang’s (張愛玲) birthday 100 years ago today.
Photo courtesy of Alicia Haddad
‘RED AND WHITE, ZOOM-IN’
I caught the Sept. 19 matinee of Red and White, zoom-in (紅與白zoom-in版) and was impressed at how well choreographer Cheng Yi-wen (鄭伊雯) and theater director Liu Shou-yao (劉守曜) caught both the memories of 1930s Shanghai in Chang’s 1944 novella The Red Rose and the White Rose (紅玫瑰與白玫瑰) and updated the love, lust and betrayal in her tale with musings about gender stereotypes and sexual disparities in today’s society.
I missed the 2014 show, but was told by people who saw both productions that the new version was not so much a restaging as a complete overhaul, and much stronger for it. Cheng’s decision to have the dancers deliver short, heartfelt monologues helped give the production added depth.
Photo courtesy of Terry Lin
I loved designer Keith Lin’s (林秉豪) costumes for the women, several of which combined traditional qipao tops with full skirts that swirled and flowed in the tango pairings. The backstage team and dancers deserve a hand for managing all the costume changes in a very small space, with several quick turnarounds.
NEW CHOREOGRAPHER PROJECT
The Meimage Dance New Choreographer Project also marked an anniversary, the platform’s 10th edition. It was, however, a bit of a disappointment, and I’m not sure that the difficulties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic were completely to blame.
Photo courtesy of Taipei Dance Forum
Meimage founder Ho Hsiao-mei’s (何曉玫) goal is to showcase Taiwanese expatriate dancers, and this year she decided to pair her picks with local counterparts. Travel and quarantine requirements, while serving as an inspiration for some, however, also meant that a few of the dancers had to collaborate — and even perform — via videoconferencing.
Ho divided the showcase into three different programs, spilt over two weekends. The first two, subtitled Shuangpaikou (雙排扣, double-breasted) and featuring duets, was at the Umay Theater in Huashan 1914 Creative Park (華山1914文化創意產業園區), while the third, Kou zuoban (扣作伴, fastened together), was at the National Experimental Theater.
Although Ho stressed that all of the pieces on Programs A and B should be considered “works in progress,” some collaborations worked better than others, either because the dancers meshed personally or were able to find common ground, but the others just wasted the talent of both parties.
The best of the Shuangpaikou was the shortest work on Program A, Yishi (遺室, old buildings) by Wally Hsu Cheng-wei (許程崴) and Hung Tsai-hsi (洪綵希). They created a lyrical duet that played to their respective strengths and left you wanting more, even though they never connected physically.
I also liked Ameizi yu zhenjie (阿媚仔與珍姐, A-Meizi and Zhenjie) by Su Pin-wen (蘇品文) and former Company Wayne McGregor member Tung Po-lin (董柏霖) on Program B, even though Tung dominated the work physically and vocally — it turns out he is also exploring a singing career.
One portion of the duet saw Su pulling slips of paper out of Tung’s costume, each bearing a word about his mother, to which he reacted with movement as Su read the message.
The two works at the National Experimental Theater made the showcase: The Passing Measures, choreographed Lee Chen-wei (李貞葳) and her Hungarian husband and collaborator Vakulya Zoltan, and Elysium (極樂世界), choreographed by former GoteborgsOperans Danskompani dancer Tu Lee-yuan for three women.
The Passing Measures, danced by Zoltan and Hung Peiyu (洪佩瑜), is about how words, sounds or movement can grow through repetition and reverberation to fill time and space. It is an intriguing piece, about filling voids and disappearing elements, and while it was lovely to see Zoltan dance again, I kept wishing it was Lee dancing with him instead of Hung, who is a fine dancer, but Lee has a very different kinetic energy that the piece requires.
Tu’s Elysium is an engaging work, but while the women are fine dancers, they lack the acting chops that the piece requires.
TAIPEI SHORTS III
Good acting chops were on display at the beginning of the month in Taipei Shorts III at the CFL Theatre at Fu Jen University in New Taipei City
More than two years after Brook Hall closed his Butterfly Effect Theater, which had been instrumental in reviving English-language community theater in Taipei, it is good to know that many of the actors and others he worked with are keeping his ideals alive.
John Brownlie, who grew up acting in England and earned a degree in it from Leeds University, has been one of the key proponents, with his Taipei Shorts platform that debuted at the Red Room in March last year.
He said in an interview that he wants the platform to be a space for people who want to do English-language theater and do not have any other place to work, be it acting, directing or stagecraft.
Brownlie and his wife, Alicia Haddad, chose five plays for Taipei Shorts III from more than 50 that were submitted in the wake of their second program in October last year. The theme uniting the five was family dynamics, but the stories ranged from drama, to satire to the surreal.
The plays were selected in February, and auditions were held in March, with the aim of putting the show on in July. COVID-19, however, forced them to push the schedule back a few months. That gave the directors and actors more rehearsal time, which some used to obvious advantage, although the entire team were not together under the same roof until the technical rehearsal two nights before the opening.
The best of the five, even though it was the shortest, was Coffee for Muriel, written by Taitung-based Stephen Douglas Wright and directed by Brownlie.
“It was something simple, two people, simple location, strong storyline, I really wanted to direct it,” Brownlie said.
He and Wright perfectly captured the sisterly dynamics of two women trapped in a cycle of dependency and responsibility by having to care for their dying mother.
The elder, played by Erin Clark, works two jobs, while the younger, played by Michelle Hsu, dreams of going to medical school. Sparks fly when Muriel comes home very drunk after a rare night out, interrupting her sister’s efforts to apply for new jobs.
Hsu has a great fluidity as an actor, and makes you want to see more of her.
Living in the Tube II (管子裡的人生之二 ), written and directed by William Chen, which opened the show, was the only play performed in Mandarin and continues a tale that Chen began in last October’s show.
It is a tale of two sisters trying to make a living through the Internet, one as a gamer and the other as a social media host. It also touches on politics — January’s presidential election and the candidate from a certain southern city, although actual names were never mentioned. Personal integrity is at issue, and just how far one is prepared to sacrifice ideals for money.
Chen raised some good ideas, but he gave the two sisters, portrayed by Wendy Chi and Celine Tsang, too many long expositions that just didn’t flow smoothly.
One quibble: for a production team that is promoting English-language theater, someone should have proofread the subtitles for Chen’s play. This raises concerns that the glaring spelling errors in the English translation, might have also crept into the Chinese subtitles for the other plays.
Election politics was the sub-thread running through Nuclear Family, written and directed by Barry Hall, with DC Rapier and Sarah Brooks portraying a long-divorced couple forced to confront buried memories, problems and secrets as their son rises to fame and power.
Divided by space and lighting that highlighted the emotional differences between their characters, Rapier and Brooks delivered fine performances.
Teddy, written and directed by Joshua Wallace, also focused on secrets between a husband and wife, and reminded me of the O. Henry short story The Gift of the Magi, although it is a very different kind of morality tale.
Darius Monteque, the Teddy of the title, or one of them, was the only newbie among the entire show’s actors, but hopefully audiences will have a chance to see more of him.
Return of the Hero (英雄歸來), written and directed by Shashwati Talukdar, was the third installation about Boze and The Monk.
Brooks was featured once again as the aged Boze, a character loosely inspired by the life of Indian nationalist Subhas Chandra Bose, who travels between memories of the past and the uncertainties of the present during a flight to New Dehli, accompanied by The Monk, who could be a disciple or a jailer.
I saw the first play in March last year, and it worked well as a stand-alone, but part three suffers a bit if you have not seen the first two chapters.
The CFL Theatre is really little more than a black-box stage, and with minimal props for most of the works, Taipei Shorts III relied a lot on the magic of sound engineer Anton Boat, who created the soundtracks for each of the productions.
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