National Chengchi University’s English Department yesterday defended its annual year-end production about man having a sexual affair with a goat as an appropriate choice and said they were puzzled why people would consider the play profane and foul.
“Sure the play touches upon the topic of bestiality but what’s so controversial about that? It has been around since ancient Greece,” said Patricia Ssutu (司徒芝萍), the directing professor, stressing that the central theme of the play is not about non-traditional sexual behaviors, but about family values and the complexity of the relations between a husband and wife, father and son, and extra marital affairs.
The 2003 Tony award winner for Best Play, The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? by American playwright Edward Albee, was selected by the students after long deliberation, she said.
The student who complained about the show, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the Taipei Times that “material of this nature is not the kind of thing impressionable young university students should be watching.”
He said that his interest was piqued after coming across a flyer for the show, which bears an image of a goat, which he said he thought looked satanic in nature.
After getting hold of a copy of the script one day before the show he decided to complain to the university vice-president, and said he had hoped the school would adapt the script into something “less ugly.”
Several other students apparently walked out in the middle of the show in apparent disgust at the graphic nature of the play and the string of profanities that littered the script.
“It was the students that picked the play and the school was not about the censor their choice,” said Ssutu, who has directed a dozen year-end plays for the English Department in the past 20 years she has taught at the school.
“If the use of a four-letter word can express the emotions of the character, then it is perfectly appropriate,” she said.
The student described a scene in the play in which a man was silhouetted behind a screen, simulating a sexual act with a goat. The script, he said, also included references to pedophilia.
The original play, starring Bill Pullman, first opened on Broadway in March 2002 and closed in December of the same year after more than 300 performances.
Taiwan does not exclude the possibility of having formal diplomatic relations with countries that also have formal ties with China, regardless of Beijing’s stance, Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said on Sunday. There was speculation in 2012 that Honduras was attempting to have simultaneous diplomatic relations with Taiwan and China, an idea that then-minister of foreign affairs David Lin (林永樂) rejected. Honduras severed formal ties with Taiwan on Sunday morning after establishing diplomatic relations with Beijing. President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration has taken a more practical approach to relations with like-minded countries since assuming government in 2016. Previous administrations took the
Seven senior faculty members, including the principal, of a high school in Taichung were temporarily suspended from their jobs on Friday, pending an investigation by the Taichung Education Bureau into alleged bullying and abuse that led to the suicide of a student last month. The city’s education officials were too slow to suspend those involved, the student’s father told a news conference on Wednesday, at which Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chang Liao Wan-chien (張廖萬堅) and members of the Humanistic Education Foundation were also present. The boy had been a good student and a high achiever during elementary and junior-high, and had
Taiwan would have established formal relations with Argentina long ago if not for China’s interference, Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Alexander Yui told US-based Spanish-language online news outlet Infobae in an interview published on Tuesday. Beijing has left behind a string of unfulfilled promises in Latin America, including pledges to build the Grand Nicaragua Canal and airports, docks, ports and industrial zones in El Salvador, he said. Meanwhile, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Mexico and other countries enjoy pragmatic and improving relations with Taiwan based on cooperation on the economy, culture, technology and science, he said. While Taiwan is “happy to live and let live,”
WASHED ASHORE: Of the 16 bodies discovered along Taiwan’s west coast this month, two were Vietnamese and five were Taiwanese, coast guard officials said Minister of Justice Tsai Ching-hsiang (蔡清祥) said that he has instructed prosecutors and maritime authorities to launch investigations after 16 bodies were found along Taiwan’s west coast this month, amid speculation that they were victims of smuggling or human trafficking rings. Coast Guard Administration (CGA) officials said the bodies, most of which had washed ashore, were found by coast guard personnel and local residents along the coastline from Keelung to Kaohsiung. Thirteen of the bodies are male and three are female, the CGA said, adding that items found on the bodies indicate that two of the men were Vietnamese, while three men
RSS