The 1963 film The Love Eterne (
Riding on the success of the 2003 revival and hoping to attract a younger generation of theatergoers, Da Da Arts is reuniting actors from the original film and stage version and pairing them with a few younger TV celebrities.
The star of both the film and theater version, Ling Bo, together with Hu Chin (
PHOTO COURTESY OF DA DA ARTS
To appeal to a younger audience local television and film personalities, Guo Zhi-chien (
Ling, now 66-years-old, is embedded in the memories of women who watched her grace the screen as the young scholar in The Love Eterne. Four decades later, her facial expressions, movements and singing are as skillful as ever, said Da Da Arts producer, Melisa Jiao (
"Lin Bo is forever to be the leading lady as Liang Shan-bo there is nobody else could substitute her role?. The live performance is difficult for these aged actors, who have to memorize all the lyrics not to mention all the choreography, and it is difficult to get everyone together to rehearse and to perform on stage. But if we could get the original cast, then why not?" Jiao added.
The butterfly lovers, or the Legend of Liang Shan-bo and Chu Ying-tai as it was previously titled in the 2003 production, is regarded as the Chinese equivalent of Romeo and Juliet. Chu Ying-tai, born into a wealthy family, disguises herself as a man so she can attend school, where she befriends the handsome Liang Shan-bo, the only son in a poor family.
When Chu's secret is finally reviled to Liang the two fall in love, but are too late; it has been arranged that Chu will marry the son of a powerful court official. The ill-fated lovers die of broken hearts only to be reincarnated and reunited as butterflies.
The film The Love Eterne was so popular in Taiwan that many people can still sing the arias from memory. The question nowadays, is whether or not the popularity of huangmei musicals will continue. According to Da Da Arts organizers its days are not numbered.
"More teenagers are enjoying the show. Some have seen the original film or musical version on TV and many are fans of Ling Bo," Jiao said referring to a press conference where fans of Ling were invited to attend.
As of press time, most tickets for the Taipei dates were sold out. For more information on the show and additional tour dates check the Web site at www.dadaarts.com.tw.
Performance notes:
What: The Butterfly Lovers (The Legend of Liang Shan-bo and Chu Ying-tai)
When: Tonight and Tomorrow at 7:30pm with a Saturday matinee at 2:30pm
Where: CKS Cultural Center National Theater (
Tickets: NT$1,000-NT$2,500 available online at CKS Cultural Center Box Office or online at www.artsticket.com.tw
Telephone: (02) 3393 9888
March 24 to March 30 When Yang Bing-yi (楊秉彝) needed a name for his new cooking oil shop in 1958, he first thought of honoring his previous employer, Heng Tai Fung (恆泰豐). The owner, Wang Yi-fu (王伊夫), had taken care of him over the previous 10 years, shortly after the native of Shanxi Province arrived in Taiwan in 1948 as a penniless 21 year old. His oil supplier was called Din Mei (鼎美), so he simply combined the names. Over the next decade, Yang and his wife Lai Pen-mei (賴盆妹) built up a booming business delivering oil to shops and
Indigenous Truku doctor Yuci (Bokeh Kosang), who resents his father for forcing him to learn their traditional way of life, clashes head to head in this film with his younger brother Siring (Umin Boya), who just wants to live off the land like his ancestors did. Hunter Brothers (獵人兄弟) opens with Yuci as the man of the hour as the village celebrates him getting into medical school, but then his father (Nolay Piho) wakes the brothers up in the middle of the night to go hunting. Siring is eager, but Yuci isn’t. Their mother (Ibix Buyang) begs her husband to let
In late December 1959, Taiwan dispatched a technical mission to the Republic of Vietnam. Comprising agriculturalists and fisheries experts, the team represented Taiwan’s foray into official development assistance (ODA), marking its transition from recipient to donor nation. For more than a decade prior — and indeed, far longer during Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) rule on the “mainland” — the Republic of China (ROC) had received ODA from the US, through agencies such as the International Cooperation Administration, a predecessor to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). More than a third of domestic investment came via such sources between 1951
The Taipei Times last week reported that the Control Yuan said it had been “left with no choice” but to ask the Constitutional Court to rule on the constitutionality of the central government budget, which left it without a budget. Lost in the outrage over the cuts to defense and to the Constitutional Court were the cuts to the Control Yuan, whose operating budget was slashed by 96 percent. It is unable even to pay its utility bills, and in the press conference it convened on the issue, said that its department directors were paying out of pocket for gasoline
RSS