Golden Bough Theater (金枝演社) has made a name for itself by discovering new performance venues - from the back of trucks to small-town night markets - to perform its unique style of theater.
The company staged a production of Troy at the Hubei Fortress (滬尾砲台) in Tamshui two years ago to much acclaim because the 400-year-old fort, with its European-style architecture, provided an ideal backdrop for a telling of the ancient Greek tale of freedom and idealism. The troupe returns to the Hubei Fortress this weekend to perform an adaptation of the Chinese literary masterwork The Classic of Mountains and Seas (山海經).
"The Fort is a perfect venue to stage environmental theater," said Wang Hsia-huang (王家凰), assistant to the play's director Wang Rong-yu (王榮裕). "Staging it outdoors provides audiences with a more authentic setting."
PHOTO COURTESY OF GOLDEN BOUGH THEATER
And if it rains?
"No problem. We've got plenty of raincoats on hand," Wang said. "Only a typhoon would cause a cancellation."
Though not billed as a children's performance, the play can certainly be considered a work for the entire family because it features the 8-year-old son of Wang Rong-yu making his stage debut as the lead character.
The story follows the adventures of a young boy wandering through the jungles of Taiwan who finds himself transported back 2,000 years to the mythical period when The Classic of Mountains and Seas was written.
With a narrator to guide him, the young traveler bears witness to the exploits of some of Chinese mythology's legendary characters. He sees Houyi (后羿) shooting down the Sun-birds and meets the headless Xing Tian (刑天), a giant who was decapitated by the Yellow Emperor (Huangdi, 黃帝) as punishment for challenging him.
To add more local flavor to the plot, Golden Bough added Aboriginal legends to the script.
"Performing the play outside as an adventure story with Aboriginal and Chinese myths … we hope [to pique] the interest of Taiwanese about their cultural roots," Wang said.
In the March 9 edition of the Taipei Times a piece by Ninon Godefroy ran with the headine “The quiet, gentle rhythm of Taiwan.” It started with the line “Taiwan is a small, humble place. There is no Eiffel Tower, no pyramids — no singular attraction that draws the world’s attention.” I laughed out loud at that. This was out of no disrespect for the author or the piece, which made some interesting analogies and good points about how both Din Tai Fung’s and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) meticulous attention to detail and quality are not quite up to
April 21 to April 27 Hsieh Er’s (謝娥) political fortunes were rising fast after she got out of jail and joined the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in December 1945. Not only did she hold key positions in various committees, she was elected the only woman on the Taipei City Council and headed to Nanjing in 1946 as the sole Taiwanese female representative to the National Constituent Assembly. With the support of first lady Soong May-ling (宋美齡), she started the Taipei Women’s Association and Taiwan Provincial Women’s Association, where she
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) hatched a bold plan to charge forward and seize the initiative when he held a protest in front of the Taipei City Prosecutors’ Office. Though risky, because illegal, its success would help tackle at least six problems facing both himself and the KMT. What he did not see coming was Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (將萬安) tripping him up out of the gate. In spite of Chu being the most consequential and successful KMT chairman since the early 2010s — arguably saving the party from financial ruin and restoring its electoral viability —
It is one of the more remarkable facts of Taiwan history that it was never occupied or claimed by any of the numerous kingdoms of southern China — Han or otherwise — that lay just across the water from it. None of their brilliant ministers ever discovered that Taiwan was a “core interest” of the state whose annexation was “inevitable.” As Paul Kua notes in an excellent monograph laying out how the Portuguese gave Taiwan the name “Formosa,” the first Europeans to express an interest in occupying Taiwan were the Spanish. Tonio Andrade in his seminal work, How Taiwan Became Chinese,