Richard Chua (蔡兩俊) proudly displays a censored copy of his script for Generations (同輩), a play that makes its Taiwan debut on Sunday as part of the Taipei Fringe Festival (臺北藝穗節).
“[Singapore] has tough censorship laws ... But it’s really good for commercial theater because you throw a couple of stones at the government and audiences love it. They say, ‘oh great, you are criticizing the government for us,’” the Singapore-based director said in an interview on Wednesday night. “But our fringe theater hasn’t been too active in doing this.”
Really? After taking one look at the heavily marked-up script, it’s difficult not to think that this is precisely what Chua had in mind when he wrote it. Indeed, Chua has earned a reputation for breaking the boundaries of what the conservative city-state deems acceptable. A play that he wrote in 2004, for example, was banned outright for trying to “change people’s metaphors,” Chua’s euphemism for morals.
So what’s the hullabaloo about? Generations, which premiered in Singapore in 2008, starts out innocuously enough: A gay son lives with his single mother, who is estranged from a husband whose mentality is “feudal Chinese conservative.” In other words, he is a serial womanizer, Chua said.
As the story proceeds, the extremely lonely mother pressures her son to take on the father’s role as companion, in and out of the bedroom.
“I think it’s humanly possible. But it doesn’t make it morally OK. And the son, as a gay man, would he give in to his mom even though, in his metaphor, the female body will never arouse him?” Chua said.
In addition to taking aim at conservative Singaporean mores, the play is also a jab at that city-state’s insular gay community, which Chua portrays as populated by preening whiners who aren’t radical enough for his tastes.
“Singapore’s gay community is pretty much bourgeoisie ... Saying how everyone looks down on us and gay rights and blah-blah-blah. You have all the ... beautiful stuff, [and they] end up in this posh coffee shop drinking tea and having fun. So who is suffering? Here you have clever, educated people who can justify their positions and write statements in the newspaper. They say they are being discriminated against, that they are victims, but they are such a glamorous bunch of victims,” he said.
By presenting a working-class gay man from a broken home willing to sacrifice his sexuality for his mother, Chua hopes that the gay community will become more inclusive.
As Taiwanese society is considerably more liberal than Singapore’s, Chua is freer to draw upon the original script, including, possibly, an on-stage depiction of incest.
“We struggled with the last scene. Should the son just give it to the mother? And how would he give it? And if we just do it like that, is this really morally wrong?” Chua said.
As rehearsals began after press time, this preview cannot comment on the production’s aesthetic qualities. However, Generations tackles many of society’s biggest taboos, so the writing and acting had better be convincing as the play is in danger of coming across as a headline-grabbing stunt.
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,