Golden Bough Theater (金枝演社) will be celebrating its 20th birthday with a brand new production of its hit musical Happiness (浮浪貢開花), which spawned two sequels after its 2006 debut. The new production, described as a “luxury edition,” brings a top-notch cast and gives star billing to double Golden Melody award winner Tseng Hsin-mei (曾心梅).
When it was founded in 1993 by Wang Rong-yu (王榮裕), Golden Bough dedicated itself to creating a modern yet grassroots style that could revive the popular appeal of local theater.
It is one of the few major theatrical groups that perform predominantly in Hoklo (also known as Taiwanese), rooting its shows in the language and culture of native Taiwanese. With its soap opera sensibility, melodramatic emotions, exaggerated performance style and a stream of hummable tunes, its shows have an exuberant kitschy quality that belies its expressive power. Wang, a veteran of Cloud Gate (雲門舞集) and U-Theater (優人神鼓), has drawn on a mix of ideas drawn from traditional and modern experimental theater to create a style of drama that differs from that which Asia has inherited from the West, and is able to embody the joy of old-style folk theater in a contemporary setting.
Photo courtesy of Golden Bough Theater
Tseng will be performing the role of Miss Meizhi (美智小姐), a songstress who developed her career in the US, but then succumbed to homesickness and returned to her hometown. In a press release, Tseng said that as a child she would often sing as her mother made handicrafts. After she became a well-known singer, she still fondly recalled these times, and could appreciate the feelings of Miss Meizhi, who longs for the simplicity and easy intimacy of rural life in 1960s Taiwan.
The original production was made on a relatively small scale and has been regularly revived since it first premiered at Taipei’s Red House Theater (紅樓劇場).
Kate Shen (沈婷茹), publicity manager for Golden Bough, said that this new production was an upgrade of the original, bringing in bigger names, notably Tseng, and redesigning the stage for greater realism.
Tseng, who is one of the divas of contemporary Taiwanese pop music and who is an experienced TV show host, will be taking to the stage for the first time for Happiness, but given the extensive musical content, she is likely to feel right at home. A number of new songs have been added to the track list, and the tone of the show is like a homage to a golden age, both of the Taiwanese music hall, but also for an idyllic age of simplicity and absurdity, of greater hardship but deeper human intimacy.
In addition to this new production of Happiness, Golden Bough will also be putting on two new shows for its 20th anniversary, one an offshoot of the Happiness series, the other a one-man adaptation of Hamlet by Golden Bough’s lead actor Shi Tung-lin (施冬麟).
Happiness opens in Greater Kaohsiung for two performances today and tomorrow at 7:30pm and 2:30pm respectively, and will be in Taipei City July 26 to July 28 for four shows before rounding off its tour in Tainan on August 17. Tickets for Greater Kaohsiung and Greater Tainan are NT$300 to NT$1,500, for Taipei City they are NT$400 to NT$1,800; available through National Theater Concert Hall ticketing and online at www.artsticket.com.tw.
A jumbo operation is moving 20 elephants across the breadth of India to the mammoth private zoo set up by the son of Asia’s richest man, adjoining a sprawling oil refinery. The elephants have been “freed from the exploitative logging industry,” according to the Vantara Animal Rescue Centre, run by Anant Ambani, son of the billionaire head of Reliance Industries Mukesh Ambani, a close ally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The sheer scale of the self-declared “world’s biggest wild animal rescue center” has raised eyebrows — including more than 50 bears, 160 tigers, 200 lions, 250 leopards and 900 crocodiles, according to
They were four years old, 15 or only seven months when they were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau, Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald and Ravensbruck. Some were born there. Somehow they survived, began their lives again and had children, grandchildren and even great grandchildren themselves. Now in the evening of their lives, some 40 survivors of the Nazi camps tell their story as the world marks the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the most notorious of the death camps. In 15 countries, from Israel to Poland, Russia to Argentina, Canada to South Africa, they spoke of victory over absolute evil. Some spoke publicly for the first
Due to the Lunar New Year holiday, from Sunday, Jan. 26, through Sunday, Feb. 2, there will be no Features pages. The paper returns to its usual format on Monday, Feb. 3, when Features will also be resumed. Kung Hsi Fa Tsai!
When 17-year-old Lin Shih (林石) crossed the Taiwan Strait in 1746 with a group of settlers, he could hardly have known the magnitude of wealth and influence his family would later amass on the island, or that one day tourists would be walking through the home of his descendants in central Taiwan. He might also have been surprised to see the family home located in Wufeng District (霧峰) of Taichung, as Lin initially settled further north in what is now Dali District (大里). However, after the Qing executed him for his alleged participation in the Lin Shuang-Wen Rebellion (林爽文事件), his grandsons were
RSS