Stan Lai’s (賴聲川) widely acclaimed A Dream Like A Dream (如夢之夢), a major landmark in Chinese-language theater, will take the stage at Taipei’s National Theater from Aug. 19 to Sept. 1.
First staged in Taiwan and Hong Kong in 2002, the epic eight-hour production has returned with a new cast, and features actors Chin Shih-chieh (金士傑), Hsu Yen-ling (徐堰鈴), Hu Ge (胡歌) and Chinese pop star Chris Lee (李宇春). Thirty actors will portray over 100 roles in the show. Oscar-winning designer Tim Yip (葉錦添) created the design for the 300-plus costumes.
Epic, romantic, extravagant, metaphysical and engrossing, Lai’s masterpiece will run for a total of eight shows. The production will have no subtitles.
Photo courtesy of Performance Workshop theater
“This story is about life and people’s choices,” Lai told the Taipei Times in an interview in June. “It’s essentially about karma.”
The plotline tells several interwoven stories with one leading to another. The narrative follows the life of Gu Shiang-lan, who lived through much of the 20th century, first as a prostitute in 1930s Shanghai and then, after marrying an aristocrat, a painter in Paris. Following the death of her husband, she returns to China in the 1950s and experiences the Cultural Revolution.
Lai said he drew on the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Tiananmen Square massacre and the Cultural Revolution to craft the emotionally complex story.
“The story moves ahead in time while referring to the past constantly, thus forming a unified whole,” Lai said.
To best present this complex story about love, life and enlightenment, Lai conceived a daunting 360-degree, two-story circular stage that surrounds the audience, who sit in the center pool section. Actors perform on the circular stage, sometimes with two or three actors for the same role appearing simultaneously.
“This story came to me organically, “ Lai said, adding that he thought up the story while attending a seminar in India in 1999. During a meditation session in front of the lotus tree where the Buddha is said to have attained enlightenment, the inspiration surged into Lai’s mind and he quickly scribbled down the plotline. “When you fall into the spell of this show, you won’t feel the length at all,” Lai said of the play’s length.
The performance is divided into two parts and scheduling allows audience members to watch it on two consecutive nights or both parts at the same time.
That US assistance was a model for Taiwan’s spectacular development success was early recognized by policymakers and analysts. In a report to the US Congress for the fiscal year 1962, former President John F. Kennedy noted Taiwan’s “rapid economic growth,” was “producing a substantial net gain in living.” Kennedy had a stake in Taiwan’s achievements and the US’ official development assistance (ODA) in general: In September 1961, his entreaty to make the 1960s a “decade of development,” and an accompanying proposal for dedicated legislation to this end, had been formalized by congressional passage of the Foreign Assistance Act. Two
March 31 to April 6 On May 13, 1950, National Taiwan University Hospital otolaryngologist Su You-peng (蘇友鵬) was summoned to the director’s office. He thought someone had complained about him practicing the violin at night, but when he entered the room, he knew something was terribly wrong. He saw several burly men who appeared to be government secret agents, and three other resident doctors: internist Hsu Chiang (許強), dermatologist Hu Pao-chen (胡寶珍) and ophthalmologist Hu Hsin-lin (胡鑫麟). They were handcuffed, herded onto two jeeps and taken to the Secrecy Bureau (保密局) for questioning. Su was still in his doctor’s robes at
Last week the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said that the budget cuts voted for by the China-aligned parties in the legislature, are intended to force the DPP to hike electricity rates. The public would then blame it for the rate hike. It’s fairly clear that the first part of that is correct. Slashing the budget of state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) is a move intended to cause discontent with the DPP when electricity rates go up. Taipower’s debt, NT$422.9 billion (US$12.78 billion), is one of the numerous permanent crises created by the nation’s construction-industrial state and the developmentalist mentality it
Experts say that the devastating earthquake in Myanmar on Friday was likely the strongest to hit the country in decades, with disaster modeling suggesting thousands could be dead. Automatic assessments from the US Geological Survey (USGS) said the shallow 7.7-magnitude quake northwest of the central Myanmar city of Sagaing triggered a red alert for shaking-related fatalities and economic losses. “High casualties and extensive damage are probable and the disaster is likely widespread,” it said, locating the epicentre near the central Myanmar city of Mandalay, home to more than a million people. Myanmar’s ruling junta said on Saturday morning that the number killed had
RSS