The Villiage Culture in Taiwan
By admin on 2014-12-26

Following the success of his last dramatic stage play, Light Years, which presented the changing social environment in China over the past 30 years, acclaimed Taiwanese director and playwright Stan Lai, is back on the mainland with The Village, "the real story of Taiwan."

In The Village, Lai addresses a pertinent issue in the lives of young people today, identity. He delicately reveals connections of social change

between the mainland and Taiwan.

Performed in both Putonghua and hokkien, The Village spans 50 years and depicts the lives of three families living in small military-dependant villages after their retreat to Taiwan after the 1940s' civil war.

Such villages developed their own unique culture and at that time, more than 800 were in existence. The villages have been slowly disappearing, with less than 200 remaining today. Many well-known figures originated from these villages, including movie star Lin Ching-hsia, writer Lung Ying-tai and director Ang Lee.

The Village premiered in Taipei at the end of 2008 and has been widely received. According to Lai, the difficulty was "how to make over a hun-dred stories into one coherent play. Once I figured that out it was a joy to create."

Interwoven with an array of individual experiences, The Village deals with significant events in Taiwan's history. Key moments from when Taiwan cut ties with the Chinese mainland, the shock and pain of Chiang Kai-shek's death in 1975 and the emotional reunion when Taiwanese citizens were allowed to return to the mainland for the first time, are all portrayed.

Born into a diplomatic family in the US, Lai has retained close ties to his country of origin and the Chinese culture. "I think my emotion is very much linked to the whole of history. This is why The Village is such a natural work for me."

The mainland version of Lai's work has been adapted from the original, so as not offend any of the audience. The stage play has been performed in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Dongguan and Hangzhou and tonight it will be staged in Shanghai.

"The Shenzhen audiences laughed and cried at certain moments similar to Taiwanese audiences," commented Xie Xie, the show's producer. "Guangzhou audiences clapped every three minutes!"

"At very beginning, the [mainland] audience was not sure what to expect or how to react. They keep quiet for a few minutes. Later, they figured out they can laugh and they can express emotions in the theater and they do," Lai said. "It is a dialogue theater and people need to get used to it. Our theater is different from mainland huaju (stage play)."

"Huaju is normally very dignified. You don't expect to see something irreverent, or comical, but in my plays the comical and serious are all together," he explained.

"Once the audience figures it out, they respond accordingly. Also, I ask my sound engineers to keep the microphones set to a minimum, so the audience is listening to the natural voices of the actors."

The Village was shown in Singapore with subtitles but will be only in Chinese during its mainland tour. "I think it is too much of a waiver to get it [subtitles] here. If we have second run in Beijing, we will definitely consider English subtitles."

This time around The Village will play three nights at Beijing's Century Theater from February 5-7.