A Yun (left, Yang Gui-mei play) found A Feng (right, Xu Hua-qian play) have an affair
Courtesy of the director, Lee Chien-chang
After the light turned down, the show "Wind Blow Cloud Gone" (雲淡風輕) started. A woman’s voice came out, she was sleeping, a deep sleep, she didn’t want to wake up, and she could not open her eyes, either. The director, Lee Chien-chang (李建常), expressed that the narrative of this theatre came from one of his classmates in college, who became brain dead because of an unknown fire accident. “I was wondering what she thought? If she had a lover to take care of her, what her life would be? The scene that she laid on the sickbed occurred in my mind, and the story happened.”
Off Performance Workshop (外表坊), a experimental theatre company, gave their performance Wind Blow Cloud Gone on Nov. 20 afternoon at Crown Art Center Theatre (皇冠小劇場). Today is the nineteenth show since Nov 4.
A Feng and A Yun were discussing their future before the fire acident
Courtesy of the director, Lee Chien-chang
The story is about two classmates. The actress found her boyfriend fall in love with the other man when they were preparing the course theatre "Fool For Love" (愚愛). One day, the actor went to the airport to see the man off. At the same time, the actress became unconscious because of the fire accident. From now on, he tried to take care of his girlfriend all by himself, and waited for the unknown future. Three different space-time scenes constituted the show. “It’s easier for me to change the space and time in theatre, when I use the light and music well, we build up certain chemistry with the audience.” The director felt proud of that.
Audience can talk with players after the theatre finished
Courtesy of the director, Lee Chien-chang
The art director provided three colors as the three endings for audience to choose from. There was a small election during the break. The final version of the ending scene would show up according to what the audience voted for. The actor Xu Hua-qian (徐華謙) said, “I would like to play the red one, it’s happier, and the mood would be much better.” “In order to watch different endings, some audience came to Crown Art Center Theatre so many times or suggested other people vote for one specific color.” Lee and Xu thought it was funny. They added these colors that are related to psychology, but they didn’t quite understand the meaning of each one. Only the art director knew that.
As for the organization of Off Performance Workshop, the director and the actor explained that when the theatre group grows, they had the responsibility to adjust audience’s pleasure; sometimes performers might be limited by disturbances. So Off Performance Workshop was founded in 2000 to avoid this constraint. People here just want to create and perform. They said that they hope the audience could get closer with them through these experiments, and choose from the three conclusions is one of them.
Qi Qi (琦琦), one of the characters in the theatre indirectly made the actress become brain dead. The key character is a guy, who had an affair with the actor. “The character was a woman originally, but we could not find the right actress to play the part, so we have replaced a man as the role. We looked back to the script and thought it could be done,” they explained.
Off Performance Workshop presented the theatre “Wind Blow Cloud Gone” in 2001. Due to actor Xu’s insistence, the current event, for example, typhoon, politics this year, the unconscious actress were kept the same. “But those old situation is pretty much the same this year.” the director said with laughter.
“Wind Blow Cloud Gone” was Off Performance Workshop’s repertoire (定目劇) in 2004. The idea of repertoire is from the Off-Broadway, which rented the theatre to perform for a long time. Xu said that Off Performance Workshop brought these conceptions to Taiwan, and hoped the Taiwanese people would accept the subject of performance easily by this generalization and the forever theatre. “National Theater and National Concert Hall (兩廳院) might have the show "the Phantom of the Opera" (歌劇魅影) as the repertoire to make performance in 2006.”
No matter what happens in the future, the ambition to perform won’t change. “Every movement, every training section we were taught at school will appear in the show because the skills have been transplanted in our blood,” said the director.
"Wind Blow Cloud Gone" still have performances from Nov 23-28 at the Crown Art Center Theatre, located at B1, No 50, Lane 120, Dunhua N Rd (台北市敦化北路120巷50號B1). Tickets cost NT$350 and are available on-line at www.artsticket.com.tw or www.pwshop.com. Please call Off Performance Workshop at (02) 26982323 or Crown Art Center Theatre at (02) 2514-8486 ext.101 for more information.
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