IngentaConnect In Search of History Point Zero: Stan Lai's drama and Taiwan's do...

Author: Braester, Yomi

Source: Journal of Contemporary China, Volume 17, Number 57, November 2008 , pp. 689-698(10)

Publisher: Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group

Abstract:

This paper examines the work of the Taiwanese troupe Performance Workshop (Biaoyan gongzuofang) under director and playwright Stan Lai, specifically Peach Blossom Land, Strange Tales from Taiwan, and I Me He Him . These plays address the disjunction of space and time through a particular device, namely splitting the stage between 'here' and 'there', 'now' and 'then'. Characters and their alter-egos share the same stage, a situation that results in awkward and fragmented dialogs. The cohabitation of incompatible temporal dimensions gives rise to many comical situations, foregrounds the futility of the characters' search for stable identities, and demonstrates the existence of irreconcilable though mutually resonant temporal planes. The double play often becomes a metaphor for the mirroring existence on the two sides of the Taiwan Straits, as well as for the role of theater itself in teasing out and negotiating between these ambiguous similarities. Lai's plays give the lie to neat distinctions between local Taiwanese and pan-Chinese identities, and stress the heightened sense of dislocation in a globalizing society.

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In Search of History Point Zero: Stan Lai's drama and Taiwan's doubled identities