SOLITUDE

Dans la solitude des champs de coton
B.M. Koltes
By M. Wing Company
Art Direction: Huan Hiusi Li
With Yen Ling Hsu, Fa, Ching Ju Wei, Fsaye Leong and Hsuen Huei Shih

 

The art director decided to present a weird version of the well known theatre play written by Koltes, a french author who often writes about violence. The violence that is all around us in most of western countries is something very far from the one we can live in Taiwan: for example, in western countries, one has to be very careful: so many robbers, aggressions of all kinds, including fights and guns… Every day, in the subway, in the streets, at any time, day time, night… A more physical violence than in Taiwan where the violence can be qualified in more symbolic terms if I dare say…

So, the story is about a drug deal where the compromise between the consumer and the merchant (here, played by 5 actors on stage showing different kinds of relationships between a consumer and a merchant, somehow a good idea) turns into a verbal then a physical fight because for Koltes, even if we prefer a non violent talking, we can’t help concluding our disagreement by a fight. As Hobbes explained it in ‘the Leviathan’, it is human nature to be a wolf to the other. So, it is a hopeless and clear point of view about society that Koltes demonstrates in his theatre plays.

The Art direction, with a stage design reminding us the french ghettos in suburbs (a very interesting work), is quite odd: by adding songs (to be honest, the songs were not so useful to the understanding and makes the audience lose the main idea of the topic) and a very figurative choreography (a very ‘kung fu’ like dance with slows and stops representing the final fight, beautiful but not so significant), one could think that the art director was more interested in the symbolic violence of the play more than in its first reality that is to say the daily existing physical violence and one could see it in the way he directs the actors.

Their acting was too polite, even when they disagree: the upset merchant played by Hsu Yen Ling – even she is a very good actress – did not look so offended (no real explosion of anger) thought the scene, at this very moment, is a really violent one: it shows the beginning of the end of the well-mannered compromise, the beginning of an unspeakable fight between the two characters, like a translation to war. However, Fa (a more perverse character that suits him well) and Miss Shih (the youngest one looking like a ‘wild dog’) were good in their acting – one could notice the vivid gesture of Miss Shih who promises to become a good actress-.

So, as far as I am concerned, I did not find the show so close to Koltes words and have to admit I was a little deceived by the point of view of the art director even the audience seemed to like the show in its symbolic representation of violence.

DVDM

Presented in june 2010 at the NTCH, Experimental Theater, Taiwan