Alternative Theater in Taiwan: Feminist and Intercultural Approac ...

I employ Coco Fusco’s critique of the Western gaze upon the Third World, Jerzy Grotowski’s “pre-cultural” sources of rituals, the binary opposition between universal and specific, and Eugenio Barba’s “pre-expressive” principles in my analysis. This investigation also draws on Rustom Bharucha’s comments on Peter Brook’s production of The Mahabaharata, and on critiques of Interculturalism.

Performance studies, including the theories of Judith Butler and Elin Diamond, and feminist post-colonialism on the male gaze, are used to interpret the world premiere of Peach Blossom Fan directed by Chen Shi-Zheng and staged in the Roy and Edna Disney / CalArts Theater in Los Angeles in 2004. In contrast to my previous research agendas, which focused on the influence of the West on the East, I examine the representation of the East, as conceived of by the West, in this production.

In Chapter Five entitled “Western Traditions Framed by the East: Stan Lai’s Performance Workshop,” I explore how Lai embeds Western traditions and critiques within Chinese frames. I also deconstruct the complex tensions between traditional Chinese culture and Western modernity in Lai’s Journey to the West, the search for national and cultural identity among the Chinese in Turn Back to the Other Shore, and the concepts of utopia and nostalgia in Pining … In Peach Blossom Land. Finally, the complex issues concerning dreams, life, history, and memory are discussed in A Dream Like a Dream.

Stan Lai presents the agenda of forming a Taiwanese national and cultural identity in his production of Journey to the West. In this 1987 production, the cultural tensions caused by the Chinese contact with the West are presented. The tension between Eastern tradition and Western modernization in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries frames part of this project. In this production, Lai chose to focus on the negative aspects of modernity. For example, China, at the end of the Qing Dynasty, was not only forced to lend money and land to the eight Western countries which had waged war against it, the Chinese also lost confidence in their traditional culture and consequently began to lack a sense of national dignity.

Lai presents the themes of searching for home, nation, national identity, and self-identity in the production Turn Back to the Other Shore.