| Chapter 1: | Introduction |
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However, compared to Oedipus’ easy adaptation from Corinth to Thebes, the Chinese who were forced to migrate from mainland China to Taiwan in 1949, are nostalgic for their hometowns in China. Thus, it is much more difficult to achieve a consensus on the problem of national identity in Taiwan, an issue that is presented by Lai’s production Go Back to the Other Shore.
Compared with Go Back to the Other Shore, in which the stage designs divided into a tri-spatial scenes (the living room, the study, and the imagery Xu Hsia world), the production of Pining … In Peach Blossom Fan presents a binary opposition between Eastern traditions and West Realism. I compare Western realism employing realistic props in Stanislavisy’s psychological acting method with classical Chinese comedy and Chinese abstract drama in the tragedy of Pining. I also take the big and small stage sets in the production as oppositional examples to reveal how Lai uses Chinese frames but embeds Western traditions within them. This production presents the issues of nostalgia, homesickness, and loss.
In Lai’s seven-hour epic production of A Dream Like a Dream, I explore the issues of dreams, life, history, memory, and religion. Lai’s own practice of Tibetan Buddhism informs the production. In this meta-theatrical performance, Lai incorporates several themes, such as traumatic memories, historical representation, intercultural influences, transnational experiences, religion, life, politics, and the Chinese diaspora. Taking the character Jiang Hong as an example, Lai deals with the issue of diaspora by also representing the Chinese people’s suffering in exile.
This huge performance was set such that the audience sat in the center with the players surrounding them—a style Tao Qing-Mei and Ho Shu-Yi called theater in the “Surround.”21 As Director Lai pointed out, his novel theater design was constructed as a Mandala, a religious symbol, which belongs to space, time, and the fictional characters in the play.