- Date 2018.10.19
- Venue Taipei Hakka Music and Theater Center
Those Days, Those Brotherhoods
Assignment Theatre
Comments on the Finalist
With the 30th anniversary of the Hakka Language Restoration Movement as the backdrop, the three-hour drama Those Days, Those Brotherhoods adopts the method of team work and blends the “Theatre of the Oppressed,” along with its emphasis on the public, with contemporary aesthetic thinking. The story combines an extermination testimony and the Far Eastern Textile Workers' Strike taken place in 1989 to respond to the two major topics discussed in Ren Jian Magazine—The Hakka Issue published in 1988. Moreover, through the family tragedy of Fan Tian-Han (an alias given to the person involved in Chung Chiao’s magazine article) as well as the search for the character unfolded on stage, the work initiates a dialogue between two opposite ends of the history. The director Wang Wei-Lien successfully evokes the memory of the oppressed body and injects fresh energies into the tradition of People’s Theater.
(Commentator: Rikey Tenn Bun-Ki)
Artwork Introduction
In his news article in the Hakka Issue of Ren Jian Magazine published in 1989,Chung Chiao created a pseudonym, “Fan Tian-Han,” to protect his interviewee. Based on the oral history recorded for the news article and materials collectively gathered by director Wang Wei-Lien and the entire cast, Those Days, Those Brotherhoods adopts a contemporary narrative style to express the poetic imagery of “Bitter Passage to Taiwan,” a poem written in the historic immigration of the Hakka community. Meanwhile, the work weaves together the histories of the Hakka Language Restoration Movement in 1988 after the lifting of martial law, the White Terror in the 1950s and the Far Eastern Textile Workers' Strike in 1989 and incorporates performers’ personal experiences to represent historical facts and fictitious elements while responding to the socio-cultural changes occurred in the past three decades of the Hakka Movement.
About the Artist
Assignment Theatre
Founded by poet, writer and theatre professional Chung Chiao in 1997, the theatre company uses the training method and theoretical system of People’s Theatre and integrates reality, local history and living experience to explore various theatrical forms of performance aesthetics. Over the years, the theatre company has organized regular community/education theatre workshops and collaborates with schools, communities and minority groups to develop a theatrical environment in the attempt to employ the theatre as an instrument to convey social care and raise awareness about social issues, converting the theatre into a platform for interactive education. Meanwhile, the theatre company has extensively interacted with groups and professionals of People’s Theatre in Asia to exchange knowledge about Asian cultural traditions and contemporary performance aesthetics. Recently, the theatre company has also started to engage in further interaction with People’s Theatre groups around the world.
Production Team
Director:Wang Wei-Lien
Script Creation:Chung Chiao, Zhou Ya-Quan, Wang Wei-Lien
Executive Production:Guan Chen-Yin, Zhou Jing-Lun
Performer:Wen Chih-Xing, Chen Etong, Liang Xin-Wen,
Hsieh Tzung-Yi, Feng Wen-HsingKuo, Ying Hsiu, Tzeng Chi-Peng,
Xiao Wei-xi, Wang Guan-Yue
Live Band:Huang Wei-Jie & KKTIX
Stage Supervisor:Zhou Ya-Quan
Lighting Design:Lai Ke-Zhu
Sound Design:Shi Min-Jie
Sound Execution:Wu Ang-Lin
Costume Design: Xu Ying-Xiang
Image Design:Kuo Ying Hsiu
Object Design:Guan Chen-Yin, Qiu Zhi-Cheng
Graphic Design:Xiao Wei-xi
Director Assistant:Liu Zhen-Zhen
Hakka Language Instruction:Luo Si-Gi
Promotion Assistant:Su Hong-Bin
Photo Offer:Cai Ming-De