- Date 2018.04.06
- Venue Taiwan Traditional Theatre Center (Experimental Theatre)
The Soup of Reincarnation—2018 Taiwan Traditional Theatre Festival
Jin Kwei Lo Puppetry Company
Comments on the Finalist
Whereas Yang Li-Chou’s documentary, Father, induces anxieties about preserving the heritage of hand puppetry in Taiwan, The Soup of Reincarnation highlights the spirit of hand puppetry, which is to evolve with the times for survival. Jin Kwei Lo Puppetry Company collaborates with Cheng Chia-Yin, Director of Puppet and Its Double Theater, and creates a work that allows traditional puppetry and modern puppetry to reflect each other’s brilliance, and interprets the invisible time with visible “puppets.” The work masterfully merges the dissimilar spatiality of puppetry stage and that of the theatrical black box, establishing a realm that blends life with death and overlaps virtuality with reality. With Meng Po as a guiding character, the work reenacts the tragic and fateful reincarnations of female characters, including Wang Bao-Chuan, Pan Jin-Lian and Bai Su-Zhen, in traditional texts while subtly speaking out for women’s insignificance in this traditional art form. Moreover, the musicians’ expressive music, self-restraining yet lastingly reverberating, adds a genious touch to the already exquisite and rich theatrical aesthetics.
(Commentator: Siraya PAI)
Artwork Introduction
One of the artistic features that characterizes Jin Kwei Lo Puppetry Company is its interpretation of historic stories through female perspectives, which is what the theatre company has done in The Soup of Reincarnation. The work reinvents classic characters in the tradition of puppetry and gives them new lives. The story begins with Meng Po, who resides by the river Lethe in the underworld. Through her eyes, the audience learn the stories of three classic female characters, Wang Bao-Chuan, Pan Jin-Lian, and Bai Su-Zhen, and witness how tears are turned into the symbol of oblivion and rebirth, as a way to recount these women’s emotional upheavals and discontent with fate. The monologues of the three female characters, along with the puppeteers’ expressions of their own feelings, are deconstructed and reconstructed into a story interwoven with both facts and fiction. The theatre company has specially invited the artistic director of Puppet and Its Double, Cheng Chia-Yin, to direct this production, the modern playwright and director, Chiang Fu-Chin, to write the script, the Singaporean theatre technology director, Helmi Fita, to design the lighting, and Liang Meng-Han to design the puppets. Combining puppetry narration, puppeteering and Beiguan music with modern features like wide cloak, mobile platform and theatrical lighting, the work unveils a new direction of contemporary puppetry.
About the Artist
Jin Kwei Lo Puppetry Company
Jin Kwei Lo Puppetry Company is a rare Taiwanese theatre company run by three generations of one family. Its founder, Chiang Szu-Mei, is the first female Taiwanese palmar puppeteer and is still creating works and performing at eighty-six years of age. Her son Ko Chia-Tsai, who inherits Chiang’s skills and is an important palmar puppeteer, has been writing, directing and performing palmar puppetry works for over five decades. The family’s third-generation, Ko Shih-Hung and Ko Shih-Hua, have learned and mastered the art of puppetry, and dedicated themselves to promote the beauty of Taiwanese puppetry by participating in domestic and foreign art festivals and puppetry programs, seeking new opportunities for Taiwanese puppetry through the encounters of the modern and the traditional from both the East and the West. In recent years, their experiments on interdisciplinary and cross-media performances have received much praise. Today, the three generations of the family are still endeavoring in promoting the local culture of puppetry and creating excellent works.
Production Team
Drama Artist Consultant:Chiang Szu-mei
Drama Consultant:Ko Chia-Tsai
Director:Cheng Chia-Yin
Playwright:Ching Fu-Chin, Ko Shih-Hing
Lighting Design:Helmi Fita
Sound Design:Chiang Ching-Hsing
Aria Arrangement:Wu Ya-Ting
Production Carpenter:Cheng Sheng-Wen
Puppet Design:Liang Meng-Han, Ko Shih-Hung, Ko Shih-Hua
Performer:Ko Shih-Hung, Ko Shih-Hua, Liu Yu-Jane
Musician:Chiang Ching-Hsing, Wu Ya-Ting, Liu Chao-Hung
Stage Crew:Hsu Yu-Ling, Lia Wei-Yu
International Administration Coordination:Su Wei-Jeune
Marketing Materials Design:Ou Chia-Jui