New perspectives on old tales
Palaces is inspired by Polish director Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Dekalog. Spanning the three decades from 1990 to the present, the plot of Palaces assumes epic grandeur. It is set in a mixed-use building, of a type that can be seen in every major city in Taiwan. Damaged during the 1999 Jiji earthquake, the building, now derelict, has degenerated into an evil place shunned by local residents. The stories that happen in it shed light on the dark side of the human mind.
The “Five Mysterious Cases” in Taiwanese folklore are moral tales that yield penetrating insights into human nature and elucidate the principle of karma, according to which our futures hinge on the morality of our present deeds. The playwright Wu Ming-lun raises the question of whether religion is still needed in a world built upon the rule of law. Rather than merely extending the original tales, Wu’s strategies involve deconstructing events and characters, weaving them into ten sections. In doing so, she gives the stories a different structure and a new perspective.
For example, in the “Five Mysterious Cases,” the victims are invariably women. In folkloric stories like these, women are able to take revenge only if they become ghosts, and female ghosts often serve a moral function, reminding us that evildoers can never escape with impunity. But how would these stories unfold if they were set in modern-day Taiwan, where the rule of law is established? In “The Rain of Needles”—an adaptation of “Zhou Cheng Travels to Taiwan”—Wu depicts what happens after Zhou has left his family. In presenting Zhou’s wife as the family’s sole breadwinner and the carer of her elderly parents-in-law and little child, Wu introduces the issue of long-term care while dramatizing the way Zhou’s wife plots her revenge. The shift in perspective grabs the audience’s attention. In Wu’s version of the story, moreover, the child whom Zhou leaves behind shows symptoms of social withdrawal. This is a subtle portrayal of the much-maligned “Strawberry Generation” in Taiwan—people born from the 1980s onwards who are forced to accept low incomes and find themselves in a perpetual quagmire, having little to look forward to and nothing to fall back on.
The way Wang Jhao-cian directs the production is also innovative. “Actually I’ve adopted two different lines of logic in directing Palaces: Outside In and Palaces: Inside Out.” The former is a narrative that abides by dramatic conventions: it introduces the characters, allows the story to unfurl, and is propelled by a realist plot. By contrast, the latter is “anti-dramatic.” There Wang challenges conventions and abandons everything he has learned about directing theatrical performances. He brings song, dance, magic, and models onto the stage and lets the characters engage directly with the audience.
Our Theatre’s resident playwright, Wu Ming-lun, has borrowed elements from Taiwan’s “Five Mysterious Cases” to create ten new stories, reinterpreting folklore through the perspective of people born in 1980s Taiwan.
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