Staging a Comeback--The Mamas Theater Company of Shihkang

Dozens of plastic panels have been laid to create a floor at the Shihkang Rural Township's Tuniu Activity Center. On it ten mothers have gathered around Chung Chiao, director of the Chaishih Theater Company, who is leading the group and explaining that he wants everyone to move in rhythmic awareness of the sounds and movements of the others. He instructs the participants to come to an understanding of their characters through argumentative dialogue, but then to express those same emotions through body language, with their voices reduced to whispers. Finally two members of the group pretend to be large bears. Without being allowed to touch the other, they do their best to get her to laugh.

This is an acting class for the Mamas Theater Company in Shihkang Rural Township, which was established at the end of last year. The group includes mothers who are fruit farmers, office workers, grandmothers, and owners of breakfast joints. For them, these nights of practice are times to relax, and you often see them bowled over with laughter.

"When I look at others, I feel that their movements are getting more and more natural, that they've made a lot of progress in expressing their emotions," says another member of the group.

When theater meets reconstruction

In the first month after the disaster, the Cross-Border Foundation and the Snails Without Shells Alliance established the Shihkang Home Reconstruction Station. The workers there included various people involved in theater and social movements, who identify with the notion that "performance is an expression of life." They wondered whether a theater workshop might help those living in the reconstruction zone to discover a new portal to their hearts and souls.

"First we organized a series of dramatic games in the hope that these would help the residents relieve some of their accumulated stress," says Chung Chiao.

"For months after the disaster, the nights were dark and gloomy, and people didn't dare to go anywhere," says Yang Chen-chen, one of the participants, whose family runs a breakfast joint. "After about half a year, the work station half-exhorted and half-tricked a group of mothers to join, who then convinced other mothers to participate." Yang enjoyed the first class and thought the second class was really worthwhile. Then she began to feel that to miss a session would be quite a shame. Now Yang is head of the Mamas Theater Company.

With the assistance of the Chaishih Theater Company, whose members provided basic training and served as sounding boards for their ideas, these mothers came up with a play of their own, Mamas on Stage. The play provided a vehicle for the mothers to release their feelings of terror and insecurity brought on by the earthquake and reveal their hopes and fears for the future. They performed the play first at the Tuniu Activity Center, and then in Taichung and Taipei. After a few performances, they started to consider whether they should continue performing as a group. Everyone was strongly in favor, so at the end of last year they formally established the theater company.

Interpreting life through performance

Explaining how theater has helped them in their lives, Yang Chen-chen says, "A country housewife can get up on the stage and talk, and can pick up a pen to record her feelings. She ends up thinking up lines for plays while she does the dishes, and her life becomes full, because there is so much to be busy with. And she lives every day all out."

"It's amazing that people have come and shown concern for hick nobodies like us," says Lin Yueh-hsia, a farmer. "They are really much superior to us, so how come they care about us?" Lin recalls that after her first class she dreamt about class that very night. She had been acting as if she had come down with Alzheimer's after the earthquake, she recalls, drifting along dazed and confused. Her mind is much clearer these days. She used to be quite timid, she says, but upon seeing a television microphone now, she jokes, echoing a TV commercial, "I am not scared of that thing anymore; you can bring it closer."

When they performed in the community, some of the residents found the play hard to stomach. "Why is it necessary to relive such painful experiences?" they wondered. Or else they said, "I had almost forgotten about it, but now you've stirred up all those old regrets again."

Yet Yang Chen-chen says that they weren't trying to turn tragedy into entertainment. "The idea behind the performance was to give thanks-to tell society that we have gotten back on our feet, and to urge others to do likewise."

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Expressing themselves physically in dramatic training exercises helps the mamas of Shihkang to release some of the emotional stress caused by the earthquake. (photo by Hsueh Chi-kuang)