Nov. 7, 8:00 PM; Nov. 8, 3:00 PM
East Warehouse Theatre
Performed in Mandarin, with English surtitles
Yang’s Ensemble (Taipei)
Playwright & Director: Yang Ching-Hsiang
Duration: 60 minutes
"As we follow the plot we are exposed to the protagonists’ attempts to maintain their youthful appearance at all costs, and the intrigues underlying their harmonious pretenses. In the end they realize that they are living an illusion – there is no such thing as true self. Through the play Yang Ching-Hsiang expresses the real concern of the younger generation: “why they don’t want to grow up.”
--- United Daily News
“The blueprint for Yang’s Morning, Morning is the Japanese girl group AKB48. The play’s fictitious Loli Girls take selfies, obsess over their appearance and plot against each other. Yang uses these aspects of mainstream culture to criticize and question the current trends of “cosmetic surgery” and “aging prevention.”
--- Xin Media
About Morning, Morning
This piece is representative of current theatre in Taiwan. The “Loli Girls” provide a snapshot of many of today’s pop groups. Beneath their flashy appearance is a world in which the girls have lost their sense of self, and a world with brittle relationships that are both co-dependent and cruel.
The pop group Loli Girls have been in the music business for 10 years. While under the spotlight, all three members of the group put their cuteness on display; it is as if their youth makes them invincible, as if there is no problem in the world they cannot overcome as long as they are together. Yet the invincibility of youth can only go so far. An unrequited love that has remained hidden for 10 years stirs up a mess of trouble between the three group members. The masks of these women who have been frozen in time begin to crack, and they soon crumble in the face of the conflict and cruelty that were hidden behind the cuteness. This is an unprecedented storm that tests the limits of friendship and love.
As dawn approaches, can they love and be loved in the way they so deeply desire? Or after the break of day, will they all find themselves lost and alone?
Creative Team:
Artistic director, Playwright and Director: Yang Ching-Hsiang
Actresses: Tsai Yi-Ling, Cheng Yuting, Yi-Ju Fang
Stage Design: Ron Chang
Lighting Design: Zhuang Zhiheng
Music Design: Ke Zhihao
Costume Design: Lin Binghao
Stage Manager: Zhang Zhongping
Producer: Zhan Huijun, Zheng Hanwen
About Yang Ching-Hsiang Ensemble
Yang Ching-Hsiang Ensemble is a performance team that is representative of Taiwan’s active role in small theater in recent years. Led by venerable up-and-coming writer, director and performer Yang Ching-Hsiang, the Ensemble was co-founded in 2013 by Yang, Tsai Yi-Ling, Zhan Huijun and Kate Stanislawski. Their aim is to “analyze the mood of the current times and record contemporary phenomena.” The ensemble explores features of the modern lifestyle through a cross-cultural perspective and fable-like texts. Artistic Director Yang has received significant attention in the theatre world in recent years, having written and directed nearly twenty works, including I Rhyme for You, a play that received rave reviews and has been wildly popular among young audiences for three straight years. Yang’s talents also extend to the film world, with his script Innocence receiving a nomination for the Golden Bell Award for Best Theatrical Script. In 2012, Yang represented Taiwan in Japan’s Togamura Arts Festival – Asian Director Contest. He was deeply inspired by the event and decided to break away from Taiwan’s existing creative methods. In the spirit of exploration, he embraced the principle of organic collaboration between performers and scriptwriters in an attempt to develop the uniqueness and possibilities of contemporary dramatic language in Taiwan. In 2013 the Ensemble’s inaugural work Morning,Morning took the cultural world by storm and was a major blockbuster at the New Idea Theater Festival held at the National Theater and Concert Hall.
Playwright and Director: Yang Ching-Hsiang
Emerging Taiwanese director Yang Ching-Hsiang was born in Jiayi County in 1981. Yang graduated from the Drama Department at the National Taiwan University of the Arts (NTUA). He also holds a doctorate from Taipei National University of the Arts, where he studied directing under Stan Lai. He is currently a Visiting Associate Professor at NTUA.
In 2012 Yang represented Taiwan in the Asian Director and Drama Festival organized by the Japan Performing Arts Foundation, where he received an award for his direction of the play The Chairs by Eugène Ionesco. In 2011 he was the drama director and screenplay coordinator for the Hakka television series Innocence, which was nominated for six categories, including Best Screenplay and Best Drama, in the 47th Golden Bell Awards. Blackcat Hotel, a screenplay Yang co-wrote, was shortlisted for the closing film of the 2011 Kaohsiung Film Festival. Since 2011, Yang has been invited to the New Idea Theater Exhibition at the National Theater and Concert Hall three years in a row. In 2011, he wrote and directed The Abandoner. In 2012, he directed Bach Variations: Rebirth. (an original work by Stan Lai) In 2013, he wrote and directed Morning,Morning, which will perform at the 2nd annual Wuzhen Theater Festival.
Yang’s directing and writing credits also include Almond Tofu by The Party Theater Group, I Rhyme for You: Ballad by the Creative Society (performed four consecutive years from 2011 to 2014, performed in 2012 at Shanghai Contemporary Drama Valley, tour covering Taipei, Kaohsiung and Chungli, nominated for the Huashan Life Festival at Focus Theater, invited 2013 and 2014 to perform in Beijing at the Cross-strait Small Theater Art Festival), K File for the Creative Society, The Thebans for Po You Set, Who Killed My Child, presented at the Eslite Sound Multimedia Theater, Untitled Presentation (with performer Tsai Yi-Ling) for “Young Stars, New Vision”, An Obituary Written, presented by the Short One Player Theater Troupe, Pacific Mental Institution with Next Wave Theater, Prisoner with the Taipei Artists Theater, and Nauseous Scream with Critical Point Theater Phenomenon.
Acting credits include Playing the Violin by the Creative Society (written by Ji Weiran and directed by Lu Po-Shen, and performed at the National Theater and Concert Hall, it received an award in the 11th Taishin Arts Award); Thirty “for Young Stars, New Vision” (directed by Chen Shih-Ying, nominated in the 4th season of the 10th Taishin Arts Award); Touch Me, If You Can presented by the Creative Society (directed by Liu Shou-Yao, nominated for the 8th Taishin Arts Award, commended by United Daily News as a Top Ten “Not to be Missed” performance in 2009); See You in the Air Tomorrow, performed during the Shanghai International Small Theater Art Festival; and Roses by Moonlight during the Eslite Art Festival.
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