District 67 Spring Conference

Tellus Theater 106 & 107

6th Class--April 15th--2nd Group Rehearsal
I dragged myself to the Tellus Theater this morning. I was 30 minutes late, but I was the second one to arrive next to Piao. It seemed that everybody had a good excuse to be late. Director Daniel couldn't make it a rule to start the rehearsal on time, he was afraid that nobody would show up if he insisted on punctuality.

Now I'm encountering a bottleneck in my pursuit of theater excitement. My enthusiasm is gone. My patience is running out. There is not a core at the Tellus Theater. Everyone is an amateur and acts like an amateur. Nobody respects the virtue of punctuality. There is no discipline among the members. I wonder how long I could sustain the desire in my heart about acting with a group of people short of teamwork spirit!

After lunch, I continued the group rehearsal for one hour. At 3PM, I left Tellus to join the rehearsal of the Shakespeare play at the Red Room. It was a good break for me. Maybe another theater will be a better one. Let's wait and see!

7th Class--April 22nd--3rd Group Rehearsal
It was the 2nd consecutive Sunday morning that I was late for the Tellus Theater. I was the third member to arrive next to Piao and Sophia. Nate called to be late for one hour because he caught a flu. Ibrahim was still in Australia. The 7th class started one hour late with four participants. After lunch, a Russian girl showed up for her role. We rehearsed twice her part and then she left for the day. Then Hanks showed up for his role and we rehearsed his part for a couple of times before he left.

At the end of the 7th class, I couldn't help but complaining about the management of the Tellus Theater. I felt like an idiot waiting for others to rehearse their roles. It's hard for me to continue the rehearsal with a bad attendance rate and no sufficient actors and actresses. With new people coming in and out, each rehearsal is forever a new rehearsal!

As much as I want to keep my commitment, I'm dropping out of Tellus Theater for several reasons. Firstly, I'm the oldest member in the group. It is hard for me to break the generation gap between me and the rest of the members. Secondly, I prefer a theater with organization and structure. I need a guideline to learn a new trick.

Last but not least, I'm not interested in a Poor Theater. Being a lady of vanity, I'm willing to pay for an impressive debut play with strong cast, outstanding music designer, stage designer, lighting designer, costume designer to create the theater effect, to add impact to the audience and to leave proud memories for ourselves!

To be honest, I feel sorry that I quit Tellus. I really like "Six Characters in search of An Author" by Luigi Pirandello. It is his master piece of Commedia dell'Arte. The play was full of conflicts between the actors and character on stage, make-believes and real in life.

Tellus Theater 105

5th Class--April 8th--1st Group Rehearsal
On Easter Sunday, we had the fifth class with Daniel from dawn till dusk. I was the first to arrive as always, followed by Piao, and many others. Daniel must have arrived much earlier to clean up the O Space. He looked young and handsome with his newly cut short hair. When I complimented his new hair style, he told me he had a superb hair dresser!

At 9:20, Daniel began the workshop by introducing to us more warm up excises to relax our bodies and minds, including tube exercise, neck exercise, and body exercise. I found these corrective exercises useful and remedial to keep our postures right and straight.

After the warm up exercises, we attempted the trans gender game. I didn't find it hard to play a man, either with a female partner or by myself. As the color of the gender fades in modern society, everyone can be a man or a woman as he or she wishes. Then we took turns playing the sex providers. Female students were asked to play prostitutes, male students were asked to play gigolos and rent-boys. After the role plays, we agreed a field study in Wan-hua would be a must for us to have a better look at the real life of a prostitute on the street.

For lunch, Daniel took us to a Vietnamese restaurant in the neighborhood. The young couple (a Taiwanese man and a Vietnamese wife) owners have a son and a daughter. Many annual portraits of the daughter were hung on the wall behind the cash register. They reminded me of my childhood in a military community in Chia-yi, the struggle of the hard working parents to survive in a new world with the hope to see the children grow up each day.

In the afternoon, we resumed the group exercise, in a pair or a team of 3. Daniel handed each group a news clip and asked us to play it out. Ibrahim Uluca and I worked on the recent news of the Australian visa application in Hong Kong. Being an Australian, Ibrahim performed well as the immigration officer from Australia asking for a special favor in his office in Taipei from a Taiwanese woman wishing to go to Australia desperately.

Then we changed partners for the second group exercise. We were told to act out photo clips from the newspaper. Sophia and I gave a story about a knitted scarf. We played mother and daughter arguing about the relationship between the daughter and her boyfriend. Be a middle age woman, I have fewer roles to play, but the mother and the prostitute.

After the group exercise, Daniel announced the roles of "Six Characters in Search of an Author" for the first group voice rehearsal. I played the leading actress, I had only a few lines in the first Act. With an abridged script in Chinese in hand, I had time to ponder upon the lines written by Pirandello and to link to the Commedia dell'Arte. I wonder what it was like when "Six Characters in Search of an Author" was played in Tokyo in 1924.

At 6PM, Daniel gave us a break after the first Act. I didn't stay for dinner and the second Act in the evening. I was exhausted! It's been a long day for my mind and body!

PS:When was the last time you went to a theater? What is your most impressive play? If I'm asked with the above two questions, I shall say, I've seen so many movies and plays recently. I visit CKS Performing Arts Library regularly. I read a dozen books about drama and theater on weekly basis. I participate in theater workshops on weekends. I'm devouring ferociously the knowledge of drama and theater to the best of my ability.

Toastmaster Piao and I saw Nuovo cinema Paradiso by Giuseppe Tornatore at CKS Performing Arts Library Wednesday, April 13th. The moment Piao played the film, I knew I saw it before. But, I didn't mind watching it again for the second time. It's about a filmmaker's childhood. Salvatore fell in love with the movies at his village's theater and formed a deep friendship with the theater's projectionist Alfredo.

Taipei Exchanges

Monica likes Taiwan for many reasons, convenient transportation, delicious food, friendly people, most of all, her old friends at the Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto in 2000-2001.

It's been two years since her last visit during the Spring break in 2010. She and Mei stayed my brother Jimmy's place for three days. We had a small school reunion among us to celebrate our 10th anniversary. In the past two years, Monica has achieved a lot, being promoted in her company and purchasing her own house in Hong Kong.

Monica arrived in Taipei at noon on April fool's day. After lunch at Brother Jimmy's place, we headed for the Shilin Official Residence. We enjoyed a pleasant Sunday afternoon walk at the gardens of both Chinese and Western style horticulture before we visited the former home of Chiang Kai-Shek and Soong May-ling. The official residence house opened to the public from January 2, 2011.

After a light dinner at the Shilin night market, we hurried back to Jimmy's place to watch "Taipei Exchanges", a movie features a lovely coffeehouse with side barter service in Taipei. Monica was eager to find the coffeehouse in the movie. I didn't know its existence till after Monica returned to Hong Kong.

The second evening at Jimmy's place, Monica and I watched "You Are the Apple of My Eye". In the morning, we went to Wu-lai for one day tour. We took the cable to Yun Hsien Resort in the mountains, enjoyed a lovely seasonal lunch at the Chinese restaurant on the second floor of the Yun Hsien Hotel. In the afternoon, we joined the crowd to find the hot spring along the river in the old aboriginal town of Wulai.

The third day, we went to the Calla Lily Festival at Yangmingshan National Park. It was when we saw the Taipei Exchanges Sunday evening, we made up our minds to see an ocean of blooming calla lily. On our way to the calla lily farm, it started raining. We took it easy to rest at a coffeehouse sipping latte by the farm. To my surprise, the sun came out in time for us to take a lot of beautiful photos of calla lily of 2012!

Monica caught the night bus to Taichung to visit Mei for two days, followed by a hanami at the Ali Mountain, and the Spring Scream 2012 at the Kenting National Park. From Monica's spring vacation, it's obvious Monica is a planner. I wish her luck to find Mr. Right in her life plan soon in the future.