Date in memory sets creative stage

Jan 10 is a profoundly significant date for playwright and theater director Stan Lai. During a recent news conference for the Huichang Theater Village, he spoke of its particular and poignant resonance.

On Jan 10, 1969, Lai, then 15, faced the loss of his father; on Jan 10, 1984, Lai's first-ever theater production, We All Grew Up This Way, made its premiere; and on Jan 10, 2024, he will celebrate the 40th anniversary of his theater career.

He selected this date in 2024 to stage his upcoming work, Flower in the Mirror, Moon in the Water, in Huichang county, Ganzhou, Jiangxi province, his father's hometown.

As a site-specific play dedicated to Huichang, the new production will be performed in a theater created out of the Wu family ancestral hall, a historical mansion in Huichang's ancient city area, where the audience, in both the venue's indoor and outdoor areas, will follow the story of a girl seeking revenge for her mother.

It will be one of the productions in a 10-day theater season starting from Jan 5 to mark the opening of the Huichang Theater Village, a project that aims to turn the county into a hub for theater practitioners and enthusiasts.

Lai's father left Huichang, where he was born and raised, for Taiwan in 1947 and then worked in the United States, without ever returning to his hometown. It wasn't until the 1980s, when Lai began corresponding with his uncle in Huichang that he rekindled the connection.

"Because my father passed away quite early on, I never felt a sense of hometown. But as I received the first letter from my uncle, the sentiments hit me, the deep feelings emanating from his words, the envelope, the postage stamp," Lai says.

In 1997, he visited Huichang for the first time. At the time, he didn't have much of an idea how to contribute to this county, which lies deep in the mountains and is difficult to reach. Starting in 2015, he decided to stage a theater production in Huichang each year.

"It was just a simple thought, to bring a play here each year and see if any changes would take place. What influence could culture have on this relatively remote place?" he says.

With the support of the Huichang local government, Lai began to envision boosting the county's economic development through culture, art and theater, transforming it into a destination desirable to the younger generations, hence the theater village project was conceived.

The Xibeijie community, located in Huichang's ancient city, has been transformed into a theater village, where the ancestral hall, a former factory and street houses have been turned into four theater venues with different characteristics.

The ancient city's squares, riverbanks and pavilions, built in the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368-1911), will also take on modern functions, allowing for diverse types of theater and outdoor performances.

In the opening theater season, several productions from home and abroad will be staged. Apart from Flower in the Mirror, Moon in the Water, Lai and his Theatre Above will bring The Village, a 15-year-old production telling the stories of migrants from the Chinese mainland to Taiwan during the last century.

Another of Lai's classics, Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land, is also being adapted and performed by a local Huichang theater troupe, which incorporates elements of Jiangxi's folk tea-picking opera. This September, Lai and his wife, theater producer and CEO of Theatre Above, Ding Nai-chu, went to Huichang to oversee rehearsals.

Taiwan-based performing arts group U-Theatre is set to inaugurate the theater village with their well-known drum performance, Sword of Wisdom, at an open-air venue.

Unlike conventional theater festivals, Huichang Theater Village hopes to become a year-round project, including two theater seasons in spring and autumn, and productions to be staged throughout the year.

Wang Mingfu, a Huichang-born entrepreneur who established the county's vocational Hejun College, is also involved in the project. Apart from giving back to his hometown, he also wants to support those with a genuine passion for theater.

"I have been living and working in big cities for a long time, and I feel that contemporary urban dwellers, especially those with knowledge and cultural pursuits, often face two challenges — anxiety and a sense of drifting," Wang says.

"For such people, a good play is able to provide them with consolation and warmth. But I think what they truly need is a spiritual hometown where they can come to settle down."

Projects to invite theater practitioners, both veteran and emerging, to live and work in the theater village have been established, as well as for low-budget original productions to be created and rehearsed here, so that a network of artists across regions and countries can be created.

Wang says that he would like to establish a fund for Huichang Theater Village, to offer financial backing to a selection of outstanding productions and emerging talent.

Under the collaboration between Lai and Wang, a theater technology college has been set up in Huichang to provide professional courses for future theatrical technicians, with stage and costume design centers that meet international standards.

"As a businessperson and investor, I also think of theater as an industry. From my discussions with Lai, I found that there's a relatively weak link in the theater industry chain, which is the shortage of technical professionals," Wang says.

Lai's own theater workshop, which is part of Theatre Above, will also be based in the town, providing theater education to amateurs of all age groups.

Octavian Saiu, Romanian theater scholar and critic, said at the news conference on Nov 16 that for the past 20 years, he has worked and studied with all the great theater festivals around the world and draws one commonality.

"All great festivals happen in small cities or in small places, all of them, without exception. They happen in Edinburgh, in Avignon, in Sibiu, in Wuzhen, where an entire community can be integrated into the fabric of that vision," Saiu says.

"Stan Lai, who is the most cosmopolitan theater artist I know, now reconnects with his roots, in this place which he calls a village. I think that is a beautiful symbol in itself. This is a great gift presented by Stan Lai to the place that we are now celebrating — Huichang."