Historical drama re-enacts 1950 Taipei mystery

2015/08/03

A historical whodunit-cum-stage production is set for premiere Aug. 29 in Taipei City, shedding new light on a romantic intrigue gone awry in 1950 northern Taiwan.

“Cold Case Club” focuses on the doomed relationship between spinster Chen Su-qing from Taoyuan County and married man Chang Bai-fan from mainland China, who relocated to Taiwan after the end of the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945).

The lovers pledged to commit suicide together after their amour had been opposed by Chen’s family, but the plan went off the rails leaving the former dead and the latter on the run.

The tryst caused a sensation in the day as it involved two people from markedly different backgrounds. It was made into a movie twice in the 1960s, both titled “A Reverie by the Riverside.”

Play director Liu Chun-liang said the show is certain to generate public interest as it will be staged at Murder Ink, a Dadaocheng bookstore located near the site of the actual incident. The shop is the first in Taiwan dedicated to the genre of mystery and detective fiction.

“Site-specific theater enhances the audience’s perception of the story by recreating the setting of the events,” Liu said. “It allows a reassessment of the connection among viewer, performance and space.”

According to Liu, both she and Detective Wannabes—the group breathing new life into the cold case—are excited at the opportunity of integrating suspense drama into such a prime setting for crime-solving and investigation.

“The bookstore’s confined environment is ideal for cast-viewer interaction,” she said, adding that actors will take audience members to different places as the story unfolds and ask them to offer perspectives on the culprit’s true motive.

“It is really like a book club with plot enactments where everyone participates in the process of deduction to solve the mystery,” she said. “We are not trying to rewrite history, but to understand what circumstances led to the tragedy.”

The groundbreaking production is part of this year’s Taipei Fringe Festival, a citywide initiative celebrating experimental, non-mainstream art performances Aug. 23 to Sept. 13. It runs for nine shows over two weekends until Sept. 6.

Source: Taiwan Today (http://taiwantoday.tw/ct.asp?xItem=233224&ctNode=413)