Focus: The Everyman of Taiwanese Theatre

Sakurai Daizō, director of the Haibizi theater troup, discusses his tent theatre performance in the video below. Touching on issues such as the perils of capitalism in postmodern society and the simulated world and life choices of the youth of the 21st Century:

Part 1:

Part 2: (Japanese audio, translated text below)

Although I think that there is no society that it not failed in some way, I think that finding a way to resolve and enrich the failed parts is what we should be focusing our energy on. I still have a very idealized view of society.

Why do humans create this thing called society? This is the question that theatre puts forward. For me, plays are a common space for reflection, for reflecting on globalization, especially with Tent Theatre. In the contemporary world, people have created a consumerist society, the function of theatre is to question why this consumerist society has failed, and why in the history of humanity there has never been a successful society. So I use theatre to reflect on this, it’s not related to other kind of tents. That is the thinking behind Tent Theatre.

In a postmodern society, rather than asking what I’m using Tent Theatre to say, I think a more important question is what kind of place is created in Tent Theatre. Humanity is, in essence, a deprived existence. No matter how hard you strive, you can do very little, very little indeed. You may think that you can do anything; your eyes can see everything. Computers seem to have all the information you need, it seems as if you have been a lot of places and know a lot of things, but actually you can only see one façade, you can’t see what’s behind it, your eyes can’t see the inner workings. You may have two hands, but no matter how hard you try at most you can only shake hands with a hundred truly successful people. So humanity is an extremely deprived existence. This is important. However, this very deprivation makes humanity precious. The questions of what humanity can produce or achieve, that is for the rich men to ponder. As for poor people, they live a more natural, simple life.

The most fascinating thing about capitalism is that even if you are continually betrayed, it still sets you up with the next Utopian ideal to pursue, a Utopian ideal that appears, on the surface at least, to be accessible to everyone. The youth of today, however, all live in a fixed universe. If they go to a convenience store for example, it seems like there are a lot of different products to choose from. The air conditioning is just right, they don’t feel too cold or too hot; they feel comfortable and free, as if they can choose freely what to buy, but the only difference, in reality, between all those “different choices” is their packaging. That is what is so horrific about this economic system.

Click on the image to check out the performance:

Written by : Conor Stuart Send a message to Conor Stuart

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