"A traffic jam, a trip back to the hometown, a couple who are going to get married, the whole world is quietly approaching the verge of collapse."
The sentence above comes from the introduction of A Traffic Congestion, a theatrical piece by the local art group Godot Art Association. Debuting last night (August 26) at the 100 + Hub, A Traffic Congestion is a story about the relationship between the three characters in the play.
Harry Ng is one of the lead actors in the performance. He says that he wanted to find a script in Chinese to perform, so he chose the script of A Traffic Congestion, which was created by Taiwanese script writer Chen Hung-yang.
"What is good about scripts in Chinese is that their contents are very close to our lives and are very contemporary. Also, I had read this script before, which was written by a senior of mine (Chen) in my university, the Taipei National University of the Arts. People gave it a pretty good review when it was first performed in Taipei as well. Therefore, I wanted to bring this play back to Macau so that people here could know more about Taiwanese scripts."
Moreover, Harry believes this script is unique in the sense that it is not very complicated and can be done with a relatively low budget. The dialogue is written in a detailed manner too, which only reveals the true emotion, the plot and the relationships between the characters at the very last moment, so that audiences cannot see the whole picture before the end.
The director of A Traffic Congestion, both in Taiwan and Macau, is Kini Cheong, also a senior at university with Harry and Chen.
Kini explains that when she was reading the script, it was like she was reading Chen's diary. She observes that it is not common for Chen to express his emotions verbally. Instead, he would reveal his inner world through writing poems and scripts.
"It is especially important that this script is about the story of homosexuality, including (the relationship between) gay people and their families, or even the so-called "moral issues" in the society and what impression the society has of gays. That's why I wanted to help the script writer to tell everybody what the world is like for gay people when they have to make some decisions."
Furthermore, Kini notes that the actors from Macau and Taiwan have had different approaches when reading the script.
"When it was in Taiwan, the actors were trying to show the emotions that are in the script. But when I was directing the actors in Macau, they were more keen on conveying the message in the script. This is the difference between my Macau and Taiwan directing experience."
Kini also says she has felt more sensitive to the rhythm and emotion of the actors when directing the play in Macau because the play in Macau is being performed in her mother tongue Cantonese.
Satisfying Premiere
Last night was the debut of the play. Both the director and the actors were happy with their performance and the reaction of the audiences.
However, the leading actress of the show, Flora Ho, says some audiences were not reacting in a way they expected in some circumstances.
"There are times when we did not anticipate that the audience would laugh. For example, there are parts of the performance that I found quite surprising when I was reading the script for the first time, but the audiences laughed instead. We did discuss this after the show and the director thought that laughing is a good reaction too because it means the audiences did interpret something."
Flora admits that she was taken aback by the laughter. But she thinks that it had a positive influence on her, because it further intensified her reaction as well.
Another leading actor, Ernesto de Sousa, believes that it does not matter if the audience is laughing or crying; as long as they are reacting it shows that they have dived into the performance with the actors.
"For us, a debut is like a test to find out the differences and similarities between our imagination and the reality. For me, what I felt was most successful today (in the debut) was that people's reactions to the character I built was very similar to my expectations. Even if there are some differences, they actually reflect the process by which the audience adapts to the rationale of the characters."
In second part of this report, the director and actors will share with us their views on the artistic performance industry of Macau. Stay tuned, stayed CLOSER!
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A Traffic Congestion
Date: 2016/08/26-28
Time: 15:00, 20:00
Venue 100 + Hub
Ticket Price: MOP140
Organizer: Godot ART Association
