CNA and Staff Reporter   2013-05-03   16:33 (GMT+8)​

 

The Contemporary Legend Theatre, a renowned performing group from Taiwan, will be featured at this year's Edinburgh International Festival, as the group presents the world premiere of its latest production, the organizers said Thursday.

 

The Peking Opera troupe will present its production Metamorphosis featuring Wu Hsing-kuo, the group's founder. It is the second time that the troupe is taking part in the festival, one of the world's largest cultural events.

Wu's production is a perfect synthesis of live performance, technological mediation and a really powerful story, which fits perfectly with the theme of this year's festival, said festival director Jonathan Mills at a news conference in Taipei. The theme of this year's festival is technology and arts.

 

Wu will be the sole actor in the production, adapted from The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka's famous short story of Gregor Samsa, a young man who awakes to find himself transformed into a monstrous creature, a change which causes great alarm to his family and ultimately ends in tragedy.

 

"This is a very ambitious project," Mills said, praising Wu as a master of transformation.

 

Also at the news conference was Taiwan's culture minister Lung Ying-tai, who expressed great interest in seeing how Wu portrays the the "monstrous vermin" creature of Kafka's imagination. "I am so looking forward to seeing the performance," she said.

 

In the production, Wu will play all roles in the story, including Samsa, his father, mother and sister, the group said, adding that animation will be incorporated into the play.

Chris Wood, the UK's representative to Taiwan, also welcomed Wu's performance at the Edinburgh festival. Taiwan and the United Kingdom both "blend the traditional and modern in new and creative ways," he said, adding that Wu's performance is an example of this similar linkage.

Wood also encouraged Taiwanese people to take advantage of the visa-waiver treatment to the UK to participate in the event in Edinburgh.

 

Wu's Metamorphosis will be staged three times during the Edinburgh festival, which will run from Aug. 9 to Sept. 1, the organizers said.

 

About 3,000 artists from more than 30 countries will participate in this year's festival, and the Contemporary Legend Theatre is the only one from Taiwan, Mills said.

After its premiere in the UK, the production will be presented in Taiwan starting in November, according to the troupe.

The Contemporary Legend Theater, led by Wu, performed a play adapted from Shakespeare's tragedy King Lear at the Edinburgh festival in 2011.

 

Link: http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?id=20130503000103&cid=1802