• Return to Life King Kong Wave Production(Creative Concept CHAN Hui-Chun, Playwright HU Chin-Yan, Director SUN Wei-Chen) 攝影│陳曉威
  • Return to Life King Kong Wave Production(Creative Concept CHAN Hui-Chun, Playwright HU Chin-Yan, Director SUN Wei-Chen) 攝影│陳曉威
  • Return to Life King Kong Wave Production(Creative Concept CHAN Hui-Chun, Playwright HU Chin-Yan, Director SUN Wei-Chen) 攝影│陳曉威
  • Return to Life King Kong Wave Production(Creative Concept CHAN Hui-Chun, Playwright HU Chin-Yan, Director SUN Wei-Chen) 攝影│陳曉威
  • Return to Life King Kong Wave Production(Creative Concept CHAN Hui-Chun, Playwright HU Chin-Yan, Director SUN Wei-Chen) 攝影│陳曉威
Return to Life
King Kong Wave Production(Creative Concept CHAN Hui-Chun, Playwright HU Chin-Yan, Director SUN Wei-Chen)
Date：2017/10/26 - 10/29
Venue：Jen-De Temple of the East Gate

Comments on the finalist artworks
Combining Western dark comedy and Taiwanese folk belief, the work was respectively performed at three places in Taipei, which were Dongmen Cheng-Te Temple, Chienkang Fu-Te Temple and Kui-Xing Temple in Tamsui, and displayed the charm of performing in local venues. Although these performances were of a small-scale, they fully embodied the theatrical essence and nature. The witty repartee was matched with a form of performance that aimed to reconstruct local imagination. In front of the altars, the tiny plots between the altar tables and the incense burners became a theatrical space. It needed no lighting nor multiple settings; the space itself was rich in dramatic language and tension. Deities, people and spirits on this land all seemed to convene here. Furthermore, the performance was enriched by the streetscape, street sounds and daily life outside the temples, adding a sense of humor to the dialectic topic of life and death as it interwove real life and theatrical performance.(Commentator: KUO Chiang-Sheng)

About the Artwork
Return to Life tells the tale of a young man named “Boss” who went to a temple with complaints about obstacles he has encountered in work, life, and love in recent years, asking the gods to take him away from this sort of life. In that moment a man claiming to be Mortal Constable Black/White appears, and reminds Boss that he is in fact deceased. Boss begins to recall how he had plummeted to his death due to a malfunctioning safety strap while cleaning the exterior windows of a high rise building. Mortal Constable Black/White proposes a plan for Boss to “return to life,” giving him the hard-sell to buy another 30 years of life, culminating in a guest appearance by the voice of God (which happens to be Siri). Can Boss find a resolution to his hapless dilemma? Or remain resigned to realities of hopelessness?

This work is the opening work in the dramatic genre of Spatial Project: A Moveable Feast, and represents a new original text with a prevailing social issue as a starting point and specifically tailored to a non-traditional theater space. Inspired by the tale “Examination for the Post of Guardian Angel” from the Chinese classic Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio, where the conditions of social mobility as dictated by the Imperial Examination system have been replaced by current class structures that make it difficult to break through the cycle of generational poverty.

About the Artist
Holly CHAN 
Holly CHAN (Hui-Chun) received her master’s degree from the NTUA School of Theatre Arts. She is a freelance writer and currently serves as executive director and resident dramaturge at Yang's Ensemble, Recent theatrical experiences include: E.D.S.F., producer (Yang’s Ensemble, 2018); Last Rites, producer (Her Space Lab Collection); 2017 Theatrical Genre Script Reading Festival (jointly organized by Yang’s Ensemble and Thinkers' Theater), curator, producer, and coordinator; Spatial Project series: A Moveable Feast, curator (Return to Life received a nomination in the Drama Category for the 16th Taishin Art Awards).

HU Chin-Yan
HU Chin-Yan is a graduate of the Graduate Institute of Theatre Performance and Playwriting at NTUA. Her scripted plays include The Seventh Day Is a Tiring Day, Anna, Storm off the Forecast (15th Taishin Arts Award nominee), Nothing for Now, The Second Floor, and Return to Life (16th Taishin Award nominee), and Last Rites.

SUN Wei-Chen
Currently a master’s degree candidate at the NTUA School of Theatre Arts, SUN received her bachelor’s degree from the NTUA School of Theatre Arts specializing in directing. Her recent directorial work include Lila (2014 Asia Pacific Arts Festival), Century Contemporary Dance Company Dream Hatched Theater, Phantom Limb (2016 Party Theater Group New Wave Script Reading Festival), and Afterwards (2017 Young Stars, New Visions).

King Kong Wave Production
King Kong Wave Production was established in 2016 by troupe leader HUNG Wei-Yao along with three co-founders and fellow alumni of the National Taipei University of the Arts (NTUA) School of Theatre Arts: WU Yen-Ling, SUN Wei-Jen, and CHEN Yu-Dien; each contributing in their roles and in an ad hoc complementary capacity. The “wave” symbolizes the forward propulsion of the group as it consistently impacts and resounds with the Taiwanese audience. At present, performance works include HUNG Wei-Yao’s Wet Dream Remix, CHEN Yu-Dien’s collaboration with magician Sean CHOU in Animator for the 2016 New Points on Stage@Lab, as well as SUN Wei-Jen’s Return to Life and SUN’s directorial effort in Afterwards for the 2017 Young Stars New Vision.