Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 2009 - 54

right shoulder, leaving part of his chest and the left shoulder
and arm exposed. Except for a wide sleeve tacked up to the covered shoulder, his right arm is also bare. The thick blue-gray
and black garment hangs in two swathes from his waist to just
below his knee. His hat, a stiff black buckram birthday cake
with rope trim and curved up earflaps, recalls both a calf's
head and an ancient bronze brazier. When he removes it,
long white hair cascades down from his bald pate. His whitewashed face suggests both monkey and death's head, and in
one of the production's few touches of realism, his neck has a
bloody rope abrasion.
Huang costumes the Boy in a manner reminiscent of the
golden boy who attends on the bodhisattva Kuan-Yin, and his
movements are those of a temple dancer (figure 1). Barefoot,
he wears horizontally quilted gold leggings descending to midcalf from dull silver pantalooned knee britches. His sleeveless
wrapped gold tunic, descending to mid thigh, is encased in a
dull silver breastplate and layered with a short cape matching
his leggings. His shiny jet black hair is pulled up to a topknot,
and rosy circles dot his whitened cheeks.
Contemporary Legend's stunning version of Beckett's play,
vastly different both visually and in performance style from the
Western tradition of Godot, is nevertheless remarkably faithful
to its action and spirit. Wu Hsing-Kuo speaks of the merciful smile
of the Peking Opera clown. One hopes that Beckett would bestow
his merciful smile on Contemporary Legend's tribute to his work.

odot Theatre Company
James Chi-Ming Liang, Artistic Director of Godot Theatre, founded the company with his wife in 1988. Age 23,
a directing major at the National Institute of Arts who had
become interested in theatre as a member of his high

school drama club, he chose the name "Godot" because it was
"a catchy name from an important work," and he had read that
in Sanskrit, it meant "hope." They wanted to do classic plays,
both Western and Chinese, in versions or adaptations that spoke
to contemporary Taiwan. Godot's first production, also Liang's
graduate thesis production, was The Zoo Story, presented in a
120-seat theatre.
In 1993, Liang studied for a year at Circle in the Square
under Anne Bogart, then spent time touring the U.S. visiting regional companies. Particularly influenced by the big musicals
he saw on Broadway, Liang wanted to popularize the form in
Taiwan. In 1995, Godot mounted its first full-scale musical,
an adaptation of Cyrano de Bergerac, featuring period settings and costumes, a huge cast, and a forty-piece orchestra.
Although the company produces many kinds of plays, they are
particularly known as Taiwan's leading musical house.
Today, Godot maintains offices in downtown Taipei and
an administrative staff of fifteen. Designers and actors are
hired in, and builds are done by a shop with which the company has worked for many years. While they don't maintain
a repertory, they repeat productions of some works, always
newly conceived and with new sets and costumes. They now
have nearly fifty productions to their credit. Shakespeare adaptations include A Midsummer Night's Dream, in a musical
setting combining Chinese and Western music, and four takes
on The Taming of the Shrew, most recently as a heavy metal
rock musical set in the future and called Kiss Me Nana. Their
latest production was Othello. Western films inspired Running Angel (Sister Act reset in Taiwan and Macau), Love or
Dream in the City (a Taipei version of The Goodbye Girl),
and The Angel Never Sleeps (a musical Nights of Cabiria.)
A Chinese martial arts novel became Chyao Fong, The End
of Destiny, featuring forty actors as one hundred characters
and combining Chinese opera and martial arts techniques.
In Sunrise, Taiwanese aboriginal songs, dances of different
Asian ethnic groups, and rock music merged to tell the story

photo courtesy godot theatre

theatre

design

technology

W I N T E R

2009

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 2009