华艺节 :: 如夢之夢

Bravely bought tickets to watch the 'sit until pigu-pain' eight-hour 'A Dream Like A Dream' 《如夢之夢》. Yes, eight hours. A play lasting eight hours. Only because it's Stan Lai's (賴聲川) production, and a little bit for Tim Yip's costumes. And a last look at the Esplanade Theatre before it closes for renovation this May till October.

When the friends mooted the idea in December, I almost fainted at the prospect of sitting through an eight-hour play. You gotta be kidding me. Those seats at Esplanade Theatre aren't the most spacious. But they bought tickets for me anyway. And they merrily flew into Singapore to watch it. All of us went to the pilates studio or the pool to stretch it out before and after the show. Most people were dressed really comfortably. This might be worse than boarding a flight because the seats couldn't be reclined. I brought a water bottle. The friends brought neck pillows and hug-cushions. Hurhurhur.

Conducted entirely in Mandarin, many friends had to pay an additional $15 for headphones for the audio interpretation in English. No surtitles. Haizzz. But the not-instantaneous interpretation was done well. Of course we fell asleep at some parts. I dozed off thrice. :P Started at 1.30pm. There were two intermissions and we were all super happy for the dinner break (we ate standing up) before returning for the second half, then staggering out of the theatre close to midnight. One couldn't have survived this play without watching it with the friends. I wouldn't be able to watch this play in silence on my own.

I've heard so much about the play since it was premiered in 2000. Finally saw the gorgeous set for myself. The story revolves around so many humans that I got a bit lost along the way and had to re-read the programme. Of a young idealistic doctor who lost four out of five patients on her first day of work, of an old woman who had lived in a chateau by the lake, of a waitress and a terminally ill man, of the past and the present, dreams within dreams; 12 scenes that took us over a period of 70 years from Taipei to Shanghai to Paris and Normandy, then back to Taipei. I didn't care for the music or the songs. I appreciated the stories and the dramatic flair. Amazing concept. They were much better acted out and scripted than any Taiwanese soap tv series I know.