The Masking and Unmasking of the Yu Theatre Ensemble

Abstract

During its five years of existence, the Yu Theatre Ensemblea of Taipei has undertaken the task of creating a new Taiwanese theatre by incorporating Taiwanese folk arts, classical Chinese stories, the martial arts, and contemporary Western theatrical techniques. As part of a growing movement in Taiwan to explore and develop local traditions and arts, the Yu Theatre confronts two related obstacles: the underdeveloped tradition of Taiwanese spoken theatre that is now trying to carve a niche for itself in a posttelevision, postfilm era, and a recent history of repressive regimes that have stifled the development of Taiwanese local culture (Ma 1991, 215-216). It may seem a contradiction to incorporate foreign techniques when one's intention is to revitalize and reestablish one's native traditions, but Yu's founder and director, Liu Ching-min,b feels that Taiwan's culture has been so imposed upon and so broken by external forces that all resources should be explored for the creation of a new and uniquely Taiwanese theatre. The people currently called Taiwanese are descendants of immigrants from China's southern provinces, primarily Fukien, who came over four hundred years ago and speak the min nanc language. In 1895, Taiwan was ceded to Japan by the Chinese Manchu government as indemnity for its defeat in the Sino-Japanese War. The Japanese colonized the island for fifty years, and although in the 1920s and early 1930s both Taiwanese and Japanese spoken dramas were performed, Taiwanese performances, especially those advocating national identity, were banned when the war with China began. In 1949, when Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist forces and supporters retreated to the island, writers of Mandarin from the mainland came to dominate Taiwan's theatre and literature. The mainland Nation-