Orlando

Last weekend I saw the Robert Wilson production of Orlando with 魏海敏 at the National Theater. Wilson’s Orlando is a one-woman play based on Virginia Woolf’s novel, Orlando: A Biography, published in 1928. Woolf tells the story of a man who does not grow old and later becomes a woman but with the same personality and intellect. Prior to Taipei’s production, Wilson has staged the play three times, with different languages and collaborators: in German with Jutta Lampe, in French with Isabelle Huppert, and in English with Miranda Richardson. Taipei’s production is different because the actress 魏海敏 is the famed Chinese opera star with her life-long training in voice and movement. This collaboration is a unique combination of Eastern and Western theatrical elements and aesthetics.