【藝文】Shambala Theater 香巴拉劇坊
Yesterday I went to Huashan1914 Creative Park for a play called Lost and Found. It had been more than a decade since I watched a play, so it was refreshing to watch a live play again.
昨天我去華山1914文創園區觀賞香巴拉劇坊的第13號作品《失物招領》。這離我上回看舞臺劇，早已超過10年之久。相隔如此長的一段時間再接觸舞臺劇，感覺很新鮮。
Lost and Found dealt with certain issues with which probably only people who know the history of Taiwan well. For instance, it talked about "white horror", baseball, low salary etc. However, it was quite difficult to present all of those issues altogether in such a short timeline (mostly from 1960s to 1980s). While I quite liked the setting and the music, there are a few flaws I would like to point out:
《失物招領》探討的議題包含: 白色恐怖、棒球熱潮等一些恐怕只有對臺灣歷史夠瞭解的民眾才能體會的議題。不過，要在1960-1980年代如此有限的時間軸涵蓋相當廣闊的議題恐怕挑戰度頗高。儘管我個人還滿喜歡佈景跟配樂，這齣戲有一些地方，我覺得還可以處理地更完美:
1) The costume: the hairstyle for those two leading actresses was okay, but one of the actresses wore a skirt which was a bit too short - the length was 10 cm above the knees. Back in 1960s, girls were banned to wear such short skirts. Besides, the tops were too short, either. One of the actresses revealed her belly. I don't think that she did it on purpose, but their costume crew really should get a long uniform for this girl.
服裝造型方面: 《失物招領》故事場景設於1960年代。劇中兩位女孩迦和卿的短髮確實是清湯掛麵頭，但是其中一位的裙子竟然在膝蓋10公分以上，這實在是太短了。那個如此禁忌的年代，穿著都相當保守，所以很難想像怎麼可能有如此短的裙子。 (其實也不是真的很短，只是在那個年代應該都是過膝裙。) 另外，演出時候，其中一個女孩的上衣過短，都看到小肚肚了，覺得服裝組員應該幫她找長一點的制服才對。
2) The lines: some of the lines confused me. For example, in the beginning, one of the actresses mentioned a chatacter's name Do Min-joon from a Korean drama called "My Love from the Star". However, the setting was in 1960s. The character Do Min-joon didn't exist until 2013. That's very confusing to audience.
臺詞方面: 這齣戲其實有一兩句臺詞讓我覺得很困惑。在此提最明顯的一句: 演出沒多久，我們就看見那位愛跟爸爸打棒球的迦跟她老爸提「來自星星的你」的都敏俊。可是都敏俊是2013年纔出現的偶像劇人物，這齣舞臺劇場景設於1960年代，除非它也跟「來自星星的你」也會穿越時空，不然這樣實在太不合邏輯。
3) The lighting: due to the restrictions of the room, the lights were not from the ceilings. The lights were shining directly in our eyes. So it wasn't very comfortable to watch the drama.
燈光方面: 可能是受限於華山1914文創園區中2館果酒禮堂的關係，燈光不像一般我們在劇院所看到的，無法從天花板上方照射下來。而是由兩大組活動型照明燈控制光線，可是燈光白花花直接射入眼球，有點刺眼。
4) The plot: the story was simple, and yet there were some contradictions and the ending was predictable and ordinary. The ending was actually quite similar to Korean dramas, so I wasn't impressed.
劇情: 其實《失物招領》這齣戲很簡單，描述兩個女孩的友誼和成長。不過劇情有一些吊詭的地方，而且結局也很容易猜到，讓我覺得其實跟韓劇一樣很好猜，覺得這一點可以再朝更有創意的方向來改進。
The story started with two teenage girls. One of them liked singing, and the other played baseball. They were best friends and wanted to remain friends forever. One day, the girl who wanted to be a singer asked her best friend to go to Hon Kong with her. However, the baseball girl promised her dad that she would go to baseball training. At the end the baseball girl broke her promise with her father. She went to Hong Kong with the girl who liked singing. It made the baseball girl's father unable to concentrate on playing baseball during a game. He even hurt one of his arms and then had to borrow money from gangsters. Since then, he had been in debt. Eventually the father sacrificed himself because he didn't want to follow what the gangsters wanted him to do: paying money back by cheating in a game. The baseball girl then became homeless. To her dismay, she found that her best friend - the girl who loved singing - got a boyfriend. The baseball girl couldn't bear it any more, so she ran away from her best friend. Years later, the best friend got married and had a son. However, because she made mistakes which offended the government, she had to abandon her son and fled to the USA with her husband. Her best friend wanted the baseball girl to take care of her son. They never saw each other ever again. The baseball girl was arrested by keeping her best friend's stuff. So she couldn't take care of her best friend's son, either. The little baby got adopted, but he always wanted to know about his biological parents. Every year, he received cards from unknown people. He never knew who sent him those cards. Years passed, the baby grew up, and he worked as a delivery guy. One day, he delivered a package to where the baseball girl worked. It seemed that the package was sent to wrong place, as no one wanted to sign his/her name to get the package. The baseball girl then told the delivery guy the entire story about the package.
來講講劇情讓大家瞭解: 這是兩個女孩之間的故事。迦和卿兩人情同青梅竹馬，只差其中一個不是男生。其實迦對卿有情愫，但是比起愛女生，卿更愛男生。迦的老爸是棒球國手，所以迦從小就在老爸的教養下，練習打棒球。卿則愛唱歌。有一日，卿約迦陪她一起去香港聽演唱會，迦答應了卿，可是不巧的是，迦的老爸要她參加棒球訓練營。迦為了友誼而陪同卿去香港，可適也因此讓她父親在那一年暑假無法專心打棒球，輸了球賽。而也自那時候起，迦的父親手臂也受重傷，需要一筆昂貴的醫藥費，於是迦的父親求助於黑道。兩年後，黑道為了索回醫藥費，要迦的父親故意在賽事作弊，好讓他們贏回賭金。迦的父親不從，也因此喪失性命。迦懊悔不已，偏偏迦又在這時發現卿原來私密交男友 (這時卿接到一通電話，很奇怪的是，臺詞竟然是對著話筒說: 「我是男生。」這是第一個矛盾處，卿幹嘛對她男友說她是男生啊?)。因為迦失去了雙親，又感覺遭到卿的背叛，因此不告而別。多年後，迦聯繫上卿，發現卿早已與昔日男友生子，但因為卿變成政治犯，不能留在國內，決定逃亡到美國。卿的孩子就委由迦來照顧，偏偏迦藏有當時政府禁止的違禁品，迦不能照顧卿的兒子。卿的兒子反而是讓他人扶養長大。卿的兒子在成長過程中，每年都會接到陌生人的卡片祝福，他很想知道那是誰給他的，也很想知道他的親生父母是誰。卿的兒子從事快遞員的工作，就在一次送貨，發現一包沒人認領的包裹。包裹剛好送到迦工作的地方，迦才向卿的兒子娓娓道出過往種種。
Despite the drawbacks, I liked the setting and the music of this play. When we first entered the room, we saw a short stage in the middle of the room. I was thinking: "How are they going to perform on such a small stage?"
雖然這齣戲在我看來還是有進步空間，但是我還滿喜歡佈景跟配樂。當我們一進去這劇場，映入眼簾的是一個小小的四方型舞臺，看起來像長寬高不超過兩公尺的小舞臺。我心想: 這是要怎樣演出啊?
On our left-hand side, we saw a normal stage, but there was only a desk with a few microphones and CDs piling up on the desk. On the right hand side, there was a white paper tree, and the leaves were made out of balloons. When the drama started, we saw a boy playing an electronic diabolo in my left-hand side. The room was dark, so we could only see a shining diabolo, like fire. He walked past the middle, and then came to the white tree, which was on my right-hand side. Then we saw a lady holding a lamp, walking slowly from the direction of my right-hand side to the left-hand side. Later on we realised that the lady who held the lamp was a story-teller of this drama, and she was playing the grown-up character of the baseball girl. So this gives you a clue of how the drama started, and how the actors/actresses performed. During the show, the delivery guy also interacted with the audience. So it was fun. We were not just audience; we were part of the show. I quite liked the performance of the gangsters. To my surprised, the actors who played those two gangsters were the play manager and the director. The director is quite young. I reckon that he's only 23 years old.
在我的左方，其實就是一般舞臺劇正規的舞臺。不過那舞臺你只會看到一張書桌，上頭放置麥克風跟CD。我們的右手邊其實是一個人造亭，還有一顆紙作的樹，樹葉都是用氣球代替。《失物招領》一開場，燈光全暗，我們只看到一位男子，靜境地玩著會發光的扯鈴，看起來就像指引著我們的火苗。沒多久，就聽到一位女子拎著油燈清唱一曲。後來我們才知道，這位拾著油燈的女子，是整齣戲的主講人。她演的戲份就是故事女主角之一迦 (不過飾演的是步入中年的迦)。就這樣，原來整個劇場就是舞臺，而我們這些觀眾就置身在舞臺中。事實上，演員也會適時跟觀眾互動，例如: 當快遞員送貨時，發現沒人要認領包裹，他就向旁邊的觀眾確認包裹號碼。雖然這不是我第一次看見跟臺下觀眾互動的舞臺劇，但還是感覺很有趣。事實上，整齣戲的謝幕也挺好玩的，就像電影一樣。演員從新演出最具代表性的動作，讓觀眾重新回味。(講到謝幕這一段我就沒用英文寫囉。) 再來說說《失物招領》兩位讓人驚訝的演員，這兩位演員飾演超搞笑的黑幫，可是在謝幕時，讓人跌破眼鏡的是，其實這兩位演員，沒聽錯的話，一位是《失物招領》的戲劇總監，另一位則是《失物招領》的導演! 這導演也未免太年輕了吧，應該才23歲...
Although there are some plot loopholes and anachronisms in the play, I still look forward to new/better plays from Shambala Theater!
儘管這次的舞臺劇劇本在時空背景上有錯誤配置，但我仍希望本土舞臺劇團香巴拉劇坊可持續為臺灣演出我們的時代、我們的歌曲。
PS. Do you know who drew this poster? I'll let you know the answer in my next blog post!
你們知道香巴拉劇坊NO.13號作品《失物招領》海報是誰設計的嗎? 超有幾米風格的啊! 我下一篇部落格文章會提到這位插畫家!