Sunday, October 01, 2017

2017.10.1. Caught - a play

10/1, Sunday evening. I dragged two friends to see this new play CAUGHT by the young playwright Christopher Chen. Very interesting, and masterfully put together. It was one surprise after another. I highly recommended this play. For not becoming a spoiler, I don't want to discuss the plot. The program notes were handed out at the end of the performance, for probably the same reason.

I was instructed to arrive earlier when I bought the tickets, and I found Mao (and a group of maneki-neko) waving at the door when I arrived :) There's a miniature Zen garden without stones, but filled with rice (supposed to represent to Tiananmen Square with red light symbolize blood -- this part is totally lost on me). A wall made of books. Two draping canopies made of receipt tape. Two large hanging scrolls, which you can write on with paintbrush and disappearing ink.
Inside the theatre, many identical Mao's portraits with holes accompanied by flags that anyone can push onto the portraits. Here are two examples. Others are cocktail parasols, silk daisies, folded dollar bills -- all commercial objects mass produced in China.

~90 minutes, without intermission. The play consists of 4 acts. Each very convincing. Everyone questions the previous piece. I think the first 2 acts are much better thought through than the last 2. The play deals with news and art, truth and perception. As Oscar Wilde said, The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple. The title "caught" references the two real fake news mentioned in the play: Mike Daisey and his portrait of Apple Factory, James Frey and his auto biography Million Little Pieces. Both authors were caught lying. This play discussed lie in many ways. Thought provoking.