The Village by Stan Lai comes to theaters in the US

The Village, a work by Taiwan's famous playwright and director Stan Lai, is coming to stages in the US with performances scheduled for the Houston, Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco areas from June 28 to July 20.

Tai Chi, president of Chinese Ticket Box, an entertainment promotion company in Fremont, California, said Wednesday this popular play, presented by Performance Workshop Theatre Taiwan, has been performed more than 300 times since its creation in 2008 and has been seen in both China and Taiwan.

The Village tells the story of one of the largest mass exoduses in human history as a result of China's civil war. It details the Nationalist retreat of over 2 million mainlanders to Taiwan in 1949. Hundreds of “dependent villages” were created to house close to 1 million military dependents. They expected to return to the mainland in a few short years, but stayed on for years .

People from all over China were brought into one small enclosed village – with different dialects and customs. They came together and clashed with each other, a unique situation unseen in China. Outside of the village lived the native Taiwanese population. As the years went by, the villagers eventually started to assimilate with the outside natives.

Lai, a celebrated playwright/director, wrote The Village under the request of Taiwanese television producer Wang Wei-chung, who himself is a product of one such village. He told Lai stories of over 100 families in the “dependent village” for a two-year span. Lai condensed them into the stories of three families for the play.

Tai said Lai has such superb skill as a playwright that he can make the audience laugh one minute and then cry a moment later. Some stories are so heartbreaking that at the end of show, one would realize that “Chinese should have no more war against each other anymore,” he said.

Tai's company, specializing in bringing mainland and Taiwanese performing arts to the US, has presented A Legend: Sai Jin Huastarred by Liu Xiaoqing earlier this year. For The Village, the company has invested over $800,000, Tai said.

A total of eight performances are planned to be staged at Pasadena Civic Auditorium, Cupertino Flint Center, Houston's Hobby Center and the New Jersey Performing Arts Center.The tickets are on sale now and details can be found at www.chineseticketbox.comwww.chineseticketbox.com or by calling 855-343-9888. Tai said the ticket sales in New York are going so well that they may consider adding an extra performance there.

mayzhou@chinadailyusa.com