台南人劇團

日期：二零一二年六月十七日

地點：台南人劇團辦公室

第一次設計會議

        導演Tilmann和舞台暨燈光設計Karoly與製作團隊會面，討論對《金龍》這齣戲的創作理念。

        在會議中，Tilmann表示，他對此劇多重的角色扮演遊戲所呈現出來的流動性，十分感興趣。 劇中的角色是由刻板印象發展出來，但並非平板無深度。這些角色皆面對身分認同危機，反映了生活中形形色色的人及其焦慮，構成一幅社會的縮影。討論之中，Tilmann 不時地提到劇中所蘊含的扮演的特性，在排練的過程中，他會和演員們去探索並放大演員和角色之間存在的裂縫。舞台上的五個人，並非真的是五位廚師，而是五位演員，整個演出中，他們沒有一刻停止扮演。

        對他而言，最困難的一件事，就是他很難避免用歐洲人的角度來讀這個劇本，但即使有文化差異，他仍希望將劇本跳脫純文字的思考，擺脫語言的束縛。但這不表示，他會完全屛棄語言，藉由排練的過程，他將試圖尋找劇本中語言的特性，以及如何將文字轉化成視聽元素。對他來說，這正是劇場的基本原則，也是劇場之所以迷人的地方。

        本製作將在松山文化創意園區多功能展演廳演出，是導演和舞台設計看遍了台北各表演場地後才決定。他們非常喜歡這個場地的空間感，帶有廢棄工廠般的蒼涼和金屬殘味，與他們對於這個劇本的感覺十分符合。由於這個劇本的場景破碎、地點不停轉換，因此舞台將不會寫實，而是一個可以彈性運用的空間，換言之，場上並不會出現一個真實的廚房。劇中廚師所工作的廚房將會是一個抽象的空間，由道具、演員表演、以及演員、道具和空間之間互動建構出來。

        舞台的中央會有一個類似鋁製的平台，將舞台空間分割成幾部分，但演員的表演區並不侷限於這實體舞台，這建築空間裡的每個角落都可能成為戲劇行動發生的場所，當然也包括了觀眾席。在這樣空間裡的表演，將會帶給觀眾一種現場的、即時的經驗，Tilmann和Karoly的概念也因此將劇場回歸到了其本質：劇場是時間和空間的藝術。

        除了五位演員，Tilmann將在表演中加入一位樂手，他得像街頭藝人那樣的靈活，本身要是個瘋子！樂器的聲響效果要是能填滿、迴盪整個表演空間的，導演理想的選擇是手風琴和小提琴。

Date: 06/17/12

Place: Tainaner Office

First Design Conference

        The director, Tilmann Köhler, and the set & lighting designer, Karoly Risz, meet with the production team to discuss their concepts about the play, Golden Dragon. Besides Tilmann and Karoly, those in attendance include Artistic Director of Tainaner Ensemble (Poshen Lu), Executive Producer (Han Chung), Stage Manager (Xiang-Ting Deng), Costume Designer (Yu-Sheng Li), Lighting Coordinator (Guo-Fong Huang), Technical Director (Guan-Jun Li), Assistant Director (Zou-Han Liao), Assistant Stage Manager (Wan-Ling Jian), Marketing Coordinator (Jia-Ying Zhang), Deputy Executive Director of Taipei Arts Festival (Li-Ting Liu), Interpreter (Betty Chen), and Rehearsal Documenter (Cheng-Han Wu). The team tries to figure out with Tilmann some important events related to the production, including several talks and a press conference with a five-minute reading. Tilmann hope that all the five actors can attend the reading, for it’s a chance to give the audience members the first impression, which has to be clear and strong enough to provide them with the whole picture of the production.     

        In the meeting, Tilmann expresses his interest in the play’s fluidity based on its multilayered role-playing games. The characters are stereotyped but not flat. They are the epitomes of people in all walks of life who encounter existential crises. Over the course of the discussion, Tilmann puts a lot of emphasis on the nature of impersonation embedded in the play and explains his intention to explore and highlight the gap between actor and character. As he says, the five people onstage are not five cooks but five actors; they never stop acting throughout the entire performance.

        As far as he is concerned, the most difficult thing is that it’s unavoidable for him to read the play from a European perspective. In spite of cultural difference, he expects to liberate the text from the constraints of written or spoken language. Yet this doesn’t mean that he will abandon language completely. Instead, he will explore how language functions in the play and how the play’s written words can be transformed into images and sounds. To him, this is the basic principle as well as the charm of the theatre.  

        The production will be held in the Multi-Showcase Hall at the Songshan Cultural and Creative Park, a place which Tilmann and Karoly finally chose after having visited several theaters in Taipei. They are impressed by the space evocative of the industrial mood of a deserted factory, which perfectly matches how they envision the play. Because of the play’s fragmentary scenes and ever-shifting locations, Karoly’s set is non-illusionistic and full of fluidity. In other words, there won’t be a real kitchen on stage. Rather, the kitchen where the five cooks work is abstracted and constructed with props, acting, and the actors’ interactions with props, space, and one another. An aluminum platform will be placed in the middle of the stage, dividing the stage into several parts. Yet, the performing area is not limited to the physical stage. Actions can happen at any corner in the theater building, including the seating area. Performance in this kind of space would give audience an immediate experience that only happens here and now. Tilmann and Karoly’s idea thus returns theater to its essence: theater is an art of time and space.

        Apart from five actors, Tilmann also asks for a musician who should be like a busker and can be as crazy as a freak! The acoustics of the instrument should be able to fill up the whole space. Accordions and violins are his ideal choices.