Expanding from the backdrops of previous productions, Coming Back from the River and The Angry Oyster, which included Taiwan’s polluted rural villages and magical oyster farms, the setting of this work encompasses Dutch commercial ships in the late Ming dynasty, Southeast Asian regions during WWII, and modern Taiwan, spanning a total of five centuries. Symbolic objects and tunes are used to differentiate various storylines of different time periods, and performers need to utter extensive lines in Dutch, Indonesian, and the indigenous Sirayan language. The drifting dream of the Koxinga, like segments broadcast on the radio, comprises more unknown stories waiting to be unearthed. Director WEI Chun-Chan drives the tension of HU Jin-Yen’s script and the power of the performers to the extreme, and demonstrates the courage not to celebrate the subjectivity of Taiwan, unfolding a new direction of Taiwan’s historical drama.(Commentator/HUANG Dawang)

One Player Short Ensemble’s “The Land Project” draws inspiration from Taiwanese customs, and utilizes local topics, folk anecdotes, or records of personages as elements of story theater, to which they then add field study to create intriguing and new allegories of the contemporary time. The second episode of “The Land Project” – The Dream of Koxinga transports the audience back to Taiwan in the Age of Discovery to explore the initial moment when this island underwent imperial colonization during the first wave of globalization, as well as how the people on this island began being alienated as others.

Founded in 2003, One Player Short Ensemble specializes in shuttling through the realistic and the impressionistic realms by manipulating magical elements. Through multi-transformation of the body, the object, and the puppetry, they spark intense and passionate instants. Drawing inspiration from daily life, the theatre company reflects further on the dialectic between the individual and society. With the actor’s body as the core of research and development, their “LAB Project” re-explores the physicality of contemporary actors through the classical idea of “the Trinity” (Drama, Music, Dance). “The Land Project,” which brings the public into theatre, adopts the method of field study, and transforms realistic issues of living into light stories. The two projects mark the theatre company’s two creative directions since 2012.