The Beijing update of Lee’s Can Three Make It portrays the “hilarious” side of urban life.

It was late in the evening, after the dress rehearsal of his Beijing adaptation of comedy Can Three Make It, before Taiwanese dramatist Hugh K.S. Lee finally got time to talk. In town for only one week, the unorthodox actor-director of the Ping-Fong Acting Troupe was busy supervising Joyway Drama's version of his 24-year-old classic, instructing on performance and hosting playwright workshops on the side.

I was told he had turned down some interviews, so as not to sacrifice his time with the actors. "Mr. Lee is very serious about his job," confided Joyway's Tian Tian.

In conversation with Lee, you quickly get a sense of his frankness and intellect on every subject he expounds upon, and he is not shy about giving out commendations. "I give 90 out of 100 to the actors' performance tonight," said the playwright. It is his second in Beijing and he considers it a successful local adaptation.

'Local is global'

"Actors from the mainland have excellent skills but they are a bit tense playing in comedies. Taiwanese actors are more relaxed," Lee observed. "Comedies are the best plays to hone acting skills and there should be an invisible communication with the audience."

Although he has set up one studio in Shanghai last October and another in Beijing this year, Lee is in no hurry to gain a place in the China market, although Taiwanese dramas are already widely popular. "Can Three Make It is a success but now I'd focus on tutoring the three students I have at Joyway," he said, adding he is also considering hosting more workshops and lectures.

Jokingly referring to himself as a "little old man," the 56-year-old Lee is considered by many a leading figure in the Taiwan theatrical scene and known sometimes as "Taiwan's Molière." Although lesser-known than his fellow director and playwright Stan Lai (Secret Love in the Peach Blossom Land) in the Putonghua-speaking world, Lee has earned a reputation as one of the most unconventional and talented dramatists in Taiwan for his creative staging, original take on life and society and method of having one actor playing multiple roles.


Taiwan’s unconventional director and actor Hugh K. S. Lee.

So far, he has written, directed and acted in 30 of the company's 39 plays, many of which contain his reflections on life and current social and political affairs.

To him, "local is global" but Lee sees no point in staging translated works, as "foreign plays have nothing to do with the Taiwanese" and he can't find any common ground with them.

As a result, he says, "I was criticized by some of my audience for not being mature but why would you want to lose the opportunity to create a work of your own?"  That said, he does occasionally put his own spin on classics from abroad: Shamlet, his version of Hamlet, for example, begins with the curtain call before going back to the beginning.

Breaking the rules

In 1987, when Taiwanese were granted the right to finally visit the mainland, he created Far Away From Home, the story of a Kuomintang soldier forced to fire at civilians fleeing to Taiwan by boat.

Born to parents who originally grew up on the mainland, Lee knows a bit about nostalgia. In 1996, his Apocalypse of Beijing Opera centered on his father, the only cobbler in Taiwan making shoes for Peking Opera singers. Seven years later, he wrote a play dedicated to his mother, who once suffered depression. "While I was growing up, I knew what my parents were thinking about, their sentimental attachment to their hometowns, as well as the pains and upset brought by history."

"Nowadays, playwrights should really live seriously and have their eyes open to observe life," said Zhang Yichi, director of the Beijing Can Three Make It. "We need dramatists like Lee who care about the life of the contemporary world."

"What we should do with the help of a stage and theater is to express our opinions on life and our attitudes towards life," Lee explained. "To tell a simple story with simple criticism and thoughts of your own."

Inspired by xiangsheng (cross-talk), a form of comedic multi-player banter, Can Three Make It features only three actors, two men and a woman, reprising more than 30 roles in five separate episodes, showcasing  amusing scenes from modern city life; in Apocalypse, he had 16 actors play 86 roles, to "give full rein to the nature of theater… It is very complicated to create all these roles... there is an invisible computer in my mind and I have to tear myself apart to create so many roles."

Perhaps this is due to his birth sign: "You know a Capricorn usually has insightful ideas but it takes them a long way to get to them," he smiled. "When dealing with society's rules, I tend to abide by them first, later break them, then set up my own. You can find many creative ways for writing a play by violating the rules."