“After glimpsing at the colours outside, would the fog in your eyes evanesce?”
Continuing from the first half a week prior, the Drama Club presented the second half of their online readers theatre “Peeping In” (《偷窥》) on 18th September 2021.
The four featured plays were “Our Teenage Coincidence” (《风华正茂，恰是刚好》), “A Minute Mystery” (《海龟汤》), “MAGGI”, and “Shining Stars” (《闪耀的星星》).
Before the plays began, viewers were given a brief introduction to readers theatre. For those who missed it, readers theatre is a style of acting that puts greater emphasis on the actors’ voice and emotions while utilising less props and physical movements.
Fans of sappy Taiwanese drama series would love the first play “Our Teenage Coincidence”, which follows Xiao Wei (肖薇) in her senior year of high school juggling academic pressures with feelings for Gu En Nuo (顾恩诺) in her senior year of high school.
After being assigned to tutor the boy, Xiao Wei goes through ups and downs with her relationship with En Nuo, warming up to him as well as giving him the cold shoulder due to advice from her mother and teacher. However, her feelings come unrestrained as she passionately supports En Nuo at a basketball tournament and confesses her true feelings during a sunset.
The story ends on a sweet note as the two end up dating after getting into the same prestigious university, solidifying their happily ever after in this modern tale of fairytale romance.
“A man ordered turtle soup after surviving a shipwreck, then subsequently killed himself because he realised he ate his wife.” This is a lateral thinking puzzle we all know and love, but what if there were more to this intriguing tale?
That set the premise for the second play, “A Minute Mystery”. In it, two friends (and a stowaway who they begrudgingly let tag along) travelled to an island in search of a bountiful treasure..
Once they find the mansion harboring the riches, they are surprised by a mysterious person. He showed them an underground lake of gold, where human sacrifices could be made for greater wealths. A sharp turn of events occurs when one of the original duo shoots his partner and the stowaway in a planned ruse with the stranger. However, he gets betrayed himself as he gets shot as well.
Shortly before firing the bullet, the mysterious person closes the play with this chilling line: “For there to be gains, sacrifices must be made.”
A brief intermission followed before the third play, “MAGGI”. For a quick idea on what this play entails, imagine a hyper-utilitarian society where nonstop work is the norm and mankind is no different from robots.
That’s what humans have become on the planet of Alitach, their new homeland after the abandonment of Earth. In this new democratic and free land, anything detrimental to human health or spirits in the slightest is considered serious contraband. Which, as the title suggests, includes instant noodles.
The three main protagonists are hyperfocused on work when one of them tastes some Maggi noodles and starts feeling pain. The two subsequently taste the noodles too and also start behaving like humans rather than robots.
They quickly realise how wrong this emotionless, soulless society is. Hence, they decided to create Maggi noodles and mass distribute them so everyone around them can feel human again. Even with authoritarian pressures on their shoulders, they still managed to get some outreach.
Unfortunately, their focus on Maggi production led to their work productivity tanking, resulting in the three dropping a caste from commoners to slaves. One of them was so distraught that he whistleblew the operation to the dictator for a reclamation of his caste. That ended up horribly, though.
The three were quickly arrested and ultimately sentenced to death; regardless of their pleas for humanity. Even with the leaders dead, the Maggi revolution still lives on, with one of their friends promoting the noodles as the play ended.
This sombre tale was followed with another play of sorrows, albeit with less dictatorships. “Shining Stars” follows Wei Lin (伟林), Wen Na (文娜), and Jia Qian (嘉芊), three terminally ill teenagers living at a hospital together.
The “drama” in this hospital drama arises from Wei Lin’s tumor growing worse, which may result in him needing radiotherapy or surgery; both unfit choices for a teenager. He returns to his room distraught, with his two friends beside him trying to cheer him up.
That night, the three went outside to stargaze, theorising that the stars in the sky were souls of people who still had regrets after death. They also claimed that the night sky would look empty if those people could come back to finish their business.
Innocuously, the girls asked Wei Lin what his bucket list was, to which he responded: to go to school, to go parachuting, and to visit a country in the east. They promised to help him fulfill all his wishes so he could leave without regrets.
The next day, Wen Na and Jia Qian changed into school uniforms and transformed their hospital room into a classroom, fulfilling the first item on their roommate’s bucket list. When greeted with this surprise, Wei Lin went from being shocked and resisting to playing along. The three had much fun roleplaying a standard classroom scenario.
However, the fun abruptly ended when Wei Lin fainted. He was rushed to the ER where Dr Tan announced that he was in imminent danger. The only choice left for him was surgery, however he did not immediately agree to it when he slightly regained consciousness.
The two girls sat by their comatose friend’s bed, waiting for his mother to arrive while flashbacking to the good times the friends had. However, it was all too late. The beep of the flatline bounced off the mostly empty room.
Afterwards, the two friends found a heartfelt letter Wei Lin had left for them, thanking them for all the good times they had.
With that, the curtains officially closed on the online readers theatre event. The organisers once again thanked everyone for coming, sent everyone a feedback form, and took a group photo.
