Tales of silent suffering through monologues
Women, who have close experiences of depression, pour their hearts out in stage production 'What happened to You?', reports Cheng Yuezhu.
"The similarity we share with performance art is self-expression rooted in the contemporary art field. As for theater, the performance adopts theatrical structure and certain acting techniques, but the actors are not performing characters. They're portraying themselves," Liao says.
In these performances, it doesn't matter whether the performers are professionals, or whether they're adopting artistic expressions. What truly matters is they are in any way of their choice — lines, movements or gestures — narrating their life situations and deepest emotions.
For this production, since the creative crew intended to emphasize its social significance and ensure the messages are lucidly conveyed to the audiences, they decided to adopt a monologue format.
"All the monologues were written by each of them personally. When I saw the lines they wrote, I was deeply surprised. Everyone expressed their raw feelings in a genuine and unique way, without any deliberate embellishment," she says.
