“It is so hard to be sad”, one of the actresses cried out this line when the actress that played her mother died on stage. This line sums up the funny, but at times thought-provoking three plays the senior students from the Evening Program of the English Department put on for two nights last week.

The three plays that lasted slightly over one hour were presented with excellent performance, precise timing for lighting, and even live cello music that wowed the audiences, who were in fact begging for more. The success of these plays should be put down to the shrewd selection of the materials, which are at the same time funny and meaningful. They all portray the ridicules of modern life, for instance, the first one, “Breakfast”, depicts the confusion of having too many choices in our life, whereas the second, “Mother for Hire”, illustrates the desperate and ingenious trick the girlfriend pull off on her long-term, non-committal, pseudo-academic, live-in boyfriend in getting him to pay attention to her biological clock. The last play, “Sandbox”, is the longest and most complex of the three. It bares the shallowness of human emotion against the loneliness of elderly people. The traits of all characters are so exaggerated that you want to laugh. Yet, you know that behind the laughter, something more serious and thought-provoking issues are pulling your heart-string. When the last line, as quoted earlier, “It is so hard to be sad” was uttered, the curtains fell, and you were left there sitting in the dark, contemplating on the meaning of it all.

It was an admirable performance for the young actors to pull off such complex plays. Liao Xue-lien, the main character of the first and second plays reveals that she has spent a great of time working out the emotions behind her roles. In particular, the girlfriend, Sally, in the second, who needs to be shrewd and tough at the same time in order to convince her boyfriend of her plan of being a surrogate mother as a desperate measure of reminding him of his commitment. Peng Yu-lung, the actress that plays the elderly mother in the third play, admits that she needed to observe how old people behave carefully. Thanks to her drama teacher, she was able to put on a very believable performance. Finally, the director of the plays, Chao Kuan-yu, thanks every participant, who put in tremendous time and efforts, amid their busy schedule, to make these two nights a reality. (~ Ying-hsueh Hu )