2026 TAF: She Says, She Says

6.15 (Mon.) 12:00 Paid Member Pre-sale

6.22 (Mon.) 12:00 Official On-sale

"To me, fair friend, you never can be old,
For as you were when first your eye I ey'd,
Such seems your beauty still."
-- William Shakespeare

The 1940s marked an era of separation from loved ones and homelands.  The end of WWII did not bring the expected peace; instead, it was followed by fierce civil wars and political turbulence all over the world.  Kimberly Hsu and Evelyn Huang, two young women in their prime, fled the intoxicated jazz scene in Shanghai to join the diaspora in Taiwan – though for very different reasons.  Rather than running away from the flames of war, it was “marriage,” the destined cage imposed on women for centuries, that urged them to go…and stay.   

More than half a century later, a forgotten suitcase that contained well-kept vinyl records and a family chronology revealed the two women’s mysterious past to their descendants: the adopted niece, the nephew’s wife, and the grandniece.  Between the five women across three generations, memory takes the form of delusional murmurs from Kimberly (or perhaps it is the other way around), who now lingers at the threshold of death.  Trapped by dementia, she speaks to the ghost of Evelyn and to her own past, revisiting the intimate sisterhood she shared with her classmate Evelyn and the charming jazz singer Mei-Lan.  Together, they concocted a plan for Evelyn to escape her arranged marriage and boarded a ship toward a new life with the two young children Mei-Lan eventually left behind.

Katherine Hui-ling Chou, playwright and director of She Says, She Says, is renowned for her delicate approach to female experiences beyond grand nationalist narratives, while she often plays with gender ambiguity and challenges conventional definitions of “family.”  Her most prestigious work He is my Wife, He is my Mother (2009), based on a 350-year-old short story, is a gender-subversive fantasy that delves into lesbian undertones and male homosexuality, transcending bloodlines to redefine kinship.  

Her other iconic works include Have Wok, Will Travel, which uses a metaphorical recipe journal to narrate the memory of a group of Taiwanese female soldiers in the late 1950s who chose military over traditional family roles; the biological Jian Ji – A Just Life that tells the story of a little-known labor activist and anti-colonialist during the Japanese Occupation; and the novel adaptation The Apocalypse of Fudingjin – The Secrets Stolen by Five Ghost Children, which weaves magic realism into the history of a deserted public cemetery.   Chou’s collaboration with the Singapore-based Siong Leng Musical Association and Esplanade, The Heart of Jun: Memoirs of Zhaojun, that tells the voyage of three women leaving China for Southeast Asia via a fusion of contemporary theatre and traditional Nanguan music, also earned critical acclaim at its Singapore premiere.    

Following Katherine Chou’s continuous exploration of gender, female bonding, non-blood family, diaspora, and the complexities of histories, She Says, She Says employs old Shanghai jazz tune On Separate Roads to juxtapose memory with present reality.  Its non-linear storyline and mixture of languages expand into a dreamlike presence that transcends national or geographical boundaries. 

The production features Taiwan's most celebrated stage talents: the acclaimed Taiwanese actress Hsu Yen-Ling and Peking Opera star Huang Yu-Lin take the roles of Kimberly and Evelyn, who share a life and family from Shanghai to Taiwan beyond what a heterosexual marriage can offer; their undefined yet authentic relationship shed light on the younger generations, played by Wu Wei-Wei, Datian, Lin Zi-Heng, and Lu Man-Yin.

“This road is too bleak, and that road is too tense, but I find no better place, and I am on the road every day”—the Shanghai jazz tune lingers, as the diasporic souls finally find a home.

Creative Society Theatre Group

Founded in 1997, Creative Society Theatre Group brings together leading talents in theatre and media to create original theatre productions that explore new aesthetic possibilities while addressing contemporary social issues.  The diverse backgrounds of its founders – among whom are pioneering Japanese theatre artists including Chi Wei-Jan, Katherine Hui-Ling Chou, Wei Ying-Chuan, Li Huan-Hsiung – enrich an artistic vocabulary that spans from the clever play of everyday language in its debut production Mahjong Game (1997), to the exquisite fusion of traditional and modern theatre in He Is My Wife, He Is My Mother (2009).

Over its nearly thirty-year journey, by expanding its artist collaborators, Creative Society Theatre Group has continued to pursue different artistic styles that embody a multicultural Taiwan while transcending existing boundaries.  Many of its productions have earned critical and commercial acclaim, including the 2005 Taishin Arts Award in Performing Arts for Who-ga-sha-ga , and have been widely supported multiple times by the Ministry of Culture’s flagship and interdisciplinary co-creation projects.  Beyond domestic festivals, the group has toured extensively across the Sinophone world, with invitations to the Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA), ACT Shanghai Contemporary Theatre Festival, Taipei-Beijing Cross-Strait Arts Festival, among others.    

Katherine Hui-ling Chou

Katherine Hui-ling Chou bridges the academic and creative worlds through her multifaceted work as a director, playwright, scholar, and professor.  In 1997, Chou co-founded Creative Society Theatre Group, through which she presented I Love You, I Love You Not (2000)—a production integrating performance theory and gender performativity to explore love, pleasure, and gender crossing. 
 
Since then, the interplay between gendered experiences, social realities, and historical narratives has always been her focus, as reflected in her later works, including to be AND not to be: a dark fantasy about formosa, part two (2005), He is my Wife,He is my Mother (2006), Have Wok, Will Travel (2011), Jian Ji: A Just Life (2018), The Apocalypse of Fudingjin (2020), among others.  As a director, she has also collaborated with Taiwan’s prestigious GuoGuang Opera Company, bringing a contemporary perspective to the traditional art form.    

In 2014, Katherine Hui-ling Chou initiated the World Sinophone Drama Competition for Young Playwrights to facilitate artistic exchange across the Sinophone world, reaching as far as the diaspora in Canada, the USA, and the UK.  She is currently Professor in the Department of English at National Central University, specializing in cultural policies, gender performance, and digital archiving for performing arts, where she also founded and directs Electronic Theatre Intermix in Taiwan, a digital archive of the contemporary theatre in Taiwan since 1980s.