Xiyu LIN
Oedipus
Medium
moldy figures and a small projector
Description
I adapted Oedipus to our life. I was aware of Oedipus’s solitude and regret. Oedipus tried to decode riddles to save people in Thebe then he figured out he was the origin of the catastrophe. He was the fact of the riddle. As an audience, before knowing the fact, I empathized with Oediepus. I had similar urgency as him to dispel the mist above Thebe.
Oedipus’s solitary and regret to people are not strange to us. We might feel them in our life. In my adapted version, I transmuted Oedipus to a woman. She tried to get along with people around her well but she was not good at expressing. Miscommunication made misunderstanding. People around her got hurt. She felt innocent in the beginning then she realized people’s vulnerability actually came from her behaviors.
A video showed a monologue in Cantonese in the beginning. I simultaneously interpreted the monologue in English. Neither of the voices could let the audience understand the monologue. Even if they might have thoughts to understand it or try to empathize the character. In the end of monologue, the video turned to white. The white light lit up a small figure. Then the frame became wider and lit up the other three bigger figures. The relationship between the small figure and bigger figures showed. The comparison of scales of figures showed how giant they are to the small one.
Bio
Xiyu Lin is a theater worker, also a costume designer. she interprets the world around her through space and materials. Sensibility and humanity become the impulse of her projects, also let her be able to cross time and space to communicate, because she found they are the core inside human. Theater for her, is a freer language to express herself and communicate.
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