Written by An-Ru Chu. In the second half of 2022, when Taiwan was gradually relieved from the waves of omicron subvariant-induced outbreak, the country experienced an unprecedentedly large quantity of theatrical productions and cultural events since many of them should have been presented earlier but rescheduled because of the pandemic. Meanwhile, a Japanese staged play, Q: A Night at the Kabuki, broke National Theatre (NT) box office record in Taipei. NT sold 12,000 tickets in merely twenty minutes for the first time in thirty-five years. When applauding the artistic achievement of the play per se, most posts also mentioned the following two aspects: first, the strong emotions evoked by seeing one of the leading actresses, Takako Matsu, in person, which echoes how the show had extensively grabbed the media’s attention since last May.
