KIAC

“The Bathhouse of Honest Desires” is a new public performance jointly written and directed by the up-and-coming Taiwanese playwright and director Chia-Ming Wang and Japan’s Kuro Tanino, both of whom are currently garnering international attention at European international performing arts festivals. The two share a use of grandiose and elaborate set design; their language is slightly eccentric yet nostalgic, somehow removed yet tangible, a language of lasting impressions. Nevertheless, these two people from disparate cultures and languages have created a single mysterious story, along with unique and talented actors from Taiwan and Japan.

The setting is a former public bathhouse. This bathhouse has been closed for a long time and is now a strange space overrun with cracks and aquatic plants. It is in this space that the women work. When darkness falls, the men come to visit. A dreamlike conversation ensues, one in which truths become indistinguishable from lies. Taking inspiration from Yasunari Kawabata’s “House of the Sleeping Beauties,” a dreamlike, ephemeral, and mysterious story reveals itself.