衛武營國家藝術文化中心 National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts (Weiwuying)

by Anniel Hao

A lot of people may not know the script of FourFun Theatre's Broken Doll the Musical was inspired by a girl, WANG Shih-ting, and her younger brother, WANG Tien-yu. 

The sister-brother duo wanted to portray their life stories on stage at the Taipei Fringe Festival. As their consultant, WANG Yueh-chen had the chance to witness how the brother lives with Moebius syndrome, a condition in which the sixth and seventh cranial nerves do not function properly, causing the individual to be unable to make facial expressions. The musical was named The Poker Face Boy. From the name to the songs, the sister's heartache and care for her brother were readily apparent.

However, WANG saw more than that. She saw a tight family bond by watching how the two protagonists interacted and depended on each other in real life, so she proposed an overhaul of the piece with their entire family as the core and simplified the name to Poker Face. She explains, "It is not just the story of a diseased boy; it is also about the mother, who hides her feelings, the sister, who cannot be weak, and the father, who supports them all."

The core of the story, the disease, moved WANG, but so did the family members, who keep pressing forward and growing.

The Poker Face Boy won the Genuinely Fringe award at the 2015 Taipei Fringe Festival. Meanwhile, Poker Face, created by WANG's FourFun Theatre, has been performed repeatedly over the years. At Weiwuying in 2022, it will be showing under the new name of Broken Doll the Musical.

The name change was a drawn-out process that allowed WANG to become clearer on what she is trying to express. In the end, the boy's face is not the be-all and end-all of the piece.

"Incarnation Auction"—A Point-of-no-return Decision

In talking about the musical, WANG begins with a negative sentiment: "The biggest challenge to writing this piece was holding down feelings of resentment, which is something everyone has."

Just who is your family? Is it people with whom you have such a strong bond that you are unable to get away from even when you clearly hate them? What is it that makes us willing to stick by these people through thick and thin? These questions kept bothering WANG while she was writing the musical. But as an artist, she does not have to provide the answers; her work is merely a catalyst to cause people to think about these questions. It is a "Reincarnation Auction."

"When we encounter frustration in life because of the family we were born into, there is usually no one to blame, so we just blame the whole world." In writing the musical, the idea she wanted to communicate was this: "What if we could choose which family we were born into? Would we be more proactive in the face of life's difficulties?"

In other words, everything in life is a proactive choice. This is true for the mother, father, sister, and brother in the play. Based on their instinct, people bid on their incarnations into the world, and our births are a testimony to these choices. 

Though WANG has not provided answers, she has received a lot of feedback from the musical over the years, which includes gratitude for writing a story about illness but also a story about the family members who must take care of the sick person. This is why the musical’s name was changed to Broken Doll the Musical from its previous name (Poker Face): In addition to the label "poker face" possessing negative implications under the circumstances, the brother has already seen enough care and attention, and whether good or bad, it is accepted without question. Meanwhile, his caretakers give all they have to offer to keep their family from collapsing despite receiving no attention in return. Few people realized this aspect in the past.

"I've heard people say, 'Finally, someone has taken notice of the role of the sister (or mother).' When I hear that, I see the value in what I'm doing," WANG says.

 "Broken Doll"—So You've Wanted to Fix Me All Along

Looking back, one reason for the massive amount of resonance the audience has with the boy in the musical is WANG's candor. 

She remembers, "While first writing this play, I wanted the boy to be bullied. Those I was working with didn't like it so much and wanted me to change it. But after thinking about it, I insisted on keeping it. It is indeed an uncomfortable part, but it's a real part of that boy's life."

Insisting on keeping it was one thing, but after so many performances, she became unsure as to whether keeping it had been the "right" thing to do and whether it was creating a psychological burden for the audience. After much hesitation and struggle to make a decision about this honest part of the play, she again decided to leave it in.

Another similarly difficult aspect was the song "Broken Doll." WANG explains, "When I first wrote it, I didn't think it was very powerful, yet I'd always cry when I heard it during shows."

The song is about how the brother draws on the sister's doll's face to make it look like his and is then ridiculed for ruining the doll.

"The doll's broken!" the sister deliberately says.

"I'm not broken!" the brother yells.

Even though he has Moebius syndrome, he is still a child, so he fails to see he is "different" until other people tell him so.

Though the melody is warm, like a lullaby, the lyrics express the mother's shame, which becomes buried in her son's heart. When he sees how hard his father has worked to remedy his problem, he finally realizes that he is indeed "broken" in the eyes of others.

At the end of the song, the music is powerful as the son keeps saying, "I'm not broken." WANG's heart always breaks when she hears it.

Broken Doll The Musical: Portrait of a Family

Despite all that, the musical is by no means a tragedy.

It is indeed a tearjerker (of about 90 minutes long), though it also compels people to laugh at times. Perhaps this is a feature of WANG's creativity: scripts that bring tears but in a way that actually seems to ease the burden felt by the viewer.

This may very well be because she never has a clear, single protagonist.

It is true that the beginning of the musical inevitably revolves around the brother's condition, but WANG is quite clear of her intention in telling this story as designated in the opening: all the people in this family have "willingly chosen" to be born into it. She is writing about the whole family and their bond, not just the brother. She says with great certainty, "When this concept becomes clear, we must face everything together no matter what it is, bringing the family closer together instead of pushing it apart."

Since there is no designated protagonist, members of the audience are free to project their feelings on the character they choose and find a place of shelter that suits them in the musical.

Watching a play without a protagonist seems to allow people to feel a bit more at ease and believe that we do not need to try too hard to strive and scream, that we do not need to cling to a protagonist in order to see our own existence. (This might be an overly optimistic conjecture, but sometimes it is better to so idealistically believe.)

So, "for better or for worse, in sickness and in health," we stick together.

The audience will realize that this is not just a vow for a marriage but an entire family.

Learn More:

FourFun Theatre - Broken Doll the Musical