Some thoughts on《Alfie》

It was a pleasant early spring night. With the company of Gina, I went to the premiere of the graduation production, Alfie, in experimental theater T305, National Taipei Art University on April 5. It was free but the quality was as good as my last drama-watching experience.

The stage was elaborately divided into several sets with several movable wooden boards, which were painted dark with the skyline formed by modern buildings. We could see warm-orange shimmering lights came out through the “window” of the small openings on the buildings, which created a dream-like fluorescent landscape. As Alfie moved about on stage, the staffs skillfully changed the set quickly by focusing the spotlight on Alfie and quickly changed scenes. When the light went up again on the other side, a brand new scene appeared like magic.

The play also featured the protagonist’s dramatic monologue addressing to the audience at the interval of some sessions, which shortened the distance between the audience and the actor. This technique is very impressive but remains very natural to me at the same time. I thought he was directly talking to me, and confiding in all the secrets to me when he looked at the audience with his wryly look.

The protagonist was a 80s London playboy named Alfie. As the play went on, his decadent sexual indulgence was manifested to us audience without any conservation. He idled around with different women in a bar, in apartment room, or in the car. He flirted and had made out with them. However, he was never ready to make a commitment, and always hurting the women that were deeply in love with him.

He was a typical Casanova, always looking complacent and confident, but deep inside him was a hollow soul that did not know the meaning of love. Women came to him automatically without him making any effort to pursue. In the end, when he tried to compensate for the mistakes he had made, not any of the women he hurt wanted to accept him. Things had changed, and all were irreversible. Seemingly questioning himself, he addressed all of the audience, “what’s going wrong” and was left alone on stage.

Alfie appeared to lead a great life that most of men would like to have: charming, sensual, and hedonist, but as the play went on, what he lost seemed more than what he got. Thanks to the advancing of civilization, people enjoy better material comfort without even working that hard as our ancestor. However, we had become shallower, more material-oriented, but more unhappy just like Alfie, in a broader sense. What is the true happiness if we can get anything easily we want? The question comes to me as Alfie was left freezing on stage.