Tai Ji Tua Teow 代誌大條 (The Big Murder Mystery… or Not) presents a lighthearted look at how the sudden discovery of a mysterious hand disrupts the ordinary lives of three accidental friends.
Each of them mulls over the hand’s appearance and imagines what they could do with it. As the story unfolds we find out who they are, what they are looking for, and how they respond to anomalies in life. This original musical-drama is performed in Hokkien with Bahasa Malaysia and Mandarin subtitles.
In Penang, Hokkien has traditionally been used as a common, everyday mode of communication. Tai Ji Tua Teow 代誌大條 departs from this legacy by using the dialect to express complex ideas and thoughts. Hokkien, once prominent amongst the Chinese speaking community, has been supplanted over the course of a generation by the use of the officially sanctioned Mandarin. Tai Ji Tua Teow 代誌大條 is a self-conscious effort to be part of an ongoing restoration of the dialect’s position on the island.
The project was developed by ZXC Theatre Troupe over two phases in 2017. A staged reading of the script was shown to the public at the SINKEH Studio, George Town in December 2017, and a full performance was presented in conjunction with the 2018 George Town Festival.
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