Sound of a Voice offers love story

• By ROBIN MILLER
• arts writer
• Published: Feb 1, 2009 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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Shih-Yi “Joy” Huang isn’t promising a happily-ever-after ending.

Sure, the story is filled with the makings of a fairy tale, one with a love story at that. There’s a knight of sorts who is sent on a mission to kill a witch. There are woods with a cabin in the center.

And there’s a mysterious woman who may or may not be his target.

OK, so let’s go ahead and say it — they fall in love. That’s a given. But then there are the revelations, the conflicts.

And, well, the ending isn’t happy.

“It’s really quite sad,” Huang said.

She’s co-directing this production of David Henry Hwang’s 1983 play The Sound of a Voice. Kao-Chen “Gary” Liao is her partner in this endeavor.

The play will open Tuesday, Feb. 3, in LSU’s Hatcher Hall Theatre.

Huang and Liao are Taiwanese, and both are doctorate students at LSU, Huang in the LSU Department of Theatre, which is staging the Hwang play as part of its Studio Series.

“I’m specializing in culture studies,” Liao said.

But the play and its theme fall neatly into their fields.

“We’ve had experience working in theater in Taiwan, but not in an all-English production,” Huang said. “So, this is a first for us.”

Hwang’s story was inspired by Japanese folk tales and films, told through the mythic metaphor of Japanese literature. It was first produced on a double bill with his play The House of Sleeping Beauties on Nov. 6, 1983, at the New York Shakespeare Festival in The Joseph Papp Public Theater.