Taiwanese Troupe in O.C. Tonight : Theater: Company will present world-tour production of ‘Secret Love for the Peach Blossom Spring’ in Irvine.

A small meeting room at the Pacific Club here held a select gathering of luminaries earlier this week, although not a single face there would have drawn attention on the average American street. It was a reception for Performance Workshop, hailed as Taiwan’s premier theatrical company, which is bringing its world-tour production of “Secret Love for the Peach Blossom Spring” to the Irvine Barclay Theatre for a sold-out performance tonight.

Gov. Pete Wilson, who was on the program, was unable to attend, but his office had forwarded a supportive announcement to be read aloud. The commendation turned out to be a mismatch, a congratulatory note designated for a different organization. It drew not just gales of laughter, but nods of recognition.

The error was reminiscent of the basic premise of “Secret Love for the Peach Blossom Spring,” in which two theater companies inadvertently are booked into the same space for dress rehearsals at the same time. One group is acting out a modern romantic tragedy of lovers separated by the Communist takeover of China (“Secret Love”), while the other is rehearsing a farce based on a centuries-old text about a utopian quest (“Peach Blossom Spring.”)

As the two companies compete for the stage, the results have reduced audiences to rolling in the aisles--and then to passing the Kleenex. The China Times in Taiwan has called the play “a sauna for the senses,” cleansing the soul with its extremes of comedy and tragedy.

Speaking before the elegant assembly, Performance Workshop artistic director Stan Lai observed that the play’s themes of separation and the longing for a happy state have tremendous resonance for the Taiwanese people, who were cut off from mainland China in 1949.

He characterized his company’s work as the theatrical expression of the extraordinary energy generated by the economic explosion in Taiwan since the late 1970s. Burgeoning industrial success, and the massive environmental destruction it has precipitated, underscored by the recent promise of more open relations between Taiwan and mainland China, has created a charged atmosphere ripe for the blossoming of a new Chinese culture.

At the forefront of this artistic revolution since its inception six years ago, Performance Workshop has been hailed internationally as the boldest and most brilliant theater group in the Chinese-speaking world. Seventeen company members, including actors and technical artists, will be performing in Irvine under the sponsorship of Bravi 9 Inc., a group of nine women who joined forces a year ago to promote cross-cultural programming in Orange County.

The women have collaborated to produce a series of seminars conducted by leading Asian professionals and have booked two fully staged plays, of which “Secret Love . . . “ is the second.

The members of Performance Workshop, who perform in Chinese, are no strangers to touring. This is the company’s second visit to the United States; from here it travels to Hong Kong for the Chinese Theatrical Festival, where it will represent Taiwan among companies from Hong Kong, mainland China and Singapore.

The international tour is funded in part by government grants, but at home in Taipei, Performance Workshop survives on box office receipts alone. Only in New York has the company seen empty seats in the audience. Director Lai attributes the company’s great popularity to its unique expression of Chinese concerns.

Performance Workshop creates two pieces a year in intensive four-month rehearsal periods that are largely improvisational. Necessarily spare in production values (“We work with what we have,” said Lai), the pieces are rich in emotion and inventiveness.

The company functions as a family. Seated at one of the rose-decked tables in the Pacific Club, a sampling of tasty delicacies on a plate nearby, Lai shared the real secret of his company’s success: “We eat together,” he said, “and then we work.”

“Secret Love for the Peach Blossom Spring” will be performed tonight at the Irvine Barclay Theatre. SOLD OUT. Additional performances are scheduled at USC on Nov. 16 and 17. Information: (714) 854-4646.