Join us in less than 1 week for a special workshop performance of our new play, The Subtle Body, a historic comedy about China, the West and the innerworkings of the human heart.
The Subtle Body
Thursday April 18th, 7:30pm @ Dixon Place
161A Chrystie Street (Delancey & E Houston)
Tickets on sale now at Ovationtix.com
Development: Shanghai and New York
The Subtle Body had its first reading with 3rd Culture Theatre in Shanghai in September 2011. Playwright Megan Campisi returned to Shanghai to develop the script through workshops led by director Michael Leibenluft with graduate students at the Shanghai Theatre Academy, a Chinese performing arts university, in March 2012. The play had its first American reading co-produced by Gold No Trade and Mud/Bone Collective in August 2012.
Background
In China, Dr. Floyer encounters Dr. Zhang, a doctor successfully performing the traditional Chinese medical practice of pulse-diagnosis. In pulse-diagnosis not one, but six pulses are felt at the wrist to diagnose illnesses as complex as liver cirrhosis and cancer. Dr. Floyer is at a loss to prove how the Chinese practice works using Western reasoning and the scientific method; as far as he’s concerned, there’s only one pulse, and it comes from the heart.
Meanwhile, his wife Charlotte must also confront a new interpretation of the human heart. During the course of her husband’s research, she falls in love with his Chinese translator, Wang Ming. When the already married Ming asks Charlotte to join his household as his second wife (an accepted tradition in historic China), both Charlotte and his first wife, Wang Fu Ren, are forced to reconsider their views on love and marriage.
The Subtle Body is a historic comedy that explores how we create links and bridges with other cultures and whether we can ever truly move beyond our own culture to understand another. The play is in English and Mandarin, with subtitles.
Written by Megan Campisi
Directed by Michael Leibenluft
Dramaturgy by Peregrine Heard
Sound design by Mark Van Hare
Set design by Danica Pantic
Lighting design by Calvin Anderson & David Smith
Costumes by Carrie Wladis
Translations by Ya Han Chang & Grant Zhong
Runtime 75 minutes.
For more information about the play, including a complete bibliography of John Floyer, click here.
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