The Other Shore
By Gao XingjianDirected by Kym Moore
April 2-5 and 9-12, 2009
Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at 8 PM
Sunday at 2 PM
Leeds Theatre
ABOUT THE PLAY
The Other Shore is a one-act play that explores the human struggle to reach enlightenment. The play's title refers to the concept of "paramita" or "nirvana," the land of enlightenment in Buddhism. According to Buddhist belief, humans experience an actual visible life full of suffering, but by living accordiing to the virtues of "paramita"-- morality, patience, meditation, and wisdom-- they can cross the "river of life" to the other shore and experience enlightenment. The unconventional staging and characterizations shadow the solitary struggle for meaning and internal illumination.
ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT
Gao Xingjian is an internationally celebrated Chinese emigre novelist, dramatist, critic, and recipient of the of the 2000 Nobel Prize in Literature. He is also a noted translator, stage director, and painter. Born January 4, 1940 in Ganzhou (Jiangxi province) in eastern China, Xingjian fled his native country for France in 1987 after years of artistic censorship and persecution. Although the general position by the Chinese media towards Gao is silence, a 2001 criticism of his novel Soul Mountain by the Yangcheng Evening News (a state-run newspaper) deemed him an "awful writer" and called his winning of the Nobel Prize "ludicrous." The Chinese government officially regards Gao as an exiled dissident and all of his works are banned.