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A US premiere by Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig, based on the classical Chinese drama “The Injustice to Dou Yi That Moved Heaven and Earth,” written by Guan Hanqing, (1279-1368.) The world premiere was at the Royal Shakespeare company, directed by Justin Audibert, who also directed this production with a completely new cast.
“Buy palm-frond phoenixes and dragons, made by the widow Dou Yi!”
With the house lights still up on the audience, the sweet-faced young widow Dou Yi, wheeling a bicycle, hair braided and wearing ordinary working clothes, charmingly coaxes us to buy her products, making a pitch both for our pity (she’s a poor widow! This is her only source of income!) and more usual motives (they’re pretty! They symbolize good things!)
And then the lights go down. When we next see Dou Yi, she’s a vengeful ghost, white-faced and clad in white rags, lips blood-red, black hair streaming down, stalking the town she has cursed with a drought until someone will drag the truth of how she died and why into the light. And then, maybe, the rain will fall.
The town’s inhabitants seem like a pleasant bunch. They include Handsome Zhang, the young factory owner, and his fiance Rocket, who are preparing to move abroad to somewhere with rain. Zhang’s old nurse adores him and supports their relationship, as do his friends, her friends, and the deaf owner of the local bar.
Even the introduction of Tianyun Lin, a businesswoman from the city looking to purchase the factory on behalf of her company, goes well. It’s not a hostile takeover; Zhang is hoping to sell, and Lin is hoping to buy. She’s even brought her young adopted daughter, Fei-Fei, who is eight or nine. Only Fei-Fei seems to have intimations that anything is wrong, but her mother chalks it up to the influence of her superstitious old nurse who told her too many ghost stories.
Things start getting eerie fast. Fei-Fei dreams of a snow girl who says her name is Dou Yi, and says she needs better clothes and boots. Her puzzled mother first assumes this is Fei-Fei’s vivid imagination, then realizes something is up when the townspeople react to the name with alarm followed by a wall of “Let’s not talk about her.” While Lin is putting Fei-Fei to bed, something starts to stir in the shadows at the back wall. At first it seems like it might just be the curtains rippling in an air current. Then an indistinct shape, a clot of shadow, emerges and begins to crawl across the stage toward them and us, its long black hair hanging down…
Stage plays don’t often aspire to “scary.” That moment made me and everyone practically levitate out of their seats.
If there’s any chance you can see this play live, don’t read further. It’s well worth seeing unspoiled, and I’m going to spoil literally everything. Otherwise…
Fei-Fei becomes briefly possessed, says some ominous things, and coughs up the “double happiness” necklace Dou Yi showed us in the prologue, which was her wedding gift. Alarmed, Lin does some investigating.
Through a sequence of interviews and the ghost Dou Yi’s monologues, we learn that Dou Yi was executed for the murder of Handsome Zhang’s father, that nobody wants to talk about the circumstances or whether she was guilty, that nobody seems to know what happened to her body, and that she swore that her blood would stain the flag but not her body, that snow would fall in summer and cover her body, and that no rain would fall until her innocence was proclaimed. In fact, no rain has fallen, and conditions in town are getting perilous, though everyone attributes it to chance or global warming. (Eerily, the actors often wear masks to protect them from the dust; in Ashland, due to wildfires, many people were wearing masks.)
As Lin continues to investigate and Dou Yi tells us more, we learn that Dou Yi’s execution was moved up because executed prisoners are used for organ transplants, Rocket (Zhang’s sweet boyfriend) needed a heart transplant, and Zhang pulled strings to get him a heart on time. Hey, she was going to die anyway…
When she’s executed, blood splatters over a white backdrop and drips down. Then snow falls and covers her body.
Lin and Fei-Fei make some cut-out paper boots and a dress for Dou Yi, burn them, and pray for her soul. As the fire consumes the paper, Dou Yi appears in a paper-white dress and boots with the exact silhouette of the cut-outs. But she doesn’t seem any less angry – her new clothes seem not to have soothed, but to have empowered her. Lin reassures Fei-Fei that Dou Yi will now be able to move on. She drops Dou Yi’s double happiness necklace into the fire. At that instant, the backdrop of the stage falls down, revealing a gigantic statue of Guan Yin, goddess of mercy.
The reveal of Dou Yi in her new clothes, and of Guan Yin, were stunning; just saying what happened doesn’t convey the impact. Dou Yi, played by Jessica Ko, was one of the most impressive performances I’ve ever seen, prowling the stage like vengeance incarnate. She had an extremely powerful voice and presence, ranging from world-shaking fury to cool watchfulness to hints of the sweetness she once had in life. Lin and the other female actors were also excellent, but I was particularly impressed by Olivia Pham, making her stage debut as Fei-Fei, very naturalistic and likable in a long and complex role.
The story clearly isn’t over; the ghost has not been laid. Rocket starts dreaming of snow and having chest pains that the doctor who did the transplant insists are psychosomatic. And Fei-Fei is still dreaming of her snow girl, who wants her to come and play. They start asking their own questions, and Rocket finds out where his heart came from. Horrified and furious, he breaks up with Zhang and burns an offering to Dou Yi, saying he’d have rather died than taken her heart. Dou Yi stalks onstage and RIPS IT OUT. Rocket collapses, and Dou Yi triumphantly holds up her own bloody, dripping heart…
End of Act I!
Act II opens with the ghosts of Rocket, in white, and Dou Yi, sitting on Rocket’s altar. Rocket is just unhappily sitting there. Dou Yi is enthroned like the queen of the underworld, staring at the various people who come to mourn or try to propitiate her. (By now everyone’s running scared.)
The plot gets really complex at this point. Dou Yi sees Rocket off to the afterlife; she’s not unkind, but not terribly reassuring either. The drought is now so bad that orders are given to evacuate the town. Lin is now convinced that Dou Yi caused the drought, and she can save the town if she can reveal the truth before the evacuation.
Lin finds Dou Yi’s mother-in-law, who confirms the story. But in doing so, she mentions that Dou Yi was adopted and her name was changed, and tells Lin her original name. Lin realizes that Dou Yi was the child she gave up for adoption when she got pregnant at fourteen. The woman she’s been trying to get justice for is her own daughter.
I didn’t realize this till afterward, but this is a really nice twist on the original play, in which the person who clears Dou Yi’s name is her father.
Meanwhile, the evacuation order is given. In the confusion, Lin and Fei-Fei are separated. Dou Yi finds Fei-Fei and tells her that they have the same mother – does Fei-Fei know what that means? Yes, Fei-Fei says delightedly. They’re sisters! “Then let’s go play together in the snow, like sisters do,” says Dou Yi. “We’ll make snow angels.” And she leads Fei-Fei offstage.
Lin discovers that Fei-Fei is gone, and where she was is an inexplicable sprinkling of snow. She decides that the only way to save her daughter – both her daughters – is to discover and reveal the truth. As Lin does so, we see the events leading up to Dou Yi’s execution in flashback.
Handsome Zhang’s father was furious at learning that his son was gay and in love with a man. When Zhang won’t give in and marry a woman, his father demands that he at least produce an heir. He drags in Dou Yi, whom he picked because she was a widow, poor and powerless, and demands that Zhang rape her. Zhang and Dou Yi decide to not do it and say they did. His father finds out about it and threatens him at gunpoint. He’s going to rape Dou Yi himself when Zhang’s old nurse comes in, having heard the commotion, and convinces him to save Dou Yi by shooting his father. In a panic, Zhang does so. But when the police arrive, the nurse throws Dou Yi under the bus and says she did it, then convinces Zhang to say nothing by using Rocket’s life as a bribe. She convinces Dou Yi not to tell on her by threatening the life of Dou Yi’s last remaining loved one, her mother-in-law.
While Lin is discovering this, the nurse and Zhang are also forced to re-live it. Zhang confronts his nurse, who confesses that he is her natural son – his father raped her and took him for his own as his own wife was barren. So when she saw what was going on on that day, she took the opportunity to protect her son and get revenge for herself. And if some random peasant woman was wrongly executed as a result, well, someone had to take the fall…
Zhang does not buy this – he’s no longer willing to accept the trade of one innocent life for another. He takes rat poison, and his mother confesses to the police.
(Zhang’s father is THE WORST: the embodiment of toxic masculinity. Everything that happens can be traced back to him doing something horrible.)
Lin is left stunned and alone in the abandoned town. Dou Yi returns, now dressed in red and leading Fei-Fei by the hand. Fei-Fei runs to her mother, saying that she made snow angels with her sister. Dou Yi gives her heart to them, telling them that she’ll be satisfied if they bury it. A panel slides away, revealing a pit of dirt. Lin and Fei-Fei bury Dou Yi’s heart, and Fei-Fei plants a palm frond over it. A pair of ghostly bull-creatures come to escort Dou Yi to the afterlife. And rain begins to fall.
The final scene, with Dou Yi’s mother and sister giving her a decent burial as she stands behind them, is incredibly moving. The whole play had a very Shakespearean quality of intricate plots and betrayals and reveals, and larger-than-life moments alternating with intimate ones. There were some moments where it probably had one thing too many going on, but overall it was pretty amazing. There were a lot of social issues but it didn't feel like a lecture.
I have mixed feelings on the gay characters dying tragically – it’s a stereotype but given the theme of injustice causing disaster and that death and murder by sexism is also a huge part of the plot, death and murder by homophobia does thematically fit. It probably could have done with another gay character to get the same effect it got with the female characters, where you see how multiple characters are affected by and react to social pressures, some turning on each other, some supporting each other, some dying and some surviving, maybe to make a better world.
Lin being Dou Yi’s mother was neatly foreshadowed but, in performance, completely surprising. But I think what I’ll remember most, even more than the stunning moments of stagecraft, was the entirety of Jessica Ko’s performance. She was a terrifying, heartbreaking, larger than life presence. Everyone in the audience gasped when the lights came up for Act I and revealed her enthroned on the altar, casting her chilly gaze over us all.
“Buy palm-frond phoenixes and dragons, made by the widow Dou Yi!”
With the house lights still up on the audience, the sweet-faced young widow Dou Yi, wheeling a bicycle, hair braided and wearing ordinary working clothes, charmingly coaxes us to buy her products, making a pitch both for our pity (she’s a poor widow! This is her only source of income!) and more usual motives (they’re pretty! They symbolize good things!)
And then the lights go down. When we next see Dou Yi, she’s a vengeful ghost, white-faced and clad in white rags, lips blood-red, black hair streaming down, stalking the town she has cursed with a drought until someone will drag the truth of how she died and why into the light. And then, maybe, the rain will fall.
The town’s inhabitants seem like a pleasant bunch. They include Handsome Zhang, the young factory owner, and his fiance Rocket, who are preparing to move abroad to somewhere with rain. Zhang’s old nurse adores him and supports their relationship, as do his friends, her friends, and the deaf owner of the local bar.
Even the introduction of Tianyun Lin, a businesswoman from the city looking to purchase the factory on behalf of her company, goes well. It’s not a hostile takeover; Zhang is hoping to sell, and Lin is hoping to buy. She’s even brought her young adopted daughter, Fei-Fei, who is eight or nine. Only Fei-Fei seems to have intimations that anything is wrong, but her mother chalks it up to the influence of her superstitious old nurse who told her too many ghost stories.
Things start getting eerie fast. Fei-Fei dreams of a snow girl who says her name is Dou Yi, and says she needs better clothes and boots. Her puzzled mother first assumes this is Fei-Fei’s vivid imagination, then realizes something is up when the townspeople react to the name with alarm followed by a wall of “Let’s not talk about her.” While Lin is putting Fei-Fei to bed, something starts to stir in the shadows at the back wall. At first it seems like it might just be the curtains rippling in an air current. Then an indistinct shape, a clot of shadow, emerges and begins to crawl across the stage toward them and us, its long black hair hanging down…
Stage plays don’t often aspire to “scary.” That moment made me and everyone practically levitate out of their seats.
If there’s any chance you can see this play live, don’t read further. It’s well worth seeing unspoiled, and I’m going to spoil literally everything. Otherwise…
Fei-Fei becomes briefly possessed, says some ominous things, and coughs up the “double happiness” necklace Dou Yi showed us in the prologue, which was her wedding gift. Alarmed, Lin does some investigating.
Through a sequence of interviews and the ghost Dou Yi’s monologues, we learn that Dou Yi was executed for the murder of Handsome Zhang’s father, that nobody wants to talk about the circumstances or whether she was guilty, that nobody seems to know what happened to her body, and that she swore that her blood would stain the flag but not her body, that snow would fall in summer and cover her body, and that no rain would fall until her innocence was proclaimed. In fact, no rain has fallen, and conditions in town are getting perilous, though everyone attributes it to chance or global warming. (Eerily, the actors often wear masks to protect them from the dust; in Ashland, due to wildfires, many people were wearing masks.)
As Lin continues to investigate and Dou Yi tells us more, we learn that Dou Yi’s execution was moved up because executed prisoners are used for organ transplants, Rocket (Zhang’s sweet boyfriend) needed a heart transplant, and Zhang pulled strings to get him a heart on time. Hey, she was going to die anyway…
When she’s executed, blood splatters over a white backdrop and drips down. Then snow falls and covers her body.
Lin and Fei-Fei make some cut-out paper boots and a dress for Dou Yi, burn them, and pray for her soul. As the fire consumes the paper, Dou Yi appears in a paper-white dress and boots with the exact silhouette of the cut-outs. But she doesn’t seem any less angry – her new clothes seem not to have soothed, but to have empowered her. Lin reassures Fei-Fei that Dou Yi will now be able to move on. She drops Dou Yi’s double happiness necklace into the fire. At that instant, the backdrop of the stage falls down, revealing a gigantic statue of Guan Yin, goddess of mercy.
The reveal of Dou Yi in her new clothes, and of Guan Yin, were stunning; just saying what happened doesn’t convey the impact. Dou Yi, played by Jessica Ko, was one of the most impressive performances I’ve ever seen, prowling the stage like vengeance incarnate. She had an extremely powerful voice and presence, ranging from world-shaking fury to cool watchfulness to hints of the sweetness she once had in life. Lin and the other female actors were also excellent, but I was particularly impressed by Olivia Pham, making her stage debut as Fei-Fei, very naturalistic and likable in a long and complex role.
The story clearly isn’t over; the ghost has not been laid. Rocket starts dreaming of snow and having chest pains that the doctor who did the transplant insists are psychosomatic. And Fei-Fei is still dreaming of her snow girl, who wants her to come and play. They start asking their own questions, and Rocket finds out where his heart came from. Horrified and furious, he breaks up with Zhang and burns an offering to Dou Yi, saying he’d have rather died than taken her heart. Dou Yi stalks onstage and RIPS IT OUT. Rocket collapses, and Dou Yi triumphantly holds up her own bloody, dripping heart…
End of Act I!
Act II opens with the ghosts of Rocket, in white, and Dou Yi, sitting on Rocket’s altar. Rocket is just unhappily sitting there. Dou Yi is enthroned like the queen of the underworld, staring at the various people who come to mourn or try to propitiate her. (By now everyone’s running scared.)
The plot gets really complex at this point. Dou Yi sees Rocket off to the afterlife; she’s not unkind, but not terribly reassuring either. The drought is now so bad that orders are given to evacuate the town. Lin is now convinced that Dou Yi caused the drought, and she can save the town if she can reveal the truth before the evacuation.
Lin finds Dou Yi’s mother-in-law, who confirms the story. But in doing so, she mentions that Dou Yi was adopted and her name was changed, and tells Lin her original name. Lin realizes that Dou Yi was the child she gave up for adoption when she got pregnant at fourteen. The woman she’s been trying to get justice for is her own daughter.
I didn’t realize this till afterward, but this is a really nice twist on the original play, in which the person who clears Dou Yi’s name is her father.
Meanwhile, the evacuation order is given. In the confusion, Lin and Fei-Fei are separated. Dou Yi finds Fei-Fei and tells her that they have the same mother – does Fei-Fei know what that means? Yes, Fei-Fei says delightedly. They’re sisters! “Then let’s go play together in the snow, like sisters do,” says Dou Yi. “We’ll make snow angels.” And she leads Fei-Fei offstage.
Lin discovers that Fei-Fei is gone, and where she was is an inexplicable sprinkling of snow. She decides that the only way to save her daughter – both her daughters – is to discover and reveal the truth. As Lin does so, we see the events leading up to Dou Yi’s execution in flashback.
Handsome Zhang’s father was furious at learning that his son was gay and in love with a man. When Zhang won’t give in and marry a woman, his father demands that he at least produce an heir. He drags in Dou Yi, whom he picked because she was a widow, poor and powerless, and demands that Zhang rape her. Zhang and Dou Yi decide to not do it and say they did. His father finds out about it and threatens him at gunpoint. He’s going to rape Dou Yi himself when Zhang’s old nurse comes in, having heard the commotion, and convinces him to save Dou Yi by shooting his father. In a panic, Zhang does so. But when the police arrive, the nurse throws Dou Yi under the bus and says she did it, then convinces Zhang to say nothing by using Rocket’s life as a bribe. She convinces Dou Yi not to tell on her by threatening the life of Dou Yi’s last remaining loved one, her mother-in-law.
While Lin is discovering this, the nurse and Zhang are also forced to re-live it. Zhang confronts his nurse, who confesses that he is her natural son – his father raped her and took him for his own as his own wife was barren. So when she saw what was going on on that day, she took the opportunity to protect her son and get revenge for herself. And if some random peasant woman was wrongly executed as a result, well, someone had to take the fall…
Zhang does not buy this – he’s no longer willing to accept the trade of one innocent life for another. He takes rat poison, and his mother confesses to the police.
(Zhang’s father is THE WORST: the embodiment of toxic masculinity. Everything that happens can be traced back to him doing something horrible.)
Lin is left stunned and alone in the abandoned town. Dou Yi returns, now dressed in red and leading Fei-Fei by the hand. Fei-Fei runs to her mother, saying that she made snow angels with her sister. Dou Yi gives her heart to them, telling them that she’ll be satisfied if they bury it. A panel slides away, revealing a pit of dirt. Lin and Fei-Fei bury Dou Yi’s heart, and Fei-Fei plants a palm frond over it. A pair of ghostly bull-creatures come to escort Dou Yi to the afterlife. And rain begins to fall.
The final scene, with Dou Yi’s mother and sister giving her a decent burial as she stands behind them, is incredibly moving. The whole play had a very Shakespearean quality of intricate plots and betrayals and reveals, and larger-than-life moments alternating with intimate ones. There were some moments where it probably had one thing too many going on, but overall it was pretty amazing. There were a lot of social issues but it didn't feel like a lecture.
I have mixed feelings on the gay characters dying tragically – it’s a stereotype but given the theme of injustice causing disaster and that death and murder by sexism is also a huge part of the plot, death and murder by homophobia does thematically fit. It probably could have done with another gay character to get the same effect it got with the female characters, where you see how multiple characters are affected by and react to social pressures, some turning on each other, some supporting each other, some dying and some surviving, maybe to make a better world.
Lin being Dou Yi’s mother was neatly foreshadowed but, in performance, completely surprising. But I think what I’ll remember most, even more than the stunning moments of stagecraft, was the entirety of Jessica Ko’s performance. She was a terrifying, heartbreaking, larger than life presence. Everyone in the audience gasped when the lights came up for Act I and revealed her enthroned on the altar, casting her chilly gaze over us all.
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