Starring Zoé Doyle, Vienna Hehir, Derek Kwan, Janet Lo, Richard Tse. Written by Diana Tso. Directed by Beatriz Pizano. Theatre Passe Muraille, to Jan. 28.
China is the featured attraction on Toronto stages this month. While Robert Lepage’s The Blue Dragon—now playing at the Royal Alex—paints vivid impressions of the country today, Diana Tso’s Red Snow offers an impassioned Chinese history lesson. Tso’s new, self-produced drama, premiering at Theatre Passe Muraille, revisits the “Rape of Nanking,” the still-controversial 1937 Japanese invasion of the Chinese city now known as Nanjing. Although some 300,000 Chinese were massacred and thousands of women were forced to become sex slaves, Japan has never issued an official written apology.
Tso sets out to spotlight the atrocities and to promote reconciliation and healing. Her story follows Isabel (Zoé Doyle), a young Chinese-Canadian teacher, as she travels to Nanjing in 1997 to uncover the truth about her grandmother, who died mysteriously during the invasion. Isabel’s search prompts her mother (Janet Lo) and grandfather (Richard Tse) to dredge up long-suppressed memories of that time. Isabel, meanwhile, finds herself unexpectedly falling in love with Jason (Derek Kwan), a Japanese-Canadian scientist she meets on her trip.
This is actor Tso’s playwriting debut, and at times her heartfelt message gets in the way of character development. But she can also be pleasingly lyrical and she makes effective use of a classic Chinese opera—Tang Xianzu’s The Peony Pavilion—as a leitmotiv. Director Beatriz Pizano’s staging is lovely and delicate. It includes sections of graceful dance-like movement, devised by William Yong; subtle multicoloured lighting by Michelle Ramsay; and a finely woven score by composer Alice Ho, played live by percussionist Brandon Miguel Valdivia and Patty Chan on erhu and gaohu. The production, as much as the play, is a rebuke to brutality.
