The Qiao sisters, Qing and Wan, have not been well known outside Chinese history. They first appeared as minor characters in the 14th-century Chinese novel, Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Since then, they have turned up as supporting characters in the Chinese opera Fenghuang Er Qiao and, most recently, as protagonists of movies like John Woo’s Red Cliff (2008) and the video game Dynasty Warriors. For Warrior Sisters of Wu, Damon Chu draws on their shared mythology but also on Much Ado About Nothing and Pride and Prejudice. While Chua’s writing doesn’t reach the literary heights of Shakespeare or Austen, his acknowledgment of the rich cultural heritage and archetypes ranging from ancient China to 19th-century England root Warrior Sisters in dramatic material that promises the best that hundreds of years of storytelling have to offer.
Incident at Hidden Temple
Damon Chua’s Incident at Hidden Temple, the current offering of Pan Asian Repertory Theatre, takes place in 1943 China, a dramatic juncture in East-West political relations and highly promising background for a play. The Nationalist Party and the Chinese Communists, usually incompatible as water and oil, have forged an alliance to resist Japan’s aggression. The two political groups—led, respectively, by Chiang Kai-Shek and Mao Tse-Tung—are restive bedfellows, with scant potential for long-term cooperation.