Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig

LAST WORDS OF UNCLE DIRT

In the late 1980's, when Taiwan launched a national lottery, thousands of locals purchased idol statues of folk deities to help them pick winning numbers. Many gamblers who failed to win took their anger out on the idols by smashing their bodies and throwing them into rivers and fields. Hundreds of castaway gods were found by fishermen and hikers. Few were rehomed. Most were incinerated or stored in local temples, separate from the resident idols. In this musical audio play, one of these abandoned statues recounts his centuries of adventures in and through the Chinese diaspora.

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Playwright's Horizons

THE CHINA TRILOGY:
THREE PARABLES OF GLOBAL CAPITAL

Poetic and devastating, sensuous and politically acute, Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig's China Plays explore the forces of global capital as they explode within the lives of everyday people in contemporary China. This volume collects together the three plays in the series, including Cowhig's exploration of the human cost of development in China's socialist market economy (The World of Extreme Happiness), of justice and revenge amidst ecological and economic catastrophe (Snow in Midsummer), and the tale of the trade in blood that brought the AIDS crisis to rural China (The King of Hell's Palace).

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THE KING OF HELL'S PALACE

China, in 1992, is laying the foundations for global wealth and power. In the populace province of Henan, a rural family is recruited into a new and unusual trade that promises to pull them out of poverty––selling their blood to the government. But amidst the hype and the soaring profits, an infectious disease specialist at the Ministry of Health uncovers an unimaginable secret that will test the limits of her loyalty to her profession, to her family, and to her country. Based on the true story of whistleblower Wang Shuping's extraordinary mission to expose a national cover-up of epic proportions.

"We can’t afford to be smug here – we’ve had our own terrible health scandals. But as global power continues to shift to Beijing, we ignore this parable at our peril." —The Telegraph

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SNOW IN MIDSUMMER

As she is about to be executed for a murder she didn't commit, young widow Dou Yi vows that, if she is innocent, snow will fall in midsummer and a catastrophic drought will strike. Three years later, a businesswoman visits the parched, locust-plagued town to take over an ailing factory. When her young daughter is tormented by an angry ghost, the new factory owner must expose the injustices Dou Yi suffered before the curse destroys every living thing.

"It's an expansive, ambitious play about trauma and passion which sees ancient weather curses collide with climate change, vengeful ghosts with corrupt officials." —The Stage

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THE WORLD OF EXTREME HAPPINESS

Unwanted from the moment she’s born, Sunny is determined to escape her life in rural China and forge a new identity in the city. As naïve as she is ambitious, Sunny views her new job in a grueling factory as a stepping stone to untold opportunities. When fate casts her as a company spokeswoman at a sham PR event, Sunny’s bright outlook starts to unravel in a series of harrowing and darkly comic events, as she begins to question a system enriching itself by destroying its own people.

"Offers a window on a hidden world. The play has an epic scope – charting the effects of the Cultural Revolution, the 1989 crushing of the pro-democracy movement, and the cultural shift that has seen China's urban population grow by 400 million in the last 30 years – but it tells history through the lives of those looking for a better life." —The Guardian

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LIDLESS

A former Guantanamo detainee dying of liver disease journeys to the home of his female interrogator fifteen years after their time together to demand half her liver for the damage she wreaked on his body and soul during her interrogations.

"Because the action embodies the consequences of parents' invasive behaviour on their own children, Lidless makes a far more lasting impact than anything offered from politicians in this election on the subject of war or generational damage." —The Guardian

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410[GONE]

A sister journeys to the Chinese Land of the Dead in search of her missing brother, encountering a frenetic landscape where the Goddess of Mercy and the Monkey King reign, and Dance Dance Revolution holds the key to Transmigration.

“410[GONE] re-organizes and layers familiar Asian American dramatic elements (traditional folk elements, etc.) and typical American experiences (fast food, etc.) to expose, but never define, Twenty-one’s grief, Seventeen’s spiritual dilemma, and a relationship between a brother and sister. In short, the play’s exploration of heritage eventually becomes a frame through which the audience witnesses the most vulnerable of human processes: loving, dying, and letting go. Frances’ bricolage of imagery creates a cultural frame that is so emotionally accurate one forgets its critical role in creating the experience.” —Hyphen

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