Diana Tso’s Carried by the River is currently playing in the Extraspace at Tarragon Theatre in a production directed by William Yong for the Red Snow Collective.  It’s the story of a Chinese girl, Kai, who is abandoned by her birth mother because of the “one child policy”, adopted by a Hong Kong mother and brought to Canada as a baby.  When she’s about twenty her mother dies unexpectedly leaving her with many unanswered questions.  She travels to the province of her birth in search of.. do we ever know what we “are in search of”?

So when the action opens we are somewhere in southern China; somewhere with a large non-Han population.  Kai encounters talking animals, a matriarch who can speak to the dead (who is at least part not Han), her daughter Mei Shan; who also abandoned a child round about the time of Kai’s birth, her daughterTing Ting; who has some sort of fatal disease (TB?) and the spirit of Rose; Kai’s mother.  The unifying theme is The River.  Kai was abandoned by a river, Ting Ting’s sister was abandoned by a river, The River is where the mother/daughter couplets had their most profound experiences.

Clearly, with talking animals and a porous wall between the living and the dead this is not entirely a naturalistic play but it does grapple with a a number of very real and sensitive problems in contemporary China.  Most of the working age people have left the village for the city to work.  The status of ethnic minorities is uncertain; sufficiently decorative to get state support as long as they are sufficiently conformist?  Ting Ting is horrified by Kai’s lesbianism and so on.  It’s full of ambiguity, especially around the issue of whether Kai is the lost daughter and also Kai’s future.  Does she understand the implications for her as a woman and a lesbian remaining in rural China?

So there are lots of interesting ideas but does it work as drama?  I think so.  The interweaving of the story elements is skilful and it’s really quite touching in a lot of places.  It’s not without a leaven of humour; especially with the talking animals.  The acting is excellent.  Honey Pham captures the “I don’t belong anywhere-ness” of Kai perfectly and she works well with Michelle Wang as the rather naive Ting Ting.  Brenda Kamino creates a credible Lao Lao’ a matriarch of deep traditional wisdom who is quite ironic about being plagued by the spirits of the dead.  There’s something deeply sad about both mothers. Tai Weo Foo is convincing as the rather broken Mei Shan and Shong-En Chan creates a deep sense of stillness as the dead Rose.

The sets. and props are simple but effective with a drop cloth symbolizing The River.  There’s a very atmospheric score and sound design (Alice Ho) which stands alone but also serves William Yong’s traditional style choreography rather well.  Ting-Huan and Christine Urquhart’s costumes are very effective, especially the stylized animals which include a very lithe tiger, a bear with a plastic bag of berries and a huckster monkey.

Bottom line, there’s more narrative depth and emotional impact than I was perhaps expecting.  It’s very good theatre.

Carried by the River plays in the Extraspace at Tarragon until March 23rd.

Photo credits: Dahlia Katz