Writing in the water

The screening of this East-Asian contemporary classic will give students and staff at Southend a taster of Chinese contemporary theatre.

In association with Global Stage on Screen and the support of Performance Infinity, the Centre for Theatre Research presents the screening of 2009 Hong Kong Director Stan Lai’s Writing in the Water.

About the event

We will screen Writing in the Water (with Chinese and English subtitles) with a run time of 115 minutes, followed by 30 minutes QA with Dr Mary Mazzilli (Department of Literature, Film and Theatre Studies), and Joanna Dong Founder and CEO of Performance Infinity and theatre producer.

The play follows the extraordinary journey of He Shi. He comes back to Hong Kong after his studies in the UK to start the Happyology programme, hoping that he can introduce a richer spiritual fulfilment to the people ' s minds.

He Shi comes across a mysterious little girl when he ’ s about to inherit an old beach house from his late mother. Together with the little girl, He Shi embarks on a spiritual journey which enables him to experience life on an unimaginable level.

Stan Lai, one of the most celebrated voices in the contemporary Chinese theatre, is regarded by the BBC as “the best Chinese language playwright and director in the world” while Asia Weekly publication described him as “Asia’s leading theatre director”. The theatre master is the Artistic Director of the Performance Workshop in Taipei, the Theatre Above in Shanghai and co-founder and director of Wuzhen’s Theatre Festival.

Global Stage on Screen ™ is a new programme initiative brought to you by NGO UK-China Film Collab and ATW, featuring 10 HD recordings of recent top stage and dance productions from East Asia. Many of these are well-known western classics, in an Eastern interpretation, and some of these are original stories that are less familiar local audience.