“Men in this town were born with mouths that can right wrongs with a few words. Why are you too timid to speak?”
Executed for a murder she did not 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.
In the foreword to the play’s 2018 edition, Jo Palazuelos-Krukowski writes, “Snow in Midsummer’s Dou Yi…refuses false peace, and she obviates easy forgetting. In a society where the powerful use the weak to their own ends, she unmasks realities her community is too blind and too afraid to acknowledge.”
Based on the classical Chinese drama by Guan Hanqing, Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig’s modern adaptation, directed by Desdemona Chiang with a stellar cast including Richard Nguyen Sloniker and one of Seattle’s most beloved actresses, Kathy Hsieh, is a performance you will not soon forget.
Snow in Midsummer, Harlequin Productions. Tonight, Sunday October 18.7:30 PST Tues, Wed, Thurs, Fri. 7:30 PST thru Oct. 23
Tickets: https://harlequinproductions.org/show/snow-in-midsummer/