SALESMAN 之死 by Jeremy Tiang (New York, NY)
10oct(oct 10)7:30 pm28(oct 28)10:00 pm
Event Details
SALESMAN 之死, by Jeremy Tiang
Yangtze Repertory Theatre
True Story of Arthur Miller Directing Death of a Salesman in China Inspires New Bilingual Play
In the spring of 1983, in a groundbreaking act of cross-cultural collaboration, Arthur Miller accepted an invitation to direct his play Death of a Salesman with an all-Chinese cast at the Beijing People’s Art Theatre despite not speaking a word of Mandarin. The production was a resounding success due, in no small part, to the multilingual talents of renowned Chinese actor Ying Ruocheng (Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor) who translated the text and played Willy Loman.
This extraordinary encounter, which Miller detailed in his memoir Salesman in Beijing, is the inspiration for Salesman之死, which centers on Shen Huihui, a young university professor, who is summoned to the Beijing People’s Art Theatre for a special task: to interpret for Arthur Miller, who will soon arrive to direct his play Death of a Salesman – in Mandarin. Meanwhile, the Chinese ensemble, newly out of the Cultural Revolution, have never met “a salesman.” Will they be able to find common ground? Mostly based on true events, Salesman之死 is a multilingual tale of cultural confusion, impossible translation, and unexpected encounters amid the chaos of theater making.
About The Artists
Jeremy Tiang (he/they) is a playwright, novelist, and translator from Chinese. His work for the stage includes A Dream of Red Pavilions, The Last Days of Limehouse and Salesman之死, as well as translations of plays by Chen Si’an, Wei Yu-Chia and Quah Sy Ren. He has also translated over thirty books, including novels by Lo Yi-Chin, Yeng Pway Ngon, Yan Ge, Zhang Yueran and Shuang Xuetao, as well as Zou Jingzhi’s Ninth Building, which was longlisted for the International Booker Prize. His novel State of Emergency won the Singapore Literature Prize in 2018. Originally from Singapore, he now lives in Flushing, Queens. www.JeremyTiang.com
Michael Leibenluft (he/him) is a bilingual, Obie Award-winning theater and film director and educator. For Gung Ho Projects: Flood in the Valley, a bilingual folk musical set in Liangshan, Sichuan and Appalachia and a festival of Taiwanese queer plays in translation. For Yangtze Rep: June is the First Fall by Yilong Liu. Other projects include: I’ll Never Love Again (a chamber piece) by Clare Barron at the Bushwick Starr, The Whore from Ohio by Hanoch Levin with New Yiddish Rep, The Subtle Body by Megan Campisi at 59E59 and the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center, North Bank Suzhou Creek by William Sun at the Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum, How I Learned to Drive by Paula Vogel with Drum Tower West Theater in Beijing, and the docuseries How to Have Sex in a Pandemic.
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