The Actors Touring Company and Drum Theatre Plymouth in association with Earagail Arts Festival & Clonmel Junction Festival brings you The Golden Dragon.
The English language version of Roland Schimmelpfennig’s delightfully surprising play about globalization comes to An Grianán Theatre, Letterkenny from July 10 to 12.
In the kitchen of the Golden Dragon restaurant and takeaway, a crisis is unfolding. While the customers concentrate on making their choices from the extensive menu, behind the scenes where the food is prepared, a young Chinese kitchen-hand is experiencing agonising tooth ache.
Going to the dentist is out of the question, because the boy is an illegal immigrant; someone who, because he is not seen, simply doesn’t exist. Not to the authorities, and not to those who use the restaurant, he never sees beyond the numbered dishes.
The first thing you will notice in this production of Roland Schimmelpfennig’s play is though it is set in and around a Chinese restaurant, there are no Asian actors involved. But then this is a production, in which the old play the young, and one species plays another, and gender is entirely fluid, too.
Over 90 minutes, the play acts like a busy spider weaving a web of connections that spread right across the globe.
This is a world where a beautiful giant cricket is exploited by an ant, a tooth lands in a bowl of soup, a dead boy is carried thousands of miles home on a river, and the bustle of everyday life disguises darker truths that only gradually start to be reflected back to us through the action. The beauty of the piece, and Ramin Gray’s production, is that it reveals itself quietly and gradually.
If you would like more information on all the great theatre offerings during this year’s Earagail Arts Festival, get your copy of the festival brochure or log onto www.eaf.ie.
Follow the festival on donegaldaily.com
Tags:
