The New York-based La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club will host a compelling play-reading that explores the Tiananmen Square Massacre. With similar events continually unfolding in the Middle-East and North Africa, looking back to this Chinese uprising against totalitarianism is all the more timely.
I interviewed Jianguo Wu, one of the play’s two authors, on the collaboration and inspiration for Beyond the Gate of Heavenly Peace (the English translation for Tiananmen.)
“As a participant in the democratic uprisings which culminated in the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre, it had a big impact on me,” explains Jianguo on his interest in the play’s subject matter. The other impetus for writing the play was that despite the scale and significance of the event, “there are not many literature works about Tiananmen.”
Beyond the Gate of Heavenly Peace reveals the often censored details of the event through the experience of four young Chinese characters who leave Beijing in search of a better life in Australia.
While Jianguo himself was not in Beijing on the infamous day, he had a similar experience in his hometown of Chengdu, where there were also students petitioning in the city’s central square. On June 4, 1989, armed police were sent in to drive the students in the central square away, which resulted in stone-throwing between both sides.
“I joined the citizen group and tried to stop the fighting. We told the armed police officers it was wrong to employ violence against the students,” he said.
I interviewed Jianguo Wu, one of the play’s two authors, on the collaboration and inspiration for Beyond the Gate of Heavenly Peace (the English translation for Tiananmen.)
“As a participant in the democratic uprisings which culminated in the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre, it had a big impact on me,” explains Jianguo on his interest in the play’s subject matter. The other impetus for writing the play was that despite the scale and significance of the event, “there are not many literature works about Tiananmen.”
Beyond the Gate of Heavenly Peace reveals the often censored details of the event through the experience of four young Chinese characters who leave Beijing in search of a better life in Australia.
While Jianguo himself was not in Beijing on the infamous day, he had a similar experience in his hometown of Chengdu, where there were also students petitioning in the city’s central square. On June 4, 1989, armed police were sent in to drive the students in the central square away, which resulted in stone-throwing between both sides.
“I joined the citizen group and tried to stop the fighting. We told the armed police officers it was wrong to employ violence against the students,” he said.
