BOUND
By Xiaoyan Kang

Please be advised this reading contains mention of suicide.

Monday, May 1, 2023
1:30 pm
Catalano Acting Studio (Room 172) | UI Theatre Building

Sangya, an aspiring teenage girl in the early-1960s China, sympathizes with her grandmother who stumbled into her fate with a pair of bound feet. Very soon, Sangya finds herself bound in a predicament where she has to make a difficult choice between her academic dream and her father, a counter-revolutionary prisoner at a northwestern labor camp. What is the right choice to make? Or, is there really a choice?

Context: 
Shortly after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, individuals who had been associated with Kuomintang were considered as counter-revolutionaries and imprisoned. Soon the local prisons were overwhelmed, laogai (reform through labor) camps were built in the northwestern desert regions and prisoners were sent to the camps. Some made it back home after years of sentence, some stayed in the northwest for the rest of their life, and some died. Sangya’s father, Li Siming, was one of them. 

This play is dedicated to my dearest friends and family, especially my grandmothers. I would like to thank my cast members, fellow playwrights, and faculty members at the Playwrights Workshop for developing this play with me. I also owe special thanks to Andy Black, Marisela Treviño Orta, and John Baker for their generous support and advice for this play.

Tickets:
Tickets for the Iowa New Play Festival will be available at the Theatre Building. Visit our ticketing page for more details.