About
Once Asia’s brightest star, Rin Asari (Mai Ishikawa) was poised for global fame with the release of her first film in English. But soon after, she vanished. It’s 2014. Rin, in her forties, lives quietly in Dublin. By chance, she connects with Tara (Clare Barrett), a woman living in Hong…
Once Asia’s brightest star, Rin Asari (Mai Ishikawa) was poised for global fame with the release of her first film in English. But soon after, she vanished. It’s 2014. Rin, in her forties, lives quietly in Dublin. By chance, she connects with Tara (Clare Barrett), a woman living in Hong Kong, bringing up the past she has tried to forget. When Rin receives an offer to return to the screen, she must confront what she left behind.
Inspired by the golden age of Hong Kong cinema, THE MADONNA OF ASIA weaves together live performance, vibrant projection and multilingual storytelling. Moving between myth and memory, this piece traces a woman’s journey from icon to exile – and back to herself.
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Written, directed and featuring design by Linbury Prizewinner Choy-Ping Ní Chléirigh-Ng 吳彩萍.
Performed in English, Japanese and Cantonese. Japanese and Cantonese dialogue is captioned in English. Run time one hour.
Praise for Choy-Ping’s work:
“Formally, thematically, politically, there is very little work being made in Ireland that dares as much as Choy-Ping’s.”
— Carys D. Coburn
“To be displaced from a place is also to be displaced from language. Ní Chléirigh-Ng’s practice creates a space that foregrounds these themes in new modes of performance across technical and substantive levels, equally displaced from theatrical tradition.”
— Michelle Chan Schmidt
