The Chinese Lady at PURE Theatre

Southeast Regional Premiere Directed by Rodney Lee Rogers Featuring Anna Lin

Afong Moy is fourteen years old when she’s brought to the United States from Guangzhou Province in 1834. Allegedly the first Chinese woman to set foot on U.S. soil, she has been put on display for the American public as “The Chinese Lady.” For the next half-century, she performs for curious white people, showing them how she eats, what she wears, and the highlight of the event: how she walks with bound feet. As the decades wear on, her celebrated sideshow comes to define and challenge her very sense of identity. Inspired by the true story of Afong Moy’s life, THE CHINESE LADY is a dark, poetic, yet whimsical portrait of America through the eyes of a young Chinese woman.

“…piercing and intimate…this quiet play steadily deepens in complexity…by the end of Mr. Suh’s extraordinary play, we look at Afong and see whole centuries of American history” —NY Times.