Inspired by the famous 16th-Century Chinese romantic tragicomedy The Peony Pavilion Chinese theater maker Stan Lai has created Nightwalk in the Chinese Garden as a site-specific performance for the Garden of Flowing Fragrance at The Huntington in San Marino. Nightwalk weaves elements of the ancient Chinese story—in which two lovers find each other in dreams and in death—with tales of early 20th-Century Southern California, conducting its audience by foot intimately through the mystical space of the garden at night.
The play is performed in English with some passages from The Peony Pavilion sung in Chinese to the original music. During the month-long run of the show, small audiences of 40 individuals each night will become an integral part of the performance, moving by foot through the garden as the story unfolds around them like scenes from a Chinese scroll painting.
Co-produced by CalArts Center for New Performance and The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens in association with the Shanghai Kunqu Troupe and Theatre Above, Shanghai.