Of Mountains and Seas

"Of Mountains and Seas" is one of the most spirited and fun-filled plays written by Gao Xingjian. Based on the ancient text "The Classic of Mountains and Seas (Shanhai jing)", the play re-enacts the classical world of Chinese mythology, traversing the creation of humans to the beginning of Chinese dynastic history. It is a world of magical powers and child-like wonderment, peopled with gods, ghosts, ghouls, and monsters.In employing song and dance, acrobatics and other Chinese folk art forms, the play carries on Gao Xingjian's search for a 'omnipotent theater' and a new form of modern Eastern drama. "Of Mountains and Seas" is also an attempt to construct a grand narrative of Chinese mythology, wrestling it back from the contaminations of ideology, politics and didacticism so as to restore its authenticity. With this innocence and purity of origin, Gao insists, the play offers a glimpse of the collective consciousness of the Chinese race and human nature in general.