He's played menacingly by Walter Owen Briggs, but to no effect because Stillman doesn't let us in on what's behind his behavior. There's a physically abusive older brother, Precise circumstances that occurred or how she still manages to pay her daughter's school tuition. Carle) has been financially ruined and bears a great many debts, but we don't know the This happens shortly before she is to move to France, anyway. They share clandestine liaisons until the man's father disapproves and insists they break off the affair. They begin an affair, for no apparent reason other than perhaps lust on his part and curiosity on hers. The teenaged Duras, here called simply 'The Child,' meets the wealthy Chinese man who will become her lover on her way back to her boarding school in Saigon. It's all very stylish andĬlassy but Stillman's 95-minute script doesn't get below the surface enough to provide anything to really engage us in these characters. Musician Betti Xiang adds authentic musical accompaniment to the well acted proceedings. The attractiveĬastincluding the hunky Chiou and the willowy Rae Gray as the girllook great in Ana Kuzmanic's costumes evoking the French Indochina (today's Vietnam) gorgeously.

Proscenium stage, coming and going with the aid of imaginative lighting design and minimal set props both designed by Daniel Ostling. It's staged beautifullyscenes from Duras' memory, narrated by Deanna Dunagan as the author, occur around the While Heidi Stillman's stage adaptation tastefully treats the sexual themes (including, it should be noted, some full-frontal male nudity by leading man actor Tim Chiou and some discreet nudity of leading lady Rae Gray), it deserves the same sort of reaction that The movie caused a sensation for its stylish and graphic sexuality, but critics like Roger Ebert panned its substance. Marguerite Duras' novel, the autobiographical story of her teenaged affair with a Chinese man at least 10 years her senior in French colonial Vietnam, was produced as a 1992 feature film ( The Lover). Also see John's review of Cyrano de Bergerac

The north china lover