She’s alive!
NIKLAS
Mei! Little Mei! Wake up. Open your eyes. C’mon!
LITTLE MEI opens her eyes and tries to speak.
LITTLE MEI
I promise…
BIG MEI appears in a ghostly glow.
BIG MEI
Mei, born in a village on the river Qinhua
Married at age fifteen
Widowed at age sixteen
Date of death, December 26, 1937
Japanese Comfort Station, Nanking
Death by bayonet, disembowelment, loss of blood
No children, no surviving family, no future.
BIG MEI exits.
ANNA takes LITTLE MEI into her lap, as if cradling a small child, echoing Mary holding Jesus’s body if possible. LITTLE MEI weeps into ANNA’s embrace.
ANNA
I’m sorry, child, I’m sorry. It’s over. It’s over.
The snow stops and the sun comes out.
SCENE NINETEEN
LITTLE MEI is writing a letter.
LITTLE MEI
Dear Niklas,
Thank you for your letter. I am sorry to hear about the passing of your wife. With the war over, the Americans have finally arrived but I imagine that the Sisters will continue to run the camp as long as they are needed.
I work in the nursery now. There are many newborns left at the gate. It is likely their fathers are Japanese. We try to give them names of hope but there are so many, we easily run out. There are some we named Niklas and of course many more called Anna.
ANNA
Anna Mallery
Born 1886, Michigan, USA
Missionary, teacher and a servant of God
Lived and loved China for twenty-four years
Returned to America, suffering a nervous breakdown
Died 1941, released from this world by her own hand
A soldier of mercy and a casualty of war
Her gravestone reads, “Ginling Forever.”
ANNA exits.
LITTLE MEI
My neck has healed, but still gives me trouble. I must practise speaking before I forget that I have a voice. Much was taken from me, but I did not lose my head. That is a little joke.
When the people here heard of your plight, they wanted to help you. We called you “Living Buddha” and Buddha must not go hungry. Here enclosed are dried fish, flour, soybeans and rice. There is also money, as much as we could collect around camp. We will continue to send these to you as long as you need and as long as we are able.
NIKLAS
Niklas Hermann,
Born Hamburg, Germany, 1882
Engineer, businessman, member of the Nazi Party
Married, and raised his family in China for thirty years
Returned to Germany with evidence of the massacre
Solicited an audience with Adolf Hitler
Arrested by the Gestapo
Released and lived the remainder of his life impoverished,
reviled, a pariah and an outcast.
Survived by his eldest son
Who inherited his father’s diary, locked in a cabinet for many years
Until a young woman implored to see the writings
And who came back day after day
Convinced, Niklas’s son produced a key,
Opened the cabinet and a new chapter was born.
NIKLAS exits.
LITTLE MEI
My friend, thank you for helping us and for trying to tell people what happened here in Nanking.
Signed,
Little Mei,
Born in Shanghai
Abandoned at age five
Schooled and clothed by the Sisters of St. Marguerite
Walked from Shanghai to Nanking to escape the Japanese
Captured, raped and left for dead, December 1937
Survived.
LITTLE MEI exits.
epilogue
2005
A year or so after the events of Act One.
Backstage. A lecture hall. An assembled crowd. JULIA, dressed nicely, is waiting.
AUDREY enters. She looks different than when we last saw her. Her spine is straighter, her clothes somehow more grown-up. She is carrying a garish diaper bag, a purse and raincoat.
JULIA
Audrey!
AUDREY
I’m sorry, Julia, there was so much traffic.
JULIA
They’re just about to announce you.
AUDREY remembers the diaper bag.
AUDREY
Oh no, can you give this to the babysitter? They’re in the green room, I think.
JULIA
Okay, no worries. Here, let me take the rest of this…
AUDREY
Thanks…
Beat.
JULIA
Are you ready?
AUDREY
Yeah, I mean, sure, yeah, no.
JULIA
You’ll do fine.
AUDREY
It’s just… I know it’s what she would’ve wanted, but… I’m not Irene.
JULIA
She’s already won the award! You could hardly screw it up now! Don’t screw it up.
AUDREY
Julia!
JULIA
Just read it and you’ll be fine. You’ll be fine.
AUDREY
Thank you.
AUDREY crosses to a gentle spot. She is carrying a book. She takes a deep breath, trying to compose herself. From the wings, we hear a small baby gurgle. AUDREY takes a quick glance into the wings and that is the strength that she needed. She opens the book and looks out to the world.
“The Nanking Incident
By Irene Wu.
Chapter One.
1937. It was winter in Nanking…”
Lights.
The End.
MARJORIE CHAN is an acclaimed theatre artist, librettist and playwright based out of Toronto. Her play China Doll was nominated for Outstanding New Play and Outstanding Production at the Dora Awards, was a finalist for the 2005 Governor General’s Literary Award and was performed in Hong Kong as part of Festival Canada Hong Kong. Her other works include The Madness of the Square, Sanctuary Song, Persephone Calling, Mother Everest and in the garden, two suns, an adaptation of Hisashi Inoue’s celebrated play about Hiroshima.
Marjorie has been Playwright-in-Residence for Theatre Direct Canada as well as Playwright-in-Residence and Associate Artistic Director for Cahoots Theatre Projects. In addition to her writing and performing, Marjorie runs Crossing Gibraltar, a theatre training and outreach program for youth from refugee backgrounds. She is a graduate of George Brown Theatre School.
a nanking winter © Copyright 2008 by Marjorie Chan
Introduction © Copyright 2008 Ruth Madoc-Jones
Playwrights Canada Press
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phone 416.703.0013 • [email protected] • www.playwrightscanada.com
No part of this book may be reproduced, downloaded, or used in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, except for excerpts in a review or by a licence from Access Copyright, www.accesscopyright.ca.
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phone 416.925.2051 fax 416.925.3904
Cover image of Ginling College courtesy of Special Collections, Yale Divinity School Library
CProduction Editor and Cover Design: Micheline Courtemanche
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Chan, Marjor
ie
a nanking winter / Marjorie Chan.
A play.
Electronic monograph.
Issued also in print and PDF formats.
ISBN 978-1-77091-225-0
1. Nanking Massacre, Nanjing, Jiangsu Sheng, China, 1937--Drama.
We acknowledge the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council (OAC)—an agency of the Government of Ontario, which last year funded 1,681 individual artists and 1,125 organizations in 216 communities across Ontario for a total of $52.8 million—the Ontario Media Development Corporation, and the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities.
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