
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, February 2, 1991                   TAG: 9102020458
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: E-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: CHRIS GLADDEN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

PLAY OFFERS ENTERTAINING LOOK AT SEARCH FOR CULTURAL IDENTITY

In "I Don't Want to Die In China," Dr. A. is very much like Dorothy in "The Wizard of Oz." She finds herself overwhelmed by an exotic land and concludes that there's no place like home.

"I Don't Want to Die In China" is Mill Mountain Theatre's current production in the Norfolk Southern Festival of New Works. It was written by Barbara Carlisle, an associate professor of theatre arts at Virginia Tech.

Carlisle brings an engagingly impertinent wit to this meditation on cultural connectedness. According to the playbill, it was expanded from a monologue she was writing and in some ways it recalls Spalding Gray's "Swimming to Cambodia" monologue.

Played with wry humor by Kira Tirimacco, Dr. A. is an academic on a three-month tour of the People's Republic of China. She is afflicted by the usual tourist maladies - stomach problems, bureaucratic obstructions and cultural alienation. At the same time, she's charmed and fascinated by certain aspects of the country.

Maude Mitchell plays Shana, a young American woman who grew up in China and has been assimilated by the culture - an "American with a Chinese memory."

Noreen G. Farley plays Shana's mother, an old-style radical who came to China for its social experiment and made it her home, although she never became fully assimilated like her daughter.

Lester Chit-Man Chan plays a variety of Chinese men who have been affected in different ways by China's turbulent recent history.

Carlisle bounces each of these characters off the complex culture of the Chinese. At the same time, she delivers an entertaining travelogue and a crash course in Chinese history.

At the end, Dr. A. delivers a fervent, born-again testimonial to America but it's not a flag-waving bit of dewy-eyed patriotism. Rather, it's an expression of reality over ideology.

Her America has burger joints and presidential assassinations but it's her own for good or bad. She and the Chinese played by Chan have anchors, unlike Shana and her mother who are adrift between two cultures.

Refreshingly, Carlisle doesn't romanticize a foreign culture at the expense of her own. And she extends that same approach to the Chinese. The men played by Chan can no more escape the force of their cultural identity than Dr. A.

"I Don't Want to Die in China" is impressively assured for a new work, well acted and directed with sensitivity by Mary Sutton.

It plays through Feb. 10 at Mill Mountain's Theatre B. Tickets are $8.50. For reservations or more information, call 342-5740.

by CNB