Canoe, Of Land, Of Water
A Multi-Media One-Act
Hollywood Fringe Festival, 2025
Playwright and Sound Designer................ Zoe Lai
Director, Costume and Projection ............ Shuwen Cao
Lighting Designer .................................... Szu Wang
Stage Manager ......................................... Pam Noles
MUSH .................................................... Teahee Lee
JAY ......................................................... Kosi Eguchi
CRIM ..................................................... Oceane Alessandra Laurent
For me, Canoe was an intimate modern fable with the texture of an illustration book, and the venue happened to be a wide and shallow rectangle. Everything we see on the stage is both an image and has its corresponding event in reality on the hidden timeline. Therefore, it was very important for me to recreate the texture of the coziness and the coarseness of blurred childhood dreams, as in Marc Chagall's paintings.
The climax of the play was when the mother tree being cut off, and the ants feel from the tree like a rain. Combining the music and projection together created an anti-climax effect, with no performers included, thereby maximizing the kids' vulnerability in its aftermath.
Costume Design
The costume design is intended to showcase both their fable-like qualities and their foil in the hidden timeline of reality.
Left top ............ JAY, a bird eager to fly away from the island
Left bottom ...... MUSH, a mushroom who's never left the tree mother
Right ................ CRIM, a crimson clover who's grown up and fitted into the world of the industry.
Canoe, Of Land, Of Water was definitely a play for mothers, and Mother's Day came up before our show dates. This was a special Mother's Day program featuring an original poem I wrote, inspired by the pictures I received from the creative team and the cast. Happy Mother's Day.