You For Me For You
By (Author) Mia Chung
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Methuen Drama
2nd December 2015
United Kingdom
Professional and Scholarly
Non Fiction
812.6
Paperback
120
Width 128mm, Height 198mm, Spine 10mm
123g
Trees dont have ears. How are you so sure As they attempt to flee the Best Nation in the World, North Korean sisters Minhee and Junhee are torn apart at the border. Each must race across time and space to be together again navigating the perilous Land of the Free and the treacherous terrain of personal belief. Food has learned to sprint. Money is so fast it doesnt wait to be printed. Gossip travels swifter than germs. You For Me For You was first presented in the US at Woolly Mammoth Theatre, Washington D.C., in Autumn 2012 and received its UK premiere at London's Royal Court in the Jerwood Theatre Upstairs on 3 December 2015.
You for Me for You . . . is a dizzying, sometimes surreal tale . . . endlessly creative in its approach to contrasting two impossibly different cultures . . . Chungs real-world-inspired fable both dazzles and repels, revealing the ugliness buried in both very different cultures. But in one, she suggests, theres the chance of the most entrancing fairy tale of all: a future. * Washingtonian *
superbly disorientating drama . . . a fascinating, freewheeling affair * Guardian *
"Magical realism", Mia Chung's description of its genre, doesn't begin to do justice to the distinctiveness and distinction of her play. Eschewing documentary reportage, the Korean-American dramatist takes us on a brilliantly imaginative journey . . . * Independent *
You For Me For You gives us a fresh perspective . . . * What's On Stage *
part-twisted fairytale, part Alice in Wonderland: a grotesque, disturbing and . . . startlingly vivid fever dream in which the fear, deprivation and paranoia of life in a totalitarian state collide violently with rampant western consumerism. . . . there's an astringent wit beneath Chung's bombardment of sly satire and sinister, surreal images . . . Chung toys cleverly with our expectations so that we often feel almost as helpless as the sisters . . . Striking * The Times *
thrillingly strange and endearingly mad * Time Out London *
Mia Chung is the author of You for Me for You, Exquisite Corpse, Skin in the Game, an adaptation of The Orphan of Zhao, and We Spend Our Lives. You for Me for You had a world premiere at Woolly Mammoth Theatre in autumn 2012 and a Boston premiere at Company One in winter 2013. A new draft of the play was presented in the New Eyes Festival at Mu Performing Arts in Minneapolis in January 2014 and the Interact Theatre/Asian Arts Initiative reading series in Philadelphia in March 2014. She has received awards and fellowships from Southern Rep, RISCA, TCG, and others; and her work has been developed by the Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Civilians R&D Group, Doorway Arts Ensemble, Icicle Creek Theatre Festival, Inkwell, Kennedy Center, LAByrinth Theatre Company, Magic Theatre, Mu Performing Arts, Page Salon, Playwrights Realm, and Stella Adler Studio. She received a Sloan commission and a Creative Arts Council grant. She is a member of New Dramatists and the Ma-Yi Writers Lab. She attended Yale (BA); the University of Dublin, Trinity College (M.Phil.); and Brown (MFA).