It begins with accidental friendship between an actor practising her lines at a theatre in Shanghai and a grieving teenager whose father has just died, but who shows a natural gift for directing when she gets pulled into rehearsals. Lan Ping (Gabby Wong) and Li Lin (Millicent Wong), begin working together in the theatre and sharing a home. We follow their trajectory of friendship and betrayals, refracted through seismic events in 20th-century Chinese history.
Playwright Amy Ng is also a historian and bases her drama on the “untold true story” of these women, who rise in power and position in communist China. Lan Ping goes from revolutionary actor, who talks of destroying the strictures of patriarchy, to become Chairman Mao’s wife and the architect of the Cultural Revolution. Meanwhile, Li Lin, the daughter of a communist martyr who is later adopted by Mao’s number two, becomes China’s foremost theatre director.
