Theater Quad, Questions of Theater: “Xi’an Train”

About the festival

On a train heading to the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor in Xi'an, China, Sang-gon is filled with anticipation for the underground palace of the First Emperor and the countless terracotta warriors he is about to see. As Sang-gon thinks of the First Emperor, who desired eternity within a finite life, and of the things in his own life that he has 'never fully had,' the train arrives in Xi'an. A Korean with a Chinese mother, a person whose love was never fully returned. Standing before the First Emperor's desire for immortality, what is the desire of Sang-gon's own life? Sang-gon, who has lived on the 'margins' all his life, stands before the grandest of stories and sees himself. Before that enormous desire, he now finally looks into his own story.