synopsis with select recordings
FUSONG tells the story of two intrepid Chinese women in two different centuries, linked by their complicated destiny. The show opens in present day San Francisco where novelist Isabel Lee, accepting an award for a recently banned book she’s written, reveals how the characters in her confrontational novel forced their way into her life on the night of the 2016 Presidential election while she feared what may lay ahead (MURAL VOICES OF THE ANCESTORS).
Fusong, the lead character in her book, having been kidnapped from her small village in China, comes to Isabel from the dark world of San Francisco’s Chinatown in 1866 to tell her side of her story. She finds herself at the center of an auction where she’s the one up for bidding and the intimidating Da Yong asserts his power over her and the community, taking her as his property. (SALE).
Working at Da Yong’s brothel, Fusong calls on her own freedom from within to navigate her new reality (IN THE DARKNESS).
Fusong is surprised to find poetry in the tenderness from William, a young man with whom she has little in common except for an undeniable chemistry. Back at home, young William is chastened by his father, Senator Koehler, to live out the rules of his conservative upbringing, and is subsequently set up with the perfect young woman to fit in with it. (FAMILY VALUES).
William can’t keep away from Fusong, though, and when he witnesses her being beaten up by an angry group of anti-Chinese protesters, he takes her to a hospital that she would not have been admitted to without his intervention. He expresses how much he wants to whisk her away from the racism of their times (AWAY). Da Yong appears, and marking his territory, brusquely orders Fusong to follow him and live under his supervision. Though their relationship is complicated and harsh, Fusong and Da Yong begin to connect over the yearning they have for the lives they left behind and start to suspect they have more of a connection than they could have dreamed of (HOME). They grapple with the consequences of bringing their suspicions to light.
Later, William and Fusong marvel at their own unlikely connection, even when not physically near one another (OUR EYES MEET) and William’s fierce and complex rivalry with Da Yong continues.
Da Yong, pondering his life in America and the mayhem he has been responsible for, is challenged by the spirits of his late mother and past victims to correct his karmic path (PAY UP).
Isabel feels tortured by having to witness this story that both repels and embarrasses her. (THE GRACE TO UNDERSTAND). In a twist of fate, Fusong and Da Yong are forced to come to terms with realizing that they had been promised to each other as young children and contemplate their new circumstances. (HOME REPRISE).
Isabel, incredulous that Fusong could forgive Da Yong for the way he has mistreated and enslaved her, confronts Fusong to see that Asian American women have been stigmatized and traumatized for centuries by the kind of life she led. Fusong pushes back, challenging Isabel to question how different things really are for her today and admits that she is still struggling to navigate the difference between duty and honor, survival and living.
With eyes on a fresh start, Da Yong takes Fusong to the opera (LA DONNA È MOBILE), where the Senator, William, and William’s would-be (and very proper Victorian) girlfriend Elizabeth are shocked to see them interacting with the White audience. When the Senator insists that Da Yong and Fusong be thrown out, a terrible brawl ensues, landing Da Yong in jail and William having to make a choice between defending Fusong and obeying his father.
Weeks later, Da Yong faces execution for his many violent crimes and interrogates himself about how he had tried but failed to be different from his violent father (AT THE CORNER OF YOU AND ME). He expresses his deep regret for his life choices to Fusong and wants to make amends with her. She tries to reassure him that his life has not been in vain (BE AT PEACE) and arranges for them to honor their path and their families with a proper wedding ceremony at the gallows.
Fusong and William look for closure as he promises to help her get away from her terrible circumstances after Da Yong’s death, but she affirms to him that she doesn’t want to be saved, she wants to be loved. Ultimately, they realize they can never have a future together, though what they felt for one another was perhaps as indelible as the love that she was destined to share with Da Yong.
As Isabel realizes that her family’s lineage traces back to Fusong, it becomes crystal clear why it has been essential for her to experience this part of her family’s generational trauma so that she can carry on with their generational resilience. She recommits to making sure that their family’s place in history will outlast the nation’s division over its right to be told, and as she sees that we are all a part of each other’s story, she vows to continue to tell it, with love and pride. (STRONGER THAN HATE).
selections from Fusong are also available at
