The Great Leap

L-R: Sami Ma, Darius Pierce, Tommy Bo, and Kenneth Lee in The Great Leap, a co-production between Portland Center Stage and Artists Repertory Theatre. Photo by Owen Carey

We went to see The Great Leap (a play) at Portland Center Stage last Sunday. It was a great show. The story is about a kid who wants to join a college basketball team on their trip to China to play an exhibition game. There are only four actors playing four parts, but that was plenty, the pace never lets up. They're making this trip in 1989, same year as Tiananmen Square. The story revolves around the kid and the coach, but the most interesting part was the Chinese coach who lived through the Cultural Revolution. While we were living in a free society, he was living in a state of fear. Perhaps if he was not a thinking person the situation would not have bothered him.

There are reviews of this play all over the place which indicates that there were productions of this place all over the place, which makes me think all these production companies are pulling from the same basket of ideas. Here's a review from The Daily Beast and one from MPRNEWS (Minneapolis Public Radio).