FAR EAST’s somewhat autobiographical story draws on events from A.R. Gurney's own life, which were first hinted at in a scene from his popular 1989 play, Love Letters. At one point in that show, a young American Navy lieutenant is stationed at a base near Tokyo during the Korean War and falls in love with a Japanese woman, despite his parents' objections from back home. Gurney turned that brief episode into a full-length work which invokes the simplistic style of traditional Japanese theater. Daniel Sullivan was at the helm of the initial production at Williamstown Theatre Festival in the Berkshires. He re-staged the play for LCT with a new company and design team. Sullivan also has a long history with Gurney, going all the way back to 1971, when Sullivan was an actor in the company of the now-defunct Repertory Theater of Lincoln Center. Sullivan's prodigious directing career was launched that year with Gurney's early play Scenes from American Life which the Rep presented at their downstairs space, then called the Forum (now the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater).
December 11, 1998 - March 7, 1999
