A theatre in present-day Taipei. A theatre group is performing the dress rehearsal of the play ‘Secret Love’ about the reminiscences of a dying man about his great love in 1948 in Shanghai on the Chinese mainland. The ways of the two lovers, Jiang and Yun, were however separated by the outbreak of the civil war. After the take-over by the communists in 1949 Jiang fled to Taiwan, where he married another woman. Both the governments of Taiwan and of China will not allow their citizensto ‘communicate with the enemy’, so Jiang and Yun have not been in touch for forty hears. When it became possible in the late eighties to meet inhabitants of the other China, it suddenly become apparent that Yun had been in Taiwan all along. Jiang is desperate and from his deathbed he puts an advert in the paper in the hope of seeing her one more time before he dies.The director of the play is not satisfied with the acting because they just don’t seem able to shape his dream.Peach Blossom Land evokes with great precision the fragile mood of classical Chinese theatre, with much attention focused on the costumes, sets and lighting.
