"I left in the morning, with a bottle of water, in search of her."
So begins a woman's journey--a journey filled with chance encounters, strange visions and transient connections. In the course of the woman's search, she encounters various characters from her past--the old matchstick man, the young girl, the boatman and the angel.
As day turns into night, as her water bottle slowly becomes empty, the woman is forced to confront her journey: "When soemone is searching, the only thing your eyes see is what you search for", the girl tells her. "You must stop searching and start finding."
Can her search ever end?
Acclaimed playwright Haresh Sharma has drawn inspiration from Hesse's Siddhartha, Gibran's The Prophet and other stories of journey and search to create a new writing for the theatre.
Employing techniques of storytelling, magic realism and narrative framing, Koan is a theatrical and lyrical exploration of perspective and truth.
The production, helmed by visionary director Alvin Tan, also features interview footages with a 78 year-old Singaporean widow who talks about her husband, son and herself growing up in Singapore.
Koan has toured to the 2003 Asian Theatre Festival in Busan (Korea) and Next Wave 2003 Festival (Seoul, Korea)
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