02/12/2015-03/01/2015
59E59 Theaters
59 East 59th Street, New York, NY 10022
Meet John Floyer, eccentric, dyspeptic, and idealistic–sometimes to the point of delusion. His work to date, A History of Cold Bathing, Both Ancient and Modern hasn’t won him much renown, so he’s off to China to make his name. There, he “discovers” pulse diagnosis–nevermind the Chinese have known about it for centuries.
Floyer doesn’t fully understand the practice, but he’s willing to publish it–especially if can cement his place in the Academy of Sciences and keeps his creditors from repossessing his bathing tub. Along with him is his wife, Charlotte, a whip-smart woman with no outlet for her passions–until she meets her husband’s Chinese translator Wang Ming. Soon everyone’s trying to sort out new interpretations of the human heart…
The Subtle Body is an historical comedy with contemporary resonance. It tells the story of 18th-century British doctor John Floyer and his wife, Charlotte, who travel to China to research Chinese medicine. In China, Floyer encounters Dr. Zhang, a doctor successfully performing the traditional Chinese medical practice of pulse-diagnosis. In pulse-diagnosis not one, but six pulses are felt in the wrist to diagnose illnesses as complex as liver cirrhosis and cancer. Floyer is at a loss to prove how the Chinese practice works using Western reasoning and the scientific method; as far as he’s concerned, there’s only one pulse, and it comes from the heart.
Meanwhile, his wife Charlotte must also confront a new interpretation of the human heart. During the course of her husband’s research, she falls in love with his Chinese translator, Wang Ming. When the already married Ming asks Charlotte to join his household as his second wife (an accepted tradition in historic China), she is forced to reconsider her views of love and marriage, and come to a deeper understanding of her culture and herself. The play follows the couple’s attempts to reconcile these conflicts, and how one of them eventually fails, and one succeeds.
For more information, please visit
http://www.goldnotrade.com/work/the-subtle-body/