This is an introduction and those who wish to get to the details (including how to purchase) should simply click on the image for each of the two plays Hock has written.
Hock’s “Third Act” began after the Y2K brouhaha and his retirement in 2005. He became interested in community theatre as well as Chinese cultural matters. Lao She’s Teahouse struck him as a worthy project to translate and abridge. He thought it told with great sympathy the story of Shopkeeper Wang and the friends, the regulars, and the transients who frequented the Yutai (Abundant Peace) Teahouse, a Beijing neighborhood institution, during the tumultuous decades of the early twentieth century. Hence Heaven is High and the Emperor is Far Away, A Play. He looked also for something like a “cozy mystery” for China and was pointed by many fans to the stories told by Robert van Gulik of a Judge Dee. These plays stem from this interest.
