Descendant of Dragons
"...a streak of anarchy is the birthright of every American."
from "Descendant of Dragons"
Praise for Descendant of Dragons
"Nicely woven story. Very personal. You could really see phillip
getting angry, hurt, moved, etc., at points and this was very powerful
for me as an audience member. A lot of great laughs, too. As someone who
has had to fight for my artistic priorities to the chagrin of an overachieving
parent, I especially appreciated the Dad relationship stuff."
-Bill Bernat, Arizona
comedian
"Not only is he probably the best writer I saw all Fringe, he's
also found his own voice in performance (I saw his third in a single day),
an energy and a humor that make him an undeniable talent. You can see
what those summers of Fringing hard, attending shows and taking notes,
have brought to his work: phillip is a student of writers and performers
who has synthesized those lessons into his own form of mastery."
-Caitlin Gilmet,
freelance writer
"Energetic, emotional, and at times angry, low takes the audience
on a journey to try and capture what remains of his family's history before
it slips away. It's made all the more frustrating by his family's refusal
to talk about past events and the way that modern adults nonetheless slip
into traditional roles and attitudes when it comes to (capital F) Family.
low's performance took off from the first word."
-Bill Stiteler,
playwright and producer
"It's a mystery story that satisfies because it is about more than
the nuts and bolts of solving a puzzle. It's a family story that doesn't
shy away from the difficult moments, but also doesn't dissolve into sentimentality.
It's a window into another culture, without being a dry sociology lesson.
It's a globe-trotting journey that doesn't fall into "look at these
slides of my vacation" territory. Amazingly, it's just one guy, standing
on a stage, telling a compelling story, with very little in the way of
theater tricks to back him up. Because he doesn't need them."
-Matthew Everett, playwright
(five star review)
About the Show
A Chinese-American tells the story of a quest to find his ancestors that led him across four continents and four thousand years. Contains copious bilingual profanity.
From the beaches of the Fiji Islands to Buddhist temples in Vancouver, from Amsterdam's Red Light District to the heart of Red China, this globetrotting adventure (in the spirit of Mark Twain's The Innocents Abroad) pits a cranky libertarian detective against the world's greatest Communist bureaucracy. Maximum Verbosity's first non-fiction show struggles with what it means to be pinned between humanity's youngest and most ancient civilizations. It's a story about being Chinese...and becoming American again.
This show was recognized as the bestselling show in its venue at the 2007 Minnesota Fringe Festival and selected for a coveted Encore slot.
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