Rivers Of China, The
by Alma De Groen

Two plots interweave in The River of China, the Fontainebleau narrative and the Sydney narrative, both involved with the life and death of the New Zealand-born writer Katherine Mansfield, and both concerned with the place of women and artists in a patriarchal society.

In 1923 the writer Katherine Mansfield went to the guru Gurdjieff in Fontainebleau that he might "cure her soul."

In the 1980s in Sydney, a young man awakes in a hospital to find a world dominated by women.

As they struggle to discover their true identity, their separate stories intriguingly interweave.

Katherine's journey to seek physical and spiritual help from the Russian mystic, Gurdjieff, is associated with a wish once made by her mother, that instead of marrying she had gone exploring the rivers of China.

Alma De Groen makes free use of Mansfield's journals and letters and the writings of Gurdjieff in this major work.

Area staging.