Unfiltered #60 – The reality of getting Fringe ready with ‘Tide’

“What happens when you mix red and blue?”

“It creates purple, of course.”

“But what shade of purple?”

The answer keeps changing as we kick off the rehearsal process for Tide: a love story between two girls navigating the aftermath of sexual assault and familial loss at a silent retreat by the ocean.

As the producer, playwright, and director of the show, I draw from my own experience as a survivor of sexual violence. Sharing something this personal with an international audience at the Edinburgh Fringe is both terrifying and empowering. So let me take you behind the scenes — into a typical day in rehearsal.

8:00 a.m. Two subway transfers. And like clockwork, the same question creeps in when I’m three stops from the studio:

“Am I going to feel hopeful today, or a little bit triggered?”

I try to shake it off as I walk into the room. Together, my actors and I roll out a massive blue-green canvas across the floor. Then it’s time to open the three bottles of paint. That’s all we need: blue, yellow, red — and two actors using their hands as paintbrushes.

I’m a visual person — obsessed with symbolism and eco-feminism. Since the earliest draft of Tide, I found myself exploring the push and pull between ocean and moon, and the tension between attraction and violence — especially within female and queer experience. Blue, yellow, and red kept appearing in my imagery: the ocean and moonlight, but also blood, intimacy, and rupture. Eventually, I began writing body paint into the stage directions — not just as visual flair, but as a living tool for storytelling.

I’ve never rehearsed with paint before, and neither have my actors. Each rehearsal became an opportunity to chart new territory.

After a few “unhappy” accidents — paint on dresses, tote bags, even phones — we start to get the hang of it. That’s when the real fun began. How do we fight with paint? Kiss with it? Say goodbye with it? What can these colors become? Honey, wine, perfume, tears, blood, seawater, music, sunlight, raindrops…?

I find myself laughing far more than stressing.

I once thought Tide was going to be a “sad” play. I once thought it would be hard to look back at a past that haunts me.

And yes, Tide is still about trauma — about the parts of the past you try to forget but can’t. But it’s also about forbidden queer love. A teenager who dreams of seeing the untamed ocean. A girl obsessed with her camera. And a whole lot of rule-breaking. It’s about the unexpected joy when my actors take bold risks and make goofy, beautiful choices. Rehearsal time flies by like playtime with childhood best friends.

8:00 PM. I hop on the subway heading home, and the same old question cross my mind:

“Am I going to feel hopeful today, or a little bit triggered?”

But I forget about it quickly. Because I have memories to make, a show to build, and a team to bring to Edinburgh, Scotland.

A team of brilliant collaborators and friends.

Besides… I still need to figure out what happens when you mix red and blue.

“It creates purple, of course.”

“But what shade of purple?”

“The happiest shade.”

Creative Team:
LANGYUE “PETUNIA” HU as producer-director-writer
YIFAN CHENG as designer
EMIE LIU as stage manager

Cast:

LAN “LISA” JIANG as LUNA

DIANXI “ATHENA” YIN as CORDELIA