One of the most controversial and uncompromising Canadian plays in recent memory, C. E. Gatchalian’s Falling In Time is an epic exploration of armed conflict, masculinity, sexuality, love, and forgiveness. Set in Vancouver in 1994, the year of the death of North Korean leader Kim Il-Sung, the play criss-crosses two hemispheres and spans more than forty years. Through all this, four distinctly different lives intertwine. Steve is an aging, outrageous, bisexual Korean War vet who embodies the sadistic tendencies of Western imperialism that polite society has too often tried to sweep from view. Jamie is an aloof, repressed ESL teacher haunted by a troubled childhood. Chang Hyun is a young Korean student brimming with anti-Western sentiment and still reeling from a traumatic experience in the military. In the middle of it all is Eun Ha, a woman who lives through the Korean War and, against all odds, finds the will to survive. A brutally honest depiction of war, rape, racism and animal sexuality, Falling In Time asks the question “How do we let go?”
News & Reviews
“Gatchalian is well on his way to making his mark in contemporary drama.” –CBC Radio
About the Author
Born, raised and based on the unceded territories of the Coast Salish peoples, including the Musqueam, Squamish and Tseil-Waututh, C. E. Gatchalian is a queer Filipinx-Canadian author. The author of six books and co-editor of two anthologies, he is a three-time Lambda Literary Award finalist and the recipient of two Jessie Richardson Awards for his work as a theatre artist and producer. In 2013 he received the Dayne Ogilvie Prize in 2013, awarded annually by The Writers’ Trust of Canada to an outstanding emerging LGBTQI+ writer. Chris’s plays include Falling in Time, People Like Vince, Motifs and Repetitions, Claire, Broken, and Crossing. Formerly Artistic Producer of the frank theatre company, Vancouver’s professional queer theatre company, Gatchalian’s plays have been produced locally, nationally and internationally. His memoir is titled: Double Melancholy: Art, Beauty and the Making of a Brown Queer Man.
