When a woman accidentally kills her abusive husband, the stage is set for a fierce and wickedly funny confrontation, as three generations of Chinese-Canadian women come together to clean up the mess — literally and figuratively. Grandmother, Mother, and Daughter grapple with cultural expectations, family secrets, and the scars left by cycles of violence in Chloé Hung’s darkly humorous play. With its sharp dialogue and unflinching storytelling, Three Women of Swatow confronts difficult truths with care…and comedy.
News & Reviews
“Three Women of Swatow is sharp, scrappy, inhumane, feisty, and wild.”
—Our Theatre Voice
“It felt as though all the women in the audience were sighing with some recognition of similar scenes in their own lives…The story of these three women unfolds like a Greek tragedy…”
—Montreal Rampage
“Hung’s dialogue is sharp and witty, and her humour cuts through like a knife, riffing on the irony and the play’s inherent absurdity.”
—Intermission Magazine
“A powerful anthem against violence towards women.”
—Théâtralités
About the Author
Chloé Hung is a writer and director. Her plays include Three Women of Swatow (Tarragon Theatre, Dora Award nominee for Outstanding New Play; Centaur Theatre), Issei He Say (New Jersey Rep), All Our Yesterdays (Toronto Fringe Fest’s Patron’s Pick, Next Stage Theatre Fest). She has workshopped plays with Geffen Theatre, Great Plains Theatre Commons, Stratford Festival’s Playwrights Retreat, Banff Playwrights Lab, Factory Theatre, Tarragon Theatre, and The Kennedy Center. Chloe is a Playwrights Center Core Writer and holds the Rhimes Unsung Voices commission from IAMA Theatre. In TV and film, Chloe has written for Queen Sugar, Cherish the Day, and The Watchful Eye, and has developed for Netflix. She is a Film Independent Screenwriting lab fellow. Her short films include SIGNAL (Women in Film’s Production program), and GEM & SHAZ (Bell Media, available on Crave). Chloe holds an MFA in dramatic writing from NYU Tisch. When Chloe isn’t writing, she’s likely baking pies. www.chloehung.com