Center Repertory Company’s “The Great Leap” Is a Slam Dunk Success!

by Ed Brice

     Center Repertory Company of Walnut Creek presents “The Great Leap”, a high-stakes work that follows a University of San Francisco college basketball team that travels to Beijing in 1989 for a well-publicized exhibition game. The play takes place in San Francisco’s Chinatown and Beijing China in 1971 and 1989, featuring a USF basketball coach, a walk-on Chinese American player in ’89, and the Chinese team’s coach.

     1971 and 1989 are pivotal years in Communist China: Communist China’s “Great Leap” by Mao Zedong in 1958-61, then Cultural Revolution resulted in incredible upheaval, famine, deaths, etc. By 1971, tension between China and the U.S. was thawing, including international ping-pong, visits and…basketball!

     In 1989 there were the Chinese student-led peaceful demonstrations in Tiananmen Square, including the famous “tank guy” looking for more reform. As we know, that was physically and forcefully put down by the Chinese communist government without major reforms achieved for individuals.

     In that scenario, Chinese American playwright Lauren Yee and Director Nicholas C Avila present their two-hour play with four actors: three Asians and one Caucasian American, Cassidy Brown, playing the Jewish American USF basketball coach, Saul, from the Bronx.

     The American coach is in China in 1971 helping get the fledgling Chinese team, including its own coach, Wen Chang (Edward Chen), going.

     Despite getting the Chinese basketball program going, Saul boasts and insults Chang and China by declaring that China will never beat an American basketball team! Think 1957 best-selling book, “The Ugly American.”

     The plot thickens when 18 years later, in 1989, Chang invites Saul and his team to China for a “Friendship Game.”

     Enter Manford (James Aaron Oh) a troubled but talented basketball player, about to graduate high school from San Francisco’s Chinatown, who finagles his way on to Saul’s team.

     Meanwhile, Manford, Chang and Saul all have personal and political issues going on in their lives which threaten to abort the “friendship game,” while the protests are going on in Tiananmen Square.

     No spoiler alert, the game proceeds and tensions escalate right up to the final buzzer, leaving the audience to wonder if/why things happen, change, but yet don’t!

     Fueled by dynamic and rapid-fire dialogue, this quick-witted drama/comedy explores the cultural and poitical risks of raising one’s voice and standing one’s ground.

     After doing some post-production fact-checking, I learned that this production actually offered some “Hollywood poetic license”, but nonetheless, the actors’ performances were all done very well and their characters’ struggles and the issues presented by the playwright and director left me appreciating and learning more about San Francisco’s Chinatown’s and China’s populations. Nonetheless, the issues/problems portrayed by “The Great Leap” in 1971/1989 San Francisco Chinatown and mainland China still exist there, and also for the rest of us in varying degrees.

     Enjoy!

     The Great Leap runs through April 7, 2024 at the Lesher Center for the Arts (1601 Civic Dr.) in Walnut Creek, CA. For tickets or more information please visit lesherartscenter.org or phone the box office at (925) 943-7469.

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Photo caption: Manford (center -James Aaron Oh) makes a shot as Saul (left - Cassidy Brown) and Wen (right - Edward Chen) watch in Center Repertory Company's "The Great Leap," currently performing through April 7 at Lesher Center for the Arts. (Photo Credit: Alessandra Mello)