xigu Media
A Date Of A Lifetime
On January 25, 2026, the Xigu Theatre Company's annual production "A Promise in This Life" premiered successfully at Mission City Center For Performing Arts.
A stage production about love, time, and regret, captivated audiences with its quiet yet powerful emotional impact. Since its official announcement and ticket sales began, the performance garnered significant attention from the Bay Area's arts community, with numerous theatergoers eagerly anticipating this renowned play, making tickets extremely difficult to obtain. The 355-seat theater was packed, making this winter in the Bay Area feel exceptionally warm thanks to "A Promise in This Life."
As the curtain fell, we were all struck by this tragic love story that spanned half a lifetime.
An archaeologist, who has wandered for many years, returns to an old inn in Xi'an. As the autumn wind rises, the past is gradually revealed—years ago, he fell in love with a gentle yet stubborn woman, but their silence and intertwined fates led to their eventual separation.
When the two reunite, they are forced to confront once again the choices and regrets etched into their souls.
This is not a simple love story, but a "time and space writing" performed using the language of the stage.
Director Yang Jingkun transformed the stage into a breathing vessel. The lights became another language, and the music an unspoken narration. Memories flickered in the projections, and the unspoken words rustled in the still moments of the actors. "What we want to say is never about regret itself, but about how love continues to grow in another form behind regret."
Screenwriter Shen Yue was present at the event. Overwhelmed with emotion, she choked up several times, saying that she felt very fulfilled to see the growth of this work.
Director Lu Xiaoyan, who directed the play twenty years ago, came to watch it with the original cast. The stage of two generations overlapped under the lights that night.
Audience feedback
On More Thing...
"A Promise in This Life" tells the story of an unfulfilled love. Towards the end of her life, the female protagonist, Haoru, wants to make up for the regrets of her life through a play within a play.
What kind of person is Haoru?
She lived a life of naivety, willfulness, fantasy, and yearning for freedom, yet also of conformity, conservatism, and a simple, ordinary existence.
After reading the script for the first time, the stage scenes immediately came to mind.
After reading the script a second time, the emotional storyline gradually became clearer.
On my third reading, I noticed the details and gained a deeper understanding of this love story.
This is not a story with strong dramatic conflict, nor is it a traditional formula of resolving contradictions or escalating to a climax. It is just a simple story, told gently like an essay or a poem. When the overflowing emotions are fully and quietly expressed, the meaning becomes clear.
Light and shadow, and dance, were the initial inspirations. This unspoken affection, buried deep in the heart, was painful, unable to bear the light, yet living in the shadows. Words described the outline, but no amount of words could match the emotional power conveyed by physical expression.
Therefore, dance is no longer an embellishment, but the emotion itself. Light and shadow are not a background, but the breath of emotion and the traces of time.
The difficulty of this drama lies in its structure and the intensity of its emotional expression, coupled with its diverse and complex nature.
I'm pleased that the audience mentioned abstraction, a term we've consistently used in our creative process. It's about feeling; you can only feel it, you can't truly explain it. Because when emotions reach their peak intensity, no language can express them; the body and breath are the only language. Alternatively, it's about defying this extreme reality by ceasing life to preserve the most intense and abundant emotions of this moment in the world.
In short, it is not a realistic drama based on rational thinking; it conveys a deep and affectionate promise from another dimension.
You all did a fantastic job. In this day and age, the most precious thing is genuine emotion. Each of you immersed yourselves in the roles, drawing upon your rich inner world and evoking the deepest feelings. I hope we can carry this authenticity together and move forward steadfastly.
Director Yang Jingkun
1/27/2026