Two men tell their stories onstage

Tian Haojiang, the Beijing-born and New York-based opera star, developed his keen interest in drama through the Taiwan classic The Village, which resonates with his complicated feelings as a traveler away from home. The nostalgic play tells a decades-long history of three Kuomintang soldier families who are exposed to the vicissitudes of life in a constantly complex discussion about going home to the Chinese mainland.

Before Tian and Wang Wei-chung, theater producer and Taiwan's TV tycoon, explored the possibility of staging a drama, both men knew nothing could be more riveting and revealing than stories of their own lives.

Although the two middle-aged men grew up under different education systems across the Straits, they discover that their lives were more similar than they thought. They're both from military families; they had both "eavesdropped" on radio channels from the other side of the Straits; they both had an older brother with whom they had a complicated relationship.