Patricia (Patwiti) said that she wanted more stories from me, since she’s been doing so many stories of her own. Today I’m obliging with a bit of meta-fanfiction: a scene from an alternate conception of the new movie Oz: The Great and Powerful, which I saw last weekend and actually quite appreciated.

It feels weird to be writing about this movie before writing a review, although I’m plenty behind on movie reviews. But I know if I write a review now, it’ll get too late and I won’t want to buckle down and write the piece. That said, this contains spoilers. Even though most of what I do in here will not be how the movie plot goes, it will cause you to watch the movie differently when it reaches the equivalent scene.

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Last Sunday I went to see the staged reading of Paul Heller’s Beijing, California, which is being put on by the Asian American Theater Company and directed by Duy Nguyen, one of the founders of Theatre Rice. It was quite an experience, even without real staging, costumes, whatever.

This particular piece, however, comes inspired by the trailer for the play, made by TR alum Huy Vu. (If you aren’t within Huy’s Facebook circle, you can watch the trailer on YouTube.) Specifically, it was Sasha’s first comment that put the seeds of the idea into my head.

Watch the trailer, then come back and read Hǎoqù, a story about a few TR members in those troubled times.

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