The Other Shore is not set in any particular time or place. Xingjian's original intention with the play was to create what he called "pure drama" and to use the play as an exercise for actors. To that end, the actors who participate in The Other Shore must change roles throughout the performance quickly and dramatically, moving in and out of multiple personas and using improvisational techniques throughout.

However, none of this is to say that the play does not have an historical or political context. The play's themes of collectivism and individualism recur throughout Xingjian's writing, and one need look no further than his native China and its political structures to see the reasons for Xingjian's preoccupation with those themes.

In 1949, nine years after Xingjian was born, Mao Zedong, as the leader of the Communist Party and the Red Army in China, helped found China...