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This is a light comedy about an English physician, Dr. John Floyer, and his wife who are in China in the early 18th century. There really was a Dr. John Floyer at this time who, like Floyer in this play, was interested in measuring the rate of the pulse, although the real Dr. Floyer never went to China. What he knew about Chinese medicine came through missionary reports.
In this period Europeans and Chinese knew very little about each other and The Subtle Body rests on comic confusions arising as Dr. Floyer and the Chinese physician, Dr. Zhang, try to understand each other’s medical practices through veils of prejudice and misinterpretation. European practices are seen as "barbarian." Dr. Floyer and his wife Charlotte also habitually misunderstand each other as he, characterized as a prissy medical research nerd, talks about measurements and practicalities which she, hop
L-R Stephanie Thompson, Michael Slabinger, Ya Han Chang and Johnny Wu. Photo: Erik Carter