THE tickets were already sold out when I learned that the British Royal Theater was staging Othello—one of the four great Shakespearean tragedies—in early March in Beijing. A friend of mine kindly offered his ticket to me. He said he didn’t understand English, and that his daughter was going to perform in a play on that same night on the same stage with the famous star Xia Yu. I knew he was just trying to make me feel better about accepting the ticket. He had already been to his daughter’s performance twice. Nonetheless, I was very happy to get the ticket. As he handed it to me, he asked, “Isn’t it a bit irrational to put on such a show on THE tickets were already sold out when I learned that the British Royal Theater was staging Othello-one of the four great Shakespearean tragedies-in early March in Beijing. A friend of mine kindly offered his ticket to me. He said he did not understand English, and that his daughter was going to perform in a play on that same night on the same stage with the famous star Xia Yu. I knew he was just trying to make me feel better about accepting the ticket. He had already been to his As he handed it to me, he asked, ”Is not it a bit irrational to put on such a show on