(This is an old review of a performance that was put up as part of the M1 Chinese Theatre Festival)

The Story: This performance is interesting. As a one-man show with only a line or two of dialogue, I would best categorize this as a ‘movement piece meets multimedia show’ rather than a play. Our protagonist is stuck in a state of limbo, surrounded by nothingness – but slowly, specific words and white cloths start appearing in the landscape. Something has happened to this girl, leaving her stuck in that moment. We follow her journey to put the puzzle pieces back together, to find out what exactly happened and if she will be okay in the end.

The Verdict: My knowledge of Chinese extends to a select few phrases (“I’m hungry.” “Where’s the washroom?” “I don’t understand Chinese.”) so I was a little out of my comfort zone but very excited. As it turns out, the beauty of this piece is that it has little to no dialogue, making it accessible to even those who cannot utter a word of Chinese. This piece was devised in such a way with the language barriers in mind.

If I had to give this play a genre, it’s definitely a mystery. Who is this girl? What is she thinking? What happened to her? What does all of this mean? The pieces of the story will be revealed through the piece conveyed through images, sound, video clips, words being shown repeatedly. It’s a very experimental piece of theatre and when telling this specific story, works very well.

When all the clues start coming together at the end, it’s a satisfying resolution but at the same time, it opens up a lot of questions about the theme. Who else goes through such traumatic events in their lives? How do we treat them? Could we possibly be in such a situation ourselves at some point?

I don’t have much else to say as this is a simple production but a powerful one that leaves a deep, lingering impact on its audience.