Theatre Company: The Oryza Foundation for Asian Performing Arts
Location: Herald Theatre

Synopsis:

From the Oryza Foundation website:
A premiere of seven short-format works:

• Mount Head (by Hiroshi Nakatsuji) - This tragic comedy begins when the stingy protagonist greedily munching on cherries and the seeds he finds under a cherry tree. One of the seeds germinates within him and grows into a cherry tree… on his head! This surrealistic story closes with the most unexpected and peculiar ending.
• The Mooncake and the Kumera (by Mei-Lin Hansen and Kiel McNaughton) - Set in September 1927 in a market garden in Manawatu during the four weeks leading up to the mid-autumn moon festival, the play tells the story of the growing relationship between Chao Kum Chee - a Chinese man from Long Gai in Naam Tsuen - and Alice Paniora Williams - a Maori girl from Whatawhata, Waikato. In the shadow of this blossoming relationship is the dwindling connection between Chao and his wife in China. During the play Chao and his wife exchange letters which reveal Chao's struggle to find a sense of belonging in New Zealand and his wife's struggle to deal with his absence.
• Midnight, State Highway 1 (by Mukilan Thangamani) - A young Indian man and an East-Asian woman meet after an unexpected incident, a late night car accident on a deserted highway. As they wait for a tow-truck, they start to bond and soon realize that they might share a special connection.
• Intrusions (by Misa Tapou) - Condemned and despised for the colour of his skin, and through the hypocrisy of society, Lone Figure holds on to his golden dream of being with his lover. But how long can one hold on for? Soon the pressure invades his soul and he snaps into action to fight for his right, as the weight of discrimination against him viciously usurps his lonely world.
• Mask (by Renee Liang) - A modern theatre piece inspired by traditional Chinese Opera forms, Mask is the tale of a Chinese daughter growing up in New Zealand and how she comes to terms with her split identity. It is also about a Chinese father and how he responds to his daughter's changing ideas. At its heart, Mask is about inter-generational conflicts that we all might face, no matter what colour we are, and about bravery in the face of change.
• The Loyal Customer (by Ying Ly) - A trashy pregnant girl who dreams of going to fashion school becomes a regular customer at an Asian food stall. She charms the stoic owner into a friendship he doesn't expect. In the end her opportunistic action inadvertently changes the course of his life.
• Citizen 3 (by Davina Goh) - Citizen 3 portrays the story of Sean, a young Malaysian Chinese man who, due to his multi-cultural upbringing, is having trouble living up to the expectations of both his nationality and ethnic background. It starts to take a toll on his career prospects and overall spirits. He eventually accepts the need to act on his cultural shortcomings. However, the helping hand that Sean’s girlfriend offers leads to a sudden turn of events that exposes the detrimental effects of Sean’s conditioning into ignorance of kin.

Thoughts on this Production:

With seven completely different pieces, it is not surprising that there were a few that I didn’t enjoy as much as others. However there were enough that I really enjoyed to make the night out worth it. The standouts for me were The Loyal Customer (a very touching story that was extremely well executed by the two main characters), Mask (which clearly communicated the difficulties of trying to build a bridge between parental expectation and the realities of living in a different culture), Midnight, State Highway 1 (reminded me that there is often a lot about other people we don’t know) and The Mooncake and the Kumera (which did a powerful job of communicating the difficulties of relocation - and the woman who played the maori character was utterly beguiling).