Untitled F*ck M*ss S**gon Play

UNTITLED F*CK M*SS S**GON IS A PLAY FOR OUR TIME - IT'S SIMPLY PHENOMENAL

I had very little idea of what to expect when I sat down to watch the World premiere of ‘Untitled F*CK Miss Saigon’ on a decidedly grey and miserable Friday evening in Manchester. I reasoned that there must be something special about the play; after all, it was the inaugural winner of the international ‘Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting’ in 2019. But it turns out that ‘special’ really was the wrong word. I could not have imagined that just under two hours later, I would emerge thoroughly emotionally wrung out, having travelled the full gamut of the emotional landscape, but in a way that felt electrifying. What I just witnessed was something beyond ‘good theatre’, or even ‘special’ – this was an intense example of the transformative power of theatre and of writing. This was simply phenomenal.  

Writer Kimber Lee (Plays include ‘Tokyo Fish Story’, ’Different words for the same thing’, ‘Brownsville Tray – B-Side for tray’. Accolades include Lark Playwright’s Workshop Fellow, Dramatists Guild Fellow, member of Ma-Yi Writers Lab, recipient of the Ruby Prize, PoNY Fellowship, Hartford Stage New Voices Fellowship) is a New York-based playwright who has channelled her feelings of frustration and rage at the insidious and pervasive misrepresentation which has resulted in the stereotyped caricatures of East and South Eastern Asian women, into a call to action to change the narrative of such stereotypes and to widen the narrow space awarded to Asian American stories in the cultural world in general. Lee describes her play as being about a woman trying to find her way out of a maze or trap and this is played out in front of the audience in such a powerful way that you can readily feel the anguish and desperation build to an intense crescendo as the play reaches its finality. Lee unleashes the full force of her anger in this piece, which offers a bold confrontation of the portrayal of Asian inferiority, as well as the patriarchy. The result is brilliant.

Despite having no actual interval (the running time is 1 hour and 50 minutes – something which I was not sure I was going to be on board with, but which actually doesn’t feel too long at all because the pace and energy of the piece just makes it work so well) this play is almost a play of two halves – the first focusing on the telling and re-telling of the popular (and painful) representations of Asian culture and women that are so familiar to us all and the second where we are transported back into 2023 to see whether the character of Kim can smash apart the cycle and break free from its inevitability.

The first ‘half’ is brilliantly narrated by Rochelle Rose (‘The Witcher’, ‘Death in Paradise’, ‘Boxing Day’, ‘Rockets and Blue Lights’, ‘Salt’, ‘The Ridiculous Darkness’, ‘Cinderella’, ‘The Winter’s Tale’) who later switches to the role of Brenda. Rose is vibrant, hilarious, deadpan, and utterly mesmerising in her storytelling, capturing the audience with wit, sarcasm, dry humour and an insanely engaging vocal tone and pace. She leads us through a sequence of familiar, popular, cultural representations, all of which, in this context, are excruciatingly recognisable characters from well-known dramatic pieces across the decades. The result, while uncomfortable, is equally hilarious and it must be said, the seamless switching between discomfort and humour is handled spectacularly well. Lourdes Faberas (‘Richard II’, ‘La Boheme’, ‘One Day, Twenty Years’, ‘No time to Die’, ‘The Sandman’, ‘Good Omens’) presents the character of Rosie, and later CIO CIO. The lead character of Kim is presented by British Actor and Laurence Olivier Award Winner Mei Mac (‘My Neighbour Totoro’, ‘Princess Mononoke’, ‘Call the Midwife’) and her portrayal is incredible. She moves fluidly, effortlessly, passionately through the various incarnations of her character with a skill and presence that is incredible and deeply engaging, even when also deeply painful. In the ‘second half’ of the play she gives a speech which brought the theatre to a level of collective silence in a scene which felt like a visceral, raw, confronting punch to the guts. Powerful is not a word that does adequate justice to her performance throughout the evening.

The character of Clark, the typical all-American Soldier we are so familiar with in such stories and hilariously described as one who clearly engages in various fitness activities such as Cardio and High-Intensity Interval Training and is likened at one point to Magic Mike is played to perfection by Tom Weston-Jones (‘Copper’, ‘Spooks’, ‘Warrior’). His random and clearly incorrect use of words in dialogue with the various characters of Vietnam, Korea and the South Pacific are both cringingly embarrassing and full of laugh-out-loud funny. The play itself references his complete lack of awareness for the language and culture of the people he is conversing with in a way which hits a little too close to home at times, but rightfully and humorously so. Jennifer Kirby (‘Teddy’, ‘Pride and Prejudice’, ‘Henry V’, ‘Call the Midwife’) plays Evelyn, (Clark’s wife) in the first half of the story, and Richards (Afi’s Fiancé) in the second half of the story. She is a delightful addition to an extremely strong casts ensemble, adding a little humour and sweetness to Evelyn, and some fierce but (in the context of the scene) completely tone-deaf feminism to the character of Richards later. Jeff D’Sangalong (‘The Ocean at the end of the Lane’), plays the dual roles of Goro and Afi.   

We are taken breathlessly, hilariously, powerfully and, at times, devastatingly through the inter-weaving stories of the characters who are brought to life by this incredible cast. The central narrative is a very real, very clear, very relevant expression of the times in which we live and those which we and, more importantly, others have lived through. The representations of the supposed lived experiences of the character of Kim (amongst others to a far lesser extent) is the rage that fuelled Kimber Lee to write this extraordinary piece and the world is certainly a better place for her having done so. Her words pull no punches. Her rage is poured into every single line and boy does it hit hard at times.   

This energetic production is superbly directed by Roy Alexander Weise (The Mountaintop) for the Royal Exchange Theatre as part of Manchester International Festival. The creative vision for this piece is brought to life in a performance which is profound, clever, and impactful. This play is beyond powerful, the writing is beyond brilliant, and the themes are beyond important. This is a play for our time, as confronting as it is empowering, as hilarious as it is devastatingly painful. The individual performances are exceptional, and the overall impression is phenomenal.

WE SCORE UNTITLED F*CK M*SS S**GON PLAY...