FRINGE REVIEW: “This is Not a Show About Hong Kong”

This is Not a Show About Hong Kong – Venue 61 – Underbelly Cowgate – Big Belly – 2pm

THERE are some shows that you enjoy but leave you as you exit the theatre, and then there are some shows that you’re not sure if “enjoy” is the right word to use, but they linger with you long afterwards – Max Percy and Friends’ This is Not a Show About Hong Kong is the latter.

Even upon walking into the room, there is an atmosphere that I am unsure how to describe – an eerie sort of anticipation. The set is simple. Four chairs were lined on the far-right side of the stage and a round table set with plates and chopsticks to the upper left.

The performance began with a seemingly reasonable automated request not to use phones during the show before its ramped up in tension, asking audience members to report anyone infringing on this rule to ushers so that they would be forcefully removed from the premises.

After a staticky and frenetic introduction video that increased our heartrates, the sound of a ticking clock kept the tempo as the actors walked silently on stage.

Over the next hour, each movement and sound from the actors would be incredibly deliberate, from the way they moved their bodies, to those bodies’ physical interaction with props and each other, to their careful facial expressions.

Each moment the cast members were on stage, your eyes track their movements. I could feel my heartbeat in my throat as at the incredible moments of “slow motion” during a dinner fight over a grenade, felt my stomach drop at an increasingly frantic embrace over broken glass, and my breath catch at the heartbreakingly repetitive moments of parents naming a child that doesn’t or no longer exists.

This is Not a Show About Hong Kong is breathtaking and claustrophobic, where even the moments of supposed levity are fraught. Each scene is choreographed to not only provoke the suffocating feeling of living in an increasingly policed state but also to elicit discomfort in the face of British imperialism.

One scene in particular portrayed this with a cast member sensually eating Marmite with their fingers. They appear to enjoy it at first but as they eat more and more, as if someone is holding a gun on them and forcing them to do so, their eyes grow more frantic as they struggle to hide their revulsion. Like imperialism, the violence of this act is disguised as something the person is supposed to benefit from.

All four cast members gave phenomenal performances. Even if the discomfort of reality makes you want to look away, don’t. Max Percy and Friends’ This is Not a Show About Hong Kong is a must see.

FIVE STARS

Get the full details about the show here.

Plus, read more reviews on Scottish Field’s Fringe pages.