Theatre Review - The First Prime-Time Asian Sitcom

Director: Ahi Karunaharan
Playwright/Assistant Direction: Nahyeon Lee
Cast: Ariadne Baltazar, Dawn Cheong, Uhyoung Choi, Jehangir Homavazir, Jess Hong
Venue: Q Theatre - Loft

Presented by Silo Theatre in collaboration with Q Theatre.

It’s Saturday night and we’re off to the theatre to see, of all things, a play about the taping of a new TV sitcom. As we take our seats in the Loft of the Q Theatre, the audience is treated to up-beat Japanese music over the sound system. The fun and welcoming vibe it creates belies the chaos that we’ll eventually descend into in roughly forty minutes. For now though, things still feel hopeful. Exciting. The First Act of The First Prime-Time Asian Sitcom is dominated by the taping of the pilot episode of ‘The First Prime-Time Asian Sitcom.’ We, the interactive audience, are directed to clap, laugh or cheer as needed. This showmanship, this enthusiasm, this hope masks the reality of creating a sitcom (or play) of this kind. Thinly veiled, below the surface lies a lot of discussion, strife and heartache when it comes to making the first of anything, let alone something that will represent your minority culture. We’ll soon discover that The First Prime-Time Asian Sitcom is a play full of capital letters and meta narratives. ‘Asian,’ ‘First,’ ‘Diversity,’ ‘Representation’ - everything is a proper noun, loaded and bearing the weight and responsibility of what it entails. But first hope, excitement - the sitcom! The First Prime-Time Asian Sitcom is being made.

Watch any amount of popular sitcoms like ‘Married with Children,’ ‘8 Simple Rules’ or ‘The Big Bang Theory’ and you’ll know that stereotypes and gags are their bread and butter. ‘The First Prime-Time Asian Sitcom’ is no different and it’s slightly uncomfortable because of that. The sitcom starts by playing with different Asian stereotypes - the Tiger parent, the desirable doctor character, etc. - before taking a turn to less tried territory, like whether the darker skinned characters are considered partner-material in the minds of their East Asians flatmates. Things are presented in a comedic way but you can tell that, as the audience, we’re not sure whether we’re meant to be laughing. The tired nature of the old stereotypes about Asians feels cringy and worn out, while the newer stereotypes start to hint at the prejudices that fuel them. Some of us are laughing and the actors are hamming it up just fine, but unease starts to ripple through the theatre, mirrored by some smart directing and lighting choices. Every so often, green light flashes and the cast pause mid-action, allowing us to slice through the scene to glimpse something darker beneath. It’s not a new technique in theatre, but it’s used effectively. Even the way the pilot starts is unnerving, the actors suddenly snapping to attention as the lights lift, as if they’ve been ‘turned on,’ just like their flat’s TV, ready to play their parts. We won’t realise how true that is until we venture further into Act 2 and 3 of the play. For now though, it’s clear that this is how we’re meant to feel - slightly complicit, vaguely guilty. The creatives behind TFPTAS know what they’re doing, down to how how hesitatingly the audience laughs. By the end of Act 1, ‘The First Prime-Time Asian Sitcom’ feels like a success, if only for simply existing as a show about all-Asian characters written by an all-Asian writing team. We’ll feel quite differently, or at least conflicted, by the end of Act 2.

In Act 2 of TFPTAS, the sitcom pilot has aired and the play’s cast are reintroduced as a panel moderator and panel guests - an Online Activist, an Academic, a Writer and our sitcom’s Showrunner. It’s at this point that the skills of writer, Nahyeon Lee, really shine through. Just as the panellists are just monikers or representations of real people on real panels, TFPTAS isn’t just a play but a stand-in for all of the discussions that have occurred both publicly and behind closed doors about what “good” or “proper” Asian representation looks like. As the panel discussion continues, Lee’s lines are almost perfectly formed examples of the type of justification, criticism and dialogue shared in Asian spaces. The cast deliver their back and forth remarks in increasingly rapid fire to the point where the panel almost doesn’t feel realistic anymore. It’s too perfect. Too cutting. Rapidly, the panel descends into a heated argument about whether ‘The First Prime-Time Asian Sitcom’ is helping or hurting Asian representation in mainstream media. Criticism and discussion are vital in society, but it’s hard not to feel sympathy for the Showrunner as the panel dialogue starts to break down. Watching the scene unfold, the more empathetic part of me starts to wonder whether criticism like this is helpful or not when it comes matters of minority storytelling and representation. At a certain point (and are we still at that point?), should every step forward be considered a win? At what point do we have enough wins that we can begin to criticise ourselves and our community? Ultimately, trying to tell minority stories within the current media landscape with its advertising needs and inherent compromises can feel like playing a rigged game with a weak hand. In tough times, you can only respond to the situation in two ways - with hope or madness. TFPTAS shows us the darker side of that coin.

In Act 3, we move to the sitcom’s all-Asian writers room (the same cast again) where they discuss the public’s reaction to the pilot. We’re treated to an example of how things can start out well-meaning and collaborative before turning into disruption and discord. Before we know it, the writers room, another group of allies, breaks down into accusations and pointed fingers. The act of trying to tell minority stories in a broken system can be traumatic and necessarily picks away at the foundations of how Asians are perceived, how we identify with each other and how we identify within ourselves. ‘What does it mean to be Asian?’ is the question being asked and TFPTAS shows us plainly that trying to answer it is nuanced, difficult, and yes, at times, traumatic. In many ways, the play is a truncated version of these types of discussions happening in creative communities all over the world, while also emotionally conveying some of the guess work and sense of responsibility felt by those involved. Have I been hired because I’m a good ‘X’ or because I’m an Asian ‘X’? As the Showrunner tells the other writers, ‘Be reassured, all of you aren’t diversity hires and all of you are diversity hires.’ As multicultural and diverse stories gain in popularity, what role are Asian creatives being asked to play by the systems that run and fund them? Through Act 2 and 3, TFPTAS posits that it’s a complicated and perhaps unfair one, with many Asians in these spaces being forced to be advocates, interpreters, appeasers and anarchists in their pursuit of both commercial success and cultural authenticity.

Watching TFPTAS is an intense experience. While the dialogue in Act 3 falls flat a little bit and the cast don’t deliver their lines as strongly as they did during the panel, tension still builds as the writers start to fight amongst themselves. Again, Lee has taken everything that she and other Asian creatives have probably discussed in rooms just like the writers’ one and attempted to model it on stage. A particularly striking line is when one writer character explodes, saying that they don’t want to be palatable, ‘I want to be poison.’ This line shows the balancing act that minority storytellers and creatives must perform, the compromises that are sometimes made in order to “make it.” These conflicting responsibilities and emotions overcome the Showrunner, leading to the play’s chaotic ending and arguably the best bit of staging of the night. As the Showrunner expresses the rage and frustration that has been building since Act 1, her person and the sets undergo a certain kind of destruction. Emotionally and visually, the culmination of these feelings and the unravelling of the Showrunner character is explosive and intense. Honestly, it looks like fun, but it’s also very cathartic. The sense of unease we felt at the beginning finally has a face and a voice, rhythmically emitting the word ‘FUCK’ as the Showrunner tosses chairs and throws paper. Where can we go from here?

While many questions are raised during TFPAS, no answers are provided, only the reality of what it means to be a creative or storyteller from a minority culture. There is a cyclical structure to the play where it begins and ends with the sitcom’s cast performing to the audience. In Act 1, it’s as typical sitcom characters, however by the time the play starts to wrap, they’re more like puppets, giving a literal show and dance while they smile and move in tandem. Occasionally a pained expression, a fumbled step, will break through and return us to the eerie, unnerving moments from Act 1. Broadly, TFPTAS gives us an example of the ‘dancing monkey’ trope that illustrates how capitalism forces all of us to participate and behave in a system that doesn’t necessarily benefit or care about us in order to make a living. We do what we have to. It’s this ‘we do what we have to’ stance that’s repeated by the Showrunner character. It’s unclear whether the play’s creators believe in this sentiment or not. As one character comments, as Asians, we all have such a broad range of experiences. Perhaps we need to make our own decisions based on discussions and plays like this one.

In the end, TFPTAS reminds us that what the public sees is only what has made it through the boardrooms, funding applications, writers rooms and TV executive offices to land on our screens or stages. Inevitably filtered, it’s hard to know how much has been compromised, minimised or quelled altogether in order for it to make it to that primetime spot. These are things that we should be cognisant of. Leaving the theatre, one feels contemplative, confronted, and concerned about how we can tell our stories authentically. While the Showrunner’s emotional spiral is undoubtedly a smash-grab-purge-it-with-fire display of fury and frustration and the play’s ending is a discouraging caricature, this reviewer would like to see it as a challenge. If this is what Asian creatives potentially face when creating new material, do we inevitably need to scream ‘Fuck’ while throwing things to get anything done? Time will tell.

Overall, the cast provided solid dramatic and comedic performances and mostly blended well into each new set of characters. They had the real challenge of having to inhabit multiple people in a short space of time while carrying the emotional pacing of the play, a challenge they rose to admirably. A special shout out in particular to Dawn Cheong for having a throw an absolute fit every night for almost two weeks. Director, Ahi Karunaharan and Playwright/Assistant Director, Nahyeon Lee displayed their ability to skilfully tell nuanced and intense stories. Smart and efficient staging, scripting and directing choices all helped to create a very tight, well structured play whose message and theatrical appeal deserve a wider audience. Wellington, I’m looking at you host this engaging piece of theatre next.