Exotic Deadly: Or the MSG Play
“Hey everyone, thanks for coming — I guess,” says Japanese-American Ami to the audience at the outset, and it’s a solid opening line. Right away, we know that Keiko Green’s play will be boldly self-conscious, and that Ami will be self-conscious in a different way. Ever heard the lament that Asian-Americans are invisible? The 14-year-old likes it that way, likes it to the point of going by “Amy” instead of “Ah-mi,” to the point of slacking off so that she can sink unnoticed into the middle of her class, to the point where she will do battle with her mother over being made to bring a bento box to school for lunch. Said battle is conducted as a live-action video-game fight, complete with devastating Sneak Attack.
It’s a wild and wacky ride, this one, loaded with high-nostalgia pop-cultural references (it’s 1999, except when it’s 1947 or ‘68) and relying on lead Ann Mikami’s charm and dizzying energy to give it oomph. To her horror, she’s assigned a research project on her family, and it takes her back to a time when Asian-Americans were not invisible, but were instead demonized for bringing America the delicious poison that was MSG. (It's hard to ignore something as ominous as Chinese Restaurant Syndrome — just like it’s hard to ignore the new girl in school, a Japanese import who used to be a beloved singer but wound up on the outs.) Except maybe people shouldn’t be so quick to believe what they read in scientific journals?
Suddenly, things are getting murky, given the obvious pings on the cultural radar regarding the recent rise in hate crimes against Asian Americans and what the New York Times used to call the “Wuhan Coronavirus.” Shots get fired here at both The Science and People Who Read (Okay, Skimmed) an Article, and it’s all bit much for Ami. But her real trouble isn’t based on where she’s from or where she is now — it’s more personal than that, which makes all the cultural conflict and inventive zaniness feel like something of a (fun and funny) distraction.
When
Ongoing until Sunday, May 7, 2023
Hours
| Sundays, 2pm & 7pm |
| Tuesdays, 7pm |
| Wednesdays, 7pm |
| Thursdays, 8pm |
| Fridays, 8pm |
| Saturdays, 2pm & 8pm |