Shuyan is your typical Chinese single child in her early 20s – privileged, but under mountain-high expectations, book smart but feeling uninspired. Everything falls apart when Shuyan struggles to finish her PhD application. Confronted by her parents’ big existential question- ‘What do you really want?’ she chose to run away from home and hide elsewhere. Can she find her answers there?
Combining elements of shadow puppetry, dark fairytales, comedy and magical realism, Elsewhere在别处 is a quirky, sometimes comical, sometimes touching show about an individual’s search for purpose in the backdrop of the world’s second superpower: China.
PRODUCED by Out of the Blue Theatre Company
WRITTEN & PERFORMED by Haylin Cai
CO-DIRECTOR: Robin Khor
PRODUCERS: Amy Sze and Maki Li
ASSISTANT PRODUCER: Chenxing Liu
STAGE MANAGER: Camila Hoyos Stuttle
MOVEMENT DIRECTOR: Emma-May Uden
PUPPETRY CONSULTANT: Fagner Gastaldon
SCENOGRAPHER: Agnes Yeung
With the help of Christie Zhao, Marian Lee, Yang Bai, Amy Gwilliam, Marcos Brito, Saveriano Paoli and Purple Moon Drama Project Platform
Tobi King Bakare and this theatre deserve a shout-out for such a young, diverse audience. There is so much talk about audiences being full of over 60s and why, why can’t theatres get the crowds in to reflect society in general? Well, I’m happy to say that on a rainy Thursday evening, the theatre was completely full.
Caiti Grove on Before I Go in CPT's Spring 2023 season London Theatre Reviews
