This year Renee Liang – poet, playwright/producer, paediatrician, medical researcher and fiction writer – has been as prolific in production as her work is eclectic.

Premiering in the Auckland Fringe and NZ Fringe (Wellington): Under the Same Moon involves three generations of Chinese women and compares old country/ new country lifestyles and values; The Two Farting Sisters, devised by Petit Workshop from a story by Liang based on an old Chinese folktale, uses puppetry to deliver a message about sweet versus toxic natures. The Quiet Room, which premiered at BATS Theatre last month, draws us into the world of a teenager with cancer.*  

Bubblelands opened at Auckland’s Basement Theatre in August (see link below to Dione Joseph’s review). It profiles a Blue Cod (Hweiling Ow) and a Crayfish (Benjamin Teh) awaiting their fates in a Chinese restaurant fish tank: a fantastic idea with great potential.

Blue Cod is fastidious, quiet, introspective, and knows why the sea is so salty. She is spiritual too, in that she believes her destiny will be at the hands of a higher being and she envies those who have already been chosen – until Crayfish makes her look past the glass at reality.

Crayfish is an extrovert wannabe gangsta rapper, given to calling everyone ‘G’, and has inbuilt predatory tendencies. His backstory reveals a cogent provocation for this psychological profile. Blue Cod’s childhood was benign and loving yet she is aware she, like the climate, is changing …

These interesting story elements come to the fore almost incidentally, not driven by a quest or any such objective-based imperative. The characters are necessarily adrift in this play. One may argue that this is the way it is in existential absurdist drama and they are not without purpose. In Waiting for Godot, Didi and Gogo are playing the action to wait, for Godot. Here, Blue Cod is waiting to be chosen by the higher power and Crayfish is filling the void with his gangsta shtick. While Beckett’s tramps believe in Godot, Blue Cod is concerned that Crayfish seems to believe in nothing beyond himself and the moment.

We wait in vain for Crayfish to break out into a full-on rap routine that fully expresses his angst and anger. Judging by Dione’s review, this – or at least “beat-boxing, personalised sound effects and slick dance moves” – did happen in Auckland “at the expense of Blue Cod” and I am guessing it has been cut right back to redress the balance. Maybe it would be a better option for him to exhaust himself and flake out so her very different style can come to the fore – and maybe she needs a song and dance as well.  

The costumes, by Sarah Burren, are superb, as are her faux rock and seaweed elements within the led-light square that depicts the tank. Thanks to the lighting and sound, designed and operated by Sam Mence, and the actors’ drifting physicality, the tank illusion is very convincing: we can almost see the titular bubbles. And the silences, when they happen, are powerful and frightening precursors to the sudden darkness and the sound of the ‘higher being’ at work.

Trying to specify exactly why all these elements don’t quite come together as a satisfying whole is a bit like trying to catch a fish in a tank. I feel there is much more to explore in the metaphysical and existential dimensions, in ways that could generate more empathy and comedy. As it is we are as much adrift on the outside looking in at Bubblelands as they are on the inside only vaguely aware of what’s going on outside.

There is a playful coda about which I must be circumspect. Suffice to say it is gently ‘paua-ful’ in its capacity to leave us contemplating the inexorable nature of life and destiny as exemplified in what Blue Cod has pointed out is “a microcosm”.
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*Other Liang plays include: Lantern (2009; 2104); The First Asian AB (2011); The Bone Feeder (3^rd version, 2011). 

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer

Bubblelands is Renee Liang’s third new work this year, and unlike Under the Same Moon and The Two Farting Sisters, this theatrical appetiser takes some big risks in unchartered waters. 

Liang’s repertoire has reflected the unique perspectives of Chinese New Zealanders from a variety of different positions as questions of identity and belonging are questioned, negotiated and navigated. Bubblelands drifts away from this sphere and offers a novel attempt at re-locating and re-defining what could be mainstream theatrical fare for New Zealand audiences. 

The plot is simple enough: a rather bawdy crayfish with a penchant for rapping to Psy and Soulja Boy meets an OCD blue cod in a fish tank in a Chinese restaurant. The play’s advertising promises a “fable of fishy sentience, ecology and sashimi” and while it doesn’t quite deliver that, what we do have is an extroverted street-smart crustacean whose humour, wit and charm offer some relief to our poor endemic marine fish who is suffering an existential crisis. 

Benjamin Teh steals the show with his beat-boxing, personalised sound effects and slick dance moves and could quite easily pull off a solo crustacean cabaret. Liang has written this role for Teh and it’s clear he’s having an absolute blast while he cavorts around the stage driving his fellow tank-mate to distraction. Unfortunately, this is done at the expense of Blue Cod. Hweiling Ow’s anxiety-riddled character oscillates between repulsion for unidentified liquids and an unwavering faith in ‘the people’ and a greater purpose. Together theirs could be the ultimate fishy friendship and yet, despite the unequivocal talent on display, the work falls frustratingly short. 

Beckett-esque in set-up and style, Bubblelands promises an absurdist drama or at least satirical commentary. That potential does exist, in fact it floats to the surface at least twice, yet the despair, the suffering and the tensions of being caught in cycle of waiting, and still waiting, are glossed over. It’s also easy to get distracted because Teh and Ow are excellent performers who work hard to expand their characters but whether flesh, fish or fowl, these two personas are floundering in a narrative that, in its current iteration, has no substantial core.

Liang has offered us a theatrical titbit. This is a savoury starter which at under an hour is still a long way off morphing into a satisfying feast. Director Amanda Grace Leo has been supported by well-known figures including Beth Kayes and Borni Te Rongopai Tukiwaho and her directorial debut has created a space that offers a promise to change the narrative – not just of bucking stereotypes but also arguing for different narratives. While this is laudable, again there is much work to be done to invigorate this work with a clear sense of purpose that goes beyond this conceptual frame and can bring to the fore the multiple layers that are potentially still untapped.

Various meandering narratives, issues of timing and pacing, the imbalance of the different power-relationships, are teething problems with a play that seems to have been rushed to the stage. There are certain comic elements that work very well but as a comedy (or even as a pastiche of a tragicomedy) the play turns upon itself to reveal very little take away.

However, and this is no exaggeration, the costumes are brilliant.  Sarah Burren has created some of the most fabulous under water costumes to grace the stage at the Basement. Her incredible attention to detail, style and colour, to create these larger-than-life outfits, are one of the highlights of the work.

With a strong and talented team behind it Bubblelands will surely rise to the surface, it just needs to take it’s time.

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer