Review: untitled f*ck m*ss s**gon play

Is bad representation better than no representation? I loved Aladdin as a kid. Racially problematic, it may be, but it was the best representation I had. In Aladdin, I was not a terrorist, I was a Prince. As I got older, I realised just how troubling Aladdin was and why we need to fight for better representation. Yet, I remained grateful to have seen myself onscreen, something which previous generations were denied.

Author Kimber Lee answers my opening question with a resounding “no” – and that no comes in the form of a Bruntwood Prize-winning play – untitled f*ck m*ss s**gon play – which is currently having its world premiere at the Royal Exchange Theatre, as part of Manchester International Festival. Hilariously, it is being staged at the same time as Sheffield Theatre’s controversial revival of Miss Saigon.

The play, to put it simply, is a huge “F you” to a century of dangerous East Asian stereotypes, from Madama Butterly to M*A*S*H to Miss Saigon to modern times. The play could have been earnest and preachy but Lee’s writing is punchy and cathartic; it’s hard-hitting but hilarious.

untitlted f*ck m*ss s**gon play begins with a speedy run-through of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly – minus the opera! It highlights the main plot points: Kim (Olivier nominee Mei Mac, a tour-de-force), a Japanese geisha, falls in love with an American soldier, Clark. Soon enough, Clark abandons her. Years later, he returns, now married to a snooty, blonde, White woman, Evelyn. He kidnaps their mixed-race, bastard child, before abandoning her again – leading to Kim’s suicide.

In the original story, Clark does not kidnap the child he abandoned. Rather, Kim gives the child to him so that he can have a better life, before killing herself: her child cannot survive with her but she cannot survive without her child. This play renders that sacrifice ridiculous and tells us what was more likely to happen.

Clark is played by Tom Weston-Jones (Copper, Dickensian, Warrior). Square-jawed and muscular, he embodies the character – and he plays him so well. Throughout most of the play, Clark talks to the Asian characters in their language, even though they talk to him in English. But instead of actually speaking their respective languages, he mutters random Asian words, such as “sashimi”. It’s a hilarious parody of well-travelled but none-the-wiser White people. Somebody needs to sing ‘Colors of the Wind’ to Clark.

The satirical reenactment of Madama Butterfly begins with the velvet-voiced narrator (The Witcher‘s Rochelle Rose) telling us that Kim is “dirt poor but very clean”. The play-within-a-play sees Asian women exoticised, eroticised, and ultimately exterminated as the White nuclear family prevails. It’s a scathing commentary on offensive Asian stereotypes and narratives that render Asians inconsequential. It also criticises real life, such as the sticky circumstances in which wealthy White people adopt Black and brown kids from foreign countries.

Following Kim’s death, the narrator takes us forward a few decades and tells us the story of South Pacific: it is almost entirely the same. The reenactment focuses on the musical’s secondary plot (old musicals tend to have a main love story and a secondary one), which involves an indigenous woman falling in love with an American soldier – who, you guessed it, abandons her. However, untitlted f*ck m*ss s**gon play suggests the plot is almost exactly the same as Madama Butterfly; in reality, their endings are markedly different.

Further, Madama Butterfly‘s title character is called Cio-Cio-San; the character was renamed Kim in the opera’s musical adaptation, Miss Saigon. (Interestingly, in untitled f*ck m*ss s**gon play, there is a different character called Cio Cio). In South Pacific, Kim is actually called Liat. Our Kim rants about Asian female characters always being called Kim, even though Kim is a surname. Whilst the women in the other plays are not called Kim, there are many Asian “Kims” in North American pop culture, so the point stands, even if it is a little mucky.

Whilst these changes could be criticised, Lee is trying to show us how the near-same stories are told time and time again. Indeed, “Asian” stories are often torture porn, similar to blaxploitation, in which a beautiful Asian woman is abandoned by a Western lover and is thus doomed to death because, without a handsome White man, what else does she have to live for?

The play criticises the idea that the Western world, specifically America, is superior. In the play’s adaptation of Madama Butterfly, Kim’s mother encourages her to marry an American so as to escape their poor country; in South Pacific, her lover does the same. Her mother states that women have equality in America whilst her lover states that all races are equal – to laughter from the audience. But in both stories, Kim loves her country; she does not want to leave. The countries would be beautiful if not for American invaders.

My only criticism is that this part of the play drags on a bit. The South Pacific section is, essentially, a reenactment of the Madama Butterfly section. At first, it’s funny and eye-opening but it soon becomes tiresome. “We get the message,” I thought to myself. I worried the entire play would be reenactments of iconic plays.

The play then picks up the pace. The narrator takes us to the television series M*A*S*H and the title piece, Miss Saigon, though the play is careful never to mention the latter by name. It becomes Voldermort: it that must not be named. Lee even she censors the musical’s name in the title of her play, alongside the word “f*ck”; she renders the musical as offensive as an expletive.

The play, essentially a sci-fi, sees Kim travel from one piece of fiction to another, repeatedly forced to the same fate: death.

Then, all of a sudden, we are in modern times, but it is unclear if Kim has returned to the real world or is still in another dimension. To complicate things further, the narrator, who Kim recognises as her tormenter, takes on a persona (Brenda) of her own. The new, modern setting asks us how much, if anything at all, has changed.

This scene is a masterclass in writing, direction and performance. It is truly one of the most gripping scenes I have ever seen onstage. Lee goes a mile a minute, tackling one issue after another, which might feel exhausting, but it’s figurative for the constant obstacles faced by marginalised people – especially those that are doubly marginalised, such as Asian women like Kim. If we cannot have a day off from marginalisation why should anyone else?

Kim’s mother, Rosie (Good Omens‘ Lourdes Faberes), represents the “good immigrant”, determined to keep White folk happy. She delivers a meaty monologue in which she explains her position. Whilst many of them are toxic, the play does not vilify her; it gives her a voice and allows her to explain her reasoning. The monologue does drag on a little but Faberes’ performance is captivating.

The highlight of the scene, though, is Evelyn’s (Call the Midwife‘s Jennifer Kirby) monologue, which completely embodies White feminism. Evelyn tells Kim that they are the same. At one point, she stands in between Brenda and Rosie, who are Black and Asian respectively and pulls them towards her, insisting that all women face the same struggles – with no understanding of intersectionality and the hardships faced by women of colour. This “gaslight gatekeep girl boss” speech had the audience in stitches.

I must also acknowledge Jeff D’Sangalang (The Ocean at the End of the Lane), who plays Afi and Goro. One is her lover, the other her brother, but I do not recall which is which! D’Sangalang’s characterisation of his numerous roles deserves great praise. He makes his problematic characters extremely likeable.

As edifying as it is entertaining, this play is nothing short of groundbreaking. It really is no surprise that it was the inaugural winner of the International Award for The Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting in 2019. It’s a brilliant bow out (and return to form) for the Royal Exchange Theatre’s departing Co-Artistic Director and CEO, Roy Alexander Weise MBE, a Black theatre-maker whose last play, Cat On a Hot Tin Roof, cast Black people in an Antebellum setting with absolutely no acknowledgement of that.

At the post-show drinks reception, I was asked to do a vox pop.

“Can you describe the play in three words?”

“F*ck Miss Saigon.”

untitled f*ck m*ss s**gon play runs at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester until July 22 2023, before transferring to the Young Vic, London from September 18 to November 4 2023.