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Sami's Paradise

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I just saw Sami's Paradise and it was an entertaining time. Unlike the last piece from Belvoir I saw (Single Asian Female), this depicts deep topics, but each one plays a significant part. It's been a long time since I've seen anything even remotely funny coming from theatre and this play does deliver on that front. The style that this play uses is a bit confusing, because it goes for absurdism, then Brechtian and then moves over to farce. The stand out for this production is the ensemble cast. They all play interchangeable characters and while they are mostly cringeworthy, provide a good laugh now and again. The deep topics that I previously mentioned include things like immigration and suicide. Thankfully none of these topics are portrayed in a way that would seem pandering or annoying and is done with humour to show their stupidity and flaws. That isn't to say that this play is perfect, because it isn't. For example, there is not a flowing narrative. The sto...
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A Single Asian Female

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I j ust saw A Single Asian female and it was not great. That's not to say that the play didn't have some sort of merit, because it did, with only one aspect. That was with  Hsiao-Ling Tang's performance. She is the only one of the cast that I personally found believable and was thoroughly invested in throughout the show. You could feel the pain and suffering that her character was going through and was the best part of the play. The other aspect that is commendable is the set design, the attention to detail that went into it is apparent and easy to admire.  But aside from those two aspects, the rest of the play was forgettable, to put it charitably. The writing and tone of the play is extremely inconsistent. At one point, we could be seeing a very depressing sequence to going to a cringeworthy part of family drama. This happens throughout the play, but the parts that annoyed me the most is how there are so many subplots in the entire play and none of them get resolved ...
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