James Roque and Chye-Ling Huang nimbly juggle multiple roles in the play Lantern that deals with the Chinese experience in New Zealand.
Auckland's ever-expanding Lantern Festival has burst out of its Albert Park site to encompass a contemporary piece of theatre that casts a flickering light on aspects of the Chinese experience that usually remain unseen.
By focusing on personal responses to a disintegrating marriage, playwright Renee Liang has created an intimate
Kiwi drama that confirms Tolstoy's adage that every unhappy family is "unhappy in its own way".
There is a finely nuanced understanding of cultural stereotypes, with the New Zealand-born children of Chinese immigrants showing they are completely at home with Kiwi culture but still feel a painful sense of being outsiders.
The younger characters ironically toy with the familiar cliches about the Chinese temperament and undermine the pervasive assumption that a fierce work ethic and unassuming demeanour somehow make the Chinese immune to emotional trauma.
The play has the luminous texture of a collage in which fragments of conversation and lucid memories are scrambled together in a story that sometimes lacks narrative momentum but succeeds in drawing the audience into enjoyment of sharply observed details.
