Comedy meets culinary arts at rEvolver Festival's Discounted Hotpot Centre
Writer-director Anthony Kit Chun Lee’s solo show digs into the meaning of authenticity
Discounted Hotpot Centre.
Upintheair Theatre and Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre present Discounted Hotpot Centre at C-Lab at The Cultch on May 24 at 9:30 pm, May 28 at 3:45 pm, June 2 at 8:15 pm, and June 3 at 1:30 pm as part of rEvolver Festival 2023
HAVING GROWN UP in Hong Kong, Anthony Kit Chun Lee is a voracious fan of hotpot. The interactive dining experience involves people dipping fresh, raw ingredients like thinly sliced meat, seafood, tofu, vegetables, greens, and all kinds of other small pieces of food into a savoury, sizzling batch of broth that sits in the centre of the table. Lee, who moved Vancouver seven years ago to study film at Simon Fraser University, is now digging into that beloved meal for his theatre piece Discounted Hotpot Centre, which is running at the 2023 rEvolver Festival.
At the very heart of the solo show, which will be performed by Harmony Yen as a saleslady named May trying to hawk her hotpot meal kit, is a question of authenticity. It refers in part to the product that May is attempting to sell, which may or may not be so “authentic” after all. The script also speaks to what it means to be a Hong Konger in Canada.
“I always joked about how much I loved hotpot and that I would make a show about it one day,” Lee shares in an interview with Stir. “It’s a huge part of people’s lives back in Hong Kong. I wanted to make a show that has the voice of a newcomer, who has a very different experience from someone who’s grown up in Canada. I have always felt connected to my culture, so never had to reconnect with it.”
Where things became more complex was during the brainstorming for the show, which had a successful run at the 2022 Vancouver Fringe Festival. Lee, Yen, and crew members—who also have Hong Kong roots—wanted to present the “real” place rather than rely on stereotypical ideas that might come up when westerners think of it: things like population density, sky scrapers, and wet markets. But when the time came to get the story on the page, all of those same features kept coming back into the conversation.
“It turns out it’s really hard to pinpoint what is authentic to me versus what is just a stereotypical image,” Lee says. “So there you go: we tried to find authenticity in our creation process and it turns out we found nothing authentic. And we must find a way to be okay with it.”
Comedy meets culinary arts in Discounted Hotpot Centre; throughout the show, Yen is actually making hotpot, meaning that the sounds, sights, and smells from the cooking process fill the theatre. And audiences are invited to enjoy a free bowl of hotpot after each show, courtesy of Vancouver’s 852 Kitchen.
The show’s unconventional format is just one that breaks with theatrical norms at this year’s rEvolver Festival. Other examples include Duality, with its contemporary juggling; Prude’s stand-up and drag; Beat, Yeet & Eat!, which features performance-art activism; and A Buzz in Your Hub, a satirical Zoom webinar.
Anthony Kit Chun Lee
Lee, who finished his directing debut at SFU in June 2022 with a digital theatre piece that combined livestream and live cinema, was inspired to go in a completely different direction with his latest creative project by Derek Chan’s Eat My Heart Out. Presented by Rumble Theatre last spring, that show featured expressive vignettes told through the unfolding of a seven-course meal.
“I wanted to write something of my own and tell stories that I take ownership of,” Lee says. “Many times I read plays that have glamorous amounts of fancy and poetic lines, only to make the story inaccessible to the audience. So the goal of this project is to convey something that’s accessible to the audience. Eat my heart out gave me the courage to write something personal, vulnerable, and weird, but most of it all, it was very simple.
“Whether or not you have a similar lived experience as May, you will find relatable moments in the play,” Lee adds. “I think a lot of immigrants, especially those from Hong Kong, like myself, who are running away from political turmoil, will find this a refreshing piece. I hope that there is a space for us to have a voice in this diverse city and to continue to fight for what we believe in. It’s also a space for folks who are interested in getting to know about stories of Hong Kongers in Canada and who want to access this through a light-hearted, entertaining story.”
If the show’s Fringe experience is any indication, people are hungry for this kind of artistic offering.
“Originally, I really thought six people would show up,” Lee says. “I mean, we weren’t sure if the regular Fringe-goer—in my head it was middle-aged white people—would want to see something this ‘different’. But it turns out word spreads really quickly, and we sold out quite a few shows.”
Related Articles
