Into the show!
The set looks like all the bedrooms of my high school friends uptop and like the local Chinese restaurant down stairs. Right down to the dark 'bamboo' Tiffany chairs and red table cloths.
Smashing dialogue. We open with Pearl singing I WILL SURVIVE on top of a table celebrating her divorce. Single in neon lights up. She's ambitious and ready to start a new life. We meet her younger daughter Mai who is struggling with being not Aussie enough along with all the other teen issues. (And her brilliant friend Katie.) Asian in neon lights up. Finally we meet Zoe an aspiring professional violinist late for an audition because of a recent tinder date. Dealing with a bitch who also wants the gig. Female in neon lights. Act 1 unravels Pearl has a secret she is trying to tell her girls but they are so wrapt up in their own troubles she can't get it out. But she gives and gives to them. Closing the restaurant and clearing it out but still offering to throw an after formal party for Mai (though after meeting the awful Lana we all know how that will turn out). Then a toilet rises out of up stage with Zoe and a pile of tests in get hand, pregnant. Simultaneously the phone rings and she's offered the orchestra spot she needs. Three women highlighted alone. Family.
Act two:
Well you know it's great when the audience aren't ready to give up clapping so they have to turn the lights up to get us to leave!
Heartbreaking secret is that she's being deported thanks to her husband shady business dealings in her name. Her abusive ex husband who raped her and hurt her and made her feel less than the amazing woman she is.
Super love Zoe who has panick attacks and copes with them just normal and noone freaks out. They just do the things she needs. Zoe's boyfriend is so hot. And so so amazingly great at being a normal human.
This play was a scream out loud funny, with sobs mixed in once you loved them so much you wish never to be parted from the Wong's. I'm in Chains indeed.
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