KISS WITNESS: Prayers for a Hungry Ghost. Barbican Theatre.

STAR RATING:  3 stars

In Chinese mythology and Buddhist beliefs, the hungry ghost symbolises the dangers of human excess. A lifetime of greed, deceit, and unchecked desire leads to an afterlife of unending hunger. Food turns to ash in their mouths, leaving them with an insatiable appetite and thirst. Think of negative karma reborn as an eating disorder. One day each year, these restless spirits return to the living world to feed. “Today is the only day, when the sun goes down, you have to go back,” we are told. Across East and Southeast Asia, families lay out food and water to comfort and refresh their former loved ones.

In Prayers for a Hungry Ghost, theatre company KISS WITNESS, led by Elisabeth Gunawan, combines dance, puppetry, physical theatre, music, and subtitled video projections to immerse us in the ghostly underworld, where three distressed family members confront us. The piece’s dream-like imagery can be striking, and LI YILEI’s sound and music are excellent. The result is a haunting, albeit sometimes challenging to follow, exploration of loss and the lingering consequences of our questionable behaviours.

The Father (Daniel York Loh) is a Chinese immigrant to the United States whose veneer of business success conceals a corrupt soul. The night before an earnings call, he lies slumped over a table, the victim of a stroke. The decapitated puppet head of the man’s doctor – sallow, waxy skin, bluish teeth, the face of Marley’s ghost from A Christmas Carol – hovers over his dying body. Demons (apparently dressed in the uniforms of Singapore Airlines flight attendants) come to collect him. Upon arrival in the afterlife, he encounters the bickering presence of his two seemingly deceased daughters; in this liminal space, the standard rules of time do not apply.

Elder Sister (Elisabeth Gunawan, dressed like Claudia Winkleman from The Traitors) leads a rather miserable life, plagued by jealousy of her overachieving Younger Sister (Jasmine Chiu). “You shine, my light dies,” she laments. Marrying the gruesome puppet doctor who is involved in her father’s downfall does little to improve her happiness, especially as he has a wandering eye for her sibling. Younger Sister is an acclaimed concert pianist trapped by the label of ‘model minority’ and unable to express her authentic self. No wonder this family of ghosts is so unhappy.

Matej Matejka’s movement direction presents dance infused with ballet and Chinese-inspired gestures and dramatic expressions. LI YILEI provides us with a thudding industrial beat, the crackly haze of changing radio stations, and an eclectic musical palette that includes samba, country, and piano. Erin Guan’s video features enlarged live-streamed stage footage of menacing crimson faces, interrupted by text of what appear to be the Chinese equivalent of haiku. It is a visual and auditory treat, although you might find it hard to piece it all together.

Writer:  Elisabeth Gunawan, Daniel York Loh, Jasmine Chiu  

Directors:   Elisabeth Gunawan, Matej Matejka, Tang Sook