For many people, adolescence is all about feeling totally different, “less than.”
For 14-year-old good-girl Ami—or “Amy” as she prefers to be recognized—in San Francisco Playhouse’s manufacturing of Keiko Inexperienced’s coming-of-age comedy “Exotic Deadly: Or the MSG Play,” her issues concern being American-born in a Japanese household.
Which means, amongst different issues, the embarrassment of bringing her mom’s elaborately ready bento containers for college lunch as an alternative of rooster fingers and fries, like her new boyfriend eats each day.
The play is initially wacky and comical, with skits and anime-style fights and Ami (a perky, charming Ana Ming Bostwick-Singer) addressing the viewers straight, sparring along with her brother (James Aaron Oh, impressively acrobatic) and complaining to her long-suffering mom. Nevertheless it takes a flip when Ami is assigned to organize a faculty report about her roots, and when a troublesome new woman, Betsy, urges Ami in a brand new route.
L-R, Ana Ming Bostwick-Singer, Edric Younger, James Aaron Oh and Francesca Fernandez are among the many wonderful ensemble in San Francisco Playhouse’s “Exotic Deadly: Or the MSG Play.” (Courtesy Jessica Palopoli/San Francisco Playhouse by way of Bay Metropolis Information)
When Ami learns that her long-gone, a lot adulated grandfather was instrumental, again in Japan, within the discovery of the much-maligned meals additive MSG (generally believed to trigger “Chinese restaurant syndrome”), she’s distraught and embarks upon a mission to seek out out the reality. Is MSG actually so evil? Has anti-Asian prejudice probably affected society’s perspective to it?
That entails time-traveling from the current in 1999 to 1968 to satisfy her grandfather—on the backside of the ocean, because it occurs, together with different sad souls taking a slo-mo non-breather from their anxiety-ridden lives above. Was Grandpa an evil scientist or not?
Later, Ami finds herself in Tokyo 1947, because the nation is recovering from the devastation of the conflict. “Maybe this is where I’m supposed to be,” she muses.
However—with the goofy comedy; Ami’s quest to flee teenage ennui (and do her college report) by researching her household’s connection to MSG; the time, place and house journey; the underwater scene; a expertise present and a meta gadget that serves no function—“Exotic Deadly” seems like a reasonably pointless (and, even at solely 90 minutes, overly lengthy), complicated, and at occasions fairly humorous, LSD journey.
L-R, greatest mates Matt (Phil Wong) and Ben (Edric Younger) attend Ami’s highschool in San Francisco Playhouse’s “Exotic Deadly: Or the MSG Play.” (Courtesy Jessica Palopoli/San Francisco Playhouse by way of Bay Metropolis Information)
And there are wonderful performances. Many of the solid play a number of roles; all have excellent comedian timing. As a pair of goofy, sexy youngsters, the particularly hilarious Phil Wong and his bestie (Edric Younger) make an ideal workforce, their timing spot-on; Nicole Tung simply transitions from mild, strongminded Mother to an excessively cheery instructor; and Francesca Fernandez as powerful, influential new-girl-in-school Betsy and extra finds intelligent nuances in her two roles.
For audiences not completely excited by MSG, these performances are this chaotic play’s saving grace.
“Exotic Deadly: Or the MSG Play” runs by March 8 at San Francisco Playhouse, 450 Publish St., San Francisco. Tickets are $35-$135 at sfplayhouse.org.
