Everything Theatre Reviews, interviews and news for theatre lovers, London and beyond
Camden Fringe 2024
A show that struggled with technical issues, but even overlooking those, it still feels lacking much substance in its current form.Summary
Rating
Ok
It’s difficult to really know exactly what to make of Yuhe Tian‘s Re:Name, because it seems they had a major tech failure early on that clearly affected the whole show. The sound failed and so, Ray Tao, in charge of sound and light, was forced to do the numerous voice overs from the technician’s box. So you do have to credit Tian for battling through the difficulties and actually completing the show. But just as the show must go on, so a review must be written, and even allowing some grace for those technical issues, Re:Name feels a rather incomplete show. Even at just 30 minutes it still feels lacking enough to sustain that runtime.
Beginning with shadow play behind a white screen, it doesn’t get off to a successful start, even with sound working at this point. The shadows cast are not distinct enough and don’t add much meaning to what is being said. When Tian finally steps from behind the screen she begins to paint whilst we hear yet more voiceovers. It is all rather pedestrian in pace, over reliant on those voiceovers and lacking in any great interest. There is a place for voiceovers in fringe theatre – it helps keep costs down if nothing else – but the skill is knowing just how much you can use. Here it is excessive, with Tian not uttering a sound for at least the opening five minutes.
Once Tian does start to speak and interact directly with the voiceovers, we do at least start to garner some meaning to the show. Tian declares she is from a typical Southeast Asian family, suffering from the usual low self esteem. It’s all supported by a male voice berating her for failing to be first in anything– top three just not good enough. It’s in these moments there is a semblance of a show peeking through, especially when she declares ‘can you tell me even once that you are proud of me?’
The show is actually billed as exploring the hidden depths of her name and reclaiming it, having previously changed it to “Tina” — much easier to pronounce by Western tongues. But other than one scene as she attempts to teach someone how to say her name, this concept never really comes through, leading to a lack of any noticeable direction for the whole production.
This lack of direction is even more prominent when suddenly Tian breaks the fourth wall, declaring “Tina’s Story” over, and instead addresses us with a speech that feels almost a boast about her actual successes, certainly a contrast to her talk of low self-esteem. It’s a jarring change and seems almost as if trying to justify what had gone before, but the two parts feel at odds with one another with no real bind.
When Tian says ‘it’s OK to make mistakes’ I momentarily wonder if the sound issues were deliberate? But surely not. This drags me back to considerations of whether the sound problems had not occurred would the show have been better. I fear not: the depth just isn’t there at present, and whatever Tian is trying to say is lost along the way. Re:Name feels more a work in progress than a show ready for the stage. It needs to decide what it wants to be and how it plans to tell that story if it has any plans of life beyond Camden Fringe.
Written and directed by: Yuhe Tian
Dramaturgy by: Bessie Wang
Produced by: Chenxing Liu
Sound and Lighting by: Ray Tao
Set Design by: Cheuk Yan Agnes Yeung
Re:Name played as part of Camden Fringe 2024.
