Review: Who the hell is Robert Wayne? Etcetera Theatre

The Oxford Arms, bang in the middle of Camden High Street, is refreshingly grubby and as rude as it ever was. Meanwhile, upstairs at Etcetera Theatre, Li Zhuolang, debuts their solo show Who the Hell is Robert Wayne? as part of this year’s CamdenFringe Festival.

Lily Cheng Wangshuo (Li Zhuolang) invests her cultural loneliness as a North-Western Chinese person in London into western pop cultures, especially comic books and other superhero merchandise. She is an angry, fist fighting, contemporary female who is packing up her rented flat to move in with her boyfriend. Her focus is derailed by her passion to be cast as Ratman in a remake of the movie, and by her urgency to share her thoughts on the tokenism that is often attached to Chinese and East Asian characters. Brandon, her white British boyfriend, is purposely explored only through Lily’s narrative – by phone conversation or what she chooses to tell the audience about their relationship. This is tempered with some lovely lyrical pieces of text with storytelling around the North East Chinese moon and how they first met.

The opening scenes are spoken in Chinese and are cleverly set up for a mini Ted talk later in the show where Lily produces a map of North West China and reminds the audience of the many dialects spoken there. She speaks Mandarin and there is an enjoyable tour of these various dialects, reminding the audience that referencing a generic Chinese accent would be the equivalent of everyone in the UK speaking with a Brummie accent!

The set works as an outgrown teenage fan bedroom with figurines of super heroes, posters and packing boxes. A red kimono symbolically hangs in the background like a cultural cape – explained away as belonging to Brandon, the boyfriend. The desk with laptop balanced on stacked Batman videos is a nice detail and gives space to one of the several well-crafted scenes: Zhuolang portrays an authentic snapshot of an actor’s life during a Zoom call with a casting director. There is good writing around this part of the show, with honest reflections on the title question and what the hell heritage, belonging and identity means to this young aspiring actor (in both worlds), along with the dilemma of choosing morals over money. The multi-layered time constraint structure also works well with pressures of packing, the possibility of Brendan’s arrival and getting a showreel done, all by the end of the night.

It is apparent the creator wants a comic book style lighting design and there are moments where this works, while it feels unnecessary in others. At the end of the show the audience are effectively given two visual choices of either a traditional female stereotype or a contemporary Asian superhero. This mirrors the poster image and neatly leaves the ongoing conversation open.

Producing, writing and performing a debut solo show takes stamina and heroic creativity. There is much that is engaging and witty in this debut, offering a loud debate about the portrayal of Chinese and East Asian characters. Going forward it would hugely benefit from a creative team so that all Avengers Assemble! And the final question is, who the hell is Robert Wayne ? He’s a white male super hero vigilante known as Batboy, or Ratmanin Lily Cheng Wangshuo’s world, and arguably, if the mask fits then any hero can wear it.

You can read more about the show in our recent interview here

Produced, written and performed by Li Zhuolang.

Who the hell is Robert Wayne? plays at Etcetera Theatre until Wednesday 13 August.