By Barry Willis
Some have forgotten the horrors of 2020—the sudden onslaught of a deadly new airborne disease called COVID-19, the fear and hate it provoked, the many thousands of victims it claimed, and the governmental incompetence that failed to save them.
Performance artist Kristina Wong has forgotten none of it.
Her career abruptly cut short by the pandemic, the San Francisco native found herself isolated in LA’s Korea Town, dismayed by the daily news and baffled about what—if anything—she could do to help. The national Centers for Disease Control repeatedly issued edicts that the best way to prevent transmission of COVID was through the simple act of wearing masks, which were in short supply during the first months of the pandemic.
Wong was stunned by the lack of facemasks, not just for ordinary people but for frontline healthcare workers, many of whom succumbed to the disease as a result of their work. She sprung into action with her trusty sewing machine, making masks from any available fabric and mailing them off in small batches where she thought they might be most needed. She gradually recruited other women sheltering-in-place, most of them Asians, who cranked out homemade masks from anything they could find, including old clothing. Soon she was head of a loosely-organized but very determined network of “Aunties” who busied themselves with the laudable work of saving lives—a group she called “The Auntie Sewing Squad,” or “ASS” for short. Ultimately, ASS made more than 350,000 masks.
… the best solo performance we’ll see this season …
Part standup comedy, part performance art, part concise and incisive recent history, and all heart, Wong’s self-titled Sweatshop Overlord is by turns hilarious, heartwarming, and horrific. She spares no one in her retelling of that hideous year and the months that followed, with special vitriol directed at both the anti-mask/anti-vax/anti-science faction and at the incomprehensible nostalgia for the 45th president—one who was himself infected, got world-class medical treatment at taxpayers’ expense, then refused to endorse mask-wearing while hosting super-spreader events at the White House. And of course, no revisiting of that period would be complete without mention of the Jan. 6 insurrection—another astounding act of idiocy.
Wong covers all this and more with wry, self-deprecating humor and frenetic energy as she roams the stage at ACT’s Strand Theater, designed by Junghyun Georgia Lee to evoke a sewing room out of “Gulliver’s Travels,” with bolts of fabric the size of rolled carpets, and pincushions large enough to serve as chairs.
Projections by Caite Hevner provide much-needed visual background as Wong relates her tale, never hesitating to lay blame where it most belongs, which is not to imply that her approximately 95-minute nonstop performance is wholly a political rant. Some of her cutaways are drop-dead hilarious, such as an extended bit about a genital cyst she suffered during the shutdown, evoked by an inflated balloon bobbling between her legs. In a throwaway bit about organizing groups of children to stitch masks, she crows about having one-upped Nike and Apple by “getting kids to work for free.” Sweatshop overlord!
Her script is brilliant, and under the direction of Chay Yew, brilliantly delivered—truly standing-ovation stuff.
On the way out, I commented to a speechwriter friend,
“Now that was a speech!”
“No,” he countered, “That was a sermon.”
Indeed it was—a much-needed one. Monday April 8 was total eclipse day, one that followed a rare earthquake in the Northeast USA. Those two events will be followed by the confluent emergence of both 13-year and 17-year cicadas. All of these, for some believers, are proof of God’s wrath against sinful humans.
Ignorance may still abound, but heroic figures like Kristina Wong send it scampering into the darkness. Quite possibly the best solo performance we’ll see this season, Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord runs through May 5. Don’t miss it.
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ASR NorCal Executive Editor Barry Willis is a member of the American Theatre Critics Association and president of the SF Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle. Contact him at barry.m.willis@gmail.com
| Production | Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord |
|---|---|
| Written by | Kristina Wong |
| Directed by | Chay Yew |
| Producing Company | American Conservatory Theater |
| Production Dates | Through May 5th |
| Production Address | ACT’s Strand Theater 1127 Market Street San Francisco |
| Website | act-sf.org |
| Telephone | (415) 749-2228 |
| Tickets | $25 - $130 |
| Reviewer Score | Max in each category is 5/5 |
| Overall | 4.5/5.0 |
| Performance | 4.5/5.0 |
| Script | 4.5/5.0 |
| Stagecraft | 4/5.0 |
| Aisle Seat Review Pick? | YES! |