Ascendant Theatre Co, Banana Skin, Fringe Club Studio, Jan 18-21 THE pessimists would say - and I count the author of this play, Ray Yeung, as one - that Hong Kong life is all about shopping and, er, the Other Thing.
Banana Skin, the old joke about people who are yellow on the outside but white on the inside, is about three young Hong Kong Chinese - Veronica, Clara-Bow and Harold - beautiful people who are more Occidental than Oriental, and reliant on mummy and daddy's money. To paraphrase the poet Philip Larkin, their mums and dads, they mess them up.
In a fast-moving 90 minutes which flits from Hong Kong to Los Angeles to New York and London, Yeung peppers the dialogue with one-liners, extremely witty and coarse but as insubstantial as the cafe society existences of the characters. The play is about how these bright young things learn to come to terms with, and break free from, their silver-spoon lives. In hip-speak, how they get a life.
The performances on the whole were excellent, the only serious criticisms being the lack of projection of the actors' voices (although they were battling against a noisy air-conditioner and, true to Hong Kong form, pagers) and a little too much haste, which upset the timing. These I suspect will be ironed out with more performances.
Of the actors, Irene Ng provided the most emotion as the muddled, loveless Veronica; her split with her mother - enacted over the phone, of course - was the most moving part of the evening. Chowee Leow, as the ''bent banana'' Harold, was a camp and exhilarating parody of a gay fashion victim.
Colette Koo, as Clara-Bow who is forced into a marriage for money rather than love, provided the balance for the leading trio. Finally, Papillon Soo Lam carried the supporting roles well, including an excellent dotty shop assistant which provided a truly comic theatrical interlude. Don't be deterred by the subject matter; it's an entertaining and thought-provoking evening.