In this poignant, meta performance by Faye Yan, Is There Work On Mars? discusses all things from stereotypes of being an Asian woman, her experience with neurodivergency, and how comedy can come into play in our current, almost-dystopian, capitalist world.
Yan’s show opens with the premise of it being a twenty-minute bleep test, with a robotic voice overhead communicating with Yan, as she dresses in a bright red jumpsuit. The performance is only dependent on the few items on stage; the set has two chairs on opposite sides of the stage, with a screen behind to be utilised as subtitles for both Yan and the anonymous robotic voice. We witness her running from one seat to another at the sound of each beep, answering questions from the robo, who interviews Yan for a job on Mars under “Nylon Tusk’s” company. Asking questions like “Confucius is to philosophy as peking duck is to what?” and “Are you sure you are Asian?”, Yan battles against the stereotypes that the robot enforces on her relating to her neurodivergent, Asian childhood.
Many comedic elements within this performance underlie the serious messages that Yan tries to portray to the audience, including commentary on her growing up with undiagnosed ADHD from childhood to university, and being Asian with many expectations placed upon her by others. It’s hard not to describe the show as positively quirky, through its combination of comedy, serious discussion, spoken word, interpretive dance, acting, and multimedia; with an accompaniment of purposeful technical glitches from the robotic screen, to make it seem like the dystopian future that is to surely come.
I was initially apprehensive about whether the show would fall flat, from its initial few minutes consisting of the beep test and interview, but I overall appreciate the creativity from Yan and her commentary on the irony of what conglomerates advertise in terms of “inclusivity”. Thus, in a cathartic way to end her solid performance, and to show that Mars may not be so different capitalistically from Earth after all, Yan exclaims to the omnipresent robotic voice akin to Alexa: “Xandra, play ‘Life On Mars’ by David Bowie.”
Image by Amy Lauffer Neff, provided to The Student as press.
