Theatre review: The Comeuppance

Like Appropriate, the last Branden Jacobs-Jenkins play I saw, The Comeuppance also takes a mainstay of American storytelling and gives it a gentle but noticeable tweak. This time it's the high school reunion, and the triumphs and disappointments that hang over people meeting again after years apart. Although in this case the people we meet have stayed in touch to varying degrees, and not just because these reunions have been happening every five years - the upcoming 20th anniversary is the first one successful artist Emilio (Anthony Welsh) has actually returned for, which may be part of the reason his old friendship group have decided to meet for a pre-reunion reunion. They meet on the porch of Ursula's (Tamara Lawrance) house: Having lost the grandmother who raised her and the sight in one eye in quick succession, Ursula has become somewhat reclusive, and isn't planning on following the others to the party itself.

Theatre review: White Pearl

I was getting occasional flashbacks to Clybourne Park in the Royal Court Downstairs as a black comedy about race goads its characters into voicing their most extreme thoughts to a mix of laughter and shocked gasps from the audience. But instead of America’s relationship with blackness it’s Asia’s relationship with whiteness that Anchuli Felicia King explores in White Pearl. Inspired by real-life advertising campaigns that went viral for the wrong reasons, Moi Tran’s set is the flashy Singapore headquarters of a comparatively new cosmetics company that’s been fast becoming a market leader in a number of countries; to reflect this, Indian founder Priya (Farzana Dua Elahe) and her Singaporean right-hand woman Sunny (Katie Leung) have made sure all the executives are women representing the different countries where their products are sold.

Theatre review: Snow in Midsummer

A few years ago the RSC got caught up in a controversy over not casting enough British East Asian actors in classic Chinese play The Orphan of Zhao - a controversy that now looks very minor compared to the recent Print Room shitshow - but they now seem to be trying to make amends with a new ongoing project of translations of classical Chinese theatre. Of course the RSC's tendency to announce instantly-forgotten projects is notorious - how's that plan to stage the Shakespeare canon in the RST in 5 6 8 years with no repeats going? - but if the opening production is any indication, we have to hope this one has legs. Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig's Snow in Midsummer is a free adaptation of a 13th century classic, Guan Hanqing's The Injustice to Dou E That Moved Heaven and Earth.

Theatre review: The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures

Tony Kushner's 2009 play - set two years before that - The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures gets its UK premiere at Hampstead, who've appended the alternate title iHo (you can't really tweet the whole thing, I guess.) But the full title is probably worth sticking to as the wordiness and sheer unnecessary length give a better indicator of what the play itself is like, as opposed to iHo, because it isn't actually about what would happen if Apple made prostitutes. Instead it's something of a family saga, though playing out over just a few days, set mainly in a Brooklyn brownstone that's in need of fairly regular repair but has still skyrocketed in value as the property boom gets going. Tom Piper's design puts the bare white shell of the four-story building on a revolve.

Theatre review: You For Me For You

Junhee (Katie Leung) and Minhee (Wendy Kweh) are literally starving, but to admit anything was less than 100% perfect in their lives could invite even bigger problems. That's because Mia Chung's You For Me For You takes place in North Korea, and the walls, and maybe even the trees, have ears that could get them reported if the sisters deviate from the script that says they live in The Best Nation in the World. Minhee always seems to trick her younger sister into eating what little food they have, meaning she herself is becoming very ill, so Junhee hatches a scheme for them both to escape the country. But as the Smuggler (Andrew Leung) helps them flee the reluctant Minhee falls down a well, and Chung's already quirky story becomes an Alice in Wonderland fantasy of East, West and two very different paths in life for the two women.

Theatre review: The World of Extreme Happiness

Given its ever-increasing position on the world stage, it's not surprising if China has been a popular theme on the London stage lately. An American play getting its UK debut at The Shed, Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig's The World of Extreme Happiness looks at life for workers in the factories that make over 75% of the world's consumables, but also reveals a two-tier class system that's not so familiar in the West. The distinction is between those born in the city and those still known as peasants, from the country. Sunny (Katie Leung) is a country girl who's been denied an education by her father, as it's too expensive to be wasted on a girl. She moves to a city where she cleans toilets in a toy factory and, spurred on by a culture of self-help slogans, is determined to better herself - so much so that the factory owners see her as the perfect spokesperson for how far their peasant workers progress.

Theatre review: Wild Swans

Jung Chang's memoir of three generations of women in Maoist China, Wild Swans has been a blockbuster book for 21 years. It now gets its first stage adaptation by Alexandra Wood, directed by Sacha Wares. The book is by all accounts a bit of an epic, but instead of trying to recreate that the creative team has opted to pare it down to 90 minutes, creating an explosion of colour that looks like a carnival but actually reveals the fear, hunger and crushed idealism underneath it. Yu-Fang (Julyana Soelistyo) had her feet bound as a child, and in her teens was forced to become the concubine of a warlord. When the Communists take over, this "privileged" past is still held against her and her family.