The World of Extreme Happiness – review

http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2013/oct/06/world-of-extreme-happiness-review

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There is a great drama to be written about Chinese migrant workers quitting the countryside in their millions to power their country's unstoppable economic growth. This play by the young American dramatist Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig, following the picaresque adventures of migrant worker Sunny (Katie Leung), has a good stab at being that drama. Cowhig examines the nasty underside of China's economic boom, taking in everything from female infanticide to the high suicide rates among factory workers, while skewering the self-help-book platitudes that keep so many believing better luck is around the corner.

Leung, of <em>Harry Potter</em> fame, is very watchable as Sunny, and Chloe Lamford's design, with its dirt-rimmed stage and neon rainbow, offers a dynamic setting. But several of the scenes lack pace, and the characters are one-dimensional. That may well be part of Cowhig's point: that the combined effect of ferocious industrialisation and a repressive regime is to turn workers into living dolls, like the toys churned out by Sunny's factory. But it doesn't make for the most enjoyable two-and-a-half hours of theatre.

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