Is There Redemption after Choking?

I didn’t try to get a general idea of what the show was about before buying tickets for Choking Game, the more interested I am in a show the less information I get. Usually, I like to get the full picture on stage rather than make a pre-judgement, which often contains too much bias from personal experience.

However coincidentally, I did have a pre-gig judgement about Yifan’s Choking Game. I told a friend of mine I was going to see Choking Game and she immediately told me she was very interested in the play. Firstly, it is a difficult thing for a Chinese playwright to stage their play in London, and secondly, the perspective of the play is very unique. The Western world is indeed very fond of the topic of being the saviour to save the underdeveloped civilisation, the Earth and the environment, but it is always from the perspective of the westerners about their so-called ‘rescue action’, and seldomly, the perspective of the so-called ‘rescued’ is revelled and focused on. That is a perspective that the Western world unable to engage, whether it is due to negligence or deliberate avoidance, the story has barely been presented from this perspective. This obscured perspective aroused a great deal of curiosity in me.

Dr Taylor, the elite of the West, with two post-doctoral, hailed by the media as the reborn parent of endangered creatures, having founded the world-famous sea turtle rescue organisation on a pristine island, and having thus boosted the economy of a primitive and backward island, he seems to have a perfect account not only of nature, but also of Western society and the primitive tribes. But the truth is, he marries a young woman on the island with a box of pineapples, making her to ignore her feelings and to satisfy all his demands; he gives up an operation on a rare sea turtle that has a straw in their nose, for the sake of the development of his organisation and his own fame. In practical terms, it was not Dr Taylor who saved the turtles, but it was the turtles who gave Dr Taylor everything, a PhD, a post-doctoral job, his own organisation, the admiration of the people, the people who loved him unconditionally, etc. The ratio of what he has given to what he has gained is the great irony of the Western civilised world.

The greatest moral dilemma that Dr Taylor faces is whether to save the turtle that is dying of suffocation when it can be a risk if fails. Dr Taylor failed to do so before to another turtle and, fearing that another failure would cause the sponsors to withdraw their investment, he decides to throw the turtle back into the sea and leave it to its own death.

While the most capable person to save the turtle is Dr Taylor and the least likely person to save them is Wu Yuan. His best friend Tang Juan was suffocated by bullying, and after that, he can no longer go into the water again. However, when he knows that he is probably the only one who can stop the ship and save the turtle, although he is most likely to suffocate if he jumps into the ocean, he did not hesitate to do so and take the turtle into his arms and hold it tightly. It is because of Wu Yuan’s jumping into the water that the turtle finally has the chance to get surgery and to recover, and it is Wu Yuan’s cousin, Rowan, who actually performs the operation on the turtle, not Dr Taylor.

The primitive tribes respect the turtles as gods and worships them; Wu Yuan and Luo Wan, who are not powerful nor resourceful, and have been badly hurt by the society and their families, save the turtles; Dr Taylor, the elite figure, does not save any turtles except to name the rare turtles he found and to be impressed by the primitive culture.

There are too many people like Dr Taylor in this world, and the more beautifully written the text, the more it runs counter to the purpose.

Yifan wrote a story with care, about people get choked by life, and a turtle being actually suffocated by a plastic straw in their nose. They made a great balance between tragedy and witty humour. I laughed many times with the feeling of guilt as this is such a sad story with excellent funny moments.

Choking is something everyone in the play has experienced. As the play goes on, I generally find that the writer’s ambition is bigger than it seems to be. It is not only the choking game mentioned as the background story of Tang Juan’s death, or the erotic breath play by Rowan and Dr Taylor, it is something deeper and broader than that. Taylor, as a western white male, he is suffocating his wife Leppa, an innocent local woman with his absence at home as a husband and father-to-be, and that’s why Leppa’s miscarriage happens at the same time with Rowan and Taylor’s affair and the baby dies of nuchal cord. Similarly, Rowan is suffocated by her violent father and suffering mother, and the island is the only place she could escape to. But it’s just from a choking place to another, as she turns out to be with Dr Taylor all the time. Wu Yuan got suffocated by guilt, as he has foreseen what would happen to his friend but he didn’t stop it.

What about Dr Taylor? It seems that he is not suffocated, and he is always in the limelight, but this limelight is also a kind of suffocation. He is afraid of any practical issues in life. He claims that he cares about the turtles and other endangered creatures, as well as the Earth, the local people, but when a real turtle who needs help is actually in front of him, he retreats/cowards/avoids and only wants the positive values that the turtle could possibly bring to him. Taylor cannot even afford the life of one turtle, but he dreams to save all turtles.

Wu Yuan/Rowan/Turtle, all of them are redeemed in their suffocation by the end of the play and get to face their greatest fears in life. They redeem themselves by saving others, while Dr Taylor remains being suffocated because he is unable to do anything tangible to help.