Cockroach: Boy, Cockroach and the Bard cure katsaridaphobia
25 Sep 2022

by Drew Rowsome - Photos by Joy von Tiedemann

In the midst of an ominously industrial set, to the sound of equally ominous industrial dance music, Boy (Anton Ling) appears as a giant shadow. There is some mysteriously ominous choreography where Boy chirps in distress or anger while Karl Ang and Steven Hao apply a West Side Story-esque beating. Then suddenly we are in familiar, initially, territory as Hao introduces himself as 'Cockroach' and, with the skill of a seasoned stand-up, the insect regales us with his life story. His life story going back millions of years. If it weren't so hilarious—packed with one-liners that should be heard in context and featuring Whitney Houston's wig—it would come across as a lecture on Cockroach Pride. Cockroach decries katsaridaphobia and it is a short, blunt leap for him to link it to xenophobia, homophobia and any fear of the other to the point of wanting their destruction. 

While Hao commands the stage, Ling and Ang move pieces of the massive set around, perform choreography, and frequently mime actions in tandem or counterpoint to Cockroach's ever-evolving history lesson. A passage involving a romance with, and failed rescue of, Rosie the Lobster is particularly evocative and uproariously funny. It also ends with a line that brings the house down. Cockroach is a tough act to follow—Hao is phenomenal—but Ang steps up to introduce himself as the Bard. Yes, it is William Shakespeare himself, "back from the dead like Jesus or Beyonce at Coachella." Bard has no problems with his place in history, but immortality is proving exhausting. It is ego-boosting but ball-busting be the creator of all theatre, literature and catch phrases in existence. The centuries weigh.

Playwright Jeff Ho (Iphigenia and the Furies, Box 4901, trace, Prince Hamlet) has great fun skewering literary precedents, and the comedy of hearing just how many phrases in current usage are based on, or bastardized from, Shakespearean texts is revelatory. But Ho has more on his mind and the formidable skill to juggle words, ideas and humor with poetic grace in order to express it. Cockroach and Bard bicker about just who has the right to tell stories. And why is Shakespeare so dominant when there are thousands of cultural creators and storytellers who are forgotten or ignored? The back and forth is fast and entertaining with both landing serious blows, laughs, and occasionally dogmatic statements that sting. Turns out that cultural is not the only dominance on Ho's mind, and Boy's story comes to the fore as a deeply disturbing illustration of just how vicious all forms of phobias and oppression can be.

At this point a certain coyness—though there is one brutally horrific line that elicits a gasp from the audience and is seared into my brain—causes a bit of confusion and where the production should snap into focus, it fragments. It should be noted that I saw a preview but regardless, this was only momentary, director Mike Payette (Angelique) fuses the movement and text into a blissful shattering moment that visualizes an idealized world. Ho, Payette, the company and choreographer Hanna Kiel, dramatize a host of harsh political, and very necessary, ideas in a briskly entertaining manner. So much so that I realized that I had to adjust, open myself up to, a different form of communicating theatrically. Shakespeare is not undead, but there must be room for other forms of storytelling. Room for those branded as other. Cockroach didn't cure me of my own internalized katsaridaphobia(s), but it certainly made me more aware of it and the micro-aggressions, and maxi-aggressions, that allow it to spread.