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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Arifa Akbar

Hello Kitty Must Die review – musical revenge on east Asian stereotypes

Hello Kitty Must Die
Meet Mr Happy … Hello Kitty Must Die. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian

This musical comes with impressive credentials: based on the cult novel by Angela S Choi (now Kate Kamen) and produced by the team behind the musical Six, it takes the cutesy Hello Kitty motif and blends it with murderous black comedy to send up stereotypes of east Asian femininity.

It starts off like a contemporary version of Six, with five American performers of east Asian heritage standing in formation, almost all in sleek, monochromatic black. Co-adapted by Gail Rastorfer
and Kurt Johns, the show opens with the title number and proceeds to tell the story of Fiona Yu (Sami Ma) a 30-year-old Chinese American lawyer, and virgin. She is intent on defying the reductive cliches about east Asian womanhood in the white world at large, as well as family pressures at home, where her father is intent on getting her married.

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