Review: Prayers For A Hungry Ghost – Tobacco Factory Theatres
A beautiful piece of theatre reclaiming the voices and narrative of East and South East Asian Culture
Kiss Witness brings Prayers For A Hungry Ghost to Bristol this week. It’s a powerfully hypnotic and mesmerising piece of theatre exploring The Hungry Ghost – a supernatural being that is part of Chinese mythology and Buddhism.
Through creative and unsettling sound, movement, live video and puppetry, Prayers For A Hungry Ghost captures a world where the living and the dead overlap. We really feel this through an excellent ensemble cast in a performance where narrative and dream-like scenes play out.
This is supported by a creative team who have manifested a heady effect throughout.
Li Yi Lei’s creative soundscape was central to the story telling. When actors spoke live on stage to prerecorded voices, the disjointed effect was unsettling, creating a dissociative effect.
The spoken English was echoed in Mandarin, Cantonese and Malay.
The Hungry Ghosts are said to be the reincarnated souls of those who were greedy or violent in their lives. They have distended stomachs and are always starving. But, they breathe fire from their mouths which means all they can eat is ash.
The Hungry Ghost Festival is celebrated once a year on the 15th day of the seventh lunar month. People leave food out for the ghosts to eat, water for them to clean their faces and offerings of paper money. On the last day of the seventh lunar month, a festival is held where seats are reserved for the ghosts to attend.
This explained the interesting layout of the auditorium seating in the Factory Theatre. The audience were all seated in a central block. The side blocks were reserved for the ghosts.
The show tracks a migrant family who move from Singapore to America. The mother is left as a single parent, working hard raising two girls alone.
From what appeared to be an initially typical childhood with the sisters tormenting each other, playing together, swimming in lakes, their worlds begin to diverge.
The younger sister went on to become a world famous concert pianist. The older sister did not. A reinterpretation of the third movement of Mozart’s Piano Sonata No. 11 becomes a motif for this.
The older sister was hit by a disabling and undiagnosed stomach condition. This placed her in the path of a second rate doctor which came in the form of a wonderfully disturbing puppet by Aya Nakamura.
The transition that the older sister undergoes by design or by chance throws up themes of Prader Willi, Pica and the impact of mental health and inherited generational trauma.
The American Dream brought a whole new set of challenges for the family. The perceptions of the Western world regarding South and East Asian culture as well as cultural societal pressure placed a huge burden.
The mother’s advice was clear. They all had to work twice as hard at everything, reflecting the Western world’s perception of perfection within East Asian culture. With the perfection comes the pressure trap.
Photography: Ikin Yum
The show has a really poignant ending, bringing together all of the themes and narratives.
Prayers For A Hungry Ghost is performed by an East Asian cast with a team of creatives from the East Asian Diaspora.
It’s a rarity to encounter authentic theatre which centres the voices of the Chinese Diaspora. Culture belonging to East and South East Asian countries that we consume right here in the UK is still often shrouded in Orientalism, overt racism, cultural bias or appropriation and fetishism.
Stories, musicals, movies, pop culture, pop music, animation, TV shows, they all have a long history of being created by and packaged for white Western audiences. Even that which is not comes under the white gaze, which can make theatre audiences uncomfortable places for diverse communities.
Kiss Witness tells authentic stories which takes back control of the narrative. It makes it not just a beautifully constructed show, but a vital piece of storytelling.
Prayers For A Hungry Ghost is on at Tobacco Factory Theatres until 20 May 2026
For more information or to book, visit: https://tobaccofactorytheatres.com/shows/prayers-for-a-hungry-ghost/
For more information about Kiss Witness: https://www.instagram.com/kisswitness/
Cast and Creatives
Writer – Elisabeth Gunawan
Performer/Devisers (in order of appearance in show) – Elisabeth Gunawan, Vinna Law, Ting-Ning Wen, Tang Sook Kuan
Movement Direction Matej Matejka
Additional Direction Namoo Chae Lee
Sound Design LI YI LEI
Lighting Design Natalia Chan
Puppetry Aya Nakamura
Set & Video Erin Guan
Additional Video Design KISS WITNESS
Costume Design Ezra Barnard
Props & SFX KISS WITNESS
Stage & Production Management Hui Tse Liu, Brent Tan
Other Collaborators Joan Low, Peta Lily, Lokky Lau
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