Review: A History of Fortune Cookies (Summerhall)

A bite-sized personal history

For such a frivolous little treat, fortune cookies take a talented hand to get right. They are fiddly, fragile things that demand finger-burning speed to achieve that tight crescent shape. But for Sean Wai Keung they are the perfect metaphor for his experience as a mixed Chinese-Scottish man living in the UK. So, he has set himself the difficult task of making a fresh (vegan) batch for an audience of 10 people at a time, while talking about his family, how people perceive him and, of course, the history of fortune cookies.

Fortune cookies, we are told, had very little to do with traditional Chinese cuisine and much more to do with Chinese immigration to the US, creating an inauthentic intersection between the East and West. It is a simple metaphor for being mixed race, but Wai Keung doesn’t overplay it. The performance is just under half an hour, and his monologue is good, but the real achievement of the performance is the sense of intimacy. There is something so generous in cooking for someone, in whatever small way, and it is equally generous to share a part of yourself with strangers. It is something we forget in solo performances when we are sitting in a dark crowd with no chance of eye contact, and being sat across the table listening to Wai Keung makes us listen a little more deeply than we usually would.

Short though A History of Fortune Cookies is, it still feels like something is missing from the final performance. Perhaps a missed opportunity with our fortune writing (which we do ourselves), or maybe just a little more confidence from Wai Keung himself. Even so, it doesn’t stop it from being a touching and well worthwhile performance. Like a fortune cookie, this show is small, sweet, and uncomplicated, but contains something deeper and more thoughtful the more you look. Four stars.

A History of Fortune Cookies will run at Summerhall at 12:15 and 12:50 until August 26th