Geography: Americas > Northern America > United States of America
Year: 2013
Produced by: 2013 Unfiltered Festival, Ensemble Studio Theatre, New York
Creative Team: A play by Zhu Yi | Puppetry Designer and Choreographer: Lake Simons | Music Director: Yoonmi Lee
Synopsis: Holy Crab! is a dark comedy that intertwines the journey of a Chinese immigrant woman in the United States, whose reunion with her brother exposes hidden economic and emotional tensions, and whose romantic involvement with a border officer becomes increasingly precarious, with the parallel story of the Chinese mitten crab, labeled an invasive species in New York yet prized as a delicacy in China. Through a wildly theatrical structure that blends realism with allegory across time and space, the play explores migration as a condition of displacement, border control, and diasporic identity, using the crab as a metaphor for racialized “otherness.” By juxtaposing human and non-human migration histories, it interrogates how systems of classification, legality, and ecological protection mirror immigration regimes, raising critical questions about belonging, exclusion, and the ethics of who is allowed to enter, stay, or be valued within a nation.
Source: https://www.ensemblestudiotheatre.org/new-events-1/2016/3/21/holy-c