Award-winning company KISS WITNESS premieres the darkly comedic Prayers for a Hungry Ghost exploring intergenerational trauma this Halloween, created through the Barbican’s prestigious Open Lab talent development programme
Prayers for a Hungry Ghost makes its world premiere at The Pit this autumn, developed by KISS WITNESS through the Barbican’s Open Lab 2023 programme. The production is supported by a commission from cross-arts organisation Kakilang as part of their season celebrating world-class performances by East and Southeast Asian artists.
Led by award-winning theatre maker Elisabeth Gunawan (Unforgettable Girl; Stampin’ in the Graveyard), KISS WITNESS’ latest production is a mesmerising family drama set in the underworld (the realm of the hungry ghosts), exploring the intergenerational trauma born from the pressures of meeting society’s impossible standards. This sardonic yet tender ensemble production powerfully combines horror, physical performance, live cinema, dark comedy and Chinese mythology – in which ‘hungry ghosts’ are reincarnated souls of those who were greedy or violent in their lives.
In the nightmarish underworld of hungry ghosts, a migrant family confronts the true cost of their pursuit of the American dream. Father (Daniel York Loh, ITV’s I Fought the Law) migrated from a life of poverty in Hong Kong to become a capitalist success story. Meanwhile, his daughters’ lives spiral in opposite directions: Little Sister (Jasmine Chiu, Life of Pi International Tour) ascends to classical piano stardom, while Big Sister (Elisabeth Gunawan) is ravaged by a mysterious illness. Each path eventually leads them to the same pit of despair and insatiable hunger, unless their familial bond can somehow transcend the cycle of inherited trauma
KISS WITNESS harnesses the visceral power of horror as a genre to expose the intergenerational trauma that lies beneath the surface of ‘model minority’ narratives. The ‘model minority’ myth suggests certain migrants, particularly East and Southeast Asians, succeed through inherent cultural values like diligence and respect for authority. This oversimplified narrative obscures systemic racism while dehumanising these communities as monolithic and psychologically unreal.
Even beneath the veneer of economic success, British East and Southeast Asian communities face persistent erasure and exclusion, with 45% of UK’s East and Southeast Asian people experiencing hate crime in the last year (source: University of Leicester). The rewards granted to ‘model minorities’/’good immigrants’ – social acceptance, economic success – become like food entering the scorching mouth of a hungry ghost, never satisfying the deeper hunger to be truly recognise and accepted.
Performed by an all-East Asian cast in English, Mandarin, Cantonese, and Malay, and created by a female-led majority East and Southeast Asian creative team, the company brings to life the complexities of migrant and diasporic experiences with the criticality and inventiveness that underpins KISS WITNESS’ critically acclaimed and award-winning works. KISS WITNESS is an independent global-majority-led company, hailed for their “distinctive and ambitious” (The Stage) work that “leaves an indelible mark on its audience” (The Stage & Theatre Weekly).
Prayers for a Hungry Ghost’s world premiere marks the culmination of development through the Barbican’s Open Lab 2023 programme, which supports emerging and mid-career performing companies as they experiment with new ideas and challenge the perception of what theatre and dance can be. Performances will run in The Pit, the Barbican’s intimate and unique studio space that brings audiences closer to artists who are creating dynamic new ways of storytelling.
Elisabeth Gunawan, founder of KISS WITNESS & performer, says:
“KISS WITNESS exists to harness the power of theatre to create spaces of belonging for people who don’t have it in real life. For too long, East Asian bodies have been borrowed to present Eurocentric, orientalist narratives that rob us of our personhood. Our work is committed to reclaiming these narratives and centring East and Southeast Asian stories in all their depth and complexity. Here, ghosts and hauntings are more than tropes in the horror genre, but a manifestation of absences and erasures in history. I want the piece to make visible a worldview that has been historically marginalised to present East and Southeast Asian people as idiosyncratic human beings with fears, desires and fallibilities. This is the story of my family, and of many migrant families.”
