EdFringe Review: Hater

The entertainment industry has a habit of offering East Asian actors crumbs—pigeonholing performers into narrow, repetitive tropes—and then leaving them to battle over these leftovers.

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In HATER, written by Gawa Leung and presented by Brava Guava at Gilded Balloon Patter House, that scarcity becomes the engine for an incisive, deliciously mean-spirited dark comedy. Directed with kinetic flair by Megan Brewer, the production takes the toxic pressure cooker of artistic tokenism and turns it into an absurd, highly physical duel.

The show’s central conceit implicates the audience from the very first minute. Performers Gawa Leung, Lorraine Yu, and JJ Lam line up onstage to audition, having each mastered all three tracks in the script. The audience votes live on who will play Wai Ying (“the Hater”) and who will play her target, Eve (“the Hatee”). It is a clever opening that instantly forces the room to participate in the process of judgment and manufactured rivalry that the play sets out to explore.

Physical Comedy and Industry Scarcity

Once the roles are cast, the story unfolds across three chapters, charting Wai Ying’s obsessive spiral as jealousy over Eve’s career success morphs into unhinged stalking and sabotage. Parallel storylines—notably a full-on Muay Thai confrontation between Eve and Wai Ying’s sister, who harbours her own deep-seated rage—further illustrate how gatekeeping pushes women with shared anxieties to view potential allies as enemies.

Yet Brewer’s production never feels bogged down by socio-political weight, relying instead on inventive physical theatre and resourceful Fringe scenography. A hot pink crash mat doubles as a puppet stage for a comically disturbing story about “Baby Bunny,” replica katanas serve as school gates, cardboard cutouts caricature social media nonsense, and brisk strikes on a traditional Chinese muyu (wooden fish percussive block) charge the comedy with a relentless, rhythmic cadence.

Fans of the anime Bleach will also appreciate bursts of “Number One”, particularly when Wai Ying fantasises about dispatching Eve with a cry of—what else?—Bankai! It’s a perfect lyrical fit: “If you wanna see some action Gotta be the centre of attraction…”

Beneath the biting satire and high-energy stage combat lies a surprisingly delicate exploration of Complex PTSD. As Wai Ying’s schemes become increasingly outlandish, the script peels back her venomous exterior to reveal a history of emotional repression, domestic abuse, heavy parental expectations, and generational trauma. Those “Baby Bunny” interludes make more and more sense as the story approaches inevitable catastrophe.

The play’s shorter final movement feels slightly compressed—a minor structural casualty of the Fringe’s strict one-hour running time—and Leung deliberately avoids wrapping her antihero’s psyche in a neat, redemptive bow. The entertainment industry has helped to create the conditions for the Hater’s self-destructive journey, but they—and their sister—still have moral responsibility for their own actions, however outlandish.

Yet this refusal to offer easy answers is precisely what makes the piece land with such impact. Wildly entertaining, deeply cathartic, and uncompromisingly authentic, HATER is a cracking piece of modern satire.

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