# Review of Cockroach at Tarragon Theatre **See also:** [[Theatre Reviews]] [Cockroach (Tarragon Theatre)](https://www.tarragontheatre.com/plays/cockroach/) is a hot mess. I have no idea why it's so popular and appreciated. Reviews that I've read seem to be for a play different from the one I watched. Part lecture, part hallucinatory rant, it literally caused me pain. And not because it forced me to face things about myself that I didn't like. It caused me pain because it was just plain *bad*. I *think* it was about anti-asian racism with a focus on the ongoing destruction of Hong Kong by successive "colonizers" (the British, and now the Chinese). But I can't be sure because everyone spoke too fast, and the layer upon layer of metaphor were spewed with such vigour that not even my Mensa-level brain could keep up. It was almost like what I imagine one of those sensory-overload-brainwashing sessions must be like. ![[Pasted image 20221013221226.png]] Me, watching Cockroach. One character appears to be a human, but claims to be a cockroach that was conceived in Whitney Houston's wig. The second is a (probably; I honestly can't be sure) underaged male prostitute on his first "assignment"; his client, who is never seen, burps a lot. The third is... the ghost of William Shakespeare, on whose shoulders the cockroach squarely places significant blame for everything that ails our poor, disenfranchised, naive prostitute, and the peoples that he metaphorically stands for. There's a whole segment about the cockroach falling in love with a lobster only to have to watch as the lobster is eaten by humans. It's as if Hannibal Lecter mashed up Animal Farm and Romeo and Juliet. I still have no idea what that was supposed to contribute to anything else in the play. I have no idea what the conclusion of the play meant. I think the prostitute, having completed his assignment, wanders off into the night. Perhaps I'm just not in the target audience for this play. In which case, I have to wonder if this play isn't just an echo chamber screed. I mean, if you're trying to explain to non-asians what anti-asian racism is and why it's bad, then you have to make some effort to *reach* those non-asians, to frame things in a context that non-asians can relate to, even if only a little. In the end, *Cockroach* was just 80ish minutes I'll regretfully never get back.