Surviving Strangers

Surviving Strangers is a contemporary dark comedy set in London, telling the story of a young couple (A & E) quarantined in a studio apartment due to an unknown virus. The play charts the course of a love affair, the daily struggles that constitute both the joy and hell of an intercultural relationship, its misunderstandings and micro aggressions. As they go through different stages of love and hate, we have a fragmented and visceral vision of the beginning, apex, and break up of a love story in the compressed time of a pandemic. This autobiographical play raises questions about stereotypes, cultural difficulties and how East Asian women are viewed through a white man’s gaze bound in K-pop cliches. Surviving Strangers uses the pandemic as a lens through which we can examine some of these tropes and give a voice one rarely hears in contemporary portrayals of women.