Kristina Wong influencing food; photo by Sally Blood.
Presented by ArtsEmerson
Written and performed by Kristina Wong
Directed by Jessica Hanna
Music directed by Howard Ho
Sept. 19 – 21, 2025
Robert J. Orchard Stage
Emerson Paramount Center
559 Washington St
Boston, MA 02111
Critique by Noe Kamelamela
Content warning: food insecurity and the general chaos of 2025
BOSTON — I would rather hear a sad announcement in person. I also prefer to receive happy updates in person, face-to-face. If I have to absorb any kind of information regarding current events, I prefer the stylings of a comedian. Particularly, I want a comedian who knows they are not a journalist. I hope to experience two to five seconds of joy because it is 2025, and the current recession and situations are stressful enough. At least, laughing a little while facing a different, potentially new to me crisis, makes dealing with it more bearable.
Kristina Wong, #FoodBankInfluencer made good use of the bad news sandwich format. It contains horrifying truths to learn about and also uplifting sing-alongs to enjoy. It discusses histories of genocide, and it offers every audience member free food.
It is a unique karaoke sing-along show that provides edutainment about a serious issue: Hunger. It, specifically here in the United States of America, is here to stay. The starvation of ordinary, working-class Americans has been a part of the modern landscape of being an American since before I was born. The Massachusetts statistic is that 1 in every 3 households is food insecure. The national statistic is that 1 in every 7 Americans is food insecure.
The numbers alone do not capture what it feels like to be dependent on others, not just on employment status, for food. So, having Kristina Wong, the character, who is also Kristina Wong, the multi-hyphenate comedian and performance artist, share her story about her own experience with food insecurity is humanizing. Wong explains most of the terms regarding emergency food systems as she knows them, but stops before trying to explain every name and story of every assistance program available. Attempting this would grind even the smoothest joke to a halt.
Her segues into audience-participating karaoke lightened the mood before the show got too dark. As a Pacific Islander, even the worst karaoke machine commandeered by the worst, tuneless singer is better than almost any other kind of entertainment. Even the worst kind of squawking is still good. If I had to judge us as a group, I would say we were enthusiastic and our rhythm was decent. The enunciation was not where I would want it to be, but we had no rehearsal to fall back on. As a cold read, it wasn’t too bad. We sang together-ish when our pink prompts came up on screen at times, and she pulled a few of her fellow performers on stage to give us solo performances that were more passionate than our “choir” could manage.
This type of performance art, at its best, succeeds when the crowd wants to be there with each other. We did. We were giving TD Garden #1 diva performances when I believe most of the time, as a group, we all pretty much deliver the same energy as a commuter half asleep and scrolling their phone on the commuter rail. Boston is a scrappy underdog, especially right now, with federal overreach that no one needs, given the current financial state of the world. We are coming from behind, but we’re not all the way down and out. While we didn’t get to belt out “Sweet Caroline” or the lyrics to any copyright-protected songs, we sang, danced and cried anyway. Boston will still have plenty of solidarity and joy in our futures if my night’s presentation is any kind of indicator.
