This is not just any one-person Fringe show. Aaron Pang offers a heartfelt, honest and sincere confessional of dating as a disabled person that tricks, teases and tests the audience’s perceptions. Falling: A disabled love story is essential viewing for all.
Spanning Pang’s dating history, from sex workers to fabricated stories of girlfriends, the play provides a light-hearted portrayal of love. This is no ordinary, cutesy love story, but an honest, raw, real-life one. Pang commentates as he reenacts moments from the past while interrogating the audience’s preconceived notions of love. It is a stubborn, defiant piece that is unafraid to challenge the boundaries of storytelling.
Pang never takes anything too seriously, and Falling never adopts the typical fairy tale love story but tells the truth — and an honest one at that. It is a story of real-life circumstance, confrontation of strife and practical adaptation to challenges. Pang’s opening question begins, “Can you name something different about me to all of you?” As one man chirps up, “You are a disabled person,” the audience breathes a collective sigh of relief; everyone understands the show’s genre and feels comforted by the topic. Pang is brave to challenge the audience in his witty way and unafraid in his questions, which creates gripping humour and a refreshing audience experience. This TED-talk is turned into coffee table chit-chat, as the piece becomes personal. Pang focuses his eye contact on members of the audience, unapologetically developing a romantic connection with them.
Lies and falsehoods become a key part of this production, which is conceptually interesting, although it adds a little too much extra spice to this already busy autobiographical piece. Pang recounts a fabricated story he used to tell when asked the common question, “Why are you disabled?” Through this story, Pang demonstrates his vulnerability but also explores how perceptions of disability can influence interpersonal dynamics.
The narrative exploring storytelling is poignant due to the metatheatrical elements Pang has created in this self-written piece. At the end, options are offered for endings, left hanging for the audience to choose. The idea of stories is too loosely connected with the theme of love and thinly tied, so this section misses a beat. Despite being interesting, the audience-choice ending is interwoven with limited effect. This is a sharp and unique perspective, although the piece would benefit from greater focus on the love-framed aspects of this tour de force.
It is an interrogatory, although cleanly stripped-back performance. Almost a striptease in many senses, it uncovers a minefield of key topics surrounding love in the disabled space. This piece is unmissable.
