Huayi festival: Citizen X marks the spot once more

“2020 may have been cancelled thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic, but some shows will get another shot at this year’s Huayi – Chinese Festival of Arts. The festival, a programme mainstay at the Esplanade since 2003, returns with a smaller hybrid programme this year, including the revived Citizen X, one of the first casualties of last year’s theatre shutdown.

Citizen X was bumping into the Drama Centre in March last year when the axe fell. Theatres were abruptly closed as part of measures to stem the spread of Covid-19.

Now, the show is getting a second chance with a staging at the Esplanade’s Huayi – Chinese Festival of Arts from Feb 19 to 22. Writer and star Liu Xiaoyi, 38, says ruminatively of its comeback: “It feels like a long pause. I didn’t think that much of the closure because I knew one day we would stage it.””

Preview article of Citizen X, published in The Straits Times, 10 Feb 2021. Read the full article here.