Auka Productions presents Hot Pot, a tender new play set over a shared meal, examining friendship, gay identity, and the small betrayals of adult life.
Following four university friends reuniting at a hot pot restaurant after the Covid-19 pandemic, Hot Pot begins with easy laughter and the retelling of old misadventures. As they catch up, the evening gradually shifts into a more searching conversation. Between shared plates of food and a simmering broth, layers of façade begin to peel away, revealing how time has rerouted each of the friends in different ways. Hot Pot is a play that honours the complexity of friendship, identity, and survival.
Drawing on lived East Asian experiences, the play explores gay identity with honesty and nuance against a cultural backdrop that can be hostile or indifferent. Conversations around secrecy and the pragmatic demands of family and culture surface through the characters’ histories and revelations. The ordinary act of sharing a meal becomes an act of reckoning—questioning whether belonging demands conformity or can be rebuilt through chosen ties, and whether leaving is always liberation or sometimes another form of loss. The play invites audiences into an intimate single evening that subtly reframes how its characters understand home, love, and the cost of authenticity.
Hot Pot is the debut production from new theatre company Auka Productions, founded by Struan Davidson and Windson Liong. Fuelled by the power of live theatre and committed to showcasing new writing, Auka Productions launches its first production with Hot Pot, in which both founders also appear. The cast is completed by Michelle Yim and Shin-Fei Chen.
Playwright Hongwei Bao comments:
“Hot Pot is a play about friendship, relationships, and love. It is about how some of these significant relationships have changed over time, and how others remain strong ties in our lives. It is also a play about dreams, ambitions, and the joys and pains of growing up; about how one can live an authentic life despite pressures from society and expectations from others. It is a story that everyone can relate to.”