Lauren Yee’s King of the Yees is part of a genre of mainstream plays that use the once radical techniques of experimental theater for mindless, mindful, mind-bending entertainment. Take your pick. What’s clear though is that you are not going to be challenged or confused or angered. Yee means to please.

In many ways that’s the problem with the play—its narrow, trite use of the experimental for nothing more than sketch comedy and dime store lessons in life. To be fair, it has some charms, but they wear off as the evening progresses. With all that meta-theatrical armor, King of the Yees has the pretensions of a much more serious work. And I would say—in a half-hearted damning critique kind of way—that it uses those pretensions to deflect our attention from how thinly constructed and thought out it is.

‘King of the Yees’ runs through March 2 at the SF Playhouse in San Francisco. For tickets and information click here.

For the Full Review click here.

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