At Arts & Ideas, Kristina Wong Casts Herself Into Office

Photo courtesy of Kristina Wong.

Standing behind a podium piled high with American flag banners, Kristina Wong wears a crisp, white suit. With a wide grin, she fires a confetti cannon into the audience from under a bright spotlight. Red, white, and blue streamers cover the stage.

But it’s not the Oval Office to which Wong’s been elected—nor to Congress, nor for even governor or mayor. With just 72 votes, she has secured a seat on the Wilshire Center-Koreatown Neighborhood Council Sub-District 5. Her new domain is a 2.5 square mile section of central Los Angeles. She meets monthly with the other council members, all of whom are unpaid volunteers, at the local library. Their budget is minuscule, their ambitions even smaller, but Wong is determined to change that.

Kristina Wong for Public Office tells the true story of a performance artist-turned-local politician. The one-woman show, written and performed by Wong and directed by Diane Wyenn, went up at the University Theater last weekend as part of the International Festival of Arts & Ideas in partnership with Long Wharf Theatre. Delivered as a 75-minute mock stump speech, it was at once a parody of contemporary political grandstanding and a reflection on the role of art in civic life.

In 2018, Wong felt that the showmanship of real-life politics had begun to outshine even her most over-the-top comedy routines. Her plans for a reality TV show mocking political apathy had fallen flat and she was becoming increasingly frustrated by then-President Trump. So, determined to make an impact in her community, Wong ran for her neighborhood council—a feat she called “the ultimate performance project of my life.”  

In front of a set she herself made, plastered with campaign posters that read “One Wong Makes It Right,” Wong begged her audience to wonder if actors and politicians are really so different after all. What’s real and what’s for show? Is it even worth drawing a line?

At times during Sunday’s matinee performance, this genre of comedy felt somewhat played out. Written in the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election, the show featured its fair share of ‘that orange cheeto’ quips, which, almost four years on, felt a little stale.

But as much as this performance of Kristina Wong for Public Office critiqued the disingenuousness of today’s politicians, it also poked fun at the very genre of political satire that it’s working within. On stage, Wong knows that what she’s doing is absurd, and she knows that parodying figures like Trump can be low-hanging fruit. 

During a Sunday matinee, this self-awareness was refreshing: “What kind of idiot has the gall to defend stupid shit like performance art?!” she shouted from behind her lectern with a smirk and a wink.

Meanwhile, the show really shone in its most earnest moments. Wong described the backroom deals and questionable electioneering tactics deployed by her opponents. In the audience, we heard about stubborn council members who want to fund the Los Angeles Police Department’s (LAPD) publicity events instead of crucial homeless services. 

In one striking anecdote, Wong discussed being targeted by the alt-right conspiracist Alex Jones over her social justice web series Radical Cram School. During these scenes, it was (and remains) clear that Wong’s project has real, meaningful stakes. Her political influence may not be immense, but she nevertheless faces some of the most pressing national issues as they play out on the local stage.

This became especially evident during the second half of the production, in which Wong spoke of her attempt to pass a resolution for the abolition of U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE). As of 2019, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated that seven percent of the L.A. County population was undocumented. Wong saw that ICE posed a danger to her Koreatown community. 

As she recounted the tense council meeting at which her proposal was discussed, real testimony from undocumented people living in Koreatown crackled from speakers behind her. When Wong said that the resolution passed unanimously, audible murmurs of admiration rippled throughout the audience. The story brought a striking weight to Wong’s lighthearted exuberance. It’s a balance that Kristina Wong for Political Office strikes well. 

Wong was quick to admit that this resolution was a symbolic gesture—the Wilshire Center-Koreatown Neighborhood Council can’t do much of anything about a federal agency. But that doesn’t mean this effort should be scoffed at. As the lights dimmed towards the end of the show, and Wong stood centerstage in a soft, white beam, she proclaimed, “We all have the power to create symbols until they become public life.”

Perhaps that enough is cause for a confetti cannon.