Chongqing—"No one could work out whether it was an act of genius or accidental genius or whether they were just really bad musicians," says Nora Alexander, one-third of the British trio troupe. "So we were really interested in how we emulate that in theatre — in a sort of meta way."
The actresses were enacting the Shaggs (Photo The Chengdu-Chongqing International Theatre Festival)
On Oct 6 and 7, she and her collaborators Dora Lynn and Kat Cory brought their explosive, genre-bending show Genius, or Something Else to the Chongqing Jinyuan Art Center, marking the production's China premiere as part of the 2026 Chengdu-Chongqing International Theatre Festival.
The 2026 Chengdu-Chongqing International Theatre Festival, now in its third edition, is the largest and longest-running city theatre event in Southwest China. Born in 2016 as the Sichuan-Chongqing Theatre Twin Cities initiative and rebranded in 2024 to align with the national Chengdu-Chongqing Economic Circle strategy, the festival is jointly guided by the cultural and tourism authorities of both Sichuan and Chongqing. Its guiding philosophy — Seeing the World Together — calls on creators and audiences alike to look beyond borders, with a special focus on nurturing young theatre talent.
The show presented the origin of the legendary band (Photo: The Chengdu-Chongqing International Theatre Festival)
This year, from Sep 24 to Oct 12, the festival unfolds across Chengdu, Chongqing, and Pengzhou, presenting 28 productions from four cultural units — China, France, Britain, and Russia — in nearly 90 performances. Against this sprawling backdrop, the British entry stands out as a compact grenade of a show: a 70-minute assault on narrative convention that uses the true story of 1960s American band The Shaggs as its launchpad.
The show told the story of The Shaggs — three sisters from Fremont, New Hampshire — who were forced into music by a domineering father who believed a palm-reader's prophecy that they would become rock stars. Their 1969 album Philosophy of the World was recorded in a single day, featuring off-key guitars, collapsing rhythms, and lyrics of eerie innocence. Frank Zappa called them "better than The Beatles"; Kurt Cobain listed the album among his favorites. Decades later, the band became cult icons of "outsider art."
But the troupe had no interest in a traditional biopic. The show features a parallel story structure in which the stage manager's relationship with the actresses reflected the Shaggs' struggles with their father (and his ghost). It opens with the frame of a three-act biography, then detonates it, pulling the audience into a visceral, high-energy live experience. "We're really interested in things being super live," Alexander notes. "When you come to the theatre, we really want people to be complicit, to be in the show with us."
The show's Edinburgh Fringe debut in 2025 sold out instantly, earning a Fringe First Award and five-star reviews from The Stage, The Scotsman, and The Guardian, which praised the trio for creating "a terrifying, electrically charged feeling, as if anything could happen next."
For the Chongqing run, the company is still decoding the local audience. "In the UK, if you have a rowdy audience, they all join in," Alexander explains. "Here, everyone is really listening — reading the show with a lot more concentration." Her collaborators noticed the same dynamic: Chinese spectators tend to hold their laughter in check, as if not wanting to hurt the performers' feelings. "They're trying to hide that they're laughing," Alexander says with a grin. "We were like, you can laugh!" Yet when the show invites audience members into the action — assigning them names and roles — the response is immediate. "Every single person has really engaged with us," she notes.
Between shows, the trio has been exploring the mountain city with their children in tow. "It's been amazing — we've eaten incredible food," Alexander says. A trip to Eling Park at sunset left them giddy: "You look down and see the whole city and how huge it is, the lights — nature meets the town meets history. It's so beautiful."
As the company prepares to depart, Alexander leaves the door wide open: "I would love to come back. Chongqing is really beautiful — an amazing place. We're so happy to be here."