Kanye the First

by Sam Steiner

Annie's not really a fan of herself. How did she get a life like this? While her perfect sister poses in hipster hats, she has to take care of her sick mother. And she keeps mistaking hot men for her Dad.

There must be more than this. The celebrities that fill her social media feeds are only separated by a screen, but that's as close as she'll ever get to someone like Kanye West. People think he's a God.

But what if everyone thought she was someone else? Someone different. Someone better.

Sam Steiner's Kanye the First is a dazzlingly funny and original drama about identity, guilt, contemporary culture and the second coming of Kanye West.

It was premiered in September 2017 by HighTide Festival.

Genres: Plays

133 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 14, 2017

Reviews

[Doug · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was a fan of Steiner's first play (Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons - currrently being revived in the West End) - but this is just a mess. Granted, knowing next to nothing about Kanye West, other than that which is inescapably played out in the media, I am decidedly NOT the audience this is geared towards - however, even those millennials who reviewed the play thought it lacking.

https://www.whatsonstage.com/london-t...
https://www.culturewhisper.com/r/thea....
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/201...

[Charlie Lee · Rating 2 out of 5]

I once read that, in the Romantic period, the mentally unfit frequently believed they were either Jesus or Lord Byron, and that the Byrons were significantly more fun. I think this was roughly the same time that one of the major contributors to the Oxford Dictionary was committed for chopping off his own dick. However, I digress... Nowadays, Kanye is as fitting a delusion as anyone, as he's somewhat delusional himself it has a kind of circular logic.

This is a play which thinks it's saying something clever, but isn't. Sam Steiner is good at high concept ideas but I actually think his writing is a little subpar. If you want something interesting about mental health, go read Joe Penhall instead. Or maybe Annie Baker.

[Sam Coffey · Rating 1 out of 5]

??? I haven’t been a fan of Steiner’s work let and this hasn’t changed that.