Created by Milton Lim, with Aryo Khakpour. Produced by Hong Kong Exile in association with Theatre Conspiracy, as part of the rEvolver Theatre Festival. At the Cultch’s Vancity Culture Lab on Thursday, May 12. Continues until May 21

Watching okay.odd. didn’t enlighten me as to the meaning of its title, but the show is odd, and that’s okay.

Hong Kong Exile’s Milton Lim wrote, directed, and designed okay.odd., billed as a multimedia meditation session. The performance begins with an extended preshow speech by Aryo Khakpour that goes much further than the conventional series of acknowledgments. On a screen behind him, a rectangle of light strobes on and off. Khakpour leaves the stage, and the box of light pulses and recedes, replaced by a series of words as a voice-over by Lim invites us to summon the values of concentration, mindfulness, contemplation, and visualization, following our curiosity from thought to thought in hopes of discovering “what may be on the other side of consciousness”.

The words follow random associations—breakfast, champion, Queen, eggs—but the text is often freighted with connotations of environmental issues, race, sexuality, and postcolonial politics. There’s a dose of pop culture, too: on the night I saw the show, a ripple of laughter broke out when Beyoncé’s name appeared on the screen. But the rapid-fire visuals and the pounding percussive score tax the senses, forcing each audience member into a more solitary space of contemplation.

That might be Lim’s goal, but I was left with little more than random associations. Is the show sincere or ironic? Is it meant to encourage us to find our calm centre in a technologically overwhelming world, or to mock our desire—which comes from a place of privilege—to do so? If there’s an implied critique of our culture, what are we supposed to do with it? Perhaps that’s up to each of us to figure out.

Everything about okay.odd. feels expertly crafted—it’s sophisticated in both concept and delivery, as Lim assaults us with polished visuals and exquisitely sculpted noise. The piece has the feel of participatory performance art, and so might find a more natural home in a gallery. (An earlier version was presented at the Vancouver Art Gallery’s FUSE.) In the theatre, I long for something more communal. I enjoyed the head trip that okay.odd. took me on, but I felt like I was taking it alone.