REVIEW: Wong Shee Ping's Insightful And Comical Fable THE POISON OF POLYGAMY Draws On 19th Chinese Culture To Provide A Message For Modern Australia

Saturday 10th June 2023, 7:30pm, Wharf 1 Theatre Walsh Bay

Anchuli Felicia King’s adaptation of Wong Shee Ping’s serialized novel THE POISON OF POLYGAMY helps resurrect a largely forgotten work while providing a cautionary tale for contemporary Australian culture.  Originally published between 1909 and 1910 in the Chinese Times in Melbourne and translated from Classical Chinese by Ely Finch in 2019, this work has been given a renewed life through this co-production between Sydney Theatre Company and La Boite Theatre, directed by Courtney Stewart.

THE POISON OF POLYGAMY is told from the view point of a Hungry Ghost of a Chinese Australian Christian Preacher (Shan-Ree Tan) who is existing in the limbo world that people whose deaths were violent or unhappy are destined to inhabit according to Chinese beliefs.  Appearing to the contemporary Australian audience gathered at the Wharf 1 Theatre, shocked and possibly dismayed at the state of modern Australia, he takes the opportunity to share a warning from the past in the form of an allegory centered the Chinese cultural practice of men taking multiple wives, commonly referred to as Concubines.  Using the story of “Sleep-Sick” (also Shan-Ree Tan), a lazy opium addicted Manchurian man who goes to the Victorian goldfields in search of an answer to his family’s money troubles, the dangers of greed are exposed on multiple levels. 

Director Courtney Stewart presents the work with a simplified styling in a theatre-in-the-round configuration.  Designer James Lew evokes Chinese spaces with a series of mobile red pillars while steering away from any attempt to recreate a traditional Chinese space nor lean in too deeply to any stereotypes.  The only ‘set’ dressing is a bamboo bed and sparse bedding that is bought on for domestic scenes.  Similarly, the costume design is initially kept simple as it evokes the essence of provincial Chinese while having the ability to allow the small cast to shift between character parts and the villagers that pass judgment like a Greek Chorus.  As Sleep-Sick and his fellow Chinese migrants establish themselves in Melbourne commerce, they do away with their ‘traditional’ Chinese attire in favour of blending in with the locals with whom they intend to do business. 

Ben Hughes’ lighting design helps delineate the different eras in which the work takes place, particularly during The Preacher’s presentations direct to the assembled audience and the travels back in time to the story he uses as the warning.  Hughes’ lighting also shifts the focus around the space, at times extending the performance into the aisles, while also indicating moments of foreboding and bold flashes of insight into the mysterious character that haunts The Preacher.  Matt Hsu’s Obscure Orchestra’s musical compositions layer in a traditional Chinese music soundtrack without being obtrusive and Guy Webster’s sound design helps reinforce the scenes.

A strong cast of 8 has been assembled for this work.  In keeping with the work’s Australian connection as the first novel by a Chinese diaspora writer to be published in Australia, Stewart has the performers use their own voices as Australian Asian performers and refrains from trying to adopt any contrived accents.  The result is that the work is even more relatable for the contemporary audience as it is both a Chinese and an Australian story.  There is a good balance of humorous and weighty moments while the delivery of the work is presented with an awareness that the characters are reenacting the allegory with a deliberateness in keeping with the story being told by The Preacher. 

Shan-Ree Tan shifts easily between The Preacher and Sleep-Sick, using costuming, vocal tone and physicality to present the pious man of the cloth and the hedonistic opportunistic drug addict.  As Sleep-Sick’s wife Ma, Merlynn Tong handles the aging of her character well while ensuring that the audience sees her as faithful and committed as was the expectation of Chinese women of her era.  As Sleep-Sick’s concubine Tsiu Hei, Kimie Tsukakoshi ensures her character is the polar opposite of Merlynn Tong’s as the younger woman is given a more ‘modern’ and ‘rebellious’ thinking which manifests as a feistier character.  Ray Chong Nee, Silvan Rus and Gareth Yuen present Sleep-Sick’s fellow Chinese Goldfields miners of Ching, Chan and Pan and also double as other minor characters while Hsin-Ju Ely and Anna Yen represent the other women in the stories. 

THE POISON OF POLYGAMY is a captivating work presented in Chapters and verses echoing the original format of Wong Shee Ping’s story as a serialized story in the Chinese language newspaper.  Filled with brilliant dialogue and captivating monologues this is a work of mystery and meaning adapted to talk to a modern generation about so much more than types of marriages.  Well worth seeing particularly for anyone interested in Australia’s past and concerned about it’s future.

The Poison of Polygamy - Sydney Theatre Company

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