Opening La Boite’s 2023 season, The Poison of Polygamy is a sprawling family saga playing out across years and continents, from the opium dens of Qing China to the Victorian goldfields and the early days of Melbourne’s Chinatown.
Directed by La Boite’s Artistic Director Courtney Stewart, the play is adapted by Anchuli Felicia King from the earliest Chinese-language novel in Australia, and possibly the West. Written by Wong Shee Ping, and translated into English by Ely Finch in 2019, it was originally published in 53 instalments in The Chinese Times, a Chinese-language newspaper in Melbourne, from 1909-1910.
Shan-Ree Tan in The Poison of Polygamy. Photo © David Kelly
Presented as a “social homily”, The Poison of Polygamy is narrated by The Preacher, delivering a sermon from beyond the grave. His epic tale follows Sleep-Sick, an opium addict who leaves behind his long-suffering wife Ma to seek gold in Australia. In search of riches, Sleep-Sick and his countrymen face hardships including stormy seas, collapsing mineshafts, and discrimination and violence from the European miners.
Selfish and fickle, Sleep-Sick relies on his cunning and the good will of others to build his own wealth and seek his own pleasure, eventually taking a second wife: the young, beautiful bondmaiden of his friend Ching. But Tsiu Hei is clever and vicious, and her promiscuity and brutal behaviour further ostracise them from the community in Melbourne. Sleep-Sick and Tsiu Hei return to Guangdong to reunite with Ma, who has faithfully raised her adoptive son alone, where things continue to unravel quickly and tragically.
Despite the play’s considerable length, each character remained clearly defined. However, the circumstances of The Preacher’s death – the Chekhov’s’ gun of the production – and the revelation of his personal connection to Sleep-Sick’s story were revealed at speed in the play’s final scenes, which lessened their impact.
While a core tension of the work is between Western Christian monogamy and Chinese polygamy, it also speaks to larger social themes of migration, racism, gender equality, oppression, addiction, unionisation, and the contributions of Chinese migrants that have shaped modern Australia. In addressing the marginalisation and displacement of the characters, The Poison of Polygamy also acknowledges the complicity of Chinese migrants in the legacy of colonisation in Australia.
The Poison of Polygamy is full of dynamic and detail-oriented movement, including choreography by Deborah Brown, and the weightiness of the work is regularly alleviated by moments of humour and physical comedy. The play is performed in the round, and Stewart’s direction makes full use of the space, including the staircase aisles. Fight and intimacy direction by Nigel Poulton creates memorable scenes of sex and violence, and a series of chilling murders.
A three-hour performance with many characters and demanding staging, The Poison of Polygamy is a significant undertaking and the cast of eight actors are consistently excellent. Kimie Tsukakoshi’s performance as Tsiu Hei is particularly notable, and Shan-Ree Tan transitioned smoothly between The Preacher and Sleep-Sick throughout. Ray Chong Nee, Hsin-Ju Ely, Silvan Rus, Merlynn Tong, Anna Yen, Gareth Yuen all perform a variety of roles with impressive range and distinct characterisations.
Design by James Lew uses a few key set pieces and a range of props to conjure a vast array of settings, from the swaying ship of Sleep-Sick’s first voyage to the smoky otherworldliness of The Preacher’s afterlife. Costuming distinguishes multiple characters played by the same actor, as well as showing the passage of time, such as the characters’ adoption of Western fashion in the second half of the play.
Lighting design by Ben Hughes contributes to arresting images and supports the story’s emotion and momentum, from the prophetic opening scene to the subtle changes that distinguished The Preacher’s narration from Sleep-Sick’s actions. Similarly, sound design by Guy Webster and compositions by Matt Hsu’s Obscure Orchestra permeate and elevate the work in both subtle and dramatic ways.
In The Poison of Polygamy, Courtney Stewart begins her tenure as Artistic Director with a work of impressive ambition and scale, strikingly realised under her direction. An epic and lengthy tale full of flawed characters and moral quandaries, Anchuli Felicia King’s adaptation also makes a unique and important contribution to the canon of Australian literature adapted for the stage.
The Poison of Polygamy plays at the Roundhouse Theatre, Brisbane until 27 May. It also plays in Sydney Theatre Company Wharf 1 Theatre, 8 June–15 July.
