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'Love, betrayal and cross-continental adventure
'Set sail with this epic gold rush drama that sprawls across Qing Dynasty China, to Victoria’s nineteenth century goldfields, and the laneways of Melbourne’s Chinatown. One of Australia’s most exciting, versatile, and provocative playwrights, Anchuli Felicia King returns to STC to uncover this historical story of love, sex, adventure, and two worlds colliding.
'Originally published in 1910, The Poison of Polygamy was Australia’s first ever novel by a Chinese Australian author, Wong Shee Ping. It tells the story of Sleep-sick – an opportunistic young man from Guangdong who has his sights set on amassing a fortune in Australia’s goldfields. He leaves behind his faithful but long-suffering wife Ma (Merlynn Tong) and sets out across the sea to try his luck.
'Along the way, he charms and cheats an eccentric cast of characters until he meets his match: the seductive and cunning Tsiu Hei (Kimie Tsukakoshi). Will Sleep-sick keep his promise to Ma? Or are the temptations of wealth, beautiful women and opium too much to bear?
'Take a look into a slice of Australian history that is rarely seen on stage. Also featuring Ray Chong Nee, The Poison of Polygamy is a frontier story, a morality tale for the ages, and a rollicking, horse-drawn escapade.'
Source: Sydney Theatre Company.
Production Details
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Presented by La Boite Theatre, 8-27 May 2023.
Director: Courtney Stewart.
Designer: James Lew.
Lighting Designer: Ben Hughes
Composer: Matt Hsu’s Obscure Orchestra
Cast: Merlynn Tong, Kimie Tsukakoshi, Anna Yen, Ray Chong Nee, Silvan Rus, Gareth Yuen, Hsin-Ju Ely, and Shan-Ree Tan.
Presented by Sydney Theatre Company at Wharf 1 Theatre, 8 June - 15 July 2023.
Director: Courtney Stewart.
Cast: Merlynn Tong, Kimie Tsukakoshi, and Ray Chong Nee.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Chinese-Australian Culture in a Sinophone History and Geography
2023
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Journal of Australian Studies , vol. 47 no. 3 2023; (p. 447-461)'This article proposes to view Australian Chinese cultural products through a Sinophone studies lens to clarify the position of Australia in transnational patterns of Chinese-language cultural production. Three examples illustrate how Sinophone studies can expand research on Chinese-language culture in Australia, by showing them to also be instances of wider phenomena: Chinese-language theatre, Federation-era fiction, and the foreign student literature of the 1990s. Examining how these examples fit into wider patterns of Chinese-language production allows us to expand dyadic views of diaspora or transnationalism while also directing greater attention to community diversity and marginalised texts. The Australian Chinese studies community is right to celebrate the length and breadth of Chinese cultural production in Australia, and considering Sinophone Australian literature and theatre in the context of global Sinophone cultural production can help sharpen perspectives on what is shared and what is particular about the Australian case.' (Publication abstract)
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Poisons and Antidotes : Staging a Chinese-Australian Morality Play
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , July no. 455 2023; (p. 58)
— Review of The Poison of Polygamy 2023 single work drama'The Poison of Polygamy originally appeared serially in Melbourne’s Chinese Times in 1909–10. Wong Shee Ping’s novella is a kind of Cantonese Rake’s Progress by way of Rider Haggard, relating the wanderings and misadventures of a man sojourning in Australia, and the yearnings of the wife he leaves behind at home. Subtitled as social fiction, its chief concern is not migration but the moral ills afflicting Chinese society. Accordingly, the opium-smoking rotter of a protagonist is finally punished for his lust, slovenliness, avarice, and addiction: throttled by his slatternly concubine, who has only just dispatched his wife and child in a bid to improve her social position. Along the way, thylacines attack, business partners are rescued from collapsed mines, and thinly veiled Christian moralism excoriates traditional medicine and religion.' (Introduction)
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A Gothic, Brilliant Success : The Poison of Polygamy Brings the First Chinese-Australian Novel to the Stage After 113 Years
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: The Conversation , 13 June 2023;
— Review of The Poison of Polygamy 2023 single work drama -
[Review] The Poison of Polygamy
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: The Saturday Paper , 20-26 May 2023;
— Review of The Poison of Polygamy 2023 single work drama'In exploring how the oppressed can become oppressors, the stage adaptation of The Poison of Polygamy – Australia’s first Chinese-language novel – is a timely critique of the present. By Yen-Rong Wong.'
-
[Review] The Poison of Polygamy
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: The Saturday Paper , 20-26 May 2023;
— Review of The Poison of Polygamy 2023 single work drama'In exploring how the oppressed can become oppressors, the stage adaptation of The Poison of Polygamy – Australia’s first Chinese-language novel – is a timely critique of the present. By Yen-Rong Wong.'
-
A Gothic, Brilliant Success : The Poison of Polygamy Brings the First Chinese-Australian Novel to the Stage After 113 Years
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: The Conversation , 13 June 2023;
— Review of The Poison of Polygamy 2023 single work drama -
Poisons and Antidotes : Staging a Chinese-Australian Morality Play
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , July no. 455 2023; (p. 58)
— Review of The Poison of Polygamy 2023 single work drama'The Poison of Polygamy originally appeared serially in Melbourne’s Chinese Times in 1909–10. Wong Shee Ping’s novella is a kind of Cantonese Rake’s Progress by way of Rider Haggard, relating the wanderings and misadventures of a man sojourning in Australia, and the yearnings of the wife he leaves behind at home. Subtitled as social fiction, its chief concern is not migration but the moral ills afflicting Chinese society. Accordingly, the opium-smoking rotter of a protagonist is finally punished for his lust, slovenliness, avarice, and addiction: throttled by his slatternly concubine, who has only just dispatched his wife and child in a bid to improve her social position. Along the way, thylacines attack, business partners are rescued from collapsed mines, and thinly veiled Christian moralism excoriates traditional medicine and religion.' (Introduction)
-
Chinese-Australian Culture in a Sinophone History and Geography
2023
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Journal of Australian Studies , vol. 47 no. 3 2023; (p. 447-461)'This article proposes to view Australian Chinese cultural products through a Sinophone studies lens to clarify the position of Australia in transnational patterns of Chinese-language cultural production. Three examples illustrate how Sinophone studies can expand research on Chinese-language culture in Australia, by showing them to also be instances of wider phenomena: Chinese-language theatre, Federation-era fiction, and the foreign student literature of the 1990s. Examining how these examples fit into wider patterns of Chinese-language production allows us to expand dyadic views of diaspora or transnationalism while also directing greater attention to community diversity and marginalised texts. The Australian Chinese studies community is right to celebrate the length and breadth of Chinese cultural production in Australia, and considering Sinophone Australian literature and theatre in the context of global Sinophone cultural production can help sharpen perspectives on what is shared and what is particular about the Australian case.' (Publication abstract)
Awards
- 2023 nominated Sydney Theatre Awards — Best New Australian Work
- 2023 nominated Sydney Theatre Awards — Best Direction of a Mainstage Production
- 2023 nominated Sydney Theatre Awards — Best Mainstage Production
