Review - Little Emperors

Little Emperors

By Lachlan Philpott

Directed by Wang Chong

CAST

Diana (Xiaojie) Lin

Liam Maguire

Alice Qin

Yuchen Wang

Dramaturgy – Mark Prichard

Set and Costume Design – Romanie Harper

Lighting Design and AV Consultant – Emma Valente

Sound Design – James Paul

AV Programmer – Andre Vanderwert

Stage Manager – Harriet Gregory

Malthouse Theatre

The Beckett

9 – 26 February 2017

Little Emperors is multi layered.  It is a personal family story that is profoundly meshed in the immeasurably burdensome cultural story of China’s One Child Policy.  It is presented in a wonderful surreal abstracted way, and yet surprisingly, it also accentuates the naturalistic and acutely personal via the use of ‘state of the art’ Audio-Visual projection.

The staging is unusual - perhaps inspired.  The set (Romanie Harper) is a shallow pool of water in front of a scrim made up of numerous distended scrolls.   At first the performers work with the water in a tentative controlled way.  However, as the work progresses, the water is used to express emotions of varying extremes.

Considerable variety in atmosphere is communicated specifically with the use of lighting (Emma Valente) and how it plays on/and with the water and the scrim.  Lit with red lights at times it feels encompassing and hypnotically lulling, at other times, bright and clear - with sharp reflections in the water, and silhouettes on the scrim.  Crisp clarity and murky confusion and numerous states in-between are conveyed. 

Generally the acting is stunning.  Yuchen Wang as Kaiwen is wholly convincing in his role of hidden second child who finally escaped China to ‘indulge in’ a Western way of life in Melbourne.  His work is fine and astute and seems to channel the writer and director and character all at the same time.

As Kaiwen’s Mother Diana (Xiaojie) Lin gives a very sincere tightly timed and controlled performance.

Alice Qin who plays Kaiwen’s sister gives a vital performance full gloriously expressed energy.  She plays a first child who although a girl was kept and dressed as a boy to hide her gender.

Sound (James Paul) initially introduces a kind of weird surreal atmosphere and then enhances and underscores effectively.

This is a wonderful glowing experiment as a cultural exchange.  It has particular relevance to our changing political landscape.  And it highlights the hubris intrinsic to the overly nurtured children of China’s One Child Policy - that may constitute a ‘cultural time bomb.’  

But who can say if it is any more of a cultural time bomb then the one building in the West - through unfettered consumerism, self-interest and individual self-aggrandizement?

It marks a very successful venture of a commissioned work with Writer (Lachlan Philpott), Director (Wang Chong) and Dramaturge (Mark Pritchard) developing a significant and resounding piece of contemporary Theatre for Asia Topa.

In many ways a masterful achievement!

Suzanne Sandow