This play by Anchuli Felicia King is a social homily adapted from Wong Shee Ping’s novella of the same name.

While Ping attempted to wrangle the narrative to support his ideas around morality and encourage his readership to push towards virtuous self-betterment – King makes space for the audience to look at these words and ideas anew, and questions the original writer’s authority to tout the perfection of Christian monogamy.

Working on this play with this team has been a highlight of my career – I have never had the chance to interrogate so deeply the origins of the Chinese diaspora in this country and look at how we as a people also contributed to colonisation. These characters are deeply flawed, with even the most virtuous of the characters having imperfect politics or personal weaknesses. The Poison of Polygamy is a gift to the Australian canon – a chance for Chinese characters to play against the model minority myth, and to be grappling with ideas that extend beyond a mere exploration of self-identity.

Felicia is right in saying this play is big! We traverse themes of Chinese Nationalism, political and social thinking, race relations, women’s rights, the challenges of migration, marriage, religion, modernisation, and the value of kinship and solidarity between Chinese diaspora in Australia. But ultimately, I think this play is about legacy and how fixated we are as human beings by the mark we will leave behind. How will we be remembered? How can we take control of our own personal histories and curate them to shine us in a certain light for generations to come? This production offers up a live conversation between the Chinese Diaspora of then and the Chinese Diaspora of now, and asks the question: How do we ensure we become good ancestors?

The Poison of Polygamy is on stage at The Wharf from 8 Jun.

Header photo: Director Courtney Stewart in the rehearsal room at La Boite Theatre for The Poison of Polygamy (Images: CSQUARE)