“Law aimed for more than giving folks a few giggles, and she succeeded. Her contribution to a more diverse theatre landscape is well worth a look.“
Veronica Hannon
3.5 Stars
Belvoir
Until July 30, 2023, and then on tour.
Miss Peony is light and sheer fun. A talented director and cast make the most of Michelle Law’s fish-out-of-water trilingual comedy. Written in English, Cantonese and Mandarin, the production is shown with surtitles. Set during a local community beauty contest, there’s plenty of pageant mayhem, and while the play contains few surprises, there’s nothing to dislike either.
Our fish is Lily (Stephanie Jack), an Australian woman of Chinese ancestry who is compelled to enter the titular Miss Peony after a ghostly visitation from her dead grandma, Adeline (Gabrielle Chan). It goes against Lily’s deeply held belief that such affairs are superficial and silly, but her Poh Poh’s (grandmother in Cantonese) soul is at stake.
The other issue, of course, is that in spite of her name, Lily is not a delicate flower. She lacks the poised femininity and connection to culture that the pageant celebrates, and her Cantonese is lousy. Luckily, her Poh Poh is on hand and, as a famous former beauty queen, is full of expert advice.
Chan makes for an incredibly charismatic ghost, adding plenty of comic spark to the proceedings. The same can be said of Lily’s main rivals, the whip-smart Joy (Shirong Wu), who is looking for love as well as a crown; Marcy (Deborah Faye Lee), an entrepreneur helping to run the family business: and Sabrina (Mabel Li) the south-west Sydney party girl with all the right moves. The formula demands they all become closer as other contestants are eliminated (who they all play in a hilarious, quick-change segment). So they do while being wrangled by pageant producer Zhen Hua (Charles Wu), a performer who is always a pleasure to watch.
Jack still has a way to go in the central role, but then she stepped in to replace Law at the last minute and was still on the book the night before I was in. Jack’s Lily should be driving the action, but at the moment, the other actors, more settled in roles, tend to pull us into following their character arcs.
Director Courtney Stewart does well keeping the show within a show rollicking along, with the creative efforts of the design team, especially Jonathan Hindmarsh and Keerthi Subramanyam (set and costumes) and Trent Suidgeest (lighting) providing the glitz and glam.
It would be great to see this again mid-tour. After the Belvoir season, it heads south, playing Wollongong, Canberra, Melbourne and Geelong. This particular Australian story, told by a cast of actors of Asian ancestry, has the potential to bring new audiences to the theatre, which can only be a good thing.
Law aimed for more than giving folks a few giggles, and she succeeded. Her contribution to a more diverse theatre landscape is well worth a look.
Veronica Hannon, Theatre Now
