GOLDEN BLOOD

By Diana Simmonds

September 18 2024

GOLDEN BLOOD, STC presents Griffin Theatre Company at Wharf 1,  to 13 October 2024. Photography by Prudence Upton - all pix Merlynn Tong and Charles Wu

It’s been quite the journey for actor-playwright Merlynn Tong and her play Golden Blood. At the beginning of the decade, it was commissioned through Melbourne Theatre Company’s Next Stage Writers’ Program. Griffin picked it up and it was successfully staged at the Stables in 2022. Fast forward two years and a rare thing happens: the same cast and crew is reassembled and the play is now in Wharf 1. In November, like a salmon, it returns whence it came – to MTC and the Fairfax Studio. Amazing!

Golden Blood is a family drama with a twist – many twists. It begins with brother and sister – Boy and Girl – unexpectedly reunited after the death by suicide of their mother. Boy (Charles Wu) is a young man who feels compelled by custom and conscience to care for his 14-year-old sister Girl (Merlynn Tong). Their father is also dead. They are orphans. They are not rich. All these factors are embarrassing and not socially acceptable.

The almost anti-progression of the siblings into their 20s and the murk of Singapore’s 1990s drug-gang world is smoothly realised through Tessa Leong’s direction. The action takes place on a spaciously abstract set by Michael Hankin. Its time and place change through Fausto Brusamolino’s lighting, and Leong’s gradual changing up of pace and tension is underlined by composer and sound designer Rainbow Chan.

In 90 minutes, Girl and Boy age in seven-year increments into their 20s. Boy’s ambition is more in keeping with Crazy Rich Asians than is healthy, while Girl clings to more traditional roots and values (although set in San Francisco, think the warmth and ethos of The Joy Luck Club). Girl’s is a tricky journey – from childish innocence to able businesswoman – and Tong makes the transition look easy. Wu, meanwhile, does almost the reverse as his initial swaggering bravado cracks to reveal the remnants of a grieving kid. They occupy the stage and narratives with energy and conviction.

For the inevitably predominantly Anglo audience extra interest and discoveries are to be had as, for instance, Girl tries to ceremoniously burn “money” to send to her mother (they have none so she uses Monopoly notes). Later, when gang members are banging on the door and their business is crashing, she and Boy come to verbal “Singlish” blows in which the word “Ponzi” is all we need to understand to know what’s going on.

The unheralded occasional dropping in of the Singapore dialect, and other cultural references, make Golden Blood an unusual and welcome addition to Australian playwriting. There is a neat intertwining of goals as Girl clutches her toy koala while dreaming of Australia and becoming a vet, and Boy’s far-away-eyed hunger to be Rich is never sated.

Wit and humour abound, and laughter is never far away despite personal and social tragedy. For once the jokes are not at the expense of ethnicity or colour although both Boy and Girl are aware of the cliched pursuit of extreme wealth, and adherence to superstition. The final quarter is somewhat repetitious and also runs out of steam, nevertheless, Golden Blood is riveting, funny, moving, and illuminating. Recommended.