The following review was first published on 20 September this year, when this production was performed in Sydney. It is now playing at Arts Centre Melbourne.
Orphans are not morally destitute. We are told to believe this at the start of Merlynn Tong’s Golden Blood 黄金血液, when the Singaporean siblings identified only as Girl and Gor inherit the money and estate of their recently deceased mother. An interwoven tale of familial clashes and crime, Golden Blood (commissioned through Melbourne Theatre Company’s NEXT STAGE Writers’ Program and originally staged by Griffin Theatre Company in 2022) is a frenetic presentation of what it means to lose and love. The two-hander explores these tensions in duologues that play out across the backstreets and underground lairs of a past Singapore.
The script is laden with moments of comedy, while Tong’s dialogue is intimately crafted with Singaporean references: Milo and chilli crab and a heavy insertion of Mandarin proverbs. At times we are kowtowed to by the actors as ragtag members of a gang, other times the audience is the backdrop to a larger team, the company founded by the pair in their later years – sequences demonstrating that even in a den full of people, it’s Girl and Gor against the world. Sister and brother stand shoulder to shoulder while outsiders try to pry them apart.
The symmetry of the two actors bleeds into the co-dependency of the sister-brother duo. They are a well-oiled machine, springing into routines. Tessa Leong’s direction takes the space into consideration without fail, and actor Charles Wu, who takes on the role of Gor with the irreverence and simultaneous care it deserves, is a joy to watch from beginning to end. His swaggering machismo (and diligent application of Singlish) all melt away in the final act, when ghosts prevail over his conscience and he cannot take on the web of lies any longer. His range is a natural illumination of his talent.
Tong’s performance is punctual in its comedic timing, never behind. As Girl she is didactic, a little uppity, full of hero-worship for her older brother. Tong has the upper hand in a way, having an innate understanding of the characters, because she wrote them into existence, yet the audience is never privy to this. Her characterisation of Girl from a 14-year-old to the early years of adulthood is seamless. We do not doubt that we are watching a young woman bloom into herself in front of us.
Each scene is rife with symbols: a stuffed koala, a wielded and a sequin-encrusted barang (a Malaysian protection knife), even bars of gold, all designated to protect the two from woes, but almost all of them fail. The siblings are haunted by their past and are conflicted about how to fix this.
Whenever the siblings’ deceased parents speak to them as apparitions, they do so via a golden box of light framing the actors’ eyes, sequences in which the genius of Fausto Brusamolino’s lighting design comes fully into play.
Sound also has a synergy of its own in Golden Blood. The pulsating throughline engineered by Michael Hankin and Rainbow Chan thrums with life every time the story flips ahead and Girl and Gor age before our eyes.
There are no curtains, and those blackouts that do occur are static, mere seconds before the following scene hits you in the face. The audience is encroaching on a life with two sliding doors; one is led to believe there’s not a lot of privacy intact for the two characters. Perhaps the same can be said of the ending, which is abrupt. While the climax reaches a fever pitch, the finale lands on a punchline that is slightly ham-fisted, but before we know it we are rushed through to the curtain call.
Read: Theatre review: Two Strangers Walk into a Bar…, Sydney Fringe Festival
We are winded, still dwelling in the squalid apartment with Girl and Gor before the reality of the fiction catches up to us. Yet the reception is significant enough that it is not a grave slight. On the night of our attendance, everyone was up on their feet as the two actors took their final bow.
When Girl and Gor are left with nothing, save for themselves to turn to, they both ask for the mercy of their future as one that is up for them to write on their own. These are the only good omens they have.
Golden Blood 黄金血液
By Merlynn Tong
A Griffin Theatre Company production
Presented by Sydney Theatre Company
Director: Tessa Leong
Designer: Michael Hankin
Lighting Designer: Fausto Brusamolino
Composer and Sound Designer: Rainbow Chan
Cast: Merlynn Tong and Charles Wu
Tickets: $40– $125
The Wharf Theatre, Dawes Point
13 September– 13 October 2024
Following its STC season, Golden Blood transfers to Arts Centre Melbourne’s Fairfax Studio from 25 October– 30 November 2024, presented by Melbourne Theatre Company.
