LADY SUNRISE by Marjorie Chan (Factory). At Factory Theatre (125 Bathurst). Runs to March 8. $25-$50. 416-504-9971, factorytheatre.ca. See Listing. Rating: NNN
Marjorie Chans expansive new show was inspired by Chinese playwright Cao Yus 1936 play Sunrise, the story of several Shanghai women and the ways corruption and excess impact their lives. With Lady Sunrise, Chan reimagines these characters as part of the multi-generational Asian diaspora in contemporary Vancouver and Richmond, British Columbia. Its a play about wealth, power and chosen families and how each those things can enrich or destroy a life.
Penny (Lindsay Wu) is a young, underemployed model with a decadent lifestyle financed by glamorous matriarch-type figure Tawny Ku (Ma-Anne Dionisio), who made her millions in condo developments. Tawnys financial advisor (Rosie Simon) is a relentless, power-hungry exec who climbed the corporate ladder of the white male-dominated world of investment banking.
On the other end of the spectrum, we meet a blackjack dealer (Zoe Doyle) who works at the casino frequented by the upper echelon, and Charmaine (Louisa Zhu), who runs a massage parlour that employs young, newly immigrated and vulnerable Asian women like Sherry (Belinda Corpuz).
Directed by Nina Lee Aquino, the vast majority of the play comprises monologues in which the six women reveal major moments that led them to where they are today. Wus lively and often funny monologues are especially moving when Pennys obsession with material things is recast through a past tragedy. And the scenes when Wu is in a gown competing in the Lady Sunrise pageant as the rest of the women are transformed into a chorus of dancers are captivating. All the performances are consistently compelling, but the play is the strongest when the characters cross paths. A random encounter between the banker and Charmaine highlights the way class differences unfold and how the Asian diaspora is not a homogenous group.
The layers of city life are creatively rendered onstage through the slanted tiers designed by set designer Camellia Koo.
Although there are no men in the cast, male figures orbit around the womens stories. These men the fraudulent businessman Frankie the Rat, the young lover Hubert with a penchant for expensive suits, an unnamed vicious big man all harm the women to varying degrees, showing that even wealth and beauty are outmatched in a patriarchal society.
At 105 minutes and no intermission, at times the play loses momentum. But its reluctance to sugarcoat harsh realities will leave audiences stinging from the engrossing narratives.
