Venue: Wharf 1 Sydney Theatre Company (Walsh Bay NSW), Nov 21 – Dec 14, 2025
Playwright: Merlynn Tong
Director: Courtney Stewart
Cast: Zac Boulton, Seong Hui Xuan, Merlynn Tong, Kimie Tsukakoshi
Images by Prudence Upton
Theatre review
It is opening day at Mandy’s new karaoke bar, and she is plainly on the verge of collapse. It also happens to be her thirty-eighth birthday—a milestone that terrifies her, for both her mother and grandmother died at precisely that age. Amid this psychological unravelling, those very forebears return as ghosts from the afterlife or underworld, appearing as if to mock her dread and deepen her sense of inevitability. Congratulations, Get Rich! by Merlynn Tong, probes the intertwined notions of curses and legacies—ideas often treated as distinct but revealed here to be inseparable. Mandy fears repeating history, even as she begins to recognise, somewhere beneath the panic, that her own hard-won successes might yet rewrite the story her family has carried for generations.
The writing is wildly inventive, holding us rapt from the first moment to the last. Unpredictable and delightfully eccentric, it balances sincerity with a sense of the marvellously outlandish. Courtney Stewart’s direction brings together rich cultural specificity and deep emotional truth, guiding a story that moves between Singapore and Australia while allowing its layered meanings to reverberate across cultural lines. At times the humour edges toward the contrived, yet the production’s unwavering commitment to its distinctive tone renders even its most exaggerated moments disarmingly persuasive.
James Lew’s production design is richly considered, weaving symbolism into a visual language that is at once grounded and strikingly theatrical. His work carries a pleasurable sense of extravagance, yet never loses sight of the social resonances that inform each aesthetic choice. Gabriel Chan’s lighting is similarly exuberant, though one occasionally wishes for greater nuance to draw us further into the emotional terrain. Guy Webster’s sound design, gloriously amplified and unabashedly heightened, proves an ideal match for the work’s supernatural comic register. Particularly noteworthy are the original songs that Tong weaves into the piece, rendered delightfully camp through Alex Van den Broek’s playful, uninhibited music direction.
An exceptional ensemble anchors the production, with Tong herself embodying Mandy with indefatigable verve and an arresting emotional intensity. Kimie Tsukakoshi delivers a masterfully layered performance as the grandmother—precise, commanding, and utterly persuasive in her traversal of time and space. As Mandy’s mother, Seong Hui Xuan is unassailably authentic, capturing the poignant duality of a woman who bequeaths her daughter both profound anxieties and an equally steadfast resilience. Zachary Boulton shines as Xavier, Mandy’s partner in life and business, his impeccable comic timing offering welcome buoyancy whenever the domestic tensions threaten to overwhelm. The ensemble as a whole is remarkable for its discipline and cohesion, contributing to a staging distinguished by its tightness, clarity, and shared purpose.
The three women of Congratulations, Get Rich!, spanning three generations, trace a lineage of womanhood that feels both linear and perpetual—distinct lives that nonetheless echo one another with a clarity suggesting something almost divine in the continuity of mothers and daughters. Across cultures, whether East or West, women are routinely diminished, yet time and again reveal themselves to be far more powerful than the structures that seek to contain them. Mandy’s ancestors may have been claimed too early by the worlds that shaped them, but their struggles permeate unmistakably into the present. Mandy, however, stands on different ground, no longer bound by their limitations—and poised, at last, to carry the story further.
Suzy Goes See 