How I Met My Dead Husband

The Melbourne Fringe Festival is just another reason why Melbourne is one of the great Arts cities in the world. With its open access ethos, the Fringe allows artists to express themselves in spaces large and small and on topics which may not necessarily fit into the mainstream.   

How I Met My Dead Husband is a one-woman show by Taiwanese-Australian Lansy Feng. The show opens in 1950 at the funeral of Yueh. Feng steps up as Yueh’s wife, Chuen-Jiau preparing to eulogise the love of her life… well lives actually. It turns out Chuen-Jiau has been cursed to remember her past lives and she has loved Yueh through four of them.  The idea is both clever and unique.  Feng appears as sweet and thoughtful as she starts to tell the story of a great love, a bond that isn’t tied to the physical form but moves through the metaphysical. She transports us to the year 1800 where Chuen-Jiau first meets Yueh, an inauspicious introduction involving a snotty handkerchief.

Feng tells of her lives through monologue and song with a heaping helping of warmth, pathos and humour. It’s through song that this show really comes to life. Starting with a cracking rendition of the Nina Simone classic, Feng shows the audience that she has a voice which is perhaps too big for the small studio space. Throughout the show she sings in English and Mandarin, but it is note perfect rendition of the Edith Piaf classic ‘La Vie En Rose’, ably backed on the keyboard by accompanist Shelley Dunlop, that is the highlight of the show.

Feng is a new performer, having graduated from the Howard Fine Acting Studio in 2017 and this is an ambitious project. There are moments of the show that could still use some polish, but Feng quickly makes you forget that the backdrop is held in place with bulldog clips with her charisma and quirky comedy. This is an entertaining cabaret filled with heart, song and even the occasional sight gag.  There is something truly delightful How I Met My Dead Husband that, in spite of its funereal setting leaves the audience somehow a little lighter in the end. Feng is an undeniably captivating talent for whom mainstream success must surely be on the way.

L.B. Bermingham