Torch The Place

Torch The Place is an energetic production of many ‘firsts’ – first-time playwright, first-time main-stage director, performers making their Queensland Theatre stage debuts – which adds a freshness that audiences will feel from the outset.

An accomplished novelist and screenwriter, Benjamin Law’s very first stage play comes out all guns blazing! The Queensland-born writer sets his play at the Gold Coast as a call to arms to consider what shadows may lie beneath the behaviour of a loved one, no matter how sunny the setting. In this case, 60-year-old Mum, Diana (Hsiao-Ling Tang) hoards everything – from her children’s stuffed toys to the family’s first TV set. The family photo hung proudly on the wall, but with Dad’s face ripped out, is the first clue to what this family has endured. They survive by using humour, but they know it’s crunch time and something has to change.

However, each of the three siblings have inherited their Mum’s DNA: it’s no coincidence that eldest daughter Teresa (Denise Chan) has married a tradie Paul (Peter Thurnwald) who files away financial facts, and who is equipped to‘fix’ things; middle child Natalie (Kristie Nguy) is a social media influencer who accumulates followers and survives on a stash of sponsored gifts; and youngest Toby – ‘Toblerone’ – (Logan So) stores up his emotional baggage to the point that he suffers from mysterious ailments.

They are children of the consumer age, and from a family who moved to Australia from Hong Kong. So do they blame the system, the migrant experience, their upbringing? Mum’s red suitcase of secrets, hidden among the boxes of stuff, contains the unspoken family history. And while the play’s title suggests what some see as the easy way out of the problem, the delicate emotions beneath the crude cardboard boxes, plastic bags and paper piles demand a more considered solution.

In her first main-stage production, director Ngoc Phan will be more familiar to audiences as a performer (Vietgone, Boy Swallows Universe). She has done a brilliant job in realising the story’s balance of dark humour and serious themes – taking us from real drama to hilarious fantasy dream sequences at the flick of a vintage VCR switch! And what a dream cast she has brought us, with three making their Queensland Theatre Company debuts!

As is the case in most families, the limelight is stolen by the Mum – Hsiao-Ling Tang (Boy, Lost; Nearer the Gods) as Diana gives a performance that balances real pathos with vital humour. But as her children, this cast can hold their own. Denise Chan embodies the good eldest child who has overachieved in every field, and shelved her hopes and dreams in the process. Kristie Nguy is superb as social media influencer, Natalie, but she never hams it up at the expense of the story’s roots in family love. Logan So is a great fallguy as the youngest brother of two older sisters, but he shines in the more serious scenes too. Peter Thurnwald is brilliant as happy-go-lucky son-in-law, Paul. Paul’s instincts are to repair damage and, as a Vietnam refugee, he has his own reasons for papering over cracks by keeping the tone light.

The set design and costumes by Jeremy Allen are brilliant, with many iconic references to place, space and time – the kids grew up in the 1990s and the home’s hoarded ‘treasure’ includes pop culture and history references – and stacks of physical items – that many will find familiar. And with a classic soundtrack that mixes Eric Carmen and Celine Dion, what’s not to like?

Originally produced for Melbourne Theatre Company, this story belongs in Queensland. Don’t miss the chance to see this talented cast in a play that provokes an urgent asessment of your own family history and experience while providing much-needed humour.

Beth Keehn

Photographs by Stephen Henry

Find out more: queenslandtheatre.com.au/plays/torch-the-place