[2012083] Legacy of the Tiger Mother
An Angela Chan Production @ Adelaide Town Hall – David Spence Room
7:30pm, Sun 4 Mar 2012
I admit it: Legacy of the Tiger Mother was on the outermost limits of The Shortlist: a show that I would only schedule if it really made the day work. And lo, this Sunday conspired to suggest a run of shows so smooth, so enticing, that I couldn’t help but – somewhat reluctantly, it must be said – slot this one in.
And boy am I glad that things worked out this way, because Legacy of the Tiger Mother was a lot of fun.
From the first time I met Lily, a first-generation Chinese immigrant living in America, and her daughter Mei, I was sucked into their almost abusive relationship: Mei, a girl caught up in the pop culture of her country, is being… well, “coerced” into pursuing her piano lessons by her ultra-dedicated mother. It’s a somewhat familiar tale, with “tough love” being the order of the day, but Lily’s strictness is never seen as anything but well-intentioned.
After a fantastic strong opening, the show settles into a Suzuki-nightmare flashback that dominates two-thirds of the performance, showing the conflicts between mother and daughter in their home as Mei reluctantly practices at her piano whilst Lily works to support them both. The strive for perfection is evident in Lily’s mindset, and Mei is played wonderfully young and naïve; but this flashback is bookended by the two women sitting side-by-side in the present day, watching Mei’s daughter at her piano recital – and there lies the heart of Legacy, as Mei tries to balance Lily’s “traditional” parenting style with her own, more modern, interpretation.
I was taken aback with how genuinely funny Legacy of the Tiger Mother was; some of Lily’s proud (spilling over into goading) comments at the recital were hilarious, and there’s a great river of giggles throughout. But what surprised me the most is that Legacy is, by and large, a musical, with plenty of humour to be found in the songs – the reverse racism of Lazy White Children is a particular standout, though it also manages to display some of the most blatant racial stereotyping of the production. Then there’s the somewhat bittersweet Something Better, the playful Little Miss 1986, and their reprises; throughout, the vocal performances are really wonderful, with the piano accompaniment pretty well done (and there’s some great laughs to be had when Mei is sight-reading the fluffed notes in Fur Elise).
An American production with a local cast (both Chiew-Jin Khut and Yen Yen Stender (as Lily and Mei, respectively) perform respectably enough, but excel with their singing voices), Legacy of the Tiger Mother was a very pleasant surprise: despite all the near-groanworthy racial stereotypes on display, Angela Chan and Michael Manley have constructed a really enjoyable script. This proved to be one of those “maybe” shows that, in retrospect, I feel utterly chuffed to have squeezed in.