Chimerica – REVIEW

Written in 2013 by British playwright, Lucy Kirkwood, Chimerica feels very current, even prescient. The title is a portmanteau of China and America and was coined by two economists in an essay examining the symbiotic relationship between the two countries. In Kirkwood’s play,  ‘Chimerica’ has darker, more complex layers of meaning; ominous and ironic. 

A leitmotif – and the author’s inspiration – is the famous photograph of a man holding two white shopping bags and standing defiantly before an army tank in Tiananmen Square, Beijing in 1989. The image captures a pivotal moment during the weeks-long protests by the populace against an increasingly corrupt and tyrannical Chinese government. Soon after this photo was taken, the protests were brought to a violent end when the army opened fire and massacred thousands of citizens. 

Nothing is known about the man who stood valiantly before the tank – he disappeared into the crowd and was never identified. This mystery was the leap off point for Kirkwood and she built a narrative based on stories she imagined about the people involved. 

The plot begins twenty years after the massacre. Joe (Oliver Burton) has a successful career as a photojournalist but he is haunted by the photograph he took in Tiananmen Square of the man stopping a tank. It haunts him because he wants desperately to know the identity of the the man, but also because he has never since achieved the fame or adrenalin of that moment. 

The story revolves around Joe and his obsession. He is not entirely a likeable character, not that he is evil, but he is so self-absorbed he is oblivious to potential harm his enquiries and actions may cause. Joe meets Tessa (Jasmin Certoma), a British marketing executive for a credit card company. They begin a relationship but it is fraught. 

Joe’s colleague, Mel (Ciaran O’Riordan) is not enthused about Joe’s quest to find “Tank Man”. Their’s is a tenuous friendship that slowly disintegrates. 

Zhang Lin (Jon-Claire Lee) is a teacher living in China who corresponds with Joe and offers clues about Tank Man’s possible identity. But Zhang needs to be ever mindful of a highly surveillant government. 

The plot splits into interwoven threads, some of which are flashbacks. Despite the subject matter, there are quite a few laughs. Les Asmussen who plays Frank, Joe’s suffering editor, is a wonderful character actor in the ‘70s sitcom tradition. Certoma’s Tess also has some classic comic moments. 

Alice Livingstone plays dual roles: Senator Maria Dubiecki who is deliciously acerbic, and Doreen, Frank’s hilariously humourless assistant. 

Kirkwood is a master of dialogue and character development which makes the quite lengthy play easy to sit through. The New Theatre production is scaled back, mostly using a very large on-stage screen for projected backdrops, a few suggestive props and a lot of simple theatrical invention. 

There is so much more going on in terms of social, political, and psychological interrogation. It’s a rich play, dense with ideas which are delivered cleverly and subtly, without proselytising or signalling. 

Until September 10

New Theatre, 542 King St, Newtown

newtheatre.org.au/chimerica