Type – Musical theatre, Comedy
If you liked – Musicals like Hairspray, Wicked; the play Golden Blood; films The Farewell or Crazy Rich Asians
Congratulations, Get Rich! (恭喜发财, 人日快乐): Absurdly funny, emotional, and chaotic in the best of ways.
There’s a rich vein of gentle satire and slapstick comedy to be found in the cultural differences between China and the West, which has only relatively recently been tapped. Aussie-made television series like The Family Law and Ronnie Chieng: International Student found welcoming and devoted audiences, and are still streaming as we speak. Merlynn Tong has leaned into this type of comedy with her finely-tuned writer’s sense of incongruity and bathos, and her new play (in which she also acts) Congratulations, Get Rich! is centred plumb in the middle of this genre.
Tong plays Mandy as we see her nervously preparing for her new venue Money Money Karaoke to open, with her patient partner Xavier (Zac Boulton) fixing up last minute plumbing glitches. They portray a natural rapport, with Xavier’s dad jokes driving Mandy mad as she frets that they have no customers. After a clap of thunder and a blackout, one woman appears in the bar – Kimie Tsukakoshi as Mandy’s Grandma – followed by another – Seong Hui Xuan as Mandy’s Mum. The issue for Mandy is that she knows both these women are dead. What ensues is the kind of musical and emotional chaos that will have audiences laughing, crying and cheering, often simultaneously.
Inspiration and Characterisation
Inspired by Tong’s own early childhood in her family’s karaoke bars in Singapore, this semi-autobiographical work runs the gamut from hilarious song-and-dance numbers, to genuine grief and pathos. The plot is simple as all musical theatre should be, but the characters are complicated. These complexities play out hilariously in song and whipcracking dialogue. The whole affair even ends in a glorious cathartic finale as Mandy rises from the ashes of her grief over her mother to take up the karaoke mic in triumph!
Tong and Boulton’s characters get to play it pretty straight most of the time, but the two ‘ghosts’ play strongly to the comical elements of the play, with plenty of wry but gently satirical gags about Chinese tiger mothers, quirks of Chinese-Singaporean culture, hungry ghosts and the Chinese penchant for focusing on the making of money. Tsukakoshi and Hui Xuan are the heart and soul of this performance, with impeccable comic timing, flawless singing, and charismatic stage presences.
The Sydney Production Elements
Courtney Stewart’s direction has had a couple of runs (in Brisbane and Singapore) to iron out any kinks, with result clearly being seen and felt in the focused and seamless staging at this Sydney Theatre Company season. James Lew’s design is cut straight out of a real karaoke bar and plonked on the stage at Wharf 1, enhanced with Gabriel Chan’s pink and red neon lighting. Chan’s orchestration of lighting throughout is epic in scale, matching Guy Webster’s claps of thunder and Phantom-esque organ crescendos. The songs and their accompanying dance numbers are poppy, energetic and catchy, and with titles like “Bucket of Durian” and “I am the Chinese Princess Diana” – I think you get the drift. The lucky cats scattered around the set looked down on the performance with great satisfaction.
Is Congratulations, Get Rich! (恭喜发财, 人日快乐) Worth Seeing in Sydney?
Both the Chinese-Australians, and the Non-Chinese-Australians in the audience laughed and cheered and applauded this performance through the tight 90-minute runtime. Congratulations, Get Rich! (恭喜发财, 人日快乐) will take you though the beaded curtain into an absurdly funny, emotional and chaotic world…and you’ll be glad you visited!
Tickets and Practical Info for Congratulations, Get Rich! (恭喜发财, 人日快乐) in Sydney 🎟️
STC Wharf 1, Hickson Road – Until 14 December 2025
Sydney Theatre Company, La Boite, Singapore Repertory Theatre
Tickets: https://www.sydneytheatre.com.au/whats-on/productions/2025/congratulations-get-rich
Directed by La Boite Artistic Director, Courtney Stewart and written by and starring Merlyn Tong, Congratulations, Get Rich! opened at Brisbane’s La Boite Theatre in September before touring to Singapore Repertory Theatre and now Sydney.
CAST
Xavier Zac Boulton
Mum Seong Hui Xuan
Mandy Merlynn Tong
Gma Kimie Tsukakoshi
CREATIVES
Direction Courtney Stewart
Writer Merlynn Tong
Designer James Lew
Lighting Designer Gabriel Chan
Composer & Sound Designer Guy Webster
Dramaturg Jules Orcullo
Music Director Alex Van den Broek
Fight & Intimacy Director NJ Price
