Image by James Henaghan
Review by: Blake Zhang
Rating: ★★★
As part of Camden Fringe, Aunty Mei Is Looking for a Wife was presented at both Canal Café Theatre and The Etcetera Theatre. Written, produced and performed by Charmaine Cheong and directed by Nor Leinster, this one-woman comedy starts with a wonderfully unusual premise: a Malaysian Chinese mother comes to London to find a wife for her lesbian daughter.
The show begins with a plum blossom screen and Southeast Asian-inspired music. Mei appears in an ‘I ❤️ London’ T-shirt and a blue sequinned dress. After learning that her daughter has come out, she is visited by the ghost of her late mother, who sends her to London on a mission to find her granddaughter a partner.
Mei’s matchmaking journey quickly becomes more complicated. She meets Rachel and assumes that Rachel is interested in her daughter, only to discover that Rachel actually has her eyes on Mei. Mei rejects her, leaving Rachel heartbroken. Then comes an even stranger problem. Mei learns that her daughter will turn into a steamed dumpling if she does not find a partner before her twenty fifth birthday. With the deadline approaching, Mei becomes increasingly desperate to find a match.
Cheong brings plenty of energy to the solo performance. Her clowning comes through in Mei’s exaggerated make-up and facial expressions, giving the character a larger than life comic presence. The sock puppets bring a different kind of charm. Rachel and Mei’s daughter are both represented by puppets, and their small movements and expressions make them surprisingly expressive and endearing. These choices help Cheong create several distinct characters on a relatively simple stage.
The audience is also brought into the action several times. There is a playful sequence involving luggage on a plane, followed by two matchmaking games. The interaction creates a lively Fringe atmosphere and gives the audience an active role in Mei’s search. However, by the second matchmaking game, the device starts to feel somewhat repetitive.
More importantly, the show leaves some of its most interesting questions unexplored. The premise opens up plenty of possibilities around East and Southeast Asian families, queer children, generational expectations and different ideas about love and marriage, but Mei and her daughter have relatively little interaction on stage. I found myself wondering whether Mei had really never suspected that her daughter was queer, what their relationship had been like before Mei came to London, and how the daughter herself felt about her mother’s attempts to find her a partner. More time between the two could have made the emotional turn at the end feel more earned.
The same is true of Mei’s experience of London. We see her take the Tube and visit Primrose Hill, but London mostly remains a backdrop to her search. I would have liked to see her visit Chinatown and hear what she makes of it. Would it feel familiar, strange, or somewhere in between? What would a Malaysian Chinese woman make of the Chinese community in London? These details could have made her journey feel more specific and given the setting a stronger role in the story.
The final section brings the comedy towards a more heartfelt conclusion. After Mei is arrested and Rachel helps get her out, she finally finds her daughter, now transformed into a steamed dumpling. Mei tells her that she will love her whatever she becomes, and her daughter turns back into a human. It is a simple declaration of maternal love, but one that can resonate with people from East and Southeast Asian families, where expectations around family, marriage and filial love can be complicated. Mei also finds her own happiness along the way.
There is a lot to enjoy in Aunty Mei Is Looking for a Wife. Cheong is a charismatic performer, and the puppets and physical comedy bring plenty of fun to the show. The story has a lot of room to grow, but for now, it makes for an enjoyable and entertaining Fringe night.