The Serpent's Table

FREE PROGRAM PROUDLY MADE POSSIBLE BY

GRIFFIN THEATRE COMPANY AND PERFORMANCE 4A IN PARTNERSHIP WITH CARRIAGEWORKS AND SYDNEY FESTIVAL PRESENT

THE SERPENT’S TABLE AUSTRALIA | WORLD PREMIERE

GRIFFIN THEATRE COMPANY AND PERFORMANCE 4A IN PARTNERSHIP WITH CARRIAGEWORKS AND SYDNEY FESTIVAL PRESENT

THE SERPENT’S TABLE CARRIAGEWORKS 24–27 JANUARY 90MINS NO INTERVAL

DIRECTORS Darren Yap & Lee Lewis MEDIA ARTIST Bambang N Karim DESIGNER Alice Lau

WITH Luke Ha Indira Naidoo Pauline Nguyen Jennifer Wong Darren Yap Anna Yen

WITH THANKS TO: COMPOSER AND SOUND DESIGNER Anthony Bastic & AGB Events, Nicholas Ng Adam Liaw, Daniel Potter, Khym Scott, Warren Sutton LIGHTING DESIGNER and Alistair Trung Luiz Pampolha PROJECTION CONSULTANT Mic Gruchy PRODUCTION MANAGER Glenn Dulihanty STAGE MANAGER Amy Harris

PROJECT PARTNERS

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government’s Major Festivals Initiative, managed by the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body, in association with the Confederation of Australian International Arts Festivals – Sydney Festival, Melbourne Festival, Perth International Arts Festival, Adelaide Festival and Brisbane Festiva

The Serpent’s Table is a room where we share our food and our stories.

Each storyteller remembers a favourite recipe or a special dish. And by doing this they unlock many memories: of childhood, relationships with parents and ancestors, and of paths travelled. Sometimes our food and our memories are funny, sometimes confronting, but always from the heart. The theme of each story is not just about being Asian. It resonates on a much deeper level. It asks all of us: How do I learn from my past? How do I take responsibility for the world I live in?

How can we grow a future together as a nation with so many pasts? Together the stories form not so much a picture of where we have come from but of ideas we would like to travel towards.

Lee Lewis and Darren Yap Co-directors of The Serpent’s Table

It’s said all art is about sex and death. But what about food? It evokes pungent memories of celebration, love, passion, pain, hardship, loss and regret.

The Serpent’s Table lays bare all of these and more, in a sensual offering of profoundly personal stories that will resonate with us all.

Conceived for Performance 4a, whose aim is to bring contemporary Asian Australian stories to the stage, this project has travelled its own serpentine route towards realisation, collecting exceptional artists along the way, who are all turned on by food and inspired by stories from the core of our common humanity. From a simple idea they’ve created a complex thing of beauty.

I’m thrilled to be staging this as part of Sydney Festival on the eve of Chinese New Year, and on the Australia Day weekend. These are Australian stories after all.

I’m grateful to the team at Griffin Theatre Company – our wonderful co-cooks who turned a morsel of a show into a feast. Thanks also to Carriageworks whose patience has resulted in the best slow cooking ever.

Like all the great meals, I hope you’ll remember The Serpent’s Table for years to come.

Annette Shun Wah Executive Producer, Performance 4a

Photos: Brett Boardman Photography

PAULINE NGUYEN In my family, food is our language. Food enables us to communicate the things we find so hard to say. A dish of bitter melon soup is a dish of reconciliation. It is bitter sweet.

When we quarrel we cannot speak the words “I am sorry.” We give this bitter sweet soup instead. It has medicinal qualities which heals internal wounds.

JENNIFER WONG I was a goody two-shoes. You would have detested me, and I would have respected – and complimented – your decision to do so. Not one for even small fibs, I told my first big lie with the focus and conscientious anxiety previously reserved for homework and double-knots. It was the roast duck that undid me. The woody, salt-sweet smell. The crispy red-glazed skin, all the better to reflect on your decisions with. Soon I was a mastermind, a creator of worlds and alternate identities, and I remember this because those first lies were delicious.

ANNA YEN I didn’t know much about my father. He owned a Chinese restaurant in Bondi Junction for 40 years. He worked from ten in the morning untill ten at night every day except Tuesday. We didn’t speak much – my Cantonese was bad, his English no better. On Tuesdays he went to Chinatown and brought home special Yum Cha treats in white cardboard boxes, har gao (prawn dumplings), sui mai (pork dumpling) and sometimes a cakey thing.

In 1997, I wrote and performed a stage play about my mother, which included an unflattering portrayal of my father. But recently I found out some things about him that have unexpectedly reshaped my view.

INDIRA NAIDOO We are the meals we have eaten. They literally become our flesh and bones. We carry them around with us wherever we go; whatever we encounter. There is no more intimate relationship in our lives. Our favourite meals become

our ‘comfort food’. They nourish us, fortify us and take us back to the warmth of our family’s kitchen.

My mother’s fragrant chicken curry has travelled with me across three continents, five countries, ten cities. When I have gathered all the ingredients to replicate its delicate blend of herbs and spices, I know I am home.

DARREN YAP My mum is a great cook and my favourite dish is her chicken and mushroom.

It’s sweet and sticky and reminds me of my childhood. As I grew up, it was her cooking that brought our family home – no matter how busy our lives were, we would come together to have Esther Yap’s yummy Asian or western dinners. Through my life, I realise mum’s cooking demonstrated how much I was loved as a child, how much she sacrificed for our family.

Telling this story about my mum is thanking her for everything she has done for me.

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FESTIVAL VILLAGE AT HYDE PARK

THE FESTIVAL VILLAGE IS AN OASIS OF EATS, BEATS AND OTHER TREATS. IT’S THE PERFECT PLACE TO KICK BACK IN THE AFTERNOON SUN OR KICK ON INTO THE BALMY SUMMER NIGHTS. SYDNEYFESTIVAL.ORG.AU/VILLAGE