REVIEW: Stratford’s The Tao of the World is masterful comedy of manners set in post-lockdown Singapore
iPhoto caption: Members of the company in 'The Tao of the World.' Stratford Festival 2026. Photo by David Hou.
At last, a return from exile. The theatres reopen. The palpable societal relief and celebration takes on a ribald edge, buoyed by frenzied desires for physical connection and a return to normalcy.
Is it 1660, or 2021?
Writer-director Jovanni Sy 施崇梵’s The Tao of the World, inspired by (but not constrained to) William Congreve’s The Way of the World, is a charming and layered post-COVID-lockdown update of the classic 1700 Restoration comedy. The original play was one of many comedies of manners that arose in the wake of England’s 18-year Puritan theatrical drought to satirize the sexual and financial exploits of the upper class, revealing the hypocritical moral bankruptcy of the outwardly upstanding wealthy.
Set in an opulent world of Singaporean elites, Sy’s world premiere work at the Tom Patterson Theatre is a bubbly, Crazy Rich Asians-style romcom that sweetens the palate before releasing a poignant pop of acidic social commentary, arguing that the concept of restoration is laughable to those who suffered most in the interim and returned to a status quo little better than the disruption.
“This is the story of how I married the love of my life,” begins narrator Arabella (an assured Agnes Tong 唐若馨), a social media influencer who fittingly directs our perspective, breaking the fourth wall with spotlights and scene rewinds as she lays out several levels of intrigue. Arabella has her sights set on former fling Edward (Angus Yam 任孝聰), playboy cricketer-turned film star, but he’s fallen in love with her younger cousin Millicent (Heidi Sy Damayo) during months of isolated Zoom chats. Each begs Arabella to win her mother’s approval of the match, without which Millicent would lose a cool $80-million inheritance. Unfortunately, Lady Helena (Manami Hara 原真奈美) keeps ironclad locks on both her favour and her family business, and has a Canadian cousin — a plastic surgeon — in mind for her niece.
Sy sets up a tight sex farce with snappy dialogue and strong character types, gleefully embodied by a preening cast. But there’s a second social backdrop here, quietly discomfiting the centre-stage drama of excess. The servant class, like a fleet of stage managers, keeps near-silent watch over set designer Lorenzo Savoini’s steaming spas, high-end hotels, and crystalline cabanas, flitting in and out like a secondary audience that the main characters acknowledge less than they do the theatre patrons. Nobody pays them attention — until we do — and that’s the point.
This ignorant attitude drives a wedge between Arabella and her best friend Devan (Karthik Kadam), whose mother was Arabella’s mother’s servant; the two grew up as close as siblings forever separated by a pane of class. Although Sy initially relegates him to a flamboyant best friend and co-conspirator role, Devan becomes the play’s badly-needed heart, as Kadam gradually embodies his character cracking along the fault lines of several axes of marginalization.
In post-lockdown Singapore, it’s still a crime to be gay, meaning his acceptance in Lady Helena’s world is conditional on hiding his fiance. Said fiance Jackson (Derek Kwan) loves him while still privately believing that Devan’s Indian heritage prevents him from being a “real” Singaporean. And Devan’s mother’s death hangs over his relationship with Arabella, a reminder of thousands of front-line workers whose lives proved expendable. His presence chips away at Arabella’s veneer of artifice, letting Tong bloom into more than just an arch manipulator.
Does all this make the play sound gloomy? It’s not. Sy creates a masterful, fun romp full of pulsing Singaporean underground nightlife, Mandarin rap battles, and squealing fangirls. The cast’s physical comedy is on point. Tim Campbell and Sarah-Jeanne Hosie are delightful as sycophantic expats, Hosie in one instance slithering off the stage like the snake her character is. Michael Man’s Dr. Wilson Wong marvellously transitions from stuffy, stuck-up courting to a supercharged sexuality crisis in 30 seconds flat, flailing around while attempting his first flirtation and losing the ability to speak in the face of heterosexual relations. This world where love is a contest and nothing really matters shines in Ming Wong 黄慧明’s luxurious costumes, glittering short skirts and swooping floral prints revealing everything but an honest emotion.
If there’s any roadblock in Sy’s work, it’s that it so assiduously tries to let them eat cake and have it, too; the play’s meta-acknowledgement that it’s difficult to combine a fantasia of privilege with a stark moral lesson and deliver an audience-pleasing happy ending doesn’t ameliorate the core problem.
But in playing with who gets to control our perspective of the narrative, Sy refreshingly refuses to let his own writing off the hook, arguing that it’s easy to miss what we’re directed not to see.
That point stands, in 1660 and 2021.
The Tao of the World runs at Stratford’s Tom Patterson Theatre until September 26. More information is available here.
Intermission reviews are independent and unrelated to Intermission’s partnered content. Learn more about Intermission’s partnership model here.
Ilana Lucas
Ilana Lucas is a professor of English in Centennial College’s School of Advancement. She is the President of the Canadian Theatre Critics Association. She holds a BA in English and Theatre from Princeton University, an MFA in Dramaturgy and Script Development from Columbia University, and serves as Princeton’s Alumni Schools Committee Chair for Western Ontario. She has written for Brit+Co, Mooney on Theatre, and BroadwayWorld Toronto. Her most recent play, Let’s Talk, won the 2019 Toronto Fringe Festival’s 24-Hour Playwriting Contest. She has a deep and abiding love of musical theatre, and considers her year working for the estate of Tony winners Phyllis Newman and Adolph Green one of her most treasured memories.
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