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Lotus
February 26, 2020 @ 7:00 pm - February 28, 2020 @ 8:00 pm AEDT
“Chi is such a talent! And her story is so important, in a time where so many Australians refuse to acknowledge their privilege and show empathy for immigrants and refugees” – Audience member on LOTUS.
LOTUS is Chi Nguyen’s debut one-woman comedy cabaret all about her outrageous life as a Vietnamese immigrant living in Australia.
After starring in the first ever Vietnamese-Australian comedy web series Phi and Me, LOTUS is Nguyen’s most humourous, daring and personal work to date, bringing you on Nguyen’s journey of falling in and out of love with her cultural identity and finding her place in the world. This is a journey filled with hilarity, compassion and resilience.
With dramaturgy by Jean Tong (MTC’s Hungry Ghosts), music composition by Sidney Millar (MTC’s Wild) and set design by Alex Rothnie (VCA’s Mother Courage and Her Children), LOTUS is the race-in-your-face hour of entertainment Australia has been waiting for.
Featured original songs include Nguyen’s soon-to-be-smash-hits Things White People Say to Me, Google Translate Saved My Life and I’m a Banana (Yellow Outside, White Inside) – they’re all so irresistibly catchy it is impossible not to sing along. Seriously, English is Nguyen’s second language so the lyrics she wrote are very simple to repeat.
LOTUS is about Nguyen not being White enough and not being Asian enough. It is about her cultural and language barriers and the embarrassing mishaps that come with it, including laugh-out-loud anecdotes from being a “generally Asian” actress, and her inability to escape her parents even though they are in different countries because she is involuntarily appointed as her mum’s weekly English tutor and her dad’s private Australian immigration law fact checker.
Through truthful and relatable stories about being away from family, being bilingual, trying to connect with one’s heritage and persevering to reach a brighter future, Nguyen brings her light touch to an ultimately universal experience of looking for self-acceptance, belonging and purpose.
Nominated for Best Cabaret – 2019 Melbourne Fringe Awards
Proudly supported by the City of Melbourne’s SIGNAL Creatives Lab 2018
Ralph Mclean Microgrant 2019 Recipient
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