ABSTRACT
Unlike some areas of academic research that are not so closely caught up with personal identification, research into Asian Australian cultural production tends to be intimately linked with the personal development of the Asian Australian scholar as cultural and political agent. A turning point for me occurred in 1996 when I attended the premiere production of Burying Mother, written and performed by Mémé Thorne, an artist of Malaysian—Chinese—Australian descent. 1 The 1996 production was well-received by the reviewers, who were all, incidentally, non-Asians. In particular, critics were impressed by the high production values and by Thorne’s skill in drawing together a range of Asian and Western physical-training styles to create dramatic tension. 2 I have written elsewhere about the production’s strength in constructing a hybrid speaking position out of the binaries of Self/Other (Lo 1998). There were, however, elements of the mise-én-scene of the production that unsettled me at the time and continued to haunt me for a while. The set design for Burying Mother was dominated by huge overhead screen emblazoned with the Chinese character for ‘mother’. The set was designed in black, red and white: the overall effect was sleek, minimalist, highly stylised, and stereotypically ‘Oriental’. What was most disturbing were the hell banknotes that were left on each seat in the auditorium to directly involve the audience in the staged burial ritual.
