The Little Emperors Of China's One-Child Policy Come To Melbourne's Malthouse

When the political interferes with the personal, the results are rarely positive. Whether it's the reluctance of governments to acknowledge marriage equality or conservative attitudes on women's reproductive rights, when authorities attempt to control the most intimate and instinctual parts of ourselves, inevitably, there are unpredictable repercussions. One extreme example of this hails from China. Some three-and-a-half decades ago, a radical and unprecedented piece of legislation was instituted, attempting to curb population growth with an extraordinary edict: the one-child policy, limiting new parents to a single offspring.

However, what was conceived as a simple solution for controlling the country's birth rate, spiralled into a cultural schism. A generation of only children, pampered and spoiled by doting parents but also raised under crushing pressure to achieve, have grown into petulant, over-competitive, empathy-deficient adults. They have all the self-centred entitlement and arrogance of royalty, hence the term coined to describe these now 30-somethings, "little emperors."

"Lachlan and I realised how important it is for the Chinese people to have boys, because the boys are supposed to carry on the family's bloodline, by giving birth to the next generation."

This phenomenon has become the bedrock for a collaboration between Chinese director Wang Chong and Australian playwright Lachlan Philpott. Set in both Melbourne and Beijing, their new multi-media infused production takes a prying look at how the one-child policy has warped the values of young Chinese, viewed through the prism of contemporary Australia. "I want to use the theatre as a forum for the public to discuss important issues," Chong notes. "When the one-child policy was officially ended, many major political and military figures posted negative messages about it, but only in regard to its political impact, never about its human impact, because those questions can never be spoken about publicly in China. So I felt this production offered a rare opportunity to discuss issues that are normally unspoken."

The one-child policy was abolished by the Chinese Communist Party in 2015, and the experiment was hailed by officials as a success, preventing hundreds of millions of potential births that might have stifled the nation's now world-leading economy. And yet, the psychological and emotional impact on China's cultural psyche have rarely been uttered aloud. In addition to countless abortions, particularly of ill-favoured female foetuses, an unknown but surely colossal number of baby girls were cast off for adoption. Those illicit second-children brought to term and not given up had to be raised in secret.

The unique dynamic between forbidden siblings comes under particular scrutiny in Philpott and Chong's Little Emperors, as well as the intense expectations of Chinese parents, and the entrenched gender inequalities antagonised by the one-child policy. Arguably the boldest dilemma this play examines is the taboo of homosexuality. "Lachlan and I realised how important it is for the Chinese people to have boys, because the boys are supposed to carry on the family's bloodline, by giving birth to the next generation," Chong explains. "In the case of our lead character, Kevin, yes, he's a boy, and so he receives more love, more attention than his elder sister, even though he is being brought up in secret. But he is also gay, meaning he probably won't father children, which is a big problem in Chinese culture. So we wanted to ask, what would these parents do, and how does the family deal with this situation? This was an interesting challenge to explore."

Featuring both English and Mandarin dialogue, part of this new play's ambition is to reveal to an Australian audience the complexity and diversity that exists in China, despite its often buttoned-up, hyper-conservative image. However, it is also hoped that native Chinese living in Melbourne will also be brought into the theatre by this production. "The language is the culture itself. When we have both languages spoken on the stage, it really heightens the reality. It really brings Beijing to Melbourne," Chong observes.

As a director, Chong's work has always railed against the boundaries of conventional theatre making, often using sophisticated methods, such as real-time video, to elaborate on the traditional model of live performance. Partly, this is in counterpoint to the Socialist Realism that has dominated Chinese theatre since the 1966 Cultural Revolution, but it is also a response to our technology-saturated world, Chong says. "We're living in the 21st century. The world has changed, but more than that, people's brains have been changed, by social media, smartphones, YouTube and so on. We have soaked ourselves in this new media, new culture, and our minds have been altered forever. So it seems completely logical that theatre would have to change in order to work better for the 21st century brain," he shares. "It's giving the audience new eyes to explore the stage with a new perspective. It's a different way of looking at the content and a new way of challenging the audience, but this is especially important in China, because creativity and self-expression have been limited for decades. So, subverting that politically charged content becomes a political act in itself. This is central to my work."

Malthouse Theatre presents Little Emperors, 9 — 26 Feb.