Wharf 2 Theatre, Sydney
March 29, 2018

Natalie Yang is a Hmong-Australian writer with huge aspirations. Determined, passionate and fearless, she’s trying to make it by following up her first novel with a memoir. Working title: 100 Cocks in 100 Nights. And yes, she means to do what it says on the tin. Yang is also hugely insecure, self-centred and dismissive, the consequences of which dog her in Michele Lee’s Going Down, which received its world premiere last night. Lee’s is a fresh, funny voice and this is an undeniably ambitious piece of theatre. Although not without its flaws, it takes a keen  look at a complex web of issues: the palatability of certain migrant stories, the corrosive self-righteousness involved in deciding who’s performing their ethnicity authentically, and the general vagaries of navigating the world as an Asian-Australian.

Naomi Rukavina, Paul Blenheim and Catherine Davies. Photos © Brett Boardman

We begin with Natalie, whose memoir Banana Girl has had a lukewarm reception. Embarking on a book tour (all the way to a public library in rural Victoria), her audience of three is horrified by the amount of sex involved. They point instead to Lu...